Endgame concerns[POLL]

[ssilk]

Well, I think i did understand you the first time. I answered with the argument you now mention: expanding the dimension (you say scope) is needed. I think the devs just know that yet or they know it and it's so self-evident, that they don't mention it or they don't know it yet, but know, when change is needed. I trust them here fully.

I'm not really sure, if we really mean the same. You say you can think to numerous ways. Can you make that more concrete?

I try to. I experimented a lot with such stuff for the last year. Result is:
- building far, far away outposts is cool, cause it brings you back to the beginning, but now you have a bit more than a pickaxe.
- increasing the total throughput is absolutely cool. Many players think, two express belts of iron is much! What about 20? Or 50? You cannot handle that, I failed totally. You need packing/boxing. Transport 1000 items per SECOND on one belt, when you pack it before, is a feeling I cannot describe.
- mass-production: having (not really building, cause boring) separated parts of your factory production is cool. For example 1000 assemblies that can build green circuits, they just need copper and iron. The game suddenly feels a bit like OpenTTD, instead of belts you begin to optimize train routes, which is really as complex as with belts, but a total different game.
- and under all that is something I know it is there, but not yet catchable: self automation, self reproduction of your factory. I like it, that you point to this and understand now, why, cause it is the hidden background story, something behind that all: replace yourself. And cause at some point it is boring to build the 10th outpost.

Well, my opinion. I'm very special with that. And I think this is the point: why by the hell shouldn't it be possible to add this after "finishing" the game? I don't see that... But maybe if you get more concrete...?

[Drury]

A: At -no- point did I say that I have any mod that lays down buildings for me. What I said, was that would be the last piece of functionality I would need to 100% automate my factory to not need me at all.
Because ---->>that is the driving point of this game<<---- . AUTOMATION. So truly, if to this point you havent been playing with the notion of total automation behind your logistical decision making, well, then I feel you have entirely missed the spirit of this game. Several of us, having already found ways to greatly optimize our factories, added further fun to it by figuring out how to minimize the footprint. Some people have already gone so far as to make working computing with the binary logic systems. The point is, in order to squeeze more out of this game, many of us veteran players are going to need something bigger in scope and complexity than "Fit an automated factory into a small area", because we do that already.

My point is that the game never forces or even lets you have a factory that builds and adjusts itself. The endgame goal emphasizes this.

You build the factory yourself, you optimize it yourself. This part will never be automatic. You always turn the thing on, sooner or later realize it doesn't work as it should for whatever reason, change it up a bit, resume. Can't do that in the endgame. You build a ship, send it off, hope it doesn't explode. If something goes wrong, you can't do anything, it won't adjust itself, there's no helping it. That's where endgame is different, you absolutely have to build a ship that positively survives the trip without any interaction. It also has to be small enough to fit on the platform. Then there are resources that nobody knows how exactly will be handled, but it's likely they'll get problematic as the ship travels further without optimization.

Speaking of resources, we're getting new stuff. We have no idea how space shuttles will be manufactured, how the platforms will be built, how the stuff on the platforms will be built, how resource gathering in space will go, what exactly the engines consume and how to get it, how the power will be produced, what kind of defenses against asteroids there will be, what kinds of hazards there might be other than asteroids, how the colonists board the ship, how do you keep them alive on the trip back, how the whole failure-based research is going to work. I can only tell you that there's going to be a hell of a lot of new factory components and mechanics.

[dee-]

My current expectation is you make 20 iterations through endgame ship designs, find one that works, add some buffer and have a finished ship layout that will work every time for every game you will play.
But as I'm a pessisistic realist I'm usually wrong because I'm missing the obvious escape plan to my dark visions.

I voted "story" because there was no "concept", which I would have ticked.
And I also think it's a kind of endgame shortcut, cutting many of the possibilites.

[infinitehubgear]

I didn't vote either, there needs to be an option for "I don't know, I'll wait and see..."

To address the isolated space platform factor: Could you have resources only available in space which can be transported down to improve the surface factory. I suppose the rocket transport becomes an epic sort of train. Perhaps when resources reenter the atmosphere it lands somewhere randomly on the surface map and you have to somehow access it to collect the special resources. If it lands in the middle of an alien nest, well, thats part of the fun! =)

I could imagine building up a surface factory as before, then an orbital factory that can consume "space resources", and then a space-run-esque launching of some space ship to the colonists.

The Civilisation series had multiple win conditions, so the player could choose how to "win" the game.

[Drury]

My current expectation is you make 20 iterations through endgame ship designs, find one that works, add some buffer and have a finished ship layout that will work every time for every game you will play.
But as I'm a pessisistic realist I'm usually wrong because I'm missing the obvious escape plan to my dark visions.

Well of course, the same can be said about every stage of the game. You can come up with a formula that 100% works every time and stick to that, only using the same cookie-cutter setup every time.

I'm looking forward to challenges that veteran players impose on themselves with the space stage. If the platform design is not fixed and you can keep expanding it given you keep providing more and more resources to build it (gargantuan amounts), you might even be able to do crazy stuff like build a gigantic space cruiser that runs purely on solar energy. It'd be so big you could fit enough solar panels to meet demands of the advanced components on it. Or even send oil barrels up there and heat the oil up to power steam engines (any fluid heated to 100 degrees powers engines, be it water, oil or sulphuric acid), however unrealistic and pants-on-head retarded that would be.

No matter what challenge the devs come up with, people are going to figure it out and then be able to use the same solution every time. It's absolutely unrealistic to think anything can be done to avoid that. If you want a challenge, impose one on yourself.

[Daddie]

I haven't got to the point of doing the endgame part. But what I was expecting is colonist landing on my build landing platform and I needed to provide them with stuff to allow them to sustain and increase the base they are building. Forcing me to expand my operation with every colonist landing as the demand also increases. Winning the game would be the completion of the base build, every colonist landed where the last ship contained advanced robots which will replace me and I am off to live long and prosperous in the new base along with the other colonists

[roman566]

Sending a ship to bring the colonists does not seem that interesting. You bring the colonists and then what? There are no homes, no farms and scores of aliens that hates your guts and can kill everyone who gets outside the base without heavy armor.
Maybe reduce the impact of the whole 'save colonists' and put more effort into 'build a proper colony' thing. As the planet does not seem to be a good place to live (the base is usually full of pollution, outside the base is full of aliens) colonists could live in space habitats that player builds on those space platforms.
After that? Well, a nice colony usually attracts various unsavory individuals, like pirates. Develop space defenses to protect the colonists and advanced land defenses to protect the factory from ground assaults. Pirates will be most likely wearing power armor themselves and simple wall of laser turrets won't last long against several people with combat shotguns, grenades or tanks.
To make colonists useful, those advanced technologies might require actual people working on them, so more colonists means more scientists. Or maybe more tax payers as the technologies could be bought from some space traders?