BETA 54 BETA 54: YES, INSPECTOR

I love the events, and am looking forward to more. especially the more deeply rooted loveraftian ones. The upkeep system just doesnt feel lovecraftian. if my stove suddenly only accepted human meat, or i had to sacrifice a colonist on a work bench once a week, or a dunwich horror came out of my mines every once and a while if not maintained or my chairs became sentient and my colonists started worshiping them, THAT would be lovecraftian. as i said earlier, if im going to be punished by upkeep, add some whips and chains. the rod is dull and overdone.

 

To further on @Delgotta 's post...if we did in fact get a guy dedicated to solely for upkeep (or a building) Have chances at goodies and baddies...depending on who's fixing it and what their demeanor is...instead of chests...just have the crew use the resources they need to fix it. If they are kind of messed up in the head...well your workbench may try and eat your carpenters....or if they are diligent workers maybe you could have more output...on said bench...I dunno...he inspired me into these ideas...his ideas are keeping with the flavour of the game...the twisted, dark, you are going to die at some point, probably horrifically...at this point dying from the fact you don't have the resources to make the chests to fix your stoves and all your guys starve to death is as he puts very "rod like punishment". Punish us in ways that are unexpected...and twisted...and has the flavour of the events.

 

I just said that i dont like the cult events its because no matter what, the output is the same.. the fishpeople cult is ok, understandable .. but the obelisk monster makes no sense.. he came 4 to 5 times in the same game.. how ? his uncle ? his son ? mother ?.. anyway its just annoying for who wants to keep the game going well.. is it too much to ask ? a way out of this macabre event .. maybe the priest sucessfully exorcise the beast.. or break the object of worship? why not ?

 

@dbaumgart Here ya go:

Error: [string "FSM Support"]:98: FSM.stateError hit [ Update | citizen ]

 

Possible consideration: reduce the lack of upkeep penalty from 8x to (say) 2x, but using an upkeep-deficient building or module creates frustrated anger and/or despair memories based on colonist traits, thus feeding into the other systems. Cultists, being irrationally happy, would be like the "this is fine" meme; there would then be at least one reason to keep cults around, possibly leading to a player choice as to benefit vs consequence.

As a dev looking in from outside, to me development of these is linked in a way that means they shouldn't be decoupled.

CE consists of a number of systems of varying complexity, but when taken in combination the complexity multiplies. Part of testing these systems involves seeing what happens when they are disrupted: how easy is it to recover, what sort and long term consequences are there. In a purely "bread" state where the game is just Frontier Farming Simulator, these disruption states will only be hit rarely, such as players not understanding what needs to be done. By including events from the beginning, disruption feedback comes in earlier, still in the iteration phase, allowing changes to be integrated rather than entire systems reworked wholesale, with the subsequent cascade effects on other systems. Consider also how the buying public, given how certain changes are being received in EA, would react if core gameplay were fundamentally altered beyond the perceived nature of the game, without the label of early access as an indicator of such changes being a thing to expect...

Combine this with those of us who are playing these builds putting far more collective hours into testing the game than Gaslamp could hope to... I believe the current mixed approach is better.

(On the subject of why isn't X done already, software of any sort is like an iceberg: the way something looks on the surface only gives a suggestion of the shape and size of what's underneath. Features can be blocked by other features being missing, technical debt, performance, missing/low quality non-code assets, incomplete design, more work than people to do it, other higher priorities, etc. So perhaps a lab could have been made upgradeable earlier... But if it wouldn't had any game effect due to other pieces not being ready, eg more unlockable items to research, could that time be more profitably spent implementing/fixing something else?)

 

i know that detailed suggestions and complex mechanics involve massive coding and work, every seemingly simple idea involves thousands of lines of code (I code as well so i know the work involved). simple coding and cutting corners equates to bad gameplay. If developers took the easy way out every time we would be stuck back in the Atari days still, and not have the glorious games that pushed the boundaries and dared put in the extra work for a new concept worthy of play.

encouraging developers to take the easy way out will only cause the game to eventually fail. saying "its ok, you can have 8 bit graphics in your game because assets are hard to make, gameplay? sure it takes a long time to code something complex. you can keep it minimal we will still love you ,my dear special snowflake" while society caters to this mentality, greatness, true greatness will say "impossible?!?! bah! I call that a challenge."

 

Yeah, the old farming and cooking thing, Starvation Simulator 2015 was an interesting way to go about it...

 

Just crashed, but no DMP file created and a runtime error message appeared after the crash, the one attached is from a crash earlier today...

Also, just noticed, are the mineral pips that the naturalists check for minerals now laid out in a grid pattern.... always seemed random before

Another two crashes without log...

 

Need tenebrous blocks? We're having a clearance sale, and everything must go! Each bock is sixty percent off with every purchase of coal.

(Is this a bug? The 4th mining level of this particular mine is exclusively coal and tenebrous blocks.)

 

@Nicholas for the record, this was in no way a slam against you or gas lamp games. I hope you took my previous post in the context of "impossible?!?! bah! I call that a challenge." in which it was meant.

The systems you are and have put in are some of the most complex I have seen in my gaming history. (and most enjoyable.) this was in response to earlier forum posts, and the designs of many other game companies, saying that you should forgo the complex systems because they require more effort. I commend your dedication and your work on this project, and look forward to seeing more of whats to come.

now get back in that office and find new ways to kill my colonists! *cracks whip*

 

I have no problem with current upkeep costs. This game needs something to use the infinite output of mines on. there also needed to be more complexity in the system and upkeep does that. I don't know why people have so much trouble with it, just have a mine and ceramics workshop set to automake them and you're done. The game needed to be slowed done too and upkeep helped with that.

More complexity in the system makes more management choices and more points of failure for random events. Cultists stealing upkeep trunks or monsters that eat stone requiring a change to production. etc...

Edit: There has to be things for people to DO. I don't want a nose picking sim.

 

I agree with you about mines, I almost feel like they need to be nerfed in some way. Early game, after your capenter is set up, you can build a fully-staffed five shaft mine anywhere next to your colony (shafts are cheap and so is lower house housing) and boom, free candy for the entire game. You'll be swimming in rocks, sand, and clay - more than you'll ever need for upkeep - then a little later on coal as well.

 

Can different shafts pick up other mineral beacons?

 

I still have to test that with the new mining system. Things are a little more complicated with the levels and such. I know you get access to the beacon's ore on level 2, but if there are other beacons nearby, I'm not sure if you get those too, on the same level? Don't see why you wouldn't.

 

I dropped a mine between beacons and it only seemed to pick up the slightly closer beacon. I wondered if a second shifty closer to the other beacon might grab it.

 

Woe to any naturalist who tries to survey a mining beacon near some fish eggs.

 

Hmm depends, what do you mean when you say between, there's a specific radius that a beacon counts for before, so if ot was like 11 vs 10 squares I can see one counting but not the other.

 

I didn't count the squares, but I thought it was close enough. If the 10 square radius still holds in the new mining system then I was clearly wrong... Do you recall if the mine or mineshaft location was the one that matters?

 

I'll be honest I have no idea as I didn't use the beacons before the new system arrived. The newer system of mining may indeed simply use a nearest beacon in range system....

However, in the past, it was the mineshaft location that mattered, but it's trouble if you have two in a single mine as the miners won't necessarily mine in the one you want...