Earliest Access Praise, Criticisms and Suggestions

Hey all!

First of all, after following this game for what feels like decades, it's absolutely awesome to get my hands on it. Thanks to the folks as Gaslamp for making this a reality- I can't even begin to tell you what a perfect match this game is for the type of things I find exciting.

So, since this is early(est) access, I'm going to stay away from things I assume are just wonky at the moment and will obviously be fixed. I want to focus my suggestions on features that seem like they could make it into the final build, absent a course correction.

So, first, the good:

• The house building system is awesome. So much fun building my perfect little city. Of course, it'll be way more fun once it's covered in pipes and gears and bridges and roads, but even now I'm really having a good time with it (please please please give us footbridges and above-ground dynamics lines).
• Even unfinished, the little colonists are great. Love the thought icons, the animations, and the occasional wackiness.
• The art style is distinct without being distracting or (I imagine) overly resource-intensive
• I'm deeply impressed with the biome generator, even with how little of it we've seen so far. I don't think it's going to far to say they're the most beautiful randomly generated maps I've ever seen in a game.

The mildly irritating:

• Right click should always be deselect.
• Clicking on anyone's name or portrait should always center you on that person
• I'd like to be able to have some sort of automated explore command; there's so much going on in a game, all at the same time, that leading someone around the wilderness waypoint by waypoint is basically asking for mass starvation and death.
• Overlapping icons are a problem
• I'd like to be able to drag-select bushes, trees, ore nodes, etc. for jobs. The auto-selector doesn't really do the job.
• The building exteriors all look identical, and while I realize more styles are in the works, that's only a partial fix. Oddly enough, a major feature that would help is windows (if that doesn't cause explosions in the building algorithm. Perhaps more doable would be to allow for exterior decorations (like signs that say 'refinery' or 'bunk house') as well as interior.

The serious criticisms:

• The jobs system is great in theory, but in practice has some micro-heavy annoyances that I'd really like to see ironed out. The biggest one for me is the economy; at the moment, you have to click 'bake bread' over and over and if you stop, everyone dies. I'm not asking for direct control, but there has got to be some way to assign people to, say, the kitchen, and then have them keep making food indefinitely. Allowing you to put your orders on endless repeat is a partial solution, but not ideal- you don't want everyone to starve because you ordered bread and all you have left is pumpkins. This, to me, seems like the biggest potential problem with the game, because I know the philosophy of indirect control is so central (and to be clear, it's one I'm entirely supportive of). I just think slightly more ability to assign 'professions,' DF-style, would, paradoxically, make your people more self-sufficient and require less micromanagement.
• Dragging blueprints is a major pain because, I think, the cursor snaps to corners and not to the squares. That makes it ambiguous, when you click inside a square, which side will be the exterior of the blueprint (it's especially noticeable when making farms and stockpiles). The square you click in should always be the corner square of the final box.
• Something about the simulation speed seems off, and I'm sorry I'm not doing a better job quantifying that. Building a house takes forever, but colonists can get die mere moments after the first notification they're hungry. Icons pop up and disappear in moments, but there's a... stickiness?... to the time other commands take to even show up. This could just be buginess, but the game itself runs extremely smoothly on my system, so I think there might be more to it than optimized code.

 

Hope AA doesnt mind,
Ok hi all and thanks for letting me be a part. I'm posting here because i don't believe my input that important yet and would like to say how post's like the OP really help (Honorable_Ds,Citizen and others(Greenliquid,city builder,CT,etc)) not just for the designers(and improver's(incl you guys)) but also someone who only really plays and not too good lol(here i am .)
This is the viewpoint from someone who downloaded and ran the game at stupid o'clock(too much time in other games and not enough sleep) and as such only had a cursory glance. yup i know you'll say should really get to know the game better before posting but i'll give you probably a lame example. Dota2 lots of heroes. people say buy boots to improve your hero to stop you getting hit but why buy boots when your base speed lower than others-theyll only buy boots and catch you..id much rather play to a strength and tank up if hes allready base strong in that department first(perhaps i overtank but how much is too much). Same with you guys-i expect you guys are experienced Alphas-i'm new, my input wouldn't be a shade. Now i dled ,ran and wasnt on for long. (Don't worry i'm definitely staying.)
My inital impressions. wrt OP post +1 Overlapping Icons +1 Cosmetics +1 mention of Resource Selection Policy (personal viewpoint from quick look -rest is valid and pertinent)

Other impressions gleaned from others here on forum. Tooltips mentioned elsewhere in forum should indeed be more 'frequent'
(there's more but read theirs)
I honestly tried playing the game without instructions and perhaps do not pick up quick enough- did look in steamapps directory (may have missed-u can put me in the rash category) and have been playing stack loads of games and not knowing the end arrival of Alpha haven't been keeping up with the blog emails but i wouldn't be here now and posting if i wasnt still extremely interested in this game. If there isn't even a basic 5mins created quick start and tips guide, i think there should be. i'm not talking key layout(which incidentally i think very basic(my comment yup probably being result of need and my Alpha 'unawaredness'(yes i saw tabs )-i'm talking quick tips like- the deselect right press, clicking name/portrait centering,exploring, harvesting, quick how-to- basically putting in what i've just said in the forum. yup prob a moot point as chicken and egg situation but prob could have been something beforehand or a link to the blog site where it says it all in a txt(only a comment i promise. From what Honorable_Ds posted i've gleaned so much(it wasn't said to aid people working without instructions so i hope he'll forgive me saying that)-my 1st forum post look and wrote so much on an A4 sheet on it(infact more than what AmblingAlong has said believe it or not, though all the info is vgood and has helped me). Please note i haven't editted- just found the instructions guide(think it should have been linked into text file in Steamapps directory but not being experienced in Alphas i hope you'll forgive me for first trying to find things myself(google(forum inspecific normally),steam,directories on hard drive) and even resorting to game before using forum-lol i even went into forum posts before thinking to chk for a designer's post wrt manual(just thought eek i better chk before posting).

Just want to say thanks for the game Gaslamp Games and happy to be a part. If there's anything blaringly obvious to post i will after great forum checking, otherwise i'll keep quiet (please treat this more as a hi guys and congrats to the community please)