.17 opinions?

[Mday]

Hi guys, Ive been looking at this space for weeks now, and i'm on holiday without a pc (yeah...) I was thrilled to see .17 released, but since I can't play it i was wondering what you guys think about it. Perhaps tips to get me started anew again when I return. Love to hear your opinions.

[Serenity]

Map generation is nice again. Finally there are continents and large lakes/oceans again. That was terribly broken in 0.16. That's really the most important thing.

[leadraven]

This update is about interfaces, not about content or balancing. So what can there be an opinion? Interfaces are cool. Game is the same.

[Nova]

There are enough changes outside of the interface, and you can even have an opinion about interface changes.

[Sunder1977]

This update is about interfaces, not about content or balancing. So what can there be an opinion? Interfaces are cool. Game is the same.

Science above green got major changes to recipes. Pollution absorption changes cause the need for a drastic difference in defense setups.

Saying "game is the same" is grossly inaccurate.

[akmotu]

They went a little heavy handed with the biters this go 'round. Regardless what the math may or may not be, the experience of playing the game and pressing the buttons leaves me with a feeling that the difficulty on normal default level went WAY up.

Turrets are the only item in the game now that have a longer pickup time than any other item.

The graphics are amazing and the game looks beautiful, but it's currently extremely unbalanced at a default, unmodded gaming experience.

What's the opposite of a good game? An unplayed game.

[sunnyskies]

Haha, different folks, different tastes.

I’m exceedingly pleased at being able to dodge worm projectiles so far. It’s made clearing out spawners interesting enough for me to try out a death world. Whereas, in the previous version, I’d either turn the bugs off entirely or stick to railworlds, not because I didn’t like the challenge, but that combat was a bore and a chore. I expect to get overrun soonish, but it’s been a breath of fresh air so far (with a hint of biter guts downwind).

[Ranakastrasz]

Bugs exist, are being fixed.
Fundamental unmoddable stuff isn't horrible broken stuff, and is honestly pretty awesome.
Tutorial is too hardcore.
Haven't tried a full playthrough yet, so can't say more yet.

[MoleOnDope]

• The new GUI is... Differerent. I think I'll like it better than the old one once I get used to it.

• Big love for the new map generator! Settings have great impact now and create unique scenarios, I'll have tons of fun with it.

• Yes, it's experimental and rough around the edges. But the devs are have pushed out two hotfix updates only two days after launch, so I think we'll get there pretty quick. Not being able to play for a couple more days is probably going to inprove your experience, so no worries

• By far the biggest issue for me though (and if you look around on the forums for a good portion of other players): Default Settings Freeplay is unreasonably hard. I won't elaborate too much on this because there are specific threads for that toppic, but in my oppinion the vanilla experience doesn't allow for much creativity as of right now and is too heavily focused on survival.

[akmotu]

• By far the biggest issue for me though (and if you look around on the forums for a good portion of other players): Default Settings Freeplay is unreasonably hard. I won't elaborate too much on this because there are specific threads for that toppic, but in my oppinion the vanilla experience doesn't allow for much creativity as of right now and is too heavily focused on survival.

You could say that again. A few more times even. It does feel more like a survival game and less of a building game. Let's see if and how that changes.

[Drakken]

Strange. On Deathworld Marathon it seems a little bit easier so far. The biters are coming a little slower and evolving a little slower possibly?

However, the bases are tougher to clear early on just because they are much larger to start with.

It is hard to tell what settings are causing the change because so many have changed in this version.

The starting position on most deathworld maps have large biter bases within shouting distance of the starting resources and starting water source. I play with only one water source to eliminate pathing problems for the biters. In .16 I turned my starting base to the smallest setting.

The new graphics are beautiful.

I agree dodging spitters is nice. I can't wait to get to lasers. But on marathon this is taking a while

[Drone971]

Its very good patch!
1) BIGGEST gamechanger for me is the new toolbar. It is very intuitive and makes 9078760987% more sense! Very Nice!
2) Graphics and GUI => beautifull
3) It runs smoother (at least for me)
4) changes to science are great!

Overall i had no problem with anything and enjoying it very much! please continue in this excelent work!

[Durentis]

Overall .17 is fantastic! Finally got a couple of portable fusion reactors, so base construction is becoming easier.

The map generator is so much more intuitive. Nice to have the large lakes back.

The GUI and overall graphical enhancements are great. Factorio looks so much more polished now.

Yes, the biters are more challenging but that's mostly in part because they behave differently than expected. Next game they'll not seem so bad. I love the acid puddles. First time ever I felt I had to build a tank and favoured it over turret creep. I think I just need to go the old proactive route of removing spawners within my pollution zone and a reasonable buffer beyond so I don't get attacked in random places at awkward moments. I'm playing rail world with biter expansion disabled so I can imagine how much harder they'd be if they kept expanding back into my territory - I'd have to actually build walls. Anyway, it's early but I think the biters are fine as-is.. they force a bit of decision making instead of the old mindless extermination or completely ignoring them.

The new science recipes are reasonable and I like that there's more use for the low density structures. Being able to reorder the queue with drag and drop would be a nice touch. Currently I have to cancel the whole preceding queue to switch techs, but if I could just drag one left (but not prior to a prerequisite) that would be great.

I wish there were damage range circles (transparent red centered on the cursor) when within targeting range (transparent green centered on player) for explosives and vehicle weapons. Blowing up cliffs, for example, while trying to minimize early use of explosives is a bit of guess work and I have no idea how far out a tank shell will land or what will be hurt by it. There's a green targeting range for grenades, but a damage circle would be really helpful.

I wish blueprints would mark rail signals for destruction when I force-place a blueprint over it just like trees and rocks. When making a rail book earlier, I found that there are cases where it would be nice to have regular signals replaced by chain signals, for example, such as when placing a T-Junction over an existing straight segment. Rail signals should be interchangeable by blueprints just like when placing them over one another by hand.

[Doddler]

I must admit that I'm not a big fan of the hotbar as it is. I actually somewhat preferred newly built stuff to appear on it automatically, and you can't just move stuff from one slot to another anymore. Otherwise I'm having quite a good time, deathworld marathon is brutal but still feasible and fun.