Rethinking the (very) early game

[Colombo]

slpwnd: If they could be made in that way, thay would be enough. As when in burner phase, everything needs coal so belt-connection is required anyway and one wouldn't build just one inserter from burner-miner to belt, but another one from burner-miner to burner-insterter.

[ssilk]

[That is kind of the idea. The problem is to explain to all the youtubers that the game changes drastically after a while

adding the "entry stage" in the options page would reduce this problem to non existent. I would add 3-4 options "nothing, hard, easy, beginner", where "easy" is the current approach.
Could be also modable, so that other stages can be added, existing removed etc., to create some kind of special maps with different difficulty relatively easy.

[twepy]

Im not a big fan of the early game, as the "burner age" feels more as a obstacle which to be left behind as fast as possible. In my opinion the burner age should be expanded to become a steampunk era in which your base is powered with steam instead of electricity and its left up to the player how far its willing to take his steampunk base, maybe as far mid to late game where the advanced technologies require electricity. In my vision their should be steam powered assembly plants, refinery and chemical plants, the burner inserter should be changed that it can run on either coal, solid fuel or steam and there should be also a long handled version available, perhaps even solar powered boilers as cleaner alternative of the regular boilers.

Im not programmer, but as steam is already implemented in the game expanding this part to some additional steam powered buildings doenst seem to require a complete overhaul of the game. This way it makes the early technology more rewarding to use.

[Hexicube]

Thread was 2 years old, early-game changed since it was made.

Im not a big fan of the early game, as the "burner age" feels more as a obstacle which to be left behind as fast as possible.

That's because you're supposed to use it to get basic infrastructure in place. There's several cases of tech designed to help you along but ultimately get replaced:
- Burner Inserters; special case because you should use them to insert into boilers so that they aren't tied to the power grid.
- Burner Drills; half as fast and a little more polluting that electric drills.
- Stone Furnaces; half as fast as the steel version, which has uses even when you unlock electric furnaces.
- Tier 1 Assemblers; Out-classed by Tier 2, which would be outclassed by Tier 3 but it has a lower running cost with -80% from modules.
None of these should be kept in a completed base, but arguably there should be a way to turn them into more useful things. Currently only the Tier 1 Assembler has a use afterwards, because you use it to make a Tier 2 Assembler.

Perhaps there should be a machine that converts things into some of their components?

In my opinion the burner age should be expanded to become a steampunk era in which your base is powered with steam instead of electricity and its left up to the player how far its willing to take his steampunk base, maybe as far mid to late game where the advanced technologies require electricity. In my vision their should be steam powered assembly plants, refinery and chemical plants, the burner inserter should be changed that it can run on either coal, solid fuel or steam and there should be also a long handled version available, perhaps even solar powered boilers as cleaner alternative of the regular boilers.

I'd rather not push back the current electrical system in favour of making everything require a direct connection.

Im not programmer, but as steam is already implemented in the game expanding this part to some additional steam powered buildings doenst seem to require a complete overhaul of the game. This way it makes the early technology more rewarding to use.

Steam isn't implemented, hot water is implemented and the engines eat X water per second and throw out power in proportion to the water temperature. I don't know what magic the engines do, but they certainly don't create steam directly (they use no fuel).

[Koub]

All of these early game items may have their use later on :
- Even late game, I use basic inserters where speed isn't needed, for a lower electric consumption/drain
- same thing for tier 1 assembling machines
- I usually recycle my early stone furnaces into boilers for my steam setup
- Many people keep some burner inserters to fuel their steam setup, to make it power-shortage proof
- The only things that feel really useless end game are iron chests and burner mining drills. However, a burner drill can save you if you're short of fuel in the middle of nowhere with a vehicle : mine 5 stones, one coal or a tree, and there you are.

There have been many requests/suggestions for some kind of recycling device ingame. Just make a research with recycle keyword .
There are also mods, either for recycling, or for destroying objects you won't use any more.

[Aardwolf]

I once walked extremely far away from my base to hunt alien bases. My piercing shotgun shells were running out! And I was too lazy to walk all the way back to my base. I had some old burner based stuff in my inventory by coincidence, and could use it to mine copper, iron and coal from nearby resource fields, make steel, and craft more ammo for myself!

That was a really fun experience, and not needing electricity for it was nice.

[Peter34]

Right now, the pre-electric game is just.. a bit of a silly grind. The problems with it, as I see it, are as follows :
1. Too many individual things to refill
2. Initial structures are useless after the burner 'tier'
3. Burner buildings are useless after initial phase, as they are obsolete as soon as you have power, and never reused in construction

The easiest fix that I see is to remove the 'burner' tier, and instead create some kind of 'basic' electric infrastructure - probably generators with very small capacity and coverage, or being incredible fuel inefficient - to cut down on the grind and make the transition from the start of the game to a 'real' base a bit less crap. This means ditching burner inserters (or making them some kind of pre-circuitry slow inserter), and probably making the burner drills into the 'basic' tier of drill. This would mean your basic infrastructure and base construction doesn't have to be torn down as soon as you get steam engines up, and also gives you a bit more latitude to get basic production going in a realistic way, rather than just grinding out the resources to get your real production going.

Another option to speed up early game is to let each player character start with a small number of non-rechargable Battery buildings. Those are like Basic Accumulators, but larger and less energy-dense (say, 3x3 tiles and storing 6 MJ, instead of 2x2 tiles and storing 5 MJ. They're "born with those 6 MJ or charge, but cannot up-charge any further, they can only discharge. Once fully discharged, they're scrap (put them in a box and shotgun it). Also, once picked up, they become scrap too, since otherwise inventory management would have to treat each Battery as a separate item with its own 7-digit (in base 10) charge value.

[Hexicube]

Also, once picked up, they become scrap too, since otherwise inventory management would have to treat each Battery as a separate item with its own 7-digit (in base 10) charge value.

Why? 6 million easily fits within the limits of a 32-bit integer, and structures already do this for damage.

[Peter34]

Also, once picked up, they become scrap too, since otherwise inventory management would have to treat each Battery as a separate item with its own 7-digit (in base 10) charge value.

Why? 6 million easily fits within the limits of a 32-bit integer, and structures already do this for damage.

True. It just sounds inelegant to me. And I'm sure damage or %wear on inventory items isn't accounted for with more than perhaps 0.1% precision. So it would be unprecedented. But sure, maybe round stored%power down to nearest 1% or 0.1% on a picked-up Battery Building...

[Peter34]

- Many people keep some burner inserters to fuel their steam setup, to make it power-shortage proof

A day or two, I realized how it's fairly easy to make a backup row of Steam Engines/Boilers that, using the Smarter Circuitry mod, will become fed with fuel only if Accumulator charge% drops below, e.g., 5%. Those backup Steam Engines would be fed with Burner Inserters, whereas my regular Steam Engines would be fed with the more efficient electric Inserters.

I haven't built it yet, in-game, but I'm sure it'll work.