Friday Facts #257 - NPE/Campaign update

[Dudy99]

So if the escape pod is the way to finish the game and get space science to research satellite technology and other technology. What does the satellite do now?

Edit: my bad the satellite is the technology to get space science

[adam_bise]

Thanks to the devs. The new recipe changes all look very nice. Particularly the separation of rocket fuel and addition of rocket parts in atomic bomb and MK2 recipes.

Thanks!

[Ohz]

I love all those ideas and new changes. Great job as always, devs !

[jarquafelmu]

I love the idea of having shallow water something you can walk on but not build on. This is a great idea that many games have implemented to allow easier movement while still restricting building. Please add a way for this to be added to free play, either as a craft-able thing as some have said or as something that just replaces the current shallow water and makes just the deep water impassable. A lot of mods already do this and it gives so much more freedom as sometimes the terrain generator messes up and creates a tiny bit of water that you can't see or build on but halts your movement entirely.

It still would be awesome for ships to be added to the game as they could pass through the shallow water, but I understand that doing so adds more complexity to the game that isn't necessary.

[irbork]

I like the new science changes. Shallow water passes would be great in campaign too, as long as you can landfill it, sail through it with ships and cross with somewhat amphibious tanks.

[prash3r]

inb4: didnt read the other posts of this thread

i like the rockets changes including the escape pod idea. I would prefer it, that you have to enter the escape pod at launch to win the game.

Additionally the launch could focus on the Rocket (like scrolling up the map) at launch until the "you won" popup. But: the "you won" popup MUST give the option to just continue playing! Like launch abort and then land spaceX style.

Great work guys; keep it up!

[powa]

Can I suggest to call shallow water bogland or marsh? Then it makes more sense you can walk on it but not build on it.

An intuitive idea is to have two types of landfill:

• Basic Landfill: makes water into bogland
• Permeable Landfill: fills in all water and bogland

Basic Landfill would be cheaper than current landfill, while permeable landfill would be behind a later technology with a more expensive recipe.

Permeable landfill is logical, because in real life you need advanced materials to have landfill drain properly.

More importantly for gameplay, it solves the main problem with balancing landfill against interesting terrain: you need to be able to escape islands at any stage of the game but comprehensive terraforming should be a late game thing that doesn't negate interesting maps.

This is great idea! Maybe the expensive-permanent-landfill won't feel so cheaty. Also, you can add interesting tileset to it, as it is 'reinforced landfill' (or whatever will Albert like)

+1 to great idea.

Similarly, some basic boat would be an interesting alternative to keeping landmasses largely separated at the factory level, but otherwise traversable.

Maybe some enemy types shouldn't cross shallow water, or enemy expansion through it should be impossible or very slow.

[ili]

inb4: didnt read the other posts of this thread

i like the rockets changes including the escape pod idea. I would prefer it, that you have to enter the escape pod at launch to win the game.

Additionally the launch could focus on the Rocket (like scrolling up the map) at launch until the "you won" popup. But: the "you won" popup MUST give the option to just continue playing! Like launch abort and then land spaceX style.

Great work guys; keep it up!

LOL that's a cool idea, launch yourself in the pod, a popup appears
1. cause to continue to play the map -> launch abort.
2. cause to fly away -> New Game+

[TheRaph]

Can I suggest to call shallow water bogland or marsh? Then it makes more sense you can walk on it but not build on it.

An intuitive idea is to have two types of landfill:

• Basic Landfill: makes water into bogland
• Permeable Landfill: fills in all water and bogland

Basic Landfill would be cheaper than current landfill, while permeable landfill would be behind a later technology with a more expensive recipe.

Permeable landfill is logical, because in real life you need advanced materials to have landfill drain properly.

More importantly for gameplay, it solves the main problem with balancing landfill against interesting terrain: you need to be able to escape islands at any stage of the game but comprehensive terraforming should be a late game thing that doesn't negate interesting maps.

This is great idea! Maybe the expensive-permanent-landfill won't feel so cheaty. Also, you can add interesting tileset to it, as it is 'reinforced landfill' (or whatever will Albert like)

+1 to great idea.

Similarly, some basic boat would be an interesting alternative to keeping landmasses largely separated at the factory level, but otherwise traversable.

Maybe some enemy types shouldn't cross shallow water, or enemy expansion through it should be impossible or very slow.

++1!!!!!
Like this idea!

[FrodoOf9Fingers]

Change the name of "Rocket Control Unit" to just "Control Unit". Then you (or modders) could use it as a recipe ingredient without it being weird. It might make sense to have the nuclear silo require control units, for instance. Same applies for "rocket fuel". Its consumed by anything, so name it something more generic.

[bobingabout]

I'm all for those rocket silo research changes.

I already did the fuel split in my mod, and would have taken it further, but didn't want to put the effort in at the time, instead focusing on completely re-writing rocket fuel, with a few other recipe tweaks.

I guess you've given me a fair job to do with my mods when I update to 0.17.

[mexmer]

Like other i like change to rocket silo science as well as nuclear.

[pleegwat]

Considering the escape pod, it could also be campaign-only, and have freeplay not have a victory condition at all.

[wlfbck]

One of the things we could really use in the campaign was a terrain that the player can't build on, but can walk on, so we are adding shallow water as a new terrain type. So far it's a cheap solution from our side - it's just a new tileset that is combined with decorative entities to make it look like walkable. Currently we don't plan to use this in freeplay, but if we can find its gameplay purpose and make the terrain generator use it properly, it's not impossible, but for now not a priority.

Looks fine to me!

Also, i reeeeeaaaally hope you put them into freeplay as natural crossings, they make some good strategic chokepoints (like in any RTS like Age of Empires, etc).

[rldml]

This news sound like we can await 0.17 in the near future.

I would really appreciate that.

[EnerJi]

This news sound like we can await 0.17 in the near future.

I would really appreciate that.

I certainly hope so as I'm dying to play, but I'm not optimistic about "near future." This line stuck out to me in the blog post and made me think I should manage my expectations of when to expect 0.17:

"It's still going to take quite some time to finish all of this, but the progress is steady..."

[bobucles]

Rocket silo technology only unlocks the Rocket silo and the Rocket part item the silo crafts internally.
Rocket fuel is unlocked by researching its own technology which has Rocketry and Engine as a prerequisite. This means you can get rocket fuel for your vehicles way before the rocket silo.
Rocket control unit is unlocked by its own technology which has Production and High tech science pack technologies as a prerequisite. Additionally, Rocket control units are in the recipe for Atomic bomb instead of Processing units.

Excellent! There was way too much stuff jammed into those techs. Nuclear plants aren't terribly useful until at least half an hour after Centrifuges are online, and the rocket silo practically doubles the factory in one tech. It's good to give smaller bites much sooner so that players can more naturally develop their factory and smooth out the game curve a bit.

Nuclear power is split to Uranium processing and Nuclear power, where Kovarex enrichment process only requires Uranium processing and Rocket fuel so you can get Nuclear fuel for your vehicles without the rocket silo.

It's good to have nuclear fuel more accessible, but I don't think Kovarex needs the love. Nuclear fuel reprocessing does. It's too easy to skip reprocessing because it's expensive and simply doesn't give any U235. What good is a tech that gives you more U238 when the stockpiles are already overflowing with it? Make reprocessing better somehow.

Low density structure is unlocked by researching its own technology which has Science pack 3 and Advanced material processing as prerequisites. The Low density structure is also used in multiple advanced personal equipment recipes (mk2 things, Portable fusion reactor, Personal laser defense) instead of steel.

Also good! MK2 armor is way too close to mk1 armor in terms of both recipes being way too similar. The most typical strategy for MK1 was to skip it entirely so increasing the tech gap helps give each item a better place in the game. It's a bit strange to push PLDs further back, but the only real way to use it was to exploit batteries before pocket fusion. PLDs are monsters in PvP so pushing it back will also help PvP balance in a good way. Don't forget to give laser protection to things!

[offtheball]

Oh wow, I love the changes to rocket tech. I often found it jarring when, somewhere around mid game, I was getting serious about trains, and would go to set up rocket fuel production only to remember that it's right at the bottom of the tech tree (so I could either rush to it, which feels pretty unbalanced, or wait ages). Especially with the introduction of nuclear fuel, it feels like I'm advancing for lower tech.

I really love the idea of giving RCU and LDS something else to do. It's gonna make factories a lot more fun and varied.

The new walkable texture is cool, but it's slightly confusing because the game already has shallow water. There are mods that let you walk on it, but not build on it. I think this would be a sensible change for vanilla, maybe with some tweaks to how much shallow water is generated, and the extra decoratives around the edges could be used to blend into that. If you do decide it's something you want in freeplay, it might be an easier route for incorporating it into map generation (maybe, this is over my head).

I think it'd also make sense to have equipment that allows travel in shallow water, but that's pretty useless for NPE.

[Roxor128]

I like the idea of separating the satellite from winning the game. Now I might actually get to try something that uses space science, rather than thinking "Ah, done!".

I mentioned it last week, but with regards to space science, do we really have to have it appear in the silo? Couldn't we do something more logical, like having a Landing Pad for getting back anything from space (you can bet modders would give it plenty of use), or a Satellite Communications Station for making Space Science Packs?

Also, how about an underground heat pipe? Make the area near your reactors less annoying to walk around. We've got it for regular pipes, after all.

[Oktokolo]

Good news about the campaign and splitting that rocket science up a bit. Also would like to have new shallow water as an option in the map generator.