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[forsaken1111]

I'll see if I still have that save. If I do I'll send it over with a note.

[Zangi]

Gave this a go, jumped straight into the largest map.  Took awhile to figure out how to make shelters.  Mostly cause colonist priority seems to be to grab the 'easy' stuff exclusively when you tell em to gather all.  It also rubs my OCD in the wrong way when the gather thing says there are resources, but the colonists never collect them.  Plus those job orders keep popping up, only to be unfulfilled.

Random ! for items popping up is a visual blight.  I know its cause of the animal things.  Oh, buildings 'breaking', but still being used like normal.  It would be great if I didn't have to demolish and reinstall em, that takes way too much micro.

Auto-build orders(make till have X in stock) would be awesome, so I don't have to micro that.  Job priority tends to leave making building materials for last if you throw a ton of jobs around.  Not sure about cooking, I put that on high priority.  Probably cause colonists tend to gather instead of cook while there is no food, havn't done actual testing on that.  (To be fair, I 'make it big' so I wouldn't have to make a buncha small gathering points.)

Farming, auto-harvest would be awesome.  Cause no indication that crops are ready for harvest...  and seems the small plots wither way too fast.

Way too little quality of life automation.

Finally, save didn't seem to work, I was playing in windowed mode and minimized it when I started it.  Still unresponsive this morning.

[MoPed_UnclaimedWorld]

@Zangi
Thanks for feedback!

jumped straight into the largest map.  Took awhile to figure out how to make shelters.

hmm yeah we recommend the tutorials because the game is fairly complex and most players miss a lot of mechanics without them.

tell em to gather all

it'll take a while for them to gather all resources, best to gather what you need only.

says there are resources, but the colonists never collect them

  Yeah, inaccessible resources, same as what forsaken1111 said. We've now given this extra priority because it ties into automated gathering and we aim to fix it in the upcoming version.

! for items popping up

yeah it tells you that a needed item is inaccessible because a threat (animal) is nearby. not sure if we can do it in other ways.

It would be great if I didn't have to demolish and reinstall em, that takes way too much micro

Yeah they do automated maintenance but when it's only on Normal prio and they are busy with other work, the primitive shelters will break. Maybe we should put maintenance on High default prio.

Auto-build orders(make till have X in stock) would be awesome

  yep, automation is upcoming in 0.8.0.0

Farming, auto-harvest would be awesome.  Cause no indication that crops are ready for harvest...  and seems the small plots wither way too fast.

  Ok. The farmplot graphics do change into a fully grown plant and also the side panel shows the date when it'll be ready for harvest.  But seems it's maybe too subtle for new players. Anyway, I think the programmer also wants to automate harvest at one point.

save didn't seem to work, I was playing in windowed mode and minimized it when I started it.

   Yeah unresponsiveness when saving in windowed mode and shifting window focus is a known issue.

[Zangi]

Reckon I'll try the tutorial since I don't have a save to jump to anyways.

The animal causing the threat is swarming all over the place, so they don't actually seem to be threats.  Is it a new colony protection thing where they get aggressive later on?  In my opinion, they are either an actual threat or they could be safely ignored.  Its just, with what you start with, there are more of them then what you have in bullets.  A pallet change could indicate that they are an actual threat if they do become aggressive...

On that note, hunting, I've no clue what happens with the corpses and with meat/tanning rack set-up, doesn't seem they do anything with the corpses?  No job orders related to it either.  I don't particularly remember seeing their corpses in the inventory, but might have missed it.  Saw 2 rat thing corpses that I believe the dog killed, made em do job orders with it, but never followed up on it and never landed in the prepared food section.  (Probably too busy gathering the everything.)

2 Fishnets = Feeds way way way more then 6 people, much better returns then farming.  Full time job just to cook em.  Since they only do 2 fish jobs at a time.  Probably better stick to smoking.

Trading, seemed weird.  Maybe its cause the UI wasn't clear about it?  The cheapest landing.  I rent boat from other colony, I can put stuff on it, but it didn't seem I was able to sell my stuff for the return trip?

... most of my issues could be cleared up with the tutorial couldn't it?  Will see about that.

[forsaken1111]

Perhaps instead of setting maintenance to high priority, just pop up an alert over buildings that will soon become ruined by maintenance issues.

Agreed on farmplot automation. What I would like is the ability to make a farm plot and set to to a specific crop and just leave it. Have the sow and harvest jobs pop into the queue automatically, when it is harvested it will re-sow the previous crop. You could make that a checkmark on the building UI or something in case people want to do a one-off harvest so it doesn't sow the field again. Overall the farming feels really fast, with crops growing in 1-2 days, but I suppose that is a necessary game design decision because of the timescale and size of the maps. Realistic farming would take up significantly more space.

[MoPed_UnclaimedWorld]

so they don't actually seem to be threats

correct, those are field quadites, they only eat your vegetables (food items).  Their nests DO cause a 'threat' radius but it's actually more like a 'discomfort' radius so we might wanna have another look at this stuff.

hunting, I've no clue what happens with the corpses

When they kill an animal through hunting, the carcass gets automatically claimed and shows up in your production manager from where you must also order rawhide or meat to make them butcher the carcass.
Animals that are killed through defense or Patrol for vermin do not get claimed and will not show up in your production manager before you select them and click 'Claim'   ...this is not covered in the tutorials though, but it's described in the help notes (on the top left menu) but we're unsure if we can show this to players in a better way.
@forsaken1111 did you understand this concept when you played?
BTW we also want to make hunting zones automated.

2 Fishnets = Feeds way way way more then 6 people, much better returns then farming.

we might rebalance that some time.

The cheapest landing

Yeah it can only be used for buying goods, you need one of the bigger port buildings to sell, it is stated in its description text. But  few people seem to read those, we're not sure what to do about it, same as with tutorials


@forsaken1111

Perhaps instead of setting maintenance to high priority, just pop up an alert over buildings that will soon become ruined by maintenance issues.

hmm yeah, a yellow 'broken' symbol perhaps. Maybe also use an icon like that on farmplots that are ready to harvest, if we choose to not go for automated sowing, but your suggestion with the checkmark for auto-farming is also good.

[Zangi]

The cheapest landing

Yeah it can only be used for buying goods, you need one of the bigger port buildings to sell, it is stated in its description text. But  few people seem to read those, we're not sure what to do about it, same as with tutorials

I read them, its just... not clear about it.  All people have to go by is the flavor description.  Perhaps look into a context based help button/pop-up thing that gives clear mechanical doings?  You could probably throw the requirements and what the items are for into that pop-up.

[MoPed_UnclaimedWorld]

Ok. But trading, buying and selling is covered extensively in the tuts in scenario 2 and 3 so you should have a better chance if you play the tuts.

[Viken]

Heh. The problem with the Tutorial maps is that most of us are oldies to the game, and we've played the previous generations of Tutorials.  We aren't use to the idea that we might have to go back and re-play them in order to learn new and emergent systems.  Lol.

[forsaken1111]

@forsaken1111 did you understand this concept when you played?

Not at first. I discovered it entirely by accident. I'd suggest maybe doing a 'hunter/gatherer' style tutorial after the clay pit one, some kind of tribal village which has rejected or forgotten the technology they came to the planet with. You could showcase the new voting mechanics as well as they progress from hunter/gatherer to farming and limited technology when some new people arrive with new ideas, perhaps due to a shipwreck or something.

[MoPed_UnclaimedWorld]

That's an awesome idea for a scenario.  BUT, those 'tut' scenarios are veeery costly to make - going forward, we are planning to focus on variations of the sandbox map. So for now, I think we'll leave those features for the player to discover. I choose to believe that part of the appeal of strategy games is to discover some game mechanics on your own. (BTW this stuff is described in the Help windows that you access from the ?-button in the top left menu)

[forsaken1111]

That's an awesome idea for a scenario.  BUT, those 'tut' scenarios are veeery costly to make - going forward, we are planning to focus on variations of the sandbox map. So for now, I think we'll leave those features for the player to discover. I choose to believe that part of the appeal of strategy games is to discover some game mechanics on your own.

Fair enough, I understand why these would be time-intensive. Do you guys have any plans for a sort of randomly generated map style game where you can set out Dwarf Fortress style on your own claim and build something while trading back to other settlements?

[MoPed_UnclaimedWorld]

You can already build your own settlement and trade off-map, so that's a yes. We want to further develop the trade feature with prices that respond to the player's trade business so prices go down if they flood the market, and also have more trade locations with more distinct profiles and needs (such as the mining town and the farming town you see in Headway)
We won't have procedural maps, they are hand-made, but we would like to have a number of maps that you can choose between or are randomized for each scenario or 'story'.

[forsaken1111]

You can already build your own settlement and trade off-map, so that's a yes. We want to further develop the trade feature with prices that respond to the player's trade business so prices go down if they flood the market, and also have more trade locations with more distinct profiles and needs (such as the mining town and the farming town you see in Headway)
We won't have procedural maps, they are hand-made, but we would like to have a number of maps that you can choose between or are randomized for each scenario or 'story'.

Sounds great. I'll admit I'm still learning the production and, well, making my people not starve to death so I haven't explored the deeper features yet.

[Zangi]

Apparently the game actually was saved, but I switched over from my integrated graphics to my nvidia graphics, don't have the model number on me for now.  Was pretty unstable and eventually crashed.

I finally got better housing.  Ejected everyone from their old homes by salvage, but half of them apparently now prefer to sleep outside, rather then move into the new houses, which were all built somewhere else.  (Do colonists need to 'see' the new housing before they could move in?)