Very frustrating - loosing interest in this game?

[Miss Lawmaker]

Hi survivors. I very much looked forward to this game. I love survival gaming. But now, I am frustrated. It feels like the research and stuff you need in this game, is always too far away to survive and grow over time. This game could be sooo much fun and undoubtedly looks very good. I have tried to learn, watched tutorials and tips on youtube etc. Im not usually this slow to learn :-)

The first days of the colony it works very well, researching, harvesting and gathering stuff. Growing stuff in fields etc. Making food, and some simple weapons. Storing resources and stocking up on food and stuff. But then the unhappiness, the lack of fun stuff to do for the survivors, the ENDLESS research waiting for every little ting, the complete lack of game progress, the survivor melt downs, the attacks from bugs, the dumbest people on what-ever-planet this is, NOT defending them self, fleeing into the wilderness.

The game is made as if they don't really want us to continue playing... I know its early access, but...I even tried the easy setting...same result. And now I am getting a gaming-melt down.... LOL. Anyone else experienced this game as very frustrating?

[DarkHorse]

Its amazing to me that people just havn't been able to figure this game out yet.. and to be fair in my opinion thats PART of the game .. figuring it out. My first play of the game I started on easy .. maybe thats part of a lot of peoples problems ... maybe they should start on easy.... Cant research fast enough? How do you figure the game is made so they dont want you to continue playing.. thats just an open ended comment with nothing backing up what you said. If your team is having meltdowns all the time then your not ' feeding their desires' .... you realize this is all you... YOu chose the survivors.. you chose what to allow them to do ... you .. its all you. Some people are never happy .... have fun in that club.

[Joe Coffee]

Quite honestly, I dislike the whole enlist/dismiss mechanic. I would like to see where you can simply elect one of your survivors as leader and issue commands like man the towers, take up positions behind walls, fall back to a designated spot, etc. They can then build leadership level the more they stay in a leadership role which unlocks more commands or if needs researching. You can elect other survivors if they have higher leadership than you do, but maybe some persons with leadership skill create morale drops due to conflicts in personality or traits, i.e., your pacifist will hate authoritarians. Maybe we can even have whole new game mechanics where if you'd rather play as an oppressive authoritarian, you can bully and intimidate the other survivors, but of course there's downsides to that.

[lokieid]

Really? Just build separate bedrooms for your guys, put a dart board, that punch pole thingie, a shooting target and some leather chairs and they'll be fine. They will tell you what they need. The games grindy but its easy. If you never played a colony survival game before I can see why you'd get frustrated with it though.

It's a pretty game. I don't like the tower defense aspect though. But some people do and it's a core mechanic so I guess whatever.

[Martin]

I like building and designing the houses.. farming the food to supply them, the defence is kinda boring, only the animals offer any real challenge, but that said, if the bugs attacked random bits of fence like the animals do.. probably be game over pretty quick. The ai whilst pretty dumb can have moments of genius.. one day minding my own business, harvesting away.. 6 of the emu birds came charging in via a hole in my fence and then being dumb birds.. ignored my people, defenceless and started wrecking my trees. There's ups and downs. Haven't stopped playing it since it was released to ea.

I think for these kinds of games, you have to be a certain type of person and maybe op, you're just not.

[Miss Lawmaker]

Darkhorse, it was a joke.. the meltdown part? But you are correct, some people are never happy, and will do anything to make it worse, rather then help. Thanks sunshine. And others seek advice form fellow gamers. I will try some of the tips here. Thanks guys. Any thoughts on picking the best start crew? I guess combat, food and research is good to have early?

[wildblu]

When selecting the starting survivors, I put zero thought into it by using a random number generator. I also use a random alphanumeric generator to create the map, but will re-roll if the map appears to be too difficult for early game.

[DarkHorse]

Originally posted by Miss Lawmaker:

Darkhorse, it was a joke.. the meltdown part? But you are correct, some people are never happy, and will do anything to make it worse, rather then help. Thanks sunshine. And others seek advice form fellow gamers. I will try some of the tips here. Thanks guys. Any thoughts on picking the best start crew? I guess combat, food and research is good to have early?

I really don't think there is the ' Best ' crew but I do think there are ones to stay away from... anyone who has restrictions or WONT do something... I try to stay away from those. At the start of the game anyone who has a ' 0 ' in what they have skills in I try to make them do whatever that is to get their skill up sooner. I do tend to get the survivor that gets me more scrap.. one that can cook and plant. If your doing things right you shouldn't NEED a medic so the other 2 you want to bring is your choice... construction is good..research is good. good luck.

[Boothy]

This is my general process now in a new game to cope with unhappiness.

This also depends on easy access to wood early on.

First built a table and chairs outside (do this immediately on a new game), this stops the eating standing up debuf. They don't seem to care that it's outside (move inside later on).

I then rush to get buildings (after weapons), and drop down a 16x5 wooden foundation (aka Floor), and on that build four 4x5 wooden rooms and a 16x5 wooden roof, as soon as I can (+18 buff). No corridor (to save on building time and materials), each with a door direct to the outside. (Think US style motel). Each room has no windows, one wall torch (later replaced by electric light), one leather chair and flooring. Also build a small heating stove in time for winter (turn off in spring, back on in fall).

Make sure all indoor areas have a flooring, doesn't matter which. Otherwise you get cave dweller -5 debuf).

I also built as soon as possible (within the first couple of days) 1 each of the musical instruments, punch bag, and shooting target. (I built the dartboard later, once I'd built a kitchen and proper dinning building around year 2-3).

I changed the schedule to only have sleep, set from 23:00 to 02. Everything else is Anything (no work or relax). This way if someone wants a break, or to go eat, they just break off what they are doing and go do it. (The interesting thing here was that they all seem to drop into a pattern all on their own, where they get up maybe work a little, then go eat/drink breakfast, often together. Then work till early evening, and then mostly eat/drink together again, before chilling for a while, and then bed. Rinse and repeat each day). They do occasionally stop working mid day, to go play/shoot/punch, but then they just go back to work in a happier mood.

Also avoid sending anyone with low happiness on a mission (unless it's to the grove, if you've found it), or to any jobs any real distance from the base (scavenging, mining etc). And likewise also avoid forcing someone to do a job if they have low happiness (e.g. right clicking on a work station to force them to finish crafting something), as they'll just keep working and could then have a break down.

I think I had maybe a couple of breakdowns in the 1st year, but I've had none since.

I'm now in year 10 and in the end game (just rescued my first survivor) and other than switching the bedroom lighting over to an electric light, the bedrooms are the same now as they where when I first built them in year 1. No air vents, no electric heating, no AC to break down etc.

[Daiska]

The only skills that matter on choosing a team, is have at least level 3 in construction and farming in the mix. (need 3 construction to make a large drying rack, and 3 farming to plant cotton) The rest of the skills aren't important to be over 1 at the start and will be worked up by menial tasks like making bandages.. Away from those 2 things, the passives are important. Speed is a real bonus, while slowpokes and sleepyheads I'd stay away from. The ones who occasionally teach a skill to others are good to have. The guy who one-shots things but has a low combat is more effective than one with a high combat skill.
Also keep in mind if someone is interested in a skill they learn it twice as fast, so starting low is fine.
Finally, keeping your base small and compact you progress way faster. I did this and had 4 of my 5 survivors off the planet by year 4 on normal difficulty.

[Emperor Fooble]

My tips for a reliable start are fairly simple, easy to do and will have you setup to cruise through the game as long as you want within the first year on the hardest difficulty.

Focus on building a wooden structure ASAP. It doesn't need to be big, just enough for your storage, beds and a table.
Keep building this singular structure out, adding more rooms as needed. Try to ensure that your survivors never have to go outside, unless the task they are doing can only be completed outside.
There are no bonuses for large rooms, and smaller rooms are actually better as they are super easy to heat or keep cool.
As you build your structure, build everyone a bedroom big enough for the spacious room buff (I think that's 5x4 squares of memory but I haven't played in awhile).

The idea is, from very early on in the game (like, the first in game week) your survivors do not have to go outside, they can spend 100% of their time indoors if needed - meaning you are largely safe from disasters and weather.

For the first year, a single survivor with a rail rifle can solo any and every attack by simply moving out to shoot at the animals while they muster, with minimal micro. Same thing applies to the next couple of years, honestly, but that takes more micro.
Always ensure that your rail rifle survivor is kept happy and is rested enough that they can respond to an attack at any time without risk of a meltdown or passing out from exhaustion.

Very close to your main structure, build a fort.
Enemy attacks only ever target your people, so you do not need a giant wall around your base or to spread out your defences.
As long as the animals can get to your people, they will not attack walls.
So build a loooooong maze of fences leading into your fort. Line the path with traps, have your survivors stand in towers and when you have them, build auto turrets on raised platforms to see over the wooden palisade. My preference of turret is without any doubt, the machine gun. Less power usage than the laser, higher damage.

Grain and silicone flowers are the only crops you really *need*, with smokeleaf coming in at the most desirable optional crop imo.
Grain not only provides food in enormous quantities, it is needed for a wide array of things, from fuel and medicines, to alcohol.
Silicone is a resource you will NEVER have enough of, by year two if playing optimally as electronic devices break by the dozen every day so you are endlessly repairing and therefor crafting components with silicon.
Smokeleaf is just useful to easy mode happiness on all your survivors.

Before winter, research electricity and heating. Heaters are extremely cheap, use almost no power and for the entire game keep your people warm even in extreme cold snaps where the temperature is -30 or below.
While you do not *need* heaters for the first winter, stoves are enough - its super easy to get heaters, they are easier to setup and manage than stoves/fireplaces as they need no resources and can be moved around at will. 1 is enough to heat a spacious bedroom.

Also put an electric roof light in every room, again, minimal cost and power drain for a happiness bost.

Annnnnd, within the first year you have already won the game.

There is only ONE thing that is remotely dangerous - extreme heatwaves in the summer.
Unlike the cold which is easily countered with heaters and clothing, there is nothing you can do to combat heat apart from endgame tech like air conditioners which are extraordinarily expensive not only to build, but to maintain as they constantly breakdown and require the rarest materials to repair.
In the most extreme cases the heat will kill your survivors within a couple of days. If you get unlucky it will GG you in the summer of year 2. If not, make sure you have the mats ready for AC for the year 3 summer just in case.
Nothing else in the game is a threat.

Just keep adding to your main base as needed, and fort.

The grind is basically trying to find enough electrical components for your electronics to keep up with repairs while scaling the defences to meet ever larger animal attacks.

Switch out from bows and crossbows as fast as possible, they are useless against anything larger than the scarabs, and even then it's so time consuming to kill one.
While you can get lucky with scavenging wrecks, the best way to acquire weapons (and other goodies like clothing) is via expeditions.
The rail rifle you get from one of the starting location wrecks is fine for the first two years, but typically I suggest getting expeditions up and running quickly after the first winter.

After a couple of years your survivors aren't much use in defence as there are so few of them, and you are being attacked by enormous swarms of enemies, so you are forced into relying on ever larger numbers of auto turrets, or ridiculously large deathtrap mazes which take too long to kill the bugs.

Some animals will come at chomp on your crops, if you completely fence the crops off, the animals might attack the fence, and the survivors will not open and close gates on their own so you have to micro the gates every time you want access to your crops.
Whenever I see animals close to my base, I just hunt them with rail rifles. Just be sure to keep your shooter at a distance.

[Boothy]

Also worth mentioning, manage what your survivors can eat. Most raw items have a negative effect, either poison, or people simply don't like eating them raw.

As an example, Buttermelon, this has -6 happiness if eaten raw, but a +6 if cooked into a simple Veggie soup.

So once you observe a new food item, immediately check the stats for that item, and then if it has any negative stats at all, go into a survivors profile, select restrictions, and ban them from eating it. Then copy/paste to the rest of the survivors.

If you don't do this, they'll try to eat items just for some variety, even if it makes them unhappy!

[Bernard Law Montgomery]

Solar flare is stupid 200 enemy 5 men no way of to win a fish is doing the game balance

[Peanut]

Originally posted by The Jerker:

Quite honestly, I dislike the whole enlist/dismiss mechanic. I would like to see where you can simply elect one of your survivors as leader and issue commands like man the towers, take up positions behind walls, fall back to a designated spot, etc. They can then build leadership level the more they stay in a leadership role which unlocks more commands or if needs researching. You can elect other survivors if they have higher leadership than you do, but maybe some persons with leadership skill create morale drops due to conflicts in personality or traits, i.e., your pacifist will hate authoritarians. Maybe we can even have whole new game mechanics where if you'd rather play as an oppressive authoritarian, you can bully and intimidate the other survivors, but of course there's downsides to that.

Love this idea!!!! I had never played a game where I had to enlist before, and I found the tutorials tiresome, so I had this same problem when I started playing. Now that I understand it, I still find it quite annoying to HAVE TO micromanage the players and the fight... it would be nice to be able to give designations ahead of time, or like, "plays" and have the survivors do their designated roles (snipers in towers, healers at the back, etc)

[Reign of Pain]

I'm losing interest because solar flares are a trash mechanic with no decent solution

[Miss Lawmaker]

Thanks guys. Emporo Fooble, you are awsome! THANKS! I will get to it - its going to be a looooong night :-) One thing, why are mye survivors not defending them self against the first bugs that attac? They have weapons and combat skills? But still fleeing and getting killed?