How long to "finish" the game?

[Frost]

Hello. I'm assuming there's an "end" to the game: building this Dyson Sphere?

If so, what's a quicker and an average time it might take someone to "finish"?

Secondly, has anyone gotten to red or more advanced research and quit that game to start over from the beginning with no researches active for some reason besides "I finished"?

[Stormsong]

Originally posted by Frost:

Hello. I'm assuming there's an "end" to the game: building this Dyson Sphere?

If so, what's a quicker and an average time it might take someone to "finish"?

The end is not the Dyson Sphere, funnily enough. The congratulations message comes after doing the final research which is... 4k(?) White Cubes. These require all of the previous cubes and critical photons which can come from a Dyson Sphere OR a Dyson Swarm being processed by Ray Receivers in the critical generation state.

Secondly, has anyone gotten to red or more advanced research and quit that game to start over from the beginning with no researches active for some reason besides "I finished"?

I don't understand this question, more the second half of it. I've read of plenty of people starting over at various points into the midgame because the spaghetti overwhelmed them and they didn't build with the paradigm shift of logistics towers in mind.

[Frost]

Originally posted by Stormsong the Fallen:

The end is not the Dyson Sphere, funnily enough. The congratulations message comes after doing the final research which is... 4k(?) White Cubes.

So the game doesn't end when you build the Dyson Sphere?
It 'ends' (as in nothing else to do you haven't done already) when you do the last research?

I think your answer to second question is one of the things I was looking for: people that quit a game halfway through to start over and wondering why.

[baerstein]

This kind of games does not "end" like regular games. The end, if you decided to stop playing.

[Dervrak]

Well if you want to get the "you win" message (and it's pretty much just that, a pop up window that says "you win" and some flavor text) all you need to do is complete the tech tree which requires 4,000 white science cubes. Funny thing, it isn't all the difficult to do as long as you stockpile the various science cubes as you are building your home world production complex and you will likely accomplish it long before you finish building your Dyson Sphere. I actually did it before I even really started my Dyson Sphere structure or even started exploring the star cluster at large (the only portion you need to obtain the antimatter required for White Cubes is the solar mirrors and not the actual Dyson Sphere structure nodes.)

Of course, since the game is called "Dyson Sphere Program" what would be the fun in quitting without actually building a Dyson Sphere? Of course you can continue playing after you "win" the game. In fact keeping that white science rolling in helps your expansion efforts as you can continue to upgrade your mech. So you can pretty much make your own win condition, "Build a Dyson Sphere. Build 10 Dyson Spheres. Establish resource colonies in every star system. Whatever you want.

[aKamikazePug]

I haven't even completed one line on my dyson frame, and I can make the white cubes. I'm waiting till my dyson sphere builds, literally for no reason other than to say I did it.

I did restart once at about blue cubes after realizing how bad my initial base would be

[phillip_lynx]

Originally posted by Frost:

...
I think your answer to second question is one of the things I was looking for: people that quit a game halfway through to start over and wondering why.

The why is mostly due to "I have learnd the basics" and now I want a better build.
Then "I have learned the mid game" and want to make a better build.
etc. etc.

[Evilsod]

Originally posted by phillip_lynx:

Originally posted by Frost:

...
I think your answer to second question is one of the things I was looking for: people that quit a game halfway through to start over and wondering why.

The why is mostly due to "I have learnd the basics" and now I want a better build.
Then "I have learned the mid game" and want to make a better build.
etc. etc.

Pretty much, yeah. It's not uncommon in a game like this to restart now you know what you're doing so you can try and get off to a better/more efficient start.

And you can measure that improvement with the knowledge that it took you x hours to reach this stage before and your base was a mess, now it took you half that and your base is much more efficiently laid out.

I was actually tempted to do that already after hitting Red Science and seeing that my current build was a bit of a mess so my production of Red Science is a little slow and will be difficult to scale up.
Then I just moved over a bit, left that going on in the background, and started to build a new set of Smelting arrays to act as a 'mall'. Decided I was still far too early to restart and really see the benefit.

[Nogi Everfree]

It ends when you lose interest.
There are goals, sure, like researching the last thing, or building a sphere.

I'm about 80 hours in, and have only finished a dyson ring (Going for density of nodes)
Granted, I've unlocked everything by this point. It just takes a long time to build dense dysons.

I'm basically done untill new content is added. While I could build rings in other systems, I can just as easily throw down an artificial sun to power those distant colonies.
As I said, the game ends when you lose interest. And for me, that happens when there is nothing else to unlock, or hurdles to overcome.
At this point, it is just about claiming resources on distant worlds, which is kind of tedius in the late game. (I'd much prefer a template system for placing multiple buildings, and put those construction drones to work)

[Arcane]

Originally posted by Frost:

Hello. I'm assuming there's an "end" to the game: building this Dyson Sphere?

If so, what's a quicker and an average time it might take someone to "finish"?

Secondly, has anyone gotten to red or more advanced research and quit that game to start over from the beginning with no researches active for some reason besides "I finished"?

For me it took about 80 hours to complete the Dyson sphere and a bunch of white research. And then I restarted because it is fun to rebuild it in a better seed :D

People restart all the time. In this type of game there is no need to "complete" the game. It is essentially a factory puzzle and you just keep solving it. Some people restart all the time because early game is the most fun for them.

[umop-apisdn]

The devs say there's 25-50 hours of gameplay from start to "finish", if you can stay focused only on completing the researches required.

HowLongToBeat says ~ 60 hours. https://howlongtobeat.com/game?id=87587

Steam says I've got a bit over 218 hours in this game, and I'm nowhere near "finished". To be completely honest, I've only done blue, red, and yellow research; that leaves purple, green, and white remaining, so I guess technically I'm halfway through?

You probably shouldn't use my time, though, because I've got over 1,000 hours into Fallout 4 and haven't found Shawn yet; I've got almost 700 hours in Oxygen Not Included and have never launched a rocket. My primary focus in games is... different from most people's.

[Fury Fairy]

30-40 hrs to built small-to average DS - not relaxing play, but not extremely focused either. Check the Reddit, there are several threads reporting similar experience along with major bottlenecks

[phillip_lynx]

Originally posted by umop-apisdn:

The devs say there's 25-50 hours of gameplay from start to "finish", if you can stay focused only on completing the researches required.

HowLongToBeat says ~ 60 hours. https://howlongtobeat.com/game?id=87587

Steam says I've got a bit over 218 hours in this game, and I'm nowhere near "finished". To be completely honest, I've only done blue, red, and yellow research; that leaves purple, green, and white remaining, so I guess technically I'm halfway through?

You probably shouldn't use my time, though, because I've got over 1,000 hours into Fallout 4 and haven't found Shawn yet; I've got almost 700 hours in Oxygen Not Included and have never launched a rocket. My primary focus in games is... different from most people's.

I am at 167 hours in my actual save.
And I have finished the win research.
And I have build one Dyson Sphere ( at about 140 to 150 hours)

BUT ....

I do not have finished the save. There are some things to do, I will do before stating this save as done.

ATM I am building a second Sphere around a O-type star.
And I have to visit the black hole and maybe some giant stars and a neutron star.

[Solokahnir]

Originally posted by Nogi Everfree:

It ends when you lose interest.
There are goals, sure, like researching the last thing, or building a sphere.

I'm about 80 hours in, and have only finished a dyson ring (Going for density of nodes)
Granted, I've unlocked everything by this point. It just takes a long time to build dense dysons.

I'm basically done untill new content is added. While I could build rings in other systems, I can just as easily throw down an artificial sun to power those distant colonies.
As I said, the game ends when you lose interest. And for me, that happens when there is nothing else to unlock, or hurdles to overcome.
At this point, it is just about claiming resources on distant worlds, which is kind of tedius in the late game. (I'd much prefer a template system for placing multiple buildings, and put those construction drones to work)

Hey dude so what’s the ‘density’ of nodes regarding? Do more nodes equate to more energy output? I’m on my first Dyson sphere and actually spaced the nodes as far apart as possible.

[Solokahnir]

Originally posted by Frost:

Hello. I'm assuming there's an "end" to the game: building this Dyson Sphere?

If so, what's a quicker and an average time it might take someone to "finish"?

Secondly, has anyone gotten to red or more advanced research and quit that game to start over from the beginning with no researches active for some reason besides "I finished"?

Most of the comments on here are spot on. I’ll add my two cents as to why I restart:

My first play through I got to red or yellow science and was spending more time correcting mistakes from the first few hours of gameplay than progressing.

Second play through I started to work on green science but, again, was spending more time correcting earlier mistakes.

Now I’m on white science and working on a D Sphere.

So, people often restart games like this because you can spend more time combating earlier mistakes than making progress.

As an example, ‘motors’ seem to be an item I continually undervalue in terms of production-per-minute. My first game, I only had ONE assembler making motors, and didn’t want to spaghetti my way around to making more. Second game, same sort of scenario. Even now, third game, with 10 motor assemblers, I STILL need more.

However, in this third game, I’ve left myself a ton of room to expand the motor assembly, and I’ve finally shaken my Factorio roots and embraced verticality.

So, essentially, I’m not really battling earlier mistakes anymore because I’ve better prepared by not ‘boxing myself in’ (almost literally) in the early stages of the game.

[umop-apisdn]

Originally posted by Solokahnir:

...
Most of the comments on here are spot on. I’ll add my two cents as to why I restart:

My first play through I got to red or yellow science and was spending more time correcting mistakes from the first few hours of gameplay than progressing.

Second play through I started to work on green science but, again, was spending more time correcting earlier mistakes.
...
people often restart games like this because you can spend more time combating earlier mistakes than making progress.
...
So, essentially, I’m not really battling earlier mistakes anymore because I’ve better prepared by not ‘boxing myself in’ (almost literally) in the early stages of the game.

(Emphasis added)

I feel like "correcting earlier mistakes" might be misleading, because the early game is not necessarily mistakes, just... messy.

I think the temptation to restart would be much less if there were a "mass deconstruct" feature, as there is in Satisfactory; I know that my own restarts tend to be more from a feeling of "I don't want to bother cleaning up all this junk" than an actual desire to rebuild the tech tree... especially once you realize that you really want to start from a "clean slate" once logistics towers change your entire production paradigm, when you've already built a bunch of stuff "incorrectly" just getting to that point.

I'm still trying to unlearn my bad habits, and I'm slowly coming around to the idea that it's actually better to "restart" by "filling my pockets" with specific items, finding a planet with 95%+ construction area, shipping in the liquids (and other resources) from elsewhere, and setting up new production facilities than it is to start a new game.

The tech tree is the most important resource, in my opinion, and being unable to quickly and easily pick up all the equipment and place it in a better configuration makes it easy to just throw your hands in the air and bail, instead of continuing to play... but I'm learning that it's quicker to fly to an untouched planet (even in another system) and start clean, even without warpers.