I really don't understand the long-term keeping of "planets"...

[barbrady123]

First I'll say I love this game, done a few full playthroughs (this used to be like building 4 universe portals or something like that, it's been awhile I don't fully remember), and the new updates look cool, but...

Every gameplay video shows lots of building on the "planets"....a network of belts, power grids, maybe some other machines, etc. I....I don't understand, am I playing a different game? I'm sincerely asking because I feel like the game is expanding and I want to keep playing it, but I feel like there's something about the core gameplay loop that isn't sitting right with me.

I tend to play and advance until I need new materials that aren't available via asteroids. Then I start heading to various "planets" (why are they so tiny, why are we calling them planets?) to get the other stuff you can't get otherwise. Cool, you dock, you setup some mining...I usually use the drones but there's also that 3d printer-looking thing that you have to move around all the time (grr) and cool, you leave and go to the next one.

This is fine, but the game obviously expects you to have a longer connection with these "planets", and gameplay footage/player screenshots/etc seem to support this idea. But.......why? Once you've looted everything (which takes very little time) it's just a ...rock? Docking stations that function as belts, why? Do people build a network of belts on the rock just to route the ore? You can literally just fly over once every 5 minutes and pick up from the various stations (this takes like 30 seconds) and get thousands of ore you've mined. Hit it and quit it.

I don't understand why you'd build a ton on a platform with (very) limited resources that will be gone soon. There isn't a very clean/easy way to leave "planets" and come back to them later...yea you can but why, so unless you just like the look of towing a chunk of dirt (or ice/sand/whatever) through space, I just don't understand. I feel like there needs to be more of a reason to "keep" these pieces of land.

Some ideas are:
- Rare ore is infinite (or at least has much much much more than it has now) so setting up a long-term operation makes sense.
- Other stuff on the "planet" that can't be pulled off (have to keep it flowing from a source) so that keeping it attached long-term makes sense.
- Maybe certain biome-specific npcs or buildings that, if you want to keep accessible, you need to keep with you on the ship.
- Planets being a lot bigger with way more resources, and having a quick way to travel between established routes, so traveling back and forth between outposts makes sense).
- Farming has to be done on soil (not like putting plants in space makes that much sense anyway) therefore you need it to sustain food, maybe plants are biome-specific so you need multiple types.
- You get the point....

Is there any reason (I haven't played in a couple updates but they do look great!) to commit to these "planets" long term? (And don't even get me started on land vehicles, why? You can travel the entire "large" planets in like 30 seconds or less, and they're rocky and full of trees and holes, what?) Other than aesthetics (I'm sure some people like hauling a forest through space, I guess?)....why?

I guess I'm wondering if people actually are playing this way, and if so, what's the reason, maybe I'm missing something. Or, is it just marketing to make the game look more interesting?

Sincere question, I really feel like either I'm playing the game "wrong" (if such a thing is possible), or something is kinda broken.

[barbrady123]

And also, maybe the answer is just "some people like the natural chunks as part of their ship and others just want the standard space platforms as their ship"...which is fine...but it seems like there's a ton of game elements that this ignores if it's simply a stylistic choice.

[Phoenix Cat]

I think to each their own. I don't think there is a wrong way to play a game like this. Some people use planets to build part of their bases on. Some don't. I use and discard myself. But I'm not going to tell someone else that this is the correct way. It is an open game. Do what makes you happy. That is the whole idea of games anyway. You do need to build longer term basis for some of the resources. Like the gases and such.

[barbrady123]

Originally posted by Phoenix Cat:

I think to each their own. I don't think there is a wrong way to play a game like this. Some people use planets to build part of their bases on. Some don't. I use and discard myself. But I'm not going to tell someone else that this is the correct way. It is an open game. Do what makes you happy. That is the whole idea of games anyway. You do need to build longer term basis for some of the resources. Like the gases and such.

Yea, and I totally agree with this attitude, 100%....but I just wanted to get input because...it just seems like a lot of stuff in-game to simply ONLY be a stylistic choice. But, it could be just that. :)

[barbrady123]

Also...I've seen the dev post here fairly often, so I guess I was also sorta hoping maybe he'd chime in with the vision of this concept (whether it's a work in progress, or it's always meant to just be an optional unique thing, etc).

[Phoenix Cat]

Originally posted by barbrady123:

Also...I've seen the dev post here fairly often, so I guess I was also sorta hoping maybe he'd chime in with the vision of this concept (whether it's a work in progress, or it's always meant to just be an optional unique thing, etc).

They are overseas. He usually post overnight or early morning. So he may chime in. He is very good about that.

[Ixia Irisborne]

Just recently finished playing the current game. Here are my answers for why I did some of the things you're talking about.
1.) While we (I was doing multiplayer with a friend) were doing the "use and discard" method, there was this one that we hooked onto and were consistently mining the daylights out of, and never ran out of everything to mine there. We just took it with us where ever we went. It had something like 100,000 carbon when we first connected to it (we were mostly interested in the uranium, at the time) and eventually we had... sixty? mining bots just pulling carbon. Had we known that carbon would become pretty important to our research and gas mining needs, and that we'd need a stupendous amount of it, we probably would have built a bunch of stuff there, on the rock, to process it, rather than just have plain carbon flowing into the main ship in such quantities that the belts and tubes never got fast enough that one line could bring it all in without clogging up.
2.) Expanding the central ship requires resources. Building on the planets just requires finding or making a space big enough to fit the things on. If there was any difference between moving just the station and moving the station and a half dozen huge rocks attached to it, I don't think I ever noticed.
3.) That huge rock that was full of carbon I mentioned in #1? By the end, the mining bots were spending at least twenty seconds, each way, just traveling between the mine bot stations and the ore bodies they were mining. On later planetoids, we often tried to more centrally place the mining stations and then have belts bringing the stuff the bots were mining to our ship, because it was simply faster. For the copper, iron, gold, aluminum, and titanium, we found it useful to process those things into bars and rods on the rock, before sending them to the ship via the belts. Otherwise, we'd just have 'traffic jams' all over our network.
4.) The person I was playing with was absolutely having more fun when she was setting everything up to be automatic. Meaning, she would be having less fun if she was having to scoot around to various rocks, grab stuff, and then dump it into some storage spot somewhere. When I say we had a network of belts and tubes, I'm not kidding in the slightest. So, yeah, we both tended to just set up mining bot stations, arrange for everything to flow into the ship via belts and tubes, arrange for that flow to get diverted into the places it would be processed, and then all but forget about it afterward. Usually because we were each working on the next thing we'd unlocked the tech for, or trying to maximize production of something because we needed a stupendous amount of it. We ended up with a dozen transport bots just sitting around with nothing to do, because virtually everything was being handled by the automation.

[Ready2produce]

Hmm, interesting dialog in this thread.

Here I was thinking attaching planetoids to a station is preferred playing style.

The 'undiscovered country' of the above postings is no story in 'Astro colony'.

Checkout 'No place like home' for what I mean by story.

[[EYE]Doyle]

Limits need to exist in storage, and in inventory. being able to carry an unlimited amount makes an entire belt system useless as you can just fly and be done. I've brought this up a while back, hell, even storage is useless if your miner can hold unlimited amount of ore.. its kinda crazy. I'll likely come back when these limiters are in place.

[Illuminia]

The main reason to keep a planetoid is for "artistic" purposes, or for a spread out farm or production facility (instead of building a huge base/station).
It's a bit more interesting to build areas for the colonists on a planetoid for their dorms, dining, and work areas. Especially if you get nice looking planetoid. (or be cruel and make them work on a frozen wasteland).

That's really about it.

Later game, when you are harvesting other resources that take more time and storage to fully harvest or utilize ( gas ) - it may make sense to keep one of that particular type around longer. ..... otherwise, I mine them and say goodbye.