Mid-Endgame constant project grind

[ENAK]

Hi,

I find that once you get to around to that huge cargo loading station or whatever it's called, the game turns into an endless project grind that you need to perform in order not to bankrupt your station while you're researching even more modules.

You can't stay on the "lower level" to make more money because the game starts to present you with contracts requiring those more expensive modules (surveillance etc.) and those cheap ones become rarer and rarer.

Once you build the more expensive modules and get access to better contracts the money goes down super-quickly and you either spend hours clicking through contracts to build up a huge amount of cash or risk building up even more and going out of business.

I think the issue is that the idle modules cost a lot of money to maintain and it's really hard to find a good combination of projects later on, especially when some modules are blocked by internal research.

Shouldn't there be like an on-off switch on unused modules? They should also switch off automatically when unused. After all, apart from risking my sanity, I could just delete them every time when they're not used, and recreate them when needed to reduce maintenance costs.

/cheers
Enak

[schreibmaschine]

Hi, thanks for your feedback!
We are currently making some changes to the underlying system how projects are made available and include it in a future update. Hopefully these adjustments will make the "project grind" towards the later game less frustrating.

[Hashy1000]

I found deleting the contracts that don't suit your needs will generate new ones, don't worry about missing out, you'll get opportunity to do that mission again later. the same contracts come up over and over again.

[JeanDeaux]

Originally posted by Hashy1000:

I found deleting the contracts that don't suit your needs will generate new ones, don't worry about missing out, you'll get opportunity to do that mission again later. the same contracts come up over and over again.

I thought I read somewhere in here that some contracts do not repeat, those were typically the higher paying ones. So perhaps you can punt the low-end paydays but I'm not ready to dismiss some of those more lucrative projects that I still lack tech to do just yet without knowing for sure.

[Hashy1000]

100 % the same projects repeat, you can test it by saving the game, then you can always reload, but i've done the Bob Fetta contract multiple times. hard to forget the name of that one. my current game 2300T and 143k in the bank

[dumdum]

It seems like there are 5 guaranteed "quest slots" that each have their own pool of repeatable missions. You can have extra quest slots during progression that have the non-repeatable missions, which will oftentimes just give you the same mission you cancelled.

In any case, there's absolutely no way to stay afloat late game if you accept quests as they're offered. You need around 300 credits per turn, and the game will still offer you contracts that pay 10 credits per turn that will take up a slot for 60 turns. I usually have to reject a quest about a dozen times before I get something that's worth at least 70 credits per turn. Anything above 100 credits per turn is super rare.

[Hashy1000]

I've been playing with the economy on easy as i want to get to the end of the missions and it seems way more balanced, you can actually start to chill in the late game when all your research is done and focus how your gonna keep expanding.

Missions appear to be generated dependant on the size of your workforce.

with every contract building having a value , so the total value of all buildings (active contracts and contracts not yet accepted) adds up to the value determined by the size of your workforce. hence cancelling contracts generates a new contract next tick based on the points left in the pot.

The RNG is which mission(multiplier), buildings needed(value) and ticks needed.

well thats my take after 6000 ticks and now with a balanced station that makes money

[JeanDeaux]

I've been trying some various strategies on accepting missions, targeting those methods that others have reported success with. What I'm noticing is that there seems to be a hard number of missions that appear that contain modules that are currently available.

It appears that only 5 (and very rarely 6) contract missions will appear that you can actually activate, this includes missions that are currently active and in your contracts queue; they do not appear to include any of the many research missions available. Completing those research missions did not produce more capable contracts in the queue and the total available remained at 5. So once these 5/6 slots are in the various queues, the only projects that appear will include modules you do not currently have available. The moment those slots clear your queues, almost immediately you will start to see new contracts appear that include modules you do have and can accept.

This hard number does not appear to scale up as your station expands, you'll only get offered 5 missions at a time you can actually run, at least in my tests. As others have noted, you can dismiss these offered contract to keep them rotating through the pool of missions and I found this useful to skip some of the lower paying contracts, but can be risky as sometimes new contracts are slow to arrive, and if you already have 5 contracts between the queue and in progress, you'll not be seeing any new jobs pop up that you will be able to engage in. In mid-game, I found it easy to blow through 25k kredits just trying to get one 300 tick item researched and not having those modules available for other missions that became available that I had the modules built to actually take on the mission. During these prolonged research missions, those 500/600 kredit reward missions do nothing but slightly extend your fall into bankruptcy without any high yield contracts coming in.

I think it's this routine that's choking financial progression of the mid to late game. I've also found that resisting the urge to expand the base until you've been able to complete every possible research mission with your current available modules will help greatly with extending your financial life within the game.

Perhaps if we flipped this mechanic, so that only a total of 5/6 contracts become available for tech/modules that are not yet researched? Or making the ratio a percentage of the station size so that the count scales as the station grows.

Food for thought and very much looking forward to the next balancing act.

Tested in the "No Time for Caution" mission on Medium difficulties.

[darkestkhan]

Originally posted by ENAK:

Hi,

I find that once you get to around to that huge cargo loading station or whatever it's called, the game turns into an endless project grind that you need to perform in order not to bankrupt your station while you're researching even more modules.

You can't stay on the "lower level" to make more money because the game starts to present you with contracts requiring those more expensive modules (surveillance etc.) and those cheap ones become rarer and rarer.

Once you build the more expensive modules and get access to better contracts the money goes down super-quickly and you either spend hours clicking through contracts to build up a huge amount of cash or risk building up even more and going out of business.

I think the issue is that the idle modules cost a lot of money to maintain and it's really hard to find a good combination of projects later on, especially when some modules are blocked by internal research.

Shouldn't there be like an on-off switch on unused modules? They should also switch off automatically when unused. After all, apart from risking my sanity, I could just delete them every time when they're not used, and recreate them when needed to reduce maintenance costs.

/cheers
Enak

Be careful with max worker capacity - it will determine the kind of contracts you will be getting. You can disable module in ASL (remove it there) and you won't pay maintenance for it. If you need it you can always put it down :)

I do admit though that it is micro-heavy and annoying.

[Kaptain524]

TLDR - There is definitely an imbalance between the number of workers to unlock the techs and what modules the game expects you to be able to actually use with that many workers. See suggested improvements at the end.

Here is an example of how bad it gets later in the game:

I just went bankrupt around 1000 population, I was just barely able to have enough workers to run the hadron generator and graviton modules, along with other various modules (conference room, surveillance, optical array) needed for doing regular contracts to keep from going broke. I had to "juggle" which modules were active like crazy in order to complete contracts just to keep from going broke and was still unable to fully staff everything without increasing my workforce to like 1200.

However, with 1000 workers, almost all the new contracts I get require the top tier stuff like the repair bay and fleet modules, which would require at least another 1200 ticks of research (at least 4 new advanced techs) before I can even use them, let alone add another few hundred workers to properly staff them along with all the required inputs.

So because of how so many things are tied to the number of workers, the natural inclination to just keep expanding (like in most base-building games) is severely hindered, which is counter-intuitive and annoying to say the least... At best I am forced to "juggle" all the advanced modules because my tech level is actually around 750 based on the contracts I get and unlocked researches, but I would need at least 1200 to fully staff everything I have unlocked and built at this point.

So if I "juggle" down to 750 I may get some contracts I can actually complete, then I have to "juggle" up to 1000 to actually complete them... And all the while I am mostly just "treading water" with the maintenance costs, maybe researching one new thing at a time.

This is so imbalanced it makes a really fun game become miserable. Here are some suggestions to make it better:

• Make the range of contracts include a wider range of techs below the current level. Then you would actually be able to keep using all the techs that are already unlocked. For example, at 1000 workers I should still be getting mundane contracts for radio dish, drones, conference room, and loading bay. Perhaps only stop offering contracts when they are like 80% below the current level - or maybe even never stop offering any contracts at all - but allow more contracts to be available at later levels so the player can choose from a better selection.
  
• Make the contracts tech level based on the actually unlocked researches instead of the number of workers. And still offer contracts for a wide range of currently researched techs, not just the highest ones.
  
• Raise the required numbers of workers to unlock the later techs (at least a little) to allow more room to keep [everything else] more in line with the current tech level. Then there would be more freedom to grow without having to "juggle" so much just to get the right contracts and/or to keep maintenance down. Currently it seems to actually bring the advanced modules online, I would need way more workers than it would take to research them.
  
• Automatically disable modules when they are not being used - no workers, no input consumption, and perhaps reduced maintenance. Intermediate resource modules (e.g. Climate, Water, Airlock) would likewise reduce demand of their inputs when there is reduced output load - so if there is a 50% surplus it would only use 50% of its inputs, including workers. Not only would it make more sense and be more realistic, but this would also make "juggling" completely unnecessary and could also allow more modules to run at the same time without requiring an excessive amount of workers.
  
• If the practice of "juggling" active modules is an intended feature... it needs to be easier to do - perhaps by at least having on/off toggles on the modules? Although in the later game the amount of needed "juggling" would still need to be reduced as the current amount becomes very tedious. It feels like "juggling" would make the most sense as an optional utility feature for more flexibility and to manage expansion. But it should not be a major requirement for survival taking up a large focus of the game play.

[ENAK]

Not to say bad things about this game but... Judging by the sale numbers... This is dead guys. ;) I doubt we'll see anymore updates here.

[schreibmaschine]

Originally posted by ENAK:

Not to say bad things about this game but... Judging by the sale numbers... This is dead guys. ;) I doubt we'll see anymore updates here.

Nope, that's not true, we are still working on the game :-)
As communicated in the last announcement we also have a roadmap set up for future patches: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1668130/view/3338869387046235104
orbit.industries is available on multiple platforms, PC and consoles, and we want to further improve the players experience with our game on all of them.

[schreibmaschine]

Originally posted by Kaptain524:

TLDR - There is definitely an imbalance between the number of workers to unlock the techs and what modules the game expects you to be able to actually use with that many workers. See suggested improvements at the end.

[...]

This is so imbalanced it makes a really fun game become miserable. Here are some suggestions to make it better:

[...]

Hi Kaptain, sorry for leaving out so much of your quoted post, but I just wanted to reply to you directly and thank you for your feedback! As described in another forum topic, we are still doing various tests to further improve the project situation and reward balancing to include them in the next patch. So hearing detailed reports and suggestions from players is very valuable!

[ENAK]

I stand corrected then. But still, the sales number don't look so hot. You should have a look at what Captain of Industry guys did and just do the same. Spruce up your game as much as possible, fix the issues mentioned in this and other threads and pay a bunch of youtubers to showcase the game. There's a crowd of people who love these kind of games and they often buy what's shown on such channels. Of the top of my head, Nilaus and Raptor would most likely agree to this. I believe this title can be great. It's just that endgame seems horrible and unbalanced. ;)

[schreibmaschine]

Originally posted by ENAK:

I stand corrected then. But still, the sales number don't look so hot. You should have a look at what Captain of Industry guys did and just do the same. Spruce up your game as much as possible, fix the issues mentioned in this and other threads and pay a bunch of youtubers to showcase the game. There's a crowd of people who love these kind of games and they often buy what's shown on such channels. Of the top of my head, Nilaus and Raptor would most likely agree to this. I believe this title can be great. It's just that endgame seems horrible and unbalanced. ;)

As explained, we are actively working on improving the game and have a roadmap out there with an overview of patches to come, both for PC as well as consoles. There are many, many hours of gameplay and review videos by various YouTubers/streamers to watch about orbit.industries on YouTube and Twitch - one of those being Raptor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHugUntFCVY