The Learn by Doing System Is Awful

[Jagermaestro]

The tech system in general is this games biggest flaw. When it "works" it is essentially non existent. You are unlocking techs getting the required crafting materials for the item. When it doesn't there is some unintuitive tenously associated precursor item that needed to be made first. Why not let the crafting system take the reigns and steer? Whats the added level of depth doing?

All I can see it doing is slowing progression through forcing me to memorize and poke around blindly through playthroughs because your tech tree is hidden from me and the UI for it is absolute garbage. There is no linking from tech to tech its just some strange arbitrary tiering that 90% of people are going to bipass with a wiki or guide once one is available.

Simply remove it and make the building and tech tree transparent or at least allow it to be turned off. I don't want to play through your "tech" system nor do I want to play through your tutorial longer than I already have. I am not even sure I enjoy the game yet as I can't see what might help me mitigate any of the perceived problems because you are obfuscating them from me in early access.

Is there food preserving? Is there a way to provide water to my animals with the jugs of water I kept warm in the winter? I have no idea because I can get up to metal working before I see any of those things and frankly trying to get metal going the first years seems like a ridiculous set of hoops to jump through.

Can I not boil grain and like, chew it like every human has before milling?

No clue, even tried keeping enough chickens to slaughter them but you know... can't water them with all this water.

The clan maker is enjoyable but I am hard pressed to recommend a game because it has a dwarf fortress embark screen.

I'll look around for information but the wiki for this game is absolutely useless and Discord is not an acceptable place to redirect people for information. Its a chat engine, I don't want to interface with a random stranger to hope they might have the information I want.

[Philtre]

You have the option of turning off the tutorial if you want.

The tech tree is largely based on prerequisites: to make nails you need a smithy, but to make a smithy you need planks, which come from a timbery; a timbery needs iron ingots, which come from a bloomery, which requires brick; bricks come from a kiln, which requires charcoal; charcoal comes from a charcoal kiln, which requires clay; you need a hoe to dig clay, and the hoe needs straw, so you need a scythe to cut straw.

Basically, if you just follow the alerts that pop up with a "+" icon on them, you will get the major unlocks. You can then look in the Ideas panel for anything you didn't unlock; if you have the major unlocks, almost everything should be visible.

[Nokturnal]

The thing I don't like is the missing information from it. When it tells me to unlock a recipe I need 3 things I already have and a Random locked thing that gives no hint at what it is, I just have to assume it's from some sort of livestock or something I don't have.

[bulbatrs]

I like it, feels very smooth.

[Philtre]

Originally posted by Nokturnal:

The thing I don't like is the missing information from it. When it tells me to unlock a recipe I need 3 things I already have and a Random locked thing that gives no hint at what it is, I just have to assume it's from some sort of livestock or something I don't have.

In time I think all the unlocks will end up on the Wiki, for people who don't want to have to try to find every random last thing.

The possibility of a mode with all unlocks visible, or something along those lines, has been discussed on Discord, but the dev doesn't seem all too keen. In the meantime you can always ask about specific items or unlock strategies, here or on Discord.

[bricemast]

I think the tech unlock system works great, even though cheese is the highest human achievement (please tell me that was planned)

[Jagermaestro]

Originally posted by Philtre:

You have the option of turning off the tutorial if you want.

The tech tree is largely based on prerequisites: to make nails you need a smithy, but to make a smithy you need planks, which come from a timbery; a timbery needs iron ingots, which come from a bloomery, which requires brick; bricks come from a kiln, which requires charcoal; charcoal comes from a charcoal kiln, which requires clay; you need a hoe to dig clay, and the hoe needs straw, so you need a scythe to cut straw.

Basically, if you just follow the alerts that pop up with a "+" icon on them, you will get the major unlocks. You can then look in the Ideas panel for anything you didn't unlock; if you have the major unlocks, almost everything should be visible.

I feel like you didn't really take in anything I wrote .
- No where did I state a problem in turning off the tutorial. I am saying it's not a crutch for a bad unlock system.
- I stated when it works it largely is just prerequisites WHICH MEANS IT SHOULDN'T BE THERE. If I NEED ore to craft a nail and NEED a nail to craft a bench (or whatever) then why have them as tech? Just let me craft them instead of making me make 10 when I need 4 just for the sake of having a tech tree and setting arbitrary time gates through the tech tree. And when it DOESN'T WORK... take a look at fur cloak goes directly against what you are saying, there are no pre-requisite materials it's just locked behind stuff you don't need at that point just to make it time consuming.
- Following the alert pop ups is fine except I don't know when anything useful is coming. Rather than building a strategy to get something I want I just follow pop ups. Great stuff A+ game design.

Look I liked SPAZ and SPAZ 2 (I am in the minority on 2) but I am not sure the developer understands game design beyond hitting on gold with SPAZ. This game is less of an free form survival game and more of some sort of paint by numbers with half the numbers and paints hidden until you paint the right spot.

Basically if mod support doesn't end up better than Rimworld while this game does almost nothing better than Rimworld then this is just niche Rimworld. The tech tree "Learn as you Do" system is gimmicky at best and wasted time at worst where focusing on a large intertwined crafting systems with some variation in gameplay paths is far more important in differentiating this game from the slew of other games in the same genre.

Scottish Highlands is already pretty niche and I am not sure beyond kilts what the point of that choice is either.

[miauukisu]

I think the first issue here is a misunderstanding between unlocking knowledge and unlocking tools to do things ...Folk already know how to do things, but how would you craft nails without having iron ore?
Ok, fur cloaks unlocking after sack clothing does take some knowledge of real world clothesmaking to be obvious, but on the other paw I am pretty sure that complaints for having to make needles and thread before making either sack clothing or fur clothing would be as loud as complaints for fur unlocking are at the moment... (As it is, sewing simple sacks means that you made the tools to sew).

I've played some colony sims before too, and in most of them the arbitrarily made research requirements to unlock stuff in research trees with knowing the whole tree beforehand is boring.

When it comes to wiki being not good, consider how short time from EA has been. Writing a comprehensive wiki doesn't happen instantly - and with game being made by one single developer, I for one at least prefer getting bugs fixed and new content added instead of getting a polished wiki instructions on everything, or no interesting new stuff being found whilst playing because everything has been explained before I've even played first day of game.
Everyone is entitled to their opinions, but remember that it means that those who disagree with you may be just as right as you are ;)

[The Former]

I appreciate it, but that's just me I suppose.

[The Former]

Originally posted by Jagermaestro:

Basically if mod support doesn't end up better than Rimworld while this game does almost nothing better than Rimworld then this is just niche Rimworld. The tech tree "Learn as you Do" system is gimmicky at best and wasted time at worst where focusing on a large intertwined crafting systems with some variation in gameplay paths is far more important in differentiating this game from the slew of other games in the same genre.

Scottish Highlands is already pretty niche and I am not sure beyond kilts what the point of that choice is either.

Fully disagree. Just a few things it does better than Rimworld, with or without mods (certainly without):

- Atmosphere.
- Production chains.
- Colony growth. (Rimworld throws new pawns at you randomly, which is required for its pacing decision of "expendable colonists", but it feels unnatural. Colony growth feels natural here.)
- Survival simulation. Right now the only place Rimworld has it beat is hediffs, which might include sickness simulation, jury's out on that one. Literally every other aspect - in particular, the environmental aspects - Clanfolks take the cake in.
- Pawn ownership. Try telling your pawns in Rimworld that a weapon or meal is only for specific colonists. Try telling them that only X, Y, and Z colonists can use a specific weapon or workplace.
- Construction. I appreciate that I can make wattle and daub with literal wattle and daub. In Rimworld, the best you'd be able to do is mod a "daub wall" material fashioned at a workstation with wood and clay which would be kind of ridiculous tbh. I also appreciate that when I construct a brick wall, I actually need material that holds the bricks together, too.

[VTitanV]

I really like the game how it is.

[Kron1K]

I love the tech system. Your post made less and less sense the more I read it. Calm down.

[Cmdr Wispa]

Agree. The transparency with the tech system is god aweful. There really needs to be a better way of showing this

[CaesarAlbino]

I disliked it at first but i'm starting to like it. The only aspect i didn't like was that for some techs you need to have an specific number of something to unlock it, like with needing to have 50 mushroom in order to unlock the mushroom drier. I felt it at little arbitrary.

[Fimbultyr]

I totally understand the the OP. The syste just works as a time barrier. I have to follow the tech path, i cant choose dofferent paths, like i could in rimworld. even if i neither need a specific tech nor want it, i have to go this path. Which is especially cumbersome, if i hae to blind guess some layouts for rooms. This way i have to rebuilt so much.
It would help greatly, if the tech a least gives me a whole bunch of productions, like the moment when you get the stuff for baking.
maybe just add things like Fishing (level 1,2,3 ect) which are open the moment a villager reaches a specific level in this field .

The system as it is right now is just annoying, because i either reorganize all all the time (and reorganisation isnt fun with this UI) or memorize the tree to plan ahead, which is just a pain in the ass.

[Alfhons]

i agree with the op on this, the tech system is very unnecessary, there are things like toilets that are locked by 11 tech levels and should be unlocked from the start, just unnecessary.