[SPOILER] Regarding Late-game Experience

[Canis Minor]

After experiencing over 130 hours of gameplay (I had to pause due to a save file bug and am waiting for an official fix), I have unlocked all achievements and technologies. I feel it's time to discuss the late-game experience. Microtopia has a solid foundation and framework, but the base game lacks new mechanisms and creativity in the T2 late-game and T3 stages.

It mostly just increases numbers and materials, without adding special units like mining ants and chemical-resistant ants. The advanced ant units in the late game essentially only offer extended survival time and become more versatile. However, due to the non-recoverable nature of acid, their cost-effectiveness is quite low. I couldn't find any scenarios where using them was absolutely necessary. And I hope that the late-game units don't have comprehensive five-dimensional improvements, but rather maximize a single specific characteristic. Moreover, the T3 eventual infinite-lifespan units make colony management meaningless.It's better to upgrade the initial 4 sentinels rather than producing them infinitely.

New islands don't introduce many new mechanics and gameplay elements - unlike Factorio's Space Age where each planet offers completely different design approaches, allowing players to create distinct production lines based on ecological characteristics. In Microtopia, only the radiation island introduces new mechanics, but currently, the unreasonable fungus collection values lead to poor experience. The lasted island directly providing infinite resource and numerous high-level energy spheres also disrupts the previous production balance, feeling too crude.

Through recycling ants, you obtained infinite iron; through recycling two-in-one mega digger ants, you obtained infinite copper; through crystal powder, you obtained infinite glass. Using these infinite resources, by recycling T1 breeding ants, you obtained infinite gold. Combined with the infinite stone mines on the island and renewable plants, resin eventually became infinite as well. With T3 infinite-lifespan units , this led to the complete collapse of the resource system, making everything infinite. You don't need to do anything anymore - no collecting, no feeding, no hatching, no production...

The overflow of science points and ant nuptial flight points in the late game has no place to be consumed, which leads to players no longer needing the corresponding production lines. If only they could be continuously consumed in some way, like the white science packs and infinite technologies from the Factorio 1.0 era.

I hope this game can support mods. While it might be too early to discuss mods at this stage, if players could add more recipes, resource types, logic gates, or even new ecosystems for the late game, it could enrich the endgame experience. As discussed in previous posts, features like harvesting fungus from poisoned late-stage ants could greatly improve the experience and add gameplay variety. Currently, although late-stage poisoning doubles speed, I haven't found any use cases besides unlocking achievements.

I'm not sure if the development team has a future update roadmap after this period of intensive bug fixes. I really enjoy the T1 and early T2 gameplay experience in this game. It would be fantastic if they could enrich the late-game gameplay and endgame content. If there are DLCs in the future, I would be willing to pay for expanded content.

btw, I was a long-term player of Screeps. Although it's a different type of game, the life management mechanism is similar in principle. I hope this can provide more inspiration for the late-game content. such as the respawn mechanism of infinite minerals, the collection, production and consumption of end-game compounds. Buff units and hero units, etc.

[Fwiffo]

Combined with the infinite stone mines on the island

Can you elaborate? I have 2 concrete islands, but I haven't seen any infinite sources on them so far.

[Canis Minor]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Fwiffo:

Combined with the infinite stone mines on the island

Can you elaborate? I have 2 concrete islands, but I haven't seen any infinite sources on them so far.

the fifth ecology type, unlock by ancient island

[Canis Minor]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Fwiffo:

Combined with the infinite stone mines on the island

Can you elaborate? I have 2 concrete islands, but I haven't seen any infinite sources on them so far.

The stone reserves in the cement pillars are infinite.

[Chicago Ted]

While the second and third islands aren't as impactful as Space Age planets, they do have some twists. I'd say the second one, making you think about inter-island logistics is quite impactful. For me, the third island was a cluster of small islands, forcing a very different set of designs, but I think that might be different per seed.

[//Pressure]

You seem to be one of the only ones to be able to answer this for me, how does the puffer work? I built it, but have no prompt and nothing happened during the nuptial, little confused if I'm missing something