Are settlement useful at all?

[erk]

The settlement I am building at the moment has 45 population, 45% happiness, 718k productivity, 240k maintenance and it produces 166 kelp sac and 16 enormous metal cogs per day...
Even if I assume the production triples after I max out the settlement it still makes no money at all, it's not even an usefull amount for early game players.
I can go to a random planet, scan a single plant and make more money than this settlement does in an entire irl day.
Is there a way to change the production? If there isn't a way then why can't I see what a settlement is going to produce beforehand, so that I can decide if it is actually worth the time?

[Dirak2012]

It's just a side mini-game, HG never intended for us to babysit them obsessively, but let them grow organically while we do other stuff.
It just a small source of extra income.

[dlzc]

You can spend 20 minutes "farming" a derelict freighter, and make back with a loss, or a gain. It depends on the system, the roll of the dice. This upgrade / update gave you more, better looking building materials. Where else in NMS can you have a base that makes you money? I've got one that compresses oxygen, and one that mines sodium, but I never visit them, because I don't really need those assets. Think of it as a freighter, stuck on the dirt in one system.

Can you abandon this community and seek out another? Say one on a bizarre / dangerous planet?

I've tried to interact with an empty one, but I don't personally see the draw, just another "family" to have to worry about. I don't visit my base on my first planet either.

[Johnny in the Clouds]

They're useful and fun too but still early days in their development. So expect them to becoming hubs full of ideas and new directions for the game. They look great and add so much atmosphere and life to the planets.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2611460690
The Korvax settlement began as a C class and has currently reached 68 population 65 happiness and 100 productivity. The settlement is now fluctuating between an S class or A depending on my Overseer decisions and resolving disputes. I think all the buildings are now complete and in extreme storms its fun to watch and 'hear' the NPCs running around with their thoughts to take shelter in the building, on the home planet.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2596351141
The four markets or bazaars built in the settlement provide high valuable crafting ingredients Less time is now spent actually collecting or making them. Simply visiting each of the Trade Terminals on site, on each visit is a quick easy alternative way to finding them elsewhere. The settlement gives me a greater choice and fun interest in how I play the game. The NPC stories are amusing and curious which is fun and now with patches, more NPCs wander around, it has all come to life in a spectacular way.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2611460925
So without any effort there is at least 60+ million units collected on almost each visit from crafting items from the markets added to those collected playing the game doing missions and exploring. Usually those ingredients are collected from raiding depots or visiting vendors at NPC Minor buildings in the landscape found using maps or signal boosters. That's a big time saver and a hugely useful benefit of Frontiers. Also three landing pads provide a constant supply of NPC landing ships to buy and sell items from. Just like at the Space Station.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2607028151

The other thing is currently the settlement economy type, creates about 24 Cogs and 15 or so Scientific Goods produced every 20 hours or so. The cogs sell for about 300K and the Scientific items often sell in Gek Trade Space Stations for upwards of 500k depending on their rate of exchange or the system I chose to sell them in. The system is an industrial economy I think. Other economies I guess produce different items.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2605410226
It's the initial settlement, so another in a better economy may be even more lucrative. A lot of the Overseer decisions have changed the settlement traits for either better or worse productivity etc. Some amusing decisions too so its fun to return every hour hour so for a brief visit and fly off again. It's another valuable source of income and more units to spend. Next is to start other settlements in other races and economies to compare.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2607947914
I visited another settlement on a volacnic fire storm planet and was told I did not have sufficient battle experience to buy it. I've no idea what that means. Soon to find out I expect after beating off another attack by the sentinels on my planet lol
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2607028076

[Dirak2012]

I fully expect them to be ditched development-wise by HG.

[erk]

Originally posted by Dirak2012:

It's just a side mini-game, HG never intended for us to babysit them obsessively, but let them grow organically while we do other stuff.
It just a small source of extra income.

I understand that, but there is a limit to the 'small extra income'. The settlement makes 23k units per day....a single scan on a plant with a maxed scanner makes around 60k units

Originally posted by dlzc:

You can spend 20 minutes "farming" a derelict freighter, and make back with a loss, or a gain. It depends on the system, the roll of the dice. This upgrade / update gave you more, better looking building materials. Where else in NMS can you have a base that makes you money? I've got one that compresses oxygen, and one that mines sodium, but I never visit them, because I don't really need those assets. Think of it as a freighter, stuck on the dirt in one system.

Can you abandon this community and seek out another? Say one on a bizarre / dangerous planet?

I've tried to interact with an empty one, but I don't personally see the draw, just another "family" to have to worry about. I don't visit my base on my first planet either.

I don't have bases that make me money at the moment, my main income is scanning fauna and it doesn't look like I need more money than that.
I wouldn't mind managing a settlement if at least it made useful products or maybe if you could decide the products it made by 'choosing' particular buildings to build.

I guess I'm gonna have to look for a better one

[Grimlock]

So far the only point Ive found is the fun that ensues when you get to the point where every new building project removes a previous one...

[dashiichi]

Settlements are useful as a response to a small but very vocal group of players who endlessly insisted "We wANt CitIEs or viLLaGes or seTtlEMentS!". They're adjacent to, and may overlap with, the group who cried "wE WanT To aDapT thE CutE CreaTURes!".

Both Settlements and Companions can be safely ignored if they're not your thing. That hatching egg at the end of Expedition 3? Deleted it; no regrets.

[-🗲 Archie 🗲-]

The short answer is no.

Honestly Settlements offer nothing game-play wise, it's a minor distraction and I don't see it evolving beyond that point. Just like Companions, BeatByte and those big towers they added a year ago.

[Grimmslayer73]

Originally posted by Johnny in the Clouds:

They're useful and fun too but still early days in their development. So expect them to becoming hubs full of ideas and new directions for the game.

I wish this were true but HG never follows up on this kind of stuff. Just look at every other thing they added.... exo-craft, living ships, companions, those archive structures, freighters..... Settlements will be no different. They dump content into the game and forever leave it in an alpha state with no further development.

[Pythos]

Wow!!! Mostly a bunch of grumpy Mcgrumpersons that have a very narrow view of these. The one positive or at least hopeful comment here has many of the points of how I see these. I DO think these will be improved over time by HG, and will likely have more story, ability, and earning potential added.
Bottom line though is you don't have to utilize any of these things if you don't want to. I just dislike when people crap on things others MAY like.

[japp_02]

With settlements you make 50-50 decisions, and you must be pathetic to not get your settlement running, you just need to pick decisions that increase productivity so you can pay-off your debt, that's all to it. You asked if they are useful, no, they are just there to make you play with them, in no way are they a requirement to advance in the game, however once you are out of debt the surplus production will yield you some items that you can sell elsewhere, and again, for not getting there you must play in a pathetic way, no offense.

[Mr. Bufferlow]

It has the same purpose of pretty much everything in the game. It requires your occasional notice and action. It is entertaining...at least for a short time. It fulfills the requests by many that the game should have cities or towns that you can interact with and where the NPCs feel "alive" (subject to your expectations).

It shares the same qualities of the nutrition system, critter farming, exocraft, and ByteBeats. More to come!

[erk]

Originally posted by japp_02:

With settlements you make 50-50 decisions, and you must be pathetic to not get your settlement running, you just need to pick decisions that increase productivity so you can pay-off your debt, that's all to it. You asked if they are useful, no, they are just there to make you play with them, in no way are they a requirement to advance in the game, however once you are out of debt the surplus production will yield you some items that you can sell elsewhere, and again, for not getting there you must play in a pathetic way, no offense.

I don't know what you are talking about, I clearly went out of debt already since I can tell which products my settlement makes. The items it yields are valued around 25k units per day in fact.

Originally posted by Pythos:

Wow!!! Mostly a bunch of grumpy Mcgrumpersons that have a very narrow view of these. The one positive or at least hopeful comment here has many of the points of how I see these. I DO think these will be improved over time by HG, and will likely have more story, ability, and earning potential added.
Bottom line though is you don't have to utilize any of these things if you don't want to. I just dislike when people crap on things others MAY like.

When I play a game I play the features present right now, not those that may come later.
I asked a question since I spent quite some time managing my settlement to find out at the end it produces next to nothing, you may understand why it's not exactly a good game design at the moment.
I would understand if that was not the main point of a settlement, but at the moment that is the only point from what I see.
The only interaction you can have with your settlement is making decisions to improve its stats, which only exist to produce more/less products. Nothing else is interactable.

[japp_02]

Originally posted by erk:

I don't know what you are talking about,

I've answered your title question. That's what's about.

Originally posted by erk:

I clearly went out of debt (...)

But then you got the grasp of what's happening. There is not much else. If you are not convinced, then read here:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/275850/discussions/0/2963922521567840843/