Settlements: A good idea, but really needs tweaks.

[maestro]

Okay, so.. now we have settlements and all that jazz, and they have a mechanic where they have a maintenance cost, and a production value, and these progress while the player is not playing the game.

Did nobody at HG see the problem with this + the fact that it takes absolutely forever for anything to happen at the Settlement?

I started mine yesterday, about noon-ish. My settlement started at 40-45k in debt.

Now, I was expecting a fixer-upper, that work would need to be done to this settlement to get it up and running, to make it profitable, and that's how these kinds of things always work. From games like Harvest Moon to Stardew Valley, to just about any other game that has this kind of content, you always inherit/buy/take control of something that is not profitable to start with, and with some hard work on your part, you can make it profitable assuming you've some smarts to know what to do.

So, I dust off my hands and get to work. I built my admin building, hey that's fine and all, kinda need that. There's a dispute that I resolve, couldn't see where either was in the wrong, or the right, one of those morally grey choices. What struck me as odd, as the choice didn't seem to matter at all. Nothing happened as a result of this choice.

Then, a building option came up. At the time, my settlement was producing 118k and spending 350k. The building choice was a marketplace which adds +48k or some recreation type thing that added +6 happiness. Hey, I want to make my colonists happy, but... we're losing money like crazy. Gotta get above water first, and then worry about the pleasure. Frontier life is hard, and it's not the cushy leisurely life they had back at home, right?

So while building that building, one final thing came up, a mission to send settlers out to research fauna for something. I don't remember what. It would cost 47k. I didn't like the idea of spending money, but I figured a one-time fee, why not. Try it anyhow. So I did, and I got this "mission". I stayed online the whole time, mostly building a base nearby so I would have an exit teleporter (which the settlement lacks, any particular reason why?). When the timer was up, the mission disappeared and .... nothing. That's... weird. I blew 47k for nothing? Awesome.

So I finished the marketplace, and everything was "Running Smoothly". This was at 10PM and I had to get up at 4AM to go to work this morning so I logged off and went to bed. Got home from work at around 1:30PM and checked, new building option. No choices, just a yes/no to a +4? +6? population building. Well, why not. Might as well, right?

Currently waiting on that to finish, the last part should finish building here at 9:30.

Here's the thing: My debt in that amount of time has gone from 40k to 280k in the matter of ~32 hours. That's 240k over 32 hours. If we take off the 50k from that mission, that's 190k in 32 hours, or 5k per hour, or 120k per day.

I know for a fact that even if they offered me some magical building that would give me +200k production per day, it's going to be at least another day before I can even think about profit, and by then, that 280k debt will now be 400k. This is assuming the maintenance costs don't spike when the new building is complete, which I half expect it will.

What I'm trying to say here, is that there's fixer-uppers, and then there's "a money sink so ridiculous, you're better off abandoning it".

When compared to other mechanics in the game, for example, Frigate Missions, these settlements seem laughable by comparison. For about 5-6 million credits, you can get 4 C-class frigates (+ the one you start with) and if you're patient with the missions, you can find 1-star missions that your fleet can handle. It only takes a couple real-life days to pay back the investment, and the time until your next interaction with it is far more predictable. Also, going out and getting the frigates is something you do in real time while playing the game.

If you want to improve your frigate fleet, you actively go out and find frigates to recruit. You can also do derelict freighters to find upgrade modules for your freighter to improve your frigate fleet as well.

The Settlements?

There's absolutely nothing you can do, but wait a few hours, boot the game up, and pray that something wants your attention that actually affects the settlement. You can't work towards making it better, you can't go out and recruit NPCs, you can't build buildings until the settlement asks you for it (and even then it's a 6 hour wait split into 3 2-hour segments), you can't do anything for the settlement actively. It's 99% passive. I'd love to do something to actually interact with my settlement, but there's nothing there. A bunch of buildings I can walk around in, I can talk to the NPCs, none of which ask me for anything, none of which have anything of note to say.

Give me something to actually do with this Settlement of mine, other than log on every 2 hours to check the progress of the building, and/or log on when I get up/get home from work to see if anything new pops up on my notifications and/or check how big my debt has gotten, and only stare at the debt counter going up in complete helplessness as there's nothing I can do for those poor people.

Now, granted I don't want there to be something nagging me every 5 minutes while I'm trying to play the game, but if I've been not playing for 1, 2, 3+ hours and I boot the game up and it's still "Running Smoothly", then there's something wrong with the system. There needs to be more interaction than that.

So, my suggestions:

1). Building times should be 15-30 minutes per part.
2). Events need to happen more often, perhaps queue up to 3 events (then they stop spawning once the queue is full), and make them random, 45-90 minutes between events. If you're logged off for more than 12 hours, add a 4th in the queue and you can do them all back to back and you're done for the day.
3). The rewards seem quite low. Maybe this gets better later, if so, maybe smooth out how long it takes to get a settlement into actual profit mode? It shouldn't take an RL week+ just to see any kind of return on your investments when there's a gazillion other things to do in the game instead that are far more worthy of your time.

Don't get me wrong here, I like the idea of Settlements, I just think they need some tweaks to make them better.

[redbeard]

From what I've seen (from my own experience and from watching others on YT), you get 2 building options and 2 settler interactions (all random); after that, no interactions (or at least, nothing that I've seen in several days). My base is currently hemorrhaging money, with nothing happening to fix that issue. Hoping HG will update this to make it more interesting for players.

[japp_02]

TLDR, no, it doesn't need tweaks, it needs bug fixing - URGENTLY before i throw the game away for the next monthes...

[jlrmarin]

"Tweaks"

I've had no settlement issues so far but LOL everything else. So many bugs, and the game runs worse. Objects are loading slower, and my game ran so smooth before.

[maestro]

Originally posted by JJ Idaho:

I think this is meant to be enjoyed over the long term.

1. we already have credits piling up with nothing to spend them on

2. we already have extremely easy ways to quickly earn credits

what's wrong with something that takes a little time? My settlement is about to break 2 million debt and has a daily maintenance of 1 million (it's S class). my production is currently around 350,000 daily... I ain't even worried, it'll surely sort out eventually...

To add to the fun, maybe there's a bankruptcy path and they throw you out! :)

I wouldn't mind spending awhile to get the settlement up and running, but... again... it's 99.9% waiting and there being absolutely nothing to actually *do* with the settlement.

And sure, credits are a kind of lame reward, I always thought that. I don't mind getting some, but at the same time, I'd rather get other stuff, random materials, random items, etc. That's why I love the updated Frigate Missions so much, you get so much random crap that some of it is actually rather useful, I love it when they bring back Larval Cores, hey, free nanites! Sometimes up to 2,000 of them. Frick yeah, I'll take all of those you'll give me, thanks.

But here's the problem: You don't get *anything* (units, items, etc) out of a settlement until you clear its debt, which from what you've posted, seems impossible.

[TruebornJester]

Haven't gotten up to settlements yet. How does debt work. Aren't there people out there with billions in credits. Can they pump their own money into these settlements when they start one or is the players units separate?

[redbeard]

Originally posted by TruebornJester:

Haven't gotten up to settlements yet. How does debt work. Aren't there people out there with billions in credits. Can they pump their own money into these settlements when they start one or is the players units separate?

Nopers, can't use our units to "fix" settlements, they have to do it themselves

[RustyNail]

Originally posted by JJ Idaho:

I think this is meant to be enjoyed over the long term.

1. we already have credits piling up with nothing to spend them on

2. we already have extremely easy ways to quickly earn credits

what's wrong with something that takes a little time? My settlement is about to break 2 million debt and has a daily maintenance of 1 million (it's S class). my production is currently around 350,000 daily... I ain't even worried, it'll surely sort out eventually...

To add to the fun, maybe there's a bankruptcy path and they throw you out! :)

I would appear that they didn't things thru with settlements on a number of fronts. Any sort of semi-realistic model and many of us could just pay off the tiny, pocket change, sized debt of our settlement... I've got billions of units, and nothing to spend them on; so why not?
Sigh...

[LegacyXI]

So the experimental update fixed one of the issues you had the other day.

"Fixed an issue that could cause some settlements to fail to generate any decisions for their Overseer. Decisions are now expected at intervals of 15 minutes to 2 hours."

Been playing with it for awhile and I have been getting a lot more things popping up lately. Just got a expedition so I will see if anything comes from that as well.

[maestro]

Originally posted by LegacyXI:

So the experimental update fixed one of the issues you had the other day.

"Fixed an issue that could cause some settlements to fail to generate any decisions for their Overseer. Decisions are now expected at intervals of 15 minutes to 2 hours."

Been playing with it for awhile and I have been getting a lot more things popping up lately. Just got a expedition so I will see if anything comes from that as well.

Yeah, but do the queue up if you're not IN the game, or you just get 1 as soon as you log in and then nothing until you log in the next time?

It'd be nice if they'd Q up 2-3 of them. But still, having a decision every time I start the game up would be nice, I'll admit.

[LegacyXI]

Originally posted by maestro:

Originally posted by LegacyXI:

So the experimental update fixed one of the issues you had the other day.

"Fixed an issue that could cause some settlements to fail to generate any decisions for their Overseer. Decisions are now expected at intervals of 15 minutes to 2 hours."

Been playing with it for awhile and I have been getting a lot more things popping up lately. Just got a expedition so I will see if anything comes from that as well.

Yeah, but do the queue up if you're not IN the game, or you just get 1 as soon as you log in and then nothing until you log in the next time?

It'd be nice if they'd Q up 2-3 of them. But still, having a decision every time I start the game up would be nice, I'll admit.

From what I have seen you get one and do it then the timer starts for the next. I have not seen anything that shows they queue up beyond one, but have had one waiting when getting back on after 30 mins+ of not playing after completing one.

[maestro]

Originally posted by LegacyXI:

From what I have seen you get one and do it then the timer starts for the next. I have not seen anything that shows they queue up beyond one, but have had one waiting when getting back on after 30 mins+ of not playing after completing one.

It's nice to hear that it does seem like the timer ticks while you're not playing, so that there'll be one waiting for you upon booting the game up, so at least we have that.

That will probably fix... a decent portion of what's wrong with the settlements.

Now, hopefully they add some stuff that will let you actually get out of debt.

[redbeard]

played for about 4 hours straight after doing the last build at my settlement, never saw a timer during that entire time

[LegacyXI]

Just finished a expedition and it did complete with rewards. Could be pretty easy to miss as it didn't stay up for long.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2593820140

[Mr. Bufferlow]

I am on day four of the settlement and already making more than I am spending. Probably take about three or four more days to clear all the debt. I am only making 50,000 more than my costs each day. My accrued debt is right at 150,000 and each day it adds the costs and profits for that day.

Just keep plugging along and it will work out. It is essentially, frigate missions on land. You slowly increase your buildings (frigates) and the negatives start getting buffed out as your settlement rank goes up. Mine was still at B class today.

If you thought this was going to be interactive sim city...but were you wrong. It is just frigate missions on land.

[Grimmslayer73]

Is that really all there is too this?
Click on terminal.
Deposit resources in different terminal.
Wait.
Repeat until city is out of debt and maxed out. Congrats!! You built a settlement!!