Pause Button

[Ugh]

Can we get a pause button

[martiño]

You can press Esc to pause. If you mean a button that allows you to pause and move the camera around we feel like the game has more tension now without it :)

[Radio Russ]

Ya know I was just looking for this. I like that you made a choice to keep the intensity of the game up. Even though I want a pause button for planning, I approve of your choice.

[Cheiromancer]

I'd like a pause button for planning, too. I hate it when a layout doesn't work because of a tiny placement error.

Maybe make it an option for 'easy mode'?

Or maybe make it unlock after most (or all?) of the milestones for a planet have been unlocked. It will then give replay value to the game. Lots of folks who succeeded with a sloppy base will try again if they can micromanage everything.

[Boneidle001]

I dont think a pause button should be added. Its an active colony you can just pause real life while you make adjustments so why should you be able to pause your colonists life.

I see pausing as a cheat if you have to go for a Jimmy Riddle or a Tom Tit then the esc key is plenty otherwise I think that all construction and that should be done while the game is active.

[ImperatorElite]

Originally posted by Boneidle001:

I dont think a pause button should be added. Its an active colony you can just pause real life while you make adjustments so why should you be able to pause your colonists life.

I see pausing as a cheat if you have to go for a Jimmy Riddle or a Tom Tit then the esc key is plenty otherwise I think that all construction and that should be done while the game is active.

Plus you can always let your colony go about it's merry business while you plan ahead and get ideas then simply, reload the last save before you did that then build away. I love the multiple saves this game does, can always go back to a part of the game.

[Vercinger]

Originally posted by martiño:

You can press Esc to pause. If you mean a button that allows you to pause and move the camera around we feel like the game has more tension now without it :)

That's truly an extremely stupid thing to say. I know being rude means you're likely to go defensive and not consider changing your opinion, but I can't help it. I'm shocked that this braindead design thinking is still around in 2016. Plenty of older games did it and it killed much of the enjoyment from playing them. Rollercoaster Tycoon 1 and 2, Rails Across America, I'm looking at you! (Along with others where it killed enjoyment so much, I don't even remember them!) Startopia would be unplayable if not for the cheat that lets players slow down the game, and so would Locomotion if not for the generous hero who made an autopause tool for it.

What you've failed to grasp is that tension quickly becomes inversely proportional to players' enjoyment of slow-paced strategy games. Like yours. The tension of resource management and city/colony/base/station/transport layout is sufficient in strategy games where the focus is thinking and planning, not reaction time. Not being able to build while paused is a "feature" that should be reserved for fast-paced, high-tension, actions-per-minute RTS games. And there's little overlap between the players who enjoy that kind of high-tension gameplay and those who enjoy low-tension management games. So by making a high-tension management game, you're alienating the people who enjoy management games so as to pander to people who mostly don't care that your game exists.

I'm glad I found out about this before buying the game. I might not have noticed until after the 2 hour mark and thus would not be able to get a refund. Anyway, I'll be checking the game's community hub once in a while to see if you've changed your mind. In the meantime, you've lost a customer.

[City Builder]

Voice my opinion too: Pause button please.

I was quite surprised that there is no pause button. Please add one.

While you're at it, please add a "save as" button so that I can save over my old save and not just keep re-writing new saves like an idiot.

[donnietr]

As for Vercinger man, If you or anyone else is so bloody anal that they have to PAUSE a game to get the PERFECT placement of a storage room then this isnt your game anyways. There is minimal need for a pause button that the esc key doesnt provide. Lost a valunale customer huh? Big opinion of your self huh? The guy you so graciously insulted is the Developer and closely tied to this game. He has listened and changed a lot of little buggy things since this launched. We are just now getting the ability to make our own levels. There has been mod support for a whiile now. So how did you stumble into this conversation and not see all the other posts? Troll maybe?
Resave over a save is surely important huh? If disk space is so important to you just erase the save games. I dont even understand that issue at all.....

[kelmenwong]

the game is missing an "obvious" general pause button, practically most games provide this.
when a game has speed up and down feature, a pause is generally included.

Esc does do the trick, only by discover it through in-game experience

this can be put into the faq

[towerator]

While I won't be as harsh as Vercinger, I think this is a necessity too. I recently started to play on the S-class, and it feels really necessary, especially on the first day in which you have to think about the layout, and as you know the beginning is a speedrun if you don't want everyone to die horribly. So, I layed quickly and inefficiently, and now that the base grew this is becoming an issue.

So, at the very least, how about a "preview" of the map, on which the landing site is shown, as well as the landscape?

[donnietr]

As you grow in experience building bases, leave as much room between buildings as possible. That way when you have reached stable you can go back and enlarge the old buildings. I always put my power stuff in a corner so i have expanding room from the initial landing area.
I just fail to see the nessesity of this pause button. Especially if you just need it at the begining....

[City Builder]

Originally posted by donnietr:

As for Vercinger man, If you or anyone else is so bloody anal that they have to PAUSE a game to get the PERFECT placement of a storage room then this isnt your game anyways. There is minimal need for a pause button that the esc key doesnt provide. Lost a valunale customer huh? Big opinion of your self huh? The guy you so graciously insulted is the Developer and closely tied to this game. He has listened and changed a lot of little buggy things since this launched. We are just now getting the ability to make our own levels. There has been mod support for a whiile now. So how did you stumble into this conversation and not see all the other posts? Troll maybe?
Resave over a save is surely important huh? If disk space is so important to you just erase the save games. I dont even understand that issue at all.....

It's not a matter of disk space, but it is a matter of saved game cluttering up that I'm never going to use. why in the world the game makes a new save everytime that I make a save is what's as issue, it's half baked development to keep creating new save files every time that somebody presses save, it simply makes no sense at all to keep creating new saves with no ability to simply save as and keep saving over the same file if desired. Basically it's called an *option*.

A better question to you would be, why not put in a save-as function? It's a standard staple of almost every game I've ever played in my lifetime.

While I'm on my soap box, it's not for you to tell anybody that this game is not for them simply because they want something that is a staple (and which may not appeal to you) in almost every single player game (pause function) that's as silly as if I were to say that this game is not for you because it allows mods or (if it did have a pause function) to tell you it's not for you because people can pause as they desire in single player.

**Options** are a good thing for the player especially when it's **your** option that is up to bat.

[Rockfarmer]

I would also like a pause button. I havent played for a few months, but I decided to give it another go today and my frustration with the lack of pause button (where i can move the camera around and click stuff) is so overwhelming that I am here in the forums instead of actually playing the game.

I fundamentally disagree with the developers choice to remove the pause as a design option to increase the intensity/difficulty. Pause function is a staple of all builder management games for a reason. The better you get at the game, the less you need to pause. I tend to like these type of games exactly because I dont need to be stressed.

Core problems:
I cant scout the terrain before I start.
I dont feel like I have time think about my beginning moves where the colony survival is litteraly balancing on a knife edge.
I cannot plan my buildings and make good resource management calls.

Possible improvements (if the developers feels it legitimally ruins the game with a pause function):
1 - Have an 'expert' mode with no pause function (with extra achievements).
2 - Leave the game in pause after the colony ship lands with a small 'click here when ready' button. Then I can scout around, see if the terrain is to my liking, plan my start, and then start playing.

[piddlefoot]

Esc pauses it ?
I dont get it , you want a pause button so you can effectively 'cheat' time in the game, but then the game would become pretty bland as there isnt much to kill you off yet.

[BadKarma]

I also feel a pause button to scout and plan is reasonable.

I'll refrain from feeding the trolls and just say this is a management game NOT a RTS game. So how about we reserve the "tension" for the RTS type games? There'd be nothing forcing players to use said button if they feel it is "cheat" of some sort.

Regards.