So what's the point?

[BladeofSharpness]

My question is provocative on purpose... I don't feel there is any goal, except the very distant one of building a rocket. I have ample food, water and oxygen to last dozens upon dozens of cycle. Why would I want to build everywhere rooms, passages, ladders, etc. ?

I just don't feel the need.

And it seems no event will happen as in Rimworld. So basically it's me against a passive system?

[Bokonon]

I highly doubt you have enough food, water and oxygen to last "dozens and dozens" of cycles, what cycle are you on now?

The threats in ONI are not like the threats in RW. In RW, Randy is your threat, in ONI YOU are the threat :)

[Ellip]

There is a reason to build everything, its just subtle in the fact that the resource in an asteroid is finite therefore you will eventually run out of things until you find a new source to exploit.

For instants I can easily setup a farm with mealwood, bathroom with outhouses, and oxygen with diffusors early game but eventually you will run out of resource to keep this going. Therefore you are push to find new sources for all of this and finding and exploiting these source is what bring the gameplay because they all have their challenges and are not as easy as the initial setup I mention before.

Finding water for oxygen since you ran out of algae mean finding a way to move the water and cool the oxygen.

Finding a new food source since you ran out of dirt for mealwood or mush bars means learning and setting new farms to cater to your new crop growing conditions.

Building a new bathroom means learning and building a close loop and water filtration which needs power, sand, and possibly sanitation(if you worry about germs at all).

This is all the basic stuff before you get into the harder things like base cooling or energy production and management or oil processing and plastic production.

This game is all about the cycle of solving a problem which cause 2 more problems to solve. Some people find the fun in problem solving which this game gives to you to figure out.

[Alenvire]

Entropy and attrition will get you if you sit still for to long. ONI gives a false sense of security. If your not expanding, your dying. If your expanding wrong, your dying faster. Its rather hard and takes time to actually create sustainable loops. Usually, your destroying one resource while creating others, and a net loss. Take the electrolyzers. Your gaining tons of 02 and you can power them with their own hydrogen production if made right. However, your slowly killing off your water supply. You may have a supply for 100 cycles, but, probably not. Its a net loss scenario.

[droopy balls]

The point is to build a system so self-sustaining, you could leave the game running for hours without consequence. This applies to food, water, oxygen, and heat. Or you could just sit in the center of the asteroid and putter around, it's your choice ;)

[Alenvire]

Originally posted by Ellip:

This is all the basic stuff before you get into the harder things like base cooling or energy production and management or oil processing and plastic production.

This game is all about the cycle of solving a problem which cause 2 more problems to solve. Some people find the fun in problem solving which this game gives to you to figure out.

This exactly. I forgot to mention that since your always producing heat and energy is never destroyed, you have to fight the inevitable heat death before it spirals out of control. Until you find a sustainable way of cooling everything. Heck, even plants produce heat, as do the animals. Or making mush. Its all causing heat that does not just fade. It just spreads. Its a slow permanent gain.

[gussmed]

When you first start playing, it's a constant battle to learn how to manage the oxygen, food, and heat issues before your spiral out of control. None of the early game solutions to these are sustainable. Oxygen comes from algae in the early game, and algae's finite. Food comes from dirt or water, and you can't keep up with demand for those until late in the game. Heat will cook you eventually if you don't advance.

In time you can solve all of those. Oxygen comes from water in the mid to late game, instead of algae. There are renewable sources of water, but they require processing, particularly for heat. Food can come from water, but without cooling it will kill your plants. Steam turbines can generally solve any heat problem, but they're something of an advanced mechanic that requires time to master.

Energy's a secondary problem that you also have to solve. Initially you don't need much, but to reach a sustainable colony in other areas, you generally need oil processing and oil wells.

Generally speaking, an experienced player can reach true stability well before reaching space, but it's not trivial, and there are lots of ways to crash along the way.

Space opens up new possibilities. It's not so much access to renewable resources that are otherwise finite, so much as new machines possible with materials only available from space. Efficient oil-to-petroleum or oil-to-natural gas processing is much more doable with thermium. Supercoolant makes the production of liquid hydrogen for hydrogen rockets viable.

By the time you've launched a hydrogen rocket, you've "solved" the game. At that point it's a matter of self-imposed goals.

[fresky]

wait no this game breaks the entropy rule so heat is easy to manage

[Alenvire]

If you play long enough you learn its not that easy to manage. All the heat you pull from somewhere goes back some other place. It can be managed but you need easily renewable sources. Best so far is weezewort and ice loops.

[Defektiv]

It's a game. The goal is to play it during your downtime because life sucks and games let you do other things in different worlds without large leaps in quantum and other physics that haven't even been discovered yet, that you would need to achieve a reasonably similar result in our own reality. Plus you can save your game to go back into.. ugh.. real life again, so you can make more money to further fund your escapes into virtual environments during your downtime because life sucks. Point is.. it's a game. Play to explore, explore to play. React to the things the game does and allows. And when it no longer feels fun anymore, restart the process with another game that does. Repeat until die. Life complete.

[Bokonon]

Originally posted by Defektiv:

It's a game. The goal is to play it during your downtime because life sucks and games let you do other things in different worlds without large leaps in quantum and other physics that haven't even been discovered yet, that you would need to achieve a reasonably similar result in our own reality. Plus you can save your game to go back into.. ugh.. real life again, so you can make more money to further fund your escapes into virtual environments during your downtime because life sucks. Point is.. it's a game. Play to explore, explore to play. React to the things the game does and allows. And when it no longer feels fun anymore, restart the process with another game that does. Repeat until die. Life complete.

I really like this whole comment a lot, especially the "quantum and other physics that haven't even been discovered yet". Physics will do it's thing whether we understand it or not, or whether we believe in it or not. Some people think we "invented" physics but as you so correctly state, we just discovered it, and we're not done yet. Physics rocks!!

[fresky]

DUDE IM JUST POINTING OUT THAT ENTROPY RULE IS BROKEN IN THIS GAME

[Bokonon]

Originally posted by FRESKY:

DUDE IM JUST POINTING OUT THAT ENTROPY RULE IS BROKEN IN THIS GAME

[snuggleform]

Originally posted by FRESKY:

DUDE IM JUST POINTING OUT THAT ENTROPY RULE IS BROKEN IN THIS GAME

The entropy rule is not broken - it is not a closed system you live in. You can vent things out to space, and also bring in resources from space.

[Defektiv]

How could you question entropy when you're endlessly printing new mass from the piece of equipment you start the game with? Seems obvious.

[Patch]

Originally posted by BladeofSharpness:

My question is provocative on purpose... I don't feel there is any goal, except the very distant one of building a rocket. I have ample food, water and oxygen to last dozens upon dozens of cycle. Why would I want to build everywhere rooms, passages, ladders, etc. ?

I just don't feel the need.

And it seems no event will happen as in Rimworld. So basically it's me against a passive system?

So why play the game ?