Has anyone launched a rocket?

[Hyomoto]

Spaced Out! is all about rockets, or at least most of the new content revolves around them. However, checking the Steam achievements I notice only 3% of players have launched one. It is, then, no surprise that less than 1% of players have completed The Great Escape. In fact, the other day I sat down and said, "I'm going to build a rocket!" I still haven't.

More players have survived to cycle 365 than launched a rocket. So, we have an entire DLC dedicated to a feature that most players haven't used? I honestly thought it was just me, but looking at that stat no one has launched a rocket.

The stats don't lie: of the ten thousand people playing right now, 320 have built ONE rocket. Is it because the game is actually really poorly designed? Yes! Proof of that is everywhere. Still, has anyone launched a rocket? If so, how? And if not, why? I think it's because the lack of accessible solutions to early game problems leads most players to adopt a playstyle which minimizes problems, and thus rockets are a feature for hardcore players who are comfortable with managing several poorly designed resource chains. However, I am genuinely interested (and annoyed) by this, why haven't you launched a rocket?

[MacFeely]

I have yet to launch a rocket for several reasons, but the biggest reason is I get stuck in a cycle of not having enough food or oxygen, even though I only have about 10 dupes at cycle 150. This is my second try in Spaced Out!, and my 4th colony overall.

It also seems like basic resources are lacking on the smaller starting biomes in Spaced Out!. I'm trying to get enough Steel so I can make certain items, and finding Iron is rare, I've nearly carved out to all the outlying Abyssalite.

There is a transporter to another biome that has lots of oil, but hardly any water to use to pump it out. So maybe I just don't know all the little tricks yet. Maybe one day I'll get that rocket launched!

[AlexMBrennan]

The stats don't lie:

Steam achievements are notoriously unreliable - do you honestly expect me to believe only 20% of players survive until cycle 100? You literally do not need to do anything to get that achievement, and yet 80% of players have failed to do so?

More players have survived to cycle 365 than launched a rocket. So, we have an entire DLC dedicated to a feature that most players haven't used?

Yes, the point of the DLC is to make rocketry (a difficult end game feature which no one uses) more accessible. It's almost as if they are aware of the fact that the end game feature no one uses is rarely used.

why haven't you launched a rocket?

Because there isn't any point - early game is fun and exciting but late game is best played in sandbox mode because it just gets tedious (e.g. one rocket launch gets me enough isoresin for one insulation insulated pipe)

[Atrophus]

One whole rocket launch for a single tile of piping? Lmao for real, I imagined reneweable resources from rocket expeditions would end up more abundant

Ye Steam Achievements are pretty unreliable. Barely anyone bothered to get a dupe to level 3 Art and do a painting too. Only 12% dug a tunnel down until they hit oil. It should be seen in the context of other achievements.

As a newbie, I restarted over like six times because I screwed something up fundamentally. Currently Im on Cycle 120 and have spent until here just to completely dig out the two swamp biomes left and right and consolidate all polluted and clean water into a giant storage basin beneath my base. Steel, SPOM, Plastic and all that fancy stuff still to come, although Franklin Johns tutorials (or what his name is) gave me the oversight I needed. I think grasping the mid and endgame mechanics by yourself is pretty hard, but once you get an understanding how copied designs work one can come up with new circuitries and ways of automation oneself

[Bob]

Launching rockets in Spaced Out is supposed to be easier than in the base game.

In the base game, I usually launch my first rocket by steaming some water with some regolith. As long I use steam powered rockets, I don't bother too much with automation.

In Spaced Out, space is much more easily accessible (eg: you can use CO2 as propeller. Not liquid or solid CO2, just the normal gassy variety) That being said, I think Klei haven't reach their goal yet for it takes longer to have useful rockets: it's easier to launch a rocket, but there is no point just to launch rockets anymore and colonising a new asteroid needs some serious planning.

"managing several poorly designed resource chains"
Huh? What's wrong with these?

[Shame]

You are absolutely right. Now you gotta ask who has actually finished the game without asking for help or looking up any guides/tutorials?

[Strygald]

Launching rockets in DLC is a lot easier... there are no meteors, you can make rockets out of small amounts of base metals, you only need 1 skill point in rocketry to fly it(well the dupe does), requires very little resources to get to the 3rd asteroid, even designing your rocket is easier.

[Strygald]

Originally posted by Bob:

but there is no point just to launch rockets anymore and colonising a new asteroid needs some serious planning.

maybe if you could link your colonies by building teleporters and resources teleporters ala stargate... right now it's just visit another asteroid, grab all the goodies and then go home and forget it exists.

[Hyomoto]

Originally posted by Bob:

"managing several poorly designed resource chains"
Huh? What's wrong with these?

The game often lacks useful or expected tools to solve simple issues which makes late game features unappealing because it, to quote AlexMBrennan above, "is best played in sandbox mode because it just gets tedious."

That's my theory about why no one launches rockets: basic survival is, ultimately, fairly easy to learn and apply. However, the resource chains needed to move into the late game add more problems than they solve, and are often needlessly complex. Two things in ONI demonstrate this quality best: the liquid airlock, and the electrolyzer. In the former, the game HAS a perfect airlock solution that relies on exploiting the engine and yet the developers offer no alternative. I guess the idea is its okay to cheese it, but god forbid a useful alternative exist. In the latter, the gas must be expelled into open air thus necessitating additional complexity and resources simply because allowing direct connection to a gas pipe is unconscionable. Once you go looking, you'll notice countless places where ONI either fails to provide a reasonable solution, or lacks a quality which would make it one.

This is why I think people like the early game: those problems are interesting to learn about and solve. The issue seems to be you never move on past that. You are solving the same early game issues throughout. Who has time for rockets? I'm still trying to figure out oxygen, apparently.

[Gob]

I strongly suspect Klei have picked the wrong bit of the game to develop for a DLC.

In the main game, few get as far as building rockets and if they do then even fewer do it twice. It's all just too tedious for little reward. Nothing changes in the DLC; its simply not interesting.

Whereas the main game seems to offer lots of re-playability for most players. There's always some previously unused building or new tactic to tackle a tricky problem on a new map.

A better idea would have been to expand the main game with new biomes, new parts and, importantly, new things to discover on much bigger maps.

[Lord Autismo]

The rocket system is trash for the DLC the supposedly revolves around rockets

[PeLeSki]

With the old game rockets were notoriously tough, especially getting the liquid gasses to reach the final destination. You really needed expert advice from youtube. With the DLC it's as simple as pumping in CO to an easily constructed craft, though I found it pretty buggy so I can understand that some people mightn't have worked it out yet.

[Makeithappen]

Maybe there is just millions of people that bought this game on steam, but its because they only play for a few hours and put it down. It can get pretty complicated once you hit mid game. I doubt its because they didn't survive.

I honestly find it really hard to kill dupes. I've never got to making rockets, but one day I would like to. But I've never build a giant power station and resources station. I always think small.

[xX10]

Too much work.

[esculapio]

The fact that there is no ingame manual on how rockets work and I have to rely on trail and error, forums, etc... has me on hold with respect to rocketry.

[Ender's games]

About 250 hours in, always on Terra maps because I always make mistakes, I have just reached an oil biome for the first time, I have only recently learnt to use reservoirs or tame geysers. I'm definitely slow, but so is the game.

Most people don't play for 200+ hours, I guess.

I've obviously never launched a rocket or been anywhere near it.