Pacus overpowered?

[Ramy83]

Hi, I picked up the game again after a pretty long time...let just say the last time I played pacus didn't exist yet ^^.

But I tried it out and it is fun and all but pacus kinda bother me.
I dont know if my math is wrong but pacus seem to be utterly overpowered to me.

I calculated that 2 tame pacus produce more calories than a full stable of hatches (which are more labor-intensiv and use up way more recources)

I dont know...after I crunshed the numbers it took a little bit the fun out of me because the other critters are more or less balanced and it would be stupid to not use pacus.

[POWER WITHIN USER]

Every food has it's use, except mush bar and liceloaf.

Some maps don't come with pacu, others have no algae to tame them, hatches don't just produce meat but also turn worthless stone or pDirt into coal

[Bobucles]

Pacus are amazing, if you have infintie algae. Unfortunately algae is one of the tougher resources to synthesize, as a busy algae distiller doesn't even produce enough to feed a single Pacu. Pacu can be very efficient with an automated starvation farm, which exploits out most of their dietary needs.

For normal pacu farms a pile of seeds are your best bet, which sleet wheat is perfect for. A few hundred Kcal of wheat seeds can transform into far more fish filets or eggs, making pacus a handy part of your colony's diet.

[gimmethegepgun]

pfft who needs to continuously use resources to make food from Pacu?
Just put a ridiculous number of them in a tiny pool of water with open-air access to your base and get free food forever.

[Myriad]

I think the answer is that algae is limited, as said, and inefficient to reproduce. Pacus go through it like there's no tomorrow. In almost every game I've played, I've stopped relying on algae soon after the early game, because it tends to run out quickly.

[Protoz]

Pacus are the easiest free source of calories and much easier to set up then wild pip farm.

You feed them worthless seeds which are plentiful and after they are tamed they mass produce. Get up to 100-1,000 pacus real quick or up to how many your FPS can support without making the game unplayable. Stop feeding the 1,000 pacus and let them starve to death, but before they starve they will lay an egg, thus creating a infinite free source of fish fillets.

So you can imagine 1,000 pacus giving you 1,000 fish fillets every 25 days(their lifespan) for free forever, can be automated with 2 auto-sweepers. No algae required.

[Ramy83]

Yeah I mean that is kinda my point...the pacus are so easy to set up and sustain that it makes every other foodsource obsolete except if you want more fancy food I guess.

I dont know...in general I like the challenging aspect of this game but this makes it almost too easy. Sure I could play without pacus to make it more challenging for myself...but I also could play chess blind...I dont do that because I'm not stupid ^^

[Protoz]

The only challenging aspect of this game I can think of is doing all of the milestones/achievements whatever they're called in one go. Specifically the one where you can't plant food, have to eat 400,000 meat kcals in 100 cycles, and can only use certain forms of power generation. But I've done all 3 of them multiple times each time I give this game a another go without too much of a problem all while on hardest settings.

The only challenge afterwards is thinking of end game goals. I tend to burn out after obtaining 50 dupes and having a dozen nuclear reactors pushing all their waste into a 1x1 tile which has enough radiation to push through neutronium after which allows me to connect all world's borders to the starting asteroid. But the game was done way before this happens.

[chaney]

Originally posted by Protoz:

...

Totally agreed. When I play chess, I just reach across the board and knock over the other player's King. It's very satisfying. Chess is broken. I even wrote a mod to knock over the opponent's King automatically before the game even starts.

[/satire]

[Myriad]

Lol. People are hilarious sometimes. I generally dislike them, but when they make me laugh I love them all over again.

Back on topic, I wasn't aware that the DLC allowed Pacu's to eat seeds. That's indeed a game changer.

[Protoz]

I'm just telling you where the game stands in terms of challenge or lack of. And this is definitely not a chess game once you finish the tutorial. Pacus are one of many examples of complete lack of balance, or rather this is particularly called starvation ranching, just the tip of the iceberg for your "chess" game.

What I wrote provides insight at one of the overpowered aspects of the game, obtaining easy kcals. What I wrote was an idea that me, as a ONI game balance dev, is about to implement /s. But instead, this is the reality since ONI was released. You can roleplay all you want and handicap yourself for the sole purpose to fool yourself that you're playing chess.

[chaney]

Self imposed restrictions are not to fool oneself that the game is harder than it is. It carries the explicit self aware notion that the player wants more challenge than the unrestricted game presents, so the player adjusts on their own to get a more satisfying experience.

That doesn't seem to me a stupid conduct. Why would adjusting something in a way that makes it more challenging/interesting/satisfying/fun while causing no problems for anyone be stupid?

If you don't enjoy playing with restricted conduct, that's your choice. Lots of people find a lot of fun in the game. There is a huge range of personal choice available. I avoid what I consider abusive exploits like infinite storage, others use it extensively and play many hours having lots of fun. Whatever works for you, why not? It's a single player game, no leaderboards to cheese, etc. I'm not interested in using the Pacu mechanic, so I don't. If someone else does, that doesn't bother me.

Enjoy.

[View The Phenom]

How does one tame Pacus? Is it just by feeding them anything, or does that need to be Algae specifically?

If it's Algae, then you'll run out of tame Pacus eventually. Which means this tactic has a lifespan (as soon as your Algae runs out, and your new generation of Pacu become wild again).

[Myriad]

Yeah you just feed your fish to tame them. I wouldn't recommend petting them.

[View The Phenom]

Originally posted by Myriad:

Yeah you just feed your fish to tame them. I wouldn't recommend petting them.

Guess I'd better utilize this tactic to completely trivialize the game! Now, maybe I can also look like a jack-ass as I proclaim my mastery of Oxygen Not Included too! :D

[Myriad]

Originally posted by View The Phenom:

Originally posted by Myriad:

Yeah you just feed your fish to tame them. I wouldn't recommend petting them.

Guess I'd better utilize this tactic to completely trivialize the game! Now, maybe I can also look like a jack-ass as I proclaim my mastery of Oxygen Not Included too! :D

Whatever you do is up to you. Just don't touch the fish. It hurts their scales.