Thoughts on a hard mode?

[Yffriium]

What do you all think about the addition of a mode where all buildings operate at 50% (or less) efficiency? It could be fun to try building up a factory with such a disadvantage.

[Maehlice]

I don't think that type of restriction would be that hard, since it's fairly easy to scale up production by just increasing machine count. And if the lower efficiency comes in terms of power consumption, scaling up the array size and underclocking the machines easily solves that also.

Since resources are unlimited, I think any "hard mode" they come up with is just going to translate into "tedious mode".

We set our own goals in this game, so it's ultimately as hard as you want it to be by self-imposing restrictions within the already robust ruleset.

If hard mode fancies your tickle, start over in the Dunes and restrict yourself to only ever building Mk.1 anything and never upon foundations.

[FergieJ]

A hardmode should be bigger and meaner things to fight, less efficient buildings doesn't sound fun at all

[Itsgotime]

^ I second that. It should mean expansions are much harder to do with different type of enemies and bosses adding better weapons manufacturing to counter them. Also more variety in enemies. Also enemies guarding thermal vents should be boss power.

[Owl]

i do agree that difficulty levels should be implemented. i certainly hope how and what will define them are discussed behind closed doors. some suggestions : speed and rate of miners and other machinery. modification to health pots and wildlife dangers. less healing, more incoming damage, less outgoing damage, etc ... . sink point acrrual and cost changes. more heavily protected resources. more rock-capped resources. more/less impure/pure nodes. expensive item placement - foundation, belts, etc ... . fuel economy. slug shard effectiveness. fall damage changes. loss of items upon death. effectiveness and costs of crash sights. buildable/unbuildable terrain. item charge usage rate (ie gas mask, jetpak). these are just off the top of my head late at night; there are many many more i'm sure.

[Owl]

p.s. current definition of easy/hard mode is not. starting location is simply eye candy.

[Halliwax]

The developers are open to the idea of different game modes, but whatever "hard mode" would be would have to be way more involved than that. 50% resources will just slow things down slightly without any substantive change to gameplay.

[Samtana]

I'd rather they focus on fleshing out the remaining tiers. Doesn't take a whole lot of gameplay to be able to craft everything currently available.

[Lost SEAF recruit]

It depends on what you are trying to achieve.

50% less resources slows down the gameplay, but doesn't add a lot of difficulty. You basically need one tier lower conveyor belt for every output OR 50% less factories for each resource node. Even a min/maxer will find it harder to balance current resource rates as it demands more space and planning.

An alternative is to increase the cost of every product, although that will run into the same problems as above: If you need twice as many product, you only need half the factories and belts to actually use it all. Besides that the cost of each tier product higher would be astronomical and take hours just to build enough materials to start building it.

A better alternative: Increase both the cost of each product AND the resource production rate. That way you need more planning to lay down all the belts and transport to produce everything. It would likely need some kind of input merger/output splitter so that you don't run into the problem that your maximum belt capacity isn't enough to actually move all the material you are creating or that needs to feed into it.

Even then there are other alternatives for higher difficulty. Restrictions to foundation placement in the air, time limits in which you have to upgrade the Space Elevator or it will fall down, time limits that products can be travelling before they decay etc. These would put greater demand on the planning and knowledge skills of the player, which is the primary attraction of the game.

[DrNewcenstein]

This is not DOOM. It's not HALO. It's not an action platformer combat simulator online fragfest for the energy drink crowd. This is a leisurely factory constructor. If the game bores you, go play something else.

[Edmund Greyfox]

Originally posted by DrNewcenstein:

This is not DOOM. It's not HALO. It's not an action platformer combat simulator online fragfest for the energy drink crowd. This is a leisurely factory constructor. If the game bores you, go play something else.

Agreed. This is a single person/co-op game that's focus is building, not a competition to see who can win on the hardest difficulty level.

[Anaztazioch]

Hard mode would come with more complex recepties - like requireing steel ingot on tier 7 recepties. Organizing conveyour belt will be a nightmare.

also creating maintanance recepties - create bearings, mills, gears and other replacable parts for your machines and a whole new buildings for automated maintanance.
You will finaly have use for bottled oil as it will be used as grease in maintanance, not just source of power.

[Heisenquark]

Id like to see an easy mode where you would simply need less buildings but with same I/O
( for example 4 fuel burner instead of 40 - just for performance reasons xD)

[Veeshan]

Originally posted by Halliwax:

The developers are open to the idea of different game modes, but whatever "hard mode" would be would have to be way more involved than that. 50% resources will just slow things down slightly without any substantive change to gameplay.

That's silly; of course slowing things down would result in substantive changes to gameplay. Goodness this is a game BASED ON THROUGHPUT CONSIDERATIONS.

Clearing a nest of whatever with seeds instead of inhalers is more action challenge. Brought about by increased cost of crafting.

Building to a distant node with reduced tier equipment is more crafting challenge. Brought about by increased costs of crafting materials.

Achieving the next research tier requires increased size/speed of production chains due to increased costs of research materials.

I dont advocate specifically simply reducing speed but rather context aware adjustments to rates and costs; research should all cost substantially more and certain materials should be way, way more expensive, etc. Gotta do it right ofc. Easy to mess up ratios etc.

[Veeshan]

Originally posted by DrNewcenstein:

This is not DOOM. It's not HALO. It's not an action platformer combat simulator online fragfest for the energy drink crowd. This is a leisurely factory constructor. If the game bores you, go play something else.

OP didn't just say more challenging combat though. It's also about needing bigger and more complex factories etc.

[re:Crut]

As for me the most necessary idea to complicate the gameplay at the moment is all the same mobs. at the moment they are weak and do not pose any threat. all they can do is to slow you down a bit before you pay off the resource you need.

My solution to this problem i would like to suggest is to borrow an idea from factorio. specifically the idea of evolving mobs as you go along. and as you pollute the atmosphere they will attack your base taking a toll.

Sounds like it would be a pretty interesting hard mod to me.