Metal ressource: annoying bottleneck

[A small loan of a million memes]

I spent about 25 hours on Surviving and so far, loving it. There's a lot of polishing to be done, but nothing too frustrating. Except one thing: metal.

Right now, in my game, gathering metal is a huge bottleneck for anything I want to do. I don't know if my play style just isn't right, but I think I've had a pretty standard progression with my city. I could and should have focused more on food and water early on. I'm still experiencing the aftermath (get it) of this rookie mistake. Right now, metal became a huge bottleneck for anything I want to do.

Want more steady food sources? Sorry, not enough metal. Want more power for my new extractors? Sorry, no metal here. Want to repair the gate to survive the next raid? Sorry bro, you just don't have enough metal.

Thing is, I'm running two metal extractors and one scrapper, all upgraded, workslots filled, and I'm still scraping by. If I want to ramp up my production, I have to stop my progress on more urgent matter, such as housing and food income.

Maybe my village grew too fast for its own good. Maybe I didn't plan well enough. But man, this is a major frustration as 99% of my actions are blocked by metal needs and I don't think I deserve this punishment for some rookie mistakes.

I don't know if the devs read the posts here, but a possible solution I can think of would be to make metal harvestable by our Specialists. Much like the berries and wildlife became my safety net in case of famine, a back up plan like that would be a cool feature. Maybe it could be a research unlocked in the late game, as the keep the early game balancing intact.

Am I the only one having problems with this? What about you guys?

[Honeywell]

Early on I focus on gathering metal as efficiently as possible by building the scrapper and stockpile right next to the nearest metal pile. Crowbars and Reclaimable Materials in the tech tree are my first two science unlocks. That keeps the initial metal coming in at a fast enough pace and I always have enough to build with.

For food, I build a fishing dock and trapper in good locations and have 3 or 4 large farm fields. Once I have a good power and water grid set up I start a few cattle ranches for more food. For housing I use upgraded tenements and that's what everyone is living in during this time.

I don't craft tools until I'm done building up the initial colony infrastructure unless I absolutely have to--I gather them from the map and/or trade for them.

Once I have extractors I find the metal keeps up with demand.

My colonists are being educated at that point so they get the bonus to production, they have the level 3 tools which is another boost to production, stone roads so they move as fast as possible. Homes, medical, food, entertainment and hygiene I try and cluster together so when someone needs to take care of their needs it takes the shortest amount of time.

And once that is all established (and the colony can deal with any disasters) that's when I start moving people into the nicest houses but that is the very last thing I do when I have large stocks of building supplies.

Things just seem to work out for me and I'm usually ahead by the time I need something.

[Remmie]

Metal IS the bottleneck in this game, some resource has to be.
There are a few ways to deal with this.

Get metal
1. Look for all the stashes of metal on citymap and build scrappers and supply depots next to them. Put them on pause until you need them.

2. Prioritize metal when scavenging the worldmap.

3. Trade for metal with neighbours and trader events.

save metal

4. NEVER EVER make tools or guns, you find guns on the maps, neighbours trade tools often.

5. Never trade your metal away

6. Don't upgrade your gate to a fortress, the repair cost will hamstring your metal gathering.

7. Don't expand to fast. 32 colonists (4 tenements) is about the maximum until you have your industry and food supply steady.

tech

7. Start with the gathering techs (which you already do)

8. Prioritize the mining tech. Do not fall in the gab where you have run completely dry before you can build mines.

The last and best thing you can do is install the 'Hexagon Building Pack" mod. It adds a bunch of Quality of Life buildings among which are mining buildings that do not require power and tech. It does reduce the challenge a bit if you rely on these buildings but it is great if you want to have a little more citybuilding fun and you can afford a mistake or two.

[iceflake_joanna]

Heya! Metal definitely is one of our top used resources - we have already implemented some changes to lessen the need, but unfortunately it is still quite a significant resource. I will bring this feedback up with the rest of the team, hopefully we can find a way to balance it out even more! :)

Thanks for the feedback and of course, thanks for playing!

[TLHeart]

I like that there is a bottleneck, and metal is the appropriate one. It is a resource one has to manage, collect, build up before expanding.

One thing that has helped my games to not bottleneck on metal, is get to trading with other settlements, and get the tools, from them... usually cheaper than making them yourself.

[A small loan of a million memes]

Thank you all for your answer. This is my first experience with a "hardcore" city building sim, I'm more used to getting lead by the hand. I guess I'll need some time to adjust. My build order was definitely all over the place. I will check out the mod Remmie talked about.

I'm happy to see the devs are actively listening to what we say, I'm looking to play many more hours in this game :)

[carassius]

The current map that I am on has very little wood, but adequate metal. It takes a very long time for the foresters to be effective. Each game is different.

[jbradhicks]

Originally posted by carassius:

The current map that I am on has very little wood, but adequate metal. It takes a very long time for the foresters to be effective. Each game is different.

That's my experience. I'm running one metal extractor, by itself, and effortlessly sustaining a colony of about 60. One concrete extractor, too. One recycler's enough plastic for me, most of the time. Wood's the one that's driving me nuts; I'm up to two sawmills and three logging camps, two workers each, and still can't keep up with the repair costs for my buildings and the fuel costs for my mess hall.

[usamaakhtar034781]

How to get rare metal I'm where i made rare metal