My list of thoughts and suggestions [long+spoilers]

[Summer]

Some ideas about tuning and stuff to do. I do love the game but it's getting repetitive so... suggestions!

I've been starting on Madman the last couple of playthroughs mostly because the mid to end game gets extremely boring on anything less. You end up with your backpack entirely full of food packs (enough to last years!), farming just to farm (farmville on mars? lol), and mining just to unlock the last techs on that tree (minerville?). The tech tree becomes the only goal, which is not that fun. There's also not currently a lot of reason to build anything past the Workshop/Greenhouse.

On Madman, the beginning is difficult, and you have to already know enough to grind first, craft the blowtorch, then get your well going. So the first sol is a fight for water. After the well is up, things are comfy while you try to find calcium for the workshop, then starving a little while the first crops grow. All well and good.

At that point, though, even on Madman, the game starts to coast. Food is enough with one seed/shelf combo, especially as genetic engineering accelerates it. There's no longer a fight for survival, and adding the Greenhouse ends up filling the bags with food packets again, but certainly less than lower difficulties.

As to the other buildings: only the entry room (forgot the name) seems to have a real purpose, and that's to equip the heavy suit. The addition of the food processing/fridge to the Greenhouse, while a great quality of life change early on (freeing up precious Workshop space), eliminated any need of the Canteen. The Hanger is a nice-to-have but not essential, only really preventing damage to the vehicles. I rarely bother to build the HQ anymore since the workshop is otherwise empty by the time it's available.

Domes of course have their own purpose for the highest crops, but at that point I'm already swimming in food packets so it's an exercise in "yay I can grow peppers! why?" Large domes have so many terrain collision issues that it's difficult to find a place to put them, even when you have the resources to do so. So it's Medium domes all the way, but it's still more of a "just because I can" thing.

So! Having said all that, and of course I know the game isn't done yet and there will be more mid to endgame content coming already (doggo!), here's my suggestions:

Food packets need to be less generic. The more variety you put into them should give you some "buff" - a reason to do that instead of just eating lots of GMO potatoes forever. i.e. the better nutritionally balanced your meal is, you could gain efficiency in tasks like grinding or drilling. That would provide motivation for domes and balanced meals. More balanced meals shouldn't necessarily provide more caloric intake either - this leads to the filled bags/fridge with food packets problem. Some, yes, but by the time you're making +64 food packets, it's all just silly. Also, Corn is too prolific and OP, though the calories provided are small, when you're getting 100+ out of one 18-slot field... Do you need anything else?

Harvesting food with bags full causes them to fall wherever, even outside and into the floor. The "Backpack full" message and NOT actually harvesting it would be far better.

Give buildings a purpose. An advantage to having built them. Eating in the Canteen, for example, could give some positive benefit. Of course, the current mechanic of simply clicking the food in inventory not only makes this irrelevant but also breaks the immersion badly. Especially when you're wearing a helmet. HQ does have the antenna built in but that's a pretty iffy reason to build it when I could just go... build an antenna.

While on the subject of the HQ, the science tables are pointless after the tree is done, thus freeing up more space in the workshop and making the HQ much less useful. The tables don't fit very well into the HQ and in fact probably shouldn't be allowed in there at all (except maybe the Workbench). A reason to keep the tables around would help, perhaps if you have a table built and powered, then tasks involving them are easier/more efficient? Panels/turbines more efficient because you can actively maintain them beyond dusting them or pointing a blowtorch at them sometimes?

Also speaking of food: eating with a helmet on is immersion-breaking. Unless there's a little airlock on the side to get it in... How are you actually eating it? Same for using Medkits. Now, I can see an energy bar in a little airlock at the side of the helmet for emergencies, while to eat a proper meal requires the helmet being off. This would also provide more motivation to get oxygen in the base sooner. The early sols you could eat in the survival pod.

The survival pod you arrive in is magical. Not only does it produce oxygen and 3d prints without power, it's also indestructible. Perhaps not on low difficulties, but higher ones you should be required to give it power to work. Also, it would be nice to scavenge it for resources once your base is completely functional. (Same for the crappy ATV once you build something better.)

I've submitted this in-game before, but the water bottle in your suit running out should start a timer for dehydration, not be the dehydration itself. Drinking the last of my water doesn't mean I'm about to die RIGHT NOW. I'd die of thirst some time in a sol or so without water. In-game that could be another full bottle's worth of consumption (on whatever difficulty), then you start dying. This is frustrating and immersion-breaking for me.

Missing sleep should be more consequential. At the moment, you can just go on a weeklong grinding journey (as long as you have the food/water) without sleep, fill the rover's storage, then come back. There's no downside to working all night once you unlock suit heaters.

I'd like to see an option for a temporary shelter that isn't the survival pod. Let's say you're exploring in the Marstruck but sleep matters now, and you want to put up a bedroom. The survival pod is not only overkill for this, it's also chairs and not a bed. Having a little shelter you can build while traveling where you can go in and eat and sleep would be thematically perfect.

Edit: I assume (hope?) this is on the list somewhere to be fixed at some point, but one suit (the black ROG one) has no female model at all, and the other one has only a female upper half. It's not very important, but it is noticeable and would be nice if it gets fixed someday.

Sorry this post got very long!

[ждун]

Originally posted by Summer:

The more variety you put into them should give you some "buff"

Isn't it already like that? Combining different ingridients makes better food packs.

[Summer]

Originally posted by ждун:

Originally posted by Summer:

The more variety you put into them should give you some "buff"

Isn't it already like that? Combining different ingridients makes better food packs.

Better only defined as higher caloric intake. So yes, in a way. Means you have to eat less often if it provides more "nutrition". But it's not an advantage per-se. I.e. eating 3 20-nutrition packs is exactly equivalent to eating 1 60-nutrition pack. Thus, there's no advantage to making better ones if you can just carry around a whole stack of 20-nutrition packs.

What I'd like to see is more incentive to use the better ones, and not just use potatoes forever.

[Kastagir]

As for the initial survival Pod and Energy: a simple Idea, probably rather easy to toy with also, would be to have the AI tell you "its supplied with x days of power through internal batteries. Make sure you build SolarPanels before they run empty" .