To-Do / Roadmap

[Erik Asmussen]

I've posted a lot of my planned features on this public Trello board:

https://trello.com/b/Mnbl05kS/feature-requests

I don't want to mislead anyone, so to be clear: Although I hope to add most of these, please don't take any of these as specific promises (especially the 'nice to have' category, which I'm much more on the fence about.) This is just to get you a general sense of what kinds of things I'm planning on.

The board is public, so feel free to vote up issues that matter most to you so I can prioritize them!

Here's a general list of my remaining high-level goals:

Gameplay Features

- Finish Campaign Missions (currently 5 out of 8 are complete)
- Allow above-sea-level water
- Computational Blocks UI overhaul, allow multiple inputs / outputs & nested circuits
- More mechanical motion - water wheels, windmills, rotational drive shafts, zip lines, elevators
- Vertical Conveyors

Decor / Customization

- More town decorative structures & building blocks in general
- Wide variety of worker hair / skin / clothes
- Customize & rename workers & buildings
- Ability to repaint decorative blocks

Quality of Life

- Visual differentiation of worker tasks
- Optimize performance
- Top-down grid overlay view that lets you build at a specific level
- More production / economy visualization tabs
- Better visualization of tech tree
- Ability to issue multiple targeted commands for a single worker

Video / Audio Polish

- More Sound effects
- Day/Night cycle, seasonal effects
- Building activity animations

[Stompp]

This roadmap is looking great, just picked up the game, will be neat to see how achievements are implemented, and how this game evolves. Enjoying it so far for sure!

[Wrought]

Erik, about the endgame. This is where I think Factorio fails, slightly. Every time I play Factorio, I know what the end is going to look like and after I've solved the problems of getting the rocket launched, I eventually lose interest to keep pursuing the end because there are only so many (interesting) ways to improve efficiency. If, however, I didn't know exactly what the end would look like, then my thirst for discovery, and subsequently, replay, is still intact.

For example, as you have suggested, you build the factory town to work towards repeatedly triggering a large magical event, but from a large pool of events that could happen. Rare biomes could unlock/appear, permanent special visual effects for the workers or buildings, bonuses to parts or all of the factory, unique buildings could be granted, etc. There's really no limit on what you could imagine and the more options you have, the more interested I will be in pursuing the endgame perpetually. There should also be a small chance that you somehow screw up triggering the magical event resulting in negative effects that neutralize previous events or provide new challenges to overcome. This way, you could have two people who play the exact same procedural seed, setup their factories exactly the same, but have totally different endgame experiences. Glad you are thinking about the endgame now as it is really what the rest of the game should be designed around once the game play loop has been cemented.

[WaylenS.]

I had a same-ish issue with workers, what threw me off was that, for example, after you build your first lumber mill all the workers now bring their logs to the mill and no longer to the base. It's a nice idea but I think ultimately all logistical decisions should be made by the player and not automatic to avoid confusion. Good thing that there is the worker list that let's you keep track of that. Maybe it's a good idea to mention that worker list in the tutorial.

Maybe it would be a better idea to not control logistics on the worker level but on a process chain level e.g. chop would and deliver it to base and assign 2 workers to it or harvesting grain, bringing it to the mill and afterwards to the market where the workers are assigned to individual steps of the chain. But that might be a more drastic and difficult change to the game, so I'm just putting it here as an idea.

Another suggestion, to prevent clogging this thread up and to keep the topic to the roadmap, I think you should create a pinned feedback thread here (and I know I'm part off the clogging, I initially just wanted to respond to Obscene Soul but I guess I went a bit off track ^^).

All the nagging aside, I'm two hours in now and I really like what you built here Erik! It's a solid foundation and in contrary to other projects that go EA your game already has a ton of gameplay to show off. Keep up the great work!

[Northgate]

Would it be possible to get full mod support further on? I think games like this really can extend their longevity with some good mods.

[Ydyp]

Originally posted by WaylenS.:

I had a same-ish issue with workers, what threw me off was that, for example, after you build your first lumber mill all the workers now bring their logs to the mill and no longer to the base. It's a nice idea but I think ultimately all logistical decisions should be made by the player and not automatic to avoid confusion. Good thing that there is the worker list that let's you keep track of that. Maybe it's a good idea to mention that worker list in the tutorial.

Maybe it would be a better idea to not control logistics on the worker level but on a process chain level e.g. chop would and deliver it to base and assign 2 workers to it or harvesting grain, bringing it to the mill and afterwards to the market where the workers are assigned to individual steps of the chain. But that might be a more drastic and difficult change to the game, so I'm just putting it here as an idea.

Another suggestion, to prevent clogging this thread up and to keep the topic to the roadmap, I think you should create a pinned feedback thread here (and I know I'm part off the clogging, I initially just wanted to respond to Obscene Soul but I guess I went a bit off track ^^).

All the nagging aside, I'm two hours in now and I really like what you built here Erik! It's a solid foundation and in contrary to other projects that go EA your game already has a ton of gameplay to show off. Keep up the great work!

Currently you can set the logistics that way exactly where you want the items to be dropped off, just hold right mouse button and drag the original point like a tree to your base. This will give that worker exactly the command to pick wood from that tree and bring it to your base and not the mill for instance. Same can be done between buildings like planks/paper from the mill.

And I do like the automatic AI especialy for for supplies, set a worker to a farm that go fetch water and fertilizer from the closest source available. Delevering goods automatic is something though I rather not use because that would end up with my workshop outputs like wheels being sold to houses instead of in my base.

And the thing on the roadmap I am looking forward to is under the customisation: Customize & rename workers & buildings. As this would realy help keeping track of your workers/carts and what order you gave them. Like I could rename the worker that supplies water and fertilizer to the farm to 'farm supplier' and makes it easy to find him again later on. As that is currently the most annoying part is that once you have 30+ workers/carts running around for logistics it is hard to find that specific worker you want to pull off and assign to another more important task.

[Demolition Goblin]

I just bought it today and already fell in love with it.
But what bugs me a little about it is that buildings, like houses or your base won't change their appearance when you upgrade them. Is there a chance that this might change in the future?
I think this would greatly improve the overview over your settlement.

[Erik Asmussen]

Yes, I definitely want to add things like different house levels / variations, and animations / effects when buildings are actively producing.

[Roadie]

I would really like having a goods elevator (maybe require a worker to operate it) of the basic "buckets going up a belt" style to allow loading an elevated chute from ground level. So far that seems to be biggest logical gap I've run into with how I want to lay out stuff, and building stairs up to a chute seems to lead to constant gridlock from worker pathing for some reason.

[Thegreen16]

A production vs consumption graph would be useful

[Ext3h]

Originally posted by Erik Asmussen:

Yes I need to think more about how it would actually work, but I'd love to have actual engines that you need to provide fuel and water for. The reward would be faster speed, especially going uphill (that maybe minecarts could only do with a pulley system). It gets a bit tricky with item filters that redirect carts - should they fire if any car in the train contains the specific item? etc.

Another question - how to know that you want to load fuel/water into the engine vs. just into one of its cars as cargo? That kind of thing.

Why not just do it the same as with most of the other buildings which are transforming a set of inputs into a raw currency? In this case, the currency is more or less "kinetic energy", which can be handled independently of any source.

Theoretically you could even go as far as to say, that carts can be directly charged by e.g. steam pipes. Just ignore the idea of giving them an integrated boiler, and make them reuse existing infrastructure instead.

Ideally, just introduce another track type, which has to be connected to the steam network, limited internal storage, and charges up the cart by passing through.
If you whish for a higher tier version, a mana powered variant also appears possible.

Distinction is possible by size of internal storage, and hence the amount of charge a cart can receive if just passing through. If parked on a booster, continous charging applies either way.

Contrary to what Factorio has done, the charging mechanism could actually be retrofitted in middle of a main line - it only needs sufficient throughput / combined internal capacity to handle the throughput of carts on that line. So as a player, you would probably end up just placing several "boosters" one after another to scale with increasing demands.

In return, internal charge in the cars can be kept small enough that it only suffices for a couple of climbs at a time. Side effect of not having to stop / slow down for a recharge.


Pass on the idea of carts being unable to go uphill without boost though. Make them slow down, but stopping a train line entirely easily leads to an displeasing eco crash. And not necessarily even one the player was responsible for, it might just have been a path finding issue in the engine, causing an unexpected overconsumption of fuel or missed recharge. And with the current game mechanics you could only resolve that deadlock by re-placing all carts, that's a no-go.

[mbncd]

I can't afford this game right now (nothing against the game; I'm just poor) so take what I say with a grain of salt. I have watched Let's Plays of it and I wish to play it myself one day, but I haven't yet and anything I say may even already be addressed, I dunno.

Someone suggested earlier in this thread the concept that the end game goal should have a small chance to fail and even reverse progress somewhat. PLEASE don't do that, or make it an optional thing that has to be purposely and clearly enabled if you want it to happen. There's nothing like relishing the delivery of the very last item you need, only for your celebration to be snatched back. That just sucks and doesn't add anything positive to the experience (in my humble opinion).

I think replayability is important and dynamic end game events do add to that significantly, but I echo others' suggestions that the game continue to be playable afterwards, especially if older players want to return to new updates and/or DLC.

Personally, I prefer the idea of a castle over a cathedral as far as big building projects go, but it could be both. Perhaps when the base gets to a certain level, you could even be given a choice on which you would like it to become, and you would get thematic benefits from your decision as it becomes a better and better version of whatever you decided. As you only ever have 1 base, it also encourages replayability in that you may want to explore play with the other choice too.

I'm not sure if this is already a thing but I think you should be able to make save files manually, with names, and make as many as you want. For instance, you save the game just before you make your base castle/cathedral choice and call it "Choice" so that it's easily recognisable. You then make one choice or the other and you save it again with an appropriate name in a new slot, and then you hop back to the Choice save to take the other option and save it again. That way you can load either branch whenever you want if you want to change up your play a bit or just play with each a little before you settle on one for the rest of your game. By leaving the original Choice save game too, you can come back at a future update and your base can become a hospital, a lab, a magical university, whatever gets added later, without having to start over with nothing and have to progress through the really slow early game again.

I also really think house level visual differentiation should be one high priority. I know it's already on your list and the differences don't have to be huge (less windows, a slightly different hue tint, whatever) but in all the Let's Plays I've seen, I've been really frustrated by the fact that you couldn't tell whether or not something was upgraded at a glance. Please make at least a temporary fix to that a high priority. You can make it pretty and detailed with time, give them chimneys and other fancy things, whatever, but for now, just a functional differentiator is bloody important to those who prefer to keep track of multiple things at once with quick glances.

One other thing I'd like to see, but recognise is probably difficult to implement, is better AI pathing. In so many of the Let's Plays I've seen, wagons have blocked each other and just stopped working altogether when a quick back up or detour could have easily solved the problem instead of making both vehicles come to complete standstills, sometimes stopping whole production lines from working in a domino effect. I know you're supposed to try to identify and fix such problems as a player, but a little help would be appreciated. Thank you.

Despite all I've said, this game really does look incredible and I look forward to playing it myself!

[SamuraiJones]

Originally posted by Erik Asmussen:

If it helps, my current definition of 'victory' is if you upgrade your base to level 10. (even though the game doesn't explicitly say so.) It takes a lot of research & production to get to that point. Of course, you can keep optimizing your base pretty much infinitely past that point, but it's kind of what I'm picturing as the big goal for new players.

I think you should have some kind of epic goal, like apotheosis or resurrecting a fallen god, or allowing the town to escape into a magical dimension (idk, I like dark stories so saving the world or just the town from some apocolypse is my style). Or maybe the world could be very young, and there's some magic ritual to invoke some wise god to guide their world. Idk. Something crazy though!

In my mind, I imagine the mechanic very similar to factorio's rocket though.

[legend_slayer]

Erik, amazing game. Just finished my first small map play through last night. Superb playability for a day-1 early access release. Anyway here's an interesting thought for an end game goal:

Once you reach Base level 10 the only thing left to optimize is House happiness. Why not make it a goal to fill the happiness/consumption meter for EACH category for EACH house (or a set percentage of houses). There's no reason your citizens shouldn't enjoy the wealth of all your hard work! This will force the player to branch out from selling a handful of staple items to try and produce a wider array of products, and at sufficient speed to keep houses supplied. Once you reach Ultimate Happiness, you unlock a vanity Statue 'building' that you can plop down in the middle of your town for a flat happiness boost across the map.

[Erik Asmussen]

legend_slayer: Yes that's a good idea! Though it would probably be VERY hard to get 100% happiness on a max town, so maybe it makes more sense as a special achievement + reward, as opposed to the primary goal?

Old SimCity games kind of had a goal that was 'reach megalopolis' size. Maybe if I framed the game around "Reach X Population!" that would be a nice goal - because in order to reach higher population levels you must upgrade your base, which requires specific tech, which requires more research & production, etc - everything kind of flows towards that goal.

[Nailfoot]

Originally posted by Erik Asmussen:

... Maybe if I framed the game around "Reach X Population!" that would be a nice goal - because in order to reach higher population levels you must upgrade your base, which requires specific tech, which requires more research & production, etc - everything kind of flows towards that goal.

This might be all it needs. Reach a certain population goal would lead the player in that direction.

They Are Billions used population achievements to great effect.