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PaperclipPerfector  6d ago (text post)   1483 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for January 3, 2025

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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I also felt that the expansion railroaded players very hard towards the specific play styles the developers like, while the original game let the player choose between multiple viable options. For example:

  • Dealing with enemies: Pre-expansion game, there were multiple viable approaches - a belt of ammo going to a bunch of turrets, a couple layers of laser turrets, a pipe to flamethrowers, or some mix thereof were all viable strategies with advantages and disadvantages. In the expansion on Gleba, though, the 80% laser / 50% physical resistance on the stompers makes the "laser turret / gun turret perimeter" approach a lot less viable. This is clearly intended to push players towards using rocket turrets in the places they're needed, but it feels like they encouraged rocket turrets by making the other options worse rather than making rocket turrets better
  • Similarly with the asteroid resistances, seems designed to force the player to route three types of ammo, and to force them to redesign their interplanetary ship multiple times (not just "provide new tools to make a better ship" but "block progress entirely until players explore the mechanics of the new ammo type")
  • Gating cliff explosives behind Vulcanus likewise seems like an attempt to make city-block-from-the-start or main-bus-from-the-start approaches non-viable. Likewise Fulgora seems to be encouraging spaghetti by ruling out other approaches, rather than by making spaghetti approaches better, and likewise on Aquilo with the 5x energy drain for bots.

That said I did enjoy the expansion, even Gleba. There were lots of interesting mechanics, and those mechanics were pretty well designed (except maybe quality, but that one is optional anyway). But it did quite often feel that the developers were gating progress behind using the new expansion game mechanics, rather than making the mechanics available and rewarding the player for exploring them.

Dealing with enemies: Pre-expansion game, there were multiple viable approaches - a belt of ammo going to a bunch of turrets, a couple layers of laser turrets, a pipe to flamethrowers, or some mix thereof were all viable strategies with advantages and disadvantages. In the expansion on Gleba, though, the 80% laser / 50% physical resistance on the stompers makes the "laser turret / gun turret perimeter" approach a lot less viable. This is clearly intended to push players towards using rocket turrets in the places they're needed, but it feels like they encouraged rocket turrets by making the other options worse rather than making rocket turrets better

I think you being a bit too critical of Wube's design here. The basic gun/laser turrets will handle the initial enemies easily enough. Rockets, tesla turrets, flamethrowers, or some mix thereof (railguns too, but those are overkill...) are all viable to handle Gleba's enemies once evolution starts kicking in. Rockets can be researched and sourced entirely locally. Tesla turrets require the player to go to Fulgora, but trivialize Gleba's enemies. Flamethrowers are held back by the lack of oil production on Gleba, but Vulcanus's coal liquefaction combined with Gleba's coal synthesis make it viable. Or you can just ship the fuel in from another planet since flamethrowers are so frugal and enemy attacks so sporadic. And if you really want to keep using the basic laser/gun turrets, the infinite damage research for both keeps it viable though expensive. You can get sufficiently far into them to handle Gleba's enemies without ever leaving Nauvis since they don't require any other planet's science.

On top of that, Gleba's design encourages a different defensive strategy. On Nauvis, nearly everything produces pollution that aggros the biters, which expand aggressively and attack in large waves. This encourages players to build a defensive wall around the entire factory for the constant biter attacks to break against. In contrast, only harvesting produces pollen on Gleba, so most of your factory doesn't need to worry about attacks if you ensure enemies don't need to path through it to get to your farms. Your defenses can thus be focused around your farms with almost no defense needed for the rest of the factory beyond some artillery turrets to keep expansions from popping up too close.

Wube's design is thus pushing people to try something different, with multiple options unlocked or enhanced by visiting the other planets. You can still use the same defensive strategies you used on Nauvis, but there are better ones and the design rewards you for trying something new.

Oh yeah, the asteroid resistances are particularly egregious. I think the whole space platform thing could've used some more time to bake. The full cargo rockets of one thing only for automation, the lack of ability to communicate, the only one landing pad for some reason, the lack of ability to transfer items between platforms. I enjoyed Space Explorations interplanetary logistics quite a bit more.

I think you might be just wrong about the railroading on the Gleba enemies. Red ammo in gun turrets at the edge of infinite research need 25 turret x seconds to kill a big stomper. Rocket turrets need 12 turret x seconds and have over twice the footprint. Strafers and wrigglers don't have notable physical resist. Lasers have 16 turret x seconds to kill strafers which is totally respectable. Against stompers they are pretty useless but behemoth biters do the same thing to gun turrets without uranium ammo.

Oh yeah, the asteroid resistances are particularly egregious.

But make for awesome music videos.

Red ammo in gun turrets at the edge of infinite research need 25 turretseconds to kill a big stomper.

Yeah maybe that's viable. I admit I just slapped down a 1.4GW reactor and a perimeter of tesla turrets because I didn't want to deal with iron or copper production on Gleba.

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