Hi everyone,
I just finished my first campaign with the Green Planet DLC. I played until getting all terraforming parameters maxed.
First of all, I think choosing the terraforming topic for a DLC was a good idea. Actually I couldn't think of a better one. Slowly changing the Mars during the campaign was fun and I liked the visual changes on the map. It made the game better and I certainly don't regret buying the DLC.
However, there were some issues:
1.) Terraforming happened mostly in endgame
I found it difficult to really get terraforming started during early- and even midgame. It wasn't before endgame, that I could really reach meaningful steps in the terraforming process.
I guess it is meant to be an endgame element, which isn't a bad thing. But since there are no challenges anymore in the post-Mohole era of the colony, the benefits from terraforming were meaningless.
This problem might get solved automatically, if future DLCs give us some endgame challenges.
2.) Creating breathable atmosphere was too simple
I think that opening the domes should be the highlight in the terraforming process, but it happened too early for my taste. All you have to do is increase the atmosphere parameter, while water and especially vegetation are irrelevant.
I understand that the developers don't want to overcomplicate things. But there should be at least a minium level of vegetation (representing oxygen production) before we can open the domes.
3.) Vegetation parameter needs rework
I think that the way we increase the vegetation parameter doesn't make sense, both from a logical and gameplay point of view.
When I first build a forestation plant, I noticed that it only increases the vegetation parameter by a very small amount. I though that makes sense (since I'm only putting some lichen to a small local area), and that it would go up exponentially when I created an environment in which the plants spread on their own.
But the opposite happened: Just when the plants started spreading over the map, the parameter freezed completely. All I could do was run the game at 5x speed and keep sending rockets to increase to parameter in 5% steps.
That was very boring gameplay-wise, and it also doesn't represent at all what we actually see on screen.
I hope that the developers rework at least the way the parameter for vegetation works. And maybe add some interaction with the atmosphere parameter, to represent the fact that plants are creating oxygen (as it is done already for farms in domes).
I just finished my first campaign with the Green Planet DLC. I played until getting all terraforming parameters maxed.
First of all, I think choosing the terraforming topic for a DLC was a good idea. Actually I couldn't think of a better one. Slowly changing the Mars during the campaign was fun and I liked the visual changes on the map. It made the game better and I certainly don't regret buying the DLC.
However, there were some issues:
1.) Terraforming happened mostly in endgame
I found it difficult to really get terraforming started during early- and even midgame. It wasn't before endgame, that I could really reach meaningful steps in the terraforming process.
I guess it is meant to be an endgame element, which isn't a bad thing. But since there are no challenges anymore in the post-Mohole era of the colony, the benefits from terraforming were meaningless.
This problem might get solved automatically, if future DLCs give us some endgame challenges.
2.) Creating breathable atmosphere was too simple
I think that opening the domes should be the highlight in the terraforming process, but it happened too early for my taste. All you have to do is increase the atmosphere parameter, while water and especially vegetation are irrelevant.
I understand that the developers don't want to overcomplicate things. But there should be at least a minium level of vegetation (representing oxygen production) before we can open the domes.
3.) Vegetation parameter needs rework
I think that the way we increase the vegetation parameter doesn't make sense, both from a logical and gameplay point of view.
When I first build a forestation plant, I noticed that it only increases the vegetation parameter by a very small amount. I though that makes sense (since I'm only putting some lichen to a small local area), and that it would go up exponentially when I created an environment in which the plants spread on their own.
But the opposite happened: Just when the plants started spreading over the map, the parameter freezed completely. All I could do was run the game at 5x speed and keep sending rockets to increase to parameter in 5% steps.
That was very boring gameplay-wise, and it also doesn't represent at all what we actually see on screen.
I hope that the developers rework at least the way the parameter for vegetation works. And maybe add some interaction with the atmosphere parameter, to represent the fact that plants are creating oxygen (as it is done already for farms in domes).