So after my most recent thread, I decided to stick with the game. Europe as a sponsor, don't recall the commander profile.
I got to sol 500 before calling it quits. There are massive glaring problems in the mid and late stages that just make it an alt-tabbing exercise.
The biggest issue is the inverse manpower need. In the beginning, your factories, your mines, your everything that supplies colonists needs colonists, bar water and air. Yet as you progress, you unlock automation technologies, which reduces your manpower need just at a time where your population is starting to boom. Totally backwards.
Add to this that all the wonders and all the terraforming tech is for some bizarre reason unmanned, and you end up in the late game where you were in the early game, with a large drone pool doing all the work, and the colonists being superflous.
Example form the 5k game: I mismanaged, and ran out of rare earth at a time when I was low on every advanced resource too. Yet, by researching the Moho mine and spamming patents/other money techs, I was able to build it, and then on, it was totally smooth sailing. Now, if the Mine has a manpower requirement commensurate to its massive output (lets say 20-25 per shift), I would probably have hit a wall there. But because it is totally automated, the only thing that happened was a 10 sol break on my expansion.
Every wonder, especially the infinite resource ones, should have a massive manpower need. Amplification and factory AI should increase worker slots, not decrease them. I can house 500 people in a capital, but I cannot give them work. Late game, all your resource needs are totally covered, yet the three big producers (moho, extractor, outdoor farm) consume none of your balooning mass of unemployed smart people.
Second issue: landscaping. It is very, very bare-bones now. Why can I not erect mountains, dig lakes, river canals, anything that isnt flattening or ramping? This should interplay with Terraforming, where these lake beds and rivers I have dug slowly fill up with rainwater. Just imaging, you could create a plato, have a steep incline to it, and have rainwater rush down. This could give you something to do in the late game, and perhaps add gameplay where you need to divert water from flooding your domes. Perhaps a hydro plant even.
Third issue, somewhat coupled: there needs to be a waste rock storage (4k version), otherwise you are drowning in that stuff even with copious amount of landscaping. There need to be more waste rock usages apart from those two ugly, samey stone formations. Let me build fake craters, let me free-draw structures, let them weather from rainfall (especially toxic rains).
Fourth issue, and this is more of a wish: Come on, make research sites and vistas look like something. This is especially egregious with vistas. They are supposed to be nice to look at, but are just the same boring flat red dirt as everything else. Add some life to the game, for christs sake!
I got to sol 500 before calling it quits. There are massive glaring problems in the mid and late stages that just make it an alt-tabbing exercise.
The biggest issue is the inverse manpower need. In the beginning, your factories, your mines, your everything that supplies colonists needs colonists, bar water and air. Yet as you progress, you unlock automation technologies, which reduces your manpower need just at a time where your population is starting to boom. Totally backwards.
Add to this that all the wonders and all the terraforming tech is for some bizarre reason unmanned, and you end up in the late game where you were in the early game, with a large drone pool doing all the work, and the colonists being superflous.
Example form the 5k game: I mismanaged, and ran out of rare earth at a time when I was low on every advanced resource too. Yet, by researching the Moho mine and spamming patents/other money techs, I was able to build it, and then on, it was totally smooth sailing. Now, if the Mine has a manpower requirement commensurate to its massive output (lets say 20-25 per shift), I would probably have hit a wall there. But because it is totally automated, the only thing that happened was a 10 sol break on my expansion.
Every wonder, especially the infinite resource ones, should have a massive manpower need. Amplification and factory AI should increase worker slots, not decrease them. I can house 500 people in a capital, but I cannot give them work. Late game, all your resource needs are totally covered, yet the three big producers (moho, extractor, outdoor farm) consume none of your balooning mass of unemployed smart people.
Second issue: landscaping. It is very, very bare-bones now. Why can I not erect mountains, dig lakes, river canals, anything that isnt flattening or ramping? This should interplay with Terraforming, where these lake beds and rivers I have dug slowly fill up with rainwater. Just imaging, you could create a plato, have a steep incline to it, and have rainwater rush down. This could give you something to do in the late game, and perhaps add gameplay where you need to divert water from flooding your domes. Perhaps a hydro plant even.
Third issue, somewhat coupled: there needs to be a waste rock storage (4k version), otherwise you are drowning in that stuff even with copious amount of landscaping. There need to be more waste rock usages apart from those two ugly, samey stone formations. Let me build fake craters, let me free-draw structures, let them weather from rainfall (especially toxic rains).
Fourth issue, and this is more of a wish: Come on, make research sites and vistas look like something. This is especially egregious with vistas. They are supposed to be nice to look at, but are just the same boring flat red dirt as everything else. Add some life to the game, for christs sake!
