Rocket special projects in GP

[YertyL]

This is a bit tied into my other thread, but I wanted to discuss the new rocket special projects in green planet -- and specifically their role and importance in the terraforming process.

So: I really like that rockets have an expanded role in the mid to late game now. I do not like that they are your by far best or even only option.
Global water and vegetation:
This is most obvious with water and seeds: A huge lake takes an appropriately huge amount of space setup, with (I think) a 1000 water initial investment, and a continuous 2 water refill, same as say a medium dome or a polymer factory in total (1 for fuel, 1 for itself). And for that it gives you... 0.1% water per sol. The ratio of investment to result is even worse for smaller lakes, with 4 small lakes giving you 0.04% per sol for the same 2 water upkeep. To get a 5% global water increase using 4 small lakes, you need to invest 32 concrete, 20 tools and 800 water initially, then 5/0.04* *2=250 more water over the course of 125 sols.

Capturing ice asteroids gives you 5% global water increase for (normally) 140 water (as fuel) and 25 tools, instantly.
With seeds, besides the minuscle increase a forestation plant gives, repeating the seed project over and over is literally the only option after reaching 40%.
With athmosphere and heat it does not seem to be quite as bad, but besides the IMO relatively weak "import greenhouse gas" project, rockets are again far from useless.

Funding and research: Two of the main roles colonists needed to fill in order to achieve a self-sufficient colony can now also be outsorced to rockets from the start. And again, they are comparable or better to what you will be able to achieve conventionally in the beginning.

In short, rockets seem way too good now. So I would propose two changes:

• Rocket projects are limited to 1-3 repetitions: I would say 2-3 for the earlier projects like ice asteroids, 1 for the later ones (poles, solar, seeding, magnetic shield). This limits their role as well as the tedium. It would also feel more epic to nuke the poles once instead of doing it several times. Buff the other options in the case of global water and vegetation. Again: Supplement your colony with rockets, do not replace it.
  
• Satellites increase their category (research, funding) by 10% instead of an absolute value. Debatable in the case of funding with the first rule, but unless you are really keen on the idea of a self-sufficient colony without colonists, I would also prefer it here if these projects supplemented your colonists' work instead of replacing it. It also makes more sense to me that better communication improves your research instead of generating it.

So yeah, once again, easy changes, IMO a pretty huge improvement, and I have a hard time seeing the downside...opinions?

 

[Promethian]

Lakes increase the soil quality. Build a surface farm near them and reap the massive food rewards. For real, a surface farm produces oodles of food if you can swing the water cost. The lakes and forestation plants are more about getting you a tangible benefit to terraforming than pushing your progress.

 

[YertyL]

Lakes increase the soil quality. Build a surface farm near them and reap the massive food rewards. For real, a surface farm produces oodles of food if you can swing the water cost. The lakes and forestation plants are more about getting you a tangible benefit to terraforming than pushing your progress.

I did think of that, and some further experimentation may be required, but:

1. Even a huge lake does not even remotely give you the fertile area needed for a whole farm. And even if it did, would it not be more convenient to just lay out lichen with a forestation plant, then go from there with cover crops and/or spices?
2. Either way, it would be nice if rocket projects were not effectively the only way to increase water and vegetation

 

[SillySMS]

Personally I like that rockets have more of a role now. Once you get a self-sustaining colony with a good growth rate, especially once you have the Space Elevator, rockets became borderline useless before the latest patch.

The advantage of rockets is that they can be relatively cheap... but the events pop rarely. While things like lakes, GHG factories, etc. are more resource-intensive for the gain, they're there for people who want to push the terraforming as fast as possible... especially to get you through the Pain Zone of toxic rains.

What I really, really hate is getting the vegetation to 100%.By that point, there's a non-trivial chance that you have a stupidly large tribo-scrubbed Excavator/Mohole/outdoor farm colony that is entirely self-sufficient, and if 100% vegetation is the last item on your list... you can spend a very, very long time at 5x timewarp waiting for that stupid seeding event to spawn. There is no intervention you can do save waiting.

For the other three? You can throw more resources at the problem. That gives you something to work for: the resources to build more lakes/GHG factories/CHCs/what-have-you. Vegetation, though? I'm timewarping through this and it's really, really boring. A mere 10 rockets to go!

This is the one thing I think they really extra-double-plus flubbed in an otherwise stellar DLC.

 

[YertyL]

Personally I like that rockets have more of a role now. Once you get a self-sustaining colony with a good growth rate, especially once you have the Space Elevator, rockets became borderline useless before the latest patch.

The advantage of rockets is that they can be relatively cheap... but the events pop rarely. While things like lakes, GHG factories, etc. are more resource-intensive for the gain, they're there for people who want to push the terraforming as fast as possible... especially to get you through the Pain Zone of toxic rains.

What I really, really hate is getting the vegetation to 100%.By that point, there's a non-trivial chance that you have a stupidly large tribo-scrubbed Excavator/Mohole/outdoor farm colony that is entirely self-sufficient, and if 100% vegetation is the last item on your list... you can spend a very, very long time at 5x timewarp waiting for that stupid seeding event to spawn. There is no intervention you can do save waiting.

About that "events pop rarely": As far as I can tell, it is not only about time, but a random chance after doing another event/project, isn't it? Which for me now 2 games in a row meant I had to repeatedly do projects I did not want to have a chance to get the ones I need (mostly seeding). Did I mention I kind of hate that implementation?

And yeah, agree on the second part, besides the basic ressources, you also tend to be drowing in seeds after bushes. So it really is purely waiting and randomness. Seed projects should at least take 1000-2000 seeds and give you 20% to cut down the endless waititng.