Some say this game is easy...

[NosajDraw]

And I thought it was pretty easy even when that's exactly what I wanted.

I've watched some Youtubers play throughs, thought, "yeah, shouldn't be an issue".

Then on my first play through, not at "Evaluation" time and my base is getting smashed in a meteor storm, on the play throughs I saw, their bases got hit by one, two maybe three meteors. But I'm getting pummelled, I've lost count of how many have hit, but I've only got 3 domes and I've had at least 5 hits on those alone.

What did I do to deserve this?

 

[grumbold]

Welcome to the world of RNG. I settled an area marked as 4/4 for water. 14 tiles surveyed, not a drop to drink anywhere. There's probably going to be an invisible ocean in the last tile I survey.

 

[NosajDraw]

Welcome to the world of RNG. I settled an area marked as 4/4 for water. 14 tiles surveyed, not a drop to drink anywhere. There's probably going to be an invisible ocean in the last tile I survey.

Yeah, I got water, well 2 sources, but no rare metals for miles, I've had to build a tunnel and push drone hubs way way out, and now I've got to build new infrastructure out there to build a dome to get at the rare metals... guess how much funding I have left? $130m Ooops, I think (along with the meteor storm) I could be heading for fail on this.

 

[Exemplar Voss]

Day 11 of my first run. Meteorite hits my main universal storage. I get message: fuel explosion, resources destroyed. Yep. Everything on that storage platform was obliterated, about 20 each of every resource.

After that, I got three more hits on water, power and storage tanks. And I was still working on getting my first dome going.

 

[spannbeton]

I currently play at 535 difficulty and have no problems whatsover.

So yes for experienced strategy players this game is easy as pie.
I'd love to have a hardcore mod. wind fluctuations, solar flares, realistic batteries...

 

[NosajDraw]

I currently play at 535 difficulty and have no problems whatsover.

So yes for experienced strategy players this game is easy as pie.
I'd love to have a hardcore mod. wind fluctuations, solar flares, realistic batteries...

If getting hit by 10 to 20 meteors every hour for 20(?) sols which pretty much seemed focused on your building is easy, then OK, but thats not easy in my book.

 

[spannbeton]

I got hit a lot but got very lucky with my breakthroughs. Seniors work now for example. Power to research was my first, so I'm running a giant wind farm with about 500 power surplus right now...

So with all the breakthrough Paradox Sponsor isnt really that bad...

 

[dumbo11]

On my map, the lower tier is hit by dust storms and a few meteors, the upper tier is absolutely trashed by meteor storms.

My base is on the lower level, so I've built some water/oxygen storage near my domes... and everything is fine.

 

[NosajDraw]

I'm about to give up!

Yet ANOTHER meteor storm, this time only 19h, but if it rips my base appart like last time, I'll have nothing left.

This relentless down pour of destruction is about as much fun as having teeth extracted.

 

[Thorin]

Just 300%, not that hard, and it has maxed out meteor storm, one landed on the other side of the map, second smashed my water collectors, has some issues, but after it stopped raining stone solved pretty fast. Not much problem since, even got a few nice breakthroughs, and finished most base tech, currently waiting for the next storm, but if it hits somewhere else, no problem, just free anomalies

 

[Chaon]

Playing easy mode to get back into the measure of base building and learning the ins and outs of this game.

Not going to worry about any difficult playthroughs for a while.

 

[spannbeton]

I'm going to start a second playthrough probably again on the hardest map with Pdox but a different mystery now. gonna see if I was just lucky with the breakthroughs...

 

[Heradite]

I am finding the game a bit easy with the occasional challenge.

My difficulty rating though of my map and setup is 40 percent. But only because I couldn't find a lower difficult spot.

 

[spannbeton]

So my conclusion on 535%

The map is always the same, so are the anomalies. I started in Sector E0, which has water and average concrete nearby as well as some ground polymer and some metals. Metals and even a very high rare deposit are present at the same elevation but quite far apart. So you will need to micro a little with your transport.


Also one anomaly is buried under a rock...

Apperantly map generation is dependant on your ship loadout. interesting

 

[Lupis Volk]

You must have been horribly cruel to puppies in a past life OP.

 

[sterrius]

Some maps are hard not because of the threats but because of the building space.
Other maps are pretty dangerous with meteors + Cold waves + Dust Storms. (I could not find a map with all 4 threats 3+, only 3 of them, so i decided to choose dust storms as they are more dangerous) .

My map have a 4 dust storm / 3 meteor / 4 dust devils. And while i dont faced a meteor shower on my base im attacked every 5-10 sols by a random meteor. With a Hard sponsor it can be a gameover if you don´t know what you're doing.

A dust storm for example it can come in 3 flavor.s

Normal one increase maintance a little but its ok.
Static one same as above and also disable buildings for some hours.
GREAT dust storm = See your machine parts melt. Just shut down everything if you don´t have a factory to keep the demand.

Meteors shower is close to above. If you are in the middle of the shower just turn everything hit by them off. This will avoid drones from repairing buildings again and again.

Also don´t try to heat things vs cold waves early game. Anything outside of keeping the colonists alive can wait the wave to pass or for you to unlock stirling generators.

If you can unlock stirling generators DO IT. It will reduce the cost from 400M to 240M each. And thats before building yourself the materials. With that i was able to make my first dome to have 4 of them. And im now on stirlings only avoiding a ton of maintance as they don´t cost anything closed. (And if hit by a meteor here and there its ok, i can afford some extra polymers ).


in the end. Don´t trust that much on the Difficulty %. it can tricky you to a false sense of challenge/security.

 

[NosajDraw]

You must have been horribly cruel to puppies in a past life OP.

I'm begining to think its a bugged mystery, the mystery timeline is advancing far faster than I am, I had a press conference talking about the alien machines I'd attacked... yet, I'm no where near actually being able to do that yet...

 

[spannbeton]

if you can buy sterlings this early you are probably not playing one of the harder sponsors.

 

[Thorin]

since the tech tree is random, you can get it almost from start, than you just need polymers (somwhat easy to make) and electronics (hard and costly, but you can get a stirling for little more than the other energy sources and much less maintenance, so even in 20 sols you get ahead.

 

[sterrius]

if you can buy sterlings this early you are probably not playing one of the harder sponsors.

Doing paradox sponsor on the example above.
you can afford 3 of them with Paradox or church of the new ark and still have money for a disaster or two.

Sterling pay themselves easily by avoiding maintance be it machine parts or metal.

Specially using one with the first rocket to supply the Fuel + Water extractor. This make sure even if you get a cold wave before Sol 10 you can open the sterling to keep both working.

(Specially with paradox and their 100 fuel requirement).
The other 2-4 (Depend on tech) you use to rely less on wind power to supply the dome.

Here is a shot of the first rocket i normally use.

If you cheat loading the same map you can even remove the orbital probe + watervapor extractor to save yourself +300Millions.

Second rocket you bring the
explorer (400)
+1 rc Rover (300M)
+15 polymers ( 210 M)
2 sterlings (800M).

this leaves 600M for machine parts (30 of them).

With you only needing them for 10 buildings (Rare mineral extractor, fuel extractor, water extractor and concrete extractor +6 wind generators) you can keep yourself fine for quite a while with the 45 machine parts you have.

Eletronics only come into play after you place a machine factory or use a drone hub. So 5 is fine to make 2-3 scans and leave 2 if you by chance research a factory and build it.