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Summary of Upcoming Features from ShadowZone


K^2

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This is based on all the previews we've already seen,, but it's a very good summary, and maybe some people missed some of this footage. I think it's good to see all of the individual new features in context of all the others, which this video does really well. You can also see the progression from rough ideas and prototypes to something that's starting to look like working implementation for a lot of these features.

 

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1 hour ago, Nirgal said:

I hadn't noticed the uranium and ore requirements for building within colonies before.. or maybe I've just forgotten since that was revealed years ago.. the wait is killing me lol

I think I even remember people being confused about why uranium is needed to build a nose cone, and it's been clarified that these were just placeholders. I also don't think we've heard anything final on when you'd have to use materials instead of credits, and whether you'd be able to choose either when building at KSC or anywhere else, for that matter. It is the sort of thing that you can keep tuning pretty late, though, so we probably won't know exactly how that's meant to work in final until very close to the release.

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8 hours ago, K^2 said:

I think I even remember people being confused about why uranium is needed to build a nose cone, and it's been clarified that these were just placeholders. I also don't think we've heard anything final on when you'd have to use materials instead of credits, and whether you'd be able to choose either when building at KSC or anywhere else, for that matter. It is the sort of thing that you can keep tuning pretty late, though, so we probably won't know exactly how that's meant to work in final until very close to the release.

I used to think it was because building a nose cone needed electricity:D

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10 hours ago, Coo said:

I used to think it was because building a nose cone needed electricity:D

Thought crossed my mind, but it'd be an odd choice to propagate that as material cost to the build cost, given that you have other options for producing electricity. Usually, games will just tell you how much energy is needed, and it's up to you to figure out how to get that made.

As a matter of fact, I would like to see more intermediate materials. Not too many - this shouldn't be turning into Factorio/Satisfactory type of game. But one additional, vaguely named layer, like, "Metal Construction Parts" and "Electronic Components" would be nice. Partially because some of these can have multiple production routes, electricity being the most obvious, but being able to make parts from scrap metal instead of ore, for example, could be good. But more crucially, it gives you a bit of flexibility on where to do your refining, and gives colonies a bit more purpose than just being ore extractors. If you take raw materials and turn them into components you need, you have less weight to lift to orbit to supply your orbital shipyard, etc. Finally, I do think some people might actually want this to be Factorio with rockets, and having rudimentary resource chains in vanilla game would make it much easier to make good mods for that kind of player.

But this is all just musings based on very limited information. I guess we'll see it when we see it.

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Thanks for sharing and the kind words, guys!

I'll post another KSP2 video tomorrow (Friday, September 3rd) which will take a look at how to create a great product and how not to lose focus of what's important while doing so. 2 years since the announcement --> 2 videos.

Hope next year we don't have to keep speculating but can actually play it - I don't want to do 3 videos in one week :D

Edited by ShadowZone
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21 hours ago, K^2 said:

Thought crossed my mind, but it'd be an odd choice to propagate that as material cost to the build cost, given that you have other options for producing electricity. Usually, games will just tell you how much energy is needed, and it's up to you to figure out how to get that made.

As a matter of fact, I would like to see more intermediate materials. Not too many - this shouldn't be turning into Factorio/Satisfactory type of game. But one additional, vaguely named layer, like, "Metal Construction Parts" and "Electronic Components" would be nice. Partially because some of these can have multiple production routes, electricity being the most obvious, but being able to make parts from scrap metal instead of ore, for example, could be good. But more crucially, it gives you a bit of flexibility on where to do your refining, and gives colonies a bit more purpose than just being ore extractors. If you take raw materials and turn them into components you need, you have less weight to lift to orbit to supply your orbital shipyard, etc. Finally, I do think some people might actually want this to be Factorio with rockets, and having rudimentary resource chains in vanilla game would make it much easier to make good mods for that kind of player.

But this is all just musings based on very limited information. I guess we'll see it when we see it.

Yeah as a person who spends time making table-top games as a hobby I know finding the balance between having too few or too many resources is a huge challenge and takes a lot of experimentation and tinkering. There are a few semi-knowns: prospecting is going to be important, there will be harvestable resource(s), and from that we'll be making rocket parts and at least 8 different fuel types. What Im really hoping for is that different bodies and different regions on those bodies will have different overlapping resource values that make selecting colony sites important and will drive players to adapt unique development strategies based on what they find. For instance one location might be richer in uranium and metals for making rocket parts, another might have better access to LFO, H2, and geothermal, and it would be up to the player how to exploit and combine those resources and what types of fuel-infrastructures they should invest in. Ideally there would be sites that were very attractive because they had more overlapping value, but that no one place would have everything you need so you'd have to be clever about how you built and moved things around.

As far as intermediate resources go I tend to agree that while Factorio has some kernels that might be useful its way more complicated than colony resources should be (although assuming universal plumbing takes care of most of that). Still, some intermediate resources might facilitate flexible player strategies without overcomplicating things, especially if they were dove-tailed into fuel production. For instance you could start with basic resources like Metalic Ore, Ice, Hydrocarbons, and Regolith, from which you could produce raw materials like Metals, Uranium, and Polymers for making rockets but also LFO, Monoprop, H2, MH, and HE3 depending on what processing equipment you'd built. Part of the evolution of your colony then would be shifting your resource collection and processing capabilities to expand what kind of engines you could utilize, for instance by shifting hydrocarbon extraction toward polymers for making new habitats as you phased out LFO and phased in H2 rockets. This all might still be too much, but thats something Im sure Intercept has put a lot of thought into and will be testing like crazy before release. 

Edited by Pthigrivi
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@K^2 @Pthigrivi if you look at Pathfinder, MKS, ELP, Ground Construction they have reasonable production trees associated with them. They work well until you reach a point where all you're doing is moving resources around. At that point they fall apart. That's a KSP1 limitation. In KSP2, moving resources around shouldn't be a limitation.

In my opinion if the devs take inspiration from the mods I mentioned above. I believe they can come up with a system that is complicated enough to where you have to put some thought into it, but simple enough so it doesn't feel like it rules the game.

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2 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

Yeah as a person who spends time making table-top games as a hobby I know finding the balance between having too few or too many resources is a huge challenge and takes a lot of experimentation and tinkering. 

A bit off the subject, but do you have a profile on BGG?  I'd be keen to see what you have created.

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6 minutes ago, Klapaucius said:

A bit off the subject, but do you have a profile on BGG?  I'd be keen to see what you have created.

No no, they’re all for friends. I should check out bgg cause Ive got a couple good ones now. 

35 minutes ago, shdwlrd said:

@K^2 @Pthigrivi if you look at Pathfinder, MKS, ELP, Ground Construction they have reasonable production trees associated with them. They work well until you reach a point where all you're doing is moving resources around. At that point they fall apart. That's a KSP1 limitation. In KSP2, moving resources around shouldn't be a limitation.

In my opinion if the devs take inspiration from the mods I mentioned above. I believe they can come up with a system that is complicated enough to where you have to put some thought into it, but simple enough so it doesn't feel like it rules the game.

Ive only messed around with MKS and its great but maybe 50% more complicated than Id like to see for KSP2, even including all the new exotic fuels. Thats just me. But you’re right automated milk-runs could help a lot with that. 

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1 hour ago, Pthigrivi said:

Ive only messed around with MKS and its great but maybe 50% more complicated than Id like to see for KSP2, even including all the new exotic fuels. Thats just me. But you’re right automated milk-runs could help a lot with that. 

The only thing that made MKS complicated was the lack of documentation both in and out of game and the different resources that did the same thing. Once you figured out the production chain, it wasn't too bad. (Had to look at the configs to figure out what did what.) Only 1-2 intermediary products required from raw resource to finished good to complete the chain. 

 

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