I bought this game yesterday and played some hours today. So far I like it but there is plenty of room for improvement. Here is what I found during my short time of playing which I hope the developer(s) will take into consideration!

❶ When starting a new game and it isn't your first time P-L-E-A-S-E allow us to skip the intro and jump right into action! Same with startup ... It is a waste of precious time having to watch the intro every time ...

❷ First of all there is there are the buildings an road networks. Place a building and a network of roads is built along with it. Place a building near an already existing road network and more roads are added. Once they start crisscrossing this becomes a serious problem for the worker drowns to move around collecting resources from mines and the industrial buildings. This problem gets worse when destroying a building since the road network reconnects making it a total mess.

So when removing or adding a building somewhere the road network should also be updated to make it more efficient. When adding new buildings there is no need to build three or four or five new nodes connecting to a road network. It would be better to connect already existing nodes to a building without adding additional ones when something is placed near an existing road.

❸ Building something, no matter what, needs resources. For instance the worker factory or spaceport needs certain kinds of factories and resources before it can be built. Once a factory or building becomes available you can place it on the map. New road networks are built and existing resources are transported to that building causing more work for the one and only robot you got when starting out with the game. It would be better to have a visual tech-tree where you can look up factories you need to build first to unlock the spaceport. Once the necessary buildings are up and running are you allowed to actually place the spaceport to be built.

❹ Buildings start deteriorating and there is no way to tell your maintenance bots to prioritize certain buildings over others. When there are two such maintenance factories covering 15 to 20 buildings it takes forever and a day until a building is back at 100% even at a speed factor of 16.

It would be better to allow selection of buildings to link to a maintenance hub and assign bots manually at first until they learn which buildings are important and which to neglect for the time being. Or maybe an on/off switch for each building and priority button like when building something or collecting resources from them.

❺ There is fluff interaction with this professor and the A.I. running the operation on Mars and some introspection of the A.I. While this adds a nice touch it's also distracting from whatever else is going on. Since there is a timer counting down during which you got to choose an answer you may miss out on something.

Please remove this stupid counter and move the communication to some menu to click on and consume while not busy building or watching what's going on. Ditto for the A.I.'s introspection. Move it to someplace else and add whatever as flavor text to a diary or log instead of having me click on some option. In both cases this interaction is distracting more than adding to the experience of playing ...

After playing it further I already wish the following things were possible. Maybe the things I'm about to describe are available at a later stage. If that is the case I'm really looking forward to it.

❶ I truly wish there was more granular control over IN/OUT cycles as relates to mines, factories and my main hub or hubs. When there is a silicon mine and an electronics factory it would be beneficial to connect both via IN/OUT cycles first and have the end product delivered from the factory to my main hub.

Certain buildings in early stages just need resources to be built where in later stages you need raw material as well as manufactured parts in order to build something. As I already described in my first post you are able to place a building even before necessary material has been collected and other factories or plants haven't yet been built. Place it and raw material as well as parts are transported to this building.

This is a waste of time at best. It would be better to allow placing a building or buildings and have bots ignore them when necessary buildings haven't been built and there's not enough raw material stored in my hub. Only if necessary conditions are met is a bot assigned and the building job carried out.

❷ Drone fights and tower defense style game?! Seriously?! Sorry but this isn't what I expected and I hate it ... CUT IT OUT or allow for us to disable it in certain modes ... This doesn't fit the theme at all ... Are you supposed to terraform and build a colony or are you supposed to play tower defense, build something, look to it that everything's running and on top of it have your colonists survive while doing whatever else is to be done? This is better fit for Online modes if there were any and you actually face another player trying to achieve the same you do ...

Since there is no warning and considering that when playing down there is no automated slowdown from 16x to 1x or even pause mode this can become a problem. I also do hate to have to waste resources on building defensive drones, a whole army, just so I can overcome whatever or whoever is attacking my colony, industry, operations.

When I wish to play a fun and relaxed builder simulation I DON'T WANT TO FIGHT! IT ISN'T FUN, PERIOD! If I was any good or even interested in RTS sort of tower defense I would buy that game. Since RTS is not my genre, may be a gender thing, and I'm totally not good at it I hate it even more as there's the prospect that I will play thru this game not once but many times to try new ways of doing things. Always living with the anticipation of that going to happen just kills the fun for me. Sorry for going on and on about this ... While I don't like it maybe others playing this game do ... And as I said cut this out in certain modes and implement it at higher difficulty or maybe a dedicated mode ...

❸ The core of this game should be the A.I. and machine learning algorithms constantly improving as I as player go about doing my thing. Have it learn from what I do and relieve me from menial tasks to concentrate on the management and building part. AI doing path finding, assigning jobs, do all the connections, improve the production cycles and quota, calculate in advance what may be needed so I become able to plan ahead of time all such things.

If AI doesn't do its job or something strange is happening have me step in and find the error. That may be some colonist whose sabotaging the operation or may have been something I taught the AI by way of doing which was clearly less than optimal with serious consequences somewhere down the line.

This would be better than introducing new factories that does things better or functions that improve road networks. In the early game I got to manually do it all until that option becomes available to do it automatically. That's cheap. Either allow building networks of roads and nodes in a way I think is right and let the AI take over once I think it may have learned how I want things to go or have it do and improve nodes based upon travel of bots between buildings, mines, factories, colony, hub ... Depending upon the AI's algorithm some nodes are reconnected and others wiped to make bots more efficient and take less time to travel from a->b->c->a.

❸ Please restructure the UI. Specifically the little buttons to the left of the screen where one is able to select buildings, shut some on off and set the priority of buildings. Group everything in a tabbed interface and cut the 4 buttons or so down to a single one.

The main tab which allows me to select buildings set priorities and have them shut down or resume operations there are also info buttons. Nice to know that many there is a wrench signifying that there is serious need to repair a building. Since I can't do anything with it this is useless ... As I mentioned in the first post let me raise priority, what buildings are assigned to what maintenance hub and what buildings should be neglected. Both in the interface as well as outside it whatever is more practical.

The most important thing would be to be able to move the interface around on screen instead of having it stuck on the bottom left of the screen. The resources interface along the bottom is distracting from it so this I feel should fade out while the other is open.

❹ Visual information in main screen seems to be all over the place. There is this rotating torus and a yellow spinning indicator when displaying information about power consumption or how much power buildings need. They are not only making me dizzy but also overlap some of the numbers because it's right underneath them.

There are already power lines and the information about power consumption and even this doesn't work. Firstly because even without these strange spinning torus' not all of the numbers and information is easy to read. Secondly because the color seems to be too bright. Third because buildings and roads start overlapping the information so it becomes almost impossible to read no matter how close you're zooming in. This makes it beyond useless while actually it's good to have this information not only in your interface but on screen also.

❺ Selecting buildings to look up information from the building menu to see what resources one needs and what other plants to build it doesn't really work well the way it is. When hovering over something another window pops up to the left showing the resources as icons. When trying to hover over any information in the second window it simply vanishes and you can't see what those resources are ... As new player how should you know what sillicium looks like or coal or iron that you are going to need?

There is of course one way to keep the second window containing all the information open and hover over the symbols to see what it is. Click and hold your left mouse button and move it over to the second window ... This needs to be changed!

A good way would be to move this information about what you need in order to build it to the encyclopedia or a tech-tree if ever there is going to be one with its own interface.

Hovering over any number of buildings while mousing around screen makes it difficult to stay focused. Display important information on screen but PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, only let me see all information when I click on a building or structure or mine! At all other times just maybe show two icons or something that's constantly displayed and even that should be something I should feel you let me disable that as well.

There's nothing worse than visual clutter all over the place and information that's hard to spot because this too is up in the corner, down below and above resources. This doesn't help while playing is why you may reconsider the structure of it and rework it as best as possible. Unity isn't famous for its wonderful options to create a well working and integrated UI/UX. Last I worked with this drag of a framework the only option was to turn to 3rd party but well it is what it is ... Just do your best to work around the limitations.

I hope the developer sees the above posts because there is a lot of well thought out feedback. Especially this:

❶ When starting a new game and it isn't your first time P-L-E-A-S-E allow us to skip the intro and jump right into action! Same with startup ... It is a waste of precious time having to watch the intro every time ...

Every game developer needs to get that through their head.

For me and many others, the fact that it is Windows 10 only means it has been a waste of development effort, because we will never install spyware as a substitute for an operating system. You lost a sale.

Sadly so far the devs don't appear to take note of this forum here. There are quite busy on their twitter account with advertising and retweeting though.

They're doing a really good job of responding on the Steam forums though, so they're showing they're eager to engage with the community.

Just not here, because GoG is kinda niche. Steam is where 99% of their audience is.

Stop by the steam forums! I play on GoG, but I go there to interact with the devs. They've corrosponded with me several times now.

What you say is all well and good and I'm certain they engage in discussions and receive suggestions on Steam. However they sell this game on GOG as well and I bought it here so there is this stupid expectation that they do an equally good job on here as they do on Steam interacting with their customers.

This is why I don't like the thought of having to go ask on Steam for patches and updates, receive help, report bugs or to make suggestions. This is something I stopped doing a long time ago. If money is worth something but support and community over here isn't I will simply move on and others may reconsider their choice buying this game on here.

GOG is no niche market or a hobby project run by fans it is a business. We aren't second-class customers a developer can simply ignore. This is a lesson not learned by many expecting us to come running after them. If they feel that Steam is a more convenient platform and support is more important there why do they even bother to release their game here?

First off, you're absolutely right Mori_Yuki. Your expectations are what we all would like to see, including me. I don't mean to disagree or rebuke any of your points... just to put things in a different perspective.

But that's just the thing, right? You stopped going to Steam, but if you're unhappy with the service here, you're going to reconsider buying the game here on GoG? Well, where else are you going to go? Back to steam?
I'd say anyone using GoG, should already know service here is less and use GoG anyway for reasons other than that. Personally, I just don't want Steam to have my money.

Also, compare these GoG forums to the ones on steam. There's 4 threads here and 347 on steam. That means that off the larger community's activity, less then 1.15% takes place here. Even less then a percentage if you count posts made in threads. I'd say that its realistic to expect for the devs to spend their attention proportionally and there's simply too little activity here.

You're right though! They SHOULD be spending time here as well. I'm just saying it might not be feasible or realistic. The only difference between you and me is that I (perhaps foolishly) expect that and you don't (perhaps too idealistically).

Have a nice day!

Just speak your mind and don't worry overstepping any lines. I do know how the situation is and it isn't so much that GOG in its official capacity is a letdown as things goes both ways. There are certain things I do expect and others I don't:

Developers paying attention to platforms without expecting them to become involved in lengthy discussions. Sometimes a one liner acknowledging that they are there and take notice is all it needs. They still got work on ironing out bugs and improving the game which should take absolute precedence above all else. Next most important thing is to post a list of updates and when we can expect them to arrive. They already got the information so comes down to a copy and paste job. If they got time they should enter into discussions.

The situation with updates? Well, it's as you say, this is GOG and the way patches, updates and developer access is handled and divided between offline installers and Galaxy updates, the review process and roll-out I know there is some time waiting until they become available. Important for me is only that updates, patches, DLC become available in a timely manner here.

The only reason I stopped turning to Steam to ask for support for a game I bought here is because if everyone does it the situation will never improve and I don't see why Steam customers should be bothered with anything GOG. I'm always willing to give developers the benefit of the doubt since just because one doesn't care the other might. I'm old enough to know what to expect so there aren't any high hopes either way that the situation will improve anytime soon or harbor high or unrealistic expectations. There may have been a time when this was the case. That I can't deny! ;-) I also don't think that moving back to Steam is a step in the right direction I usually wait before buying a new release. This game was an exception.

So I guess you could say that I'm quite realistic as regards expectations. There are some and I outlined them and others I got an absolute right: Support, for instance. Consumer rights don't exist to be ignored because there is this way of thinking that we are gamers and not customers ... Or, worse, fans buying games just to support someone ... this is what I feel causes this situation or at least is part of why things are the way they are. Not demanding rights but begging and that's absolutely not the way things should be.

Have a nice day and thanks for taking your time to reply. :-)

I would also like to echo the "let us skip the intro" sentiment -- when I play games like this I end up restarting whenever I hit a wall, and so I end up starting a lot of new games -- the intro is lovely but I'm tired of seeing it.

It would be nice if you could tag a building as "priority until it's constructed" -- in other words, I'll place down a factory blueprint and tag it priority so that it gets built, but I don't want it producing at priority, and it would be a nice quality-of-life to not have to manually untag it when it gets constructed. It would be helpful to be able to, say, right-click the Priority tag button on a blueprint so it'll automatically untag when it's built.

Similarly, I'd like to be able to tag buildings for maintenance. The maintenance drone AI's priorities are something I genuinely don't understand -- it will go past the nearly-ruined building right in front of it in order to cross to the other side of the base in order to top off the unnecessary building that was already at 95%. There's some elaborate metaphor for capitalism we can weave here, but it doesn't help my game. Please give the option to flag buildings for repair.

I don't know if there's a better way to upgrade roads, but I'm finding it kind of tedious to do. It appears the way is to click on the "upgrade ways" icon and then choose an endpoint, and then eventually the workers will decide to give it the resources and upgrade it. Is there a way that's less micromanagey? Is there anyway to have new roads default to the faster construction?


Really enjoying it otherwise -- the presentation of the map is really beautiful and it's great overall -- I personally didn't mind the RTS elements, but I've only gotten to the early parts of it and I can see it being a problem for some. I think it's intended to be a surprise, but it also would be nice to be able to have a combat difficulty separate from it, and I wish the drones would be a little bit more automated , like to give them a patrol route or have them automatically move towards the neearest enemies. (Unless that's a technology you can unlock later on?) I think there would be a lot of people who would appreciate perhaps needing to build defense buildings and pepper them around the base -- just as you need to have worker hubs and power sources at regular intervals -- but where you otherwise don't have to think about it and the enemies become a little more of a simple disaster (like the asteroids) but you don't have to use any particular strategy to weather it.

i actually disagree on many of yourt points, specifically the interactions between the AI and humans, which is the crux of the narrative of the game, and the UI issues. I don't find the UI cluttered at all.

BUT the MAIN reason i am replying here is to let you know that if you rush the terraforming a little bit and get water on water you basically skip the turret defense portion and the base attack portion entirely. I did this on my first play through got by on like 4 defense towers with only the shield upgrade.then i flooded half the planet before i...well actually the rest can get spoilery.

just it is entirely possible to short circuit this defense phase.

Fair! Maybe you will understand better when I explain to you why this defense game and the UI are such a problem to me.

You know all the buttons on the left side of the screen one of which can be used to select factories, mines and other buildings, set priorities to certain buildings. This main window is tacked to the bottom left of the screen. In addition there's the power information on the left and on top and bound to F3. Why not have one button, one centralized interface displaying all the information in one place. A window I can move around. Add: And most importantly a window that isn't overlapped by something that isn't in focus such as the building menu or buildings or whatever else!

The resources on the bottom of the screen are important. For each you got the additional window popping up where you are able to ALLOCATE them: Upgrade/Building, Maintenance, Defense Drones, Electronic Parts, Special Projects ... depending on the resource. You need to move the sliders instead being able to set them to a %-value. One part of micro management that can get in the way but are important to pay attention to. For instance setting higher % to building maintenance drones and hope they get built without some resource that's available not being distributed to that stupid hub.

The problem with not having one central interface is that when some windows are open and the AI starts blabbering or a call is incoming or by just hovering over some building there is an overlay and you all you can do is close that damn window to click through messages or move the cursor off a building or to somewhere where there are no buildings to work on allocating resources.

The other problem with this and the layout is that when trying to build something and a call is incoming or AI starts blabbering you can't build anything. You have to click thru all the messages before you are able to place a building ...

Then there is the road network and always paying attention not to place a factory or building too close to some resource spot else you can't built mines there ... Building means more roads f*'ing up the road network and possibly also already upgraded roads by replacing those with newly built ones.

So when on top of all this you also got to pay attention to build defense drones which, if you aren't so lucky with resources, roads, drones, maintenance ... it starts and is over ... Yes I was that lucky ... So it can be difficult enough to keep everything up and running without that getting in the way. I personally don't care whether there is a reason for this to even exist. There would be millions of other ways to keep this a base builder/simulation and present challenges which have to be overcome in order to progress with whatever. Rushing anything just to avoid a fight? Not for me, I don't like to have to rush, particularly when it's to avoid something like this that I find is misplaced in this game.

There are many things potentially messing you up that's got nothing to do with what you, as player, may have done or didn't do previous. Also when it's got nothing to do with experience and more with RNG it makes it even worse. Maybe with this you are better able to appreciate why I don't like this aspect of the game and find it should be removed. And you may also now understand why I find the UI needs to be improved in order to make the most of it. In other words without windows tacked to one part of the screen and information hidden when accidentally hovering over some building, a call or AI. As I mentioned Unity isn't quite famous for its UI design capabilities ...That is if changing the UI to make it easier and better structured to work with in-game is at all possible without wasting weeks and months on it because UNITY is crap when it comes to UI design ...[/i]

So, to bolster your point, my reaction to this was WAIT YOU CAN DO THAT? I didn't even *notice* that and I had no idea this ability even existed. I think I looked at the graph like once but completely missed the Allocation screen. It is very tucked away, and I don't think the tutorial covers it in any way? Anyway thanks, this is probably going to help a bunch.

For its flaws it's just an oddly compelling game -- Frostpunk is the only other city builder which has really super hooked me, and this one is getting a lot of the same feelings. I'm really excited to see if it evolves.

well you did one better then i did. I didn't even realize those were buttons, i thought they just displayed the amount you had on hand.

There is no tutorial explaining the interface ... Or anything at all for that matter ... If there was one I would expect to learn about this and other options, how they work, how to make best use of them but there is no such thing in this game. I discovered it early during my first game by exploring the whole interface. Since there is no explanation for it you got to figure it out by way of trial and error.

I wish there was a set of tutorial missions taking you through different stages of the game and makes you acquainted with the interface, mechanics, etc. As I already mentioned there are many ways this game can mess you up if you don't know what you are doing and things aren't always as straightforward as they seem. Newbies to the game would strongly benefit from tool-tips telling them: When there's a resource spot don't place a building close to it before building a mine to gather resources provided by it! otherwise you can't build your mine ... Seems like a no-brainer but something to pay attention to simply because you can place buildings almost everywhere. If it wasn't for the fact that destroying a building seriously messes up the road network it wouldn't matter ...

Another important thing warranting an explanation is the building part. Some buildings need a mine and other buildings first yet you can place those buildings ahead of time. Once a building has been placed necessary resources will be transported to it. What do you think happens when you decide to press that little Switch button to turn it off? Your very intelligent drones will start collecting all the resources and either distribute them to other jobs or back to the hub ... Same as when you decide that the building hasn't been placed in the best spot. Destroy and at least in Easy and Normal modes those resources will be salvaged and distributed which is a waste of time. So be careful before placing something on the map.

Meantime I found many more things that seriously need to be worked on in order to improve this game. What with the ocean water you can't use just because there is no way to process it ...

Absolutely! Which is why I will keep it hoping that developers will update and improve the game as there's a real gem only waiting to shine.

I'd suggest the developers eventually care to show up in this forum...