Forums

 Hey guys. I finally purchased this game last week after going back and forth on it for like a month.  I'm very glad I did. It's an awesome game so far with tons of potential! Well done on your progress so far! 😊

I read through a few of the other feedback things written and I think the post made here ->  http://avencolony.com/community/beta-feedback/feed-back/  was a spot on feedback post. However, there are some additional suggestions I would like to make, and they deal with rounding out the basic functions of our colonies.

Trash

Concern:

One thing that is not addressed at all is how much trash humans produce on a daily basis from everything we do. From our manufacturing processes to simple biological necessities, we produce a massive amount of garbage on a daily basis. With this in mind, I think each type of building should have an amount and type of trash produced. Like the apartments/habitats/skyscrapers produce sewage, metallic trash (from food cans, soda cans, etc), and maybe paper type trash (paper, cardboard from personal mail, packages, etc). Farms produce plant waste, animal waste. And maybe the other buildings produce metallic/paper/plastic waste from shipping packaging etc.

Suggestion:

Create a waste disposal section of buildings to handle this very realistic, real world issue.

1. Incinerators - These bad boys can get rid of any and all waste! But the trade off is that they are bad polluters and consume a large amount of energy to do so. They give no benefit other than getting rid of your trash.

2. Recycling Plant - these buildings take mettalic/plastic trash and convert them into nanites! Or at least convert the trash into raw materials to be sent to the nanites production facilities. Their trade off is they still use power and can't recycle all trash like sewage, farm waste, etc. So the player would still need to address the rest.

3. Anearobic Digesters - These facilities handle all the plant/animal waste from farms, sewage from people, and turn it into electricity and fresh drinking water. These facilities would be somewhat bad polluters, though not as bad as the incinerators, and would not be able to handle mettalic/plastic type trash.

Additional Reasoning:

So while you can take care of all the trash simply with an incinerator, you don't get any other benefits which could help your colony be more self sustaining.

This would also create more challenges the player would have to overcome, both short term and long term as obvious resources for nanites and water start to disappear.

Power/Electricity

Concern:

There is no realistic way to make a self sustaining colony beyond the early stages without covering half your map with solar panels after the geothermal vents are all used.

Suggestion:

1. Wind mills to the line up of power sources. Perhaps they perform best in winter when things get cold and stormy. In tandem with solar panels that perform better in summer, you can thus still create a fairly stable power grid.

2. Wave generators. Using the movement of the oceans/large lakes you can create power roughly on the same level as the solar panels. This would make use of otherwise useless areas of the maps that have large bodies of water.

These in addition to the above mentioned anaerobic digesters could then make it possible to be self sufficient.

Additional Reasoning:

A space colonies main focus would realistically be all about efficiency and how to be independent. The less they would need to focus on exhaustible resources he better.  Doing the power grid this way would still be more of a challenge to balance, but would make it possible to keep going after the easy fuel sources are depleted.

Education

Concern:

Another aspect not touched on is children. You can't tell me that on a far away colony away from everything the brave settlers are used to, that there isn't a whole lot of snu snu going on. Lol And with those extracurricular activities going on, accidents are sure to happen. 

Suggestion:

Add an academic buildings section. One can be a general school for the kiddies while a second could be a college or specialty training academy.

Additional Reasoning:

This second advanced school would also address how the colonists are able to just switch jobs whenever they feel.

Well this is all the time I have right now to talk about suggestions. I might add more in another post later.  But keep up the good work. It's coming along nicely. Most of what I'm suggesting is just for better immersion, and long term colony goals. 

Best Regards,

VlPER

After joining the beta in february I have thoroughly enjoyed what I have seen to date about the game and agree with Viper for the most. I would also like to submit just a few additions that have not already been mentioned.

Power/Electricity

Concern:

If we look at the efficient power supplies of the present day. Wind: 1,164%; Geothermal: 514%; Hydropower: 317%; Nuclear: 290%; Solar: 207%; Biomass: 52%; Oil/Gas: 31%.

• What has happened to the Wind farms, hydroplants and Nuclear reactors of the future? 

Suggestion:

Atmospheric condensers should double up as wind generators at tier 3, if not for a windmill as Viper suggests with it's three tier system.

If Zorium is the only mineral equivalent to Uranium and used in a Nuclear reactor for generating power, then more availability should be had or more efficiency for the generator using less of the supply, maybe a conbination of both should be available to be achieved?

Advanced scientists, technicians, doctors, etc. need to be employed in the higher tiered buildings to add more meaning to them when job switching is applied. It does not do well to have an untrained idiot behind the advanced equipement. Hence, the foundations for acedemia are also needed as Viper quite elequently reasons.

Concern:

As governor of a future colony settlement, where is my residence?

Suggestion:

Build a Governors residence and have upgrades at certain population levels for social and domestic, inter-colony trade negotiations, inter-planetary communications and the planning of interdiction operations against the opposition whether it be alien or rebel. A minimap perhaps?

Kind regards,

Sci fi 101

Oh nice!  I do like the idea of a "governor's residence".  In game, they could even have an effect on the morale of the people.  For instance, say you are an evil, tyrannical governor.  Well, then in that case, the sight of your residence overshadowing the colony might attribute and negative cost to morale of the people as they begrudgingly look at your fine home day in and day out while they suffer.  Whereas if you are a kind overlord, it might grant a bonus. Perhaps a simple reminder of the fair ruler that takes care of them everyday.

All of this does remind me of another couple suggestions.  That is for the farming system and trade system.  Don't worry!  I'm not suggesting more buildings.  🙂

Pharmaceuticals

Concern:

Our health system in game is just sort of there once you have the hospital buildings.  There isn't even a mention of pharmaceuticals in the limited trade menu...

Suggestion:

Add options in the farming sections for plants that have pharmaceutical properties.  This could include things like penicillin and such.

Additional Reasoning:

This would also give an actual function to the chemical plant buildings for governors like myself that insist on not making anything (with the exception of candy) unhealthy to ensure my population maintains peak health, as it could be used to convert these plants into useful meds.

This could also add another level of difficulty for maintaining the health of the population as without growing or trading for certain raw materials (and/or needing the necessary processing plants) will mean you can't perform certain surgeries and whatnot. Thus your colonists won't be as healthy as they could be and could then become disgruntled.

Trade

Concern:

Currently, the trade system is extremely limiting.  We have no real control over what gets traded for what.  Currently, I am forced to give up useful supplies, mostly for junk that harms the health of my colonists or is easy to acquire via water pumps or whatever. My biggest need has almost always been for nanites. Unless I am missing something, once the mines are used up and the cargo pods are collected, you have zero ability to get more nanites, thus your colony is dead in the water whenever our finite resources are exhausted.  This was one of the reasons why I suggested my recycling plant in the OP, actually.  To address the sudden lack of nanites to keep building.

My other concern is even if we have a trading post, we for some reason, can only trade a single item per building...I have no clue what the reasoning is for this...like at all...sorry guys.

Suggestion:

Allow us the ability to say what we wish to trade.  We can even keep the simple check system as is in place currently.  The difference is the exports would only display what we have in stock.  Or if they showed everything on the export column, put what we don't have in stock as grayed out and not clickable.  The second column would be for the same list of everything available.  If we are still only allowed one trade item per building, the computer can automatically dictate what we wish to trade is worth in each commodity we wish to acquire.  So for example:

TRADE:

Export:                                  How Much:       Import:                                   Equals Amount for Import:

Water                                       100                         Water                                          (grayed out)

Nanites                                     0                             Nanites                                        10

Foodstuffs (list below)          0                              Foodstuffs (list below)            (variable depending on what food)

Zorium                                     0                              Zorium                                        50

etc.                                             0                              etc.                                               ...

*PICK ONE IMPORT TO TRADE FOR 100 UNITS OF WATER*

With a more complex system, we could take the above example and be given the option to say choose only 5 nanite unit imports. At which point, the values for what we can import on the other items based and 100 units of water would be cut in half and so on as we broke down our import order.

While I personally would rather have the more complex option, I know that could be a pain to program.  I would really like to at least see the first example for a bit more flexibility and usefulness of the trade system as I current don't really use it almost at all due the the current limitations.

Anyway, that's all I have for now.  Thanks again for your time if you guys are actually reading this!  And great suggestion Sci Fi 101!

Best Regards,

VlPER

Very nicely put VIPER.

The governors residence should have attributes that can affect the morale of the citizens. Perhaps a sphere of influence can be introduced with each upgrade increasing that area to be more distant. Maybe a vice governor can take on the responsibility of certain auto operations you have preset, thereby leaving the governor to concentrate on more urgent matters such as defense of the base or offensive operations at critical times?

Some of your issues have already been mentioned before but on the itch.io beta feed for Aven colony instead. Here is a link fyi.

https://mothership.itch.io/aven-colony/community

The Antibiotics and antivirals that were in game have been removed from the hospital for now.

Kelko sludge is a replacement for minerals such as iron or copper and produced in the chemical plant after harvesting to allow further nanite production beyond the exhaustion of minerals.

Maybe the Trade Hub should be upgradable to allow for extra trade handling instead of having to build a another Trade Hub for each negotiation and this made available by the governor's residence upgrade? The trade guy onboard the mothership does a great job, but it is his decision on what others want and is restrictive. I want to be able to decide for myself what trade to do given the conditions at other colonies that I have helped previously as governor and openly trade with them independently from the mothership as the game progresses. I can direct my new colony to suite another or indeed another or another. It would be nice to be able to choose which one to trade with.

Maybe a political building apart from the governor's residence should also stand once you have a sizeable population, a house of representatives, introducing possible different political parties and various actions as a consequence?

My only other concern is Sandbox games at present are limited to just population growth as an objective and they need more depth with other potential objectives for a more thorough sense of achievement. What else can I do whilst building and maintaining my colony? Can I explore beyond the existing map and progress to an alternative one with other possible avenues of discovery? Can I link the different colonies across Aven that I have helped as governor previously and make them one planetary operation? 

Scenario:

Mitary attache to the Govenor, General Flips:

Govenor. The border patrol drones have reported signs of the creep amassing to the east on their proximity scanners and we have had additional reports of Death spores amassing to the west. I fear our brave base marines will not be able to cope with the onslaught if the two are co-ordinated in their attacks. There numbers are too few and would be thinly spread. What are your orders sir?

Governor

Well despatch the expeditionary forces at once under Captain Kaos. He's had several dealings with the creep before now and is the best commander for the task at hand. Make sure you keep a contingent in reserve to defend the platform. We can't afford to lose that at any cost.

Now, Red alert all defenses to the ready and get the marines over to the west as soon as possible. I want the sirens sounding off now! Boost the plasma cannons if necessary, we have sufficient energy stores in batteries and I don't want a single spore infection to happen on my watch general and will hold you personally accountable for any intrusions. Do you undesrstand?

Mitary attache to the Govenor, Genaral Flips:

Yes sir! Right away sir!

That's enough for now and kind regards,

Sci fi 101

Many thanks for the link!  Do you know why the pharmaceuticals were taken out?  What the reasoning was on it?

And ok.  I didn't know that about the kelko spores as when I hover my arrow over the icon it just says that it can be processed for food....not nanites.  As a result, I thought the only kelko sludge reserves where the non renewable deposits that were on the map.  All one of them for me. lol  Still.  After having dumped a ton of resources into building nearly a dozen kelko spore farms, I can still only process 1 to 3 (if I'm lucky!) per hour.  That seems a little ridiculous considering how many people and buildings I have dedicated just for that, now.  Thus I still think the recycling centers would be a cool way to ease production needs.

This leads back to my earlier mentioned issue with the game.  Power.  It is proving to be the very bane of my existence where this game is concerned.  I am currently governing a colony of what I believe to be a respectable size (2K population, correct me if I'm wrong. lol).  I realized some time ago that having 8 zorium mines and relying on them is a VERY bad idea.  So I had begun building solar panels and slowly taking my zorium generators offline.

I have successfully managed to bring down my total zorium generator count to 4 and cut my usage/reliance on them by 50%.  The problem is, even though I have now spent several in game years on NOTHING but tier 3 solar panel construction, I still have only a snowballs chance in hell of weaning my colony off zorium before the supply runs out and a third of my colony goes dark (which will almost certainly send me into a death spiral).

While I know I mentioned this issue in my OP, I feel it is worth reiterating that thanks to the MASSIVE cost compared to output of solar panels, it is all but impossible to be completely self sufficient without covering half your map in these almost useless but expensive panels.  So again, I would like to insist, demand, beg, plead, cajole, whatever it takes to get the power situation fixed.  Either by adding more efficient, affordable, preferably AND compact alternatives like wind, wave, dams, anaerobic digestors, etc....or reworking the numbers on the solar panels.  Preferably how much output we get for such an expensive investment. Or make them cheaper so the vast fields of solar panels that take up our maps can at least be built faster.  I guess alternatively, I can also just start all over and ignore zorium mines/generators completely so as not to screw myself over later.  That'll just make expansion sooooo slow.

Ok...rant over.  😛

I like your suggestion about maybe having a world map that you can link to other colonies via trade.  Almost like a Port Royale economy game, but you get to build the individual colonies as well.  Man, that would have so much potential to essentially make this game endless.  Each location could be better for different types of farming, mining, possibly even for gathering energy via mining or whatever natural formation lends itself to other alternatives...or better yet maybe add the possibility of high voltage power lines to transfer energy acquired by this scenario to other colonies the player has built.

While I actually REALLY like your idea of possible combat scenarios, I don't believe that is what the creators are trying to go for with this game.  Perhaps in a later game expansion?  Such an expansion could actually then allow for civil war style conflicts between outposts as well.

So many possibilities... 🙂

Best Regards,

VlPER

I fully agree with you on the power and the nanite issues. I also think that there should be further research projects linked to the Alien artifacts that can potentially lead to a better efficiency for all of your buildings whether that be power, nanite construction, farming output etc. It would tie in with a research tree from which the governor can choose different directions to take in the game, thereby adding variety to overall gameplay and no one playthrough would be the same as another.

The pharmaceuticals will return in the next update according to the mothership in order to fulfill the mission objective on the Arido mesa map. You can still complete the overall mission without having done that secondary mission, just get those people on the ground asap. No good reason was given for their removal apart from the devs neglecting to notice the error.

Have you taken a look at the press release for the game? Expeditonary forces mean combat is going to be a factor in someways, but no information on the application of that as yet. Here's the link just in case you missed it.

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/pressreleases/292848/TEAM17_REVEALS_NEW_GDC_TRAILERS_AND_INFO_FOR_AVEN_COLONY_ANDTHE_ESCAPISTS_2.php

There is so much potential for this game as you say and for it to have many sideline missions with subterranean levels, moons, asteroid fields and even other planets in the system etc. All in all it's wetting my appetite for Sci-Fi and am eager to see what is on the next update.

Best regards,

Sci fi 101