Spacebase!

[tabacco]

I've played three games now and it's happened every time.

[clyde]

When it happened to me, I suspected that it had something to do with the miner piling up rocks in the airlock. Once you have the airlock and the oxygen-recyclers built, what duties do you assign your crew?

[tabacco]

'm starting with thee construction workers to get the basics built, then I moved two of them to miners and one to technician. The third game, the technician came inside but wouldn't actually do anything. In all games the miners just idled by the rocks I'd designated until they ran out of air and died.

[Nappi]

I guess you had the refinery up and running as well?

 

And doors for each room.

[clyde]

I'm with Nappi, try building a refinery and see if it still happens.

[tabacco]

I guess you had the refinery up and running as well?

 

And doors for each room.

 

Yes, and also yes.

[Twig]

Have you tried turning it off and back on again?

[dibs]

The second airlock goes into the base. Not both airlock doors going into space as in my first attempt.

My last game one of my crew died after being attacked. When I scrolled over there were two dead crew members. I assume they killed each other as there was no alien corpse or fire or anything like that? Also, when I then went to update my roster the roster screen bugged out and I had to crash out of the game:/

[clyde]

I appreciate that they cleaned up the dev-plan page.

http://spacebasedf9.com/devplans

[dibs]

All that looks awesome. I hope the deva remember that space madness is no excuse for space rudeness though.

[clyde]

'm starting with thee construction workers to get the basics built, then I moved two of them to miners and one to technician. The third game, the technician came inside but wouldn't actually do anything. In all games the miners just idled by the rocks I'd designated until they ran out of air and died.

Someone on the Double Fine forums seemed to have the same problem. Based on their reaction to some tutorial videos posted there, the videos might be useful to you.

http://www.doublefine.com/forums/viewthread/10599/

[Salacious Snake]

I love this game already. It's like a gradually unfolding space clusterfuck at all times. And then there are the times when it unfolds quickly and everyone eats it.

 

I've tried to get into Dwarf Fortress so many times, but could never get over the hump. I'm already having tons of fun in Spacebase. 

[Erkki]

I didn't read the devplan page fully, but as soon as I read the bit about garden zones, this thought popped into my head:

 

What would make the current version more interesting is probably if it procedurally generated stuff that the player doesn't directly place e.g. plants growing according to some procedural/randomized algorithm in garden zones, not plants placed by players. I mean that you shouldn't even get to place this or that exact seed (if there are different plants). Maybe you would only control which areas are walkable and which contain soil.

 

This kind of procedural thing might provide some more emergence, but if mostly everything is player placed, it's just too much following a plan, IMHO, and that's why the current version seems to get a bit boring after a few playthroughs. Don't know how this compares to Dwarf Fortress.

 

On the other hand, configuring policies for placing fire extinguishers or something would probably be more boring than placing them yourself.

 

Anyway, these are just random thoughts, I'm sure a lot of emergent stuff will eventually happen with mostly player-placed stuff as well.

[clyde]

I didn't read the devplan page fully, but as soon as I read the bit about garden zones, this thought popped into my head:

 

What would make the current version more interesting is probably if it procedurally generated stuff that the player doesn't directly place e.g. plants growing according to some procedural/randomized algorithm in garden zones, not plants placed by players. I mean that you shouldn't even get to place this or that exact seed (if there are different plants). Maybe you would only control which areas are walkable and which contain soil.

 

This kind of procedural thing might provide some more emergence, but if mostly everything is player placed, it's just too much following a plan, IMHO, and that's why the current version seems to get a bit boring after a few playthroughs. Don't know how this compares to Dwarf Fortress.

 

On the other hand, configuring policies for placing fire extinguishers or something would probably be more boring than placing them yourself.

 

Anyway, these are just random thoughts, I'm sure a lot of emergent stuff will eventually happen with mostly player-placed stuff as well.

For me, this is a really interesting aspect of the project. The goal seems to be to create an autonomous world, but if it's autonomous, what is the player's role? I think that is a fascinating question.

There are infinite options for where to place player agency and the perspective of the player is formed completely by what they can influence. A game where you can shoot a gun makes a player see cover and targets. A game where the player snowboards makes the player see jumps and shortcuts. If a game allowed the player to influence the world by selectively releasing pheromones, then the player would see the world air-currents and olfactory receptors.

It'll be interesting to see what they choose to have the player control.

[Erkki]

Actually I just continued an earlier base and seems some interesting things do happen in old bases. For some reason there was an oxygen shortage in one ship that had docked with me, and somewhy ten people ran to its airlock and died, instead of running into the main base, where there was lots of oxygen.

 

I could not find out what happened, though, so this game should really have a general log or something, to figure out what happened when you missed it.

 

I'm now trying to learn how to demolish derelicts and docked ships without accidentally leaving anyone in the destroyed structure.

 

[edit] I guess it was because i had built a new bar in the pub of the docked ship. However, the ship had only one oxygen recycler, which probably didn't support the pub full of people. How come the oxygen from the main base didn't get there through the dock, though?

[Jake]

If you switch to O2 view you can see that sometimes it takes a while to propagate.

Full base history is on the to-be-added list.

[Erkki]

I wish there was an easier way to get rid of the docking ships and derelicts that show up. I don't want my people going there instead of the main base, so I demolish them (I want to manage a smaller base). Yet at some points I spend all my effort just on demolishing things! And that usually leaves some debris, especially doors that can't always be demolished.

 

Also just got most of my population killed by raiders, and then all equipment started failing soon, including air lock doors. Yikes!

[Salacious Snake]

I've ended up with an airlock door that could be neither demolished nor opened, which led to a bunch of people queuing up outside of it and asphyxiating. The particularly funny part was that there was no obvious reason for the pathfinding to take them to that door in the first place, as it was way out of the way.

 

At least it's kind of a relief sometimes when the herd is thinned out!

[Dr. Proton]

Some great Spacebase discussion on the latest episode of the excellent Crate and Crowabar podcast (ex PC Gamer UK and RPS Staff). http://crateandcrowbar.com/2013/10/25/episode-015-abandon-your-principles-for-free-cake/

 

Spacebase seems like one of the weaker early access projects. Betrayer, Sir, You Are Being Hunted, Nuclear Throne and State of Decay have set a pretty high bar and  feel like fully fleshed-out games.

[Erkki]

Food and gardening (don't know how new that is) make this a bit more interesting! I saw some queues develop in pubs though (that seemed to get resolved by save & quit) -- several people "eating a meal" but really waiting to be served, and nobody is serving. I added two bartenders, but they started drinking, with nobody serving the drinks. When I added a third bartender, things got moving and I never saw lots of useless waiting for food again.

[Chris]

Food and gardening (don't know how new that is) make this a bit more interesting! I saw some queues develop in pubs though (that seemed to get resolved by save & quit) -- several people "eating a meal" but really waiting to be served, and nobody is serving. I added two bartenders, but they started drinking, with nobody serving the drinks. When I added a third bartender, things got moving and I never saw lots of useless waiting for food again.

Yeah, the thing about bartenders drinking without being served is a known issue. The thing with people "eating a meal" but actually waiting just means that's their intention of what to do. It'll say that's what they're doing even if they're trying and failing. That should probably be clearer in the UI.

[Jake]

Spacebase seems like one of the weaker early access projects. Betrayer, Sir, You Are Being Hunted, Nuclear Throne and State of Decay have set a pretty high bar and feel like fully fleshed-out games.

I need to listen to this episode still but that attitude as you describe it bums me out. I don't know that developers should feel the need to match other developers schedules for early access, as long as expectations are properly communicated. Prison Architect was basically nothing when it launched and they were clear about it and still developing it.

"Fully fleshed out game" just doesn't seem like it should be a defensible expectation for something called "early access" and labeled "alpha 1."

[Erkki]

Ok, I've been playing some more. The current alpha is already much better than the first one! But one thing keeps bothering me when playing a longer game: all those derelicts and raiders docking keep ruining my base (visually and by adding more things to maintain)! I can't keep demolishing them at the pace they appear (I tried, it caused some havoc in my "real" base rooms. So instead of gradually redesigning parts or layout of my base, I keep messing with these structures I didn't want there. Maybe it is my fault, because at some point I started clicking yes in all the event dialogs without reading the text.

 

I don't have any incentive to explore any of those ships any more because that will destroy any efficiency in base as it will add loads of stuff that the maintenance guys are going to have to take care of. I think sealing the entrances will avoid that, but it's still an annoyance. So at the moment I have a base surrounded by a bit of empty space and then all the docking ships and derelicts are docked to a big surrounding mess of empty unzoned rooms. http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197968570188/screenshot/504696746568352072

[Erkki]

Is there any way to get outer airlock doors repaired without destroying the old ones?

[eot]

I need to listen to this episode still but that attitude as you describe it bums me out. I don't know that developers should feel the need to match other developers schedules for early access, as long as expectations are properly communicated. Prison Architect was basically nothing when it launched and they were clear about it and still developing it.

"Fully fleshed out game" just doesn't seem like it should be a defensible expectation for something called "early access" and labeled "alpha 1."

 

Those were not their words, I think they had some reservations about early access in general. I won't try to sum up their discussion but they bring up a lot of point both for and against.