Someone must have kicked me out of the thread. I'm quite sure I already answered and voted, yet my post and vote simply disappeared. Was that due to some forum reset?
Anyway, my 2 cents again:
Waiting times aren't that bad if you could pipe them or at least one fabrication wouldn't block all next ones. It's really bad to wait for a long fabrication if you want to do the next smaller things.
Big and rare fabrications like a cyclops, mobile vehicle bay, etc. could take really long (not blocking other things), while more frequent things should be done quickly.
Finally the builder tool could get an additional advanced building drone for exterior base module construction. Advantage is not needing to wait underwater and come back later when its done, while it also feels better if big objects like the moonpool would take more time. It would also be possible to store a complete base into a recipe and let an advanced drone or more build a complete base from an individual stored blueprint.
When the waiting time is long enough that you can do something else, then it is not a big deal. Taking this to the extreme, waiting an hour for the Cyclop to be build would not bother me if I can go exploring, farming or whatever and return to find my shining new submarine later. But of course long wait times would be only for thing like the submarines, to do it for small components would not be fun.
While I agree in principle, part of the magic of building a Cyclops for the first time is in actually being there when it finally completes and splashes down into the ocean. Having the timer made longer so that the player is likely to be elsewhere when it finishes would ruin that moment, without pulling some arbitrary shenanigans (it doesn't actually splash down until you get back to the platform, or something like that).
The process could wait on finishing for the player to arrive to play that great splash moment. Games always do that - all events wait for the player to arrive at a certain location and time, then start to play and not earlier - arrive at a city entrance to see a murder just in time, because that event waited for the player.
narfblatUtah, USAJoin Date: 2016-05-15Member: 216799Members, Forum Moderators, Forum staff
I would be willing to trade longer wait times for the ability to queue up items to craft. This could maybe even be done by an Advanced Fabricator. To limit production the advanced fabricator might have a locker or two, to store materials and finished products.
This may be difficult to program, so I won't demand it of the developers. However, it really seems the best of both worlds. Waiting for a single item would be accomplished without making it tedious to make a series of items. In addition, the advanced fabricator would be an extra goal, with higher resource requirements and maybe a blueprint to find.
Its set in the future, why shouldn't 3D modelling be near instant?
The base builder tool takes hardly any time to build things, why should much smaller items take longer?
It can't add "realism" (unless the game is set on planet Earth the year >2017) because its obviously set in the future (not sure how far) with technology seemingly much more advanced than ours.
It is just an avoidable, tedious task that would honestly break immersion for me. I am not going to sit and stare as a high-tech 3D modelling device takes its sweet time to build something, I would rather just tab out and watch youtube.
Please spend your time working on more important stuff that needs to be added devs.
narfblatUtah, USAJoin Date: 2016-05-15Member: 216799Members, Forum Moderators, Forum staff
edited August 2016
I thought of another possible fabricator upgrade; high-speed fabricator, which takes extra wiring, computer chip, and maybe even a blueprint to make. This would be a lot simpler than my other idea (fabricator with queue and storage, 2 posts up)
Either you implement it in a way that has significant impact on the gameplay or you don't implement it at all. A compromise is doing nothing from a game design perspective.
Yeah, i have been on there already. I just thought it would be easier to see the opinion through a poll.
I wanted to say that my opinion was already written at that thread. However, I can summarize:
1. Construction time is terribly annoying and irritating thing. It makes game unplayable;
2. Construction time breaks immersion because it forces me to either alt+tab or browse Facebook on phone, because there is nothing else to do when I am forced to wait;
3. Construction time punishes me for exploring, because now I have to spent time to restore consumables I've used on previous exploring trip, and punishes me for making new things from schematics that I've just found through exploring;
4. Construction time wastes my real time for no reason; I don't have enough time for activities that make sense, let alone to waste it. Heck I have bought a car to save 45m-1h a day on commuting (and have paid 30K Euro for it). This extra time per day feels like a treasure, because there are so much things I can do during this extra hour, like cooking a good dinner, going to gym, reading a book, watching a serial episode, playing a game or... just staring at fabricator?.. flush my time down the toilet?
5. Construction time adds nothing to the game.
Also, most of the arguments for existence of construction time were insults and garbage talk. However I have digged few arguments:
1. Construction time adds realism
- this is just silly: in the game we have faster-than-light travel and communication, time control (stasis rifle), gravity negation (stuff floating in thin air during construction), artificial gravity (tide generator and Aurora layout), reactionless propulsion (rifle) and other thing that are IMPOSSIBLE from our current understanding of physics. Quick molecular 3d printing on the other hand is just an ENGINEERING puzzle, that IS POSSIBLE from our current understanding of physics. Fabricator is THE MOST REALISTIC GADGET in the entire game!
2. It adds difficulty
- how staring at the darn thing and doing nothing adds difficulty? For example, it took me 2 hours to kill Pontiff Sulyvahn and 4 hours to kill Champion Gundyr from DS3 - but I definitely was not doing nothing during that time. I was trying a failing, learning their moves and trying different tactics myself, and cursing my controller xD That was kind of fun experience, and when I finally defeated these guys I felt that achievement. What exactly I achieve by being forced to wait for fabricator? Is it supposed to be a patience exercise for a monks?
3. It forces players to go around exploring
- this is beyond ridiculous. The entire reason why player have returned to his base camp is because they need new gadgets to explore areas that are currently inaccessible - without the help of new gadgets they have just discovered. Besides this game IS about exploring, that's what player does by default. Why punish player for it?
To conclude, I want to ask Devs to stop playing Happy Farm and other time-killing Facebook games. Their gameplay mechanics just doesn't belong to games like this.
Also, this entire idea reminds me of one Oblivion mod (or was it Morrowind?) where they have changed the way how alchemy works: they have added some real-time timer for potion crafting, but at the same time they added a queue and a WAY TO SKIP TIME - wait button (like when you wait or sleep regular way), so that from the players perspective potions can be crafted simultaneously.
PS. As it is, construction time could be implemented as an option for hardcore difficulty, if kids with to much free time want construction time so badly. Otherwise, should I demand refund?
Explain why you are for it or against it, and don't say you just don't like to wait! I feel the reason most of your people who are against it only dislike it because you have gotten used to instant crafting and have become entitled, so please explain why you are against it with a more valid reason then that.
Balance. First of, the Creator seems to be some real advanced tech. Adding a time to its mechanic would be a step backward in my eyes.
But thats not balance. Why balance?
Where to start, where to start...
Ah, a copperwire. So lets say the devs vode the copperwire to take 5 ingame minutes.
All fair and square. But, its a simple copperwire. Making a Titanium Ingot, which is an advanced ressource might then take hours.
So with a material needing several ingamehours a new problem arises. A few more actually, but first if all: what to do while waiting my ass off? Watching food and h2o bars drop, while being bored? Venture out exploring, only to be forced to return a few real minutes, so i can start the next construction?
And if THAT starts to get problematic, wait fir the next ine.
So say, we want to build the cyclops. 4 of the toughest Ingots are needed. Lets say crafting one would take two ingame days.
In this time, the constructor is blocked. So no food, no water etc, if i dont grow plants or built a filterstation.
Starving while watching my ingotmbeing build doesnt sound like much fun.
Ok, store food and water beforehand, one could say now... But that would be more of a hassle than fun adding to the great atmosphere of the game.
And: If the constructor gets times, the habitat builder needs them too. Would you really like to take 8 minutes to build a MPR? In 200m Depth, forcing you to dive up 2 times, so you dont drown?
The HB has some really minor times, which are annoying outside and useless inside a base. The devs should keep it the way it was.
I would rather prefer a energycost balance for building stuff, somthat a highly advanced wiring kit might cost me 200 energy for building it. This would even add buildtimes, because you would have to wait for the power source to build the energy you need.
Explain why you are for it or against it, and don't say you just don't like to wait! I feel the reason most of your people who are against it only dislike it because you have gotten used to instant crafting and have become entitled, so please explain why you are against it with a more valid reason then that.
the copperwire to take 5 ingame minutes.
Titanium Ingot, which is an advanced ressource might then take hours.
a material needing several ingamehours
crafting one would take two ingame days.
8 minutes to build a MPR
I know I just posted the beating the dead horse thing, but I have to chime in. You are way overinflating the numbers. At least use the correct times.
Thanks for the poll! That's actually really helpful.
Useful enough to go back to the instant crafting?
I mean, I'm not going to say that the players are always right about what makes the game good, but for this and the lantern fruit nerf I really have to ask: what problem does the nerf fix?
I thought there were several good points made through this thread. Using power rather crafting time as a restriction is one that deserves particular emphasis. Upping the power requirement on capital type goods will make it so that big projects will require big infrastructure. As it stands I've put more than 130 hours in this game without the urge to construct nukes in any of my survival or hardcore games (largely because I go out of my way to construct near thermo for sustainability, and bio while puny is sufficient for an outpost and still more sustainable). With this if you want capital goods collecting fuel rods becomes a consideration. This also avoids using multiple fabricators as a work around, instead you'd need multiple bases. If power requirements for special items are greater than the pod offers then it also forces players out of the pod. Challenge and accomplishment can thus be added without senseless dawdling. Construction times would make sense in the context of automation, but I play factorio for that (if the devs want to add that in I'd be ecstatic though).
For challenge and realism there is a lot more low hanging fruit to be plucked. We have farming enable but without much utility, instead you could require a smorgasbord of plants to provide a nutritionally balanced meal (Nutrient Block) that will enable bonus/full health, while a monotonous diet gets you default/half health. Searchlights require constant power but plants never lack for light, giving floodlights (suppliable with base power) a real purpose would be nice. Increased power consumption for turning water into o2 (use pipes for cheaper o2), not to mention the implied ability to get hydrogen which will be useful for building a rocket shouldn't be available at the very start.
You wanna add realism? How about adding a pressure compensator for your own diving suit? So ur ears dont pop and your lungs crushed while diving on 500 meters. And also air bladder isnt usable anymore, since drastic pressure change will surely pop ur ears too.
You wanna add realism? How about adding a pressure compensator for your own diving suit? So ur ears dont pop and your lungs crushed while diving on 500 meters. And also air bladder isnt usable anymore, since drastic pressure change will surely pop ur ears too.
No because adding timers, especially of lengths in minutes or hours, breaks the adventurous flow of the game. When I build a base I dump the things I've picked up, craft a few things I need( be it an upgrade I just discovered or a tool), and I hop back out there. With a timer my options are to stand around or build about 30 fabricators to nerf construction time.
All are talking about blocked waiting times. That's only the way the devs implemented construction. But wouldn't really be necessary.
1) The mobile vehicle bay shows how to do it right: Drones build while the constructor can order other builds. The drones just serve the construction order, so if the devs wanted you could build parallel. That's waiting for the build without being blocked.
2) If the builder would use a drone to build exterior base structures, no one would have to wait while being blocked. So I suggest a builder drone for external base structures. If you have two builder drones, you could build twice as fast.
3) The small inbase fabricator should have no waiting times at all. He mainly produces frequently everyday products and should never be blocked. For any big and rare tech products the production should be elsewhere.
Summary: For timed production this game would best have constructor drones that can work in the background, while the player is free to do something else.
All are talking about blocked waiting times. That's only the way the devs implemented construction. But wouldn't really be necessary.
1) The mobile vehicle bay shows how to do it right: Drones build while the constructor can order other builds. The drones just serve the construction order, so if the devs wanted you could build parallel. That's waiting for the build without being blocked.
2) If the builder would use a drone to build exterior base structures, no one would have to wait while being blocked. So I suggest a builder drone for external base structures. If you have two builder drones, you could build twice as fast.
3) The small inbase fabricator should have no waiting times at all. He mainly produces frequently everyday products and should never be blocked. For any big and rare tech products the production should be elsewhere.
Summary: For timed production this game would best have constructor drones that can work in the background, while the player is free to do something else.
This idea is quite interesting and the Devs could add it to the new rooms discussions as well.
For drones to work you need space. So for creating alloys and stuff, needed for the cyclops for example, there should be a special room with 3 to 4 tables where drones can work. Like this they could even increase the times for creation, you wouldnt mind it. The bigger you make your base and the more energy you have, the lesser it would affect you, mirroing your ingameprogress perfectly
I would be ok with crafting times on the SeaMoth, Cyclops, Prawn suit, and maybe a few select "big" projects if two things happened to help "offset" this. First, Crafting times only apply to mobile vehicle bay objects and habitat objects (if the habitat builder had bots to build so I don't drown). Second, if I could break down scrap without having to return to the fabricator and I could "condense" my titanium into ingots but it still counts at 10 titanium and breaks it down according to how much I have used / 10.
Meaning, if I have one ingot, and I build a hatch, that titanium ingot now displays "8/10 This ingot is slightly used up"'
If you are going to penalize my very limited play time, in VR so there is no ALT+Tabbing, then you need to give me some of it back by letting me break down stuff on the fly. It would be about the same time, so at least let me get in some decent progression before I have to pull off the headset and return to real life. If I get one to two hours every few days and maybe three all weekend, I already spend a lot of that, harvesting titanium and looking for materials then having to return to base to break them down. After one or two of those, I'm done and my family or my work obligations kick in.
I understand, most of you advocating for adding in time to crafting, probably get to game four hours a night or more. Keep in mind, your situation is not the only valid one. While I may be viewed as a casual gamer now and that in and of itself will be used to invalidate my points (that is the typical retort of the young/l33t gen), I urge the developers to think about how they can appeal to a wider audience.
The idea of power as a barrier is very good. As is the idea of making crafting time be part of the hardcore mode. I would support the latter, first but either are quite compelling in their own right.
While being my first post and having only played Subnautica for a month or so (my second or third new game and am on experimental build due to VR fixes), I felt like adding in build timers was a set backwards on the fabricator. While I am only one, it is people exactly like me who will play Subnautica in the largest numbers. The hardcore gamers can play by hardcore rules, let them wait. If you push me into waiting, at least take some of that time from our other "menial" tasks.
standing around, hearing that super annoying sound the fabricator reproduces, clicking every time, feels just bad.
everyone did at least craft his first cyclops, which on a normal run are around a 30+ fabrications at the fabricator, all those seconds you wait and look the lasers, are wasted playtime.
and theres players with over 1k hour...
I'm ok with crafting time, if done properly.
this one is literally standing and waiting, absolute no-go.
standing around, hearing that super annoying sound the fabricator reproduces, clicking every time, feels just bad.
everyone did at least craft his first cyclops, which on a normal run are around a 30+ fabrications at the fabricator, all those seconds you wait and look the lasers, are wasted playtime.
and theres players with over 1k hour...
I'm ok with crafting time, if done properly.
this one is literally standing and waiting, absolute no-go.
I think the fabrication times are fine for most items. Titanium bars and plasteel ingots are the only things that bother me.
I can see some gameplay potential for some of the items having decently long crafting times. However, these should be kept to a minimum. Normally I'm all for making thing realistic, but if you're going to break realism, do it in a way that benefits the player, such as reducing tedium and complexity. Plus it's hard to define what's realistic when dealing with space magic like the fabricator that can pull the bones and inedible parts out of a fish no problem, but can't purify water without using another chemical for "reasons".
The current implementation sounds like it's adding unnecessary tedium for the most part. I can see longer build times on things like vehicles and some advanced base structures as potentially adding some gameplay, but these would need to be carefully balanced and chosen to avoid bogging things down.
Comments
Anyway, my 2 cents again:
Waiting times aren't that bad if you could pipe them or at least one fabrication wouldn't block all next ones. It's really bad to wait for a long fabrication if you want to do the next smaller things.
Big and rare fabrications like a cyclops, mobile vehicle bay, etc. could take really long (not blocking other things), while more frequent things should be done quickly.
Finally the builder tool could get an additional advanced building drone for exterior base module construction. Advantage is not needing to wait underwater and come back later when its done, while it also feels better if big objects like the moonpool would take more time. It would also be possible to store a complete base into a recipe and let an advanced drone or more build a complete base from an individual stored blueprint.
The process could wait on finishing for the player to arrive to play that great splash moment. Games always do that - all events wait for the player to arrive at a certain location and time, then start to play and not earlier - arrive at a city entrance to see a murder just in time, because that event waited for the player.
Great to see that we can work with the Devs to improve the game
This may be difficult to program, so I won't demand it of the developers. However, it really seems the best of both worlds. Waiting for a single item would be accomplished without making it tedious to make a series of items. In addition, the advanced fabricator would be an extra goal, with higher resource requirements and maybe a blueprint to find.
The base builder tool takes hardly any time to build things, why should much smaller items take longer?
It can't add "realism" (unless the game is set on planet Earth the year >2017) because its obviously set in the future (not sure how far) with technology seemingly much more advanced than ours.
It is just an avoidable, tedious task that would honestly break immersion for me. I am not going to sit and stare as a high-tech 3D modelling device takes its sweet time to build something, I would rather just tab out and watch youtube.
Please spend your time working on more important stuff that needs to be added devs.
Can't wait for the multi-player if it comes O:
Inventory - giant player inventory vs. tiny submarine storage
Crafting times - long wait for a seaglide vs. almost instant cyclops or moonpool construction
I hope the devs get a better balancing. I don't mind to wait long for a cyclops, but hate to wait for small everyday constructions.
1. Construction time is terribly annoying and irritating thing. It makes game unplayable;
2. Construction time breaks immersion because it forces me to either alt+tab or browse Facebook on phone, because there is nothing else to do when I am forced to wait;
3. Construction time punishes me for exploring, because now I have to spent time to restore consumables I've used on previous exploring trip, and punishes me for making new things from schematics that I've just found through exploring;
4. Construction time wastes my real time for no reason; I don't have enough time for activities that make sense, let alone to waste it. Heck I have bought a car to save 45m-1h a day on commuting (and have paid 30K Euro for it). This extra time per day feels like a treasure, because there are so much things I can do during this extra hour, like cooking a good dinner, going to gym, reading a book, watching a serial episode, playing a game or... just staring at fabricator?.. flush my time down the toilet?
5. Construction time adds nothing to the game.
Also, most of the arguments for existence of construction time were insults and garbage talk. However I have digged few arguments:
1. Construction time adds realism
- this is just silly: in the game we have faster-than-light travel and communication, time control (stasis rifle), gravity negation (stuff floating in thin air during construction), artificial gravity (tide generator and Aurora layout), reactionless propulsion (rifle) and other thing that are IMPOSSIBLE from our current understanding of physics. Quick molecular 3d printing on the other hand is just an ENGINEERING puzzle, that IS POSSIBLE from our current understanding of physics. Fabricator is THE MOST REALISTIC GADGET in the entire game!
2. It adds difficulty
- how staring at the darn thing and doing nothing adds difficulty? For example, it took me 2 hours to kill Pontiff Sulyvahn and 4 hours to kill Champion Gundyr from DS3 - but I definitely was not doing nothing during that time. I was trying a failing, learning their moves and trying different tactics myself, and cursing my controller xD That was kind of fun experience, and when I finally defeated these guys I felt that achievement. What exactly I achieve by being forced to wait for fabricator? Is it supposed to be a patience exercise for a monks?
3. It forces players to go around exploring
- this is beyond ridiculous. The entire reason why player have returned to his base camp is because they need new gadgets to explore areas that are currently inaccessible - without the help of new gadgets they have just discovered. Besides this game IS about exploring, that's what player does by default. Why punish player for it?
To conclude, I want to ask Devs to stop playing Happy Farm and other time-killing Facebook games. Their gameplay mechanics just doesn't belong to games like this.
Also, this entire idea reminds me of one Oblivion mod (or was it Morrowind?) where they have changed the way how alchemy works: they have added some real-time timer for potion crafting, but at the same time they added a queue and a WAY TO SKIP TIME - wait button (like when you wait or sleep regular way), so that from the players perspective potions can be crafted simultaneously.
PS. As it is, construction time could be implemented as an option for hardcore difficulty, if kids with to much free time want construction time so badly. Otherwise, should I demand refund?
So, why did i vote no:
Balance. First of, the Creator seems to be some real advanced tech. Adding a time to its mechanic would be a step backward in my eyes.
But thats not balance. Why balance?
Where to start, where to start...
Ah, a copperwire. So lets say the devs vode the copperwire to take 5 ingame minutes.
All fair and square. But, its a simple copperwire. Making a Titanium Ingot, which is an advanced ressource might then take hours.
So with a material needing several ingamehours a new problem arises. A few more actually, but first if all: what to do while waiting my ass off? Watching food and h2o bars drop, while being bored? Venture out exploring, only to be forced to return a few real minutes, so i can start the next construction?
And if THAT starts to get problematic, wait fir the next ine.
So say, we want to build the cyclops. 4 of the toughest Ingots are needed. Lets say crafting one would take two ingame days.
In this time, the constructor is blocked. So no food, no water etc, if i dont grow plants or built a filterstation.
Starving while watching my ingotmbeing build doesnt sound like much fun.
Ok, store food and water beforehand, one could say now... But that would be more of a hassle than fun adding to the great atmosphere of the game.
And: If the constructor gets times, the habitat builder needs them too. Would you really like to take 8 minutes to build a MPR? In 200m Depth, forcing you to dive up 2 times, so you dont drown?
The HB has some really minor times, which are annoying outside and useless inside a base. The devs should keep it the way it was.
I would rather prefer a energycost balance for building stuff, somthat a highly advanced wiring kit might cost me 200 energy for building it. This would even add buildtimes, because you would have to wait for the power source to build the energy you need.
I know I just posted the beating the dead horse thing, but I have to chime in. You are way overinflating the numbers. At least use the correct times.
I mean, I'm not going to say that the players are always right about what makes the game good, but for this and the lantern fruit nerf I really have to ask: what problem does the nerf fix?
For challenge and realism there is a lot more low hanging fruit to be plucked. We have farming enable but without much utility, instead you could require a smorgasbord of plants to provide a nutritionally balanced meal (Nutrient Block) that will enable bonus/full health, while a monotonous diet gets you default/half health. Searchlights require constant power but plants never lack for light, giving floodlights (suppliable with base power) a real purpose would be nice. Increased power consumption for turning water into o2 (use pipes for cheaper o2), not to mention the implied ability to get hydrogen which will be useful for building a rocket shouldn't be available at the very start.
It's coming.
1) The mobile vehicle bay shows how to do it right: Drones build while the constructor can order other builds. The drones just serve the construction order, so if the devs wanted you could build parallel. That's waiting for the build without being blocked.
2) If the builder would use a drone to build exterior base structures, no one would have to wait while being blocked. So I suggest a builder drone for external base structures. If you have two builder drones, you could build twice as fast.
3) The small inbase fabricator should have no waiting times at all. He mainly produces frequently everyday products and should never be blocked. For any big and rare tech products the production should be elsewhere.
Summary: For timed production this game would best have constructor drones that can work in the background, while the player is free to do something else.
This idea is quite interesting and the Devs could add it to the new rooms discussions as well.
For drones to work you need space. So for creating alloys and stuff, needed for the cyclops for example, there should be a special room with 3 to 4 tables where drones can work. Like this they could even increase the times for creation, you wouldnt mind it. The bigger you make your base and the more energy you have, the lesser it would affect you, mirroing your ingameprogress perfectly
Meaning, if I have one ingot, and I build a hatch, that titanium ingot now displays "8/10 This ingot is slightly used up"'
If you are going to penalize my very limited play time, in VR so there is no ALT+Tabbing, then you need to give me some of it back by letting me break down stuff on the fly. It would be about the same time, so at least let me get in some decent progression before I have to pull off the headset and return to real life. If I get one to two hours every few days and maybe three all weekend, I already spend a lot of that, harvesting titanium and looking for materials then having to return to base to break them down. After one or two of those, I'm done and my family or my work obligations kick in.
I understand, most of you advocating for adding in time to crafting, probably get to game four hours a night or more. Keep in mind, your situation is not the only valid one. While I may be viewed as a casual gamer now and that in and of itself will be used to invalidate my points (that is the typical retort of the young/l33t gen), I urge the developers to think about how they can appeal to a wider audience.
The idea of power as a barrier is very good. As is the idea of making crafting time be part of the hardcore mode. I would support the latter, first but either are quite compelling in their own right.
While being my first post and having only played Subnautica for a month or so (my second or third new game and am on experimental build due to VR fixes), I felt like adding in build timers was a set backwards on the fabricator. While I am only one, it is people exactly like me who will play Subnautica in the largest numbers. The hardcore gamers can play by hardcore rules, let them wait. If you push me into waiting, at least take some of that time from our other "menial" tasks.
everyone did at least craft his first cyclops, which on a normal run are around a 30+ fabrications at the fabricator, all those seconds you wait and look the lasers, are wasted playtime.
and theres players with over 1k hour...
I'm ok with crafting time, if done properly.
this one is literally standing and waiting, absolute no-go.
The current implementation sounds like it's adding unnecessary tedium for the most part. I can see longer build times on things like vehicles and some advanced base structures as potentially adding some gameplay, but these would need to be carefully balanced and chosen to avoid bogging things down.