Planetbase....

Another game with a patch today, Planetbase gets some love with patch 1.3.0.

New UI updates and rearrangements of the chats and stats looks great, but having the new keyboard shortcuts is a fantastic. Red alert for fast action response to those dámn intruders! Really great!

Now if only the meal makers could be set to a specific meal.... Burgers for all!!!!!!!!!!

Planetbase....

It's been ages since I last played Planetbase. The dev team(Madruga Works) may be working on another game at the moment but it's really good that they haven't forgotten Planetbase.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/403190/discussions/0/1742216483308742616/

I'll gladly take all the improvements....
My only need for change in the game is that meal makers should have an option to specify the type of meal to be created. I don't see that happening as it seems to be designed specifically to be the way it is.

Planetbase.... The Malnutrition shuffle....

Malnutrition..... The biggest PITA when dealing with the fine balances of growing a colony in Planetbase. I've talked about it before but damn it, it's frustrating to fix. The game is a challenge overall.

If one of your colonists eats 10 basic meals in a row they are then classed as malnourished.
When they have that condition it is as debilitating to them in the same way as a broken leg. Unlike a broken leg colonist, the malnourished do not seek help in the med bay to 'fix' their condition. 
They dont' work and they end up roaming your colony looking for a nourishing meal. This malnutrition shuffle is something  my colony gets at around 250 colonists. 250 then drops to 40 in the space of 20 minutes.

There is veg and meat being made but they are so malnourished they dont' work to move it to the canteens. There are about 30 robots to help carry materials but they dont' seem to help solve the problem.

Which all means reloading a saved game from 'before' things gets noticeable. This isn't a perfect way to try and fix it as you tweak one thing and 5 others things change. Not that there is one thing to change to fix this. At least with reloading older saves you can try and head off problems challenges early.

What is making me persist is the game achievement of reaching 300 colonists, getting near that mark and then being hit with a wave of starvation deaths makes me expletive filled.

There doesn't seem to be any quick fix or defined strategy to follow to resolve it. Any advice that is officially given is very vague along the lines of "streamline your colonists movement". An easy thing to say but when you've grown your base to a sprawling size it's hard to do.
Maybe I need more medics to help solve the problem?

Planetbase essentials: FAQ

The most common problems in Planetbase

Planetbase.... V1.2.2

It's been almost a year since the last update for the game, I'd lost hope of seeing another patch.
I'm always glad to see updates but I guess it is well past getting anything more than community support.... http://steamcommunity.com/games/403190/announcements/detail/1259166922115411855

More hope now of a Planetbase 2 game than any major changes to the game mechanics. Pity. At least they now have competition.

Another game to watch out for....

The last few day's has been thick and fast on the announcement of games front, lots to keep an eye on. The latest for me is Surviving Mars, a survival sandbox city builder. Quiet a mouthful but as it's being developed by the same people behind Tropico I'm sure it will be a winner.
I've had fun in Planetbase but time will tell if Surviving Mars beats it out as the planet builder of choice. I had to laugh at the end of the announcement trailer, the "best and brightest" as well as the "box" references are a clear digs at Planetbase.

Planetbase....

Two down, two to go....

Planetbase.... Step 2 of the challenge mode....

The challenge modes are a good focused way of playing the game without getting overly fancy with what you can or are allowed to buy/build.
The second "mission" is to get 1000 in game currency within 30 day's from an already constructed base.
Given the speed of the day/night cycle I thought I'd have to speed to the goal. But a day for the challenge seems to be a day and a half within the game.... strange but OK. So in hindsight I can see I made the rookie mistake of rushing to sell everything that wasn't nailed down. This gave way to a spares shortage and in turn a breakdown of the solar panel and wind turbines. With no power comes no air. With no air comes a lack of breathing colonists.... Shame as I was just over the 800 mark with 14 day's to go. Time for another attempt.

Planetbase.... Easy bits done....

With all the easy bits done it's on to the Challenge modes.... part one, attempt 3....

It's not just the limited resources or pared-down tech tree that makes this a challenge it's the ever vengeful RNG.... And my poor freaked out Colonists....

Planetbase....

I'm still persisting with my 1st planet's base, it still has problems with malnutrition and starving colonists despite the changes I've made.
Crop changes/rotations, storage problems, visitor intrusions, unlucky asteroid hits(despite trying to mitigate it) and starvation/malnutrition.
It's all checks and balances, too much or too little of one thing can screw you up in a domino cascade of failure. I think I mentioned that before.

It's strange that there is no alarm of notification about a lack of storage space, the game warns you with multiple visual and audio warnings for everything else.
For the asteroid mitigation, saving a lot helps. The game FAQ states that the next 20 meteor strikes are precalculated. Which is strange as they say that right after saying they are totally random. It's to stop people reloading games after a bad hit from one. So to work around it I reload my game before asteroid impact. Turn off the structure so the colonists leave it. Let the asteroid hit and hope there wasn't a colonist or two passing through the building. Then after the hit let the engineer's fix it and I turn it on/active again. So the purpose of precalculating the impact to stop people from reloading saves is worked around by people reloading the save....

The game is filled with 'And', 'If's' & 'But's'.... Sometimes RNG just makes you her bi*ch.

So if your base has lost all it's engineers and your waiting for more but for now your dependent on robots for construction.... Guess what can happen.... If your 6 bots don't return to base in time and get "killed" in a storm, that leads to a lot of 'consternation'.  

Despite having all the tech available it doesn't seem to help all that much:

When it said this:

I said yes. I was not expecting large group to mean "LARGE group":

The last milestone on this planet is the main driver to see success, the max population I've gotten to was 187:

It's all a challenge.....
It's all a challenge.....
It's all a challenge.....

Planetbase.... Meals are killing my colonists....

Planetbase has a damning flaw. Malnutrition.

The mealmakers in the canteens are set by the game to make basic meals first in priority. They do not wait for more ingredients to be stocked to then create the complex meals. They also only hold up to 5 ingredients at a time. This limits a lot of options as well. That in itself is not such a bad sounding thing, colonists still get fed.... right. Right but what is a bad thing is that after 10 basic meals, your colonists become malnourished. Having them be malnourished is the same as starving but they are still eating. So like starving colony's, the malnourished colonists end up dying in a large wave. Like a culling. The smaller your colony is the worse off you are, as the cull may contain the only specialist or group of specialists that can help dig you out of the hole that is meal time hell.

I've read the blog's, wiki's and suggestions on steam, it is a flaw, the game designers know about it and have in at least one previous patch altered the meal makers. Weather they will fix it is an unknown to me. I hope they do but a small team can only do so much, especially with the game being out for so long and being "feature complete".

What I've found to work out best is to plant nothing but wheat. That way the wheat can be combined with the synthetic meat to make "proper" meals, burgers to be exact. That's not to say that the meal makers wait, no, they still pump out basic meals like there is no tomorrow. But at least with only one veg in stock  and all the meat in the world there is a chance a colonist will get a proper meal combination of the two products once in a while.

A quick fix is to remove malnutrition from the game. I think that is bad, I like my game that complex.

It needs a smarter meal maker for sure. Limiting the ingredients is a stop gap solution. It's gaming the system and letting luck play it's part. I hope it's fixed.

Planetbase has traffic problems as well, airlocks can be a painful bottleneck.


Dont' get me started on fighting intruders.... Although I do like turning off the airlock when the intruders are about to enter it. That way they go to the next nearest airlock, which is halfway around my base. Once they leave to go to it I turn the first airlock on. When they get near the second I turn it off. Rinse and repeat until they run out of O2 and die. Having them use up their suit O2 running back and forth between airlocks is better than having a running firefight in my colony killing security staff and colonists as they go.

I still love this game.

Planetbase....

I've been playing a fair amount of Planetbase, (currently 30% off on steam).
Sticking with my first base despite several disastrous events. Events mainly of my own doing as well as some natural events that can be unlucky like an asteroid impacting on a dorm full of sleeping colonists.


A small event tends to cascade in failure with this game. If you expand your base too far too fast you'll see your lack of engineers come to the fore when you need a new water extractor a.s.a.p.
Even if you mark it as a priority build your resources are now spread out in unfinished buildings. So while you wait for more resources to be extracted/created and then processed, your water reserves are flowing away. Next thing you know your out of water. No water means that your biodomes and food production is degrading but more importantly no water means no fuel for oxygen creation. So with everything waiting on a few blocks of building materials and a free engineer to build the needed structure it's all gone to hell. With alarms and notifications popping up the last thing you need is for armed intruders.

But it's the joy of dragging your base and your people out of that kind of scenario that makes you want to strive forward. You learn from the experience, you see what went wrong and you change your base and priorities.

Looking back on my previous stages of my base makes me think how simple is looks in retrospect but how much challenge it was at the time.

There are many facets to this game. If you want to keep your base at a good level and purely trade to gain coins for the sake of it it's possible. If your base has enough prestige and you allow visitors to use your facilities they will pay for the privilege. Get a distress signal from a wayward ship that needs medical help you can do so. If that distress signal turns our to be false and intruders attack, you need to hit the red alert button and be glad you got that extra security guard.

There are a lot of in game awards to work towards. I think I'm due an award or two but they are not highlighted yet so maybe things are not as plain as they say they are....

You can tell a lot about a game by the music. I love the game and it's music fits it so well.

Planetbase....

With the latest Steam sale I took the opportunity to buy a game that's been on my list for a while Planetbase.

I've only started to play but already its' proving to be a game that requires forethought and balance. Getting to day one took a few tries. It's not a game you can just play as if you had unlimited resources. You have to get to know the game systems, the terrain and the limits of the structures in that terrain. It will take some more time to figure out what works best with my own play style never mind whatever the game throws at me. There is less danger of failure from anything due to a random event but that is the lick of the draw or roll of the dice.

A worthy review that lists the pro's and con's:

Planetbase - Review from Idiotech

Planetbase....

Planetbase from Madrugaworks, cought my eye on steam. It's a space colonisation strategy game that ticks a lot of boxes for me as a gamer.

The trailer shows a lot and the music reminds me of Mass Effect in a good way.

But this video from Many a True Nerd, is both entertaining and tells a lot about the game:

Imagine if Eve online had a more detailed planetary managment system along these lines.... a gamer can dream....