Post by Daycatlord in Lich Incremental (Demo) comments

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Pretty neat! Needs some way to see how many resources a craft consumes though. Reinforcing skeletons doesn't seem worth the cost, maybe that changes at some point though, I haven't finished the tower's first layer yet. That might be related to what appears to be *passive* damage over time. I only found that when I tried stockpiling skeletons while I manually crafted items to get an eye for the costs.

On that note, UI there is a bit odd to learn.
Left textbox seems to be a passive "Craft to this many" whereas right is a "I want an additional this many queued." for active demands. Resources further down the tree are prioritized over higher ones, and those embedded deeper using - are crafted using the ones higher above. I'm not sure how the "keep stocked" one works with the high yield recipes, whether it says "I have more than X resources" or "X crafts of resources." Unfortunately, I am currently saving resources for the tower so I'm not testing that yet.

Tools seem to offer a 2x base boost, then further boosted by the "tools" skill?
It seems skeletons have a base efficiency of 0.5x, which gets offset by the command skill?

What seems to be the recipes, for anyone else
Carpentry:
1 Tree -> 2 Beams
1 Beam-> 4 planks
2 Planks -> 4 Rods
8 Rods -> 1 Wheel

Masonry:
1 Raw Earth -> Some combination of ore, stone, and clay. Inconsistent?
4 stone -> 4 brick?
2 Clay -> 1 Pottery (don't know what these are used for yet, though!)

Forge:
1 Ore -> 1 Iron. Real shocker.
4 Iron, 1 Rod -> 300 Axes
2 Iron, 1 Rod -> 300 Hammers
10 Planks, 4 Rods, 2 Wheels, 2 Iron -> 600? carts (went past 1k, might be imprecise).

refINE34 days ago(+1)

Impressive!

Reinforcing skeletons is worth it for specific high-drain tasks like mining. Otherwise they are meant to be disposable. Yes, passive decay is a thing, something like 5% per life on average. More modifications (such as task specialization) were planned.

You got crafting UI exactly right. Lots of people struggled with that which isn't surprising since it's pretty unusual. Left number is "sustain" or target passive stockpile, right number is "extra" or manual override. I wanted to get recipes in there but it's really compact. Figured I could just add it to the Info docs later if it's a problem. Tooltips say what the components are, at least. Yes, processing Raw Earth has some variation AND rates improve as you upgrade the mine (tooltip again) which is also the only way to replenish mine saturation. Pottery does nothing yet.

I was also worried about the split harvest/haul UI being a sticking point, but people seemed to figure that one out pretty quick. Nobody has commented on saturation yet at all (the circle on resources, limits over-harvest and usually recovers over time). A proper tutorial going over all those little things and drag-n-drop is definitely needed. It's possible to unassign minions by clicking on them but I don't think anybody knows that...

Yep, tools normally x2 (*skill) and carts double items per haul. Stacks with Harvesting/etc skills. Command is for skeletons and 50% base, yes. Skill xp is 1/s while active, stacking (half for minions). Skill effect is root(xp).

Tool quantity is seconds of use-time. Tool meter 100% represents 1 hour of real-time availability. Tower 1 opens up several new things, namely feedback loop upgrades (tool effect, cart effect, tools gained per craft, minion decay) and intro to magic (minor stackable automations). Tower 2 (not yet implemented) unlocks permanent skills which is where magic slowly becomes approachable.

Rather surprised that someone took such interest in this little project. Thanks for the input. Would you mind sharing your thoughts on progression / resource loops / etc as an incremental game? I like how objectives change every life depending on resources and host, things like that.

Daycatlord34 days ago

Oh! Yeah, I figured out the saturation mechanic for areas, it makes sense! There's only so many trees in a forest, and seeing it grow back slowly between lives really sells that. I hadn't noticed the mines not regenerating. That explains why eventually my progress stagnated. I thought the mines increased the max it could refresh to, allowing you to go and focus on another task rather than babysitting it to avoid wasting ore. Since I eventually only needed iron for the tower, I had stopped making mines since I thought I didn't need the cap anymore. Maybe I'm misremembering, but it might be worth specifying that the 'rare rates,' from each mine apply at the masonry step. I thought it was a chance to harvest extra ore per operation or getting a different resource entirely.

Given that I was kneecapping my mines, the iron cost for reinforcement might not be as bad as I thought. I would have to play back through to there to see how it changes, but a larger workforce is a larger workforce. That might be worth it then.

Most of my time playing had the same basic objective each life, stocking up the resources I needed for the tower. The smaller tasks can usually be done within a life or two, so there wasn't much switching around for them. Preparing for the tower would get you enough resources to ensure 100% tool uptime, so the tool-giving hosts become a bit less important. I had just chucked a skeleton on each craft, with what seemed like reasonable crafting limits, one on berries, and then went with 3 mining, 1 chopping, and a hauler for each. Generally I would sit on the mines as well, again that was my only missing resource. The only lives that really impacted what I was doing were the beggars and foremen. Both have much shorter lifespans, so I would skip berries and go all in on something like processing any built up trees or ore. Generally I was preferring the traveler and geologist for their longer lifespans and the gathering bonus. Maybe I could have progressed a bit faster if I had engaged more with the skill distributions, but I figured I needed multiple different kinds of resources and it'd average out.

I'm probably gonna give it another go now that I know why my mines stopped producing, so I'll update this if tower floor one changes anything ere.

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