itch.io

Nice game!

Found a bug:

With at least 2 type of seeds, while holding one of them, if you click on quick plant, the seeds you are holding will disappear, and plant the other one. I found it, thinking I could select the seed to plant, like the produce selling in the market.

As a suggestion, how about adding fertilizer and irrigation? They could help reduce the growing time of crops.

An autoplanter and autoharvest (and even an autoseller) would be good. Could be a repetitive update, each one reducing the interval.

Since there's no actual use for the produce except selling it, how about adding a factory component for turning them into others, more profitable items, like potato into flour, or turnips and carrots into livestock feed?

You can do with even less: 5 batteries, 4 engines, the 3 crewmen, full decked drone bay, and around 15 solar panels, ensuring 4 times the consumption (since it gets reduced to 25% on destination). The consumption of matter is 3x10 + 5 + 4 + 10 = 49. For 240 days of travel, it amounts to 12 tons. Assume 20 tons above the required for travel, which is around 30 tons, so a total of ~50 tons of matter.

Ok... On my second attempt, I almost reached the belt. Nailed on the third. Looked at the code a bit for clues and it's noted:

The matter required is only the one consumed by the thrusters, it doesn't take into account the normal consumption (and remember your drones aren't working during the travel).

Your energy signature will change from the sinusoidal form to peak flat. It also decreases to 25%, which, according to the traveled distance, of 1.2 AU, obeys the inverted square law.

Some suggestions:

A plan flight to the asteroid belt will usually involve an orbit transfer to lunar orbit and then using the gravitational assistance from Earth. This reduces the required costs (and time). Transfer orbit is very cost efficient.

You can then break the travel into 2:

1. Travel to the moon. The drones efficiency will drop (or be disabled). You can counter it with the drones mining the lunar surface or reducing matter launching costs (since Moon's gravity is lesser). Assume a polar orbit, and we'll have sun 100% of the time. It's still possible to save the crew, in case of a mishap.

2. Travel to the asteroid belt. The usual, but the cost is greatly reduced. This allows for a bigger station.

---

I would like a display of the drone matter harvesting and power consumption on the build info. This information IS necessary. Same with the power and matter consumption of the crew, including the credits they generate. Would also love to see the credit generation rate. There is space above the credit display.

---

I don't have a direct account of my matter consumption. Try to mimic the power UI box. Something like first row for production, consumption on the second and the third row for available. This also has the advantage for when implementing a cargo bay in the future (if the game moves into that direction).

If the concern is the screen space, you can try reducing the font on the boxes one or two sizes. This kind of games are played on computers, and assuming a 1024 x 768 monitor display is perfectly acceptable, so you have more space to play with. Since itch.io right side buttons are invasive, we usually play on full screen anyways.

---

What killed my third round was that module building does not take into account the available matter. +93 net positive matter production, still reached bellow zero while constructing a solar panel. Try to implement a fail safe, like pausing construction when matter is extremely low (.1 tons or something), or dynamically adjust the consumption.

So far, that's it.

Loved the game. I would like to make the travel requirements to the asteroid belt adjustable. I mean, when I noticed the travel button, I was over 7000 tons in mass, making the 20 days travel virtually impossible.

How about making the travel time dynamic. In real world, you accelerate for up to half the distance, then turn the ship 180 degrees and decelerate for the same period to a stop.

For that, you use the quadratic equation:

X = accel*(time**2)/2

where X is half the distance from Earth to the asteroid belt

extracting time (replacing X for D/2):

time = sqrt(D / accel)

where D is distance to asteroid belt.

The accel will be in function of the amount of ionic engines by the thrust they give:

accel = amountThrusters * thrustPerEngine

then your requirement for the travel is the amount of energy and mass per second for the thrust.

EnergyRequiredPerSecond = amountThrusters * energyPerEnginePerSecond

MassRequiredPerSecond = amountThrusters * massPerEnginePerSecond

Then, we won't require to have ALL the energy and mass at the beginning of the travel. If I have to travel for 10 years in-game, so be it.

You can suggest the total amount required for the travel, however. Hope this helps.

On another note, I can't progress if i don't travel to the belt (stopped playing here). How about using the data center to do some research, like improving the efficiency of the components, or providing better tech (like nuclear and antimatter). They could provide with bits per second, as a currency. Make the cost non-linear. Additionally, since we can now improve the components, add a way to recycle them.

Oh, and add a way to create a building queue or something similar (allowing, for example, to build 1000 battery stacks). Clicking in the thousands is hella exhausting. Since humans assemble the components, make the time to build dependant on their numbers (within reason, maybe add a cap). A 3 man station would build slower than a crew of 50. And it would be reasonable for a large station to build in batches (using the queue, for example).

Love the game! I noted it's more cumbersome to plant than to harvest. Maybe add a way to plant max selected crop per layer, perhaps, like a button.

When buying 10 of  Gas pump, it sends the amount to Gas Tele, or something. And Heater 2 buys by 10 on click.

Nice game! So far the only bugs I found where 2:

1- It's possible to pick up a little more than the maximum by using scoop 3x3 over more than 1 trash in it's action radius, near the storage limit. This is due to gathering everything without checking space (it's ok, not an exploitable bug, therefore not game-breaking)

2- Clicking very fast near end-game. Since each collecting trash action triggers a noise event, clicking very fast overloads the max amount of simultaneous sounds, and makes the music disappear for a short moment. Try using a separate channel and/or impose a limit to the sounds effects.

Some recommendations: The garbage depot (or bin, however you call it), that shows the score, looks like a button in itself; transfer the shop button functionality to it. This is more of a personal taste though.