I LOVE games like this, reminds me sooo much of a Dark Room! You did a great job with the mood of the game, and I was always excited to see what the next log entry was going to be. Awesome game :)
I love this so much!! Such a great idea and so well executed for the short timeframe!! The music is such a vibe, had me boppin my head while making a big donut whale. The art is so cute and when I got that fin-tastic I smiled so hard. Thank you for making this <3
This is incredible! It feels so good to get the path you want. The visualizations are perfect for planning without giving too much away. A wonderful experience that left me wanting more!
I'm so happy you like it so far! I've had a big update in the works for a while now, but wrapping it up has been difficult. I'll keep all your feedback in mind when I'm working on it.
This year was slow for development on all my projects. Outer Belt is still high on my priority list, but I have a lot of planning to do. I'm deciding if I'd like to attempt to make it a full game, or wrap up what I was working on and get the free update out early next year. Either way, it's still on my agenda!
I'd like to get a proper roadmap/suggestion area set up soon, so you can see what I'd like to do in the future! There isn't a Discord at the moment, but that's an interesting idea (I'm not sure if I could moderate it though!)
Thanks so much! The difficulty is definitely bonkers because I didn't get to playtest much during the jam, but hopefully that's something I can improve on for a post-jam version! And I'm really glad you love the aesthetics! I LOVE doing adaptive music in my games, so it's always awesome to have someone appreciate it :P
Thanks so much for all the playtesting! I'm going to change some stuff based on everything you've mentioned, and I'll add some of your ideas to my to-do list! Some of the stuff you mentioned is actually already on my stretch list. I'll release a roadmap sometime soon!
Currently I'm working on saving & loading, sorters, and some other secrets to make the v0.2 release juicy :D
Some of these things that you've found aren't actually bugs, but rather poorly explained mechanics (the lab duration and oxygen costs). I agree that the oxygen costs are getting WAY big, but it depends on the gravity of the asteroid you're launching from. You can always hover over a cost/stat to see the formula used to calculate it! Try that with the Tech 2 duration and see if you can figure it out :P
Asteroid gen is still very unbalanced, so I apologize for the bad RNG. Also, ice can be found in asteroids far from the sun. You might need to get some scan and launch range upgrades!
I'll fix the hub->relay issue in the next patch, sorry about that! There are some other things that I'll put safeguards on in the future too.
I have an idea for your solar efficiency problem, stay tuned :P
The mute issue I'll look into, but if it's an issue of the game running >24 hours, it won't be an issue when saving/loading is done.
Thanks for keeping me updated with stuff you find!
OH! You're still on version 0.1.0, you should download the most recent update!
I really like your idea of thinking of the Tech levels in terms of stages. The crystals are DEFINITELY meant to be a late game thing, with the meteors being the earlier game equivalent, so I'll rebalance around those concepts!
Thanks so much for the feedback! I love your idea of having a place to see what's planned, I'll try to get a roadmap up! At the very least, if it exists in another factory-building game, I'd like it to exist here too. That goes for filtered tubes, I just haven't finished them yet :P
Tubes are also very bare-bones at the moment. In your pictures, the Port and Pump are taking from each other endlessly. For now, you can fix this by making the Port into a Pump, but expect a massive tube rework soon! Also, your idea for a Router is actually exactly what I'm working on, I'm just trying to get the resource selection UI to make sense.
I also like your idea of a mining drone. I agree that I'd like to flesh out the expansion process overall to make it less convoluted.
There is a way to deal with the enemies on other asteroids, but it's in Tech 4. For now, just don't research Tech 3 Labs until you're ready to defend; the enemy doesn't spread until then :)
Thanks for bearing with these early versions and getting me some great feedback! <3
It's definitely not a permanent solution, but I originally made the HQ scan infinite to solve a soft-lock where you could run out of resources before getting rocket tech. For other asteroids, the small meteors that hit them actually give them some scannable resources! I agree that it feels a little strange though. It's all still pretty temporary, I'll rework it in the future!
Omg tysm for playing! It's a blast watching you play!! The game is definitely rough around the edges but I'm so glad you've gotten so much enjoyment out of it already :P
A patch is coming later this week that will rebalance the tech tree so that you can set up defenses earlier, as well as adding in some new buildings and configs! After that I'm going to work on saving/loading and we'll be well on our way to v0.2!
Ohh I gotcha! You should replace that port with a pump instead. BUT, you can't insert directly into an HQ, you'll need to put it in a warehouse!
The easier way to do this for now is to put one port next to an iron drill, and then another port next to a rock drill! The ports allow you to build using the stuff stored in them! Apologies for the confusion!
Tubes are hard to get the hang of at the moment. Here's a quick guide:
- Tube-Ports will take resources from any adjacent plots and store them for usage in construction/depositing. - Tube-Pumps will take from the two plots that aren't selected, and push them into the selected plot.
You have to be careful you don't have 2 tubes trying to take from each other, they will pass resources back and forth!
Thank you!! Yeah I really apologize for the balancing issues, expect some rebalancing soon! I'll get saving and loading done for the next update too, so that you can have a long-standing war with them! So glad you like the music + artstyle too!
Thank you so much! There's a lot that I still want to do, but I'm glad you're already enjoying it! A controls & hotkeys screen is definitely needed, as well as some other quality-of-life stuff!
Sorry about the crystals, I think they're a little too aggressive at the moment! There is some tech in T3 and T4 that lets you deal with them, but I think that's too high up in the tree to be useful. I'll be rebalancing a lot in the future :P
