Conceptually, I quite like it. Good as a W2 successor I think. Building out the ship tile by tile is neat. Some of the tools you gain access to like warp pipes give you lots of options for making the limited space work. I like being able to unlock special abilities used by the ship itself. The concept of warpmonium caves, exploring special locations for special resources, though more than a little rough in execution, is compelling.
It's all very cool.
Buuuuut, there are a lot of things that just detract from my enjoyment of not just the concept, but the factory-building as a whole.
1) The different types of building tiles.
- I don't mind the special tiles like acid, defense, and so on, as they're both limited in number and serve a specific, special purpose. But it adds absolutely nothing to have so many different types of tiles for basic production structures. Lab, power, assembly, smelting, refining... Your factory is already space-limited by the mod's concept. This additional constraint turns expanding it into an annoying affair of micromanaging and carefully rationing these VERY expensive items that cannot be refunded, without a weirdly manual process that requires expensive research to unlock. It also just... looks really ugly, to have this multicolored patchwork? Personal taste I suppose.
- Condense all of them down to two types of tiles. Cheap "access" tiles for things like belts, power poles, turrets, and so on, and more expensive "production" tiles for normal factory buildings. Keep the special tiles, as those are pretty cool.
2) Random events/missions/etc.
- A carryover from MSI and so on, which simply does not belong here. The unique logistical challenges posed by building everything in such a limited space, as well as fending off the constant attack waves, will occupy more than enough of the player's attention and resources. Having progress further bottlenecked by having to dump a bunch of random resources while doing all that is simply too much. Having to wander out into the wilderness because your ship suddenly exploded a piece off several miles away can come at the worst possible times, and draws your attention away from the factory when it needs it most. Don't even get me started on the boss biters.
- Just get rid of all that. It simply does not work with this game mode.
3) Random resource availability
- Going for multiple warps without certain resources, Iron and Coal especially, is a sure way to end a run through no fault of the player's own. At least in Warptorio it would at worst remove ONE resource from a given world, and would rarely if ever do so twice in a row. Here, there's no limits, and that means having access to the resources you need is an EXCEPTION rather than the rule. Setting "max resources per planet" to the max doesn't fix this. What makes all this particularly bad is the sheer number of resources dumps WDM introduces. Fixing the ship, buying stuff at the shop, getting runes, the sheer cost of spaceship tiles... Who can afford to NOT have access to resources?
- The only way I could see it being justifiable not to revert this to normal resource spawning rules, is if there were options to convert excess resources you didn't need into other resources you did need.
4) The shop in general
- I really dig the idea of being able to trade in old junk to get something useful. Unfortunately it's more of a nuisance than a help. Availability of the shop is unreliable. Shop costs fluctuate wildly and nonsensically. The items it demands can often be impossible to supply. If the shop tells me I need to trade 150 Engine Units to get ahold of something, there's absolutely no way that's going to happen in time for the warp, unless I took a gamble and stuffed a bunch of them in a chest beforehand. Which means 150 Engine Units worth of resources I -haven't- been using on buildings, science, or bullets. This gets only worse if you have other mods installed like K2, which massively increases the number of possible different items the shop can ask for, and makes keeping them stockpiled all the more impossible... and leads to weird stuff like the shop asking for Large Stone Text Plates.
- I can see the game already has a system in place for algorithmically generating the "value" of an item based off its raw cost + complexity. It would only be logical to take it one step further and just introduce money for shopping with. Sell items for cash, use the cash to buy other stuff. You can keep it so that certain random items are more "in demand" and command a higher price, which will give the player more reason to produce them.
I'm going to be keeping an eye on development, because I really wanna see this mod reach its full potential, but I just can't keep playing as it is. Thanks for your time.
