June 2023 Random Game Thoughts Thread

[Brian Boru]

Is there a better save file name than "asdf"? I don't think so. (deep breaths, @Brian Boru )

😀

You talkin' to me… or chewin' a brick?

You talkin' about game saves? I typically give each sequential save a single letter name, a-b-c-…x-y-z-a-b. I don't see any bennie in 3 extra letters, and the sequential letter is easy to follow. I usually only get to C or D before starting at A again for next game or session.

I will use a proper name when there's some big option, eg "at crossroads" or "kill adam or eve", where I want to come back later and explore the other options.

A good example is in Command and Conquer Remastered, where there is often a choice re which country to invade after a mission—it's important to save just before winning previous mission if you want to try them all without having to replay the entire game at least 3 times.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Is there a better save file name than "asdf"? I don't think so. (deep breaths, @Brian Boru )

List of my recent typical save file names: One, Two, Three Four. Alternatively: klasliöfdn, ,kniolkadfns, lkjsoij, losjdpjf

I usually just continue from the menu, and they usually have some sort of time stamp that makes a description pointless anyway. If there's a choice to be made I just stick with it, maybe play it different if I ever come back.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Per Aspera seems like my kind of basebuilding game, in that it has a campaign and story with objectives to work through other than just build everything possible then make some more.

Not sure how interesting the story is going to turn out, you play as an AI and theres a whole 'what is consciousness' thing going on thats been overdone for the last probably 30 years. Maybe it has something more interesting to say about that, or it develops in another way, hopefully. The game is fun enough to keep me playing so far anyway.

 

[Brian Boru]

Per Aspera seems like my kind of basebuilding game

Yeah, me too. I have it wishlisted and am annoyed I missed it free on Steam last October 🙁 A few of the better reviews there suggest it's definitely worth it on sale—currently 50% off on GOG.

 

[Zed Clampet]

List of my recent typical save file names: One, Two, Three Four. Alternatively: klasliöfdn, ,kniolkadfns, lkjsoij, losjdpjf

I usually just continue from the menu, and they usually have some sort of time stamp that makes a description pointless anyway. If there's a choice to be made I just stick with it, maybe play it different if I ever come back.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Per Aspera seems like my kind of basebuilding game, in that it has a campaign and story with objectives to work through other than just build everything possible then make some more.

Not sure how interesting the story is going to turn out, you play as an AI and theres a whole 'what is consciousness' thing going on thats been overdone for the last probably 30 years. Maybe it has something more interesting to say about that, or it develops in another way, hopefully. The game is fun enough to keep me playing so far anyway.

Going to wait and see if it goes on sale on the 29th on Steam. Apparently you can do the sandbox in co-op, so it would be a good game for me and Guido.

 

[Zed Clampet]

Ugh, I got this strategy game called Terraformers and ended up staying up half the night playing it. May need a nap later 🙂

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Per Aspera has some small problems I noticed so far, the workers have issues with pathfinding, as in sonetimes youll prioritize a building and you can see the resources stacked right next to it but they keep missing it. Also the only way to get colonists to populate research points seems to be either wait, or temporarily turn off the power in their habitats so that they move, which isnt great.

While Im at it the the building manager does not seem to allow you to locate where the building are on the map, and the icons get hard to make out when the base gets bigger and you think about optimizing factory positioning and the like.

I think im still pretty early game, Mars is huge but im still having fun with it after a fair few hours. Not sure yet if it will be very replayable. The supply lines are a bit nore complicated than something like Banished, but I assume a Factorio is probably much more in depth with that kind of thing. Not sure as I havent played Factorio or anything like that yet

 

[Zed Clampet]

Per Aspera has some small problems I noticed so far, the workers have issues with pathfinding, as in sonetimes youll prioritize a building and you can see the resources stacked right next to it but they keep missing it. Also the only way to get colonists to populate research points seems to be either wait, or temporarily turn off the power in their habitats so that they move, which isnt great.

While Im at it the the building manager does not seem to allow you to locate where the building are on the map, and the icons get hard to make out when the base gets bigger and you think about optimizing factory positioning and the like.

I think im still pretty early game, Mars is huge but im still having fun with it after a fair few hours. Not sure yet if it will be very replayable. The supply lines are a bit nore complicated than something like Banished, but I assume a Factorio is probably much more in depth with that kind of thing. Not sure as I havent played Factorio or anything like that yet

A supply line in Factorio is a conveyor belt 🙂 Or maybe a train line. I haven't played that far in Factorio to unlock trains. In Satisfactory, you can use conveyor belts, trucks, trains or drones. You should definitely give one of those a try if you like this sort of thing. They aren't colony sims, though. You do all the work yourself. which is actually better because you don't have to rely on the AI to follow your instructions. For instance, with a truck line, you actually get in the truck (after crafting it) and drive it to record the route you want it to take when you automate it. After that it just runs by itself until you tell it to stop. And, yes, I've been run over by a truck running its route haha

Factorio might feel a little more like a colony sim because the graphics are very basic and it's top-down, but you still have to move a little man around. Satisfactory is first person and generally more realistic in mechanics and automation than Factorio. The main thing you will be crafting in Factorio are different colored potions, as opposed to Satisfactory where you craft things like rotors, screws, etc. No idea why Factorio did that.

One of the biggest differences between them is that in Factorio you are constantly under attack by alien species who can destroy your base. There are enemies in Satsifactory, but you just find them walking around. They can't hurt your base.

Also in Satisfactory, resource nodes, like iron, don't run out. In factorio you are constantly having to rebuild because nodes go dry.

I'm definitely more of a Satisfactory person. I like to build things once and not have to worry about them being destroyed or running out of stuff. Plus the recipes are more realistic and intuitive.

Generally speaking, the people who like Factorio more are are the ones who really want to be fighting a lot rather than automating. Base defense is a huge part of it.

 

[Brian Boru]

Satisfactory

I recall I didn't stick too long with Factorio a few years ago, seemed too much like work. I'd avoided Satisfactory assuming similar, but your commentary just got it on my wishlist—thanks 🙂

 

[dxchase]

So my son graduated last thursday so i took the night off for it and later in the evening, beat Lillith (diablo 4) together with him and my wife. Then i had to take my car in on friday for inspection (you have to do that in NYS), go in, i need a part replaced to pass that and i wont be able to get it installed until monday, meaning i miss yet another day of work sunday night (only 1 vehicle atm). Fine i use sick time for that.

Then there was a tincy-wincy little flash storm that hit monday. (didnt affect my gaming) It was pretty hard for about 30 min. then nothing much the rest of the day. That 30 minutes was long enough to knock over a tree right near my mechanic knocking out power for the whole block while my car was suspended in mid air. So lost yet another day of work. Im too far for uber to not be more than its worth to go and i work overnight so no luck in getting a ride there at that time and back at 7 am.

So what does this have to do with gaming. This unexpected time off has allowed me to crush through Diablo 4s grind a little bit faster than i expected. Got to really play into Trepang2 and Warhammer40k: Boltgun, which has been a pleasant suprise and will take place in my boomer shooter itch for the time being.

Article below on the storm: The picture/vid was shot literally 500 feet from my mechanic you can google map it and just click a couple times down the road lol

https://www.wgrz.com/article/weather/severe-thunderstorms-blow-through-wny-tonawanda-chautauqua/71-e1dd9975-6dd5-4c0e-8237-87344d61a412

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

A supply line in Factorio is a conveyor belt 🙂 Or maybe a train line. I haven't played that far in Factorio to unlock trains. In Satisfactory, you can use conveyor belts, trucks, trains or drones. You should definitely give one of those a try if you like this sort of thing. They aren't colony sims, though. You do all the work yourself. which is actually better because you don't have to rely on the AI to follow your instructions. For instance, with a truck line, you actually get in the truck (after crafting it) and drive it to record the route you want it to take when you automate it. After that it just runs by itself until you tell it to stop. And, yes, I've been run over by a truck running its route haha

Factorio might feel a little more like a colony sim because the graphics are very basic and it's top-down, but you still have to move a little man around. Satisfactory is first person and generally more realistic in mechanics and automation than Factorio. The main thing you will be crafting in Factorio are different colored potions, as opposed to Satisfactory where you craft things like rotors, screws, etc. No idea why Factorio did that.

One of the biggest differences between them is that in Factorio you are constantly under attack by alien species who can destroy your base. There are enemies in Satsifactory, but you just find them walking around. They can't hurt your base.

Also in Satisfactory, resource nodes, like iron, don't run out. In factorio you are constantly having to rebuild because nodes go dry.

I'm definitely more of a Satisfactory person. I like to build things once and not have to worry about them being destroyed or running out of stuff. Plus the recipes are more realistic and intuitive.

Generally speaking, the people who like Factorio more are are the ones who really want to be fighting a lot rather than automating. Base defense is a huge part of it.

I used the wrong term and explained badly. By supply lines I meant generally amount of different resources to mine and their relationship to the various different factories that make raw materials needed for more advanced buildings and so on. I always assumed in those types of base/factory management games there was a lot of complexity along those lines, but might be barking up the wrong tree here. 🙂

In Per Aspera there are 7 basic resources to mine and 6 materials made from those raw materials used for buildings, and projects. At least thats what I have so far, and the tech tree higher up seems to be mostly different stuff for terraforming faster, although I havent read all of it.

If theres a way to reach end game or a campaign with objectives in either Factorio or Satisfactory I might give one or both a try someday.

 

[Zed Clampet]

I used the wrong term and explained badly. By supply lines I meant generally amount of different resources to mine and their relationship to the various different factories that make raw materials needed for more advanced buildings and so on. I always assumed in those types of base/factory management games there was a lot of complexity along those lines, but might be barking up the wrong tree here. 🙂

In Per Aspera there are 7 basic resources to mine and 6 materials made from those raw materials used for buildings, and projects. At least thats what I have so far, and the tech tree higher up seems to be mostly different stuff for terraforming faster, although I havent read all of it.

If theres a way to reach end game or a campaign with objectives in either Factorio or Satisfactory I might give one or both a try someday.

Factorio is finished. Satisfactory is going to be in early access for at least another year, but it has everything but the end to the story, I think.

There aren't that many resources in Factorio. Just a handful. In Satisfactory there are eleven, more if you count things that can't be mined.

 

[Zed Clampet]

I recall I didn't stick too long with Factorio a few years ago, seemed too much like work. I'd avoided Satisfactory assuming similar, but your commentary just got it on my wishlist—thanks 🙂

Well, you are building factories, so that's a bit of work, but there's no time limit or anything, so I find if very relaxing. When I play alone, I turn off enemies, which makes it even more relaxing. It's a pretty huge world and wonderful to explore. I recommend not exploring too much until you build the space elevator, which comes pretty early. As huge as the world is, you can see the space elevator from pretty much anywhere unless you are surrounded by tall trees. Because of that, I've never really been lost, which is darn near miraculous for me 🙂

 

[Zed Clampet]

@Brian Boru another thing about Satisfactory is you can approach it as seriously or as casually as you want to. You can build a 100 percent efficient factory that looks incredible or you can build a plate of dropped spaghetti that could be anywhere from 50 to 100 percent efficient but that nevertheless manages to get the job done. You can have carefully crafted train and truck routes delivering just the right amount of products just in time or you can have a complete madhouse with trains, trucks and drones all over. Or you can do a combination of the two. I've played it all different ways and enjoyed them all.

 

[Brian Boru]

carefully crafted train and truck routes delivering just the right amount of products just in time

Oh yeah, that's me—dropped spaghetti would drive me nuts… er, more nuts 😀

My corporate employment was in multi-nationals working in supply chain, long before that term entered public awareness. I even taught the stuff to adult evening classes at the local uni, so it's Goldilocks build for me—gotta be just right 🙂

 

[Zed Clampet]

Oh yeah, that's me—dropped spaghetti would drive me nuts… er, more nuts 😀

My corporate employment was in multi-nationals working in supply chain, long before that term entered public awareness. I even taught the stuff to adult evening classes at the local uni, so it's Goldilocks build for me—gotta be just right 🙂

If I play by myself, I'm meticulous. When Guido and I play, sometimes things get a little out of hand. It's hard to get both of us on the same page sometimes. We're actually playing Satisfactory right now and we've solved the problem by working on different projects. He loves the game and has hundreds of hours into it, but has never made it all the way to the end, mostly because we just always stopped at nuclear before. I've played to the end, however, and I'm struggling to get across to him the scope of what's to come. It's magnificent in an OMG sort of way. Wonderful if you like this sort of thing.

 

[Zed Clampet]

Random thought: I wish people wouldn't use "colony sim" and "city builder" interchangeably. I know how people think, and they probably think that a colony sim is a sub-category of city builder, but that just dilutes the category city builder.

 

[Pifanjr]

Random thought: I wish people wouldn't use "colony sim" and "city builder" interchangeably. I know how people think, and they probably think that a colony sim is a sub-category of city builder, but that just dilutes the category city builder.

I've stopped relying on genres when wanting to understand what a game is like. Most genres are far too generic to be of any real use.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Random thought: I wish people wouldn't use "colony sim" and "city builder" interchangeably. I know how people think, and they probably think that a colony sim is a sub-category of city builder, but that just dilutes the category city builder.

I've stopped relying on genres when wanting to understand what a game is like. Most genres are far too generic to be of any real use.

Theyre all just base building games. Like Command and Conquer.

 

[Zed Clampet]

I've stopped relying on genres when wanting to understand what a game is like. Most genres are far too generic to be of any real use.

They are only too generic because we've made them that way by applying the same category to many, varied games.

Theyre all just base building games. Like Command and Conquer.

"No."
--Abraham Lincoln

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Not a hill I care about dying on, and I was joking 🙂

I'm curious though, Cities Skylines, Sim City, Cities XXL, what else is a city builder and why?

 

[Zed Clampet]

Not a hill I care about dying on, and I was joking 🙂

I'm curious though, Cities Skylines, Sim City, Cities XXL, what else is a city builder and why?

I knew you were joking, thus the Abraham Lincoln quote. I've never played the Anno games, but I'm thinking those would qualify. There are a bunch of small ones like Theotown, Pocket City, and Urbek.

As I see it, the difference between a city builder and a colony sim, even though you are frequently building towns/cities in both, is that in a colony sim the emphasis is on managing people. In a city builder, you obviously have to consider the residents, but you are a city planner first and foremost. You manage buildings instead of people. I would consider them both sub-categories of the simulation genre.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Are they all kind of management sims? If youre at some point using some kind of building/resource graphs to monitor productions and shortages to plan where you need to expand and so on.

I'd say stuff like Theme Park, 2Point Hospital, Roller Coaster Tycoon and so on scratch a similar itch for me.

 

[Brian Boru]

In a city builder, you obviously have to consider the residents, but you are a city planner first and foremost. You manage buildings instead of people. I would consider them both sub-categories of the simulation genre.

No, no, clearly subs of Civilization—that's all about planning cities, districts, buildings etc. And don't talk to me about managing people—those settlers, workers, missionaries, merchants, artists, scientists, engineers etc … pffft!

Most genres are far too generic to be of any real use.

Hope I've cleared that up for you now 😀

 

[Pifanjr]

I've never played the Anno games, but I'm thinking those would qualify.

I would say Anno is much more a logistics game than a city builder. The city builder aspects are pretty shallow compared to Sim City or Cities Skylines.

Are they all kind of management sims? If youre at some point using some kind of building/resource graphs to monitor productions and shortages to plan where you need to expand and so on.

I'd say stuff like Theme Park, 2Point Hospital, Roller Coaster Tycoon and so on scratch a similar itch for me.

As far as I know they're all management sims, but I don't think Roller Coaster Tycoon could scratch the itch if I'm feeling like playing a colony sim like Dwarf Fortress or Rimworld. Then again, I don't typically play those games for the management aspect.

In the end, genres are just names for combinations of gameplay mechanics. When a game has a unique combination of mechanics, you can describe it by combining multiple genres. If enough games then reuse that combination of mechanics we'll get a new name for it and a new genre will be born.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

As far as I know they're all management sims, but I don't think Roller Coaster Tycoon could scratch the itch if I'm feeling like playing a colony sim like Dwarf Fortress or Rimworld. Then again, I don't typically play those games for the management aspect.

In the end, genres are just names for combinations of gameplay mechanics. When a game has a unique combination of mechanics, you can describe it by combining multiple genres. If enough games then reuse that combination of mechanics we'll get a new name for it and a new genre will be born.

Tactical 4X Base building management God simulator it is then.