Idle colonists and no ore/crystal respawn

Founders' Fortune FF Feedback and Bugs
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Hi. Excuse me if this is known, it is hard to tell what is reported already. Also excuse me if some of this isn’t bug, but intended. Like the respawn. Also let me say I understand what a chore it is to get the colonists to behave. There are many glitches and things that should work more smoothly, but for me to pinpoint them all is difficult.

I have depleted the closest iron and crystals and it won’t respawn. My miner and scholar just sits around and disturb other workers by wanting to chat to much. Instead of going a bit further to mine. I manually sent my miner, he decided to relax right in front of the iron instead. Couple minutes later my scholar runs up to him for a chat. Soon as that was done, another chat started. Scholar don’t want to mine either.
Tried all combinations of the designated tool, i would say the tool doesn’t work either as once a deposit is depleted it is unmarked, so you constantly have to reselect areas to be harvested.
Also my forester really likes to walk far away to cut trees when there are trees right next to colony. The level of micromanagement to get them to behave now is getting really bad.

Some other general feedback:
*Corpses being pulled through colony housing will get stuck on entrance and appear again when colonist have exited on other side. This may be due to a single doorway and long 1x hallways.
*Colonist commands often fail if pathways are semi-blocked or if target is busy with certain activities, like sitting down to eat or talking with someone else. Pathway doesn’t even have to be blocked, but if colonist have something else on mind your command may not register.
*Craftsman seem rather useless until end game. Standing idle on his bed unless i use him for something else. It is also vague what he is good for. Not that I need more tools anyway. Maybe tools should break?
*No visual of occupied grave. No way to tell how many graves are free.
*The ability to spam desires, sit, relax, talk. Feels wrong, but is needed. This system needs to change.
*Desire for furniture already in colony keep occurring. I may have figured why, if you move something you lose the criteria and don’t get it back when placing again. You have to build new.
*The trashcan icon on furniture really needs to go away. Demolishing tool is enough.
*Chairs need serious rework standing a half block from the wall you want it close to.
*The pressure on wood is a bit steep. I have not used any stone except on the furniture that need it.
*It’s been quite easy to just have 1 dedicated scholar and climb the tech tree. Currently researching tower, but without crystals it’s not going very well.
*The trait Dumb is a little strong. How about something like reduced harvest/slower work instead?
*Missing tooltips for traits.
*Missing filter for healing plant on farmers.
*I’m not a fan of weather effects that severely reduce visibility in game. The fog is terrible.
*Arrival of spring and winter startles me. Would be nice if it was just a little phased.

For now I have 5x5 rooms for my 7 colonists, and for basic demands it works perfect as that’s the amount of space you need. However I don’t like the idea of making a room for every colonist. I’d rather make a house for every colonist, or a bunker room like. There should be more option of choice here. A project I plan is to find the biggest area I can and build a stone wall around it. So that everything inside counts as inside the colony. Maybe I’ll even include some resource spots within the colony so workers never have to leave :slight_smile:
I use 3 farmers now on 7 colonists and they are really busy. I’m not sure what they are supposed to do during winter though.

I’m probably forgetting something, but that’s enough now. I miss a thread with some basic tips and tricks. Took me hours before I figured I can move stuff around. Do beauty improve colonists mood? If so in what way, slower mood drop?
If I train colonists in multiple professions, will they all be active? IOW. I don’t have to take doctor as primary job? You can level a job you don’t have active in the bookcase. Problem though, you have to take the job to rank up and I think also to see the progress.
Do kitchen and bakery food make campfire food obsolete? Apart from that you may want “cheaper” food.

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Hi Malhalla,
that’s a lot of feedback. I want to thank you for that.

But I’d also like to know what you expect of this game. We are 2 guys working on this game with 0 dollars of funding.
When you say stuff like “Chairs need serious rework standing a half block from the wall you want it close to.” it makes me think you’re expecting Sims-like realism from this game? I realize your comments are just suggestions, but you can’t possibly think it’d be worthwhile for us to focus on perfect chair placement, do you?

The other thing I would like to know is if you’re enjoying the game at all. Obviously you played for quite a while and spent some time putting together this list, but you see, from my perspective this is a huge wall of text pointing out small and big negatives and not a single positive, so I’m not sure what your general opinion is.
For example, if you found the game as a demo on a kickstarter campaign, would you fund it? Is it almost amazing or is it ready to hit the trash can?

I’ll address some of your points in my next reply.

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Ok, now for the points:

  • Crystals and Iron: Will not respawn, is intentional
  • Pulling corpses visuals: Takes a lot of work to get 100% right and errors do not affect gameplay, so deprioritized
  • Occupied graves have visuals - maybe not clear enough
  • Yes, they want new furniture
  • Why does the trashcan icon “need to go away”? Is there a negative to having it there?
  • Is there any trouble with a lot of pressure on would? I’d imagine as a player you’d just focus on foresting more? There also is not a lot of pressure on iron or cotton but it’s not automatically a problem?
  • Trait dumb is intended to be strong

Is there anything stopping you from making a house for every colonist? Or a bunker out of stone?

If you wanna start a thread with basic tips, I’d be very happy. As developers our tips are super biased, so I don’t think we’re the right people to make that thread.

Again, thanks for the feedback. I’m just a little unsure about the general impression the game made on you.

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Thank you for good reply. I am sorry I had so little positive to say, that’s just how I am. Focusing on the negative so only positive is left. You can consider everything not mentioned as positive.

The game have already delivered more than what I expect. I am very pleased with the game, just at the moment I was writing the feedback I had just logged of game as I felt forced to until some of these things got figured out.

Aesthetics is important. Beauty is in the essence of the game. Therefor a misaligned chair is important. It is easily fixed, but it will conflict with table setups which I’m sure the chairs are made for. They are not made to be fixed against the wall. It is a minor inconvenience and just lead to reduced builds. The sofa better stick to the wall… Yes I think it would be worthwhile, details are important. This is difficult to say though with the funding situation.

I enjoyed the game very much, I am challenged in many ways. My first winter was quite the lesson, lost one almost two colonists to food shortage. Now my fields are quadrupled. I’m knocking at the door to endgame, fully unprepared. With 1300 stone ready to build a fort somewhere with more crystals. My miner is no longer allowed to mine stone, but he’s not mining anything else. As you see being positive is a very weak side with me. Please don’t be offended. It is positive to be challenged. I wouldn’t be here if the game didn’t impress me. Nookrium did a good job.

My general opinion after such short time is that it’s a great game in start phase with loads of potential. The current game work very well and only need minor tweaks. The game definitely deserve funding. Just get it onto steam and put a 4-6 euro price on it. Some is better than none, right? It does wonders for the community. Like tonight I played a game only because I have friends there.

I will edit in a quote and reply to your second post.

*Crystals and iron; well that’s nice when miners and scholar don’t want to work on deposits that are further away.
*Corpse visuals; Well, now I understand more of why this tiny game run my cpu so hard. A corpse trying to force it’s way through the environment and only get pulled through when colonist reach the other side 15 spaces away.
*Graves; I only use the most basic grave, perhaps others are better.
*They don’t want new furniture. They want furniture. That already exist.
*Yes, the trashcan is placed where the close window X usually is. It is very easy to accidentally press.
*I prefer a balanced use of available resources, especially basic resources. And steep requirements for advanced resources, only the bakery met that criteria yet. If it could be better is it then a problem? That is for you to decide!
*As strong as spamming sit, relax and talk to.

I was under the impression that everything need to be under one roof (even if there’s no roof) for it all to count as part of the colony. And when colonists want something in their room I did not expect that to mean wanted in their house, but a separate room. This also explain why I didn’t think bunker was an option. Still no long term solution, they want their own room/house.

I’m a min/max person so not good for making tips and tricks either. And especially not as I need the tips myself so I can min/max.

Now I wonder if I will bother anymore or just find the trash can. Rather than making more walls of text with good intentions here…

Do not presume and don’t tell white lies just because you cba.

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Alright Malhalla,
Thanks for providing your overall perspective and details on your feedback. I’m happy you enjoyed the game in general and you raise some good points :slight_smile:

Some, we just can’t accomodate. That’s not a question of not working enough, but choosing what to work on. For example, random world generation is more important than chair placement for me, so I prioritize that. Others, like the craftsman having nothing to do (just as the solider, or the doctor) are important issues with the design at the moment, so we’ll focus on addressing them properly.

About the game tips: Of course there are things only we as the developers can know. Some are just not explained (like moving furniture). But we’d rather explain these things in the game, so that’s what we’re working on. What about other gameplay tips? You’re right, I “can’t be arsed” to write a game tips thread for min-maxers. The game will change and we need time to implement these changes, so we’re not going to make this thread, sorry.

Your last two paragraphs sound quite negative and unfriendly. You’re welcome to stay and give more feedback or leave and do something else. But if you do decide you want to stay, I’d appreciate if you were a little more careful with your wording. Thank you. Otherwise, I appreciated the exchange.

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Hi again. It’s nice that we can keep our spirits up even after some bad conversation :slight_smile:

Figured I’d try to overcome the challenges. It’s not going very well. So just want to highlight the game breaking points for me.

The constant demand from new colonists for furniture that already exist. You can’t ask us to build new food shelf, kitchen food shelf, bakery, forge and whatnot for every new colonist that need to be pleased. While this is not game breaking, it is completely destroying my spirits.

The unwilling scholar and miner get the job done if I manually tell them to gather crystals and iron ore further away every 5 min. Am on my last research so then scholar and crystals will be obsolete anyway.

The grave visuals. Well here is a screenshot, how many graves are free here?

1920×1080

Also figure I can post a screenshot of colony. Mind the very poor build, it’s my first play after all and I’m primarily testing. And look at the wonderful wishes of my newest arrival… Other colonists are now expecting sofa, which my rooms are to small for. So i need to total rebuild, I have expected that for a long time so that is also why the build is just a quick solution.

1920×1080

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I agree, makes me happy :slightly_smiling_face:

There are 6 empty graves free in the bottom row, but I think your point is more than clear :smiley: I wrote a Trello card for the artist.

Also, I think the wishes thing is bugged. Newcomers should ask for their own room, chairs, table, etc. but obviously they shouldn’t ask for another bakery, sorry for that :confused:

The distance for automatic work is tricky to balance - as you’re experiencing they should work on crystals that are far away sometimes, but often times they shouldn’t run halfway across the map to gather another apple. We’ve had issues with this before with playtests. One idea is to extend the automatic work distance for things that are designated. Let me know what you think about this.

Your colony looks great, would you mind looking up how long you’ve played on this save? It’s in the gear panel in the bottom left.
Though I hate that you haven’t put any flooring in! When I have time, I’ll have to make some wishes and bad thoughts to prevent this madness :smiley:
Thanks for the pic.

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Hahaha. With that grave count, after a minute or two I was able to tell them apart :smiley:

This post will be loaded with suggestions and questions. Not expectations.

There was someone that suggested an ability to mark area for colonists to avoid. I like that idea, it would allow colonists to be more free. However they should still prioritize closest resource. Currently especially forester seem to be randomly all over the place within allowed distance. He never go far away. So safety is automated atm.

A similar approach is to give goblins and their structures an aura that colonists will avoid, this is a better solution I think, but perhaps more difficult to implement. I would not sacrifice safety by extending work distance. Or perhaps, automatically extended when goblin camps are taken out? I really appreciate getting insight on this, thank you for shedding some light on it :slight_smile:

Another solution that support extending work distance is to move start/migrant point further west.
I’ll probably have more thoughts on this after taking out goblin camps and utilizing whole island, if it ever go that far.

Playtime is currently 9 hours. 99% of it on normal speed or pause. I notice the clock is ticking during pause also. I’m doing chores in between play sessions so more accurately is probably like 6 hours. Way down on priority list there could be a separate time system that also count along game speed setting.

I’m sorry that I don’t have floor. Maybe you also notice I only have the cheapest walls/doors etc. It is for obvious reasons, that I have now reached. Colonists now want their own house. I’m having a hard time finding a design to go for, building a fort doesn’t seem like a good idea. Travel distances for colonists will increase greatly. I think I will stick with a tight build. And uh… reaching a point where I suddenly have to build “8” high quality houses seem… like my design fault :smiley:

Playing around I found making separate, end game housing is really expensive. I think I will be needing every iron vein on the island.

The extensive testing is starting. I tested if I could build a wall around colony, but doesn’t look good. And it raises questions. Will everything inside the walls then count as one house?
If that is so maybe a simple solution is make a fence version of stone wall?
Also if I build a bedroom inside a colonists house. Will he ask for furniture in the bedroom instead of house? IOW do I have to make the whole house a bedroom?

The sofa is for one colonist only? I swear first time I tried I got two to sit down, as I was testing positions and found it need to have the sides free for colonists to sit. As i had a table in front, that didn’t really fit either. Then after that a single colonist places himself in middle and option to sit down another is greyed out.

The wording on many items in game is a bit off. It could be as it is for the most part if items had category-surname like small shelf and large shelf. Watching Nookrium’s video part 2 I noticed we struggle with the same things. He did build a large when he was to build a small. This is nowhere near important though as you get used to it and it’s very much a inexperience issue. If however, you do want this prioritized I could more specifically address the more confusing wording. This is not my primary language either so I make the same confusions all the time. In regard to translation you have a Norwegian here. Don’t we just love to directly translate our native language to English ;D
That being said. Try to get hold of an Englishman.

  • The colonists are silently complaining on not having seen a female in over 3 years.
  • “last” floor type is missing translation. Gravel road or dirt paving?
  • More apple trees, or more apples on the trees? Coped with longer harvest time for balance.
  • There is no way to tell how much damage a structure have taken, or how strong a structure is. I’m assuming the stone walls are stronger than wood, but there are also different stone walls. Should I impress my neighbors or should I hint that entering here is like entering a dangerous dungeon?
  • Should we not be allowed to put small table in a corner?

Perhaps you don’t want to answer anything of this as it seem every question answered raises two more suggestions :stuck_out_tongue:

This all is to much I know. Pick what you like :slight_smile:

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Alright thanks again. I just now had time to respond. Here we go:

Area designations and walk distances

Yeah, I think that the avoidance zone idea might be the best one.
The others have the problem that they only apply in specific situations. E.g. extending the distance when the goblins are taken out won’t help you much if you need the far crystals right now.
Maybe we can spawn on the island with auto avoidance zones around goblin structures but still have a zone editor to give the freedom to the player. Hm…

Others

  • I’d say let me know if the iron runs out, but we’re making some changes for the next update anyways, so that’s going to be obsolete :wink:
  • Yes, if you build a big wall, that’s going to count as a house. Probably we should make a separate type of wall for this. Not sure if the next update is going to include military improvements though.
  • When a colonist says “in his room” he always means his bedroom.
  • Haha, yeah, the sofa is only for one guy. Reason being: We implemented it last minute and it’s the first type of furniture that can be used by exactly 2 people, so I just skipped programming that for now :smiley:
  • Yeah, the self thing is problematic, I think you’ve seen the other forum post.
  • Females: @Rene do you hear that? :wink:
  • Stone is supposed to be stronger, but not sure if I actually got around to implementing that.
  • I know about the table thing and already fixed it on my end.

Made it! :smiley:

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Hmm well, I have decided to wait for next version. I quite agree with the recent feedback on start area being to small. There’s nothing hindering one to build elsewhere, just right now it feels like starting the game over again this time to please 8 colonists from start. The demand for colony furniture that already exist really add to it.
There’s something wrong about keeping the game on pause for a long time until everything is rebuilt. It’s not the progressive path it should be.
Of course this is also the players design fault. I am prepared for this now and will adapt next round.
It will lead to a slower progress due to having to to build separate housing very early on, to avoid the landslide of housing desire when 8th colonist arrive.
Finding a different spot than start spot that also have all resources available nearby is really difficult. Migrant point should be where bonfire is, not fixed at start location.

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Alright, good points. I have a feeling that “re”-building houses can be ok. For example, in factorio you’ll rebuild your iron smelting lines at some point because you’ve unlocked just so much new and better stuff. That said, it shouldn’t feel like the game progression is put on pause, true.

When the 8th colonist arrive, I think only a couple of people require their own house? You can move the new guys in the old rooms.

Agree with the rest, already working on a different solution.

I’ll post on the forum when a minor update gets released (probably soon, to fix bugs) and email everyone when a major one gets released. Thanks again :slight_smile:

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