Alright, I appreciate it and thank you for all your wonderful work
So after playing for a while (probably around 4-8 hours, I have a bit of a wishlist/bug fix list that I would like to share if it would at all matter to Chubberdy
Bug List:
- Sometimes when loading up a save then leaving to start a new game, that new game will have enemies spawn at whatever game state your were in the old save
- When you load a save that you prestiged in and leave, occasionally the new save might have the prestige size in it
Current Wishlist
Quality of life changes
- Some visual and/or sound for “overcharging” autominers (For those who don’t know transferring energy into an autominer after its built will increase the collection rate)
- A sunlight and wind tab for seeing how much sunlight the panels are getting and how much wind is powering the wind turbines
- Option for more saves (4-5 instead of just 3)
Map Changes
- Maybe more steam vents and crystal veins?
-Dynamic background scenery (Sunrise, sunset, weather, etc)
- Perhaps different planets and more weight levels?
Endings
- An ending/cutscene after you use the teleporter and see your score, possibly with different ending depending on your score
- Some sort of a failure condition?
Miscellaneous Stuff:
- More detailed sprites overall (Whether by me or not it doesn’t matter)
- More sounds (Listening to the same footstep sounds and belly grumbling gets repetitive)
- More Songs (Not sure how doable it is but more songs to listen to might be good
- Animated Sprites for the Fusion Reactor
Sorry for constantly nagging you all with my constant posting I just thought this was a really neat project and I’d love to help it flourish
5 Likes
Honestly, I wonder when there might be a reactor sprite that’s not just a gray trapezoid with the level scrawled on it.
Let me second the endings (which I mentioned earlier, in my own wishes), as well as some sort of signaling that dumping energy into miners gives a benefit (I had no idea, until I saw talk of it here). I don’t know if the steam vent is needed, and the second crystal vein seemed to be enough (in my opinion). Oh, and the additional sizes are always nice, no matter who has to make them (so long as they keep the same spirit, such as the proportions and quality motion and sense of burden).
Oh, and let me again reiterate that this game is a delight, and all the work is very appreciated.
1 Like
############################################################################################
ERROR in
action number 1
of Draw Event
for object obj_build_grid:
array_get :: Index [-1] out of range [7]
at gml_Object_obj_build_grid_Draw_64
############################################################################################
gml_Object_obj_build_grid_Draw_64 (line -1)
What does mean? How to fix it?
Do you remember what you were doing right before this happened?
I don’t remember exactly but I think I’ve set up several research stations
New player here! Just started playing blind, and I got totally overwhelmed by orange/big slimes after about 5 minutes. Built a mk 3 solar panel, a mk 2 wind turbine, and the research station, before realizing turrets were a thing and not being able to build one due to having to spend all my energy idling around slimes in the vain effort of killing them all. But the orange ones are so tanky that it feels like you just can’t kill them on your own.
Is there a recommended strategy to make them less of a run-ender? Because once all my stuff was broke, the enemies didn’t despawn and the simplest plan was to just load a new game.
Build a wall on either end of the map and two turrets adjacent. Get turrets to level 2 and fortified wall. You can pretty much forget about them after that.
1 Like
honestly, once you get a critical mass of slimes, it’s hard to make any kind of comeback. the best advice for starting is to make turrets before you even see a slime, and a wall to protect them.
you’ll be doing a good bit of jogging back and forth to repair before you get the good upgrades~
1 Like
Awesome. Thank you. I’ll see how that goes. 
1 Like
Okay, nope. Same thing happened. Built a turret and wall as soon as I had enough energy, and then a whole horde of slimes approached and trashed both of them. It just takes a little too much time/the enemies spawn too tough too soon for me to be able to make sufficient defenses for my actual production/research buildings.
For a more solid defense, build a wall at each edge of the map as soon as you can, followed by a pair of turrets for each wall. Upgrade them as necessary. When all the turrets are at tier 3, the only thing you need to worry about at that point is repairing the wall every now and then.
1 Like
This is what I ended up figuring out.
First step was building a tier 1 wall and turret on opposite ends of the steam vent, with a solar panel and research station inside, and beelining turret/wall upgrades until i couldn’t make them any better.
Then I beelined steam generator upgrades until I couldn’t make that any better.
Then i redid the walls at the edges of the map with 2 turrets and made mining drills until I couldn’t make them any better. Then I made the 2 turrets on each side tier 3s.
And yeah, once I knew what to do, the enemies were basically no longer a feature of the game.
I’d say that’s my main critique of this so far:
- In the beginning, when you have no idea what you’re doing, the enemies feel frustratingly tanky and overwhelming.
- Once you figure out how to build a turret behind a wall on both sides of the steam vent, the enemies stop feeling like a major threat.
- Once you get enough upgrades that you MUST mine crystals, and so expand the defenses, double-layering turrets makes the enemies feel like an annoyance.
- Once you get 2 tier 3 turrets on each side of the map, the enemies basically don’t exist except for waddling over to the edges of the screen every now and then and holding up for like… 5-10 seconds at most, then returning to your patient wait for more crystals to be added to your reserves.
- Waiting for the almost 6k crystals for a prestieged-max-size teleport is also basically just AFKing for about 15 minutes and sometimes tabbing back in to repair your walls.
So, yeah… I like this game a lot, but the enemies definitely need to be rebalanced. That’s all I really don’t think is presently as good as it COULD be.
1 Like
I always just build a level 2 solar, used its energy to rush a turret and wall to the edges of the map, then worked on getting a little steam generation (honestly, it’s not worth it to go to level 2 in steam if you plan, and definitely not worth going to level 3). I tend to put out crystal mining by this point, and work on rushing upgrades to walls and turrets, as well as getting reactors. Once you have reactors, all you need is a reactor near each end, one in the middle, and a double-layer of walls and turrets on the ends. From there, keeping the walls and turrets as upgraded as you can get them makes it so slimes are something you can ignore for the sake of other upgrades and efforts. By the time I have level 3 turrets and level 2 walls (it’s the level 3 ones you can really mostly ignore), I just start wasting time making reactors from one end to the other - so I can keep at my max weight no matter the walking and dumping power into things.
So i did a little thinking, and I came up with an idea for something that could solve both of my main critiques in one fell swoop.
A new building called the “Machine Booster” (or whatever you want to actually call it, but that feels pretty self-explanatory).
After researching it (for whatever cost feels reasonable), you can build it on any spot you want. If the tile to the left or right contains a building that does something “passively” (i.e. not the suit upgrader, or research station, pretty much), then the Booster will speed up its rate of operation by… a percentage. Let’s say T1 does +10%, T2 does 20%, and T3 does 40%, as placeholder values for the sake of discussion.
For generators, this would increase their energy output by that percentage.
For auto-turrets, this would increase their DPS by that percentage.
For mining drills, this would increase their crystals/second by that percentage.
However, it’s not a free lunch. The Booster needs to have you standing next to it, outputting energy, for it to boost the machines to the left and right.
- Why does this solve my main 2 critiques?
It assists in allowing the enemy strength to be rebalanced in favor of a forgiving early-game while still allowing the endgame to become a challenge, by letting you boost your Turrets up to an even higher level than before, meaning they can handle a more significant level of enemies. Honestly, the enemy balance could probably be tweaked without the booster existing, BUT the Booster gives you something to do besides just repair the wall whenever it gets low. It’ll feel like you’re actually fighting back, especially if the Booster gives some sort of visual effect to the machines its boosting while you’re powering it.
Secondly, this allows you to boost your mining drills’ speed, so that you’re not just AFKing for 15 minutes at the end waiting to get about 6k crystals (at least in a prestieged full size escape), and only sometimes tabbing in to repair your walls.
If you’re careful with your building placement, you can do both of those at once; wall, turret, booster, mining drill, generator, giving you energy with which to boost the turret and mining drill while also being in close proximity of the wall for repairs.
In summation, this Machine Booster would just add an extra bit of “things to do while you wait to have the energy + crystals to win the game.”
The booster sounds like a good idea at first, but I see two issues with it:
-
I don’t see how using a booster on generators would be more profitable than building an additional generator in its place. Further up in the discussion it was already said that it’s more efficient to use tier 1 reactors because 2 tier 1’s give more than a single tier 3. That problem only gets worse if you have to use energy in order to activate the boost in the first place.
-
For the miners, I don’t know if you are aware, but you already can boost miners directly by venting energy into them. From what I’ve observed, it triples that miner’s output for as long as you supply it directly.
1 Like
Wow! I had no idea about that feature for the miners.
As for the reactor thing, that sounds like their output rates just need more balancing.
I guess my idea technically already kind of exists? 
There’s also the issue that that would basically necessitate building small, which also means you’re less likely to be able to farm both crystal spots. If you balance the enemies around the expectation of using this ‘booster’ (especially with no passive benefit to it), you’re basically forcing yourself to have to keep moving from one end to the other, having less time to research or build upgrades, and fighting against the logical price of success in the game: going slower the bigger you are. You’re likely to lose one end when standing like a sentry on the other, if the balance is done in such as way as to make this booster worthwhile (i.e.: even part of what’s balanced for).
It’s an interesting idea to try to find more the player can do when everything is close to maxed out, and most people just AFK, but I would argue the charm of the game is having your plans pay off - to where you get to slowly trudge around, so fat your suit can hardly contain you and you can hardly move, just collecting on those last bits needed to finish the game. If there was too much to do at the end, you’d just end up using resources on that until you find yourself back into a point of sitting on success until your resources recover…or you’d have a hard time being able to manage winning, let alone being able to win with max buildings and resources (and without anxiety). I don’t know about anyone else, but I wouldn’t play if I had to run from side to side the whole time, skinny, like a chicken with my head cut off - especially if ‘the whole time’ meant while waiting to recover enough crystals to teleport. Some people like being able to just sit back and enjoy being fat on success, and trying to force new difficulty into the endgame prevents that.
3 Likes
I feel like part of this is due to the fact that you can basically build everything in one big mash, everything you need is on one side of the map or the other, which disensentivises movement. You can also make a massive chain of reactors and never run out of power, which I also think is an issue.
I was thinking, perhaps every time you grow, less of the map becomes capable of sustaining power generators, forcing you to make power and mining hubs. Perhaps reactors can only be built on certain deposits, solar in rays of light, or turbines in the wind. Another possibility is having the slimes come out of points other than the two world walls, forcing you to build defenses or run around and stomp them out.
I mean, you are good on that part but growing in it, with strategic building is probably it, but it isn’t directly confirmed If there would be a part on trying to add a resource counter for how much the planet has for the machines in general, and that can be somewhat saying, you need to make sure to think of where you need to make the power and mining hubs, considering their building size for the map during the whole game.