Locking fluid miner extensions behind research is bad m'kay?

[violet venture]

It just leads to me making abominations that look like this.

[soft dew]

yeah that one is indeed questionable, and in the end somehow that abomination will stay like this forever even though its perfectly free to remove and replace it (should be cheap on blueprint points since its just a few things)

[peak pewter]

i'm kinda torn, it sucks at first, but it meant there was something in the upgrades list that i actually wanted and the satisfaction of getting it made the pain worthwhile

[rose aspen]

It's beautiful

[violet venture]

It also goes entirely against the design you've already learned, however. If the point of the game is to iterate on designs as you get more research and develop better building techniques, then the research of fluid extensions is actively discouraging that.

The lack of extensions means you have to backpedal on designs you've already created with shape extractors because those already have that ability.

[peak pewter]

but on the same token... you know what you have to look forward to

anyway as i said, i'm torn, i probably wouldn't miss it if it was removed

[warped patrol]

Suggestion off this suggestion all tech unlocked so no research needed?

[lavish smelt]

that's called cheats

[violet venture]

There should be a game mode for that, but research trees are usually designed to teach you things incrementally. This backsteps on waht you were already taught and asks you to unlearn your current building methods.

[arctic pebble]

I slightly agree but disagree as well. Maybe I personally took it too slow but the color usage demand from given tasks were pretty low that I didnt need to expansions, even the train wagons.

Just my 2 cents

[violet flume]

It seems to me that you get exactly what you need to advance in the game from milestones. You get QOL improvements from research. Since you don't absolutely need fluid pump extensions, I think placing them behind the research wall is fine?

[rose aspen]

I agree. Also the player is likely to run out of upgrades and still be getting tons of research points if they do a reasonable number of tasks, so I'd rather see more research get added than removed.

[rose aspen]

Also this is fun:

[lone hearth]

Mine look EXACTLY like this 😂

[peak pewter]

tbh i'm surprised shape miner extensions aren't upgrades as well, it seems like logical game progression to start you off small and make you earn them one at a time

[minor phoenix]

I have to agree. I think the unlock is not really a good idea. Fluid extensions where basically bought as the next upgrade. It feels totally mandatory in my opinion sine the design you have to use is so different. It really feels like a backstab. Though you screenshot does seem to be quite overkill for you not having unlocked the extensions already. That's 42 belts worth of red paint. XD

[violet venture]

If this were the case, then also unlocking fluid extensions would be the natural progression. But it's not. You never learn how to allocate designs to only account for a single output from an extractor. Then suddenly you have to until you can unlock the extractor and promptly never touch those designs again.

[coarse sparrow]

Miner extensions are automatically unlocked because you start the game with them placed, so it would be weird to have some in the game world but not be able to place any

[peak pewter]

with the current setup, but it doesn't have to be like that... you can't place them until milestone 4 anyway, so the game could either say it's given you some freebies to get you started, or just not give them to you and adjust the tutorial accordingly

[coarse sparrow]

I think the former option could work quite well, and the latter would just slow down the early game for no reason which could be fine, though I think the current system is the best, as it allows for the player to want something and know it is good

[peak pewter]

yeah, i'm not super passionate about it either way, it just seems like something that i'd expect to see in the upgrades menu

[lunar musk]

While it's frustrating I kind of like that they're an unlock as you end up going back and redoing designs anyway once you get better at it, I'd agree it might be a good idea to have miner extensions also require an upgrade too

[waxen trellis]

I'mma be real I don't see why miners don't just output straight onto space belts, like wow I get the logistical challenge of hooking up a belt like 10 tiles, maybe doing it again if I actually bothered to mine anything before unlocking the extensions, then saving a blueprint and treating it as if it just output to a space belt anyway
as a wise man once said, I prefer my challenges to test my intelligence not my patience, and almost everything about the miners does the latter for me

[soft dew]

things like this is why

[waxen trellis]

Could just be left as an option then
in fact, just dump having extensions behind research and instead research a version that just dumps everything evenly onto a space belt for those of us who just dump every shape into a processor anyway

[soft dew]

thats called blueprints

[waxen trellis]

So I have to grab a blueprint for a miner, put it down, close out of the blueprint, pipette the miner, hit tab to get the extension, then place them
ore patches are different shapes so there's no blueprinting that entire process either

I feel like an unlockable building miiiight be a bit more easy

Although I may just be spoiled by other factory games ease of use

[soft dew]

you can put the extensions into the blueprint too but that would be less flexible

[waxen trellis]

precisexactly

[soft dew]

ofcourse you can add extra extensions to the sides in case of weird asteroids

[waxen trellis]

I've tried making a more versatile blueprint for that it's never faster than just placing them down

One by one and having to rotate them individually grumble grumble

[soft dew]

i just use asteroids that are 12 wide and 4 tall at the very least, that helps

[waxen trellis]

Yea you can just go further out and use ones that are big enough you can just slap a block of them in the middle but I just feel like there can be a lot better quality of life with miners and extensions in general

[feral dust]

extraction was an upgrade in shapez 1
what if as an upgrade, you could add more extensions to your extractors
you start with 1 extension then 2 then 3
and fluid and shape extensions are unlocked at the same time

im not a fan personally but its an idea

[rose aspen]

They could simplify the beginning of normal (or that whole certification thing) to make shape extractor extensions an upgrade for the extreme early game (1 research point or something, maybe even part of the tutorial). That way seeing the paint extractor extensions as an upgrade wouldn't be as surprising. This is just one of those upgrades that can feel weird when you're so used to having it unlocked. Maybe you spend 50-100 hours on Normal and then jumped into Hard and can't imagine a world without paint extractor extensions. Anyway, I still don't think these being an upgrade is a problem.

[clever rover]

I straight up refused to do anything that required painting until I unlocked fluid miner extensions, so I wholeheartedly agree with this

[waxen trellis]

To put it simply, you choose between bad logistics or none at all until you get the extensions
Neither of those options is fun and unless I'm mistaken fun is the main objective here

[rose aspen]

I guess we just have different ideas of fun. I enjoyed making this.

[waxen trellis]

Have fun erasing it as soon as you get extensions

[spring juniper]

I feel that’s the crux of the argument. “Neither of those options is fun.” It aggravates the piss out of me that I have to unlock both the Fluid Miner extensions and Fluid Wagons. I don’t like having to constantly go back to make things more efficient. Grow, sure, but redesign and make more efficient is less fun.

“Here’s my factory, but now I have swappers to make it more efficient. Here is my factory but now I have 90 CCWs to delete a few buildings to make it more efficient. Etc.”

[rose aspen]

Why would I erase it?

I don't need the platform points back that much and this looks cooler.

[waxen trellis]

This. Yes.
Like I hate to be critical but when you unlock things in most other factory games it's for a new production line or it revolutionizes the efficiency of a production to the point that you replace it anyway, in shapez 1 and 2 I just find myself going "oh neat I can save a tile"
Maybe I have brain rot from playing so many other factory games but as much as I like what it has going for it, it just does not flow

[peak pewter]

i'm not sure the snarky attitude here is warranted, deleting the extra platforms only took a matter of seconds and it felt satisfying opening up the asteroid for more use, so yeah, i'd say i enjoyed it — at this point of the game you're probably not using more than one or two sources of paint, so pretending it's this massive redesign that screws with everything you've been planning seems like an overreaction

[waxen trellis]

It's more of a problem that this kind of thing is all over and it adds up
Also that's not attitude that's called autism

[lavish smelt]

been kinda lurking here for a while

i was in favor of the upgrade for quite some time but slowly reading this made me rethink that

and yeah, i actually don't remember ever enjoying having no extensions

i can enjoy the limitations of missing the speed upgrades, the rotator variants, the bent stacker, etc. but the fluid miner extensions? it doesn't really incentivize creativity or result in innovation like the other upgrades do. it just kind of gets in the way. it would be fine if the shape miners also followed the same logic, but they don't. you're just given them straight away and the fluid ones are locked behind a decently expensive upgrade

[soft dew]

lol the bent stacker is not a limitation it is a flat out upgrade, its 4 per belt versus 6 per belt on the straight stacker., and saves a LOT of tiles :P

[lavish smelt]

i know, was talking about NOT having it

[soft dew]

oops, misunderstood it because i know the straight stacker gets disabled in insane mode xD

[vale shell]

The thing is that the game generally has a very sleek and minimalist design.

As a result of having so few gameplay pieces, locking anything substantial behind tech is either a token gesture for something that doesn’t matter (not having it is just a mild inconvenience), or a super important and core game mechanic (of which there are few).

Factorio in contrast is a game with lots of bloat and random crap to throw into a tech tree, so the unlock system just works for factorio. Much harder to design good unlocks for shapez.

[soft dew]

I just started an insane difficulty run earlier today with maximum platform and copypaste difficulty, but minimum task/milestone requirements, and oh boy do i need ways to reduce platform point usage in the painting milestone stage (so the paintminer extension unlock is very darn tempting)

[waxen trellis]

Oh also the extensions cost more than basic wires, something that actually changes how you play the game

[mint lark]

100% agree with this suggestion. By the time I unlocked fluids I had already learned to build everything in sets of 4 lanes. I found it frustrating that the game seemingly wanted me to build 4 separate paint platforms, and ultimately steal(!) some of my hard-earned research points for a basic need when there were other upgrades I was saving up for.

I don't know if it's because I'm playing on "hard" but those research points take a while to get.

[waxen trellis]

Ya know
if you reduced the cost of the extensions to be the same as trash or something like that, I think that would also be fine

Like there's nothing wrong with having a better version of something behind the unlock

But when it costs as much as it does it's gonna take you doing several research tasks while dealing with the worse version knowing that there's a better way

Like nobody complains about trash being behind a research, and nobody builds these everywhere before unlocking them

Because you do 1 or 2 tasks and you can have it, you dont spend any real part of the game thinking "this sucks, if only I had trash"

But with the fluid miners, if you're continually expanding like every factory game ever wants you to, then you have to spend a ton of time setting up paint miners that output to different lanes of the "space pipe" (ball belt), and take up the entire deposit for one "pipe"

and if you already spend all of your research on other things and the only tasks left need paint, I could see this making a player want to quit or at least start a new save

[radiant moat]

Crazy idea: rename "extensions" to "miners" and make them output directly onto space belts/pipes, with height adjustable via a menu or something.

[tepid sequoia]

Then you lose all ability to modify the shapes before outputting them, which is part of the point of the platforms in the first place

[radiant moat]

I didn't say "remove miners", but I see why you thought it was a part of my idea. Miners can be renamed to... IDK, miner platforms?

[soft dew]

If Miner Platforms could emit to other Miner Platforms that would be neat, that way you wouldnt need the extenders.
but with the limitation that they only do it to miner platforms

that way you could for example have 12 Miner Platforms that emit through each other into 1 belt

[radiant moat]

This will just give you too much space to work with at the mine (1 platform per belt).