Suggestion sheet - Snek

[cunning schooner]

Heya! Usually people post 1 suggestion per post, but I kinda want to make a big post detailing all the stuff I'd want changed in the game, reasons for it, and the suggestions for the change.

1 - Factory sounds - I really do not like them. Extractors sound like a construction SFX (so far so I thought that they had a bug when the construction noises did not stop on my first playthrough) or a robot moving chaotically, not like an extraction machine of any kind. Cutter sounds like a cheese grater. Assembler, while having some press inside and pumps outside, sounds like a boiler/furnace while the Furnace is silent. Scrapper is silent. Stamper has the same issue as the assembler.

2 - splitters - I really do not like the splitter, it feels... really uncomfortable and more like an artificial restriction. It should be either like satisfactory, or like shapez 2, where the splitter allows for direct 90 degree turns, which allows for more variety in production lines. For example allowing manifold-style (Screenshot 2) branches to not be terribly bulky. With the current splitters it's hard to do anything but a "branch" (Screenshot 1) kind of multiple-building production.
This is a persistent issue in many more places where a 90 degree turn could allow for a more flexible or compact design

[cunning schooner]

3 - Tooltips -
Furnace - It should just say that it turns 240/m or two full belts of polyrock into 30/m cubes. How many polyrock it melts into one cube concerns nobody when the game has no resource management (Also there is a furnace UI "info" tooltip that says that already)
Stamper - "Stamps out a selection from a module, outputs both parts, but continues to work if one output is full."
Also there is a bunch of consistency/language issues like the monotoner "changing(???) parts into white/black" when painter "paints"
Miner - It should tell you that you can chain it in the tooltip, I realised it only like 5 minutes ago by a complete accident

[faint star]

Hi Snek. Thank you for your feedback I will add those to our list.

As far as the language issues go, up until now, no one working on the game speaks English as their native language. Now that I have joined the team, for the actual launch I will be going through all the text for consistency and clarity reasons.

[cunning schooner]

4 - Production times and measurements - I don't have a lot of complaints when it comes to normal buildings actually! They show you how fast they do, and it's pretty easy to calculate things around.

Big buildings are a bit... wonky, to say the least. The production times coming purely out of how many modules are being input is unusual, and should be explained better since I only realised that it works that way only after I completed the tutorial 2 times, me, a factory-game veteran. In the UI there should be "Modules needed to finish the product:" which can at least help get the player to understand how the production works. Also it's a bit of a pain to calculate the production speed, which I don't care enough to learn

Drones - When they are ~10 tiles away from the building producing the item, they stop keeping up with the production speed (used for tests - grey core production with 60/m 2x2x8 and 30/m 2x4x8 modules), which is tough to predict and makes the whole drone mechanic really REALLY clunky. Also it silently ruins production chains. Suggestions -
1 - make drone connection lines show how many flights/minute they can accomplish between linked buildings, even a vague number can probably help new players understand that drones can sometimes not keep up, and for good players to calculate if the pad can keep up
2 - make buildings buffer more than 1 output
3 - rework the drone mechanic or give an alternative unloading uptions via cranes/belt, so it becomes a choice of "Delivery to any point but it can stall the production, or more complexity on the ground but better output and control?"

Bottom one stalls here (the top one is on the brim of stalling)

Should I write my suggestions for how the game develops here? Because I do have my concerns...

[faint star]

If it is constructive yes, please.

[cunning schooner]

After some thinking, I think I will pass on it. Because right now I do not really have much info to go off to really say something.

So here I go into my thoughts...
Modulus is basically a cookie-cutter template of a factory game + module processing (which is an evolved mutated main gimmick from shapez).
The only thing I kinda remember from videos as the main point is freedom in how you make a module which... I really want to give some feedback on, I don't think that's really a thing throughout the demo? Or maybe I simply did not feel it.

I think the main issue is because each time I start from the same cube and process it with same tools. It's very easy to build a path of processing of a cube into a module of pretty much any kind. Yeah, there are thoughts like "Can I perhaps reuse this stamper byproduct for some more resources?" (Which is usually not worth the space) or "Can I save paint by painting 16x16x16 cubes?", but It feels like a small choice a normal factory game can easily make with an additional recipe. Sure, with more complex modules in the full game such "oooh I could've done it differently" moments can occur which you aimed at, but at the rate you'd get from factorio or satisfactory, or any other factory game.

And sadly enough, I am gonna again compare modulus to Shapez 2. Shapez 2 has deposits of weird shapes scattered around the map, and that mechanic DID give me the experience of actual freedom in how you assemble a thing. Yeah you can go from the very basic full shapes, color them, cut them, combine them, and get your result. Oooor you can search the map for shapes containing the things you need. maybe there is and ideally or partially fitting star shape you can use for your production line, or a very imperfect but pre-painted shape you can yoink the parts out of. Maybe Modulus can try to implement their own spin on such a mechanic.

TLDR - Devs should consider adding actual alternatives into the gameplay instead of just allowing you to make a thing in an infinite amount of ways with 1-2 somewhat efficient straightforward ones

And I think I am done, I really don't want to commit a mistake of spewing tons of thoughts which are going to be probably read and thrown into the bin of "potentially considered feedback"

This kind of posting is a weird kind of fun for me. I basically write up an entire storm of various thoughts, suggestions, concerns, and etc thinking that such kind of a centralised and throughout feedback would be somehow impactful, while also kinda knowing that it would not be.

While at the same time it's kinda silly to do that since well... who am I to be considered above the others? Does it evem make sense for devs to spend time reading what I wrote instead of some small report?