That's the fun part. You don't! Though I think things aren't necessarily hit at the same times, plus if you get there in time but it's close there is a way to control the damage before it happens. Honestly there's enough going on at Astrape that even if you can't get there before it's fried this time, there should be something else to do, and making it there makes it faster the next time, which could get you there before things get bad.
Go to Tram Station at Astrape, there's something there that can get you to the Astrape by 14 mins before Santorini becomes SantoTNT. (if you can micro-manage to get there fast enough)
Day 3 waiting outside Talos Solar cells still charging. Suit reads 519 Calvin. Hydration pouches less infinite than expected. Taggart/Mella fanfic status: 13% complete.
I found the the handling of moving to and from the rover within the Astrape's vehicle bay very confusing. The routing is short enough that I muddled through, but I'm still not confident I really understand it.
After "Calling the Tram" to Astrape after it was destroyed along with Santorini, the tram eventually returns (as evidenced by the "Ride Tram to Santorini" button appearing). I don't think it's supposed to do that.
I really love this game, but the problem I have with it is the fact that my save file keeps getting deleted, which means i have to go through everything all over again.
It was fine the first time since that was when astrape released and there was a lot of stuff that was new that i'd only have noticed on a fresh playthrough (like the dam crates), but the most recent one that wiped my 100% completion just sucks, and I really don't want to start over again. Great game, but I think i'll just wait for the 1.0 version (or, at least until the end of the year) to play it again.
Saves are never deliberately deleted, and are always forward compatible with new versions.
So if your save is getting deleted, it's because your browsers data is getting cleared. You can either download the desktop version, which stores saves in files in your user data, or use the Import/Export menu to export your save and store it anywhere you like.
Also, if you ask on the Discord, someone is usually happy to send a save file to help people get back to where they were. If you'd still rather wait, that's fine. I just wanted to explain what happened to your saves and give you some options.
Just finished the game to 100%, and honestly, I really liked it. The story and worldbuilding of the game is all just so interesting and fun to uncover, and the gameplay is honestly quite satisfying and relaxing. Like, I know this is supposed to be an idle game, but I spent almost no time at all tabbed out from the actual game. Maybe a couple times during long waits, but otherwise I was playing the entire time, which is honestly impressive considering I've got around 20-25 hours in this game now
I think that what this game does so well at is using its resources effectively. Even though you could've just as easily made it so that there was no wait time between any actions, after playing the game, I can say for sure that would've taken away so much from this game. With all the waiting for every action, you have plenty of time to ponder on the information you've received while also thinking about the actions you're going to take, which honestly does take a lot of thinking about; even with all the moments of waiting, I'd say easily over 50-60% of the time I've spent in this game was paused, thinking about/reading plot developments or trying to plan the best way I can use my limited time. This all comes together to make it so that the primary gameplay in Terraformental literally is thinking, making it a really relaxing experience to play, and with enough "gameplay" to never bore you.
Talking a little more about the waiting stuff, I do really also like how it puts value into every action you take, making the rewards for completing them feel better and the longer ones actually feel more daunting, especially when this waiting is paired with rapidly dwindling resources you constantly have to manage, decreasing more and more with every second spent.
And to mention the game's plot one more time, it is honestly just so excellent. Another great thing about all this time spent waiting is that, when combined with all of the descriptive text provided, you really get a good chance to get a clear mental picture of the the places you visit, the objects you use, and the things that are happening. I'm not gonna make any claims that this is better than if there was some ambience or basic visuals, but I still have to appreciate how the game's plot and visualizations are like that of a well-written book.
Finally, to talk about the conceptual main mechanic, the time loop stuff is also just great. It felt really compelling to keep unlocking new more efficient ways to complete actions while also making as much progress as you could in as many Persistent actions as possible to continue progressing through the game while also unlocking even more completely new actions and paths at every location you go to. I also liked how the starting actions were balanced out, where you would always need to dedicate a considerable amount of time to repeated actions at the beginning of a loop once it resets, as well as all the things you need to do to get back to where you were in the previous loop. For me it added a lot of value to the time I had in a loop, and made it so that I really was always fighting against my limited resources with all my might, just to get a little more time in, though it also made it very satisfying whenever I figured out/unlocked new ways to make the versions actions and journey's to other locations much quicker.
I mean honestly, this is just a really great game. I'm impressed by how relaxing, satisfying, interesting, and fun it all came out to being even with such simple gameplay, and I'm certainly very excited for the future updates and eventual completion of this excellent game. Huge thanks to ShadyGames for making all this, and a good luck to the rest of its development!
True. But for me its just that it was called semi-idle in the game's description, so I thought this would mean that there would be a good amount of time spent waiting or tabbed out, and while this is sort of true, the way the game played out for me definitely flipped my original expectations. That's fair to point out though, I only noticed the incremental label after I had written out the final paragraph, and at that point I was like eh, works well enough.
I definitely would agree that this isn't an idle game tho, the sort of merge of idle waiting mechanics and all this crazy incremental stuff was what ended up being so cool about the game.
I enjoyed this game a lot. I really like the idea of time and how fast you can do things (and the order in which you do them) influence how far can you progress.
At first I thought it was just a simple incremental game but the story, different locations and the progression makes it so unique.
Can't wait until the game is finished. Good job, developer!
This is my favorite game right now! It’s so simple and so complex and deep. A few notes:
I actually don’t mind the UI at all, I think it works great and conveys almost all information that’s needed simply and quickly
I love the size of the text for the story! Any shorter and they would seem terse, any longer and I would get overwhelmed with reading it all. I particularly like it when a new piece of story/info shows up and I can queue a slow task in the background while I read it
A low key soundtrack would work wonders for setting the mood in various locations; I’m thinking about Subterrain (which shares a bunch of similarities to this game) or the original Fallout series
I know you’re still working on the map, one thing that I wish it showed me was projected time/power it would take to travel each leg using the current state of the vehicle, since it’s hard to remember exactly how far things are from each other between playthroughs
I love it! I sat out a few updates to ensure that dipping back in would be worth it, and boy was it! Great work.
I was a little surprised that (mild mild spoiler)
you can't load the water recycler in the rover and drive it back to Talos for installation, or uninstall it using the Talos workshop. The third type of water resource and prudent handling of the preexisting two seemed like an answer to the 'maintain both water and power' riddle for getting to site 3.
I really loved this game, the text-only style really works to flesh out the world but also leaving just enough for the imagination. I was worried after my first couple loops that it would be grindy, but the mechanic of simplifying tasks is great! A permanent log of the information you've learned would be great, as I sometimes had to take notes. Also maybe on the map screen there could be info on which areas have what e.g. a water filter. But i loved this so much already!
P.S. also a cool sci-fi soundtrack wouldn't be remiss ;P
Install/Remove Full Power Cell doesn’t share similar actions with vs without tools.
Having heavily trained the action in v0.3 by repeatedly uninstalling and reinstalling until I starve, the new action in v0.4 to do it in Talos with tools (base 10s) actually takes longer than out in the field without tools (base 30s).
After talking the artifact from Astrape, the water filterer seems to have disappeared on future cycles. Also, If it is impossible to get the nav computer and the propeller and mining motors for the VTOL, I feel like it should be marked as not available in this update like the other two facilities are and the Santorini artifact.
My persistent actions are at 96.99%, even after investigating a name I got from crates. Seems like I've done nearly everything else that can be done. Are there any other persistent actions that are well hidden?
If your save game was originally started before v0.3, your save might have a minor glitch which makes it think a few of the first-loop actions are incomplete when they're not. It could be something else, but someone else who had this issue had the same %age completion. This'll be fixed in the next patch.
Thanks! I started playing a couple days ago, so it should have all been v0.4.x. But I do tend to browse a lot of games on Itch, especially in the "Recommended for You" section which is where I saw this, so it's not impossible that I might have clicked it once, didn't play, forgot about it, but still ended up with an earlier save.
This game was really fun, wow. Was introduced to it by my partner and we ended up playing through the whole thing in a few days. We're very much looking forward to future content updates! Thank you for your hard work, Shadowsand!
This is an absolutely wonderful little game, I've become addicted to it over the past few days. The steady progress feels great, the writing is well done and kept me very entertained during the waiting periods. I haven't finished all of the available content yet, but I can sense I'm getting close to the end, and I have a few suggestions.
Action Queueing feels great. I find that I'm able to queue 3-4 minutes of actions at once now that I know the routine so well. However, what feels even better is dying and waking up to find that you've unlocked a new "routine" that saves you many clicks. These feel great when they appear, but they are few and far between. My entire routine at Talos should be 1-2 clicks at this point, instead of the 20-30 it currently takes. You could simply include more of these streamlining routines, or you could pass that work off to the player; allow us to create our own routines. Set up a recording system, click record at the beginning of the run, and do my entire routine to Laurion, the Lost Rover, the Dam, and get to Santorini. Hit stop on the record and save it as "Talos to Santorini", and then I can run that script in the future to save me a whole bunch of clicks while I slowly work through Santorini. I would pause along the way if new things unlock, and I'd update the script if I found a faster way. This might seem a little overpowered to some degree, so it could be an unlock after a little while, maybe after you get blown up in Santorini the first time.
A simple addition to any idle games is a "player notes" section, just a corner of the screen to leave yourself reminders and plan out future runs. It's easy enough to bring up my own notes app or something, but having it in-game is always nice.
Can't wait to get back to the game, and explore more of what this world has to offer. My first 5 hours with the game were a little bit frustrating, and I wasn't paying nearly as much attention as I should have been. Once I locked in, I was completely hooked. The pacing is great, the UI is clean, simple, and efficient, and I love that I can scale the entire UI, a feature that is often overlooked.
Alright, time to get this gate unlocked to I can head to Astrape. <3 Love this game!
after beating the game, I think the new astrape facility is super easy compared to others because the energy surge is useless to prevent player from out food and water because of how much loot around the facility. After you unlock the train, it becomes easiest facility
The main issue with vital resources at Astrape is running out of air. Even if you stay in a place with air generation, doing this takes time and spends food and water. Additionally, the area's effect can prevent you from performing some actions such as searching the admin computer.
but air you can get infinitely from the train and if you know how to efficiently use the air recycle it can give you a lot of air. Additionally, after 1,2 loop you will have plenty of food and water.
I checked the train last, soo I didn't know about the air scrubber on it and there's a LOT of stuff to explore (around 20- min) soo it becomes a real issue.
Pretty sure that part of that feeling is that this update had a lot of under-the-hood work going on with the systems to give cross-compatible experience for common tasks like gathering water in multiple places, taking the same route in different directions, or installing solar panels that would not have given a speed boost from similar actions before, in addition to the content update.
The Get Up action combination is really nice, but it does for some reason leave three water bottles on the table and instead uses the extract water command. That feels like a mistake to me.
I never encountered that bug. In all my 29 loops, I always had to manually tell it to extract the water. Are you sure that is happening, as both things give Small Water Bottle as an item?
Someone specifically requested it be changed away from picking up 4 bottles for effeciency reasons. Lots of people pushed back on it after the change was made, so I'll be reverting it next patch.
Pretty sure the efficiency idea is to only pick up 1 bottle, total, in that bundle. One bottle is enough to reach the water pouches before dying, and those are more efficient than small water bottles, even from the table. Then before leaving Talos, pick up the other 3 bottles from the table plus 2 from extraction, just to have 5 in storage.
I don't seem to be able to take the Astrate > Dam path? I only have the Santorini-option, and I can take that until the "Santorini is [...]"-thing. Am I missing something?
(Not that it's important, but this would be the last piece of road to travel xD)
The only requirement to unlock the reverse route is to have travelled dam > Astrape once. Other than that, you have to go part way back towards Santorini before it splits off towards the dam. If you have all the combined actions unlocked then you may have to click the combined action to expand it and manually perform the first 2 sub actions to reach the splitting point.
I just thought that like an actual 3D game based on this would be super cool. I know that would be crazy hard to implement, even just for the first facility but, you can't deny that it would be super hype to see explore the entire world yourself.
When the long-range transceiver on Astrape's roof after getting the tram override codes, the description says "Thanks to the override code you have, you should be able to unblock it from...".
"It" in this context can be assumed to mean the tram, but that is not established contextually and should be stated explicitly.
1] After experiencing touching one other artifact, than first, unlocks some new content in previously visited areas.
=> So this would either be the Astrape or the Laurion artifact, in current content terms.
=> Could gate some content based on then how many artifacts you collect. Having both, might unlock something more.
A) Unlock something at original rover location (where got first artifact).
B) Unlock something at lost rover.
C) Unlock something at talos lasers.
D) Unlock something at laurion computer.
---
2) Having more than one artifact active, lets you set one item to appear at Talos at the start of the loop.
A) So you could start with the CO2 scrubbers, to repair the tram at Santorini, as an example.
B) Or you could start with the power coupler / empty power cell at the dam crates.
C) Or you could start with a fuel cell from Santorini.
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3) Having more than one artifact active, raises the stack size of all items, by +1. So three total active (including first one allowing loops), is stack size of 7 (+2 total)
---
4) Can salvage certain things for resources.
A) ie gain 5 plates and a coupler for disassembling a water recycler, that you don't intend to use.
B) ie gain rotors for disassembling the mining machine, instead of installing the advanced rotors.
---
5) Unlock methods for enhancing consumables.
A) Find an electrolyte package, that you can add to a water bottle or two small water bottles. Adds +1/0.5 water to them, but causes you to lose 0.5/0.25 food.
B) Find a mr.noodles flavour packet, that you can add to a ration pack or two basic foods. Adds +1/0.5 food to them, but causes you to lose 0.5/0.25 water.
C) Find a reactor accelerant, that you can add to a fuel cell. Adds 33% more fuel, but deals a small amount of damage to your oxygen generator (like with surges).
D) Find a battery capacitator, that you can add to a power cell. Boosts storage of power by +100, but increases drain rate of all vehicle actions by +0.25.
=====
Anywho, if you release a new build that needs testing give me a shout, otherwise check back in a few months, for Pneuma or Strabo or even Santorini.
1) Aside from just checking the computers, I'm doubting we "realistically" could find anything more by just looking at our past explorations
( althought an artifact that allows us to baaasiically gain an
"useless for surviving BUT good for finding out"
small superpower would be interesting ( maybe reading memories of all those dead corpses we found?) )
===
2) Interesting
===
3) Uhh that sounds powerful, should be left for an specific artifact (maybe the Santoniri artifact would "expand" our storage by 2?
===
+3 I also noticed that each "artifact" seems to have an specific theme with it's effect (that overdoes whatever it's buff is) and buff, soo santorini should be.... explosion? expansion? expansion of storage???? I hope I'm right cuz it would be funny to guess it 2-4 months in advance.
===
4)uhh Good idea, thou it might be a bad idea when we have a tight timer.
===
5) Yes.
.....hmn....what if, your idea from 2) applied ONLY to those boosters? that would make strategizing much bigger.
So reached the new End of Content marker (EoC) after 29 loops. Probably 15 of them were caused by failing to reach a destination and running out of food or water, but that taught me that the path wasn't optimal. Way too many branching paths and I get confused on how to keep all the information straight.
Will do one more loop, to visit Santorini, and see if I can prevent the boom there, now that I have remote tram access.
I'll think up some suggestions (outside of current feedback) probably for tomorrow.
EDIT
Just noticed this. You can't unblock or boost tram power from Central. Only at quarry.
Boost Tram Power doesn't share commonality with the action if performed at Astrape. Same with Unblock Tram.
EDIT2
Increasing speed of tram by +50%, only applies to Astrape trip. Doesn't speed up tram rides between Santorini locations.
EDIT3
Most things react to the removal of the artifact at Astrape, except for the Water Filter machine. Both its description and the message log is the same.
EDIT4
Drive towards Dam, from Astrape (when santorini explodes, so you can't travel back to it), doesn't share commonality with any actions, and is set to 5 minutes.
1) Not being able to do it from central is explained in the logs - Central doesn't have a long range transceiver, while the Quarry does (for controlling the mining machines). Added actions to groups for future.
When I first find out about the cause of the power surges, I'm told a warning will appear in my PDA, next time I'm in Astrape, for when the next power surge will be.
But, I never have gotten this warning.
Its possible I reach the facility, before the surges start, and since I divert the power to civilian sector, it might stop the surges or something.
Probably missed one action. There are a few that are easy to miss.
ie Once you drive all the way to Santorini, then to Astrape, there is a path from Astrape back to the dam or from the dam to Astrape, which is unlikely to be used, as you run out of resources attempting it.
If you've found two sets of crates in different locations, you will have picked up a new name (your character remembers this even if, like me, you immediately forgot what it was). You can do a small bit of research on this new lead at Laurion.
I've got very fond of the rover but, with all the different 'customisation' options it allows*, I imagine it's a huge plate of spaghetti on the inside!
*two sets of solar panels, boosted, and upgraded water filter my beloved
The problem is that with limited food and water supplies. If I had plenty of each, then I could do the drive to Astrape without the advanced rotors and instead install the solar panels (as there is only one set of 5 metal plates I've found). Solar power trickle charge is "probably" 4th.
Santorini usually explodes before I have a chance to visit it for its charger. Though maybe now that I've unlocked remote tram usage, I could park the rover at Santorini... Hmm I'll try that next actually.
Once you have mapped the improved route from Santorini (and maybe completed it once) it's no longer necessary to use the upgraded motors to make good time in getting there.
Then, solar panels, plus installed generator, plus the fuel cells from the quarry, were enough to charge the Power Block.
Loot T. Take Generator with you. Tunnel to L. Get supplies from the rover and outside. Don't even bother going inside. Tunnel back to T. Drive to Dam. Enter S. Recharge rover/get supplies. Should have max fuel cells. Drive to A. Use fuel cells and generator to charge power block. At least how I did it. Been stuck taking the long way to A as well since my non follow the tracks route forgot it exists.
Well if you can remotely call the tram you can ride it and observe route and get a shorter route which saved me about 20 power doing that with the speed motors.
Well I crunched the numbers and found that its actually faster to go from Santorini, to the Dam, then the Dam to Astrape. You might save power by going the Santorini to Astrape route, but its faster to go the other way. With only one loop (so the 1.2x multiplier), you save about ~2.5 minutes of time going to dam then to Astrape, rather than Santorini to Astrape.
However, I never figured out how to get the optimized route for Santorini to Astrape, so its possible with the optimized route, its actually faster.
In post-content, I went from Talos to Santorini, then by tram to Astrape, collected the Carbon Filter, then came back to see if I could install it at Talos. I was very pleased to see that there was an action for this! :D
However, after I'd done it, all my resources (including Power) seemed to stop depleting. Can provide save if required.
That's a known bug on 4.0.27. If you refresh, you should be on .28 which fixes it. Your resources may still be a bit wonky until you loop, but installing the carbon filter in future should work correctly.
Some actions that will need improving on for future updates:
-> Revisiting Talos = I'm sure that when Strabo becomes available, we'll have a need to keep the food synthesizer functioning there, but for now, it just makes sense to grab it and take it with you.
-> Revisiting Lost Rover = Right now its a bit out of the way to collect 3 ration packs and 2 empty power cells. So either have a more optimal route between Talos and there, or maybe tie it into the VTOL (Astrape) wherein it needs as much extra cells loaded in it as possible for recharging cycles.
-> Revisiting Laurion = Once you've acquired the Artifact, there isn't much value in visiting it. If you visit it, then it takes longer to reach Santorini and Astrape, than just driving straight from Talos to Santorini. And in fact, if you try to go from Laurion to Dam to Astrape, you run out of food and water, so that isn't even an option... so you need to visit Santorini right now to get the super motor, to even reach Astrape before supplies run out.
It is possible to go -> Laurion -> Dam -> Astrape direct.
Install double Solar Panels (and [redacted] to boost them). Go to Lost Rover to get extra cells for rover. Install Water Recycler (not generator). Charge up to 600 and set off.
The point of the game is not to go everywhere every loop. It's not an issue if some areas become useless for a while. It's your choice which ones you do and don't visit.
To an extent that is true. However, some things really feel pointless to do, as the time cost of doing them, doesn't make the trip valuable enough for the food/water lost doing it. Like visiting the Lost Rover more than once. I think post-content visiting the Lost Rover makes sense, as the artifact placed on the generator, would mean that you generate power from fuel cells at such an accelerated rate that having extra power supply, would be useful.
But outside of this, there isn't much value in current content.
I expect that some places that feel pointless now, will feel less so, when more major locations come available. Like Strabo looks like a huge distance (based on red line) from Talos, so revisiting Talos for a resupply point and needing extra cells for extra power storage, might make sense to visit it then.
yeah buuut you kinda can just.... use the battery on Laurion generator (to get that water filter running) and use THAT spent battery on the Vtol (alternativly if I can't read that you need 2 batteries you can just fish it up from the dam)
I personally actually found use going to the rover, since it left me with enough max power storage that I could charge the brick without using the solar panel upgrade.
Granted, I also didn't realize you could take a faster route until after I already got the 3rd artifact, so it might not be as necessary as I thought.
I believe that small issue is being left as is for now, being a very complex fix, and players have OOC explained it as someone painting the tunnel walls a REALLY bright colour. x)
nah, rn i have talos, laurion, santorini and astrape aviable as a cities; when i try to drive towards strabos, all i can see is a red text saying "Locked (this action cant be performed, beacause it will be added in future update)". therefore im asking when the update release is scheduled? same with the city that will be more on the north, ive forgotten its name, but it was the frozen one. will those two places added in one lore update
Current focus is on fixing/polishing v0.4. After that will be a Steam/UI/UX update. Then I'll look at scheduling the next content update. Though it is extremely unlikely that both locations will be added at once.
Pneuma is the glacier city, in the opposite direction up the river, from Santorini. Its where all the glacier water came from.
Strabo is a tech/research center, to the south of Talos.
Then there is another place "idly" mentioned at the Dam, with the lettering on one of the crates. So there is at least three new locations mentioned in this update.
Plus, another one. All the people seemed to converge on Laurion. Then vanished from there. So, likely there is another town or location that is near Laurion where all the people are. Or along the way, a mass grave site of Rovers that attempted to make it there but ran out of supplies.
This is a known bug - you can't install or remove it after the generator is installed somehwere (you have to loop and do it before installing it on the next loop). Since it's post-EoC, it's fairly low priority, but hopefully I will get to it in the next few days.
So Astrape has power, but limited oxygen. That is fine.
What isn't fine is, that moving the rover into the civilian bay, you can't sit in your rover to passively restore your personal air supply (if you have pressure regulator of course). So you have to remove the rover from the vehicle, enter the rover and do a wait action in there.
Otherwise, you will likely run out of air before other resources, as it takes forever to refill air cannisters.
This is intended. If you had unlimited air from the start then Astrape would be very easy. I'm going to have the electrical discharge destroy your rover's pressure regulator to stop people thinking it's an accident.
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How are you meant to get to Astrape in enough time so that nothing is fried yet?
That's the fun part. You don't! Though I think things aren't necessarily hit at the same times, plus if you get there in time but it's close there is a way to control the damage before it happens. Honestly there's enough going on at Astrape that even if you can't get there before it's fried this time, there should be something else to do, and making it there makes it faster the next time, which could get you there before things get bad.
There are actions in Astrape which tell you what triggers the overloads and what you can do to avoid/reduce them.
Go to Tram Station at Astrape, there's something there that can get you to the Astrape by 14 mins before Santorini becomes SantoTNT. (if you can micro-manage to get there fast enough)
How much content is there?
I had about 9h of gameplay until I reach it's en
Thank you
Day 3 waiting outside Talos
Solar cells still charging. Suit reads 519 Calvin. Hydration pouches less infinite than expected.
Taggart/Mella fanfic status: 13% complete.
Huh, calling the tram from Astrape, after its been destroyed in Santorini, still works... Apparently its immortal?
Immortal tram needs to be like a secret easter egg or something if this ever becomes a full game
I found the the handling of moving to and from the rover within the Astrape's vehicle bay very confusing. The routing is short enough that I muddled through, but I'm still not confident I really understand it.
After "Calling the Tram" to Astrape after it was destroyed along with Santorini, the tram eventually returns (as evidenced by the "Ride Tram to Santorini" button appearing). I don't think it's supposed to do that.
The message about seeing Santorini explode while most of the way to Astrape says "the far side of the dam". Might be the wrong message.
I really love this game, but the problem I have with it is the fact that my save file keeps getting deleted, which means i have to go through everything all over again.
It was fine the first time since that was when astrape released and there was a lot of stuff that was new that i'd only have noticed on a fresh playthrough (like the dam crates), but the most recent one that wiped my 100% completion just sucks, and I really don't want to start over again. Great game, but I think i'll just wait for the 1.0 version (or, at least until the end of the year) to play it again.
Saves are never deliberately deleted, and are always forward compatible with new versions.
So if your save is getting deleted, it's because your browsers data is getting cleared. You can either download the desktop version, which stores saves in files in your user data, or use the Import/Export menu to export your save and store it anywhere you like.
Also, if you ask on the Discord, someone is usually happy to send a save file to help people get back to where they were. If you'd still rather wait, that's fine. I just wanted to explain what happened to your saves and give you some options.
Just finished the game to 100%, and honestly, I really liked it. The story and worldbuilding of the game is all just so interesting and fun to uncover, and the gameplay is honestly quite satisfying and relaxing. Like, I know this is supposed to be an idle game, but I spent almost no time at all tabbed out from the actual game. Maybe a couple times during long waits, but otherwise I was playing the entire time, which is honestly impressive considering I've got around 20-25 hours in this game now
I think that what this game does so well at is using its resources effectively. Even though you could've just as easily made it so that there was no wait time between any actions, after playing the game, I can say for sure that would've taken away so much from this game. With all the waiting for every action, you have plenty of time to ponder on the information you've received while also thinking about the actions you're going to take, which honestly does take a lot of thinking about; even with all the moments of waiting, I'd say easily over 50-60% of the time I've spent in this game was paused, thinking about/reading plot developments or trying to plan the best way I can use my limited time. This all comes together to make it so that the primary gameplay in Terraformental literally is thinking, making it a really relaxing experience to play, and with enough "gameplay" to never bore you.
Talking a little more about the waiting stuff, I do really also like how it puts value into every action you take, making the rewards for completing them feel better and the longer ones actually feel more daunting, especially when this waiting is paired with rapidly dwindling resources you constantly have to manage, decreasing more and more with every second spent.
And to mention the game's plot one more time, it is honestly just so excellent. Another great thing about all this time spent waiting is that, when combined with all of the descriptive text provided, you really get a good chance to get a clear mental picture of the the places you visit, the objects you use, and the things that are happening. I'm not gonna make any claims that this is better than if there was some ambience or basic visuals, but I still have to appreciate how the game's plot and visualizations are like that of a well-written book.
Finally, to talk about the conceptual main mechanic, the time loop stuff is also just great. It felt really compelling to keep unlocking new more efficient ways to complete actions while also making as much progress as you could in as many Persistent actions as possible to continue progressing through the game while also unlocking even more completely new actions and paths at every location you go to. I also liked how the starting actions were balanced out, where you would always need to dedicate a considerable amount of time to repeated actions at the beginning of a loop once it resets, as well as all the things you need to do to get back to where you were in the previous loop. For me it added a lot of value to the time I had in a loop, and made it so that I really was always fighting against my limited resources with all my might, just to get a little more time in, though it also made it very satisfying whenever I figured out/unlocked new ways to make the versions actions and journey's to other locations much quicker.
I mean honestly, this is just a really great game. I'm impressed by how relaxing, satisfying, interesting, and fun it all came out to being even with such simple gameplay, and I'm certainly very excited for the future updates and eventual completion of this excellent game. Huge thanks to ShadyGames for making all this, and a good luck to the rest of its development!
This isn't an idle game; just an Incremental.
Idle = You benefit (a lot) from time spent waiting, the game just running in the background
Incremental = Lots of unfolding mechanics, setting one activity aside for another as the game progresses
True. But for me its just that it was called semi-idle in the game's description, so I thought this would mean that there would be a good amount of time spent waiting or tabbed out, and while this is sort of true, the way the game played out for me definitely flipped my original expectations. That's fair to point out though, I only noticed the incremental label after I had written out the final paragraph, and at that point I was like eh, works well enough.
I definitely would agree that this isn't an idle game tho, the sort of merge of idle waiting mechanics and all this crazy incremental stuff was what ended up being so cool about the game.
I enjoyed this game a lot. I really like the idea of time and how fast you can do things (and the order in which you do them) influence how far can you progress.
At first I thought it was just a simple incremental game but the story, different locations and the progression makes it so unique.
Can't wait until the game is finished. Good job, developer!
loving this game
This is my favorite game right now! It’s so simple and so complex and deep. A few notes:
I love it! I sat out a few updates to ensure that dipping back in would be worth it, and boy was it! Great work.
I was a little surprised that (mild mild spoiler)
you can't load the water recycler in the rover and drive it back to Talos for installation, or uninstall it using the Talos workshop. The third type of water resource and prudent handling of the preexisting two seemed like an answer to the 'maintain both water and power' riddle for getting to site 3.
I really loved this game, the text-only style really works to flesh out the world but also leaving just enough for the imagination. I was worried after my first couple loops that it would be grindy, but the mechanic of simplifying tasks is great! A permanent log of the information you've learned would be great, as I sometimes had to take notes. Also maybe on the map screen there could be info on which areas have what e.g. a water filter. But i loved this so much already!
P.S. also a cool sci-fi soundtrack wouldn't be remiss ;P
Install/Remove Full Power Cell doesn’t share similar actions with vs without tools.
Having heavily trained the action in v0.3 by repeatedly uninstalling and reinstalling until I starve, the new action in v0.4 to do it in Talos with tools (base 10s) actually takes longer than out in the field without tools (base 30s).
With Vs without tools is deliberately separate, as doing things with or without tools would be a very different process.
After talking the artifact from Astrape, the water filterer seems to have disappeared on future cycles. Also, If it is impossible to get the nav computer and the propeller and mining motors for the VTOL, I feel like it should be marked as not available in this update like the other two facilities are and the Santorini artifact.
My persistent actions are at 96.99%, even after investigating a name I got from crates. Seems like I've done nearly everything else that can be done. Are there any other persistent actions that are well hidden?
If your save game was originally started before v0.3, your save might have a minor glitch which makes it think a few of the first-loop actions are incomplete when they're not. It could be something else, but someone else who had this issue had the same %age completion. This'll be fixed in the next patch.
Thanks! I started playing a couple days ago, so it should have all been v0.4.x. But I do tend to browse a lot of games on Itch, especially in the "Recommended for You" section which is where I saw this, so it's not impossible that I might have clicked it once, didn't play, forgot about it, but still ended up with an earlier save.
I'm at 100% now, it turns out there were four actions I missed at Santorini.
This game was really fun, wow. Was introduced to it by my partner and we ended up playing through the whole thing in a few days. We're very much looking forward to future content updates! Thank you for your hard work, Shadowsand!
This is an absolutely wonderful little game, I've become addicted to it over the past few days. The steady progress feels great, the writing is well done and kept me very entertained during the waiting periods. I haven't finished all of the available content yet, but I can sense I'm getting close to the end, and I have a few suggestions.
Action Queueing feels great. I find that I'm able to queue 3-4 minutes of actions at once now that I know the routine so well. However, what feels even better is dying and waking up to find that you've unlocked a new "routine" that saves you many clicks. These feel great when they appear, but they are few and far between. My entire routine at Talos should be 1-2 clicks at this point, instead of the 20-30 it currently takes. You could simply include more of these streamlining routines, or you could pass that work off to the player; allow us to create our own routines. Set up a recording system, click record at the beginning of the run, and do my entire routine to Laurion, the Lost Rover, the Dam, and get to Santorini. Hit stop on the record and save it as "Talos to Santorini", and then I can run that script in the future to save me a whole bunch of clicks while I slowly work through Santorini. I would pause along the way if new things unlock, and I'd update the script if I found a faster way. This might seem a little overpowered to some degree, so it could be an unlock after a little while, maybe after you get blown up in Santorini the first time.
A simple addition to any idle games is a "player notes" section, just a corner of the screen to leave yourself reminders and plan out future runs. It's easy enough to bring up my own notes app or something, but having it in-game is always nice.
Can't wait to get back to the game, and explore more of what this world has to offer. My first 5 hours with the game were a little bit frustrating, and I wasn't paying nearly as much attention as I should have been. Once I locked in, I was completely hooked. The pacing is great, the UI is clean, simple, and efficient, and I love that I can scale the entire UI, a feature that is often overlooked.
Alright, time to get this gate unlocked to I can head to Astrape. <3 Love this game!
after beating the game, I think the new astrape facility is super easy compared to others because the energy surge is useless to prevent player from out food and water because of how much loot around the facility. After you unlock the train, it becomes easiest facility
The main issue with vital resources at Astrape is running out of air. Even if you stay in a place with air generation, doing this takes time and spends food and water. Additionally, the area's effect can prevent you from performing some actions such as searching the admin computer.
but air you can get infinitely from the train and if you know how to efficiently use the air recycle it can give you a lot of air. Additionally, after 1,2 loop you will have plenty of food and water.
I checked the train last, soo I didn't know about the air scrubber on it and there's a LOT of stuff to explore (around 20- min) soo it becomes a real issue.
yeah
Pretty sure that part of that feeling is that this update had a lot of under-the-hood work going on with the systems to give cross-compatible experience for common tasks like gathering water in multiple places, taking the same route in different directions, or installing solar panels that would not have given a speed boost from similar actions before, in addition to the content update.
The Get Up action combination is really nice, but it does for some reason leave three water bottles on the table and instead uses the extract water command. That feels like a mistake to me.
I never encountered that bug. In all my 29 loops, I always had to manually tell it to extract the water. Are you sure that is happening, as both things give Small Water Bottle as an item?
Very sure, it's happening every time for me.
Someone specifically requested it be changed away from picking up 4 bottles for effeciency reasons. Lots of people pushed back on it after the change was made, so I'll be reverting it next patch.
Pretty sure the efficiency idea is to only pick up 1 bottle, total, in that bundle. One bottle is enough to reach the water pouches before dying, and those are more efficient than small water bottles, even from the table. Then before leaving Talos, pick up the other 3 bottles from the table plus 2 from extraction, just to have 5 in storage.
Probably, but when you first unlock the action, picking up a single water bottle would kill you before you finish lifting the lockdown.
I don't seem to be able to take the Astrate > Dam path? I only have the Santorini-option, and I can take that until the "Santorini is [...]"-thing. Am I missing something?
(Not that it's important, but this would be the last piece of road to travel xD)
The only requirement to unlock the reverse route is to have travelled dam > Astrape once. Other than that, you have to go part way back towards Santorini before it splits off towards the dam. If you have all the combined actions unlocked then you may have to click the combined action to expand it and manually perform the first 2 sub actions to reach the splitting point.
I just thought that like an actual 3D game based on this would be super cool. I know that would be crazy hard to implement, even just for the first facility but, you can't deny that it would be super hype to see explore the entire world yourself.
Thats will destroy time managment feature, also that will be to boring to drive across facilites
So kind of like that Steam game "Moon Mystery" where it has you drive a rover on the moon from one base to another?
When the long-range transceiver on Astrape's roof after getting the tram override codes, the description says "Thanks to the override code you have, you should be able to unblock it from...".
"It" in this context can be assumed to mean the tram, but that is not established contextually and should be stated explicitly.
Suggestions:
---
1] After experiencing touching one other artifact, than first, unlocks some new content in previously visited areas.
=> So this would either be the Astrape or the Laurion artifact, in current content terms.
=> Could gate some content based on then how many artifacts you collect. Having both, might unlock something more.
A) Unlock something at original rover location (where got first artifact).
B) Unlock something at lost rover.
C) Unlock something at talos lasers.
D) Unlock something at laurion computer.
---
2) Having more than one artifact active, lets you set one item to appear at Talos at the start of the loop.
A) So you could start with the CO2 scrubbers, to repair the tram at Santorini, as an example.
B) Or you could start with the power coupler / empty power cell at the dam crates.
C) Or you could start with a fuel cell from Santorini.
---
3) Having more than one artifact active, raises the stack size of all items, by +1. So three total active (including first one allowing loops), is stack size of 7 (+2 total)
---
4) Can salvage certain things for resources.
A) ie gain 5 plates and a coupler for disassembling a water recycler, that you don't intend to use.
B) ie gain rotors for disassembling the mining machine, instead of installing the advanced rotors.
---
5) Unlock methods for enhancing consumables.
A) Find an electrolyte package, that you can add to a water bottle or two small water bottles. Adds +1/0.5 water to them, but causes you to lose 0.5/0.25 food.
B) Find a mr.noodles flavour packet, that you can add to a ration pack or two basic foods. Adds +1/0.5 food to them, but causes you to lose 0.5/0.25 water.
C) Find a reactor accelerant, that you can add to a fuel cell. Adds 33% more fuel, but deals a small amount of damage to your oxygen generator (like with surges).
D) Find a battery capacitator, that you can add to a power cell. Boosts storage of power by +100, but increases drain rate of all vehicle actions by +0.25.
=====
Anywho, if you release a new build that needs testing give me a shout, otherwise check back in a few months, for Pneuma or Strabo or even Santorini.
1) Aside from just checking the computers, I'm doubting we "realistically" could find anything more by just looking at our past explorations
( althought an artifact that allows us to baaasiically gain an
"useless for surviving BUT good for finding out"
small superpower would be interesting ( maybe reading memories of all those dead corpses we found?) )
===
2) Interesting
===
3) Uhh that sounds powerful, should be left for an specific artifact (maybe the Santoniri artifact would "expand" our storage by 2?
===
+3 I also noticed that each "artifact" seems to have an specific theme with it's effect (that overdoes whatever it's buff is) and buff, soo santorini should be.... explosion? expansion? expansion of storage???? I hope I'm right cuz it would be funny to guess it 2-4 months in advance.
===
4)uhh Good idea, thou it might be a bad idea when we have a tight timer.
===
5) Yes.
.....hmn....what if, your idea from 2) applied ONLY to those boosters? that would make strategizing much bigger.
So reached the new End of Content marker (EoC) after 29 loops. Probably 15 of them were caused by failing to reach a destination and running out of food or water, but that taught me that the path wasn't optimal. Way too many branching paths and I get confused on how to keep all the information straight.
Will do one more loop, to visit Santorini, and see if I can prevent the boom there, now that I have remote tram access.
I'll think up some suggestions (outside of current feedback) probably for tomorrow.
EDIT
Just noticed this. You can't unblock or boost tram power from Central. Only at quarry.
Boost Tram Power doesn't share commonality with the action if performed at Astrape. Same with Unblock Tram.
EDIT2
Increasing speed of tram by +50%, only applies to Astrape trip. Doesn't speed up tram rides between Santorini locations.
EDIT3
Most things react to the removal of the artifact at Astrape, except for the Water Filter machine. Both its description and the message log is the same.
EDIT4
Drive towards Dam, from Astrape (when santorini explodes, so you can't travel back to it), doesn't share commonality with any actions, and is set to 5 minutes.
1) Not being able to do it from central is explained in the logs - Central doesn't have a long range transceiver, while the Quarry does (for controlling the mining machines). Added actions to groups for future.
2) I can't reproduce this issue.
3) Already fixed for vNext.
4) Added to group for future.
An oddity:
When I first find out about the cause of the power surges, I'm told a warning will appear in my PDA, next time I'm in Astrape, for when the next power surge will be.
But, I never have gotten this warning.
Its possible I reach the facility, before the surges start, and since I divert the power to civilian sector, it might stop the surges or something.
why is my Persistent Actions Completed at 99.25% after i completed the current content (as in, got the [redacted] from Astrape)
Probably missed one action. There are a few that are easy to miss.
ie Once you drive all the way to Santorini, then to Astrape, there is a path from Astrape back to the dam or from the dam to Astrape, which is unlikely to be used, as you run out of resources attempting it.
It's persistent action completion. The journey from the dam to Astrape (which plenty of people have completed) is not persistent.
Most people who get stuck on 99.25% have missed an action at Laurion.
Where do you read the action completion rate anyway?
Open the menu via the PDA and I think it's in settings.
I can't find these settings in PDA.
Completion percentage is only visible once you get over 75% or reach the current end of content.
If you've found two sets of crates in different locations, you will have picked up a new name (your character remembers this even if, like me, you immediately forgot what it was). You can do a small bit of research on this new lead at Laurion.
Its funny how the rover power drained message pops up, even when you arent driving it... Maybe it should have some different errors?
That's a known bug. That message already has about a dozen alternates, but there's always more to be added .
I've got very fond of the rover but, with all the different 'customisation' options it allows*, I imagine it's a huge plate of spaghetti on the inside!
*two sets of solar panels, boosted, and upgraded water filter my beloved
Not sure how I am supposed to charge the Drone Power Block.
Even with commonality and getting all the fuel cells from Santorini, I just don't have the fuel cells to recharge the Drone Power Block.
I got it to 1m 7s remaining, and have nothing else to do with it.
There are at least 3 ways of charging it, and I've heard a 4th totally works, it just take a long time.
The problem is that with limited food and water supplies. If I had plenty of each, then I could do the drive to Astrape without the advanced rotors and instead install the solar panels (as there is only one set of 5 metal plates I've found). Solar power trickle charge is "probably" 4th.
Santorini usually explodes before I have a chance to visit it for its charger. Though maybe now that I've unlocked remote tram usage, I could park the rover at Santorini... Hmm I'll try that next actually.
I charged it from the rover.
Once you have mapped the improved route from Santorini (and maybe completed it once) it's no longer necessary to use the upgraded motors to make good time in getting there.
Then, solar panels, plus installed generator, plus the fuel cells from the quarry, were enough to charge the Power Block.
Loot T. Take Generator with you. Tunnel to L. Get supplies from the rover and outside. Don't even bother going inside. Tunnel back to T. Drive to Dam. Enter S. Recharge rover/get supplies. Should have max fuel cells. Drive to A. Use fuel cells and generator to charge power block. At least how I did it. Been stuck taking the long way to A as well since my non follow the tracks route forgot it exists.
Edit: Just noticed a 4.028 download. Very nice.
Hmm I tried a variant of that and ran out of water just as I reached the fields, so I'll try your method next and see if I get farther.
Well if you can remotely call the tram you can ride it and observe route and get a shorter route which saved me about 20 power doing that with the speed motors.
Well I crunched the numbers and found that its actually faster to go from Santorini, to the Dam, then the Dam to Astrape. You might save power by going the Santorini to Astrape route, but its faster to go the other way. With only one loop (so the 1.2x multiplier), you save about ~2.5 minutes of time going to dam then to Astrape, rather than Santorini to Astrape.
However, I never figured out how to get the optimized route for Santorini to Astrape, so its possible with the optimized route, its actually faster.
You can plan it out by observing from the tram from S to A and back.
Take Glacial Water from Crate shares no commonality with any actions.
Same with the other "Take" commands at the Flow Grate in Reservoir.
Yeah, it should gain familiarity from what bassically amounts to fishing.
I think I broke resources somehow. :/
In post-content, I went from Talos to Santorini, then by tram to Astrape, collected the Carbon Filter, then came back to see if I could install it at Talos. I was very pleased to see that there was an action for this! :D
However, after I'd done it, all my resources (including Power) seemed to stop depleting. Can provide save if required.
That's a known bug on 4.0.27. If you refresh, you should be on .28 which fixes it. Your resources may still be a bit wonky until you loop, but installing the carbon filter in future should work correctly.
Yessss I was so tickled to find that I could do that at Talos.
Great update, looking forward to the next one!
Some actions that will need improving on for future updates:
-> Revisiting Talos = I'm sure that when Strabo becomes available, we'll have a need to keep the food synthesizer functioning there, but for now, it just makes sense to grab it and take it with you.
-> Revisiting Lost Rover = Right now its a bit out of the way to collect 3 ration packs and 2 empty power cells. So either have a more optimal route between Talos and there, or maybe tie it into the VTOL (Astrape) wherein it needs as much extra cells loaded in it as possible for recharging cycles.
-> Revisiting Laurion = Once you've acquired the Artifact, there isn't much value in visiting it. If you visit it, then it takes longer to reach Santorini and Astrape, than just driving straight from Talos to Santorini. And in fact, if you try to go from Laurion to Dam to Astrape, you run out of food and water, so that isn't even an option... so you need to visit Santorini right now to get the super motor, to even reach Astrape before supplies run out.
It is possible to go -> Laurion -> Dam -> Astrape direct.
Install double Solar Panels (and [redacted] to boost them). Go to Lost Rover to get extra cells for rover. Install Water Recycler (not generator). Charge up to 600 and set off.
The point of the game is not to go everywhere every loop. It's not an issue if some areas become useless for a while. It's your choice which ones you do and don't visit.
To an extent that is true. However, some things really feel pointless to do, as the time cost of doing them, doesn't make the trip valuable enough for the food/water lost doing it. Like visiting the Lost Rover more than once. I think post-content visiting the Lost Rover makes sense, as the artifact placed on the generator, would mean that you generate power from fuel cells at such an accelerated rate that having extra power supply, would be useful.
But outside of this, there isn't much value in current content.
I expect that some places that feel pointless now, will feel less so, when more major locations come available. Like Strabo looks like a huge distance (based on red line) from Talos, so revisiting Talos for a resupply point and needing extra cells for extra power storage, might make sense to visit it then.
you can use the empty power cell to fix the VTOL and recharge the power block
the lost rover not that useless
yeah buuut you kinda can just.... use the battery on Laurion generator (to get that water filter running) and use THAT spent battery on the Vtol (alternativly if I can't read that you need 2 batteries you can just fish it up from the dam)
yeah (but you have 100 power less in rover though)
I personally actually found use going to the rover, since it left me with enough max power storage that I could charge the brick without using the solar panel upgrade.
Granted, I also didn't realize you could take a faster route until after I already got the 3rd artifact, so it might not be as necessary as I thought.
Great update! Eager for more, but also looking forward to seeing how well you do on Steam. =)
Small point: solar panels work while driving through the underground tunnel between Talos/Laurion.
I believe that small issue is being left as is for now, being a very complex fix, and players have OOC explained it as someone painting the tunnel walls a REALLY bright colour. x)
when strabo update will be aviable
It came out 7 months ago. Maybe you have to hit "Loop Now" to see it :P
nah, rn i have talos, laurion, santorini and astrape aviable as a cities; when i try to drive towards strabos, all i can see is a red text saying "Locked (this action cant be performed, beacause it will be added in future update)". therefore im asking when the update release is scheduled? same with the city that will be more on the north, ive forgotten its name, but it was the frozen one. will those two places added in one lore update
Current focus is on fixing/polishing v0.4. After that will be a Steam/UI/UX update. Then I'll look at scheduling the next content update. Though it is extremely unlikely that both locations will be added at once.
Is that Pneuma?
As long as the VTOL gets implemented next, that would be nice addition to have.
Pneuma is the glacier city, in the opposite direction up the river, from Santorini. Its where all the glacier water came from.
Strabo is a tech/research center, to the south of Talos.
Then there is another place "idly" mentioned at the Dam, with the lettering on one of the crates. So there is at least three new locations mentioned in this update.
Plus, another one. All the people seemed to converge on Laurion. Then vanished from there. So, likely there is another town or location that is near Laurion where all the people are. Or along the way, a mass grave site of Rovers that attempted to make it there but ran out of supplies.
Pneuma is the crate place.
I apparently can't remove the power artifact from the mobile generator after installing it at Laurion.
This is a known bug - you can't install or remove it after the generator is installed somehwere (you have to loop and do it before installing it on the next loop). Since it's post-EoC, it's fairly low priority, but hopefully I will get to it in the next few days.
So Astrape has power, but limited oxygen. That is fine.
What isn't fine is, that moving the rover into the civilian bay, you can't sit in your rover to passively restore your personal air supply (if you have pressure regulator of course). So you have to remove the rover from the vehicle, enter the rover and do a wait action in there.
Otherwise, you will likely run out of air before other resources, as it takes forever to refill air cannisters.
This is intended. If you had unlimited air from the start then Astrape would be very easy. I'm going to have the electrical discharge destroy your rover's pressure regulator to stop people thinking it's an accident.
Well that wouldn't make a whole lot of sense.
There is automated farm equipment, that is working when we visit Astrape. Why does the discharge only affect our vehicle, and break stuff?
...well it doesn't break EVERYTHING in the rover either...
FYI, there's another way to restore air in Astrape ...