I really like the idea, but connecting machines is frustrating and unintuitive. Since that's the core of the game at least in the first few minutes, that the impression the game gives.
The game acts like connecting and organizing the machines is important, but then it's incredibly particular about exactly how you draw the connections. Making new connections fails easily, there's no indication about why they did. Is there a limit on the number of connections? Is there a rule for the conveyors? There's no indication of either. The geometry that the game interprets from a simple drag and drop is completely arbitrary. It's comedic how bizarrely it interprets the stroke of a mouse. If there are link points or anchors you're supposed to draw through, you can't see them.
You can pretty easily make connection by moving two machines adjacent to each other and drawing between them, and then moving them back where you want them to be. And doing that preserves the connection. But if that's the intent, why make me draw anything in the first place? What's this mechanic doing?
It's especially frustrating because if you're in connection drawing or redrawing mode and there's an error, it doesn't let you try again. Instead, you're kicked out completely. You have to select the machine or conveyor again, click the Connect or Redraw Connection button again, and then you can try again. So it's not just click and drag, click and drag, click and drag to try something out. No, no. It's click click click click and drag, click click click click and drag, click click click click and drag. It adds a lot of friction and is frustrating, but without it I'm not sure what I'm really doing as the player here.
Played about 15 mins, its okay very intuitive but also pretty plain you can imagine with dozens of new recipes and types of alloys would make it bigger scale but not necessarily more interesting.
I think maybe setting up a production goal would be a good idea, a scenario such as you get a contract and have to build a system producing say hourly x,y,z alloys of kinds and when you hitting the target, the game calculate your profit and give you a rating something. Then further on you make money and expand your industry bigger, buy more advanced automations do more high end jobs.
Also it could be you having some manufacturing waste you can recycle say building a recycling center or just a place to put them and send them out to those type of service. I think realistically a highly automated fabrication or manufacturing system doesn't necessarily has to be 'absolutely no man involved', you can have some minor workers running forklifts something(obviously it would cost money and consequences)
Following are some hard issue.
-- Long screen rolling doesn't feel good, the actual system should be locked in place.
-- Conveyor path making is very painful and ugly, lots of extra clicking and re-selecting.
Not bad. Could use a highlight, if i have a hopper selected i want to see which machines aren't connected. The wires don't really make it visible. Curious to see more.
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I really like the idea, but connecting machines is frustrating and unintuitive. Since that's the core of the game at least in the first few minutes, that the impression the game gives.
The game acts like connecting and organizing the machines is important, but then it's incredibly particular about exactly how you draw the connections. Making new connections fails easily, there's no indication about why they did. Is there a limit on the number of connections? Is there a rule for the conveyors? There's no indication of either. The geometry that the game interprets from a simple drag and drop is completely arbitrary. It's comedic how bizarrely it interprets the stroke of a mouse. If there are link points or anchors you're supposed to draw through, you can't see them.
You can pretty easily make connection by moving two machines adjacent to each other and drawing between them, and then moving them back where you want them to be. And doing that preserves the connection. But if that's the intent, why make me draw anything in the first place? What's this mechanic doing?
It's especially frustrating because if you're in connection drawing or redrawing mode and there's an error, it doesn't let you try again. Instead, you're kicked out completely. You have to select the machine or conveyor again, click the Connect or Redraw Connection button again, and then you can try again. So it's not just click and drag, click and drag, click and drag to try something out. No, no. It's click click click click and drag, click click click click and drag, click click click click and drag. It adds a lot of friction and is frustrating, but without it I'm not sure what I'm really doing as the player here.
Played about 15 mins, its okay very intuitive but also pretty plain you can imagine with dozens of new recipes and types of alloys would make it bigger scale but not necessarily more interesting.
I think maybe setting up a production goal would be a good idea, a scenario such as you get a contract and have to build a system producing say hourly x,y,z alloys of kinds and when you hitting the target, the game calculate your profit and give you a rating something. Then further on you make money and expand your industry bigger, buy more advanced automations do more high end jobs.
Also it could be you having some manufacturing waste you can recycle say building a recycling center or just a place to put them and send them out to those type of service. I think realistically a highly automated fabrication or manufacturing system doesn't necessarily has to be 'absolutely no man involved', you can have some minor workers running forklifts something(obviously it would cost money and consequences)
Following are some hard issue.
-- Long screen rolling doesn't feel good, the actual system should be locked in place.
-- Conveyor path making is very painful and ugly, lots of extra clicking and re-selecting.
Not bad. Could use a highlight, if i have a hopper selected i want to see which machines aren't connected. The wires don't really make it visible. Curious to see more.