MrFaul

Those are not an enemy those are a weapon projectile and they are not what I would call a particle system I have something like this in mind: Well this is clearly overkill but it looks nice and unity has support for particle systems so it would be possible that they stick to surfaces.

What magma motes? do you mean those "firefly" particles emitted from those small hammer heads?

Oh it was just a list...

what enemies do you talk about?

That is exactly point one I made...

No no I think you misunderstood me, I'm talking about a swarm like thing, like a flock/swarm of Moskitos near water. Not a actual creep that attaches to you. So technically they are harmless but are annoying as heck. So you would have to make being by your side rather un-hospital.

So I made a mock up to demonstrate the current logic: The Arrows/Lines show the different connections/networks. Each color is a separated network. The Letters are keys pressed. And yes the big red arrow shows a wireless connection that shouldn't be there. I agree that this is a confusing behavior. I would prefer if we had a "wireless transmitter" and a "wireless receiver" that would allow us a fine control over what is connected to what. There are several design choices here: A emitter -> receiver connection this would be a on way connection of one or multiple inputs send to receiver, basically a button that is pressed "remotely". This is the most simplest and straight forward form. A bidirectional connection, basically all things with the same network name are connected as if they where one construct. Almost how the receiver works at the moment the only difference he would also be a sender for logic. A remote control that switches completely and acts as virtual drone core with the ability to take over controls also a "return control" function. This would also needs two blocks the pseudo core and the trigger block to take control of it. This also makes it far simpler to distinguish what is debris and what not. The pseudo core could also have a "next" function that gives the control to the next pseudo core with the same name. Each has it's own advantages and disadvantages, your pick.

Actually I would think of them as a particle swarm, invincible to weapon fire and not colidable. They should half your generation rate. The only way to defend against them would be shields that continuely get drained or to use the heater / cooler to chase them away. You may survive one swarm with enough energy/fuel rate or saved reserve but you don't want to be in more swarms since each of those should half the rate separately. A interesting variant could also be one that feeds of your mining containers.

Isn't "Your drone core has a limited a mount of Resources to use equipment, to use more you must upgrade it" a reasonable and valid explanation? You could even aid that with mission rewards that expand the cores abilities for free with something like "You found component X and you gain slot X"

My goal is to improve the usability of logic connections and make it more intuitiv / less confusing. I really like to use games like this to explain the concepts of logical connections to old and young in a fun way. Right now we have some powerful tools to do some amazing stuff, but it isn't very accessible for novices. Of course it is fun for people to experiment, but that is only true for those who have already interest. For people who are curious the "entry barrier" is currently to high to generate interest so they simply brush it off as "to complicated". They need that "aha moment" for them, and a clean, easy and consistent UI is one of keys for that. I tutored somebody with very low self esteem in class on that topic who was bend on "I can't do that it's to complicated" with byte 😉 sized information pieces and she began to get the gist. Then my stupid teacher made one smart ass comment to her and she went immediately in denial just seconds before she would kept that knowledge for years. Damn I really wanted to skin that idiot in that moment... It is the same with the UI as long it isn't streamlined to aid peoples confidence a lot of them would never try to build something smarter. How this is archived are design questions and I highly value this form since it allows really good results. I'm not hell bend on this solution it's just something that works very well 😄

You would be surprised what madness entails if the people have restrictions that they have to circumvent :-D

No not really, it is more like a additional tab that only allows you to set the logical conditions. But it would require to separate the logic system from the direct input system. This maybe the case already so it would mostly a UI problem.

Hm first off all game should always be "what the devs think whats best" trying to cater everything to everyone ends up as some mess without any clear goal. Second the concern that it may ends in a grind fest. I don't think that is what will happen but to be completely honest mismanaging your resources is your own fault not that of the game. (better in game as with your real life bank balance)

maybe but figuring that out what works best is still somewhat trial and error, so testing some ideas is well worth the time 🙂

It's really not, since you made already progress so it is expected that you already have a resource backlog. Since the diminishing return is very cheap to begin with it is at this point just a matter of button presses.