Why radio isn't useless

Uncle Gus · 2019-01-28 22:31:38

Well, to be fair, it is useless. Right now. That's because it addresses a need we don't have yet:

Trade is coming

When trade is necessary, we will need to be able to communicate long distance. That is why Jason has given us the radio now, in advance of the need. He is preparing us for what is ahead.

Q: "But trade isn't even necessary!"
Like I said, it's coming, so it will be necessary soon. Better to have the tool before the need it addresses. Nobody but Jason knows how trade will become necessary, but I like to think he has some kind of plan. I'm willing to bet that when you see what he does, you will say "that's why we need radio!"

Q: "How do we even know trade is going to be necessary?"
Because Jason said it himself, as you can see in the screenshot.

Q: "But trade doesn't even make sense unless there are lots of players but in different places on the same server!"
Precisely! That's why Jason spent the last update cycle on improving the server code, allowing him to put the entire player base on one server. This was always the intention for the game. The 15 extra servers only exist because the server code was not performing well enough to maintain the player base in one place.

Q: "Why give us something that we don't even need?"
Because it's better than giving us the need before the means to address it. Imagine if he implemented hunger before food. That wouldn't go down well at all.

Q: "But why not give us trade and radio at the same time?"
It took an entire update cycle to make the radio. Would you have preferred that he gave you nothing until it was all ready at once? That would make for a very dull stretch of no content update. Even now people are complaining about the lack of content in the latest server code update. You need to recognise that this game consists of code and content. For any meaningful amount of change, he can't do both at the same time. So he's given us some content, now he's optimised the server, hopefully we will get some more content soon.

Q: "But why not give us XYZ instead?"
Because of all the things that he is going to implement over the next year plus, he can only do one thing at a time. He has chosen to do things in this order, not any other. You're going to have to deal with that. You can't please all the people all the time. You can please some of the people some of the time. For this particular "some of the time", you are not "some of the people". There are still plenty of people who are happy with this update. I'm sure you will enjoy some of the updates in the future.

Q: "Well, I still think Jason is doing a bad job!"
And you're free to think that. You don't have to agree with what he does. You don't have to keep playing. Why not take a break and come back in a few months? It will practically be a different game by then.

karltown_veteran · 2019-01-28 23:21:17

I actually really like radios, and I'm excited for a time when there will be someone on the other end of the radio

CrazyEddie · 2019-01-28 23:51:22

Q: "I'm extremely skeptical that Jason, or anyone, can come up with a compelling reason for trade to exist without dramatic overhauls to the core gameplay."
That's not a question.

Q: "Why are you talking to yourself?"
Nobody else will listen to me.

Uncle Gus · 2019-01-28 23:57:33

What's wrong with dramatic overhauls to the gameplay? We've had plenty already.

Gederian · 2019-01-29 01:03:42

It was useless at the time of introduction which is why people were less than satisfied. At the time we could barely keep lines alive for more than a few gens. Long distance communication? Forget it.

Large towns with long distance trade is exactly what I look forward to! In that case, radio will be very useful.

We just wanted better backpacks/clothes and storage and other stuff to make living and growing towns to last possible.

Monolith_Rans · 2019-01-29 01:07:11

The best updates are the ones that fundamentally change gameplay. I’m wondering what is going to get us passed berry-centered farm towns.

Monolith_Rans · 2019-01-29 01:09:26

Maybe there will be some top tech that once a town has it, it can give you a choice of A or B but not both. In order to get to A+B=C you have to find a town with the element you don’t have.

Booklat1 · 2019-01-29 01:15:16

Uncle Gus wrote:

What's wrong with dramatic overhauls to the gameplay? We've had plenty already.

I dont think anything is wrong with it but making and keeping game economies is terribly hard, and in this game it might as well have some twist of real life (as far as iron running out goes). I trust Jason will find a solution, his entire view of resources running out, people having to migrate and no steady states has come much closer to reality since iron nerf and subsequent updates. But at the same time, both iron and water nerfs created a very simplified game economy in which iron is arguably the only relevant resource (as even food can be scavenged fairly easily and we have stuff like mutton pies and milk that cost minimal soil and water). Because compost and water cost iron, food costs iron, tech costs iron, how many things don't cost iron? It's a good thing that early to mid game both iron and rope hold an important part in developing societies but as soon as newcomen pump is made it's only iron that really matters. Sure, gotta make coal, some rubber, but it's iron and renewable/little used resources that these things cost.

Thing is, the way I see it, it wont work if it's a "long distance trading update". We may need a bunch of base game changes and a few added features before the economy demands trade. It needs to be very hard for a town to self sustain and the needs of a city must usually be more than it's ability to provide for itself long term. Big server changes things since towns will die less often to server population fluctuations, iron might finally start to run out. If it does we might start needing more ways to keep ourselves together without it. Or to prevent this end while spending stuff other than well, iron.

tldr full iron economy bad, hard to change, need economy rehaul

fragilityh14 · 2019-01-29 01:17:25

how do you know where a town you call over radio is? does it give you a direction and distance like a bell?

I guess what's unclear to me is if you make one and send out transmissions in darkness, or if once you know where another civ is you make sure they both have the same frequency or whatever.

pein · 2019-01-29 20:40:21

for trade to be viable the game needs a big shift from this communist camps
sharing is nice, communism is nice, on paper, but never works cause some people only "share" in theory, what they mean is that they take what you make and do nothing useful in return
some things got more value, like ropes and upgraded carts, packs, but not really enough from basic stuff, like a bow which is easy to make and allows combat
i could imagine a more capitalistic approach, without the ownership is hard to do
like coins? coin pocket? who even gets it when you die?
or restriction on usage by the maker? lot of details

i would like to use up excess materials either by shrine system as 2hol had, some for of amassing goods, and waiting time to get some benefits
research system? like rust has with scraps
or sell goods to npc traders periodically
imagien you got no backpacks, you could buy furs in exchange of pies

and of course to make it better, it needs some exclusive items, only found on market, like different seeds for plants
quality of life items, furniture and other things

jasonrohrer · 2019-01-29 22:56:26

I didn't say long-distance trade would be necessary.

I said it would be possible.

As for what might make it necessary, I'm not sure about that. I'd like to get there someday.

But even without a trade-enabling update, radio still becomes more interesting with 200 people on one server instead of 50. A bigger audience for your broadcast.

Booklat1 · 2019-01-30 02:19:49

Well, we can still think of many processes that happen every game as trade. People smithing trade their workforce and the products of their labour for food that farmers produce. While accumulating property is hard due to the fast nature of the game, we can have bags and aprons which give considerable advantages to anyone that has those in terms of storage and consequently survivability/work capabilities. Bags decay and can't be mass produced which is good for trappers as a trade but bad for our needs of more storage. An upgrade to aprons allowing two items and being more costly could be interesting. Other types of bags higher in the techtree could be helpful too.

Falsewall · 2019-01-30 13:40:39

People always like to settle in areas with soil, water, and hopefully a warm temperature boime. These optimal arrangements are relatively rare.
I always thought they would be good areas to check for during world generation and to put a trade resource that has to be milked with interaction every 15 minutes or so, along with some mid game machinery to operate it.

Redram · 2019-01-30 14:22:49

The game has a lot of things working against trade ever being a realistic thing right now.

- The primary one, as Booklat mentioned, is that there is only one truly important resource, which is iron. Everything else is infinite or optional. Moreover, that one important resource has a very shallow availability. It exists scattered about, or in mines of limited supply. A town which has a large iron supply needs nothing else from any other town. All you need to access those mines is a single ingot of steel in the form of a pickaxe.

- The tech tree is too easily accessed. A few simple machines allow you to manufacture all sorts of goods. Really one machine with a few simple attachments. This makes it easy enough for every town to do everything.

- The reason iron is the only critical resource is because food and water are easy to get, and no other resources truly matters. The only other thing that qualifies as a possibly important and limited resource is fertile females. But you cannot control those in the same way you might try to control a mine, and the supply is not fully within Jason's control.

- The player's life is too short to make an individual's skill a marketable thing. There are experienced players who can make complicated things like cars or radios, and this normally would be of value and marketable, but within the context of OHOL, your life is too short, and you don't 'belong' to any one town. Yes, you can churn through lives or wait till your lineage ban expires, but the game does not encourage the concentration of trade knowledge.

The 3rd item isn't really fixable, and the fourth would require a huge shift in the game meta. I think the best solutions that would move the game towards trade would be to increase the depth of the resource tree, and at the same time require ever more complex and resource intensive machinery to fully exploit those resources.

So your first iron mine access just costs a pick, but then one the pick-iron runs out it should cost auger bits for a time, similar to how the oil well costs a random amount of bits. Or perhaps you have to hook up a water pump to keep the mine drained, and run it between every 'picking' of the mine to keep it drained. And that costs more piping each time. Then bits aren't enough and you have to have a pneumatic drill and dynamite, then some kind of excavating machine. And every time you move up a tech requirement you need more resources. A pick and maybe the first drill are just iron. The auger requires rubber belts and leather seals, which randomly wear out. The pneumatic drill requires copper for the electric motor, which can burn out. The excavator requires all that plus diesel and rubber. The costs need to continually mount, and eventually the towns have to decide where they will spend their resources. And the same kind of thing would apply to a copper mine. Or a nitre mine. Etc.

Each resource point needs to require ever greater infrastructure, such that one town cannot do it all. One town focuses on extracting the iron, another focuses on copper. Every appropriate resource should have a mine, including limestone and pigments. And down the road aluminum and more. But mines should be rare enough that they are spread very far apart, so that one town can't easily exploit multiple mines. The machinery for each mine needs to be non-transportable (or maybe only by rail, which will be close enough).

Also far more of the machinery in the game needs to require enclosed buildings to keep it safe form the weather. Your lathes and other tools should rust into useless scrap if they're built outside exposed. This would further increase infrastructure cost, preventing random machine spam.

The more costly it is to pursue resources long-term, the more likely you can have specialized traders. Both in primary resources (iron, copper, other mined stuff) and secondary resources (rubber, leather). You'll know when the game has an economy of sorts when people are choosing town locations based as much on what mines or secondary resources are near, rather than just water.

One Hour One Life Forums

#1 2019-01-28 22:31:38

Why radio isn't useless

#2 2019-01-28 23:21:17

Re: Why radio isn't useless

#3 2019-01-28 23:51:22

Re: Why radio isn't useless

#4 2019-01-28 23:57:33

Re: Why radio isn't useless

#5 2019-01-29 01:03:42

Re: Why radio isn't useless

#6 2019-01-29 01:07:11

Re: Why radio isn't useless

#7 2019-01-29 01:09:26

Re: Why radio isn't useless

#8 2019-01-29 01:15:16

Re: Why radio isn't useless

#9 2019-01-29 01:17:25

Re: Why radio isn't useless

#10 2019-01-29 20:40:21

Re: Why radio isn't useless

#11 2019-01-29 22:56:26

Re: Why radio isn't useless

#12 2019-01-30 02:19:49

Re: Why radio isn't useless

#13 2019-01-30 13:40:39

Re: Why radio isn't useless

#14 2019-01-30 14:22:49

Re: Why radio isn't useless

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