Still playing it. I’m actually finding the number of story missions .. relentless. Like, stop bugging me, lemme go free play for a bit dangit. OTOH, its definitely .. hey I have an hour to play .. lets go knock something out .. 5 things later .. oh, I never got around to the one I was going to do.
I do not have a head for remembering detail (anymore). So, I came up with this – I tried it in Google Sheets first, but they don’t have good visualization of formulas, so Excel wins this round:
The plan is that the Calcs stuff (Column I onwards) is a bunch of rows where I can say “if I want 1 metal plate, you gotta have 50 ferrite dust”. Unfortunately, in Excel, i can’t sort this .. not the way it is. This would be better done as a quick app. Anyhoo, I can type in my inventory on things, and then it gives me how much I need of what, and using the visual tree above I can figure out the build order.
If I did it as an app, I could probably also factor in stuff like “how much carbon to run the refiner” and “how much carbon to run the mining laser”, although the latter would need some “how good is your equipment” estimates. Could probably also try to calculate “how much time would this take” and optimization of which fuels to use “by cost” vs “by time to acquire”.
If I did it as an app, I would load it with a text file which has a one-line language for describing things and what they are dependent on, for example “Warp Cell|Craft|Antimatter Housing:1,Antimatter:1”. That way the 2nd thing, if it were “Refine”, could then bring in additional costs associated with that.
I know it’s super old and you’re probably never going to see this, but I just wanted to say this was a really intelligent plan you made. Not sure if you’ve played recently but I just started playing (still have the same ship and I’m a total noob rn) but I gotta say it is by far the most intriguing game in my library, so much potential and I haven’t even scratched the surface. Would love to see you do something like this again but updated to where the game is now.
Hope you continued to enjoy it!
If I pick the game up again, it will be experience it in VR.
Don’t have the time now, though. Full time job, spouse, dogparent, and grandparent. And more grandkids on the way! Yay!
I pass the mantle… to YOU!