Goonhub
06-05-2022, 05:17 AM
After wall posting on general about my thoughts of Rancher I came up with an idea to improve it.. then more.. so let me give you a small list of ideas to make Rancher more appealing to players new and old. And also make late joining Rancher slightly more attractive.
Suggestion 1: Growth Hormones
Botanists have ways to control the life time of a plant, growth speed , yield and such. Wouldn't it be nice if Rancher had even ONE OF THESE OPTIONS? To manipulate the gene pool of chickens? Well that would be an entire system that will drive coders crazy so let's make it easier.
GROWTH HORMONES!
You know that thing that is questionable to give to Cows, Pigs and such? Well NT is about production so legalize em! You can now give chicks (and bee larva) some growth hormones so they grow up faster and bigger. But don't overdose the poor things or they might get missgrowths (elephant chicken), explode or their meat and eggs aren't exactly consumer friendly... to even infertility (No egg for you)
Risk reward eh?
Suggestion 2: Injecting feed.
You can force feed chickens but it's a hassle, you can try to make them eat it and it will work, but RNG doesn't ensure the right eggs or things hatch. Why not inject feed into the chickens and roosters to get a 100% effect for the next egg to be what you need? This way keeping lower numbers is easier, but... doing so will make the chicken hate you and roosters attack you.
Suggestion 3: Egg Gene incubator
You know when I said about the whole system I don't think Coders want to do? Well here it is anyway... Introducing a special incubator that allows you to read the current genes of an egg and change them, though... do it wrong and well.. horrible chickens come out you can't really use... But this might need a whole overhaul of how eggs work... so prehapse not the number 1 idea. Wich is why it's number 3.
Suggestion 4: Assured fishing.
As far as I know, there is the fishing portal, but I never seem to can find it. Infact only Oshan gives us assured fishing... why not just give us a fishing pond or something to fish in right away? I know you can order fish or ask the Chef, but wouldn't it be cool if we can just you know? Fish while we wait for our chickens to grow up. Give cargo something to sell in the meantime?
Suggestion 5: A better guide.
A book tells us what feed to get and what to "do" how to get our chickens... there is just 1 eensie weenie tiny problem with it.
It doesn't tell stuff like: "You need a rooster to hatch an egg that ate the feed and it's only a 50% chance"
While I am up for discovering things in SS13 for newbies, this stuff is never mentioned anywhere... it just says: "GIVE IT THIS FOOD AND IT WILL COME" In the meantime you are removing roosters cause you want to control the population of your chickens.... so they never appear and thus you report it as a bug.
It's time to change this lil book of arrows to include things with information like:
"While the diagram shows what feed is needed, there might be other steps needed to get desired results, like "Having a rooster hatch an egg while under feed effects"
This text alone will make new ranchers know from the get go that they might need to do something else to get their desired chickens then just obtaining the feed, thus less players feel frustrated.
Final Suggestion: Show us the RNG.
I know RNG is mostly hidden from most departments that have them. Aka Mining, Artsci, botany. You do all have a visual or mechanic to know what the RNG can contain or even manipulate it. Artsci has examining the artifact to activating the artifact to know what it do... Botany can keep track of plant stats, Mining can use the quantum telescope to find an asteriod with the right materials insted of just flat RNG.
While I had some suggestion lowering the time or lowering the RNG. Having Ranchers show what their chances are in some "In universe way" helps alot, so they can tell they are on the right path. Insted of... sitting there and praying the next chicken that hatches or next egg that gets laid is the right one. Having some sort of device or hint or anything to know they activated the RNG chance will help alot more and make rancher abit more fun. (EX: "This chicken seems to have some brown feathers and is really happy", this would hint they will lay brown eggs soon when examined)
Closing statement:
I know this has been discussed to death and people think Rancher is fine, but the fact remains you have to wait for chickens to grow up to see the fruits of your labor, everything takes time and RNG... it just becomes tiring to be a rancher and their decrease in numbers and the fact most veteran ranchers do not return to it... says enough to me something needs to be changed to either make it slightly newbie friendlier or a way to get results visibly faster... or atleast some sort of information.
That is all. Am I wrong? Am I right? Leave a reply to tell me
Suggestion 1: Growth Hormones
Botanists have ways to control the life time of a plant, growth speed , yield and such. Wouldn't it be nice if Rancher had even ONE OF THESE OPTIONS? To manipulate the gene pool of chickens? Well that would be an entire system that will drive coders crazy so let's make it easier.
GROWTH HORMONES!
You know that thing that is questionable to give to Cows, Pigs and such? Well NT is about production so legalize em! You can now give chicks (and bee larva) some growth hormones so they grow up faster and bigger. But don't overdose the poor things or they might get missgrowths (elephant chicken), explode or their meat and eggs aren't exactly consumer friendly... to even infertility (No egg for you)
Risk reward eh?
Suggestion 2: Injecting feed.
You can force feed chickens but it's a hassle, you can try to make them eat it and it will work, but RNG doesn't ensure the right eggs or things hatch. Why not inject feed into the chickens and roosters to get a 100% effect for the next egg to be what you need? This way keeping lower numbers is easier, but... doing so will make the chicken hate you and roosters attack you.
Suggestion 3: Egg Gene incubator
You know when I said about the whole system I don't think Coders want to do? Well here it is anyway... Introducing a special incubator that allows you to read the current genes of an egg and change them, though... do it wrong and well.. horrible chickens come out you can't really use... But this might need a whole overhaul of how eggs work... so prehapse not the number 1 idea. Wich is why it's number 3.
Suggestion 4: Assured fishing.
As far as I know, there is the fishing portal, but I never seem to can find it. Infact only Oshan gives us assured fishing... why not just give us a fishing pond or something to fish in right away? I know you can order fish or ask the Chef, but wouldn't it be cool if we can just you know? Fish while we wait for our chickens to grow up. Give cargo something to sell in the meantime?
Suggestion 5: A better guide.
A book tells us what feed to get and what to "do" how to get our chickens... there is just 1 eensie weenie tiny problem with it.
It doesn't tell stuff like: "You need a rooster to hatch an egg that ate the feed and it's only a 50% chance"
While I am up for discovering things in SS13 for newbies, this stuff is never mentioned anywhere... it just says: "GIVE IT THIS FOOD AND IT WILL COME" In the meantime you are removing roosters cause you want to control the population of your chickens.... so they never appear and thus you report it as a bug.
It's time to change this lil book of arrows to include things with information like:
"While the diagram shows what feed is needed, there might be other steps needed to get desired results, like "Having a rooster hatch an egg while under feed effects"
This text alone will make new ranchers know from the get go that they might need to do something else to get their desired chickens then just obtaining the feed, thus less players feel frustrated.
Final Suggestion: Show us the RNG.
I know RNG is mostly hidden from most departments that have them. Aka Mining, Artsci, botany. You do all have a visual or mechanic to know what the RNG can contain or even manipulate it. Artsci has examining the artifact to activating the artifact to know what it do... Botany can keep track of plant stats, Mining can use the quantum telescope to find an asteriod with the right materials insted of just flat RNG.
While I had some suggestion lowering the time or lowering the RNG. Having Ranchers show what their chances are in some "In universe way" helps alot, so they can tell they are on the right path. Insted of... sitting there and praying the next chicken that hatches or next egg that gets laid is the right one. Having some sort of device or hint or anything to know they activated the RNG chance will help alot more and make rancher abit more fun. (EX: "This chicken seems to have some brown feathers and is really happy", this would hint they will lay brown eggs soon when examined)
Closing statement:
I know this has been discussed to death and people think Rancher is fine, but the fact remains you have to wait for chickens to grow up to see the fruits of your labor, everything takes time and RNG... it just becomes tiring to be a rancher and their decrease in numbers and the fact most veteran ranchers do not return to it... says enough to me something needs to be changed to either make it slightly newbie friendlier or a way to get results visibly faster... or atleast some sort of information.
That is all. Am I wrong? Am I right? Leave a reply to tell me