Armory & Machine 9+

I quite like the game, but this is bothering me to no end.

In the game, you can increase the, “efficiency,” and, “job speed,” of workers.

Job speed, as it is presented, makes sense. The proportion of materials used stays equal to the materials produced.

(If you increase the job speed, it may go from 0.5X/s used and 0.1Y/s produced to 1.0X/s used and 0.2Y/s produced.)

The increase you buy is one in power, as defined in physics; the process can more quickly convert X to Y, but it still uses 0.5X for every 0.1Y produced.

Unfortunately, when you buy an increase in, “efficiency,” all that it does is make the process more powerful, (e.g. faster,) just like, “job speed,” does.

Power /does not/ equal efficiency.

If the process were actually more efficient, then the /base cost/ of materials would decrease, while the /amount/ of materials produced would stay the same.

That way, it would actually be efficiency increased, (the workers’ ability to convert the material without waste,) and not their power, (the workers’ ability to convert materials, faster,) that was improved.

(Thus, it would change from 0.5X/s and 0.1Y/s to 0.25X/s and 0.1Y/s.)

For Heat, as is a resource with no cost, you could instead slightly increase the amount produced, by a proportional amount.

Please, for the love of whatever it is you hold dear, change the game to reflect this.

Please.

(Great game, though, very fun.)

This game may not be for everyone, but if you try it and find yourself intrigued by it, you might be in for a long haul.

This is not a game with pretty things to pop or cute little characters to take exploring around a map.

This is resource management and building at its finest. The interface is clean and efficient. Think of your role as the AI overseeing all production in the Armory and controlling the Machine. There is a delicate balance and precision necessary to keep the parts running smoothly without running into a deficit. All the resources share a relation - too much production of one resource in one area may affect another one on a different side.

Eventually you will produce enough resources to venture out for a turn-based battle to unlock more resources necessary to advance.

Build, explore, research, equip, fight, level up. It’s all here in this aesthetically pleasing masterpiece. The story comes at you in small snippets and unfolds what seems to be a dismal world of necessary automation

First of all, great game! It’s really killing my productivity. It makes me question if I’ve really liked the “gameplay” in other games or if I just like making the numbers go up. I like the story and atmosphere here as well.

I like the interface overall. Could you add separators to the numbers for readability, and use a fixed width font so the numbers don’t “bounce” when you’re trying to look closely at them?

I've also found myself thinking that, once the numbers get large enough, it might be better to see everything in percentages where it makes sense. So my heat would be increasing at 0.1%/s for example and everything that depends on heat/s would use those units too. Same for all the other quantities. Could be a settings option?

Lastly, I think there might be something off in the Scrap requirements display. It says it only requires 0.2 bins/s where the other metals say 2/s. It seems like 2/s might be correct because I need to throw a lot of workers on bins to keep things out of the red.

Thanks for a great game!