Many of the complaints for this game revolve around a single weak point in its design - communication of core concepts to the player.

I'm dating myself here, but if you ever played the RTS Lego Rock Raiders, you'll remember that game allowed you to reorder the prioritization of tasks; you could tell your units to only clear rubble if nothing else needed doing, or make it the top priority.

An order of priorities is programmed into Planetbase, but it isn't communicated to you at all. Construction is generally given priority over manufacturing, for example. That means your sick bay could be overflowing with injured workers, but your medics won't make med kits until all of those beds you queued up have been built. Ditto with engineers, who won't manufacture semiconductors or weapons if you have solar panels awaiting steel components. (It seems Spares have been patched, and are now an exception - I've seen a colonist carrying steel turn 180 degrees and beeline to the factory when Spares ran out).

There are other details too, like the ideal ratio of food pad types to generate certain recipes, that are immensely helpful to know but never given. (A redditor made a very useful spreadsheet here.)

Now, that's not to say Planetbase is Europa Universalis - I earned all of the achievements in about 85 hours, with only a cumulative hour or two spent consulting guides when I felt stuck. Investigation is necessary, but not excessive.

All that said, this is a wonderfully fine-tuned game. Its core challenge is to expand your colony at a rapid pace while ensuring that sufficient amounts of resources are always being generated - this means planning ahead in constructing your layout, laying groundwork in infrastructure before building, monitoring consumption of different items, and occasionally micromanaging your power grid in order to prevent blackouts. It may also mean pausing expansion from time to time, to give your medics and engineers access to components that would otherwise be consumed by construction. The game has its quirks, but as with many games like it, part of the fun is in teasing out the details and coming to know the mechanics.

Planetbase is, I think, probably the best all-around colony-building game I've played - more modern than Majesty or Rock Raiders, and more accessible than Dwarf Fortress or Banished. Frankly, even with the bit of digging you'll have to do to learn its ins-and-outs, the learning curve is probably less severe than any of the games in that list.

There's a lot to love in Planetbase. Recommended.

[h1]Great fun, but you may need to consult guides for important info that the game doesn't tell you.[/h1] Many of the complaints for this game revolve around a single weak point in its design - communication of core concepts to the player. I'm dating myself here, but if you ever played the RTS Lego Rock Raiders, you'll remember that game allowed you to reorder the prioritization of tasks; you could tell your units to only clear rubble if nothing else needed doing, or make it the top priority. An order of priorities is programmed into Planetbase, but it isn't communicated to you at all. Construction is generally given priority over manufacturing, for example. That means your sick bay could be overflowing with injured workers, but your medics won't make med kits until all of those beds you queued up have been built. Ditto with engineers, who won't manufacture semiconductors or weapons if you have solar panels awaiting steel components. (It seems Spares have been patched, and are now an exception - I've seen a colonist carrying steel turn 180 degrees and beeline to the factory when Spares ran out). There are other details too, like the ideal ratio of food pad types to generate certain recipes, that are immensely helpful to know but never given. (A redditor made a very useful spreadsheet [url=https://www.reddit.com/r/Planetbase/comments/3plorj/planetbase_meal_planner/]here[/url].) Now, that's not to say Planetbase is Europa Universalis - I earned all of the achievements in about 85 hours, with only a cumulative hour or two spent consulting guides when I felt stuck. Investigation is necessary, but not excessive. All that said, this is a wonderfully fine-tuned game. Its core challenge is to expand your colony at a rapid pace while ensuring that sufficient amounts of resources are always being generated - this means planning ahead in constructing your layout, laying groundwork in infrastructure before building, monitoring consumption of different items, and occasionally micromanaging your power grid in order to prevent blackouts. It may also mean pausing expansion from time to time, to give your medics and engineers access to components that would otherwise be consumed by construction. The game has its quirks, but as with many games like it, part of the fun is in teasing out the details and coming to know the mechanics. Planetbase is, I think, probably the best all-around colony-building game I've played - more modern than Majesty or Rock Raiders, and more accessible than Dwarf Fortress or Banished. Frankly, even with the bit of digging you'll have to do to learn its ins-and-outs, the learning curve is probably less severe than any of the games in that list. There's a lot to love in Planetbase. Recommended.