Robcat's Brog

Don't we already have a lategame?

Yes and no, really it depends on your definition of a lategame. If you ask me, I'm more leaning towards no. For me, midgame ends with the RBMK and oil 3, and endgame starts with Gerald, and between that, there's not nearly as much content as elsewhere. The only major thing right now would be fusion with its modular design and large setups including the plasma forge, but the ICF and Watz barely count, which means that past fusion, the only thing lesft to do before Gerald is grinding materials and expanding BOP. There's not a whole lot of new machines or mechanics there. One major issue was the fact that almost all recipes this far in progression were done in the assembly machine or similar early to midgame machines, however that was somewhat fixed with the introduction of the plasma forge. A step in the right direction, but not nearly enough.

What a lategame could be

The question on everyone's mind, what would lategame even be? Adding more filler crap like an Mk3 assembly machine that assembles the Mk4 assembly machine could work, but that's neither interesting nor all that rewarding, especially considering how diverse the early to midgame can be.

Ideally, the lategame would introduce some sort of new challenge or mechanic, while making all the stuff that people have built up worthwhile. There's an issue with earlygame where automating certain resources is just not worth it because progression moves along so quickly and said resource is simply not in a high enough demand. I think lategame will finally give us the chance to fix this problem.

Additionally, with the recent changes to satellites, I feel like there's still some untapped potential. Satellites could now finally be properly progression relevant (or at least useful) instead of being optional and mostly crap.

SPACE!

With the recent changes to satellite, making them more reasonable to actually craft, visually pleasing, and generally more useful by allowing automation via RoR, I felt like there's a lot more we could do with this new system. Additionally, satellites now have handling for when a rocket delivers an item to its address, meaning that satellites can either be resupplied or extended with components delivered over multiple launches. Therefore, we could make rocket automation a worthwhile endeavour, since multiple launches are now necessary for progression. Pictured is a rough outline for satellite progression. This will likely take place between fusion and the ICF, since I've always felt like those two are way too close together.

Cheap crap rocket

Launching satellites could produce data, which can be retrieved using a ground station and a new drive rack block. Using this data could unlock other satellites as well as a new type of rocket, which is cheaper to mass produce (although limited in how much it can carry, and how far it can go). The next step may involve multiple launches, either to assemble one large space platform, or to resupply a scientific satellite which provides pieces of a larger data package with every rocket launch.

Another possibility would be the space assembler, a satellite that needs to be fed items and RoR instructions to produce items in 0G. It's like an assembler, but using full sized orbital rockets as fuel. This way, automating expendable rockets would always be worth it.

Compute

Another piece of the puzzle is the super computer, it will be involved in processing the raw data created by satellites and probes. Instead of allowing speed upgrades, all recipes have multiple variants which change the computer's clock speed, which in turn needs better cooling and reduces the chances of a successful operation. In addition, it can calculate flight paths, meaning that it can produce data that replaces the Soyuz' blueprints. Furthermore, it can also produce entirely new blueprints similar to the precision assembler, but without the help of pufferfish, although the recipe takes longer.

The mechanic of processing data is not terribly interesting since it's jsut a 1:1 recipe with added cooling, but I do feel like adding an extra step and making the super computer huge will help sell this whole orbital research idea. Computers also have fail chances, meaning that the faster the recipe is, the higher the probability of producing broken drives. I'm not sure if those RNG recipes are a good idea, they seem to work somewhat reasonably well in 528 mode and I want to somehow integrate them into normal mode progression. If it turns out to suck, I can still always change the probabilities or remove the RNG aspect entirely.

THE SLUDGE

The final challenge of lategame will be THE SLUDGE. Without going into too much detail, THE SLUDGE will require resources from all around progression, even including earlygame, fully automated in large quantities. The base idea comes from oil, oil processing is fairly popular and I understand what makes it so great, so I wanted something more like it, however adding oil 4 felt excessive, so instead of doing that, I want lategame to feature a chain with a similar approach, but using many different materials as the base for the chain.

In the end, everything you've built up so far will be used to feed the machine to create THE SLUDGE. What will THE SLUDGE do? Who knows. Hell, I don't fully know either.