Satisfactory Career Mode

Overview

A time-limited game mode where the goal is to get the highest score possible by feeding the space elevator.

Background

Life back in the core worlds is hard. The mega-corporations have exhausted almost all natural resourses. Robots do everything, and most of humanity lives as slaves to welfare and poverty. The only hope left for most is to strike it rich with a lucky find during the ever-expanding drive locate more resources. Having saved up for years, you have spent your life savings to purchase a contract through FICSIT for a 1-year claim on a little-known new world called Massage II(b), with rights to harvest any available resources and get paid to send them back to FICSIT. Having rolled the dice, you set off to the stars, board your drop pod, and get to work to seek your fortune.

The Goal

You have 1 in-game year (or 100 hours, or 200 hours, whatever the devs decide) from the moment your pod lands to amass the most credits possible. This can be done by constructing the Space Elevator and sending items into it via the six belt inputs. ANY item (literally anything, down to wood and leaves) can be fed into the space elevator and will be sent up to orbit and you will be rewarded with credits in return. At the end of the set time, the players total score will be tallied and officially posted for all to see. The player then has the option to 'Cash out' (end the game), buy their claim (continue the world in normal sandbox mode), or perhaps even buy a new claim and start over, continuing their career. A Final Score screen will list all of the items you supplied, any bonuses or penalties, and your final payout.

The Finer Points

• Each item will have a point/credit value based on how difficult it is to craft (time resources) or find. Probably exponential to discourage supplying mass quantites of iron ore.
• Once an item goes into the Space Elevator, it turns in to credits and disappears.
• Somersloops, Mercer Spheres, and Hard Drives will have large credit bonuses to encourage exploration.
• Clones are expensive. Every time a player dies FICSIT charges the player for the cost of the new clone by deducting a penalty charge from the final score.
• Multiple players in a co-op world would obviously increase the ability to score higher, but who cares! I would love to see someone set up a 16 person hosting server and exploit the hell out of the planet for a world record score! Just have a line in the score screen showing the max amount of players that were ever on the server at one time to keep people honest.
• Current tier unlocks can work exactly like they do now, with the caveat being you unlock them when the required resources get pumped into the elevator instead of by hand in the HUB.

Additional Options

If players really like this idea, and the devs get behind it, there are numerous ways to make it more interesting with some more dev effort:

• Global Leaderboards: Who has the biggest epeen factory?
• Purchasable Bonuses: Use those credits to buy things from FICSIT: vanity furniture, supply drops anywhere on the map with things like Medical Inhalers, Jetpack Fuel, Gas Masks filters, or even more Power Shards.
• Continuing Career: Once you finish one world, start another with all of the alternate recipes unlocked
• Completion Awards: Unlock special awards or recipes for completing a career world or achieving certain score levels. Prizes could include a 'starter pack' for new games, alternate recipes attainable only through here, or a Lizard Doggo doggohouse. Maybe even a pet goat...
• Power: FICIST likes power too! Charge up 'Energy Cells' with excess power from your grid and send them to orbit for more credits!

Why this would be awesome

• Alternate game modes give players different options for play. I would love this challenge mode.
• Having an actual goal to work towards and compete with other players for high scores would be amazing.
• The time limit adds a layer of challenge to the game without making it stressful.
• (Likely) easy to implement at any stage of the game. We don't NEED tiers 7/8 for this to work.

Last Thoughts

The constant consumption required by this game mode means our factories will ALWAYS be producing and our belts always in motion. This to me is one of the biggest let downs of the current early access state: belts not moving and machines not churning just isn't very... satisfactory.