So I got to have that special moment where you’re looking at some game code and you realize that the game you shipped last week to 75,000 people is totally horribly broken in subtle but game-destroying ways. This is the hotfix to the problem I found and others. Up to now, Alpha 10 has been basically broken.
There were a number of issues but the biggest one was probably the broken enemy fleeing and recruitment code that made it way too hard to get new people.
Sorry about releasing a kind-of broken version. I’m thinking that for Alpha 11 I’ll start doing public unstable builds a week before the stable release. It’s getting really hard to catch all the bugs in the game as it becomes more complex and it takes longer to play.
To update, just use your existing download link; it always gives the latest version. Save games from Alpha 10 will still work. To install, delete your old install directory and unzip the new Alpha 10d files to a clean empty folder (your save data is not stored in the install directory).
Changes:
- Fixed and rebalanced prisoner recruiting: Prisoners no longer get cabin fever and no longer have a joy need (until we get support for proper prison complexes). They can be recruited at any mood over 35% (though the chance may be very low).
- Fixed a units change bug that caused 40% of enemies to flee after taking one hit, and other enemies to never flee. Now the flee properly with individual health thresholds again.
- Fixed PawnName parsing so pawns with apostrophes in their names will work.
- Cleaned up and robustified the AI with regards to finding a space to stand next to medical beds. Abolished the “medical bed needs headspace” alert as it’s no longer needed.
- Fixed a bug that caused colonists to get stuck switching apparel over and over given certain weather conditions and combinations of apparel (they were considering the needed warmth in relation to their own current apparel instead of in relation to their absolute naked needs).
- Fixed a bug that would crash the UI if colonists hauled a sculpture or TV while the player was selecting an install location.
- Fixed bug that caused pawns to sometimes teleport to the bottom left corner of the map.
- Fixed the needs tab not displaying on animals if a human was never previously selected with the needs tab.
- Fixed a bug that caused colonists to spaz out around the billiards table when they reached full joy instead of just ending the job.
- Some minor storyteller tuning.
- Some minor typo fixes in game text.
April 20th, 2015 - 5:50 pm
Meh, its an Alpha. Dont worry about it!
April 20th, 2015 - 5:53 pm
Great idea on the two builds. Kinda of funny that we are in a world where there will be alpha versions of alpha releases =)
I for one have just started giving it some time for others to iron out the bugs before playing a stable build, but I guess it wouldn’t work if all did that, none of that critical feedback (sry for being lazy =P)
April 20th, 2015 - 6:17 pm
If you’re getting to the point where you’re trying to get your releases fairly stable, and are considering making a less stable build available early, I think you’ve probably crossed into beta territory.
Sure, traditionally you go into beta when you’re feature complete, but it’s been over a decade since even “release” quality builds of games could reasonably be expected to be feature complete.
April 20th, 2015 - 6:17 pm
Well……I actually found it fun to build a prison area with a chess board and horse shoes. Then discovering i had to take my prisoners out for a walk and chase em down because they dont want to be arrested was quite hilarious! I Was thinking about making a prison with an unroofed outside section to prevent the cabin fever.
April 20th, 2015 - 6:26 pm
@ninetailed
Traditionally you don’t move into beta until the game is feature complete. The stability of the code is not the determining factor for switching. But that is traditionally. There has been a drift in usage in recent years =)
April 20th, 2015 - 6:27 pm
Well, “feature complete” is kind of a weird term for this kind of game. It could always expand.
But yeah, the usage of ‘alpha’/’beta’ here has shifted somewhat.
April 20th, 2015 - 6:35 pm
Phew. I had a ‘prison’ room with four guys in it and four bed, and was basically feeding them until my colo9ny starved. I too let my prisoners out and then recaptured them by shooting them with turrets. It fixed their cabin fever 🙂
Glad to know I wasn’t missing something!
April 20th, 2015 - 7:08 pm
maybe think about steam early access soon if your thinking about unstable releases.
not only do you get the benifit of steams auto update fetures but you get a hole load of community feed back and workshop for mods.
April 20th, 2015 - 7:13 pm
Hah!
My prisoners were living a life of luxury. I had air-conditioning, fancy beds, flowers, lots of space, a horseshoe game, and was ensuring they were well fed too. Was just about ready to give up on trying to persuade them to join my colony!
Thanks for the hotfix.
April 20th, 2015 - 7:34 pm
Thanks for the fix!
And here I was thinking I was a monster for having to eventually execute all my prisoners. I only ever successfully recruited one prisoner (after figuring out how to release and recapture to fix cabin fever) over the course of a few years – and he had a nicer room than the rest of my pawns! The rest continuously berzerked and tried to break out (I had to build them separate cells just to keep them from killing each other, and so the blood was easier to clean up). I needed to always keep a few armor wearing wardens on hand to beat them into submission – it was starting to feel like a very dark version of Prison Architect.
April 20th, 2015 - 8:21 pm
Thanks for the quick update! Public release candidates would be a great idea. I’m sure we could all play a bit and do some bug reporting before final builds are released.
April 20th, 2015 - 9:43 pm
You’re one of the most diligent kickstarter developers I’ve ever had the pleasure to support. Keep at it, I look forward to each and every update. Keep up the good work!
April 20th, 2015 - 10:31 pm
I actually liked the fact that prisoners need joy. I felt exactly like Blackoth and build a fancy prison area with a chess board and thought about how to make an outdoor “courtyard” to avoid the cabin fever penalty for my prisoners.
I admit that is was almonst impossible to recruit that way.
Is it possible that the alpha10 – build has big performance issues when parts of the landscape are on fire.
Can’t remember such a performance drop with the alpha9 versions….
April 20th, 2015 - 11:22 pm
No worries mate, anyone playing the game at this stage should expect frequent broken builds.
@Brooks – I solved my prisoners won’t be recruited problem by harvesting their organs for future surgeries on my loyal colonists.
“You can either join this colony as a volunteer or a piece at a time, your choice.”
April 20th, 2015 - 11:24 pm
Is it safe to play now or should I wait for 10e?
April 21st, 2015 - 12:28 am
[…] by metal079 [link] [3 […]
April 21st, 2015 - 1:03 am
@Patrick K
I had the same philosophy, I just started harvested their organs for my colonists and then sent them on their way, had to make the most of them haha.
April 21st, 2015 - 1:54 am
I think the prisoner difficulty was overblown. I didn’t alter my flow at all from alpha 9 to alpha 10 and I didn’t even notice any increase in recruitment difficulty. A 6x8ish prison with a bed, table, and chair is always the third thing I build, after my kitchen/research/comms/dorm and individual rooms for the first 3 colonists. If you don’t demonstrate a bit of good will to your prisoners, how would you expect them to join up?!
I think removing joy needs is good, but I think cabin fever should have been changed to *increase* the chance of recruitment. If a prisoner is getting stir crazy, they should jump at the chance to get out by joining the colony!
April 21st, 2015 - 2:36 am
I’d be happy to help test any unstable versions in the future 😀
April 21st, 2015 - 2:38 am
I started replaying from this version since way back when.
The fleeing enemies was super annoying, buuut…
I actually liked prisoner thing, I thought it made sense, if they joined you to get out of the cell, imo they could sabotage your base and then escape (they lied to get out), with the joy included it was more genuine that they properly converted. Also had -20 cabin fever on some guys.. still converted them eventually.
Just one thing annoyed me, the flat difficulty to convert number.
It should slowly go down the longer they are in.
Also 2 or more prisoners in the same room of the same faction should dramatically lower your chances of converting them (Sorry people who make bundled cells).
From this point on it will feel like I’m playing easy mode prison 😀
April 21st, 2015 - 2:47 am
No problems Tynan. We still love you for making this game even more awesome!
April 21st, 2015 - 2:56 am
The save game from “10b” to “10d” does not work, I load the game and crashes… what I’m doing wrong? @_@
April 21st, 2015 - 3:05 am
Jstank and others – thanks, working to fulfill dreams!
punchi I’ve emailed you.
April 21st, 2015 - 4:04 am
It is fun playing the game as you are developing it. I would MUCH rather you spend time working on the storytelling elements over maintaining two code sets. We *ARE* your function and feature test team and don’t expect to not occasionally have game breaking bugs.
Remember… Skiing in Tribes was NOT intentional! Do not fear “game breaking” unintentional bugs, they may be entire franchises unrealized….. 😉
Great, now I want to make a Tribes mod for RimWorld. Watch out for DiamondSword and their jumpjets!
-Dead
April 21st, 2015 - 4:18 am
Hahaha this explains pretty much everything I found interesting about my last game. I had such a hard time capturing people in raids before they fled that once I finally got them, I refused to release, harvest or execute them. I ended up with 4 or 5 stubborn prisoners, fully decked out in a huge luxury cell. They hadn’t gone too cabin-fevery though, sounds like all the joy stuff I gave them must have been helping a bit!
I actually really liked that they also had a joy requirement, and I’d definitely like it if that influenced their recruitment. I thought of it as enticement to join!
April 21st, 2015 - 5:06 am
I now feel weird that I was able to recruit two prisoners…
I did notice the raids with the first person being shot running away, was funny.
April 21st, 2015 - 6:41 am
I agree with this! Being in prison and losing personal freedoms supposed to be a form of punishment, it *should* make you feel awful. It’s not the captors that have to prove themselves to the prisoner, it’s the exact opposite. Being locked up longer and longer should make a prisoner more and more co-operative, if even because of the Stockholm Syndrome.
April 21st, 2015 - 6:49 am
Thanks for your hard work and your commitment to a great product. Your contributions and insight into Rim World’s production is awesome and brings me back every time. Thanks!
April 21st, 2015 - 9:23 am
I don’t know if it is just me or not but I can’t seem to get people to fix/repair stuff…
Thanks!
April 21st, 2015 - 9:42 am
I agree with Epi for the record. The issue wasn’t the penalties to joy, it was the static (and obnoxiously high) difficulty level. If it’s going to be flat, make it flat—but based on the recruiter’s skill level—and if they’re above that, they get recruited.
The problem wasn’t in the penalties to their mood, just that it was impossible to get their mood above the difficulty level.
April 21st, 2015 - 9:56 am
Nvm I just realized I can’t fix up non-home regions.
Thanks
April 21st, 2015 - 10:33 am
I have no idea if this was intentional or if I’m just having bad luck but I’ve had 19 sieges back to back. As in… Every 2-3 days another siege would appear. Before the last one even assaulted.
They are actually running out of places to put their bleeding siege camps.
It’s ridiculous.
April 21st, 2015 - 10:40 am
First of all, thank you for the great work and the awesome game!
Don’t worry about these bugs, some people might have enjoyed having it a bit more difficult 🙂
That said I think we certainly have the community here to support multiple release branches – a lot will sign up for the hot and new while others will prefer the more stable one. Also there are a lot of modders out there (bless their names) who could benefit from it.
And of course it would significantly decrease your acid levels 🙂
In my experience whatever time you spend on automating the process will come back to you tenfold over the long run.
I’ve spent a couple hundred hours with heavily modded a9, and what I found missing the most now is the colonist bar from Edb interface – not just because of the health / status display but as an UI tool to quickly find the colonists. (going through the overview feels a bit bulky now). And funnily enough the little dots from Pawn state icons that show you the reserved tiles – so I can see _what_ they are doing.
Anyhow, keep up the good work!
April 21st, 2015 - 12:24 pm
Reading through comments I actually feel sad that I didn’t try out Alpha 10 only to have same adventures with the bugs as you did. Now, knowing the issue, it wouldn’t be the same.
That’s the flavor of alpha/beta gaming I guess – some people hate it and some actually enjoy.
April 21st, 2015 - 1:21 pm
First of all, thanks for the great game. I have so much fun playing it.
The only thing i’m missing so far is a hunter-zone. A zone you can declare where your hunters automatically hunt animals that you can choose in advanced settings of that zone. I always have to pan across the whole map and watch for new animals to arrive, which is kind of annoying. I’d prefer to zone the whole map as my hunter zone and check for specific animals.
Same goes for a harvest berries zone. 🙂
😀
April 21st, 2015 - 2:44 pm
Agreed with Mike on the food zones.
April 21st, 2015 - 3:35 pm
No need to be apologetic, I’m sure most of us realize that this game is Alpha. I’m amazed at how hard you work on it, and really watch the comments and forums and listen to the community. You are an inspiring example of a developer and game designer. Thank you.
April 21st, 2015 - 4:14 pm
That explains why one of my original 3 prisoners broke and then would never leave the prison. They had a 16 mining skill too!!!
I’d like to see the colonists start to form relationships, I think that’s the next logical step now that the joy system allows them to “bond” over chess, pool, telly and the like.
Love the game, so far my favorite game that i’ve backed in alpha.
April 21st, 2015 - 9:26 pm
I have a great ideo for the timetable just imagine that you can specify different jobs like ming and hauling so that you can assign someone to mine an hour and then haul an hour and then probably cook an hour.
April 21st, 2015 - 10:25 pm
So the update was great with the issues it fixed, however I noticed now the fullscreen for the mac version is not working…anyone have this issue?
April 22nd, 2015 - 9:34 am
I think that colonists needs too large rooms. In real life i have smaller room than they have (like 3 2×2 beds)!
April 22nd, 2015 - 2:19 pm
I don’t think its necessary. The whole point of the alpha is to test the game. This is how you find out about the bugs and alert you to them. It is counter intuitive and costs more time then I would like you to spend on releasing each alpha, instead of doing something like, updating the game. We really appreciate all the great work you are doing. This is a game that never really gets old to play. If there is a bug, I want to find it. I want to tell you about it. I want you to fix it. I don’t want you standing around trying to micromanage which version everybody has. I think it is a waste of your time.