Alpha 17 is on public unstable branch

[roben]

Why are you hating crafters so much?
From a16 to a17 changed next:
Making joints - no crafting XP
Making drugs - crafting job who gave Intellectual XP, but no crafting XP
Stonecutting - crafting job who gave Construction XP, but no crafting XP
How do I must to level up Crafting in cheap way in such conditions?
Making hundreds of shoddy t-shirts, and wooden swords is wasted resources and time

Yeah, I noticed that, too. And while my crafters still suck, my researcher was on LVL 20 in no time... So maybe the levelling by crafting cheap stuff may be reduced if it was imbalanced before, but disabling it completely? The main good thing, though, is that you can now use your average lvl 0 crafter for making stone blocks all day long, if it is not skill related any longer. But making medicine is skill capped (and this skill automatically degrades if not used as far as I remember), so at least here there should also be some gain making it.

Edit: But please do not lower researching skill gain... There should at least be enough research projects left to benefit from a highly levelled scientist.

[fjw]

Reduced heat wave power a bit and clarified the call to action in the letter.

Oh no. I really liked the challenge with the heatwaves. I don't think it's that hard to be prepared considering you can research passive cooling really easy from the beginning.

[Love]

Reduced heat wave power a bit and clarified the call to action in the letter.

Oh no. I really liked the challenge with the heatwaves. I don't think it's that hard to be prepared considering you can research passive cooling really easy from the beginning.

Some of us play Tribal starts...

[fjw]

hmm.
i seldomly play tribal starts. but isn't passive cooling a tribal tech?

[ttgg]

Started a new colony on build 1541, in a (Large size) Tropical biome using Randy Extreme. Arrived in Spring, with temperatures between 25 and 32 celsius (77-90 fahrenheit)

-Issue: no wild healroot anywhere on map.

I was kind of surprised by this, as I saw plenty of wild healroot growing in much colder biomes, in the past few builds.

Edit: created a colony in Boreal biome (also in build 1541), and saw plenty of healroot. I read the description of it, and it says that it's "prized by tribespeople in colder climates". Does this mean that it won't grow, by design, in hotter biomes? That would make tropical biome very difficult unless you bring a very skilled herbalist every time, due to the way infections work now.

[Calahan]

@ All - Thank you all for the continued feedback, which Tynan is finding invaluable. Please keep it coming.

I have had to move several posts to another thread (re: the posts relating to the best way to improve crafting skill). Those posts have been merged with an existing thread on the same topic, and can be found here. https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=32487.msg332799#msg332799

And a reminder from the man himself to those who are now and again prone to helping the thread drift off-topic.

EDIT: Thanks for comments, but let's please remain on topic. This thread is for feedback on the build and play stories.

[BlackSmokeDMax]

Started a new colony on build 1541, in a (Large size) Tropical biome using Randy Extreme. Arrived in Spring, with temperatures between 25 and 32 celsius (77-90 fahrenheit)

-Issue: no wild healroot anywhere on map.

I was kind of surprised by this, as I saw plenty of wild healroot growing in much colder biomes, in the past few builds.

Edit: created a colony in Boreal biome (also in build 1541), and saw plenty of healroot. I read the description of it, and it says that it's "prized by tribespeople in colder climates". Does this mean that it won't grow, by design, in hotter biomes? That would make tropical biome very difficult unless you bring a very skilled herbalist every time, due to the way infections work now.

Maybe it just doesn't grow wild in that climate? You can still grow your own correct?

[ttgg]

Maybe it just doesn't grow wild in that climate? You can still grow your own correct?

I can still grow the non-wild variant, however, I would have expected the wild healroot to also grow in the Tropical biome. Temperature seems to have nothing to do with it.

I'm just looking for confirmation, if it's a bug or if it's intended to not grow in Tropical biome.

[username2]

set up several tribal colonies on randy intense/extreme, really fun now. few thoughts i had, hope you find them helpful
- pemmican lasts only 2 days, detecting bushes in the environment became one of the main activities now and it hurts the eyes for a poor 35 year old like me. 
- i can always get to electricity before first winter, since i can I do it, but it kinda takes away from the fun of having a first hard tribal winter
- enemy weapons become advanced way too quickly, and i feel like i have to cheat the game to win rather than have a healthy battle. poison ship in first year is just ridic for tribal and i have to use a "closing wall" trick i just happen to know cause i saw a discussion.
- on that note its entirely unclear how to defend yourself
- colonist recruitment is always at 99% difficulty in my games, not sure if im just getting unlucky
- I dont like microing hunting and it just takes forever now with the running mechanism, its a bit silly.
- most of my time is spent microing food, making pemmican for winter and simple meals for the present. its fun but i'm not really expanding as fast as I'd like, sending out caravans or trying to take over adjacent areas (which would be fun)

[Limdood]

It does feel like hunting is unreasonably hard/time consuming.

If i hit an animal with a bullet or arrow, yes, it should probably run if it can, so the behavior is fine...but how many bullets/arrows should it take really, to take down an animal when you can line up a shot against a grazing or wandering animal (as opposed to in active combat, where panic and haste become serious factors)?

There is already a 750% hit bonus on downed animals for "execution" in hunting.  I feel like there should be a damage bonus and/or hit bonus against animals intrinsic to the hunting job - this keeps animals (as) viable (as they already were) for active combat, while making it less likely that my pawn will have to chase a deer across the map twice over the course of an entire day while firing dozens of rounds at it.

[ttgg]

It does feel like hunting is unreasonably hard/time consuming.

If i hit an animal with a bullet or arrow, yes, it should probably run if it can, so the behavior is fine...but how many bullets/arrows should it take really, to take down an animal when you can line up a shot against a grazing or wandering animal (as opposed to in active combat, where panic and haste become serious factors)?

I have to agree. With 10+ colonists, even with 2 full-time hunters, the hunting takes too long to satisfy the need for meat, because my hunters end up chasing their prey all day.
I think it's the combination of

-Bad accuracy in general. It seems counter-intuitive to hunt with an Uzi over a Sniper Rifle, but the Uzi is better, for hunting, in the current system by far.
-Bigger animals (those with decent amount of meat on their bones) taking many shots before they are downed
-The newly added chasing after every prey.

I feel like there should be a damage bonus and/or hit bonus against animals intrinsic to the hunting job - this keeps animals (as) viable (as they already were) for active combat, while making it less likely that my pawn will have to chase a deer across the map twice over the course of an entire day while firing dozens of rounds at it.

I agree. A higher chance to hit animals who are idle seems like a decent fix, and would make slower, single-shot rifles a lot more viable. I've noticed that predators also stun their animals when they first pounce on them. Perhaps our hunters could have a chance to stun and/or at least slow their target, on their first shot, and then only have to give chase if the prey isn't dead after a few seconds.

[makkenhoff]

Medical - A17 really makes doctors feel worth having. I just saved a pawn who was frail, elderly, and suffers dementia; he was around 30% more infected than immune at the time the doctor started to treat him with a superior steel bed, 80% and higher successful treatments, with 2% to spare. I kept him in a medically induced coma (constantly putting him on anesthetic, his dementia was a medical risk otherwise.) It may have cost me a significant amount of medicine, but if I had failed any of the treatments, he would have died - so it felt balanced to me. Proof a good doctor is worth having now.

On the hunting complaints - any hunter can and will tell you, even if you line up a shot perfect on a grazing deer with no obstructions in the way, sometimes you miss. I've actually found it to be pretty refreshing to feel like an actual hunt, as opposed to the collection it had been. I've had plenty of success hunting with my pila on my tribal colony.

[DariusWolfe]

Reading Limdood's remarks on hunting reminds me of a weird interaction a few unstable builds back, that I never really noticed before. I was manually hunting a bear with my gunners, and had my melee dude in front to draw the bear's aggro; They downed the bear, and I thought "Hey, melee dude's here, I'll let him finish off the bear, esp. since it's getting dark and my gunner's can't hit shit anymore.", and as I watched, he methodically chopped off pieces of the bear until it was dead, leaving significantly less meat behind; Maybe 1/4-1/3rd of the total meat value. I tested this by having my gunners finish off a couple deer after that, and there was no reduction in meat whatsoever.

While I'm sure manually using melee to finish off an animal isn't a super common tactic, it doesn't seem right that it should so drastically affect meat intake if you do that.

Regarding ttgg's remarks:

With 10+ colonists, even with 2 full-time hunters, the hunting takes too long to satisfy the need for meat, because my hunters end up chasing their prey all day.
I think it's the combination of

-Bad accuracy in general. It seems counter-intuitive to hunt with an Uzi over a Sniper Rifle, but the Uzi is better, for hunting, in the current system by far.
-Bigger animals (those with decent amount of meat on their bones) taking many shots before they are downed
-The newly added chasing after every prey.

I haven't had a lot of trouble with this, for a simple reason: I often micro my hunters into closer proximity with non-dangerous prey. Closer range does two important things:

• Better accuracy. Duh.
• More tolerance for the animal running away; They don't waste as much, or any, time closing range on the animal again.

So it seems like an adjustment to engagement range, based perhaps on the riskiness of the hunted animal taking revenge, would make hunting a lot less frustrating and needlessly time-consuming.

[Wanderer_joins]

Rich explorer scenario, build 1541, cassandra extreme, 70 days in: http://imgur.com/a/VUrgB

*quests:
-item stash without threat, people can no longer say it doesn't worth it ;-)
-item stash with threat: i don't know what the threat is, but it seems to worth it: charged rifle/sniper rifle/bolt action rifle. My best smith is level 3...
-outposts: i'm still short on manpower, but i'm hoping to raid my first outpost in the second year, pods should help.

*population: it feels easier than in the latest build but i can really tell since i played  crashlanded scenarios, anyway, after one year starting as rich explorer, you've catched up with a crashlanded start + 30 glitt meds

*raids: paired events are a real threat if you mismanaged the first one, frequency seems back to "normal"

*visitors and traders are the ultimate defense against raiders, you can even patch them up after the fight, best friendlies ever (or maybe they should flee when you get raided?)

*economy: on desert, limited population and growing period, 1 year in i only grew food and couldn't really afford any other luxury, which made quests more interesting. you can focus on building your manpower and doing quests for money, at least it'll be the aim of the second year. so far my cash is made of the 2000 silver i started with... + lately the item stash quest

*infections: i don't think it has changed but it seems fine, with a healthy, good doctor you don't need medicine BUT your bedridden pawn risk to go berserk/mental break, so there is still an incentive to use meds to speed up the healing, this is even more true between two raids. And things can go downward quickly if your doc is killed/ injured, if the patients have their blood filtration affected etc... it should be interesting on the long term and on the road. Still, maybe medicine should have more weight to fight an infection.

[AstroFerret]

I'm having a great time with A17 so far.

The Good:
Love the new textures
Find the combat changes to be rewarding
Mining definitely feels like less of a time waste and more of a focus
Haven't tried them yet, but the new belts definitely add a different playstyle that I plan on chasing
I like that I'm seeing infections again, although I do feel they are a little easy to combat.
I love the quests and roads, makes the world definitely feel more interconnected and motivates me to explore more.
Love, love, love self tending.
Good overall: Game feels more challenging, looks better, and feels more rewarding.

The 'Eh':
I'm finding my autosaves are lagging my game for a lot longer then in previous versions which is really disappointing.
My pawns now prioritize deconstructing objects a higher priority over smoothing floors despite the fact that building floors comes before deconstructing.
I'm seeing a lot less traders, it's hard to say if that is just luck or not... but past few games there have been very few passing through or visiting.
No exp for crafters while crafting stone = sad. Seems extra hard to level now.

I think that's it for now. Thanks so much for the updates! Can't wait til its official.