Unstable build feedback thread

[Awe]

Well if you open the doors to your base w/ hold open and fire foam it like you should, drop pods are somewhat manageable.  The mechanoids just walk out and get shot by turrets.  I think the issue is everyone's immediate reaction to fighting drop pods is to fight them inside to stop the carnage.  This only leads to tears 

They are broke benches so fast... and restoring all bills is so painful. 

[Greep]

I think psychic drones honestly didn't need to be touched.

This is gonna be annoying.

[attachment deleted due to age]

[giltirn]

Storyteller: Randy
Difficulty: Rough, naked brutality
Biome/hilliness: Boreal tundra, large hills
Commitment mode: hell no
Current colony age (days): ~45
Hours played in the last 2 days: no idea
Complete mod list: none

I've been keeping a log of my activities over this playthrough, which has thus far seemed much harder than I ever remember on Randy Rough (naked brutality has been my goto start -as a custom start- for a very long time). A couple of feedback points:

- I really don't like the crafting/construction gates on shortbows and deadfall traps, particularly the former; without a bow it is next to impossible to hunt for food, and defending against a raid on your own in melee is just a roll of the dice. I came so close a number of times to losing my pawn and had to reload several times, and had to spend a lot of time and material grinding wooden clubs to advance my crafting just so I could hunt. We should at least be able to craft shortbows, if only awful ones, without having to have 2+ crafting skill.

- My constructors seem to be botching builds very regularly, maybe 20-30% of the time, despite both having construction 5+. Is this a bug?

- I do not like the new trap system at all. The forced large spacing and the extreme cost of replacing the things constantly makes them virtually useless. I end up losing more to random wildlife and mad animals than I do to raiders. My boreal forest is quickly going to be a boreal plain if I keep losing them at this rate!

- The longer door closing rate has not affected the effectiveness of door micro, it just makes it more micro intensive. Much preferred it as it was in B18.

- Food poisoning is still happening too often. It seems like one or more of my pawns has it every other day. It is largely due to "incompetent cook"  but theres not much I can do about that; my cooks have skill 3 and 4 and neither have a passion, so it is a long grind to get their skill higher.

- I constructed a bluefur tribalwear hoping to get something decent to survive the winter (it's been -26C or lower for several game weeks!) but it only has a cold insulation of 10C. Surely it should be better than that??

[Madman666]

I think psychic drones honestly didn't need to be touched.

This is gonna be annoying.

This is kind of a broken event currently... The only thing to do is to have them bail the map for couple days. Which is annoying, but still less of a pain than having to deal with berserks trashing each other. And yeah i also think that scaling drones isn't a change that should be in this update.

[Greep]

I think there's too much of a focus on having non-"threat bigs" be threatening.  They're usually not that bad but, they're already terrifying when in combination with a raid.  They don't individually need to be as bad as a raid themselves to create "drama".

[zizard]

I thought Tynan said somewhere that there were no longer any -48 psychic drones?

[Madman666]

I thought Tynan said somewhere that there were no longer any -48 psychic drones?

That pawn is probably psychically sensitive, hence -54 on a high drone. If he was hypersensitive it would be even more ridiculous than that. Extreme drones still get up to -40 on a normal pawn. So technically Tynan said the truth. As the one who whined more than others on that steam thread, i know about it a bit.

[Awe]

- My constructors seem to be botching builds very regularly, maybe 20-30% of the time, despite both having construction 5+. Is this a bug?

Check concussiones/manipulation/sight stats. If not 100% then you start to fail frequently. For example if pawn got poisoning or loose fingers its just better to avoid any skilled jobs until recovered.

- Food poisoning is still happening too often. It seems like one or more of my pawns has it every other day. It is largely due to "incompetent cook"  but theres not much I can do about that; my cooks have skill 3 and 4 and neither have a passion, so it is a long grind to get their skill higher.

Crafting psychoid tea train cooking skill. Can be useful if you can grow a lot.

[Greep]

Base right now is -30, although this guy is psychically hypersensitive.  But this isn't even the highest amount.  At -40 he'll be at -72

[NiftyAxolotl]

Storyteller: Randy Random
Difficulty: Survival struggle
Biome: warm Temperate Forest, small hills
Permadeath
220 days in, at 252k wealth
Maybe 12 hours played in the last 2 days.
Lost Tribe, no mods

This is the scenario where the Alpaca Swarm should be strongest. I have 67 alpacas, 21 labradors, and 16 royally inbred wargs, handled by two burningly passionate trainers. The game was tense early, before this armada was reliable, but since then, only a few events have been seriously threatening. But I know from previous games that raid size is about to pick up, so I'm not calling victory just yet.

I don't know why people say that bonded animals are a negative. I counted the moodlets after a rough serious of battles, and my colonists had 5x +5 modifiers for having their favorite animals, and 3x -8 modifiers for having lost others. It washes out.

Choosing guns for the herdmasters is difficult. Of course my best shooters get charge/assault rifles or sniper rifles. But I feel like giving my bad shooters chain shotguns will create more alpacaburgers than I can stomach. Pump shotguns have higher accuracy, I think.

I've been trying to mix turrets and traps in with my defenses, with some success.
The mini-turrets don't kill much, but they pin down enemies long enough for me to position for the charge.
The auto-cannon is too expensive to feel good as a sacrificial front line, and small mistakes with letting it shoot at a brawl cost limbs or lives.

I feel like I should make a whole lattice of IED traps - they do serious damage.

Caravans feel great. I've done sales tours, trade requests, and a couple missions. I also backed out of a rescue mission that I didn't bring enough firepower for.

One of my melee colonists stepped too close to a scyther and got his waist cut off. Umm... he can't wear a shield belt anymore. I like to imagine him with his upper body just hovering 10 cm over his hips. I spent a healer mech serum on it, but it restored a missing finger instead. Dang.

[giltirn]

Crafting psychoid tea train cooking skill. Can be useful if you can grow a lot.

That's a good idea, I'll keep it in mind for the next time. Unfortunately I have only 20 days of growing time on my boreal tundra so it would have been difficult to take advantage of that from the start. I guess I'll just have to weather it.

[zizard]

Base right now is -30, although this guy is psychically hypersensitive.  But this isn't even the highest amount.  At -40 he'll be at -72

Funny thing is that psychic helmet is -90% sens, so even with one of those your guy will have total 90% sens. The new drone levels made hypersens instant reject for me.

That pawn is probably psychically sensitive, hence -54 on a high drone. If he was hypersensitive it would be even more ridiculous than that. Extreme drones still get up to -40 on a normal pawn. So technically Tynan said the truth. As the one who whined more than others on that steam thread, i know about it a bit.

True, it's even technically true if the amount were to be increased!

[Jibbles]

Can flagstone be balanced at some point? Feel gypped for even thinking about it, but mainly use them to spice up base (for me).  Don't always want to lay down concrete now since the need for steel increased.

[XeoNovaDan]

Storyteller: Cassandra Classic
Scenario: Crashlanded (but all starting pawns 65 or older)
Difficulty: Survival Struggle
Biomes:
Main base - Ice Sheet (mountainous, -8C to -58C seasonal)
Outpost - Tundra (flat, 5C to -43C seasonal)
Commitment mode: Yes
Hours played in the last 2 days: 14-18?
Complete mod list: Core, More Faction Interaction (playtesting)

642 days in, 511k wealth (459.5k main + 52.1k outpost), 22 colonists (18 main + 4 outpost)

So, with the commonality and scale of centre-drop mechanoid raids in the late game, it's actually gotten to the point where the insides of my base are becoming as heavily-fortified as my actual main defences. I guess it's just adaptation to the changes thus far, but here are a few screenshots of the fortifications being made:

Launch station (both shells and cargo):


Wind/solar farm/landing zone from outpost:


Freezer:


I may be slightly overdoing it, but it is how, as a player, I feel I'd best protect the chances of getting that ship escape successfully done.

Oh, and attached some graphs too!

[attachment deleted due to age]

[Syrchalis]

The thing with psychic drones is - I have little problems with them on normal pawns. Like, they dip into minor break risk if they are generally well, otherwise they are brutal. And that is kind of the problem with them. If they were weaker they could be ignored - or in a bad situation still make it almost certain doom. If they were even stronger then they would be a huge issue with no reliable counter, since foil helmets aren't that readily available.

Honestly, the whole "psychically sensitive" trait line is one of those that barely ever play a role. It's like the gay trait - I think those should be "minor" traits, traits that everyone has 100% of the time, but that aren't part of their actual traits.

And if everyone always had resistance or vulnerability to psychic events they would be much more severe on some and much less on others. This would fix the balance issue, because vulnerable pawns would need special care no matter the circumstances (aka creating stories) and resilient pawns would only really be affected if their mood is particularly poor anyway. This also means you need very few psychic foil helmets if the drones really give you trouble - because on average you will have 1:1 ratio of vulnerable to resistant pawns, and female to male. So on average only a quarter of the colonists would be affected.

Not saying this would make the drones easier, but it would make them more fun.