A18

[TheMeInTeam]

^ Fair enough.  The home zone thing was more to point out that we can't realistically use that, not to advocate making it even larger .

The inconsistency between the game's paradigm and reality is a necessity of gameplay.  The major problem is inconsistency between the game's paradigm and the game's paradigm.  That has been my #1 argument from the start above.  I admit I got a little confrontational, yet on the other hand this core point has barely been acknowledged by others (and initially ignored entirely), which makes useful discussion challenging.

If we jump down the rabbit hole of "in reality animals and people are different", I want to know the standards to which the game holds reality vs gameplay abstraction.  Otherwise I'm not buying that a 3 burst rifle would be met by animal retaliation; animals wouldn't know what was hitting them, let alone trace a point of origin or think to attack in such a scenario.  I'm also not buying that we instantly know where all animals in a several mile radius are located in real time AND who they're hunting...but only when we look.

It's not reality that the game needs to stay consistent with, but rather its abstraction of reality in gameplay terms.  There are no other mechanics where you're forced into near-speed 1 manual searching to avoid the issue by noticing it, and such a mechanic is damaging to Rimworld's core gameplay.

If we're willing to abstract pieces of reality for better gameplay, that shouldn't suddenly not count because animals are different than people.  Using reality only when convenient is one of the more common and not-useful arguments I see on game boards, and surprisingly ubiquitous (CoD, Civilization, EU 4, Madden are examples of pretty disparate titles where posters use this exact same approach to realism selectively).

That doesn't make it any weaker here of course (though it's weak on its own merit), but it does nicely contribute to the frustration. 

TL;DR:  Realism doesn't work for animal hunting, because that itself would be the game being inconsistent with the game.

[BlazinTheWok]

Stuff

You really need to stop telling people they aren't allowed to have certain opinions.

Secondly, I don't know why you are making this out to be a huge problem. When I see a predator, I draft colonists and shoot it. Problem solved. Haven't had a predator hunt a colonist since a15.

Thirdly, Someone stated that animals don't hunt ahead of time and just snap target. Can someone verify this? The reason I ask is I play with a mod that let's you set food selection options. If I change an animal (warg in this case) to * Unrestricted * it shows me the animal it plans to hunt when hungry. It'll say hare or squirrel or raccoon etc. I think the target might be a variable that updates every so many ticks and when hunger falls below whatever amount, the animal hunts whatever is in that variable. Might be something for someone to look into.

If you are going to implement anything don't make it another alert. Make the Wildlife tab mod part of the core game. Then you can tell at a glance when predators are around and designate their removal.

[The Nickman]

Agree with all of these, too.  I haven't had any animals hunting colonist events happen since A17, though, so I don't know if that's still an issue.

It's not an event at all.  A hungry predator animal picks a target to hunt.  Sometimes, it will pick a colonist. 

You get absolutely 0 notification this happens until the animal executes a melee attack on your pawn.  Dangerous animals like bears, cougars, and wargs can easily kill a gun-equipped pawn even if you react instantly and fight back, and the rate at which they kill a pawn they down is fast enough to make them threatening even relatively close to a base.

Not getting a notification about this is similar from a design perspective to not getting notification of an infection, or not getting a notification about raiders setting up for a siege...but do get notifications.

Also, colonists + pets + caravans can all rarely set off deadfall traps despite having a clear path, and you get the consequential faction penalties or the occasional decapitated pawn.

This game is not about micromanaging individual pawns at all times.  That is why a work priority system exists.  These are not things that should be happening with routine setups.

This, SO MUCH THIS!!  Why can't the game at least pause when a colonist gets attacked by an animal?  Or at least give us the option to pause the game when it happens.  On cold biomes I have lost many good pawns just because by the time I realised they're being attacked it's too late and there's no backup nearby.  This definitely needs an overhaul.

[BlazinTheWok]

Agree with all of these, too.  I haven't had any animals hunting colonist events happen since A17, though, so I don't know if that's still an issue.

This, SO MUCH THIS!!  Why can't the game at least pause when a colonist gets attacked by an animal?  Or at least give us the option to pause the game when it happens.  On cold biomes I have lost many good pawns just because by the time I realised they're being attacked it's too late and there's no backup nearby.  This definitely needs an overhaul.

What do you mean giving you the option to pause? You press spacebar and it pauses. From what I remember anytime a colonist is injured it makes a noise and their bar turns red. Press space. Again, just draft colonists and kill the predators as you see them and no problem.

[eadras]

I suggested some time ago that there could be notifications for a colonist being hunted by a predator on lower difficulty levels, and no notification on higher difficulty levels.  Alternatively, the notification could appear only in non-permadeath games.  This should satisfy both the hardcore and casual players, as distinct difficulty levels are meant to.

As for my hopes for A18, I'd second the continuing development and balancing of the caravan system.  Right now it is nifty and intriguing, but not very rewarding in gameplay terms, especially given how tedious it can be to form up a caravan and get it to leave your base. 

[Xyic0re]

Raids whereby allied factions work with eachother to attack from multiple angles at once

[TheMeInTeam]

You really need to stop telling people they aren't allowed to have certain opinions.

I'm not, that's a false assertion.

I will point out that something is incoherent, or that an opinion isn't self-consistent and therefore shouldn't receive weight when considering implementation, but that is different from telling someone they can't have it.

There's a critical difference in reasoning when it is consistent/coherent and when it is not.  If a position uses incoherent reasoning as its framework, there is no reason to assign it more weight than any other incoherent/inconsistent position.  The corn/whales example is more obviously incoherent, to the point where ordinary people wouldn't make a mistake that glaring, but the fundamental issue is similar.  Namely, that invoking realism while ignoring my gameplay implication discussion and counter-examples to realism is non-sequitur and doesn't address my point, nor make a coherent case on its own.

I'm not telling anybody they can't do it.  Go ahead, you don't need my permission anyway.  Just know that in rational terms, it's really not more useful than the example I gave with coolers/heaters.

Secondly, I don't know why you are making this out to be a huge problem. When I see a predator, I draft colonists and shoot it. Problem solved. Haven't had a predator hunt a colonist since a15.

I already pointed out why it's a problem (divergence from other gameplay implementations, constant requirement of manual micromanagement/looking inconsistent with nearly every other game mechanic, hassle factor without adding anything to gameplay).  Despite implying that I'm somehow telling people they can't have opinions, there's an awful lot of simply bypassing my entire rationale in this regard despite that I've given it multiple times.  It's intellectually rude to do that.

Thirdly, Someone stated that animals don't hunt ahead of time and just snap target. Can someone verify this?

By save scumming and watching the results, I can 100% guarantee that animals don't just snap target things close.  Whether they have a saved target prior to "hunting" I can't verify, but if you reload a save where the animal targets a colonist, it will consistently target that same colonist on reload if you don't change anything.  I have seen a wolf target colonist over in-the-open raider corpse.

If you run colonist behind a wall after being targeted the animal will change targets after a moment.

If you are going to implement anything don't make it another alert. Make the Wildlife tab mod part of the core game. Then you can tell at a glance when predators are around and designate their removal.

I just want a mechanic that addresses the issue.  Notification is most obvious one, but if that mod allows a method to invest to mitigate predators aside from manually searching them at slow speeds then it would address the issue.  I'm not fussed as to how it specifically gets fixed if it gets fixed.

What do you mean giving you the option to pause? You press spacebar and it pauses. From what I remember anytime a colonist is injured it makes a noise and their bar turns red. Press space. Again, just draft colonists and kill the predators as you see them and no problem.

Even if you have superhuman reaction times, pause instantly, and send every colonist you have to the location at the rate you'd only see out of an RTS AI, there is still a high chance colonist gets permanently maimed or killed outright by some predators.  Speed 1 draft hunting in advance is not a viable solution to this.  Speed 2 and 3 should not be persistent false choices any time you don't restrict pawns inside walls.

I suggested some time ago that there could be notifications for a colonist being hunted by a predator on lower difficulty levels, and no notification on higher difficulty levels.  Alternatively, the notification could appear only in non-permadeath games.  This should satisfy both the hardcore and casual players, as distinct difficulty levels are meant to.

Fake difficulty is not viable difficulty, nor is it "hard core".  Permadeath =/= "player needs to play at speed 1 and constantly scroll map" as reasonable design.  This is at present the only way to mitigate predators, as those who "don't mind" the system at present seem to suggest it as a valid solution, never mind its counter-design against work priority, game speed, or strategy.

Surviving a raid requires a mix of good base design, preparation, and execution of fighting with pawns.  Surviving disasters like heat waves or minor things like dry thunderstorm or zzt involves planning.

Surviving predators hunting colonists involves manually panning the map at speed 1 looking for any time they show up on the map in vanilla.  No strategy or threat if you go through the tedium, decent chance of killing a pawn outright with nothing you can do in response if you don't.  That is not a viable gameplay mechanic, "hardcore" or not.

I agree wrt caravans btw.  They've improved but could use a little tuning + more depth.

[Limdood]

death that can only be avoided by "you should have noticed this sooner despite no notification" is not good game design.  realistic or not (and it often ISN'T realistic), it removes fun by removing meaningful choice and replacing it with unpredictable consequences. 

Animals hunting colonists is just such a mechanic.  By the time you are made aware of a situation, you HAVE ALREADY MISSED what you could have done to prevent a death. This is not the case with any other event OR SITUATION (such as low food) in the game, and, in fact, steps have been taken to remove the "notification after the point of meaningful choice" from other aspects of the game.

[Bozobub]

As I noted above, I fully agree that there should be a notification, at least when the colonist *notices* the incoming predator (in other words, sometimes with no warning anyway).  But there's a relatively easy way to ameliorate the problem:  Mark every damn predator for taming.  Simply scroll around every so often, double-click every predator you can find to select all visible of that type, and queue taming.

This is useful in several ways:
- Trains Animal Handling.
- Acquires useful "attack" animals for colony defense (and/or hauling and etc., if desired).
- Allows easy, low risk acquisition and butchering or sale of the predator, if desired.  The odds are MUCH better than hunting, re: a vengeful attack by the targeted predator.
- Preserves other animal stocks for your own use instead of predator food (the main reason I actually do this, rather than attacks on colonists).

Another thing that will help is avoiding the removal of *all* prey stock.  If there's no other prey, your colonists WILL eventually be targeted by starving predators, that simple.  Additionally, a large turret "net" — over time, I cover literally every open area with overlapping turret kill zones ^^' — provides excellent cover for colonists under any attack (animal or otherwise), if you can afford the resources/power (a big "if", I freely admit).

Occasional repetition of the above steps has made it so I actually haven't seen a (non-manhunter) random animal attack in a very long time, indeed (three extended-lifespan colonies ago), at least as far as I recall.

[DariusWolfe]

My solution is, usually when I start noticing forbidden animal corpses, to seek out any predators in my vicinity, draft all of my shooter, and go hunting, manually. It's rare that anything smaller than a bear even closes half the distance. Additionally (and this is potentially cheesy behavior that will probably get nerfed, hopefully around the time that some other fixes are put in place) the animal always targets the nearest shooter, and usually stays fixated; Take that shooter and have them lead the animal in a circle around the rest, and usually you're good to go.

[Limdood]

As I noted above, I fully agree that there should be a notification, at least when the colonist *notices* the incoming predator (in other words, sometimes with no warning anyway).  But there's a relatively easy way to ameliorate the problem:  Mark every damn predator for taming. 

you aren't addressing the gameplay effect, which is THE argument against it....making it only "sometimes" kill off your colonist with no notification until after the point of meaningful choice has passed isn't a solution.

Your "easy fix" is no different than the previous sentence...its a way that will still sometimes remove choice from the player (ie. new predator comes in, goes colonist hunting in between scans, which are frankly unnecessary micro anyways), which is not good game design...making a choice to KEEP bad game design in sometimes, when it would be easier to remove the bad design element altogether is CHOOSING an inferior game, and it isn't in a "player's choice" context either.

[Bozobub]

You're missing the point.

a)  I agree there's a problem, although we don't agree on it's scale.  I'm not recommending no change, I just don't fully agree on what the change should be.
b)  My "easy fix" works, at least for me.  Howzabout you try it and see?  It takes no more time than designating "standard" prey for hunting; I generally do both at the exact same time.

[TheMeInTeam]

1.  Kiting an animal is no more "cheesy" than an animal acquiring a target at gun range and charging the source of bullets.  Any standard you can come up with for "cheesy" would imply that it's cheesy to play the game, and that's not useful.
2.  You can and occasionally will get colonists hunted by predators even if you hunt or tame no prey stock whatsoever, which I mentioned earlier in the thread.
3.  Taming predators in the early-mid game (where this is still a realistic problem) requires you have enough help to survive revenge on a failed attempt.  Otherwise, you're trading an unfair/arbitrary death for one you very much earned (IE intentionally moving into melee range with a predator w/o tons of support)...and you're *still* suggesting to manually pan the map for predators per the current vanilla setting.
4.  Limdood sums up the problem with the mechanic succinctly, and it has been stated numerous times now.  Despite that this discussion has gone on multiple pages, somehow this point is being ignored time and again, despite more than 1 person now pointing out that it's the primary issue with the present implementation.  Why?

Repeatedly suggesting that players should slow down the game, draft colonists, and manually hunt down predators solely as a preventative measure is vexing and disingenuous.  Earlier, I was chastised for being too confrontational, but the progression of the thread since that point highlights the reason for my frustration.  Perhaps those in disagreement with me could manage similar courtesy as was requested of me and actually address the opinions with which they disagree, instead of disagreeing repeatedly while repeating refuted logic.

You're missing the point.
b)  My "easy fix" works, at least for me.  Howzabout you try it and see?  It takes no more time than designating "standard" prey for hunting; I generally do both at the exact same time.

Your "easy fix" is clearly a "you still lose colonists at random if you don't do manual micromanagement, but now you lose them less frequently".  Limdood is correct to point out that this does not address the stated issue with the mechanic.  Even if it's a good idea within an alternative mechanical framework, it is tangential to the chief complaint regarding the mechanic being discussed now.

[Limdood]

a) it's scale is enough to make it a VERY common topic of complaint on the forum.  It also currently is the ONLY non-notification event that poses a direct threat to the colony, despite MANY other events also being more "realistic" if they didn't have notifications...it is inconsistent design...the ONLY solution to keep the design of the game consistent is to change hunting preds to be like other dangerous events (even a text notification in the upper left) or change ALL other events to no notification, which would certainly drive me away from this game.

b) I have.  This is how I know it doesn't always work.  It is again, unnecessary micro (stop, check, mark, continue, repeat), forced playstyle (I can no longer just zoom out real quick and just select a herd of deer/muffalo/goats for hunting...i now NEED to scan the entire map, carefully), and merely makes the problem less likely rather than fixing it (preds can still hunt colonists if they spawn and get hungry in between checks, and if a taming attempt turns them manhunter (which is usually a % chance equal to or greater than the successful tame chance for all but the best pawns), you're still in the exact same situation of doomed pawn in melee combat with a cougar/bear by the time notification happens)

[NiftyAxolotl]

Small UI improvements:
- Stone tiles and flagstones under material-selection menus, rather than as 5 separate entries each
- Whenever a production bench is built, it automatically copies bills from the previous game.

An extremely complex rework of a core system. More as an academic discussion than as a real feature-request:
Pawns choose tasks based on a formula incorporating
1) a player-controlled global priority list;
2) that pawn's current needs;
3) that pawn's total time required to complete that task, including hauling and walking time;
4) how much time has been devoted to that task recently by all pawns.
The benefits are:
- Field workers will usually haul something on their way back home.
- Specialist pawns will automatically find something to do if their main task is finished.
- Someone will remember to clean eventually.
- One priority list for all pawns, instead of separate.