Remove all red alerts if people are sleeping

[mzbear]

MAN! Why are there warnings about raids when people are asleep? Wouldn't it be more fun if you only found about it accidentally when you zoomed out and noticed the raiders are right at your door already? That would really improve the gameplay I think!!

Actually, why do we actually need alerts about dangerous situations in the first place? Wouldn't it be bucketloads of more FUN if you had to pay more attention to the game???

PS. This is totally not a reference to polar bears spawning off-screen on the ice sheets, then suddenly mauling colonists to death without the slightest warning.

[LouisTBR]

Because without it you would be constantly checking for raiders rather than working on your base, thus making 'Colony Sim' redundant, more like 'Staring Sim'.

[mzbear]

Because without it you would be constantly checking for raiders rather than working on your base, thus making 'Colony Sim' redundant, more like 'Staring Sim'.

But isn't that FUN? I mean, that's what the ice sheet games are all about, staring at the wilderness non-stop! Polar bears might spawn any time, and in a mere minute they could start hunting the nearest colonist, all without any warnings until they've reached melee. Turrets won't attack the hunting polar bears either (they only attack manhunters, not food hunters) so you better pay attention to what's going on!

Since this is intended behavior, why not take it a bit further and make it apply to raids too? And, well, every danger event. Take all the warnings out! Consistency, man, consistency! 

[BeastNips]

I think there is a compromise with this. Could there be a way to set lookouts or rig some kind of early warning system? Raiders can sneak up on you but you can actively prevent this is you prepare. Still gives a sense of hidden danger but without the game turning into RaiderChecker Tycoon.

[LouisTBR]

Because polar bears are something you have to deal with, but do you stare at the ice for ages waiting for one to attack? No, you know they aren't enough of a threat to worry about. One polar bear is a lot different than raiders with guns...

[mzbear]

Because polar bears are something you have to deal with, but do you stare at the ice for ages waiting for one to attack? No, you know they aren't enough of a threat to worry about. One polar bear is a lot different than raiders with guns...

Uh, one polar bear is MUCH WORSE than a raid. When a raid comes, you prepare and go to defensive positions. When a polar bear spawns and starts hunting a minute later, you never knew it was in the map to begin with! The moment you get the first notification, the bear is in melee range and attacking to kill.

The only way to stay safe from surprise polar bears is indeed to stare at the ice and completely comb through the entire map, approximately once per minute. Because 55 seconds is the worst case scenario between bear spawning into the map and the said bear switching into stealthy colonist hunter. If you sit down to play RimWorld for few hours, you'll have to scan through the entire map for bears a few hundred times during that session. FUN!

I just figured this "stare at the ice fields" experience should be extended to the entire game, since it's so desirable and totally not an issue of any kind. The staring simulator will definitely make raids more fun as well and the gameplay more tense!

[LouisTBR]

I don't think you understand what Rimworld is meant to be... Your objective is to build a colony and defend against raids, while dealing with many other challenges as you play. By removing the helpful notification feature, you are forced to scan the map constantly for raiders, meaning Rimworld goes from /\/\/\ to 'Staring at map simulator until something comes along, completely wasting valuable time used to build your colony to deal with said raid'.

[MikeLemmer]

Not to mention the easiest solution to that is simply to set up a day shift & a night shift, like I do. (It doubles the time you can have people working on research & production.)

[Pax_Empyrean]

But isn't that FUN?

No.

[CannibarRechter]

> But isn't that FUN?

No. Although if the game mechanics were extended a bit more, it might be reasonable. In other conversations, I have recommended that raiders be given a stealth mechanic. We would then be able to have animals have a guard mechanic (perhaps it could be associated with release training). In the case you describe, you can imagine each guard dog you have having a probability of starting to loudly bark. If you have quite a few, the chances would be high that at least one dog would alarm bark

Basically I'm saying you would need to build your alarm systems. Perhaps later game mechanics could involve some electronic sensors or something, possibly placed near the edges of the map.

But no, scanning the screen around constantly. Not my fav.

[zyzz]

I'm like 99% sure this suggestion is just a sarcastic complaint about polar bears being too difficult to see, so continuing to add comments about how unfun a staring simulator would be is a bit pointless.

I haven't played on an ice sheet yet, are they really that bad?

[MisterVertigo]

Yeah, I don't think the OP's sarcasm is coming through very well. I SO wish there was a warning when a wild animal is about to attack a colonists because it's hungry. I mean, if a polar bear is running at me through the forest, I'm gonna hear it, and I'm going to start running the other way! Now, whether or not I'm fast enough to get away is another story.

It's not just on the ice sheets. I get it too on any map where it gets below freezing outside. I'm playing in a forest now, and when it gets cold the wolves and grizzly bears get hungry when they run out of rabbits, squirrels, and raccoons to eat.

[mzbear]

I haven't played on an ice sheet yet, are they really that bad?

They're bad. I've been playing mountainous ice sheet games recently, and it's basically forcing me to pause the game every now and then and spend a while drawing selection boxes all over the place to see if anything has spawned recently. Except, in my last game, I missed the bear because I only did the scans twice per in-game day and it turns out that's not enough. Thus I had a surprise game over.

Normally this issue is mitigated a little bit by the autoattack setting on colonists, so they fight back instead of fleeing. Not so much in mountainous areas, where your hauler fetching goods from that cargo drop and the stealthy bear will both trace the mountain edge and the colonist will not have time to fire at all. He had a charge rifle too (rich explorer) and definitely wouldn't have gotten himself killed had I gotten a notice about the bear even 2 seconds before the bear landed his first hit.

Sounds like a fun way to lose the game, right? You'll just suddenly get a notice that you're under attack. Maybe it should also say "you're an idiot for not seeing that bear even though it never appeared on the screen", because that's how I certainly felt. I felt like a failure because I knew I had plenty of time to find that bear before the incident happened, yet I didn't.

I reported the lack of warning as a bug, but instead some people responded telling me to watch the hunger bars (of bears spawning offscreen without an announcement, yeah, staring game!) and that maybe a learning helper topic about predators would be needed (as if that helps solve the issue!)

So yeah, this thread is just me being pissed off and venting because this is massively rage inducing, and I'm finding it impossible to enjoy the game anymore. I really wanted to survive on those ice sheets because they're challenging, but I'm absolutely NOT going to pause my game once per minute on a stopwatch, just to scan for bears.

I figured highlighting the issue in a setting that's more familiar to other players would be a fun thing to do, thus this suggestions about removing red alerts. It's exactly as I expected, nobody thinks it's a nice thing that you get surprise attacks that you're somehow supposed to notice on your own. And yet, more than one guy thinks polar bears spawning and attacking without a warning is something you just have to deal with, because that's how it is. Goddamn is-ought logic.

I don't even know why I'm taking this so seriously.

[mzbear]

Oh great, Tynan has spoken. Stealthy "surprise game over"-bears are working as intended.

So let's get back to the topic - removing warnings from raids.

At least in the early game the polar bear spawns are like raids without warnings, just worse, since the bear always goes for a kill while raiders (and manhunters too) will stop when the colonist is downed.

I think it would be perfectly fair to remove some raid warnings to get this FANTASTIC fully intended game experience to a wider audience.

[keylocke]

i'm with mzbear on this one. i'm actually gonna one up on this topic and throw in that i want a global FOW along with this.

i understand the people who don't want this feature and it's cool.. (more power to you guys)

but i wanna have the option to play rimworld in extreme ironman mode with no notifications and with a global FOW. (i think there was a mod with the FOW)

honestly, i haven't been playing rimworld for a while now. (though i've been playing this game for years now) i like the new smarter AI of the newer alphas and i'm glad to see some of our suggestions getting through to make battles more challenging without needing to increase raider count.

this also goes with my realism vs gamey mindset.. since i kinda prefer a bit more realism (whenever i can, if and when it's possible due to technical limitations)