Don't like the new item ruination

[TimTumm]

I like most everything else about the game because it gives me a choice.  I like to grow all year, so I pick a spot with my colony with fair-weather.  Others like the challenge, so they build in Siberia. 

My favorite thing in Rimworld is growing a colony, and having it end up with a village with 20+ colonists.  I like making kill-boxes that can take 50+ raiders.  Eventually, when I have reached a state where everything is researched, and the planet is mined out, I build a ship and end the game.  I like dealing with food challenges, but clothing?  I can't even see the clothing state.  Do I have to click on each colonist, check to see if his cloths are "in tatters?" Then I have to check each item of clothing to see which one?  How often do I have to go through this loop? This (in my opinion) goes past micromanaging (which anyone who plays Rimworld likes) and enters the realm of pain!

Please avoid Pain, and give us more gameplay! 
Thank you for a great game.

[Silvador]

You'll see a negative thought on people wearing tattered clothing, that should be your first indication. As for the item deterioration itself, I quite like it. I don't think there are too many games like this that actually have item deterioration, and as a person who naturally likes to put his stuff inside, out of the elements, having the weather actually affect item deterioration further so that putting your junk indoors actually has a point to it is just a lovely little cherry on top of the cake, for me.

However, I can see how some people might dislike and/or struggle with managing item deterioration, especially late-game. Perhaps there will be options to toggle certain aspects on or off, such as item deterioration.

[TheSilencedScream]

I don't mind it at the start, but I can see it becoming annoying once you've garnered up a dozen-plus colonists.

[GrafZahl]

I think the point here is not that clothes are getting worse over time. I think the disappointing thing for Tim is to check on regular basis if his colonists have bad clothes, right?

So there would be an easy solution: Allow your colonists to take clothes by themselves, when they want to change it. Like eating...
Or in the summer when it is hot, the colonists should lay down the parkas and when it becomes cold over a longer period of time, the colonists will search for warm clothes.

Then you have the very nice feature of taking care about cloth production, but without too much micromanagement.

[Tynan]

I agree with the OP. But to be clear, it's not deterioration that bothers him; it's micromanaging the results of that. Right?

Anyway, I responses to this same complain on reddit. Have a look see: http://www.reddit.com/r/RimWorld/comments/2wlavo/clothing_degradation_do_you_like_it_or_no/cos8q3v

[Silvador]

I think the point here is not that clothes are getting worse over time. I think the disappointing thing for Tim is to check on regular basis if his colonists have bad clothes, right?

So there would be an easy solution: Allow your colonists to take clothes by themselves, when they want to change it. Like eating...
Or in the summer when it is hot, the colonists should lay down the parkas and when it becomes cold over a longer period of time, the colonists will search for warm clothes.

Then you have the very nice feature of taking care about cloth production, but without too much micromanagement.

A bit off topic, but to add to this, it would be great if you could designate some power consuming things, like lights and crafting tables, to permit a colonist to turn it off when not in use, and on when needed. For example, a colony of 10-20 is wasting massive amounts of power when no one is sleeping but all their lights are on. And when the smelting and tailoring benches aren't being used for extended periods, its a waste of power for them to sit powered on.

[BattleFate]

I like Tynan's proposed solution for the micromanaging on Reddit. However there's one other problem that the deterioration has caused for me in respect to management. I can't trade goods that are inside. If left outside waiting for a trader, then they deteriorate. Ideally, I'd like to be able to trade goods that are in my stockpiles inside. If for realism sake we need to transport them outside for a trade, make it so that there's a new 'trader' job and once a trade has been negotiated, then 'traders' will start hauling the goods you sold to the trade beacon for 'transport.' They can also be the ones that haul items back from the trade beacons that you received to the stockpiles.

[Tynan]

You can trade indoor goods now.

[tommytom]

Degradation or not, I have always wanted them to have a "uniform" or "quality preference".

The next step would be "work clothes" and "defense uniform" where you might perfer devilstrand for fighting and synthread for heat/cold/fire protection.

If the whole purpose of outdoor degradation is automated cleanup of crap laying around, I wouldn't mind them degrading faster. Like say, after 5 days, they get 10% degradation per day, so 5 days is fine but 15 days or less (depending on current wear from fights, etc) and they poof.

[BattleFate]

You can trade indoor goods now.

Ah, great thanks. Didn't notice the change I guess.

[Silvador]

You can trade indoor goods now.

Ah, great thanks. Didn't notice the change I guess.

Neither did I. Found out by chance. If it was in the changelog, I didn't see it.

[TimTumm]

To answer the question, both bother me to an extent, but the micromanagement much much more significantly.  My small rule of thumb is, "what benefit does gameplay gain by adding ____ feature?" Certainly the game becomes more rich and complex by adding item wear.  That is something.

On a personal level, I played Skyrim with the mod that disabled such deterioration, because I was playing the game (and rimworld) for other reasons that total realism/immersion.  To me I'd rather not add complex for its own sake.  Sometimes you just want to mow down 30 raiders in a kill zone.

[Julia]

Micro on clothes is a bit annoying, yes.

Also switching on/off is a bit annoying, and since you can build a switch anyway, I don't see the point. It saves time and micro if you can do it from the map view, instead of pausing the game and selecting colonists to power-on your kill-zone.

Doesn't add realism/hardship - it only makes you pause and assign colonists manually, and micro more than needed. And you get another [X] work slot to check - too much.

[tommytom]

Micro on clothes is a bit annoying, yes.

Also switching on/off is a bit annoying, and since you can build a switch anyway, I don't see the point. It saves time and micro if you can do it from the map view, instead of pausing the game and selecting colonists to power-on your kill-zone.

Doesn't add realism/hardship - it only makes you pause and assign colonists manually, and micro more than needed. And you get another [X] work slot to check - too much.

Same. I thought for the longest time that the electricity system was bugged when I toggled a solar generator (you can't now) and all my "controlling" priorities are 4s. I now have them all set to 1s to be sure things get flipped, but, yes, it seems stupid to even have to do that if the switches can be controlled via the player, defeating the purpose of things needing to be switched on and off by colonists.

[Tynan]

Switch issues are going to be addressed. But stay on topic please.