I'm assuming not many people play in these kinds of areas cause if there were, the balance wouldn't be so bad. I'm playing in these areas exclusively for fun but the removal of the sun light (without research) has made it now seemingly impossible.
If you don't build a room and put up a fire place in the first few minutes everyone will die from hypothermia. If you're too slow and someone got hypothermia before its done, they still may die from a infection.
Since there are no trees around, you must build a sola/wind generator asap and then build heaters or you die from hypothermia.
You then cannot grow food as it is perma freezing so you have to make a room and use heaters and a grow light (which now you have to research for, so now you can't grow food for a long time and have a high chance of starving to death). It might have been better if there were anything to hunt but nope there is almost nothing to hunt 99% of the time. Also trying to go anywhere far from home or for a extended period of time is a suicide mission cause you don't have warm clothing and to get those you need to grow cotton or hunt the almost non-existent animals and then spend a long time to make it.
Now add to that fending raiders, eclipses, solar flares that shut down every single thing keeping you alive and kill all your plants (it gets easier late game where you can have a huge supply of food and warm clothing, but early game its brutal).
I'm not asking for it to be easy or even close to what having a colony in a normal area is like but at least make it more doable. I really do not see it being possible without the sun light or some way to get a constant supply of food early game. Though I will still try so we shall see.
That is the point of the ice sheets, to be really hard and unforgiving. Also just a tip, you can grow in gravel.
I know how to make a arctic colony but it all depended on having the sun light at start. Making it a research item makes the task seemingly impossible now cause you would starve to death by the time you research it and then grow food.
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Not really impossible, just a little harder. You might have to actually eat people then. Also just saying I have been around long enough that it was a mod to play in the ice sheets, it was a challenge back then too.
I tried, eating people just make them break and/or daze and then they die. Also doesn't help for the mode where you start with one guy. btw I'm a kickstarter backer, should tell you how long I've been playing :P
You just have to research hydroponics asap. In the meantime use all your money on food when given a chance, and live of the food brought by raiders + human flesh if needed. You also should hunt all the animals on the map at game start, and kill your starting animal the second u start the game. Another important thing is to haul all your starting Food to a safe shelter, so not eaten by other animals, you need every ration.
This is how I've always played, and I've seldom gone for that early gravel farm anyways, but straight for hydroponics. Turrets can wait, make a trap defense system walled in in the meantime.
If you don't want to eat people, you can use them as bait. Carnivores entering the map will path to your bait and you can kill them within the vicinity of your abode. Leaving a little bit of food outside for herbivores does the trick as well, but you need to micromanage like hell to prevent the little ones from actually eating your bait.
Sunlamps requiring research has been fixed in 15c:
https://ludeon.com/blog/2016/08/alpha15c-in-testing-on-unstable-branch/
Quote from: Serenity on September 03, 2016, 06:48:40 AM
Sunlamps requiring research has been fixed in 15c:
https://ludeon.com/blog/2016/08/alpha15c-in-testing-on-unstable-branch/
It says "Fix: Standing lamps and sun lamps are available without research."
It means that sunlamps were supposed to require research, before the patch it was available at start.
@Andy_Dandy
You now have to research the sunlamp and hydroponics, I don't think you would get very far that way ...
@Varnhagen
I see like one or two every few weeks/months, thats no where enough food and most of the time its a polarbear that kills/badly injures (+infection) someone.
Its possible and yehh human meat is your best food, for longer part of establishing stable colony. After 8 tries im on a good way to be stable, with good ammount of corpses to eat.
Anyways guys i got a challange for you :D
-No early game mods, not including UI mods
-No edb for colonist creation(yes mashochistic randome clicking) :D
-Lone Explorer Scenario
-Randy, i do this on extreme/permadeath but bit lower difficulity level without permadeath shouldnt really change much(randy for not so steady supplies of corpses)
-Map 400x300 with "planetologist" seed
-Colony map size(advenced button) 325x325
-Colony location at coords 41.60E , 71.47N. Big white thingy on the north parth on the map, there are three locations with winter -80 and below any of them is decent thrugh the coords i did post have good open space with good defensive position near mountain(usuall spawn point).
-Goal get colony to be able to sustain 10 colonists and have atleast 3 canibals :D
Quote from: mrofa on September 03, 2016, 12:21:10 PM
Its possible and yehh human meat is your best food, for longer part of establishing stable colony. After 8 tries im on a good way to be stable, with good ammount of corpses to eat.
Anyways guys i got a challange for you :D
-No early game mods, not including UI mods
-No edb for colonist creation(yes mashochistic randome clicking) :D
-Lone Explorer Scenario
-Randy, i do this on extreme/permadeath but bit lower difficulity level without permadeath shouldnt really change much(randy for not so steady supplies of corpses)
-Map 400x300 with "planetologist" seed
-Colony map size(advenced button) 325x325
-Colony location at coords 41.60E , 71.47N. Big white thingy on the north parth on the map, there are three locations with winter -80 and below any of them is decent thrugh the coords i did post have good open space with good defensive position near mountain(usuall spawn point).
-Goal get colony to be able to sustain 10 colonists and have atleast 3 canibals :D
I don't use mods, I always click random and play lone survivor. And I always regenerate the map until I can find a ice sheet cold enough that is always in the negative. :P
I think there are certainly missing factors here.
If you were on an ice sheet and you were going to die, good chance you may feel OK with eating Steve who was annoying anyhow. Many people choose themselves over others, especially when they don't have a close connection to someone.
I feel like humans in "bad circumstances" often do things they wouldn't do otherwise, and they live with it because they know they can't survive without doing them. So having a mental break that makes them kill another survivor seems unlikely in such circumstances. If you decide to eat Steve you are ok with it, if you aren't, you wouldn't do it in the first place and would just die instead.
Mental breaks are an interesting story telling aspect of the game but there are certainly many aspects in which it could be improved. There are more interesting stories that could be told and the game would be more interesting if it were a bit less "predictable" in regards to people "Losing it" over the same thing.
Quote from: hoochy on September 03, 2016, 12:44:08 PM
I think there are certainly missing factors here.
If you were on an ice sheet and you were going to die, good chance you may feel OK with eating Steve who was annoying anyhow. Many people choose themselves over others, especially when they don't have a close connection to someone.
I feel like humans in "bad circumstances" often do things they wouldn't do otherwise, and they live with it because they know they can't survive without doing them. So having a mental break that makes them kill another survivor seems unlikely in such circumstances. If you decide to eat Steve you are ok with it, if you aren't, you wouldn't do it in the first place and would just die instead.
Mental breaks are an interesting story telling aspect of the game but there are certainly many aspects in which it could be improved. There are more interesting stories that could be told and the game would be more interesting if it were a bit less "predictable" in regards to people "Losing it" over the same thing.
Sounds like you have something against a Steve. What did he do?
Keeping spare charged batteries can save your ass during a prolonged eclipse. This is true in any colony, but especially in an extreme biome such as an ice sheet. Solar flares are another story... there is hardly any way to cope with them. I guess you buy wood from traders and stockpile it, then make campfires when the inevitable happens, and hope it lasts.
I haven't made a serious ice sheet attempt yet, but I think you've convinced me to give it a go 8)
Quote from: eadras on September 03, 2016, 05:23:46 PM
Keeping spare charged batteries can save your ass during a prolonged eclipse. This is true in any colony, but especially in an extreme biome such as an ice sheet. Solar flares are another story... there is hardly any way to cope with them. I guess you buy wood from traders and stockpile it, then make campfires when the inevitable happens, and hope it lasts.
I haven't made a serious ice sheet attempt yet, but I think you've convinced me to give it a go 8)
I just put up 2 sola to get the first heater going and then its all wind before finally geothermal.
Don't forget other animals on the map are hungry, too. Try leaving a corpse out in the open, then shooting any animals that come to eat it.
wow I just noticed this ... thicker walls = longer time for the temperature to change
Quote from: mrofa on September 03, 2016, 12:21:10 PM
-Mrofa's issued challenge-
Just started something close to this, however i made a custom scenario (not released to steam), am doing it on a mountainous boreal forest, the average temp for summer is 58.5 F and the average temp for winter is -5.3, and the growing period is from the 1st of summer to the 11th of summer. it is On Randy and Extreme
One colonist start with 10 packaged survival meals, no pet, 150 steel and wood, 9 components, no weapon, no starting tech and 5 meds. the only saving grace for this is that the colonist is always going to be between 21-25 years old.
Edit: Forgot to mention the story teller and the difficulty.
Quote from: alexrou on September 02, 2016, 11:09:22 PM
I'm assuming not many people play in these kinds of areas cause if there were, the balance wouldn't be so bad. I'm playing in these areas exclusively for fun but the removal of the sun light (without research) has made it now seemingly impossible.
If you don't build a room and put up a fire place in the first few minutes everyone will die from hypothermia. If you're too slow and someone got hypothermia before its done, they still may die from a infection.
Since there are no trees around, you must build a sola/wind generator asap and then build heaters or you die from hypothermia.
You then cannot grow food as it is perma freezing so you have to make a room and use heaters and a grow light (which now you have to research for, so now you can't grow food for a long time and have a high chance of starving to death). It might have been better if there were anything to hunt but nope there is almost nothing to hunt 99% of the time. Also trying to go anywhere far from home or for a extended period of time is a suicide mission cause you don't have warm clothing and to get those you need to grow cotton or hunt the almost non-existent animals and then spend a long time to make it.
Now add to that fending raiders, eclipses, solar flares that shut down every single thing keeping you alive and kill all your plants (it gets easier late game where you can have a huge supply of food and warm clothing, but early game its brutal).
I'm not asking for it to be easy or even close to what having a colony in a normal area is like but at least make it more doable. I really do not see it being possible without the sun light or some way to get a constant supply of food early game. Though I will still try so we shall see.
Trivial hypothermia doesnt cause infections, but the late-stage "Frostbite" does.
Quote from: John_Bigless on September 04, 2016, 10:58:42 AM
Trivial hypothermia doesnt cause infections, but the late-stage "Frostbite" does.
Being outdoors in -80C gives you frostbite pretty quickly, making it hard to do anything outdoors without micromanaging everyone's health. Also thats far from the only problem ... the main one is not being able to grow food without the sunlamp.
I'm currently trying to get an ice sheet game started and in 15c I can build sun lamps right away.
The lone explorer scenario works very well for an ice sheet. A small gravel patch can feed a single guy together with some hunting. And you start with a charge rifle. It lacks range, but can easily take down a polar bear. They give lots of meat.
A geyser can be used for heating by the way if you start near one close to a wall.
The game will bombard you with escape pods so you can freely pick who you like and let the rest die and take their stuff. That's a bit gamey, but works well. I also run the Hospitality mod, so I can now decline the random wanderers. This allows you to grow your colony exactly as fast as you want.
The big issue is getting a character that is a jack of all trades. In my first attempt I did pretty well, then someone crashed with awesome across the board skills. I rushed a prison hole and rescued her with her losing two fingers. Patched her up, but then I notice that I only have 1 Social, which meant a recruitment chance of less than 2% :s
Also, visitors eating all your food is even more annoying now :/
Quote from: alexrou on September 04, 2016, 12:54:43 PMAlso thats far from the only problem ... the main one is not being able to grow food without the sunlamp.
That's the main reason I don't play arctic biomes. Even eskimos (or any other population of humans in equivalent environments) have way more options at their disposal to survive and strive than what the game is currently able to simulate.
I get it that it's more or less a playground for people to have fun with cannibalism, but everything seems so extremely contrieved and limited to me that even that doesn't make it an appealing/original concept enough.
I haven't given it a shot in a15 yet, but back in a14 I managed ice sheet colonies without cannibalism quite regularly, even on higher difficulty levels. I didn't go for the insane freezing ice sheets that some people do, and usually prepared-carefully decent pawns (nothing crazy, but just having all my bases covered). The formula was pretty simple, basically what other people have said:
-- Build some steel walls next to a mountain, a solar panel, a battery, a heater.
-- Simple research bench, 100% dedicated pawn who can give up their clothes to help others who need to go outside.
-- Dig dig dig a base.
-- Hunt any animal that comes nearby.
-- Start hydroponics ASAP. You don't actually need a sunlamp - you can do it by regular lamp-light, plants just grow slower.
Never needed to even use campfires, though as mentioned, this is on "normal" ice sheets rather than the insane-hell-frost-frozen variety.
That actually makes me want to change my mind again.
It all sounded just so "dry" and boring for me to play through, to only ever have ONE option (because no animals, no wood, no traders, etc.), but I may be wrong about it. I'll have to give it a try.
Thank you for that, BlueWinds.
So I got this seed .... who wants to try -91C lol
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Quote from: alexrou on September 04, 2016, 03:31:33 PM
So I got this seed .... who wants to try -91C lol
Doing that map now, got a small colony going. Locationlocationlocation.jpg is where I ended up picking. Very high elevation, very cold year round, though not the -91C average that you found. Upper left corner of the map if you have trouble finding it.
Right now, the colony is very small, and getting low on food. I'll post a picture of the colony if I manage to survive past the 15th of summer.
*edit* Made it to fall, I did a risky thing in trying to take down a thrumbo. It died, but not before tearing a hole in my colonist that wasn't going to heal on its own.
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Quote from: alexrou on September 02, 2016, 11:09:22 PM
~ a whole lot of complaining about ice sheets being 'unbalanced' ~
Ice sheets have been dumbed down into easy mode enough already.
Before they did not have any animals on the map outside of thrumbos or manhunter packs, making it an actual challenge to get either a good grow room or hydroponics up in time before everyone started to starve.
They are not supposed to be balanced. They are supposed to be a challenge. >:(
Quote from: Britnoth on September 04, 2016, 11:21:31 PM
Quote from: alexrou on September 02, 2016, 11:09:22 PM
~ a whole lot of complaining about ice sheets being 'unbalanced' ~
Ice sheets have been dumbed down into easy mode enough already.
Before they did not have any animals on the map outside of thrumbos or manhunter packs, making it an actual challenge to get either a good grow room or hydroponics up in time before everyone started to starve.
They are not supposed to be balanced. They are supposed to be a challenge. >:(
Would I be playing in -91C if I didn't want a challenge? :P I was just ranting when 15C made sunlamps a research item. Like it just feels so impossible early game without it.
Quote from: Britnoth on September 04, 2016, 11:21:31 PM
Before they did not have any animals on the map
Yeah, the animals make it somewhat easy. Polar bears often starve (though they can eat foxes and hares), which makes them come to you where they can be killed.
Or what just happened to me:
"Mhhh, running a bit low on meat" - *a few seconds later* - man hunter pack alert! - "Cool, three muffalos! Let's turn on the turret."
Quote from: alexrou on September 04, 2016, 11:34:41 PM
Would I be playing in -91C if I didn't want a challenge? :P I was just ranting when 15C made sunlamps a research item. Like it just feels so impossible early game without it.
Sunlamps do not need research unless you are playing the tribal start.
Before you could build sunlamps as tribals before you could generate any power to use them. Having them require electricity technology just helps to avoid confusion. Well, not always it seems.
Regardless, it is entirely possible as crash landing or rich man start to get to hydroponics
and get your first crop in before you run out of food. The new animals on the map are just an unwelcome crutch to help get there. :o
Yehh animals dont really stay long, polar bears stays the longest but when winter comes they in most cases run away from the map.
makkenhoff:
I know the feeling had the same colony ending with thombro :D
Quote from: Britnoth on September 05, 2016, 04:48:28 AM
Quote from: alexrou on September 04, 2016, 11:34:41 PM
Would I be playing in -91C if I didn't want a challenge? :P I was just ranting when 15C made sunlamps a research item. Like it just feels so impossible early game without it.
Sunlamps do not need research unless you are playing the tribal start.
Before you could build sunlamps as tribals before you could generate any power to use them. Having them require electricity technology just helps to avoid confusion. Well, not always it seems.
Regardless, it is entirely possible as crash landing or rich man start to get to hydroponics and get your first crop in before you run out of food. The new animals on the map are just an unwelcome crutch to help get there. :o
What if I wanted to play tribal then :P
Cannibalize useless tribe members.
Maybe tribals need a special technology they can research, "baby seal club", allowing them to harvest food from frozen lake squares.
Quote from: Aatxe360 on September 05, 2016, 04:35:28 PM
Cannibalize useless tribe members.
+1
Especially the ones who refuse to work! (Like, I'm not hauling that wood!)
I don't think it is ridiculous for animals to be on ice sheets, they exist on earth too. Now, if we are trying to find a way to make the ice sheet "easier" fishing seems the logical choice - but I don't find it all that hard right now, once you get past the initial danger of frostbite. Tribals would admittedly have a tough time. I'm not even sure I'd be up for that kind of challenge.
Yeah, the tribal start on an ice sheet is basically unviable. But as others have pointed out, maybe it *should* be. There's no reason the game should be winnable if you pick intentionally awful starting conditions.
Hmmm, I wonder how bad a tribal ice sheet is on phoebe easy?
I'm pretty sure I saw a twitch stream with someone trying a tribal ice sheet. Was pretty well along already though, so I didn't stop and watch it at all. So I don't know exactly how bad the conditions were, or if he made a scenario to ease it up a bit.
It was definitely an ice sheet, but there are some with not nearly so brutal conditions as others.
theres a lot of letsplay Rimworld icesheets around so if your stuck just check youtube for a work around.
Can I point out that a good way of heating your colonists and creating an early barrack is to build around a steam geyser! It heats your colonists and keeps the place at a stable temperature of around 20 degrees C.
yep. build steam geyser room, asap. choose one that's near a mountain (the larger the better).. then start expanding slowly. monitor your temp, don't expand too fast or you'd lose temperature fast.
-steam geyser heat stuff up for free.
-mining hollows up space for expanding your colony.
-mining also provides building materials and other resources.
-if insect hives appear in your mines, then jackpot! do your farmville thing on the insects
-try to maintain a good temperature for the hive so they don't go poof.
-???
-profit and lots of delicious jellies.
----------
i think extreme biomes are easier, coz the challenge is mostly about colony management.
meanwhile, the main challenge of temperate biomes are mostly about the battles. (aka : FUN)
It takes luck getting that geyser though. And geysers aren't part of the map seed. So if you find a good seed online and load it the geyser won't be in the same place.
When you get it, it's great though. Geyser + gravel patch + hydroponics. Only four people, but I've got too much food really (hydroponics grow insanely fast). The room is a bit bigger because of the farming area and the entrance area that I use for crafting, but I just put in some additional heaters. The pawns wouldn't mind it being colder, but the plants do. It's only -22°C outside because it's spring. In the winter it's usually -50°.
There is even a second geyser to the left - and the area is easily defendable, but I've been hesitant to open that up unless I really have to.
EDIT TO ADD:
The game has been harassing me with mechanoid raids several times. But it also showers you with gifts. Like a the 12 strong muffallo man hunter pack that just fell to my turrets. It's just free meat. More than I know what do with.
Other things are not an issue in the arctic. Currently there is a volcanic winter, but who cares? Same with toxic fallout. Just doesn't matter - you only have to be careful to not spend too much time outside.
One of the really extreme temperature maps would be more of a challenge. I'm just about managing for my pawns to be comfortable in -50-60°C. Also thanks to the game dropping some megatherium wool from the sky. Which I then turned into tuques. Wool tuques are just way too good for the little they cost.
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Quote from: Shurp on September 05, 2016, 06:39:37 PM
Maybe tribals need a special technology they can research, "baby seal club", allowing them to harvest food from frozen lake squares.
Considering the difficulty of tribal starts on hot maps was rendered a complete joke with the "magic wood cooler" being added, I would not be entirely surprised if something like this was done. :-\
Serenity, watch out, your prison looks easy for sappers to break into. You may want to build over by that geyser just to make your base more defendable.
I know. Defense-wise that has been my biggest fear so far. And it's a huge way around so I wouldn't catch sappers in time. But I was also a bit unsure if it's wise to make a opening there when I don't really have to. On the other hand from what I've seen in videos, the AI tends to remember attack paths and stick to what it knows.
But I've got the resources now that I can expand a bit. And that geyser looks tempting...
Otherwise, it's mostly been more mechanoids, more mechanoids and another man hunter pack of wargs. Yay, more free meat.
probably too cold for anyone else to visit. You won't see tribals attacking. Maybe not pirates either if it's too cold out.
I've had some. Almost all my clothing - especially the parkas - comes from dead bodies. It's not that cold in the summer. A bit below freezing. So it's not one of those super extreme maps. But I also just had a long volcanic winter. And even during normal winter it's so cold that many visitors just turn around.
On the picture above you can actually see two tribals being patched up to improve relations a little. There was a third too, but he left already. I temporarily had turn my infirmary into a prison cell.
But honestly, it being super cold all the time and nobody except mechanoids visiting you sounds pretty boring in the long run.