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Thanks for the post.  Will check back again in another month or so.  Wealth still ruling outcomes awkwardly and no other real changes seems the news of the last month.  I still love the game and have my fingers crossed.

Create a duplicate set of all walls and floors used in map gen and assign them a wealth of zero? "Ancient Slate Wall" etc.

As is, the 16k wealth buffer creates a strong incentive to remove all starting objects as soon as possible.

I have been thinking about a system where the players condition is broken into different indicators (total wealth, deterrence, technology, animal wealth, etc) and the different "factions" (manhunters, pirates, raiders, mechs, and room for mods etc to add more - etc) make "do i raid" decisions and "what do i raid for" decisions.  Having each faction make those decisions independently and then having the attacks arrive later based on the nearest point of origin for that faction would create interesting noise.  You might end up with raids arriving simultaneously - but you get that already and that is story.

I think a number of people in this thread have been pointing at something along those lines and I hope we see it.

The above reminds me of something I have considered many times:  if you have pods that can deliver any cargo accurately through the roofs of buildings, why don't you just send chem fuel and a trigger.

That is in the "things you don't want to think about too hard" section of RW Suspension of Disbelief.

One answer is "because people attack you because they want your stuff".
Counterpoints - siege attacks who fire incendiary mortar rounds and mechs don't want your stuff

I think the safest answer is "culture".  In the far future, using bombs or missiles that shoot further then you can throw a football is the equivalent of killing a person by poking out their eyes with your fingers;  even pirates, mechs, and cannibals wouldn't stoop that low.  It is such an issue what when you have SPACESHIPS IN ORBIT that thinking about it has been breed out of humanoid DNA.

Leaves a few great mysteries, like how do ships buy prisoners from you yet you can't buy your way off the planet.  Again, I think "culture" is the best answer:  the matter transporter beams used to move animals and prisoners into orbit steal your soul so no free being will ever consent to it.  "You" would die and make a "Soulless You Clone" or something like that.  Can't have that.

There are two factors that increase difficulty as you "progress": "Raid Scaling" and "Expectations".  When you take the game to extremes, the effects of both factors blend together and make it hard to isolate either.  What both have in common is that "progression" without gaming the system makes you weaker rather then stronger and both dynamics are less then apparent until they end your game a few times.

To continue the analogy, "Expectations" are a bit like if you were playing Doom and the more health, ammo, and weapons you collected the greater the chances of having a weapon jam or rocket explode in the tube next to your head.  If this was present in Doom, experienced players would shed weapons and ammo to optimize performance.  While I am sure there is a limited audience who would find this fun, and more who might like to give it a try as a mode, it is not fun as a part of a base game.

Current "Raid Scaling" has many issues.  Net, it creates "Right Path" which is both counter-intuitive and bad for creating story/immersion.  Regardless of how it happens or the genre, it is unsatisfying when you have a game with a large amount of content of which most is ignored or used only when playing around except when it is acting as a "trap/journey of exploration" for newer players.

Right now, "Right Path" has three primary tenants;

1.  Wealth Optimization
2.  Direct Pawn Combat Avoidance/AI Exploitation (Killbox, Turrets, Animals, Trap Maze, etc)
3.  Intentional Loses/Pawn Rejection

Without beating a dead horse, accomplishing the above, or even 2 out of 3, limits the "palette" a lot, which is shame, because it is a big and interesting palette.

Solving this is a matter of choosing a method of regulating difficulty that does not have these side effects and implementing it.  Ideas for several have been offered and I am sure you can think of some yourself, all of which involve work and time.

The question of of "is this worth doing at this time" is a tough one.  On one hand, the game as it is and was is very enjoyable and has found a healthy audience.  On the other, once people dig deep enough and begin to understand what is going on under the hood, some players begin to experience a "chalky after-taste".

To me, this comes down to a simple question - when you release this game as a final product, do you want it to be a great game (it already is) or an amazing game (which it certainly can be).  Most of that probably comes down to your emotional reserves - how badly you want to be able to say this chapter is done.

That choice is really personal and none of us can even pretend to judge it for you.

As always, thanks for the game, and cheers.

Or the 15 huskies.

I am game.  While your at it, think you could make one that deals with the distortions in sale prices?

Thrombo Fur Duster at 1450s = about 200 wall sections.  That's a base.

Clance renders normal flak pants completely useless since it has higher arpen than the 40% pants give you.

Arpen applies fully against each layer.

For some reason, there is a large misperception in the community that things like dstrand and heavy fur dusters actually matter. They don't, at least not against the one shot threats. And they provide marginal protection against everything else.

I assume they either don't care to know how the armor system math, didn't care to see how effective HP scales with armor values, don't know how arpen works, or some combination of the above.

For reference, going from 75->100 eff armor provides an 7.5x higher EHP increase than going from 0->25.

Since mitigation is all or nothing (unlike b18) low armor values don't even have the consolation of altering one shot breakpoints for destroying body parts.

If your primary concern is "Story Lances", BA/Sniper hits to the brain, and other such threats, shield belts and significant cover are much better answers then any armor in the game.

Besides Thrumbo Fur, Flak Vests, and Marine Armor, current version, armor is a joke for endgame, that is true.  Outside of endgame, it isn't useless:

EX: a Heavy Fur Duster, EX (90%) at 48.6% sharp (450s)

A Labrador Retriever has 17% melee AP.  Squirrels have 6.5% melee AP.   If you get bit/scratched 3 times, ~once it should help a bit against smaller animals.  Given how that tends to go, that means your going to heal a bit faster, more often then not, which isn't useless, but it is unlikely to save a Pawn.

A Pasteel Longsword has 40% melee AP.  That means your duster matters about 1 in 12 hits, and most hits will take a limb off.  A Charge Lance has 45% AP ... which means 1 in 33 hits ... useless.


My conclusion with "medium" armor is you might as well use it early game, but there is a point you should swap it all for cloth and sell it because it becomes wealth bloat. 

450s = 56.8 sections of granite wall...

Has anyone tried IED chains and high value objects left in the open?  Me thinks that needs tested.

[extreme]

New event idea: 

Randy drops a giant statue with extreme wealth value that you have to race over and laboriously disassemble before your next raid comes.

For extra meme credit, it could be a statue of a giant pile of guns and corpses which disassembles into, you guessed it, a giant pile of guns and corpses!

Was messing with cover/LOS last night.

A. Open doors provide 75% cover (so does being behind a wall section).  They also slow down pawns passing through the square - at least the stone ones do - even if they are left open (i am not sure if that is intended or not).  IE, a pawn in a doorway with an open door in front of them gets 75% cover compared to a pawn in a door with a sandbag, which gets 65% cover.

B.  At some ranges AND some diagonal angles, two different squares provide cover.  It is not consistent though, so I'd suggest you play with you pawns and point guns at each other and figure it out.  Basically, it looks like a ray is traced to the target and if it goes through two squares (both squares must be directly next to the pawn) the second square has a reduced effect.  Net, the best I have managed is a 79%% cover factor.

C.  If you put a pawn with a shield in that much cover it gets silly.  I have been messing with shield/frag pawns that I force fire at max range towards the enemy approach.


Some what related, I looked at wall "wealth" values and beauty values.  Smoothed walls sit a 15-20s ea and give 1 beauty, (unless marble which is 2 beauty and 25s).  A normal marble wall, which gives 1 beauty, is under 8s.  Smoothed floors are clearly a win - no wealth.  Smoothed walls .... not so much.  Much better to buy sculpture from the towns, much less make them yourself.  Wall values are not consistent either - hp vs time to build vs wealth is wonky. 

Wooden Large Sculpture, Good - 200 beauty/245s = .81s per beauty

The values for walls are strange when you compare them;  500s is 1 "chain shotgun, normal" or 63.13 granite wall sections or 25 smoothed granite or 12.09 granite doors OR 555.555 granite block (which sells for much more then then the gun, because .... reasons ...) which will make 111.111 granite wall sections or 22.222 granite doors....


It does illustrate that once you have a decked pawn with a charge lance etc spending a bit on a few walls and doors to make them an optimal fighting position is a very cheap force multiplier.  Probably better math then marine armor, honestly.

Add:  If I get the time tonight I may make some screenshots to illustrate the "zones" etc.

I think we could use a "wicker man" building that we can mount a pawn in so we can burn them as an offering to the adaption gods in an organized and dignified manner.  Old time religion.

Items, including corpses, show up in caravan/pod loading view if they are either in your home zone or in a stockpile.

Items seem to show up in colony wealth if they are on the map and not in the inventory of a living NPC.

Unless I am missing something, that means pod dropped items should become wealth as soon as they land.  Anyone tested that?  If so, the jade that drops that I have been ignoring because I have no use for it and it just takes up storage and worker time to go get it is actually a harmful blob of wealth I should be disarming.

Now that corpses have wealth value, that may mean that the animals killed but not fully consumed by predators/etc show up as wealth, at least until they rot (rotten corpses do not have wealth value).

Corpses, including humans, and mechanoids, now have a wealth value.  You can't see it in the info tab for an item, but you can see it in pods and caravan.

You can't sell them to towns or traders.  Not sure which of the "no list" updates that was but .... it happened.

Steel slag still has no value.

It is impacting colony wealth - checked a few old saves.

Example:

Deer Corpse: (135s)

Butchered:
30 Plain Leather (63s)
79 Meat (158s)
_______________
total components  (221s)