Do most people who play this game actually do so with the main objective of building a ship and getting offworld in mind?
That seems to be what Tygan thinks, and it seems to influence most of his decisions about the game being a "survive, not prosper" simulator (scarcity of resources, unable to build advanced tech, etc).
I'm not one of those people so I am very glad how moddable the game is to provide content for a game where the developer assumes you've already blasted off.
I don't really see what makes you think that's what Tynan thinks. He has added quite a bit to make the game world a bigger place, earlier alphas didn't have travelling, establishing additional colonies, etc.
I agree if u only look at the earlier alphas.
I wonder if he will go even further in to "long-play" content like children.
to adress the topic my first colonies aimed at winning.
Now i am more in the mod-it-till-it-breaks mentality.
I joined pretty early and have yet to build a space-ship.
Which is mainly because of my modding attitude and I tend to break my game before I reach the technology.
I tend to build the spaceship only when a new alpha comes out, since until this latest release save games were incompatible across alphas.
I find the "build a spaceship and escape" goal a little odd. While the starting pawns may not be on the planet by choice, by the time you have progressed to the point where you can build the spaceship years have passed and you probably have a sizeable, sustainable settlement.
Maybe it's just me but by the time I can build a spaceship I'm thinking why would my colonists want to? Perhaps it's the lack of any true context in the setting. We start with three individuals who have two sentences of backstory and no understanding of where they came from, where they are going and why so there is little sense of urgency to get off world. This leads to a colonise and settle mentality since rushing to the AI ship would cut short the game.
I would like to see additional win conditions introduced focused on longer term colonisation.
The repeated raids by (potentially cannibalistic) tribes might be a reason to leave ^^' .
My impression is that the "build a ship to escape" scenario is just an option for those new to the game who need a goal to focus on while they learn what's all going on around them. Once you've built the ship once there's not much incentive to build it again. Especially when odds are the ship isn't going anywhere better than where it's leaving from.
Quote from: Shurp on December 10, 2017, 03:27:51 PMEspecially when odds are the ship isn't going anywhere better than where it's leaving from.
You can never escape the Rim!
It can be a last option when you're overwhelmed with raiders. Just load up and go before they drill the walls!
I have 440 hours in Steam, more in the standalone and I've never built a ship part.
I need my plasteel for modded bionics.
I only build the ship for lore reasons anymore. Being in space without a ship doesn't really make sense. Combine the vanilla ship with mods that give more ship furniture/walls and more ship types you can make a massive space port. At that point why leave just to crash on another planet?
I've never tried to "win", even once. I *like* sandboxes.
I usually build the ship but not launch it for a good bit. I haven't had the time to try out the B18 quest to activate the ship, where you fight raids for a few days. Sounds pretty fun though and probably feels more satisfying to send off a colony that way.
I've probably logged hundreds of hours in this game (before and after steam) and I've yet to build a ship.
I don't see the need to "win" the game by getting off the planet. In the past, I always hit a peak with my colony then I just stop. But now that there is the option of packing up and moving, if I simply get tired of my currently area, and I don't wish to restart, I just start a caravan and move my colony to a new location. Its quite abit of fun in that sense because you can actually choose a nomadic lifestyle as well in which you don't stay in an area for too long.
The landed ship.
That's the new really challenging win condition. Early game you need to recruit people to build the base and to get things done. But when you travel, having too many colonists is a drag. So you've to find the sweet spot to build your team, have your colony working and then hit the road.
The survival wave during 15 days is no joke, building the ship in your colony sounds like a piece of cake in comparison.
Now, these "win" conditions take years to achieve, and usually at this point there is no longer any challenge in your game if you chill on the road or in your colony.
Quote from: Wanderer_joins on December 11, 2017, 10:39:10 AM
The survival wave during 15 days is no joke, building the ship in your colony sounds like a piece of cake in comparison.
Now, these "win" conditions take years to achieve, and usually at this point there is no longer any challenge in your game if you chill on the road or in your colony.
No joke eh? Do they still factor wealth and all that or are these waves kind of predetermined? Do you have to settle your colony in the tile with the ship? I was thinking about using drop pods to transfer items over.
Well in the past in the A14 i wanted to... Of course win the game... And i kinda did launch half-all of them into space while some of the three colonists stays around keeping the colony alive.
Since i was too attached to my characters. Marco being my favorite psychopath of all time in the colony in A14 rocking with a *MASTERWORK* Shotgun.
Now a days i play in Perma-Death and to see my other ways of playing the game and learning new things and tactics and other stuff about how i learn from it.
Have you heard Losing Is Fun? I know not everyone like hearing that word but still...
Quote from: Kirby23590 on December 11, 2017, 08:08:02 PM
Well in the past in the A14 i wanted to... Of course win the game... And i kinda did launch half-all of them into space while some of the three colonists stays around keeping the colony alive.
Since i was too attached to my characters. Marco being my favorite psychopath of all time in the colony in A14 rocking with a *MASTERWORK* Shotgun.
Now a days i play in Perma-Death and to see my other ways of playing the game and learning new things and tactics and other stuff about how i learn from it.
Have you heard Losing Is Fun? I know not everyone like hearing that word but still...
It depends. Sometimes it is, sometimes not. Like... is it funny to lose 3rd match in a row due to shit team in Robocraft?
Quote from: kubolek01 on December 12, 2017, 12:59:28 AM
Quote from: Kirby23590 on December 11, 2017, 08:08:02 PM
Well in the past in the A14 i wanted to... Of course win the game... And i kinda did launch half-all of them into space while some of the three colonists stays around keeping the colony alive.
Since i was too attached to my characters. Marco being my favorite psychopath of all time in the colony in A14 rocking with a *MASTERWORK* Shotgun.
Now a days i play in Perma-Death and to see my other ways of playing the game and learning new things and tactics and other stuff about how i learn from it.
Have you heard Losing Is Fun? I know not everyone like hearing that word but still...
It depends. Sometimes it is, sometimes not. Like... is it funny to lose 3rd match in a row due to shit team in Robocraft?
I never heard of Robocraft untill now...
I think it's kind of funny and okay to laugh when you get a game over in single player games like
FTL And
Dwarf Fortress though it depends in RimWorld if a colony gets destroyed because of a single wild man that became an manhunter.
But in
Multiplayer Games like
Counter-strike or in
MOBA Games like
Dota 2 and
League of legends and getting yelled at because of one single mistake is not fun...
I prefer playing single player games or with my friends instead.
I used to launch all my games until A17, all tribal scenarios. But with B18 and it's 600 days to launch...that's too much, so one can simply play the typical 2/3rds of the game and when you know all that it's left is building the ship, just start a new game. Screw the industrious advanced component grinding.
Well, I like to start with absolutely nothing but 1 colonist. I build a simple hut and grow some rice.
And my colonist captures a girl and successfully makes her his lover, it almost counts as a "win" for me. However, after marriage things tend to get a little dull...
Hell yes, I build the ship. It's the one thing that is an actual target, giving the rest of the gameplay a purpose.
But honestly, the biggest motivator is the ending song - pure gold. This is one of the best game soundtracks ever, and when I do get the ship launched, I let the whole thing play out and just sit and chill to it.
Quote from: orty on December 13, 2017, 11:45:19 AM
Hell yes, I build the ship. It's the one thing that is an actual target, giving the rest of the gameplay a purpose.
But honestly, the biggest motivator is the ending song - pure gold. This is one of the best game soundtracks ever, and when I do get the ship launched, I let the whole thing play out and just sit and chill to it.
Waiting, waiting for the Sun...
I have played since Alpha 15 and I have never once launched a spaceship let alone built a spaceship component.
I usually get bored of my colonies right when it's time to start construction of the spaceship.
When everything is researched and the colony is almost inpenetrable I just lose interest and want to start a new game again.
Agreed, the end music is really cool. Now if only the spaceship launch animation could compare to it...
Quote from: Shurp on December 14, 2017, 07:36:40 PM
Agreed, the end music is really cool. Now if only the spaceship launch animation could compare to it...
Agreed. I would really love to see a video/animation of all colonists boarding but without generic pawn icons, the most detailed as they are at the moment, with clothes and limbs replacements included so that we really get so say good-bye to the people we have been with al those rim-years. A white screen a passengers list alone is very poor.
Quote from: lancar on December 14, 2017, 07:30:50 AM
I usually get bored of my colonies right when it's time to start construction of the spaceship.
When everything is researched and the colony is almost inpenetrable I just lose interest and want to start a new game again.
I know that feeling, but I like that just when that monotony sets in, it's time to go hunt uranium for the ship parts, and that can be a whole mini game if there's not enough on your map, especially on the smaller map sizes.
I've only built the spaceship once or twice. I generally play until either I lose or my colony feels so stable that it would be impossible to lose. I wouldn't mind a victory condition, but I don't think the current spaceship one is very satisfying.
Quote from: orty on December 15, 2017, 01:43:47 PM
I know that feeling, but I like that just when that monotony sets in, it's time to go hunt uranium for the ship parts, and that can be a whole mini game if there's not enough on your map, especially on the smaller map sizes.
I played that "mini game" for the first time this weekend and I didn't find it very enjoyable. I had a tribal colony with 24 colonists (temperate swamp, Cassandra rough, started in unstable A18) about 5 years in and started pumping out Advanced components while researching the ship technologies (3 research benches and 2 component assembly benches). Worked out quite well until I got to the last 4 cryptosleep caskets and noticed I was 57 uranium short to escape with all my colonists...
(Man, did I regret crafting those 3-5 shield belts a year or two back.)
It took a hell of a long time to get those 57 pieces. I tried:
- Deep drilling. I build (unpowered) drills on 90% of the nodes. I got a few with gold and jade but not even one with uranium. In the end I used dev mode to convert the soil of the last 10% of nodes into buildable ground - no uranium there neither.
- 10 trading caravans. 7 of them were bulk good traders I called for silver in hopes they would carry any uranium furniture. No luck.
- ca. 6 quest locations. No luck.
- ca. 6 settlements (Outlanders and Tribals) in the vicinity. The last one had a stack of ~120 uranium and enabled my escape.
It was just a waiting/RNG game and no fun. I normally do not play on 3x speed a lot, usually take care of all the little daily needs of my colonists and fill the time with small optimizations. Not that time though. A third of my colonists were idle in the end but I didn't even care to create new bills because I did not need anything but Uranium. And what is the point of generating more wealth if no one is willing to sell me the ONE thing I want...
At that point I really missed the feature in Dwarf Fortress where caravans would come with an envoy and you could make a list of things you need. Future caravans from that faction would most likely stock these things but for increased prices. The interface was terrible but the idea itself is need. Just let me use the comm console to broadcast my interest in certain goods to increase the likelyhood that traders have it in stock with a hefty price bump. It may even cost goodwill. Anything to give me more influence and less dependence on RNG.
(I know that a solution would have been to settle (and abandon) colonies in nearby tiles and check for Uranium. But I find that multiple colonies make the game too easy by removing the whole aspect of resource scarcity. And since multiple colonies are not even recommended by the game they should not be required to build a ship without the game becoming a drag.)
I don't play the game to escape on the ship either. Mainly because I play the tribal start most often. To me, that's the funnest, as I have the most research to do over the longest period, and because it's the remnants of a tribe trying to build a new home, it doesn't make sense in my head for them to necessarily want to leave their home. Though I admit, a little imagination is all it takes to come up with multiple scenarios why that would be the case.
Anyways, if I ever get around to a crash landed or rich explorer start, I will definitely try the experience of building or reaching the ship to escape the planet. It's just not the most appealing method of play in my mind, that's all.
What other end game would people like to work toward ? The spaceship launch is something to work toward but gives limited scope. if you could have any choice of end game or a way to keep the game going what would you look for
Quote from: Jumper on January 23, 2018, 04:48:55 PM
What other end game would people like to work toward ?
Why, the same thing we do every night, Jumper. Try. To take over. The WORLD!
I have only been playing a month. so far I don't play to 'win'. After my people put all that time & effort into iguana breeding and house repairs, they usually grow to like their new life and want to stay.
Quote from: Jumper on January 23, 2018, 04:48:55 PM
What other end game would people like to work toward ? The spaceship launch is something to work toward but gives limited scope. if you could have any choice of end game or a way to keep the game going what would you look for
I just don't need one. I have plenty of fun without trying to "win."
Quote from: Walkaboutout on January 23, 2018, 11:39:19 AM
I don't play the game to escape on the ship either. Mainly because I play the tribal start most often. To me, that's the funnest, as I have the most research to do over the longest period, and because it's the remnants of a tribe trying to build a new home, it doesn't make sense in my head for them to necessarily want to leave their home. Though I admit, a little imagination is all it takes to come up with multiple scenarios why that would be the case.
Anyways, if I ever get around to a crash landed or rich explorer start, I will definitely try the experience of building or reaching the ship to escape the planet. It's just not the most appealing method of play in my mind, that's all.
It's kind of sad, but even tribes are not realistically gated on technology when it comes to launching the ship. Unless you allow multiple settlements or go giant maps to fish for uranium, its scarcity often winds up being *the* bottleneck to completing a ship in Rimworld.
Even if it isn't, the sheer volume of colonist work to assemble advanced components compared to tech throughput puts a tribe 1-2 years behind a crashlanded ship launch time at most. Quite possibly not even 1 with some starts.
In an earlier Alpha I managed to clear the entire tech tree (all researched) by year 3 using 2 pawns on one bench day/night as a tribe, though I got lucky with early researchers. It's a bit longer now, but only ~quadrum. I still usually have deep drilling + scanner by end of year 2 as a tribe.
Tribe can consistently get space tech by year 3-4 in current patch, but good luck getting the resources + work output by then. Too much micro and RNG for my blood to do it that fast. Still, crashlanded advantage after early game is minimal.
I like the tribal start, mainly because it gives me a really good reason to use clubs/maces/bows ^^'.
I usually aim for a militarial conquest, dominating pirate factions and making good trade bonds. I think only once I finished my game with ship escape, maybe it was back in A16.
So what happens if you wipe out all of the other settlements on the planet? Do you stop being attacked by humans, with only ship part assaults?
I'm certainly no expert, but I'd guess that you're correct, barring random events that involve non-faction human forces.
Quote from: Shurp on January 25, 2018, 09:10:15 PM
So what happens if you wipe out all of the other settlements on the planet? Do you stop being attacked by humans, with only ship part assaults?
And maybe drop pod pirates, coming from an orbiting ship?
OP you should have made a poll, it would be way more practical.
But talking about me, I'll never play to win, Rimworld is my new home and i just embrace it.
I don't really play to win. I've launched the ship in the past, and have done playthroughs with that goal in mind, but it's not what I play for.
Plus the ship is a real grind now, so it demotivates me. I don't want to grind for uranium. In the current version (B 18) I got close, but couldn't find the uranium, or the will to do so.
Besides, the design of the game is all about emergent gameplay, generating unique scenarios & stories.
Rimworld is as much about launching the ship as Minecraft is about defeating the End Dragon.
Building spaceship = zzzz, especially now that it's so grindy. I built a spaceship once in A15? I think, then never did again.
Now I usually play a single game and build a colony as giant as I can make it, and keep playing until it becomes too laggy to tolerate.
Quote from: Aszh on January 29, 2018, 07:43:57 PM
Building spaceship = zzzz, especially now that it's so grindy.
Unfortunately true. I just finished a B18 game with a ship launch and even with devmode hacked in components (uranium was ludicrously easy to get for some reason) it took literally
years for my guys to make the ship.
TBH I was very disappointed to see that the end game need for components is still so anti-fun, and that the pawn AI is still so atrocious. Most of the delay in building was because of the usual "build one square of wall, run across the entire map to eat a meal, build one square of wall, sleep" dance. It was still fun, don't get me wrong - but the AI annoyance finally made me rage-win to just end it. :)
I would also prefer to play games along with my gamer friends.
I see no reason to go for ship. Factorio had similar problem.
For me it would have sense if Save Our Ship (https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=35742.0) was in vanilla game so we could pick up some harder planet. (add somehow harder planets to game)
As well as few thing stated in Hairy's post there Rikiki's MiningCo.: Spaceships incoming! (https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=14711.msg395982#msg395982)
Not I. Built the ship a few times, even designed one or two to look like actual sleek enclosed spaceships with emergency storage and such...
But these days it's all about having a modded hauler bot army of doom riding around in a hover van. Build power stations, cart in turrets ten at a time, lay siege.
Quote from: OFWG on January 30, 2018, 03:10:16 PM
TBH I was very disappointed to see that the end game need for components is still so anti-fun, and that the pawn AI is still so atrocious. Most of the delay in building was because of the usual "build one square of wall, run across the entire map to eat a meal, build one square of wall, sleep" dance. It was still fun, don't get me wrong - but the AI annoyance finally made me rage-win to just end it. :)
FYI, a useful trick to prevent this sort of nonsense is to create a "stay put" zone. Create a zone around where you want pawns to work, make sure they're set to "Work" all day, and they'll eat on site, do work, and eventually start whining that they're exhausted. Then you can set them back to Home/Unrestricted and "Anything" and they'll go to bed.
(Don't leave your pawns in the work zone with a sleep option in their restrictions or they'll just lie down on the ground and pick up a slept in cold / on ground penalties without any warning)
Never been interested in the win, but to survive as long as possible and to build the coolest base possible.
Quote from: Shurp on February 08, 2018, 06:29:13 AM
(snip some good management tips)
I dislike micro with a passion so I prefer to use priorities and scheduling to do everything for me while I just do the construction planning, bills and combat (I don't like the combat either). That's why I get frustrated with the AI I guess, asking too much of it. At least it's good enough to be fun
almost all the time. :)
I think most people play to win when the game is new. That's how I played when I first got Rimworld. The task was to build a spaceship and escape the planet, so that's what my focus was. After completing the initial goal, I now play it more as a simulation and building game. I build different designs and in different biomes, trying out various things and just watch the pawns go about their lives.
Not me! I never once bothered with the ship, besides the reactor (for power). It's a nothingburger for me.
Quote from: Jumper on January 23, 2018, 04:48:55 PM
What other end game would people like to work toward ? The spaceship launch is something to work toward but gives limited scope. if you could have any choice of end game or a way to keep the game going what would you look for
Technological advance towards Glitterworld level with research for G-Medicine, Bionic Limbs, Artifacts production.
Domination victory of sorts: Player must build up 5 colonies and reach a specific wealth target. Factions should create their own territory zones across the globe instead of all randomly scattered which makes zero sense.
Conquer a specific Globe region. Now that the world has area naming, the target would be to place all 5 colonies within that geographical location while at the same time wiping out all other factions outposts, except maybe for the friendlies.
Capture alive the Faction leaders of others and build an empire were they serve you once you spare their lives. Kneel or die.
Monarchy: Maintain a lineage for 5 generations.
Touristic city or Commerce Center, make other factions reside within your compounds for extended periods. Coastal colonies could use the shores for beach resorts and each day visitors stay or consume an item, you cash in their money. Become the city of trade where other factions bring goods and buy goods. You manage the stock and item values rather than game default prices. Become a slaver nation or a red light district city.
I consider a win to not have eye scars before day 60 8)
Guess I'm an outlier, as I have 1000+ hours in the game and I still aim to build the spaceship every game. I just think it provides a pleasing sense of closure to a successful colony that, by that time, I am probably getting bored of. I only send the pawns who would have reason to leave--the original crashlanders, the ones without any family ties on the planet, etc. So in my mind, the colony continues... but my part in it is done. And the wistful song plays, and I think about all the happy memories I have with the little bastards... and then I start a new colony to do it all over again. :D
The uranium bottleneck is extremely un-fun, however.
I'm with Toast. :) I play to build the spaceship and then start over. Usually I am getting tired of that colony by then.
For me though, the advanced components are the biggest bottleneck. I can usually find enough uranium, or at least buy the bit I can't.