Mountain Roofs.

[glenmack]

I keep reading they cant be destroyed.

I don't understand it as a game design choice, can anyone point me to the reason why?

If you also know of a mod that makes getting rid of them possible in the current version, that would be cool.

[FyrnSkulblaka]

It's so that if you have a mountain base you need to keep the roof supported. And the reason you can't remove it is, well, try removing a mountain in real life :/ You can however use development mode and use tthe tools to remove it if you really want to.

[glenmack]

It's so that if you have a mountain base you need to keep the roof supported. And the reason you can't remove it is, well, try removing a mountain in real life :/ You can however use development mode and use tthe tools to remove it if you really want to.

The first sentence isn't an answer to my question. The second sentence is rhetorical and pointless. I have dug into solid stone by hand. If they have a tool that can remove 1 cubic metre of rock in a few minutes, a 20x20 "mountain" isn't a problem. So your rhetoric doesn't even make sense.

I was asking about the game design choice, as it just isn't fun.

User was warned for this post: Rule 1

[FyrnSkulblaka]

Let me rephrase it: If you try to remove a rock from the bottom of a mountain, there are rocks above you. A lot of rocks depending on how deep you go. (Accounted for by thick and thin rock roofs) If you want to go by the logic of "Well I'll just mine the rocks that fall down" well, go ahead and try to code every single mountain block to have a realistic amount of rubble to fall down and a counting system for all the mountain blocks in the game to keep track of how many bits of rubble the roof has left to fall down before there's open space above it. Then proceed to scrap the entire idea when you see how much that system lags the game. Also, it's to balance the game. You want a massive room under a mountain? Too bad, there's consequences. You want to build a massive room out in the open? Too bad, there's consequences (Mortars penetrating rooms.) That's the idea of Rimworld; everything has consequences.
Also, as for your sarcy manner, don't ask a question which just requires a little bit of thought and be rude when someone gives a response.

Do not escalate. -MK

[glenmack]

Let me rephrase it: If you try to remove a rock from the bottom of a mountain, there are rocks above you. A lot of rocks depending on how deep you go. (Accounted for by thick and thin rock roofs) If you want to go by the logic of "Well I'll just mine the rocks that fall down" well, go ahead and try to code every single mountain block to have a realistic amount of rubble to fall down and a counting system for all the mountain blocks in the game to keep track of how many bits of rubble the roof has left to fall down before there's open space above it. Then proceed to scrap the entire idea when you see how much that system lags the game. Also, it's to balance the game. You want a massive room under a mountain? Too bad, there's consequences. You want to build a massive room out in the open? Too bad, there's consequences (Mortars penetrating rooms.) That's the idea of Rimworld; everything has consequences.
Also, as for your sarcy manner, don't ask a question which just requires a little bit of thought and be rude when someone gives a response.

Thin roof has 2 rubble fall down, thick has 4. Resets when you save or load, is no more intensive than tracking my 2500 silver coins spread over the map. It runs in unity and the code for object handling has been rewritten specifically to allow for this kind of thing. Don't throw your made up programming ideas at me when I asked specifically to be pointed to the actual developer speaking about why he decided to make it this way. It's clearly a game design choice and not a technical limitation. If he did it for balance show me where he said this, because if it only exists as a defence against mortars what's the point? It just forces you to build in an area you're probably going to build already, just with a weird overhanging roof if you ever want to make it look neat...

[Austupaio]

Never ceases to amaze how inflammatory and arrogant random new people are in this and the Suggestions area, for no real reason.

What more reason do you need other than the fact that it's an entire mountain, presumably dozens or hundreds of feet high by the time you dig a ways into it, and that the game does not have Z-levels to properly simulate this, as Dwarf Fortress would?

[glenmack]

Never ceases to amaze how inflammatory and arrogant random new people are in this and the Suggestions area, for no real reason.

What more reason do you need other than the fact that it's an entire mountain, presumably dozens or hundreds of feet high by the time you dig a ways into it, and that the game does not have Z-levels to properly simulate this, as Dwarf Fortress would?

The game already psuedo simulates z levels by having an infinity of rubble fall down on you. I never asked for peoples opinions on why they think this is, I asked to be pointed to the developers reason for this. To have arrogant people here ignore the question and repeatedly guess, isn't a valid reason to to accuse me of arrogance when I'm just new to the forums. Which I will promptly be leaving if you're all as self-centred and elitist.

[REMworlder]

At the great peril of not answering the OP question adequately, here are some of the responses given by Tynan when asked about overhead mountain. I'd consider these three reasons intuitive rationalizations, similar to why bullets cause damage -- because they just do. But there's a specific game design reason why certain environmental elements can't be changed too, in case that isn't a strong enough reason.

No, they're [thick rock roofs] permanent. Imagine hundreds of feet of mountain rock above the colonists.

You'll never be able to remove thick cave roofs; it represents a mountain over your head and you can't carry that away.

You should imagine the overhead mountains as a mountain over the colonists' head. You can't mine that out; it will always collapse.

What's the motivation for this design? Tynan's big on forcing the player to make responsive decisions, as seen in his removing the fertilizer pump awhile ago: Cut fertilizer pump (to provide a more meaningful long-term choice between soil farming and hydroponics). The fertilizer pump -- RIP in peace -- would change any terrain into soil. Marsh? Soil. Solid rock? Soil. The idea is when the player can't terraform the environment at will, the player has to make meaningful decisions in response to the terrain. Overhead mountain is analogous to marsh; it's an environmental factor that doesn't change, so players have to decide how they'll incorporate it into the colony.

edit: here is Tynan's specific response to why certain environmental elements can't be changed:

Wash rinse repeat is very boring, and the biomes should be more than just new skins.

This is really the heart of it.

If a desert base looks just like a jungle base (but with slightly different heating facilities), something is wrong. In my book, anything that encourages more dramatic differences between biomes is good. Being able to build the same optimized, self-contained, killbox'd fortress in every biome and play out the exact same production lines is, to me, a total failure of game design. When each biome feels really different, that's where we win. I made this change because I think it moves further in that direction.

The realism argument doesn't move me. Real trees take decades to grow. If we made them grow realistically, there would be no point in planting them in RW since they'd be nothing more than saplings by the end of even the longest-lived colony. Have you ever heard of a town in the old west in 1875 planting a bunch of trees for lumber? It just doesn't happen because it doesn't make sense in real life. Reforestation is purely a modern phenomenon and only makes sense in the context of huge mechanized logging operations. The only old counterexamples are things like olive, fig, or cork trees, and only because these trees produce for decades after maturity and don't need to be chopped down.

You still have the choice between a tree-filled and a tree-scarce environment. If the idea of tree-scarcity seems horrible to you, just play boreal forest, temperate forest, or jungle. If you want a bit more of a desperate experience, play tundra or desert. You still have access to the same experiences as before, but with new more desperate ones emphasized.

I know that as players you *want* on some level to be able to optimize your colony perfectly into the same perfect base each time. After all, that's your goal at every moment while playing the game, and you feel a sort of dopamine rush pleasure when making progress towards that. It's natural to recoil from design changes that seem to take away what you *want*. But please recognize that a game that hands you your goal easily is not a better game. Games aren't fun because they give you what you want. They're fun because of the dramatic process of struggle, decision, story, and drama that you experience in pursuit of your goal. Just as in life, it's about the journey, not the destination. And when you finally do achieve that perfect base in a desolate tundra, even with the harder game mechanics and greater challenges, the emotional reward will be all the greater because you'll know you bloody earned it.

Never ceases to amaze how inflammatory and arrogant random new people are in this and the Suggestions area, for no real reason.

[glenmack]

At the great peril of not answering the OP question adequately, here are some of the responses given by Tynan when asked about overhead mountain. I'd consider these three reasons intuitive rationalizations, similar to why bullets cause damage -- because they just do. But there's a specific game design reason why certain environmental elements can't be changed too, in case that isn't a strong enough reason.

No, they're [thick rock roofs] permanent. Imagine hundreds of feet of mountain rock above the colonists.

You'll never be able to remove thick cave roofs; it represents a mountain over your head and you can't carry that away.

You should imagine the overhead mountains as a mountain over the colonists' head. You can't mine that out; it will always collapse.

What's the motivation for this design? Tynan's big on forcing the player to make responsive decisions, as seen in his removing the fertilizer pump awhile ago: Cut fertilizer pump (to provide a more meaningful long-term choice between soil farming and hydroponics). The fertilizer pump -- RIP in peace -- would change any terrain into soil. Marsh? Soil. Solid rock? Soil. The idea is when the player can't terraform the environment at will, the player has to make meaningful decisions in response to the terrain. Overhead mountain is analogous to marsh; it's an environmental factor that doesn't change, so players have to decide how they'll incorporate it into the colony.

edit: here is Tynan's specific response to why certain environmental elements can't be changed:

Wash rinse repeat is very boring, and the biomes should be more than just new skins.

This is really the heart of it.

If a desert base looks just like a jungle base (but with slightly different heating facilities), something is wrong. In my book, anything that encourages more dramatic differences between biomes is good. Being able to build the same optimized, self-contained, killbox'd fortress in every biome and play out the exact same production lines is, to me, a total failure of game design. When each biome feels really different, that's where we win. I made this change because I think it moves further in that direction.

The realism argument doesn't move me. Real trees take decades to grow. If we made them grow realistically, there would be no point in planting them in RW since they'd be nothing more than saplings by the end of even the longest-lived colony. Have you ever heard of a town in the old west in 1875 planting a bunch of trees for lumber? It just doesn't happen because it doesn't make sense in real life. Reforestation is purely a modern phenomenon and only makes sense in the context of huge mechanized logging operations. The only old counterexamples are things like olive, fig, or cork trees, and only because these trees produce for decades after maturity and don't need to be chopped down.

You still have the choice between a tree-filled and a tree-scarce environment. If the idea of tree-scarcity seems horrible to you, just play boreal forest, temperate forest, or jungle. If you want a bit more of a desperate experience, play tundra or desert. You still have access to the same experiences as before, but with new more desperate ones emphasized.

I know that as players you *want* on some level to be able to optimize your colony perfectly into the same perfect base each time. After all, that's your goal at every moment while playing the game, and you feel a sort of dopamine rush pleasure when making progress towards that. It's natural to recoil from design changes that seem to take away what you *want*. But please recognize that a game that hands you your goal easily is not a better game. Games aren't fun because they give you what you want. They're fun because of the dramatic process of struggle, decision, story, and drama that you experience in pursuit of your goal. Just as in life, it's about the journey, not the destination. And when you finally do achieve that perfect base in a desolate tundra, even with the harder game mechanics and greater challenges, the emotional reward will be all the greater because you'll know you bloody earned it.

Never ceases to amaze how inflammatory and arrogant random new people are in this and the Suggestions area, for no real reason.

Props for actually backing up your ideas. Thank you for taking some time and for trying to answer the question at least thematically.

The three quotes are indeed self explanatory, but are "in game" reasons you can't remove it, if you see my point. Not the design rationale, which you do go on to illustrate.

Colony management games are I think suffering at the success of DF. It appears that from what you suggest, Tynan wants to force you to adapt. Wheras from my perspective, the rush of colony management is forcing the game to adapt, or in this specific case, the geography. DF gives you great freedom in this and while I love Rimworld, and colony management games in general, I think removing player freedom of physical geography is a dire way to make people adapt. Things like removing the fertiliser pump are in my opinion, smarter ways to force difficult decisions.

Again thank you for you answer and for not being easily offended.

[Austupaio]

ITT a guy gets really worked up over a basic and easily avoidable gameplay quirk, then says that others are easily offended.

Also, if you're so concerned with getting an answer from the developer, and only the developer, a PM might have been more suited. This is a public forum, so people will post with their thoughts. If you don't like that, then perhaps you consider the 'easily offended' thing again. In either case, I wouldn't expect a response any time soon, as the developer is gone for several months.

[Toggle]

It's a roof that collapses. You need 1 support for every 8 unsupported blocks from other supports in order to prevent mountain or normal roofs from collapsing. It honestly effects gameplay little and has gotten out of hand. This thread has gotten way out of hand.

[Klitri]

OP, your attitude is disgusting. The people here are only trying to help, and biting them for that is so incredibly disgusting.

As a programmer myself, I can understand why the mountains can't be mined. As a previous poster replied already, it's a balancing scheme mostly. The rest of it has already been answered.

If you wanted an answer from the developer of the game, you should PM him instead of lashing out at a friendly community.

Have a good day, --Klitri

Do not escalate. -MK

[BangUDie]

If you also know of a mod that makes getting rid of them possible in the current version, that would be cool.

Roof Bomb Mod... made by Skullywag

https://github.com/Skullywag/RoofBomb/releases/tag/RoofBomb1.2

[Jorlem]

The realism argument doesn't move me. Real trees take decades to grow. If we made them grow realistically, there would be no point in planting them in RW since they'd be nothing more than saplings by the end of even the longest-lived colony. Have you ever heard of a town in the old west in 1875 planting a bunch of trees for lumber? It just doesn't happen because it doesn't make sense in real life. Reforestation is purely a modern phenomenon and only makes sense in the context of huge mechanized logging operations. The only old counterexamples are things like olive, fig, or cork trees, and only because these trees produce for decades after maturity and don't need to be chopped down.

In the old west, not as far as I know.  In the UK, yes.  In the late 1800s, timber plantations were established in the New Forest to ensure the Royal Navy had a continual supply of timber for their ships.

[UnityIron]

Wow quite aggressive for someone who clearly didn't use the search function.
Don't get pent up on needing exact justification of every little game feature, not to stir a hornets nest but is OP Asperger? Sound just like my son when he wants an answer, just doesn't quite cover the social graces.
Trees would take ages to grow? Whats to say the trees do not have an increased growth rate? Its not earth after all. Whats to say the trees are even native to the planet and not a hybridized version with a massively increased growth rate, from some sort of abandoned glitter world venture?

User was warned for this post: Rule 3.