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I really loved Rimworld as a game.

It's an excellent game that invokes that same feeling and fun factor that the many similar games before it invoked. Games like Theme Hospital, Theme Park, The Sims (If that's to your taste or not), Dungeon Keeper and even the old precursors to those games, old stuff no-one remembers like the baldies. These games all suffered from a problem we started calling "the Ultimate Flaw" on my game design course.

Of course, there are many recent games too, that have the ultimate flaw. Sadly, Rimworld is one of them. However, as responsive as the development is, maybe Rimworld can be the first to solve it.

The Ultimate flaw is a problem that as been present in every game of any type that has "pawns", resource processing and buildings. A problem that basically only games like Sim City have solved, by basically removing pawns entirely. I'm sure you'll agree that's no solution at all.

What is the problem?

Movement simply takes too long. By extension, player designs that minimize movement become ridiculously and needlessly optimal. Minimizing movement leads to unrealistic and entirely boring gameplay and it limits player freedom to the point that the game becomes something is "solved" rather than a sandbox. At increasing difficulty levels, the game creates situations where optimizing movement (and only movement) gives the necessary gains to succeed.

A rimworld example would be making meals.

It is, by far, most optimal to make meals by having the butcher table, cold room and kitchen surface all surround the exact same chair. so the pawn does not have to move from that position to do anything or get anything. It is orders of magnitude better than any other design, not just a little better.

Knowing this, you cannot in challenging settings, not engage in this same boring design if you want to maximize your time and resources. Which is incredibly dull.

Much like in Theme Park where placing all the ride entrances at the park entrance along one massive path that leads into the next ride forever, thus extracting wealth and processing visitors like meat in a sausage factory, is optimal. So too does Rimworld lead to the same boring and unrealistic designs. Forced on the player as the difficulty rises and it becomes ever more obvious the solution to all your problems is to have your pawns basically never move more than 10 tiles from where they got out of bed in the morning.

The solution is, in many ways quite simple.

Slow down time and increase the time it takes to do everything by the same ratio. Then, perhaps, offer production bonuses for actually making nice rooms.

For example. If time was 4x slower in our kitchen example, then movement as a problem is 4x less important. However, it still takes the same amount of daytime to complete the cooking/butchering/etc as it did before, as these things have been made to take 4x longer in real time.

Now, if a room is really attractive and is nice and warm (thus making a bad larder) and has lots of nice tools in it and maybe space around the kitchen unit. If production was say, 20-30% faster because of that, it might be worth having the larder in a separate room and the bonuses would make up for the extra movement to get items from the larder.

And THAT makes for interesting gameplay.

Honestly, I have gotten really bored of these types of games not because I don't love them, but because the Ultimate Problem means there is nothing interesting to solve in them design wise. Except perhaps how to design the defences. The production side of it is solved with one simple statement:

Which design involves the least movement.

Once you realise this is the ultimate solution to every challenge the game these types of games could possibly have, you grow bored of them incredibly quickly.

And that's a real shame.

I hope the development team will think on this. I hope this game becomes more than "How do I minimize pawn movement" like so many of the games before it.

I don't think I see this "ultimate" flaw as any kind of a flaw at all: efficient layout planning is key to any kind of city building. It isn't a "flaw", a by-product of the experience. It's part-and-parcel of the experience itself.

In the early game, I find that meal-making doesn't need to be too optimal at all. With 3 pawns, "make until you have 10" can keep you going for your entire early game. Late game, when you often have 10+ pawns + animals + prisoners, you obviously need to scale up your production accordingly, but I find doing so to be a rewarding part of the game.

My preferred build: One butcher table but two cook stoves, "DROP ON FLOOR" (<- subtle, but oh so helpful), autodoors between kitchen and freezer, and having your kitchen as close to your fields as possible. With two full-time cooks I can make 50 or so fine meals in one day, and then spend the rest of my time just replacing what was lost.

Quote from: Harold3456 on November 20, 2017, 06:32:54 PM
I don't think I see this "ultimate" flaw as any kind of a flaw at all: efficient layout planning is key to any kind of city building. It isn't a "flaw", a by-product of the experience. It's part-and-parcel of the experience itself.

In the early game, I find that meal-making doesn't need to be too optimal at all. With 3 pawns, "make until you have 10" can keep you going for your entire early game. Late game, when you often have 10+ pawns + animals + prisoners, you obviously need to scale up your production accordingly, but I find doing so to be a rewarding part of the game.

My preferred build: One butcher table but two cook stoves, "DROP ON FLOOR" (<- subtle, but oh so helpful), autodoors between kitchen and freezer, and having your kitchen as close to your fields as possible. With two full-time cooks I can make 50 or so fine meals in one day, and then spend the rest of my time just replacing what was lost.

Any game where one, particular simple strategy is needlessly and utterly optimal is flawed. Yes, you can get enjoyment out of not doing that strategy, but it will always be in the back of your mind as being the optimal solution. When the game difficulty ramps up and the choices are between minimizing movement and losing, you minimize movement or you lose.

I don't know about you, but I want my game to have a bit more depth to it than one all-mighty strategy and a load of other ones you do because you can or you put the difficulty on easy and thus there is no challenge or anything to think about anyway.

While realism should never be an argument for gameplay, it's also incredibly silly for games to be like this. Realising what I am saying is true is a seminal point in any strategy gamers, gaming life. It's the moment where this type of game becomes so one dimensional that its mere presence sucks the 3D out of that generic cover based shooter you installed near it on your harddrive.

There will always be a more optimal way to do things in games like these. It's in their nature. If not that ultimatly means it doesnt matter at all how you do it. For Simcity it would be how to organize where to put which type of district and traffic optimization. Lots and lots of traffic optimization :D.

Also i dont play on the highest rimworld difficulty, only intense. But as far as i can tell efficency of movement is not nearly as important in rimworld as keeping your pawns mood up. Which you can do by having nice and big rooms. IMO thats alot more important then making the super short ways. Its enough if you have simple things like farms close to the freezer and kitchens next to the freezer. Your optimal suggestion sounds a little overkill outside of the start for extreme biomes like sea ice or something. But even there you just make small rooms because it needs to be done before everybody freezes xD.
My colonies die from all kinds of stupid events or raids, or mental breakdowns at bad moments and some faster logistics would not have saved most of my failed colonies...RIP my loyal pawns...

Also what do you get out of having the butcher table and stove share the chair? You cant use both at the same time with 2 pawns, you have to grab vegetables anyways so you will have stand up from there after butchering. damn often my pawns even walk past the freshly butchered meat to grab the meat furthest away from them xD. Also now that i think about it they prioritize cooking at the stove above butchering if you do have meat in the freezer. So without extra managing around that that does not seem very optimized. But well i just set butcher animals on forever so maybe thats just me being lazy. And worst of all the butcher table makes quite a mess, dirty surroundings make the pawn who cooks for hours non stop not like his surroundings. Unless you have a janitor priority pawn. Also I read somewhere that dirty next to the stove or freezer raises chances of food poisoning? Not sure if thats true. But it sounds logical.
And while im typing this i also realize that stuff like cleanliness and having light actually factor into work speed. So your suggestions on how to improve are already in the game, have been for a loooong time i think^^.

There are some ways to optimize your colony in Rimworld. But I highly doubt that super optimization walkways is the only way to make colonies survive on higher difficulties. Infact like i said i doubt that taking it to the extreme has much of an effect. Except maybe the start for Sea ice or extreme desert Colonies.

Outside of competitive games where you kinda have to work with metas and optimization you should not get annoyed by the fact that there is a "best" way to do things. If the possibility of optimized layouts completly stops you of trying new designs, being a bit creative with your layout or following a different theme just for the fun of it, then im not sure if games of this type are really for you. Well maybe not for you to put more than 200 hours in.
Rimworld has tons of replayability because you can build your bases differently and weird but still make it work. Not to make it harder or anything but because it can work unless its a complete mess. While your mathematicly perfect colonies that are more efficent then pro layouts in factorio could die at any moment because of the most random things. And that is why this game is so incredibly fun.

You have a good point about the issue of timing in many games, I recall I stopped playing the Sims games because I found it silly that there simply wasn't TIME in one day to work, have dinner, AND go to the toilet. Things just took way more time then they should have.

I think rimworld is a LOT better balanced as far as time for activities goes, though now I'm curious to check what kind of walking speed pawns have. I suspect it probably is a tad slower then it should be. Question on your proposed fix: Why increase day length and work time, rather then just increasing walk speed? The point is to have, by percentage, most of they day taken up by working rather then walking after all. Seems easier (even modable maybe?) to just say double the base move speed instead.

I suspect one of the issues, even if walk speed is currently "realistic" is that IRL, people optimize automatically.
Walking across the colony? Grab this stuff that needs to be carried over there.
Cleaning dirt of the floors? Go room by room instead of running back and forth between two distant rooms.
Cooking a bunch of meals? Prep the ingredients for the next meal (including retrieval) while the first is on the stove.
Since pawns in games rarely do that kind of optimization, the player has to micromanage or fine-tune things to ridiculous degrees, making time saving strategies such as "walk as little as possible" be way more important then they should be.

Another issue is with batch production, especially when it comes to cooking. Lots of mines around where I live, you think camp cooks painstakingly cook an individual dinner for each of the 20-30 people at camp? Fuck no, they make a huge batch that serves as dinner for everyone.
Just the option to cook 10 meals in one batch would do a lot to alleviate how valuable it is to have the stove in the freezer. EVEN if you extended the cook time to be an unreasonable 10x longer then 1 meal.

There is more to Rimworld than cooking food, right?

For example, manufacturing parkas.  There it really doesn't matter how far away your cloth/leather/devilstrand stockpile is, because your pawn will be spending most of his time in front of the tailoring workbench.  Similarly for any other tasks that take a long time.

Killboxing with turrets is the most efficient base defense but there are alternatives.  Polar bears can be very effective.

Colonist bedroom quality matters significantly even though colonists don't spend much time in them.

Said "ultimate problem" is an ultimate problem only if you are obsessed with cooking... and even there you have tradeoffs.  Put the stove in the freezer and suffer the cold production penalty, or micromanage a stockpile next to the freezer and make sure to put the meat away back in the freezer before you go to bed?  Either way it is an annoyance, yes, but it's hardly the only issue in the game or even the most significant.

Quote from: Daimonin on November 20, 2017, 07:56:53 PM
Question on your proposed fix: Why increase day length and work time, rather then just increasing walk speed? The point is to have, by percentage, most of they day taken up by working rather then walking after all. Seems easier (even modable maybe?) to just say double the base move speed instead.

There is nothing wrong with the feeling of the movement or the speed at which combat unfolds in real time. Making the pawns faster would change the balance in these aspects of the game, which are fine. The issue is one of time as per the in-game clock, rather than one of real time (in real time, movement seems fine, slightly too fast even).

Quote from: Daimonin on November 20, 2017, 07:56:53 PM
I suspect one of the issues, even if walk speed is currently "realistic" is that IRL, people optimize automatically.
Walking across the colony? Grab this stuff that needs to be carried over there.
Cleaning dirt of the floors? Go room by room instead of running back and forth between two distant rooms.
Cooking a bunch of meals? Prep the ingredients for the next meal (including retrieval) while the first is on the stove.
Since pawns in games rarely do that kind of optimization, the player has to micromanage or fine-tune things to ridiculous degrees, making time saving strategies such as "walk as little as possible" be way more important then they should be.

Another issue is with batch production, especially when it comes to cooking. Lots of mines around where I live, you think camp cooks painstakingly cook an individual dinner for each of the 20-30 people at camp? Fuck no, they make a huge batch that serves as dinner for everyone.
Just the option to cook 10 meals in one batch would do a lot to alleviate how valuable it is to have the stove in the freezer. EVEN if you extended the cook time to be an unreasonable 10x longer then 1 meal.

Lets not get too obsessed with my cooking example, even if it is a good example. This issue applies to nearly every aspect of the game, with the exception of Combat which is fine, although one could argue that 20/30 minutes of "In game time" passing in combat between single shots is another example of "In game time" being too fast, even if it is fine in real time.

The overall complaint of the OP, seems to be "The Waiting game". The movement, the time to produce and how to make the it optimal so that you waste as little time as possible to be as effective as possible. And after you do that, there's nothing more to do other than start again.

Quote
Once you realise this is the ultimate solution to every challenge the game these types of games could possibly have, you grow bored of them incredibly quickly.
And that's a real shame.

This is true, but I don't think you can design around it. It's a human thing that after doing something for a long time, you grow more efficient and slowly your interest curve diminishes. That dosen't apply only to games, it applies to Studies, relationships, workplaces, hobbies, exercise, and pretty much everything.

The solution I found to this "flaw" is, maybe you shouldn't shoot for maximum efficiency, maybe you should try to find the most interesting way to play. Something like "The Cannibal Challange", "The no Stonecutting", "The Drunken Crew", "The You can only attack with rabbits" and others like that.

I honestly think that the problem you are presenting, cannot be fixed with design, unless you do a billion skinner boxes or try to add systems that encourage the player to do things different everytime. But, there will be always be a point where you lose interest in this kinds of game.

Quote from: Listen1 on November 21, 2017, 07:11:24 AM
The overall complaint of the OP, seems to be "The Waiting game". The movement, the time to produce and how to make the it optimal so that you waste as little time as possible to be as effective as possible. And after you do that, there's nothing more to do other than start again.

Quote
Once you realise this is the ultimate solution to every challenge the game these types of games could possibly have, you grow bored of them incredibly quickly.
And that's a real shame.

This is true, but I don't think you can design around it. It's a human thing that after doing something for a long time, you grow more efficient and slowly your interest curve diminishes. That dosen't apply only to games, it applies to Studies, relationships, workplaces, hobbies, exercise, and pretty much everything.

The solution I found to this "flaw" is, maybe you shouldn't shoot for maximum efficiency, maybe you should try to find the most interesting way to play. Something like "The Cannibal Challange", "The no Stonecutting", "The Drunken Crew", "The You can only attack with rabbits" and others like that.

I honestly think that the problem you are presenting, cannot be fixed with design, unless you do a billion skinner boxes or try to add systems that encourage the player to do things different everytime. But, there will be always be a point where you lose interest in this kinds of game.

The problem is that movement "costs" too much, thus killing any other design or strategy that doesn't involve minimizing movement. There are tons of interesting strategies and designs that are or could be possible, but since the cost of movement is so high, making large interesting rooms isn't just non-optimal, it's incredibly self-harming.

This is the flaw that needs fixing.

None of the things you suggest fixes the issue. Sure, I can play a game with "no stonecutting", but I will still minimize movement.

Quote from: Edmon on November 21, 2017, 07:19:35 AM
The problem is that movement "costs" too much, thus killing any other design or strategy that doesn't involve minimizing movement. There are tons of interesting strategies and designs that are or could be possible, but since the cost of movement is so high, making large interesting rooms isn't just non-optimal, it's incredibly self-harming.

This is the flaw that needs fixing.

None of the things you suggest fixes the issue. Sure, I can play a game with "no stonecutting", but I will still minimize movement.

Sorry, but I really don't see the movement time as a problem. I tought that the problem was the "Waiting Game".

I hope someone can help you, Maybe you could ask for a modder to help you to increase pawn speed/day lenght/time of tasks. Maybe if that turns the game more engaging, you can even submit a report to Tynan so that he can take a look.

Quote from: Listen1 on November 21, 2017, 10:38:35 AM
Sorry, but I really don't see the movement time as a problem.

It takes approximately 30 real time seconds to move 10 tiles (approximate 10-15m?) into cover and fire a single round from a rifle.

In real time, this feels totally fine.

But in game time, nearly an entire HOUR of the day will have passed.

And you don't think that's a problem? In that same amount of time, a pawn positioned at a workbench for 30 seconds could have prepared 3-5 meals. Which, for an hour of in game time, seems not to be unreasonable.

The in game time cost of movement is absurd and this is an issue that has absolutely plagued games of this type since games of this type crawled out of the brains of nerds and manifested themselves as code and passion.

This is why it's the Ultimate Flaw. The issue is in the seminal DNA of this type of game and how serious it is for a particular game directly relates to how enjoyable it tends to be.

15 years later, people are still playing Sim City 4 because it does not have this problem and thus solving the in game problems always requires a unique and diverse approach.

Not true of literally all of the other games I've listed and many more. A focus on moving pawns from A to B needs to not be the all consuming primary consideration of the game, if it is to reach for more strategic dimension than a Mobius strip.

When you create a scenario, change the percentages... you can increase walking speed, decrease building/mining/crafting speed, and there may even be something there for cleaning. It lets you handle more mundane tasks around the base without being too OP, and avoids the infuriating feeling of watching it take days to transfer items from one stockpile to another.

Another option is to modify the floor terrain defs so that movement on constructed tiles is dramatically better than slogging around the rest of the map. There are, or used to be, a mod or two that did this... but pushing the walking speed of constructed tiles above 100% apparently caused issues with bionics bonuses. I don't know if the same would hold true if you downgraded the walking speed of natural terrains and then used the scenario modifier to raise the global walking speed.

I think the problem that Edmon is describing is compounded by the sometimes wonky pathfinding.

Oh yes, let's go through several trees on our way to the end of a path. That'll be way faster than going around them.

Which leads again to the player having to compensate for the deficiency in a powergamey way.

For example, if you're constantly annoyed by saplings popping up on paths, but you can't actually put flooring down (marshy soil) then something you can do is make a growing zone lining the sides of the path (I used dandelions). Not only does it block anything else from growing there, but there's a one-tile automatic clearance next to growing zones.

I'm not saying that pathfinding is a problem that will go away overnight (if at all) but give us the tools to make it less annoying. Instead of putting down a growing zone to keep a path clear, you could salt the marshy soil, then nothing will grow there for a while. Can we have some salt over here? :)

Um...  Yeah.  Edmon, your strategy *IS NOT* actually optimal.  Other reasons have been given above, but a BIG one is the simple fact that a dirty kitchen (with a butchering table in it) will cause food poisoning quite often.

I've had no problems building reasonably efficient kitchen/butchering/fridge/freezer setups at all, since I first learned how to play on A15 or A16 (I think A15).  A won game = plenty efficient, in my book =).  Some people DO prefer to micro-optimize every step, but you simply don't necessarily need to, not even on the hardest difficulties.  Can it make the game easier, in some ways?  Sure.  But you ALSO have to spend the time and brain-sweat on optimizing with progressively smaller returns; most (non-OCD) people have a cutoff where the game stops being fun, due to excess micromagement doldrums :P.

Tl;dr?  Yes, there are arguably "best" solutions to many in-game problems, but that doesn't make them fun, or even necessary much of the time ("killboxes" are a perfect example).  And this is also true for almost any kind of game, to boot, so..?

I agree with the author of this thread, because I had experienced it in past and it is true: I once made a base where pawns had to walk to do their job or eat, and althought there was a room for everything (eating, researching, kitchen, freezer, beds, etc.) the colony was unproductive because pawns had to walk so much to that place. And it was ultimately an unsuccessful colony.

Thing is, it's not an "either-or" situation; you can optimize a LOT, without disappearing up your own rectal cavity ::).  Once again, I have *zero* problems (beyond w/e environment, itself) setting up my cooking/butchering/cold storage cycles, on any difficulty, with any storyteller, without bothering with silly, excess micro.

As much as it pains me to agree with Bozobub (Joke FYI). I don't see it as an issue certainly not an "Ultimate flaw". When you are looking at 1 cook per 10 colonists plus cleaning duties for that cook at the end of the bill. I am failing to see the issue. This is not with a micro managed kitchen or even auto doors. With an increase in skills as well as auto doors you can have 1 cooking for close to 15 but nothing else. This is with basic meals of course.

Now I use cooking as the example but with correct hauling setups most work functions don't or shouldn't need min/maxing as far as movement is concerned.

Actually as the only real counter point I can think of is medicine production. I do setup stockpiles next to my drug lab with neutroamine and cloth so the pawn is only back and forth for herbal meds.

Getting back to the point that i think OP is trying to make - I don't think that it's a "flaw" but it's more a game-design challenge of reconciling two vastly different time scales - In-game time vs RL time. OP seems to be trying to get at achieving a solution that has the "best of both worlds", which, by the very nature of the difference, is impossible. Let me explain:

Simulation games, by design, require different areas of the game to "feel" like real-life to create the simulation "immersion" that players crave. For games where pawns are involved, one of key areas to achieve this "real life immersion" is to make the animations close to "real life time". This necessitates for things like movement speed, shooting speed, hammering speed (the ding ding ding sound when pawns are working on something) to be at a pace that looks and feels realistic. The issue however, is that the game MUST speed up other areas of the game in order to achieve an overall game progression pace that makes sense for the average player's playing time (a few hours per sitting). This is not a flaw, it's just cards that we are dealt with. Looking at the infamous "meal making" example, in game it probably takes roughly the same amount of time to gather/walk as cooking the food (a movement-time-cost-to-production-time-cost ratio of roughly 1:1). The same process in real life is probably somewhere around 1 minute to walk/gather stuff in your kitchen and 1 hour of cook time (1:60).  People probably don't realize the true vastness of the difference in these two time-scales. Even slowing down production by 4x and increase movement speed by 4x like the OP suggests truly only migitate the issue by roughly 25% (1:16 vs 1:60). This brings us to the following point: as long as the in-game movement to production ratio do not approach the RL ratio, there will always be a point in which "reducing movement cost design or lose" becomes a limitation

Taking the above point one step further, only way to solve this "ultimate flaw" is to have in game ratio be close to RL ratio, which definitionally will result in one of only two possibilities:
1) keeping pawn animation speed (movement) close to RL time. But this will also drag out production time to ridiculous lengths - meals in game will take hours of RL time to complete, parka full day to make, houses and buildings days/months to complete. Imagine how bored players will be waiting for that kind of game pace?
2) speed up in-game production time - if doing this while trying maintain RL walk/production ratio, the pawns will be zipping around so fast that for practical purposes it loses all the "simulation immersion" value of having pawns in the first place.

Other games are designed in one of the two options mentioned above and they don't have this problem (think EVE online for 1, and SimCity 4 for 2). However for RW and many other games in between, a true solution to this "ultimate flaw" simply does not exist. The best that these games can do is to balance other aspects of the game to create the best game-playing experience. RW does this masterfully - ie, it gives movements "more bang for the buck" (ie, hauling enough material for 40-50 feet, or 10-15 tiles, of walls in one trip), or, it reduces the movement cost impact by having "super intelligent" animal haulers that knows exactly where and when to haul materials without intervention (by comparison I can't even get my dog to fetch me a beer)

TLTR: the "ultimate flaw" that the OP laid out is a "flaw" only insomuch as trying to fit a square block into a circular hole is a flaw. It's simply an attempt to reconcile two vastly different time scales that is definitionally impossible to achieve within the confines of most simulation game designs such as RW.

Firstly dkmoo, I'd like to thank you for your write-up. You understand exactly what the issue is, which is great, but as a game designer I don't agree with your conclusion.

Quote from: dkmoo on November 21, 2017, 07:37:30 PM
However for RW and many other games in between, a true solution to this "ultimate flaw" simply does not exist. The best that these games can do is to balance other aspects of the game to create the best game-playing experience.

That's why it's called the Ultimate Flaw. There is no "true" or "simple" solution to the problem. We're not using the word lightly, it's a flaw built right into the heart of the nature of the game. One that requires extremely carefully balanced design to compensate for.

The basis of what you say is correct, it cannot be truly reconciled without time phases (Games with a build phase and a combat phase, but this isn't that type of game either). However, it can be balanced to feel right and to be strategically interesting.

Quote from: dkmoo on November 21, 2017, 07:37:30 PM
Even slowing down production by 4x and increase movement speed by 4x like the OP suggests truly only migitate  the issue by roughly 25% (1:16 vs 1:60). This brings us to the following point: as long as the in-game movement to production ratio do not approach the RL ratio, there will always be a point in which "reducing movement cost design or lose" becomes a limitation.

Right, but 1:16 is a hell of a lot better than 1:60. Plus, now all we need to do is make the bonuses for having a really nice room, with tool kits and various other items in it, that doesn't have things in it that should not be there, be approximately 8% of total productivity for it to be worth making an interesting room. Over a movement minimized one.

Though you will always get gains from minimizing movement, the bonus of doing that should not be so all consuming like it is in Rimworld. Pawns can waste 70%+ of the day just walking around doing nothing productive, if you aren't power gaming your designs. Which means organic building of bases to be somewhat like a real-life design is strategically awful. Which shouldn't be the case.

The balance isn't right and leeway in having a movement inefficient base design is too little and too punishing.

I disagree with your premise that Rimworld has got the balance right, let alone "masterfully". Movement is the primary consideration of everything you make and it really shouldn't be.

oooh, I quite understand this ultimate flaw you speak of.  I think he's right!

Quote from: Edmon on November 22, 2017, 05:50:28 AM
That's why it's called the Ultimate Flaw. There is no "true" or "simple" solution to the problem. We're not using the word lightly, it's a flaw built right into the heart of the nature of the game. One that requires extremely carefully balanced design to compensate for.

While you may have a point regarding the actual implementation of movement/combat/production speed ratios, I disagree with the premise that failing to achieve a literally impossible solution counts as a flaw.

Ok, i think we all want the same thing but are hung up on the semantics of the definition of "flaw". So for the sake of progress lets just all agree that it's at least a game design challenge that needs to be addressed - either by 1) overhauling the current pace/feel of RW to achieve closer to RL movement to work ratios or 2) make the gap in the in-game to RL ratio have less of a game impact by implement design mechanisms in OTHER areas of the game to balance out the anomalies created by the time scale and ratio gap.

Personally, I prefer to leave the pace as is b/c 1) I don't want to make production time longer - i'm already playing on 3x and don't want game progress to drag on longer (which, if we want to make any meaningful impact to address the "challenge", will need to at least drag out production pace somewhat materially). 2) I don't want to make walking speed/animation faster - playing on 3x already feels like i'm watching a movie on permanent fast-forward, and 4x dev mode like a time-lapsed video.

Therefore i'd focus on balancing out the other areas of the game - ie by making movements more "bang for the buck" - in theory, if we make 1 movement count as 60 movements in terms of hauling, we'd get effectively the same result as a 1:60 RL ratio with a 1:1 in game ratio. RW already does this to a degree with a somewhat outlandish hauling mechanism (see my wall construction and animal hauler example in the first response). I feel like this is enough, but OP's opinion is that we need more, which I can live with - just difference in preference. If we want to add more such mechanism to further balance out the challenge, maybe Tynan can consider the following two areas that come to mind:

1) make certain types of workstations STORE a sizable materials in them, at least 2 stash size worth, and set it to replenish (requesting haul) only with less than 50% remaining - this will guarantee that each movement into the bench has the max haulable material being delivered, instead of the single-product-ingredient per trip that's currently in game.  Implementing this for at least low-cost-high-frequency items like meals and drugs will drasticallly reduce the movement cost. Players current work around this with by having single tile high priority stashes next to the benches but that still doesn't fully resolve the issue b/c 1) meat spoil, 2) pawns still "shift" and move a little bit in between each production 3) Haulers can still deliver to the single stash inefficiently (ie, delivering only 5 meat b/c the single tile already has 70). Storing material inside the bench would solve this. Fueling, fermentation, and refining currently employ this mechanism so it probably isn't that difficult to expand it to other benches.

2) making the production mechanism less "conveyor belt driven" by making it less dependent on deliverable ingredients. . ie - making production speed more impacted by pawn conditions (speed boosts, etc, like the OPs original post). Adding additional non-deliverable ingredients - maybe power, or some new type of resource...this probably requires more creativity...

Quote from: dkmoo on November 22, 2017, 01:46:30 PM
So for the sake of progress lets just all agree that it's at least a game design challenge that needs to be addressed

Nope, I think it's fine the way it is. Not a flaw or a challenge, and certainly not fatal.

The dominance of movement on base design (and the resulting ugly, illogical, literally cut-corners builds) can be addressed in a number of ways. More could certainly be done in that regard, and it may come down to mods, but that is a treatable symptom. We can address that within the current limits of game design.

But it feels like we're talking about a failure to achieve micro/macro hyper-realism, and I would argue there has been  no such attempt made to have failed. Rimworld is in some ways an abstract microcosm, in others a micro-intensive network diagram... balanced internally (for better or worse) on the premise that it creates its own strategy and tactics.

I remember figuring out something similar in Rollercoaster Tycoon as what you describe for theme park.

For Rimworld, however, even if it may be optimal to do as you claim, you haven't solved the game just by that.

There are all the other problems and systems you need to take care of. Survival, defense, cold snaps, manhunters, etc etc.

So I don't see the problem in terms of Rimworld.

QuoteIt is, by far, most optimal to make meals by having the butcher table, cold room and kitchen surface all surround the exact same chair. so the pawn does not have to move from that position to do anything or get anything. It is orders of magnitude better than any other design, not just a little better.

Sounds like a terrible setup for efficiency. Just because you have reached a point where you cannot improve your design, does not mean that an improved design does not exist.

When the global map was added, I attempted the equator -> pole -> pole -> equator challenge. To build up food for each push to the pole I would settle over the winter and mass produce meals. Two cooking stoves were enough to pump out perhaps 2000 meals in the space of 20 days.  :-*

I don't view having to build your bases efficiently as a flaw. That's a plus IMO, this game requires you to design things intelligently.

I will agree (but not fully) that the ability to have everything in the same room at full efficiency can be problematic. However, the room will be very dirty and ugly, making pawns unhappy (so it's not completely imbalanced).

In the case of the kitchen, storing food in there will  contaminate your meals and make your pawns ill (since it'll be dirty). Furthermore you'd have to carefully manage the storage, as you wouldn't want food to spoil, but making it cold will lower the efficiency of the workstations.

The only time I really do the same room thing is with drug production, and I'll admit that might be a bit cheesy. But that's really only because I didn't set up my storage / buildings properly, so it ended up in the same room instead of an adjacent supply closet. I never did it to the extent that they'd never have to move though, and my pawns still weren't happy about working in a dirty and cramped room.


I think the best solution might be to have a work speed bonus / malice depending on the condition of the room. Clean rooms with enough space should definitely be more efficient to work in, even if it has to be somewhat abstracted. This already applies to surgery, and iirc research as well.

Quote from: dkmoo on November 22, 2017, 01:46:30 PM
1) make certain types of workstations STORE a sizable materials in them, at least 2 stash size worth, and set it to replenish (requesting haul) only with less than 50% remaining - this will guarantee that each movement into the bench has the max haulable material being delivered, instead of the single-product-ingredient per trip that's currently in game.  Implementing this for at least low-cost-high-frequency items like meals and drugs will drasticallly reduce the movement cost. Players current work around this with by having single tile high priority stashes next to the benches but that still doesn't fully resolve the issue b/c 1) meat spoil, 2) pawns still "shift" and move a little bit in between each production 3) Haulers can still deliver to the single stash inefficiently (ie, delivering only 5 meat b/c the single tile already has 70). Storing material inside the bench would solve this. Fueling, fermentation, and refining currently employ this mechanism so it probably isn't that difficult to expand it to other benches.

It's really bugging me, that this is not implemented in the game. I usually do 3x1 + another one at the long edge storage though, and after each refill I reduce priority back to how it's set globally in my settlement. That's a lot of hustle in a long run, but it makes a difference on higher difficulties. It's also viable to do 2x6, but pawns do glitch occasionally when it's made like that for some reason.

Quote from: Bozobub on November 21, 2017, 01:56:20 PM
Um...  Yeah.  Edmon, your strategy *IS NOT* actually optimal.  Other reasons have been given above, but a BIG one is the simple fact that a dirty kitchen (with a butchering table in it) will cause food poisoning quite often.

My standard kitchen is basically a dirt-factory, and yet I get almost no poisoning with a good cook.  The last code dive I saw suggests that there's a soft cap of about 1.6x the cooking skill's poisoning chance for a dirt-factory kitchen.   A 12-skill cook has a poison factor of 0.0007 (0.07%).  Times 1.6 = 0.00112 (0.112%) or about 2.24 poisonings in a 2000 meal series.  Conversely a surgery-room-clean kitchen maxes out at 0.89x bonus for 0.6 cleanliness, or (0.0007 * 0.89 = ) 0.000623 factor (1.246 poisonings per 2000).

You're much better off with a good cook than a good kitchen.  The dirt barely makes a difference at all vs. a 0-skill cook with a TWENTY PERCENT poison rate.

(0, 1, 2, 3 and 4 skill cooks give 20%, 10%, 6%, 4% and 2.5% poison chance, respectively)

Quote from: gipothegip on November 22, 2017, 06:37:37 PM
I think the best solution might be to have a work speed bonus / malice depending on the condition of the room. Clean rooms with enough space should definitely be more efficient to work in, even if it has to be somewhat abstracted. This already applies to surgery, and iirc research as well.

The game is already like this.  Pawns enjoy a significant mood bonus for being in a nice room (big size, clean, beauty, comfortable chair), and THAT translates into a noticeable bump to global work rate.  Add to that the cold work speed penalty, and you can find a wide swing between a good room and bad one.

The real problem with the food is that they only make one meal at a time.  I tried out that Feed the Colonists mod, and it vastly reduces the dependence on movement, despite only being a 4x mod (4x more meals for almost 4x more work).  If RimWorld went in that direction, then the other factors I just mentioned would matter more.  Especially if they say made 4-8x the food for 8-16x the work or somesuch.

Mood doesn't affect global work rate any more except through inspiration.

Which is a change from a predictable benefit, to one entirely governed by RNG. Shooting inspiration and no raids arrive? Move speed bonus on someone sitting in the research room every day? Work speed bonus on the village idiot who does nothing but haul and clean the base?

Last update massively nerfed the beauty of everything except art, to encourage the player to make art to keep their rooms looking good. Now you remove the benefit to having mood above the level required to avoid a mental break. No one has the wealth to place art every 10 tiles along the corridors; the whole point of it was to make individual work rooms better to increase work rate. No more.

This is such a backwards step, it surely proves that the devs make some changes with zero understanding how the game actually plays, or how to reward good play over making us just pray to RNGesus.

PS. Currently feeding a 19 pawn colony plus storing pemmican for future caravan work with just 1 cooking stove. The key is to have non cooks bringing you the raw food.

Quote from: MarvinKosh on November 22, 2017, 10:49:37 PM
Mood doesn't affect global work rate any more except through inspiration.

What?  That wasn't in the patch notes.  I'm checking in game -> confirmed.  No longer has an effect.

I'm not cool with that if it's intentional.

Have I understood the "ultimate flaw" correctly, that it is the depiction of time in a game in comparison to real time ?

And that the difference between fighting and working are just to extreme.

As a solution, would it make sense to switch to a different timeframe during combat ?
Combat Time Ticks are measured in minutes instead of hours.
Production can still happen in this timeframe but is slowed down accordingly to avoid abuse.

For the cooking example the best way to avoid the timing flaw is the use of bulk production.
Which is also the most realistic way to do things.

To avoid making it to easy on the player this could be counteracted by higher requirements, bigger stoves, addons to the kitchen and/or more production steps, that enables more pawns to work on the same product at the same time.

A few things could be done to help out this problem. However, I feel this is a very small issue as there are many things the player can do to mitigate these issues with how you set up the base and production.

Quote from: Disnof on November 23, 2017, 04:14:13 PM
A few things could be done to help out this problem. However, I feel this is a very small issue as there are many things the player can do to mitigate these issues with how you set up the base and production.

If by "small issue" you mean the potential gains in terms of productive use of the day are overwhelmingly in favour of a complete and utter focus on movement excluding basically everything else short of a mental break then yes, that is a small issue.

Well that is just what part of the meta of rimworld is, base layout is extremely important. Someone new will struggle with certain aspects of the game until they figure it out and set their base up differently.

Take cooking "WTF i need 4 cooks to feed 20 people?" Then they set things up different and bam 1 guy is feeding 20. "Why is my guy bleeding to death isn't the medic on it??" maybe build a medic room with medicine in it so the medic doesn't run 20 miles for it.

I am not sure what you want there is a game called Factorio. It bring the stuff to you on belts.. is that what you want? If so I think they got a mod for that...

Quote from: Disnof on November 24, 2017, 05:26:49 AM
Well that is just what part of the meta of rimworld is, base layout is extremely important.

Take cooking "WTF i need 4 cooks to feed 20 people?" Then they set things up different and bam 1 guy is feeding 20. "Why is my guy bleeding to death isn't the medic on it??" maybe build a medic room with medicine in it so the medic doesn't run 20 miles for it.

The flaw with this logic is, that it leaves only one perfect solution while every other solution makes you lose the game in some way.

Sure having a Hospital with Medicine available is a good thing. And having a kitchen setup that follows the rules of common sense is also good.
But if the definition of close by has to be "no less than two tiles, else movement slowes the progress to much" there is something wrong.

Having a Butcher Table and Stove directly Facing each other, while the raw product gets dumped directly on the cook .. I fail to see the common sense in this design ..

Can we have no pride in finding THE BEST SET UP?

I wouldn't put my butcher table in the same room as my cooking thats barbaric! The butcher table is dirty and butchering now causes blood!

Who says you need everything optimal? I haven't used a kill box in about a month. Sometimes optimal is boring.

Quote from: Disnof on November 24, 2017, 06:03:50 AM
Can we have no pride in finding THE BEST SET UP?

I wouldn't put my butcher table in the same room as my cooking thats barbaric! The butcher table is dirty and butchering now causes blood!

Who says you need everything optimal? I haven't used a kill box in about a month. Sometimes optimal is boring.

The "best set up" is not something you can have any pride in when it's obviously the design that minimizes movement, usually to a single tile at most.

Your right, optimal is boring. In this game, optimal is extremely boring and extremely obvious.

That is the issue, in a nutshell.

It is a sandbox base builder game. You do what you want. All I can say is they have a mod for that.

I've experimented with different base designs and I rarely make my plans on the most efficient method, sometimes I even go for the opposite just cause.  Most of the time, my colony doesn't fail due to those decisions.  Sure, it would've been easier using the most efficient method but it's not at all necessary unless you're playing on ice sheets or something. I think the flaw here is how you're approaching it. 

There are some drawbacks.  You may need more resources for your design, or don't use power efficiently, and of course the time it takes for your pawns to get to places etc. I don't feel constraint at all. I guess the difference here is that I accept these small drawbacks or challenges. TBH most are quite manageable.

Quote from: Disnof on November 24, 2017, 06:20:35 AM
It is a sandbox base builder game. You do what you want. All I can say is they have a mod for that.

Nope .. none that I know of ..

Quote from: Disnof on November 24, 2017, 06:20:35 AM
It is a sandbox base builder game. You do what you want. All I can say is they have a mod for that.

You don't just "do what you want" though do you? The need to optimise movement is too constraining for that.

At a small field base, the stockpile is off to the side somewhere out the way, in real life right? But in Rimworld, it's always, always, always in the dead centre of the base like some sort of demented courtyard. It has every building facing it like it's some sort of place of worship. At least until you have really effective systems and peons with individual stockpiling.

The importance of Movement is needlessly limiting.

Uhhhh....

I know i didn't read anything... but... all i can say is this...

Nothing is perfect. No game or movie nor any media is perfect, anything that you like and your favorite show or food always has a flaw in the script or in how it tastes like and as always nothing is perfect and everything has a flaw. As long as we can live with it.

That's all i can say...

You're still looking at what is most optimal... You can have several stockpiles all around your base.  You can have one massive stockpile if you wish plus many more options.  You make it sound like your game ends or a total struggle if you don't do what's most optimal but that is not the case.  There is not a NEED for it... I've had bases where I would use friggin drop pods to get around.

EDIT: I should mention I haven't played too much of 18.  A17 pathfinding was broken yet movement and getting things done still wasn't an issue.

^This

Cooking, crafting, cleaning, power production... are no real issues. You don't have to min max them to succeed at higher difficulties, just apply common sense.

The only issue at higher difficulties is how to deal with the threats, will your base be open/ closed and how much you will cheese the AI.

This can be solved. But yes, it is somewhat annoying.

I think the problem is in the fact that pawns do tasks one by one, therefore they only carry enough resources to complete it once. They are fully capable of carrying more, or setting things up so that they can do it more efficiently.
It is problem of AI, and I imagine at this stage it isn't worth making it super optimal.

An example of how problem could be fixed:
If pawn is going for a cooking job, and the first needs him to do 20 meals (to me the demand), instead of taking 10 raw food, he'll carry as much as possible, and then start doing his work. For example, 75. He will then make 7 meals, and only after he has finished doing all of 7, he will take them to the storage. If you happen to interrupt him, he will either continue, or any other pawn who comes nearby will continue.
There are, of course, many problems to solve with AI in order to achieve that.

That and I also agree that working in -5C should make cooking far slower. Like 70% slower.

Building efficient things in an efficient way is one of the challenges is Rimworld, and I quite enjoy having to do it, it is just like in real life; you need to have a good road between a farm and store, for example. You also need to keep factories away from residential areas.

Quote from: Perq on November 24, 2017, 07:48:01 AM
This can be solved. But yes, it is somewhat annoying.

I think the problem is in the fact that pawns do tasks one by one, therefore they only carry enough resources to complete it once. They are fully capable of carrying more, or setting things up so that they can do it more efficiently.
It is problem of AI, and I imagine at this stage it isn't worth making it super optimal.

An example of how problem could be fixed:
If pawn is going for a cooking job, and the first needs him to do 20 meals (to me the demand), instead of taking 10 raw food, he'll carry as much as possible, and then start doing his work. For example, 75. He will then make 7 meals, and only after he has finished doing all of 7, he will take them to the storage. If you happen to interrupt him, he will either continue, or any other pawn who comes nearby will continue.
There are, of course, many problems to solve with AI in order to achieve that.

That and I also agree that working in -5C should make cooking far slower. Like 70% slower.

I do believe cooking in your freezer has been nerfed in a17 or b18 if I remember correctly.

Quote from: Edmon on November 24, 2017, 07:01:46 AM

Quote from: Disnof on November 24, 2017, 06:20:35 AM
It is a sandbox base builder game. You do what you want. All I can say is they have a mod for that.

You don't just "do what you want" though do you? The need to optimise movement is too constraining for that.

At a small field base, the stockpile is off to the side somewhere out the way, in real life right? But in Rimworld, it's always, always, always in the dead centre of the base like some sort of demented courtyard. It has every building facing it like it's some sort of place of worship. At least until you have really effective systems and peons with individual stockpiling.

The importance of Movement is needlessly limiting.

Love this post  ;D it describes most of my bases close enough.

It doesn't really work though. You need to put corpses somewhere else or the ugliness mood debuff goes too bad.

Combat has also destroyed my stockpiles too many times. Mortars is another threat. And so on. When my base expands, I tend to spread out different kinds of stockpiles in different areas, and put things like bionics and medicine spread out so that one mortar hit or fire cannot destroy too much value.

I think you have a point, but I don't agree that it ruins the game or is a fatal flaw.

Funny enough, I *never* have a central "courtyard".  Your "universal use case" is not universal, that simple; many user-posted bases similarly do NOT share your design choice.  So much for "always, always".

Likewise, my current theory is to have a base where the various storage rooms (usually one big "general storage" and a freezer) are to one side, the production rooms (stove/butchering compartments, possibly with a meals freezer attached, then a big workshop) are in the middle, and the living space (bedrooms + diner) is on the other side, with maybe a central corridor between the work and living area if I decide to double-up on bedrooms. Then I've got my enclosed windfarm (with either solar panels or secure growing space) just beyond the storage zone.

Having the workshop too close to the outside risks letting a sapper "accidentally" destroy my high-tech research bench or some such nonsense: I'd much rather he blow up some wood or food.

Quote from: Edmon on November 20, 2017, 06:24:40 PM
The solution is, in many ways quite simple.

Slow down time and increase the time it takes to do everything by the same ratio. Then, perhaps, offer production bonuses for actually making nice rooms.

For example. If time was 4x slower in our kitchen example, then movement as a problem is 4x less important. However, it still takes the same amount of daytime to complete the cooking/butchering/etc as it did before, as these things have been made to take 4x longer in real time.

I don't think it fixes anything, it just makes the issue harder to notice.

In real life, people need rest and can't work forever. In Rimworld, they can. A pawn can spend his days stonecutting for a week. But professional athletes need a lot of rest. Rimworld has no muscle sores and overtraining. Implementing a similar mechanism would be realistic. Pawns couldn't perform hard work for days, they would need to switch jobs to something lighter like art or maybe plant work, recruitment, animal training or just plain rest. The problem is making an interface which allows automating this... or is it ? A pawn could automatically stop doing hard work and switch to lighter tasks in work priority tab if he gets 'muscle sores' status.

Quote
Honestly, I have gotten really bored of these types of games not because I don't love them, but because the Ultimate Problem means there is nothing interesting to solve in them design wise. Except perhaps how to design the defences. The production side of it is solved with one simple statement:

Which design involves the least movement.

Well put.

Additionally, Rimworld barely places any constraints on how bases can be built. I hear the new swamp terrain does that. And you have to hunt for gravel patches on ice sheet. But those are exceptions, not the rule. How about:

- unstable soil, okay to walk on but can't support buildings
- fishing ponds. They would be far between and would temporarily deplete when overused, so building a base around one wouldn't be much use.
- events that contaminate an area (not the whole map) for a long time so you have to move part of your base. These can be more interesting than global events like volcanic winter. In case of volcanic winter, there's nothing you can do and it usually doesn't affect player behavior.
- bring back pirate drop pods. They encouraged loose bases with separate houses, those EASILY defended against them (divide and conquer).
- some machines like geothermal generators could produce annoying ambient noise, negatively affecting nearby sleep and joy activities. Others could simply stink.
- fire that is actually scary. Rimworld currently has two situations: 1) You build with wood/steel in early game and you're very vulnerable to fires. 2) you start building with stone and you forget about fires. There's nothing in between. Stone is the most plentiful material, steel is needed for machines and there's no substitute you can use. Wood just falls apart too quickly.

The OP seems to have found the core game design concept of base building games. They always boil down to optimized resource gathering, storage and production and they pretty much always have optimal base blueprints. If there is some movement aspect to executing commands then movement minimization will always be the primary optimization goal.

If you consider said design an ultimate flaw you should not like building games as virtually all of them have that. I wouldn't buy that Rimworld is particularly simplistic by comparison either.

It's a tad a complaint about the core gameplay loop of the game. Well, if you don't like that...

Otherwise the Early Access strategy with long continuous development after sale leads to engaged playerbase but said playerbase will sink hundreds of hours into a game over years so of course optimal strategies have been long figured out and are only slightly changed by every release change.

Quote from: Shurp on November 21, 2017, 05:59:52 AM
Killboxing with turrets is the most efficient base defense but there are alternatives.  Polar bears can be very effective.

I continue to question this notion, as it's popular here and on reddit.  Somehow turret killboxes are "noob" or "make the game too easy" or other lines depending on who you ask.  However, the notion that this is "most efficient" is pretty hard to back.  The power, steel, component draw, and risk of solar flare all damage its consideration for top option.

It would still lead if there weren't other options, but considering that there *are* alternatives that utilize fewer resources by a wide margin while exposing pawns to similarly minimal risk, I can't accept the notion that turrets are the most efficient.

Same goes for OP's example due to food poisoning, it's often worth adding hauling cost in order to ensure workers like constructors don't take the food poisoning malus (essentially transferring work from weak pawns to skilled ones).  That said, he does have a point in that movement does not scale well to many tasks.  Cooking is an example, but construction, hauling jobs, food management, and more all do serve to create a micro sink/standardized optimization that doesn't really do much for the game as a whole.

I do think movement can and should be an important consideration, but would agree that it is a bit too dominant in Rimworld for several tasks, including ones crucial to survival.  It's not easily solved though; increasing movement speed relative to work speed means that you will need to wait much longer to progress in IRL terms.  You could have speeds up to 12, but then at 12 speed it would beat out human perception and force slower game progression speed from rote micromanagement requirements.  It also does alter the balance value of hauling and that would need some help somehow.

There's a simple fix for this: change output results.

Nobody complains about movement being too important when tailoring parkas or crafting LMGs, because the time spent at work far exceeds the time walking around gathering materials.  Even with making bricks it's not too much of an issue.

It's simple enough to apply the same to food and drug manufacture.  Simply multiply the time and ingredients it takes to make them by 5, and simultaneously multiply the output by 5.  So your cook has to carry 50 units of food to the cook bench, spends a while there, and then pops out 5 meals.

There's probably a mod for this somewhere.

-------------------------[edit]------------

Hmmm, maybe this won't work so easily.  Increasing ingredients and product is easy.  But work is specified on the item itself.  If I specify the job output to be 5, is rimworld smart enough to multiply "<WorkToMake>" by 5 as well?

I don't know about "simple", but I think you're on to something with that as something that could help.

Imho this "ultimate flaw" is kind of like a flavor of a more basic realization. Any game that offers a certain amount of options, choices and freedoms and also is Single-player is ultimately usually easy to exploit and its scripted "AI" systems can be turned into a slave to the superior human mind in front of the machine. Does not really matter if the game is Civilization, Skyrim or EU4. Different for some simple "action rpg console games" and thelike where its mainly running from A to B and smashing orcs but even there its often the case just motoric/dexterity skills and practice of those plus memorizing levels and such make up more of the "challenge".

At that point you have to decide what you want to do:
- Download a different game that give you a new set of problems to figure out
- Play multiplayer (if the game has it)
- Find ways to enjoy a game other than problem solving and optimizing
- Restrict yourself by mods or voluntary challenges giving creating an additional problem to solve

For me even though I like complex games like Dwarf Fortress and HOI3 its not mainly about solving hard problems. I have plenty of those at work so games while I like a challenge and them not to be too stupid I still want to relax and enjoy.
If solving tough problems is the main motivator for you you might want to look into sites/games/books that offer interesting and really hard math based problems and riddles/puzzles there's enough material to keep you busy for a lifetime.

Quote from: Bozobub on December 08, 2017, 10:42:24 AM
Funny enough, I *never* have a central "courtyard".  Your "universal use case" is not universal, that simple; many user-posted bases similarly do NOT share your design choice.  So much for "always, always".

You have either never played the game, or only played the game on the lowest difficulties while deliberately having a rule about not building your stockpile in a central and accessible location. Or you are lying to try and be contrary.

I know on which of these possibilities I would place my money.

Once you get going, mini-stockpiles everywhere is a better design. But early on, ruthless difficulty demands a stockpile in an optimal position in the centre of your base, if you plan to survive for more than a few days anyway.

Quote from: Edmon on December 11, 2017, 11:22:45 AMI know on which of these possibilities I would place my money.

"I only care about being as efficient as possible, so obviously, anyone who claims to care about other aspects of game play is lying. I can't conceive of any other method than the one I use to solve the 'problem' I've described, so obviously, anyone who claims to use different methodologies in their games is lying. In short, I don't want a discussion. I just want others to agree that I'm right, and change the game to suit me."

Got it.

Quote from: Edmon on December 11, 2017, 11:22:45 AM

Quote from: Bozobub on December 08, 2017, 10:42:24 AM
Funny enough, I *never* have a central "courtyard".  Your "universal use case" is not universal, that simple; many user-posted bases similarly do NOT share your design choice.  So much for "always, always".

You have either never played the game, or only played the game on the lowest difficulties while deliberately having a rule about not building your stockpile in a central and accessible location. Or you are lying to try and be contrary.

I know on which of these possibilities I would place my money.

Once you get going, mini-stockpiles everywhere is a better design. But early on, ruthless difficulty demands a stockpile in an optimal position in the centre of your base, if you plan to survive for more than a few days anyway.

A central courtyard stockpile is not always the most movement-efficient setup.  You want to stockpile weapons/armor where you are most likely to use them, same with food.  Rarely used stuff that takes up space should probably be stashed elsewhere (especially sell bait like art you're not putting in rooms, since once you stockpile it the stuff won't move again).  Medicine should definitely be on 1-2 tile stockpiles next to hospital beds, etc.

Of course, this doesn't change your point about movement efficiency and how it rules the game, just how the optimization works in practice.

One that I often don't know what to do with is building materials.  Centralizing it is nice for construction, but unlike most of your resources the AI raiders will never try to steal stone blocks and will almost never bother with targeting steel/wood stockpiles.  Keeping too much of this stuff in the base means expending more resources to build the surrounding structures, and at some point the movement cost for this exceeds the utility of bothering with the centralized storage...especially when you can just dump them under 1 block pillars with a roof somewhere roughly near the base without issue.

Quote from: Shurp on December 10, 2017, 07:22:39 PM
There's a simple fix for this: change output results.

Nobody complains about movement being too important when tailoring parkas or crafting LMGs, because the time spent at work far exceeds the time walking around gathering materials.  Even with making bricks it's not too much of an issue.

It's simple enough to apply the same to food and drug manufacture.  Simply multiply the time and ingredients it takes to make them by 5, and simultaneously multiply the output by 5.  So your cook has to carry 50 units of food to the cook bench, spends a while there, and then pops out 5 meals.

There's probably a mod for this somewhere.

-------------------------[edit]------------

Hmmm, maybe this won't work so easily.  Increasing ingredients and product is easy.  But work is specified on the item itself.  If I specify the job output to be 5, is rimworld smart enough to multiply "<WorkToMake>" by 5 as well?

While more coding necessary imo it could be done via making materials necessary to be added in increments, instead before the work starts. E.g. if something needs 200 steel it might get chopped up in 20 steel increments for work so the pawn needs to retrieve 20 more steel for each 10% progress though I'm still not sure it would work that well because except for certain goods like food you really don't need scaled up mass production as you have to manage resource scarcity on the other end as well.

I think the main reason for stockpiles is the way weapons and apparel are non stackable. It's the main reason storage room gets sparse, not the raw materials per se (or your colony is so advanced and productive it doesn't have a problem to begin with).

Quote from: Edmon on December 11, 2017, 11:22:45 AM

Quote from: Bozobub on December 08, 2017, 10:42:24 AM
Funny enough, I *never* have a central "courtyard".  Your "universal use case" is not universal, that simple; many user-posted bases similarly do NOT share your design choice.  So much for "always, always".

You have either never played the game, or only played the game on the lowest difficulties while deliberately having a rule about not building your stockpile in a central and accessible location. Or you are lying to try and be contrary.

I know on which of these possibilities I would place my money.

Once you get going, mini-stockpiles everywhere is a better design. But early on, ruthless difficulty demands a stockpile in an optimal position in the centre of your base, if you plan to survive for more than a few days anyway.

So the universal gameplay strategy everyone should do to play optimally is actually not the optimal gameplay strategy because you only need it for the first few days when your base isn't even up yet is what you are saying...

And I would can the ad hominems if I were you. Outside youtube comment sections they usually are not helpful to be taken seriously and that says mainly something about the level of quality of youtube comment sections.

To all those saying that a central courtyard is not optimal in the early game, I want to ask you something.

Did you ever realise that it was optimal to just build stockpiles over the top of dropped resources at the start, with the materials you want to use to build starting in the top left corner and then rotating around? There are people out there who made videos of themselves doing this, actually building the ship and escaping before the colony even got named. Have you done this?

Did you realise that it's more optimal (skillset permitting) to kill a large animal further away  and either cut wood down there (trees permitting) or just take wood with you (put a single tile down and command the pawn the haul it as they go out to hunt). Then build a butcher table and fuel stove out there in the middle of nowhere? So that the goal is simply to return with meals and your middle of nowhere cooking stations are available for next time?

There are things you only realise when you are trying to push the limits of the game, rather than just enjoying a lazy sandboxing experience. The problem is, movement is so ruthlessly important that if you truly are excellent in minimizing it, stuff like escaping before the 5th day isn't just possible, it's easily possible.

But you only will come to realise this if you have the skillset to execute at that level of play, or you've watched videos of other people playing at that level.

The important point is, that even if you don't play to speed run or that's not your thing, improving the movement versus work balance is going to make your game more fun and feel less limiting.

You should be free to build a base that is reasonably realistic and for it to actually work. As it stands, that is not the case, unless you basically have hostile events turned off.

Which isn't great balance.

Quote from: Edmon on December 12, 2017, 03:01:32 AM
Did you ever realise that it was optimal to just build stockpiles over the top of dropped resources at the start, with the materials you want to use to build starting in the top left corner and then rotating around?

So are you saying that this is optimal? Or are you saying players without central courtyard think this is optimal and you do not?

Quote from: Edmon on December 12, 2017, 03:01:32 AM
Did you realise that it's more optimal (skillset permitting) to kill a large animal further away  and either cut wood down there (trees permitting) or just take wood with you (put a single tile down and command the pawn the haul it as they go out to hunt). Then build a butcher table and fuel stove out there in the middle of nowhere? So that the goal is simply to return with meals and your middle of nowhere cooking stations are available for next time?

Again: Are you saying that this is optimal? Or are you saying players without central courtyard think this is optimal and you do not?

I am at a loss because the first "optimization" seems alright to me as early game solution while the second "optimization" just sound ludicrous.

Both of these things are optimal in terms of Raw Resource > Product in the shortest time.

QuoteDid you ever realise that it was optimal to just build stockpiles over the top of dropped resources at the start, with the materials you want to use to build starting in the top left corner and then rotating around? There are people out there who made videos of themselves doing this, actually building the ship and escaping before the colony even got named. Have you done this?

I'm not buying it.  No matter how fast you are, you're still gated on tech to launch the ship.  Even if you crank 4+ research benches, colonies are named in <1 year.

And that's before we talk about the uranium shortage.  Often in pre-18 patches I found that the inability to get uranium via deep drilling or trades was the *sole* bottleneck for launching a ship...even on tribal tech.  A18 added a lot of work for advanced components, but the bottleneck is still often uranium.

Absent the bug in A17 that allowed the colony to go un-named for extended periods, you'd need to start with BS resources to launch a ship in < 1 year.  In A18, the need to manufacture advanced components pushes this back further.  I'd love to see evidence of what you describe in B18 in an unmodified/QoL only game with starting resources.  I'd learn a lot, but for the moment I can't believe it.  Hell, if you could launch in 5 days building a stove would be pointless, you have enough starting meals to last that long as crashlanded.

The resources to do it aren't there, and no amount of movement optimization gives you day 3 deep drilling.

Quote from: Edmon on December 12, 2017, 09:41:55 AM
Both of these things are optimal in terms of Raw Resource > Product in the shortest time.

Then the second one is terribly poor example to make your point because it has a lot of disadvantages and does not even achieve the primary goal of minimizing movement time.

Quote from: Edmon on December 12, 2017, 03:01:32 AM
Did you realise that it's more optimal (skillset permitting) to kill a large animal further away  and either cut wood down there (trees permitting) or just take wood with you (put a single tile down and command the pawn the haul it as they go out to hunt). Then build a butcher table and fuel stove out there in the middle of nowhere? So that the goal is simply to return with meals and your middle of nowhere cooking stations are available for next time?

First of all why it fails the goal:
Let's assume the large animal is a muffalo, thus yielding ~200 meat = 20 simple meals. So instead of hauling one dead animal corpse in one tour to your well set-up kitchen, you cook 20 meals out in the wild and haul 2 stacks of 10 meals each back to your base. And the leather if you don't wanna waste it. How is that an optimization?

Second all the disadvantages that come with it:
- No clean kitchen -> increases likeliness of food poisoning.
- A lot of micromanagement (not necessarily in this order): Build a 1-tile-wood-stockpile, order a pawn to haul wood there, order this pawn to hunt (or do it manually), wait for the hunt to succeed, stop this pawn from automatically hauling his prey, chop down at least one more tree, build a butcher table, create a butcher bill, order this pawn to butcher, get 80 steel from somewhere (how does this part reduce hauling?), build a fueled stove, fuel the stove (might need to cut another tree for that), create a cooking bill, order this pawn to cook, wait for the job to finish, order this pawn to haul the meals back.
- Even if you argue that the excessive micro listed above is only needed a few times (before your decentraliced "kitchens" are established) there are other issues down the line. If you want to optimize movement you have to make absolutely sure that you don't accidently leave open bills that make your pawns move across half the map to some "kitchen". You have to make sure you forbid leftover meat (stacks < 10) after cooking to avoid anyone hauling it. You have to make sure no one is taking a lengthy trip only to refuel the stoves...
- You only get simple meals this way. And especially on the "ruthless difficulties" you are talking about I would imagine the +5 mood boost from fine meals to be important.

Third the necessary preconditions:
- Your pawn must be capable of hunting, constructing, cooking and hauling for this to work.
- You must be on a map with a lot of trees everywhere.

So your "optimization" only works in a bubble where the product (meals) is the endpoint (and thus its transportation is irrelevant) and the byproduct (leather, left-over meat) is irrelevant. So it is not at all applicable to the game and the game does not incentivize you in any way to optimize in such a way as shown by the listed disadvantages. So what exactly is your point by bringing this example up? There is absolutely nothing to realize.

Quote from: Edmon on December 12, 2017, 03:01:32 AMTo all those saying that a central courtyard is not optimal in the early game, I want to ask you something.

You  fail miserably here.  Why?  Because a central courtyard IS NOT always optimal, depending on the item(s) stored.  Your lack of imagination limits no one else but you, that simple.

You're also going to have to show how you're "escaping by the 5th day", without using  the console or larding yourself with resources at game creation, because that's rather obvious bullshit.

Oh, by the by, I've played on *every* difficulty; snoot fail.  Perhaps if you upgraded your bullshit skills?

Considering your OP was rather pointless, what do you think you're on about, exactly?

I kind of see where the OP is coming. But on the other hand, I don't seem to think it's quite as bad - at least in my experience.

I understand the pressure to make an efficient base over one that looks nice or is less tedious to build. The extent that effects the player is probably highly variable from one person to the next. But I firmly believe the more you see the positive effects and know how the achieve them, the harder they are to ignore. Having a very efficient layout for each workroom can lead to downright massive improvements in productivity. So much so that I can't really ignore the benefits. Although I feel I've learned to blend both their efficiency, aesthetics, and time investment fairly well over time. Then again, improving how I approach anything is something I experience quite a bit of enjoyment in refining as I play any game.

I think a large amount of this issue would be resolved with some improvements to the pathfinding AI, if A18 didn't already do so. I haven't played since A17. For example, I had pawns set to tame or hunt that seemed to completely disregard how long it would take to get out to where they needed to go. If the path was long and/or covered in snow and other movement obstructions they would stroll off even though they would have to go to bed or get hungry long before they could have ever arrived at their destination and end up wasting most of their day.

Lastly, the Hand Me That Brick (http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=776679895&searchtext=hand+me+that+brick) mod should seriously be integrated into the main game. Don't play without it. I cannot stress that enough. It lets haulers deliver resources to constructions even if they can't or aren't the ones actively building it.

I suppose the game days could be slightly longer too. I guess my point is I believe this could be largely resolved by further improvements to the game.

Just like Dwarf Fortress, I personally consider hauling to be one of biggest annoyances in the game. Doubly so if you build a mountain base. Too many hauling jobs needs and not enough time or manpower. Stack limits are too small..

I think it's time for Bozobub to have a conversation with himself. No literally.

Quote from: Bozobub on December 12, 2017, 10:54:55 AM
You  fail miserably here.  Why?  Because a central courtyard IS NOT always optimal, depending on the item(s) stored.  Your lack of imagination limits no one else but you, that simple.

Quote from: Bozobub on December 10, 2017, 06:09:13 PM
I've never tried to "win", even once.  I *like* sandboxes.

Quote from: Bozobub on December 12, 2017, 10:54:55 AM
You're also going to have to show how you're "escaping by the 5th day", without using  the console or larding yourself with resources at game creation, because that's rather obvious bullshit.

Oh, by the by, I've played on *every* difficulty; snoot fail.  Perhaps if you upgraded your bullshit skills?

Quote from: Bozobub on December 10, 2017, 06:09:13 PM
I've never tried to "win", even once.  I *like* sandboxes.

Thanks for clearing that up Bozobub, so do you agree that movement is the main issue with this game?

Quote from: Bozobub on November 23, 2017, 03:42:00 AM
I personally think that similar QoL changes is what RimWorld needs most (well, OK, pathfinding, pathfinding, pathfinding, but BESIDES that ::)).  That also meshes well with going to a beta release, imo; I'd be willing to bet we start seeing a LOT of polish incoming =).

Ah, great.

Thanks buddy.

Anything else?

Quote from: Bozobub on October 20, 2017, 03:03:50 PM
Your suggestion was obviously an attempt at humor =).

I felt it necessary to say something, before I heard the baying of hounds.  Let it go, people...

Quote from: Bozobub on September 07, 2017, 07:24:02 PM
1.  That should be fully up to the individual player and already kind of is, via storyteller and difficulty settings.  I personally *never* go for the actual "win" scenario.

2.  See above.

Ok cool, so you never try to win, so you have no idea about what is optimal in many cases. That's totally fine.

You just wanted to have an argument in here because you think arguing the opposite for the sake of it is fun, even if you actually agree with me (and have said so in many other threads, at least in terms of pathfinding which of course is about making movement optimal).

@Edmon

You're wasting your time.

In my experience, Bozobub is (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissistic_personality_disorder) an antagonistic contrarian who misuses their intelligence and grammatical skills being sarcastic, insulting, and generally just going full effort to disagree with people and tell them their opinions are wrong in ways that are not constructive.

They are literally the only person I have ever ignored on any forum, ever, and I've been online since 2400 baud modems. A shame really, because I do enjoy reading posts by people who (usually) write so well.

Engaging this person will only waste your time and derail the thread. Better to just move on.

On topic, I don't use a centralized stockpile any more. Well, only for stuff that isn't needed at a workstation. Better to have a stockpile by/in each workroom with only the materials that workroom needs. The less time they spend going out and grabbing everything they need, the better and it gives you more freedom in base layout.

I'll make the main stockpile set on the second to highest priority, and make a few 1 tile stockpiles right next to the workstation's chair on max priority. They don't even have to move that way. Let haulers do the majority of the footwork instead of skilled crafters.

If you haven't, try the mod I linked above. It should help a lot with your issue.

Edmon, the fact that Bozobub has said he never goes for the "'win' scenario" simply means he doesn't bother racing to build a spaceship and leave the planet. It doesn't mean that he hasn't played on the highest difficulty settings and it doesn't mean that he hasn't had to deal with the various challenges and threats the game throws at him.

Similarly, the fact that he (like most players) recognizes how wonky pawn pathfinding can be hardly means he agrees with your claim that pawn movement efficiency is an "ultimate flaw" that somehow dictates "one and only one" way to successfully play the game.

But, then, I'm not surprised you don't get that. In three weeks, you've really demonstrated no ability (or desire) to understand what others have to say. You've done nothing in this thread but repeat yourself over and over. Others have explained in detail why your "only viable strategy" really isn't the only option, and why the "ultimate flaw" you're complaining about is really not an "ultimate" flaw at all, and your response has been to accuse them of "lying" about their play style and experience because that experience contradicts your claims or runs counter to your assumptions.

You might want to try actually listening for a change.

Quote from: dburgdorf on December 13, 2017, 08:33:15 AM
Edmon, the fact that Bozobub has said he never goes for the "'win' scenario" simply means he doesn't bother racing to build a spaceship and leave the planet. It doesn't mean that he hasn't played on the highest difficulty settings and it doesn't mean that he hasn't had to deal with the various challenges and threats the game throws at him.

Similarly, the fact that he (like most players) recognizes how wonky pawn pathfinding can be hardly means he agrees with your claim that pawn movement efficiency is an "ultimate flaw" that somehow dictates "one and only one" way to successfully play the game.

But, then, I'm not surprised you don't get that. In three weeks, you've really demonstrated no ability (or desire) to understand what others have to say. You've done nothing in this thread but repeat yourself over and over. Others have explained in detail why your "only viable strategy" really isn't the only option, and why the "ultimate flaw" you're complaining about is really not an "ultimate" flaw at all, and your response has been to accuse them of "lying" about their play style and experience because that experience contradicts your claims or runs counter to your assumptions.

You might want to try actually listening for a change.

I am telling you that the quickest way to get 2, is to add 1 + 1 together and most of the counter arguments in this thread is that you don't have to do that, you could take 4, add 6 and then remove 8 to get 2.

And that's correct and all well and good, but it IS NOT OPTIMAL.

Movement minimizations centric designs are extremely optimal in Rimworld, as to the point of being all consuming. If optimization is your objective, this game is incredibly one-dimentional. unlike say, factorio, in which optimization can be a deep and massively complex thing.

The fact that he has discovered path finding can be wonky is not just an admittance that movement can be critically important at times.

It also tells me he does not or has not got the skill or foresight to minimize movement in the first place in the confines of the simplistic path finding to prevent path finding from ever being an issue in the first place.

Successfully playing the game and playing the game optimally are two completely different things and you should not mix the two.

Let me make it clear why many of the people in this thread are simply burning a strawman in simple terms:

I am talking about there only being one viable strategy if you want to be optimal.
They are talking about there being other strategies, if you want to be [X]. Where X =(successful, survive, have fun, insert target goal that isn't what I said here that fits their argument and isn't optimization).

I'm still interested in how the math allows movement optimization to do a < 1 year launch, even under theoretical perfect movement micromanagement.

Quote from: Edmon on December 13, 2017, 03:46:37 AM*silliness*

Instant fail, nitwit.

Back up your bullshit, and tell us all how you left the planet in 5 days.  Well?  And as noted above, no the game is not somehow magically easier, simply because I don't care about the spaceship, EXCEPT the fact that I don't have to gather uranium the same way or use caravans, unless I really want to.

All your armwaving has failed to disguise the simple fact that you're not just incorrect, but an active liar.  Whether or not you accept this, unless you show otherwise, that assessment is NOT going to change.

@BoogieMan:  Funny, how YOU also don't follow OP's "rule", that a central courtyard stockpile is always optimal; hmmm...  It's almost like you're relying on ad hominem, or something.  Gosh.  Nor do I feel obliged to be polite to someone who is being massively rude, which is *exactly* why we clashed in the past, I'll note.

Gee willikers I sure do love coming into threads and watching dumb folk fight because this forum is clearly a great place for slap fights.

So here's what I'm going to do, make sure you're paying attention kiddos because this is an official warning from an admin.

Any hate, aggression, spiteful statements, or overall harassing posts past this line below runs the risk of a cozy two week ban for breaking rules 1, 2, 3, or 5. We'll call it "the Badmin line of punishment!" You can talk smack about the game, you can express your concerns, but some of you have devolved the conversation to just a time wasting mass of dumb and quite a few of us are tired of it. Sorry folks, I'm a fun lovin' fella who wants to see constructive thoughts, if you few want to war take it to PMs.

___________________BADMIN LINE OF PUNISHMENT____________________

Quote from: TheMeInTeam on December 13, 2017, 10:15:57 AM
I'm still interested in how the math allows movement optimization to do a < 1 year launch, even under theoretical perfect movement micromanagement.

The video I saw of a 5 day launch rush basically relies on a suicidal rush for the exact research required while digging for the resources needed to build the exact minimal spaceship. However, it was in a time before the AI core was required and getting that item is completely random, so in theory it could still be done in the same time but it would require the luck of getting a trader with it or a ship part drop.

The key takeaways were:
> To not bother with beds, food, or basically anything. You are relying on the rations you start with and the new colony optimism buff to succeed.
> You are only basically building 2 research benches while the 3rd man gathers the items you need for the adv. research benches and the ship. Basically by mining non-stop and sleeping at the cliff faces.
> Crash-landed is the setting and some very decent pawns were required (so lots of re-rolling, basically).

Failure to get the job done fast enough is almost certain death, as you are not preparing for the future at all.

You require some luck on finding veins of plastisteel and normal steel, near enough and in enough quantity.

It was really interesting to watch, I would recommend it. It has to be on youtube somewhere and I originally found it on this very forum.

As you know from my EUIV play through, I love to do the impossible in games by pushing the mechanics to the limits. Which is why I made this thread, I just think the importance of movement makes a lot of the strategy very simplistic and thus, disappointing.

Quote from: Edmon on December 13, 2017, 06:27:14 PM...
As you know from my EUIV play through, I love to do the impossible in games by pushing the mechanics to the limits. Which is why I made this thread, I just think the importance of movement makes a lot of the strategy very simplistic and thus, disappointing.

I know I have had the habit at times of trying to push games to the limit, to break them and achieve the impossible only to come up disappointed.  I found myself exploiting just a narrow wedge of the game's content for my advantages, and the whole exercise started to feel lost and hollow. 

I also tend to lose interest in a game when I feel I have "figured it out", that I know that I have won and all that's required is the busywork of carrying out a plan I already know will succeed.  Civ4 was the first game I got really good at, and I kept upping the difficulty more and more until I found myself looking at a starting location, seeing how near a neighbor was for my invasion, and deciding that either the game was "Impossible" or "Winnable and thus boring".  This sort of absolutist thinking and deciding that "early rushes determine everything" sort of poisoned my enjoyment of Civilization for a while.

Eventually I realized that a lot of my problem was not with the challenge itself, but the way I went about it.  When I raised the challenge level, I then responded by doubling-down on micromanagement to the point that it became a chore to play the game.  I'd be assured of victory, but I'd never truly WIN, because I always abandoned every game.

I never even contemplated another way of playing the game until I ran across an article on the Civfanatics forum: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/tmits-guide-to-speed-civving.301900/
This guy just played right through.  He played his games fast and he experienced the whole game, and then learned from them to play better next time.  His strategies were so different than mine, I was flabbergasted.  But I decided to try his techniques to just play a game quickly and to completion.

I failed. 
I failed utterly.  The siren call of micromanagement was too strong, and I got bogged down in optimizing details.  Pressing "end turn" before I was sure I felt ready just felt wrong.  Was it a failing on my part?  A lack of focus?  Or did we just get our fun from doing different things?   I have pondered this ever since.

Is there a point to this rambling story?  Maybe it is that there is always more to a game than what you see when you are looking only for the "one true path" to victory.  That just because you've found one good angle to approach a game at, doesn't mean that's everything the game has to offer.

Then again, I have repeated my pattern of "giving up halfway" over the years with every game I play.  Game after game I start with a new idea of how to go about things, only to abandon them once I have determined whether the strategy is viable or not.  Maybe I am not a person who should be giving advice on how to play games. 

But I do sympathize with your desire to seek out new challenge, and the frustration when you find a game lacking where you had hoped to find your satisfaction.

I personally never found this to be a problem. I've been here since A7 and play and thrive on extreme often so saying "I'm just on easy mode" isn't gonna apply.

Layouts and movements don't have to be perfectly optimized to play the game without getting your teeth kicked in by the AI. You can place your stockpile at the north, south, east or west of your base or at the edge of the map and you'll be fine (the last one probably not for too long). Just because you "inefficiently" designed your base doesn't mean that you won't be able to last long enough to enjoy the game's features.

Your base can be incredibly inefficient and you will survive just fine as long as you've got the necessary resources to counter certain situations. The only thing that needs to be really optimized and efficient is your defenses which sadly results in the requirement of killbox strategies to survive. But that's due to the lack of raid and enemy variety rather than movement.

I share the same views with Hans, the moment I know I've won, there's nothing left to challenge me and all I've got to do is technically "win the game", that's when it starts getting boring and I promptly start over. Something which Rimworld sadly suffers from at some point, no matter how much I intentionally handicap myself.

Quote from: Edmon on December 13, 2017, 09:06:26 AM
Movement minimizations centric designs are extremely optimal in Rimworld, as to the point of being all consuming. If optimization is your objective, this game is incredibly one-dimentional. unlike say, factorio, in which optimization can be a deep and massively complex thing.

Why exactly are you comparing Factorio, a game about automation and management to a game about building a colony, managing said colony and surviving. You're comparing humans with machines, humans are much more complex than a machine and most of the time humans are never optimal because of other needs and wants which is what Rimworld simulates.

The devs goal of Rimworld isn't to create a game based around optimization (like Factorio), its to create a compelling story. You can create your own goals but the game isn't intended to be played optimally and this is why this "flaw" is a flaw in your eyes.

QuoteThe video I saw of a 5 day launch rush basically relies on a suicidal rush for the exact research required while digging for the resources needed to build the exact minimal spaceship. However, it was in a time before the AI core was required and getting that item is completely random, so in theory it could still be done in the same time but it would require the luck of getting a trader with it or a ship part drop.

Interesting.  I might search for that video.  I don't think the same time is possible in B18, simply because you *can't* trade for advanced components, you need a ton of them, and they take 200 work.  This means that you'd need to roll much stronger crafting pawns and would still add nearly as much time on crafting components as you would for the required research.  The ship also requires significantly more resources than previous patches.

Of course one could still rely on new colony optimism, you'd probably just be stuck using some time to hunt or gather berries for food and running paste dispenser.

It might be easier to move to AI ship on a 30% world.

Based on what you described, even the old run likely required either playing a known seed or many restarts.  While steel/plasteel can gate you on such a short timeframe, uranium can be even worse (IE there can be literally none even with deep drilling, if you're unlucky, forcing trade that can take ages).

QuoteThe devs goal of Rimworld isn't to create a game based around optimization (like Factorio), its to create a compelling story. You can create your own goals but the game isn't intended to be played optimally and this is why this "flaw" is a flaw in your eyes.

This game's development has taken pains to alter faulty balance propositions and make the player's interaction with the game more variable/interesting.  To say it's just about the story to the point of dismissing optimization discussion is unfair to Rimworld.

QuoteI failed utterly.  The siren call of micromanagement was too strong, and I got bogged down in optimizing details.  Pressing "end turn" before I was sure I felt ready just felt wrong.  Was it a failing on my part?  A lack of focus?  Or did we just get our fun from doing different things?   I have pondered this ever since.

Man, that brings back memories.  I wish Civ 6 had even half the UI of Civ 4.  Over the years I have picked up extra micromanagement, but am still fundamentally the same type of player I was 7-8 years ago.

That said, there's a price for it.  For unforgiving games like Civ 4 on deity, while I eventually gained the ability to beat deity sometimes I was never at the strength or consistency of top players like Rusten, Unconquered Sun, or ABigCivFan...and not close.  Despite that I knew more about AI tendencies and mechanics than some of these players off hand, they drastically outperformed me solely on micromanagement alone.

Rimworld isn't as unforgiving at extreme.  It would take a rare sequence for me to lose a colony when I'm being careful.  That said, I initially doubted the fast ship launch because I play tribal nearly exclusively, so things like deep drills (which you'd have to skip and get lucky) or the ship techs cost > 10k each to research, which is crushing to research speed until you train up skill.

Regardless of game, human beings don't compute to perfect micromanagement.  We have different tolerances before we just continue playing.  I can outperform many players who compute everything by using heuristics and adjustments + a little computation, but not the actual micro wizards who have enough knowledge to not fall behind there.

But even they stop before making the perfect micro decisions.  No matter how much time you spent on a turn in civ 4 back then, it's not like you were a chess computer evaluating half a million moves or more per turn.  It becomes a matter of what degree of mistake are you capable of perceiving, and accepting.

Quote from: TheMeInTeam on December 14, 2017, 10:17:23 AM
This game's development has taken pains to alter faulty balance propositions and make the player's interaction with the game more variable/interesting.  To say it's just about the story to the point of dismissing optimization discussion is unfair to Rimworld.

I apologize for that quote hit save by accident. Anyway what I meant by that is that the focus is to create a compelling story and not so much to make it optimal or to allow more ways to optimize production. The original poster is disappointed that there are few ways to optimize your colonies production (aside from minimizing movement)  and he attempts to compare Rimworld to Factorio while both management games they are not the same thing and both have different goals in mind.

He views the game as a game about optimization (like factorio) when its main goal is telling a compelling story and because it does not fit his view he calls it a flaw. He's locked himself in a view which does not fit the intended goal of the game and wishes for the game to fit his view by suggesting ways to "fix" these "flaws".

I haven't read every post in this thread because, well, I have to eat and sleep eventually. So maybe this point was already made somewhere.

The instant the map is created and generates more than a homogeneous and uninterrupted terrain, there is no single "optimal" solution.  Rocks will get in the way of your layouts, slower movement tiles will create different realities for better adjacencies, and resources are always distributed unevenly.

That is the essence of this game, and most others like it that include variable starting conditions.  Rimworld isn't colonists versus walk speed; it's colonists versus the environment.  If anyone wants to play for optimal speedruns, devmode the map flat and featureless and go at it. 

Quote from: doomdrvk on December 14, 2017, 10:24:08 AM
He views the game as a game about optimization (like factorio) when its main goal is telling a compelling story and because it does not fit his view he calls it a flaw. He's locked himself in a view which does not fit the intended goal of the game and wishes for the game to fit his view by suggesting ways to "fix" these "flaws".

I have not said that the game is about optimization, I have said that if you want to optimize anything, minimizing movement is the only real dimension in which you will see benefit. It's too important, it's all consuming. There is no other, deeper or interesting strategy outside of the combat.

I do indeed see a game with so little depth as flawed. Of course it is. When your attractive, realistic room is outperformed by orders of magnitude by a closet with a bench in it, you start to doubt how much freedom you really have.

In a game that's meant to have freedom.

Movement optimization I still think can give an interesting game, given how many things have to be juggled.

Your critique though is that there is only one meaningful dimension of optimization in the game.  What other avenues of focus would you like to see rewarded in a game?

Quote from: Edmon on December 15, 2017, 05:29:51 AM

Quote from: doomdrvk on December 14, 2017, 10:24:08 AM
He views the game as a game about optimization (like factorio) when its main goal is telling a compelling story and because it does not fit his view he calls it a flaw. He's locked himself in a view which does not fit the intended goal of the game and wishes for the game to fit his view by suggesting ways to "fix" these "flaws".

I have not said that the game is about optimization, I have said that if you want to optimize anything, minimizing movement is the only real dimension in which you will see benefit. It's too important, it's all consuming. There is no other, deeper or interesting strategy outside of the combat.

I do indeed see a game with so little depth as flawed. Of course it is. When your attractive, realistic room is outperformed by orders of magnitude by a closet with a bench in it, you start to doubt how much freedom you really have.

In a game that's meant to have freedom.

Then why are you solely focusing on optimization if you don't believe the game is about optimization. The developers are focused on making a story as that's what the game is mainly about, but you insist the game which is not about production optimization is "flawed". And you say it has little depth because Rimworld has not "fixed" this "ultimate flaw".

You're criticizing a game about something its not meant to do in the first place.

Quote from: doomdrvk on December 15, 2017, 08:56:08 AM
Then why are you solely focusing on optimization if you don't believe the game is about optimization. The developers are focused on making a story as that's what the game is mainly about, but you insist the game which is not about production optimization is "flawed". And you say it has little depth because Rimworld has not "fixed" this "ultimate flaw".

You're criticizing a game about something its not meant to do in the first place.

You MUST have a level of effective production of things to survive.

Your effective production level (of everything but some long term art and some weapons) is more about the amount pawns had to move to get things than anything else.

Unless you want your Rimworld stories to be ones of Pawns starving to death you will need to, more than anything else, optimize movement.

The harder the difficulty, the more you must optimize movement.

Not room design, production bonuses, lighting, heat, comfort, chairs, etc, etc. Those things could not even touch the surface of the effective production bonus you'll get from removing even a single tile of movement from a process.

I'm not sure how I can explain it any better.

Quote from: Hans Lemurson on December 15, 2017, 05:42:52 AM
Movement optimization I still think can give an interesting game, given how many things have to be juggled.

Your critique though is that there is only one meaningful dimension of optimization in the game.  What other avenues of focus would you like to see rewarded in a game?

All of the below could be added or made meaningful compared to movement:
> Room Size [Bigger, Nicer = Production Bonus(es)]
> Dedicated Purpose of Room
> Room Lighting
> Temperature of Room
> Dedicated Room next to but separate from another Dedicated Room (Kitchen, Next to Dining Room for example).
> Attractiveness of Room.
> Quality of tools, benches, etc in the room.
> Skill of the Pawn using the room (This is rewarded in terms of quality of item for items that have quality but not for quantity of items).

Other ideas:
> Less waste or bonus production for high quality rooms
> Penalties for things being in rooms that would actively harm each other (I.E. food production in the same room as mining drills. Which would of course, contaminate food with dust).
> Pawns making things in stacks, rather than per item, for things typically mass produced.

Note:
Many would say that some of the above affects production because it can affect pawn mood. But as long as the pawn doesn't have a mental break, production is unaffected. So you really need only do the minimum that is required to keep mood above a break level.

Quote from: Edmon on December 15, 2017, 09:55:55 AM
All of the below could be added or made meaningful compared to movement:
> Room Size [Bigger, Nicer = Production Bonus(es)]
> Dedicated Purpose of Room
> Room Lighting
> Temperature of Room
> Dedicated Room next to but separate from another Dedicated Room (Kitchen, Next to Dining Room for example).
> Attractiveness of Room.
> Quality of tools, benches, etc in the room.
> Skill of the Pawn using the room (This is rewarded in terms of quality of item for items that have quality but not for quantity of items).

Other ideas:
> Less waste or bonus production for high quality rooms
> Penalties for things being in rooms that would actively harm each other (I.E. food production in the same room as mining drills. Which would of course, contaminate food with dust).
> Pawns making things in stacks, rather than per item, for things typically mass produced.

Note:
Many would say that some of the above affects production because it can affect pawn mood. But as long as the pawn doesn't have a mental break, production is unaffected. So you really need only do the minimum that is required to keep mood above a break level.

Regardless of indirect effects on mood, many of these things you've mentioned are already part of the game:

> Larger room sizes effectively mean fewer doors per walk distance, which speeds up movement.
> Dedicated purpose of room is up to the player to furnish efficiently, and if laid out well movement will be optimized as a result (which is essentially the whole point of the OP).  Although, if optimization is the goal, why would you want to limit an entire room to only one function?  That's a big waste of space and resources.
> Light level directly affects movement speed.
> Temperature affects work speed at tables.
> Temperature will affect movement and work speed (manipulation) if a pawn goes hypothermic or heatstrokey.
> Pawns working in rooms with dedicated uses innately benefit in movement speed from adjacency of dedicated rooms because of their beneficial dependent functions.
> Attractiveness of a room can bump a pawn working there into Inspired Work Speed or Inspired Movement Speed.
> Dirt, blood, etc. in kitchens (which can come from buildings like butcher's tables) contributes to the chance of food poisoning, which directly affects movement and work speed.

Like a few people have said before, this thread doesn't acknowledge the effects that the many levels of built-in depth in the game have on movement and work speed (among others), instead offering only an increase in value of base movement speed as the solution to the "flaw".  The brilliance of this game is that these effects can be orchestrated by the player as described above, not clunkily prescribed ad hoc. 

EDIT: And to the footnote note, with the introduction of Inspirations in B18, mood is no longer something that has only to be avoided at the low end to stave off mental breaks, but there are significant benefits from pumping colonists' moods as high as possible.

Quote from: orty on December 15, 2017, 10:43:49 AM

Quote from: Edmon on December 15, 2017, 09:55:55 AM
All of the below could be added or made meaningful compared to movement:
> Room Size [Bigger, Nicer = Production Bonus(es)]
> Dedicated Purpose of Room
> Room Lighting
> Temperature of Room
> Dedicated Room next to but separate from another Dedicated Room (Kitchen, Next to Dining Room for example).
> Attractiveness of Room.
> Quality of tools, benches, etc in the room.
> Skill of the Pawn using the room (This is rewarded in terms of quality of item for items that have quality but not for quantity of items).

Other ideas:
> Less waste or bonus production for high quality rooms
> Penalties for things being in rooms that would actively harm each other (I.E. food production in the same room as mining drills. Which would of course, contaminate food with dust).
> Pawns making things in stacks, rather than per item, for things typically mass produced.

Note:
Many would say that some of the above affects production because it can affect pawn mood. But as long as the pawn doesn't have a mental break, production is unaffected. So you really need only do the minimum that is required to keep mood above a break level.

Regardless of indirect effects on mood, many of these things you've mentioned are already part of the game:

> Larger room sizes effectively mean fewer doors per walk distance, which speeds up movement.
> Dedicated purpose of room is up to the player to furnish efficiently, and if laid out well movement will be optimized as a result (which is essentially the whole point of the OP).  Although, if optimization is the goal, why would you want to limit an entire room to only one function?  That's a big waste of space and resources.
> Light level directly affects movement speed.
> Temperature affects work speed at tables.
> Temperature will affect movement and work speed (manipulation) if a pawn goes hypothermic or heatstrokey.
> Pawns working in rooms with dedicated uses innately benefit in movement speed from adjacency of dedicated rooms because of their beneficial dependent functions.
> Attractiveness of a room can bump a pawn working there into Inspired Work Speed or Inspired Movement Speed.
> Dirt, blood, etc. in kitchens (which can come from buildings like butcher's tables) contributes to the chance of food poisoning, which directly affects movement and work speed.

Like a few people have said before, this thread doesn't acknowledge the effects that the many levels of built-in depth in the game have on movement and work speed (among others), instead offering only an increase in value of base movement speed as the solution to the "flaw".  The brilliance of this game is that these effects can be orchestrated by the player as described above, not clunkily prescribed ad hoc. 

EDIT: And to the footnote note, with the introduction of Inspirations in B18, mood is no longer something that has only to be avoided at the low end to stave off mental breaks, but there are significant benefits from pumping colonists' moods as high as possible.

I don't know how to explain it to you other than this.

You can make a "perfect room" with all the bonuses you mention and if it involves more than a few tiles of movement, it will be less effective at producing (for example food) than a closet where a pawn does not have to move at all. Plus the pawn that doesn't have to move will be gaining skill faster, compounding the issue for the pawn that has to move.

The only exception is obviously, something like a mental break that'd interrupt production. But if the pawn loves the task, then that is unlikely to ever happen anyway.

Many of the things you've mentioned may "speed up pawns" and thus make movement faster, but that doesn't have any where near the impact of not having to move at all in the first place.

Quote from: Edmon link=topic=37020.msg385433#msg385433
I don't know how to explain it to you other than this.

No, it's very easy to understand what the point has inflexibly been for the last 6 pages, and easy to see why people got frustrated with that.  There are many reasons to believe that closets aren't the answer to a flaw that one person perceives, and many have been offered here.  It would be great if this were a real discussion about efficiency that could lead to some revelations, but the OP can't acknowledge the many valid points against the idea, and only restates the same isolated complaint over and over.  Just a bad thread, I guess...

Quote from: Edmon on December 15, 2017, 11:22:43 AM...

Many of the things you've mentioned may "speed up pawns" and thus make movement faster, but that doesn't have any where near the impact of not having to move at all in the first place.

Yes, so what? Me thinks you have fundamental misconception what a game is. All games have optimal game strategies and only competitive games have variable game strategies based on the opponents choice of strategy. Rimworld has no equal opponent.

Resource and optimization of production chains is the fundamental goal of a base building game. Of course, that is what Rimworld boils down to because that is the type of game it is. You can bring the same argument about any base building game.

Starcraft has optimal builds, too. It gets its complexity of the permutations of 3 vs. 3 distinct gameplays. You have not found a great revelation of a gamebraking flaw but the baseline of how game design is done.