Unstable build feedback thread

[Zombull]

I started a colony next to a huge river, planning to use watermills for power. However, the roughly 45 degree angle of the river made it very difficult to find places I could build them. Please consider allowing more of the building to be placed over water so they're a bit less frustrating to use on rivers that don't play by strict cardinal direction rules.

You can build a bridge on a few squares to even it out and a spot to place the water mill.  I had trouble finding a spot after the change in size and figured that out after a bit.

I didn't try that because I read patch notes that said the watermill isn't allowed on bridges.

[Greep]

Edit: Moved rest of stuff to bug forum.

I feel like caravans should "auto-rest" if they're immobile anyways due to downed colonists.

[EdgarDruin]

You can build a bridge on a few squares to even it out and a spot to place the water mill.  I had trouble finding a spot after the change in size and figured that out after a bit.

I didn't try that because I read patch notes that said the watermill isn't allowed on bridges.

Ah, quite right, must be a change since I've done that.  I deconstructed the one I had and it won't let me place it like that again.

Seems like there should be a tile amount to meet on solid ground, like at least 2 of the tiles in the white square placement area should be solid ground, the other two could be bridge. 

Defeats the whole `you can even build on them` part of bridges imo.

[Ambaire]

A solution would be to add steel bridges that do allow building on them. Something needs to be done to help waterwheels on diagonal rivers... like a diagonal waterwheel.

[Zombull]

Or add a landfill mechanic that will turn shallow water squares bordering buildable terrain into more buildable terrain.

[Alenerel]

I started this yesterday tho I think you didnt change anything about this matter. With this colony in cassandra extreme I received an overwhelming pirate raid. As soon as I saw it I knew that no save scumming in the world was gonna save me... However I forgot to save and when I loaded the raid was gone so I sadly cannot show you...

Here is a screenshot of wealth and colony. I think there were around 10 or more raiders in the raid. When I loaded I received a massive squirrel manhunter pack instead, tho it was much easier to deal with.
The research I have is not much either, just furniture and electricity and currently researching air cooling.

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/943950251200961966/DF2006E010BC0D9D98810BE535A25AB931E7175A/

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/943950251200961777/E31E77A54DE1A179A4DA783A78DC6B55BDC179A5/

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Another topic. Great bows cost 1600 research points in tribal start. They are just not worth it, its much easier to wait until enemies bring bolt action rifles. In fact I have already 2 of them and 2 smgs. I suggest to heavy nerf those research points, maybe to 500. Or idk, maybe a different approach... But if enemies bring automatic weapons, we can always steal them...

[Kahranna]

The order of colonist skills has changed, and I can't get used to it. I don't mind renaming skills, but I often think I found the perfect colonist only to find out it's not the case. It's like reading from right to left: possible, but time consuming.

[TheMeInTeam]

I started this yesterday tho I think you didnt change anything about this matter. With this colony in cassandra extreme I received an overwhelming pirate raid. As soon as I saw it I knew that no save scumming in the world was gonna save me... However I forgot to save and when I loaded the raid was gone so I sadly cannot show you...

Here is a screenshot of wealth and colony. I think there were around 10 or more raiders in the raid. When I loaded I received a massive squirrel manhunter pack instead, tho it was much easier to deal with.
The research I have is not much either, just furniture and electricity and currently researching air cooling.

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/943950251200961966/DF2006E010BC0D9D98810BE535A25AB931E7175A/

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/943950251200961777/E31E77A54DE1A179A4DA783A78DC6B55BDC179A5/

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Another topic. Great bows cost 1600 research points in tribal start. They are just not worth it, its much easier to wait until enemies bring bolt action rifles. In fact I have already 2 of them and 2 smgs. I suggest to heavy nerf those research points, maybe to 500. Or idk, maybe a different approach... But if enemies bring automatic weapons, we can always steal them...

Comes down to base design.  On my stream Saturday/Sunday I held larger raids than you describe with fewer pawns capable of violence.  That's just how extreme is (and was in previous patches too).

You'll have a much harder time since you don't have a setup that lets you isolate some of the raiders, manipulate AI, or get shots w/o them returning fire.

Weapon tech progression in general is kind of borked.  Not just on extreme, but on most difficulties above the midling ones the raid:wealth scaling has been such that even non-tribal can't possibly research weapons that outclass the raider weapons by much in a timely fashion, and looted weapons don't have a crafting time or resource cost.  For tribal you're functionally guaranteed to be using plundered raider weapons unless you avoid doing so for self-imposed challenge, even on lower difficulties. 

That's certainly consistent with history though, and it does mean you have to "use what you get" rather than uniformly craft a preferred weapon type.  I'm not sure it's 100% optimal, but I don't know how I'd change it and it's not in a bad place right now really.

[Gfurst]

Alright here are some few notes, from yesterday, so previous build again. Sorry but is kinda hard to keep up with the quick updates.

• I can't tell how many times I need to trade with a passing ship and forgot there one was there, maybe a permanent notification would be a good QoL. Or alternatively, a small flashing light on comms would be a nice touch.
• Also we shouldn't be getting messages about trader leaving if we had comms off.
• I was getting used to the steel graphics, I've guess either would be fine, but silver is indeed off putting, it looks like a gray mesh, a sort of coinage format would fit better. Gold as well looks too similar to ambrosia.
• Shotgun armor penetration seems awfully low, lower than any other weapon, its supposed to be "close and personal" "shock and awe" kinda of weapon, but I fail to see their usefulness now.
• Noticed the new desiccated animals graphs, I've guess I was used to the purple blobs, but it looks alright, though different animals all look the same.
• I've said it before, but context mouse wheel scrolling on storage pane doesn't work, this is pretty annoying.
• I found it odd that my colonist were still having a rather high recreation tolerance, while I had nearly all recreation possible (horseshoe, poker, billards, flat Tv, telescope and even lots of drugs), butt this was previous build so you could have changed now.
• Brewing psychite pekoe should be moved from medical bench to brewing bench, this would help unchoke the first and make last more useful.
• I had recruited a new colonist with a long lasting "loved one sold" mood debuff, even though I may or may not have sold his loved one in the past (how would I even remember).
• Sowing trees: jesus christ these take a long ass time
• Trees growing more on rocky terrain, I though they sort of averaged out over the long run, but after a toxic fallout with a fully barren map, they still seemed to spawn awfully more on rocks
• I always find it odd how a lot of times pawns will prefer eating from my pemmican stash while there were plenty of simple and fine meals waiting.
• I got inspired surgery buff on someone with nill medical skill
• I got one colonist perma downed, he is a wimp and got the flu, so when I checked it he had only 15% pain threshold, seems wrong.
• It would be nice to have mortar targeting by just clicking on the pawn that's manning it, so you don't have to go all the way back across the map just to select it.
• There still isn't anyway for pawns to safely train melee, eg hunters can be given a bow and will gradually get better over time. But melee is pretty much not an option since they will either be forever low skill or face great risks fighting head on every time.
• Puppies don't seem to be massive druggies anymore, and that's when I was about to make restrictive zones. Now I have a "drug" stockpile in my rec room and dogs barely nibble at it. Now i don't remember seeing anything in the patch notes.

Regarding the armor overhaul, I still haven't got the chance to really train, but it felt odd seeing a flak vest having 110% piercing protection while the plate armor was much lower comparably. I think this comes from having both slashing and bullet damage bundled up in the same category, as opposed to having slash and piercing for example, its non intuitive what not what people would expect at a first glance. Of course a lot of the confusion stems from not actually having proper descriptions in-game, so most of us don't even know what's going on, but then again, you already seem to be working on it.

Oh yeah almost forgot it too, I was re-building my kitchen and forgot one of my colonist had a inspiration pending, ended up with legendary chair and ugly table, goddamn.
Last picture was my last caravan objective, I've ended up launching pods and walking the way back, still solid strategy. Setting everything up in time was hard, had to give up all other trade requests in the limited time. Not allowing low quality items anymore is kinda of low blow, but maybe it wouldn't matter,

[attachment deleted due to age]

[Greep]

Wow... okay so deep drilling can cause infestations now.  That was quite a shock.  The warning was generous enough for my colonists to get away at least.  Outside the base this sounds like it would be free food, although since this occurred right on top of my autocannons in min range, it caused a bit of damage.

[Alenerel]

Comes down to base design.  On my stream Saturday/Sunday I held larger raids than you describe with fewer pawns capable of violence.  That's just how extreme is (and was in previous patches too).

You'll have a much harder time since you don't have a setup that lets you isolate some of the raiders, manipulate AI, or get shots w/o them returning fire.

Tynan said that he was rebalancing the game to avoid the killbox only strategy but with this kind of difficulty, if I have to do what you say I might as well create a trap corridor. In all my previous plays I always rush that, a trap corridor that goes into a "killbox" without turrets, just my pawns. But I thought he was trying to make it that we didnt have to resort to cheese tactics.

[Madman666]

Finally got a creativity inspiration on my one-eyed lvl 16 builder, which netted me a legendary bed. And yeah, ok. I admit, that getting a legendary bed with friggin 160% resting effectiveness is kind of too good to make it happen more often. That guy can now sleep like 5-6 hours, instead of solid 8 all the time. +25% work time is definitely worth it. I guess legendary quality got a nice buff. However since masterwork ones give only 125% those could use a slight increase in probability for lvl 20 skilled pawns. 4 out 100 tries is really a bit too harsh.

Also as couple other people mentioned, most inspirations i was getting were quite useless. Like a surgery inspiration on my main hunter with literally zero medical skills or shooting frenzy on my lvl 2 shooter with cataract (naturally Randy being an ass didn't send me anyone for him to shoot\miss at). My crafters kept getting move speed buffs (those are nice, but massively inferior to those oneshot creativity inspirations). I'd really like to see those inspirations tied strictly to pawns, that can make a good use of those. Like if a pawn doesn't have a dominant skill - he gets mostly moving or workspeed inspires, if the guy has highly developed medicine - it has a much bigger chance to get appropriate surgery inspiration than anything else (especially if he also has a passion for that kind of work - this should have an effect on probability as well), same for artists and crafters. Since it isn't that easy to keep them in the right mood, rewards for that should be more useful.

One more thing: Planting trees... man. It takes ages! Even though its now a perfect training for growers, its way too much. Not only that - since we no longer can grow them in "greenhouses" due to no roof restriction - it also takes ages to grow them, unless you play cheesy year-round growtime maps. It does make sense, i guess (though there are giant greenhouses for trees IRL), but this feels kind of broken.

[Greep]

• I found it odd that my colonist were still having a rather high recreation tolerance, while I had nearly all recreation possible (horseshoe, poker, billards, flat Tv, telescope and even lots of drugs), butt this was previous build so you could have changed now.

This seemed like it was fixed in the last update, wasn't in the 50s anymore and more like the 20-30s for me.

[XeoNovaDan]

From what I've experienced in my run which generally has a very dirty kitchen, there has been absolutely no food poisoning as of late despite the poor hygiene. Perhaps food poisoning chance from poor/good room cleanliness should be an offset rather than a factor, but then there will be oddities such as level 20 cooks having the same poison chances as level 10 cooks in the same room.

[Gfurst]

Tynan said that he was rebalancing the game to avoid the killbox only strategy but with this kind of difficulty, if I have to do what you say I might as well create a trap corridor. In all my previous plays I always rush that, a trap corridor that goes into a "killbox" without turrets, just my pawns. But I thought he was trying to make it that we didnt have to resort to cheese tactics.

If you use cheezy tactics you're likely to get countered, however this doesn't mean you shouldn't still build defensive fortifications. Using common sense seems to go a long way.
Like for example in pic attached, I use a combo of sandbags and walls to create a sort of embrasure like effect, roofing seems to have no effect anymore (though why not Tynan?) though it still looks better. I've placed the turret slightly in front in case it explodes.
But the thing is, I only got the test defense like this once (In phoebe rough), likewise a big raid of pirates, since they also flee at about half causalities, I was able to repel them nearly injury free. But since then I nearly only got events in which that defense was useless, like raider surprise attack via pods, a couple mechanoid ships and a couple bug infestation.

[attachment deleted due to age]