Alpha 17 is on public unstable branch

[RageAge001]

Uh, I just got a manhunter pack with Thrumbos. I thought they weren't on the list of animals that could do that in vanilla?

I've seen manhunter rats and racoons so far, neither of which I think was on the list before either. So maybe it has been changed to include all animals? Hah, if any animals are going to be left out though, you'd think it should be thrumbos.

Ive been playing now for a while and just started a new colony on a nice 'small hills' map with a river running diagonally across the map and a road running vertically and i gotta say I was loving it. That is until 2 days into summer (about 10 days into the game) when a heat wave hit, Making the 78f average summer temp into a brisk 138f knocking down all my pawns before i even realized what was happening it was too late to realize my construction pawn hadnt yet built my cooler. Needless to say it wiped out my 4 colonists. There was nowhere to hide and i had watch them lying on the ground dying just hoping the heat wave would go away Just wanted to tell my story with a17 so far it was on cassandra  rough if thats relevant but i think heat wave should be toned down just a bit. I understand its just the way of the rim but if i was a new player that probably wouldve diacouraged me pretty quickly. Then again that heat wave wouldnt have been as fatal if i had focused on building a cooler asap but i didnt think id need to worry about using it to save my colonists lives so soon.

Yeah, I have to agree that if it were your first time playing, a heat wave doesn't sound nearly as devastating as it is. One tip though: Even if you don't have coolers set up right away, you have the better half of the first heat wave day before the temperature rises to heat-stroke levels, so as long as you react fast enough you should be able to make it through ok.

[Rah]

For the people who have been playing a lot of A17, how much hyperweave are you seeing compared to A16?

[Dashthechinchilla]

Really minor point; I claimed some ancient lampposts, cause why not. They're in the middle of the map, my settlement on edge. During a raid, as the raiders walking across map from other side, a couple stop and attack the ancient lampposts...

kinda pointless?

I had the same experience in a slightly older build. I marked all the barriers and lamp post for deconstruction  (not claimed) and the raiders stopped to destroy them.

[Numar]

- I can research packaged survival meal, but how to make them?
- Turrets automatically fire on mad animals, but ignore hungry predators hunting down my pawns right in front of their noses?

Content wise it's really great, but a lot of QoL improvements are still missing. That's a topic for a suggestion thread, though.

[Tekuki]

For the people who have been playing a lot of A17, how much hyperweave are you seeing compared to A16?

So far I only got a total of 26 hyperweave out of 3-4 save (one for each build) so it still super rare for me, never really now how together them would love that the quest system can add hyperweave as a reward

[makkenhoff]

I've had a few deaths from mental breaks, typically, a mental break resulted in bad things happening ..

Just to be sure.. Are you trying to arrest these mentally broken pawns ?
That's what i do when someone breaks in less than favorable conditions or i notice that they're going to starve themselves to death. They don't get a catharsis buff, but they live.
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No, I don't arrest my pawns, they usually snap berserk when I try. With a single pawn (explorer) or 'vanilla rimworld' 3 pawns; the wandering times cause problems; If I had 10 colonists, one or two wandering around wouldn't be a problem. When you lose 1/3 of your workforce, or all of it, is when it is most noticeable.

*edit* I had another thought for comparison. Malnutrition used to be pretty horrible. In A17 malnutrition seems to be faster moving both directions. It 'starts' faster, but you can also bring colonists out of it a little quicker too. It doesn't linger like it used to.  That's basically the kind of tuning I'm thinking it may need. It doesn't need to go away in an hour, but it might need to be toned down a little in a matter of an hour or so.

Additionally, on the note of heat waves - the potential temperature spikes are something we should know about, in my opinion, when picking our starting location. I mean - maybe not "exactly" how much to expect, but if I'm landing in an area with a balmy 80 F year-round growth tropical rainforest, I kind of know to expect up to 100 F.

But I've had one situation where I landing in a mid 70's F summer, and having over 120 F heatwave. I don't think it was a bug - I just wonder if maybe we need a little more information in the ways of expectations of snap cold, and heat waves.

[ReZpawner]

- I can research packaged survival meal, but how to make them?
- Turrets automatically fire on mad animals, but ignore hungry predators hunting down my pawns right in front of their noses?

Content wise it's really great, but a lot of QoL improvements are still missing. That's a topic for a suggestion thread, though.

After you've researched it, you can make them at any cooker, just like you would regular meals.

Yes. If the animals don't have the 'maddened manhunter' trait, turrets will ignore them. Maybe someday in the future we'll get more turret-settings, for now we have to manually clear out the predators.

[Rah]

For the people who have been playing a lot of A17, how much hyperweave are you seeing compared to A16?

So far I only got a total of 26 hyperweave out of 3-4 save (one for each build) so it still super rare for me, never really now how together them would love that the quest system can add hyperweave as a reward

Where did you get the hyperweave from? Resource pods, caravan traders or orbital ships?

[Wintersdark]

I had a maddened manhunted pack of boomrats attack my Muffalo herd in 1539.  I've never seen them do that before... It was a bit weird too; my muffs where grazing outside my gates when the pack came.  They didn't *hunt* my muffs, but there were so many of each, when they'd bump into each other they'd fight a bit. 

Of course, Muffalo are not to be trifled with, and boomrats are flimsy... And chain reactions in a massive exploding boomrats and Muffalo mess get crazy fast.

[Vlyxnol]

I apologize in advanced if some of this is not purely feedback,

Difficulty: Extreme
Scenario: Lost Tribe (Though I brought chicken's instead of random pet)
Storyteller: Phoebe
Terrain Type: Desert


I really wanted to see how tough a desert playthrough would be in alpha 17, and overall it was quite tough and I did have to do some scumbag reloads to get through it. However overall it was very fun and alpha 17 is shaping up very nicely.

Early on my chickens and people almost ate me into oblivion, but I think they are quite viable. They do still eat alot of food and are no where near worth it compared to hunting, but in the desert meat is scarce and the chickens did work to provide meat.

I didn't get alot of early settlers joining and at one point had 8 prisoners which really strained my food and one particular prison break was pretty crazy. However we eventually recruited most of them and got to a healthy population.

I had alot of caravan requests early that I could in no way fill, they would ask for specific food types that I could not fulfill in time so I accomplished literally none of them. Maybe if caravan requests were asking for just "food" instead of a specific food it might be more manageable. It seems odd from a story standpoint that a starving city would want a specific food instead of just any ole type.

I had a few stash's of which I did two, and let me tell you was it a fun and rewarding experience. I think bandit outposts and stashes are an amazing addition to Rimworld, you guys really did good with this. I really liked the base designs as well, they were challenging and felt like puzzles to be figured out.

The only thing I feel torn about is trading, at the moment there is a 50% multiplier when selling and 150% when buying, which feels really gimmicky and cheap as the player. I feel ripped off on every deal and I have no option to get a better one. However I really do like the pace of the economy now, it feels difficult and fun. The only idea I have here is to give the trading caravan or faction base its own negotiator to hide some of these numbers behind him and give them a bit of randomness so the player can shop around or take advantage of better prices.

PS: We had to get into the business of making and distributing PCP (flake) in order to make enough money which always leads to fun!

All in all, Great job on Alpha 17!

[Daguest]

I don't like the change to the plant growth time much. I tend to play on "medium" difficulty areas, like boreal forest, and it basically make them needlessly hard. Before A17, I could have 1batch of food from potatoes before the end of the growing season, while corn was usually almost ready but needed a greenhouse to complete, if I planted as soon as I was in the game. But now it's impossible. Leading to the map being as hard as tundra used to be, or even more, because you have to survive with the plants and animals in the area while you rush the construction of a greenhouse, despite having grow time.
Using rice this time didn't work much faster either.

This is exacerbated by the poor temperature all year long, which make growing slower already.


I feel it's an artificial difficulty increase for a beginning which is already rather difficult, and a not noticeable change for once you have the greenhouse going. Also, it makes the difference between crops even less important. Ironically, the corn I planted at the same time than the potatoes have been collected, while the potatoes haven't (they were outside the greenhouse, and left to die, never been collected).


TL:DR : the change in plant growth time makes the small growing season useless and equal to none for already harsh biomes like boreal forest. It's not enough, and you need a greenhouse from the start anyway.

[DariusWolfe]

I dunno that I agree w/ Daguest's comments. It just seems to me that it makes it more important to choose your crop choices based on your biome than previously.

As the growth times were, as I recall, increased by a percentage, then the already fast-growing plants were affected least, and the longer growing plants, like corn, were affected more. Of course, it does lead to the weird circumstance where rice is a good crop for colder climates, when it's usually associated with warmer, moister climates; On the flip side, Korea is f-ing freezing (at least when I was there, during the rice-drying season), and rice is a major staple, so maybe it does make sense.

Anyway, even with A16 values, corn is the least efficient (in terms of nutrition/day, assuming the values on the wiki are current) crop, though obviously this doesn't take into account things like the time spent sowing the fields, which is a factor; But given reasonably quick farmers, potatoes and rice are superior crops, and are even moreso in climates with short growth windows.

[Limdood]

Anyway, even with A16 values, corn is the least efficient (in terms of nutrition/day, assuming the values on the wiki are current) crop, though obviously this doesn't take into account things like the time spent sowing the fields, which is a factor; But given reasonably quick farmers, potatoes and rice are superior crops, and are even moreso in climates with short growth windows.

Sowing times are in corn's favor, sure, but chances of a blight, cold snap (or heat wave in some biomes), fires, or animal consumption, ALL work against long growth time crops.

Can a blight strike against rice? sure.  Does it hurt?  sure.  But it hurts much much more against such a long growth time crop as corn.  I haven't touched corn since A15 solely because of that.  Rebalanced growth times means i'm even LESS likely to use anything but rice (rich or normal soil) or potatoes (desperation gravel crops)

[DariusWolfe]

I tend to plant corn alongside a rice crop, or immediately following one, if the growing season is long enough; The high yield is nice to get right before winter, and it's nice to basically fire-and-forget on the crops. This tactic is largely unchanged from A16 to A17. I just refreshed myself, during the course of writing my last post, on the benefits of potatoes (I literally never paid attention before) so I'll probably work that into my rotation next time I can't find at least normal soil for my farms, but otherwise, rice and corn on the nearest fertile soil patch, will continue to be my main farming tactics.

[Neotic]

For the people who have been playing a lot of A17, how much hyperweave are you seeing compared to A16?

So far I only got a total of 26 hyperweave out of 3-4 save (one for each build) so it still super rare for me, never really now how together them would love that the quest system can add hyperweave as a reward

Where did you get the hyperweave from? Resource pods, caravan traders or orbital ships?

i was playing randy random and he randomly gave me 9 hyperweave from the sky