I'm glad the infestations are a part of the game; it definitely works to balance out mountain bases. However! I do think they're a little "too" balanced. In a few of my colonies, I had an infestation spawn in my mountain base. Instantly two megaspiders jumped out with a couple scarabs and spelopedes behind them, but they didn't need any help.
I think infestations would work better as a mountain base counter if they weren't such an insta-kill. Five colonists couldn't take down either of the megaspiders, and then a group of four friendlies came to help (after all but one of my colonists was dead, but it was a nice gesture regardless). The friendlies managed to kill one of the spiders, but died to the other.
What are peoples' opinions on changing infestations so that:
1) They don't spawn the biggest bugs first, but they will shortly if you ignore them.
2) A single megaspider can't take down an entire colony.
3) Perhaps them tunneling through walls is more common.
I'd prefer the insects to be a base destruction (and mini-boss) mechanic, rather than a nightmare-difficulty bloodbath.
It would make more sense for them to arrive gradually, and not all at once.
Then again, if that was the case, they wouldn't provide any challenge for the player at all.
Yeah, now infestations are just insta-kills. Which is not fun, it's like if meteors will kill some of your colonists from time to time. Because 90% of the time there is no chance to save colonists.
I kept agressive predatory insects and arachnids through most of my life and I can say that many of them, especially social ones, prefer to capture live prey. There are two general approaches for hunting insects:
1. Kill and eat before someone will try to snatch your food from you.
2. Capture all you can, eat until full now and conserve excesses for later in a web, hive, lair, burrow etc.
IMO insects should not instantly kill all colonists they can, but instead they must strive to incapitate, capture and bring them near their hives. put them into some Alien-like suspending structure or simply let them lie down paralized\dazed state.
This will be a step away from hives and infestations being a simple instakill for colonists and will force players to mount an offensive on the hive to save their captured colonists.
To add time pressure on the colony:
1. Munching.
Gradually, insects will bite a bit from captured colonists. Arm, leg, eye etc until he is dead.
2. Alien infestation
Classic chestbuster hatchery. Colonist is being used as a hatchery and must be saved and then operated to extract insect larvae.
3. Brood
Colonists are placed in suspended state and wait until a brood of insects will hatch. If not saved in time brood of small insects will appear devour them.
4. Drones
Upon capture colonists are injected with parasite\venom which makes them a slave, tending the hive. They can be either docile or agressive when protecting the hive. Curing is either operation or waiting until subjugating venom will wear off.
It's a risk you have to take. I like them.
It makes sense that they come all at once since they did burrow in after all. Just design your base to compensate for their arrival.
Yeah. The current infestation mechanic makes me avoid building in the mountains at all. Its not fun at all, especially as there is no counter or any form of mitigation.
Ideas:
* A small warning. Give a x second warning. AKA, give a short time period for pawns to run away, rather than they be insta killed by overwellming odds.
* Mechanic - spawn them in rock near the base, and let them tunnel, either towards the base or outdoors. That way the player will have some warning if they spent the resources to put up interior walls.
* Mitigation. Make it so that infestations will only appear inside areas that leave bare rock exposed.
* Mitigation. Or make so infestations will only appear in dark areas.
This thread has been posted probably 100 times and its' always the same complaint.
The people that have this problem are digging into the mountain too early. You CANNOT colonize and mine into a mountain and set up hospital and bedrooms early game if you want to survive. In fact, never put your hospitals in a mountain.
Also try to us the slowest speed when engaging in gun fights. I'm betting many people that have these problems are running the game at 3x when they should be kiting angry bugs.
What about and insta-win button? Just kidding.
Mountain Bases have HUGE benefit towards an "normal" Base. BUT at a certain cost. I Think it is good the way it is.
If you dont like insta death pawns then you really should not burrow into mountains, or better yet do not play rimworld at all ( I love it when my most important pawn gets bitten to death by a manhunting squirrel and the whole colony goes down the shitter because of this) :-)
Learn about infestations !!
- insects don't like light, they prefer to spawn at dark areas.
- insects are dangerous mellee fighter, but they don't shoot back (yet).
- insects try to stay "close" to their hive if they got food.
Dig a long straight tunnel away from your base, and keep it dark. The rest of your base shouldn't be dark.
Then the infestation will spawn at these tunnel, and you can shoot them from distance and retreat to your base if they come to close.
Quote from: Rafe009 on December 19, 2016, 02:19:20 AM
In fact, never put your hospitals in a mountain.
Absolutely not! The first time a mortar exploded in my hospital was the last time I have ever built a hospital in the open.
Something about the room turning into it's own oven while already incapacitated Pawns and precious Doctors are inside is not a good scenario.
Quote from: Canute on December 19, 2016, 04:59:21 AM
Learn about infestations !!
- insects don't like light, they prefer to spawn at dark areas.
- insects are dangerous mellee fighter, but they don't shoot back (yet).
- insects try to stay "close" to their hive if they got food.
Dig a long straight tunnel away from your base, and keep it dark. The rest of your base shouldn't be dark.
Then the infestation will spawn at these tunnel, and you can shoot them from distance and retreat to your base if they come to close.
Great advice! Came here to give similar advice. Well lit rooms (and hallways!) in mountains greatly reduces the likelihood of insect invasions. Create a dark spot to be your lure where you can fight them without risking your valuables.
Another good approach for later in the game is to use animals to fight them for you. This is particularly useful if the insects appear in a room with valuables that you don't want to risk damaging with gunfire or explosives. In my current game I have a pack of 8 panthers that can take down 5-6 insects of mixed sizes on their own. No risk to my pawns, no added risk to my structures and valuables, and worst case I have some panther meat in addition to the insect meat.
Quote from: ArguedPiano on December 19, 2016, 06:22:07 PM
Quote from: Rafe009 on December 19, 2016, 02:19:20 AM
In fact, never put your hospitals in a mountain.
Absolutely not! The first time a mortar exploded in my hospital was the last time I have ever built a hospital in the open.
Something about the room turning into it's own oven while already incapacitated Pawns and precious Doctors are inside is not a good scenario.
Today on "Today I Learned" we learned all about
tradeoffs! (and awkwardly using the same word twice in a row twice in a row)
why not just put fire poper in hospital? Mach better. To be true i never let raiders shot at my base, I use fire to keep sieges bizy when I killing them. Boomaloos tend to be a good delivery mechanism, but there is others.
infestations are hard the first time. after that you can predict where they spawn.
put a turret and fire bomb closeby and watch the infestation deal with itself next time.
just
1) make sure to have double walls so they cant dig out in time and fire does not spread through your base
2) make sure you have a method to put out the fire afterwards. either by deconstructing walls so the room becomes outdoors or by moving in a previously constructed firefoam popper
3) hives might still have to be killed manually after the fire
Infestation is determined by type of roof.
As long you have "overhead mountain" as roof, hives can spawn. I had em in almost every room in base: dorms, hydroponics, rec room, hospital, etc.
The amount of light have nothing to do with infestation chance.
Is good to be a lit area, because you have +% hit chance when shoot them, but that's all.
+17 C degrees also used to be a condition for them to spawn. Based on that, I kinda tried to keep a base at +10 C on Ice Sheet. They spawned on hallway (5x25, +11C), dorms (7x11, +10C) and dining room (11x11, +13C). All those rooms were 60% lit and sterile.
I find myself dealing with infestations in two ways;
Either superior firepower (https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/547140/Rimworld/20161218213709_1.jpg) or cooking insect insides (https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/547140/Rimworld/20161220015847_1.jpg).
The first one works if you made your mine shafts and\or hallways wide enough to allow you stacking colonists 1 behind the front. Also you can snipe any overgrown bugs like a scyther if you got long enough distance from them.
Also to note; They lose their aggro pretty quickly if your colonist turn around a corner for a little bit.
Second method works by using Molotovs and\or incendiary launchers to heat up the "room" above 100 Celsius. A good tip is to use something cheap like power conduits to use as "fuel" for the flames.
My experiences in pest control at least :P.
Quote from: ChJees on December 20, 2016, 04:22:04 AM
Either superior firepower (https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/547140/Rimworld/20161218213709_1.jpg) or cooking insect insides (https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/547140/Rimworld/20161220015847_1.jpg).
Hello!
How do you manage not to kill own animals in such position?
Quote from: Canute on December 19, 2016, 04:59:21 AM
- insects don't like light, they prefer to spawn at dark areas.
Sorry but this is not correct, or at least does not match my experience. I almost always use mountain bases, and every time I get an infestation, it's in one of my colonists' bedrooms. Wood-paneled and well-lit.
Andrew
Quote from: ahowe42 on December 20, 2016, 08:38:21 AM
Quote from: Canute on December 19, 2016, 04:59:21 AM
- insects don't like light, they prefer to spawn at dark areas.
Sorry but this is not correct, or at least does not match my experience. I almost always use mountain bases, and every time I get an infestation, it's in one of my colonists' bedrooms. Wood-paneled and well-lit.
Andrew
Out of curiosity, do you have dark rooms inside the mountain? They can still spawn if you don't, but I have found that they do tend to spawn in dark areas more often than lit ones. Beyond that it seems to be that they are drawn towards larger rooms but that may just be a side-effect of larger rooms having more tiles that can proc a spawn.
I don't know if this was changed in Alpha16 but I found infestations ridiculously easy to handle in 15. Just dug a huge room far away from my mountain base. They always spawn there. I actually don't bother them at all, spent the last 6 or 8 years with a 30 hive colony living on its own. Of course they often collapse the roof with their constant digging and sometimes the game spawns a new infestation event before the crushed hives are recovered to the maximum - and guess what, the newly spawned hives are... in the very same room as the old ones.
I even built another route to my base that goes through the insect cavern. At the moment there are more than 100 bodies from raiders and allies trying to help plus over 20 incapacitated centipedes there.
The only thing that bothers my colony of 7 is sappers, not that we don't handle them but they are annoying. Arguably the greatest challenge we had to handle is producing enough hay for those bloody animals.
Like everything in Rimworld it's just something I've adapted to. All my mountain bases are now planned with airlocked sections which can be closed off and burned down if required. This is my go-to strategy for dealing with them. Recently it happened in my main workshop so I just drafted all my pawns (about 8 and 2 dogs) and they managed to kill all the bugs without getting killed, only 2 light injuries.
Once I made provision for them in my playstyle it ceased bothering me so much.
Quote from: Canute on December 19, 2016, 04:59:21 AM
Learn about infestations !!
- insects don't like light, they prefer to spawn at dark areas.
Not accurate. I play mostly in large hills, and used to re-purpose the starting shelter/mined part into a barn. Despite using lights, the insects were almost guaranteed to spawn there (3times out of 4), killing my animals without me being able to do anything.
After several of those incidents, my barns are now on the outside.
Which led me to believe it's related to dirtiness. Since barn are always the dirtiest part of the base, no matter the cleaning done due to the animals.
I think light play a role, but much less than dirtiness.
Quote from: Canute on December 19, 2016, 04:59:21 AM
Learn about infestations !!
- insects don't like light, they prefer to spawn at dark areas.
learn not to make shit up like that.
this is not true at all...
tell me, is there anything brighter than a sun lamp (except the real sun ofc)? no, right? then why are insects always spawning in my underground greenhouse, hm?
I would like to see a researchable technology like a 'seismic detector' or 'ground-penetrating radar' that would give you a bit of advance warning that the bugs are coming.
But otherwise I think the infestation mechanic works pretty well with the state of the game at present.
Quote from: Blastoderm on December 19, 2016, 12:22:11 AM
To add time pressure on the colony:
1. Munching.
Gradually, insects will bite a bit from captured colonists. Arm, leg, eye etc until he is dead.
2. Alien infestation
Classic chestbuster hatchery. Colonist is being used as a hatchery and must be saved and then operated to extract insect larvae.
3. Brood
Colonists are placed in suspended state and wait until a brood of insects will hatch. If not saved in time brood of small insects will appear devour them.
4. Drones
Upon capture colonists are injected with parasite\venom which makes them a slave, tending the hive. They can be either docile or agressive when protecting the hive. Curing is either operation or waiting until subjugating venom will wear off.
I love this idea, this would certainly make hives more interesting, and require the player to put more thought into what they are doing, as well as up the pressure!
Quote from: Rafe009 on December 19, 2016, 02:19:20 AM
This thread has been posted probably 100 times and its' always the same complaint.
The people that have this problem are digging into the mountain too early. You CANNOT colonize and mine into a mountain and set up hospital and bedrooms early game if you want to survive. In fact, never put your hospitals in a mountain.
I think I've finally figured out my problem with this. This trailer was probably most of the reason I bought RimWorld. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJmYKKzC0uA)
0:15 to 0:41 did a great job showing the feeling of starting from scratch with 3 people and slowly making a colony... by digging into a mountain. So that's what I always did, until infestations showed up in A13.
The stated purpose of infestations (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAOZrfu7n3Q&t=8m26s) was to balance mountain and non-mountain colonies. Instead, after my first few experiences with infestations, it's just made me go "no more mountain colonies, not worth the trouble/risk." The advice in this thread is not convincing me otherwise. At least sieges have some warning time when they show up, walk to the place they want to set up, and build their mortars and sandbags.
The "growing colony" part of the newer trailers (here's the current one (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=866pKJDoHj4)) starts out in the open, like you're saying, and then expands, but shows rooms that get dug a little bit into the mountains as it expands. This seems like the normal thing to do, but is really a newbie trap, since unless you painstakingly check each space to make sure you have no overhead mountain, you'll have infestations pop up in that room, and since most of the room is not under overhead mountain, it's vulnerable to mortars
and infestations.
IMHO it's not a fun mechanic at all. There's nothing you reasonably can do to mitigate or prepare for it besides just not build into mountains. It wouldn't be so bad if melee fighting was balanced but it's just not (pretty much suicide for even my best melee fighters to fight against the warrior bugs). Mines can work well if you design your entire base around closing off hallways and lacing them with the things but it's a pain and expensive.
Infestations would be manageable if the insects were either much more brittle OR didn't do as much melee damage as quickly OR gave you more time to react.
As it is, it's like facing a 100-raider pod-drop every time.
How about that:
- Hives spawn with creation of the map inside mountains aka closed caves
- when you dig near that cave you get a message and the event Investion starts (bugs spawning inside the cave, intensity maybe depends on your colony strenght)
- if there are too many colonists near it, bugs get aware and start targeting you by digging straight to the trigger point
- in default mode bugs (when they were spawned) just dig around and maybe they breach your base but they don't get that aggressive like near their hive (the shouldn't be able to dig anything else than stone!)
additional thoughts:
- alien eggs, where more and more bugs spawn if you let them
=> closed alien eggs give jelly and biopolymer, opend give biopolymer only
=> biopolymer could be used for cool new stuff, I don't know
=> maybe you get more biopolymer from opend eggs because it's more fun
- rare minerals/elements (jade, gold...) inside the cave to mine
- you can only get jelly by destoying hives or eggs
- bugs can plant special white mushrooms like ants do for food
=> they are non-edible for humans and animals (maybe mechs like them, don't know, didn't ask them)
=> they can be used for cool new stuff, not necessarily like devilstrand
=> they don't need light, just bug-poo
- the ground of the cave is infestated as well like in alien, so it's covered with green bubbles or whatever
=> the triggering zone around the cave when you mine a rock is coverd as well, so you have an optical warning besides the message
- for security you can install seismic sensors that creates a message if a bug digs too close to your base
All in all what you get:
- threat of infestation is still there if you dig too much, but it's more controllable
- noobs get a warning and don't get raped anymore
- two awesome new materials
- ???
- loot (profit)
Quote from: Sirportalez on December 23, 2016, 05:49:18 AM
Loads of stuff...
I have no idea what are you smoking, but you really should change the dealer.
What you really get is a spawn point at the start of the game, in other words the potential to make the game unplayable in less than 1 game year due to increased number of creatures. Adding extra worker actions (planting / harvesting) increases the script load and eats CPU cycles. Also useless extra materials. More load for
Bleah, why am I even trying? Now if I come to think a bit I realize you sound like a 14 yrs old who saw too many movies. It's great, kid, unleash your creativity. What else do you have in mind?
I think Infestations should take place everywhere on the map....not just mountains.
The strategies to deal with bug infestation mentioned here already make it mostly a piece of cake. Only thing that bugs me (heh!) too is the instant surround of colonists that sometimes occurs - but i suppose the mechanic is intentionally designed so tough to sort of prevent people from always just building inside mountains (which i do nonetheless). Maybe it would already be enough to raise the spawn time to like 10 seconds after the warning.
That aside if you design your base right (wide hallways, multiple entrances for each room, embrasures beside bedroom entrances, dead mineshafts and empty/unlit caverns far away from your base) you rarely get into situations where a bug infestation wipes your colony.
Quote from: taha on December 23, 2016, 06:07:18 AM
Quote from: Sirportalez on December 23, 2016, 05:49:18 AM
Loads of stuff...
I have no idea what are you smoking, but you really should change the dealer.
What you really get is a spawn point at the start of the game, in other words the potential to make the game unplayable in less than 1 game year due to increased number of creatures. Adding extra worker actions (planting / harvesting) increases the script load and eats CPU cycles. Also useless extra materials. More load for
Bleah, why am I even trying? Now if I come to think a bit I realize you sound like a 14 yrs old who saw too many movies. It's great, kid, unleash your creativity. What else do you have in mind?
Wtf is your problem? Is it possible that you are the kid here?
QuoteWhat you really get is a spawn point at the start of the game
Where did I write that? Please read and understand my text kiddo.
Quote from: taha on December 23, 2016, 06:07:18 AM
Quote from: Sirportalez on December 23, 2016, 05:49:18 AM
Loads of stuff...
I have no idea what are you smoking, but you really should change the dealer.
What you really get is a spawn point at the start of the game, in other words the potential to make the game unplayable in less than 1 game year due to increased number of creatures. Adding extra worker actions (planting / harvesting) increases the script load and eats CPU cycles. Also useless extra materials. More load for
Bleah, why am I even trying? Now if I come to think a bit I realize you sound like a 14 yrs old who saw too many movies. It's great, kid, unleash your creativity. What else do you have in mind?
Keep it civil please, thats coming close to a personal attack.
Sirportalez dont rise to it please.
It is possible to mitigate the danger of a bug infestation. At some point in the game, if there is a square of overhead mountain-covered space open, an infestation event will happen. At that point the game will choose a RANDOM overhead mountain-covered space that is a legitimate spawn point and spawn a bug nest (or more, if that size raid is called for). You can REDUCE the odds of a bug nest spawning in your base by increasing the NUMBER of overhead mountain-covered, empty squares on the map that are NOT in your base. Dig out some complete mountain outside your base or something.
When the game creates the event, and your base has 500 mountain covered spaces, and there are 1500 other spaces on the map, the bugs will have a 75% chance to spawn somewhere else.
Does it prevent the problem? no, but it helps it to be less likely to happen.
Unfortunately, the real problem of this event, which has been mentioned in this thread, but NOT addressed by all the "this is how a REAL player kills the bugs" people, is that it is quite possible, even COMMON, for the bugs to spawn in an occupied bedroom (or other occupied room, but the bedroom is the best example because they tend to only have 1 entrance due to disturbed sleep) and kill the occupant before he can run to the door or anyone else can enter. Sadly this feels like a return to the "traitor event" days where building into a mountain COULD kill a character just as easily as if there was a "Colonist A has fallen over dead for no reason at all" event.
Well, that is reason why i always have bedrooms outside mountains. I do use mountain room for storage, batteries, freezers and even workshops, but that all are big rooms with multiply entrances, so in case of any problems i can react.
the only thing i would complain about infestations, is that apparently they can eat through any material at the same speed.
i haven't gone through any testing, but i felt like my plasteel walls were as useless as my granite or even wood walls, coz they ate through it like through butter
Quote from: Mutineer on December 24, 2016, 04:30:38 AM
Well, that is reason why i always have bedrooms outside mountains. I do use mountain room for storage, batteries, freezers and even workshops, but that all are big rooms with multiply entrances, so in case of any problems i can react.
kind of missing the point. multiple entrances help, but bugs spawning ON a pawn still almost certainly kill that pawn even with 47 entrances to the room.
I've usually started strip mining before infestations start, and then they end up in the mines where they can't really hurt me. I HAVE had one spawn in my base, (Actually, it was a ventilation shaft) and I can see how it'd suck if a pawn was caught in the room where it happened. There should definitely be some warning. On the other hand, fighting in a base is really fun, and I hope they don't remove the event.
I personally build turrets in all the major rooms now. They're incorporated into the walls and their uglyness is offset by a small statue or two. Bedrooms have emergency exits adjacent to the beds, and deadfall traps in 2-wide hallways (so colonists can go around) help keep the bugs back. I also have multiple exits to the base as a whole, emergency rations and a barracks outside, and a bunch of molotovs and inferno launchers ready so I can burn the bugs out. Shame about the furniture but the ability to do damage over time without keeping the door open is worth it.
Use your brains to counter and minimalize issue. We can't just nerf the bugs because living underground is already giving you the best flooring, immunity from sieges, and natural air conditioning. Nerfing the bugs at this point would just lead to everyone dismissing them as a minor pest/free food instead of a threat and suddenly we're back to Alpha 8 again. Also remember now that you can park 5 melee men behined a door and force the bugs to come through one at a time during the extermination phase.
Quote from: Barley on December 25, 2016, 11:43:13 PM
Use your brains to counter and minimalize issue. We can't just nerf the bugs because living underground is already giving you the best flooring, immunity from sieges, and natural air conditioning. Nerfing the bugs at this point would just lead to everyone dismissing them as a minor pest/free food instead of a threat and suddenly we're back to Alpha 8 again. Also remember now that you can park 5 melee men behined a door and force the bugs to come through one at a time during the extermination phase.
Warrior bugs will slaughter even the best melee combatants in the best gear with implants. They are that deadly.
The main problem isn't that mountains are OP, it's that defense in general has been nerfed to hell. I mean, unless you use serious meta, how are you going to survive against sappers, mortars, 50+ manhunters, dozens of tribals, mechanoids/raiders dropping into your base, etc? We have to ask ourselves how much is this game going to focus on combat and how. Because right now combat isn't so much about you or your pawns skill as it is employing whatever new meta there is in order to survive the increasingly absurd amount of threats thrown against your colony.
Just my contribution: I found infestations manageable using shotguns and incendiary launchers. My base was already compartmentalized like a submarine to deal with bear raids that arise from a certain forest mod.
Also I'm using twoski's Improved Infestation https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=25549.0
However I agree it is too easy to lose a colonist when a hive spawns right on him. Here is my idea:
Instead of it all spawning at once, 1 or 2 scout bugs show up, as if tunneling from above or below. Not long after, a hive is created near the scouted location with more bugs. The idea is, an unlucky colonist can escape some scouts tunneling into his bedroom before the real fight starts.
Spelopedes should be the scouts, unless a new type is created -- something which will tunnel quickly, tough but either slow or non aggressive. In fact that gives an idea for a similar event -- instead of an infestation, scouts from an existing hive dig a 'highway' tunnel through your base with a hole you have to destroy, instead of nests.