I hate infestations as they work now. I have to turn them off in the scenario editor every time. I like the idea, but its a system that punishes you for not making a mistake. What I mean is , it is not a mistake to mine rocks and metals , but if you do you'll eventually get an infestation and even a small infestation comes equipped with a lot of bugs. The only type of preventative measure you can use to combat this is to plug up any rock roof type cell with a wall which makes caverns useless.
By contrast , a system that punishes you for making a mistake , such as building wooden walls , will rightly so punish you by burning your base down from a electrical fire, flash storm , pyromaniac. In this case there are things you can do to counteract some of that like building stone walls, not using battery , pathway barriers to fire , foam poppers etc.
In my opinion infestations would be better if they appeared anywhere on the map , but gave you time to react. For instance , you could get a warning somehow , like maybe an infestation was going to appear somewhere and animals would retreat from that area, or you could research a seismograph which could detect upcoming infestations. Or don't give a warning but lower the initial bug count to a few megascarabs, so if you notice it you can deal with it , but if you don't you'll have a bigger problem.
I wouldn't mind some small infestation nerfs, but not too much. Its the only thing that discourages building into mountains and getting heavily fortified with kill boxes.
I prefer them as they are. Building in mountains is the perfect way to defend against raids/sieges so it should be a gamble.
I'd prefer a "carrot" to encourage building outside of mountains, instead of a "stick" to punish building into mountains.
It really feels like a quite a few of the things in this game were added or changed as sticks to punish certain playstyles. Infestations for mountain bases, sappers for killboxers/heavy trappers, the removal of the ability to set targets for autoturrets, ect. They all punish the most successful playstyles without addressing the reasons why those playstyles became dominant while others faded away.
You don't need to build into mountains to be heavily fortified though. It might be cool if there was some sort of cavern system in the game though where you would want to dig in to find some valuable hickey jigger or another.
Quote from: PiggyBacon on January 10, 2017, 06:35:29 PM
I prefer them as they are. Building in mountains is the perfect way to defend against raids/sieges so it should be a gamble.
This.
People who complain about this also complain about colonists being able to die.
Since the goal of infestations is to combat the Mountain Base, having them spawn "anywhere" ultimately defeats their purpose and just turns them more or less into raid drop pods.
I do somewhat like the idea of seismic detection of an incoming infestation, though, that's a neat idea.
Yeah it would be ok if you had some warning and time to prepare . or if they started off way smaller , and if you don't deal with it right away you get overwhelmed.
I don't mind mountain bases having vulnerability. However currently there is one vulnerability to mountain bases, and as we all know 1 is a small number.
I think there should be more types of trouble one might experience when carving a home out of the mountain.
here is a few fun ideas.
have some events which will trigger only after a sufficient number of empty tiles with overhead mountain are present on the map.
Hallucinogenic fungus, Cavern plants which if you come in contact will give your pawns a disease which lowers their mental break threshold.
Bug Horde, no hives but a large swarm of bugs will appear next to a exposed wall tile near to the maps edge, (Man hunter swarm of bugs) ( they also randomly dig are your walls)
This is how you get ants, the smaller bugs just randomly spawn in your home areas.
.
I would make a slight change to the current infestation event, i would add a longer initial delay (like 7 seconds from the current 2 second delay) for bugs to spawn and have the initial hives react like the psychic ships when damaged. if bugs spawn next to prisoners, well tough luck. however while I don't feel this to too brutal in the case of a chained prisoner I do have a problem when you have a colonist who is immediately drafted and tries to run out of their room to safety but can't because there is no time and the bugs spawn next to them right away, it feels like a unavoidable and unmitigable fee which Rimworld will withdraw from your account without notice.
modified to correct typos
Quote from: schizmo on January 11, 2017, 04:08:39 AM
I do somewhat like the idea of seismic detection of an incoming infestation, though, that's a neat idea.
If there was a way to detect (and avert them, ideally) then sure. Seriously, multiple bugs several times the size of a person just poof into existence in an actively-used bedroom? Nah, look up "balance" and "gameplay" and get back to me. :)
The dev menu is basically required at this point in the game.
Yep, infestations (magic teleporting bugs!) are stupid to the point of adding nothing to gameplay. It's best to just disable infestations in the scenario editor.
People that argue "you shouldn't be able to have fortifications/dig into mountains" are making a fetish of one particular way of playing the game, and demanding everyone else play their way, by having silly game mechanics to enforce the idea.
It's one way RimWorld doesn't quite grasp what makes Dwarf Fortress so great: there's a million ways to play the game successfully, and "small squad militia defense" is only one. In RimWorld, there's some idea that small squad combat is somehow core to the game experience, and everything else should be built to force that to happen. That's too bad, to elevate one idea of how to play the game to the level where it's a fetish, and demand everyone else play that way, too.
I turn them off in scenario. I used to play with them. Until they spawned inside my hospital... In the center of my base. I did fight them off. Lost 3 pawns and 2 dogs. and 1/3 my base. I finished that play with launching all colonists in the ship, but I never got over how unlikely it seemed to me that they made it into the center of my base unhindered with a dozen bugs and 2 hives.
Quote from: gchristopher on January 11, 2017, 02:51:34 PM
In RimWorld, there's some idea that small squad combat is somehow core to the game experience, and everything else should be built to force that to happen. That's too bad, to elevate one idea of how to play the game to the level where it's a fetish, and demand everyone else play that way, too.
That is a fine and insightful comment.
Quote from: RazorHed on January 10, 2017, 05:02:29 PM
I hate infestations as they work now. I have to turn them off in the scenario editor every time. I like the idea, but its a system that punishes you for not making a mistake.
I disagree with this. You're arbitrarily calling mining "not a mistake" and using wood for walls "a mistake". Neither is or is not a mistake in general. It depends on your play style, the current events, the map, etc. Personally I don't think infestations are a sufficient disincentive to building inside mountains. I consider them one of the easiest types of encounters. If you learn to manage them well instead of just getting frustrated I think you will find that they are not really a problem.
Mine out areas that you are not building in. This decreases the odds that an infestation will appear in a sensitive area of your base. Infestations may appear without warning, but they don't spread very fast. You have plenty of time to build extra walls and set up traps or whatever you need before luring them to a good place to fight. Which brings me to the next point...don't just rush into the room the infestation appears in. Lure them out to a position you can have multiple pawns fire from. Make sure to put your melee guys in the front line.
Or, my favorite, raise 1-2 dozen animals to fight and release them on the insects with no risk to your colonists. A dozen panthers does short work of an infestation. Takes a bit more planning ahead, but if you get a hold of a herd that can also haul, it's well worth the investment.
There is no other active hostile event in the game that gives so little reaction time after the fact. Even hostile drop pods in your base have a longer delay. There needs to be a gap in reaction time or a more gradual build-up of attacking bugs. Such as 1 after the initial 2 seconds then another one 10 seconds after continuing for about a minute or so of play time.
I like some of the negative mood fungi ideas. If a time 'under deep mountain' hasn't been cleaned for a long time and a random variable (x) occurs a fungi may spawn and start to spread. Either forcing the player to allocate resources to maintaining a clean mountain home OR ignoring the area/threat at their peril. Thus giving the player agency over the situation. OR alternatively encouraging it by forcing travelers into their hall of madness. Which is similar to how infestations work now.
Quote from: GiantSpaceHamster on January 11, 2017, 05:08:04 PM
Quote from: RazorHed on January 10, 2017, 05:02:29 PM
I hate infestations as they work now. I have to turn them off in the scenario editor every time. I like the idea, but its a system that punishes you for not making a mistake.
I disagree with this. You're arbitrarily calling mining "not a mistake" and using wood for walls "a mistake". Neither is or is not a mistake in general. It depends on your play style, the current events, the map, etc.
Wood is incredibly flammable and gives a beauty debuff because it's ugly. I'd say it's a mistake.
Quote from: dv on January 11, 2017, 11:25:32 PM
Quote from: GiantSpaceHamster on January 11, 2017, 05:08:04 PM
Quote from: RazorHed on January 10, 2017, 05:02:29 PM
I hate infestations as they work now. I have to turn them off in the scenario editor every time. I like the idea, but its a system that punishes you for not making a mistake.
I disagree with this. You're arbitrarily calling mining "not a mistake" and using wood for walls "a mistake". Neither is or is not a mistake in general. It depends on your play style, the current events, the map, etc.
Wood is incredibly flammable and gives a beauty debuff because it's ugly. I'd say it's a mistake.
I'm the first person to argue whether or not something is a "mistake" in terms of bad planning or poor decision making, but your statement is flawed for several reasons.
First, while you're correct that wood is obviously the most flammable (except floors which are never flammable), wood is actually one of the more beautiful options to build furniture with (walls have 0 impact on beauty BTW), beaten only by incrementally Marble and significantly by the precious materials (Gold, Silver, Jade) for obvious reasons. But the difference between wood and stone is often so minimal it could hardly be called "ugly" or a mistake to use either. Floors have a positive impact on beauty, but wood is neutral, so there's no "ugly" debuff coming from anything other than concrete. Simply put: Wood isn't ugly, but it is flammable.
Secondly, using wood, building in a mountain, decisions like these are
trade-offs, not mistakes. On the one hand, wood items are flammable and have the lowest HP, but they are among the most beautiful and the quickest to build. This is a trade-off. Wood is also completely renewable, where as stones are finite.
Stones by contrast are non-flammable and have decent durability, but require more work to mine them AND cut them before they can be used for building, at which point they require the most work to build with. All in all the trade-off for non-flammability is a staggeringly long construction time from mining to crafting to constructing.
And then precious materials must be used at 20x the normal material rate, making them even MORE finite. But they are vastly more beautiful, so once again a trade-off, not necessarily a mistake.
The trade-off for building inside a mountain is the ever present danger of near instant combat from insects, but this is because all other forms of combat are rendered practically useless by the sheer defensive capabilities of mountains. It's supposed to be this way.
BUT I do agree that the very instant nature of infestations is a bit unfairly skewed against mountains. I would even argue that "seismic detection" is unnecessary research, if it were up to me the map would start shaking and the player would be alerted to an incoming infestation by a notification, giving them a moment to quickly draft everyone before the infestation begins.
I'm also one to argue that mountains should be made less impervious, to give a compelling reason to lighten the danger of infestations. But there will always need to be a trade-off.
Oh also this game started as a combat simulator so yes, squad combat is the main way the game is designed to be played. This is changing gradually with suggestions and feedback, but you cannot fault the game for being what it is.
Infestations are necessary, or it would be far too easy to defend the colony.
Quote from: Jorlem on January 10, 2017, 07:24:46 PM
I'd prefer a "carrot" to encourage building outside of mountains, instead of a "stick" to punish building into mountains.
I prefer both.
No nerfing of infestation until there are more events which make mountain bases less desirable.
This entire thread is a waste of time and arguments.
You just need to install lightbulbs. Viola! no infestation!
Now I agree that it's the game's fault for not letting you know this, but yeah.
I'm fairly certain bugs don't spawn where's light. Never happened to me ever.
Quote from: Lightzy on January 12, 2017, 07:38:06 PM
...You just need to install lightbulbs....
Remarkably apt user name for your arguement there xD
To be honest i dont really deal with bugs, i find open plan town layouts for street fights are a pretty solid defence. The ai tends to split as each wants to break a random house and i can tolerate the rebuild process as i tend to build for redundancy.
This kind of layout i just cant figure out a mountain base that would play nice aesthetically and mining isn't really an issue as thanks to a16 my mining camps tend to be away from my "capitol"
Quote from: schizmo on January 12, 2017, 03:49:40 AM
Oh also this game started as a combat simulator so yes, squad combat is the main way the game is designed to be played. This is changing gradually with suggestions and feedback, but you cannot fault the game for being what it is.
Kinda true? I think an early announcement of this game was by Tynan over on the Dwarf Fortress forums. He describes it as "basically the sci-fi Dwarf Fortress." (With mild undeserved controversy since he was making a clone.) The major difference is that Tynan is trying to make a fun game, and Toady is trying to Simulate Every Thing, with DF the game as a byproduct of that quest. (And I'm happy to be able to give both of them money for doing it.)
Technically Dwarf Fortress started as a "combat simulator," too. The original Slaves to Armok I was just a thing where you could flail away fighting a plant and eventually die of exhaustion. Obviously it grew into a lot more of an interesting game, with all the crazy trap designs and dwarfputers and chaos.
Where I find fault is in players WANTING it to be just a squad combat game, and demanding changes that keep anyone else from playing it differently. People defending the current infestation mechanic frequently fall into this category. They view digging into mountains as a game experience they don't like ("too easy" or other reasons) and instead of just avoiding that game mechanic, they argue that we need infestations to keep anyone else from doing something they don't like.
Quote from: gchristopher on January 13, 2017, 01:39:47 AM
Where I find fault is in players WANTING it to be just a squad combat game, and demanding changes that keep anyone else from playing it differently.
I think your miss-representing people with this statement. I havn't really seen anyone argue that the Squad combat aspect should be the principle form of defense used in any situation. Not saying that there are not people who think that aspect should be important but that this is the principle idea of people who are defending infestations, I would disagree.
The reason that infestations are in is because there should be ever present danger of a variety of sources with any route you take with developing your colony, mountain or not, Since building into a mountain makes events such as drop pods and sieges not nearly as deadly well this begins to break the Ever present danger rule and thus infestations are introduced to help (with some faults) balance out the lack of danger in mountains. People who say that there should be NO infestations without offering some kinda of counter offer I would say border on being guilty of wanting mountains to turn into some kind a safe zone which should not exist on Rimworld.
I'm not saying Infestations are a good mechanic (i'm kinda neutral on them as a whole) but their presence is preferable to their absence because without them then mountains becomes this area where you basically take almost all challenge away from Seiges and Drop pods, as well as infestations.
Quote from: Lightzy on January 12, 2017, 07:38:06 PM
This entire thread is a waste of time and arguments.
You just need to install lightbulbs. Viola! no infestation!
Now I agree that it's the game's fault for not letting you know this, but yeah.
I'm fairly certain bugs don't spawn where's light. Never happened to me ever.
This just isn't true. I've had them spawn if a fully illuminated hospital, a dark fridge, and a lit up stockpile. They do spawn with regular lamps.
That's strange, I could have sworn tynan himself posted that infestations happen in darkened areas.
Perhaps it changed?
Still never seen it happen though.
Quote from: Lightzy on January 13, 2017, 11:51:01 AM
That's strange, I could have sworn tynan himself posted that infestations happen in darkened areas.
Perhaps it changed?
Still never seen it happen though.
Lamps provide 50% light. Sunlamps 100%. The bugs don't spawn in 100%. So you'd need sunlamps all over your base (anyone have that kind of power supply?). Even stacking reg lamps doesn't make light more than 50% (put 4 in an 8x8 dark room to test- light level was still 50%).
I'll test it out some more.
I have a mountain base all lit with regular lamps and never got a single infestation, almost end-game. Corridors are well lit, large recroom/diningroom have 8 lamps each.
I'll start a new colony now.
Been playing more with flatlands tribals lately though. A bit tougher.
Light affects the probability of an infestation spawning, but it doesn't eliminate it entirely. If you have never had an infestation in a lit area before then you have just been lucky (the storyteller also plays a part, as on lower levels infestation are less likely to occur to begin with, meaning less occasions when you need to be lucky).
Quote from: Calahan on January 13, 2017, 01:08:06 PM
Light affects the probability of an infestation spawning, but it doesn't eliminate it entirely. If you have never had an infestation in a lit area before then you have just been lucky (the storyteller also plays a part, as on lower levels infestation are less likely to occur to begin with, meaning less occasions when you need to be lucky).
Uh...No. Light does not affect the probability of an infestation. It does remove one square where it can spawn, because something's taking up the space, which affects the chance of the room getting hit (overall), but that's because of the lamp, not the light. 2 lamps reduce the chance the same as having a bed in the room.
Quote from: SangoProductions on January 13, 2017, 06:45:08 PM
Quote from: Calahan on January 13, 2017, 01:08:06 PM
Light affects the probability of an infestation spawning, but it doesn't eliminate it entirely. If you have never had an infestation in a lit area before then you have just been lucky (the storyteller also plays a part, as on lower levels infestation are less likely to occur to begin with, meaning less occasions when you need to be lucky).
Uh...No. Light does not affect the probability of an infestation. It does remove one square where it can spawn, because something's taking up the space, which affects the chance of the room getting hit (overall), but that's because of the lamp, not the light. 2 lamps reduce the chance the same as having a bed in the room.
No, this is incorrect. Light absolutely has an affect on Infestation chance, I'll show you.
http://imgur.com/a/gtJEr
I put together this handy little experiment to show how light affects infestation, by enabling "draw infestation chance" and disabling "draw lighting overlay" to show raw in game data about infestation chance (if you don't turn off the lighting overlay, lighting can make the infestation chance drawing harder to visualize)
Might be beneficial for Lightzy to see this, too, since he always says lamps eliminate infestation chance which is also untrue. It's simply more complicated than a simple will/won't happen.
edit: some of my changes to this imgur album are not saving so if you happen to read this and the last image description cuts off, it should say that the player can corral infestation chance into a single sealed unlit room, but that it does not completely eliminate infestation chance in other rooms.
^can we be friends?
You can also prevent infestations by lowering the temperature in a room to below 0 degrees fahrenheit and by filling every open tile in the room with items (rock rubble is easiest, and walkable).
Quote from: Hieronymous Alloy on January 13, 2017, 11:08:16 PM
You can also prevent infestations by lowering the temperature in a room to below 0 degrees fahrenheit and by filling every open tile in the room with items (rock rubble is easiest, and walkable).
Filling the room with items isn't even necessary, the 0 degrees technique does well enough on it's own. I tested it using the method in my previous post and I saw no signs of any infestation once the temp dropped below 0, in fact even inching close to 0 significantly reduced it.
The trouble of course is maintaining this temperature AND surviving, it's not easy to keep an entire base this cold and it runs into the same power limitations as having sunlamps in every room.
Quote from: JuicyPVP on January 13, 2017, 10:59:15 PM
^can we be friends?
Heck yeah I'll be everyone's friend. I just want us to all get along even though I disagree with people all the time lol
Yeah, 0 degrees works but it's a bad idea for a lot of reasons. (I should have said and/or). At least with rubble you can keep walkin' and there's no temp penalty.
For the most part though it's best to just not build underground unless you're deliberately building a jelly farm. In which case you don't want cold, you want heaters (up to 170 F to give the bugs all heatstroke when it's jelly time).
Quote from: Hieronymous Alloy on January 13, 2017, 11:50:41 PM
Yeah, 0 degrees works but it's a bad idea for a lot of reasons. (I should have said and/or). At least with rubble you can keep walkin' and there's no temp penalty.
For the most part though it's best to just not build underground unless you're deliberately building a jelly farm. In which case you don't want cold, you want heaters (up to 170 F to give the bugs all heatstroke when it's jelly time).
But we can't grow peanuts so the farms are useless.
Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches should give bigger mood buffs than the most lavish of meals
Quote from: schizmo on January 13, 2017, 08:35:50 PM
Light absolutely has an affect on Infestation chance, I'll show you.
http://imgur.com/a/gtJEr
I put together this handy little experiment to show how light affects infestation...
@ schizmo - That's a really helpful visual explanation you've put together there. So helpful in fact that I've bookmarked it so that I can link to it whenever a "how to stop infestations?" type question comes up. Thanks for posting it, and for taking the time and effort to create it.
Quote from: Calahan on January 15, 2017, 07:26:42 AM
Quote from: schizmo on January 13, 2017, 08:35:50 PM
Light absolutely has an affect on Infestation chance, I'll show you.
http://imgur.com/a/gtJEr
I put together this handy little experiment to show how light affects infestation...
@ schizmo - That's a really helpful visual explanation you've put together there. So helpful in fact that I've bookmarked it so that I can link to it whenever a "how to stop infestations?" type question comes up. Thanks for posting it, and for taking the time and effort to create it.
You're welcome, I'm happy to help. My one regret is the final caption gets cut off but I can't edit it because I didn't upload it with an account. Just pretend it comes to an abrupt end because I got eaten by bugs.
Quote from: gchristopher on January 13, 2017, 01:39:47 AM
Where I find fault is in players WANTING it to be just a squad combat game, and demanding changes that keep anyone else from playing it differently. People defending the current infestation mechanic frequently fall into this category. They view digging into mountains as a game experience they don't like ("too easy" or other reasons) and instead of just avoiding that game mechanic, they argue that we need infestations to keep anyone else from doing something they don't like.
But it is too easy. Digging and construction mechanics are taken straight from Dwarf Fortress, a game about dwarves, fantastical creatures with legendary affinity for mining, digging and stonecrafting. So it's natural for dwarves to live underground. It's not natural for humans to live underground - but somehow in Rimworld it's still easier to make a colony "underground" than "above ground". You think it makes sense ?
I oppose (strong) nerfing of infestation because it's currently the only event that people living under mountain care about. The last one. We need more events like infestation (not necessarily of this strength) instead of fewer.
And when it comes to Z-levels (layer above layer), I'd much rather see building UP rather DOWN, because that's what's natural for you, humans. It would also enable unique challenges like buildings losing support, enemies dropping on roof, flying vehicles - stuff Dwarf Fortress doesn't have.
Embrace the differences between DF and Rimworld. Embrace the differences between fantasy and science-fiction. Don't just make a sci-fi clone of DF.
For humans, living underground should be harder than on surface. With its own advantages, but mostly a more expensive option that should be considered carefully, not used by default.
Quote from: b0rsuk on January 15, 2017, 09:20:18 AM
But it is too easy. ... We need more events like infestation (not necessarily of this strength) instead of fewer.
You're exactly making his point with this response; it could be summarized as "you shouldn't be able to play the game that way".
RW already has mechanics that discourages full-on dwarf fortress cave bases; your pawns don't like staying underground all the time. Remember that bad moods are the real enemy in this game. :)
The infestation event OTOH is just an example of ham-handed "stop playing the game like you want".
Quote from: OFWG on January 15, 2017, 11:52:23 AM
Quote from: b0rsuk on January 15, 2017, 09:20:18 AM
But it is too easy. ... We need more events like infestation (not necessarily of this strength) instead of fewer.
You're exactly making his point with this response; it could be summarized as "you shouldn't be able to play the game that way".
It could be summarized like that, but
poorly. What I actually said was that you should be able to play the game that way, but it should be harder than in Dwarf Fortress. Humans are not dwarves. They're not burrowing animals. They're not short, stocky, muscular and used to hard work. In Rimworld, most of them are effeminate, fussy, overweight, traumatized or full of themselves. There are many backgrounds like cooks, artists, empaths, doctors, scientists, sex slaves, housemates, medieval lords, spies, clerks, social workers. Very few are miners, oafs, or other physical workers.
The mechanics ? Cabin fever is absolutely trivial. Serious cabin fewer is mitigated by a 2 minute (in-game time) visit to the outside. It's actually the opposite ! There are mood bonuses for indoor areas (spacious indoors, impressive dining room, decent bedroom), penalties for working outside, but no bonuses whatsover for having a nice park or a picnic table. To the point where the most effective outside colony is one that mimic an underground base. Build your base like a termite mound, a single building with rooms sharing walls.
Outdoors is a hostile, hostile world where enemies fall from the sky and bears randomly decide to hunt your farmers. Underground bases with their infestation problems still look cozy by comparison.
I honestly don't know why he would want to force people to build outside of mtns. If you want to build outside of mtns, you choose to do so. It's like choosing to play ice sheet. You're choosing a harder difficulty. Just my HO. :P
If he wants to make building outside of mtns easier, he's definitely going down the wrong path. Hordes of enemies, lack of (non-flammable) building materials, manhunters, and mortars make plains colonies an order of magnitude more difficult than infestations ever did for mtn bases.
My only problem with infestations is when they spawn in peoples bedrooms or hospitals. That is total, indefensible bullshit. Still it can be dealt with if you use gamey tactics which goes back to my original point; there are so many mechanics arrayed against non-mtn bases that infestations by themselves aren't going force people to play plains (forcing people is something I also disagree with strongly).
I wouldn't exactly say choosing to play outside is choosing to play a harder difficulty, I would say it's choosing to play with a different set of challenges. Playing outside is easier, to me, because there are so many limitations to mountain bases, limitations that are easily overcome when playing with an open colony. It does honestly come down to play style for most people, I think.
I still think most people play in mountains because its "easier" to defend against a lot of things, but that isn't why I choose not to use them, out of some sense of superiority. I just prefer civilization, sprawling farms, roads, and dynamic growth (and freedom to expand)
I also think mountain bases are ugly haha
Quote from: schizmo on January 15, 2017, 08:46:24 PM
I wouldn't exactly say choosing to play outside is choosing to play a harder difficulty, I would say it's choosing to play with a different set of challenges. Playing outside is easier, to me, because there are so many limitations to mountain bases, limitations that are easily overcome when playing with an open colony. It does honestly come down to play style for most people, I think.
I still think most people play in mountains because its "easier" to defend against a lot of things, but that isn't why I choose not to use them, out of some sense of superiority. I just prefer civilization, sprawling farms, roads, and dynamic growth (and freedom to expand)
I also think mountain bases are ugly haha
What are those limitations? I enjoy playing on the plains too and I agree, mtn bases are fugly, but it's pretty clear to me that mtns are much easier. You need much less building materials, have more materials, and have an easier defense. Meanwhile, you avoid having to build a massive perimeter wall to protect your farmers from manhunters, having to aggressively eliminate mortars, and generally having to rely on trade to get metal and stone.
Quote from: LordMunchkin on January 15, 2017, 09:29:21 PM
Quote from: schizmo on January 15, 2017, 08:46:24 PM
I wouldn't exactly say choosing to play outside is choosing to play a harder difficulty, I would say it's choosing to play with a different set of challenges. Playing outside is easier, to me, because there are so many limitations to mountain bases, limitations that are easily overcome when playing with an open colony. It does honestly come down to play style for most people, I think.
I still think most people play in mountains because its "easier" to defend against a lot of things, but that isn't why I choose not to use them, out of some sense of superiority. I just prefer civilization, sprawling farms, roads, and dynamic growth (and freedom to expand)
I also think mountain bases are ugly haha
What are those limitations? I enjoy playing on the plains too and I agree, mtn bases are fugly, but it's pretty clear to me that mtns are much easier. You need much less building materials, have more materials, and have an easier defense. Meanwhile, you avoid having to build a massive perimeter wall to protect your farmers from manhunters, having to aggressively eliminate mortars, and generally having to rely on trade to get metal and stone.
A few things wrong here, nothing says that players who don't use mountain bases are reliant on traders for stone and metal, it's perfectly acceptable and even common to mine out as much stone and metal as you need and then leave the mine open (since distant infestations are not an immediate threat) or fill the mountain back up with wood. You can also set up turrets to fight off infestations that happens to spawn inside of the old mine. Personally I fill the mines back up if I bother with them at all.
In my experience mountains are primarily limited in space, and their chaotic nature means space is often wasted on weird shaped edges, leading to funky shaped rooms or shoe-horning things into spaces that are too large or too small to be effective. The space limitation also means having to try and squeeze as much as possible into the pre-defined space, which affects things like having individually spacious rooms with clearly designated room roles, which by extension prevents the positive mood buff for having impressive workshops, rec rooms, etc. And if you want to change anything or redesign the layout inside of a mountain base it is a slow, careful process of making sure that no one gets killed. Buildings in a village can be torn down and rebuilt much more quickly, in the event that your needs change.
Space limitations also lead to issues with farms and livestock, particularly because you either have to do hydroponics which present power issues, or you have to venture outside which can become difficult to manage, too many exits and your swiss cheese mountain base is not as easily defended, not enough exits and you have to spend extra time to do ANYTHING outside, whether it's farming or harvesting wood or recovering drop pods/wounded spacers.
Speaking of power, all of your major power generation MUST happen outside, which means you have key structures outside of the confines of the base that need to be separately protected. If the raiders feel like getting into your base is too difficult, pathfinding might send them to your power, which can be costly to deal with and requires you to come outside to deal with it.
Space limitations also mean that power distribution is likely going to be on a single circuit, where a village layout has the luxury of individual buildings that can have individual circuits attached, meaning smaller battery banks on each circuit, meaning much smaller explosions from Zrrrt events, and also meaning the entire base doesn't go dark because only one building has lost power.
Heat management can also be an issue, and mountain stone cannot be repaired meaning your base is effectively deteriorating slowly until you replace damaged walls with stone brick walls, which is more of an annoyance than anything.
Mountain bases also seem to rely on kill boxes which to me is just cheap and boring. But that is a personal preference more than anything, and plenty of walled cities have kill boxes, too.
It's possible that some of what I'm saying is less than accurate because my experience with mountain bases is limited, frankly I dislike them so I've spent far less time trying to force them to work for me. It's possible there may be solutions to some of what I'm saying, and I'm just not aware of them.
Also as a side note, I don't mind a perimeter wall, it can be somewhat resource intensive but it's never been an issue for me. A well defended wall eliminates the need to construct main buildings out of stone, so ultimately you actually spend less resources on a wall than you do on buildings. Stone walls keep outside fires out of the village, and separating power circuits for individual buildings makes fire much less deadly or common. And with stone roads acting as fire breaks (and preventing any and all flammable grass from growing) even things like dry thunderstorms or flashstorms are not a concern for fire, so you can feel free to build literally everything out of wood. By the time raiders or robots can drop into the middle of your base you should have deep drilling and replace everything with plasteel, anyway.
Quote from: schizmo on January 16, 2017, 12:48:32 AM
A few things wrong here, nothing says that players who don't use mountain bases are reliant on traders for stone and metal, it's perfectly acceptable and even common to mine out as much stone and metal as you need and then leave the mine open (since distant infestations are not an immediate threat) or fill the mountain back up with wood. You can also set up turrets to fight off infestations that happens to spawn inside of the old mine. Personally I fill the mines back up if I bother with them at all.
In my experience mountains are primarily limited in space, and their chaotic nature means space is often wasted on weird shaped edges, leading to funky shaped rooms or shoe-horning things into spaces that are too large or too small to be effective. The space limitation also means having to try and squeeze as much as possible into the pre-defined space, which affects things like having individually spacious rooms with clearly designated room roles, which by extension prevents the positive mood buff for having impressive workshops, rec rooms, etc. And if you want to change anything or redesign the layout inside of a mountain base it is a slow, careful process of making sure that no one gets killed. Buildings in a village can be torn down and rebuilt much more quickly, in the event that your needs change.
Space limitations also lead to issues with farms and livestock, particularly because you either have to do hydroponics which present power issues, or you have to venture outside which can become difficult to manage, too many exits and your swiss cheese mountain base is not as easily defended, not enough exits and you have to spend extra time to do ANYTHING outside, whether it's farming or harvesting wood or recovering drop pods/wounded spacers.
Speaking of power, all of your major power generation MUST happen outside, which means you have key structures outside of the confines of the base that need to be separately protected. If the raiders feel like getting into your base is too difficult, pathfinding might send them to your power, which can be costly to deal with and requires you to come outside to deal with it.
Space limitations also mean that power distribution is likely going to be on a single circuit, where a village layout has the luxury of individual buildings that can have individual circuits attached, meaning smaller battery banks on each circuit, meaning much smaller explosions from Zrrrt events, and also meaning the entire base doesn't go dark because only one building has lost power.
Heat management can also be an issue, and mountain stone cannot be repaired meaning your base is effectively deteriorating slowly until you replace damaged walls with stone brick walls, which is more of an annoyance than anything.
Mountain bases also seem to rely on kill boxes which to me is just cheap and boring. But that is a personal preference more than anything, and plenty of walled cities have kill boxes, too.
It's possible that some of what I'm saying is less than accurate because my experience with mountain bases is limited, frankly I dislike them so I've spent far less time trying to force them to work for me. It's possible there may be solutions to some of what I'm saying, and I'm just not aware of them.
Also as a side note, I don't mind a perimeter wall, it can be somewhat resource intensive but it's never been an issue for me. A well defended wall eliminates the need to construct main buildings out of stone, so ultimately you actually spend less resources on a wall than you do on buildings. Stone walls keep outside fires out of the village, and separating power circuits for individual buildings makes fire much less deadly or common. And with stone roads acting as fire breaks (and preventing any and all flammable grass from growing) even things like dry thunderstorms or flashstorms are not a concern for fire, so you can feel free to build literally everything out of wood. By the time raiders or robots can drop into the middle of your base you should have deep drilling and replace everything with plasteel, anyway.
See here's the thing. You're talking about building outside of mtns on a mountain map. I'm talking about building on the plains with no mtns. On the plains, I really struggle to get steel and components (I usually run out of steel before I can even construct components).
I don't even understand your comment on mtns having limited space. If you're running out of space, you just mine more. Now you have more space and resources.
Power, agriculture, and livestock... these are trivial issues easily solved with proper base planning (multiple walls with turret decoys and traps inbetween). Heat can be an issue... that is once again solved by even a modicum of planning.
As for kill boxes... I use killboxes with plains and mtn bases. Kill boxes are just another fancy way of saying shooting the enemy from all sides. Some designs also incoporate traps and ways to slow down the oncoming enemies but the core principal is really the same. You might sneer at that, but late game, when you're facing 100+ raiders, using a kill box is the only way your 18> colonists are going to survive.
As for you not using a perimeter wall, well you've just left me baffled. How do you stop enemies from lighting your vents/ac units on fire? How do you protect your workers while manhunters are swarming? How do you control where enemies go?
What I'm getting at is that mtn bases and mtn maps in general give you lots of resources both in the form of raw resources and tunnels in which to live in. They also are abundant in natural defenses which can, with a few walls, save you even more resources. Your food and power concerns have never been really apparent to me. Most mtn maps have more arable land than you can use and plenty of space for power generators. Defending these exterior additions has also never been a challenge for me. The AI has a lot of difficulty dealing with one wall. Add 2-3 walls, traps in between, decoy turrets, kill rooms, intentionally infested areas... the AI even at the highest difficulties just can't deal with that level of attrition.
Finally, the reason I don't use wood at all for any of my structures any more is because of mechanoids. I've used fire breaks like you've said and in the end, it doesn't save me. Those inferno cannons...
Quote from: LordMunchkin on January 16, 2017, 03:22:16 AM
See here's the thing. You're talking about building outside of mtns on a mountain map. I'm talking about building on the plains with no mtns. On the plains, I really struggle to get steel and components (I usually run out of steel before I can even construct components).
No, actually I'm talking about building on the plains with no mountains, or very few hills. I mostly play on flat open land because I don't like mountains, but even those maps still spawn with a number of modest hills. Steel is not entirely hard to come by if you're careful and make your way towards Deep Drilling as one of your main priorities for research. I have occasionally been short on components, but trading for components is a lot easier than burning up all of my steel in the early to mid game, and I'm careful with where I spend them to begin with.
Quote from: LordMunchkin on January 16, 2017, 03:22:16 AM
I don't even understand your comment on mtns having limited space. If you're running out of space, you just mine more. Now you have more space and resources.
This misunderstanding may be the result of assumption since neither of us was on the same page about which map we were discussing, it's not a matter of "mine more" it's a matter of "I've reached the end of the mountain" but again I was talking about flat plains or even sometimes hilly plains, where mountains are not huge and sprawling.
Quote from: LordMunchkin on January 16, 2017, 03:22:16 AM
Power, agriculture, and livestock... these are trivial issues easily solved with proper base planning (multiple walls with turret decoys and traps inbetween). Heat can be an issue... that is once again solved by even a modicum of planning.
But at this point it's not much different than playing 100% outside in my opinion, and you still have the added risk of infestation for very little reward.
Quote from: LordMunchkin on January 16, 2017, 03:22:16 AM
As for kill boxes... I use killboxes with plains and mtn bases. Kill boxes are just another fancy way of saying shooting the enemy from all sides. Some designs also incoporate traps and ways to slow down the oncoming enemies but the core principal is really the same. You might sneer at that, but late game, when you're facing 100+ raiders, using a kill box is the only way your 18> colonists are going to survive.
On some level you're correct but I have never taken that long to beat the game, so I do not encounter such massive raids.
Quote from: LordMunchkin on January 16, 2017, 03:22:16 AM
As for you not using a perimeter wall, well you've just left me baffled. How do you stop enemies from lighting your vents/ac units on fire? How do you protect your workers while manhunters are swarming? How do you control where enemies go?
You've misread my post, I
absolutely use walls, I stressed the importance of having a well defended wall to keep fire out of the village and keep enemies at a distance, but I don't use some massively thick wall with only 1 kill box entrance, my walls often have 1 or 2 entrance at each cardinal direction, they're just well defended. Two turrets out in the open near every entrance to keep raiders from approaching (because they will stay outside of the turret range and try to attack it) which gives my shooters enough time to set themselves up behind what I can only describe as Battlements and begin firing on raiders with long range weapons. It's about as well defended as you can get while still using pawns. I also try to keep all the trees and debris clear within a certain range of my entrances so that raiders have no cover to hide behind, this is helpful as well.
Quote from: LordMunchkin on January 16, 2017, 03:22:16 AM
Finally, the reason I don't use wood at all for any of my structures any more is because of mechanoids. I've used fire breaks like you've said and in the end, it doesn't save me. Those inferno cannons...
Fire Breaks are only meant to prevent fire from spreading from one building to another, and also the use of floors prevents Grass from growing which is the only type of flammable ground (even wood floors are not flammable so even wood works for fire break) Remember that embers can drift 2-3 tiles away even over walls and start a new fire, so it's important to put breaks on both sides of your outer wall defending your village. By the time I have to deal with mechanoids I've usually gotten Plasteel walls on my important buildings, but again I put Deep Drilling as one of my higher priorities.
Quote from: b0rsuk on January 15, 2017, 02:16:30 PM
Quote from: OFWG on January 15, 2017, 11:52:23 AM
Quote from: b0rsuk on January 15, 2017, 09:20:18 AM
But it is too easy. ... We need more events like infestation (not necessarily of this strength) instead of fewer.
You're exactly making his point with this response; it could be summarized as "you shouldn't be able to play the game that way".
It could be summarized like that, but poorly. What I actually said was that you should be able to play the game that way, but it should be harder than in Dwarf Fortress. Humans are not dwarves. They're not burrowing animals. They're not short, stocky, muscular and used to hard work. In Rimworld, most of them are effeminate, fussy, overweight, traumatized or full of themselves. There are many backgrounds like cooks, artists, empaths, doctors, scientists, sex slaves, housemates, medieval lords, spies, clerks, social workers. Very few are miners, oafs, or other physical workers.
The mechanics ? Cabin fever is absolutely trivial. Serious cabin fewer is mitigated by a 2 minute (in-game time) visit to the outside. It's actually the opposite ! There are mood bonuses for indoor areas (spacious indoors, impressive dining room, decent bedroom), penalties for working outside, but no bonuses whatsover for having a nice park or a picnic table. To the point where the most effective outside colony is one that mimic an underground base. Build your base like a termite mound, a single building with rooms sharing walls.
Outdoors is a hostile, hostile world where enemies fall from the sky and bears randomly decide to hunt your farmers. Underground bases with their infestation problems still look cozy by comparison.
Personally, I think that if embrasures were allowed, tunneling under a mountain would suddenly become a lot less popular. Modern open cities are just that, modern. Go back even a few hundred years, and you'll find that most towns and cities had walls with things like arrowslits, crenelations, and other means of allowing defenders to protect themselves while fighting off attackers.
An interesting set of battles to look at are the two big ones described in this video between the British and the Zulu, the first at Isandlwana, and the second at Rorke's Drift. (I am using this for two reasons, as it was a video easy to find that gives a good overview, and it has a small group with a significant technological advantage defending against a massively outnumbering enemy force armed with low-tech weapons, which is a very common situation in-game.)
https://youtu.be/KG_mbCgp_zU?t=3m36s
The first battle was approximately 20,000 Zulu against about 1,800 British, the latter with firearms but no defenses, ordered to form up in a line. The second was about 4,000 Zulu against about 140 British, with the latter having defenses consisting of makeshift sandbags, barricades (that they could fire through), and embrasures. The first battle ended in a total defeat of the British, with few survivors, while the second ended with 17 British dead, about that many wounded, while about 850 Zulus were lost.
When the discussion turns to building outside, and to how combat is "meant" to work, the impression I usually get is that situations like Isandlwana are desired, given all the talk about forcing colonists to go outside their defenses to fight off enemies, instead of intelligently using the defensive structures we are allowed to have. (All the complaints about things like killboxes are part of this as well.) I've seen it mentioned that the mods that add embrasures completely wreck game balance, something that I am completely fine with given how effective these sorts of defenses were in real life, which is why using them was standard practice.
Honestly, if we lost the ability to build auto-turrets, in return for gaining embrasures, I'd be perfectly fine with that.
embrasures make sense conceptually but the current AI has no way good way of dealing with them. the current embrasure mods which act as wall which you can shoot through all just destroy the difficulty of raids and man hunter packs. So while they make conceptually their is no way I can see of implementing something like them without destroying the difficulty of 2 red events, and greatly reducing the difficulty of the other red events.
Quote from: Swat_Raptor on January 17, 2017, 10:18:21 AM
embrasures make sense conceptually but the current AI has no way good way of dealing with them. the current embrasure mods which act as wall which you can shoot through all just destroy the difficulty of raids and man hunter packs. So while they make conceptually their is no way I can see of implementing something like them without destroying the difficulty of 2 red events, and greatly reducing the difficulty of the other red events.
Thing is, I see that as a flaw of the red events, not the embrasures. As stated in the description of the game on this site's homepage,
QuoteRimWorld is not designed as a competitive strategy game, but as a story generator. It's not about winning and losing - it's about the drama, tragedy, and comedy that goes on in your colony.
Forcing characters to hold idiot balls in order to increase the difficulty of strategic challenges does not make for a good story. If the game relies on hamstringing my colonists by preventing them from using common sense solutions in order to make certain events pose a threat, then those events should be reexamined instead of removing their ability to build walls with small holes in them while allowing them the ability to build interstellar spacecraft.
For raids, give them siege weaponry like covered rams to help get close and smash down walls/doors/embrasures, and the ability to pull firearms through embrasures with melee attacks to deprive defenders of their firearms. Add in weapons like catapults to attack walls directly from range and breach your defenses, instead of blindly charging in or destroying everything they ostensibly want to steal with random mortar strikes.
Manhunter packs should be removed, in my opinion. All they do is necessitate a large perimeter wall that contains all your fields and such, preventing them from being a threat, and if they wander into your defenses, a huge surplus of meat. Now that hungry carnivores will naturally attack colonists with they are the best source of food, I wonder if we even still need Manhunters in general.
Quote from: RazorHed on January 11, 2017, 05:52:13 AM
Yeah it would be ok if you had some warning and time to prepare . or if they started off way smaller , and if you don't deal with it right away you get overwhelmed.
I like that though. It's a threat and a real possibility that you have to think about before you just think, yeah I'm gonna just tunnel into that mountain and have the easiest game ever with 0 consequence.
If Rimworld is not supposed to be a strategy game or a tower defense game, why is Tynan so determined NOT to have embrasures in the game ? Doors already are de facto embrasures. Enemies know to attack them (but are not very good at choosing when). Stone doors are so tough they may as well be considered indestructible in an average sized raid. Typically when someone bangs at the door, the rest of the raiders goes another way, so those attacking doors just delay themselves and split from the pack.
Embrasures can have counters:
- tribal raids with small animals
- boomrat manhunter pack
- mad cobras
- industrial+ raiders can have smoke grenades
Quote from: Jorlem on January 17, 2017, 11:53:34 PM
Thing is, I see that as a flaw of the red events, not the embrasures.
I agree that Conceptually embrasures work they way you think they would and that therefore they are designed well enough but due to the AIs limited capabilities currently having them makes the game easy cheesy on any difficulty and if you destroy the difficulty you destroy much of the drama. I've played with Embrasures before but each time I've felt like I had to multiply the power of the enemy force by 3 or 4 times to make up for the difference they made. I don't expect the AI to improve in leaps and bound in the next few updates so I'm against embrasures.
my desire for good drama is also why I'm ok with infestations, I think they could be improved alot but they make building in mountains still have significant danger. I would say that there needs to be more types of danger for mountain dwellers because right now there is not enough drama under the mountain even with the bugs.
each play style should be equally attractive, if one seems alot more advantageous than the other then some nerfing should be done so the game retains good balance.
I think embrasures would have much less effect on balance than turrets have. Have you actually played with embrasures and NO TURRETS ? It's something I think I'll try.
Embrasures are power multiplier. They multiply the strength of your shooters. If it's not great to start with, embrasures won't make it spectacular.
Turrets on the other hand are a completely new gunner you can construct ! They can be fragile, especially in melee but
1) it's not a problem if there's an overwhelming number of them
2) embrasures make health of turrets irrelevant. You're not going to destroy an embrasure under fire.
Quote from: b0rsuk on January 20, 2017, 07:35:55 AM
I think embrasures would have much less effect on balance than turrets have. Have you actually played with embrasures and NO TURRETS ? It's something I think I'll try.
actually i never had turrents with embrasures except for one time but the turrets just ended up shooting my dudes and animals so I scraped them.
Embrasures without turrents was still super easy, the only time when they did get breached was when there was huge mech raid with alot of inferno cannons, and it still slowed them down a bunch.
Quote from: OFWG on January 11, 2017, 12:25:54 PM
Seriously, multiple bugs several times the size of a person just poof into existence in an actively-used bedroom? Nah, look up "balance" and "gameplay" and get back to me. :)
The dev menu is basically required at this point in the game.
So the bugs drop in through the roof or the floor!
People will complain about anything. It's a mountain, it's akin to living underground. You worry about above and below just as much as left or right.
Quote from: ChaosOverlord on January 24, 2017, 06:08:13 AM
Quote from: OFWG on January 11, 2017, 12:25:54 PM
Seriously, multiple bugs several times the size of a person just poof into existence in an actively-used bedroom? Nah, look up "balance" and "gameplay" and get back to me. :)
The dev menu is basically required at this point in the game.
So the bugs drop in through the roof or the floor!
People will complain about anything. It's a mountain, it's akin to living underground. You worry about above and below just as much as left or right.
Except we can't do anything to defend above and below, but we can left or right.
Quote from: Jorlem on January 24, 2017, 03:11:49 PM
Quote from: ChaosOverlord on January 24, 2017, 06:08:13 AM
Quote from: OFWG on January 11, 2017, 12:25:54 PM
Seriously, multiple bugs several times the size of a person just poof into existence in an actively-used bedroom? Nah, look up "balance" and "gameplay" and get back to me. :)
The dev menu is basically required at this point in the game.
So the bugs drop in through the roof or the floor!
People will complain about anything. It's a mountain, it's akin to living underground. You worry about above and below just as much as left or right.
Except we can't do anything to defend above and below, but we can left or right.
Well if attack is instant then you don't want to keep colonists most of the time in rooms that are small/with one door/occupy most of their time. You can keep part of colony outside to minimise risk.