tl;dr - Electric Smelter w/ Steel Slag doesn´t feel balanced for the investment you put into it. 10 steel per slag, plus the work needed and the power consumption doesn´t feel worth it for 10 steel.
I had been struggling with steel for a while, I no longer am after making mining colonies next to my base but in the early midst of my steel struggle I invested in the Electric Smelter.
I excitedly collected all the slag on my map. Slag from our original pods of which two of those four colonists are no longer with us and slag from pods crashing into our colony were gathered and hauled in a full work-day. I took one of my least busiest pawns (since we were struggling from the aforementioned losses earlier that season) and got him working on the smelter.
I watched as he melted down the slag and out pops : 10 underwhelming steel. All of the slag from the map, of which there is 17 would give me 170 steel. I smelted all of my available steel items and gained about ~103 steel. I made a very small profit off of my investment.
I moved on from the Smelter and about a day later I notice the lights in the freezer are going off. Scrolling to my batteries I realized my mistake, I left the damn smelter on. My food didn´t spoil luckily.
Is this balanced? Is this going to change come next alpha when ¨The Balancing¨ comes?
If the slag would give you more then 10 steel, then you need to adjust the drop of slags from destroyed buildings like turrets too.
Or you might get more steel out of slags then you would need to build.
Maybe you should get more raids, so you got more weapons to smelt.
Quote from: Toste on May 22, 2018, 11:35:56 AM
tl;dr - Electric Smelter w/ Steel Slag doesn´t feel balanced for the investment you put into it. 10 steel per slag, plus the work needed and the power consumption doesn´t feel worth it for 10 steel.
I had been struggling with steel for a while, I no longer am after making mining colonies next to my base but in the early midst of my steel struggle I invested in the Electric Smelter.
I excitedly collected all the slag on my map. Slag from our original pods of which two of those four colonists are no longer with us and slag from pods crashing into our colony were gathered and hauled in a full work-day. I took one of my least busiest pawns (since we were struggling from the aforementioned losses earlier that season) and got him working on the smelter.
I watched as he melted down the slag and out pops : 10 underwhelming steel. All of the slag from the map, of which there is 17 would give me 170 steel. I smelted all of my available steel items and gained about ~103 steel. I made a very small profit off of my investment.
I moved on from the Smelter and about a day later I notice the lights in the freezer are going off. Scrolling to my batteries I realized my mistake, I left the damn smelter on. My food didn´t spoil luckily.
Is this balanced? Is this going to change come next alpha when ¨The Balancing¨ comes?
I think it's balanced well. In my current colony, I have likely hundreds of slag, which makes it super balanced for me.
Plus, isn't the smelter also what allows you to smelt weapons? That's also super helpful, even if to just exchange a plasteel knife for some plasteel, it helps a lot mid-later game when you have more guns than you know what to do with, and just smelt them all :D
I think it's pretty okay (maybe bad)for early game, but when you get a colonist with free time in mid-late game, that's likely when it shines.
I mostly use the smelter to strip useful metal like uranium out of enemy weapons. It spends the rest of the time turned off. There is so much steel underground. Plus when I disable infestation I am not terrified to mine the map.
A better way to ask the question would be, "is the electric smelter really worth building?"
If you're playing on sea ice with no mineable steel, it's probably your only source of steel. But otherwise, it's not a very useful technology. So what would make it worth building?
What would be really neat is if you could use it to manufacture plasteel from steel and chemfuel. Or maybe steel and devilstrand? If you could do something with it other than recycle destroyed turrets (which is hardly worth the trouble) then it would be a technology worth building.
Rather than give a normal 10 for each piece, why not scale it to crafting? Say a dumpy 5 for 0 Crafting but 18-20 for a level 18, with a low chance of 25 steel if you're maxed.
We allready got that in the past.
But that result in exploiding these mechanics. So now you are geting a fixed result and maybe lesser with bad skills like at mining or butchering.
If you really don't mind exploiting the game, you can either make a quick patch mod to change it or just change the value in the files.
You'll find the value in this file:
rimworldfolder/mods/core/defs/recipedefs/Recipes_Production.xml
On line 64 (at least that is what line it is for me with notepad++, if not, look very close to there) you'll see the value of 10, just change that value to what you want and restart the game and you should be good to go. That will probably wipe everytime Rimworld updates, so you may need to change it back to your setting every so often. A mod would work better in that case, but is slightly harder to do depending on your comfort level with xml files.
Quote from: Lawlzer on May 22, 2018, 12:02:46 PM
Quote from: Toste on May 22, 2018, 11:35:56 AM
tl;dr - Electric Smelter w/ Steel Slag doesn´t feel balanced for the investment you put into it. 10 steel per slag, plus the work needed and the power consumption doesn´t feel worth it for 10 steel.
I had been struggling with steel for a while, I no longer am after making mining colonies next to my base but in the early midst of my steel struggle I invested in the Electric Smelter.
I excitedly collected all the slag on my map. Slag from our original pods of which two of those four colonists are no longer with us and slag from pods crashing into our colony were gathered and hauled in a full work-day. I took one of my least busiest pawns (since we were struggling from the aforementioned losses earlier that season) and got him working on the smelter.
I watched as he melted down the slag and out pops : 10 underwhelming steel. All of the slag from the map, of which there is 17 would give me 170 steel. I smelted all of my available steel items and gained about ~103 steel. I made a very small profit off of my investment.
I moved on from the Smelter and about a day later I notice the lights in the freezer are going off. Scrolling to my batteries I realized my mistake, I left the damn smelter on. My food didn´t spoil luckily.
Is this balanced? Is this going to change come next alpha when ¨The Balancing¨ comes?
I think it's balanced well. In my current colony, I have likely hundreds of slag, which makes it super balanced for me.
Plus, isn't the smelter also what allows you to smelt weapons? That's also super helpful, even if to just exchange a plasteel knife for some plasteel, it helps a lot mid-later game when you have more guns than you know what to do with, and just smelt them all :D
I think it's pretty okay (maybe bad)for early game, but when you get a colonist with free time in mid-late game, that's likely when it shines.
I smelted all of my steel-based weapons from every raid, including my fallen colonists weapons (Minus my legendary sniper rifle, I keep it in the freezer morgue next to her body. Awaiting the day her and her husband get revived.)
I got enough steel to move on. It´s been about 1 year ago or so in the colony and I now have plenty of steel from caravan-ing to my quarry bases. The faction of the NCR is slowly rising and becoming a power to be reckoned with.
Until Randy blows away my base with targeted meteor strikes and tornadoes. #PraiseRandy
I've got too much slag and it doesn't give enough steel in return. It's obnoxious. I'd much rather have slag drop much less often in return for more steel. It doesn't make sense that one turret can turn into four slag chunks that take up four times the space, and melt down into only ten steel apiece (which has to be individually dragged to a stockpile).
Quick fix? Make them give more steel.
Not-so-easy fix? Let us use a hopper or a deposit or something to store steel before hauling, and set-up a conveyor system so that you don't have to walk to the steel, drag the steel back, smelt it, haul the steel to the stockpile, and repeat.
It's a very long-term investment and not really worth it unless you are constantly short on steel. But at that point, deep drilling, raiding other colonies or simply buying the steel is much faster and less obnoxious. There's also the amount of labor put into smelting to consider, which is significant.
Seems about right to me. The only place I've properly needed smelting is on sea ice and then the minimal return feels about balanced. You have traders, trade ships, deep drilling and disassembling mechanoids or if all else fails a minining settlement a couple of tiles away. Trading for steel is probably the answer.
Perhaps smelting could be an automated job like the nutrient paste dispenser but instead of food we put slag into the hopper.
not really, imo. But a faster process for melting it down might make more sense.
Maybe a quicker melt and the pawn first melting as much as it can carry before running off to store it
things like lights and smelters should not consume any power unless they're being used, or have "self-discharge" like batteries do. have a light only be on when someone is in the room to see the light. for the investment that is an electric smelter, you'd want to have it be worth it. atm the hassle of getting one vs the returns, even in the long run, it's kinda sad. i'd be okay with it if the machine churned out some extra that isn't steel.
Quote from: Toste on May 22, 2018, 11:35:56 AM
tl;dr - Electric Smelter w/ Steel Slag doesn´t feel balanced for the investment you put into it. 10 steel per slag, plus the work needed and the power consumption doesn´t feel worth it for 10 steel.
I'm okay with it since you're supposed to avoid your building such as turrets to be destroyed by raiders and man hunting animals and such. Also leaving Steel Slag Chunks in the open might give enemies cover so it's best to hide them somewhere around your colony all of them.
TBH What i feel that i think the weapons when smelting them to raw resources don't give as much. If I'm running low in components, at least it should have dropped like 1 or 3 of them.
Quote from: Kirby23590 on June 02, 2018, 01:14:06 PM
I'm okay with it since you're supposed to avoid your building such as turrets to be destroyed by raiders and man hunting animals and such.
Oh man, really? Shoot, this whole time, I've been letting my turrets get attacked. . . come to think of it, I've let my pawns get attacked too. I'll probably do far better now that I just don't let anything get attacked.
In all seriousness, though, it's not that simple. Animals can be pretty ovewhelming in groups for a poor turret. The average manhunter group is around seven or so critters, so even if two turrets could expertly curve their bullets mid-burst to heart-shot each 100% of the time, there'd still be one very angry animal coming for it. As for humans? Turrets are out-ranged by
- Sniper Rifles (Range: 45)
- Doomsday Rocket Launchers (Range: 40)
- Bolt-Action Rifles (Range: 37)
- Greatbows, Miniguns, and Recurve bows (Range: 32)
- Assault Rifles (Range: 31)
- Short Bow (Range: 29)
- Every Mechanoid Weapon (Charge Lance: 37, Centipedes have: 32-27 range)
- Revolvers (Range: 26)
So, out of the twenty-four ranged weapons in the game, the turrets are out-ranged by half of them. Of those, four are found on mechanoids, and three are neolithic. Now do you see why it's a bit tough to avoid? It's one thing to clear all the cover for 25.9 tiles around a turret, it's another to clear 45 tiles.
Quote from: Kirby23590 on June 02, 2018, 01:14:06 PM
Also leaving Steel Slag Chunks in the open might give enemies cover so it's best to hide them somewhere around your colony all of them.
You're right, same deal with rock chunks and trees. It would obviously be the wisest decision to dedicate space that could be used for a resource stockpile, hospital, farmland, or power production, for a bunch of uprooted trees, stones, and chunks of metal. Sure is a shame that none of those are usable in any way whatsoever, and certainly wouldn't compose, like, the only viable building materials in the entire game (aside from plasteel, which is still prohibitively expensive in most cases).
Quote from: Call me Arty on June 02, 2018, 06:58:20 PM
It's not that simple. Animals can be pretty ovewhelming in groups for a poor turret. The average manhunter group is around seven or so critters, so even if two turrets could expertly curve their bullets mid-burst to heart-shot each 100% of the time, there'd still be one very angry animal coming for it. As for humans? Turrets are out-ranged by curtain weapons
Yes it's a thing a downside for turrets, since they are stationary and of course expensive to make especially with plasteel.
Luckily i have some tips under my selves. I build turrets not in the open and leave them there, but i build them in enclosed rooms like say the kitchen, The Dinning Room, The Workshop, Jacob and Amy's bedroom and an Empty Room for turrets. Theres a button called the
Uninstall button that minifies the turret and can be hauled to a nearby stockpile zone.
This is how i avoid letting turrets get destroyed by manhunting monkeys or yorkshire terrier manhunter packs. But when the time comes like a raid of tribesmen or angry outlanders. There's a few strategies i do with minified turrets when reinstalling them.
- 1. Deploy them immediately at their zones. Before the raid arrives or starts assaulting.
- 2. Play the waiting game when the raiders go to the killzone or took the bait. Quickly deploy turrets at nearby at the doors or murder holes.
- 3. Deploy them at corners where long-ranged weapon users such as snipers or bolt-action rifle users go to. Where they ambushed and are forced to shoot inside the range of the turret.
That's all i got but i might be missing some. But this is all the info i have for turrets but don't forget after cleaning up the raid or killing the rest of the capybara manhunter pack, Don't forget to
Uninstall them! and reinstall in some enclosed room where it's safe where it can be repaired without repairmen getting attacked by manhunter pack leftovers or getting poisoned by the Toxic fallout. Also make sure to toggle off their power when not in use or keep them minfied in the stockpile.
I always think about them as deployable turrets rather than just stationary turrets.
Quote from: Call me Arty on June 02, 2018, 06:58:20 PM
Quote from: Kirby23590 on June 02, 2018, 01:14:06 PM
Also leaving Steel Slag Chunks in the open might give enemies cover so it's best to hide them somewhere around your colony all of them.
You're right, same deal with rock chunks and trees. It would obviously be the wisest decision to dedicate space that could be used for a resource stockpile, hospital, farmland, or power production, for a bunch of uprooted trees, stones, and chunks of metal. Sure is a shame that none of those are usable in any way whatsoever, and certainly wouldn't compose, like, the only viable building materials in the entire game (aside from plasteel, which is still prohibitively expensive in most cases).
I don't know but in early games. Especially when playing as tribals.
Rock chunks could function similarly to sandbags since sandbags cost steel and steel is a important material in most cases. When comes to sandbags and stone or steel chunks sandbags have
65% while chunks have
50% cover effectiveness. Luckily the rock chunks are everywhere and you could use dumping stockpiles but only leaving chunk only checked and making them in like patterns of covers, kind hard to describe it. Also it could also reinforce sandbags to slow down melee fighters or mad animals or to block of corners where enemies could use them to lean to and shoot your guys with only to be denied because of a chunk in the way!
Essentially rock & steel chunks function as a poorman's version and cheaper way of sandbags. But i always replace wooden walls with granite or any form stone. Since they are better and of course inflammable but make slow opening but durable doors.
The same thing cannot be said about trees and wood though. They were important in early game until late or mid-game where i only rely on chemfuel generators instead. Wood can be turned into chemfuel but with large potato farms they become obsolete, but i think i heard they are better as weak wooden maces or clubs where they are better for capturing prisoners or subduing berserk pawns though.
but yeah i think wood becomes obsolete and underused unless i'm playing a mod like T's MoreFloors where it adds a bunch of nice varieties of floors especially the mosaic and barn board wooden floors for looks but still.
To prevent enemy shooters outranging turrets, build a wall in a proper way. I prefer switching off turrets rather than uninstalling to prevent them from being targeted.
To the topic: I simply use the smelter to clear off junk. Resources gained I treat as a bonus. However, it's worth smelting once you realize you don't have enough steel to build a deep drill.
Okay Kirby to be 100% honest that was such a good response that I've had this window open ever since trying to think of a good comeback. I've got nuthin'. I still dislike killboxes though.
I'm curious what kind of turrets we're talking about. Everyone starts with steel obviously, but I personally start replacing them with plasteel turrets as soon as I can spare the materials. You rarely lose one of those to anything other than centipedes (and then usually to fire, which can be blocked with firefoam) and rockets. Maybe several snipers.
Quote from: cultist on June 06, 2018, 10:47:48 AM
I'm curious what kind of turrets we're talking about. Everyone starts with steel obviously, but I personally start replacing them with plasteel turrets as soon as I can spare the materials. You rarely lose one of those to anything other than centipedes (and then usually to fire, which can be blocked with firefoam) and rockets. Maybe several snipers.
That's a good one cultist. I always replace steel turrets with plasteel which is why i consider plasteel more valuable. They are more durable but can still fall to yorkshire manhunters if you're not paying attention. But they are good as turrets or even as durable doors and autodoors! :)
Quote from: Call me Arty on June 04, 2018, 10:20:11 PM
Okay Kirby to be 100% honest that was such a good response that I've had this window open ever since trying to think of a good comeback. I've got nuthin'. I still dislike killboxes though.
Thank you ;D I also dislike killboxes as well since it kills the challenge IMHO. I prefer looking at turrets as deployable turrets rather than stationary turrets.
I always like improvising my fights before i start initiate combat in rimworld. Think about the creativity about using your environment like using manhunting rhinos or a thrumbo to attack the mechanoid centipedes and other things! :D
Edit:Fixed my grammar, sorry i was awake at something like 3 am.
QuoteI'll probably do far better now that I just don't let anything get attacked.
Just so you know, aside from walls/doors this is legit possible for most raids.
Faster smelting could be a viable balancing adjustment
I think that we should get more than 10 chunks of steel. I mean, we use up so much energy only for 10 chunks?