How are a lot of you guys so successful with this game? Everything is always screwed to bits when i least expect it, and no matter how hard i try, there is always something i miss which snowballs and becomes horrible! It's really starting to get on my nerves. I've never had a colony that lasted more than two years, and i've been playing this game for one and a half!
So, how do you guys run your colonies? is it just the odd one out that succeeds, or is there a special strategy, mindset, or something else to use?
What difficulty are you playing on, what biomes do you embark in, and what exactly wrecks your colonies?
Save Scumming best answer
The difficulty depends what Storyteller you chose, what difficulty you chose and what map location you chose
So if you have difficult time chose the first Storyteller, chose Free to build difficulty and chose a green location (forest area)....keep playing and figuring out strategies and what is best to do eventually you will master it and want to move to higher difficulties
You said you have been playing for year and a half by now you should know the game to be able to figure out things by yourself
I play on randy normal. For my last colony I got a large raid, and one raider had an incendiary launcher. Colonists got infections, but i couldn't treat them because the whole base was going up in flames, so i spent a whole day firefighting, and then even though the colonists all got adequate treatment, 60% of them died of infection. The problem could have been avoided with more defenses to kill the raiders before they did any damage, but i realised it too late.
For my previous ice sheet colony, i didn't make enough hydroponics, and everyone started starving. They all went insane from the -25 mood and started beating each other up, and before they could even be treated, they went insane again! Eventually they all died from cumulative bruising at harvesting time.
And yes i think i might start just savescumming from now on. Beofre i had a rule where i could only savescum once per major event, but now i think i'll just to no holds barred until i get better at predicting outcomes.
Quote from: A Friend on June 26, 2015, 09:12:36 AM
Save Scumming best answer
^this.
rimworld is a game where you can lose your best fighter from a lucky shot by an enemy.
i keep 2 manual saves : one i use to save key milestones, the other i use at the start of each battle.
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as for "ironman" (no savescum), rimworld is a punishing game even at challenge mode. you could get really lucky or unlucky at a drop of a hat.
either case, don't expect to live too long when you're playing in "fun" mode. ;D
The trick is anticipating your colony requirements. Here's a list of things I try to maintain so that I am prepared for an emergency instead of rushing to respond to an emergency:
Overstock of food / prepared meals kept frozen (maybe even body parts for late-game)
Battery room that has been fully charged up, then isolated from your power grid by an off switch.
Medical/Hospital beds for 1/3 of your population (more if you have the space and materials).
Empty rooms for prisoners/converts. This prevents the extra deaths and corpses your pawns have to deal with at the end of a raid, it's way better on morale if you can arrest them and recruit them or release them.
Put joy time physically into each colonist's schedule or their mood can quickly become hard to manage. It's nice to have that "plenty of joy" bonus of +5 or +10 on each one.
Ice sheets are unforgiving, that's just their nature. Randy is random. He doesn't care if you can survive an event he spawns. If you're playing vanilla I find that good turret placement is key. You want to limit the enemy's ability to take cover against them and provide overlapping fields of fire so that any one turret is being covered by at least one other. Also keep them spaced out, both to enable flanking shots on enemies that cover against others, and to prevent chain detonations when some of them go up.
Your colonists, if they must get involved, should be engaging from the rear, letting the turrets absorb all the damage. Incendiary Launchers and EMP weapons must be priority targets. You can set forced targets for the turrets, don't let them ignore critical threats.
Quote from: Quasarrgames on June 26, 2015, 09:17:38 AM
I play on randy normal.
Try using another storyteller, based on your experience I recommend Cassandra (don't think you need to scale down all the way to Phoebe)...
Quote from: Quasarrgames on June 26, 2015, 09:17:38 AM
For my previous ice sheet colony,
Well, ice sheet biome IS the hardest one at the moment... Do Tundra if you fancy the cold weather challenge until you master your survival skills... For a true change of pace, do Boreal Forest, it will feel like a walk in the park to you...
Also, try for a smaller colony - slowly climb up to 10-12 colonists (instead of rushing to a colony of dozens asap). It's way easier to manage, provide food and shelter, and build your base. A slower ramp-up translates into less wealth accumulation (and less turrets) which in turn translates into smaller raids...
I usually abandon my colonies because of the lack of long-term challenge (I play endless); my colonies have ~12 pawns and usually last 10+ years (@ Cassandra, Challenge, Tundra).
See, as others pointed out, you're complaining about difficulty when you're choosing some difficult battles. Don't play randy if you're not prepared to lose, as he is random and difficult, and ice sheets are... well ice sheets. They're a friggin map of ice thats frozen. It's pretty obvious how hard it is.
Try bob the builder mode (Pheobe Basebuilder on basebuilder difficulty), you'll survive. Or try either of the two first ones on normal difficulty. You're playing on gamemodes that a lot of people don't survive.
Quote from: A Friend on June 26, 2015, 09:12:36 AM
Save Scumming best answer
^ and I figured out last night a good money making strategy,
set your butcher table to butcher human,
let raid happen,
defend,
work,
profit. 8)
Quote from: demacrex on June 26, 2015, 12:08:14 PM
Quote from: A Friend on June 26, 2015, 09:12:36 AM
Save Scumming best answer
^ and I figured out last night a good money making strategy,
set your butcher table to butcher human,
let raid happen,
defend,
work,
profit. 8)
That works until your cook breaks from the negative mood from butchering humans.
I'm currently doing a -140F in the winter ice sheet. Cannibalism is a necessity :D
Quote from: Quasarrgames on June 26, 2015, 09:17:38 AM
I play on randy normal. [...]
For my previous ice sheet colony, [...]
- Stop playing on Randy until you are just bored to tears with Cassandra (and really a lot of time time Randy is boring anyway). Cassandra follows a progression that you can learn to handle better than "sometimes nothing, sometimes everything!" You won't get better at predicting Randy's outcomes because they are random. You can only build a highly resilient colony, which it sounds like you're not ready to do right now, so play Cassandra a while.
- Try to embark with a skilled doctor and try to keep that doctor from being gravely injured. Also micro-manage doctor treatment when someone is injured. Store medicine near the hospital beds (in the same room is fine). Don't run out of medicine! Trade for it and/or grow Xerigium, which gives herbal medicine.
- Ice Sheet is dramatically harder than all the other biomes because you will never have any animals to harvest nor any wood and all farming must be done in hydroponics, aside from the cold temperature. I enjoy playing on ice sheet maps a lot but don't complain if your colony is defeated. And yes cannibalism is almost required, at least until you have a large hydroponics farm set up.
- Comfort and joy amenities are very important. Build nice rooms that are the right temperature, with nice furniture (royal beds, cushy chairs, potted plants) and in public areas, horseshoe pins, chess boards with adjacent seats, tables with adjacent seats etc.
- Playing on Normal difficulty there is no real reason you should EVER have a colonist break unless they have one of the major disadvantages like Volatile. Abrasive is another really bad trait.
- The vanilla game is not very good at telling you which colonists have problems. Try the Pawn State Icons mod (which really should be integrated into the core game, it's so nice) so you can identify what's making people unhappy:
https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=9163.0
- Enemies will be throwing shit like grenades and triple missile launchers and incendiary launchers at you from time to time. Build some sacrifice turrets forward of your valuable real estate to distract them, and equip some colonists with long guns (sniper rifles or assault rifles) and alpha strike invaders that have these weapons equipped before they're allowed to do a lot of damage.
Quote from: TLHeart on June 26, 2015, 12:18:51 PM
That works until your cook breaks from the negative mood from butchering humans.
Cannibal, Psychopath and Bloodlust are all very powerful and useful traits even though they sound undesirable. :o
Sorry if it seemed like i was complaining.
The colonist state icons and EdB's UI mod really really help with keeping track of what's going on. For the longest time I avoided them because I thought they would just be clutter, but they are very well designed, amazingly customizable, and feel like they're a vanilla feature.
EdB Prepare Carefully is really nice as well, and gives you a predictable starting colonist setup:
https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=6261.0
i don't like icesheets since the secret to icesheets is to keep population artificially low and relying heavily on the harsh temperature to kill the enemies for you.
this is a biome where combat tends to be minimal and the action is slooow.. since most events start and end with barely any player interaction. i just hole up and hope to outlast the enemy. not very fun.
i like going outside and engaging the enemy on large battles and outwitting them with tactical maneuvers. ;D
Well it's aside from OP's problems but regarding ice sheet: you still need people to do all the work, and I actually like playing with the Zombie Apocalypse mod with the zombies tweaked to make them largely immune to cold (-100/+100 comfy temperature) so it's not actually boring or slow at all. There are dangerous enemies on the map constantly, I hope you like the combat music 8)
Quote from: Kaballah on June 26, 2015, 01:44:37 PM
Quote from: TLHeart on June 26, 2015, 12:18:51 PM
That works until your cook breaks from the negative mood from butchering humans.
Cannibal, Psychopath and Bloodlust are all very powerful and useful traits even though they sound undesirable. :o
Also your cook only gets one -4 for butchering humanlike, doesn't matter how many :P
I usually play on Phoebe Basebuilder with difficulty set to Rough.
There is enough attacks and events to keep things interesting, but threats are toned down enough that my colonies last for several years.
The post earlier about maintaining a separate battery power supply is absolutely correct. One other simple tip is to connect your turrets to an extended power conduit, and cut off that conduit with a switch located inside your base. You can then remotely activate your base defenses from inside your base. When you're not under attack, you can switch the whole system off to save power.
Planning ahead for future threats is important. Adequate food stockpiles, maintaining medical supplies, doing regular checks of weapons and equipment, emergency power supplies, thick walls, turrets with clear fields of fire, maintaining good relations with your neighbors, and stockpiling useful materials are all things you need to do to build a lasting colony.