In alpha 16, one of biggest balance issues is smokeleaf joints. It lets one make stupid amount of silver very easily.
What do you think will be the most exploitable new feature / balance issue of Alpha 17 ? Or the next alpha that brings new features ?
I've never messed with smokeleaf in A16, but if I had to name an exploitable aspect in A16 it would almost certainly be the enemy map teleportation (https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=27979.msg283726#msg283726). One can use it to defeat any enemy map with two crippled pawns.
So...I don't see much value in a hypothetical A17 discussion, when we don't even agree on A16.
I think the biggest balance issue, in an overarching sense, is the same one we have now - Growing as a source of income is far too efficient. That it's an infinite source of income is fine, but it's how good it is compared to other sources. Cloth armchairs, simple meals, smokeleaf joints, flake and yayo, beer, wood sculptures, even just growing and selling tons of corn. Most all of the best moneymaking methods seem to revolve around Growing in some way. I'm not saying you shouldn't be able to make money by farming, but that it's not only infinitely sustainable but the flat-out best way to make a ton of money in a short time, is fundamentally broken.
Smokeleaf is the best example (but not the worst offender) in my eyes - You can grow it from the start of the game even as tribals as long as you have a remotely competent grower, harvest it pretty quickly since it grows fast, turn it into joints with 0-skill crafters, then sell it for large amounts of silver to the first caravan that comes by.
In warm biomes, yes. In winter you pay maintenance cost in power.
A natural way of solving this would be watering plants. This would especially affect warm biomes. In cold biomes, you tend to have lots of snow. We might need a good water system after all...
Growing could use some balancing tweaks, even disregarding the obvious smokeleaf joint situation. Crop yields should probably be smaller, and both raw and prepared food should be considerably cheaper, while stacking in larger amounts (75 meals/tile, 500 raw food/tile). It's a delicate balance, though.
Growing is fine as it is, as b0rsuk points out you pick your level of challenge with the biome. Decreasing crop yield will only make it a lot harder to survive the first winter on anything other than year-round growing biomes. New players would suffer, and johnny hardcore will just exploit something else to get too much wealth anyway.
Growing is fine, and adding a watering mechanic could end up being very annoying and tedious depending on how it's implemented. There's an easy answer for selling exploits and that's just lowering prices for those items one feels are far too out of balance.
But one needs to understand if you want to balance out pricing, then there may need to be a global mmodifer instead. As mentioned growing enough smokeleaf to make joints in the Arctic might be nearly impossible as you won't be able to grow enough food then. It's a tricky thing when the world is yoour oyster.
Quote from: b0rsuk on February 17, 2017, 01:46:06 PMA natural way of solving this would be watering plants
Well either that, or seeds. Personally I'd prefer a seed system where you cant just plant 2000 plants out of thin air.
Quote from: Lys on February 17, 2017, 07:14:10 PM
Quote from: b0rsuk on February 17, 2017, 01:46:06 PMA natural way of solving this would be watering plants
Well either that, or seeds. Personally I'd prefer a seed system where you cant just plant 2000 plants out of thin air.
The tricky thing there is you're crossing much further into Animal Crossing & Harvest Moon territory. Not saying that's a bad thing, I mean the realism of it
could be fun but Rimworld might start to lose a bit of its unique identity if it starts getting lumped in with those games too closely.
You could target Growing specifically without changing any major mechanics by, quite simply, rebalancing the prices of grown materials and things made from them. There should be a big difference in profitability between the rapidly-grown and easily-processed smokeleaf, the research and specialized crafting bench requiring yayo/flake, and something that's really skill, time, and resource intensive like devilstrand.
I'd propose to return scrolls into trading mechanics, so we can have numbers and scrolls together.
Quote from: OFWG on February 17, 2017, 03:52:48 PM
Growing is fine as it is, as b0rsuk points out you pick your level of challenge with the biome.
That's not what I said, in fact it's almost the opposite. My second paragraph has suggestions for making growing harder in warmer biomes.
QuoteGrowing is fine, and adding a watering mechanic could end up being very annoying and tedious depending on how it's implemented.
Growers would still work fields, except now instead of a 60x60 field they would work 25x25. Or larger, depending on how many, how numerous your growers are. It could be full auto, just give them access to a well.
QuoteWell either that, or seeds. Personally I'd prefer a seed system where you cant just plant 2000 plants out of thin air.
How would that solve anything ? You would only be limited in early game. In midgame, after first harvest, you would have as much as you like.
I think growing is fine price wise, but making it a heavier investment would be cool. If you had to take water into account so that you can't easily grow in dry biomes that might be good. That way you can't just plant a massive field that you won't be able to maintain. In addition I think we need more events that can ruin you in the endgame. As it is you get to a point where you pretty much can't lose unless you give yourself an extreme handicap (like no perimeter walls and no turrets).
For instance you could have something like interstellar war which just means trade ships won't arrive for years. Or trade partners turning hostile because of misunderstandings or market crashes that tanks all prices. In addition there obviously also need to be more events that can hurt an established colony, the problem is just making it fun and not totally imbalanced.
Personally I feel stuff like infestations and ships (poison/psychic) dropping are mostly just a chore eventually since you know you can clear it easy, it just takes minor preparation and micro management.
Quote from: b0rsuk on February 19, 2017, 04:43:38 AMQuoteWell either that, or seeds. Personally I'd prefer a seed system where you cant just plant 2000 plants out of thin air.
How would that solve anything ? You would only be limited in early game. In midgame, after first harvest, you would have as much as you like.
Well, not completely. For one, why would you get an infinite number of seeds from your first harvest? Though in general, yes you should be able to gradually grow more, you will not be able to plant 100 plants from harvesting 1.
In fact, depending on the plant, you might even have to see how you want to utilize it. I.e., do I want to eat this potatoe, or replant it? Do I eat this corn cob, or do I get the seeds out of it? (Consider that the corn we have in real life has been bred/genetically engineered for high yield, which might not available on a rimworld)
Or, for smokeleaf, do I want to make joints out of this bud or do I want the stuff full with seeds?
And additionally to that, you would have to take more care of your fields.
A raider just set your whole freshly planted farm on fire? Right now: no problem, just replant it.
My dumb colonists planting new plants just before winter begins? Right now: no problem, didn't invest anything except a bit of work.
A solar flare destroyed the plants in my hydro basins? Right now: no problem, just start growing again when it ends...
Quote from: Lys on February 17, 2017, 07:14:10 PM
Quote from: b0rsuk on February 17, 2017, 01:46:06 PMA natural way of solving this would be watering plants
Well either that, or seeds. Personally I'd prefer a seed system where you cant just plant 2000 plants out of thin air.
I am playing with the seeds please mod in my latest colony. It's quite fun and challenging so it works.
What I don't like about the 'seeds' idea is that it would push players to do more math. It's already pretty hard to estimate how much food you need to stockpile for winter, and how much storage space it will take. How much food does a colonist consume per day ? What about pets ? And does a bear eat more than than a fox ? Also, it would make plants like Devilstrand or Healroot pretty much impossible to use in year 1. Seeds as a mechanic does nothing to fix dry biomes, too.
What I do like about the idea of seeds is that opens the room for more exotic plants and exotic seeds as a resource.
Watering plants would help diversify biomes. Ice sheet and tundra might have soil / temperature issues, but there's no problem with water generally. Arid shrubland would be distinct from rainforest and normal desert. And your growing would be as successful as combined growing skill of your colonists. With seeds, the seeds are the bottleneck.
Seeds make the game overly complex, so does water systems.
Manipulating prices on their own will simply shift them from OP to UP, and so on.
Decreasing yield will make you starve first winter, not to mention cold biomes who rely on hydroponics.
Honestly, how about simply making them deteriorate faster, and make storing harder? IMO, making giant freezers is a little too easy, atm, and it is the best way to make them stay fresh (if you are selling them raw, that is). They don't consume nearly enough energy, nor they require any specialized materials (insulation, for example).
This won't work for every single crop, because fabrics don't deteriorate at all. This would be the moment to introduce spool, so that you both give them occasion to rot (raw cotton) and add work to actual fabrics. As you can probably imagine, you'd need similar things for other crops/production methods. I'll add here that the amount of materials needed should probably increase with them being deteriorated - if you have materials with 50% hp remaining, you need double the amount to make something. Or something like that.
All in all, it isn't problem of growing being best income method but many of these methods require too little work or infrastructure to get going over other ones.
Growing will always be the best method to make money simply because it can be repeated to the infinity, once you are set up. This cannot be said about mining or crafting weapons/armors, because they both use resources that are finite. Same goes with bricks.
Imo, for these to be able to compete, finite resource sources of income should always be more lucrative in terms of work/infrastructure to those that are infinite. Not to mention that growing plants have no dangers tied to them, while mining mountains does (which I find pretty silly, to be honest), be it infestation or simply being far from your colony. This would also give players a good reason to make mining colonies, which would provide good income (or simply resupply production center at the colony), but would require you to protect new colony.
Quote from: Perq on February 20, 2017, 04:33:11 AM
Seeds make the game overly complex, so does water systems.
That depends on what you want out from the game. I am personally not interested in the game as a challenge to build the spaceship. My goal is to build a nice and stable colony and more complexity and stuff to do would just make it more fun. And the stories that get's created. Therefore I play with more and more mods.
I personally think the game is hard enough and play on easier settings anyway, that it's easy to grow is not problem. But after have been playing with seeds please it feels cheaty to be able to sow without seeds.
I think early plagues is a bigger balance issue, had to abandon a colony when my doctor and the other good pawn got the plague and could do nothing but looking as the severity increase faster than the immunity, that in itself is not so bad the bad part is I have no idea how to decrease the risk of early plague death in the next colony i try.
Quote from: Lubricus on February 20, 2017, 06:43:37 AMthe bad part is I have no idea how to decrease the risk of early plague death in the next colony i try.
Disable plague?
It's not like it'll be that big of a deal, there are plenty of other diseases, and plague in particular has, in A16, seemed to just be a penoxycyline check...Oh you got the plague? Do you have penoxy? no? then you're dead. Yes? then you'll be absolutely fine.
The best way to balance growing (in my opinion) without changing the scope of the game would be to either:
1. Require some sort of plant maintenance, (weeding, fertilizing, ect...)
2. Make it take longer to grow.
Both have some obvious problems, but that's just what happens when you try to balance things.
But if you just make it take longer, you risk nuking ice sheet colonies. They're already tightly balanced, most need nutrient paste dispenser at least in early game. They would have to maintain two hydroponic rooms.
The easiest solution would be to decrease the price for plants in warmer areas and increase it in the cold areas.
This would also feel more realistic, since products should be less expansive where they are easier to produce.
Perhaps hydroponics stay the same grow speed (for the possible balancing I said), but again, every patch will cause problems.
Ice sheet farms use potatoes in gravel at least in early game.
Reducing price of plants will mean players just plant more of them. Or sell simple products like simple meals. It's still free money.
Quote from: b0rsuk on February 27, 2017, 01:20:28 AM
Ice sheet farms use potatoes in gravel at least in early game.
Reducing price of plants will mean players just plant more of them. Or sell simple products like simple meals. It's still free money.
Is there any way that a farming system could NOT be free money? You grow plants, they appear from nothing (after a one-time cost), and then you sell them. You are the same as before, but with more silver.
Quote from: b0rsuk on February 26, 2017, 03:01:47 PM
But if you just make it take longer, you risk nuking ice sheet colonies. They're already tightly balanced, most need nutrient paste dispenser at least in early game. They would have to maintain two hydroponic rooms.
It is an ice sheet... ¿did you expect it to be easy? It would turn to be a real challenge, one that would need you to be prepared to make the choice to survive there.
Rimworld is supposed to be about survival, but unlimited seeds and no water needs makes it extremely easy to survive in extreme climates, as compared to the real world.
With the announced fixes and overhauls everybody will complain that medicine is now to easy :)
Quote from: faltonico on February 27, 2017, 07:21:59 PM
Rimworld is supposed to be about survival, but unlimited seeds and no water needs makes it extremely easy to survive in extreme climates, as compared to the real world.
No, I don't think Tynan thinks of Rimworld as a survival game. He seems to pay little attention to the survival aspect. Examine pawn stats. Do you see any number telling you how much a pawn eats ? Is there a way to ration food ? Ration medicine ? NOPE.
With medicine, I hope its made so its EASY to treat injuries IF its very manpower intensive, like quick bandaging, routine wound cleaning, ect, but you can LOWER the manpower needed WITH expensive equipment.
This would be a good means of balance, so you can almost gaurentee good healing early on, at the cost of needing almost full time care till healed.
Plus it would fit real life disaster balances : where healing is relatively straightforward with enough manpower, but being overwhelmed with too many patients makes the healing quality drop exponentially, particularly when under-equiped
Pawn Targetting.
Currently have one shielded pawn run around in circles, pref a Jogger pawn.
If there are melee units they'll never touch him, and get all shot to death.
If there are ranged units they'll probably never down the shields. If they do then keep 1-2 replacements on hand.
I can reliably take down bases of 10-20 pirates with 5 pawns. 3 shooters 2 melee units.
Using chemfuel as an explosive, relatively cheap means of defense
I'd love to see some work needed to cultivate the land before it's used as growing fields. This way not all land is automatically ideal for farming. It should also lose its cultivation value if not used for farming after a period of time.