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Hi guys. Pick your storyteller and difficulty. And try to be honest ! Feel free to state below why you play with that specific storyteller / difficulty.

I usually play Rough because while I do like a difficulty increase I'm not really okay with any of the negatives of the difficulty increases other than more frequent/powerful raids. It sucks to have my colonists be miserable just because of the difficulty setting.

I generally use both Cassandra and Randy on either Intense or Extreme (mood-dependent when starting new colony). Always Permadeath either way. Put myself down for Randy and Intense as I still play Intense for a significant amount of time (roughly 10-55-35 distribution for rough-intense-extreme difficulties)

I always used to start off with Rough when I first played as I liked a challenge, gradually got the hang of that. I play Intense if I don't feel like making a killzone setup, otherwise it's Extreme nowadays. I only start colonies on Rough currently with Hardcore SK as I haven't really familiarised with it (although performance is offputting), or if I feel like simply taking it easy.

Randy rough for me. I spent I long time cassandra Base builder but now I learned to stop worrying and love the atomic bomb....as my "skill" (I use that word in a very broad sense) increases I will eventually make it to extreme. And permadeath only.

Edit:spelling mistake

Cassandra Intense, I like a challenge without going full masochist.

Randy or Cassandra extreme. I use extended weaponry and a bunch of other mods so I have access to RPGs and the like which makes the game easier.

surprising to see so many randy players. I would've thought most would pick cassandra, because shes the default one, but maybe the forum users are different. keep voting, interesting results ! this helps the modders as well, because we get to balance the mods better based on how most people play.

The poll restrictions prevent me from answering this poll accurately/completely.

I play on both "Some Challenge" and "Rough" most of the time, but occasionally up it to "Extreme". Always Cassandra.

Quote from: GiantSpaceHamster on March 17, 2017, 04:02:45 PM
The poll restrictions prevent me from answering this poll accurately/completely.

I play on both "Some Challenge" and "Rough" most of the time, but occasionally up it to "Extreme". Always Cassandra.

That's ok, just pick the one you are most comfortable with. The poll would be way too big if I were to include all the different options.

Quote from: Rah on March 17, 2017, 04:13:59 PM

Quote from: GiantSpaceHamster on March 17, 2017, 04:02:45 PM
The poll restrictions prevent me from answering this poll accurately/completely.

I play on both "Some Challenge" and "Rough" most of the time, but occasionally up it to "Extreme". Always Cassandra.

That's ok, just pick the one you are most comfortable with. The poll would be way too big if I were to include all the different options.

But all the options are there, why restrict it to choosing two? What value does that add?

I don't play Cassandra because her raids are incessant and brutal.  Randy, simply put, is easier.  He scatters random events all over instead of days of boredom punctuated by a blizzard of disasters.

Also the popcap on Randy is higher and I'm hoping someday to have a colony with more than half a dozen people.  (That I keep executing people who try to join makes this difficult)

I play on Intense because, well, it seems to work out.

Quote from: GiantSpaceHamster on March 17, 2017, 06:02:06 PM

Quote from: Rah on March 17, 2017, 04:13:59 PM

Quote from: GiantSpaceHamster on March 17, 2017, 04:02:45 PM
The poll restrictions prevent me from answering this poll accurately/completely.

I play on both "Some Challenge" and "Rough" most of the time, but occasionally up it to "Extreme". Always Cassandra.

That's ok, just pick the one you are most comfortable with. The poll would be way too big if I were to include all the different options.

But all the options are there, why restrict it to choosing two? What value does that add?

I understand what you mean now. The reason it's two is so that people can choose their storyteller and their preferred difficulty. I want to see 1 difficulty vote per person or else the results will be a bit inaccurate and hard to analyze.

Quote from: Shurp on March 17, 2017, 06:50:27 PM
I don't play Cassandra because her raids are incessant and brutal.  Randy, simply put, is easier.  He scatters random events all over instead of days of boredom punctuated by a blizzard of disasters.

Also the popcap on Randy is higher and I'm hoping someday to have a colony with more than half a dozen people.  (That I keep executing people who try to join makes this difficult)

I play on Intense because, well, it seems to work out.

I agree that Cassandra can be ridiculous at times, especially on the two highest difficulties. Sometimes you won't get any time to recover from a major disaster / event until the next one slams into you like a truck. Turtling is pretty much mandatory, and you need a good dose of luck in the early game. Randy is nicer for sure.

By the way, how much plasteel would you say you have on average after about 2 years with Randy?

Randy mostly for the lulz and the popcap.  Is he really easier though?  Been a while since I've played cassy, but I sure as heck don't remember week 3 psychic ships and simultaneous raids on week 1.  I think there might be less total amounts of raids, but the hard parts really hit like a truck.

TBH, I think this poll is a bit .. incomplete. First of all, the use of mods, usually changes a games difficulty quite a bit. From what I can see a lot of people are using advanced turrets, armors and cleaning bots. I would propose that such mods reduce the difficulty level quite a bit.

Also, I'm really curious why nobody uses Phoebe, isn't she more or less a less bipolar version of Max? (Max is easy to.. circumnavigate.. if you are not playing iron man style)

Quote from: dragonalumni on March 17, 2017, 08:51:48 PM
TBH, I think this poll is a bit .. incomplete. First of all, the use of mods, usually changes a games difficulty quite a bit. From what I can see a lot of people are using advanced turrets, armors and cleaning bots. I would propose that such mods reduce the difficulty level quite a bit.

Also, I'm really curious why nobody uses Phoebe, isn't she more or less a less bipolar version of Max? (Max is easy to.. circumnavigate.. if you are not playing iron man style)

There's no way to not let people with mods vote though, so I'm not sure what you mean by incomplete. I could add a bunch of new options for mod players, but that would clutter up the poll significantly. Some mods probably make the game a bit easier, but I don't think it's a big enough factor to mess up the accuracy of a poll like this.

Well, your right about that, I don't think the poll could be accurate unless it excluded mod users.

Also, your ignoring something that should be polled probably and that is the choice between the 3 starting scenarios. In my opinion the tribal start is twice as hard as rich explorer and crash landed is the middle for difficulty.

Further, playing on "rough" on an ice sheet must be equal? to the highest difficulty of a temperate forest, as as  guess I've never played ice sheet.  ;D

edit: Rolling style also has to be taken into account, some people use a mod, so jumping into an extreme game is quick and painless, others might painstakingly roll out 5 tribals for the best possible start. (Again, using a mod to quick start into extreme makes the game a lot easier than rolling out 5 harmonious pawns each new game)

Well, I guess what I'm saying is, I think it's really hard to get a feel for what difficulty people really play at. I think some people enjoy the rogue like play until you die extreme challenge while others are interested in building up a sweet looking base, they are essentially playing different games with different goals and outcomes.

I think the addition of more options would make things confusing, and traditionally <10% of people use mods at all so it would be a statistical blip.

Does noone else play Phoebe Extreme?
Im pretty sure shes one of those people that is like
"It takes longer for me to hit you, but when I hit you, I hit you HARD."

Exactly the problem, I don't want to be hit hard.  I want lots of little hits instead.  That way if I screw something up my base isn't obliterated.

In girlfriend terms, Randy slaps you in the face every day, Cassandra hits you upside the head with a frying pan now and then, and Phoebe stabs you in the back with a bread knife.

Rough Randy lets me to play without having to build cheyenne mountain military complex or killboxes

Reading the comments it looks like I could bump up the difficulty without worries

Iron Dan (https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=24989.0) lets me play with up to a hundred colonists, and on rough the raids are challenging but not hopeless.

Quote from: MajorMonotone on March 17, 2017, 10:39:37 AM
I usually play Rough because while I do like a difficulty increase I'm not really okay with any of the negatives of the difficulty increases other than more frequent/powerful raids. It sucks to have my colonists be miserable just because of the difficulty setting.

I'm the opposite - I like everything about higher difficulty except the raid size increase. If I could get Extreme crop yields / moods / prices but with Rough raid sizes? Perfect.

Quote from: EnricoDandolo on March 17, 2017, 11:40:56 PM
Does noone else play Phoebe Extreme?
Im pretty sure shes one of those people that is like
"It takes longer for me to hit you, but when I hit you, I hit you HARD."

<3 Phoebe Extreme

Quote from: Shurp on March 17, 2017, 06:50:27 PM
I don't play Cassandra because her raids are incessant and brutal.  Randy, simply put, is easier.  He scatters random events all over instead of days of boredom punctuated by a blizzard of disasters.

This is very interesting. I always assumed that Randy hands you the same threat levels as Cassandra, except with random intervals.

Vanilla Cassandra extreme, late game raids are still too easy though :( I wish they were smarter.

Quote from: BlueWinds on March 18, 2017, 03:27:42 PM
I'm the opposite - I like everything about higher difficulty except the raid size increase. If I could get Extreme crop yields / moods / prices but with Rough raid sizes? Perfect.

This... would be an interesting difficulty. Perhaps another difficulty with penalties slightly above extreme's too, but intense raid sizes... it'd be interesting to play that. Early-game mood is a challenge as it stands for Extreme, but having it a notch above that would probably mean that drugs will be a priority.

Randy extreme. Been playing like that since like A12. Randy just feels more balanced to me, maybe it just becuase I haven't play Cass in ages but Randy seems more enjoyable.

Also extreme because losing is fun. Also always random location and random colonists, I hit random location and look away and I don't look at my colonists until they touch planetside.

Quote from: Travinsky on March 19, 2017, 06:57:54 AM
I hit random location and look away and I don't look at my colonists until they touch planetside.

^^ This

I've been starting this recently too, and it is certainly much more fun and interesting than cherry-picking the best colonists. It's also the lore-friendly way of playing :)

Cassandra extreme and the scenario editor if i want to spice things up

I started cas/intense, but after learning about joy scheduling and mood manipulation I moved up to extreme.  I occasionally do Randy, but he has that tendency to do nothing for long stretches or scale early game strangely (by design due to random nature).  I find only the most wonky Randy combo smacks give a harder challenge than Cas progression.

Quote from: TheMeInTeam on March 19, 2017, 01:40:10 PM
I started cas/intense, but after learning about joy scheduling and mood manipulation I moved up to extreme.  I occasionally do Randy, but he has that tendency to do nothing for long stretches or scale early game strangely (by design due to random nature).  I find only the most wonky Randy combo smacks give a harder challenge than Cas progression.

That's my experience with Randy Extreme as well. I never feel like the game is unfair when I play with him. He usually let's you breathe a little and build up after major events. Cassandra Extreme on the other hand just throws everything at you, almost right from the start and never let's up. I've lost many colonies to her, but there are things you can do to hold on during the early game. Defense is critical; I always turtle up in a small compound with traps and turrets, with stone walls. Mood management and a restrictive intake of colonists are other important factors.

Btw, is this the Meinteam from youtube, with the civ videos?

I've thought about going with the random colonist start, but it seems to me like the odds of getting screwed are too high.  What happens if nobody can cook?  If you don't get a doctor?  If all three have miserable construction skill?

I suppose you can do without a starting smith or researcher and hope to get one later on.  But some skills you need from day one, no?  (Of course, if you enjoy losing then that's not a problem.  But then you can also intentionally pick crappy colonists too :)

Quote from: Shurp on March 19, 2017, 08:41:11 PM
What happens if nobody can cook?  If you don't get a doctor?  If all three have miserable construction skill?

It'll be less productive to gameplay, but working around that issue is part of the fun really. My vanilla+ tribe has a completely random location and completely random tribesmen but they turned out to be a decent bunch. One of them was an alcoholic and they're experiencing withdrawal symptoms at this point, but it's still fun dealing with it. She typically teeters on the minor/major break threshold (extreme difficulty for mood debuff), but she's holding it together because of a party that she attended... and the fact everything's in one room so she's getting a net mood gain of +8 from very impressive barrack, dining room, and rec room.

Edit: All was going well... until she started a wake-up binge due to said withdrawal, so we tried to arrest her but she refused... and got beaten to death by bare hands.

Try wooden logs next time.  In my experience the log beatdown always produces incapacitation before death.  Also don't forget you can wall up your drugs in a closet.

And that is an advantage of the tribal start.  With 5 colonists you're more likely to have someone who can perform vital tasks.

Some Randy Challenge

Custom story teller with extreme difficulty

lots of events and very frequent raids, cause being beaten to a pulp is fun

I've been playing on Cassandra Rough until recently, but I've been adding mods that seem to keep making the game easier (albeit more interesting), so I bumped it up to Intense on tundra with permanent toxic fallout. It's about the right difficulty for me for now.

I haven't tried Randy, but I like the idea of a storyteller who's trying to... tell a story... rather than throwing random events at me. I played Phoebe when I was still getting the basics down.

I've played cass and randy a lot, and I find randy makes better "stories" that come from the randomness.  Beavers every season is pretty annoying, though.

Quote from: b4d on March 20, 2017, 11:40:07 PM
Custom story teller with extreme difficulty

lots of events and very frequent raids, cause being beaten to a pulp is fun

Hey, that sounds fun  :D  Which custom storyteller are you using? I've been playing Rimworld for 3 months and Cassy extreme no longer challenges me as she used to.

Quote from: Wraithling on March 21, 2017, 05:11:53 AM
Hey, that sounds fun  :D  Which custom storyteller are you using? I've been playing Rimworld for 3 months and Cassy extreme no longer challenges me as she used to.

I combined two storyteller into one and adjusted the numbers a bit

Iron Dan as base
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=731434226 (http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=731434226)

and take part of Hildegarde raid settings from Rimsenal - Storyteller's for the raids
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=725952322 (http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=725952322)

Many thanks b4d, will check Iron Dan out; I already have Hildegarde and occasionally switch to her.

Slightly more on-topic - I hope vanilla introduces another difficulty beyond extreme. I want more disasters happening to my base, more raids coming, and not just the occasional auto-door breaking down. I believe most 1-month-old players can easily handle extreme, even if they eventually settle for lesser difficulty for reasons of their own.

Randy Random Rough is what I prefer. Classic Randy douchebaggery without bullcrap lategame raids.

However.

• I don't use killboxes.
• I don't build mountain bases.
• I actually prefer flatlands instead of hills/mountains.
• I've built my most recent turret, like, I don't know, half a year ago? I don't even bother with Turret Research anymore.
• I play as tribe at least 90% of the time.
• I actually made a custom scenario for myself that I've been using for months now. It starts me off with just one guy, tribal colony, with just a Tribalwear and one Steel Spear. No additional items. No additional resources or food. Git gud or git ded.
• I prefer Boreal Forests with -25°C or less average winter temperature. I start in Fall and can't grow crops until the next summer.
• Savescumming is for the weak. In my colonies, glory and death walk hand in hand.
• No humanoid butchering unless starvation hits. Human leather is too profitable. I'll be drowning in silver anyway but I prefer harder methods.
• No organ harvesting for profit, for the same reason mentioned one line above.
• No reroll on colonists. Even if it's a one-man start with a pacifist demented sheriff. Surviving with a guy like that is what makes one a better player.

The only reason I don't play on higher difficulties anymore is because raid scaling gets ridiculously out of hand lategame. I prefer events that actually can be solved over a stat check of "Have you built a killbox/are you using an exploit? If not, you're dead." because I fail to see the fun in the latter.

Had a couple insect infestations during fall of the first season, with six colonists. In the first one there were two hives, and in the second one there were three hives. Both scenarios were unplayable to me, as it would send valuable colonists to the hospital for an extended recuperation period, slowing down the game. So they became potential futures that I chose not to walk through Save/Restore.

That was Iron Dan storyteller on Rough, and so to eliminate long load times from my life I turned the difficulty setting to Peaceful. Probably going to bump it up later.

@Granitecosmos, interesting preferences. I play Randy and Cassandra on Extreme without any big killboxes or exploits, although I do have a perimeter wall and several small openings where I allow them in. If you look at the attachment picture you can see how I usually defend my base.

In this particular case it's Randy Extreme 190 days in. Usually I will build a bunker style setup with steel traps, sandbags and a few turrets to slow the attackers down while my colonists fire from their roofed bunkers. The attackers often use the sandbags as cover and then firefights ensue. Any animals and brawlers will be on standby in the back if things get out of hand. I have 5 of these openings and "bunkers" around the wall. In the image all my colonists have gut worms and I'm dealing with a toxic fallout and volcanic winter, and they also just had a huge tribe attack, but they're still holding out relatively well.

[attachment deleted by admin due to age]

I chose Cassy Extreme altho thats not entirely accurate due to the fact I now much more often play with modded story tellers (pandora dark, hardcore storytellers, Rimsenal) bc Vanilla Rimworld has become quite farmable for me now. Initially it wasn't, but I have played the crap out of this game 1600+ hours. I most often play unmodded or lightly modded with mostly QoL type mods or mods that increase difficulty (story tellers, realistic darkness, manhunters) I happen to be playing a lightly modded cassy exteme  desert flat terrain atm. Mods in use this game Number 22 w/rice, World PawnGC, Animal Tab, Allow Tool, Wildlife Tab, Allow fresh, Allow Deadmans Apparel, Refugee Stats, Numbers, RBSE.

(https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/92728095772637581/5BD17BC7DF6C5F86B4182B2FD189277F29DDCABD/?interpolation=lanczos-none&output-format=jpeg&output-quality=95&fit=inside%7C1024:576&composite-to%3D%2A%2C%2A%7C1024%3A576&background-color=black)

(https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/92728095772643386/EC05DFCAED1ADFC2C887B470616243922B876D40/?interpolation=lanczos-none&output-format=jpeg&output-quality=95&fit=inside%7C1024:575&composite-to%3D%2A%2C%2A%7C1024%3A575&background-color=black)

In this game I have 27 thrumbo fur armchairs, 3 flatscreens in the hospital, 1 mega screen, 2 silver billiards tables, 4 silver grand statues, 12 full sets of devilstrand gear, 13 sets of power armor, 21 royal beds to sell, 10 royal beds for my colonists, 42 chess tables to sell, 12 sets of alpaca wool parkas and caps, 3 muffalos, 7 alpacas, 17 huskies, 22 husky puppies. I

I call traders on cooldown from the time I get micro electronics researched, I buy all artifacts, steel, plasteel, gold, uranium and glitterworld meds. I know I don't need that much uranium, i'm just buying as a silver sink and to make a grand uranium statue for laughs,  traders often dont have enough silver for everything I want to sell, not that i need it bc my stockpiles are always overflowing with silver anyway, that's why I make silver grand statues and crap and waste thrumbo fur on chairs. I never use turrets except for modded storytellers. I very much like mountain bases and I do often turtle up heavily walled and trapped like shown, but not always. I'm starting to do walless and trapless plays. and am going to try sometime in the near future a pausless run.

Any biome with any amount of soil is extremely farm-able. Harder difficulties offset themselves imo BECAUSE of the increased raid / manhunter pack sizes. its just throwing food and weapons and resources at you. This map has almost no animals naturally ever, yet we eat lavish meals and I have bills set to make pemican and kibble forever because 50 rhinos is a ton of meat. The last mech raid was 22 centipedes and 9 sythers, that's a heck of a lot free plasteel. Personal shields are overpowered, artifacts are overpowered, selling furniture is crazy lucrative.

Additional note on the mods in use , most don't impact the gameplay that much with the exception of RBSE witch i was testing out for the 1st time in this playthrough. (also in part why i decided to post seeing as Rah is the creator) While RBSE is definitely more balanced and less cluttered than EPOE it is as i feared still too easy to obtain and too strong

Cassandra extreme only.  Once you've learned all the mechanics, the game itself is too easy to play on other difficulties.

RNGeezus and I have never been great friends, so I'm not much a fan of Randy Random.

Quote from: Rah on March 19, 2017, 05:08:00 PM

Quote from: TheMeInTeam on March 19, 2017, 01:40:10 PM
I started cas/intense, but after learning about joy scheduling and mood manipulation I moved up to extreme.  I occasionally do Randy, but he has that tendency to do nothing for long stretches or scale early game strangely (by design due to random nature).  I find only the most wonky Randy combo smacks give a harder challenge than Cas progression.

That's my experience with Randy Extreme as well. I never feel like the game is unfair when I play with him. He usually let's you breathe a little and build up after major events. Cassandra Extreme on the other hand just throws everything at you, almost right from the start and never let's up. I've lost many colonies to her, but there are things you can do to hold on during the early game. Defense is critical; I always turtle up in a small compound with traps and turrets, with stone walls. Mood management and a restrictive intake of colonists are other important factors.

Btw, is this the Meinteam from youtube, with the civ videos?

It's the same TMIT, yes :).  I've bounced around after civ 5 ---> civ 6 were a bit disappointing.  Recently I finally bothered to pick up 3 mountains in EU 4 and have been doing Madden.  I want to get back into youtube, but lost my HOMM 5 footage and can never seem to find the energy to get going with it again.

This game was a good month+ diversion from EU for sure, and made me remember what some good UI aspects can be like.  It has kinks you'd expect in an alpha, but the game itself is ahead of many release titles.  I'll be coming back to it here and there in the future and following its progression.  Unless civ 6 brings up UI standards I've probably already put more time in this than I will in that.  Even deity is easy in civ these days, I remember back when I was a psuedo filthy casul in civ because it actually punished mistakes :p.

I do a mix of peaceful or extreme. Phoebe is my typical storyteller. Sometimes, I just don't want to fight endless waves.

Quote from: Fellbourne on March 22, 2017, 11:00:56 PM
I know I don't need that much uranium, i'm just buying as a silver sink and to make a grand uranium statue for laughs,  traders often dont have enough silver for everything I want to sell, not that i need it bc my stockpiles are always overflowing with silver anyway, that's why I make silver grand statues and crap and waste thrumbo fur on chairs.

Turns out large statues are just 1x1. So if you're cramming wealth, 4 large statues is more dense than one grand :D

Quote from: Greep on March 23, 2017, 03:01:28 AM
So if you're cramming wealth ...

Quote from: l2evy on April 10, 2016, 03:44:35 AM
    Storage Crates (https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=18589.0) is a mod focused on compact and neat stockpiling of bulk resources.
    The basic structure of the mod is you build some plates, then assemble the plates plus your stack of 75
    of any resource (500 for gold/silver) and produce the crate.

    You then can stack the crates in a stockpile like any other item and they stack to 75.
    For a total of 5625 of a non-currency resource on a single tile.

@TheMeInTeam, awesome. I used to watch your Civ 4 videos a lot. Very informative ! But yeah, I'm not happy about the newer Civ games either. Like many other games of today they've become too easy and dumbed down, which is unfortunate for such an epic series. Anyway, cool to see you here !

@Fellbourne, interesting read. It's very rare I hear someone say RBSE is too easy, but I understand where you're coming from having played a lot of Cassandra games myself. The original hardcore version was actually nerfed a bit due to people complaining about the high costs, which is also why I added the Lite version. But like you said, you are probably in a small minority given your playtime and experience with the game, but I might add another version of RBSE for the people like yourself. I've been playing around with the thought. Thanks for the feedback !

I personally started with some challenge, because I was new and with that I thought I could fail. Whenever you can actually fail it is a lot more fun. A lesson learned from the 2005-2010 period where game developers made everything super easy, thinking it would sell well (then came Dark Souls and made it obvious that that is BS).

I mostly used Phoebe at the start because she obviously is the storyteller for new players. I later switched to Cassandra, hoping she would make for better gameplay, but the opposite was true. She is so predictable yet her raids are just too harsh. When I have 4-5 colonists with nothing but the starting weapons she throws 6 enemies with shields and LMG/Assault Rifles at me.

In one of my tribe playthroughs I faced two ARs literally the second tiny raid, where they have only clubs and shivs usually. However, due to 5vs2 I killed them and then had those ARs for myself which made the harsh raids afterwards very manageable.

Now I'm playing a jungle tribe game with Randy Random on Rough. I feel like rough is too easy, but intense throws these brutal raids at you, it becomes an arms race instead of building your colony and I want a bit of both.

So far I enjoy Randy Random.

On a recent play through I was a year in, and I switched from Cassandra to Phoebe every once and a while because the game kept throwing 20 tribal at me before my fourth turret was even up.

Cass - Rough. I do not, however, powergame my pawn choises or colonies. Not really interested in playing tower defense. I find Randy to be way too lenient more often than not, but he is good for a game every now and then.

Quote from: Shurp on March 18, 2017, 08:43:43 AM
Exactly the problem, I don't want to be hit hard.  I want lots of little hits instead.  That way if I screw something up my base isn't obliterated.

In girlfriend terms, Randy slaps you in the face every day, Cassandra hits you upside the head with a frying pan now and then, and Phoebe stabs you in the back with a bread knife.

Is that how Randy is for you? For me he is like; "Oh you had such a rough time with that 3 man raid, take a few months off and have all these supplies from space. My treat!" He is random indeed.