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Lol, this isn't the "how to push your wealth to the limit and get raided every 2.1s" -thread.

Steel traps aren't worth THAT much...

Rush the basics; 4 small bedrooms, dining/rec room, workroom/warehouse, freezer, and kitchen/lab/hospital. Then start building a wall. You don't have to make stone bricks; you can usually deconstruct enough from abandoned building. Then build steel traps; lots of them, 2 3x2 rows should be enough in the beginning but you'll eventually want 10x that. It's very expensive but the damage is oh so worth it. Also make sure to build or haul some cover. You want your pawns located far enough away from each other that grenades and stray shots won't hit more than one.

I only ever use turrets as a distraction; 2-4 on the sides to draw melee enemies away from my firing line. They're almost never necessary until the late game. I find building my first sniper rifle and getting armor vests on everyone far more important than getting turrets up early. That and getting the drug farm up and running. Gotta sell that flake... 

Oh and make your wall 2+ thickness ASAP. It doesn't stop people from beating it down but it does buy you enough time to deal with their buddies (and then snipe them from a distance). And make sure they're far enough away from your buildings that sappers have to come through the hole to target your buildings.

Overall, I find weapon choice and base design are by far the most important factors in base defense. Assuming your colonists can fight of course; pacifists get 'sent to live on a farm upstate.' 

Power armor is mentioned as being used by assault troops. My guess is that it's used primarily where you CAN'T bring a tank, i.e. on the confines of ship.

Honestly, I think the current armor system should be replaced by Damage Resistance, i.e. each piece of apparel subtracts damage points rather than a percentage.

Power armor should just straight up stop most modern firearms. On the flip side, it should be much more expensive and require uranium (for the power source).

Does this game have a size modifier? Are bigger pawns easier to hit?

Is this compatible with EPOE? 

True. I had a guy with an addiction to wake-up have -35 to mood for a year. He was dazed/berserk most of the time and suffered fairly hefty penalties to movement/manipulation the rest of the time. I was almost thankful when he got the flu because it meant I had an excuse to confine him to the hospital (otherwise he'd starve to death trying to get a meal). Still he was a very good pawn skill/trait wise and was the son of one of my other pawns (35 year old son of 24 year old...).

Anything that reduces micro.

Hmm, I got by just fine in 2 instances of the plague with ordinary medicine in vanilla. Even with a level 6 doctor, there was like a 2 or 3% margin

I would not call a 2 or 3% margin "getting by just fine." 

Like someone previously mentioned, your first priority should be getting everyone a decent weapon. Pistols for ranged people and steel gladius for melee guys. Your next priority should be getting some long range and close range speciality weapons; the survival rifle and machine pistol. Use the machine pistol to hose down melee dudes who are running for your gun line and the survival rifle snipe enemies in cover. I like to combine the machine pistol with the pump shotgun for close quarter carnage. Similarly, the LMG is great when combined with the survival rifle. By the mid-game, you should have enough resources to produce an armored vest and kevlar helmet for each of your colonists. Clothing is also important when it comes to protection which is why I favor button-up shirts and dusters over t-shirts and jackets (better coverage). On the melee side, you should gradually transition to steel spears by this time as well. For ranged, meanwhile, you should incorporate assault rifles, heavy smgs, and sniper rifles into your arsenal (pistols -> assault rifles, machine pistols -> SMGs, survival rifles -> sniper rifles). When you have all or most of this, you're in the late game. By this time you should be focusing on getting power armor, charge rifles, miniguns, steel longswords, and bionics for all your guys. Charge rifles are powerful close-mid range weapons that should pretty much supersede most of the above while the minigun is the ultimate crowd control weapon. Steel longwords are slow but powerful (when you're satisfied that you won't really need plasteel anymore build plasteel longswords). Keep a couple sniper rifles around for long ranged stuff. That's pretty much it!

Without seeing your base, I can't really make any specific comments. However, you should make sure to spread out guys as much as possible in whatever area you're defending. Also try to eliminate areas the enemy can use as cover such as rubble or trees. Finally, line your entrance with at least a couple rows of deadfall traps (use doors to allow your colonists to rearm them and exit the base safely) and fill the space in between with incendiary or explosive IEDs. Turrets are somewhat optional; they can be useful if you have incapable of violence colonists or need a distraction (put them in a forward position out of the main line of fire).

On a sidenote, I now realize that I haven't really discussed grenades, rocket launchers, combat drugs, or incendiary launchers. Grenades are great, if you can get them, for large groups of enemies such as tribals. In this case, you actually want to create cover in your defensive areas for the enemy. This let's you control where they run and thus it make it easier to kill them with grenades. Still, it's pretty risky (one pila shot and your done). EMP grenades are good for mechanoids if you have cover (say your guy is hiding around a corner before he grenades them). Otherwise, it's basically suicide for the pawn involved (might be worth the sacrifice if they get a grenade off). Rocket launchers are simply devastating. It's well worth it to equip a mediocre pawn with one as a single shot can kill many raiders and severely damage mechanoids. For optimum play, have a spare weapon in a rack nearby for the pawn to grab once they've fired their load. Go-Juice is also wonderful if you accept the risks involved. Sadly, I really have no real experience with incendiary launchers. I rarely see the AI use them and have never once used them in the time since they were introduced.

Oleg Geradon
Incapable of Violent
Shooting:0
Melee:0
Social:8
Animals:4
Medicine:11
Cooking:4
Construction:0
Growing:0
Mining:2
Artistic:0
Crafting:1
Research:0

Oleg Geradon=Soylent Cola.

Ok - A: can you stop calling ballistic weapons kinetic? A rail gun is a kinetic weapons. Pretty much ANYTHING is a kinetic weapon. Anything that moves a projectile. A catapult is a kinetic weapon.

I seriously doubt energy weapons will ever supersede kinetics weapons as personal weapons due to the energy densities involved.

This is EXACTLY my computer in 1968 VS 2018 A computer wouldn't have fit in a building. Now one fits in to my hand. Thats only 50 years. Ok - so there was a collapse, but we remembered how to make solar panels, uranium reactors and fire alarms, but only 2 guns that we are going to make in the next 1500 years?

Again with the maintenance angle - these people are building reactors, bionics and power suits. I feel that an electrical based rail gun, for example, would be a lot easier to maintain in those conditions then a ballistic weapons, simply for the cross over in needs.

Also wouldn't Glitter worlds produce SOME kind of weaponry? Even if just defensive weapons.

First off, I will continue to call them kinetic weapons because that suits my purpose just fine. If you can come up for a better general term for missiles, rockets, compressed gas weapons, conventional firearms, primitive firearms, low-tech missile weapons, coilguns, railguns, etc go ahead. Until then, arguing about semantics is awfully sophomoric.

Secondly, it's a mistake to believe technology and miniaturization will continue to advance in a linear fashion indefinitely into the future. There are physical limits to how much energy you can store chemically. That is a fact. Sure there are other means of storing energy but most conventional ones are equally nonviable for personal energy weapons. So you're going to have to do something exotic if you want a laser rifle that can outperform a M16. Which brings in the matter of cost which IS valid even in the future and in this case it won't be a M16 vs your laser rifle. It will be the M9000 with near zero recoil, less weight, smartgun accessories, 2x the ammo, and smart ammunition that can lock onto targets a mile away.

Thirdly, yes people do mix technologies of different levels. Ever wonder why people in Afghanistan are using donkeys, AK47's, and satellite phones? Because an isolated society often does not have the number of people or materials to become wholly self-sufficient. Thus, they rely on more primitive technology to fill the gaps (and carefully pick and choose the few techs they will maintain/import). If Rimworld were more realistic, there would be a new category of components that you couldn't produce and had to be traded for. Small colonies like our in game ones would be very dependent on steady trade to survive and maintain their style of life.

Lastly, where did I say glitter worlds wouldn't produce their own type of weaponry? I merely gave a reason why advanced spacefaring cultures would trade and produce lower-tech weapons.

Honestly, if you want to learn the challenges most spacefaring societies would face when trying to create a self-sufficient colony, I suggest you read some of the old (and newish) NASA/USAF plans to colonize the Moon and later Mars. It's basically almost impossible to build lots of advanced goods in an isolated environment like space. The most you can is produce food, water, raw material, a few specialized things like solar panels (with a lot of planning), and import everything else.

On a sidenote, if you're really disappointed with the lack of futuristic weaponry, I suggest you use the Rimsenal mod.

Yeah, you could make a small, manpack-able railgun or laser cannon, say, with approximately the same tech level as charge rifles, but there's simply no damn reason to do so at personal combat ranges, and the costs and maintenance are inevitably going to be a lot higher for things that aren't any more useful, that also are going to break far more often in ways you cannot repair in the field =p .  Meh.

I don't really see this to be intrinsically true. It would cost more to maintain a chariot today then it would a car, because current tech is easier to maintain then old. Current tech has cross overs, while old tech requires special knowledge in a specific old art form. This is why we have trouble rebuilding ancient boats that we find - no one builds boats like that anymore, so no one knows exactly how its done. We could build a new boat a lot simpler out of welded steel easier then a wooden one (or even riveted steel for that matter) simply because its uses technicians everywhere else.

If I can build a reactor for a spaceship, solar panels, electric motors (for doors etc), batteries, stoves, air conditions etc etc out of stuff that I find on the ground, its a safe bet that they have access to some form of futuristic tech.

Saying that futuristic weaponry would be prohibitively expensive, large, dangerous etc etc 1500 years from now, is like saying 'You couldn't have a computer at home, they would be too big' in 1965. As we advance, stuff gets easier. The colonists have access to cyro freezing tech, space travel, charge rifles - why would there day to day gun be a M1911?

I seriously doubt energy weapons will ever supersede kinetics weapons as personal weapons due to the energy densities involved. However, the rest of your point stands. If we use guns in the future, they will of course be more advanced than the ones we have today; light polymer cased or caseless telescoped ammunition, an electrical ignition system, and integrated "smartgun" electronics. Probably smart ammunition as well!  Also railguns, coilguns, etc (more likely as vehicle/heavy weapons than personal weapons I think though).

However, Rimworld presumes a series of technological collapses have happened. You might not agree that is realistic but it is the presumption nonetheless. So worlds which are at a low tech level (industrial worlds) would use weapon patterns similar to the ones we have today simply because they don't have the means or ability to produce anything better. In addition, those worlds which can produce better weaponry may produce simpler weaponry in great abundance because that's all their more primitive customers can maintain.

Borsuk has it right. It's all about energy density. A power cell with enough power to power a laser comparable to a modern assault rifle would basically be a bomb. And probably very difficult to manufacture even with future tech.

In the end, people like lasers because they look futuristic, not because they're a particularly good idea (when it comes to personal weapons). It's likely any future laser weapons used on a human scale would be specialist weapons (laser=high accuracy so maybe sniper weapon).

If a sun lamp uses as much power as 9 heaters, it should create as much heat as 9 heaters, right?

Our greenhouses should need air conditioning even on ice sheets!

If it was creating as much as 9 heaters and providing all that light, wouldn't it be creating more energy than it receives? 

I think republicans needed to win to wake the left up to the fact that identity politics doesnt win elections. Say what you want about the man but he is keeping his word. Very rare in political arena.

I don't buy that for a second. Instead, what I think it was was Hillary's lack of credibility when it came to her promises. She could parrot Bernie all she wanted but I never met anyone, even her most ardent supporters, who believed she was going to come through on any of those promises. It also didn't help that there were individuals within the DNC who were quite obviously biased towards her and sabotaged her opponents in the primary basically whenever they could. In a way, people like Debbie Schultz actually did more harm than good for her chances at getting elected. So in the end, many Democrats were already feeling disheartened by November.

Then again, there was also the failure of the mainstream press to callout Trump on his major factual fallacies, the failure of the republican party to do a basic sanity check when it came to their candidates, and finally the FBI director who mysteriously went against procedure when it came to Hillary's ultimately fruitless investigation but remained silent on Trump's ongoing one.

I hope Trump will be gone by the end of 2017. According to many constitutional lawyers (both republican and democrat), he's already committed multiple impeachable offenses. And then there's the fact that you don't have to impeached to removed as president. Congress could probably argue that his deranged decisions and proclamations are a sign of mental impairment and have him removed under those grounds. Finally, there's the ongoing investigation into how the Russians influenced the election in his favor. He's most likely never going be found guilty of anything but it'll surely damage his already record low favorability ratings. Ultimately, however, the true test will come from the Republican lead Congress. This government was designed so a strong man could never come to power without the acquiescence of Congress. Will Republicans continue the same strain of destructive partisanship they've had over the last eight years and support a wannabe fascist even if it means burning the Constitution? Being a somewhat of a cynic... I think they probably will unless Trump does something truly ridiculous. Then again, they could just brand it as "Fake News" and tell their voters to ignore the fact that Putin now has a seat in the oval office.

I've been having this problem with A16 for a while; when I quit to the menu and start a new game, my starting colonists and their gear won't land. Neither are colonists listed on the work tab nor their gear on the lefthand item list. Restarting the game fixes this problem but it is annoying when I'm testing out new scenarios (so I'm quitting to the menu a lot in a single play session).