Messages

I'm definitely familiar with the problem you have, though honestly i feel like its gotten much better within the last 2 alphas.  You mention ugly environment so it sounds like you should consider spending a little more beautifying the areas around your base. 

But 2 major things that have can help with happiness substantially in this last alpha is
1: stop butchering people.  I know its a fair income loss to do so, but the mood hit is fairly large. 
2: Make sarcophagus and bury someone.  Its a very easy way to give a colony wide mood buff.

Stonehearth absolute waste of money, makers don't update, and whenever they update it's a new block.......

I do have to interject here. They do update but I guess they're not working fast enough for you.
-snip-

I so very badly want stonehearth to be a good game, I love the graphics and feel of the gameplay. 

That being said I have to agree that where the stonehearth is now I wouldn't recommend it.  The game has a large amount of bugs, very little content, and slow development.  Maybe in the future I'd be recommending it, but I think the game really has a long way to go.

I think we can add Planetbase to the list.

I am very much looking forward to that game, but can't say much about it until its actually released.

nobody forces you to make/use turrets. there. problem solved.

you don't like to use turret, don't make them. but there is certainly others who do like turrets, why screw them when the solution is so easy?

You're right.  And I do, for the most part.

The main reason I bring this up as a suggestion is because Tynan has hinted at it before.  I'm saying that we currently have enough (although few we could probably use more) options to defend ourselves without turrets.

However as several people have pointed out, the primary problem with playing without turrets is tribals and how the shear numbers and how vanilla combat mechanics work it becomes too difficult.  (I can however agree combat mechanics could maybe use a rework, but that is a different discussion.  But even if it does get a rework, I'd want it reworked without turrets and not balanced around them).

My suggestion is that for next alpha the turrets get removed and the amount of raiders gets balanced around a colony which operates without turrets.

By doing this we would be removing the backbone of a killbox (something Tynan would be in favor of), we would be making the gameplay more realistic and believable to the story, events and raids would have more weight as it would become more difficult to completely remove colonists from all combat situations, and by having no turrets and fewer raiders we would be lowering the rather rediculous payoff raiders bring into colonies for very little cost.

The 'increasing raid size' is wealth. It adds building wealth, and wealth effects raid sizes. There's not really a way to not have it build more wealth unless you make them cheaper.

If I remember correctly another factor in raid size is/was colonists, and that 1 turret was the equivalent of 1/3 (?) of a colonist.  I remember talks about that in previous alphas.  I am not sure if that calculation has remained the same or not.

The problem for me in removing turrets is that you need them to tank for you.
(...)
This combat system works under VERY SPECIFIC circumstances. It creates a nice little firefight scenario
(...)
There's no configuration of colonist tactics that lets your ten guys win a fight where sixty a-holes with clubs and spears can just run up and beat them to death in a horde despite the presence of machine guns and assault rifles.

Look what happens when you remove turrets AND reduce raid sizes. Your whole argument topples like a house of cards!

snip

This is a primary point to remove turrets.  The idea that raids are too tough without them is not necessarily a reason to keep them.  how all the numbers work for the amount of raiders you get sent is necessary in current game play primarily due to turrets.  If you remove turrets raids could also be toned down and still be a threat, and in all honesty a more engaging and thought provoking threat.

Reduce raid size while leaving turrets= boring easy game

Remove turrets while leaving raid size= too challenging of a game

Do both= A game that is more engaging, thought provoking, and realistic (hopefully).

A large thing which derails the immersion in game currently is the raid size, the fact that the ai can continue to send wave after wave of hundreds of hundreds of ppl on a so called sparsely populated rimworld is...  The way to reduce raid size is by removing turrets.

Another very interesting thing though a lesser point is the income mechanisms in raids.  Play a game on basebuilder, and find how much slower it is to build up colony wealth.  Without the income from raids, and far larger flow of potential colonists which comes with higher difficulty brings in a different problem of lower income.  Which can make the cost of certain items in game have more weight in your decisions.

TL;DR By removing turrets and adjusting raid sizes, you would have a more engaging believable game.

I've said this before, but I have a problem with how helpless many colonists you get are. If turrets are removed, I will probably become quite ruthless in colonist selection. If you are over 60, sorry you can't pull your weight and I won't take you.

A colonist with bad back, frail and two cataracts (and people over 60, 70 tend to be all of the above) he can't help the colony even as a medic, cook or animal handler. Bad eyes and bad manipulation make for a bad medic. Bad movement speed make for a bad animal handler, especially tamer. Slow work speed make bad artists, crafters, constructors. I'd rather have a colonist who can only shoot but do it well. Or even a melee specialist with good skills.

here here....... it's the damn manipulation being tied to everything and hit too hard by everything or something....

I can easily agree with both of you on those sentiments, how "broken" everyone in rimworld seems to be is rather rediculous.  Not to say that I'm opposed to colonists having quirks, but then with how much a minor thing effects everything the colonist is able to do it becomes burdensome.  Though that is really a different discussion.

So the primary reason I suggested this, is because previously Tynan had mentioned the want to remove turrets in response to the requests to upgrade them.  A while ago i would have agreed that the game was really not feasible without turrets.  But as the game has progressed and we now have other defense options with traps, ieds, and pets I think we are close (though maybe not quite there) to a point where we can remove them.

I don't necessarily think it'd be good to just flat out remove them.  But I do think for the next alpha it would be feasible to rebalance some of the raids, and maybe introduce a bit more defensive options to then remove turrets.

If nothing else, I do agree that requiring turrets to be manned would also add some benefit balance wise with them, though i think that could add some different problems.

The reason to remove turrets really lies with the fact that they help do 2 things in this game which tynan doesn't really want to encourage.  They are really a backbone to kill boxes, and they lower the impact of raids so that your colonists can seldom/never actually have to fight.

Turrets being upgraded, or changed to be modular has been suggested before and are not taken because turrets really weren't supposed to be in the game.  The reason they were left in was similar to when fertilizer pump was getting removed, and why blasting charges were still available.

Turrets work against so many features of this game and its concept.  They change events which should be threats into simply a calculation of profit against the lost resources from a few turrets.  Events should be challenging and threatening, and come with costs which drive the story, and I really just don't think you have that when the event is almost completely negated at the pitifully small cost of some metal.

The goal was to remove turrets, and I think the game is really at a point where that would be reasonable to do.  I'd love to see them removed so future additions to the game can be properly balanced around how the game should be played.

So with my colonies in A12 I have noticed that due to animals being added, the game is really a lot more reasonable to play without turrets.  I mean I still personally like them and use them.  But remembering Tynan not wanting them in earlier alphas due to several reasons maybe it is now time for them to go the way of the blasting charges.

Mostly I think the game is at a point where they could readily be removed with maybe some small re balances to raids and the game still be reasonable.

While keeping all that in mind, the next question becomes HOW complex do you want things to become in the game.

This is the big reason why i don't like what torkkar suggested, it all just becomes too complex.  We currently have 5 meals for colonists, this would be putting more complexity into animal feeding systems then what we currently have for colonists which would seem out of place.

There are plenty of things in rimworld that are not realistic and are wild over simplifications of reality.  The current animal system as a whole imo is well balanced and has a good amount of depth/simplicity considering the broader context of the game that it is in.

Honestly I think you're aiming too high, that food system is more complex/has more options then what we have to feed colonists.  And the concept that mixing/preparing food for animals should require a skill level seems less realistic then hay rotting in 80 days.

I do very much think Hay should probably just not rot, but still decay.

I often use nutrient paste dispensers, and I feel a lot of people underestimate them.  Colonist time is arguably one of the most valuable things in the game.  and the amount of time which can be saved by not having a dedicated cook and growing less food is actually pretty astounding. And the mood debuff is small enough that it is quite manageable to overcome with the extra colonist time.

The issue with 'total granularity' is that if the scale went from 1-20 then I'd have to click like 100 more times to switch a moderate colony's priorities around, and that's just way too much.

Honestly by the time I worry about the priority of half the things on the list I have colonists literally dedicated to specific tasks, having more than 4 numbers would be redundant to me.

Being able to drag the columns around also seems superfluous to me, but atleast it wouldn't actively lessen my enjoyment of the game while also presumably fixing all the issues brought up so far.

This is pretty much spot on for me as well.  I would not want to see more numbers added, it would make manual priorities cumbersome.  If entire columns were able to be moved; I doubt i would ever use that but it wouldn't negatively affect my game play.

And as far as being able to move things around, I'd far rather be able to move colonists rows around which ultimately changes nothing except more of an ability to sort ppl.

Speaking as someone who grew up around both.  My first pc was windows, then I used OSX for around 6 years then switched back to windows.  Both operating systems work fine, but the reason I moved away from OSX is simply the lack of games.  Even with things like wine, and games ported to mac the amount of games you can reasonably play is greatly decreased.

As to how rimworld and factorio in particular and how they run on OSX i can not say as I haven't played them on OSX.  But in general most video games will be running better on windows then they will on OSX assuming equivalent hardware.  This is simply because the vast majority of games were written for and on windows, the ports allowing you to play on OSX can sometimes be pretty decent and it'd be hard to notice a difference and other times it will be a severe decrease in performance.

just a bed room for multiple people?

That one as far as i know