Menu

Show posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.

Show posts Menu

Messages - Arq

#1
The fiance breakup bad thought lasts a looooong time.  30 days!  And it's big.  Maybe a 7 day stronger debuff and a smaller one for the rest of a 15-30 day interval would be more appropriate.

The guy running around with that debuff was super upset and kept having breakdowns while caravaning.  Actually, this was fine because worldmap mental breaks appear to have no effect.  Is there supposed to be something that they do?  I'm not sure what would be appropriate, but I snickered when the pyro decided to burn down someone else's forest instead of mine.

Hilariously, two weeks later I found out why she broke up with him.  I got a call for help from a prisoner at a pirate camp.  The call was from his lover.  I guess the fiance had already found out, perhaps from an earlier message that she had 'forgotten' to pass on to the rest of the colony.
#2
Got a corrupted save today.  I saved while a caravan was unloading at base and there was still a muffalo to unload (may or may not be unrelated to corruption).  The dev console popped up with a bunch of xml errors.  A short time later, as another caravan was arriving at a site (and generating the encounter, IIRC), I got a CTD.  Loading the corrupted save throws a bunch of errors but ultimately finishes with just loading the world map and no colony (it appears on the map, but no way to load it).  I have one of my caravans that I can still interact with, but that's it.

Error files and corrupted save attached.  If I can reproduce it, I'll try to get a save closer to the crash and update this post.

[attachment deleted due to age]
#3
They did increase plant lifespan a few days ago, which at least lets trees reach maturity on maps with 10/60 growing, but I agree that it may make sense for some varieties to tolerate cold or heat slightly more effectively.
#4
I lost my notes from my play last night when my PC hanged (I think some hardware is going bad), but I'll put down what I can remember:

v1971 Cassie Rough, Tundra 10/60

- On day 6 I had 10(!) cats join my colony of 3.  Seemed a little excessive.  Needless to say, I wasn't prepared to grow food for them and cats are useless anyway, so I built a table and butchered them ASAP.
- The wildlife on tundra is a bit lush.  There is almost always a herd of muffalo or ibex or elk to hunt.  It doesn't seem to match the tundra description and I felt the shortage of leather/meat added something to tundra.
- Animal migrations pass very quickly.  Even acting immediately, hunters often fail to get something.
- Thanks for increasing the tree lifespan.  That fixed my issue with trees never reaching maturity on tundras.  However, I think that trees are just a bit too dense now.  Although pawns have to walk further to chop than in a forest, it doesn't feel like there is any sort of scarcity.  I could have a few woodfired generators if I wanted them.
- I feel forced to rush batteries at the start of wood-scarce maps because wind is so unreliable (and half-a-day without heat or warms clothes is to be avoided).  I use a generator on wooded maps but on wood-scarce maps wind is all I can afford at the start.  Of course, if the tundra/shrubland vegetation stays at the new, higher level then this point doesn't apply to them (but probably still to ice/desert).
- I had a pawn die to infection for unclear reasons.  They were going to pull through by a few percent, but mysteriously died instead.  Infection was already at extreme and their other wounds were only getting better, so I couldn't figure out why it happened.
- I find myself rushing microelectronics solely for the orbital trade beacon.  It feels like this might be better as its own tech under electricity.  Local trade doesn't deal in everything, so it can be hard to liquidate items or buy stuff otherwise.  (There's a big bump in my colony wealth from when I was awarded a masterwork plasteel hospital bed.  I tried to caravan it away but they wouldn't buy.)
- The 'bonded animal death' thought lasts quite a while.  Much longer than 'colonist died,' but I haven't had a 'friend died' lately to compare it to that.
- Haven't had a lot of it to work with this game yet, but scar pain felt a little excessive a few patches ago (don't recall any changes mentioned).  A pawn with a scar spends the rest of their life with -5 mood (I've never been lucky enough to have a scarred masochist), which I find much more significant than the efficiency loss of the wound.  Obviously we only count extreme scars (most wounds never scar), but still it seems like they might acclimatize to the pain (if only for mood, even if not for downed-by-pain).  I've been trying to be less picky with pawns, as you've suggested, but it definitely factors in.
- Debug graph below.  One pawn killed.  The refugee and one other pawn abducted during a refugee-chased event.  You'll note that there was a 40-day period with no raids and few other threats, which got a bit dull.

[attachment deleted due to age]
#5
Been playing a Tundra 10/60 map on Cassy Rough for about three years.  In case you're still looking for adaption graphs, mine's attached.  Seven (soon eight) living colonists and one dead.  My comments from this play:

- It would be nice to be able to force a downed pawn or prisoner into clothes.  I stripped a downed defender on an outpost assault and then decided to take them with me after all.  They died to frostbite a short time later, even though I had suitable clothing I could have put them in for the journey.
- Floors can be dirtier than dirt floors.  Until you have the pawnticks to spare for cleaning, it seems you're better-off unfloored.  That seems odd.
- I delay flooring because, on top of what I said above, it's very expensive.  They cost about as much as walls but you need many more of them.  Wood floors are the only ones that could be called "cheap," but that only applies to biomes with plentiful trees.  Maybe flagstone should be cheaper than it is.
- Food poisoning doesn't occur for the first year or so.  This seems a bit over-generous, maybe just do that for a season.  When it started happening I was left confused and wondering why my food was suddenly so bad.  Eventually I deduced that it had to be a honeymoon ending.
- Trees grow very poorly on cold maps.  Tundras are supposed to have sparse trees, but after the initial spawn I never saw a tree above 50% (not that there were many, of course).  It was not because I was chopping them, it seems that they were dying of old age before reaching maturity.  Perhaps trees (at least cold-weather trees) could have a lower range of growing temperatures.  Maybe they decline linearly from 10C to -20C instead of 10C to 0C like other plants.
- I, too, would appreciate the option to disable refueling of fires/torches/generators/etc. (maybe generators already have that option? I can't remember).
- People like to talk to themselves at parties.  Or, at least, artists assume people talk to themselves at parties.  While it makes for hilarious artwork, you may want to check into that.  Example artwork attached.

[attachment deleted due to age]
#6
A few observations and remarks from a bit more play:

-Healroot is not killed by cold.
-It appears that tainted items cannot be used to fulfill trade quests.  That's fine, but it would have been nice to have that in the quest description to save me the walk.
-Psychic ship pulses affect colony animals.  I'm sure that's intended but I was caught by surprise when my two rhinos turned on me just after starting the mech fight.  That was a colony wipe.
-Colony animals can have a mental break while already manhunter.  Learned that after one of the pulsed rhinos killed its master and renewed manhunter.
-Manhunting colony animals will attack each other.  After downing my four pawns, my two rhinos turned on each other, just to make the wipe extra-complete.
-After savescumming that wipe, the pulse happened again.  This time I managed to flee to my base only to learn that manhunting colony animals can use colony doors.  I think that should be disabled.  Do they obey forbidden doors when manhunting?  At least I survived that one.
-Wimps are very annoying in cold weather (well, even more-so).  They will seek safe temperature just barely before reaching their pain threshold, rarely with enough time to actually save themselves.
-Once the handler is downed, released animals will disengage and insist on fleeing.  It doesn't end well for them, since they tend to be tangled up in the middle of the enemy at that point and run in circles eating bullets.
#7
Started a new base.  Only about 30 days in but the rampup looks reasonable so far (trends up but bumps down on setbacks).  I'll try to post it if I get to 100 in the next few days.

A few thoughts:
- 24hr drug binges are very long.  I could possibly understand this for a mental break but for chemical interest/fascination it's becoming a bit annoying (it seems to trigger a couple of times a year, though I haven't been following very closely).  Thankfully I haven't been raided or had another all-hands situation (yet) while a pawn was on a recreational binge, but it would be a bit frustrating if I did.
- The tree planting research is pretty expensive given that (if it's relevant to your map) it's a high-priority one.  Once you do get it, the planting itself is also pretty slow.  ~5hrs per tree for a 9-skill grower is about what I measured.  If it was 2 or 3 I wouldn't be bothered very much.  I suppose that making it much faster would make the wood shortage on sparse maps irrelevant, so there's a reason for it to be long.  Mixed feelings there.
- Speaking of hard-to-get trees, it may be nice if production benches could be made from blocks.  I suppose I could make them from steel if I were really desperate, but it seems weird that stone isn't an option.  It exacerbates the tree crunch at the start of sparse maps.
- Hydroponics basins are very expensive.  It's an awful lot of steel for a small number of growing spots, even considering the fertility bonus.  I guess they're important for dirtless maps, but it's almost impossible to justify their use otherwise.  And this is all to say nothing of how quickly they kill plants during a power outage (fortunately, solar flares don't seem to last long enough to quite kill a crop on their own).
#8
Really been enjoying the unstable build so far.  A few quick remarks:

- Hydroponics, the crematorium, and the advanced research bench (but not the basic bench) cannot be un/reinstalled like most production things can now.  I'm probably missing a few in there, too.  I'm not sure if this is intended (for some particular reason) or just an oversight.
- I've had an issue with pets (mostly my labradors) going nuts every time I have beer in storage.  They chug it hard and I often have a puppy blacked-out on the stockpile floor, even when there is perfectly good food in the freezer (which is usually closer to them).  I recall this was a thing in 0.18 and before (which I modded out), but it's really a hassle to have to allocate special stockpiles and zones just to keep them out of the stuff.
- Research feels a little fast.  It takes no-time to blast to whatever tech in the tree you want, at least for industrial-tech factions.  (Well, at least it was fast until everyone refused to do it because "research is a long-term task."  Some bug happening there.)
- Water mills are very strong.  I'm not sure what the right offset is to put watermills in line.  Maybe they should give less power and/or have a larger interference range?  It seems silly to hassle with solar/wind when hydro is so easy and consistent.

EDIT: a couple more I thought of just after posting.
- I am finding the quests much more compelling than before.  It would be nice to have the current quests listed somewhere so that you don't have to click around sites on the worldmap to find them.  Also, it might be nice to list the faction relation changes for completing quests or when performing trades.
- Drug binges last quite awhile.  One of my pawns decided to go for psychite tea (or whichever drug comes in tea form) and, thanks to the energy boost, continued to consume one every hour or two for 24hrs before finally settling down.  This was for a chemical interest pawn, not a normal mental break.
#9
What if traps only triggered on entities (any or maybe only hostile) that were under attack?  Sure, anyone can see the danger and carefully navigate it under normal circumstances.  But doing that is much trickier in a stressful situation where you're dodging bullets or a bludgeon.  It would change traps from being totally passive defense to a semi-active one that enhances an active defense.  It would potentially make trap corridors less viable (and thus remove them from the grand balancing scheme).  You could engage hostiles with a pawn at the end, but you'd likely need multiple pawns with lines of fire to endanger multiple hostiles with the trap corridor.

I'm not sure how I'd like unaligned wildlife to interact with traps.  People have mentioned making inadvertent meat farms by accidentally baiting wildlife with farms or grass, which seems undesirable.

It'd be a pretty dramatic functional change, and I'm not entirely satisfied with this proposal, but trap hallways (which seem to represent the majority of their use) always just seemed like a cheesy way to downsize raids.  I wouldn't classify them as particularly 'fun', mostly they were just 'really darned useful if you don't like getting shot'.