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Hey guys, been playing this for a while now, baby finally turned out into a toddler. There is an issue though, he just keeps crawling around the base (primitive tents, so an open area), doesn't grab for himself and doesn't properly sleep at his crib either, just crawls around crying all the goddamn time, I even thought the mother could breastfeed him for some more time, but she also lost that perk. I also had him force wear the onesie. Is there something I'm missing so I don't have to micro?

I agree that is annoying but its hardly "useless".
I maintain a long term Barracks and its pretty useful after all, you can buff a little to make it impressive, plus the further away they are from one another the less likely they are to get disturbed sleep. And even then the mood hit is pretty minor its barely anything to worry about.

That's a terrible way to play, btw. The game is designed for loss and recovery, you're totally neutering it.

I'm gonna redesign how permadeath is presented. Maybe on by default.

LoL yeah, that's a change people definitely wont screech about.
But anyway people need to calm down, he was probably joking.

I mostly use penoxy around really dangerous situations, for example, when sending out a caravan, so they are prevented from a disease downing one out of nowhere. Or when after a big fight, with near death hospitalized colonists, where an additional disease could cause them to die.
But yeah rarely worth it the time/resource efforts they take, so they do need some love. But to be honest, neutroamine is easy to get to and rather cheap, I'm usually always at a 200+ surplus of it, with my main deficit being medicine making.
Perhaps a small buff, be it longer time, or just preventing more afflictions, even flu isn't currently covered.

The point being, none of those things is ever done without information resources of some kind. Unless we're talking about someone sitting down and independently repeating the entirety of human technological innovation and discovery. In which case those progress bars should move a LOT slower.

Its entirely feasible that they're spending time designing and developing simple things, along with having some sort of previously knowledge of those technologies, like actually having encyclopedias isn't that far fetched.
But on the topic of realism, what about being able mine ready to use "steel" and "components" from mountains.Along with that, harvesting cloth pieces directly from cotton plants. Eating frozen meals straight up. Never needing a single cup of water.... and so on, you get the idea.

New build!
I'm sick, so slowing down slightly in recent days.

Solid list of changes, really liking to see you taking people reports into consideration.
On that note, make sure you take a break as well, as I know hectic it can get, don't forget to get proper resting and nutrition.

I meant: how do you know that only manufactured material - stockpiles are valid for the "look in stockpile" feature?

"Look in stockpiles" only appear work bills and they look for the worked material, eg: meals, medicine, stone blocks.
Therefor if they're only in work bills they're only looking for materials that can be crafted.

I suggest to let bedrolls be available in the caravan creation panel when you leave a map event area, even if they have not been uninstalled.

Pretty sure they're already available, at least on the unstable release, I never have to uninstall them.

[tl;dr]

Heya quick field report, this happened yesterday, before latest patch, Phoebe Hard on temperate hilly with small river biome.

So I've finally got a sapper raid, and it was refreshing since I was literally only getting mech raids (so kudos for that). On my first attempt i was caught by surprise and as they went to attack my unprotected wall, I tried to flank them from behind, but they just kept pushing and wreaked havoc inside the base with my non fighting pawns. Attached picture was my second attempt (because why not), and this time I prepared positioning properly (very quickly microing mind you), they broke two holes in the wall but couldn't break through. Ryu there in the middle is my melee powerhouse, I was in doubt about the combat system changes, but being a bloodlust with plasteel sword + power claw really made him a beast, plus the combination of plasteel plate + shield belt to protect him on the crossfire, there really is a lot more to the system then it meets at first glance and I'm glad to say its pretty satisfying. The raiders had a couple of miniguns and they pretty intimidating, and indeed be pretty dangerous had not been taken care quickly. My greatest surprise was  having the raiders, after unsuccessfully trying to breach, go for the other entrance which was now only protected by an auto-cannon, it caught me by surprise and I had to quickly scramble to send forces there, the cannon was destroyed. At this time they did not flee at all, which again, kudos for already fixing.

Now second picture is how the temperate forest looks like, 5 years in in the summer of jugust, mind you yesterday so before changes to grass growth. It looks half alright I'd say, parts of the map are green while parts where barren like picture. It feels somewhat natural, I'm able to let my animals graze for most of the year without worrying about it. Trees also starting to look alright, their tendency to spawn on rocky terrain seem to be fixed. Something that feels strange though, is that throughout most of the year there are lots, and I mean a ton of animals all around, and I mean free hunt all year, with only a toxic fallout being really a threat. Comparing this with older versions of the game, I'd say we always have a lot of meat in the freezer with vegetables being the bottleneck, since crops take a lot longer to grow, and we practically have nearly nothing wild to harvest anymore, but still plenty of wildlife all around. My suggestion to this though, is instead of fiddling with plant growth, tone down wild life amount quite a bit, so naturally there would be quite a lot more grass around, plus put wild harvesting back on the menu it would also be nice to see more wild plants besides berry/agave (and of course make wildlife quantity depend on map size).

As another side story, this raid left me three survivors, which was quite refreshing, but they were garbage and thus ended up as organ farms, so I've finally got some replacement lungs for my people. That plus butchering some corpses for my livestock feed really pushed my people over the edge, through a dreadful broken cycle, it was a pretty rough week but they pulled through. However this led to a couple of house arrests which I was pretty glad how it worked out, firstly because on both cases, I was able to peacefully arrest without fight ensuing before things got worse. My first arrest was a druggie, which worked out because she was catatonic and going through withdraw anyway, the second surprise was being able to just release the other colonist after going through her rough period. So basically you can just release prisoner back into colony, so you don't need to re-recruit them and they won't just walk out anymore (I don't know when this was fixed, but it was nice touch regardless).

Now a final story about caravaning, this happened a couple of days ago though.What happened is that I've sent a convoy out with a double mission, of getting an item stash and mining a jade deposit. Everything went somewhat smoothly, even though there were some injuries and I had to put up temporary camps (both threats were manhunting animals). However I've ended up with +- 900 jade, which equates to roughly more than 450kg of jade. so no way I would be bringing everything back in my 5 pawn caravan. I've ended up needing to transport pod quite a lot of resources, so they could build up another 4 transport pods (plus launchers and fuel) so they could send everything back home, and still walk the way back. this seemed like quite the hefty investment to me, though possible still worth it, specially considering end price of crafted jade art, though I'm not sure jade weight like that is even intended (the 1/10 change perhaps). But anyway, after doing this another "rescue mission" spawned just by my caravan's path, but this time it showed the danger of 10 sleeping mechs, which was not worth it. In some way, giving the exact threat amount I felt took away from the randomness and experience, and discouraging even trying. It would be best to only have a rough estimate, and even then only size up foreign threats to only about half of the colony's strength, since most of the time you should only be going with at most half colony anyway.

And holy crap sorry for writing this wall of text, I just got going with it, here a tl;dr summary:

• Testing out combat, both melee and ranged felt really satisfying.
• Sappers really got me by surprise, and their flanking felt smart.
• Arresting and releasing your own colonist works properly.
• Reduce overall animal count on map instead of buffing plant growth
• Also another vote to revert predators attacking pawns, I had no problem with that yet, and it should also be affected by the above.
• Having the exact threat count on missions is discouraging, only a rough approximate should be enough, plus, sizing that up to about half colony would feel right.
• Seems like Jade (and possibly other minerals) have their harvest quantities and/or weight off.
• Having at least some steel on event maps should be a thing, so that its a least feasible to transport pod back.
• Time limit on mining missions is alright, but it should be a long one at least, about an year in average.
• Same goes aggressive faction camps, they should also have a time limit, but a long one, for those cases where you just don't want to bother with some.
• Food poisoning should also be somewhat random, it feels that when conditions meet, people always get poisoned in groups. (current mechanics led me to third picture, which feels like I had no option.
• The change to wimp is welcome, but still not near enough, most things still perma down some of these guys, like fourth picture.
• Drafted pawns wont act on things outside of their allowed area, like flicking switch or putting out fires, the draft should override this.
• The "guilty prisoner" stat doesn't seem to be applying properly, and it feels somewhat short (unless it scales with how much damage they've caused.
• Breakdown rate is a bit alarming, feels like something breaks every couple of days, result is it ends up being a drag on components with no way to counter.
• Shift click on priorities should ignore non-assigned colonist, eg left/right click to bulk adjust priorities.
• The only thing that still keeps me using manual priorities is the occasional haul/clean micro, there needs to be a better solution, and I agree that a "cleanup" schedule time would work.
• There is some excessive hauling going on, they will tidy up stockpile even when its not needed, and crafters will always drop at an empty space instead of existing pile. This relates to the above since it keeps them from cleaning.
• Click and drag on the work tab would be a nice QoL addition, eg: untick and drag to remove jobs from a lot of people at the same time.
• Context sensitive scrolling on the left side panel. eg: storage, pawn tabs.

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So let me share how I'm doing combat, and the system seems to be working pretty well, responding to what you would expect from intuitive tactics. But please do correct me if I'm assuming something blatantly wrong.

This first pic was repelling a siege, this setup with walled up with sandbagged openings works kinda game equivalent of embrasures, pawns get the benefit of full cover, auto-cannon gets a pretty good range on the corner, and anything coming too close gets cut up with melee. I setup three different vestments:

• Ranger: just a regular colonist apparel + vest, what I let my fight-able pawns rest in, so they remain chill while on their day-to-day lives, but still with some protection and can dress up quicker if needed to.
• Soldier: full flak dress up, vest+pants+helmet. I don't use flak jackets pretty much out of principle. These are the geared up pawns I use on threats, either on defensive duty or while caravaning.
• Plated: full plate + shield belt, feels like a pretty good melee combo.

So right there is my first (possible wrong) assumption, that flak is better against ranged while plated is better against melee, and indeed stats would likely represent that since flak has higher piercing armor while plated has more blunt. Though considering how the armor calculation works it may not actually true, from what I understand swords and the kind also have piercing damage (same as bullets), and some deflected piercing damage may also convert into blunt. So hopefully someone can explain it better.
Another possible wrong assumption is that I always tend to use sword for my melee, though from what it looks like, a well done knife may inflict only a little less damage than a long sword, while being lighter and faster. Another point is using other melee weapons that I may have overlooked, and also whats the deal using blunt to melee bash centipedes? Whats the logic there?

Out of fun. the second picture was my first attempt at that same siege, this time I had to attack the raid full front, and well enough with some flanking I was able to beat them off. However one incendiary got into my indoor grow bed and that quickly escalated out of control, I'm not taking firefoam poppers for granted anymore.

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Hey Tynan agree that there is some information overflow right, so I'll try to keep just stuff that hasn't been mentioned.

• First picture was the result of incendiaries on a indoor growbed, though I agree that a situation like should quickly delve into Dante's Inferno (and holy crap do I need firefoam poppers), it felt I little odd that the open room (2 doors, 1 vent, cracked roof) was such an heat trap (+800°C), to the point where all of my base turned went into +200°C. And you know there's something wrong when a walled room with no roof is much more insulated than a open but roofed room. I beg you o review the system though I agree it wont be easy, but an easy workaround to avoid total failures like mine, is to have roof destruction upon a fire like that, so that more heat can escape.
• Second pic is my second attempt at fending of this siege, mind you I was able to fend off the first time, but the fire had got me. But this time around I was able to bait them into my defenses, and this is just to show what has been my alternative to killboxes. I have to say this setup works extremely well at least in my case (position, river crossing and surrounding mountains). But sadly this was among the very few situations where I got to use it, most of the time it either requires me to get out (mech ships and even the same siege before) or dropping by surprise right int he midst of it (raiders and in the last time 5 light mechs).
• Third pic, meet Blythe, my first medic who happens to also be a pot head, she's been going through Smokeleaf withdraw for what seems to be at least like half a year (since the end of the previous winter when smokeleaf stock ran out). Soon after I begun wake-up production, she went twice through binges, on the same day mind you, and since then fighting off wake-up addiction. Now she somehow she became a vegetable, and its been like ~30 days for smokeleaf, at least 10 days for the wake-up, and had she not been downed this whole time, she would probably have gone through the whole stock of wake-up. Like seriously this needs reviewing, I don't mind they acting like actual junkies, but going on a binge twice on the same day and coming with an ever lasting addiction really is off putting.
• Fourth pic is a small caravan that went for a opportunistic item stash right next to a jade mineral lump, both had manhunting packs (good for a change) with a side of cave bugs.  Now this has presented me it quite the logistical challenge, while I'm able to secure nutrition, set up camp and tend to their wounds properly, there is no way that I'm going carry all that jade back home. Because as you can see they're really close but with a mount range in between, this makes want to use transport pods even they may come at a hefty cost, 1 component + steel for each launcher plus the pod itself, I'm not even sure its worth it, but I'm still considering a half approach, to just transport the minerals and have the colonist walk back home. Now this brings two problems to my attention, that transport pods needs the same love the caravan interface got, and there really are too few pack animals (alpaca, dromedary, muffalo I'm aware).

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Non-random. First hit stuns for a long time, then they're adapted and barely affected by subsequent hits. Adaptation wears off after a (semi)-long time. It's simple, you basically get one really good stun in a fight.

I'm kinda conflicted with this one honestly, its not like the grenade pawn can just pocket another proper weapon, which makes it a somewhat one useful shot only. On the other hand having mechs go perma stun wouldn't be great either.

Oh one other thing has the construction/repair priority changed? My builders would ignore anything in need of repair if there was anything queued up to build. To get them to repair I have to either forbid or cancel all construction plans. In the past I used FLuffy's work tab mod and that gave the option to set priorities for sub categories for skills ie repairing. So I could have a builder set to repair things and others left to build first. Right now I have a lot of damaged walls and things and they are insisting on replacing my stone floor with carpet rather than fix things.

Controversial topic, people often complained about it being like that. I for one was fine with fixing priority, in case someone is banging on the door, or turret about to get destroyed and they go build some pointless piece of furniture somewhere. Either way I think is fine though, you just have see whats happening case by case, there isn't a easy catch solution for this one.

Oh it's unquestionably exploiting the fact that the AI tries to find cover before opening fire. If it didn't that one guy with a bolt action rifle would've made my life hell.. Which is why I shot him with a charge lance at the start. I've done similar raids where the enemy has had 2-3 sniper rifles, it plays out the same because of the massive windup on the rifles.
As to pawn quality.. It's 5 years in a game where I've only recruited transhumanists with the intention of giving everyone a crapload of bionics. The result is that everyone does a LOT of shooting and work so they all end up being quite high quality.
https://imgur.com/a/AmntBkl

Another thing to point, I agree that this is more of a problem with AI than needing to nerf anything else. I've found more often than not weird AI in which enemy pawns would leave their defensive positions (behind sandbags, in range of turrets) to chase my pawns in the open field and be hopelessly killed. At which point I can just long range kill the turrets.
On one side it makes raiding hostile more feasible, on another it means bad tactical AI. However AI is difficulty to design and fine tune, but hopefully the devs are aware of that.

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This is really needed afaik. I had issues with a caravan parking up exactly at my front door, leaving the freezing winter air in. In the worst cases trashing up your stockpile/freezer rooms.

But a trader spot is easily abused to kill traders and steal their stuff. Either by weapons fire or some sort of heat trap. Lot of people do that already - especially on ice sheets. As a mod that's perfectly fine and I really like it (in fact a post by me inspired its creation), but putting it into vanilla isn't as simple

That sounds counter productive, since having pawns of faction killed in your area reduces relationship, and eventually they just stop sending caravans at all, might even become hostile. Though I agree is a though act to balance it properly, like as opposed to loosing relationship from having visitors killed by whatever other accident may happen. Maybe if the whole caravan gets wiped out make it a drastic relationship damage?


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