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Messages - AcetheSuperVillain

#1
Main highlights are Krazy4Games' RimWorld War 2, Gargamiel's PokéWorld and Jecrell's Star Wars Factions. 

Highlights:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdSGb7BA5Gc

Playlist:  https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4XcRWpE00tPhM9VFuRY9_ninuRcJyj5v

RimWorld War 2:  https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2532632591

PokeWorld:  https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=2652029657

Star Wars Factions (Continued):  https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2263217873

There's about a hundred other mods going on in the background, so if you see something funny and want to know what it was, ask me here or in the YT comments. 
#2
Ideas / Reload time and clip size
September 12, 2022, 03:24:33 PM
Guns use their aim time as interval between shots until their clip is empty, then they use their reload time. 

For example, a Revolver would be able to shoot very quickly, until it expends its 6 shots, then it takes a long time to reload.  An SMG would be able to empty its entire clip very quickly.  The Bolt-Action Rifle would have a longer time between shots, but be relatively quick to reload.  Could be a button somewhere that allows pawns to reload manually. 

Under the current system, a lot of the late game weapons and modded weapons can feel weird.  Clip size should provide a new way to balance weapons, increase verisimilitude and allow for some interesting combinations like a stick-magazine Thompson vs a drum-magazine Thompson. 

"Bro, just play CE!"

CE sucks.  The normal game combat is fine, it's just guns without reloading feels weird. 

If this happens to get passed along to the game devs, I willingly forfeit any ownership of this idea and any right to seek compensation or damages if it is implemented.  Go nuts. 
#3
Mods / Mod Suggestion: Gotta Catch 'em All
August 07, 2021, 05:35:49 PM
Had kind of a random thought that's way too complicated for me to make, but I'll volunteer to help with graphics if anyone else wants to take it on. 

I got to thinking it would be fun to run a "gotta catch 'em all" campaign in RimWorld.  Like the Pokemon games, you set out from home (on a caravan) and try to catch one of every type of animal in the game.  This would probably be boring with just megasloths and muffalos, but much more entertaining if you've got mods like Alpha Animals and Race to the Rim and such.  And from there, I got into a death spiral of various Pokemon things that might be helpful in Rimworld. 

You'd probably want something like Set Up Camp https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1470065926 to actually find things to catch out in the wild, but you could possibly just set up random encounters to be more likely (maybe if you're not on the roads) and force players to run their caravans back and forth to find stuff like you do in the Pokemon games.  Encountering rival "trainers" would also be amusing, although on the Rim, maybe just increase the chance that tribals and pirates have battle animals with them. 

First off, Pokeball, there was already a pokeball mod for 1.2, https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1162860582  hasn't made it to 1.3 yet, but I love this mod, super useful for grabbing things like Feralisks that you can't realistically tame.  Would be interesting to keep battle animals in their pokeballs while you're not using them, deploy them like a grenade or something.   

Second, Pokedex, this could be a nice simple thing that just keeps track of each animal type in your game and a checkbox of whether or not you've collected one.  Maybe info like what biomes they appear in would be handy, otherwise, I think all the relevant info is already in the description system.  For real completionists, might be interesting to have one that tracks both male and female and every alternate color.  You might want the option to disclude certain animals from the pokedex, like if you want to be catching Thrumbos and Huris and not wasting your time on squirrels, or if there are animals that are too impractical like Feralisk Clutch Mothers. 

Now, if you've ever played RimWorld, you know it'd be wildly impractical to actually have one of every type of animal, let alone on a caravan.  The way you get around this in the Pokemon games is Bill's PC (which maybe they've changed the name of in later games, ol' uncle Ace only ever played the gameboy games).  Bill's PC has two main functions, it keeps your extra mons in stasis and it allows you to swap out your team in any city.  Keeping things in stasis and long distance transport are already a thing in RimWorld, although building hundreds of stasis chambers for boomrats and gazelles and whatnot or sending critters across the world in drop pods would be stupid and a very late-game kind of thing.  We'd want the PC system to be relatively simple to build, and I think you'd want to be able to access it in friendly towns.  Maybe a system similar to the Change Dresser's clothing storage menu. 

One also can't help but think of Pokemon Centers in the context of RimWorld.  In the colony, maybe it's like a big hospital bed for animals that sets their natural recovery rates to 1000% or something.  There might be something you can access in friendly cities while caravanning too.  Balance wise, you'd have to question if the Pokemon Center should be able to revive dead animals or regenerate permanent damage.  Allegedly, the Pokemon Centers in the games cannot reverse death, and RimWorld animals and pawns do actually "faint" in battle, if they don't get killed outright.  Since battle animals are often very fragile against guns, I think the ability to resurrect them or at least super health them would make it much more practical to use battle animals against serious enemies. 

Pokemarts would also be super helpful on a caravanning adventure, since you'd want to be able to buy pokeballs and not have to make a machining table in the field every time you need to restock.  Probably doesn't need to be a separate Pokemart function, just make the normal trading function more likely to have pokeballs or other necessary stuff.  To that end, maybe having a separate Pokemart option when visiting towns that doesn't clog up the normal trading could be useful.  I could see other Pokemart items like Potions or Antidotes being useful in RimWorld too, like they cure injuries or diseases, but only for animals. 

If you really wanted the Pokemon games extra credit, maybe there are Gym Leaders in friendly towns that you can challenge.  I'm thinking roll up to a town and select "Challenge Gym Leader" and you are thrown into a fight (like Attack town) and if you win, you get a randomly generated badge.  You'd need some kind of hanky panky to prevent the faction from getting mad at you for mini-gunning their citizens and animals.  You could also distribute gyms on the map as hostile factions that you need to attack, although that could get weird if they are sending raiders. 

So yeah, crazy idea, had to share.  If you wanna make part of this and need some graphics, let me know. 
#4
Yeah, Character Editor is already 1.3, much more robust, more compatible with other mods, and it can still be used mid-game.  I do think EdB Prepare Carefully has a nicer UI, and there's less of a temptation to cheat with it.   
#5
I've been thinking of modding in some custom guns.  I have a big collection of 3D model sci-fi guns that I'm planning to pre-render for the graphics.  With this kind of 3D graphic, it's really easy to change the color palette, here's an example:

So I'm wondering first of all, is this something players would even want and if so what's a good way to do it?  I know I could do a bunch of duplicates like, Cyber Pistol (Red), Cyber Pistol (Blue), Cyber Pistol (Black), etc, but this I think could be extremely annoying. 
#6
I've found some new favorite races to play as. 

Lapelli

Race:  https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2025057326
Faction:  https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2025107715
Xeva Faction Body Patch:  https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2229789446

The Lapelli race is by Bichang, who I've mentioned before, a phenomenal artist in the RW modding community.  I call the Lapelli "adorable dragon babies".  The Lapelli don't add any new tech or game mechanics, they're just super cute and cool.  Lapelli aren't especially different from Humans, but they have sharp teeth and claws and are more likely to be born with the Tough and Brawler traits.  Originally, the Lapelli were very prone to wing injuries, simple barfights would often result in them losing these limbs, but as of RW1.2, I think Bichang just removed their wings as a body part entirely. 

Interestingly, Lapelli have a race color slot that you can modify with Prepare Carefully or Change Dresser, but randomly generated Lapelli will always be snow white.  If you like having a special "hero" kind of character, making a custom color Lapelli is a fun way to do it. 

Bichang also does Ferians, I don't have a whole lot to say about them, but if you want the full Bichang cutie experience, check it out:
Race:  https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1611790118 
Faction:  https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1922097212
I think the point of Ferians is that they're supposed to be secretive, without the Ferian Faction mod, their bases are hidden and they don't show up as wanders, raiders or visitors, which I find really annoying. 


Automatons

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2029031687

A super useful race, Automatons are hardworking robots that never need sleep or bedrooms, immune to infections and diseases, and can even survive by eating grass, if they have to.  Automatons sort of meant to be a much much much simpler replacement for the Androids mod, which I find completely inscrutible.  Although you can craft Automaton parts at a Fabrication Bench, they mostly function exactly like humans.  They are very helpful colonists to have, rare enough that they don't make the game too easy (although I suppose that depends on how many races you have installed), and having sentient robots around definitely gives RimWorld more of the classical sci-fi vibe that it really lacks without modding. 

When 1.1 rolled out, Automatons got hit with a bug that made them unable to eat.  As of 1.2 this has been fixed, but keep an eye out.  Automatons are almost human, but different enough that they can get a little buggy. 


Beta-Humanoids

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1654061947

In the past, mega corporations genetically engineered human-animal hybrids that would have additional strengths for colonizing the various environments of hostile alien worlds.  The hybrids were treated as slaves and second class citizens, but on the Rim, they have no master. 

Beta-humanoids adds 11 animal hybrids, Bear, Camel, Gator, Elephant, Elk, Fox, Gazelle, Lynx, Hog, Raccoon, Wolf.  Each comes with advantages and disadvantages, for example, Elephants are larger and hit harder, but consume more food, Gazelles are fast but bad at mining, etc. 

I obviously love animals, and I think the animal-people are super fun, and an easy simple way to add lots of variety to your colonies (and raids) but the animal-races are still very intuitive.  Beta-humanoids appear as starting colonists, wanderers, raiders, outlanders, tribals, everywhere.  There are sliders in the mod settings for each race, so if you don't like Gators, you can just turn them off.  I really like the lore of this mod, and I think it fits in perfectly with a sci-fi world, but also works for fantasy worlds, if you're trying to do a fantasy themed RimWorld game. 

I think it's fair to note that Beta-Humanoids is inspired by Beast Man Tribes mod.  Beast Man Tribes might be worth a look, but I definitely feel like Beta-Humanoids is a 100% improvement.
#7
Mods / Re: ASV's Mod Reviews (Latest: Xen Races)
September 13, 2020, 05:10:25 PM
Been a while, huh?  So I got kind of discouraged when 1.1 crashed all the mods, and then just as the good ones were coming back, I thought 1.2 would do it again, but as it turns out, most 1.1 mods work perfectly in 1.2, so let's maybe pick this up again. 

Project Itzal Guns


https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=1643718814

I was heartbroken when CyberPunk didn't get updated to 1.1 (at first, it is now) so I went looking for other gun collections that might fill the same niche.  Project Itzal kind of does and kind of doesn't.  Like CyberPunk, Itzal is a MASSIVE collection of weapons that kinda drowns out any other collections you have installed.  Unlike CyberPunk, Itzal does not change the game's combat equations, and Itzal guns cover a range of timelines from past to future, but it's mainly modern.  This means that while you can down a sauropod in a few hits from a really good CyberPunk gun, the Itzal arsenal is always kinda "meh" in terms of destructive power.  The guns aren't "better" than the vanilla arsenal, they're just different (for the most part, like I said, it's a massive collection and some of them are more on par with Rimsenal than vanilla, and there are probably a few gems I never encountered in my playthroughs).  And unlike CyberPunk, you can make all the Itzal guns yourself and without any special research projects, which is great. 

Bottom line, if you like Rimworld's vanilla weapon balance, but you want A LOT more variety, Project Itzal is a great choice.  Personally, I still like CyberPunk better, now that it's back, but I have to admit that Project Itzal does offer more variety than CyberPunk, and it's nice to not have pistols and shotguns completely nerfed. 

The guns that I remember most strongly from Project Itzal are the AT cannon, AA cannon, Explosive Sniper Rifle and Aircrew Revolver.  AT and AA are massive guns that fire exploding shells at huge ranges, but they are very slow to fire and reduce movement by 50% and cost a couple hundred plasteel to produce yourself.  Explosive Sniper Rifle is similar but less destructive in exchange for less of the drawbacks.  I recommend grabbing the Misc Turret Mod so that you can mount guns like this into automated turrets or manned guns.  The Aircrew Revolver is a tiny little gun with poor range (although better range than CP pistols) but because of its quick rate of fire, you can often stun-lock enemies and effectively kite melee enemies with it.  It's a great defensive weapon for non-combatant colonists to keep in their pocket just in case.  There's another weapon called the Tanker SMG, which I think is similar, but I rarely find them in my playthroughs. 


PlanetsidePew

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1938353070

"But, Ace," you ask, "what if I do want some unbalanced spaceman guns?"  Then grab the Warhammer guns.  "Less unbalanced than that, maybe?"  Then try PlanetsidePew!  These are allegedly from the game Planetside, which I've never heard of, and as our previous conversation suggested, these guns will give a little more of a spaceman advantage than charge rifles or Rimsenal, without going quite as bonkers as the Adeptus Mechanicus or CyberPunk weapons. 

I don't have a whole lot of specific advice about these weapons, as with Itzal, I generally prefer the bonkers weapon mods or the familiarity of Rimsenal over PlanetsidePew.  You can craft PsP weapons at your base, although I thought the tech tree was a little confusing (possibly just because I was trying several gun mods at once) and the guns cost a lot of rare materials, so as usual, better to farm cocaine and send a caravan to your local outlanders to buy them instead.  I do like the aesthetics of the pack, and it is in a very specific area of balance that I think some players will really like.  Definitely worth a try. 


By the way, also in this area of balance is the Xeva Factions Mod, which I've reviewed previously, but it has been under development since then and is shaping up nicely, especially in that there are a lot more english translations for everything. 



Dubs Bad Hygiene


I've always been suspicious of this mod, but I recently decided to give it a shot and I was pleasantly surprised.  This mod adds the concepts plumbing and bathing.  Your pawns will need running water to clean themselves and use the toilet, or else gain the Bad Hygiene health condition, which will make them more likely to get sick.  Plumbing works like Power, but needs to be connected to a well.  Your pawns can also use natural water, like rivers and ponds. 

Now, I had played another mod called No Water, No Life, which requires you to drink water or die.  It's very simple to get this set up, even in a desert, but it means your pawns need to spend A LOT more time dealing with procuring water.  It was annoying, and you just didn't get anything for putting up with.  Dubs Bad Hygiene has a little bit of the same problem, but it's not as bad as NWNL, and you do get rewarded for putting up with it.  Pawns can get happy moodlets for being clean, and there are new technologies like recreational swimming pools and hot tubs, a washing machine that untaints clothing, various temperature regulating equipment, and even the "fecal sludge" that you collect from latrines and septic tanks can be turned into chemfuel or fertilizers. 

I'm very pleased with this mod so far, but I should disclaim that so far, I've only tried it with the standard crashlanding scenario on a map with a river.  I'll have to see if it stands up to Naked Brutality in an Extreme Desert sometime...
#8
Mods / Suggestion: Dark Sun RimWorld
June 18, 2020, 12:21:11 AM
Dark Sun is a sort of post-apocalyptic D&D setting.  The gods have turned their back on the world.  Arcane magic is banned.  Metal is scarce.  Society has been enslaved by diabolical Sorcerer-Kings.  Nature has been blasted into a series of unforgiving deserts, scorched further by the ever looming Dark Sun. 

Could be fun for a RimWorld mod setting. 

The main interesting thing I think would be a world without metal.  Instead of silver, people under the Dark Sun trade ceramic beads or glass gems.  Instead of steel, their weapons are made from bone, obsidian and jade.  Perhaps an innovative off-worlder could introduce materials like plastic or carbon fiber. 

Your only steel and components will be whatever you carried with you from your escape pods and salvaged from ancient mechanoids.  Escape from this world will be impossible, your only hope is to survive. 

Savage races survive under the Dark Sun:
Mul - A sterile cross breed of dwarf and human, created to be slaves or gladiators.  In sci-fi, could be genetically altered humans
Thri-Kreen - An intelligent insectoid race with 4 arms, tough chitin and a venomous bite.  The can mix their venom with the zik-thok plant to create dasl crystal, from which their native gythka and chatchka weapons are crafted. 
Pterran - Pteradactyl-like reptilians who exist on the edges of society.
Half-Giant - The magically induced spawn of humans and giants.   In sci-fi, could be genetically altered humans. 

More info:
https://darksun.fandom.com/wiki/Athas
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Sun
https://dnd-wiki.org/wiki/Canon:Dark_Sun
http://www.athas.org/
#10
Sorry if I left anyone hanging.  I stopped playing RimWorld for a while to let 1.1 happen and let the mods catch up, and I kinda forgot about this whole little side project. 

So the next races I want to review are Xen's races.  I have played them extensively in 1.0, but not 1.1.  They have been ported to 1.1, but I haven't played that yet, sorry if there's some important change between the versions. 


Xenn:  https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2018390248
Racc:  https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2018388533
Logann:  https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1120946454
Ferrex:  https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2018387954

These four races are fairly similar.  Each comes with their own starting scenarios a bunch of new back stories that are mostly referential and can be quite humorous, like Mulder, FBI Agent, but they establish a strong character for each race.  Racc are spies and assassins, Loganns are military themed, Ferrex are businessmen and Xenn I've never quite placed, although I guess they're supposed to represent a variety of 80s action movie cliches.  These four races all have lifespans of 1000, which means they tend to have very high skill levels, making them good gets on the rim.  (I'm not sure if there is any extra modding going on to produce this)  All of these races also have a chance to appear with weapons or armor equipped.  I know at least once, I had a wandering Racc appear with her own mini-gun.  Each race also gets its own faction, which are almost always peaceful (I think there's a Bad Xenn faction, but it's rare) filling the generated world with markets for your lovingly grown cocaine. 

Each race comes with a handfull of new technologies, mostly nothing especially advanced, except for the Xenn, who add 2 new charged rifles and some powered armor.  The guns are a heat gun and a cold gun, which cause burns or frostbites instead of normal wounds.  These work much like the taser weapons discussed previously, except with a much higher range and rate of fire, making them fantastic weapons for all occasions.  Loganns have a "healing factor" (based on the X-man, Wolverine, not the animal, they can't do that) which allows them to recover from very serious injuries and sicknesses.  Racc are very fleet of foot, making them great at jobs that involve a lot of walking and they can kite like champs on the battlefield.  I'm a little less familiar with Ferrex, they are less combat oriented, and therefore, I tend to notice them less. 

Overall, I really like these races.  They absolutely give the impression of a powerful, advanced alien race.  It's a little cliche to have these cultures that are kind of one-dimensional, but this is still RimWorld, your alien colonists will rise to whatever challenges Randy throws at them.  There's no question that these races are overpowered, they will make your human colonists and most other alien races seem obsolete, but personally, I think that makes the game more interesting.  You might be more motivated to go on a rescue mission for a Racc agent or willing to spend extra money for a Logann slave.  I can see how some people might feel like Xen's backstories are a little too referential and goofy, it might be immersion breaking for some, but for me, I can usually ignore that or just think of their backstories as alien equivalents to the stories of our human culture.  And since it's the Racc who get the goofiest stories, Racc are supposed to be spies, so I could imagine a Racc colonist just lying about their backstory. 



Xen has a lot of other fun mods on his page that are worth a look.  He's got Argonians, Asari, Star Wars races, Jaffa, Werewolves (like the transforming kind) and some other miscellaneous helpfuls.  There are some vulpine races that kind of match the style of the four races earlier, Frijjid and Fenni, but the artwork is not as good, and they don't add any new tech or interesting lore to the game, so they don't get my recommendation. 
#11
QuoteWould it even be possible for me to make such a mod?

So obviously, your version is much more specific, but the easiest form of this I can think of would be an item like the tornado generator that calls the flash-storm event instead.  From there, maybe you could work it into something closer to what you have in mind. 
#12
For a long time I've wanted to cover the alien races for RimWorld.  I wanted to do a big all-out post, like I did for animal mods, but I'm just not finding the time for it, and these mods usually merit a deeper investigation.  So instead, I'm going to start with a few of my favorites. 


And, I'm going to start us off lite, with a mod that isn't really an alien mod: 

Murry Mod
https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=1423368669


This wonderfully simple mod just changes all of the previously human faces into animal faces.  It's purely cosmetic.  Since a lot of the alien race mods can be pretty complicated and start causing glitches or not playing well with other mods, the Murry Mod is a nice way to add some non-human flavor to your game.  If you don't want the fully furry experience, you can always go into the image file folder and replace a few of them with whatever face files you usually use. 

I especially like doing this with CyberPunk, since its various style changes tend to not play well with a lot of the alien races. 



Orassans
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1541519487


The Orassans are a race of technologically advanced cat-people who prefer colder climates.  I'm not a huge fan of the Orassans themselves, but I love the various technologies that they bring to the Rim.  Basically, they make great neighbors, even if you don't play as them.  The mod also comes with a special Orassan storyteller whose style is a bit hard to nail down, basically pretty close to Phoebe Chillax, but with more spacer enemies, I think. 

Orassans come with a bunch of advanced military equipment, spacer guns, powered armor and the deadly Orassan Saber.  Orassan military equipment is more or less on par with Rimsenal, it's better than anything you'll find in the base game, but not completely bonkers.  My favorite is the Tunda Falcon, an advanced handgun with a high accuracy and rate of fire. 

The Orassan mod adds special cold-weather crops, which I'm not too familiar with because I don't often play in cold climates, but one is like caffeine and the other is like alcohol.  There is a new animal called the Ori, a sort of monkey-like thing that is small, but is advanced trainable.  Orassan merchants can sell you a device called the Orassan Power Transfer, which will generate electricity proportional to how friendly you are with the Orassan faction.  (see?  great neighbors)  Finally, the best thing about Orassans is their Neo-crete material.  It's made from crushed rocks and a small amount of steel, mixed at the stone cutter, or a special electric concrete mixer that will do it in bulk.  Neo-crete is stronger than granite and quick to build.  I also like that it gives you a way to combine various rock types into a single material. 

I typically don't play the Orassan starting scenario or seek out Orassan colonists, but I do enjoy them as trading partners and as guests.  And I think that's what they were designed to be, this is someone's original creation and she wanted it to feel fun and friendly for everyone. 



Ni'hal
https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=1541567184


Ni'hal come from the same creator as the Orassans and share a similar design and lore, although I think they were originally a Stellaris randomly generated race that came to life and jumped out of her computer.  But the Ni'hal are very much the polar opposite of Orassans, instead of being friendly neighbors, they are hell-bent on eradicating all other life from the universe.  "Suffer not a xeno to live!" 

Like the Orassans, the Ni'hal mod adds several spacer guns and powered armor.  Ni'hal equipment is on par with Orassan and Rimsenal equipment, but it's more practical and spartan, you'll find the typical shotgun, rifle, sniper types.  Ni'hal do not send traders, only raiders, so you will only obtain these weapons as loot.  Ni'hal raiders send a lot of melee units equipped with shield belts, though they don't have any native melee weapons of their own. 

Since Ni'hal are designed to be more of an enemy race, they don't add as much cool stuff to the game as Orassans.  There is a recipe to make insect jelly at the kitchen.  I think people's favorite thing about the Ni'hal mod is the introduction of an alien creature known as the "Drake".  These large, voracious predators are incredibly dangerous, but can be tamed by the brave colonists into faithful and very useful companions.  There are also mods to get Drakes on their own and there patches to make them compatible with A Dog Said and Animal Gear.  As far as animal mods go, they are not top tier like Death Claws or Acklays, but they are stronger than anything in the base game.  Not strong enough to help against Mechanoids, but they are strong enough to fight off tribals and maybe pirates if you're clever with them. 

The Ni'hal mod also comes with an absolutely fantastic starting scenario and storyteller, which are best used together.  You get to start with 10 Ni'hal colonists and an arsenal of Ni'hal weapons, and the Ni'hal storyteller will send you nothing but raids.  Supposedly the Ni'hal colonists will not be bothered by sleeping in barracks, so you can pack them in like sardines, but I find that it's still best to make them as comfortable as possible, since a Ni'hal in a bad mood can be extra dangerous.  Ni'hal always have the Xenophobe trait, which makes them dislike other alien races, but unfortunately, they're still not cool with butchering and eating them, and when you've got 10 mouths to feed, you really need to work hard to keep them fed. 

Ni'hal can still show up as normal randomly generated colonists in spacer factions.  These tamer Ni'hal will unfortunately still have the Xenophobe trait, and may start with special Ni'hal weapons or armor. 

Ni'hal are a great faction, whether you play as them or just add them to the list of raiders. 
#13
Mods / Re: [Request] Suicide
December 29, 2019, 12:24:39 AM
I think it would make sense for colonists to try suicide, at least that's a much more common and believable reaction than a lot of things they do.  Ideally it should be something that you can notice and stop them, if there's someone around. 

I don't know if variety is really necessary for it, I think I would just do:

- cut wrists and wait to bleed out, maybe colonist goes into a Daze and can't be treated until they collapse. 

- blowing their brains out with a gun, maybe they go to their room or an empty grave to do this, so that there's a chance to stop them. 

- intentionally ODing if there's a substance like yayo around that they could do that with. 
#14
Quote from: CucumberedPickle on December 25, 2019, 12:50:21 AM
Hey, since you like wildlife mods, how about reviewing the Vanilla Animals Expanded mods. There are like 10 of them now, each one adding 3-8 animals of a specific biome or category, that, as the name implies, add animals that expand to vanilla.

I've seen the series around, but it doesn't interest me, so I doubt I'll go to the trouble of trying them out.  In lieu of a review, I'll explain. 

It strikes me as uninteresting.  Generally, in a RimWorld mod, I'm looking for content that makes the Rim feel more alien and futuristic, and this collection, by design, does not do that.  You can also get the same thing from the Animal Collab Project (which I've reviewed previously) which also has fun sci-fi fantasy creatures like the Dire Wolf, Wooly Horse and Jackalope, and puts everything into a single mod, which strikes me as more convenient. 

Unfortunately, it's not something that I could quickly review either, I'd have to play multiple games in multiple biomes to really get a feel for it. 

I will say that I've got several mods by the same developer, Oskar Potocki, so I feel sure that the overall quality of the mod is probably good.  Frankly, I trust it to be exactly what it sets out to be, a little more variety without anything game-changing.  Usually I'm a fan of Oskar's artistic style, but for some reason, I don't like his animal drawings as well.  Part of the reason I've always used ACP instead of Extended Vanilla is that I like the artwork of ACP better. 

For future reference, much of this philosophy extends to the Vanilla Extended weapons and armor mods as well.  I trust the team to do a decent job, but they just don't offer anything that I particularly want.  I also don't like to have clutter, I don't want my game to get clogged up with animals or items that just make me wait longer for the Triceratopses and CAWS rifles that I actually want. 

Related note: I recently discovered the RimWorld Bestiary Wiki,
which catalogs most of the major animal mods, like Vanila Animals Extended and Animal Collab Project.  It's a great resource, and it's incomplete, so if you like playing RimWorld and contributing to wikis, I encourage you to give them a hand. 


#15
I just tried a kind of random mod, and I absolutely love it

Run and Gun
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1204108550


Run and gun is kinda random mod by roolo, who has done some other mods that I really like (and havent' reviewed, now that I think of it).  I had always skipped it, because it sounded like it would get buggy and not particularly useful, but after finally giving it a shot, I can happily report that it is neither of those things.  Basically, it gives your pawns the ability to move and shoot at the same time, at the cost of decreased movement and accuracy, which you can adjust from the mod menu. 

Run and Gun is wildly, incredibly useful.  The most obvious strategy is that you can keep shooting at something while running away, which is especially useful against dinosaurs and other dangerous melee oriented opponents, as they'll start to slow down after a few shots.  Another strategy could be to keep shooting while moving from one area of cover to the next, or allow a melee pawn to fire some shots while they're closing in (assuming you have Side Arms or a melee/ranged hybrid weapon, although it can also be useful to engage in melee to tie up a dangerous ranged weapon). 

A fair question is whether or not Run and Gun is fair.  For one thing, keep in mind that enemies can do it too, including firing at you as they retreat.  But of course, melee oriented enemies, especially wild animals or Cosmic Horrors, won't have that advantage, so that area of the game becomes much easier.  Also, it's something that I think most RTS games allow, and it's fairly realistic.  Roolo also does the Giddy-Up mods, and it absolutely makes sense that you'd be able to move and shoot while on horse-back (or dog-back or triceratops-back or whatever).  It also makes the game more fun and opens up new strategies, which I think cancels out the fairness question completely.  And I feel like if one part of the game feels unfair, you can always make the game more difficult in other areas to compensate.  Roolo also does a funny rant in the description:  "Take a look at the mod settings, you can make RunAndGun as useless or as OP as you want. This makes saying that this mod is overpowered is as silly as saying your television is too loud because you never figured out how to tweak the volume. "



Why not knock out some more of Roolo's mods...

Search and Destroy
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1467764609


This is another very simple concept, you can set pawns to be AI controlled while drafted.  I liked this option for melee pawns, but not for shooter pawns.  This allows melee pawns to automatically go after a new target as soon as they've finished one, or if their target got knocked out before they reached it.  Shooters on the other hand will always try to shoot from cover, which can lead to them doing stupid things.  The obvious thought is that they'd be able to chase after and shoot down enemies that are fleeing after a battle, but this doesn't actually work because they'll slow themselves down by looking for cover instead of following as the crow flies.  As far as I know, the AI won't try to kite melee enemies, so it doesn't help with that either.

Now that I think of it, this might be designed to work with Run and Gun, having the two mods at once might make it more effective. 

I give a mild recommendation for this mod.  It can be useful, especially for a melee-heavy strategy, but it doesn't really add any functionality to the game, so it might be better to keep your loading time that few seconds faster. 



Giddy-up!

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1216999901
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1217001091
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1253251478
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1331961995

I've already mentioned Giddy-up several times, and as you can probably tell from my first review, I'm a big fan of animal mods, so this is an absolute must-have mod.  Basic in explanation, this mod allows your colonists to ride animals, using the animal's base walking speed instead of their own.  The various sub-mods allow you to ride animals into combat, automatically ride them around the map, or ride them on caravans in the world map. 

Animals need at least Obedience training to be ridden around.  For automatic riding, a colonist will run a little pathfinding algorithm to see if it's faster to grab an animal or just walk there themselves.  If they decide to ride, the chosen animal will pause and wait for the colonist to come ride it, then pause again for a small amount of time after reaching the destination.  Riding an animal into combat will also allow the animal to use its melee attack, and can be a way to essentially command animals directly.  For the world map, when you add an animal to your caravan, you can select a pawn as that animal's rider.  This will preclude the animal from being able to haul cargo, but replace the rider's base speed with the animal's base speed, which can allow you to travel distances insanely quickly with the right mount. 

One of the fun things about Giddy-up is that a lot of previously fast-but-useless animals are now very useful as mounts.  Some of my favorite mounts:
From vanilla, the Gazelle is insanely fast, and it's small, doesn't eat a lot and reproduces quickly.  If you're in colder climates, Deer are second best option.  Muffalo and Camels are good to ride around on the home map, but not for caravans, as they are better off hauling cargo.  By default, huskies and labradors are large enough to be used as mounts in the mod options.
From Dinosauria, I love the gigantoraptor as a mount, these are very fast and pack a whallop if you get into a fight with them.  Gallamimus is a little weaker but a little faster.  Of course in combat, any of the giant dinosaurs are great, a lot of them are strong enough to knock out mechanoids on their own, and combined with a human rider, they can really shine.  Megafauna has the macrauchenia, but otherwise they are pretty slow and not as good as dinosaurs at combat.  Alpha Animals has the various aves species, which are a pain to tame (literally), but make very rewarding mounts.  If you can somehow obtain one, feralisks are great because they're fast, deadly and they'll use their web spitting attack in combat.  And obviously horses from the animal collab project or stand alone horses are fantastic.  I will warn that SpiderCamp's horses have a whopping speed of 10, which is completely ridiculous.  The ACP cheetah for comparison has a speed of 7.5.  Jorogumo from the Yokai Village is also a cool mount, since Jorogumo silk is necessary for a lot of the Yokai tech recipes, it's nice that your tamed Jorogumo also make very effective mounts. 



And if you remember my review of Dual Wield, that was also a roolo mod.  Good work, bro. 

Roolo also does What the Hack, and Giddy-up Mechanoids which allegedly allows you to hack and tame Mechanoids.  I've never tried it, because it sounds dangerous and late-gamey, but since I vouch for the developer, I'll mention it, in case you want to give that a try.