Messages

> LWM > Mehni

Don't worry about it.

I'll make some made up rules and enjoy the game as is.

Something like: maximum number of traps on the map = number of pawns - number of pawns with melee/shooting skill > 6. Should provide a more balanced combat experience where both melee/shooting and traps are useful.

I simply find baffling how nobody has modded it yet given how broken traps/turrets are.

> Canute

I suppose that could work. It should be possible following a guide + slapping together some of the smoke leaf joint code and trap code + visual assets together, or do I need something else?

protected override IEnumerable<Toil> MakeNewToils()

This?

Is that possible to add some lines to exclude some specific buildings, or how does that work? Ideally, we still want to use the construction skill to build x, but no experience is gained doing so.

What else would you suggest that is easier to implement? I just want to nerf traps with no side effect lol.

No. The skilledstonecutting mod adds a def stats that links the work stone cutting to the construction skill, and the mad skills mod seems to add a bunch of modifiers  (multipliers) using Harmony. ([HarmonyPatch(typeof(SkillRecord))]. So something to do with SkillRecord I suppose.

I kinda need more information lol.

I had a look at some mods that mess with the experience gains, like skilled stonecutting and mad skills using either notepad++ or dnspy, but neither seems to be relevant to what I'm trying to do.

Is there not an easy way to mod all def security buildings = 0 experience I could try to mod on my own?

I want to turn off the experience toward the construction skill a pawn gains from building all traps. (in another mod, I increased the work to build value x20, but the experience for the construction skill is per tick and not per task, so it's bonkers)

How do I go about it?

Can it be done with xml alone? I don't know how to C#.

> Like pyromaniacs; there's no balance to it; it just sucks.

Pyromaniac isn't a skill, it's a trait. There are positive traits and negative traits and they both balance each other out since you'll generally get both on the same pawn.

Skills determine how everything is played and how you are going to overcome every situation. The more varied and balanced skills are, the more options you have to overcome a challenge, and the more interesting the game is as a result.

You can use the plants skill to harvest wild berries, or you can use the plants skill to plant rice (plants skill op), or you can use the shooting skill to hunt animals. All those options share the same goal, to get food, but the methods used to accomplish that goal are different and offer different ways to experience the game.

> And what do you think about mining

Mining allows you to gather crafting material, construction material and build walls (as a byproduct of mining around it) and thus acts as a substitute for construction in some biomes/terrains. It's definitely a mid tier skill, ranging from useful to indispensable.

A tier list would look like this:

Plants (super op) > construction (traps are super op) > cooking (food poisoning = death) > medical ( can't self tend / infection = death) > crafting / mining / intellectual (always useful) > animal / social / artistic (situationally useful later on) > shooting (only useful when hunting is the only source of food) > melee (never useful).

There will be some small variations depending on the biome and terrain used, but that's where RimWorld's balance is is atm. Overall, shooting and melee need a serious buff, but this thread is only about melee.

> --LWM

Why do you keep talking about increasing your stats? It's not about increasing your stats, it's about balancing the game and making the melee skill more useful. Currently, melee skill only has one purpose, to fight raiders, and it's not even good at it, regardless of how many points you have in it.

For example, the plant skill allows you to get food from bushes and plantations, medical herbs, crafting materials for clothes, weapons, drugs, construction materials etc... It's not only very versatile but also very useful since all those materials are indispensable to do anything. In a similar vein, the shooting skill allows you to fight raiders and also hunt animals to get food unscathed. It's not as useful as the plant skill, but food is indispensable and in some biomes hunting is the only source of food.

The post is about buffing the melee skill to be at least on par with the ranged skill in terms of versatility and usefulness.

Btw, the melee hunting mod available on steam doesn't work. It simply makes the pawn attack animals instead hunting them, it's useless.

Attacking and hunting aren't the same thing. If you melee attack an animal, you start a normal fight and he is going to attack back and you are going to get injured and die. Hunting or stealth hunting however it is called only has a small chance to trigger retaliation.

The idea behind the melee hunting mod or the harvesting idea is to buff the melee skill to make it a more useful and desirable stat since it's currently the worst stat in the game. It also increases the number of strategies available.

The thing is, the delta between skill=0 and skill=20 is kinda low currently since melee=0 is already 50% accuracy and melee=20 is only 90%. You get maybe a 15-20% difference in most fights. Melee=10 and melee=20 is only a 10% difference. It's really RNG heavy and the fight is going to be really bloody with lots of injuries on both sides.

If you increase the delta however, you create situations where low level fights will last forever where both pawns miss all the time, not something you want.

And the difference of a few levels still won't be noticeable enough.

Ideally, we only want to change how fights with a medium to high skill difference between 2 pawns are resolved, without changing anything else.

[1. Pawns with high melee/ranged skills should win fights more decisively.]

I was testing the waters how difficult it would be to rebalance Rimworld combat a bit, without making the game more difficult.

Stuff like:

1. Pawns with high melee/ranged skills should win fights more decisively.

How to? Reduce raiders melee and ranged skills across the board. Apply the difference between both the pawn and the raider skills as a malus to whoever has the lowest skill. If pawn = 10 melee skill and raider = 7 melee skill, then raider = 7 - 3 = 4 melee skill.

2. Nerf traps/turrets.

How to? Increase the work to build value to match the time a pawn spends resting to heal injuries from melee/ranged combat.

3. Buff the melee skill.

How to? Make it more versatile by enabling melee hunting or other activities.

I did some poking at the xml files but I don't know C++ and 1. seems difficult to implement even for someone good with C++.

You use your hands, good enough.

Anyway, this mod is too much work and ain't gonna happen.

1. This would require some recoding of various other things, like work priority, incapable of violent trait etc.

2. This possibly makes non violent starts non-viable, not an intended change.

A good alternative is the melee hunting mod, which already exists, but I haven't tested it.

54 x 60 = 3240. Close. That's probably it. Thanks.

I only need to use the PatchOperationReplace command to change that value right?

Let's say I want all raiders to have a maximum of 5 in melee/ranged skills, can a mod do that?

The wiki doesn't explain how the raider's combat score affects the raider's melee and ranged skills.

The goal behind that change would be to make pawns with a high melee and ranged skill more desirable and thus rebalance the combat system a bit.

I want to increase the time it takes to build traps significantly.

The value on the wiki and in game are "work to build = 54 (base) and = 38 (wood)".

However when I look at the xml file RimWorld\64 Bit\Mods\Core\Defs\ThingDefs_Buildings\Buildings_Security.xml, the value is "<WorkToBuild>3200</WorkToBuild>". Other values like health match the wiki and in game.

Am I looking at the wrong file?