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Years ago I bought RimWorld directly from ludeon.com, but today I finally got around to registering it with my Steam library (I didn't have Steam back then, whereas now it is just about all that I use). However, I'm confused as to how I can go about buying the Royalty DLC. I'd prefer to get it through Steam, just to simplify payment, but I don't see a "Manage My DLC" link on the Steam game page, unlike with all of the games I've actually purchased through Steam. It looks like Steam will let me buy the Royalty DLC, but I'm concerned that doing so might result in it not working with my copy of RimWorld since the latter doesn't appear to be a "true" Steam purchase (despite the fact that I downloaded it anew today via Steam). Can I buy the DLC from Steam, or do I have to go through the ludeon.com website again and then do the same registration of Royalty with Steam?

Every time I start up the downloaded build 2009 for the Mac, I get the errors below shown in a dialog as soon as the main menu appears, before I have even tried to set up a game.  I have no mods installed ... this is the completely unmodified B19 Mac build as downloaded from SendOwl (not Steam).

RimWorld 0.19.2009 rev495
Verse.Log:Message(String, Boolean)
RimWorld.VersionControl:LogVersionNumber()
Verse.Root:CheckGlobalInit()
Verse.Root:Start()
Verse.Root_Entry:Start()

XML error: <graphicsQualityIndex>1</graphicsQualityIndex> doesn't correspond to any field in type PrefsData. Context: <PrefsData><volumeGame>0.8</volumeGame><volumeMusic>0.4</volumeMusic><graphicsQualityIndex>1</graphicsQualityIndex><adaptiveTrainingEnabled>True</adaptiveTrainingEnabled><preferredNames><li></li><li></li><li></li><li></li></preferredNames><resourceReadoutCategorized>False</resourceReadoutCategorized><runInBackground>False</runInBackground><customCursorEnabled>True</customCursorEnabled><edgeScreenScroll>True</edgeScreenScroll><temperatureMode>Fahrenheit</temperatureMode><autosaveIntervalDays>1</autosaveIntervalDays><pauseOnLoad>False</pauseOnLoad><devMode>False</devMode><langFolderName>English</langFolderName><logVerbose>False</logVerbose><pauseOnError>False</pauseOnError><userName>Anonymous</userName><historyUpload>Unspecified</historyUpload></PrefsData>
Verse.Log:Error(String, Boolean)
Verse.DirectXmlToObject:ObjectFromXml(XmlNode, Boolean)
Verse.DirectXmlLoader:ItemFromXmlFile(String, Boolean)
Verse.Prefs:Init()
Verse.Root:CheckGlobalInit()
Verse.Root:Start()
Verse.Root_Entry:Start()

XML error: <userName>Anonymous</userName> doesn't correspond to any field in type PrefsData. Context: <PrefsData><volumeGame>0.8</volumeGame><volumeMusic>0.4</volumeMusic><graphicsQualityIndex>1</graphicsQualityIndex><adaptiveTrainingEnabled>True</adaptiveTrainingEnabled><preferredNames><li></li><li></li><li></li><li></li></preferredNames><resourceReadoutCategorized>False</resourceReadoutCategorized><runInBackground>False</runInBackground><customCursorEnabled>True</customCursorEnabled><edgeScreenScroll>True</edgeScreenScroll><temperatureMode>Fahrenheit</temperatureMode><autosaveIntervalDays>1</autosaveIntervalDays><pauseOnLoad>False</pauseOnLoad><devMode>False</devMode><langFolderName>English</langFolderName><logVerbose>False</logVerbose><pauseOnError>False</pauseOnError><userName>Anonymous</userName><historyUpload>Unspecified</historyUpload></PrefsData>
Verse.Log:Error(String, Boolean)
Verse.DirectXmlToObject:ObjectFromXml(XmlNode, Boolean)
Verse.DirectXmlLoader:ItemFromXmlFile(String, Boolean)
Verse.Prefs:Init()
Verse.Root:CheckGlobalInit()
Verse.Root:Start()
Verse.Root_Entry:Start()

XML error: <historyUpload>Unspecified</historyUpload> doesn't correspond to any field in type PrefsData. Context: <PrefsData><volumeGame>0.8</volumeGame><volumeMusic>0.4</volumeMusic><graphicsQualityIndex>1</graphicsQualityIndex><adaptiveTrainingEnabled>True</adaptiveTrainingEnabled><preferredNames><li></li><li></li><li></li><li></li></preferredNames><resourceReadoutCategorized>False</resourceReadoutCategorized><runInBackground>False</runInBackground><customCursorEnabled>True</customCursorEnabled><edgeScreenScroll>True</edgeScreenScroll><temperatureMode>Fahrenheit</temperatureMode><autosaveIntervalDays>1</autosaveIntervalDays><pauseOnLoad>False</pauseOnLoad><devMode>False</devMode><langFolderName>English</langFolderName><logVerbose>False</logVerbose><pauseOnError>False</pauseOnError><userName>Anonymous</userName><historyUpload>Unspecified</historyUpload></PrefsData>
Verse.Log:Error(String, Boolean)
Verse.DirectXmlToObject:ObjectFromXml(XmlNode, Boolean)
Verse.DirectXmlLoader:ItemFromXmlFile(String, Boolean)
Verse.Prefs:Init()
Verse.Root:CheckGlobalInit()
Verse.Root:Start()
Verse.Root_Entry:Start()

The main thing that's kept me from playing as much RimWorld lately as I might otherwise like is the effort of creating a new video drama series set in the galaxy of Elite: Dangerous (my other favorite game right now). I just had the thought that there might be a few people hereabouts that would enjoy it, too. If so, here's a link to the preview video (the first full episode is in production right now):

http://youtu.be/iD5wY8gN8oo

(The original topic was locked, so I've had to start a new one.  Feel free to merge them if possible.)

I have some more information about the flickering rows at the top of the screen.

First off, I have seen this misbehavior on all three  of my Macs, although it seems most severe on the newest and most powerful iMac that I just bought.

Second, it seems to specifically occur (or at least worsen) during the nighttime hours.

Third, it only occurs when the Graphics Quality option is set to "Great".  Changing the setting to "Normal" stops the artifacts (and then changing back to "Great" brings them back).

Just posting this additional information in case it might help, especially if other Mac users start reporting the same problem.

I have always had an occasional problem with a small pattern of rapidly flickering and changing blocks in the UL corner of the screen, ever since the first RimWorld alpha that I got.  However, with A11, I am seeing that effect having greatly expanded to span the entire width of the top of the screen (see attached screen shot).  The whiter blocks shown are not static, but continuously jumping and changing in size, and there are often several rows thereof now rather than just the single row visible in this screenshot (except for one section visible in the UR corner where the block extends to a 2nd row).

[attachment deleted due to age]

Prior to Alpha 10, the colonists usually started out with pretty sensible work priorities in the "Overview / Work" view, with people being assigned to work they had some talent for.  However, in both releases of Alpha 10 thus far, the game seems to be making (on the face of it) irrational decisions about those initial assignments.  See the following example of the defaults selected by the game for my most recent colony start:



Examples of what I am talking about from the screenshot: both Cooking and Construction/Repair are assigned only to the least suitable colonist, by far.  There is also one colonist who has much greater Growing ability than the others, and once again, they are not assigned to the Growing job.  And although all three of the colonists have some Mining capability, the one with the highest (by a little) rating in that area (Rush) was not assigned to Mining for some reason.

I tried to apply an "Add No Roof Region" to a pair of squares that were labeled as having a "thin rock roof".  In A9 this would have given me an "Unroofed" region (which I'd then use as ventilation for A/C systems), but in A10 the region is still marked as "Indoors" afterwards.  Has something changed in how an area is designated as "unroofed"?

In both builds of Alpha 7 (581 and 584), I have noticed that, after butchering an animal, the resulting meat and such is always dropped on the ground right there, rather than carried to a stockpile as it was in Alpha 6.  At first I'd thought this was a deliberate change since there are now cloth by-products of the butchering process, but I just learned about the Config screen for the butchering table having the option to either "drop on floor" or "take to best stockpile".  My setting is defaulted to the latter, but everything made at the butchering table is still being dropped on the floor.  I switched it to "drop on floor" just to see if the options may have become reversed, but this setting also has the butchering results dropped on the floor.

It seems weird to me that any single colonist can only be armed for either ranged combat or melee combat ... they should be able to carry one weapon of each type and then use the one that's appropriate for the type of combat they are ordered to engage in.  Carrying a knife in one's belt at the same time as one carries a pistol doesn't seem like too much to ask of a colonist.  Without this capability, the problem is that a colonist with a ranged weapon too often gets closed upon by an enemy and engaged in melee, but since he only has a ranged weapon, he can't fight effectively in melee except with his fists, and he can't continue to try to use the ranged weapon because every attempt to aim gets interrupted by a melee hit.  That guy should be able to holster or even just drop his ranged weapon and grab a knife off of his belt in such a situation.

Does rainfall affect the rate of plant growth?  I haven't seen any indication that it does, but it is a difficult thing to evaluate precisely.

If it doesn't, then I think it should - i.e., the longer it has been since any rain fell, the more the plant growth rate should slow down from its standard, maxed-out speed, to the point of nearly stopping altogether in a drought.  I need only look out of my windows at the grass in my yard to see support from Mother Nature for this idea.

Does that mean I'll finally have a way to keep visitors out of the pantry?

[gameplay]

I experienced the "enemy agent" event yesterday, where one of my own colonists turned betrayer and tried to escape.  I caught him and imprisoned him ... and then automatically started trying to convince him to come back on board.  But after thinking about it, that seemed like it could be a bad idea, so I ended up selling him to a slave trader (and taking the colony-wide morale hit thereof).

So, my question is ... storytelling aside, was there any gameplay reason to not take the risk of winning him back to my side again?  Is there any persistent aspect to the pawn chosen to be an enemy agent that makes him more risky to integrate back into my colony than a typical pawn?  Or is it that once that event ends, he goes right back to being just another pawn, without any further latent, nefarious intentions?

On the Mac, opening the Orders menu and then attempting to assign animals to be hunted using the Hunt hotkey "T" first causes the screen to zoom out a bit.  Then, a second or so later, the cursor finally changes to the hunt cursor.  None of the other hotkeys I have tried have the same effect (zoom out plus a second or so of delay before the cursor changes).

I assume this is because of a conflict between the overall use of the T key for zooming and its use for Hunt.  I didn't find any commands tied to the G key (zoom in) but I imagine they would have a similar problem if they existed.  Can the Hunt hotkey be reassigned to something that doesn't conflict with the zooming commands?  (Or the Zooming commands could be moved ... I personally don't find T and G to be the most obvious choices for this action anyway.)

Perhaps this is a design decision rather than a bug, but it feels like a bug to me.  If I select a colonist (one to whom I have assigned duties as a cook), then right-click on the butchering table and select to prioritize butchering from the context menu, that causes the colonist to prioritize butchering through the butchering of exactly one animal carcass, no longer.  As soon as the colonist finishes butchering an animal, regardless of whether or not there are additional carcasses waiting to be butchered, he reverts right back to prioritizing use of the cook stove.

It seems to me that this selection ought to be persistent until changed back manually (via a right-click on the cook stove).  That means persistent through the butchering of multiple animals, and also through periods when there are no animals available to butcher.

As the game goes on, I am finding that one of the biggest micromanagement chores I have to deal with is telling my chef whether to prioritize cooking or butchering.  Normally I want to prioritize butchering so that killed animals don't have the time to rot, as long as I have enough prepared meals on hand.  Whereas the opposite is true if I am running out of prepared meals.

Currently the game seems to always prioritize cooking over butchering.  This leads to a lot of spoiled meat unless I constantly micromanage my cooking bills to suspend all of them anytime there is an animal carcass waiting to be butchered, and then turning the bills back on immediately afterwards.  This quickly becomes annoying.

What I would like to see is separate categories for cooking and butchering on the overview.  This would allow two things:

1) I could use the manual priorities to move butchering to a higher priority than cooking whenever I have enough meals on hand, and then be able to just switch butchering off entirely anytime that I need cooking to be the priority.  (This is the biggest issue for me.)

2) Currently if I have two cooks, they often seem to get in each other's way.  I'd love to be able to assign one to butchering only and the other to cooking only.

Both of these advantages would go a long way toward relieving some of the micromanagement of cooks that I currently seem to spend half of my game time doing.

Thanks for listening!

Tynan,

I am hoping that you would be willing to clarify something for me.  In the Support forum, someone indicated that Mac support for RimWorld was "limited".  I asked what that meant, but no one has replied.

As a Mac-only owner, I am very interested in RimWorld, but this statement has caused me to hold back on a purchase until I can get it clarified.  Can you let me know what my expectations should be if I were to purchase and run RimWorld on my Macs?  Are there limitations in functionality, or support, or bug fixing that are unique to the Mac version of RimWorld?

To put it basically, I am very interested in the game, but not if the Mac version thereof is relegated to being a 2nd class citizen that isn't expected to run properly.  I can't imagine why that would be the case, but that's why these statements about "limited Mac support" are causing me such trepidation about jumping onboard ... because I don't understand their source or motivation.

Thanks much for any light you can shed on these comments.