Topics

So, how far does the effect of, say, some superb work of art (sculpture) or a lowly flower pot reach? How far apart do statues have to be placed to make my colonists say "My, what a jolly marvellous room! Extremely pleased, one is!"?

So far, I haven't been able to figure this one out, as so many factors influence colonists' thoughts, but maybe some adventurous soul already has. 

I think we have all noticed, that once your colony has grown to +20 pawns, firefighting becomes ridiculous. Whoever is there first probably walks into a tile freshly on fire, gyrates whilst screaming and burning and then goes somewhere else to clean some dirt. After a long time, the next couple of colonists arrive and find themselves in similar circumstances, as the fire has spread even further.

After they finish whatever small patch of fire they started to extinguish, they also don't try to take care of the bloody forest fire around them, because the next batch of colonists, miles away, have already taken those jobs. And so on and so forth - the only relief is that it may start to rain and my brainless rats can retire to their unearned sleep.

It would be really helpful if the AI could decide that colonist A (who just finished his bit of firefighting) is WAY closer than colonist B and should continue firefighting.

The same applies to other tasks, but since fire (e.g. from exploding power conduits) is a real grief, it would be great to see improvements here.

(Alpha 7c)

Well, after the usual mayhem accompanying the creation of any rimworld colony, I decided on building a rather sporting killbox - it was touch and go a number of times when the raiders started growing more numerous and mechanoids decided to drop right into the colony center.

Still, the killbox led to an influx of lots of prisoners - which, even at 1% conversion chance, will eventually convert and become loyal disciples. The killbox is pretty standard - sandbag trap, little spaces for attackers to feel safe in, turrets to be targeted first and of course wall/sandbag configurations for my troopers to hide behind.



That being said, the colony started off in a region dominated by rock, so the obvious choice was to dig into the mountain for safety. Which, given enough time and captured colonists, looks like this:




After discovering large areas without roofs within the mountain, I decided to wall them off and use their earth as an alternative to indoor hydroponics, who in themselves are not too efficient. I simply spaced grow lamps around the space and got this:



Basically, the colony could have supported even more guys, but Rimworld was lagging heavily already with the ~120 guys I had running around. Also, after a certain point, there is no more metal to mine on the map and I was already buying the precious resource left and right. Why, you ask?

Well...



Because.

Each pod costs 750 Metal. Multiply this with 120 Colonists and you need 90K units of metal for those alone. Not counting the rest of spaceship structures and let's not forget about the metal you need to build all the pretty stuff that keeps your inhabitants safe and sound. The rest of the ship's structure took roughly another 25K metal alone.

Since I had a large colony and ship in mind from the start, I strip-mined the whole map and bought every metal a passing trader might have for me.

In the end, I had to kill all the raiders still alive after each raid (I did not execute after capture but rather shoot on the battlefield), because it was becoming clear that further supply of metal was getting rather problematic and more colonists would have meant 1 visiting industrial trader... and you know how sparse they can be.

And yes, my beacons look like a giant dick. It simply turned out that way... nah, I did it for shits and giggles. Also note that I took the time to eradicate all plants in my part of the map. Molotovs all the way and a 10-square concrete barrier to keep the grass seeds out. Why? Because plants impede progress and burn and the alternative would have been paving the whole space with floors when at the time I didn't know whether I might need to expand my grow-op...

So, after many near catastrophes, the final survivors are in the pods and the ship lifts off:



All hands aboard, none left behind. I feel like I need a creative pause or simply wait until the next alpha comes out. Looking forward to your criticism and input!