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Topics - mzonk

#1
General Discussion / Zombrella?
August 04, 2020, 11:18:53 AM
I'm going through Architect--Misc and was surprised to find an entity called a "Zombrella."  Looking over the information that is attached to it, I find it described only as a "humanoid shaper."

I did searches in the wiki and in these fora but nothing came up.

Anybody know what it does and how to use it?
#2
I'm not sure whether this is a bug of a feature, and I'm not angry about it, but...I just built up an in-mountain hydroponics garden and, when I did, my pawns stopped planting things in the nearby growing fields.  I have twelve in this particular game and set THREE of them to "grow" as their number one work priority.
They all concentrate on the hydroponics basins.
They're not starving, but it strikes me as a little strange.  What happens if I build a second indoor hydroponics garden?  If I put down a basin or two that's outdoors?
#3
When I started Rimworld today, a message was displayed in yellow in the upper left corner to the effect of a new version being available.  I was told to check out the Ludeon Studios website for more information.

I checked out the website and then came here and searched the forums for "new version."  If there was something out there, I couldn't find it.

Forgive my presumption, but I am assuming that this is different from the "Royalty" thing--that, I believe, is a mod/mod pack and not an actual new version of the game.

Anybody know where I can find information on the new version?
#4
I sent a caravan to mine a lump of silver ore.  I gave it 8 days of food for a 1-day trek.

The colonists have been there for two days.  They're all listed as malnourished and some of them are collapsing due to starvation.

I go to <world>, click on the location and select <reform caravan> and the display shows that I have OVER SEVEN DAYS OF FOOD LEFT.

Is it really the case that a caravan can't unpack the food it packed for a trip when it reaches its destination?

And if not, as is probably the case, how do I get the food into my colonists' bellies?
#5
Support / Weaponized Animals and Caravans -- mod
March 05, 2020, 10:54:21 AM
I weaponize my animals.  My colonists take them along on caravans and use them as cannon fodder, among the other more commonly used tasks.

The game is written almost as if to deliberately make this a PITA.  The process of setting up a caravan involves first checking out the animals on the colony's "Animals" tab to decide which ones to take on a caravan, then forming the caravan and adding them to it, and also at some point making sure that the animals' owners (I forget the precise term) are properly set up so that they don't "belong" to colonists not at the caravan destination (and can't be released) after the caravan arrives.

The game is written almost as if to make this deliberately difficult.  Even the names of the animals don't match between the "Animals" tab and the caravan formation screen.  I have to use pencil and paper to write down the colonists' names, their respective weapons and the animals that are going on a quest.  There is no way to apply the criteria I use for selecting an animal for a caravan (no bonded animals, no pregnant animals, at least one of each gender stays behind, etc.).  Finally, there is no way to save a list of the animals (or colonists) that are going on a caravan (except on paper), making it necessary to redo the entire process each time I form a caravan.

Is there a mod that can aid me in caravan formation?
#6
Support / Better opening site selection map -- mod?
March 05, 2020, 10:42:02 AM
I'm looking for a mod that can make info on the map sites at the beginning of the game more easily gathered.

I have some specific criteria involving the terrain types (I prefer mountainous) and types of stone available (I prefer sandstone and granite).  My problem is that the map does not readily differentiate flat from hills from mountainous, etc.  I checked the list of mods, and there is none available that remedies this difficulty.  Is there a mod out there that I missed?
#7
Support / Register my game?
February 24, 2020, 09:01:40 AM
I'm trying to register my ownership of Rimworld with steam.com (or whatever).  There is a webpage off of rimworld.com that says I can do this by typing in the email that confirms the purchase.  I still have a copy of that email message.  It's from a group calling itself SendOwl Downloads--NOT steam.com and NOT Ludeon Studios.

Naturally, the web page has no link to WHERE I should copy and paste this email to...

...and steam.com goes out of its way to make it difficult, if not impossible, to contact them directly (I've never managed to do it), and their so-called support only answers questions that retards would ask.  Don't ask them for something that's actually useful--they can't be bothered!

Yes, I'm VEXED at steam!  What a bunch of [expletive deleted]s!

Steam asks for a product key.  I never got a product key.  I have an order number and a link to a page that lets me download copies of the game.

Side issue:  I have three copies of the six that I am allowed:  one for Windows 7, one for Windows 10 and one for Linux (I run Linux Mint 19 on an HP Pavillion DV9500-class machine).  It runs fine on windows, but the copy I got for Linux won't launch--it complains about OpenGL--and NVidia, which makes the GPU for that machine (where the OpenGL interpreter is) is as disgustingly lazy about allowing actual contact as steam is.  Mind you, I have two identical HP laptops, one running Windows 7 and one running Linux Mint 19, and it runs just fine under Windows.  Naturally, HP has also dropped all support for the machine--they can't even be bothered to keep their old drivers and info around (what [different expletive deleted]s).  Again, typical.

So...forgetting the side issue (I'd appreciate it if someone could tell me whom to correspond with about this), how do I contact someone in Ludeon or steam who has two neurons to rub together about getting Rimworld registered?

P.S.  You contradicted yourselves, guys.  In the forums, you wrote that you regarded Rimworld as a finished product.  Now you're putting a new version on Beta test.  Thank you.  I thought that you were using the people doing the mods as unwitting slave labor.  You've restored my faith in humanity.

Jeff Mullen
Bachelor's of Science, Computer Science, RIT

P.S. Send me an NDA and let me go over the source code and I'll put the missing info in the wiki on how the "beauty" system works.  Let me write stuff in the wiki/explain how and I'll put in the missing info on the design and necessary resources for building a starship (it IS, after all, the object of the game).  It doesn't even say that you need three engines.  It's pitiful.
#8
I am ATTEMPTING to build a starship.  I have gathered the necessary resources and started to lay down blueprints for the parts.
Any time I try to put in a cryosleep casket--AFTER I put in a structural beam--I get the message "Must be placed with head attached to ship structural beam."  This message comes up no matter how I orient the casket or the structural beam.
What am I doing wrong?
#9
Support / Schedule surgery
January 29, 2020, 10:42:43 AM
I can't figure out how to get a doctor/patient to perform a surgical procedure.
This information SHOULD BE accessible through the "doctor" page on the wiki, but is not, and it has vexed me.
I shouldn't have to make this post.
How does one schedule a surgical procedure?
#10
Ideas / Various issues
November 24, 2019, 10:30:44 AM
I apologize for not arranging this in the manner suggested in "how to report a bug."  I'm not so much reporting a bug as giving you guys some free system testing.  I have multiple issues to note here and most aren't simple "do this and this happens" bugs.  Listing "what happened" and "what I expected to happen" is inappropriate, as are savegame and log files.  One does not save a game to show a missing feature.  I'm using version 1.0 2282 of the game under Windows 10, though I'd like to discuss obtaining a version that will run under Linux Mint 19.

It should follow that I don't expect the coding team to fix all of these issues by tomorrow.  In particular, the litter problems are going to take a lot of work, if you choose to accept them.  If not, I promise not to lose my temper—THIS time.  ;)

Likewise, I apologize if these things that I have noted have already been noted.  I tried to look them up, but the sheer volume of posts made this impossible.

I have worked as a professional coder.  I studied interface design.  From this, I learned that the first law of interface design is that the computer/program should get OUT OF the user's way and not INTO it.

These are things I have noticed while playing the game.  I am currently at the point of accumulating resources to build a starship.  There may be more as I continue to progress.

There are a variety of tasks—refueling generators, cutting plants, putting out fires—that violate this rule.  Particularly noisome is marking off blighted plants for cutting.  There is no way to mark off all the blighted plants in a field.   You have to go through the field and mark each one off by hand.  As blight spreads, you have to find and mark each newly infected plant—even if it is obscured, for example, by a basket of harvested plants—individually by hand.  Likewise, there is no way to put a colonist "on task."  There is, for example, no "refuel all generators" command.     When a colonist finishes a hand-prioritized task—be it putting out a  fire, refueling a generator or chopping a tree—the colonist goes right back to whatever impertinent task he or she was doing beforehand, leaving additional instances of the prioritized task undone, so you have to go through by hand and prioritize each tree to be cut, generator to be refueled, etc, etc., etc.  This is a waste of the user's time.

There is no way to force the disposal of unwanted items.  This comes in three varieties.  First, there is no way to make a colonist or animal haul a stone chunk that is littering a space to someplace more acceptable.  They accumulate in bedrooms, work areas and hallways.  The only way I've seen to get rid of one is to use it at a stonecutter's table.  It is true that they do not encumber colonists, but they are unsightly.  Second, there is no way to permanently discard a tattered apparel item.  If a colonist is forced to wear something else, another colonist will spontaneously pick up the tattered item, cascading the debuff.  At the very least, there should be some warning if all the colonists are going to pick up a tattered item unless a replacement is made for each.  The ability to assign an item of clothing being made or about to be made at a tailor bench to an individual colonist wouldn't hurt either.  The human player, NOT the computer, should have the final choice.  Third, if a colonist should die during the game, anything the colonist was working on—an item of clothing, a sculpture, a component—becomes dead weight.  There is no way to assign projects to different colonists in the middle, so the orphaned projects just sit there.  Even worse, as best I can tell, they cause the computer not to assign other colonists to new instances of making those things.  Again there should be at least a warning when there are orphaned projects.

The game bounces between major and minor break risks too frequently.  I've seen a case where a colonist bounced between a major and minor break risk five times in as many seconds.  This is extremely annoying.

You have to rotate a chair to tell whether it's facing toward you or away from you.

There is no way to cycle through items.  This is particularly annoying if you want to find a specific item or animal.  It is incredibly noisome to hear the cries of animals as predators take them but to be unable to find the predator so that it may be hunted before it attacks a colonist.  Dropped weapons, apparel items and anything acquired on a caravan from batteries to beds are also difficult if not impossible to locate because there is no interface mechanism to do so.

Items do not show up in inventory unless hauled to a stockpile zone.  There is no "collect" mechanism to haul a group of items to a stockpile zone.

Caravan parking spots and crafting spots are so nearly invisible as to be difficult to find.

There are a variety of illnesses, gut worms being the most notorious, that will not show up as "injury" when the player tries to get the colonist to "rest until healed."  This, obviously, makes treatment of these illnesses needlessly difficult.

Beauty is a black art.  If there is any definitive guide to what a "hideous environment" is and how to improve it, I can't find it.  I have already offered to sign an NDA, look into the source code and write such a guide, but my only reply was the lie that adequate source code is provided with the game.  I've looked those barebones constructors and data structures over.  They are not adequate for that task.
#11
Bugs / Command Buttons Disappear!
September 13, 2019, 12:05:48 PM
Rimworld has no "pause to OS" button.  No big deal.  I'm not even going to call that a bug.  It forces me to use the old Windows stalwart, <alt>-<tab>, but this is no problem.

The problem is that when I do sometimes the main game screen loses its command buttons--architect, work, restrict and the like.  Not only do they become invisible, they can no longer be used.  It is impossible to save and quit from this state.

I'm using version 1.0 2262 of Rimworld, 64 bit, under Windows 10.

I apologize if there's anything I left out.
#12
People give me non-working computers.  I turn them into working computers.  I have several computers throughout my residence that I use for different purposes.
At night, when I turn in, I shut down the computer in my workroom, go to my bed and fire up the laptop on the bed.
If I'm playing Rimworld, I'd like to save the game to a flash drive in my workroom and then restore it to the computer in my bedroom.  I'd also like to be able to do the converse of this.
I can't find the save game files.
How/where should I look?
#13
OK, I'll bite.

I've been looking for a couple of hours off and on now, and I can't find a place in the wiki (or these forums) that has anything on what a player can do to affect the beauty of his colony.

Specifically, when I play the game, I keep getting debuffs that say "awful barrack," "ugly environment" and the like.  Mind you, if I didn't have a sense of humor, it would seem an awful lot to me like somebody wrote the game to pile the same things on the colonists over and over again, but I digress.

I couldn't find anyplace where it said what makes an environment ugly or not.  There were vague references in the forum to golden grand statues, but nothing really helpful.

So...where do I look?  And forgive me if I'm a little too green, but, because I think the concept of a wiki is that users like me can edit it, and I used to do stupid things like edit novels for publishing houses, I just might be stupid enough to try and expand the wiki--if nothing else, adding a few hyperlinks--before I'm done.

So...where to find the info?
#14
More specifically, when you find artifacts as part of ancient danger, how do you get the artifacts out of the danger room and into your colonists' hands so that they can be used in some meaningful way?