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Funny you say that. My last try with this modpack it did exactly end my game. Day 51 psychic ship popping out 1 centipede only.

I was a bit more lucky. It was later on in the game and an Ancient danger room I opened myself so I had time to save load and plan. And I had a desert eagle on the guy I was working with. At any rate, stone and metal walls last a lot longer than other walls. It takes a long time to wear down a centipede and feels like abusing the limited AI of the enemy. If you do it right he'll never relocate to a point where he could actually kill you easily. I didn't notice him repairing himself either.

Uh.They are broken(centipede) and antifun man.wtf is this.Pinpoint accuracy and so much dmg&burst.

You can get pretty far by popping out... shooting with quick shots and hiding behind cover. Its a lot of micromanagement but it gets the job done..

And i believe melee attackers can interrupt their attacks...  Though not completely sure... It works on lesser foes..

It's not fun but at least it does not end your game...

you can't. the visitors will head for the largest room. You can set up improve relations with them so the wardens chat them up, which will stop them from going crazy most of the time.

And occasionally convince one to join your colony.. If you keep mindful of your relation to that colony you might even get away with it without antagonizing anyone!

A really cool feature for those of us who like to play basebuilder.

The initial screenshot certainly looks awesome

I see some great ideas here...

I would like to see the story teller model expanded with conditional responses. And then see what you guys can come up with...

Like if the player has a lot of food, send neighboring colonies to attempt to trade for it or steal it. If you're poor and a rich settlement is nearby, let the settlers give you stuff out of pity. If you've got a lot of weapons and thus are powerful, get more refugees try to join you. If you're not nice to people, let them send in more soldiers. If you start producing a forbidden item, get the attention of law enforcement which are way more powerful...

And some new events, a meteor strike which deposits raw material but destroys the impact site. Orbital bombardments which just destroys a section of map. Your base might be below there, everything deep enough inside a mountain is immune to that. Wanderers that settle on your map. Similar to the mortar crew, but not hostile, they can eventually be convinced to join your group, or just co-habitate. They will kill some animals, and grow some crops.. Solar radiation waves. Not only is electicity down, it's also not safe outside.

It's your call fluffy. Obviously!

I switched to hardcore from mvp a few days ago, just to check it out. And found myself drowning in jobs to manage with no clear overview. (Though I do like the mod I think some awesome decisions were made) In the end I was making and eyeballing lots of smaller storage piles. And just started managing items from workbenches because it was quicker.

That's when the idea came up.

I'll answer some of your specific follow up questions. But I get that you're not in the mood to redo the whole thing once again just because some hippie had an idea So please don't consider this as an argument. But rather as me politely clarifying the remaining points.

Thats what the production tab available basically does.

It does, but it does so in a list with big items in a small space which means scroll bars are going to appear before the first in game day has passed. Overview tabs should maximize insight. I feel more benefit can be had from this tab.

This is not a spreadsheet.

I agree, it's a plug-in for a game.
Then again, real world inventory management usually uses some form of spreadsheet.

Analogies might be unavoidable.

impossible, never know how many modded resources we're going to get, or what resolution to expect.

True, but this is why I used the word preferably. I'm not saying you should guarantee, but maybe aiming for it is an idea..

what is item type?

I mean food, or raw materials. Or Medicine.

What about having multiple jobs per resource as you can do now?

Two answers to that, first of all, the overview tab I proposed doesn't eliminate the jobs tab you have now so your current functionality isn't affected. And second, and more critical... How many multiple jobs per resource are truly out there now? I have never found cause to use this feature. I'm sure use cases exist beyond the academical, but in general it's okay for a rarely used feature to require a bit more clicking to set up...

This adds a level of automation I'm not sure I'm entirely comfortable with. May sound hypocritic as the whole mod is basically about reducing micromanagement, but reducing the whole resource production chain to a single spreadsheet seems a bit much.

Yes, you could see it as offering too much automation, but in the end the user is still managing every bit of the chain. You're simply offering the tool to do it transparent and quickly.

If your idea of a game is clicking buttons and navigating UI then yes, you're taking away from the game with this. If the idea is making decisions and seeing how they pan out, then I think you're not taking away much. I'm certainly not proposing an autopilot...

Doesn't show other tab's jobs though, hunting + logging might be factored in, but ranching and other upcoming tab(s)?

True... Maybe there are ways to accomplish that?

Also, right now they're buried in the overview tab among 20 to 30 other jobs.  I find I tend to click on the logging/hunting tabs to quickly find those jobs.

I know you're aiming for vanilla. That's your prerogative. Hardcore however offers your mod in it's install, I think a lot of your users may end up coming from there. What that means for your mod is your decision. But it is a thought to take into account.

It's a bit more work than just that, but I might look into the feasibility of adding a separate 'details' tab or something that does a resource readout listing current jobs and storage settings, with some shortcuts for adding jobs etc.

It's your call Fluffy. I think you're awesome for even seriously considering my message, even if you make no changes to your mod accordingly. I get that you just made a V2, and that these are big changes that might warrant calling it a V3... So please don't feel any obligations, certainly not towards me.

Like I said, I debated if I should post it in the first place. I decided it was better for you to shoot the idea down than for me to go sit in your head and decide for you that you'd not like it anyway...

Peace !

[How about a complete redesign?]

Aight, the livestock tab is done - until I get some feedback on it at least. Enjoy the new release! Several bugs and feature requests have also made it into this release, see the github commit notes for details.

Thanks I'll check it out and put up some feedback.. Though I have decimated my chicken infestation. And surprisingly ended up with a pile of food that will easily get me through this winter and the next.. (Chicks apparently eat a lot)

Also.. I was thinking some more on the overview tab. Right now it doesn't really simplify life, or actually give us an overview of our colony's job status. The problem I think is that especially with mods like MVP or hardcore there is so much going on that the visible part of the active job list is really tiny compared to the amount of data available. Also by offering the information pretty much in the same way the job tab already does it doesn't add value. And the data it does offer doesn't really show what we need to get that "at a glance" overview that an overview tab should aim for.

How about a complete redesign?

• Enumerate all resources that can be produced by one of your existing workbenches.
• Per resource it shows current value readonly, min and max values in editable format.
• Preferrably set up so no scrollbars are required..
• Show resources color coded and grouped by workbench, or item type
• Next to every resource is a small button which shows in a popup dialog your already existing job parameter UI, which allows the player to fine tune jobs as they can do in your currently existing setup.
• This popup might offer a list of stockpiles with checkboxes behind them that allow us to set stockpiles per resource, instead of the now existing vanilla resources per stockpile.

The manager code uses this data to check all resources: everything below minimum will generate a job that will grow the amount back to maximum and then completely remove the job until current falls below minimum again. Jobs for resources above max will be terminated or changed to lead up to max.

Random thoughts

• This has the benefit that it shows available inventory and status in one simple screen, it allows the player to intuitively set desired values without much clicking, just open manager enter some values, done... Whilst still allowing fine tuning.
• Color coding would show deficits in red. Sufficient amounts in green and possibly gray out items which cannot be produced due to insufficient amounts of the required resources.
• The popup dialog shows required resources, these could also be color coded to show if they exist in sufficient quantities.  So if something requires 10 glass and you need to make 10 of that item to get to your maximum value, it will show in regular white if you have 100 glass, in red if you have insufficient resources to get to max.
• The min/max solution would behave differently from the current target solution in that it doesn't trigger a job every time someone removes one item from the stack. It will produce batches allowing colonists to ignore the item for periods of time while it's hovering above minimum. I believe this will result in colonists sticking to jobs more consistently instead of running all over the place losing time in transit. And it more closely mimics real world inventory management.
• I think you should not be afraid to remove or change jobs manually created by the player if they fit the parameters. Though you could of course make this optional.

At first I thought this would be a lot of work and debated myself whether I should even suggest it. But in the basis it's removing components from the overview tab and adding the enumeration. Then in the manager code it's using data available in this tab to create and remove jobs. So maybe it's not so much work after all.. You know the code and should be the judge of that, not me.

1. Production chains > researching
Do you guys enjoy researching in whole?

In my humble opinion the amount of topics is good, more would still be good, the amount of time spent researching is long. Less might be better, I think if you'd shorten research time for all topics but keep or increase topic count then you'd make the research more interesting and less of a grind.

2. Automatic turrets are OP / too cheap

OP, I agree... After all you can set the difficulty of your game. I like the idea of manned turrets. And a pawn based defense. However the whole idea of building a fortress should imply that your fortress gives you a major advantage. So a well setup defense should give the player a big advantage and part of that advantage is maneuvering the opponent. Compare to medieval castles which are set up so opponents will have to move through kill zones...

I'm a defensive player. And I find that I use a lot of save/reload in fights. I don't think that should be the case it merely proves that combat specifically in the early years is too hard.

Thank you nemesisn kitsune.. I did try the indoor farm. But a 10x10 was not enough.. How big are your farms?
I really suspect the chickens.. I saw one today munch through 8 potatoes.. And i had 12 of the little blighters... I can tell you this.... We're eating chicken tonight.. I suspect the chickens need some work.. They eat too much. Even the eggs don't weigh up against that... Its a shame because they're really fun to have around...

Hey all.. Using mvp I'm having some problems getting through the first winter. I tend to run out of food as soon as the first snow falls... I usually get about 4x100 farming cells harvested before it becomes too cold. How do you guys make sure you have enough food? Is it possible my chickens (I like chickens) eat so much that i get shortages?

Also, you have a hunting tab, a foresting tab.. But not a mining tab.. Though you have probably already considered that one yourself...

I did think about a mining tab, but the problem is how to determine where you allow them to mine. If I just say 'mine any visible steel close to the base', they might just cut a hole in your perimeter. If I have you designate an 'allowed mining' zone, why not just designate the mining itself? If you have any clever ideas on how to handle this, I'll be happy to give it a try!

Seems to me you can use the mining zoning features to allow players to set where colonists can mine. I'd suggest to consider inverse zones. Like  "Mine anywhere BUT at home..." Which would pick any reachable minable block of the right type outside the home. And in all honesty I wouldn't worry about mining through defensive walls. You can easily plug them up again. It's really not such a big deal considering the benefit it gives. The only thing that might be a problem is collapsing roofs.

<rambling>
That said, the next tab coming up is a ranching/livestock module (I haven't decided on the name yet), which would allow you to set population targets for male/female juvenile/adult animals, training targets and restricted zones, after which your managers would auto-designate training, butchering, and if you desire even taming wild animals to reach the targets you set.

Interesting, I tend to bring chickens to colonies. The eggs are nice, but you have to periodically cull them to avoid a chicksplosion.

Code for this is about 1/3 done. After that I'm a bit hazy, I've been thinking about a farming tab  (rotate crops, try to time stuff to finish before winter, etc. Possibly not so useful in vanilla, but if we had winter crops that would be cool),

I don't quite see it. You could restrict fields with crops that can't complete before winter indeed. And re-enable them when spring arrives. But that's not a tab, that's a checkbox.

But if we combine with hydroponics... You designate how many crops of a type you want, and the manager will assign hydroponic bays in order to produce them. The advantage is that hydroponics usually have only a few slots per bay. And they complete quicker so it makes more sense to switch them.  Big farms are fire and forget, you lose so many crops by switching halfway the summer that it's too much of a waste.

a 'pawn management' tab (set restrictions on pawns based on certain conditions, e.g. restrict to area when raid is happening, set time restrictions based on presence of night owl trait, set medicine and recruit/release on prisoners based on their attributes, etc). Not sure of how feasible this is, as the list of possible triggers is a lot more complex (i.e. not just a resource count, but based on any number of attributes of pawns/map/world).

I like the prisoner features. Also don't forget the feature to restrict animals to a zone during a raid.

I also really want to do my own implementations of the autosell and autoequip mods. I think they both fit well into the manager framework, and I feel both implementations are currently flawed. Autosell because the way it handles things internally is quite clumsy, and because it doesn't work with Haplo's traders and can't do auto-buying. autoequip because it gives too many options, is unstable, and very unoptimized. On the other hand, both are mostly functional, and currently maintained, so not sure if it's a good idea to re-do them.

If you do these, you could consider combining with production, so you can craft objects specifically to sell them later on. Or you could build tools to play the stock market. Buy expensive and sell cheap


But if I may be so bold as to push forward a feature you didn't mention...

How about an electricity tab?

Show us what we use, and what we produce, show us how long we could run on battery power alone (eclipse, no wind) and give us triggers to respond to: When battery power drops, first turn off the lights, then turn off some heaters, then turn off other heaters, then turn of sunlamps. Turn off lights during the day, and heaters during summer. Turn off coolers during winter. In case of raid, turn on all the guns and turn off all the heaters and lights, then turn them off after. That sort of stuff..

So this is basically a tab which marks switches to be toggled depending on triggers. If you go for that AI core manager bench you could forego the colonist toggling and just let the AI turn the device on and off... If that happens I'd probably have to experiment with blinking lights and running lights.

I'm going a bit nuts now, but the AI could probably open and close/lock automatic doors for you without colonists coming close.... (Send in the starving tigers, or close all emergency doors)

I think it is favorably analogous to what you're doing with resources and items now... You could even re-use the code you use for the graphs.

I'm sorry I couldn't find related messages. But does anyone else have missing textures? I installed by copying the mods folder into the mods folder of the game and copying the settings to my appdata.

The mods installed and are present, the mod order seems neatly set up so the config must have been detected.

But the extra weapons and shots fired now have a red box with a cross to represent them. I tried to just remove them from the modlist and start a new game, but that gave a large amount of 'resource missing' error messages..

Do the changes to the core folder refer to the other mods in some way?

Well, I played with it last night. And it seems to work like a charm. Including the while animal corpse>0 do butcher. So   

I did have some colonists standing still for unknown reason without being idle. I'm not sure what's up with that but I also updated MVP, I would seek the culprit there first...

The only "wouldn't it be cool if" moment I had was when a workbench was inactive because it didn't have resources to create an item and I failed to notice that for a while. So.. Wouldn't it be cool if I could see in the manager tab which jobs are suspended because of lack of resources? (And which resources!)

Also, you have a hunting tab, a foresting tab.. But not a mining tab.. Though you have probably already considered that one yourself...

But it works really well..

Thanks for the very helpful feedback, and I hope you keep enjoying playing with the mod

I probably will.. If I spot anything else I'll be sure to suggest it. Thank you for the great interaction.

It's complicated, and very prone to bugs/unintended effects if not done with direct user input - I'ld rather not touch it.

I understand, I couldn't think up a solution myself. Unless the game gives you some way to prioritize individual tasks for workers as opposed to task types. Which I don't believe it does. The automatic alternatives I can think of are overly complicated unintuitive, or just stupid

On another note: I've been playing with it all night last night. And it really works nicely. So kudo's!!! However anally retentive me wanted to set up some tasks to work differently than the default. And I think I found a bug there...

Take a butcher animal job. You can set the trigger to do the job until you have N meat products. However, of course I wanted the job to be done while animal corpses were available. I could not get that to work. I tried setting the trigger to do while animal corpses>0.  The status symbol suggested that the task was completed, even though there were animal carcasses in my fridge. It didn't schedule the job either (Which at least is consistent). And I couldn't get it to work by restoring the original trigger. I eventually deleted the task and remade it. Which fixed it.

That trigger logic is very cool by the way! Apart from the fact that it doesn't work right now I can think up loads of cool things to do with it! An and feature could work. (Make glass while sand>400 and glass<200)

Another thing, the selection dialog for setting up the trigger ingredients has no scroll bar, it's a tree, and a lot of the contents of the tree ends up hidden outside the underside of the dialog.

While making blocks. I thought : Wouldn't it be nice if the manager could check which blocks are nearby and schedule blocks of that type.

And a tiny one, I notice the default threshold is set at 600, while most items you can produce need nowhere near as much. I think a threshold of 200 would be a more useful default, particularly in starting colonies.

Did you consider a workbench that includes an AI core so it no longer requires a manager to do the manager task?

Just a bunch of ideas that came up whilst playing with your mod. Pick or ignore what you like.