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Topics - Col_Jessep

#1
General Discussion / Is art worth it?
December 18, 2014, 09:12:38 AM
I had a colonist with decent art skills (7 with a double-flame) and decided to build a sculpture workshop for her.
(This wasn't easy since you need wood and I embarked on the ice shelf - not a single tree! I first had to mine a space, build fertilizer pumps, a sun lamp, two heaters, a new windmill in -70�C weather to power the whole thing... All to build a single workshop. I <3 the ice shelf!)

So, she grabs 75 stone blocks and goes to work. The result is an awful sculpture which was worth less than the blocks I had used to create it! Stone blocks are worth roughly $2 and when the sculptures' value is sometimes significantly below the cost of the base material it's pretty disappointing. That awful statue actually has a negative beauty (-13) and a base worth of $80. Assuming the trader gives you roughly half of the base price that's a loss of $35 and a lot of time.

By now my artist is level 11, almost 12 and she's still producing shoddy or poor pieces of art that are not turning a profit. One statue was normal (+$25) and one good (+$50).


Now let's compare this to my craftress. Cloth sells for ~$1. Every Parka sells for ~$220 and takes 120 units of cloth to make. That's $100 profit for every parka you make. The time needed to make a parka is 367 compared to 1000 for a sculpture. And a parka keeps you warm. With -80�C outside you can't leave the base to take a piss haul a survival meal without a parka or you'll lose some extremities.  ;)

I haven't looked into smithing yet but I'll probably try that next. Got some wood and metal I don't need atm. But I don't think art is the way to go unless you have idle colonists and too much money. There will be no silver sculptures any time soon in my base, that's for sure!


PS: In unrelated news: Please make the ice shelf a regular embark, Tynan. It is soooo much fun! And colder areas, - 150�C FTW!  :P
#2
Bugs / White text on snow is REALLY hard to read... =D
December 17, 2014, 01:18:22 PM
Maybe you could put a slightly darker background behind it like in the communications tab, preferably even darker:



Oh, and I had 5 or 6 combat suppliers within a couple of days. I guess the game wants to tell me something? But it's -80°C outside and we don't expect any "visitors"...

...to make it to our doorstep alive! ;P
#3
General Discussion / Dying of old age?
December 16, 2014, 04:41:14 AM
Is that a thing in RimWorld? I have a 68 year old vet:



He's not only one of the few good shots I have, he's a master crafter, our good ol' Markus!



IIRC, he came to us with a peg leg and a bad eye and I upgraded him to bionics. I already bought a bionic arm, too. Then I realized the old gunshot is only causing him very mild trouble and I'm saving the arm for an emergency. At least until I can afford a second one as backup. He is in remarkable health for his age.

As you can see Markus is a valuable member of the community, especially since he is not disturbed at all by recovering raider bodies and burning them.

But my question is: Can colonist actually die from old age in RW? Could Markus just pass peacefully to the great beyond? How old can people get in RW? Could they live longer with bionics and a fresh heart transplant?

PS: Yes, I'm one of those crazy people who have forts in Dwarf Fortress lasting for years and decades until FPS death finally claims them. Why do you ask? =D
#4
Bugs / Craftsman working on 2 swords at the same time
December 15, 2014, 09:08:58 AM
So this happened:



Fistycuffs is working on two swords that show him as author. The fun part is that he randomly picks one to continue to work on. Right now he's actually working on the sword on the left. I can provide a save file if needed.

PS: I think I manually right-click-ordered Fistycuffs to make a sword and that might have caused him to start two?




While we are at it, fertilizer pumps work through walls and rock:



I guess that's not intended?




And a classic that's not a real bug but annoying:



Well done, Green Thumb! Now take down that wall again and go back to growing "herbs". Idiot! =3
#5
General Discussion / The Murderous Marble Royal Bed
December 13, 2014, 02:58:55 PM
In case you didn't know yet: The marble royal bed has a beauty of 99, rest efficiency of 94% and needs 1286 work units to construct as offset for the readily available material I guess. A wooden royal bed has a rest efficiency of 105%, beauty of 93 and only takes 198 work units. But it was winter and I was all out of wood... ;P

Now, I just deconstructed one of those fancy marble beds because I wanted to build a proper hospital bed in my medbay instead. The worker in question was a level 17 "revered master" in construction and it took a pretty long time to deconstruct the bed. So much time that he became "very tired" and was "starving". That's a -43 point mood debuff!

The poor guy got himself into some serious trouble over deconstructing that marble bed! I would like to request that deconstructing is either rebalanced or that our colonists take a break from deconstructing before they get themselves into trouble.

Because they will. They will kill themselves in the effort to deconstruct the bed!



I enabled construction on a lvl 3 dorf for testing. All stats are green atm.
Test begin at: March 12th, 22h.



Starvation and exhaustion have set in.



To my surprise Blue did not go berserk but kept soldiering on!



Sorry Blue, but you died for !!science!!
Time of death: April 2nd, 2am.

Yup, that's over two weeks to deconstruct a bed.  :o
#6
I started playing Dwarf Fortress again recently, dove really into it. I really like how the last updates reminds me of DF. The world generation, the health system, character traits, gear, weapons, the labor tab, moods, hunting, wood industry... I can see a lot of parallels. Now you are starting to implement different resource materials with their own stats. Kudos! That is a big thing to add and I take it from earlier posts that it wasn't something you had originally planned. I love it!

One thing I feel is missing still in RW though: Exploration. Sure, you can dig into the side of a mountain and find metal ore, steam vents and open areas but those mountains are not very large and some maps don't have any. The DF solution is 100 levels of FUN with candy and clowns buried deep under the earth. You explained well why you don't want more than one z-level and I agree. It's not worth the immense development time and it will make it hard to control your colony efficiently.

I remember talk of raiding other bases. That sounded interesting but also includes more fighting. I would like something like an exploration "minigame" which adds an uncertainty factor. You could find treasure, ores or something really nasty like a group of buried mechanoids; maybe both. Buried treasure could be in old mineshafts, tombs, research stations, military bases and what not.

In order to explore those areas you would select a few colonist and send them to a map border, load a new area of the world map and they would be able to explore it. And why not give them a nice vehicle to bring some stuff back:



Maybe it's just a quick hunting trip, some mining, tree chopping... but maybe they find the entry to an underground bunker or research facility!

Load a new map, this time it's underground (all mountain) with hallways, rooms, storage, old machinery. The away team might even be able to restore some power or set up a quick camp with some sleeping spots and survival meals. They would break down doors, clear cave-ins, melt their way through walls and drag all valuables back to the mule vehicle.

They might also find a nasty AI trying to kill them, a leaking reactor, unstable fuel tanks, "sleeping" mechanoids, a forgotten colonist in a sleeper pod, a dragon on his hoard of gold and silver... Wait, what! Well, maybe a really large and dangerous lizard...=3

I know it's a tall order but it would be doable I think. The community could help with making interesting blueprints for bases and facilities. I can think of two things that need to be resolved:
You need some sort of fog of war and your real base is frozen in time while you are exploring.

I basically just want to know if you like the idea and if it is feasible.
#7
General Discussion / Useful Assassin, bug or feature?
August 15, 2014, 07:55:21 AM
I was about to get rid of this guy because I thought assassins lose all their labor abilities. But this dude is healthy as a horse (unlike the colonist who lost an eye knocking him out), got good skills and is a hard worker on top of that. Being a psychopath is just the icing on the cake!

Apparently switching your line of work from hired thief to assassin gives you +3 social skills, too? Okay, must be that loosely buttoned shirt with the .357 magnum sticking out...  0_o

So, is this a bug, did I just get lucky? Storyteller is Classic Cleo, no mods. I'll make a backup of the save just in case.

[attachment deleted by admin: too old]
#8
I like the new metal graphic (because it is close to realistic) but it's really hard to see against some backgrounds. It's a tad too dark and could use a bit more contrast. Maybe something along those lines:



The distinctive orange-red rust color gives it a nice hue distance to dirt, you can have a couple of silver highlights...

What do you think?
#9
Every time I start a new colony I just skip the Nutrient Paste Dispenser and build a cooking stove instead. I get no morale penalty that way and can stockpile some meals for the inevitable eclipse/solar flair.

Is there a use for the paste dispenser that I missed? Maybe in your prison?

It would be great if we could produce Packaged Survival Meals with the paste dispenser? Some long lasting emergency rations might be useful later on imo.
#10


Wheatles, that wasn't what I meant when I said you should take care of Ill!

Explanation: Wheatles was just recruited a short while ago and this was his former sleeping spot as prisoner. Not sure if bug or feature but I lol'ed.
#11
General Discussion / Alpha 4F: The Boomrat Blues
June 10, 2014, 08:49:11 AM
Cassandra Classic, day 53:
I constantly get mad boomrats. Sometimes a second one while the first boomrat is still making its way to my base (medium sized map). A couple of squirrels like to help out if the rodents with the explosive temperament are feeling a little under the weather.

PLEASE, PLEASE MAKE IT STOP, Tynan!!! I had between 8 or 10 boomrat attacks in 50 days. I'm beginning to hate those little, furry critters with a passion... -.-

Can you implement a sanity check for incidents with major annoyance potential (boomrats, squirrels, blight, electric discharge), please? Those incidents are usually not dangerous but get annoying if they happen repeatedly.

Oh, one other thing. Can you please remove the messages like "Joe Sixpack from the village Tears in the Tornado is derping around in your base". He is standing right there. I can see him just fine. He's taunting me. "Dare to arrest me and see what happens when the folks at home hear about it!"
You don't have to rub it in with a little message box on top of that...  ;)

PS: day 53, 13h: mad squirrel

PPS: day 55, 16h: mad muffalo; Thank Ceiling Cat, not another psychotic rodent!

PPS: day 59, 1h: another boomrat... -.-
#12
First things first: This is no real criticism but just an observation on how the balance has changed in my opinion.

In Alpha 2/3 I always build my colonies without any turrets. My defense relied 100% on my armed colonist and well prepared killboxes. Here is an example:

<-clicky for large pic

The advantages in my opinion are were:
It works reliably even during solar flares, it's expandable, it protects my colonist rather well, M24 snipers don't get a range advantage, maintenance is cheap, after building a cheap starting version with simple doors it can be easily upgraded for faster access, the AI doesn't send crazy amounts of enemies and the amount of copses are manageable.

Another trick was that I avoided to research and build things that (I suspect) increased the number of enemies the AI sends considerably. A lot of my late game colonies had only stone walls and carpets researched. I only started trading after my defenses were finished, did not collect any silver or stockpile metal either to that point. It's probably a very unusual approach but it worked well for me.


As of Alpha 4 my system doesn't seem to work anymore. I don't get enough colonist and decent weapons to man my defense. My team of 3-4 colonists armed with pistols doesn't stand a fighting chance against the 8 raider with Uzis, charge rifles and even miniguns. I've tried to build a couple of colonies since Alpha 4 but my old strategy seems to fail around day 30 when the first large group of enemies appear. I can probably get away with it if I optimize my playstyle a bit, get a lucky roll or save scum. But it will be a lot tougher than it was.

So instead I tried adding turrets back into my defense. It works but it REALLY bugs me. Until now I had a choice if I want to play Tower Defense or if I rely entirely on my colonists but now this choice is so much in favor of turrets that there basically is no decision any more.

I have played Cassandra Classic and Randy, but only a couple of games since RL stuff is keeping me occupied. Maybe you are interested in some quick feedback anyway, Tynan.

#13
Ideas / Key shortcuts to select a colonist?
May 21, 2014, 08:23:36 AM
I get this scenario often:
I want to trade/give a gift to a settlement or take out the mad muffalo before it can corner a single guy.
Where's my specialist? Open the colonist list, find the guy. Ah, RimWorld scrambled the order again.
Select his name. He is standing in a crowd. Click 5 times until you have him selected...

It would be so much nicer if we could assign a number key to a colonist. Press once to select him, twice to select and focus. Shift/Alt+number key could draft that colonist. Maybe we could even do this with buildings/zones?

It's not exactly a priority right now but it would be really 'nice to have' in the finished game.
#14
Unfinished / [Unfinished Mod] Alpha 3(v409) - Cats!
April 12, 2014, 05:59:36 PM
I'm working on removing the intolerable lack of cats in RimWorld!

Version: Alpha 3 v409 compatible

This mod is in a very early version and basically just a prove of concept. I'll have to look into some issues like:

  • complete art assets
  • different cat races
  • cats hunt and eat their prey
  • cats are no longer vegetarians...
  • cats might search for a nice sleeping place (like a comfy chair)

Pics for clicks:


Right now cats are basically just a better looking squirrel. They don't interact with other animals or your colonist and they are vegetarians. You can however get an ingame event 'a cat has gone mad' - which should be no problem until I add mountain lions. =3

+++ Download +++
#15
Ideas / How about a RED ALERT / BATTLE STATIONS?
April 05, 2014, 06:25:12 PM
I really like what they did in the FTL Advanced Edition:
You arrange all your pawns in their respective places and hit a button to save the positions. Next time the raiders show up you hit the RED ALERT button and everybody gets drafted and returns to their battle stations.
Extra props if you add a nice alarm sound and switch all the lamps to flashing red lights during the alert.

Thanks for your attention!
#16
General Discussion / General Questions about Water
March 28, 2014, 09:50:46 AM
I did a quick forum search about water and all I came up with was a short statement about biomes from Tynan. I was wondering if and how water will be implemented in Rimworld. I can't remember reading anything about it in the design documents. Sorry if this has already been answered. I haven't found it.

1) Will water become an important resource like food?
I think in some ways water should be even more important than food. It is hard to imagine that colonists would leave the colony or go completely mental if they don't get a meal for a day or two. Now with not getting anything to drink this kind of behavior would make much more sense. Somebody wandering off in a daze would be absolutely believable if he had nothing to stay hydrated. Hallucinations are a symptom or severe dehydration. Believe me, I experienced that for myself during my military time. You start to see things. Combine it with lack of sleep and hard physical work and you are only hanging on by a thread really soon... 0.o

Maybe we could get tools like canisters, filtration units, rain catchers, hand pumps, desalination unit..?

2) Will lakes, springs and rivers be a thing in Rimworld?[/b]
Can the engine support running water? (Can you dig a channel to irrigate plants?) Can we have fish, mussels and maybe something like crocodiles or piranhas? Might be interesting to have predators in the mix that make it dangerous to use any resources close to the water. Also: piranha trench as trap for raiders? Might lower their spirits a bit to get their calfs chewed on. xD

Anyway, adding water to the game would open up a lot of new possibilities for Rimworld and the modders imo. Are there any plans yet?
#17
I didn't want a second noble in my colony and got this guy from the RNG:



It fits too well and I think I have to start a prison colony for augmented humans.  8)

For those who don't know what I'm reffering to[1]:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khan_Noonien_Singh
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics_Wars#Eugenics_Wars_and_World_War_III

Now I really want a way to add sets of characters to the game. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to start a colony with Picard, Data and Crusher and have other 'lost' crew members join after they found the new colony?


1: Where have you been?!?
#18
Ideas / Cats and dogs?
November 12, 2013, 11:33:02 PM
I wondered if cats and dogs are planned? They have been an important part of human civilization for thousands of years and I think it would be likely that they would find their place even in a futuristic environment. There is already a flag for a trait 'likes cats'. Can we expect to see actual cats and dogs at some point? =3