Messages

Yeah, I love all the extra floors mods. I hope this is something Tynan plans to expand on and refine closer to final release.

I always set up production buildings for common resources with a "do until you have X", where X is a very comfortable buffer.

I have practically no micromanagement from that.

I think hauling issues would be easily solved by increasing pawn speed. I set mine to about 12, and it really makes inefficient hauling/pathfinding a non-issue, while not making them zip around (it seems like a fairly human speed, perhaps a bit sped up but so is time in-game).

It's a nice idea, but I wouldn't consider it a priority. Generally speaking, my pawns have more work to do than time, so it'd have limited use in my play.

I'm excited most about the rivers and roads. I really hope this is moving more in the direction of (and beyond!) Dwarf Fortress' worldgen/live world. It certainly seems that way, especially with more outposts too (no necromancer towers or evil biomes yet, though). The following questions (not A17-specific) come to mind:

• Will these rivers/roads have an effect on gameplay, other than moving throughout the world? Can we build boats to travel the waterways? Will we see waterway-based traders and raiders (Vikings!)? Will they also use lakes/oceans? Can we build bridges?
• Will we ever get waves for coastlines? At least a sound effect? I love coastal locations, but the audio-visual content is not fleshed out yet (understandably, but I hope it it will be soon).
• Will we get currents and sounds for rivers? Will we get added fluvial terrain with new plants/animals like marsh grasses, snakes, and crocodiles?
• Will we get a sort of real-time movement of people/groups/traders through the world, rather than just as a "storyteller RNG event"? Will their starting point (and anywhere they stop to trade) affect what they have to trade?
• Will we get more fully fleshed out settlements/societies/nations in the world? Large cities that span multiple "regions"?
• Of course, will we get water wheels and other water-based production facilities?
• Could we create "tolls" for waterways and tolls we have a settlement on?

Really, improving worldgen and world-connectedness are about as important to me as multiplayer, and given the latter is probably not happening, I'm super-stoked!

Basic idea: colonies can buy books for a given tech level. Pawns can spend time studying books, which raises a "knowledge" skill.

The colony's tech level is an average of this skill for everyone in the colony. Also the math for research penalties can be more flexible, since you just multiply based on the [average skill] rather than a simplistic "level 1, 2, 3" thing.

This has the added benefit of allowing a colony to raise its tech level just by letting in more knowledgeable newcomers (or reducing it if you add in a bunch of tribals).

At the very least, this should be easily modded I guess.

@Greep:
Thanks. Yeah, it looks like a (very expensive) license is required. Oh well. I might be able to find someone on the free photo sites... but they're really spotty on what I'm looking for.

I'm not sure I have already violated it, since I am using the content solely for personal use, and that's usually exempted by fair use. I wasn't sure non-profit mods were exempted, but after the guy above noted fair use, I researched it and came to the conclusion it wasn't since nobody had a definitive answer here.

Anyway, they can always ask for the mod to be taken down, and I don't want to put all that work into something that'd be taken down, or have to contemplate paying out a ton of money to keep it up. I'll just put this on the backburner and pray Tynan has a change of heart on his stylistic choices and that the current vegetation images are just rough placeholders, though I'm fairly sure they're the intended end product.

if you "know better", why are you asking at forum?

Cool down tough guy, I just looked it up yesterday after waiting a while for anyone with experience to chime in.

Fair use is not applicable to widespread dissemination of entertainment goods.

I can use the images personally for my own mod, but distributing it would not fall within fair use.

So the question remains, does anyone know if Shutterstock specifically allows for their images to be used for non-commercial distribution?

As far as I can tell, they don't, which sucks, because it would cost hundreds to purchase a few dozen pictures.

That's basically it. I want to do a nature mod, and Shutterstock has a ton of great pictures I can use. I read through their terms, and it's not really clear to me, not being a lawyer. This is obviously non-commercial use. I would be editing the images, of course.

Here's an example of what I'm after:



I know someone else is doing something similar, but I prefer it to my taste. I know it doesn't look great with the rock chunks drawing over the trees, but whatever, I still think it's better than vanilla.

Maybe...maybe "Skilled crafters work faster" and "Good quality takes more time" cancels out exactly, and so all items take the same amount of time regardless of skill.

Anybody buy that?

No.

I might not be a "crafter", but I'm a tradesman. Good tradesmen can do work far better than crap ones, and in less time it takes crap ones to create the ungodly messes they make.

Sure, making a sculpture of David will take a very long time. But making, say, a pair of pants will probably take a master tailor less time than some random guy, and look 100x better as well.

You try to make a pair of pants right now. How long is it going to take before you even start cutting and sewing? The master tailor has already finished, and it's fabulous. Because he's done it 10,000 times before, and it's second nature to him. He could do it blindfolded better than you, maybe with his feet. So you're the 0 skill colonist and he's the 15 skill colonist. Makes sense.

Just chiming in to say that a water system is one of the big features I feel the game is still missing.

I found that when I greatly increased grass sprites per time from like 9 to 20, it basically halved my FPS... not sure why, that shouldn't really affect performance as they're all identical sprites and this is 2017. Might've been due to the swaying animation - I didn't check that.

My recent plays reinforce the feelings I had about a year ago when I last played a lot:

I find Cassandra exhausting. I like to play slow, fairly relaxed games but with some bite. Cassandra just keeps amping things up with constant raids and disease.

Then there's Phoebe at her hardest, which is just "empty" and almost event-less. I fully agree with the title.

I would really like a mix of Phoebe and Cassandra, which is MOSTLY easygoing (and gives lots of time for recouping after attacks) but then like once a year gives you a perfect storm. So the occasional very light raid, etc, and then a massive pirate/mech attack in a blue moon.

I feel like solar should be a later-game item that is significantly more efficient in materials/watt than wind, yet suffers all the downsides it currently has, with wind being the only real option in the early game, and a decent backup into the late game, at least until an "industrial" power source can be constructed (geothermal, nuclear, glitterpower, whathaveyou).

I also wouldn't mind increasing solar efficiency with research opening up better designs.

I also think, as with the real world, solar and wind should be more efficient in different areas. Solar should easily trump wind in tropical and arid regions, whereas wind should be more competitive in temperate and colder regions, or coastal areas, or in unforested areas (plains tend to = higher winds).

They seem very useful for raiders, as they don't need to hit their target, being off 20 cells still usually does damage to something in my base...

They are practically useless for me with the miss radius being so extreme. Unmodded I would never use them.

Modded to be far more precise (yet still not pinpoint, but at least 20% of shells hit somewhat the target), they are very useful and a mid-late-game staple.

Now, I'd like some changes so I'm not feeling "forced" to do something unrealistic and very "gamey" to avoid something else.

Who is forcing you other than yourself?

Seriously. Play the game however you want, but for some reason you're playing a way you don't want and complaining about that.

If half the pawns are useless (I agree it's an issue), either roleplay as a brutally strict tribe leader who gets rid of anyone who can't carry their own weight (optimal play) or roleplay as though you have to actually take in and adapt to the various weaknesses of your colonists, or somewhere in the middle.

The game is extremely flexible in how difficult or easy it can be. A clothing debuff shouldn't be that big of an issue. If it is, go down a difficulty level. Not complicated stuff.