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Well, that would make most sense, but I feel like there are good arguments for the simpler solution...

Either way, I think I've figured out my problem: The female elk seems to have been too young when the male was still alive.
But I still would love it if it was easier to figure out whether or not you should expect bebbies.

So, if the elk doesn't get pregnant, I must have been mistaken about them having mated?

At least that'd put my mind at ease.

Hey

So, I'm wondering if anyone's figured out where babies come from. I've previously managed to get animals to mate, and I've previously seen animals get pregnant and have kids...

But I'm wondering how exactly the game determines whether animals get pregnant. Is it like real life where you have a certain percentage chance of pregnancy each time mating occurs? Or does mating equal pregnancy in every case? Are some animals sterile? If they are, do they mate?

I've felt it necessary to butcher a male Elk, who was paired with a female Elk... I know for a fact that they mated at least once, but after what seems like weeks or months, I've yet to discover the female is pregnant. And since my colonists ate the male, I'm left with one of three situations:

One: I butchered the male prematurely, not knowing that mating only works a percentage of the time, and my female Elk will have to wait for summer in the hope that more elks wander into my land.
Two: I was right to butcher the male because he (or the female) was obviously sterile.
Three: I was right to butcher the male because the female got pregnant long ago and is just about to show symptoms.

I'd really love it if someone could disconfirm two of these theories...

Yup, I got stuck again. I'm back. When was my last post? Geez. I better get some work done...

I feel your pain... I got stuck on tvtropes last week... Spent eight hours trying to get out of there... It was horrifying.

I'd tend to just build a consolidated perimeter that includes a wall around the geothermal.

I've never seen a geothermal cause any sort of problem due to rain or heat, so I am a little puzzled... Can they short in the rain? Or accumulate enough heat to start a fire?

If the latter, you can just build vents to expel the heat. Or coolers.

If you have to build the generator far away from your base, I suggest setting up sandbags or walls nearby to fire at raiders from... Then build a thick wall with a few stone gates around the generator. When the raiders start knocking down the gate, you set up your men behind the sandbags and start shooting. If you organize it right you can deprive the enemy of cover... Even put some traps in the area you expect they'd try to take cover in.

I don't find cold biomes to be extremely hard, but I think the OP is being silly when he says meat and trees aren't useful.

Stonecutting takes a hell of a lot more time than grabbing a few trees. And assuming you don't hunt squirrels, hunting is a fast source of food (which gives a happiness bonus) and leather for durable clothing and for selling.

Also, farming takes a lot more resources on cold maps since you have to do it indoors (or spend more time on it during summer).

All that said, I don't disagree that some desert maps can be harder.

And I also tend to think farming is a little overpowered right now... I produce so much corn in the first two months of a game that it lasts two years.

(Sorry, couldn't figure out how to attach in-line)

Yes, that's right. All the tortoises are dying of a cold snap. I've checked the whole map. I'm frantically looking for the remains to make sure the spring thaw won't uncover too many skeletons of what would have been edible turtle corpses.

Clearly, something has happened to the environment to explain it. I blame Al Gore.
Unless these are some kind of unique tortoise breed that procreates by generating turtling spores during the summer, which then burrow into the ground come wintertime and emerge as fresh, delicious turtles in the spring.

Hey

There's no other way to explain it.

My colony lives in a forest biome with long growing seasons. Many animals are seen to make their living here... Muffalos... Deer... Squirrels, tortoises, the occasional boomrat.

But there's one species that's clearly not adapted to living in this usually pleasant environment:


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Hey

I know this has been mentioned before, but I didn't find a suggestion thread for it, and I think it's almost a cheap idea, and one I've been hoping for for months.

All I want is a button that selects a random square on the world map when you're starting a colony.

I like randomizing as many parts of the start as I can - I always start with the first three colonists offered. Usually I pick a random location by rolling a number between 1 and 100 on both axes and guestimate what spot on the map that corresponds to. But I can't shake the feeling that I'm cheating because my selection will always be biased since I'm only really able to estimate the general region Random.org wants me to start at, and then I'm left to actually pick a spot, which isn't random at all... At best, it's arbitrary.

So, yeah... a button that selects a random square on the map. I'm guessing there's a mod for it. I don't imagine it'd be really difficult. It's easy to make a button, and it's easy to generate a number based on the world size. I don't know if it's easy to make the button select a specific location, though, because I haven't looked at the code involved. All that said, I also don't imagine it's high priority since only wannabe math nerds are gonna care, and even then they won't care too much. Unless they have OCD. Which I don't, but I'm autistic and that's close enough. ;-)

But I thought I'd put it out there.
Have a wonderful time with the new alpha, everyone! I haven't even selected a starting location yet...

According to the lore, which is fairly commonsensical on this point, most worlds will tend to have cycles of dark ages (after civilizational collapse or destruction) and renaissances. There is nothing about the rimworld that's unique except for its distance to other worlds.

As such, it's perfectly reasonable that one would land on a world like what we had in the medieval era, or the classical era, the pre-modern or modern eras. Of course, none of these eras would be exactly like Earth's eras.

Commonsense would dictate that most worlds would be dominated by one type of civilization, but even relatively highly advanced worlds would likely have lower-tech civilizations (e.i. early modern tech in 1800's Europe and late medieval-style civilisations in West Africa and undiscovered tribes in South America).
Pirates, however, seem to be newcomers to the Rimworld, or else remnants of long-lost civilizations that kept isolated from the natives, and can show up on any planet (except one policed by highly advanced civilizations?).

For gameplay reasons, it's probably quite unlikely that Tynan will have us crashland on "modern" type worlds or later, with billions of people, since... well... If heretofore unknown aliens crashlanded on Earth, we'd probably notice and start investigating. It'd make for a very short game if a major superpower decided to put your colonists in a top secret lab.

I have faith that Tynan will probably add medieval civilizations, and I expect pre-medieval and pre-modern civilizations might show up too, but I don't think it's a high priority - They'd be quite work-intensive but require little of the basic gameplay mechanics to be significantly altered. This means, as a game developer, it makes sense to add these later on, when the game is running and basic elements have been balanced and you have time to add new graphics, names, stories, weapons, etc.

Yeah, I guess it's silly of me to judge the discrepancy between shields and weapons when the game is still in alpha. I still think shields are a good idea for the game, I just think energy shields are kinda unnecessary and weird.

I just hope the word "Hoffmann effect" or whatever doesn't show up in-game. I'd consider that breaking immersion, and I like my immersion. It's what keeps me from thinking about my real life, after all.

A lot of the messiness has been alleviated, I think, in the last alpha. Colonists will try to stack things... Although this gets muddled whenever something is already reserved, I think. And for some reason my cooks insist on giving every meal its own stack. It'd be lovely for haulers to - occasionally, if no other hauling tasks are available, tidy up the stockpiles. Maybe even have it be a part of the cleaning routine, which would make more sense since players would probably not want hauling and tidying to have the same priority. The quick fix for it is to delete those squares in the stockpile that hold a stack you'd like to have merged, then make someone haul the stack and re-designate the square as part of the stockpile.

I've taken to just building a giant kitchen. If I run out of space, that's a very, very good sign . Although since I figured out that one can grow crops indoors without hydroponics, I've found getting food is rather easy.

Yeah... We assign these kinds of roles anyway, so they might as well take some pride in their work.

One could argue that this already is how the learning process works, though. But there's no real "leader" or "organizer" or "administrator" job. Just your nobles who refuse to do anything but hunt, which, I suppose, is pretty realistic.

Instead of a formal political process, you could have some colonists become "leader candidates", essentially alpha males (due to high fighting or social skills, or due to being former politicians or nobles). If there's only one character who tries to fill the role as leader, he assumes it without any protestations. This could yield benefits for the colony. If more than one character tries to be the head honcho, the colonists might form into factions and get penalties (like faction members getting negative social interaction). Mental breakdowns could lead members of one faction to attack the leader, or even other members, of another faction.
Then you'd also have a bunch of undecided colonists who justifiably think the power struggle is stupid.

Gameplay wise, this would all have the effect of making the player want colonists with high leadership potential, so they'll have at least one that wants to lead, but avoid too many "alpha males" lest conflict is brewed. And if a conflict does occur, the player may choose to keep two factions separated, with separate dormitories and work areas.

This whole suggestion reminds me of the first season of the Walking Dead, with the main character informally assuming a leadership role due to his former profession (sheriff). He eventually leaves his former friend to get eaten during an escape, and another guy is left handcuffed to a roof. Both men had caused the protagonist serious headaches and leadership crises.
In Rimworld terms, I imagine arresting a competing faction leader, or delaying his medical care after a fight, to prevent soldiers and workers who like that faction leader to revert to supporting the colony leader... Lest they lose their heads one day and stage a coup.