Storyteller: Cassandra
Difficulty: Merciless
Biome/hilliness: Temperate forest/mountainous
Commitment mode: No, I just don't trust you enough yet, we'll get there
Current colony age (days): 605
Hours played in the last 2 days: 12
Complete mod list: Hugs Lib, Allow Tool, Animal Tab, Numbers
Long time listener, first time caller.
Please note I didn't update past 1.0.1982 as I was starting the ship reactor, anything that has changed since then you can disregard, also I haven't played since last year so not sure what was added in B18 vs the unstable build.
This will mainly be in regards to the mid/late game, the early game I can't remember much besides it seemed well balanced and fairly challenging.
I'll start with melee because I absolutely love where its at right now, previously I'd only use it to clean up those fleeing, now its a front line attack. I never thought I would have a mechanoid raid drop right on top and send all my melee guys to stand next to the pods, sure you lose the occansional limb, but its great for preventing infernos from getting off more than one shot, sometimes none. It was a bit strong several builds ago when one mechanoid was killed from 2 hits and it's artificial brain destroyed but I'm fairly sure they are tankier now, as they should be.
Plant work seems to take a lot longer now which is fine, the main problem seems to be with growing zones getting out of sync for harvesting over time resulting in colonists running all over the map to harvest a few plants here and a few plants there forcing regular manual harvesting to get zone back in sync. It would be great if there was an option to harvest an entire zone once all plants are ready to harvest, which would just mean not mixing soil types and if part of it gets burnt or destroyed you could just turn the option off. Ths funny thing is blight used to help with getting zones back into sync and whereas I'm fine with it as it is, it would be a good idea to change the hotkey Y, in my happy trigger finger clicking I accidently double clicked my growing zone and deleted them all resulting in a rare rage quit.
I tried this run to self sustain in regards to meat and milk from tamed animals, but it requires a lot of animals and a decent part of the map covered in haygrass, not necessarily saying it needs a buff, maybe to milk, but I do welcome any manhunter pack and will always take the risk even with bears, elephants and rhinos. Every animal on the map I'll hunt just to sustain fine meals. The mad animal event should only be early game, mid its just annoying, mad animals however can still be a challenge, I had 3 thrumbos wander in plus 2 in my taming pen go mad, my best handler lost an arm, not best anymore.
The inspirations seem like a good idea, but could be more focussed on colonists of a certain skill level rather than someone below level 5 in construction, crafting and art, perhaps it could be based more on what tasks they do the most or have a minimum skill level or passion for. I do like being able to save gold and other limited resources for inspirations mostly resulting in masterwork or legendary. That being said it woul be great to have a small chance, say 5% for level 20 to produce legendary without inspiration, maybe 1-2% for level 19 and 0% for anything below, it makes the higher levels more meaningful especially since they take a lot ot get to and maintain, plus the warm fuzzy feeling from the occassional legendary work notification. The same goes for other skills, I gave my best melee guy 2 trainers to go from level 14 to 20 resulting in an increase from 17.17 to 17.5 dps, I understand the principle behind diminishing returns but this should be slightly more rewarding. Melee and shooting are by far the hardest to get to level 20, this is the first game since A8 or so where I've gotten a colonist to level 20 shooting thanks to fast learner, burning passion and the ship launch raid madness, so more of a reward for higher levels would be great.
Back to legendary work, the notification states that word will spread far and wide, but I'm not sure this has any meaning, more raiders trying to steal it for example a few days after, more traders ground and orbital, maybe it does have an impact, but I haven't noticed. For me the more traders would be beautiful as i tend to cover the map with apparel and art.
Now to raids, sieges are a large threat early on, but become way to easy even in mid game, maybe a double, triple or even quadruple siege would make it much more of a threat. I found that raids in general late game were fairly easy, but my fun points hit 1000 after about 90 days so maybe that was it, but even ship parts weren't a challenge with only 20 centipedes and 40 or so scythers/lancers. It could also be I've played through too many versions and my game was bugged, but it seemed like I'd hit a cap, so I figured I might as well start up the ship.
The 15 days for the reactor to start were absolutely awesome, raids most days sometimes 2 at the same time, colonists barely having time to heal, rotting corpses all over the place and more mental breaks than the past 5 years. I had Doc a brawler throw a tantrum as I've been forcing hime to use a charge lance all game, he went straight to the chemfuel room resulting in 12k lost chemfuel and 10 chemfuel reactors, somehow he lived. A mechanoid raid for the first time dropped on top of my mortars destroying 10 and 200+ shells, a huge cost. One of my best shooters and level 20 artists went wildman, another level 20 constructer went beserk and was instantly killed by auto-attack. A total of 4 colonists died, luckily I has 5 resurrector serums from a trade request so in the end everyone escaped except one that had a daze next to the ship. This is a great change to the ship launch from someone who hasn'r built one since A12, hell I'll probably start the reactor much earlier next time just for the raids.
Caravaning still has a way to go, most of the time its just not worth it, early game I went for a masterwork minigun, later for 5 resurrectors in exchange for only 26 spears (I would've given 100 spears suckers). The rewards need to be masterwork and legendary items and rare items even if the goods requested go up significantly I would still go for them. The only other time I caravanned was when there were 4 outposts and 2 trade requests close together, so that was fairly worthwhile, but the outposts do need to scale higher in terms of difficulty. It would be nice to be able to drop pod a trade request, I tried to send the 26 spears, but they would only take it as a gift unless I sent another Spears, my warden named Spears who then had to walk back. Reassigning beds is also annoying, not sure if theres an easy fix for this.
Drugs at the moment seem too risky for the reward, I'd normally just use some go juice for the melee guys during raids, but during the reactor startup I had 14 melee guys take just 1 go juice every 2 days, over the 15 days 7 got addicted, 2 started developing tolerance, this seems a bit much given the length of time withdrawl takes and the extreme impairment as a result. Chemical fascination colonists are not worth it for the most part, I has 2 get addicted, go through withdrawl, then shortly after get addicted again, they mysteriously got hacked to pieces. The only one I tolerated was Sacriel, not just for his tip regarding stools next to stoves and workbenches as a colonist he was an industrious level 20 crafter with a burning passion, luckily after getting over his withdrawl after being recruited he didn't get addicted again.
Plasteel seems fairly limited, that being said I have pumped out power armour, charge rifles/lances and longswords, so it could even be nerfed a bit, uranium I always have 8000+ even with building all autodoors and most exterior walls with it, along with 10 uranium turrets in the early days of the reactor startup, Chemfuel seems abundant.
Quickly regarding mods, Numbers is probably the best mod across any game of all time, the wealth on information, being able to sort by any stat in the game, would be great to see it integrated, but regardless will always use it as long as Mehni keeps working on it that is. Allow tool the biggest feature is haul urgently, so often food, other crops and gear purchased from traders is left to deteriorating outside, a priority hauls would be a nice addition. Animal tab allows filtering by animals so you can assign particular types to various handlers, assign to bonded, unassign all, these features would be a great addition especially for those who go a mental amount of animals, also a toggle follow in the UI when you click on and animal would be much easier than going into the menu. Speaking of toggles, being able to toggle notifications would be a nice addition, especially when it comes to breakdowns, early game a cooler breaking down can mean game over, but later its just several autodoors a day.
I haven't posted graphs because my scummy overpriced ISP(anyone in the US, UK or AU will agree) has me speed limited at the moment, but fun points capped at 1000 early on, population was at 49 until friendly chat was removed after which quickly grew to 65, wealth passed 3M, mood hovered between 60 and 70.
This has gotten fairly long and I've probably forgotten a few things, but I just wanted to say as a developer your engagement with the community has been unprecedented and is to be admired especially given the variable nature and value of feedback in general, so I hope this helps and I look forward to the full release, because who doesn't love a full release. Sorry I haven't contributed more since A5 however many years ago that was but I've been happy with the progression.
Thanks for a great game.
Difficulty: Merciless
Biome/hilliness: Temperate forest/mountainous
Commitment mode: No, I just don't trust you enough yet, we'll get there
Current colony age (days): 605
Hours played in the last 2 days: 12
Complete mod list: Hugs Lib, Allow Tool, Animal Tab, Numbers
Long time listener, first time caller.
Please note I didn't update past 1.0.1982 as I was starting the ship reactor, anything that has changed since then you can disregard, also I haven't played since last year so not sure what was added in B18 vs the unstable build.
This will mainly be in regards to the mid/late game, the early game I can't remember much besides it seemed well balanced and fairly challenging.
I'll start with melee because I absolutely love where its at right now, previously I'd only use it to clean up those fleeing, now its a front line attack. I never thought I would have a mechanoid raid drop right on top and send all my melee guys to stand next to the pods, sure you lose the occansional limb, but its great for preventing infernos from getting off more than one shot, sometimes none. It was a bit strong several builds ago when one mechanoid was killed from 2 hits and it's artificial brain destroyed but I'm fairly sure they are tankier now, as they should be.
Plant work seems to take a lot longer now which is fine, the main problem seems to be with growing zones getting out of sync for harvesting over time resulting in colonists running all over the map to harvest a few plants here and a few plants there forcing regular manual harvesting to get zone back in sync. It would be great if there was an option to harvest an entire zone once all plants are ready to harvest, which would just mean not mixing soil types and if part of it gets burnt or destroyed you could just turn the option off. Ths funny thing is blight used to help with getting zones back into sync and whereas I'm fine with it as it is, it would be a good idea to change the hotkey Y, in my happy trigger finger clicking I accidently double clicked my growing zone and deleted them all resulting in a rare rage quit.
I tried this run to self sustain in regards to meat and milk from tamed animals, but it requires a lot of animals and a decent part of the map covered in haygrass, not necessarily saying it needs a buff, maybe to milk, but I do welcome any manhunter pack and will always take the risk even with bears, elephants and rhinos. Every animal on the map I'll hunt just to sustain fine meals. The mad animal event should only be early game, mid its just annoying, mad animals however can still be a challenge, I had 3 thrumbos wander in plus 2 in my taming pen go mad, my best handler lost an arm, not best anymore.
The inspirations seem like a good idea, but could be more focussed on colonists of a certain skill level rather than someone below level 5 in construction, crafting and art, perhaps it could be based more on what tasks they do the most or have a minimum skill level or passion for. I do like being able to save gold and other limited resources for inspirations mostly resulting in masterwork or legendary. That being said it woul be great to have a small chance, say 5% for level 20 to produce legendary without inspiration, maybe 1-2% for level 19 and 0% for anything below, it makes the higher levels more meaningful especially since they take a lot ot get to and maintain, plus the warm fuzzy feeling from the occassional legendary work notification. The same goes for other skills, I gave my best melee guy 2 trainers to go from level 14 to 20 resulting in an increase from 17.17 to 17.5 dps, I understand the principle behind diminishing returns but this should be slightly more rewarding. Melee and shooting are by far the hardest to get to level 20, this is the first game since A8 or so where I've gotten a colonist to level 20 shooting thanks to fast learner, burning passion and the ship launch raid madness, so more of a reward for higher levels would be great.
Back to legendary work, the notification states that word will spread far and wide, but I'm not sure this has any meaning, more raiders trying to steal it for example a few days after, more traders ground and orbital, maybe it does have an impact, but I haven't noticed. For me the more traders would be beautiful as i tend to cover the map with apparel and art.
Now to raids, sieges are a large threat early on, but become way to easy even in mid game, maybe a double, triple or even quadruple siege would make it much more of a threat. I found that raids in general late game were fairly easy, but my fun points hit 1000 after about 90 days so maybe that was it, but even ship parts weren't a challenge with only 20 centipedes and 40 or so scythers/lancers. It could also be I've played through too many versions and my game was bugged, but it seemed like I'd hit a cap, so I figured I might as well start up the ship.
The 15 days for the reactor to start were absolutely awesome, raids most days sometimes 2 at the same time, colonists barely having time to heal, rotting corpses all over the place and more mental breaks than the past 5 years. I had Doc a brawler throw a tantrum as I've been forcing hime to use a charge lance all game, he went straight to the chemfuel room resulting in 12k lost chemfuel and 10 chemfuel reactors, somehow he lived. A mechanoid raid for the first time dropped on top of my mortars destroying 10 and 200+ shells, a huge cost. One of my best shooters and level 20 artists went wildman, another level 20 constructer went beserk and was instantly killed by auto-attack. A total of 4 colonists died, luckily I has 5 resurrector serums from a trade request so in the end everyone escaped except one that had a daze next to the ship. This is a great change to the ship launch from someone who hasn'r built one since A12, hell I'll probably start the reactor much earlier next time just for the raids.
Caravaning still has a way to go, most of the time its just not worth it, early game I went for a masterwork minigun, later for 5 resurrectors in exchange for only 26 spears (I would've given 100 spears suckers). The rewards need to be masterwork and legendary items and rare items even if the goods requested go up significantly I would still go for them. The only other time I caravanned was when there were 4 outposts and 2 trade requests close together, so that was fairly worthwhile, but the outposts do need to scale higher in terms of difficulty. It would be nice to be able to drop pod a trade request, I tried to send the 26 spears, but they would only take it as a gift unless I sent another Spears, my warden named Spears who then had to walk back. Reassigning beds is also annoying, not sure if theres an easy fix for this.
Drugs at the moment seem too risky for the reward, I'd normally just use some go juice for the melee guys during raids, but during the reactor startup I had 14 melee guys take just 1 go juice every 2 days, over the 15 days 7 got addicted, 2 started developing tolerance, this seems a bit much given the length of time withdrawl takes and the extreme impairment as a result. Chemical fascination colonists are not worth it for the most part, I has 2 get addicted, go through withdrawl, then shortly after get addicted again, they mysteriously got hacked to pieces. The only one I tolerated was Sacriel, not just for his tip regarding stools next to stoves and workbenches as a colonist he was an industrious level 20 crafter with a burning passion, luckily after getting over his withdrawl after being recruited he didn't get addicted again.
Plasteel seems fairly limited, that being said I have pumped out power armour, charge rifles/lances and longswords, so it could even be nerfed a bit, uranium I always have 8000+ even with building all autodoors and most exterior walls with it, along with 10 uranium turrets in the early days of the reactor startup, Chemfuel seems abundant.
Quickly regarding mods, Numbers is probably the best mod across any game of all time, the wealth on information, being able to sort by any stat in the game, would be great to see it integrated, but regardless will always use it as long as Mehni keeps working on it that is. Allow tool the biggest feature is haul urgently, so often food, other crops and gear purchased from traders is left to deteriorating outside, a priority hauls would be a nice addition. Animal tab allows filtering by animals so you can assign particular types to various handlers, assign to bonded, unassign all, these features would be a great addition especially for those who go a mental amount of animals, also a toggle follow in the UI when you click on and animal would be much easier than going into the menu. Speaking of toggles, being able to toggle notifications would be a nice addition, especially when it comes to breakdowns, early game a cooler breaking down can mean game over, but later its just several autodoors a day.
I haven't posted graphs because my scummy overpriced ISP(anyone in the US, UK or AU will agree) has me speed limited at the moment, but fun points capped at 1000 early on, population was at 49 until friendly chat was removed after which quickly grew to 65, wealth passed 3M, mood hovered between 60 and 70.
This has gotten fairly long and I've probably forgotten a few things, but I just wanted to say as a developer your engagement with the community has been unprecedented and is to be admired especially given the variable nature and value of feedback in general, so I hope this helps and I look forward to the full release, because who doesn't love a full release. Sorry I haven't contributed more since A5 however many years ago that was but I've been happy with the progression.
Thanks for a great game.
