Messages

@Canute, JT: yeah, I missed something which means the bug still occurs. I know this, and even flagged it for myself, and then completely forgot to actually do something about it. Sorry!

Just wanted to confirm that the latest release did indeed solve it.  Many thanks!

Bah! Of course it'd be that easy.  Thanks.  Good to know that I'm just dumb rather than something needs fixing! =)

The Mint Menu is truly fantastic, and I'm really impressed by it.

One niggle I have, however: trees don't seem to appear in the list of sowable crops in one of my worlds.  I notice in the original screenshot that they do... is this like a problem on my end (e.g., running Seeds Please), or are they not showing up for other people either?

This is fantastic!  I had no idea what I was missing without this, and the widescreen interface is a godsend.

[edit]Second paragraph redacted! Wrong mod! But the QOL features this adds to the bill list are awesome too. =)

Man... I've been wanting this kind of mod for ages. You're not adding in any super fancy pantsy endgame stuff, it's not all about the shiny and convenient (the opposite, actually).  Totally awesome.

I do have a worry, though: the medicines you've introduced... do they allow one a potential escape route to something in game, where there isn't in the vanilla game?  If so, that could probably throw a balance that Tynan intended.  I realise I'm doing exactly what you tutted against in one of the comments here (no, I have not yet played your mod), but I like to think I'm asking sensible questions.

So, it's the medicines I'm worried about; I can see that you've made the actual meat, you could say, of this mod as brutal as it needs to be (love you for that. I do.).

Is the acquisition of the medicines and the painkiller difficult (through expense, or finnickyness [not a word]; risk at every step of the process) enough to make treating such health conditions (be it cut off limb or malaria) always tense, always a maybe?  I want to think of medicines and blood packs as a precious treat, and not an endgame solve-all.

Hmmmmmm sorry to be a pain

Just noticed this, so I figure I'll give it a reply anyway.  Hey, "only" 16 months late... no biggie!  (Around that time I was halfway through updating my mods for A17, a little frustrated by doing an IL-insertion patch for a caravan overloading mod I was working on, and diverted myself by playing Skyrim... until my gaming drive crashed in August.  I never got back to RimWorld after I reinstalled Skyrim on the replacement drive, eventually moving between GTA V, Subnautica, Starbound, and Crusader Kings 2 for a long spell.  C'est la vie d'un joueur. =P)

Now to the actual questions, which are answered more in the generic than the specific.

My balancing motive was entirely about ensuring that a lone survivor scenario (one of my favourites) could survive without the inevitable guarantee of succumbing to disease, as that was always anti-climactic and unfun.  The self-tending options that were added in A17 stymied the purpose somewhat, so it was sort of coincidentally dissatisfying that by the time I knocked them off my to-do list that the base game had made them at least partly redundant... so I implemented them anyway. =)

All special medicines must be researched and unlocked to make them oneself, and use neutroamine as a base like any other drug does (which is limited by the base game to traders unless you use a mod that allows you to produce it for yourself).  The essential medicines are all based on the over-arching purpose of the World Health Organisation essential medicines list, which are intended to diagnose and treat the serious conditions that affect impoverished societies.  They are balanced around the real world availability of medicine: societies that have access to good medicine already don't need them, while poor societies need them badly and don't have access to them -- for instance, Africa still has a malaria epidemic, after all, something the western world barely even registers.  The principal means of acquisition is that of being randomly generated on base game traders, rather than added specifically as guaranteed supplies, making them more of a "rare treat" than an easy solution to life's problems.  When you're playing a scenario where survival is dangerous or disease is rampant, you'll want to pick them up.  If you're playing a scenario where survival is safer in numbers, they're just an incidental thing that shows up from time to time in cargo drops or that you might pick up from a trader now and then.

By the time you can manufacture a full supply of every essential medicine, you no longer need them anyway, because at that point (if playing even halfway optimally) you'll have a fully-functional hospital that renders it unlikely for anyone to die of a simple disease.  At that point most diseases are more tedious and annoying rather than interesting and fun; when I have a dozen people battering down my door with charge lances, the last thing I want to worry about while playing is micromanaging people's common colds.  (Ironically for that argument, though, the medicines do require specific bills to apply, since I didn't write a job driver that automatically administers them... I hadn't learned the ins-and-outs of that part of the code yet. ;-))

Ananogel was likewise specifically balanced around the sensory mechanites, which once they infect your lone survivor cause pain that literally slows down everything you do (in spite of their beneficial side effects).  Knowing that the concept would have to affect fibrous mechanites and luciferium by definition, it also eliminates fibrous mechanites (which is probably something you'd prefer not to treat as a lone survivor).  For luciferium in particular, it was deliberately balanced to eliminate only the good side effects of the "devil's bargain" without getting rid of the bad ones, since you've already sold your soul to the mechanites.

I've been designing games for close to twenty years now (with very little implementation to show for it because I'm a lazy arse who hates programming with a general passion), so I do reason most of my design decisions rather than just throwing them in willy nilly. =)

Since as is obvious I tend to prevaricate, I'll just conclude by making a note to add the crafting recipes and the unlocking process to the OP.  When I get this updated (thanks sidfu!) I'll do just that.

Thanks for the Fish Industry update!  AFAIK there are now three competing fishing spot mods (plus one fishing net mod!), and Fish Industry remains my favourite.

So, so eagerly looking forward to CaveWorld Flora and Cave Biome. ;-)

Loving the updates so far!

Is there any way forcibly to eliminate all of the original backstories in Editable Backstories + EdB Prepare Carefully without having to enable the "tagging" option?  I seem to recall this was the case in A16 or so, but not so much anymore.  The tagging option was clearly added as a compromise, but is it possible to eliminate it entirely?  (i.e., was the compromise technical in nature, or just to mollify the backers?)  The one factor of RimWorld that makes me froth at the mouth is the literal and figurative special snowflakes from the Kickstarter nonsense, and it's a pain to have to remember to enable the Mod Options in the main menu prior to starting a new colony and then switch them back off after the colony starts. =)

I never did say it in the past, so I do have to mention how utterly pleased I am that Editable Backstories exists in the first place, and have to heap all the praise that was lost from RimWorld proper onto you instead. ;-)

---

I have a couple feature requests for Permafrost that are far less contentious than my dislike of Kickstarter ;-):

1) A (configurable?) 50% reduction in the freezing rate of moving water in Permafrost.  Standing water should freeze at the normal rate, but there should be at least a 50% reduction in the chance for a river/creek to freeze, since running water always freezes more slowly.

2) I've also been pondering and re-pondering the possibility of falling through thin ice -- breaking the tile back into water (and random adjacent thin ice tiles, too) and suffering damage directly to the lungs.  If incapacitated in water, a pawn might suffer continuous lung degradation, too...

3) Entering water in freezing temperatures will set a colony pawn to a minimum hypothermia level proportional to the map's current temperature below a threshold of 5 degrees Celsius (at, say, a 2:1 factor -- each degree below the hypothermia point sets the hypothermia hediff to a minimum of +2% severity).  For instance, if you enter water at -10 degrees, you reach {(threshold - current_temp) * 2} = {(5 - (-10)) * 2} = 30% hypothermia severity immediately if not already there.  At -40 degrees, falling into water is instantly incapacitating (90% severity of hypothermia).  Visitor and enemy pawns would either need pathfinding updates or would need to be omitted from this feature for balance (it shouldn't be possible to rely on the enemy's own stupidity to win every battle).

Just popped in to say -- wow.  Phenomenal work.  When I started alphabetically, the little xylophone at the beginning of Alive had me thinking that this was just going to be some cheesy RPG-themed music entirely out of place in RimWorld.

I then discovered that you not only have an appreciation of timing and bridges, but also of synthesis, harmony, and mood, all perfectly thematic with the RimWorld atmosphere and feel.

Truly exceptional.  This is definitely staying in my load order!

(Paired with the new music they added in one of the later alphas/betas, I'm going to have trouble telling who did what, too...)

Hola! I'll see what I can do over the next little while.  I've got a paper and/or an exam due every week over the next three weeks, but things should stabilise come December.

Some of those errors people were reporting after my hard drive failure in summer 2017 are perplexing to me, since everything worked for me with no errors.  My best guess is the typical "uploaded the older archive" chestnut, since I do that way too often. =P

Since the attachments are gone, I'll just knock those off my list when I do my update pass.

re: Mod Manager; yeah, I'm trying to use the steam api without checking if it's actually available. I'll get a fix out tonight.

I just tried every release on Github from October 29 through the November 06 version and I still get the same error with the Ludeon-bought DRM-free version.

Root level exception in Update(): System.TypeInitializationException: An exception was thrown by the type initializer for ModManager.CrossPromotionManager ---> System.InvalidOperationException: Steamworks is not initialized.
  at Steamworks.InteropHelp.TestIfAvailableClient () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at Steamworks.SteamUtils.GetAppID () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at ModManager.CrossPromotionManager..cctor () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  --- End of inner exception stack trace ---
  at ModManager.Page_BetterModConfig.WindowUpdate () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at Verse.WindowStack.WindowsUpdate () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at Verse.UIRoot.UIRootUpdate () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at Verse.UIRoot_Entry.UIRootUpdate () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at (wrapper dynamic-method) Verse.Root:Update_Patch1 (object)
Verse.Log:Error(String, Boolean)
Verse.Root:Update_Patch1(Object)
Verse.Root_Entry:Update()

I should note that while I am running the Ludeon DRM-free version, I actually do have Steam running at the moment, if that makes a difference.  (I use the Steam copy of the game only so far as is needed to download files from the Workshop, for those mods that release exclusively there.)

[edit] Nope, just tested with Steam off and no changes -- still get the logspam in debug mode.  No improvement after cleaning out the A17 cruft I still had in my AppData folder, either.

Aha!  Looks like that's another of those curious little core engine changes that snuck in from A16 to A17.  At least this one seems to make sense, since they're offering the ability to change the offsets directionally rather than heuristically.

Sorry about that, folks.  I saw that error but given the cryptic nature of it I was certain it was from one of my other installed mods.  Ai ya.

Patched .rar is already up under the same download link as before (or, here's a shortcut) -- no change made to the version identifier since it doesn't affect gameplay.

https://github.com/AngleWyrm/Mines/blob/master/Textures/Mineshaft.png

It's a placeable object.  Similar in principle to the quarry mod or the deep core drill but more specific and lower tech.

Should be save compatible, yes.  It patches vanilla content with XML patching, and adds no map components or other special detours at the moment.  Everything else is "new" content rather than "modified" content so it will simply get thrown into the object table, and AFAIK there's no serialised data being thrown askew.

You'll get errors if you remove the mod while you have any of the mod-added medicines on the map, but as far as I know they'll be non-fatal and your save will likely still work.

Field Surgery has been updated to A17 over a month late.  Better late than never I always say!

Actually I rarely say that.  This is probably the first time I've said it in two years.  But it applies more often than I say it.  I should probably say it more often, as a matter of fact.

OHHHKAY,
don't you think the psychological thrauma would be intense when someone watch the doctor to amputate own limbs or organs, not to speak about the pain.
Do you realy think a soldier could still fight after this ?
[snip]

Maybe the doctor should the KO anestetic method, that would damage the head by 1 point and anestetic the patient for the next operation.
He can treat the head afterwards. And sure it could be deadly if the patient allready got head damage.
But i think that is still better for the patience then no anestetic.

Ignoring the golden rule for a moment -- that you should never comment negatively on a mod unless you've actually downloaded it and tried it -- here's the essentials:

1) Amputation was historically performed without anaesthetic other than alcohol (which was imbibed, not administered).  A patient would chomp down on a leather bit.  (Wooden toggles were also used, but these could result in them breaking their own teeth from clenching too hard unless it was wrapped in rawhide.)  For a very accurate film representation of amputation prior to the industrial era, see Dr. Maturin in the movie Master and Commander.  The profession most commonly associated with amputation was the barber, also known as the barber-surgeon -- since he's the dude who has the razor-sharp knives for shaving with.  The procedure was one of two things: either they would twist a tourniquet against a brace until the bone snaps, and then cut through the now broken limb through the break with an extremely sharp blade in one go, or they would cut through the flesh as quickly as they could with a razor sharp blade until they hit the bone, then saw through the bone with a bonesaw, followed by the sharp blade again to cut through the remaining tissue.  Then they would try to tie off whatever arteries they could see and hope the rest would close themselves off before the patient died of blood loss.  Chance of death from an amputation was close to 60% -- I dropped that down to 45% to be charitable. ;-)

If it's a limb with a clear separation and it's not either the humerus or the femur, they could even do it with a butcher's cleaver.  Whatever the case, it wasn't pretty.

2) The surgical pain will keep that soldier out of commission for a very long while -- anywhere from a few game hours to a couple game days depending on the severity of the amputation.  This is "combat casualty care", not "stimpaks".  As the good fellow TKTom has said above, modern medicine often prejudices us to misunderstand how exactly this stuff was handled in the past, and it was often handled in a manner that we would find barbaric... but if you have a choice between dying of infection or gangrene or having your limb chopped off, most people would go for the latter.  Aron Rolston also mentions that he barely even felt pain while chiseling apart the bone of his arm with a pocket knife, and as soon as the arm fell free, he felt pure ecstatic relief: this was of course purely psychological as the nerves were undoubtedly firing like a Christmas tree, but his brain was in survival mode.

The patient will receive the vanilla "Harmed Me" negative social thought against the surgeon for performing an unanaesthetised amputation that's medically necessary.  If anything was medically unnecessary, your whole colony will be infuriated.  I think through almost as many angles as Belisarius does. =)

3) Knocking someone out with a blow to the head is far more likely to kill them than chopping their limbs off, believe it or not!  Whenever someone is rendered unconscious from a blow to the head, it's because they've been concussed -- as in, the brain has been damaged.  If they're unconscious for a longer period of time, it's because they've been concussed badly.  I could absolutely implement an unanaesthetised knockout blow if you think that'd be more moral than cutting a limb off without anaesthetic, but I'm positive that you wouldn't like the chance of death I assigned.  Hee hee.



All I can say is, give the mod a try!  Play a medieval or tribal society where you wind up with a wound infection after your medicine runs out, and you'll quickly like the ability to amputate limbs that are going to result in death.  You should of course wait until the last minute to see if your palliative care manages to save the patient.

The other part, chopping limbs off unnecessarily, was added first and foremost (in the original A14 mod release) because I had originally assumed that prostheses could only be installed in limbs that were already missing -- then later when that proved to be false I retained it as a morality play.  (To that end I can only say I'm very, very pleased with the results, because this is exactly the sort of reaction I was looking for.)