Messages

First off, this mod is an absolute must for me. I do have some feedback based on my recent game though,

* Mass limits are too burdensome right now. Its basically impossible to give a colonist a flak jacket, pants, and vest and have enough room left over for any weapons. My suggestion would be that worn gear only applies a fraction of its mass towards the limit. I think this makes sense, its easier to wear a bullet proof vest than to haul it around in a backpack, to my mind, and it would allow colonists to wear any kind of real defensive getup and carry a gun and ammo.

*As has been mentioned on this thread before, centipedes are insanely strong. To be fair, i haven't tried keeping some anti-material rifles around and hot-switching my colonists to them, but i think a big problem is how insanely long range centipede weapons are. Both the charge blaster and the cannon have a range of 86, which completely outranges anything other than the super large caliber rifles. I think the balance could be improved significantly by just reducing the range down to ~60, without actually touching the weapons. That isn't to say that there aren't tools in the game currently, but the extreme range of the centipede weaponry makes them hard to use effectively

* On a similar note, i think the ranges for rockets are too low. Iirc, rpgs, triple rocket launchers, and doomsday rocket launchers all have a range of ~40. The short range is kind of a double edged sword. On the one hand, it prevents raiders with rocket launchers just nuking your defenses from a safe distance, on the other hand it stops the player from using launchers from a safe distance themselves. I think a small increase to the range to ~45-50 would significantly improve their ease of use.

Also, this isn't a balance problem, but every time anything that produces fragments (frag grenades, RPG he grenades) goes off, my game hangs for a couple of seconds before continuing. I'm sure some of that is system specific, but it actively discourages me from using frag grenades just because of the quality of life issue

All that being said this mod is seriously awesome and has earned a permanent spot on my mod list 

I don't know if this has been explained anywhere, but what's the curve look like for the standard reactor in regards to plutonium conversion? If i wanted to maximize the lifespan of my fuel rods would i want to pull them out at 50% and reprocess them or let them run down to 0% before pulling? Totally awesome mod by the way, can't imagine playing without it!

Hey, don't know if i'm misunderstanding this or if its a bug, but i'm not seeing any crucible cores drop. Do i need a tech for them to drop? In particular, i downed a soldier equipped with a precision rifle and the rifle disappeared, but no core was left behind. Is this a bug, or do i misunderstand the mechanic?


Edit: A core just dropped off a peacekeepr, so i'm guessing they only drop off of "non-human" federation. That makes sense, but its sad that i don't get any tangible benefit from the precision rifle. I understand not getting to have the rifle, it's a lot better than the auxiliary pistols you can get, but it feels like added lethality to the raid without any upside

Any chance of adding it to the steam workshop?

I need a way to subdue berserking colonists. You already have the slaver mechanic, just make option for colonist to try and restrain/knockout colonist that berserk.  Maybe make them a prisoner. There's no way handle this

Maces sort of handle this. Maces and clubs are much less likely to kill outright because they won't chop limbs off or behead someone, and don't cause them to bleed out (less chance of infection too!). That being said, it is in no way a perfect solution, and a tranquilizer gun or taser would be cool

Simple suggestion, An Autodoc (Automatic Doctor) item. Place it next to a medical bed (like a vitals monitor) and it can perform basic operations by itself. You can feed it medicine, which it will use, and it can do things like stitch wounds, treat infections, etc. Expensive, worse than a proper doctor, but it would be incredible for the Rich Explorer scenario.

To build on that, an Advanced Autodoc would be cool. More options in terms of treatments, better quality results. Still worse than a really a good doctor, and expensive as hell, but it would be a godsend in certain scenarios

Basic idea, a raid that included multiple elements. Sappers, Siege, and basic raid in any combination of the three, so as to increase difficulty and complexity. Obviously they would be individually scaled back, so as not to be overwhelming. I think this would make enemy raids a lot more threatening, and lower the effectiveness of killboxes

This might be more reasonable as a Mod, rather than in the base game, but i thought i would just go ahead and throw it here.

With the addition of offensive sieging/raiding, and the almost certainty that base generation for pirates/outposts/tribes will get more complex as time goes on, i thought it might be good to revisit how Mortars and Turrets work. My suggestion is that a new item, called a Fire Computer, be added to the game to network together mortars and potentially turrets to improve their efficacy. It would work something like this. A fire computer could be attached to a mortar (like a multi-analyser to a research bench), and at its most basic this would give them increased accuracy. I believe what would be interesting/balanced is if the mortars would gain increased accuracy with the number of shots fired, essentially "zoning in" on the target. So with every shell fired, the computer gets a better firing solution, leading to a large bank of mortars gaining accuracy quicker. The target moving around too much would reduce this, as the computer has to compensate for their movement. There would also be a hard minimum on shell accuracy, as variances in mortar barrels and homemade shells would make pinpoint accuracy impossible, and a steady decline in accuracy-gain-per-shell, so every shell fired adds less accuracy than the previous shell.

Different grades of Firing Computer could be added (Basic, Advanced, etc) that would modify this. A basic Firing Computer might add only half the accuracy per shell of an Advanced Firing Computer. Advanced Firing Computers might also have a higher cap on mortar accuracy, as they are able to account for individual variances in mortar barrels. Basically, if you put 30 (number pulled out of ass) shells down range with an advanced firing computer you get pretty close to pinpoint accuracy. You can balance the FCs by making them more or less expensive.

Also, different mortars! We have Incendiary/normal/EMP, but i think we should also have basic/advanced mortars, with basic being a bit worse than current and advanced being a bit better. I envision basic mortars as being cobbled together and with shorter range than advanced mortars, but being easy to build and cheap. Advanced mortars would be much more accurate, but much more expensive.

Taken together, mortars would run the range from Basic without a firing computer, which is about as accurate as throwing a dart at a map of your colony and hoping you hit the raiders, and multiple Advanced Mortars all linked to an Advanced Firing Computer, which is equivalent to calling in a tactical strike from an actual military brigade. Of course, Pirate Sieges can use these too! If you let Pirates set up camp with their crazy ass military mortars and you don't do something about it, be prepared to get pounded into the dirt.

Oh, also Auto-Mortars! Attach an Auto-Mortar to a Hopper with artillery shells and an Advanced Firing Computer, and watch it go to town on your enemies. A lot of these could be implemented in pieces (Mortar types, firing computers, etc) rather than all at the same time

Ok, here is my idea. A generator that can tell when it's needed to support a temporary failure in a power system, and turns on accordingly. So the generator turns on when power production hits X, and turns off if it hits Y. So an auxiliary generator might turn on at net 0 power production, and turn off at net 1000 power production.

Basically, i think fueled generators should be able to serve a function in mid-late game bases by offering a form of auxiliary power in crisis, without the player having to micromanage it

So this is a simple thing, but colonists shouldn't eat pemmican if there is a Simple or better meal available. The reasoning being is that if pawns choose pemmican at the same rate as they choose proper meals, then without refrigeration its entirely possible that simple meals won't get eaten and will just rot.

The result of this is that i don't even bother making simple meals, since i don't want to risk having food go bad

Second Super Cheap Idea: Sling. Neolithic ranged weapon, high range/fire rate, good accuracy low damage. I would like ranged alternatives to the short bow for my tribals

Super cheap idea. Totem pole, a joy item that can be constructed by tribals. They interact with it like they do all other joy items (stand around it)

With the new update, i think it is time to consider adding in Bone as a Stuff. Basically, whenever you butcher a corpse you get, in addition to the normal items, some Bone. What do you do with Bone? Well, you can make melee weapons and art out of it! Maybe you could also construct some kind of "pyramid of skulls", if you really want to let your inner Genghis out.

Oh also, it could be worth considering using Bone in some kind of Fertilizer recipe, as bone meal was a very important part of the agricultural development of 19th century Europe.

With the introduction of Tribes as a playable alternative to the traditional colony, i believe that new armors be added at Neolithic and Medieval tech levels, to allow Tribes defensive options. In particular, im thinking of a few examples,

Cloth Armor: Made from cloth/wool, low blunt/sharp, low durability, slightly better than going into battle naked, relatively cheap to make.
Hide Armor: Made from hides, mostly just a straight upgrade to cloth, relatively quick to make.
Leather Armor: Better than hides, but takes longer to make.
Studded Leather: Requires a Metal in addition to hide, takes even longer to make but boasts good durability.
Chainmail: The first proper Medieval armor, built from Metal, has decent durability and protection, in particular good Sharp protection, but is correspondingly slow to make.
Plate Mail: Plate mail could actually be split into Half Plate and Full Plate, or combined into just Plate Mail for simplicity. Plate mail should be extremely slow and expensive to make, but offer very good protection at the Medieval tech level.

I think that the inclusion of these armors would really help to flesh out tribes.

In addition, i think shields should be considered for inclusion into the game. My idea is thus, weapons should be categorized as either one handed or two handed, and if a pawn has a one handed weapon they can also carry a shield into battle. What are the benefits of shields? Well, whenever a pawn is attacked, they have a chance to deflect the attack based on the quality of the shield and their melee skill. If an attack is deflected the pawn suffers low/no damage, but the shield takes a hit to its durability. As the shield loses durability, it loses effectiveness.

Suddenly, you have a real tactical question when it comes to arming your pre-industrial warriors. Do you go for a huge, two handed claymore and hope your pawn doesn't get picked off by an archer? Or do you give everyone a shield and try to minimize loss of life? I think that if the above two suggestions were implemented, combat in general would be much more interesting, particularly for tribes.

As an additional suggestion, if low-tech shields/armors were added into the game, i believe their effects should be partially negated by firearms, potentially by a "hardness" stat or something similar. Plate mail may be very intimidating, but a man with an assault rifle doesn't really care how impressive your armor is. This stat could be extended to the other armors in the game as well, to represent the increased bullet protection that power armor has over, say, a Kevlar vest.

Sorry for the long post!

I am really looking forward to doing a Tribal run-through. Messing around with the new low-tech options and trying to climb through the techs to Spacer will be really interesting