Messages

I generally have a 'dumb labor' pawn by the time I hit 5 or so, cleaning and (usually) hunting 1, haul 2

Can you put an un-downed animal into a cryocasket?

Seeking other feedback on the scythers, if anyone has some experience. Too easy? Too hard? Just right?

They are a bit too tanky I feel. When you have 6 guys with LMGs spraying one of them down, starting from about half LMG max range, and they still get to you and get a hit or two off...

That and I keep getting drop raids of all of the same type of... (is there a term for 'scyther+lancer'? Droid? I'm gonna call them droids until someone comes up with something better) Not sure if thats intended or not. I would think there should be a mix.

On the whole I really like the droid changes, Lancers are weak to melee, and Scythers are weak to range, but neither completely fall over when faced with their weakness.

I read the updates that mentioned changes to plant growth.  I've been playing in temperate forest in mountains with a year-round growing period and I absolutely HATE the bare ground everywhere.  It should be rare to see bare dirt without some vegetation in this biome.  And it never refills the map, not even close.  It looks hideous.  Please fix this.

I know there might be some balance issues with feeding herbivores if the map is full of grass, but I think it would be worth it.  Growing hay just isn't that hard and having lots of grass isn't going to change anything at all as far as I can tell.  The predators make it more effective to put your colony's herds inside walls anyway.  So what if some don't grow huge fields of haygrass.  It just won't change enough to make it worth the ugliness in my opinion.  And if someone is playing on a biome without longer growing periods, then it would have less effect.

Animals just don't eat the landscape down to the dirt.  And yes, I know that this game isn't about being totally real-life accurate.  But the visuals are important, at least to me.

Agreed. It would be nice if the grass could piggyback off the infestation system, make grass sprout periodically throughout the map and then spread.

Also fix retreat paths please. I had a group of raiders attack my south wall, run away to the left, then try to run down through my base again. Probably trying to pass through to avoid the river. I'm guessing its that enemy pawns don't take doors into account as obstacles when retreating.

Aren't seiges supposed to assault you when you break their mortars? Or has that behavior been changed?

I'm not sure why, but suddenly EVERY animal on the map flooded into my farmland. Theres a little grass on the map but not much.

Also I have a wild megasloth downed from extremeblood loss with no wounds? Literally the only thing on his health tab is the blood loss...

Its not a huge deal, but its been happening just often enough to warrant being put on here.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1433361821

I'm running a few mods, including Bulk Cooking, but not a single one should have anything to do with eating

You've described WM Smarter Food Selection mod. I don't think it would be implemented. It makes this game way too good, especially part that manages animal food.

I don't think making a game too good is a valid reason not to put something in.

This game is drama generator. That's why a lot of logical things are not here - they would give players tools to deal with problems without drama. WM SFS cuts out:
- Animals binging drugs
- Cattle eating your crops
- Kibble management (you can just store kibble and hay in barn and animals would only eat it when they have no access to grass)
- Hauling animals (who for the obvious reason usually have access to storage) eating good food when they can find a cheap one
- Artifical nutrient dispenser limitations (you can feed animals with nutrient paste which is much more efficient than hay, for larger animals at least)
- Animal handlers feeding sick animals with lavish meals

Drugs aside (WHO LET THE CAT INTO THE LUCY STORAGE?!), I would argue that none of this adds to the drama, just annoyance.

I'm not normally one to ask for things to be harder, but large Predators should be predatory, even on people. With the changes to revenge, and the wildlife tab (which is looked at fairly frequently for hunting anyway) its a lot easier to take them out than it has been. Yes its somewhat micro-y, but this game has micro, thats a fair chunk of the gameplay.

My game stared on Boreal, Mountains w/River, Phoebe-Some Challenge

My colony grew steadily over the three years that I was there. We researched all the tech with little difficulty. My population was about 12 people and 20 or so animals 1/3 dogs and 2/3 muffalos. Food seemed to be the primary issue for me. I would have six 14 x 14 growing plots for growing food, mostly rice as that had the fastest turn around. I also had two hydroponics rooms with 12 hydroponic banks. By mid winter we'd be out of food. I probably should've grown hay too, but my pawns had the hardest time keeping up with the sowing demands with what I had. I did use a multi-meal cook mod, but ultimately keeping up with the cooking wasn't the issue I had but keeping up with the growing requirements. Winters were pretty long too as they sometime were mid Apri-May before temperatures dipped out of freezing.

So I decided it was time to get out of dodge. We picked up everything of decent value to weight issue and headed south. With my population though and my entire freezer we still only had food for 6 days and this was with 3000+ pemmican, so clearly I needed to store way more food than I thought I did. Still I had my guys pack up. We headed south for warmer climates.

I traded with two guys. Then raided one camp that went pretty well. Then raided another camp along the way and that went terrible. Lost two guys, thankfully no one important so I just accepted it. Not much extra loot in these camps though, didn't these base's usually have a store room for loot? They at least had fields that I could harvest for food so I did that. Dismantled their tech then continued south. Still couldn't get very far, even sold a few animals at the next trading post, but food consumption was just too high. Eventually I had to settle for a camp on the road. Thankfully lots of wild muffalos for me to hunt to extinction. It was a Temperate zone, but out in the open, still surprising amount of iron available. There were four mining sections of it. It was still winter there, but as Apri-May is coming along the temperatures are starting to increase faster than in my old location so I'll farm and harvest and make as much as pemmican as I can before continuing, hopefully getting south enough to avoid the snow.

Rice got hit by the sowing nerf the hardest. IIRC Corn is the best plant to grow in non-gravel soil for the purpose of yield (assuming grow time is more than 20 days). Potatoes in gravel and Rice in hydro.

Also you can make a second location when your populations begins to outgrow food supply. You don't have to move EVERYONE. And drop pods are amazing for travel if you get enough of them.

As for wild growth I wish they would spawn from predetermined areas throughout the map, like hives, rather than just creeping in from the edges

[Melee]

Melee
On the subject of melee - after 5.5 years of Cass, Hard(Switched to V-hard after ~day220, Arid Shrub, Flat, Year-round growing, tribal start, I'm at 25 colonists and ~250k wealth. Wasn't particularly interested in enviromental difficulty, just wanted to combat-test the hell out of melee.
Longswords
I'm pretty much of the opinion that Longswords can go suck an egg. In fact.. so can all the sharp weapons.
Longswords cost 2x as much to make as maces, take 3x longer to craft, and are worth ~2x as much. And you have to research them, blargh!
So what about damage and general performance? Well you're not getting what you pay for that's for sure.
A longsword might yield ~20% more raw dps compared to a mace but it comes with significant disadvantages.
Their armor penetration (While impressive in isolation) doesn't compare particularly well to Maces, It's ~2x as much AP on average compared to a Mace but due to the fact that most apparel has >x2 the sharp resistance that's not super impressive.
Power armor and Flak equipment are both particularly comparatively vulnerable to blunt damage which are the most dangerous and common armor types for raiders respectively.
More Longswords(Cor, I really do yammer on don't I?)
What about vs unarmoured targets? Surely vs tribals longsword's raw dps would be worthwhile? Well.. I tried that for about 2 years (Switching to swords when tribals appeared) and finally gave up and sold all my swords to reduce the wealth bloat.
Longswords do impressive damage per swing but.. they swing more slowly than maces, stun less often (Only 1/3 of their attacks do blunt damage) and often overkill whatever part they hit which wastes a lot of damage.

While I'm on the subject.. how does the game determine which melee attack it wants to use? It's not uncommon for pawns to punch even when they're armed.. and it's not clear how likely a weapon is to use any given attack. Are longswords inherently hampered by having a low damage blunt attack that still has the same attack frequency? I have no clue.

Stunning
Stunning is quite frankly incredibly powerful -though not particularly consistent- as often when meleeing enemies you're either outnumbered (Tribals/large sapper raids) or really don't want that target to swing its horrible death arms(Scythers, some sappers with plasteel weapon, bears, insects) so in most cases Maces are without a doubt the right call.

Power Claws
I can't find a use for Power claws on a melee focused pawn, as cool as they'd be . By and large if you have a good melee weapon replacing a hand with a Power Claw reduces the listed dps and since I don't know how often pawns are swinging with their hands instead of their weapons it's hard to put a value on. I know that Bionic/Archotech arms will yield bonuses in the melee department and won't penalize manipulation..
Basically they just feel rare, expensive, cool, but small penalties.
I question their overall usefulness on ranged pawns as well, I tried giving dedicated shooters claws in my last game and just got them to drop their weapons when engaged in melee which more or less worked but it was clunky and there's still that manipulation penalty weighing them down. Affecting hit chance of both melee and ranged fire as well as general work efficiency. "Why not use bionic arms?" was always the question.

I remember something from a long time ago about Gladius being better than longswords, that LS tended to overkill in the majority of situations, and Gladius had a better effective DPS due to its speed and lack of overkill. In short, Plasteel Gladius to kill, Wooden Mace to down. Its good to know that hasn't changed

Power claws I feel are for hybrid pawns. Give them a spray weapon, an AR or LMG, maybe even a minigun, and let them hold the door. If they make it to you, bring it. But truth be told they have always been bad to use because they make social fights lethal, and reduces a pawns manipulation.

Even on a fresh map it happens, but when another pawn trys to use the same door at the same time they both pass.

Tynan you broke stone doors, lol. Pawns keep opening them but not going through. At least in slightly older saves. Hang on starting new one now, also gonna try de-reconstructing them to see what happens

Debuff greatbow a bit.

uh, does that mean nerf?

I'd like the new berries to be brighter. They are hard to see against the green now...

Different people want different things. The 'chaos and insecurity' thing is great for roguelikes, but AFAIC this game has far too much of a time investment to die 'just cuz'

Serious question: What difficulty are you on and why not just lower it?

I'm fine on my difficulty setting (rough) but I was responding to someone else that was saying they wish this game was even LESS secure than it is now. I think the game is rather well balanced as is (beside the centipedes, but I think those are supposed to feel that way)

You fixed the plate armor crafting issue? Last time I tried it had a tendency to just eat materials. Pretty sure my oblivious self lost like 1000 steel before I noticed...

It was fixed, I made plate armors and they had the unfinished version and it wouldn't disappear.

Different people want different things. The 'chaos and insecurity' thing is great for roguelikes, but AFAIC this game has far too much of a time investment to die 'just cuz'

That's why there are several difficult options to choose. I'm sorry to be saying this directly to your reply but I believe the same goes for other users.

A lot of people play on different difficulties, if the game is too hard, try lowering the difficulty, if it is too easy increase it.

There is no need to ask to make something more dangerous unless you are playing extreme or telling to nerf something unless you are playing on the easiest difficulty.

In the end there are mods that can also help.

What Tynan is doing is not fixed the game only for those who bought the game, he is fixing the game for those who will still buy the game, discover it and play it in the future. That's what 1.0 should be all about, a version that anyone can feel safe buying it. As in it will be fun regardless if I prefer 'chaos and insecurity', 'sandbox base building' or somewhere in between.

Thats great! Plate armor looks epic! But why would you make Wood Plate Armor when you can just use Steel? (aside from flat maps where wood is everywhere and steel nodes are nonexistant)

And I completely agree about difficulty. In the end thats the beauty of such a heavily moddable game. I can get a mod that restores doors to their original health total, and crow_t can get teleporting mechs or something.

>Death on downed chance for non colony humans now relates to population intent

Hallelujah. I made it through the first year with only 6 colonists... as a tribal start :\

> Mahunters will only attack doors if they see a pawn go through the door (unless there's a bug).

Then theres a bug. I've had manhunting heifers randomly decide to attack my wall door. They gave up eventually but came unfortuntely close.

Also side note about animals and doors, can you make 'drafted' animals not go thorugh doors willy-nilly please?

> So I may end up e.g. nerfing the manhunters, for example.

I wouldn't mind that. Right now they are too overbearing to fight normally, and as a result kind of boring. "alright I'm spending the next 2 days in my base and afterwards getting a lot of food from exhausted animals"

> Why not use some wood plate armor?

You fixed the plate armor crafting issue? Last time I tried it had a tendency to just eat materials. Pretty sure my oblivious self lost like 1000 steel before I noticed...

> It seems some players want a guaranteed formula that always works, IMO that is boring once you have it figured out. Hopefully the game can retain a sense of some chaos and insecurity from beginning to end.

Different people want different things. The 'chaos and insecurity' thing is great for roguelikes, but AFAIC this game has far too much of a time investment to die 'just cuz'