Messages

First off, +1 to the idea: especially when playing modded games with Lovecraft stuff, but even in Vanilla, I'd really like to be able to tell traders "Go away, there's like, fifty angry squirrels that want to eat your face!"

Maybe there could be two parts to the feature: You can tell already-present traders to go away by talking to the leader of the caravan, but the Comms Console could also have a toggle on it labeled "Hazard Warning" that, while active, would stop traders from entering the map. That way, you wouldn't have to send a pawn out to tell some newly-arrived visitors to GTFO while waiting out a Manhunter Pack.

I am confused by the doors along the outer wall of your Hallway of Death: Are those just so that you can re-arm the traps? Because I usually (in my noobish colonies that enjoy the luxury of being in a biome with actual soil) just send a colonist to the outside entrance to a Hallway of Death and reset the traps starting with the innermost first and working out. Am I missing something?

On an unrelated note, where'd you get that milk on the floor? Did you actually sustain tamed muffalos on an Ice Sheet? Because if so, Holy Moly! Kudos.

But...but what if we don't want to worship soul-eating abominations from beyond the stars? What if we just want to have our colonists get together once a season and Joy at each other, while John the Chemically Fascinated smokes a joint in his own special corner?

So, I've been trying to use the Lovecraft storyteller, and a lot of the features are pretty neat (I only just recently noticed that pawns with Bloodlust actually like the bloodmoon!) However, there are some oddities that don't seem to have been mentioned earlier in the thread:

-Your pawns get a negative mood for the Bloodmoon, even if they haven't been outside since the event started: I had a cleaner who is literally restricted to indoor areas except for the rare times I draft them to get rid of Cabin Fever, and she still has the -10 mood penalty.

-The implementation of the Mist Stalkers seems...really odd. I got a Manhunter Pack of Mist Stalkers (which, fortunately, despawned almost instantly), which probably shouldn't happen. Also, they do odd things like track blood around. Finally, they seems to add Insanity at an enormous rate: in the course of walking 25 tiles (from one side of my base to the other), my primary pawn can go from Sanity Loss (Initial) to Sanity Loss (Major). That seems a little extreme, especially with the -10 Something in the Mist debuff as well. None of the other events added by this storyteller are even close to this punishing.

Would it make more sense if The Mist was based on Toxic Fallout, only adding to the Insanity Hedef instead of Toxicity?

-On a related note: the AI caravans/visitors have NO IDEA how to deal with many of the Lovecraft Events. The Mist is, again, a serious offender: AI caravans will stand in the middle of Mist until the chain-Berserks start. The AI will normally leave the map if they start suffering Hypothermia or Toxic Fallout; maybe they should similarly leave the map if they start suffering sanity damage?

As a stopgap measure, does anyone know of a mod that allows me to tell visitors/caravans to GTFO? That would also be useful in non-Lovecraft conditions (when I'm being swarmed by a Squirrel manhunter pack, for example).

1: Attach scyther blades to pirate prisoners

2: Release pirate prisoners

3: Laugh as the returning pirate tries to fire an LMG with a spike for a hand

4:

5: Profit!

The holy mod has spoken, so I'm not touching the controversial stuff... (Is it sad that I moused over "wasn't joking." to see if it was a link of some sort?)

Gipothegip speaks truth, however. I'd totally be behind changing "caring" to "medicine" or "doctoring" (as amusing as "incapable of caring" was the first time I saw it). Especially since, IIRC, it also prevents crafting medicine, which doesn't really fall under caring (strictly speaking, it doesn't really fall under doctoring either, but that's too hair-splitty for me)

The whole research-medicine-crafting interaction around medicine production is a weird case, so any clarification for newbies might be helpful, especially since 1.0 is around the corner.

[1:]

1: Then acts or skill can be appended. My approach is to make it make sense and do so in the least disruptive way. I didn't know about drug making/intellectual, so that one might be different.

2: "Grammatically correct" does not need and cannot grammatically support a hyphen.

1: Another element to consider is ease of modding: at the moment (as I understand it), skill (and skill category) names are all set in one particular file, and they show up in that form wherever you see them in the game world, regardless of the grammatical context (for example, in the character tab, where the implied "skill" would be redundant). At the moment, (as I understand it) a modder can simply plug in a localization for their new skill and it'll work.

Again, I'm not particularly conversant in Rimworld modding (I haven't taken an assembly file apart), but just from looking at a few Defs, I think that's how it works.

As someone who's done a bit of Crusader Kings 2 modding, I can say that localization is not always as simple as you'd think: the developer can make it easy (as Paradox Interactive did), but they don't have to.

2: That was just supposed to be a quick aside, but now it is on!

From what I've been able to glean from the Oxford Dictionary's website, a hyphen is used in a compound adjective when it appears in a sentence before the noun that it is modifying. Since grammatically-correct was modifying the following "it," a hyphen should be used.

I think, rather than making a specific "place of worship" at which folks gather, it would be better if there was some way to encourage pawns to congregate and do joy/social things together, and possibly a "contemplative spot" to designate a praying/meditation room that isn't a bedroom (possibly setting it so that the more pawns meditating/praying in one room, the less effective it is, to counterbalance the fact that a single beautiful room is easier to build than to beautify every pawn's bedroom).

I've run into the situation where I'm trying to get colonists to hang out w/ collective joy time, and half of them are out walking/stargazing while another is playing chess by himself.

On a related note, it'd be nice to be able to set group meal times for pawns: nothing mends fences like a sit-down Fine Meal.

You know, if you just add the implied "skill" or "acts" to the end of many of the terms you find egregious, they make perfect grammatical sense in the context they're used: for example, "incapable of violent acts."

As for some of the other ones, you are fundamentally changing the meaning of the term in question: intellectual is not only used for research qua research, but also for chemistry/drug manufacturing: IIRC, it's also used for magic in certain mods. Cultivation refers to the growing of one's own crops: it does not apply to, say, cutting down perfectly natural trees, therefore, plant work is quite a bit more valid than your suggestion.

As a side note, to be completely grammatically-correct, it would be "I understand that..." 

Only if Ludeon is a Russian mods site: https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=28747.0

Children and Pregnancy was updated to B18 some time ago. I've been using it to try and establish a permanent colony on the Rimworld in the face of Lovecraftian Horrors: my victory condition is for a colony-born pawn to reach the age of 16. Also, shooting unspeakable monstrosities in the face(?) with charge rifles.

...That's not to say that you're wrong; there probably are such mods, and they're probably creepy: this IS the internet we're talking about here.

[Speculation]

I have no idea.

[/speculation]

[Speculation]

The cook recently suffered a critical fail while making a simple meal, which was eaten at the party the night after. After quite a bit of good-natured ribbing, everyone wanted the event "properly commemorated" in stone. Unbeknownst to the rest of the colony, the artist had a crush on the baker in question, and added the eroticism as their own fanservice.

[/speculation]
Best I got, sorry.

According to this map on Wikipedia, England's also not 100% metric. However we could actually avoid this whole debate, by just using imaginary units. The months and month lengths in the game are already made-up. Why not just use something like "stone" if your starting faction is tribal, "bars" if you're industrial, or "standards" if your starting faction is spacer-level.

All weapons should be measured in killy-grams...

On-topic: I'm not sure metric vs. imperial are quite as important to translate as Celsius vs. Fahrenheit, since with temperature, since the only occasion when weight comes up in gameplay (IIRC) is during caravan formation, where you've got a fairly convenient piece of UI telling you exactly how much space is left and how much each unit weighs. Temperature, on the other hand, has certain objective points that you need to watch out for (IIRC, plants don't grow below zero C or 32 F), in addition to the colonist-to-colonist temperature tolerance. 

[1:]

I honestly doubt the entire reason is chivalry. A sword is excellent against unarmored opponents. Wouldn't soldiers be more prone to using a mace, or a flail, on plate armor? Or like you said, a poleaxe or halberd. I can't imagine too many knights standing in a battlefield, watching the enemy knights charging in with plate armor, and thinking, "well this mace would absolutely penetrate and crush that armor, but I am a knight of honor, and I shall use this ineffective sword instead!" I think that sometimes people romanticize too much of this era.

Plate armor (as a semi-regular feature on the Western European battlefield) is a product of the 15th-16th centuries, shading into the Early Modern Period. By that point, such weapons as you describe were often in-use by folks who expected to come to blows with a fully-armored individual (and had the means to reasonably acquire a poleaxe/warhammer/mace etc.)

The sword was almost never used as the primary weapon in European warfare (incidentally, this is also the case across much of the world). It was usually kept as a sidearm, status symbol, or personal defense weapon (PDW). In the case of English-Frankish-Germanic aristocrats of the Early-to-Late Middle Ages, the lance would've been their primary offensive  armament. In Japan (the other "famous" sword-culture), the most common weapon used by the warrior caste (before and after they stared calling themselves Samurai) was the bow, usually fired from horseback, closely followed by various spear types.

Part of the reason why the sword remains so emblematic in our image of the Middle Ages is because it was a lot less awkward to carry around and/or use in close quarters, hence it was the preferred PDW for those who could afford it: think about how many folks you know who would carry an M16 with them while going about their errands, vs. folks who keep a pistol on their belt. The fact that the nobility were able (in some countries/jurisdictions) to monopolize sword-carrying (after all, they're the folks who most need personal protection...) also added to the mystique.

Basically, the reason you see a lot of medieval characters in fiction using swords is the same reason you'll see a lot more pistols on TV than rifles or mortars: they're easier to carry and more convenient to use in non-battlefield contexts.

"But wait!" I hear you saying, "what about the Roman Legions? They fought with swords!" That's why I said "almost never." The Late Republican/Principate Legionnaire did use the sword as a primary weapon (although some would argue that the Pila was equally as important). The large shield/short sword combination was effective against the enemies said legionnaires were facing: infantry forces that either weren't equipped for close-in fighting (Macedonian Phalanxes, primarily) or did not have the same kind of massive proto-industrial capacity that Late Republican/Principate Rome did, and had an overall lighter kit of armor (Celtic Europe, Iberian-speakers, Germanic tribes etc.)

Funnily enough, the Roman Legionnaire had a side-arm dagger, called a Pugio, and it was seen as a mark of prestige to get a kill with it, since it was an emergency weapon only. Effectively, the Legionnaire could say, "I was in the thick of the fighting, and had to use my Pugio, and I'm still standing here talking to you."

1:The thing is by the 15th century armies were tiny and made almost exclusively out of the nobility and their retainers.

They could all afford top notch gear. Though the swords used were heavy and weren't completely sharp. Which was deliberate. So a good swing at someone even wearing Armour can cause significant damage. And its a far more wieldy weapon than a great big axe. Brilliant in the defence along with the fact with enough skill you can go for the weak spots.

2:Fighting wasn't for lesser men. You occasionally had levies raised from the peasantry but it was rare.

England did have a system for peasants to join military campaigns. Which is why they had enforced longbow training for every male subject. But they only picked the best and most of them were actually landowners. All professional soldiers. Essentially mercenaries fighting for their own nation. Even they had decent quality armour by the 15th century.

1:"The nobility and their retainers" is a rather odd way to describe armies that may have included up to 1/3rd mercenaries: The Battle of Cerignola featured ~2,500 Landsknects and ~3,500 Swiss Pikemen out of ~6,000 and ~9,000 Hapsburg and French soldiers, respectively. At best, the French managed a close to 1-to-1 ration of "cavalry" (meaning light cavalry, squires, etc in addition to full-on knights) to infantry in their contribution to the Battle of Nicopolis in 1444 Considering that the career of Gran Capitan Gonzolo De Cordoba runs right up to 1510, and he is regarded as the father of the Spanish Tercio (whose members were definitely not aristocrats, at least not in the sense you seem to be using it), as well as leading large forces of light infantry during the 1494-1498 Hapsburg-Valois War, I'm going to need some actual info to back that up.

As a side note, Professors Kenneth Harl (Specializing in Byzantine/Crusader history, as well as the history of Anatolia in general), Philip Daileader (specializing in Medieval social history, particularly Spain and France) and Jonathan Roth (specialist in Military History, logistics and World History) all state that Medieval-Early Modern armies were overwhelmingly infantry, usually not of the high aristocracy.

2:Erm, not quite. To quote: "In England, for example, the militia system received a new lease on life under Henry VIII. All those with £10 in land and the equivalent in goods were obligated to to keep weapons and armour and be ready to serve the king. The enquiry of 1552 revealed the existence of 128,250 available men, though their military knowledge and ability to equip themselves was patchy." (Tallett 137) Heck, ~12% of English fighting men during the 14th century were criminals forcibly serving in lieu of other sentencing. (Tallett 137

Additionally, high aristocrats could and did continue to bring their feudal levies onto the field well into the 16th century. The Earl of Pembroke alone raised some 2,000 soldiers from his Welsh possessions in 1549. (Tallett 138)


Work Cited:
Tallett, Frank. "Soldiers in Western Europe, c. 1500-1790." Fighting for a Living: A Comparative Study of Military Labour 1500-2000, published 2013

EDIT: Wow, it took so long to get my sources that I missed the next two posts. Sorry 'bout that.

3:By the 14th and 15th century it was very hard to find an army that had any peasantry fighting within it. Especially mainland Europe. With the sword being the most widely used weapons. Sounds rather hard to believe all of them used it by the blade.

4:A large medieval army would be made up of around 10,000 men. Go back just over 1000 years prior and nations with smaller populations were fielding armies of close to 100,000 men. Which also suggests that they essentially dropped the lower classes from fighting in these medieval armies.


5:Anyway we may be getting slightly off topic here lol. This is about seperatinh bullets to have their own damage type. For the potential to see greater variety in "pre gun" weaponry and armour. Rather than simply Neolithic.

3: Depends on your definition of "peasant." It's true that you usually wouldn't see folks who are primarily agriculturalists being used for major fighting: the "yeoman farmer" image is not the norm for the Late Middle Ages. However, a large proportion of a Late Medieval army would likely consist of mercenaries of various, non-noble backgrounds: peasants who had been forced off their land, second-third-fourth sons, unsuccessful craftsmen, etc. One of the chronic issues with 15th-16th century wars was that, once the fighting was over, there wasn't any particularly convenient way to get rid of the large number of now non-unemployed fighting men. Hence, the French monarchy experimented with semi-permanent garrison troops in the latter half of the Hunderd Years War, which seems to have paid off.

4: I assume you're talking about the armies of Gauls/Germans/Britons that Julius Caeser talks about. I don't think there's any serious scholar today who still takes ancient sources seriously when talking about the numbers of a "barbarian" opponent. The usual size for a Late Classical army was ~20-40,000 soldiers, since that's the limit of the period's logistical support.

(Funnily enough, we have an illuminating example from a later period: after the 751 Battle of Talas between an army of the Abbasid Caliphate and the Tang Dynasty, we have the reports from both commanders back to their superiors. In both the Chinese and the Arab case, the numbers for their own side are fairly accurate, based on archaeological evidence, but they grossly exaggerate the numbers of their opponents: the Chinese to explain why they lost, and the Arabs/Abbasds to magnify their victory)

5: As to the subject of the thread: It'd be nice to see weapon stats reworked at some point. I have no problems with the OP. One of the features of GURPS is that, in general, low-tech missiles do Impaling damage (which means that any damage that gets past armor is doubled) while guns do significantly larger damage, but of the Small Piercing, Piercing, and Large Piercing type, which deals x1, x1.5 and x2 damage, respectively after armor.

Ambushes for incapacitated refugees should probably be changed: instead of eight tribals teleporting right on top of your colonist(s), how about spawning at the map edge, like normal people? Alternatively, why can't we conceal our own pawns for a minigun-to-the-face ambush on approaching snipers?

EDIT: Why can't we dress incapacitated refugees? Just had a colonist's mother spawn naked at -13 C daytime temperature: I brought pants, shirt and jacket, but there's not way to actually put the clothes on until she wakes up.

"...for no apparent reason"
"...fondling a shrub"

I might not be a doctor, but I think the reason is fairly plain.

I'll be honest, though: I hadn't expected to see the Rosebush event from Crusader Kings 2 in Rimworld.

(A Lunatic character can mistake a rosebush for a dryad. The consequences can be...severe, particularly for a dynasty-management game.)