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Messages - MerlinEngine

#1
Eh, cheesy tactic, hooking up four heaters to the ancient danger building, then letting a useless colonist and potentially hostile sleepers turn to toast and take the loot. Even if you can't do that, just putting a few wooden walls inside the sleeper chamber will usually start a pawn killing fire, since they tend to set it on fire, thereby ether killing themselves from heat or the flames. I have not tried it on a mechanoid yet, but it has worked against humans. I am thinking of surrounding a future colony with a "firewall", basically, a hull chamber that is maintained at high temperatures and has several layers of wall to force any attacker to remain in the heat for a while. Or maybe build flood chambers with vents that can release heat into various divided sections of such a defense.

I might be reaching into territory that isn't related to 1.0 per say, but I think it might be relevant as I did not encounter a similar set of circumstances before. What happened was that my characters were somewhat battered from a few wildlife-related problems and food poisoning when a cold snap and a solar flare happened minutes from each other. My colony was rather spread out into several buildings around a mountain, which made a communal fire unhelpful. Temperatures decreased rapidly, and had I not demolished the chicken house and a few other buildings to make dozens of campfires, the colony would have suffered casualties, and even with that, it was a very close shave. Thing is, days before, a flash storm trashed much of my nearby forest, and my injured and sick characters were in no position to slowly walk any distance in -20 degrees. I survived the experience, but the thing is, it was played on a low difficulty to test colony construction in relative peace, and I am not sure a less experienced would have survived. I really enjoyed dealing with the situation, as I like these sort of challenges, but I have to question if a cold snap and a solar flare should happen in low difficulty minutes from one another.

Now that food poisoning is much stronger and happens due to poor kitchen cleaning, it is somewhat distracting to have to manually tell someone to specifically clean the kitchen every few minutes. I prefer not to have cleaning high on my general priorities because my home area tends to be quite large. If I could have a character specifically assigned to clean just one area, it would simplify the situation.
#2
Off-Topic / Uninhabited Planet Survive!
July 03, 2018, 07:01:44 PM
I do not know if the members of this site are into anime be, but I assume some might. I am not quite as crazy about them as I once was, but I did find one particular anime that made me scream "THIS IS RIMWORLD!" at my screen every five minutes from episode 3 onwards. Overall, it's a fairly Meh to OK series that readapted (or copied, depending on your view) contemporary novels such as Children's Island, Two Years' Vacation and similar stories. An adult viewer has to have at least a bit of kiddie programming tolerance, as the series was definitely intended for a teenager audience. Still, its fun, and something I think Rimworld players might appreciate. It definitely reminds me of my playstyle, as I tend to limit my character ages to 19, thereby getting skill weak crew I can improve over time.

Basically, it is a story about a bunch of teenagers in the 22nd century that get stranded on an apparently uninhabited world during a school trip. They, of course, have to build up a base and survive using their skills and wits, sometimes against a hostile environment, though in the first episodes, it's mostly about their food supplies and similar concerns. I do not want to give out potential spoilers, but I think I can say that quite a lot of events in Rimworld share similarities with story arcs in the series, but without revealing exactly which ones. I will post the Wikipedia link, as a direct link to the videos might violate some of the on-site rules. A quick google search should be sufficient in finding methods of viewing the series.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uninhabited_Planet_Survive!

#3
Ideas / Re: Your Cheapest Ideas
July 03, 2018, 06:47:48 PM
A pretty simple idea that would be quite helpful would be the ability to define cleaning areas for different characters. I have noticed that if a kitchen is dirty, the chance for food poisoning is much greater, but characters even if working on manual priorities might not get to every speck of dirt in time before this effect sets in. If a character could define a cleaning area, I could then prioritize cleaning to one character for the kitchen, thereby avoiding a situation where the character might try to emulate some sort of army boot camp hazing ritual, such as shoe polishing all the scattered stones on the campgrounds or something equally silly.

Yes, that does happen.
#4
Hi, I found a somewhat slight problem; colonists have an annoying habit of repairing smoothed cave walls, after designating these for mining. In my current game, one colonist could be trying to mine the wall, while another would be trying to repair it. I can solve the problem simply by drafting the repairing colonist, but sometimes the miner can start repairing the wall before he finishes mining it.

Another thing that I am not sure it is indeed a problem or just my lack of familiarity with that aspect of the game is that I keep losing bonded animals to suicidal charges against enemies. I don't think any of these animals were actually defined as aggressive, and some of them should not be so, to begin with (like a pet rabbit). Is it really a game problem, or did I miss something in animal settings?

#5
For the second time, I have encountered the ancient danger event, decided to open it up for the hell of it and found... nothing dangerous at all. I could understand this happening once, but twice in a row? It seems quite strange, considering every previous encounter I had with this event prior to 1.0 unstable ended really badly for me. I found a bunch of frozen people and a load of harmless bugs. One was crazy high on some drug and had to be gun down, but the others willingly let my merry band of teenaged tribals arrest them, strip away their stuff, execute them and feed their bodies to the sealed bugs in the ancient room (I fought I was done with that habit). There wasn't much point in carrying on with the save, as I had done exactly the same thing fairly recently, but if it is indeed a bug of some kind, I still have a save from before I opened up the building to check it out. Why aren't the frozen people attacking, why aren't the bugs violent? It just seems a formally dangerous event has become an easy colonial startup vault. I am playing at medium difficulty, but my previous deadly encounters with this event were also played on medium, so I don't think that's the problem.
#6
Ideas / Re: Your Cheapest Ideas
July 01, 2018, 08:56:13 AM
A fairly simple addition that would save me a lot of trouble would be the option to command a few characters to put out fires no matter if they are inside the home area or beyond it. I really like having my forests intact but making all of them home territory is rather silly. Nonetheless, I have to expand and retract my home territory during every forest fire to preserve these forests. It's the wood really, you can't get the wood you know, simply can't get it.
#7
Stories / Re: Your Best Screenshots
July 01, 2018, 08:33:18 AM
I do not know if it is really that impressive, but I am trying to build the ultimate defensive works near my colony. Over time, I want to improve them with advanced technology, but I expect that the patches of the 1.0 unstable won't give me the opportunity to do so. Here is their status so far, the point of them is that they pretty much cover every approach to my colony, and give my characters a fair bit of defense in depth. So far, these defenses have stood up to all the attacks, for example, in the case of bomb-throwing enemies, I can command my characters to retreat to another line, or go into the tunnel and attack the bomb thrower from the flank. I want to dig out another tunnel from the hill to the south, fortify it, and use it as a more effective flanking point during battles.  I will probably include a first aid station close to that tunnel, as my current hospital is too far away to quickly remove and tend to injured characters during and after battles.  There aren't enough traps to really do that much damage, however, so I will probably increase my trap line from two to four, maybe six, if I can find the wood.

That's the problem really, you can't get the wood you know.
You know Henry Crun? He is a guy who can't get the wood either.



[attachment deleted due to age]
#8
I had a bunch of raiders attack my colony, and in the middle of the duel between my fortress and their goons, a herd of those animals that tend to blow up when they die passed in no man's land. A few of them got hit by some stray rounds, and they became manhunters and attacked the raiders, blowing most of them to kingdom come as my own sharpshooters shot the animals up instead.
#9
I started a custom game with 10 characters, all of them very likely to become a psychopath, and one in 10 likely to become a cannibal. These characters started the game with very little food on a desolate frozen map with hardly any resources and only one gun. Everyone worked together to quickly build a heated base protected from the frigid temperatures and then went to sleep. The cannibal woke up in the evening, took the gun, and started to systematically arrest each one of the other colonists and lock them up in a room exposed to the outside temperature. All the characters froze to death, and the cannibal was free to live off their remains for quite a while, taking the random raider or escape pod encounter as a chance to gain more livestock. Eventually, a wanderer with the cannibal trait joined the group, and arrested the other cannibal in the middle of the night and ate him in the same way he did the others. I really wish I had taken screenshots of that horror show, but I didn't, so perhaps I will do it again to show off the horror.

Recently, I had a short tradition of imprisoning raiders inside the ancient danger chamber I had already opened, but sealed, along with dozens of bugs. The prisoner would inevitably start to go mad with hunger and attack the insects, which would, in turn, attack him and eat him once he died. I have seen one instance of a prisoner eating his dead comrade alongside one of the bugs to survive just a little bit longer (he wasn't a cannibal). At some point, the bugs became manhunters, and tried to break out of the chamber, so I had to sadly put down their population.
#10
Hello, I have decided to go for the 1.0 unstable, and thus far I am thoroughly enjoying it. The game is much more seamless, and the characters seem to have individual quarks that are much more pronounced. The addition of the watermill is very welcome, though it is a somewhat overpowered device that effectively cancels's out alternative energy sources on river-based maps. The collection of furs into broader archetypes makes the use of furs much more efficient, my colony is practically living off trade in furs and fur clothing at the moment in a way that reminds of the historical trappers in Quebec. I am thinking of building an entire room for electric clothing machines since I have quite a lot of characters with a high craft score (but no art) and others that are particularly good at hunting.

1) I have noticed a tendency of my characters to stop activities, such as mining a square, before those actions were complete to go and do secondary tasks such as hulling or cleaning. Directly controlling work priorities solves this problem in terms of competing for work requirements, but in general, I have noticed that characters seem to be more independent and less inclined to complete their assignments. Entertainment, in particular, seems to be required quite often, though less so in earlier builds of 1.0.

2) Fights break out between my characters somewhat annoyingly often... practically every day, even though the characters aren't volatile. As far as I can tell, one character is typically the cause of these fights because he is ugly, and the other characters openly object to his ugliness, and he takes affront to this slander. He has been insulted so much that I have had to deal with periodical character breaks, as the insults along with consistent injuries and his pessimism trait create a vicious cycle.

3) I have noticed a few instances in which traders arrived, but the individual responsible for the actual transactions was injured and arrived much later then the rest of his caravan. I could still trade with him, but it was rather odd, and I wondered if traders face attacks or something that might actually kill the main trader.

4) I have mentioned this elsewhere. In my current colony, I built a fortification system around a tunneled out hill using a double layer of sandbags. I wanted my characters to use the tunnels through the hill to quickly move between different sections of the defensive works, or take cover inside the tunnels if an enemy uses bombs, but the characters prefer to jump over the sandbags, exposing them to potentially lethal firepower.

5) I am not sure if it was an intended event or actually a bug, but in my current game, I opened up an ancient danger building straight away but found no hostiles. The three humans were friendly (until I shot them) and the bugs likewise didn't attack me. I actually started a habit of bringing in the bodies of raiders into the sealed sleeper pod chamber to feed my bug "friends", until I decided I needed the room as a barracks and a temporary food supply while most of my characters were indisposed.

Those are the things I can think about for the moment. I will be sure to post further anomalies on this thread should I encounter them.
#11
Off-Topic / Re: Corrupt-A-Wish
June 30, 2018, 08:15:58 PM
Granted, but the money given to you had a curse. You were send forward in time one century, and once you returned, that 3.50 dollars became 95% of the global GDP of a future dystopian Earth, and every faction is sending its assassins to eliminate you, a perceived dangerously enterprising individual capable of destabilizing the entire interstellar financial system.

I wish I could go back in time to ancient Athens and introduce the printing press.

#12
My second name IRL is Merlin, and since I was a bit of a Second World War aircraft fanatic in my childhood, MerlinEngine, after the name of the engine used by the British Supermarine Spitfire fighter plane seemed a fitting combination. I have only used this username in gaming so far, on other sites, I prefer to usually go for the most original sounding name I can come up with. It's fun to have something unique when everyone else has to live with "SomethingGeneric9000".
#13
I started out a game using the new start with nothing option introduced in 1.0 unstable. I quickly realized the map was way too easy for me to manipulate (plenty of defensive choke points enemies have to cross to get to my colony) so I decided to basically kill my single character by opening up the ancient danger building. Instead of finding what I figured to be a usually fatal encounter at this early point of a game, I discovered three people in the sleeper pods and a lot of insects, none of them hostile. I quickly stripped the downed person, took the power armour and a sub-machine gun, and used these to try and arrest the other two sleepers and take their stuff. One died, but the other survived and paradoxically, I discovered I could rescue him rather than arrest him as I intended. I ended up rescuing that guy and the downed stripped sleeper, and both joined my village. Since the start with nothing beginning gives your lone character no starting resources, I lived off insect meat from the bugs from the sleeper pods while the human sleepers healed. After they both healed, I got a series of events granting me two more members, each with skill sets my other characters lacked, including the older brother of my initial character. All things considered, this arguably hardest start ended up being my easiest game thus far on record. I would usually step aside for a more challenging experience, but I like this crew, and the former sleeper pod base makes quite a good barracks.


[attachment deleted due to age]
#14
General Discussion / Re: Introduce yourself!
June 30, 2018, 06:04:25 PM
Hello, for the purposes of this forum, I will go by the name of MerlinEngine. I am a denizen of that wondrous land of peace and sunshine collectively known as the Middle East. I am at the moment comfortably nestled in my Galilean mountain retreat in a relatively safe distance away from Jerusalem's trinity of horrors; violence, zealots, and politicians. That's all you are going to hear about regional politics from me, as I find conversations about the subject dull and repetitive. Hopefully, what I said in jest won't be tagged for violating some sort of community rules.

If I had to describe myself, I would say I am perhaps a remnant of the British Empire. I am certainly a citizen of the UK, I follow the movements of the royal family for reasons that seem good to me and tend to see the Queen as my Head of State rather then my own president, but I never really lived there, so I am perhaps more impressed with my perception of what I think Britain represents then what it is in reality. Don't get me wrong, I am an Israeli patriot (eh, the country-lovin' thing, not the missile), I quite like my country when it isn't being silly and I like many silly things when they aren't related to my country. I am technically Egyptian-German Jewish and English-Italian Catholic... if that makes any sense. It sort of came together in the Marxist Kibbutz system of collective socialist communes in the north of the country. Spiritually and intellectually I identify with classical Greek philosophy, primarily with Plato and the Stoics.

I have been playing Rimworld for about a year, and expect to continue for some time. I do not recall what introduced me to the game, but I think I was probably directed to it in the steam store according to my past preferences. I spent my childhood playing village building games like Cultures, The Settlers, and to a lesser extent Age of Empires, so Rimworld very easily captured a hell of a lot of nostalgia points. I have been into gaming since I was about eight, but I have been steadily reducing the total time I put into games in recent years. Rimworld is actually a fairly ideal game in that regard, as I enjoy playing it, in short, one-hour sessions every now and then, keeping it pretty much endlessly replayable. I used to play RPG's, such as Morrowind and its less spectacular successors, but I prefer strategy games. I enjoyed games such as RUSE, Darkest Hour and Victoria 2, but I expect I will prefer to support smaller indie developers in the future.

If I had to put forward three favorite games, I would say that Knights of the Old Republic 2 was my favorite RPG, Victoria 2 my preferred strategy game, and Rimworld as my current game of choice. My most embarrassing game related story goes back to Sims 1 when I was young, barely literate and thought that the in-game firework launcher was actually a casino roulette. All the adults of the family died in the ensuing house fire, leaving the children to fend for themselves on pizza and cereal until the social services took them away.

Quaker Oats are easily the best!


#15
Ideas / Re: Your Cheapest Ideas
June 30, 2018, 04:59:50 PM
Hello, I would first like to thank you for all of your work on the game. I have taken to playing the unstable version of 1.00, and so far, I have been having a lot of fun with it.

One small change that I can think about is a change to the way characters path their movements. I built a sort of redoubt around a small hill, digging some prison cells into it and surrounding it with a double layer of sandbags. It has worked well in combat thus far, but I have noticed that my character prefer to go over the sandbags to enter the defensive works, instead of using the tunnels I built for that purpose. I am not sure if their choice is actually faster then going around, but the other method is safer for them and lets them retreat into the hill quickly if an enemy starts throwing explosives. Other changes I imagine would not be too difficult to introduce would be more security measures, maybe firing points from inside buildings, and some obstacles like those you described in the first post.