Difficulty in A11?

[Listy]

Did it change? because at the moment both my current games have been a real miserable slog, or have I just having bad luck? Its almost like the work speed for mining and building have been slowed down massively.

It looks like I'm about to loose a colony though. Getting hit by Cold snap, Psychic drone and Toxic fallout just as winter arrives, and all I've managed to do is get a few bedrooms and utility room done. My Population is decreasing, and now there's two colonists who will collapse if they step outside, and no food or anywhere to grow it, and the third one isn't far behind.

Edit:
Oh my life...
Just got raided and my last mobile colonists rushes out to fight, promptly gets a whack round the chops with a club and is kidnapped.

[RickyMartini]

In my opinion it has become more difficult. The most obvious change are the sappers, and I think the raider AI in general is better at finding a good shooting spot (for example centipedes now start shooting earlier than in a10).

Also now there are events that can last for weeks for the first time. Only positive point I guess is that now the storyteller is much more friendly when it comes to giving you new colonists.

[Cassey]

I was surprised when the wargs attacked my turrets.  I was shocked when  a mad tortoise took out a turrets.  Seems those have been effectively nerfed.  Now with toxic months, greenhouses are a MUST.   Seems like you need about one bulb per 4 colonist if your growing anything beside potatoes (I typically do about 75% food, 25% fiber/drugs/hops).

[Listy]

In my opinion it has become more difficult. The most obvious change are the sappers, and I think the raider AI in general is better at finding a good shooting spot (for example centipedes now start shooting earlier than in a10).

Also now there are events that can last for weeks for the first time. Only positive point I guess is that now the storyteller is much more friendly when it comes to giving you new colonists.

I've yet actually to be in a position to face those. But Combat has felt more brutal than before though. I've had to euthanaise a colonist, which is a first for me. Oddly my colonists got a "prisoner Executed" negative modifier.

Update on the colony: The inevitable happened. A Evil ship part... On the plus side the months of Toxic fog have meant there's no animals to go mad.
Then one colonist collapsed outside in the Toxic fog. the other instead of going and picking them up decided to go play horsehoes, and then collapsed in the middle of a game.
Darwin at its best.

Just waiting until the toxic fog ends then I'll use the Dev console to chuck down 4-6 more colonists as a wandering group and carry on.

[TLHeart]

yes the pacing, as well as the AI have improved, and the game is harder...

the colonists now change to their primary job quicker, so managing jobs takes some changes also. Mining does take longer.

[RickyMartini]

I've had to euthanize a colonist... ...Oddly my colonists got a "prisoner Executed" negative modifier.

That sounds like a bug. Care to elaborate this in a new bug thread?

[Tynan]

I think it definitely would be harder; to match A10 you might want to reduce difficulty a notch.

[Listy]

I've had to euthanize a colonist... ...Oddly my colonists got a "prisoner Executed" negative modifier.

That sounds like a bug. Care to elaborate this in a new bug thread?

Can't prove it apart from that description. But Sure I'll run up a very short Bug report on Saturday, when I'm on the machine it happened on and can try to replicate it.

I think it definitely would be harder; to match A10 you might want to reduce difficulty a notch.

I was on Basebuilder mode. I tend to use Basebuilder to get a functioning colony, then when I feel I'm ready for it, I whack it up to a Rough Randy.
One issue I've had is all the raids have been by Tribals, so I've got a massive stock of bad primitive weapons, but only 4 modern weapons (four Rifles varying quality and repair state, and a pistol. One of those weapons came from an ancient temple) and no armour.

[TLHeart]

a tribal is always angry with you at the start of the game, by design.

[Devon_v]

The issue was that ONLY the tribe was attacking, not the pirates, so no guns or plasteel weapons were dropping.

I still find the bows much better than nothing and would recommend that all engagements be made at range in the early game.

[SSS]

(Keeping in mind I jumped from A9 to A11:) It is more challenging, but the new difficulty descriptors makes it more clear what you're in for now. Also, I feel like the form of difficulty is more varied now. Before it was only raids. It feels like food takes longer to grow now, which made food a concern for the early game. Mood seems a lot more relevant now too, especially with the "good day or bad day" feelings, however, I have more ways to combat that too with things like joy and comfort. I can stop a colonist from working completely if I feel like they might break soon.

The longer events are nice as well. I haven't encountered a toxic fallout or volcanic winter yet, but the warg attacks make for a very nice change of pace and require me to huddle up and whittle them down from the confines of my base very very slowly: Taking them head-on would be nearly suicidal. It also makes for interesting scenarios when you have other visitors or raiders.

Combat actually feels better to me even though it can be challenging. You just need a proper strategy: For example, a tribe's numbers are too great to take on at range, but unlike wargs their melee isn't as devastating. You can't just hide in your base long-term either (like with wargs) because they'll burn it down, so I handle them by hiding in the base just long enough for them to spread out to start destroying stuff, then I rush them one by one with all of my colonists in melee. This is even more effective if you go after the ones with ranged weapons since they can only punch back, and said ranged weapons aren't nearly as dangerous when there isn't a numbers advantage. I've taken out over double my colony's numbers in this manner, which so far has been enough to make them flee. My colonists are very beaten up and exhausted afterwards, but it beats losing everyone or having you base burnt to the ground.

What works with one type of raid won't work with another, which is key point here. You can survive if you're open to more than one method of dealing with things, which is a massive improvement over the previous killbox-solves-everything scenario, and the difficulty isn't limited to combat either.

This is probably the biggest leap in gameplay experience for me so far.

[Devon_v]

I think crop growth rates were slowed a bit in general. The easier difficulty settings do give you bonus yield at harvest though.

[Euzio]

Then one colonist collapsed outside in the Toxic fog. the other instead of going and picking them up decided to go play horsehoes, and then collapsed in the middle of a game.
Darwin at its best.

That sounds like an unintentional bug... You'd think the colonists would definitely be smarter and not venture out to play horseshoes in the middle of a toxic fog...

[TLHeart]

Then one colonist collapsed outside in the Toxic fog. the other instead of going and picking them up decided to go play horsehoes, and then collapsed in the middle of a game.
Darwin at its best.

That sounds like an unintentional bug... You'd think the colonists would definitely be smarter and not venture out to play horseshoes in the middle of a toxic fog...

no bug, you have the ability to prevent them from going outside to play horseshoes.

[Euzio]

Ah ok.

Admittedly, I have yet to try A11 myself since I'm actually awaiting for some mods to be updated. Hopefully I can try it soon