Hate the Blight

[Lowkey1987]

Hello everyone,

i searched for the topic (Blight) but recently it was very quite.

So normaly i think Blight is okay. Half your crops jada jada. If you have a small colony, you can work against it.

But i have no small colony. My colony is 15years old and strong. I have conquere a new field (i play in the mountains) and planted like 1500 plants. Also i have only one month were crops can grow outdoors. And normaly the get destroyed because of cold snap (yeah, the slower Blight).

I dont like it. I dont like, that it kill everything of the map. Okay, 50% but...its not an event which gives me a challange. I cannot react.
I posted recently on the "Fallout" thread, because fallout is nice. You know what happens. Get your plants harvest as fast as possible. Gather the animals on the map.
Even a cold snap gives me some time. I dont like it too, because normaly it strikes on the few last days on summer and every moment i think "Give them a day longer, or harvest them to be sure."

But Blight?
I started this small colony and didnt have much crops to grow. So when i am small, it didnt bother me much. Okay i need more meat for the winter, but okay.
When i play on a milder bio, i also think "Naaa i have to plant it again." But thats also okay. Because you have this way.

In late game, you try to secrue great farm-lands. While you colony is growing, the spots between the buildings shrink. Its not easy. But you will do it. Perhaps because of the booze, because of the weed.

I wouldnt mind mechs, which come from abouve. And they set everything on fire. Thats okay.
But simply vannishing everything? It hurts my little feelings.

And i know, every summer there will be shit happening. Cold Snaps are common enough. I never harvest a crop at 100% because... the story teller didnt give me the time.

So ... the mod pests isnt updatet for A17. I think, maybe we can go another way. Like 1/4 crops dying, 1/4 crops will die in a week and 1/4 will have  a set back (from the current grow to the half. Like from 80% to 40%).

My english is a little bit rubbish, sry, not my main language. My holidays got cancelt and i find myself with rimworld, Blight and middernight (a coffee liquior). So sorry. But atm Blight makes me sad.

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[Jibbles]

A proper greenhouse combats the cold snap which I'm sure you know. So I don't mind if that kills everything on the map. Maybe it's to be expected to rely on greenhouses in your current biome, or to buy food from traders. I wouldn't mind if we had someway to prevent blights, or help decrease the size affected by blight.
Your english is great by the way

[Lowkey1987]

Thanks :-)
I have greenhouses, seven now. Mainly i produce food in them. I know this way, and can produce even in the cold month.
Seven sound high but... you know, the way to the first greenhouse is the hardest

In my map, i compete against small builing space and overhead mountains. I have begun to build all my storages into the mountain and protect myself against hives by cooling them down to -20°C.
But for things like drug production i want to use open fields. Produce enough hops to go over the winter. The time of 15 days isnt even enought for better drug plants.

I thing there is a counter against every event. Sicknesses is a good health system, raids a good defence. The blight didnt even hurt realy, it is just frustrating. Frustating is the wrong word... annoying.
A mortar which exploded because the colonist at it is bad at long range weapons..this would be cool. And understandable. "Hey you, man the mortar." "But i dont even know how to use a gun right." "This is much easier!"
Or when a silly builder trys to build my silver royal beds and destry the material. Yeah... i could have looked after this.

My last colonist died course of hunting ;-) and i know the flow... it was my fault.

But blight...There are many threads about it.

[TheMeInTeam]

A proper greenhouse combats the cold snap which I'm sure you know. So I don't mind if that kills everything on the map. Maybe it's to be expected to rely on greenhouses in your current biome, or to buy food from traders. I wouldn't mind if we had someway to prevent blights, or help decrease the size affected by blight.
Your english is great by the way

When you play a map with short growing season and you get blight, cold snap, volcanic winter, or toxic fallout within 10 days of landing, you're going to die most likely unless you start with crash-landed tech.  I don't like that design.  Events usually have counterplay.  I could survive 2 scythers dropping in base on day 8, but I insta-killing the food supply with not enough other sources on the map isn't something you can realistically handle.

Later on when you have electricity and time to accrue resources, you can grow past need enough to have a stockpile against blight + indoor growing, both of which hedge against these events.  Not when they happen early though.  Thanks to short growing season, even abandoning colony won't work.  It's not a good look.

[Goldenpotatoes]

Blight is an uninteresting mechanic that really does need some reworks, but saying that an early hit will kill a colony is silly. There is typically some sort of external food source on the map (hunting, foraging, etc) and if there isn't, you can always pack up and move over to the next world tile in search of more food. It definitely has counterplay, you just need to be a bit more resourceful than in some other situations.

[Jibbles]

Blight is similar to diseases to me.  They spawn just cause and there's not a good way to prevent them.  I've heard many complaints about blight too. So what would make that mechanic more interesting? As of now you plant what you wanna grow, make sure it doesn't catch on fire or die from cold. Slap a sunlight if you want to grow inside.  That's all the maintenance there is to growing.  So if we have to do extra maintenance to prevent blight would that be too boring or unfair? What if water system is introduced on top of a blight mechanic?

I'm glad you included "Unless you start with crash-landed tech." I see the issue with tribal and some say tribals start needs to be reworked.  When you enter those kind of biomes you're expecting those kind of challenges. The kind of challenges where you do anything to get food, including eating your own colonists, or killing visitors etc. I'm all for balancing the game even more but it is in alpha.

[Vlad0mi3r]

I get it Blight just happens not a lot that can be done early game to counter it.

However once you start to get a foot hold and surplus power building an enclosed growing location with sun lamp deals with Blight. Yes you still loose those outside bonus crops that you are probably growing to make silver but you won't be relying on them for survival.

There has to be conflict in order to present a challenge. If there is no valid method or strategy to minimise or eliminate an event then there may be balance issues.

[Juan el Demgrafo]

What if water system is introduced on top of a blight mechanic?

Tynan has stated previously that he doesn't want a water system, so adding this is unlikely. That being said, it would certainly be more realistic if there were more ongoing farming activity relating to preparing for harvest (for instance, one must let hay dry in the sun before gathering it), or weed & pest prevention, etc.

[Dargaron]

What about making blights more localized: e.g., instead of killing a set percentage of all crops, the player would get a "Potato" Blight or a "Corn" Blight, which kills a (higher, maybe 75-80%?) percentage of that specific crop? That way, the player is encouraged to grow two or more foodstuffs. I'd also be onboard with having the Blight kill crops rapidly, but not instantly: maybe give one or two days grace period to harvest the afflicted crop NOW.

[RemingtonRyder]

I have a mod called Limited Blight which limits the scope of crop blight to a particular crop type (with a small chance of cross-species blighting) and within a radius of the first plant to be blighted.

Tynan tweeted that the crop blight mechanic would be changing in A18, by the way.

[BoogieMan]

I think it would be better to have the player get a warning that a crop blight has been discovered and you have a randomized amount of time to cut those plants out of the garden or it spreads and ruins a lot more.

[RemingtonRyder]

Yeah, but then that makes it trivial to contain it and save your crops.

Crop disease can goes unnoticed until "suddenly" crops are dying. By then it's too late to do anything, the disease has run its course. Why do you think crops are selectively bred or genetically modified for resistance to disease?

[SpaceDorf]

Because monoculture and cultivating for size and fast growth made them more suspectable for disease and more attractice to pests. And while poisoning the pests and treating the diseases is possible, the chemicals used are both expensive and not healthy

[Headshotkill]

Blights will be balancee in A18.