Psychic Drone balance

[Crazytoast42]

So I watched my colony fall to pieces because out of nowhere, the game wants to give me a -25 hit to happiness for a few days.
There wasn't a thing I could have done that I saw, how has everyone else been dealing with this?
It just doesn't seem fair to pin me with -25 happiness; that's a steep drop and I have no idea how I'm supposed to amend it.
What has everyone else done?

[HalfBrother]

I think you have to find the ship (that's causing it) and infiltrate it or something. Apparently there's a nasty surprise in it. At least this was what Tynan said in the video.

[wild alaskan]

i just got raped by it too. really was hopeless at that early of a stage in the game.

[Crazytoast42]

I think you have to find the ship (that's causing it) and infiltrate it or something. Apparently there's a nasty surprise in it. At least this was what Tynan said in the video.

I looked for a ship but there was nothing; I forced it in dev mode and it said it was a thing that was just going to happen for a few days.

[Dalhan]

I got done in by it too. No ship appeared how ever and there was no day-limit indication either.

[( Tchey )]

Same here, drone somewhere but not on map, bad mood, crazy colonists, end of colony.

[Tynan]

Okay, well now I'm concerned. Certainly we hit this even in testing and it caused challenges but it wasn't regarded as a murder-hammer. Do you get the sense that it's unbeatable or that you could've been doing something different? Or is it just not interesting to you?

Note that if you wish you can mod down the effect of this, by going to Mods/Core/Defs/ThoughtDefs/Thoughts_PsychicDrone and adjusting the <baseMoodEffect> values.

[Haplo]

I have always a small rose garden around to fight the insanity. When the drone comes, my colonists are full time members of the watch-the-roses-grow club
But nevertheless I lost a base to it too as it occured once directly after a raid was won.
The additional -x to the mood from all the death was too much and they stabbed me in the back, one after the other...

[Tynan]

What if it only affected some colonists? Maybe that would make the event more interesting, since even if some were going crazy you'd still have the immune ones to get you through the disaster. Thoughts?

[vagineer1]

What if it only affected some colonists? Maybe that would make the event more interesting, since even if some were going crazy you'd still have the immune ones to get you through the disaster. Thoughts?

That sounds awesome. Certain people in your colony with a high resolve/high willpower, who can resist the Psychic Drone.

[RickyStilwell]

Started a new game this morning, After a few hours has the base running pretty smoothly then comes a Psychic Drone (Nothing new on map and for -25 for a day) managed to survive that and not loose anyone survived a few raids and then all at once got a massive raid and A blown cable (lost all power) 2 of the 6 settlers go down repelling the attack but are rescued to their beds.
Then straight after the attack in come the Psychic Drone again for another day and i lose 3 settlers to mad rampages, manage to subdue them and arrest them (Now at 3/6 settlers arrested and other 3 are all injured but up).
Then the Psychic Drone came again but this time only -5 and a ship crashed on map.
Had to ignore it for the first couple of days whilst i healed my guys and managed to get back one of the arrested guys.
The ship goes up to -10 so i decide to try and take it out.
So i take my 4 guys up to the ship and start shooting it (1400 health) at 1100 a slug looking thing with an automatic laser gun comes out and takes down 2 of my guys before i kill it.
Take injured back to base them one of the 2 remaining guys goes mental and rampages killing my last guy and then going and murdering all the injured people and then going down to one of the prisoners.

Long story short there seems to be 2 different events that result in Psychic Drone!

1 lasts one day and causes -25
1 drops the ship and slowly ramps up.

Both are really hard to combat especially if your unlucky with their timings!

[( Tchey )]

Hum, i was dead before i could see anything special on the map. I had 3 colonists + 1 prisoner + 1 prisoner turned into colonist. all crazy or killed by the crazies.

[Crazytoast42]

What if it only affected some colonists? Maybe that would make the event more interesting, since even if some were going crazy you'd still have the immune ones to get you through the disaster. Thoughts?

I feel that would be best. I played another map and it happened -considerably- earlier than last time, close to day 20, and my miner went out to mine, and the combined (very ugly environment) and (psychic drone high) made him leave the colony after five seconds of max speed.
Making that fix would make it a bit more fair, because there would be some people able to police the berserk or dazed colonists, but I have another opinion, as well.
I feel there should be more ways to make colonists happy. From what I've seen, there are four ways: pleasant environment, nice meal, spacious interior, and colonist chat. Two of those aren't going to be applied when the colonists are working, because miners always work in some awful environment and other works simply take no bonus at all, maybe even ugly due to resources laying around.
If there were more ways to give happiness, maybe an alcohol economy to cheer them up, or even some sort of game that they could play. Setting a sort of "leisure" priority in the screen would make them more or less likely to take time off.
TL;DR I feel this would be the most fair if there were more ways to increase happiness, when there are so many every-day things that drain it.

[Emjay]

I have to say, it took me a while to realise what was going on but I did see the piece of ship lying around. There weren't any interaction options with it so I figured it would pass but after a couple of days it got worse and gave a higher negative. I decided to round up all 4 of my colonists and teach that ship part a lesson!

Upon opening fire 2 bots jumped out and machinegunned us all the way home. I managed to get back but during the rest period 3 of my 4 colonists went insane and it basically ended there. It was nice however seeing a friendly tribe come along and kill the bots, be it a little late however.

If it helps the item in question should be a green/white object that is roughly 6x3 squares large. Its cylindrical in shape and it doesn't like being shot at.

[artemas]

Yeah, the problem with the day event (as opposed to the crashed ship) is that there isn't really anything to do once it happens. You can prepare, and if you're lucky it won't happen when you have a bunch of bodies lying around, but that's about it. (I feel the crashed ship is mostly fine as is. It offers a very 'At the Mountains of Madness' type climax)

As solutions, there's the one Ty mentioned of making it only randomly affect some colonists, but I feel an additional improvement of giving a variable chance for broken colonists to 'recover' is needed. If someone gives up, and decides to leave, well...only a prison can cure that ailment! But dazed and rampaging people having the possibility of recovering would greatly reduce the 'total wipe' issue with drones, while still keeping a very substantial threat.

The other solution (leisure economy) is probably a good one to include as well, and while the above solution reduces the lethality of the event, a leisure economy strengthens the survivability of the colonists positively. If 'leisure' were added as a 'need' (along with sleep and food), then the primary killer of drone events (-25 happiness being stacked with cramped, ugly environments or bodies) can be managed a bit. Right now, the colonists don't 'know' that they are in danger of breaking. Whereas two of the other three main sources of unhappiness, (food, sleep) are self regulated, with colonists stopping work and going to eat or sleep when they are hungry or tired. The third source (corpses) can be either avoided or hauled, so are still an issue you can do something about. Not so drone events.