Going Crazy

[boates]

So I've played this game for many hours at this point and I have many things good and bad to say about it. First off it is very well designed for an early world beta and before I get into the negatives I want it to be known that I absolutely love this game and want to see it do well. There is, however, one major issue I currently have with the game that I have not seen on posted too much on the forums... Berserker colonists need a major tone down. While there are some elements in the game that are somewhat reaching and I completely understand that the developers want to make a challenging game. Berserk is the nail in the coffin for many of my play through experiences. I by no means am saying that there aren't situations where colonist wouldn't go berserk and I don't think the mental break down should be removed from the game, but when some raid that we just barely fight off rolls through and I've got to struggle to get all my doctors to heal everyone and constructors to repair things and there are two or three people that just aren't happy about who just died, it's a tad ridiculous that I either have contain them in a prison cell, where they'll still go nuts, or just wait for my whole colony to become a ticking time bomb of ravaging self destructing murderers. The likelihood of Colonists going ape crazy and attacking everyone in sight (even other colonists and potential friends.) Should be very very very low. I get stuck in a never ending loop of healing people only to watch them go berserk, then having to heal them again, only to have them go berserk again. I've lost whole ironmans and many important colonists to my own colonists half as much as outsiders. Since your own colonists very much need each other to survive and replacements are very hard to come by, internal threats of such a grand caliber are unmanageable, crippling, and in my opinion far too illogical for even the most distraught early citizen.

[Kagemusha12]

I agree that berserking could be toned down a little bit.

But I also have to say that you should get used to using paragraphs in your posting ...
your opening posting is a pain to read without them
(and I am sure that you get less replies because of it, because most people will just skip reading your unparagraphed wall of text and just close the thread)

[Juan el Demgrafo]

I'd hardly call this undiscussed on the forums. In the last few weeks especially it seems that people are talking about berserk more than usual (that conception being the past three months of lurking). Here is a thread on this:
https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=21686.0
You can use the search bar to find other threads on this.

[ThiIsMe007]

I've learned to avoid most "berserker'ing" through a proper use of the "Restrict" tab, to give your stressed colonists some a breather once the warning starts to ring.

This then gives me some extra time to study why this colonist in particular is stressed, and to work on fixing it in the future.

This being said, I agree that the "berserker'ing" game mechanic wouldn't suffer from being reworked.

One of my prisoners went berserk because "reason = I'm naked". Yet, when she attacked my colony, she arrived without clothes. Since I had just started, I had no way to provide her clothes, except to take it from my other colonists, which would have been silly.

Another cause for my colonists to go berserk was "reason = they killed my father/mother/.../family/friends". Since the player has no option to pick the raiders that attack the colony, I think that was equally silly, or at least questionable.

[stigma]

It does seem like the extreme mental breaks are a little over-tuned.

What I mean by that is that murderous rampages can happen a little too easily. It's fine that sad colonists get dazed and zone out (that's a minor penality for being under the threashold, which is fair), but from that point it seems you like you are often only a hairs breadth from them going totally self-destructive and literally murder your other colonists - and that seems extreme. It seems like this should only happen under the most dire circumstances - and after some sustained stress.

It doesn't help that once this happens it often turns into a sharply downward morale spiral that can tear apart even a well established and otherwise stable colony.

I don't know the details of how the code works for this, but maybe the most extreme mood-disorders should need some time to build up (prolonged bad mood) before they have a significant chance to go off. Right now it seems that even a minor dip into a threshold has some flat chance of setting off a tantrum.

I recently had a run that ended before it began because a colonist insulted another in the first 5 seconds of landing, resulting in a social fight, which nearly killed one of them and left the other very wounded and in pain causing bad moods all around. Shortly after they had all started fighting eachother and going completely insane before being able to even construct a bedroom. Very funny ... but only because I had no investment at that point ...

-Stigma

[Organic_Meows]

I agree that a rework is badly needed.

I do like the mechanic, but I would like to see colonists go berserk for a good reason; killing a rival lover, killing each other over the last scraps of food, killing the person who insulted you in a blind rage, all good.  Its when colonists start killing each other because their room is a little dirty or because they tore their pants seems a little silly to me.

[Havan_IronOak]

Overall I like the berserker mechanic but I agree that it's a bit too easy to trip currently.

I fully expect that with mods someone will add a Ganja mod someday. It will be grown as a plant. And it will mellow out those with high breakpoint thresholds.

[A Friend]

How about extreme mental breaks like that being triggered only when a major event occur when they're mood is rock bottom. Namely deaths of allies/pets, insults, and maybe getting attacked in anyway.

Just seems more believable for them to have a reason to go berserk instead of just when they feel like it. Avoiding situations like "Alice just had a deep talk with Bob, she then proceeded to go apeshit on him a minute later". Plus it would mitigate the berserk-fest that many players have problems with.

[Sirportalez]

I just have one who is going berzerk the whole time, because she got divorced and there's a coldwave.
It would be nice to have a tranqilizer weapon or a stunner, but I always have to knock her down and risking more injuries than necessary.

[Shurp]

When the colony mood drops I find that it's helpful to have my pawns walk around with wooden logs instead of guns and only head for the armory when enemies arrive.

I often get the feeling I'm running a suicide cult rather than a colony on a foreign planet.  Brainwashing captives, beating people with logs, building the "ship" to take us to Hale Bopp Comet...

"Look at this thing, there's no way it'll fly"
"Shhhh.... it's not a ship, it's just a place to sit after we drink the Kool-Aid..."

[Havan_IronOak]

...
I often get the feeling I'm running a suicide cult rather than a colony on a foreign planet.  Brainwashing captives, beating people with logs, building the "ship" to take us to Hale Bopp Comet...

"Look at this thing, there's no way it'll fly"
"Shhhh.... it's not a ship, it's just a place to sit after we drink the Kool-Aid..."

And with the right mod you can get everybody to wear those cool tennis shoes

[Goo Poni]

Another cause for my colonists to go berserk was "reason = they killed my father/mother/.../family/friends". Since the player has no option to pick the raiders that attack the colony, I think that was equally silly, or at least questionable.

I think that your colonists just so happening to have every significant person in their lives happen to crash or otherwise exist on the exact same backwater planet they crashed on is very questionable. I'm all for colonists developing relations on arrival but come on, what the hell are the chances that you survive a plane crash on some remote island ala The Forest and the next plane to go down in the area happens to have your ex on board? Or Dad turns up to kill you in a raid against you and everyone else you've started to call friends in this hellhole. U wot?