Mods making the game "to easy"?

[b0rsuk]

I mostly don't play with mods for a few reasons:
a) the game is deep enough without them. There are still a few things I haven't tried, like selling drugs and letting my colonists do drugs (go-juice withdrawal is unbelievable).
b) I want to give feedback to the game as it's designed. Note I often post on the Suggestions subforum.
c) I have more faith in Tynan's good judgement when it comes to balance etc,
d) I... don't have enough time to try a number of mods and compare.
e) Modding for an alpha is shooting a moving target. Developer of Combat Realism ragequit because of that.

[SilentP]

Try the crash landing mod on hard.  Everyone lands injured, possibly dead, among the flaming wreckage of the ship.  Roleplay it like actual survivors would - try to save everyone above all else, even if you end up with ten crippled, nearly-useless colonists on the verge of constant breakdown.

The dense forest mod makes the world feel very different, and significantly affects the above mods too.  CR's ridiculous ranges don't help in heavy forest, and Crash Landing basically burns down half the map.

Thanks Derp! I'll give those a try!

[OFWG]

b) I want to give feedback to the game as it's designed. Note I often post on the Suggestions subforum.
...
e) Modding for an alpha is shooting a moving target. Developer of Combat Realism ragequit because of that.

Agreed, I only use quality of life mods like unforbid tool and the one that automatically rebuilds destroyed stuff just to save my own wrists. Experimented with the auto-hunting one and XXL storage too but that's as much modding as I want to do for an alpha.

[Tammabanana]

If I were to customize some pawns using "Prepare Carefully" what would you recommend?  Currently I just mash the random button until I get a pawn capable of hauling and then replace pyromaniac, psychic sensitive / hypersensitive.  I don't worry with chemical fascination, staggeringly ugly because they're pretty easy to manage around.

I'm in it for stories, so I usually start with a scenario idea - current game, for example, I decided I wanted a bunch of monks establishing a nice little monastery where they could brew beer and raise muffalos and stuff. Assuming they survive.

• I created random colonists, then deliberately gave them each a different something-like-a-monk adult backstory.
• If their random childhood backstory didn't make sense with the adult story, I browsed through and found one that made sense, mostly regardless of whether they were incapable of a few things or not. (I'm not a real big fan of the backstories that make a pawn incapable of everything except a single skill, but if I were deliberately aiming for a difficult game, those would be tempting ones.)
• I mash the random button on the Traits until I get something that looks appropriate for that combination of backstories. Unless the backstory is just screaming for a particular trait, like my apocalypse survivor got Cannibal and the gardener-type got Green Thumb.
• I change the passions and tweak the skill levels to fit better with the backstories/traits - up if the pawn's history suggests they ought to have some skill in that field, down if the history indicates they ought to be terrible at it. I try not to make the upward changes exceed the downs, but downs exceeding ups I don't worry about; if they're supposed to suck at something, then they should just suck at it. If the pawn's history implies absolutely nothing about a particular skill, I generally leave that one set to whatever the randomizer gave it.
• I look at their randomized injuries - if they make sense, I keep them. If their history says they were traumatized by a fire but they're totally uninjured, I give them burn scars. If they got in knife fights I'll give them cut scars, mining history maybe crushed toes or something. Sometimes I give them bionics if they seem like they would've swung that way in their past. Could be interesting to give a prosthophobe some bionics, especially if they had some kind of accident in their history where someone might have done it For Their Own Good. I like to give the old ones Frail or Dementia or Alzheimer's.
• Relationships are good for some kicks, too. I like making little families, but ex-lovers/ex-spouses could add drama. I mean, difficulty.
• I give them the clothes one would reasonably expect them to be wearing in the circumstances of their arrival. No parkas for unexpected crash landings!    My monks came wearing mostly wool shirts/pants/desert robes (FashionRIMsta), except the Vinho King who's running the beer-selling show and could afford something more expensive. You could make them totally naked, for drama. I mean, difficulty.
• Totally cosmetic, but I give them hairstyles that look like the kind of thing they'd be into. Hair shaved or pulled back tightly for soldiers, punky for artists, looking like they spend a lot of time on it in the morning if they're super social and never get their hands dirty, etc. This does not help for pawns who show up later and wreck my careful cosmetic planning. 
• I save the pawns individually in case I end up liking them, usually more for drama reasons than effectiveness. Sometimes I mix-and-match them for later games.
• On the stage where you add resources, I give them the resources you might reasonably expect them to have brought with them. If they actually made it to escape pods, I let them have survival meals and a pistol. If it's a solo hermit grumpily wandering off into the wilderness, I give 'em a survival rifle and a sack of potatoes. Maybe a trusty dog. I almost never give them stacks of building resources just lying around the map, IMO that's gratuitous. The monks were a fairly prepared but ascetic group, so I gave 'em 4 muffalos and 4 chickens, a stack of medicine,  survival meals to last them a few days, just enough survival rifles for the ones who liked to shoot, and a couple of knives for the others capable of violence.
• Fin!

[Limdood]

If I were to customize some pawns using "Prepare Carefully" what would you recommend?  Currently I just mash the random button until I get a pawn capable of hauling and then replace pyromaniac, psychic sensitive / hypersensitive.  I don't worry with chemical fascination, staggeringly ugly because they're pretty easy to manage around.

I've tried some interesting ones.  One of my favorites is to make a 0 skill in everything (obviously something will go up due to childhood), burning passion in everything, too smart (and usually iron willed to counteract). Then do a solo landing.  Then have fun building a colonist up from nothing...sure they can do everything, but it takes time and training and they can't do everything at once anyways.

You could also do a theme start...all cannibals, all masochists, all teetotalers, all very neurotic, volatile, psychically hypersensitive (omg! psychic drone! lock yourselves in!), all pirates (power claw and peg leg for everyone!), etc....etc....etc....etc.

Start with more animals...start with NO animal (sea ice bonded animal death anyone?)

Try something REALLY interesting...No pawns capable of hauling....better plan those stockpiles and production bench bills carefully!  Or try a no violent pawns start (animals, turrets, and traps!)

[hwfanatic]

Try the crash landing mod on hard.  Everyone lands injured, possibly dead, among the flaming wreckage of the ship.  Roleplay it like actual survivors would - try to save everyone above all else, even if you end up with ten crippled, nearly-useless colonists on the verge of constant breakdown.

The dense forest mod makes the world feel very different, and significantly affects the above mods too.  CR's ridiculous ranges don't help in heavy forest, and Crash Landing basically burns down half the map.

Great post and great suggestions. I can attest that the crash landing mod completely changes the game and wholeheartedly recommend it.

[Mikhail Reign]

For the same reason, I would like to see stone types, leather types, wool types, meat types diversified or merged. As far as mechanics are concerned there are only 3 meat types: animal, insect, human. But I have to juggle so very many meat types. A meal can be made of snowhare meat and polarbear meat, but you can't make a tuque out of mufallo wool and alpaca wool. The rest is useless fluff.

This. Ohmygodthis. This 1000 times. Insect, animal, human. Thats all we need. I HATE now much micro is needed to get a good work flow going.

Large amount of Normal meat storage in the fridge.
Double tile of Important meet storage next to the stove.
Stove set to only accept ingredients near it. (haulers haul, cooks cook)

Inevitable this will end up with 2 chicken and a single insect meat next to the stove, and 9001 muffalo meat stuck in the fridge.

This is a cake walk compared to hide management. Then add on to that, that they massive pile of leather is also REALLY ugly for some reason.

[Grendl_Kahn]

I stay away from mods like the ones you mentioned. Just because they make the game easier.
Prepare carefully is a great mod and all, but I like not being able to choose all those things. The "make do with what you have" for a crashlanding is one of the things I love about the game.

[Stormfox]

For the same reason, I would like to see stone types, leather types, wool types, meat types diversified or merged. As far as mechanics are concerned there are only 3 meat types: animal, insect, human. But I have to juggle so very many meat types. A meal can be made of snowhare meat and polarbear meat, but you can't make a tuque out of mufallo wool and alpaca wool. The rest is useless fluff.

This. Ohmygodthis. This 1000 times. Insect, animal, human. Thats all we need. I HATE now much micro is needed to get a good work flow going.

Large amount of Normal meat storage in the fridge.
Double tile of Important meet storage next to the stove.
Stove set to only accept ingredients near it. (haulers haul, cooks cook)

Inevitable this will end up with 2 chicken and a single insect meat next to the stove, and 9001 muffalo meat stuck in the fridge.

This is a cake walk compared to hide management. Then add on to that, that they massive pile of leather is also REALLY ugly for some reason.

Yeah, I was JUST thinking about that a few days ago when rearranging my leather bins. There are faaaar to many meats and leathers.

If you want to preserve the option of special quality hides, make a few (read: 5-6) broad categories, like "rough leather", "smooth leather", "resistant leather", "thick leather" or so with slightly different properties and set each animal to drop one of those. Same for meat. I could see having 5-6 different meat types if they were actually different.

That amount of different things is something the lists and storages can handle well without the player being overwhelmed by 50 choices.

[supahz]

Apart from the obvious... don't use mods that you feel make the game too easy... this game is as difficult or easy as yoi choose to make it.  Having the ability to use all of these nifty mods is one if the things that makes this game great, and endlessly replayable. I enjoy the standard scenarios that you can run, and vanilla mode is fine also, but why limit yourself when you literally have endless ways to play and endless stories to experience?

I usually create my own scenarios.  One day I feel like doing a "prison break" scenario with unsavory pawns, unskilled and almost without supplies.  The next time I might want to do a Star Trek-esque colony starter on a frozen tundra, well-equipped and properly staffed.  Endless options.  Mods are essential for that, especially Prepare Carefully.  I can't imagine not having the mods.

I'd suggest to anyone to pick a story they like from literature/comics/history and recreate it in the game.  Save it, then play it.  Fine tune it and perfect it.  Then share it.