(Sort of) First Impressions, a Story, and a Question

Started by zathura, April 02, 2015, 10:23:36 PM

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zathura

First, the question, since the rest may be a TL;DR.

I've seen a lot of people mention starting a new colony with the colonists you've managed to extricate via DIY spaceship, but after waiting through the credits, I didn't see an option like that. Did I misread something?

***

Alrighty, so I've put in...I dunno...something like 60+ hours into this game so far, and wanted to wait until I'd 'beaten' it, before sharing my thoughts, which are going to be somewhat disjointed, because there's a lot to say, and not any particular order in which they should be said.

I've only been playing since, I think, somewhere around A-8.5, and updated once, to my current version of 9.whatever. In all that time I've played Vanilla, until this last game, which happened to be my best run, and the first game I've actually felt like playing through to the finish.

So first on the agenda of -stuff-...is mods and vanilla gameplay.

I didn't use many. 9, I think, in total, and 4 of those were either UI-related or added traits (Romance and counseling mod).

Essentially what I added amounted to the ability to craft weapons, prosthetics, and medicine...

...which I feel should be in the game by default. My reasoning being; If my colonists can build (or research) Geothermal power plants, advanced hex-cell batteries, and IFF-ready automated machine-gun turrets; a bolt-action rifle, Glock, or hydraulic plate-armor shouldn't be beyond their abilities.

Aside from that, I've had a TON of fun with this game. I've been playing on Phoebe, which I have a few introspective words about, based upon the differences of my experience and what I've seen on Youtube of people playing with Cassandra Classic.

Phoebe actually seems a little harder, which is, I think, not what the developer intended. The reason I say this is that, with Cassandra, you're constantly acquiring weapons and armor beyond your crafting abilities (in vanilla, none) due to the frequent raids.

With Phoebe, the raids are less frequent, but DO get larger, quick. What this means is that you don't have as much opportunity to outfit your colonists by the time the larger raids are hitting, and you're lucky to be sporting a couple shotguns and an assault rifle by the time you're hit with a dozen or more raiders, especially if she only sends tribesmen.

Before I extricated my colonists, I had only been hit by TWO pirate raids, with the rest being made up of the tribesmen I'd P'ed off by kidnapping travellers. If I hadn't been able to craft guns this game, I would have been stuck holding them off with short-bows, shivs, and clubs. It wouldn't have ended well.

Wow...there's just...so much more to say. I think I'm going to cut the story for now, and add it in later. This post is already getting a bit long. I need to collect my thoughts.

I'll give a bit of a spoiler, though. In the end, I saved 10 of 13 colonists...

...and I had more than enough room on the ship, and steel, to craft three more crypto-caskets...

...but I didn't want those worthless ****ers to come with me. XD

Veneke

I don't suppose you have a link to any of those posts? Restarting with your old colonists isn't a feature in the current alpha as far as I know, but it has been bandied around as an idea for quite some time.

lol - sounds like a fun playthrough!

I haven't played on Phoebe, but certainly I've found that drops for attacks are what drive your colony economically. Saying that, I wouldn't write off all the ancient weapons. The Great Bow and the Pila are actually pretty nice, and you can always craft steel/plasteel shortswords and longswords. Then, of course, there are always automated turrets which when properly aligned can all but negate the need for your colonists to be armed at all.

Tynan does add stuff from mods to the base game from time to time, and currently there is something off with the technological capabilities of your colonists. I'd put it down to balancing for now and just keep an eye on the changelog. I'd be surprised if what we can craft doesn't change in some manner at some point.

Turps

Do lots of crafting and art. Sell the poor quality stuff and some good to make da bucks ye need to buy good weapons off traders. When your crafter's skill is about 12 n up geet them to make plasteel long sword for your brawlers. With a top end sword they rock! and the reject swords sell fer heaps.
Its not a battle unless some limbs are getting shot off!

TheSilencedScream

There isn't an official way to begin a colony with the colonists you extracted.

With EdB's Prepare Carefully mod, though, you can edit pretty much every detail of your starting colonists/supplies so that you can replicate your previous game.
Quote from: Topper on August 31, 2015, 03:33:25 AM
is the sledgehammer compatible with the romance mod?
Only in Rimworld.

zathura

Quote from: Turps on April 03, 2015, 04:45:04 AM
Do lots of crafting and art. Sell the poor quality stuff and some good to make da bucks ye need to buy good weapons off traders.

I had two people sculpting at all times. By the time an Exotic Goods trader rolled around, I usually had two large marble sculptures and several small granite ones to sell (Had a frustrating amount of excess granite blocks, lol)

The mods I used did kind of negate the need for a lot of money, though, so it definitely screwed with the balance that way. I was mostly using it to buy extra steel, plasteel, and power armor (even though I could craft it, it used ungodly amounts of high-end materials, lol)

As far as the turrets go, I added in the "More Vanilla Turrets" mod. The improvised and improved steel turrets are usually fine (I got by for a long time with them), but once mechanoids show up, they're as good as useless.

Once I had my ship built and waiting for an AI persona core, Phoebe dropped the ship down literally on my doorstep. Even if I'd had a squad with sniper rifles, I never would have gotten the range I needed. If it hadn't been for those military-grade turrets and the two Vulcan Cannons perched outside my walls, the game would have ended for me right there, unless I wanted to bring mortar fire down on my own base entrance, lol.

Quote from: TheSilencedScream on April 03, 2015, 09:35:27 AM
There isn't an official way to begin a colony with the colonists you extracted.

With EdB's Prepare Carefully mod, though, you can edit pretty much every detail of your starting colonists/supplies so that you can replicate your previous game.

I guess that must have been what I was seeing, and just misunderstood it then. Would be fun to RP that in my next game, especially if the raids are quite a bit larger from the get-go due to the number of starting colonists.


Despite the imbalance introduced by the mods, I had way more fun this time round. Guess I'm just a casual gamer at heart. I'm not looking for teeth-gritting challenge, I just want to build up a successful colony and watch as my well-prepared fighters mop the floor with the local tribesmen. :p

I'm not above save-scumming to rescue fallen heroes, either. I'm fine with limbs being blown off (gives me a good excuse to cyberize them, lol), but when my favorite colonist gets put down by some twerp in tribalwear and a shiv, despite devilstrand clothes, armored vest and helmet, and an LMG, it's..."Nope...Load!" lol.

...Hey, don't look at me like that.  ;D