Alpha 11 (General, Balance, etc.)

[SSS]

What are your general thoughts on the difficulty and game experience this time around? (Make sure to note your difficulty and storyteller!)

Playing on Cassandra Challenging, I think the balance is at a good place. It is indeed challenging raid-wise until you get a good base setup, after which it's mostly about risk aversion. The warg attacks make for a decent change of pace (especially in the early game). I kinda wish toxic fallout lasted even longer than it already does; I was just starting to feel the pressure when bam, it's over.

Also, I'm not sure if it's just me or if this is a bug, but what happened to sieges? I've been playing 361 in-game days and have yet to see even one. I kinda miss 'em. :/

My only (minor) criticism is toward the economy. It still feels too easy to make money in the long term, imo. Maybe it's because I'm kicking those raider's butts so often now, but even so. The spoils of war make one wax too rich too quickly. I've actually intentionally been looking for ways to spend more when traders come around since the silver from trading is taking up so much stockpile space. I'd at least like to have more options/opportunities to spend silver if there's going to be this much of it. (Maybe a permanent trading option with a pricetag, like an expensive long-range trade beacon?)

Edit: Typo.

[Tynan]

I'm interested to hear the feedback as well!

Sieges are still in, RNG must have just ignored them for you.

I understand the late-game trading issues. You are right. I think I need to add some nice juicy money sinks for you to spend on. Maybe some super-expensive glittertech or something. I think it'd be better to solve on the spending side than the supply side.

[Xanting]

it would also be nice if traders had more stocks of things in general like bionic limbs or the combat suppliers carried guns more often.

[Tynan]

Let's try to keep to general feedback here and not let this devolve off-topic into a "random suggestions" thread, thanks.

[NickB0]

I agree that making large sums of silver is too easy (in some situations). I'm playing an ice sheet map (randy extreme) and have tons of corpses laying around not rotting and haven't researched cremation so all these bodies are getting quickly butchered. For a human corpse the yield is ~50 meat and ~15 leather which for some reason sell for a really high price (why the hell is there such a high demand for this?). 1 meat for ~.60 and 1 leather for ~2.5 silver means you get ~67 silver for each corpse, which really adds up over time.

[keylocke]

the only guns i think that is worth buying are miniguns and sniper rifles.

sadly, it's hard to find combat suppliers actually selling some, especially in the early part of the game when this is important. late game, it's no longer important since i get tons of miniguns and sniper rifles from beating mechs and raiders.

but getting my first sniper rifle is one of the most important early combat milestone for my colony.

[BugPowderDust]

I'm two and a half years into my Alpha 11 colony, Cassandra Challenge.

Finding it easy- not enough sieges (these made you come out of your comfort zone to deal with them), Wargs are too easy to deal with, and Sappers need to be a constituent of every raid- really make us sweat! Have just increased to Extreme and we'll see how it goes

Volcanic winter is great, not had toxic fallout yet.

Really enjoying the diversity A11 brings though, good stuff

[Listy]

Some of the events are Binary. Its either Endex as your colony gets wiped out, or utterly ignorable. The two I have in mind are Manhunter pack and toxic fallout. If you get either of those early on in the game then you're hosed.

Over all the Difficulty seems higher than it was (not saying that's a bad thing), and it takes a lot more effort and time to get a comfortable operating base properly protected.

[Mrshilka]

Randy Random seems very tame in A11 compared to A10.

I have 14 colonists on Randy Challenge and a colony wealth of over 1.5 million roughly 2 years in and the largest raids I see are around 80 people.
Compared to 300+ people I would get in A10.

The Wargs are basicly food delivery, are making my Ice Sheet games very easy.
The toxic fallout is pure troll, you're either ready to survive it or it ends you. No middle ground.
Sappers are great but the guys defending them will sit there and die as you snipe them, like sieges.

[Tynan]

Sappers are great but the guys defending them will sit there and die as you snipe them, like sieges.

FYI this is getting hotfixed.

There's no reason Randy would send different attacker counts at you (within 5%) that I know of, I didn't retune him...

[RickyMartini]

To the difficulty I have to say that if anyone thinks he's kicking to many raiders asses, just switch to Extreme Ice sheet. 

[Nasikabatrachus]

I played for about a year and a half, or about 15 hours, on Cassandra Classic, rough difficulty. I didn't find it overly hard. The personal shields are really fantastic for dealing with mechanoids, as a shielded pawn can run around drawing fire in relative safety while another pawn throws an EMP grenade to stun the mechs, resulting in much quicker fights. I do find that personal shields seem overvalued in terms of points determining what a raid or siege has. It's a bit silly to see six pirates, naked but for their personal shields and weapons, setting up a siege camp. And with numbers like that, they aren't really a match for a colony of ten or twelve, no matter that half my colonists went into the fight with guns. Sappers also tend to come in numbers too small to pose a threat, even when they successfully breach the base's interior (they're very distractible).

It's funny, the way the storyteller compensates for the threats it generates, sometimes. I once got a sapper raid with one triple rocket launcher—carried by a decrepit 82 year old.

As for Wargs, they're kind of a joke. They'll kill 3 or 4 turrets, but by the time they're done, they're almost all dead because the turrets explode while ten wargs are stacked in just one tile right next to them.

I've never gotten a volcano or a fallout event. My colony's not dead yet, but if I continue it, I'll bump cassandra up to extreme just to make sure I get something real good.

[TheSilencedScream]

Randy Challenge.

Pretty fair overall, even for being random - I've got a little over a year under my belt. Wargs are a big threat for anyone with no or light defenses up. I do agree with a previous poster - sappers occurred 2-3 times (amongst other raids), but I haven't once seen a siege crew. If possible, though, I'd like for sappers to defend themselves when attacked (the person mining wouldn't stop when his buddies came under fire).

I'm not sure I care for toxic fallout; I don't mind the added challenge (as yet another poster stated, if you're not prepared, it can easily be the death of you), but I also feel like it really isolates what you as a player can do. With everyone on lockdown, you're pretty much stuck doing exactly what they're doing - just waiting it all out. You have your cooks fix meals, you have your cleaners clean, and... well, unless you're built into a mountain and want to mine, there's little else to do during this time.

[Binkus]

molotov cocktails going through walls is a little irritating

not being able to single out a bit of wall to be built they just build other things around it

build that heater - oh no my materials fell into this other building on the way

very frustrating
battery electric explosions are still far too frequent - i really think these should be taken altogether

other than that really liking the new stuff

[Devon_v]

Randy Challenge - Boreal Forest - not finding Wargs to be any sort of issue. I've started three colonies in a11, had early Manhunter packs in each one, all it does is deliver meat to your door. My most recent was with Superior Crafting so I didn't even have turrets. They only show up alone or in pairs that early it seems, and that's just not enough Warg to make me sweat. A few vanilla turrets makes them a joke.

I haven't taken any colonies deep enough to get a feel for the long term events yet, but Manhunters just aren't living up to their "lock the doors" introduction.

I have to agree with Binkus that not being able to direct colonists to build what I NEED them to build is frustrating. If you tell them to prioritize something, they change targets once they pick up the resources, then if you tell them to prioritize again, they drop the resources, pick up a different pile, and then retarget to something else again. They also refuse to prioritize something they have some resources for, but not enough to complete it. They'd rather build 6 light fixtures as steel becomes available than pool the stuff into a life-saving turret. You end up having to cancel all the other planned construction until they do what you want, then redo everything.