How to capture raider?

[nemo78]

How do I capture the raider? I mean they always died before I could capture them. So I want to know how to attack them but not letting them died. (I always use the turret to attack the raiders)

[Galileus]

There is no way to capture raider on purpose at this time. You have a small chance every time, but this chance is also disabled when you reach around 12 colonists. Population limit is not present on Randy Random, though.

[Darker]

I don't like such purposedly implemented limit. If one want's more colonists, why couldn't he capture them?

[Galileus]

I don't like such purposedly implemented limit. If one want's more colonists, why couldn't he capture them?

Because the game is designed to work in a certain way. If you remove the limit, players would go over it all the time not knowing they are supposed to keep on lower amount of colonists, then breaking the game, and then blaming you... and they would be right, because you failed to communicate. Allow for bigger colonists limit, and people will miss out on strengths you designed your game around. They won't like it - and it'll be your fault again. Ask the players to limit their colonists to 20 or so and... why did you allowed them to go over the limit again?

As much as hand holding is a curse between players, the lesser known fact is that hand holding is not only good - but absolutely crucial for success of any game. The problem is when a game tries to hold your hand all the time or does so with a hammer to the head. Subtle ways of hand-holding and limiting it's effect only to crucial points is necessary to guide player through the game, while leaving the challenge up to him to beat. That is the case with pop limit - the game is designed around creating stories of individual colonists, and this is simply impossible if you end up with too big of a colony. The game needs to hold your hand and softly whisper in your ear: "Listen... you can't get more people, otherwise you won't see all these wonderful things I have prepared for you!". Then it kisses you gently on the cheek and let's you fend for yourself. It's a nice, subtle game like that.

[Darker]

I understand that - I have read what is the purpose of this game. However, I intentionally have written "purposely implemented limit". This is because the game may also have natural limits - in this case, it's pretty obvious:

I happen to end up with incapacitated invader every 5-7 waves, however often this one is killed during the battle by explosion or wandering bullet. This is natural limit. And it works, if you mind that game is over after 150 - 200 days. Later on, the game can't give you anything more - thanks to the implemented limit. You're trying to guide player to start a new game instead. That's what bothers me.

Also, it's about some reward for the effort. After going through regular game, I want to have some fun. After hiding behind the walls while 40 raiders attack my 8 colonists (+2 con artists hiding in the cave), I want to finally have some army and beat them in the open. I want to try other weapons than M16 (which is the only gun that suits my current tactics.

I don't like this hand holding once it's not natural. This is because often, I tend to play the games exactly the way they are not supposed to - achieving overpowered battle or economical power and then testing how far can I go with that. I do that by pushing the natural rules till they fail. Implemented rules, however, never fail.

[Galileus]

What you speak of is not a natural limit, it's a random chance And it does not limit you in any way, but simply slows down your progress. Best "natural" limit you can get in a game is a soft cap - and it's still a implemented limit. In fact, any limit hat exists in a game is by definition implemented. If it's not implemented then... well, it is not there.

As for reward for your efforts - most of what you speak of is simply the matter of game being in very early beta. Problem of lack of stuff to do is not a problem with pop-cap - it's a problem with not enough things being in game as of yet. Removing the cap does not solve it, does not help it - and runs headlong into all these problems I've mentioned. Sure, post-game removal of pop-cap is a cool idea, but it needs to be reserved for post-game or for special modes (like 'random' right now). The core game needs pop-cap, because it was designed around the idea of having only a limited supply of colonists.

Implemented rules do fail - because, as I've mentioned, implemented rules are the only ones that actually exist. And - funny enough - I do tend to play these "break the game" runs too. If I fail at breaking the game under it's own mechanics, I do know it's a good game - or that there are a lot of rough hard-caps. Still, a hard-capped game is better than one you can break easily. You speak of ability to break game mechanics like it's a positive quality - and for you, it may very well be. For a game in general - it's not. Mechanics of the game need to follow quite a few rules - and "not breaking" is definitely one of them

It's not to say the pop-cap as it is now (a very rough and hidden hard cap) is a good thing. Pop cap needs to be there, but current implementation is just abysmal. It's hidden from player, it's breaking game's own mechanics (as it states earlier you can acquire new colonists in X ways), it's a hard cap... It needs to evolve - but evolve, and not disappear.

[Darker]

You're very right in al but one thing: what I speak of is a natural limit - because normal player will stop playing after a long while and this low chance will prevent him from getting larger than certain population. However player that is not normal will proceed playing and will go through limit and far away.

But yes, it's a random chance and that is another thing I like - it allows unexpected and funny things to happen, and it never ceases to suprise you. Fix rules don't do that.

Nice idea would be to allow slave traders only at the very beginning of the game (when player has not much money) and after the "game-end" (certain time). Raiders are ideal population source to give you 10 colonists in 200 days. But here I'm already feature-requesting which is not what I originally intended to do.

[Galileus]

Technically speaking, random chance you won't get +1 colonist is not a limit - but I completely get what you mean by "natural limit" now and I agree. Time investment combined with a chance to fail at capture can be very well considered a soft cap on population.

Ah, words! Why does thou screw us so much? ;P

[Sacarathe]

The limit might be 14, but I believe you can have 13 colonists and ∞ prisoners.

[palandus]

I think that if Tynan wants to have a fixed number of colonists, instead of preventing you from capturing prisoners, one should prevent you from recruiting them once captured.

After all, whats the point of selling prisoners to slavers, if you need those prisoners to do stuff around the colony (except for say Nobles or Courtesans of course). If you can't recruit them, then the natural choice would be to sell them to slavers or to execute them for a fear-morale based colony.

Also, its not really "random chance" of incapping an enemy. I've taken a fair look at how the mechanics work via modding, and:

You can only incap colonists at 40 or less HP (even with Tough) and each damaging bullet has a 1% chance of incapping an enemy <= 40 (less than or equal to). Once you reach the desired maximum of a storyteller, it sets the incap chance to 0% chance of incapping an enemy. If the desired maximum was removed, then it would be up to random probability of whether you would or wouldn't incap people.

EDIT: Another possible option is that in the future Tynan could create a storyteller for larger sized colonies and state next to the storyteller potraits what their maximum population limits are so that people who want larger colony games will avoid those portraits for smaller colony storytellers whereas those who wish to play the game as Tynan initially intended it, would avoid the larger colony game storytellers. This way, Tynan supports both sides and people can choose how they wish to play. Afterall, large and small colonies create different stories, both of which are viable.

[Galileus]

Palandus - problem with allowing capture, but not conversion is when you loose some colonists. Suddenly you would be able to fill the blanks instantly, and this kills the "everyone counts" flavour. If anything, you'd need to limit amount of prisoners (that's easy - diminishing returns, chance of rebellion etc.) and make it impossible to convert prisoners that stay as slaves too long. But with these fixes, it could work.

And as for different storyteller - how about the extended play idea we've talked about? It's not "official" per se, so it's ok to risk blowing your PC up. If it was a storyteller, you would need to optimize game for it. If anything, it should be a option to check (with a "CPU EXPLOSION IMMINENT) unlocked after you beat the game once. First time, I believe it should be played as intended - all these no-caps and open char generation (as in opposition to randomization) are fine, but could greatly break your game on first play-through.

[palandus]

Well the idea with the no conversion is that when you reach the population cap of say 13, you get a handicap to converting the prisoners. Once you fall below that cap, the handicap is removed until you get back up to the population limit.

Example: You are currently at 12 colonists with a maximum of 13. You have 3 prisoners, with a Warden w/ 20 Social Skill. The warden has no handicap while attempting to recruit any one of the 3 prisoners. Once one is successfully recruited, you get a handicap that prevents you from recruiting more. However, this doesn't prevent you from performing beatings or friendly chats. You are now at 13 colonists. After a raid, you lose 2 colonists and the handicap is removed for recruiting purposes. Those two prisoners that you continued to visit should be very easy to convince now, allowing you to regain your population quickly. Once you get 13 colonists again, the handicap reappears.

Fair point, though optimization of the game to allow more colonists active would make the game better overall, as each colonist would have to be more efficient with job tasking and pathing (which I think are the two hard hitting CPU hogs for colonists at the moment).

Example: If you set up an area of 75 x 75 (5625 total) squares to be turned into concrete that is a grand total of 5,625 DIFFERENT jobs for a colonist to pick from if they are listed as builders. That causes my game to slow to single digits or freeze entirely for several seconds, even with only 3-5 colonists.

[Galileus]

That's my point exactly. If you can re-supply easily from a bank, loosing colonists doesn't matter.

[palandus]

That depends on perspective. If you are playing from a micromanagement perspective, each colonist would be unique and you may get emotional attached to them. If you are playing from a macromanagement perspective however, you could simply see colonists as resources to be used and exploited to achieve your own personal goals.

From perspective a) people would feel a sense of loss of each colonist regardless of being able to resupply themselves. For b) your viewpoint would have merit as that player would simply see one resource die off to be replaced by a similar resource.

[Galileus]

Can you even macro in this game? It's not like you're going to expand on natural while scouting proxy stargate and managing your lines at the same time. Well, you could, but what is the point if you have a pause AND your colonists can't even do all that at once anyway?

Anyway, the only perspective that matters is the design perspective. And from that perspective, the game is based on caring about your colonists. Being able to just stack a bunch of spare colonists in a freezer and recall them goes in exact opposite direction.

And no, it does not simply depend on player's perspective - basing your work on that is just an excuse for sloppy design. When making the game, you're in the charge of setting up the style and atmosphere, you're the one that needs to get that immersion going. Saying that "well, you just ain't the kind of person who enjoys that stuff" is not an answer. Not always, anyway. It's silly, what else can I say? You need to set up your game to fit the style you're going for, that's that.