Why live outside mountains anymore?

[Limdood]

OK, i'm going to try to lay this out in a logical manner.

Mountain bases SHOULD be stronger because they're harder - much harder - to set up in the beginning.  It takes TIME and EFFORT, both of which you can't always spare.

On the other hand, mountain bases, once you leap this initial hurdle, have little ADDITIONAL challenges to make people second guess them (they shouldn't want to get OUT of the mountain, that just flips the problem in reverse, they should have more of a "well, there ARE drawbacks..." mindset).

The drawbacks and minor "solutions" shouldn't feel like they PUNISH mountain dwellers.  To that end, i propose 2 "trivial" changes and 1 "minor" change (c wut i did thar?):

1)those little pockets of "area revealed" in the mountains that you stumble across unexpectedly?  put a single scyther or a couple of manhunter environmentally-appropriate animals in there (not 15 squirrels...it should be a surprise and annoyance, not a "lol your miner is dead now" event).  Maybe 2 wargs or 3 megascarabs, a cobra nest with 4 cobras, or depending on the upcoming, hinted-at insect nests, one of them!  This will be something to make the player at least have a little trepidation while mining.  it should be easy to deal with, just take some time and give the player a brief, minor heart attack for a moment...at worst i'd expect a torn off limb or something.

2) the "space" metric should be reduced by 50% underneath an overhead mountain.  It should be SERIOUSLY claustrophobic with thousands of TONS of rock right above your head.  This would be AFTER the room size is taken into account...so even the biggest room ever would give just...no bonus, no penalty...meter right in the middle.  A moderate room would be cramped and a smallish room would be "very cramped" even if it might normally be fine.  Again, this isn't a SERIOUS hindrance, it would just require a little bit more attention to mood, maybe slightly bigger rooms to minimize mood penalties.  It is also VERY realistic...someone mentioned moria copies?  Even in the largest chambers in Moria, i bet it would have been hard to forget the giant mountain above.

3) This is the stinger that will help make mountain bases a bit tougher, but will impact overland bases "less."  Make raiders attack external power sources upon beginning their attack.  Because wind and solar panels are VERY difficult to utilize inside a mountain (involves finding big enough thin roof sections).  On the way to your base, the raiders should hit geothermals and wind/solar generators on the way in.  This makes mountain bases deal with either whatever power they can generate safely indoors, protect their power sources suitably, or rebuild some of their power sources after raiders destroy them.

thoughts?  none of these are about punishing mountains, and they mostly seem rather realistic (honestly, raiders should destroy exposed stuff on the way in ANYWAYS instead of charging past vulnerable buildings to hit the entrenched colonists.

[NuclearStudent]

OK, i'm going to try to lay this out in a logical manner.

Mountain bases SHOULD be stronger because they're harder - much harder - to set up in the beginning.  It takes TIME and EFFORT, both of which you can't always spare.

On the other hand, mountain bases, once you leap this initial hurdle, have little ADDITIONAL challenges to make people second guess them (they shouldn't want to get OUT of the mountain, that just flips the problem in reverse, they should have more of a "well, there ARE drawbacks..." mindset).

The drawbacks and minor "solutions" shouldn't feel like they PUNISH mountain dwellers.  To that end, i propose 2 "trivial" changes and 1 "minor" change (c wut i did thar?):

1)those little pockets of "area revealed" in the mountains that you stumble across unexpectedly?  put a single scyther or a couple of manhunter environmentally-appropriate animals in there (not 15 squirrels...it should be a surprise and annoyance, not a "lol your miner is dead now" event).  Maybe 2 wargs or 3 megascarabs, a cobra nest with 4 cobras, or depending on the upcoming, hinted-at insect nests, one of them!  This will be something to make the player at least have a little trepidation while mining.  it should be easy to deal with, just take some time and give the player a brief, minor heart attack for a moment...at worst i'd expect a torn off limb or something.

2) the "space" metric should be reduced by 50% underneath an overhead mountain.  It should be SERIOUSLY claustrophobic with thousands of TONS of rock right above your head.  This would be AFTER the room size is taken into account...so even the biggest room ever would give just...no bonus, no penalty...meter right in the middle.  A moderate room would be cramped and a smallish room would be "very cramped" even if it might normally be fine.  Again, this isn't a SERIOUS hindrance, it would just require a little bit more attention to mood, maybe slightly bigger rooms to minimize mood penalties.  It is also VERY realistic...someone mentioned moria copies?  Even in the largest chambers in Moria, i bet it would have been hard to forget the giant mountain above.

3) This is the stinger that will help make mountain bases a bit tougher, but will impact overland bases "less."  Make raiders attack external power sources upon beginning their attack.  Because wind and solar panels are VERY difficult to utilize inside a mountain (involves finding big enough thin roof sections).  On the way to your base, the raiders should hit geothermals and wind/solar generators on the way in.  This makes mountain bases deal with either whatever power they can generate safely indoors, protect their power sources suitably, or rebuild some of their power sources after raiders destroy them.

thoughts?  none of these are about punishing mountains, and they mostly seem rather realistic (honestly, raiders should destroy exposed stuff on the way in ANYWAYS instead of charging past vulnerable buildings to hit the entrenched colonists.

That "claustrophobia" penalty makes no sense. In modern society millions of people are 100% used to vast cavernous cityscapes spanning millions of cubic meters.

[TLHeart]

Yes the raiders should attack power generation, and power lines on the way to the base, every time.

An artillery shell hitting an overhead mountain should cause cave ins, roof collapses.

[Limdood]

That "claustrophobia" penalty makes no sense. In modern society millions of people are 100% used to vast cavernous cityscapes spanning millions of cubic meters.

Could you explain?  Are you referring to the rimworld modern society?  because in that, the only reference to cavern living is the cave dweller backgrounds.  If you're talking about current real-world modern society, i'm not sure i follow.

In either case, i'm betting "vast" and "cavernous" don't play much of a role when considering carving a rough room directly out of a mountain.  I highly doubt the ceilings are much higher than 7-8 feet or so as from a utilitarian perspective, mining "up" would be a complete waste of time.  So living in a low-ceiling cave with an entire mountain's weight worth of stone above your head would probably mess with the head a bit. 

Like i said, i'm not trying to arbitrarily impose mood penalties or anything, but a cave room should feel a bit less luxurious and spacious than a well constructed free-standing building.  As it stands now, using the "smooth floor" tool, a "smoothed" mountain floor is 50% more beautiful, and thus more pleasing to colonists than a marble-tiled floor. 

[zandadoum]

2) the "space" metric should be reduced by 50% underneath an overhead mountain.

disagree on this too. it all depends on how big you build.
an outdoor 1x2 bedroom will and should allways feel more claustrophobic than an under the mountain 8x8 bedroom.

LOTR: Moria was deep under the mountains and it's halls were anything but claustrophobic

remember than in rimworld there is already the "cabin fever" debuff. easy to fix it, but it's there.

[mokonasakura]

Main reason is power and food. Hydroponics are really bad and unless you are really lucky and find a geothermal in the mountain, you will have no way to get power.

[Limdood]

2) the "space" metric should be reduced by 50% underneath an overhead mountain.

disagree on this too. it all depends on how big you build.
an outdoor 1x2 bedroom will and should allways feel more claustrophobic than an under the mountain 8x8 bedroom.

LOTR: Moria was deep under the mountains and it's halls were anything but claustrophobic

remember than in rimworld there is already the "cabin fever" debuff. easy to fix it, but it's there.

but an 8x8 free standing building should probably feel more spacious than an 8x8 cave.  I don't know why you compared it to a 2x1.  I didn't say the neg mood should be automatically given, just easier to feel cramped in a mountain than outdoors, given the SAME size rooms.

Also, cabin fever only counts outdoors or indoors.  Most people make their mountain base with an "outdoors" hallways throughout the whole base, as its the easiest way to make a defense (as the raider AI will ATTEMPT to just "walk right in the front door").  This means that the cabin fever mood never even appears, as it is automatically reset every time a pawn walks room to room.

Either way, so far it seems clear that the power idea is being well received, the space issue isn't, and the surprises in revealed areas hasn't even been mentioned yet.

[NuclearStudent]

Is it really that big a deal to live under rock? You'd expect some kind of caveminer's trauma syndrome if that were the case, but I haven't found any reports of one.

[TitaniumTurtle]

2) the "space" metric should be reduced by 50% underneath an overhead mountain.

disagree on this too. it all depends on how big you build.
an outdoor 1x2 bedroom will and should allways feel more claustrophobic than an under the mountain 8x8 bedroom.

LOTR: Moria was deep under the mountains and it's halls were anything but claustrophobic

remember than in rimworld there is already the "cabin fever" debuff. easy to fix it, but it's there.

but an 8x8 free standing building should probably feel more spacious than an 8x8 cave.  I don't know why you compared it to a 2x1.  I didn't say the neg mood should be automatically given, just easier to feel cramped in a mountain than outdoors, given the SAME size rooms.

Also, cabin fever only counts outdoors or indoors.  Most people make their mountain base with an "outdoors" hallways throughout the whole base, as its the easiest way to make a defense (as the raider AI will ATTEMPT to just "walk right in the front door").  This means that the cabin fever mood never even appears, as it is automatically reset every time a pawn walks room to room.

Either way, so far it seems clear that the power idea is being well received, the space issue isn't, and the surprises in revealed areas hasn't even been mentioned yet.

I actually thought the power thing had already been put in affect. Yesterday I was playing and a raid showed up. I called all my colonists to hunker down in my base, but instead of coming for the only entrance to the base the raiders started destroying my solar panels which were just outside the range of my turrets. Thus I was forced to send out my colonists to attack them and draw them back towards my defenses.

I agree with your point about the open spaces in the mountain. For a comparable note, you could think of it like coming across a dungeon in Minecraft. Initially its a shock and a bit of a pain, but if you can quickly fend off the danger then you can make preparations to ensure it doesn't happen again.

Like most others, I disagree about the point of claustrophobia. I think that in fact the colonists are too picky about the size of rooms. I don't know if there is an official size of each square in game, but from what I can tell it's probably around a meter. Now my colonists get a mood penalty for having a small bedroom at 4x4. That would make the room 4 meters square (or 13 feet for us Americans). I don't know about you guys, but having only a bed (even a large bed) and a lamp in a room that size would seem plenty spacious to me. Hell, my actual room is probably around that size and I have a couch, TV, computer, dresser, bookshelf, minifridge, AND A ROOMMATE, and still don't feel all that cramped.

[Limdood]

as far as the power thing with your solar panels.

Raiders have always approached your turrets, then done a "check."  they'll shoot/destroy what they can somewhere around the max range of your turrets (since bows, for example have longer than turret range, they'll stop outside turret range and start shooting whatever they can.)

I'm talking about the power conduits stretched halfway across the map to a steam geyser.  Not simply "just out of range" but WAY out there.  As it stands, the raiders will walk right past those structures all the way to NEAR your turrets/colonists.

I wasn't thinking of horizontal space, or square footage, with the space metric under a mountain, but more the oppressive ceiling.  Again though, people seem to dislike the idea regardless, so i'm basically saying at this point "what about the other 2 ideas?"

[TitaniumTurtle]

as far as the power thing with your solar panels.

Raiders have always approached your turrets, then done a "check."  they'll shoot/destroy what they can somewhere around the max range of your turrets (since bows, for example have longer than turret range, they'll stop outside turret range and start shooting whatever they can.)

I'm talking about the power conduits stretched halfway across the map to a steam geyser.  Not simply "just out of range" but WAY out there.  As it stands, the raiders will walk right past those structures all the way to NEAR your turrets/colonists.

I wasn't thinking of horizontal space, or square footage, with the space metric under a mountain, but more the oppressive ceiling.  Again though, people seem to dislike the idea regardless, so i'm basically saying at this point "what about the other 2 ideas?"

What you're saying sounds like an interesting idea. I have always kind of worked off the idea that the cables were being run in conduits under the ground or something of that sort, just because it makes the most sense to me. Exposed cables in real life would undergo too many natural hazards to just be there without regular maintenance. Also, why would you need a whole chunk of steal to run 3 feet of electrical cable, unless it was encased in conduit or something like that. It would be pretty cool though if they cut your power or something before attacking. The closest to that I ever had was that they waited to attack until immediately after my batteries ran out during an eclipse.

[Duban]

Sappers can mine into your mountain base. Haven't seen them dig deeply into one, but it could happen!

They can, but it takes a hell of a lot longer and gives you more time to respond. It's definitely a  lot safer.

[b0rsuk]

The only upside of mining into a mountain is that

1. You get to use the space inside the mountain and can use the space outside for other stuff.
2. Mortars make literally zero damage.

Only downside is that it takes way longer to set up your base and you also have to store the mined stones somewhere.

You got the downsides right, but not the upsides. You also:
- don't need to construct walls, which means you can play pretty long without Stonecutting
- get very pretty and fast floors by default
- get very tough walls by default, and they don't burn
- get a discount for making small rooms. In extreme case, 1x1 room is 1 mined stone, but 8 walls around if built outside. I did the math in a thread I made a long time ago.

The new events are very hostile, and building in mountains is something you want to do anyway sooner or later. You WILL need mountain shelters to deal with manhunters and toxic fallout.

Actually, the only advantages of being outside are:
- faster to construct
- animals can graze
- you can plant corn, devilstrand and have access to large areas of soil (not in all biomes)
- easier access to supply pods, but most of them are crap. You don't get valuable items like medicine or weapons. Stone blocks and food can be good early on, especially in cold biomes where they won't spoil.
- you can instantly unroof a building to put out fire.

But those aren't big advantages. An outside colony is much more likely to catch fire, for example.

[zandadoum]

...

gonna respond to a few things from my experience and point of view. if i don't list it, means i agree on you on that specific point.


- don't need to construct walls, which means you can play pretty long without Stonecutting
disagree. without walls, a cave is just a cave. this WILL matter on RR extreme as it affects room beauty, which ultimately affects colonist mood.
a cave wall equals -2 beauty and a constructed wall is 0

- get very pretty and fast floors by default
fast yes, pretty no. read previous response. (cave floor equals -1)

- get a discount for making small rooms. In extreme case, 1x1 room is 1 mined stone, but 8 walls around if built outside. I did the math in a thread I made a long time ago.
as mentioned above, in the end you might want to do walls anyways. maybe not only for beauty, but also to not have your electric wiring lying on the floor, but through your walls (you can't lie electric wiring inside rock)

- You WILL need mountain shelters to deal with manhunters and toxic fallout.
this is the point where i disagree most and why i decided to respond to your post.
this is absolutely FALSE. you don't need a mountain to handle this two events. constructed roof and defensive walls are more than enough. in fact many times i have a toxic fallout and manhunter before year 5501, which means i didn't have time to build a mountain base.
if you need help with those events in a outside constructed base, send me a PM or make another post and i will give you some hints.

- easier access to supply pods, but most of them are crap. You don't get valuable items like medicine or weapons. Stone blocks and food can be good early on, especially in cold biomes where they won't spoil.
you need medicice to make hospital beds. just saying.

- But those aren't big advantages. An outside colony is much more likely to catch fire, for example.
you can build your base of stone and steel. ofc you'll start on wood, but you can switch later and have a outdoor base perfectly fine that won't catch on fire.


i love mountain bases. but imo playing that way is super lazy and i only do it when i want a "relaxed" colony. if i want a challenge, i build outdoors. always depends the mood i am in when i start the colony and i usually have 2 active colonies to play different every day: one relax, one challenge. but ALWAYS on RR extreme. anything below that is straight out boring nowadays.

[Limdood]

...

- don't need to construct walls, which means you can play pretty long without Stonecutting
disagree. without walls, a cave is just a cave. this WILL matter on RR extreme as it affects room beauty, which ultimately affects colonist mood.
a cave wall equals -2 beauty and a constructed wall is 0

- get very pretty and fast floors by default
fast yes, pretty no. read previous response. (cave floor equals -1)

You can easily offset the mood penalty with ONE piece of art, or..

your second point is wrong.  Cave floors have 50% more beauty than tiled stone floors once smoothed.  Use smooth floor in a cave and you get 100% speed +3 beauty floors, easily offsetting the wall penalty.


And the biggest advantage is still defense.  One entrance into the base is a huge help in defense.  use extra walls to shore up thin rock walls between the outside and your base.  Even sappers are way slower to get into a mountain base than a free standing one.