A Question for all Hardcore_SK Users

[Goikoa]

What do you normally start with and how do you progress throughout the game?

Okay, I guess that was technically two questions.

I plan to write a proper FAQ soon after A13 is released. Knowing how different people start the game and progress would help me structure the FAQ better.

Also, was there anything you found difficult to learn when you started playing with the hardcore_SK mod?


So some questions you can consider answering:

• What difficulty do you play on?


• What storytellers do you choose?


• Which of the biomes do you play in?


• How many pawns do you normally start with?


• Do you assign specific pawns to certain tasks and jobs?


• What items do you normally bring to start with?


• What do you try to accomplish in the first few days?


• How do you normally progress in terms of food, seasons, electricity, buildings, production, agriculture, research, raids, weapons, etc?


• How long do your colonies last for?

[Edgewise]

What do you normally start with and how do you progress throughout the game?

Okay, I guess that was technically two questions.

I plan to write a proper FAQ soon after A13 is released. Knowing how different people start the game and progress would help me structure the FAQ better.

Also, was there anything you found difficult to learn when you started playing with the hardcore_SK mod?

So some questions you can consider answering:

• What difficulty do you play on?


• What storytellers do you choose?


• Which of the biomes do you play in?


• How many pawns do you normally start with?


• Do you assign specific pawns to certain tasks and jobs?


• What items do you normally bring to start with?


• What do you try to accomplish in the first few days?


• How do you normally progress in terms of food, seasons, electricity, buildings, production, agriculture, research, raids, weapons, etc?


• How long do your colonies last for?

I am no expert at this game, but I will tell you how I get it going.  RR story teller, challenge difficulty.

1st, Usually random pick 3 colonists with a 1600ish money value to start, then 'carefully prepare' and change this to 4 colonists worth around 1400 with crappy gear but each specialized to do certain things.

     Miner: Primarily mining, secondarily crafting, tertiary skills in combat, medicine, and growing.
     
As collecting peat/clay/etc is a function of mining, this pawn is primarily used to yield resources from the map.  With crafting so important in this mod, almost any time this character is not doing some sort of mining, they will be crafting.  A couple points in growing so they can do wood cutting in the early game or do some back-up farming since my main grower pawn will have a full plate some times.  This person is my secondary medic and has decent combat skills also.  NO points are spent anywhere else.  There is no reason to have jack-of-all trades pawns when it's more efficient and cheaper in points to have specialists instead.

     Constructor: Primarily construction, secondarily crafting, tertiary skills in combat, medicine, and fishing.

Construction skill goes up fast, so you can actually get by fine with 6-8 points to start with in construction.  It will be 15+ by the time your base is half done.  When not constructing, crafting will be the primary time sink for this pawn.  This pawn is usually my primary medic with a couple more points there than the miner pawn.  Decent combat skills, and a few dots in fishing.  The fishing is mostly used as a last resort method of getting food for me when crops have failed and all animals are clear across the map.  (I play only on the largest map setting)

     Crafter:  Primary crafting with good combat skills, tertiary skills in art and animals. 

In this mod, crafting is always a thing.  I start this person usually with 12+ in crafting because it's a slow skill to rise.  Because this person will almost always be crafting, the majority of their other skills points are in shooting and/or melee.  This person will be my primary raid or siege killer as well, toting some armor and firepower (when I get some) as movement is not as big an issue for someone who is mostly stationary and crafting.

     Host/Scientist: Primary social (it rises slowly, so I start it at 10+) Secondary research, tertiary cooking and growing.

This person lives mostly in a small area planting crops, cooking food, talking to traders, recruiting prisoners, and doing research.  This might sound like a big list, but the workload works out well when your colony is small, and this person will spend about half their time researching and the other half doing everything else.  As your colony grows, this workload will need to be split up.  Usually I like to recruit someone who can do the growing well enough to relieve the burden from this pawn by the time I have 6 colonists and want to do more than grow just a subsistence level of crops.

I start with no iron, wood,  silver, or pets.  You can get wood and iron very quickly unless you're in a terrain type that makes it difficult.  Silver is not that great in this mod since you will use it all up in the recipe for sterling silver.  Much better to start with a bunch of sterling silver (4 silver per unit) than make it yourself when the recipe consumes 40 silver.  All starting apparel items are cloth except for the miners helmet.

20 Jerky, 20 medicine, 3 pistols, 1 hammer, 1 axe, 1 pickaxe, 10 cotton seeds, sometimes extra electronics/parts items. 

In the first day, I try to get a structure built of wood to house my delicate supplies and colonists, but after that I build everything out of and/or into stone.  I always start in a mountainous region... maybe I was a dwarf in a past life?

[Kadrush]

One hint, never go with Randy Random as a storyteller...

My short experience with Hardcore modpack was traumatizing. The mod can be really complex, but when i returned to my usual mods I felts something is missing.

Anyway, I played with temperate mountain apr - sept grow time. 5 pawn team with cloth aparrel (parka, t-shirt and pant), specialized as the buddy above stated. 20 medicine, 20 rations (I roleplay, so no cheap unrealistic food), and seeds (potato, corn and bamboo). Bamboo is specially usefull to make kindling so you dont waste wood keeping yourself warm, generating power or making chacoal.

Cross fingers on crash land to get some weapons and maybe extra colonists

From day one hunt and make jerky on the campfire (jerky can hold longer before rotting), it will be your food base for a long time. Hunt drafted so your colonists dont shoot each other or get ambushed by wild animals.

Control the craft so you make and use cast iron as long as possible instead of steel (better cost benefit). Control mechanism, spareparts and eletronic components until you make them on your own.

Avoid using all your seeds at once, a single cold snap and you are dead (learned the hard way). Corn is usefull for mushrooms indoor planting, so research fungusbasin quick and avoid eating the corn.

Keep an eye for insects (the big ones, not the mosquitoes, they arrive by event) wandering around the map, they usually dont attack your base, but they will kill any colonist that get to close to them.

Hardcore has Zombie Apocalipse as an optional mod, but i never tried it.

[Kirinya]

What difficulty do you play on?
   Mostly on Challenge, sometimes Extreme.

What storytellers do you choose?
   Randy Random, have tried the Torturer but found it too hard for my preference.

Which of the biomes do you play in?
   All biomes except ice sheet. I have not found a possible way to start a Hardcore SK game on an ice sheet without cheating (no a)

How many pawns do you normally start with?
   Three pawns. I've done a few games with four.
   
Do you assign specific pawns to certain tasks and jobs?
   I do. On startup, I try to have one very good crafter (10ish), one with medicine/planting, one miner/constructor. Someone has to be at least able to do some research (like a minimum of skill 4). I usually try to get a good cook and/or artist as soon as possible.
   
What items do you normally bring to start with?
   On a normal game, I bring the default minus the pet & weapons / silver and buy one decent weapon instead (an Uzi most of the time).
   I found it nearly impossible to start a game on ice sheet with Hardcore Mod due to the inability to get any food that is not human food for a very long time. Tried to start a few games with a bit of cheating, i.e. letting the colony have a small growing area already set up, but that never sits right with me.

What do you try to accomplish in the first few days?
   Well, first thing of course is setting up a basic room to sleep in, store stuff in, and have the first crafting tables up (including butcher table & grill). Next is setting out to get a decent pile of food (=jerky), while mining out a tunnel and a first big crafting room inside the mountain. If I don't find copper or any of the other ores, I go on to mine a few galleries and concentrate on science to get to the mineral sonar.
   On harder setups, like ice sheet, I try to start the base around a steam geyser, and I concentrate more on pleasant surroundings than I do on other games.
   Once I have mined out the first big room, I usually demolish the old crafting tables and set them up inside, then I construct the first kill box (before that, it usually works without).

How do you normally progress in terms of food, seasons, electricity, buildings, production, agriculture, research, raids, weapons, etc?
   I find that playing hardcore mod is a lot about electricity, although in the build of 2.5 I play now the events play a big role too. Electricity because it seems to be very hard to get enough electricity for the oil industry, even when all the "normal" stuff (=crafting tables, lights, ...) do not really need that much.
   I concentrate on getting good food, good joy instruments and good beds for my colonists as soon as possible to keep them productive, and I generally do not take on colonists with bad psychic traits until the medium or late game - skills is less of an issue, because there is always room for another hauler/cleaner as long as food is not scarce (which it isn't on any map other than ice sheet in my experience).
   I never craft weapons, only use what I get from raids.

How long do your colonies last for?
   Usually, after about 3-4 years, the colony reaches a point where it pretty much runs by itself and has advanced very far in research, luxury etc. That is usually also the point where I lose interest, just love to do the whole "create something from nothing" thing.

[Devon_v]

Also, was there anything you found difficult to learn when you started playing with the hardcore_SK mod?

The sheer amount of new items and concepts along with the changes to the Superior Crafting-based research tree make it very confusing to figure out what you need for what. You CANNOT base your start on indoor farming as even hydroponics is buried pretty deep.

What difficulty do you play on?

Randy Challenge.

Which of the biomes do you play in?

Big fan of boreal forest.

[Quotw] How many pawns do you normally start with? [/quote]
Three.

Do you assign specific pawns to certain tasks and jobs?

As dictated by their skills. HSK requires dedication to tasks, and the late game skill requirements are major.

What items do you normally bring to start with?

Either random or sometimes trading the pistol and rifle for an assault rifle. There's definitely something to be said for starting with stirling silver until the electronic component recipe is tweaked.

What do you try to accomplish in the first few days?

Find shelter, locate resources. The map-based resources are more important and dictate your starting point more that strict security concerns. You can't turret spam in HSK anyway.

How do you normally progress in terms of food, seasons, electricity, buildings, production, agriculture, research, raids, weapons, etc?

Food and temperature are the top concerns, and you need to get on research right away to unlock the things you take for granted in vanilla. Wind seems to be the best thing to bee line for power wise since it's the only effortless power source for quite some time. Even this requires construction research and some work to produce reinforced concrete. Start working towards electronic components early as these things take forever to make and are needed by darn near everything.

How long do your colonies last for?

My first one is in its second year and surviving. I believe we are on day 79 of the volcanic winter, so we're basically on ice sheet at the moment. I've seen temperatures as low as -120C, there's been canibalism, people have gone crazy, one of my doctors has somehow become a medical genius purely from patching up bruises, and right now we're eating raptors.

[Kadrush]

- 120C???

Last time i got a cold snap on hardcore i got as cold as - 60, but never -120

How did you made it?

[roy2x]

I also have a question for Hardcore SK users. How do you deal with terminator attacks? The first couple are fine when its easy to deal with 1=2 of them but what do you do when its against 10+ of them? What do your defenses look like? What turrets are the most effective against them?

[kobar]

• What difficulty do you play on?


• What storytellers do you choose?


• Which of the biomes do you play in?


• How many pawns do you normally start with?


• Do you assign specific pawns to certain tasks and jobs?


• What items do you normally bring to start with?


• What do you try to accomplish in the first few days?


• How do you normally progress in terms of food, seasons, electricity, buildings, production, agriculture, research, raids, weapons, etc?


• How long do your colonies last for?

• Extreme, the most hardest that i can make it.
• Ray, of course, for EXTREME, sometimes Randy.
• Cold boimes. Tundra, usually. It's so much fun. (If only someone was interested in advanced heat mod...)
• I start with three, then collect thoose who drop from crash.
• No, they can choose what they want to do by themself, but yes, haul is going 1 at the beginning.
• Some spare parts, some mechanism, fire extinguisher and some medkits. Then collectin what dropped from CRASH, indeed
• Heal all the wounded from crashing colonists, stock all usefull items in my potential house and start to build basic workshops.
• First go raiders, because EXTREME! I don't mind with farm ar all, because cold biome, so hydroponics is pretty big goal for beginning.
• Sometimes, hardness gives me presents, by sending elite raiders\pirates\drops with elite equip, but sometimes i just loosing (For example, all my colonists of successfull colony have died of radiation burns, because someone stocked uranium at main stockpile, lol) But loosing is fun! We all know it

Yeah, pretty much.

[Xandrox]

I had an interesting Event called "The Darkness" whilst playing on Phoebe Chillax  (Not sure if Rough or Base Builder difficulty)

I was playing on Boreal Forest, had 5 Pawns from Prepare Carefully, no Crashland Mod, so no extra Gifts after the start. It was my 3rd or 4th Hardcore Game, so i wanted to do Things right from the beginning. Dug myself into the Mountains, had a common room, a walk in freezer, 60% research done and even my Oil Industry was set up (Had a Oil Plant working and a Mine set on producing Gold, so next step where the integrated Circuits)

Till this Time I had no Problems dealing with the Dangers of the Map or the infrequent Raids. My Nr. 1 Problem was getting enough electric Power to run my Mine and my Oil Plant. So of course I had no Lamps/Lights anywhere....

Enter the Darkness: My (by this time) 7 Colonists all ran into the common room, hoping to put down a Light source and huddle together, but they couldnt even bring the materials. 3 People died, 2 People vanished into the Darkness and my 2 survivng colonists both lost both legs to the frostbite/darkness attacks, so yeah, Game over =)

And the Darkness only lastet for about 2 or 3 ingame hours, otherwise i dont think i would have had any survivors.

But yeah, usually first priority is to check the map for a good spot to haul your stuff to and build a roofed Storage room, then build a Crafting room (ideally already into a mountain) and get the food going ( = Jerky and hunting)

Next step is to get all basic benches built and start producing concrete for the Wind Turbines, after that switching to powered benches and start on the circuits/oil industry

[roy2x]

I had an interesting Event called "The Darkness" whilst playing on Phoebe Chillax  (Not sure if Rough or Base Builder difficulty)

I was playing on Boreal Forest, had 5 Pawns from Prepare Carefully, no Crashland Mod, so no extra Gifts after the start. It was my 3rd or 4th Hardcore Game, so i wanted to do Things right from the beginning. Dug myself into the Mountains, had a common room, a walk in freezer, 60% research done and even my Oil Industry was set up (Had a Oil Plant working and a Mine set on producing Gold, so next step where the integrated Circuits)

Till this Time I had no Problems dealing with the Dangers of the Map or the infrequent Raids. My Nr. 1 Problem was getting enough electric Power to run my Mine and my Oil Plant. So of course I had no Lamps/Lights anywhere....

Enter the Darkness: My (by this time) 7 Colonists all ran into the common room, hoping to put down a Light source and huddle together, but they couldnt even bring the materials. 3 People died, 2 People vanished into the Darkness and my 2 survivng colonists both lost both legs to the frostbite/darkness attacks, so yeah, Game over =)

And the Darkness only lastet for about 2 or 3 ingame hours, otherwise i dont think i would have had any survivors.

Learned this the hard way as well. Now its usually priority to have at least 1 room that is lighted well enough so those blobs dont spawn when darkness comes. You cant fight them either coz they come in too fast and hit hard.