As a long time player (Alpha 3 or so), I'm frustrated with gold, components.

[erdrik]

So how about a centipede gives you 2 gold instead?  If you've killed ten, surely you can scrape together enough gold to build some high tech gear.

I think if given, the gold should be from disassembly rather than just dropped.

[AllenWL]

Why do people keep telling me to get gold from the cryptopods in ruins, when two of my colonists are armed with survival rifles, the other two with great bows, and none have any armor?  My whole interest in getting a component bench going is to make enough weapons and armor that I can actually tackle a crypt without getting killed.

I take on cryptopods with around 3 people. Never died as of yet. Unless you get unlucky with centipede's in the crypt, you should be fine.

[BoogieMan]

My current maps has no pods.

And when I decided to give up, I used the dev tools to look around the map. There was like 8 tiles on the entire mountainous map, each in small clusters really deep inside mountains. The time and luck it would have taken to find them would have taken forever.

Sometimes you just get RNG screwed and the game progress stagnates.


As for components.. Well, I see they are there as a pacing mechanic to tug your reins back from time to time. I can't even use autodoors anymore. I think they are a little too scarce so all in all I've found their introduction a bit frustrating. Had more fun without them.

[nuschler22]

I have to say that for me alpha 13 so far has been my worst rimworld experience since i started playing during Alpha 6.
There's just so much unnecessary complexity now that doesn't contribute at all to the gameplay.
Instead of a colony simulator it's just a disaster simulator and micromanagement hell.

Well said.

[Mathenaut]

I don't understand the whole 'git gud' argument, using pure anecdote in lieu of a rounded argument.

Rimworld isn't that hard and no, you aren't 'skilled' because RNG favors you more often than not. Success by the sheer whim of RNG has no bearing on your ability to plan or manage a colony. It doesn't matter how good you are, if your map has no gold and you don't find any on the even-more-rare traders, then you are hard-capped at crappy weapons vs threats that will continue to scale.

- If you don't have alot of compacted machinery and don't luck out with traders, then you simply will not have the components needed to progress far. Period.
- Mechanical failures guarantee that you will need some minimum of excess components in stock for every structure you have that requires components. That means your power is limited, turrets are limited, no substantial use of hydroponics and heating (so you absolutely will not survive in extreme environments).
- It also means small plains maps, which used to be the 'easy' mode, are now near suicidal. It's the highest chance of generating none of the resources you'll need past early game.
- The joy mechanic, while I like it, is a bit much at times. It shares this sort of Gaussian relationship. It's simple in the beginning and trivial in the end when you have everything maxed out. The period where you are struggling to grow, when stargazing, 'wandering' in dangerous territory, and horseshoes are more important for 1/3rd of the day than critical infrastructure? Annoying as hell.
- The component assembly, as presently in vanilla, is pointless. If you're at the point where you have that many components to waste on it, you don't need it. Costing 30 metal per is a great way to run a metal shortage to boot - something I've never really encountered before A13.

I normally don't use many mods that dramatically alter the core experience. A13 has changed that for me.

[Boston]

Case in point:

In the novel Tunnel in the Sky, by Robert Heinlein, which is basically "Rimworld: The Book", with very little hyperbole, the colonization and settlement of far-flung planets are undertaken using literal wagon-trains, pulled by livestock and equipped with roughly 1800s-era-technology.

Why?

Because any technology more advanced that than (meaning, anything the colonies can't make on their own,using anything more complex than a blacksmith forge or a carpentry workshop, so no close-tolerance machined parts, complex electronics, etc) is unsustainable, and relying on it would be detrimental until long-term trade and infrastructure is developed with the "homeworld".

This is in a setting with literal portals (the titular "tunnel in the sky"), stasis fields and Directed Energy Weapons.

A large part of the problem with "vanilla" Rimworld is that, without electricity (for refrigerators), you basically have no food preservation. A serious misstep, in my opinion. In "real life" (and with the mod "Mountain Temp", which I am eagerly awaiting an update for), you could dig down into the soil, build a "root cellar" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Root_cellar), and keep food refrigerated for almost all year round.

Essentially, parts of Rimworld are very realistic (components, machinery breaking down, disease, etc), and other parts, usually aspects of the game that build off the "realistic" parts (food preservation, temperature, etc), are not. So, you have realistic difficulty, and no realistic workarounds to that. Which is where many people are having issues.

Either the entire game needs to be more "realistic" (aka, machinery breaks down, and needs components, which require a great deal of skill and know-how to be able to make, but there are alternatives that do not require machinery) [which I would almost overwhelmingly prefer], or the entire game needs to be "less realistic" (machinery never breaks down unless attacked, components are not a thing, etc).

We can't have both. When we do, threads like these happen.

[Shurp]

This is a game where giant centipedes attack you with miniguns and flamethrowers.  Realism?  C'mon.  Like I said before, if I wanted realism, I'd go down to the bus stop and sit and wait for the 93M.

And Heinlein is simply wrong.  Any civilization that has *starships* has a monstrous energy surplus.  Simply land one of those on a planet and use the power reactor to run a city with a population of millions.  If you want some mining done, aim the engine at the nearest mountain and vaporize the top half.

[sadpickle]

And Heinlein is simply wrong.

You take that back. Heinlein is never wrong. The man is a genius.

I'm being 100% serious (And 50% hyperbolic).

[Boston]

This is a game where giant centipedes attack you with miniguns and flamethrowers.  Realism?  C'mon.  Like I said before, if I wanted realism, I'd go down to the bus stop and sit and wait for the 93M.

And Heinlein is simply wrong.  Any civilization that has *starships* has a monstrous energy surplus.  Simply land one of those on a planet and use the power reactor to run a city with a population of millions.  If you want some mining done, aim the engine at the nearest mountain and vaporize the top half.

They aren't giant centipedes. They are self-autonomous robots that look like centipedes (which is actually a very efficient design), and the weapons they have aren't even that noteworthy. We have had infantry-portable flamethrowers for about 100 years, and multiple-barrel automatic weapons for almost as long.

While the idea of a self-aware robot might seem fantastical, it isn't even that weird by today's standards. The AI doesn't even have to be sentient. I, personally, find the idea of Boomrats and Boomalopes to be almost infinitely harder to accept than Mechanoids.

Also, there are no starships in Tunnel in the Sky at least not any worth mentioning. Transport is accomplished via the portals.  Earth was rapidly headed towards a Malthusian collapse until the portals were developed (by accident).

And, you are assuming the starship would be able to land on a planet, much less hold itself together under the effects of gravity. Mass becomes a problem the larger something gets. The only reason we can build ships as large as we do is because they float. A ship, when taken out of the water, will snap in half under its own weight.

Why do you think the ships we see in Rimworld 1) are only owned by massive, interplanetary megacorporations, and 2) don't actually land on the planet, but send down drop pods?

[Shurp]

Any ship that can withstand the acceleration to near light speed can handle planetary gravity easily.

(1g * 1yr = 1.0c, less relativistic effects. 12g's gets you up to speed after a month of acceleration)

And if we're going to do realism, how about some situational homosexuality?  Five lonely guys stranded on a planet with no women about...

[Boston]

Any ship that can withstand the acceleration to near light speed can handle planetary gravity easily.

And if we're going to do realism, how about some situational homosexuality?  Five lonely guys stranded on a planet with no women about...

Do we know for certain that the starships in Rimworld even approach "near light speed"?. Considering how everyone on a ship is apparently locked into cryosleep, it is unlikely.

As for the situational homosexuality, I am all for it. Talk to Tynan, he is charge of updating the game, which, as I am sure you are aware, is still in Alpha.

[AllenWL]

Ship landing on the planet notwithstanding, if a ship has a generator strong enough to give that much power, can't they just build the generator on earth, and not the rest of the ship? I mean, if you can make one for the ship...


Also

Either the entire game needs to be more "realistic" (aka, machinery breaks down, and needs components, which require a great deal of skill and know-how to be able to make, but there are alternatives that do not require machinery) [which I would almost overwhelmingly prefer], or the entire game needs to be "less realistic" (machinery never breaks down unless attacked, components are not a thing, etc).

We can't have both. When we do, threads like these happen.

I don't think 'realistic' should be a measuring stick for games. Realistically, speaking, you need more than just shoving wood in a furnace to produce electricity, eating nothing but meat will cause malnutrition. We shouldn't be getting out of orbit on a stick attached to a engine, colonists shouldn't mine, cut plants, build, and so on and so forth with their bare hands, and you'll need to peel corn before eating it, eating corn should leave the middle bit(whatever it's called), and rice is a lot more complicated to grow and harvest. It shouldn't even really grow on anything that's not wet enough(like gravel, or dirt). Also, people don't take a dozen pistol wounds to the chest and live, yet have the torso destroyed by 2, 3 hits from a club, no matter how well made. Leather needs to be cured, wool needs to be spun into threads, and why are we growing mushrooms for textiles? And I don't even know how you shoot the foot off someone hiding behind a sandbag, won't that be completely covered?

Machinery breaking down might be realistic, but at the frequency it does in the game? Sure you might say 'it's a makeshift thing, so breaks down more often', but that's a kind of excuse you can put to practically anything.

I think it's less about realism, and more about the gameplay, how it's balanced, and how it changed.

I'm pretty sure the point of this thread is 'getting a multi-analyzer and researching crafting components is based heavily on RNG, and not fun' and not 'this isn't realistic enough/is too realistic'

Being 'realistic' is good and all, but I feel gameplay should come first.

Anyways, talking about what it'd 'realistically be like' in the rimworld time is rather a moot point. For all we know, by the time we reach there, we might have developed a highly efficient clean energy, and a 100% return recycling tech that makes the only thing we 'lack' space for more people, and everything else is sustainable.

I think the problem is less of

Essentially, parts of Rimworld are very realistic (components, machinery breaking down, disease, etc), and other parts, usually aspects of the game that build off the "realistic" parts (food preservation, temperature, etc), are not. So, you have realistic difficulty, and no realistic workarounds to that. Which is where many people are having issues.

And more of we have certain features, but limited ways to use/get around said feature. And yes, most ideas will probably be based of real-life things, but I feel that's less of a 'needs more realism' and more of us not knowing anything other then our 'real life'.

There could be a construction made of wood and steel that lowers tempratures to say, 5°C, and be unrealistic as heck, but I, at least, would welcome it because it provided a low-tech way to presere food. Of course, there might be people who prefer 'realistic' ways like root cellars or whatever, but it'll work.

Well, I seem to be rambling on, but the point is, I don't think it's the lack of 'realism', but rather, the lack of 'alternatives' that's the problem.

[Mathenaut]

A large part of the problem with "vanilla" Rimworld is that, without electricity (for refrigerators), you basically have no food preservation. A serious misstep, in my opinion. In "real life" (and with the mod "Mountain Temp", which I am eagerly awaiting an update for), you could dig down into the soil, build a "root cellar" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Root_cellar), and keep food refrigerated for almost all year round.

Only certain kinds of food would need that kind of refrigeration. There are other kinds (cheeses, wines,nuts, certain durable vegetables) that become staples otherwise, along with drying meats and ample use of vinegar. Refrigeration is mostly a quality of life thing. Some things are easier with it, but no way would a colony struggle or die without it.

Essentially, parts of Rimworld are very realistic (components, machinery breaking down, disease, etc), and other parts, usually aspects of the game that build off the "realistic" parts (food preservation, temperature, etc), are not. So, you have realistic difficulty, and no realistic workarounds to that. Which is where many people are having issues.

The problem is this sort of lazy approach to reality. Alot of people only take this half way. In 'reality', breakdowns are due to poor construction/flaws, negligence, or stress. More importantly, they're constructed so that failure occurs on the parts that are easier to replace, not on the core components that have you scrapping the entire mechanism when it fails.

In real life, resource scarcity is addressed by trade and colonies can compliment each other's needs. In real life, most large animals go into hibernation during the winter. In real life, you can predict the onset of extreme weather events. In real life, you can shield devices from solar radiation. In real life, you can do alot of things that would actually make the game alot easier.

So no, adding random awkward and convoluted obstacles is not 'realistic'. It's just goofy design.

That's really what is at the root of the problem. Not how realistic or unrealistic things are, but how completely inconsistent some of the design choices are. There are things completely fantastic in nature that are easy to accept within the context of the setting, then a bunch of awkward trip-ups because of 'realism' that is anything but.

[tzaeru]

I myself am pretty happy about the increased difficulty. I've had little issues with components and gold, though that given, my colonies usually crash and burn well before I'd start to need them in mass. If flat maps are now too hard, I'll just skip playing them. And there's always been a hefty bit of RNG. Even so, I find plenty of components on traders more often than not and gold isn't really needed is it, except for the Multi-Analyzer?

Now, this "realism vs fun" thing - it's pretty pointless. These two things aren't mutually exclusive. Making things more fun doesn't mean less realistic and vice versa. In a lot of places, fun and realism might overlap, in other places, not so. But where these places are is totally subjective. Trying to present your own subjective opinion as some kind of an objective truth by wrapping it inside the extremely vague argument of "fun is more important than realism" is just fallacious. Firstly, there's no inherent correlation and secondly, the actual points where more realism is more fun or less fun are different for everyone.

[Aarkreinsil]

What also frustrates me with the breakdowns, the component madness AND the constant power line explosions is the fact that you have this GODLIKE lvl 20 builder who only builds superior to legendary stuff, but the things he builds break down and explode violently every other minute.
If a total buffoon haphazardly smacks together a ramshackle battery it has the same chance of blowing up in your face as the legendary one right next to it, so maybe that should be adressed, too.

And yes, I must say I actually love the low-tech variants of stuff. The wood-fueled stove or the deadfall traps are nothing short of amazing. I just wish IEDs wouldn't cost components, or else they might be fun to use as well.

I'd also like to play as some kind of low-tech or medieval colony without any electricity and components whatsoever, but when mechanites and power armor clad pirates drop down on you, it's kinda stupid. I mean what do they even try to accomplish there? What is even the point of them besieging you? With the tribals I can kinda get it, they are rather dumb, they have too many people (apparently), and they have a lot to gain from you. Food, clothing, heck even some low-tier guns would be high loot in their eyes.

Why a batallion of power-armor pirates with charge rifles and incendiary launchers comes dropping down on your rundown hovel from frickin orbit, when you have like 2 disabled, 70 year old people with cataracts, asthma and bad backs is far beyond my comprehension.