Obviously I'm doing something wrong but what...

[Vastin]

No, the hoppers have to be right next to the food dispenser. They are what the food dispenser uses to create the paste. In the diagram above, they are one space away from the dispenser, and that isn't gonna work.

[Nasikabatrachus]

DethBringa's problem is that all the food is in hoppers and none of the hoppers can supply the Nutrient Paste Dispenser. Hungry colonists don't seem to "see" raw food on hoppers; I once had a colonist break because I had turned off the Nutrient Paste Dispenser and the only food available to the colony was on a hopper. I suspect the only one that would eat was the only one with the cooking labor enabled, since that's the labor that makes colonists interact with the hopper itself. You can avoid this problem by only having one hopper and keeping raw food in a nearby stockpile.

Also, unless you're worried about a herd of muffalo on your colony's doorstep, or you want to level up your colony's shooting skill, getting everybody to kill muffalo is a waste of time. When enough are dead, replacement muffalo will simply enter the map elsewhere.

[DethBringa]

Ooohhhhhh *FACEPALM*
Like touching the side. I feel like such an idiot. That makes so much sense. They aren't shelves. Ya know when something that simple just throws a spanner in the works.... 
...Why wont my phone charge!?!??!!.... ..Umm try flicking on the switch for the power socket.
ROFL!

[Vastin]

If you really want an optimized build order, you usually want something like:

- Solar Panel
- Dining Room (table optional, dispenser and hopper are not)
- Battery (indoors!)
- Three very small bedrooms (you'll convert these to cells later when you have more room)
- Research table (begin researching hydroponics as an immediate priority)
- Hydroponics garden (diagram below is an efficient layout, X = hydroponics bench, O = sun lamp)
- More solar and batteries

Code Select Expand


===========
|         |
| XX X XX |
| XX X XX |
| XX X XX |
| XX X XX |
|    O    |
| XX X XX |
| XX X XX |
| XX X XX |
| XX X XX |
|         |
===========


The trick is to get this up and running within 5 days or less, meanwhile eating only the food dropped onto the map at the beginning of the game. Hydroponics are FAR more efficient than regular farms or subsistence gathering, and if you find yourself trying to survive using regular outdoor farming, you're going to have very little time left for actually building your base. Hydroponics on the other hand generates so much extra food that you'll have plenty of extra to trade with passing ships for metal, weapons, or slaves.

Once you have hydroponics up and a decent power system running, you can work on larger (6x6) bedrooms for your base members and start worrying about your external defenses.

[dd0029]

Also, unless you're worried about a herd of muffalo on your colony's doorstep, or you want to level up your colony's shooting skill, getting everybody to kill muffalo is a waste of time. When enough are dead, replacement muffalo will simply enter the map elsewhere.

I only recruit everyone to kill of that solo mad muffalo.

I usually have a live and let live policy with the wildlife. Though I did have one game once where I started off with a "useless" colonist who could only firefight and doctor, Wang. He was a crack shot so I imagined  Wang wandering around like Val Kilmer as Doc Holiday in Tombstone. I had him out slaughtering the wildlife until he died when I learned you don't put a ton of sentry guns in a line right next to each other within one square of the front of your base. Big boom. Really big.

[colonistPally]

I make a very clear build order to be set up in 2-3 days on the first day of Colony 9 if you want to check it out. It answers a lot of your questions. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGVG-OLL8J4 I actually spelled it all out specifically for this thread so you guys wouldn't have to fail like I did the first 6 or so games.

If you take a look at it, and then have further questions let me know and I'll answer it here, and then illustrate it in the next colony.

One thing I can't emphasize enough, you don't need a million turrets starting out. The "director ai" should only be sending 1 raider at you, then 2, then 3, and so on scaling up with your defenses and troop size. You can handle 1-2 raiders with just your 3 initial people as long as you have 1 rifle and 2 handguns. You just have to carefully micro them out of harm's way once they get to 40 hp. So I don't even build turrets any more until after the first wave unless I have a ton of excess metal for some reason.

Also as others have said, don't under estimate having a "clean" house. A potted plant, a lamp, a table, 2 chairs. Then getting a smooth stone floor as soon as possible. That "ugly environment" debuff is a killer. The "raw food" debuff is a killer. The "saw a dead body" debuff is a killer. So is the "saw a death." But those last two will go away within a day or so if you can get the body properly buried. The rest though take very careful planning. Ask me more questions I can answer them or show you videos or whatever you want. Also thanks to every one else too, you're all doing a very good job. I incorporate almost all of your guys's ideas into my videos to make the best video and best colonies possible.

[DethBringa]

Well now I'm actually doing ok. Now its just learning a few things here and there. Placing those hoppers on the dispenser instead of in the same room fixed the 1 issue that was causing all the restarts.

[colonistPally]

Ah okay good to know. Any questions and just keep coming back! It's neat knowing you're sending someone back into the game happy. It's almost like a huge living puzzle game in that regard.

[DethBringa]

Time to take you up on that offer :p
My new issue is those dam raiders.
I have found that gun turrets are useless. They just spawn more raiders who kill off the turrets easily and then overrun you.
The biggest issue is starting out, (once again) they come in with incendiary launchers or grenades or something and just wipe my guys out.
Playing a game with "chill callie classic" should not be this brutal. Starting with only 3 people I have enough time to get my food up and running, make 1 bedroom for everyone to share and then in come the raiders. They set my people on fire who then run around like idiots, when I try to rescue my downed people the person rescuing gets downed too.
Once again I'm back to perfect start build or die. If I don't have the perfect starting people with the perfect starting location and build the perfect start the perfect way in the perfect order, its a wipe. Even if I do everything right I get a boomrat or muffalo charge me just before the raiders start their advance which weakens my people enough to be easy kills.
If this is easy mode then the harder options must be almost impossible.

[Vastin]

As a note, Randy is in most respects the easiest AI. He may curveball you out of the game early, but he doesn't seem to scale up to nearly the degree that callie/cassandra/cleo do.  The way those storytellers all work, their difficulty increases relentlessly. The groups just get larger, and larger, and larger (or sometimes smaller but MUCH better equipped, and then larger again...).

Meanwhile they all put pretty strict caps on your colony population - so basically it won't be all that long until you are doomed. In this way it is very unlike Dwarf Fortress. DF sometimes throws something completely horrific at you, or a couple bad things in a row, but it isn't regular about it. You can go long periods of time, even late in the game without anything particularly terrible coming after you while you putter along with your Dwarvish construction projects, preparing for 'The Day' when they may be needed.

Not against the C-girls however, they are all like the metronome of doom, ticking down the hours until you WILL eventually be obliterated. You cannot play a steady state game with them. Chill callie just goes a little slower, but I think she'll still get there eventually, as far as I can tell.

Cleo will just hardball you out in a few days, as a rule. It's incredibly hard to recruit settlers fast enough to even deal with her third or fourth wave legitimately. Your only hope is a rush to blasting charges and a deep fortress.

[DethBringa]

Gave Randy a shot. 1st wave was 1 raider, then 2nd wave was 4 raiders with better range and accuracy than my 3 colonists.... Wipe. I had enough time to make 1 solar, 4 batteries in a room and dig a big enough hole in the wall for 1 bed before the 2nd wave wipe.

[dd0029]

Randy....just Randy....

Most of the time he's not that bad but occasionally, he's really weird. I had one game where he sent eight raiders at me on like day 3. I lobbed some colorful metaphors his way and started over. Then I had a game where absolutely nothing happened until day 70. No one ever passed by to get arrested or even join. There were no eclipses, no flares, no dry thunderstorms to set fires, no raiders, nothing. It was really weird. My three little guys had built this palatial base just waiting for no one. Then about day 72 it snowballed on me. It was interesting while it lasted.

I often find that that first wave of raiders is often the hardest until you just get overwhelmed because those AoE weapons are devastating. My tip for them is to have your guys recruited and waiting in cover to fire as soon as you see that message about raiders completing their preparations. Hope to down the first guy in a volley or two and then charge into melee with the rest, in particular that guy with the grenades or the molotovs.

[DethBringa]

Randy seems more brutal than chill callie.
Started a game.. squirrels rampaging over and over then a raider group of 4. Restarted, got 6 wanderers in a row, managed to catch 5 of then and while they are all in prison a raider party of 5 turn up.
I look forward to when there is an easier ai. Maybe one that does not send raiders for the first 10 days or something.

[FowlJ]

Well, Randy's whole deal is that he's random (obviously) - I've had games with no raiders for weeks, and then games where multiple good sized waves drop at almost the same time. An easier storyteller isn't something I would be into (though it would be good to have regardless), but one balanced to make things more challenging as you go forward without the explicit intention of eventually overrunning you like Callie/Cassandra/Cleopatra would be nice.

[OobleckTheGreen]

...one balanced to make things more challenging as you go forward without the explicit intention of eventually overrunning you like Callie/Cassandra/Cleopatra would be nice.

Seconded