Tired of imbalance...

[Shurp]

Well, it's obvious I'm never going to play "permadeath" mode

Anyway, loading the autosave worked as usual.  I rushed building a half-dozen survival rifles, a ship part landed, and I killed the scyther and two minigun centipedes without suffering a scratch.  I even forgot to put armor on my colonists before the battle, oopsie!

[A Friend]

I had a siege once that outnumbered my colony of 4. My guys were only armed with a rifle, a pistol, a knife, and some shoddy SMG. Going after the siege would be suicide. And I can't afford waiting till they get tired either as I was in the open fields. So I dug up some ancient ruins trying to find something that might help me. And jackpot, I found an insanity lance.
I drafted my troops, placed them behind a wall nearby the siege, and had my doctor stay with the device. Once everyone was in place, I activated the device on a pirate grunt with a personal shield. He provided a distraction while my pawns closed in, smgs and pistols at hand. They mowed down the distracted gunners while my only melee guy picked off those that fired back. The berserk pirate eventually fell down and the surviving gunners focused their fire on my troops. I eventually won the firefight but my melee man lost a kidney after getting shot with a sniper rifle.

It was pretty fun imo.

[Britnoth]

My five colonists have a survival rifle and four great bows.

Three of the six pirates building mortars have sniper rifles.

I know, I know, I can just load the autosave... but I'm just tired of the silliness.  I think I'll wait for some balance in a14 instead.

(Oh, this is on Cassandra btw.  I know, I should play Randy so I have more balance, right?)

If you don't want a challenge, drop the game down to base builder or free play.

Sieges like this should be the norm, not the exception. 

[nuschler22]

Well, it's obvious I'm never going to play "permadeath" mode

Anyway, loading the autosave worked as usual.  I rushed building a half-dozen survival rifles, a ship part landed, and I killed the scyther and two minigun centipedes without suffering a scratch.  I even forgot to put armor on my colonists before the battle, oopsie!

Braggart!  Lol!

I have 11 colonists with decent weapons and I keep dying.  Over, and over, and over, and over. 

[Shurp]

Well, I built sandbags to hide behind before opening the ship, and miniguns can't hit anything.  The scyther was the only real danger and the survival rifles took him down fast.

Having cover is exceptionally critical.  Any target out in the open is easy to kill.

[Vaporisor]

Well, I built sandbags to hide behind before opening the ship, and miniguns can't hit anything.  The scyther was the only real danger and the survival rifles took him down fast.

Having cover is exceptionally critical.  Any target out in the open is easy to kill.

And spread out.  Miniguns and machine guns may be worse than a pistol shooting a single target, but fire into a group....

I learned early on that forward grouping is bad.  They miss the guy they were aiming at and hit the one beside...

[hwfanatic]

Well, I built sandbags to hide behind before opening the ship, and miniguns can't hit anything.  The scyther was the only real danger and the survival rifles took him down fast.

Having cover is exceptionally critical.  Any target out in the open is easy to kill.

Better yet, build a proper bunker, with walls, and sandbags, and most-importantly: in the dark (constructed roof). That will save you quite a few bionic eyes on the account of scyther now missing instead of ripping you to shreds. Late-game centipede-heavy ship part parties manage to destroy my bunkers anyway after days of fighting, so I don't consider this an exploit.

[Klitri]

Imbalance, eh I don't think it's an imbalance.

This game's storytellers are complicated AIs that challenge or support the colony, we don't know exactly how it works so let's not make assumptions about what it tracks and doesn't track. I think there's little imbalance, anything in Rimworld is possible with a little luck and some skill.

[rexx1888]

actually, alot of us do know how they work.. side effect of a big modding community that sneak peaks at the code.

the storytellers are complicated, but they are proof of concept atm, an need massive refinement.. but AI is super complicated an can always use refinement

[Zombra]

i think i suggested a long time ago that the storyteller should be able to read the "combat value" of the player colony based on total pawns, their equipped weapons, apparel, bionics, and their combat skills.

Equipped items or even available items are a bad metric to use.  They would lead to ridiculous behavior like "We're due for a raid, everyone change into your swim trunks and dump your guns in the lake so it'll be an easy one."

[Shurp]

"Damage delivered / damage received during the previous raid" would be a hard metric to game.  I suppose you could intentionally have some pawns stand around out front to soak up injuries.

"Hey, there's a raid coming!"
"Quick, grab Bob and throw him in front of the turrets!"

Did I mention Bob has no arms and no legs thanks to previous abuse?

[edit] now that I think of it, this wouldn't even be an exploit.  Behavior like this is perfectly appropriate in a game where butchering your opponents and wearing their skin as clothing is encouraged.

[Shurp]

Grrr... ok, Cassandra throws a dozen manhunting boomalopes at me, so I kill them.  No problem.

Then she throws a dozen siegers at me.  But I have 5 guys with survival rifles.  Well that's not going to work.

It's annoying that autosaves now occur half as often and take twice as long to load.

[Agent00Soul]

It's time for the storytellers to live up to their concept and actually start trying to figure out how to challenge a colony without sinking it.

Why should the threats all be scaled to your colony's ability.

Threats should also be scaling with time. You SHOULD have to increase your defense to keep up otherwise its all about throttling your own percieved wealth to stay afloat..

[Gennadios]

It's time for the storytellers to live up to their concept and actually start trying to figure out how to challenge a colony without sinking it.

Why should the threats all be scaled to your colony's ability.

Threats should also be scaling with time. You SHOULD have to increase your defense to keep up otherwise its all about throttling your own percieved wealth to stay afloat..

Only because time is yet another metric that the player has little to no control over. On it's own it wouldn't be a problem, but a game as random as this it doesn't guarantee any kind of advancement in a finite time frame.

On an anecdotal note. My current colony just went through it's first winter, literally every raider and visitor ended up dying before reaching the gates. I watched the raids ramp up from shiv carrying savages to pirates with R4 rifles over the course of a single season, none of my guys even left the home zone due to them being limited to cloth parkas.

I don't even know why the pirates bothered to attack, all of my colony "wealth" was just lying there for the taking. Just grab the jade clubs and golden spears lying next to the pack muffalo carcass and gtfo. Leave my four guys in peace!

[Zombra]

Threats should also be scaling with time. You SHOULD have to increase your defense to keep up otherwise its all about throttling your own percieved wealth to stay afloat..

What's wrong with that?  What if I want to tell a story about a couple guys who try to stay hidden and not draw attention to themselves with a giant fortress?  Does it make sense that 200 tribals must eventually storm their tiny shack?