Fixing a cycle of despair?

[jerpo]

Anyone have any suggestions on ending a cycle of despair? After a sapper raid killed off 2 pawns who were family and/or lovers of the whole colony, everyone is having breaks, with frequent berserks.

Is there any way to boost joy fast? I made some horse shoe pits and chess tables.  I don't have the materials for billiards or TV (no cotton and no machine parts)

[quxzcover]

psychic soother

[Mutineer]

IN addition to providing entertainment, guaranty high level of it at all time. In Unseal non critical time I have 2 hour entertainment before and after sleep. 2 hours is basically guaranty that pawn will entertain them self. (otherwise they could miss joy because task took more then an hour). If colony in trouble I will add 2 hours in the middle of the day. In addition If I can I make reserve of fine food with usually prohibited. So, when colony in trouble - make + mood food available. Beer could help to get some instant joy strigth after fight, before they get some joy time.

In a long run encourage personal relationships are a good idea. (lovers and married couples have big+ to mood.)

[FalconBR]

I never set a joy time before, but I think I will try, after I get like 5 telecopes, 4 chess tables, and 6 sits in front of the TV!

[b0rsuk]

psychic soother

A mild buff that lasts 24 hours.

[Tynan]

I'm gonna balance this in next build.

For now though - let it be brutal!

[Mutineer]

I never set a joy time before, but I think I will try, after I get like 5 telecopes, 4 chess tables, and 6 sits in front of the TV!

You do not need mach, table with chairs for social, graves, hoop, billiard table, 1 chess table is more then enougth to provide for 30 colonists.


simple table with chairs and hoop is more then enought on start.

[Shurp]

B

E

E

R


Keep 'em drinking until they pass out.  Repeat as needed.

[winddbourne]

I'm gonna balance this in next build.

For now though - let it be brutal!

Good to know these are considered unbalanced in the current release . . . In the meantime I'll keep practicing figuring out how to handle/avoid them.

[ThiIsMe007]

I'm gonna balance this in next build.

For now though - let it be brutal!

My first colony (in a "temperate/average" location) had to go through an eclipse in summer, a vicious cold snap in fall (no grass left anywhere to feed my stock) and finally a volcanic winter.

My solar panel broke down several times and my battery (or was it the power cables ?) exploded twice, till I built everything electronic with back-ups.

We were besieged by manhunting worgs, while a flash storm created an inferno that killed most wildlife on the map (no more hunting for meat or clothing).

Strangely, one of my settlers suffered from hypothermia while helping to extinguish the fire for several hours.

That left only 5 colonists out of 6 for a long while.

We barely had enough food to cross the winter. Yet, with the coming spring there was ground to be optimistic again.

That's when three out of my six colonists caught the plague. Among those was my only decent medic, who died, probably wishing there had been more traders showing up with medecine instead of rat meat.


I've enjoyed the game quite a bit, but thought that "Phoebe Chillax" on "base-building" difficulty (version 14D) can be much more vicious than what she looks like on the starting screen ^.^

[lt_halle]

I'm gonna balance this in next build.

For now though - let it be brutal!

I like the brutality of it right now. I think it's realistic that getting attacked by brutal pirates and seeing your friends and lovers die painful deaths would send colonists reeling, especially if it's the first time. All I'd like to see is a limit on how fast a pawn can soft break (I've had pawns get into "poor mood" for less than a few seconds and then wander around in a daze for a day and a half because of it. My favorite was when one of my pawns died of an extreme infection because he had a soft mental break and then resisted arrest so I couldn't treat him in time. Reason? "In a little pain..."

Alternatively, perhaps a Dwarf Fortress-esque "Doesn't really care about anything anymore" buff could be added to colonists that have been hit with tragedy on that scale a number of times.

[Gennadios]

My only real problem with existing mood debuffs is post battle, when a sizeable chunk of your colony dies and the survivors limp out with wounds and then spends the next two days dazed, pretty much guaranteeing that the survivors won't get their wounds tended and will die to infection.

There only really needs to be a positive vengance modifier if the group that caused friend/family/spouse deaths end up wiped and routed. Maybe have the vengance positive be about equal, but last half as long as the friend died modifier, which will buy the colony some time to heal up before they spend the 1.5 days out of commission.

[winddbourne]

I'm gonna balance this in next build.

For now though - let it be brutal!

I like the brutality of it right now. I think it's realistic that getting attacked by brutal pirates and seeing your friends and lovers die painful deaths would send colonists reeling, especially if it's the first time. All I'd like to see is a limit on how fast a pawn can soft break (I've had pawns get into "poor mood" for less than a few seconds and then wander around in a daze for a day and a half because of it. My favorite was when one of my pawns died of an extreme infection because he had a soft mental break and then resisted arrest so I couldn't treat him in time. Reason? "In a little pain..."

Alternatively, perhaps a Dwarf Fortress-esque "Doesn't really care about anything anymore" buff could be added to colonists that have been hit with tragedy on that scale a number of times.

It's not realistic .  . . I've been through a lot and I've got the PTSD to prove it. Both of my parents also had mental breaks. I won't get into the reasons I just want to establish my credentials in this discussion. That said there are a number of things wrong with this system.

First the colonists "break" too dramatically to begin with and often over things that they could fix. It would be more realistic if they stopped responding to commands and priorities and just started trying to fix the problem . . . even if they lack skill and actually make things worse.

Yes we know more is bothering them than just that . . . but it's that moment of getting fed up with life, pin pointing one problem, and trying to do something about it that happens FIRST . . . probably a couple of times . . . before a real break. A colonist who has a minor melt down because the space is dirty with blood and/or filth should stop planting the harvest and insist on cleaning regardless of what he/she is assigned to do, or what I try to make a priority. Similarly someone who currently breaks with a statement talking about the ugly environment might start by placing down a blueprint for a flower pot even if it is made of my precious steel.

These small breaks are warning signs that the stress of day to day life is getting to you. Perhaps you are joy starved and just start playing chess, or cloud watching, or whatever and won't stop for a while. It's not "OK", but the person is trying to take control and fix something. A person nearing starvation might try to hunt or gather wild foods.

Wandering around in a daze does happen after a really violent or traumatic event, and then it's gone. It doesn't last. Similarly getting irritable and starting a social fight/argument might reduce the stress for some colonists at the expense of injury and negative social values. I'll be honest I've done all three of those at different times depending on the circumstances.

Eventually after a number of smaller breaks you become more sensitive to certain stressers . . . perhaps you become a neat freak, or you become jealous/greedy and start insisting on better surroundings for at least your space. You start going down hill way before you break. But the "problem" traits are actual reactions to what has been happening to you. You are trying to protect yourself.

Right now the system is both too fast paced, and too temporary. A person might go berserk for a very minor reason, be subdued, and as you are cleaning up the blood and filth THAT might trigger them again . . . but if you do fix the problems and remove the stress there is no permanent damage. None.

The colonists could have repeatedly killed friends and family in berserk rages, resorted to cannibalism, nearly starved . . . but if you manage to get a few people able to sort thing out eventually the survivors wind up perfectly well adjusted citizens once more.

That is the problem with the current system.  it penalizes you too much up front . . . but in the end it is also is too lenient.  If it was more realistic the system would actually be MORE brutal over long periods of time but MUCH gentler for new colonists. Give me meltdowns, complaints, social fights, arguments, grudges, factions . . . give me mental disorders that grow over time if I screw up. The story needs to be more dynamic.

If I screw up I shouldn't just be able to forget it and say "well we're good now", instead I should need to be ever more careful not to let those old problems rise up again because certain colonists have been traumatized and will react badly.

If my melee 15 fighter who went berserk in the last fight then maybe I need to retire him from combat duties or risk having him take down the entire colony one day. It sucks but . . . he didn't get there after one fight, or even after losing just one friend, or being injured just once . . . he's got a real disorder that isn't going away and I shouldn't put him in that situation unless I REALLY need to. If I ignore that things should get worse over time.

Do you see what I'm getting at?

[loci]

It's happening too often for small things like tattered clothing, not eating at table (their own fault) etc. It's becoming tiresome.

[Ragnarok]

I had a female colonist fall into this cycle of despair for the first time recently. She got broken up with which left a 2 odd season (1 1/2 maybe?) -25 hit. Then there's a bunch of other negatives, such as 2 bonded animals died (-10 each), no expensive room, and a few others. Atleast once every 1-2 days she has a breakdown, most of which are thankfully alcohol binges, but she does sometimes go berserk which hurts her and others.

Thankfully another couple just got married which boosted her happiness, though I was kinda expecting her mood to plummet even more, you know, like her being upset that another couple is married and happy while her marriage is broken and she's unhappy. Thankfully that sort of psychology isn't (yet?) involved in the game.