Infestation again

[submarine]

Am i the only one that laughed at SpaceDorf saying Submarine should think submarine?

Yea that was kinda funny.

I can handle Infestations in my cave base but when they spawn in my sickbay while I have 2 paws unable to move there isn't much you can do.  There was no warning like for instance I could hear them digging or see rock crumble or so...Nothing. This to me is like that death ray example I gave. If the RNG gods hate you you will lose pawns no matter how you prepared, That's bad game play in my book.

All other events  have a counter ( work around) or you can avoid it.  Infestation is a dice roll on how bad it will be and it can be devastating.

Blight= have enough food stored.
ZZZTs = be smart with your wiring and have spare battery in store.
Flash Storm= don't go outside when there is lighting.
Eclipse..... Well you guys will get my point by now I hope.

There are so many other ways to balance cave bases or make Infestations not a dice roll, Seeing the patchnotes for A15 I think the workload for Tynan got to big as he choice again for a easy way out to fix some problems with friendly fire.

Yeah I sound like a negative nancy I know but that's because I care and love the game.

Srry for the bad English.

[Andy_Dandy]

I agree insect hive attacks could have been implemeted abit more interestingly. I'm not interested in removing them in my settings, or using mods making them less powerfull or frequent. What I'd like to see is for them to be implemented with abit more sophistication in a future alpha.

I suggest, as so many before me, that they should just be able to break out in spots with a raw montain wall. That way you won't see them in the more established parts of the mountain base with quality walls being built (perhaps also add the prerequisite of flooring in the room).

This way you'll acchieve some valuable and worthy gameplay design goals.

1) You encourage the player more to prioritise making real walls in his mountain base (with more then just the small beauty bonus)
2) Because of this you slow down the mountain base builder abit, and equals/balances out some of the benefits there compared to a base in open terrain that need "real" walls in the first place.
3) This way the player has the tools to prevent infestations in critical areas like rooms for Food Storage or Sleeping Rooms, at the cost of a bigger early Investment in these rooms. This will make for more interesting choices and priorities when building a base in the Mountains, and it's indirectly thanks to the infestation threath.
4) You can keep up the frequency of infestations, as long as the player continues to dig out new ground in the mountains.
5) It will feel more immersive.
6) It opens up for new techs allowing you to build expensive/power hungry devices that protect a certain radius from potential infestations as long as they are powered and are running.

[SpaceDorf]

*LOL* yeah, thats a valid reason to have a good laugh
I should read the usernames more often.
In my defense. Just calling yourself AllknowingPlayer666 does not make you one.
So the joke is on you submarine How could you forget the importance of worst case scenarios and triple backup in a hostile environment ? ( just joking )


To actually reply.

Yeah the scenario you describe is pretty much a death sentence ( okay my medbay needs turrets ... )
and not a nice one.
And I am with you on the arguement that just popping the hives in your base is bad Dungeon Mastering.
I posted a few days ago in another thread ( how to get players out in the open again ) that I would prefer the hives where spawned in the rock next to your rooms, from where they dig into your base.

And/or prespawned hives like the hidden chambers
in the gr

I am a strong beliefer that Armok the God of Evil RNGs is really out there stroking his white cat called Murphy
waiting for you to slip up. And there is no such things as being overly prepared.

[CannibarRechter]

>  I would prefer the hives where spawned in the rock next to your rooms, from where they dig into your base.

+1

[Rafe009]

I have never had much of an issue with bug events. Other than a way to pause the game when they happen i don't think they need to change much. Just make sure no rooms in your colony have dead ends. The more complex your base, the easier you can move to surround a hive or attack it from multiple angles the better - doors are your friend. Essentially try not to design your base in a linear fashion. Pick a spot in your base, you should be able to get to this location multiple ways from multiple directions. Base complexity is your friend.

Some additional tricks : 1 door covers another door. As one gunman runs behind a door another one pops out of another to fire on the bug hammering on the door teh first gunman hid behind. Another way to conceptualize this is doors should be withing firing range of other doors so that hidden gunmen can pop out and cover the door that's getting hammered by the bug that is pursing the gunman now hiding behind the initial door.

And for god's sake take it off of level 3 speed when an event like this happens, use the pause key a lot. I've watched a few let's players now and they - for some reason i cannot fathom - run their game continuously on speed 3 and then days after an assault or a bug event wonder why their colonists are missing arms and eyes.

One more thing. When you do start digging into the mountains dig like crazy. When you open up the mountain and start to inhabit the deeper portions you will get bugs in yoru bedroom and freezer but if you open up larger areas of the mountain the surface area adn probability that a bug event will hit a vital region will become less. To phrase this another way the amount of tiles that encompass places you dont' want bugs to emerge from should be a smaller number than the amount of tiles under the mountain you can effectively control and deal with at a leisurely pace. Once you start digging there is no reason not to make massive rooms you will leave vacant to reduce the probability bugs will emerge in your bedrooms. I see many people just branch mine for resources adn this works too.

[eadras]

I agree with the sentiments here that the bug event could use a re-write.  In my current game, I've had 3 infestations already, barely a year into the game, 2 of which spawned in the prison area.  It's more tedious and less fun to deal with than the other events, and it feels very contrived and silly to have 4 hives and 20+ bugs suddenly appearing on top of a room of sleeping pawns.

[Rafe009]

2 of which spawned in the prison area. 

Of all places that cannot be rapidly evacuated the prison is the one place that cannot be. You should never have built you prison under heavy rock. Tynaan specifically made it so you have to make choices and those choices have trade-offs. The choice you made came with a consequence. There is nothing that really forces you to have to dig into the mountain IMMEDIATELY upon the shipcrash.

When Tynaan first put bugs into the game a few versions back I went well over a year before i started digging into the mountain.

[eadras]

I randomized the map, and came up with mountainous tundra.  The harsh climate and lack of trees really forced me to dig in.  Point taken and less learned though;  as soon as I had stonecutting, I should have started building bedrooms, hospital, and prison out from under the mountain.

[CannibarRechter]

Candidly, if infestation is a game mechanic you don't like, there are various easy ways to nerf it to the ground. Enough folks find it annoying enough that I'm surprised someone hasn't published a "weaker insects" mod at this point. Perhaps I'll add that to my mod collection.

[Andy_Dandy]

2 of which spawned in the prison area. 

Of all places that cannot be rapidly evacuated the prison is the one place that cannot be. You should never have built you prison under heavy rock. Tynaan specifically made it so you have to make choices and those choices have trade-offs. The choice you made came with a consequence. There is nothing that really forces you to have to dig into the mountain IMMEDIATELY upon the shipcrash.

When Tynaan first put bugs into the game a few versions back I went well over a year before i started digging into the mountain.

This is very true, and I think my proposals has a potential of improving on these gameplay choices even more. But in any case, the things you mention are real additions to the hard choices the player has to deal with, indirectly brought to you by the infestations, and something you can't ignore without being prepared for there to be consequences.

[Andy_Dandy]

Candidly, if infestation is a game mechanic you don't like, there are various easy ways to nerf it to the ground. Enough folks find it annoying enough that I'm surprised someone hasn't published a "weaker insects" mod at this point. Perhaps I'll add that to my mod collection.

I think such a mod excists. For me it's a no go installing it, since it won't improve gameplay quality in any way or fashion for me, but rather the opposite. Making the game generally easier isn't what I'm aiming for. A mod doing what I suggested in a few posts up I'd definatly like to try out.

[submarine]

I think such a mod excists. For me it's a no go installing it, since it won't improve gameplay quality in any way or fashion for me, but rather the opposite. Making the game generally easier isn't what I'm aiming for.

+1

Tynaan specifically made it so you have to make choices and those choices have trade-offs. The choice you made came with a consequence.

The consequence is only RNG depended, that alone makes it bad game play.

[SimpleMachine88]

An infestation in your colonist's bedrooms is a nightmare.  A mech drop in your colonist's bedrooms is a nightmare.  Together they balance mountain and open bases. 

Mech drops give you a split second for your sleeping colonist to get out of there before they kill him.  A lot of people don't know this, but bugs don't attack downed colonists.  Meaning if they spawn and insta-down your colonist, you can save them.  I guess I would prefer they still give you a short time before they attack, because the idea that enemies are instantly in melee contact with you out of no where does still kind of feel cheap. 

My point is, I wouldn't build a prison outdoors either.  I had a mech drop right in there and repaint the walls with them once.  The safe place in rimworld is offplanet.

[Grishnerf]

i kinda see infestations as easy as they are right now.
in the Options you can turn on to pause the game on alerts.
so you have plenty of time to re-positioning your pawns and deal with the insects.
you can even get out of your rooms, before the first insects spawn.
force the doors open, Lure them into your open Areas, kill them with abuse of doors (aggro-ping-pong).
not that hard.

the only Problem i have with hives is that they are designed to be a "Long-term" threat, but right now spawning inside of your best 10 soldiers isnt all that smart and kinda lame game design.

my solution to this Problem would be to let the hives spawn inside a mountain near you, instead of your base.
it would be an enclosed area that gets revealed on the map.
so the insect would have some "warmup" time and could evolve into a much bigger threat if you dont take care of the Problem. -> digging into the mountain area , into the insect hive.
if you let them evolve. you could have a major Problem later on.

maybe it is just me, but this would make the hives far more epic and not so frustrating for some with the spawning mechanic.

[SpaceDorf]

The safe place in rimworld is offplanet.

I laughed hard about this Mind if I sig it ?

Also I have some after picture of my last Hive attack.
My Colony lost a whole finger in the Attack




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