Increasing performance with high numbers of pawns.

[Tynan]

RW runs on one CPU core because making code that runs in parallel is extremely difficult and time consuming and it hasn't been necessary to do it (yet).

[brcruchairman]

Noted; thanks, Tynan! I appreciate you clearing that up.

[Grishnerf]

i noticed good stability boost on 3x Speed while scrolling around with WASD.

[hoochy]

Just want to mention I play a certain "Game style" that often goes to late game, with many pawns, many mods, etc and that it always lagged even on the smallest map sizes. I have a decent I7 CPU so it is not like you can get much better hardware for this game. I pretty much play the game 90% of the time on x3 speed because anything else is too slow. On x1 speed it was not laggy, x3 was.

However the Alpha 15c version has removed all visible lag and stuttering for me now, except when constructing a lot of floors at once. Steady 60fps. I literally went from 15b that was stuttering and lagging to a 15c that is like the beginning of the game performance again.

So thanks Tynan, much appreciated. Can you go into any more detail about what the actual fix you made changed and what it was doing before? I'm a programmer so its a bit interesting.

[ShadowTani]

My recent 22 pawn game was Cassandra Challenge on a large tundra map.   I was surprised that the colony got that big, which is why I questioned the "soft cap" mechanic.

I'm not entirely sure about all aspects of it, but a softcap is when the storytellers starts reducing the chance of getting pawns, such as convincing prisoners to join becomes harder, raiders are more likely to die instead of fainting etc. I also think related events (such as wanderer joins, refugee pod crash, pirate traders (slavers), chased refugee etc.) become less common too, but can't say that for sure. But basically, a softcap doesn't make it impossible to get new colonists, just more difficult.

I personally cap myself at 10 colonists though, even at Randy, and rarely go over - so it's a long time since I experienced the softcap myself.

[nccvoyager]

I dunno, really.
I have an old Phenom II CPU running at about 1.99GHz.
I usually tend to get 12-24 FPS at 3x speed regardless of how many pawns I have.
I currently have 10 pawns, some Labradors, and a few prisoners, and I'm still running at an average of 17 FPS.

(Yeah. Not exactly blazingly fast, I know. But, it's all I have.)

[OmniTitan]

Alpha15c should improve performance quite a bit.

Yay!

I'm curious, how are you getting 40-80 pawns without mods? The game usually starts to softcap you around 10.

Anyway, the game is not optimized for 40 pawns and certainly not for 80. A better CPU would probably help, but I doubt it would elimintate the issues completely.

I do currently have mods. But even on my 3rd ever game (after dying from learning how to play), without mods, I got in excess of a 100 pawns. Its not very hard once you have a prisoner farm and a defence system built around downing instead of killing raiders. Also a picture is at the bottom if you want to see a segment of my current 76 pawn colony.

It's possible he plays on Randy. Unless things have changed only Cassandra and Phoebe softcaps you at 10 pawns. However, Randy is to the storytellers as Ludeonicrous is for the map sizes, so experimental in some aspects, this being one of them. In short, yes, the game is definitively not really designed with large 40+ pawn colonies in mind.

I do play on Randy myself, prefer a nice surprise every now and then.

I would disagree that the game is not designed for larger colonies (except the work tab, which is the sole reason I am trying to figure out RimWorld modding). Especially when adding Mods. My current game has 76 pawns and has about 20 mods installed. I have not even reached end game research, let alone end game production from the mods. There is still considerable time required to produce many things. Though my attempt to produce every item possible does tend to affect this

Anyway my point being that large colonies can be hugely fun, especially on Ludeonicrous map sizes. My current map is normal size due to the added lag a larger map + larger colony adds.

Another factor is also that I have 389 tamed animals. I actually culled 200 due to them causing lag and may have to do something similar again.

A picture of a segment of my colony as of now:

[OmniTitan]

Just want to mention I play a certain "Game style" that often goes to late game, with many pawns, many mods, etc and that it always lagged even on the smallest map sizes. I have a decent I7 CPU so it is not like you can get much better hardware for this game. I pretty much play the game 90% of the time on x3 speed because anything else is too slow. On x1 speed it was not laggy, x3 was.

However the Alpha 15c version has removed all visible lag and stuttering for me now, except when constructing a lot of floors at once. Steady 60fps. I literally went from 15b that was stuttering and lagging to a 15c that is like the beginning of the game performance again.

So thanks Tynan, much appreciated. Can you go into any more detail about what the actual fix you made changed and what it was doing before? I'm a programmer so its a bit interesting.

I shall have to go test this myself now, looks like the fix may already be here

[ThiIsMe007]

I agree with you : larger maps are where the fun is at ^.^

I have never reached your numbers yet (my maximum was something in the 40+ for colonists, 150+ for pets, on a14, winning some, losing some), but once I get the ball rolling so to speak, I better not to stop, or all hell is bound to break loose.

I also play on Cassandra/Challenging, because I tend to associate Randy with bad things (bad = wasting my time, as in just starting my colony and getting hit with 500 raiders or something). I don't think Randy can be any more harmful/challenging than the other two in the mid/end game, and I don't care about nor want any random "too good" surprises at the beginning. Cassandra is a harsh but consistent mistress, and she suits me well.

Anyway, I'm interested in how you manage your defence system to specifically down raiders for capture, if you didn't mind elaborating some more about that.

[OmniTitan]

I agree with you : larger maps are where the fun is at ^.^

I have never reached your numbers yet (my maximum was something in the 40+ for colonists, 150+ for pets, on a14, winning some, losing some), but once I get the ball rolling so to speak, I better not to stop, or all hell is bound to break loose.

I also play on Cassandra/Challenging, because I tend to associate Randy with bad things (bad = wasting my time, as in just starting my colony and getting hit with 500 raiders or something). I don't think Randy can be any more harmful/challenging than the other two in the mid/end game, and I don't care about nor want any random "too good" surprises at the beginning. Cassandra is a harsh but consistent mistress, and she suits me well.

Anyway, I'm interested in how you manage your defence system to specifically down raiders for capture, if you didn't mind elaborating some more about that.

I don't currently have a setup I can screenshot. But the general idea is to not have too many defences firing at once. So I would create hallways into my mountain fortress (I almost always go mountain fortress for a game like this). Along the hallway I make little alcoves with guns, the alcoves stop the guns having too wide a range and so only two will fire on an enemy at a time. I do usually also have a slightly heavier defence at the entrance to thin their initial numbers slightly, but this is usually only important with larger groups attacking en mass.

I am currently messing around with mods so that will add a lot of new ways to down enemies. I very rarely actually use my pawns, almost always have an automated system. I build this as soon as I can, even if its based off wooden traps at first