New players looking for advise

[pjpants]

Hello everyone! I just discovered this game last week, and my girlfriend and I have played non stop sense then. we are spending 4-6 hours a day on this game and loving it. its nice because we are both playing in the same room and talking back and forth to help one another learn, however while we are both loving this game there is a ton of things that we have realized that we have no idea what to do! the more I know the more I know I know nothing. so I throw myself at the mercy of this community for help! we are looking for advise and any tidbits or hits that will help in playing this game or even just to optimize the experience. so here are a few questions!

1) I have seen a few posts about mods causing trouble, is it worth it to take a chance on them? if so what ones do you recommend?

2) we have been playing in difficult environments and seeing how long we can last. being new this usually results in a mess. I usually last until winter until something derailed my plans. how long should we expect to last? if I was doing this for a school test how long would I need to last to get an A, B, or C grade?

3) when playing this game what should our goals be? I tend to make it a glorified tower defense game, she does it differently but also doesn't last more than 5 hours or so of game play.

4)  I tend to do the single rich person and buy a lot of crap. she tends to get 3 people from the start. I like the technology too much for the 3 people. what strategies (outside of having someone with good building ect) for selecting your colonists?

5) any other things that I should be asking that I'm not?

anyways I appreciate any help or advise I can get!

[Serenity]

There are plenty of mods that are almost essential because they provide Quality of Life Improvements rather than completely new content:

Crafting Hysteresis (lets you set a minimum amount when crafting starts again. Most important for cooks probably)
Fluffy's Animal Tab (when you raise lots of animals)
Miniaturisation Overloaded (lets you move all kinds of stuff instead of having to deconstruct)
Pet Follow (full control over when pets follow you)
Trading Spot (control where trade caravans go to)
Stonecutting Tweak (set bills per stone type)
Achtung (control your drafted pawns better)
VeinMiner (automatically selects all ore squares in a vein)

Other nice improvements:
Modular Tables
Hospitality (more interaction with visitors. Let's you improve relations by treating them well. Reject wanderers who want to join)
Efficient Light (a matter of preference. I find 150W per lamp silly)
Colony Manager (for larger colonies)
Less Rebuff (no more stackable rebuffs, because someone was romantically rejected)
DayNightSwitch (for sun lamps mostly. Or maybe lamps to light pathways outside)
DESurgeries (more surgery options like repairing lost noses and fingers)
T-MoreFloors (cosmetic. Adds lots more floors)
More Furniture (as the name says)
RT_Fuse (fuses to prevent damage during Bzzt events)


This is all stuff that fits very well with the vanilla content without adding anything overly complicated or stuff that seems out of place.

how long should we expect to last?

Years

To get your hands started at cold environments try boreal forest. You can do very well with a green house. Just a walled off heated area with sunlamps. And you can still hunt plenty.

Even in the arctic you can start with farming in gravel for a while before you get hydroponics going. Best is a gravel farm heated by a geyser, but not all maps have that.

The rich explorer scenario helps there. You need a good character that's good at lots of things (which can be hard to roll), but you will also have only one mouth to feed and you start with some great items like a charge rifle.

As for skills. Cooking, medical, growing, shooting and constructing are important of course. Social isn't absolutely necessary, but really helps with recruiting people. Animal if you want to have life stock or dogs/wolfs to haul things. You eventually need a decent crafter, but you can gamble that you get one later.

[Shinzy]

Mods rarely cause any big troubles but I'd still advice playing vanilla until you've seen everything it has to offer, first (That's how I like to play games anyway :p) But when you do I hear Shinzy's mods are really really amazing, mwah
(OH although reading Serenity's post just now the quality of life improvement mods.. youuu really might want to look into those!)

In theory you should be able to survive practically forever
You'll get an A when you start to feel somewhat bored

My own goal is usually just to make a thriving colony

For starter colonists I like to have range of almost all the skills building/growing/medicine/cooking/hauling/cleaning/research
Or just make do with the 3 elderly disease ridden nobles that can't haul

Hotkeys! hotkeys are very nice to know :p
, and . to cycle through colonists

[pjpants]

thanks so much! I really appreciate this help! it is nice to put some perspective to it!

[chinothepony]

1) I have seen a few posts about mods causing trouble, is it worth it to take a chance on them? if so what ones do you recommend?

I just delved into the world of mods with this game. So far all of mine work except for the circuit breakers that are supposed to save some of your battery energy when there's a zzzzzt. The mods I use are more for convenience rather than introducing something brand new to the game:
Edb Prepare carefully: Gives you a character select screen to actually make your colonists from scratch
[T] More Floors: big necessity to me as I am not a big fan of the vanilla floors and carpets
RT Fuse: can't get it to work. Supposed to save some battery energy when there's a zzzzzt event.
Quality Builder: Wonderful simple mod that reserves that bed or chair blueprint to be made in best quality possible.
Mending: Okay this one may be considered a cheat but basically a workbench to bring the condition up to 100% on any item.
Mad Skills: This is just to take off skill degradation (Your skills automatically degrade when they are over 10. Especially didn't like it with my doctors who couldn't skill up enough to against the degradation).

2) we have been playing in difficult environments and seeing how long we can last. being new this usually results in a mess. I usually last until winter until something derailed my plans. how long should we expect to last? if I was doing this for a school test how long would I need to last to get an A, B, or C grade?

I think in the beginning I gave myself the best chance to survive. I started in temperate forest where the growth cycle for crops was all year long. I also like hills or mountains because it gives you some blockades to use to your advantage when trying to tunnel enemies into your base to kill them. So how long are you expected? Definitely depends on the conditions. I will say this, like a lot of survival games, the difficulty curve is actually at the beginning. It is hard to establish yourself because there's things like Heating/AC you have to put in place all while continuing the layout of your base. Once you're in the groove and pick-up more colonists, things to get much easier.

3) when playing this game what should our goals be? I tend to make it a glorified tower defense game, she does it differently but also doesn't last more than 5 hours or so of game play.

Your goals need to remain customary of not only what you are seeking out of the game, but also what type of colony you want to build. This game is srsly great to create so many custom scenarios. You can even change the storyteller during the game. You can create a bionic power ranger army if you want!

4)  I tend to do the single rich person and buy a lot of crap. she tends to get 3 people from the start. I like the technology too much for the 3 people. what strategies (outside of having someone with good building ect) for selecting your colonists?

The biggest things I try to do from the get-go is have colonists good at (in no order) are: crop growing, cooking, construction, mining, medicine, and at least two good shooters if the scenario allows. I also try to double up on all those skills as soon as I get the colonists who can. Crafting is important, and you'll have a number of stations to craft, but in the beginning you can get by without a high skill. Late game it becomes necessary tho. Same with artistic. Also one researcher is a must.

5) any other things that I should be asking that I'm not?

One thing you may not know. One of the best ways to add colony members is taking prisoners. If you capture someone from a raid that has been left for dead, you can create a prison, treat them, and then have someone with decent social be a warden that can recruit them. The tricky part is there is an actual prisoner bill tab you have to actually access after they've been imprisoned. There you can adjust their medical care, and recruitment options.

Godspeed!

[Jinxi]

IMO the most important Mod is the "No Cleaning". Its just a simple Mod and its such powerfull.
Normaly your colonists clean all areas wich are marked as home-area. Home-area is also important, to notify you colonists, if there is a fire or some stuff needs repair. Are fire or broken walls or benches or whatever outside the homezone, you colonists will ignore it. On the other hand, i dont want to keep clean ALL areas inside my homezone, bec your cleaner have to much to do to clean all areas and the important areas are still dirty.
The mod lets you define areas, where you want your colonist to clean. They will only clean that area and nothing else, no matter how big your homezone is.
Unfortunatly this mod isnt updated for A15.

[Serenity]

Its just a simple Mod and its such powerfull.

Agreed. Missing this too, but it's A14 so I didn't mention it.

You want your defenses repaired of course, but the area doesn't need to be cleaned constantly (except for bunkers, because you don't want "hideous environment" debuffs in combat)