Alpha 16 unstable branch feedback

[MikeLemmer]

Alright, the new caravan mechanic saved my colony.

I randomly landed in a cool desert in Autumn, so I was struggling to have enough food for the winter. I'm slated to run about halfway through it, without enough meat to restock my stores. (For some reason, only rats were appearing on the map, despite the temp being a relatively mild 0F to 50F for winter.) Then I get a random event that a group of cats have arrived at my colony. I'm nearly banging my head against the desk at this; the cats don't have enough meat on them to get more than a day or two worth of food out of butchering them, but they'd devour my kibble supplies in no time flat if I tried to save them for a caravan.

Then I realized I could make my own caravan and herd those cats towards the nearest settlement for a hefty profit. I immediately send out 3 of my 6 colonists with the cats in tow as a last-ditch effort to buy enough food for the winter. I have just enough food to keep everyone fed until they returned 3 days later. The trip went off without a hitch; I sold the cats for 1500 silver total at the settlement and used the proceeds to buy 500 rice, enough to last us through the winter once I cooked it.

P.S. Cats might be a tad overvalued now that you can sell them whenever you want.

[Mehni]

The caravan has an estimated time of arrival in days and hours, but their estimated food supply is in days and decimals. 4 days 8 hrs and 4.8 days aren't the same thing and has the potential for confusion.

Since Muffalo are more likely to be kept as animals in this version, can their herding behaviour be kept once tamed? Muff in the wild will congregate and act as a group, but tamed muffalo act as individuals.

[ReZpawner]

So... is there any particular reason rat corpses weigh 10kg, aka 20lbs?

Stop fatshaming rats, dude. It's not cool.

[Wanderer_joins]

The caravan has an estimated time of arrival in days and hours, but their estimated food supply is in days and decimals. 4 days 8 hrs and 4.8 days aren't the same thing and has the potential for confusion.

I've heard some guys crashed a Mars orbiter with these kind of conversions. Here at least, even if you're confused you've got a positive margin.

[carbon]

True, but for really long trips it starts turning trip times into seasons and days (while food time is just days), so the margin will go very negative when it really counts.

[Icarus]

My main doctor has 115% success chance with surgery and has murdered 4 people.

This god damn it so much this.
I was so glad in A15 because wake-ups+go-juice would pretty much render doctors unable to fail, which made sense. A well-prepared skilled doctor wouldn't fail something simple like bionics. Now it seems to be completely RNG based.

[Canondeath]

I just got ambushed by some boomrats, they spawned in the same corner as i did and litualy exploded before i even entered the map.
i think they shouldn't spawn in the same corner as the caravan

[Tynan]

Okay, 1390 is up! Just bugfixes in this one, and some small balance changes. Thanks for the ongoing feedback, we're almost there.

[Seinne]

Not sure if it's a bug or not, but has anyone else noticed that pawns finish off downed raiders instead of letting them live long enough to be captured?

Even after I've undrafted a pawn, I've seen one put a round into a downed raider on the way by.

[makkenhoff]

Faction Name: To Eir is human
Faction "Leader": Eir Roth-Kelly

Start: Rich Explorer
Difficulty & Storyteller: Peaceful, Chillax

I spent about 2 in game weeks building a base, only to have the stark realization that I'm going to be resource starved in my jungle biome. I just lacked materials. So, I thought I'd send my new arrival and my main leader off to the closest village. Around the same time, I got a message from the other side of the planet (100% here) from a friendly AI, so I decided that was my goal. Then, I had a bit of a surprise on the way to the nearby town, an encounter. (Not offering hugs, that's for sure!) I realized I might be able to trek over to the AI, so, I abandoned the few remaining items in my colony, and proceeded to make my way towards the AI, figuring I can trade for more food, with my money and supplies.

This is, admittedly where I got a little annoyed. I made what I thought at the time, to be a smart trade. I traded glitterworld medicine and a formerly living pirate's machine pistol for rice, thinking that my colonists would camp at night, and would cook themselves a simple meal using the rice. Instead, they proceeded to gorge themselves on the raw rice, and the supply went down rather rapidly. So, the 2000 rice I had, was quickly eaten, perhaps this was a terrain feature. I stopped at the next town, and dug deep, selling a lot of things that I'd rather have kept, for corn this time. In the end, it didn't help matters, the corn was eaten just as fast as the rice.

So, in a mix of desperation and heroism, I decided to attack a pirate base, and do those towns a favor, in ridding them of a local menace. My faction leader, with a charge rifle, my non-violent nurse, and my pet arctic wolf; against what I found out to be 12 angry pirates, some of which are armored and with personal shields, yikes. So, quickly I decide I need to get some protection up, but before I can even get started, they attack me. (Honestly, the ability to throw up fortifications at the enemy's doorstep is AWESOME!)

The response is brutal, Large Machine Guns, Sniper rifles, Assault rifles, and who I assume was their commander with the charge rifle. Suddenly, my odds weren't looking too good. I went in without any knowledge of this base, and now I'm looking at a real dangerous situation, far from any danger I might have normally encountered at this stage. (I mean, usually I'm dealing with clubs and the odd shotgun/frag grenade user) I decide that I need to retreat at least one of the two colonists I have, and the non-violent nurse is the chosen one, but I plan to have her retreat at the last possible moment, to buy me time to try and flank the enemy. The nurse manages to get away with a few minor bruises, but my arctic wolf is down, and my newly acquired hen is gunned down. Now, I'll admit, shooting my arctic wolf makes perfect sense, but why shoot a hen? I digress, my leader has flanked the enemy to a limited degree, and I'm now closer to their base than they are... unfortunately, I took a shot from a LMG in the lung. Naturally, any gunshot wounds are bad, but a lung hit is really bad. Realizing I had no good options left, I retreated, tail between my legs. Now, despite the fact that my nurse had fled to the north, and my leader to the east, they appeared in the same caravan, to the northwest, where I had attacked from.

Now, I got a message about my downed wolf being able to rejoin my caravan, if I waited. So, I figured I'd try it. An hour later my nurse goes down. What I thought had been bruises, were knife cuts. What I needed, was a temporary "encounter" to fix these wounds, or perhaps a way to do it from the world map screen. So, I was forced to settle right next to the pirate base, to get this fixed. Shortly upon arrival, I was notified that my leader's bonded arctic wolf had died. (The message about animals rejoining should probably be worded differently) Now, I quickly bandaged up, proceeded to hunt some monkeys, built a butcher's table (really, I could do with some field stripping of meat from animals, trade off is a little less meat but just a crafting spot required) and butchered them all up. Then, packed up and ready to go again. Everyone's in a bad mood, but they are fed for the moment, we have a rough idea that it will take a year to get to our friendly AI. We've got 12 days of food, and no towns to speak of close by for trade, if we had something worth trading, 2 seasons is the best guess, quite a bit of it is jungle.

It looks like we will have to settle again, unless we run into a wandering trader. (12th of fall) Winter, on the 5th we had to stop after a brief encounter with a ragged hungry trader and likely settle in for what is looking like a desperate winter, if not a cold one.

The winter ends up not being cold enough to worry my colonists, and I continue to produce food, and stone, to build a more protected base in the immediate. After securing a decent micro base, and building up supplies, I began my trek again, this time with 30 days worth of food.

I got a short distance from my abandoned base, when I encountered a man-hunting rhino. He made short work of my leader, breaking bones, but not bleeding. I attempted to rescue my leader with my nurse was gored to death. Leaving me with just my rich explorer, with a busted up jaw and right leg, femur; but healing.

With what I imagine was a surge of adrenaline, my leader gets up, grabs her charge rifle, and shoots the rhino multiple times, before getting downed yet again, this time with a minor bleeding wound. The rhino, dies after a few hours, causing a victory. With my leader on the ground, trying to recover, the auto victory" made me leave within 24 hours, leaving ALL of my supplies and weapons apparently behind. Malnutrition subsequently killed my faction leader, because I was unable to move, nor gather my supplies before "reforming" the caravan; leading me to finish this game, with 1 year, estimated, before I would have arrived at the friendly AI.

(Apologies that I did not take the time to "clean" this post up, I wanted to post it up, before I left today.)

[Tynan]

Thanks Makken, sounds like an intriguing yarn

[shigimoru]

How do I find my base on the world map?

[Tynan]

How do I find my base on the world map?

Right click your people at screen top.

[MikeLemmer]

My first sea ice colony went... well...

With absolutely no resources, I immediately tried to make a small steel colony and rush hydroponics. That seemed to be going well, but I didn't have enough steel to build all the hydroponics I needed. Then I had a rare thrumbos arrive at the same time as a raid. I tried to attack the thrumbos and lure him into the raid to kill two birds with one stone, but raiders just decided to steal things and leave before the thrumbos reached him. I only had one survivor, but eventually he fully-healed while the thrumbos bled to death. I'm currently trying to give him enough food & clothes to survive a trek off the sea ice and towards someplace more... temperate.

As a sidenote, is the difficulty affecting what traits colonists have now? This is the 2nd Intense game I've had where only 1 colonist out of 6 could Haul/Clean.

[carbon]

I've been playing intense (randy) consistently throughout A16 stuff and haven't gotten more than the typical 1/3 or so with hauling / cleaning issues. Probably just the RNG gods messing with you.