Last updates push the player to "trick" the game

[DNK]

Now, I'd like some changes so I'm not feeling "forced" to do something unrealistic and very "gamey" to avoid something else.

Who is forcing you other than yourself?

Seriously. Play the game however you want, but for some reason you're playing a way you don't want and complaining about that.

If half the pawns are useless (I agree it's an issue), either roleplay as a brutally strict tribe leader who gets rid of anyone who can't carry their own weight (optimal play) or roleplay as though you have to actually take in and adapt to the various weaknesses of your colonists, or somewhere in the middle.

The game is extremely flexible in how difficult or easy it can be. A clothing debuff shouldn't be that big of an issue. If it is, go down a difficulty level. Not complicated stuff.

[Shurp]

Given the crappy quality of the clothing on shot up bodies, I never bother to strip them anyway. We have all the resources we need now to make our own clothing and gear.  The weapons raiders carry is loot enough.

As for other opportunities to gaming the game... one does not *have* to.  You can play the game as intended.  If you know the AI is doing stupid things, instead of exploiting it, make choices which make the AI's job easier.  If your base is well designed you'll survive anyway.

The only time I feel pushed is when a game aspect ceases to be fun.  Toxic Fallout destroys my forests so I've edited it out of the game.   Turrets seem overpowered so I nerfed them rather than abandoning them entirely.  And so on.  If you feel pushed to do something that isn't fun, don't do it.  Do something else instead

[Daguest]

As for other opportunities to gaming the game... one does not *have* to.  You can play the game as intended.  If you know the AI is doing stupid things, instead of exploiting it, make choices which make the AI's job easier.  If your base is well designed you'll survive anyway.

You don't have to. OFC. But sometimes it's simply easier, and sometimes you do it inadvertently. For example, scyther slower than centipede, most of the time you split them but not on purpose. Dead man cloth, are you going to wait to strip the downed guy clothes, when you can do it while he is alive and have his stuff ? And for the rescue pawn which is a terrible pawn already breaking while twisting on the ground, will you really take him into your colony, knowing he is going to break 100% of the time ? How many times did you left a mined part of the map as is, because you noticed that was where the infestation spawned, instead of your barn/prison/dining room as it did before ?

I mentioned dead man clothing because that's the newest, but the more Tynan find alternative to not "exploit" the game, the more I find myself gaming the game. I don't do it specifically on purpose most of the time, I just do it without thinking.
For example I had a weak spot in the cliff surrounding my base, on the opposite side of my "killbox" (lucky map, only one entrance to my colony). I knew raiders would try to break there, so I put tons of traps, and it worked. That's gaming the game. But what's the alternative ? Pretend this weak spot is not going to attract them like a magnet ?

Sure, in previous alpha the game had its flaws, like sapper killing themselves, or raiders throwing themselves at the killbox. But on the other hand, it was fun. Now raiders turn around my colony and split, with every single pawn attacking a different door/wall, making it tedious. Sapper throw themselves at my traps. And I strip people before killing them.

[Thyme]

Another way the player is encouraged to trick the game is with mechanoid raids. Since scythers and centipedes have such a huge difference in move speeds, [...]

I'm currently playing at the smallest available map (flat) and my first/only line of defense is about 40 tiles in from the map border. Mechanoid raids spawn frequently due to only one enemy faction. By the time my instantaneously drafted colonists arrive at one side of my loophole wall, Scythers arrive at the other side of it, or walk through it. After their obliteration, I can easily undraft all short ranged pawns and let the snipers (+ ev. survival rifles) go out to mercy kill the Centipedes.

tl;dr: Centipedes are so slow, pulling a Vasily Zaytsev is the way to go, even on small maps.

[Seinne]

I think the whole process would work better, and be more palpable to swallow, if the penalty was on a timer so pawns would eventually 'get over' the fact they are wearing blood stained rags.

[zandadoum]

my tailor makes masterwork and legendary stuff... none of my colonists would even THINK about picking up a *D* item

then, i also have a stockpile and incinerator where everything "except non *D*" gets burned

corpses? again, incinerator next to kill box, problem solved....

[deslona]

I agree that there are situations where I feel the need to 'trick' the game into getting a desired outcome. This usually involves more micromanagement. Specifically through hauling assignments.
There are other situations too, where that neurotic, abrasive, chemically interested glitter world surgeon just isn't WORTH it... you know?
Really every pawn is valuable, but some are not valuable enough. I guess that says something about us more than the game though.
Mechanoid raids do need fixing. For the exact reason stated before. Scyther speed and centipede speeds are too far apart making an effective attack impossible.

[Dave-In-Texas]

Since a few updates, I've noticed several changes have slowly pushed myself (and others by reading reddit/forums) to "'trick" the game, in a very videogame fashion.

Example : striping a downed raiders so you don't have the "dead man cloth" penalty. Also, killing him on the ground so you're not annoyed by the whole "kill a prisoner". Or let a drop pod pawn die because you don't want him to join. Avoiding convent child/sheriff like the plague, kill pessimist/too smart on sight, and since the drugs update, chemical fascination. Or the notorious "infestation spawn in the middle of your barn and kill all your animals, lol funny right ?", which is worth a topic by itself.



Now, I'd like some changes so I'm not feeling "forced" to do something unrealistic and very "gamey" to avoid something else. Dead man clothing is stupid, most of the clothes are tattered and useless anyway (representing the "full of bullet holes"). Infestations needs some work. Auto-join pawn on rescue need a player input (this guy want to join, do you accept ?). Bad traits need an incentive to have them (too smart for example can be valuable, chemical fascination, pyromaniac, pessimist ? Not so much). The "can't do dumb labor" need some rework to, because I feel like that's half the pawns.

I look at these as driving the player to be creative.. which in your case is to just kill all of them.  ahem, no comment.

I do find some of the stuff like can't do.. as annoying but heck, the game is in alpha

wearing dead peoples clothes, when YOU killed them is creepy as f***.  the debuff makes sense.  tailoring makes a lot more sense.

[Ashiver]

There are ways to game the infestation too.

One thing you can do for infestation prevention is to lay power cable across all overhead mountain tiles.  They don't seem to spawn in rooms that are all power cables.  This will make the room less beautiful, and if you have it linked up to a battery now creates a big risk of explosions/fires.  So I just make sure that if I'm doing this, I don't link it to a battery.  Or I have a fusebox mod installed because it's silly not to have circuit breakers you can research and build when you can build space ships.

The other thing you can do to prevent infestation problems is to dig out large indoor areas you don't intend on using for anything other than infestation bait.  With enough of these you can effectively bait the infestations to occur where you want them instead of where they would be most problematic.

With regards to the OP the game has always been about tricking it, the storyteller system just works that way.  You want the game to think you are not doing well so that it screws you over as little as possible.  In whatever ways you can't trick the game you are incentivized to be minimalist.  Everyone could have super wealthy super expensive bedrooms but the raid scaling isn't worth the mood boosts.  You don't want to have many colonists incapable of violence or useless in fights because every colonist contributes to raid scaling.  You don't want to have amazing high quality plasteel melee weapons because they contribute to raid scaling far greater than they actually perform better than steel, and are as equally useless against mechanoid raids.  Sometimes you don't even want to grow too much at once because the game will be more inclined to blight you and screw you out of everything. 

[Catastrophy]

Hey that shirt has a big hole in it! And what are these brown stains around it. And it itches when I try to wear it!!!
*Urist has gained an unhappy thought* (Actually, I saw a NPC named "Urist" during a raid)

It kinda makes sense with the debuff. It's not nice to wear a parka that still has brain tissue and tiny bone splinters splattered all over it. However, it's really fancy to wear a new human-skin cowboy hat just to show off how badass this colony is.

[Daguest]

I didn't want to turn the whole thread into the "dead man apparel is bad/good", since we already have several topic for it. I wanted to show that the more the game progress, the more penalties are hidden, and push the player to do un-realistic, and downright ridiculous looking actions to prevent them.
I think Tynan have been focusing on preventing "exploits" to much lately. Especially considering some/many of them were actually realistic (killbox=medieval castle gate, insect "farm" and so on). Also, several player control over the game have been simplified or removed, for no reasons that I can see. For example, the repair merged with construction. Or the rescue crashed pod pawn who randomly will insta join, without any player input. So basically, the guy you want, you'll still have to capture him to be sure you'll have the opportunity to recruit him. The guy you don't want, you'll have to let him die.

This is added to the already exaggerated and unrealistic part of the game. Can't haul, chemical fascination dying in a month after joining due to OD/luci addiction, "lock in my room" because I'm hungry, and thus starving to death while food have been made available, the frail+bad back who will be downed by smoking smokeleaf, the infamous 30moons planets with eclipses every week, no fuse technology by 5500 and so on.

So, in the end, we have a forced and exaggerated simulation to push the player into some situation with gameplay stopgap preventing some exploits. So, what the player does ? He trick the game, because all of it is already breaking the 4th wall. You can react as in you were in this situation, because you wouldn't be in this situation in the first place, since it doesn't make sense.

Hey that shirt has a big hole in it! And what are these brown stains around it. And it itches when I try to wear it!!!
*Urist has gained an unhappy thought* (Actually, I saw a NPC named "Urist" during a raid)

It kinda makes sense with the debuff. It's not nice to wear a parka that still has brain tissue and tiny bone splinters splattered all over it. However, it's really fancy to wear a new human-skin cowboy hat just to show off how badass this colony is.

Tattered represent the "bullet in the cloth" thing. But if the Tshirt is clean and neat because you made a headshot, and he was wearing a parka to protect it from the blood, then I don't see the issue. Especially when removing said bullet ridden cloth when the raider is dying on hte ground is totally fine, but as soon as he die, the tshirt is contaminated or something. I guess we have a zombie infestation going.

[Catastrophy]

I get what you mean. One thing is immersiveness and believability - the other is whether the gameplay adds to the game.

So do Deadman clothes add to the game in gameplay? Personally: No, all it does is increase unnecessary jobs. It might be intended, but I feel the category of armour and apparel should not be the same.
And the sorting and handling in stockpiles is now a nightmare. Try gathering stuff now in a specific place - it's insane. I'm currently trying a mod that allows item repair - it's not really fun to use and requires too much fiddling.
Overall I feel the whole stockpile system could use a heavy look at to make things less tedious.
I remember shying away from old worldsaves in DF just because I didn't want to bother re-understanding the complicated flow of goods between stockpiles. And DF had quantum storage right away.

[Elixiar]

Negative traits are exactly that.

Negative. I like it that way. Adds some variety even if it is annoying.
But I think pyromaniac for instance should be able to use flame weapons more effectively.

[TimTumm]

Dead man's debuff is crazy in a survival game.  You've got bigger problems.  Combine that with the fact that the colonists will run to grab and wear the items, and then complain about it.  After each siege I have to spend minutes recruiting each colonist one by one, and making them go to the dump zone, drop the "dead man's" armor'ed vest and personal shield.  Then walk away.  Keep the dropped item forbidden until I can sell it. 

If you hate it so much, why did you run to grab and wear that dead man's clothing?

[Grishnerf]

Dead man's debuff is crazy in a survival game.  You've got bigger problems.  Combine that with the fact that the colonists will run to grab and wear the items, and then complain about it.  After each siege I have to spend minutes recruiting each colonist one by one, and making them go to the dump zone, drop the "dead man's" armor'ed vest and personal shield.  Then walk away.  Keep the dropped item forbidden until I can sell it. 

If you hate it so much, why did you run to grab and wear that dead man's clothing?

just craft better stuff. they will Auto drop dead mans stuff and equip the best possible clothes you have.
i would go mad iuf i had to Micro everyone cause of deadmans appearal