Predict the biggest balance issue / exploit in Alpha17

[b0rsuk]

What I don't like about the 'seeds' idea is that it would push players to do more math. It's already pretty hard to estimate how much food you need to stockpile for winter, and how much storage space it will take. How much food does a colonist consume per day ? What about pets ? And does a bear eat more than than a fox ? Also, it would make plants like Devilstrand or Healroot pretty much impossible to use in year 1. Seeds as a mechanic does nothing to fix dry biomes, too.

What I do like about the idea of seeds is that opens the room for more exotic plants and exotic seeds as a resource.

Watering plants would help diversify biomes. Ice sheet and tundra might have soil / temperature issues, but there's no problem with water generally. Arid shrubland would be distinct from rainforest and normal desert. And your growing would be as successful as combined growing skill of your colonists. With seeds, the seeds are the bottleneck.

[Perq]

Seeds make the game overly complex, so does water systems.
Manipulating prices on their own will simply shift them from OP to UP, and so on.
Decreasing yield will make you starve first winter, not to mention cold biomes who rely on hydroponics.

Honestly, how about simply making them deteriorate faster, and make storing harder? IMO, making giant freezers is a little too easy, atm, and it is the best way to make them stay fresh (if you are selling them raw, that is). They don't consume nearly enough energy, nor they require any specialized materials (insulation, for example).
This won't work for every single crop, because fabrics don't deteriorate at all. This would be the moment to introduce spool, so that you both give them occasion to rot (raw cotton) and add work to actual fabrics. As you can probably imagine, you'd need similar things for other crops/production methods. I'll add here that the amount of materials needed should probably increase with them being deteriorated - if you have materials with 50% hp remaining, you need double the amount to make something. Or something like that.

All in all, it isn't problem of growing being best income method but many of these methods require too little work or infrastructure to get going over other ones.
Growing will always be the best method to make money simply because it can be repeated to the infinity, once you are set up. This cannot be said about mining or crafting weapons/armors, because they both use resources that are finite. Same goes with bricks.

Imo, for these to be able to compete, finite resource sources of income should always be more lucrative in terms of work/infrastructure to those that are infinite. Not to mention that growing plants have no dangers tied to them, while mining mountains does (which I find pretty silly, to be honest), be it infestation or simply being far from your colony. This would also give players a good reason to make mining colonies, which would provide good income (or simply resupply production center at the colony), but would require you to protect new colony.

[Lubricus]

Seeds make the game overly complex, so does water systems.

That depends on what you want out from the game. I am personally not interested in the game as a challenge to build the spaceship. My goal is to build a nice and stable colony and more complexity and stuff to do would just make it more fun. And the stories that get's created. Therefore I play with more and more mods.

I personally think the game is hard enough and play on easier settings anyway, that it's easy to grow is not problem.  But after have been playing with seeds please it feels cheaty to be able to sow without seeds.

I think early plagues is a bigger balance issue, had to abandon a colony when my doctor and the other good pawn got the plague and could do nothing but looking as the severity increase faster than the immunity, that in itself is not so bad the bad part is I have no idea how to decrease the risk of early plague death in the next colony i try.

[Limdood]

the bad part is I have no idea how to decrease the risk of early plague death in the next colony i try.

Disable plague?

It's not like it'll be that big of a deal, there are plenty of other diseases, and plague in particular has, in A16, seemed to just be a penoxycyline check...Oh you got the plague?  Do you have penoxy? no? then you're dead.  Yes?  then you'll be absolutely fine.

[Another]

The best way to balance growing (in my opinion) without changing the scope of the game would be to either:

1. Require some sort of plant maintenance, (weeding, fertilizing, ect...)
2.  Make it take longer to grow.

Both have some obvious problems, but that's just what happens when you try to balance things.

[b0rsuk]

But if you just make it take longer, you risk nuking ice sheet colonies. They're already tightly balanced, most need nutrient paste dispenser at least in early game. They would have to maintain two hydroponic rooms.

[TamTiTam]

The easiest solution would be to decrease the price for plants in warmer areas and increase it in the cold areas.
This would also feel more realistic, since products should be less expansive where they are easier to produce.

[Another]

Perhaps hydroponics stay the same grow speed (for the possible balancing I said), but again, every patch will cause problems.

[b0rsuk]

Ice sheet farms use potatoes in gravel at least in early game.

Reducing price of plants will mean players just plant more of them. Or sell simple products like simple meals. It's still free money.

[Hans Lemurson]

Ice sheet farms use potatoes in gravel at least in early game.

Reducing price of plants will mean players just plant more of them. Or sell simple products like simple meals. It's still free money.

Is there any way that a farming system could NOT be free money?  You grow plants, they appear from nothing (after a one-time cost), and then you sell them.  You are the same as before, but with more silver.

[faltonico]

But if you just make it take longer, you risk nuking ice sheet colonies. They're already tightly balanced, most need nutrient paste dispenser at least in early game. They would have to maintain two hydroponic rooms.

It is an ice sheet... ¿did you expect it to be easy? It would turn to be a real challenge, one that would need you to be prepared to make the choice to survive there.
Rimworld is supposed to be about survival, but unlimited seeds and no water needs makes it extremely easy to survive in extreme climates, as compared to the real world.

[SpaceDorf]

With the announced fixes and overhauls everybody will complain that medicine is now to easy

[b0rsuk]

Rimworld is supposed to be about survival, but unlimited seeds and no water needs makes it extremely easy to survive in extreme climates, as compared to the real world.

No, I don't think Tynan thinks of Rimworld as a survival game. He seems to pay little attention to the survival aspect. Examine pawn stats. Do you see any number telling you how much a pawn eats ? Is there a way to ration food ? Ration medicine ? NOPE.

[mumblemumble]

With medicine, I hope its made so its EASY to treat injuries IF its very manpower intensive, like quick bandaging, routine wound cleaning, ect, but you can LOWER the manpower needed WITH expensive equipment.

This would be a good means of balance, so you can almost gaurentee good healing early on, at the cost of needing almost full time care till healed.

Plus it would fit real life disaster balances : where healing is relatively straightforward with enough manpower, but being overwhelmed with too many patients makes the healing quality drop exponentially, particularly when under-equiped

[BetaSpectre]

Pawn Targetting.

Currently have one shielded pawn run around in circles, pref a Jogger pawn.

If there are melee units they'll never touch him, and get all shot to death.
If there are ranged units they'll probably never down the shields. If they do then keep 1-2 replacements on hand.

I can reliably take down bases of 10-20 pirates with 5 pawns. 3 shooters 2 melee units.