Rare biomes

[Syrchalis]

Clicking through loads of hexagons I encountered a few boreal forests with 30 day growing period. It seems to happen when bordering a desert only.

Did anyone of you find any similarly rare biome conditions?

Unrelated question: What biome is fun to try aside from the normal temperate forest? I tried boreal forest myself, but I didn't find it to my liking. Growing period is a mechanic that I personally didn't enjoy that much - you just circumvent it with greenhouses or eventually hydroponics. Also random cold snaps killing all your corn just before harvest... followed by winter.
Currently trying out arid shrubland.

[b0rsuk]

I enjoy ice sheet, where every single cargo drop is celebrated, and you're glad for joining wanderers because they bring 3 meals with them. Snow and temperature makes it very defensive. I also like tropical rainforest, which is a little green Hell.

You know you can harvest crops prematurely ? With most plants you need 60 or 65% maturity, and then you can use Orders - Harvest. This is how I managed to get 453 devilstrand in my first year in temperate forest.

Just curious - why do you prefer greenhouses for storing food for winter ? What's the big problem for you ?

[Greep]

Tropics is fun.  It's honestly not much different from temperate, though, after the first season (dusters, penox, etc nullify all the major threats).  You can get silly amounts of money with alpacas, and tons of meat and wealth with elephant hunting.

It becomes a pain to have to cull panthers all the time but at least they're easy to spot.  Interestingly, you can get the rare non-all year harvest in tropics.

[Serenity]

I do like having greenhouses. So boreal forest or tundra are nice. The swamps in boreal forest are also nice and can be used to slow down enemies.

I also like ice sheets but the endless mechanoid raids because it's so cold get tedious eventually.

One thing I like in tropical is the somewhat different animals

[Hans Lemurson]

I'm currently playing on a Temperate Forest with a Zero-Day growing period.  It's technically non-zero, since a rice crop planted at the beginning of summer in fertile soil can be early-harvested before it is killed by frost.

[Andy_Dandy]

Clicking through loads of hexagons I encountered a few boreal forests with 30 day growing period. It seems to happen when bordering a desert only.

Did anyone of you find any similarly rare biome conditions?

Unrelated question: What biome is fun to try aside from the normal temperate forest? I tried boreal forest myself, but I didn't find it to my liking. Growing period is a mechanic that I personally didn't enjoy that much - you just circumvent it with greenhouses or eventually hydroponics. Also random cold snaps killing all your corn just before harvest... followed by winter.
Currently trying out arid shrubland.

I like to find the boreal forests with no growing period. Usually those close to the lowest average temperature possible on Boreal, -10C.

[milon]

I used to enjoy playing on Coastal Mountain maps. Those were pretty rare. But I haven't looked for one since the world became a hex-based sphere, so I don't know if they still happen or not.

[Serenity]

so I don't know if they still happen or not.

They're more common now what with there being actual mountain ranges.

[PotatoeTater]

I play Boreal all the time and use giant mountain bases. I try to use outside fields only and then go the whole winter hunting only if I run low on food. It makes the game feel more realistic and adds a difficulty level.

[Syrchalis]

I enjoy ice sheet, where every single cargo drop is celebrated, and you're glad for joining wanderers because they bring 3 meals with them. Snow and temperature makes it very defensive. I also like tropical rainforest, which is a little green Hell.

You know you can harvest crops prematurely ? With most plants you need 60 or 65% maturity, and then you can use Orders - Harvest. This is how I managed to get 453 devilstrand in my first year in temperate forest.

Just curious - why do you prefer greenhouses for storing food for winter ? What's the big problem for you ?

I play Boreal all the time and use giant mountain bases. I try to use outside fields only and then go the whole winter hunting only if I run low on food. It makes the game feel more realistic and adds a difficulty level.

This pretty much. "Avoiding the mechanic" via greenhouses feels kind of bad, from a gameplay sense. It's very hard to put my finger on where the difference between dealing with the growing period is and avoiding it, but I guess even in year-around growing zones you use hydroponics, so "just building standard" with maybe some more focus on getting hydroponics early is what I mean by avoiding, while having bigger growing zones and storing food for winter is actually dealing with it.

Maybe it's simply because if you go for greenhouses you "ignore" the growing period and if you build more and store it you "use it" in a way you wouldn't in warmer biomes.

Anyway, I hear a lot of tropics here, so I might try that one next. Currently I'm on a flat/small hill arid shrubland and trying to build a non-mountain base. It's stell pretty early so I am doing fine, though I'm somewhat scared about raids. In my boreal forest game they came with like 6 people really early with superior weapons and I had no chance. Probably because I "declined" quite a few colonists with really (I mean REALLY) bad traits and stats.

I just can't deal with people who won't do hauling - it makes them so utterly worthless as a person. Especially since they can't even clean usually or cut plants which would be the other two "odd jobs" I could use every "useless" person for. Bad stats - no problem. No passions - meh. Bad traits - oh please go away. Won't do hauling and one or two of the previous points - please die.

[b0rsuk]

Rainforest is more fleshed out and more unique than Desert, Tundra, Extreme Desert, Arid Shrubland. Those just feel empty. Rainforest can feel generous because you can grow anytime. There's plenty of animals, and tall grass make it easy to defend. At the same time, diseases, and forest fires are a thing.

[SpaceDorf]

I never had any problems with diseases or fires in the Jungle.
Enough Healroot, a decently clean hospital and living space prevent most of the bad issues with diseases. Only the one-livered die fast .. thats the only organ I harvest regulary.

Fires are a near non issue .. because it is a Rain-forest .

[b0rsuk]

In my current game skill 11 doctor with herbal medicine, hospital beds and clean sterile floor can't deal with Sleeping Sickness. I mean patients overcome it if they stay in bed 80% of the time (!!), but only then. So yes, diseases are definitely a threat. Penoxycyline takes 3 neurotramine to craft, so it's a constant drain on resources.

There are common heat waves and they shut down your farming and make animals migrate. You need either passive coolers or cowboy hats fast or you're in big trouble.

[Greep]

Well, I just keep all my colonists on one penox every 8 days (keeps malaria manageable, and sleeping/plague I can be proactive, usually they're very immune by the time I see it anyways but sometimes it's 80ish).  The math shows this is less intimidating than it sounds, once every 8 days is only about 7 silver a day.  My colonists make dozens of silver in production per day. 

When you factor in the costs you save in healroot and lost labor from bedrest, penox just wins.  Its more a question of how thin you want to spread it.  I'd make it once every 10 days for everyone, 6 days for medics/elderly, but thats yet another drug schedule to manage.