Alpha 17 is on public unstable branch

[Love]

I like that I'm seeing infections again, although I do feel they are a little easy to combat.

Infections ARE easy to combat for any young person with access to modern medicine, unless they're internal infections, and even then if you have access to antibiotics most of those should be easy to take care of.

The most susceptible to them are the elderly, which is accurately reflected in-game.

[nikow]

Population: I am not fan of big groups and i keep my colony at 9 pawns usually.
Cassandra Rough seems to be more balanced. Raids are much more frequent, but less powerfull.

Combat:
I raided two outposts and it looks like They are far too easy to be satysfing. My squad of 6 take out defenders without any serious wound. Two guys was sniping out them as long, as They start charging into me. Then They run near the prepared mele guys in front line, near the guys with assault rifles. I got two more rifles and A LOT of silver, then some fancy shields.
Sapers are smarter, They do not atack one wall piece, but damaging my walls in many places, so i can not set my people to defend one place.
MECHANIOIDS are disaster. They wiped out 6/11 of my colonists. Do They ignore now my adventage from being in darkness?

Ambushes:
Caravans and nomad scenarios seems to be a lot easier, what is good. Now i really see point in trading things and being abushed not meaning being ripped apart anymore.

Medicine:
No more severed limbs by field surgeries. It looks like surgery can not longer be so fatal when your doctor have 6 or more skill, what is nice. From the other hand, even my 1lvl doctor was using herbal medicine he managed to save young (18 years) girl, but her 78 years mother died.
Default medicine is great addition. Can i choose food for my prisoners too?!
Puting my colonists into sleep is great way to fight of addictions.

Trading:
Ships are much more frequent or i am luckly?
Caravans from the other fractions seem to come more frequently. Meybe it's related to me, being on the road?
Caravans from me are safer, so i send my traders far more often. It's not so risky and generate far more profit.

Prisoners:
When i see prisoner on 99% resistance i tend them and then release. In A16 i rarely saw released guys, now They are coming back with every next raid. When i harvest They organs, They are coming without them... When i drug them enough to put them into addiction, They are bringing me drugs every time, when They are coming back. Lucy farming was never so easy.

Animals:
They are often dying because of weather. During winter every turtle and most of the birds are dying. There was no cold snap, They just does not leave my map during the winter.
After heat wave, every wild animal died. That made me sad, even when my freezer was full of food which i exchanged later for weapons and armors. Animals should be able to survival natural conditions.
Animals seems to ignore fire. I like to block raiders way by throwing some molotovs in strategic places. I understand the tribals who run though fire, but rat which was just moving without reason by fire... The same happend with turkey, which want cook himself for my pawns in front of my defense lines.

I love the stories made by game. Once siegers decided to attack me when They shoot all the mortals and They managed to harm my crops and two chickens. When They was going to run into my defenses, dry thunderstorm started. First tunderbold hit into my smokeleaf, second in front of the turret (where roses was and fire starts). The third and forth one hit my guys. What suprised me more, the power armor clad meele fighter was unconscious instantly, but sniper was just burned a little and ran. Meybe first guy was hit directly, other indirectly, i am not sure, but many hits after put him into far-too-close-to-death condition.

In A16 poison ships seems to land OUTSIDE my bases. In A17 it land directly on my fields...

And i didn't saw pod landing pirates.

[ShadowTani]

Why are you hating crafters so much?
From a16 to a17 changed next:
Making joints - no crafting XP
Making drugs - crafting job who gave Intellectual XP, but no crafting XP
Stonecutting - crafting job who gave Construction XP, but no crafting XP
How do I must to level up Crafting in cheap way in such conditions?
Making hundreds of shoddy t-shirts, and wooden swords is wasted resources and time

Yeah, I noticed that, too. And while my crafters still suck, my researcher was on LVL 20 in no time... So maybe the levelling by crafting cheap stuff may be reduced if it was imbalanced before, but disabling it completely? The main good thing, though, is that you can now use your average lvl 0 crafter for making stone blocks all day long, if it is not skill related any longer. But making medicine is skill capped (and this skill automatically degrades if not used as far as I remember), so at least here there should also be some gain making it.

Edit: But please do not lower researching skill gain... There should at least be enough research projects left to benefit from a highly levelled scientist.

I agree, though I think the biggest problem is that these jobs of variable skills are all lumped together under the same job category, meaning that the ideal crafter have to be good at two-three skills to actually not be wasting time and resources when doing one of the jobs they aren't as competent in.

Ideally the drug production should be put into its own chemistry job, and stonecutting into a masonry job - crafting could probably be merged with smithing at that point (not much left of it then I believe), except maybe tribalwear which is more of a tailoring thing. I know Tynan hates to add job categories though, but it would definitively made things a bit more intuitive in this case. A way to toggle sub-jobs would work too (bringing back that dedicated repair pawn in the process!), but I'm pretty sure that's too much work to make it into A17, if ever.

[Tynan]

This thread is for feedback on the build please - open-ended suggestions and discussion thereof should be in the Suggestions forum. I've removed some off topic posts.

[Demeaner]

Don't know if this has been reported, but when I am zoomed in very close I start to see black lines pop in and out of the background like its scanning certain cells.
Its been like that for the last 3-4 builds I would guess.
The appearance and movement reminds me of the old Windows defrag progress graphic, if that helps with visualization.

[Bjorn Strongndarm]

Okay, so 1 in-game year on Cassandra Rough, Boreal Forest, Crashlanded start. (Build 1541.) Some statistics: After a year wealth was at 30309 (total), 7 major threats, 7 raids, of those raids there were 2 "wander first", 3 "immediate attack", 1 "especially clever" and 1 sapper. At the end of the year, zero deaths and 7 colonists total. Of those colonists, there are two relationships that began in the colony, one of which has escalated to a full-on marriage, and the other of which has a marriage on the horizon. 2 caravans arrived as well as 2 visitors with things to trade. Of the caravans, one was a slaver and one a bulk goods trader. Also,

For quests I was offered 2 stashes, 2 caravan requests (I don't recall the first but I was in no position to cover it; it might have been something like 1200 cloth? The second was something like 227 smokeleaf.) About 1/2 of the quests were offered between late fall and very early spring, where the weather makes travel times so slow to make them virtually impossible.

Of those four extra colonists, one was a fleeing refugee, one was a rescued escape podee who voluntarily joined, one was a Stockholm-syndromed raider, and one was a wanderer. I took the fleeing refugee very early in the game, and she ended up being chased by just a single raider with a shiv, so she was easy to get. I had a second opportunity, but turned it down because I was recovering from a raid at the time. (I'm not sure if the raid from the fleeing refugee counted towards my total of 7 or not, to be honest.)

The overall progression of the year has seemed to me more difficult than past alphas, but in a way that fits well with the story. For instance, although I got some power up for a freezer and an electric stove fairly early, I never really had the luxury of developing my power grid, because more survival-first issues got in the way. I currently have 2 turrets hooked to one fueled generator, and two solar generators + 2 batteries hooked to a cooler, electric stove, and within the last monthuary, I also got up a machining table, comms console, and orbital trade beacon. Everything else has been analog. This means I've been heating my base with campfires all winter. I started growing rice right away, plus did a fair bit of hunting, but never was able to build up a good supply of food for the winter. We didn't starve, but came close — we had to go around killing all the wargs, foxes, and timberwolves on the map in order to make it through the winter. (And we also ended up trading a fair bit of our silver and some components we mined out of the ground for some raw meat that the bulk trader had brought along.) So it really did seem like a kind of near-thing survival. We did have a good supply of bodies thrown in a room, and given it was a boreal winter, we could have gone into the cannibal business if we had to, but we just barely scraped by without resorting to that. There were a few minor breaks, but it didn't seem like morale was constantly on a knife's edge, so I suspect we would have pulled through it with a bit of stress.

I found I had to be pro-active with the raids — for the wanders or the sappers, I had to get my guys with bolt-actions out in front sniping at them to whittle them down enough that I could take the rest of them on when they got to my defenses. I ended up building a kind of two-part killzone — like a big box of pillars to stand inside and shoot out of, and then when the raiders got closer, fall back behind a second layer of pillars. I was able to survive all the raids, but not easily; definitely some of my little guys lost digits (or, in one case, an ear) and a few times some of them were close to death when I rescued them.

I had one pet die to infection, and another infection that didn't kill anyone. But I also was basically out of medicine by the end of the first year (both herbal and regular). I used a little 2x1 hospital with sterile tiles for treating, and had two doctors (by the end) both at skill level 8. I haven't yet figured out the best way to balance and ration medicine use; I tend to over-use the good stuff to avoid infections, rather than holding back and just bringing it out when infection sets in. Live and learn, I guess.

I had no problem with the animals leaving when winter set in; the first of winter, everything that wasn't some sort of wild canine made a beeline for the edge of the map. I did find the warg/timberwolf attacks all winter long a bit frustrating, in part just because I had no real way to try to anticipate them. I'd have a colonist wandering out grabbing something that came in a drop pod, and all of the sudden he's getting attacked by a timberwolf. It's not clear how to best plan in advance for that sort of thing, when you have them roaming near a 'set-and-forget' job and they fade into the wilderness.

I took one of the quests, which was a stash. It was a 5-day journey, and I hadn't realized the way that food spoils in caravans now. I took 2 colonists, a little bit of herbal meds, and about 10 days worth of food. On the way over we were ambushed; my two guys took out the one pirate, but not after one of mine got shived. So a quick bit of tending and we were on our way again. There were no enemies at the stash itself. However, about one tile away from home my two guys collapsed with malnutrition (extreme). I made a second caravan with food and sent it out to rescue the first, and so everyone got home happily. But it looks like there's about zero point in caravans or quests until you have researched survival meals, unless the quest just happens to be extremely close or over very fast-traveling ground. I guess it would be nice if there was a way to create a little mini-map and do a bit of hunting and cooking. Or maybe I should have done that during my 12 hours (or however long it was) at the site before heading back home? Yeah, that's probably what I should have done.

All in all, I did feel like the pressure had been ramped up a bit; every raid was a "how am I going to deal with this one," rather than an "Oh, here we go again, let's turn on the turrets". And it felt like it was much slower-going gathering the basic resources — steel and raw food, and medicine. As a result, it felt like I really needed to use *all* the resources at my disposal — harvesting wild-growing things, using campfires to keep warm because I hadn't the resources to get space heaters all put in yet, and so on — and I really like this about this build!

[ReZpawner]

Totally off topic: Welcome to the forums, Strongndarm. Love your Rimworld Science series!

Also, Randy seems to be rather hostile, even at lower difficulties in this version. To the point that it was impossible to win. Might have something to do with my large fields of cokeleaves, but it still seemed a bit over the top with 2x2 raids with barely any time at all in between.

Oh, and a small annoyance: Pets  are automatically set to follow whoever trains them in combat. This makes very little sense if they haven't been trained to attack. I rarely ever use my pets for combat, so naturally I don't train them for it. Still they default to follow their handler both in and out of combat as soon as they start training.

[Bjorn Strongndarm]

Totally off topic: Welcome to the forums, Strongndarm. Love your Rimworld Science series!

Hey, thanks man! I really appreciate that. (Okay, I'll be good now and get myself back on topic.)

[Tynan]

Thanks for the detailed feedback Bjorn!

You talked about needing survival meals to send a caravan. Would pemmican have worked? If not, why not?

[khearn]

On the hunting complaints - any hunter can and will tell you, even if you line up a shot perfect on a grazing deer with no obstructions in the way, sometimes you miss. I've actually found it to be pretty refreshing to feel like an actual hunt, as opposed to the collection it had been. I've had plenty of success hunting with my pila on my tribal colony.

Yeah, but you shouldn't be pulling the trigger if you only have a <10% chance of hitting, which is what my hunters do every shot. They always stay at extreme range, which gives them abyssmal accuracy. Ok, maybe they aren't the most skilled shots in the galaxy, but that means they should get closer so they have a decent chance of hitting. Not stay at their weapon's maximum range and spend all day missing, or occaisionally wounding the animal so it suffers needlessly (Ok, so suffering isn't really a consideration in the game like it is in real life, but the wasted time sure is).

I think they stay at extreme range for safety, in case the prey turns manhunter, which isn't a factor for most prey in Real Life^TM. Which brings up the issue of having hunters able to carry melee weapons, but there's already a different thread for that, so I'll stop here.

I'd like some sort of control over how far away my hunters will shoot from. Maybe be able to set the minimum hit % they will be willing to take a shot at. So if I set it to 30%, they'll move closer until they can get that good of a shot.

[Bjorn Strongndarm]

You talked about needing survival meals to send a caravan. Would pemmican have worked? If not, why not?

Oh, good point. I had forgotten about pemmican when I said that. I hadn't researched pemmican yet, either, as I tend to have a blind spot about it, but that could have gotten me quest-ready more quickly.

Glancing at the stats it looks like pemmican would be better overall, since it's 10 work and .25/.25 nutrition ingredients for .8 nutrition output, vs. 24 work and .5/.5 for a .9 nutrition output. (Unless my math is bad, which is pretty likely.) Looks like I'll be rushing that next time I want to go adventuring.

[Bjorn Strongndarm]

Actually, it looks like the stats don't always agree. The info screen for pemmican on the ground says "12" for work-to-make, but in the details screen for the bill, it says "10".

[mega_newblar]

A couple thoughts.   

1) Contrary to other opinions, infections seem okay. They are more common but it feels like they are less deadly as long as you stay on top of them 24/7. The issue I seem to have is still running out of medicine. Especially in cold climates. A single raid can eat up a 30 stack of medicine if enough people are injured/infected. Growing healroot works, of course, but having a farm for healroot is tough early on especially with the increased growing times.

Perhaps a solution to this could be making caravans/traders carry more medicine for sale. If nearly every trader brought a 10 stack of medicine you would have the opportunity to stockpile in the peaceful times without giving the player anything for free. You'd still have to trade for everything you get.   

2) Sieges. If your first major event is a siege you are in huge trouble. Long range weapons are the solution, obviously, but if you don't have 2-3 rifles by the time of the first siege you can easily get wiped by this event. Especially if you lack a careful shooter.

For instance, I'm not sure if SMG range was changed, but when sallying out my only careful shooter rifleman was getting annihilated at range by a single SMG guy from the siege. I have no idea what I would do to change this, but I do know that I am scared of SMGs/M16's now more than ever, even at long range.   

3) In my second playthrough in the jungle I was tempted to use molotovs to burn down the forest in front of my sandbags so enemies can't use trees to hide. The rain feels like it kicks in so fast now that even the first trees I burn get extinguished before I clear anything. I know this is a lag reducing feature but I still feel like the rain comes way too early.   

I am on another playthrough right now and will post back with new thoughts.

[GiantSpaceHamster]

Thanks for the detailed feedback Bjorn!

You talked about needing survival meals to send a caravan. Would pemmican have worked? If not, why not?

Not the poster you were responding to directly, but in my limited A17 experience I only used pemmican and in a couple cases simple meals for caravans. The farthest I had to travel for a quest was 8-9 days and pemmican was fine for that trip. A couple quests were 2 days or less thanks to roads so for those I didn't even need pemmican.

There was one odd issue with the roads. I found one particular caravan going what appeared to be waaay out of the way, avoiding a road, to find the fastest path. It turned out that even though the average min temperature for a section of temperate forest was around 50F, the travel time through those tiles in winter was something like 11 hours with a road. The travel time through the arid shrubland adjacent to the forested region had a travel time of closer to 1-2 hours even in winter without roads. It was sufficient difference for my caravan to take a wide arc off the road when it entered the forest in order to go around it completely. The average temperature ranges across the forest and shrubland areas was not that different.

[Tynan]

Okay! New build is up now. I really hope to get more feedback from you all! As you can see from the changes, it continues to be useful. This is build 1542.

Please only post feedback on the build in this thread - open suggestions should go in the Suggestions forum; bugs should go in the Bugs forum.

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Fix: Extreme desert doesn't spawn any animals
Regularized item hitpoints. Set eggs to 30, drugs to 50,  general organic items to 60, weapons to 100, wood logs to 150, stone blocks to 200, etc.
MalnutritionSeverityPerDay 0.20 -> 0.17
Rebalanced some drug market values:
--Neutroamine 10 -> 6
--Beer 9 -> 12
--Go-Juice 45 -> 53
--Wake-up 24 -> 45
--Herbal medicine 12 -> 10
Penoxycyline production 3 neutroamine -> 2 neutroamine
Added new econ analysis tool for drug prices. It's rough.
Furniture/building sell price factor 100% -> 70%
Art sell price factor 115% -> 110%
Reduced pop gain intents from population a tad.
Adjusted some deterioration rates. Pemmican especially will last longer.
Fix: Herds gradually drift into the southwest corner (take 2).
Add Rand.PointOnDisc, which I keep needing for debug code and then not needing for production code.
Fix: When a patient is about to die due to blood loss then 2 float menu options appear: "tend to" and "treat".
GiveRandomSurgeryInjuries() now uses Rand.Element()
Fix 2989: Carried building materials show HP as -1/100
Show 5% coverage at the end if not running in the editor.
Optimized Medicine.GetMedicineCountToFullyHeal().
Clarified "failed to find exit spot for the caravan" message. Fix: RandomBestExitTileFrom() can cause errors and sometimes let you form a caravan even though it should be impossible.
Fix: Doors can be prison cells.
Fix: Tooltip on PawnCapacity lists all child parts of missing parts.
Fix: ThingOwner doesn't remove null items properly during loading.