Alpha 17 is on public unstable branch

[Tekuki]

The far away scanner thingy is so, so, SO freaking useless... 30 days to scan, consuming power non stop to find a single chunk of resources far far away from the colony... common! if you want more resources a temporary mining colony is way more efficient than that. What advantages has that scanner to a mining colony? Sry i don't get it.

Well I guess it good for me cause it a easier way of getting Jade and gold since they are super rare, get like 300-400 gold/Jade per place and most of the time (for me) it unguarded so safe traveling

[oddblade]

I don't think I am understanding the new floor choices. Flagstone cost the same as tile but offers no beauty, no speed increase for pawns compared to tile, yields no resources when dug up but tile does give resources back, and the only benefit is it is faster to put down. Shouldn't flagstone floor be cheaper in resources to place than tile or maybe make pawns move faster than tile does? At this point I don't see why I would chose tile except that I like the way it looks. In its other attributes it is not better than tile.

[Wanderer_joins]

Mid-game of my desert colony ( cassandra extreme, permadeath) : http://imgur.com/a/PNSzM

*raids:
tribal raids are no longer the swarm of bees they used to be, less a pain to deal with, but pirates are more dangerous
i had very few mech raids

*crops:
blight being rarer, corn is definitely doable, i have not crunched the numbers, but like to keep growing rice to train growers

*manhunter packs:
definitely tuned down, they seem far less numerous but i guess they were free food anyway

*item stash:
they worth it, neurotrainers > gold > weapons > gear
even guarded two pawns can deal with them

*travelling:
trade caravans are almost mandatory if you want to buy bionic parts without being ripped, they are rare and you've to look for them in different faction bases

*ambushes:
really easy to deal with if you're not reeling from a raid

*economy:
i can barely buy bionic parts i need 4 years in, so mid game is more challenging, crop is limited on desert but i didn't focus on crafting, drugs or sculptures either

*outpost:
didn't raid one yet, i was raided while a few pawns were out in a caravan and had one or two close calls. but with the population growing i'm getting to the point a small squad could be detached to an outpost. though that would really be for fun because the megascreen tv isn't worth the danger

[Paultergeist]

Is it a BUG or am I missing something? Sculptures does not add up impressiveness to areas where they are built? I.E. If you build legendary sculpture with 1000 beauty to the area, the impressiveness of relatively small area almost does not change.

[JimmyAgnt007]

Is it a BUG or am I missing something? Sculptures does not add up impressiveness to areas where they are built? I.E. If you build legendary sculpture with 1000 beauty to the area, the impressiveness of relatively small area almost does not change.

Ive had an issue like this in A16, 2 legendary pieces helped, but a 3rd actually lowered the rating because the space of the room was reduced by its instillation.  It makes a bit of sense that a small room not be driven into a super high rating by filling it with pretty things.  Havent really gotten into the math though.  I do not think its a bug though.

[wyoian]

I know its probably a bit late, but I'm seeing others mention it on reddit but not much here. I'm finding infestations to be extremely hard to deal with currently. First of all, when they agro, they seem to stay agro-ed as long as there is any furniture within a rather large range even through walls/doors. They also seem to adapt the sapper pathfinding when agro-ed. They choose a wall to attack that is the shortest way into your base, which often means that you get a deathstack of insects all attacking one wall after the first wall gets destroyed as it is now the shortest path. I had a long strip mine set up with doors on each strip, a large burn section ready to ignite after deconstruction of doors leading to hives. What ends up happening is that after the heat gets past 300 F, all the bugs group on one tile and mine into my base. Even around year 1 this is too many to compete with a double bionic repairman with granite walls. I also tried kiting down my 3 wide hallways, but they tended to just go for my rooms and destroy tables/art instead of hunting my colonists after i went behind doors. This forced me to enter into my 11x11 by rooms with them which is not long enough for kiting and gunfire. Heres my colony for reference of how i set up the mines. Left strip was an attempt to cool them down to destroy hives, but haven't tried using it yet .

[mega_newblar]

Cassandra | Intense

-I find it takes a very long time to get my fourth colonist, three games in a row. I've gone a year or more without my fourth colonist in the first playthrough.

-I have not taken a single prisoner in any playthrough. I don't know why, but I haven't.

-If the first visitors/caravans do not want to trade it can make the game very difficult

-I find I do not trade nearly as much as I did in alpha 16

-Getting the initial 1100 silver to trade with is pretty difficult if you're struggling already to survive. I've had situations where I have a ton of stuff to trade but end up starving anyways because I can't afford to request a caravan. Sometimes I even have a stockpile of gold but I cannot trade because they only take silver.

-Cannibalism seems to cause a mental-break domino effect which makes sense, except that even after beating the mentally broken colonist into submission, he goes right back into a mental break the second he can walk again. I eventually got out of the spiral but it handicapped me for damn near a year

-Mechanoid raids seem really weak and too easy to deal with 

-Turret range seems less than alpha 16. Enemies regularly stay at a distance and snipe at the turrets. Not saying its good or bad, but I do notice mass turrets are a LOT weaker than they were in alpha 16 (IMO)

-Raids with humans are overall more satisfying and more difficult now. I like it better.

-Colonists do not seem to automatically wear parkas, even in -30F temperatures. They will stick to synthread coats. Kind of annoying to micromanage that all the time. They'll get to their mining spot, hit the rocks once, and then run back to base because hypothermia. Meanwhile I have 10 (admittedly shitty quality) parkas in my stockpiles not being used

[Joel1]

Raids - Human raids seem a lot better/improved now, pirates and outlanders don't just rush into kill boxes. Tribes still rush into kill boxes (making them easy to deal with still).

Manhunters - Seem easier to deal with now (don't know if this was changed in A17, but I personally dislike it if this was tweaked).

Infections - I completely forgot infections existed in A16, they seem to be a threat now.

Economy - Has been improved immensely.

Flagstone flooring might be bugged, I don't see any benefits in using them over stone floorings.

[Tynan]

Just to explain a bit, the main reason flagstone is the way it is is because we needed something for roads and I didn't want to incentivize players to strip up the road every time.

[YokoZar]

I think flagstone works ok outdoors instead of quick concrete if you're looking to save steel when laying walkways or making a firebreak.

[Nainara]

I really like the improvement to mortar accuracy. Their effectiveness makes the resource trade-off worthwhile against dense raid groups, but not overwhelming. It seems like they can bring a strong late-game defensive advantage to plains situated colonies.

[faltonico]

I know its probably a bit late,
-snip-

I noticed that too, they chase you down now till they get you and go berserk if you destroy their hives.
But I don't really care i just disable that shitty event anyway.

[mega_newblar]

Manhunters - Seem easier to deal with now (don't know if this was changed in A17, but I personally dislike it if this was tweaked).

Forgot to mention this as well. Manhunters seem a lot easier to deal with. I had two megasloths in one manhunter pack... pretty much free food + leather. Cassandra | Intense

[DankStone]

Just started a new colony today, and for some reason mad animals just appear in my defined base. Im just off center of the largest map available with never any creatures inside my walls. The event will pop up pointing me to the edge of the map, I go to look, and all of the sudden 4 boomrats are attacking my colonists safely inside. The lone one is still making its way over from the edge though. This isnt the first time it has happened in this session, but before this last time I just wasnt sure.

[Rah]

For the people who have been testing A17 on the harder difficulties, especially with Cassandra; How much plasteel are you getting compared to A16? Are the mech raids/poision ships fewer and far between, or about the same?