Official: RimWorld Alpha 17 - On the Road released!

Started by Tynan, May 24, 2017, 01:57:32 PM

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tarator

#30
Okay, so you want me to leave the base and go on these quests, but I see some problems with that.

Should I bring 3 guys or 10? Some grade scale for the encounters would be helpful. Of course don't tell me the exact enemy force, but there must be some indication if it is a job for two naked guys with clubs or ten super soldiers. Mismatches are a huge waste of time. (Actually the loot may be a big clue to you, but you make the game. After 60 hours I still can't tell you the price of corn, much less the 500 variations of apparel).

Most importantly, if I gather a sizable force I'm leaving my colony extremely vulnerable. Raids are based on colony wealth (or so I hear) and that doesn't slump when people are away. And if my colony is so advanced that I can defend it with half my shooters, then at that point of the game there is no item a quest can offer that I need.

Jimyoda

Yes, people seem to keep repeating that wealth shoots up raid strength. Let's refer to this quote from the dev himself...
Quote from: Tynan on June 22, 2016, 12:01:32 AM
The idea that storytellers use only (or even primarily) wealth to determine how to scale threats is a myth.

The algorithm is quite a bit more complex than that and takes into account wealth, population, defensive strength, and several factors related to the time since the colony has taken damage, had people downed, or been at given population counts.

It would probably be a waste to spend a bunch of time trying to cheese wealth lower. Just enjoy the game.
Quote from: Rahjital on July 09, 2015, 03:09:55 PM
"I don't like that farmers chop people up."

Obviously she has already played Rimworld :P

Read the wiki. Edit the wiki. Let the wiki be your guide.
http://rimworldwiki.com/

nccvoyager

Dang it Tynan.
Now I have to choose between starting an A17 RimWorld colony, or finishing The Witcher 3 GOTY...

(Seriously though, A17. Whoo!)
I'm not at home yet, so I can't really let you know how it performs on a (very) out of date system, but if I'm still getting an average of 20FPS then I'll say y'all have done great work on keeping the game optimized.
Unfortunately, with my lack of disposable income, whether or not the game runs at a decent speed is my most pressing concern.
That being said, I am looking forward to wasting-I mean, investing, a great deal of time into digging a base worthy of a dwarven king before most or all of my colonists are brutally slaughtered by gigantic insects.
Once again.

..Maybe twice.

(Ramblings of a madman ahead. You have been warned.)
Mind you that I have no clue how this would be implemented, and I am sure that it would not be particularly easy to put in place, but I had been toying with mentioning something I had thought of a while back.
I remember playing a game around a decade back which had a rather interesting option for reducing the performance impact of the game on struggling machines; a toggle for path-finding quality.
The toggle switched between precise or simple path-finding.
If you (Tynan) or another team member wished to create more precise path-finding in the base game, but are concerned about the performance impact, (which I believe has been mentioned a few times,) implementing such a toggle would allow for more precise path-finding to be added but without excluding systems that would be unable to perform well with a more precise system.

Admittedly, I could see this possibly creating some issues with bugs cropping up with one path-finding system and not the other.

In any case, it is of course up to y'all to decide if this interests you or not.
(Not posting as a suggestion as-is because it's just the ramblings of a sleep-deprived madman at the moment.)

mrofa

Im kinda lost here, is there a reason why texture atlases ware changed in size ?
All i do is clutter all around.

makkenhoff

I love the roads, but I wish the colonists would use them more often. Works great on the worldmap for travel, but when the pawns have a path finding choice, they often end up taking unconventional routes that don't make use of my reasonably straight paths.

killermen962

"All pawns now have "head butt" attacks they can use if they're missing all other attacking body parts."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKhEw7nD9C4    ;D

MagnAxiom

Is there a way to get power lines across rivers/roads, etc?  Perhaps poles with aerial power lines?

DariusWolfe

#37
Quote from: tarator on May 25, 2017, 08:19:43 AM
Raids are based on colony wealth (or so I hear) and that doesn't slump when people are away. And if my colony is so advanced that I can defend it with half my shooters, then at that point of the game there is no item a quest can offer that I need.

Even if the belief that colony wealth plays a part in raid strength is a myth (which the quote below suggests it's not; It just doesn't play a primary role), the point is still largely valid. If you send a significant force out, you're still leaving your colony vulnerable to a force that may still be too much for the remnants to handle, especially considering you're probably sending some of your best fighters either as a defensive force, or an assault force. Automated defenses that would mitigate this, also according to the quote, may also be enough to keep the raid strength to levels that your defenders may not be sufficient; And a fully automated defense situation, like tarator suggests, likely means that you're not in much need of the resources you'll get from caravanning.

TL;DR: I think having some slightly better options to help figure out how many colonists to send on a raid is a great idea; I also would like, as I suggested over the "Cheapest ideas" thread, some way to flee ambushes/manhunter packs while out on a caravan; These two things would help mitigate allow us to assess and plan for the risks of caravanning/raiding considerably, I think.

TOWC

I noticed that bugs became pretty aggressive. It's like you shoot one of them and every single one of them will start chasing you through the whole map.

If you could easily cheese them in previous alphas, fighting with infestation now became so much harder, imho.

Penguinmanereikel

I knew that the new alpha would have had changes to the skill system and you couldn't just do a huge mining job with a weak miner, but now it's just ridiculous (Level 5 Mining takes more than day to mine out a 3x4 freezer). If I didn't find that empty inside the mountain when I was making my cave base, I don't think I'd have been able to carry on with this colony.

On a side note, the new alpha came the exact day I started my second colony since buying the game. Lol

Tynan

Quote from: mrofa on May 25, 2017, 10:31:52 AM
Im kinda lost here, is there a reason why texture atlases ware changed in size ?

To solve the bug where at certain zoom levels you could see thin black lines between wall tiles (due to mipmapping).
Tynan Sylvester - @TynanSylvester - Tynan's Blog

Ramsis

Can we get some cheers for Tynan for making the game a bit more difficult in the best of ways?

Ugh... I have SO MANY MESSES TO CLEAN UP. Oh also I slap people around who work on mods <3

"Back off man, I'm a scientist."
- Egon Stetmann


Awoo~

milon

Reminder:

Quote from: Tynan on May 24, 2017, 01:57:32 PM
However, this thread is really feedback and discussion-focused. Other specific kinds of comments should go in the appropriate forums:

Suggestions should go in the Suggestions forum.
Bug reports should go in the Bugs forum.
Support requests should go in the Support forum.

Thanks all!

I've split one post off into a new Suggestions thread.  More will likely follow as off-topic posts are made.  ;)


Also, 4 cheers for Tynan!  :D  Alpha 17 is looking great so far!

mrofa

Quote from: Tynan on May 25, 2017, 02:19:52 PM
Quote from: mrofa on May 25, 2017, 10:31:52 AM
Im kinda lost here, is there a reason why texture atlases ware changed in size ?

To solve the bug where at certain zoom levels you could see thin black lines between wall tiles (due to mipmapping).

Ok thanks for replay
All i do is clutter all around.

ReZpawner

Quote from: Ramsis on May 25, 2017, 02:29:35 PM
Can we get some cheers for Tynan for making the game a bit more difficult in the best of ways?

Why, do you think he feels insecure about making a best-selling game, being a published author and a millionaire? Not sure if a couple of huzza's from some random internet people is going to massively impact his day, but okay :P