Alpha 18 unstable test build is released

[rkade8583]

Is it just me or does it seem stupid that we have to research beds but we can, out of the box, build stoves and butcheries and sculpting stations, oh my?

Maybe offer less-effective butchery spots ala crafting spots and gate sculpting behind an "art" tech?

Also, I hereby request a way to start with zero tech. I play civ. I wanna mold some luddites.

[lauri7x3]

- Give us ways to treat Scars, and other diseases injuries, not to the point of just getting rid of them but making them more beareable.

Lucy for a chance to cure & painstopper otherwise not enough for you?

u can transplant bionic limbs and got spacetravel but can cure scares only with drugs??

[CannibarRechter]

>> Several medical mods allow you to cure scars with glitterworld medicine.
> and serveral mods allow u to play furries.. but mods should not be the benchmark in development here.

The medical mods that allow you to do this are more than two years old, some of them. Tynan is aware of them. I'll speculate that that he thinks the scars give the pawns character, and add to the story. If you want the capability, you can have it now. Sarcasm isn't a helpful or productive way to address someone who is attempting to offer you help.

[RazorHed]

Is it only possible then to try UA18 through steam?

[RemingtonRyder]

Is it only possible then to try UA18 through steam?

Only Steam.

[grrizo]

Is it just me or does it seem stupid that we have to research beds but we can, out of the box, build stoves and butcheries and sculpting stations, oh my?

Maybe offer less-effective butchery spots ala crafting spots and gate sculpting behind an "art" tech?

Also, I hereby request a way to start with zero tech. I play civ. I wanna mold some luddites.

Definetely.

[Third_Of_Five]

Is it just me or does it seem stupid that we have to research beds but we can, out of the box, build stoves and butcheries and sculpting stations, oh my?

Maybe offer less-effective butchery spots ala crafting spots and gate sculpting behind an "art" tech?

Also, I hereby request a way to start with zero tech. I play civ. I wanna mold some luddites.

This. Make butchering spots, and relegate other tasks to campfires or crafting spots.

[Anvil_Pants]

Zero-technology is technically impossible since you'd need ways to research and eat from the start. The mod Rue's Tribal Essentials shows the most plausible way to do butchering spots, research spots, etc.

A Luddite playthrough could be done with something like Pawns Are Capable, from the same author, where pawns are made to dislike tasks rather than refuse to do them. As Luddites, you'd need pawns to hate or refuse to research, so at minimum you'd need Prepare Carefully to force your starting pawn(s) into having that limitation.

From there it'd be up to you to follow your own rules, as in Fire & Ice.

[protobeard]

Just wrapped up a couple of a18 colonies (1704 - 1717). Impressions:

- Brain injury chance has been increased too much in my opinion -- I saw more colonists get brain injuries in one colony than I have in my ~700 previous hours of play (4 in my first colony, 1 almost immediately in my second). I'm fine with seeing this occur sometimes, but it seems tuned too high in a18.

- Limb loss seems well balanced with vanilla bionics now -- I was able to purchase replacement eyes/limbs for just about everything I lost in my large a18 colony (played about 4 years) in a very reasonable length of time. I may play without EPOE now

- Swamp biomes are great, though I was sad that no swamp specific animals were introduced. Very fun new biome, and I like that it presents different early game challenges than other biomes

- Tornados -- there's been a fair amount of discussion in this thread, so I don't want to beat a dead horse here. But it does seem like they happen too frequently, and (though this is probably just RNG), too frequently in the early game where they can really hurt.

- Cave bugs -- several early raids in my colony with caves were completely defeated by the bugs in a cave far away from my bases (and not on any path to get to my base). That is, several raiders spawned in, then ran directly away from my base to fight the bugs in a far away cave.

- Job queueing is amazing

- The new mental breaks generally seem fine, but may need some tweaking. I had one pawn throw a tantrum and completely destroy an excellent shield belt in three hits which I had just purchased (way before even a nearby pawn was able to get close). That was pretty painful and not fun.  When the tantrum selects an object to destroy that is more than a few spaces away it's more fun -- I might actually be able to arrest/beat down the pawn before something gets destroyed.

- The new inspirations/frenzies generally seem fine, but some tweaking might be nice. I had several recruit/surgery inspirations that I was unable to make use of, even with the large grace period. Perhaps pawns shouldn't get recruiting inspirations when there are no prisoners in the colony?

- Caravans -- I still think the risk/pain of caravans is not worth it. Yes, some of the rewards are now great, but I still found myself dismissing the caravan opportunities pretty much every time. The mechanics of caravan creation/management and uncertainty about things like "will my pawns actually treat each other during caravanning this time?" outweigh the rewards for me. In theory, I love caravans. In practice, I never use them, and the a18 rewards did not change that.

[FrodoOf9Fingers]

Do we know when Tynan likes to push new builds? The last build broke many mods...

Is there a way to go back to a different A18 build (not a17)?

[Crow_T]

I would love to have an option to do a clean slate start in terms of research (and everything else). In A17 I hacked the factiondefs file to make a new faction type with no research, and I could add what I wanted in the game setup.

A pirate start would be cool too, no debuffs for evil things.

Anyhow, thanks for the Linux fixes and the big release notes

[wyoian]

Do we know when Tynan likes to push new builds? The last build broke many mods...

Is there a way to go back to a different A18 build (not a17)?

Same I can't continue my game but I also cannot tell which mods are breaking it without turning each one on and off and it turns them ALL off every time it fails. :/

[RemingtonRyder]

Any mod which uses patching may not work with the current build.

My advice would be to just wait for the next build if you're playing with mods.

[ProjectXa3]

Looks great, Ty! Can't wait for the stable release!

[Tynan]

I just pushed a quick update (1719) which fixes the mod patching bug. No content or balance changes.

Thanks for the ongoing feedback everyone.