Rimworld: Another Excellent Game with the Ultimate Flaw.

[Wanderer_joins]

^This

Cooking, crafting, cleaning, power production... are no real issues. You don't have to min max them to succeed at higher difficulties, just apply common sense.

The only issue at higher difficulties is how to deal with the threats, will your base be open/ closed and how much you will cheese the AI.

[Perq]

This can be solved. But yes, it is somewhat annoying.

I think the problem is in the fact that pawns do tasks one by one, therefore they only carry enough resources to complete it once. They are fully capable of carrying more, or setting things up so that they can do it more efficiently.
It is problem of AI, and I imagine at this stage it isn't worth making it super optimal.

An example of how problem could be fixed:
If pawn is going for a cooking job, and the first needs him to do 20 meals (to me the demand), instead of taking 10 raw food, he'll carry as much as possible, and then start doing his work. For example, 75. He will then make 7 meals, and only after he has finished doing all of 7, he will take them to the storage. If you happen to interrupt him, he will either continue, or any other pawn who comes nearby will continue.
There are, of course, many problems to solve with AI in order to achieve that.

That and I also agree that working in -5C should make cooking far slower. Like 70% slower.

[Predzxilla]

Building efficient things in an efficient way is one of the challenges is Rimworld, and I quite enjoy having to do it, it is just like in real life; you need to have a good road between a farm and store, for example. You also need to keep factories away from residential areas.

[Predzxilla]

This can be solved. But yes, it is somewhat annoying.

I think the problem is in the fact that pawns do tasks one by one, therefore they only carry enough resources to complete it once. They are fully capable of carrying more, or setting things up so that they can do it more efficiently.
It is problem of AI, and I imagine at this stage it isn't worth making it super optimal.

An example of how problem could be fixed:
If pawn is going for a cooking job, and the first needs him to do 20 meals (to me the demand), instead of taking 10 raw food, he'll carry as much as possible, and then start doing his work. For example, 75. He will then make 7 meals, and only after he has finished doing all of 7, he will take them to the storage. If you happen to interrupt him, he will either continue, or any other pawn who comes nearby will continue.
There are, of course, many problems to solve with AI in order to achieve that.

That and I also agree that working in -5C should make cooking far slower. Like 70% slower.

I do believe cooking in your freezer has been nerfed in a17 or b18 if I remember correctly.

[asanbr]

It is a sandbox base builder game. You do what you want. All I can say is they have a mod for that.

You don't just "do what you want" though do you? The need to optimise movement is too constraining for that.

At a small field base, the stockpile is off to the side somewhere out the way, in real life right? But in Rimworld, it's always, always, always in the dead centre of the base like some sort of demented courtyard. It has every building facing it like it's some sort of place of worship. At least until you have really effective systems and peons with individual stockpiling.

The importance of Movement is needlessly limiting.

Love this post  it describes most of my bases close enough.

It doesn't really work though. You need to put corpses somewhere else or the ugliness mood debuff goes too bad.

Combat has also destroyed my stockpiles too many times. Mortars is another threat. And so on. When my base expands, I tend to spread out different kinds of stockpiles in different areas, and put things like bionics and medicine spread out so that one mortar hit or fire cannot destroy too much value.

I think you have a point, but I don't agree that it ruins the game or is a fatal flaw.

[Bozobub]

Funny enough, I *never* have a central "courtyard".  Your "universal use case" is not universal, that simple; many user-posted bases similarly do NOT share your design choice.  So much for "always, always".

[Dargaron]

Likewise, my current theory is to have a base where the various storage rooms (usually one big "general storage" and a freezer) are to one side, the production rooms (stove/butchering compartments, possibly with a meals freezer attached, then a big workshop) are in the middle, and the living space (bedrooms + diner) is on the other side, with maybe a central corridor between the work and living area if I decide to double-up on bedrooms. Then I've got my enclosed windfarm (with either solar panels or secure growing space) just beyond the storage zone.

Having the workshop too close to the outside risks letting a sapper "accidentally" destroy my high-tech research bench or some such nonsense: I'd much rather he blow up some wood or food.

[b0rsuk]

The solution is, in many ways quite simple.

Slow down time and increase the time it takes to do everything by the same ratio. Then, perhaps, offer production bonuses for actually making nice rooms.

For example. If time was 4x slower in our kitchen example, then movement as a problem is 4x less important. However, it still takes the same amount of daytime to complete the cooking/butchering/etc as it did before, as these things have been made to take 4x longer in real time.

I don't think it fixes anything, it just makes the issue harder to notice.

In real life, people need rest and can't work forever. In Rimworld, they can. A pawn can spend his days stonecutting for a week. But professional athletes need a lot of rest. Rimworld has no muscle sores and overtraining. Implementing a similar mechanism would be realistic. Pawns couldn't perform hard work for days, they would need to switch jobs to something lighter like art or maybe plant work, recruitment, animal training or just plain rest. The problem is making an interface which allows automating this... or is it ? A pawn could automatically stop doing hard work and switch to lighter tasks in work priority tab if he gets 'muscle sores' status.

Honestly, I have gotten really bored of these types of games not because I don't love them, but because the Ultimate Problem means there is nothing interesting to solve in them design wise. Except perhaps how to design the defences. The production side of it is solved with one simple statement:

Which design involves the least movement.

Well put.

Additionally, Rimworld barely places any constraints on how bases can be built. I hear the new swamp terrain does that. And you have to hunt for gravel patches on ice sheet. But those are exceptions, not the rule. How about:

- unstable soil, okay to walk on but can't support buildings
- fishing ponds. They would be far between and would temporarily deplete when overused, so building a base around one wouldn't be much use.
- events that contaminate an area (not the whole map) for a long time so you have to move part of your base. These can be more interesting than global events like volcanic winter. In case of volcanic winter, there's nothing you can do and it usually doesn't affect player behavior.
- bring back pirate drop pods. They encouraged loose bases with separate houses, those EASILY defended against them (divide and conquer).
- some machines like geothermal generators could produce annoying ambient noise, negatively affecting nearby sleep and joy activities. Others could simply stink.
- fire that is actually scary. Rimworld currently has two situations: 1) You build with wood/steel in early game and you're very vulnerable to fires. 2) you start building with stone and you forget about fires. There's nothing in between. Stone is the most plentiful material, steel is needed for machines and there's no substitute you can use. Wood just falls apart too quickly.

[mangalores]

The OP seems to have found the core game design concept of base building games. They always boil down to optimized resource gathering, storage and production and they pretty much always have optimal base blueprints. If there is some movement aspect to executing commands then movement minimization will always be the primary optimization goal.

If you consider said design an ultimate flaw you should not like building games as virtually all of them have that. I wouldn't buy that Rimworld is particularly simplistic by comparison either.

It's a tad a complaint about the core gameplay loop of the game. Well, if you don't like that...

Otherwise the Early Access strategy with long continuous development after sale leads to engaged playerbase but said playerbase will sink hundreds of hours into a game over years so of course optimal strategies have been long figured out and are only slightly changed by every release change.

[TheMeInTeam]

Killboxing with turrets is the most efficient base defense but there are alternatives.  Polar bears can be very effective.

I continue to question this notion, as it's popular here and on reddit.  Somehow turret killboxes are "noob" or "make the game too easy" or other lines depending on who you ask.  However, the notion that this is "most efficient" is pretty hard to back.  The power, steel, component draw, and risk of solar flare all damage its consideration for top option.

It would still lead if there weren't other options, but considering that there *are* alternatives that utilize fewer resources by a wide margin while exposing pawns to similarly minimal risk, I can't accept the notion that turrets are the most efficient.

Same goes for OP's example due to food poisoning, it's often worth adding hauling cost in order to ensure workers like constructors don't take the food poisoning malus (essentially transferring work from weak pawns to skilled ones).  That said, he does have a point in that movement does not scale well to many tasks.  Cooking is an example, but construction, hauling jobs, food management, and more all do serve to create a micro sink/standardized optimization that doesn't really do much for the game as a whole.

I do think movement can and should be an important consideration, but would agree that it is a bit too dominant in Rimworld for several tasks, including ones crucial to survival.  It's not easily solved though; increasing movement speed relative to work speed means that you will need to wait much longer to progress in IRL terms.  You could have speeds up to 12, but then at 12 speed it would beat out human perception and force slower game progression speed from rote micromanagement requirements.  It also does alter the balance value of hauling and that would need some help somehow.

[Shurp]

There's a simple fix for this: change output results.

Nobody complains about movement being too important when tailoring parkas or crafting LMGs, because the time spent at work far exceeds the time walking around gathering materials.  Even with making bricks it's not too much of an issue.

It's simple enough to apply the same to food and drug manufacture.  Simply multiply the time and ingredients it takes to make them by 5, and simultaneously multiply the output by 5.  So your cook has to carry 50 units of food to the cook bench, spends a while there, and then pops out 5 meals.

There's probably a mod for this somewhere.

-------------------------[edit]------------

Hmmm, maybe this won't work so easily.  Increasing ingredients and product is easy.  But work is specified on the item itself.  If I specify the job output to be 5, is rimworld smart enough to multiply "<WorkToMake>" by 5 as well?

[TheMeInTeam]

I don't know about "simple", but I think you're on to something with that as something that could help.

[cyberian]

Imho this "ultimate flaw" is kind of like a flavor of a more basic realization. Any game that offers a certain amount of options, choices and freedoms and also is Single-player is ultimately usually easy to exploit and its scripted "AI" systems can be turned into a slave to the superior human mind in front of the machine. Does not really matter if the game is Civilization, Skyrim or EU4. Different for some simple "action rpg console games" and thelike where its mainly running from A to B and smashing orcs but even there its often the case just motoric/dexterity skills and practice of those plus memorizing levels and such make up more of the "challenge".

At that point you have to decide what you want to do:
- Download a different game that give you a new set of problems to figure out
- Play multiplayer (if the game has it)
- Find ways to enjoy a game other than problem solving and optimizing
- Restrict yourself by mods or voluntary challenges giving creating an additional problem to solve

For me even though I like complex games like Dwarf Fortress and HOI3 its not mainly about solving hard problems. I have plenty of those at work so games while I like a challenge and them not to be too stupid I still want to relax and enjoy.
If solving tough problems is the main motivator for you you might want to look into sites/games/books that offer interesting and really hard math based problems and riddles/puzzles there's enough material to keep you busy for a lifetime.

[Edmon]

Funny enough, I *never* have a central "courtyard".  Your "universal use case" is not universal, that simple; many user-posted bases similarly do NOT share your design choice.  So much for "always, always".

You have either never played the game, or only played the game on the lowest difficulties while deliberately having a rule about not building your stockpile in a central and accessible location. Or you are lying to try and be contrary.

I know on which of these possibilities I would place my money.

Once you get going, mini-stockpiles everywhere is a better design. But early on, ruthless difficulty demands a stockpile in an optimal position in the centre of your base, if you plan to survive for more than a few days anyway.

[dburgdorf]

I know on which of these possibilities I would place my money.

"I only care about being as efficient as possible, so obviously, anyone who claims to care about other aspects of game play is lying. I can't conceive of any other method than the one I use to solve the 'problem' I've described, so obviously, anyone who claims to use different methodologies in their games is lying. In short, I don't want a discussion. I just want others to agree that I'm right, and change the game to suit me."

Got it.