Rimworld: Another Excellent Game with the Ultimate Flaw.

[Ramsis]

Gee willikers I sure do love coming into threads and watching dumb folk fight because this forum is clearly a great place for slap fights.

So here's what I'm going to do, make sure you're paying attention kiddos because this is an official warning from an admin.

Any hate, aggression, spiteful statements, or overall harassing posts past this line below runs the risk of a cozy two week ban for breaking rules 1, 2, 3, or 5. We'll call it "the Badmin line of punishment!" You can talk smack about the game, you can express your concerns, but some of you have devolved the conversation to just a time wasting mass of dumb and quite a few of us are tired of it. Sorry folks, I'm a fun lovin' fella who wants to see constructive thoughts, if you few want to war take it to PMs.

___________________BADMIN LINE OF PUNISHMENT____________________

[Edmon]

I'm still interested in how the math allows movement optimization to do a < 1 year launch, even under theoretical perfect movement micromanagement.

The video I saw of a 5 day launch rush basically relies on a suicidal rush for the exact research required while digging for the resources needed to build the exact minimal spaceship. However, it was in a time before the AI core was required and getting that item is completely random, so in theory it could still be done in the same time but it would require the luck of getting a trader with it or a ship part drop.

The key takeaways were:
> To not bother with beds, food, or basically anything. You are relying on the rations you start with and the new colony optimism buff to succeed.
> You are only basically building 2 research benches while the 3rd man gathers the items you need for the adv. research benches and the ship. Basically by mining non-stop and sleeping at the cliff faces.
> Crash-landed is the setting and some very decent pawns were required (so lots of re-rolling, basically).

Failure to get the job done fast enough is almost certain death, as you are not preparing for the future at all.

You require some luck on finding veins of plastisteel and normal steel, near enough and in enough quantity.

It was really interesting to watch, I would recommend it. It has to be on youtube somewhere and I originally found it on this very forum.

As you know from my EUIV play through, I love to do the impossible in games by pushing the mechanics to the limits. Which is why I made this thread, I just think the importance of movement makes a lot of the strategy very simplistic and thus, disappointing.

[Hans Lemurson]

...
As you know from my EUIV play through, I love to do the impossible in games by pushing the mechanics to the limits. Which is why I made this thread, I just think the importance of movement makes a lot of the strategy very simplistic and thus, disappointing.

I know I have had the habit at times of trying to push games to the limit, to break them and achieve the impossible only to come up disappointed.  I found myself exploiting just a narrow wedge of the game's content for my advantages, and the whole exercise started to feel lost and hollow. 

I also tend to lose interest in a game when I feel I have "figured it out", that I know that I have won and all that's required is the busywork of carrying out a plan I already know will succeed.  Civ4 was the first game I got really good at, and I kept upping the difficulty more and more until I found myself looking at a starting location, seeing how near a neighbor was for my invasion, and deciding that either the game was "Impossible" or "Winnable and thus boring".  This sort of absolutist thinking and deciding that "early rushes determine everything" sort of poisoned my enjoyment of Civilization for a while.

Eventually I realized that a lot of my problem was not with the challenge itself, but the way I went about it.  When I raised the challenge level, I then responded by doubling-down on micromanagement to the point that it became a chore to play the game.  I'd be assured of victory, but I'd never truly WIN, because I always abandoned every game.

I never even contemplated another way of playing the game until I ran across an article on the Civfanatics forum: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/tmits-guide-to-speed-civving.301900/
This guy just played right through.  He played his games fast and he experienced the whole game, and then learned from them to play better next time.  His strategies were so different than mine, I was flabbergasted.  But I decided to try his techniques to just play a game quickly and to completion.

I failed. 
I failed utterly.  The siren call of micromanagement was too strong, and I got bogged down in optimizing details.  Pressing "end turn" before I was sure I felt ready just felt wrong.  Was it a failing on my part?  A lack of focus?  Or did we just get our fun from doing different things?   I have pondered this ever since.

Is there a point to this rambling story?  Maybe it is that there is always more to a game than what you see when you are looking only for the "one true path" to victory.  That just because you've found one good angle to approach a game at, doesn't mean that's everything the game has to offer.

Then again, I have repeated my pattern of "giving up halfway" over the years with every game I play.  Game after game I start with a new idea of how to go about things, only to abandon them once I have determined whether the strategy is viable or not.  Maybe I am not a person who should be giving advice on how to play games. 

But I do sympathize with your desire to seek out new challenge, and the frustration when you find a game lacking where you had hoped to find your satisfaction.

[A Friend]

I personally never found this to be a problem. I've been here since A7 and play and thrive on extreme often so saying "I'm just on easy mode" isn't gonna apply.

Layouts and movements don't have to be perfectly optimized to play the game without getting your teeth kicked in by the AI. You can place your stockpile at the north, south, east or west of your base or at the edge of the map and you'll be fine (the last one probably not for too long). Just because you "inefficiently" designed your base doesn't mean that you won't be able to last long enough to enjoy the game's features.

Your base can be incredibly inefficient and you will survive just fine as long as you've got the necessary resources to counter certain situations. The only thing that needs to be really optimized and efficient is your defenses which sadly results in the requirement of killbox strategies to survive. But that's due to the lack of raid and enemy variety rather than movement.

I share the same views with Hans, the moment I know I've won, there's nothing left to challenge me and all I've got to do is technically "win the game", that's when it starts getting boring and I promptly start over. Something which Rimworld sadly suffers from at some point, no matter how much I intentionally handicap myself.

[doomdrvk]

Movement minimizations centric designs are extremely optimal in Rimworld, as to the point of being all consuming. If optimization is your objective, this game is incredibly one-dimentional. unlike say, factorio, in which optimization can be a deep and massively complex thing.

Why exactly are you comparing Factorio, a game about automation and management to a game about building a colony, managing said colony and surviving. You're comparing humans with machines, humans are much more complex than a machine and most of the time humans are never optimal because of other needs and wants which is what Rimworld simulates.

The devs goal of Rimworld isn't to create a game based around optimization (like Factorio), its to create a compelling story. You can create your own goals but the game isn't intended to be played optimally and this is why this "flaw" is a flaw in your eyes.

[TheMeInTeam]

The video I saw of a 5 day launch rush basically relies on a suicidal rush for the exact research required while digging for the resources needed to build the exact minimal spaceship. However, it was in a time before the AI core was required and getting that item is completely random, so in theory it could still be done in the same time but it would require the luck of getting a trader with it or a ship part drop.

Interesting.  I might search for that video.  I don't think the same time is possible in B18, simply because you *can't* trade for advanced components, you need a ton of them, and they take 200 work.  This means that you'd need to roll much stronger crafting pawns and would still add nearly as much time on crafting components as you would for the required research.  The ship also requires significantly more resources than previous patches.

Of course one could still rely on new colony optimism, you'd probably just be stuck using some time to hunt or gather berries for food and running paste dispenser.

It might be easier to move to AI ship on a 30% world.

Based on what you described, even the old run likely required either playing a known seed or many restarts.  While steel/plasteel can gate you on such a short timeframe, uranium can be even worse (IE there can be literally none even with deep drilling, if you're unlucky, forcing trade that can take ages).

The devs goal of Rimworld isn't to create a game based around optimization (like Factorio), its to create a compelling story. You can create your own goals but the game isn't intended to be played optimally and this is why this "flaw" is a flaw in your eyes.

This game's development has taken pains to alter faulty balance propositions and make the player's interaction with the game more variable/interesting.  To say it's just about the story to the point of dismissing optimization discussion is unfair to Rimworld.

I failed utterly.  The siren call of micromanagement was too strong, and I got bogged down in optimizing details.  Pressing "end turn" before I was sure I felt ready just felt wrong.  Was it a failing on my part?  A lack of focus?  Or did we just get our fun from doing different things?   I have pondered this ever since.

Man, that brings back memories.  I wish Civ 6 had even half the UI of Civ 4.  Over the years I have picked up extra micromanagement, but am still fundamentally the same type of player I was 7-8 years ago.

That said, there's a price for it.  For unforgiving games like Civ 4 on deity, while I eventually gained the ability to beat deity sometimes I was never at the strength or consistency of top players like Rusten, Unconquered Sun, or ABigCivFan...and not close.  Despite that I knew more about AI tendencies and mechanics than some of these players off hand, they drastically outperformed me solely on micromanagement alone.

Rimworld isn't as unforgiving at extreme.  It would take a rare sequence for me to lose a colony when I'm being careful.  That said, I initially doubted the fast ship launch because I play tribal nearly exclusively, so things like deep drills (which you'd have to skip and get lucky) or the ship techs cost > 10k each to research, which is crushing to research speed until you train up skill.

Regardless of game, human beings don't compute to perfect micromanagement.  We have different tolerances before we just continue playing.  I can outperform many players who compute everything by using heuristics and adjustments + a little computation, but not the actual micro wizards who have enough knowledge to not fall behind there.

But even they stop before making the perfect micro decisions.  No matter how much time you spent on a turn in civ 4 back then, it's not like you were a chess computer evaluating half a million moves or more per turn.  It becomes a matter of what degree of mistake are you capable of perceiving, and accepting.

[doomdrvk]

This game's development has taken pains to alter faulty balance propositions and make the player's interaction with the game more variable/interesting.  To say it's just about the story to the point of dismissing optimization discussion is unfair to Rimworld.

I apologize for that quote hit save by accident. Anyway what I meant by that is that the focus is to create a compelling story and not so much to make it optimal or to allow more ways to optimize production. The original poster is disappointed that there are few ways to optimize your colonies production (aside from minimizing movement)  and he attempts to compare Rimworld to Factorio while both management games they are not the same thing and both have different goals in mind.

He views the game as a game about optimization (like factorio) when its main goal is telling a compelling story and because it does not fit his view he calls it a flaw. He's locked himself in a view which does not fit the intended goal of the game and wishes for the game to fit his view by suggesting ways to "fix" these "flaws".

[orty]

I haven't read every post in this thread because, well, I have to eat and sleep eventually. So maybe this point was already made somewhere.

The instant the map is created and generates more than a homogeneous and uninterrupted terrain, there is no single "optimal" solution.  Rocks will get in the way of your layouts, slower movement tiles will create different realities for better adjacencies, and resources are always distributed unevenly.

That is the essence of this game, and most others like it that include variable starting conditions.  Rimworld isn't colonists versus walk speed; it's colonists versus the environment.  If anyone wants to play for optimal speedruns, devmode the map flat and featureless and go at it. 

[Edmon]

He views the game as a game about optimization (like factorio) when its main goal is telling a compelling story and because it does not fit his view he calls it a flaw. He's locked himself in a view which does not fit the intended goal of the game and wishes for the game to fit his view by suggesting ways to "fix" these "flaws".

I have not said that the game is about optimization, I have said that if you want to optimize anything, minimizing movement is the only real dimension in which you will see benefit. It's too important, it's all consuming. There is no other, deeper or interesting strategy outside of the combat.

I do indeed see a game with so little depth as flawed. Of course it is. When your attractive, realistic room is outperformed by orders of magnitude by a closet with a bench in it, you start to doubt how much freedom you really have.

In a game that's meant to have freedom.

[Hans Lemurson]

Movement optimization I still think can give an interesting game, given how many things have to be juggled.

Your critique though is that there is only one meaningful dimension of optimization in the game.  What other avenues of focus would you like to see rewarded in a game?

[doomdrvk]

He views the game as a game about optimization (like factorio) when its main goal is telling a compelling story and because it does not fit his view he calls it a flaw. He's locked himself in a view which does not fit the intended goal of the game and wishes for the game to fit his view by suggesting ways to "fix" these "flaws".

I have not said that the game is about optimization, I have said that if you want to optimize anything, minimizing movement is the only real dimension in which you will see benefit. It's too important, it's all consuming. There is no other, deeper or interesting strategy outside of the combat.

I do indeed see a game with so little depth as flawed. Of course it is. When your attractive, realistic room is outperformed by orders of magnitude by a closet with a bench in it, you start to doubt how much freedom you really have.

In a game that's meant to have freedom.

Then why are you solely focusing on optimization if you don't believe the game is about optimization. The developers are focused on making a story as that's what the game is mainly about, but you insist the game which is not about production optimization is "flawed". And you say it has little depth because Rimworld has not "fixed" this "ultimate flaw".

You're criticizing a game about something its not meant to do in the first place.

[Edmon]

Then why are you solely focusing on optimization if you don't believe the game is about optimization. The developers are focused on making a story as that's what the game is mainly about, but you insist the game which is not about production optimization is "flawed". And you say it has little depth because Rimworld has not "fixed" this "ultimate flaw".

You're criticizing a game about something its not meant to do in the first place.

You MUST have a level of effective production of things to survive.

Your effective production level (of everything but some long term art and some weapons) is more about the amount pawns had to move to get things than anything else.

Unless you want your Rimworld stories to be ones of Pawns starving to death you will need to, more than anything else, optimize movement.

The harder the difficulty, the more you must optimize movement.

Not room design, production bonuses, lighting, heat, comfort, chairs, etc, etc. Those things could not even touch the surface of the effective production bonus you'll get from removing even a single tile of movement from a process.

I'm not sure how I can explain it any better.

[Edmon]

Movement optimization I still think can give an interesting game, given how many things have to be juggled.

Your critique though is that there is only one meaningful dimension of optimization in the game.  What other avenues of focus would you like to see rewarded in a game?

All of the below could be added or made meaningful compared to movement:
> Room Size [Bigger, Nicer = Production Bonus(es)]
> Dedicated Purpose of Room
> Room Lighting
> Temperature of Room
> Dedicated Room next to but separate from another Dedicated Room (Kitchen, Next to Dining Room for example).
> Attractiveness of Room.
> Quality of tools, benches, etc in the room.
> Skill of the Pawn using the room (This is rewarded in terms of quality of item for items that have quality but not for quantity of items).

Other ideas:
> Less waste or bonus production for high quality rooms
> Penalties for things being in rooms that would actively harm each other (I.E. food production in the same room as mining drills. Which would of course, contaminate food with dust).
> Pawns making things in stacks, rather than per item, for things typically mass produced.

Note:
Many would say that some of the above affects production because it can affect pawn mood. But as long as the pawn doesn't have a mental break, production is unaffected. So you really need only do the minimum that is required to keep mood above a break level.

[orty]

All of the below could be added or made meaningful compared to movement:
> Room Size [Bigger, Nicer = Production Bonus(es)]
> Dedicated Purpose of Room
> Room Lighting
> Temperature of Room
> Dedicated Room next to but separate from another Dedicated Room (Kitchen, Next to Dining Room for example).
> Attractiveness of Room.
> Quality of tools, benches, etc in the room.
> Skill of the Pawn using the room (This is rewarded in terms of quality of item for items that have quality but not for quantity of items).

Other ideas:
> Less waste or bonus production for high quality rooms
> Penalties for things being in rooms that would actively harm each other (I.E. food production in the same room as mining drills. Which would of course, contaminate food with dust).
> Pawns making things in stacks, rather than per item, for things typically mass produced.

Note:
Many would say that some of the above affects production because it can affect pawn mood. But as long as the pawn doesn't have a mental break, production is unaffected. So you really need only do the minimum that is required to keep mood above a break level.

Regardless of indirect effects on mood, many of these things you've mentioned are already part of the game:

> Larger room sizes effectively mean fewer doors per walk distance, which speeds up movement.
> Dedicated purpose of room is up to the player to furnish efficiently, and if laid out well movement will be optimized as a result (which is essentially the whole point of the OP).  Although, if optimization is the goal, why would you want to limit an entire room to only one function?  That's a big waste of space and resources.
> Light level directly affects movement speed.
> Temperature affects work speed at tables.
> Temperature will affect movement and work speed (manipulation) if a pawn goes hypothermic or heatstrokey.
> Pawns working in rooms with dedicated uses innately benefit in movement speed from adjacency of dedicated rooms because of their beneficial dependent functions.
> Attractiveness of a room can bump a pawn working there into Inspired Work Speed or Inspired Movement Speed.
> Dirt, blood, etc. in kitchens (which can come from buildings like butcher's tables) contributes to the chance of food poisoning, which directly affects movement and work speed.

Like a few people have said before, this thread doesn't acknowledge the effects that the many levels of built-in depth in the game have on movement and work speed (among others), instead offering only an increase in value of base movement speed as the solution to the "flaw".  The brilliance of this game is that these effects can be orchestrated by the player as described above, not clunkily prescribed ad hoc. 

EDIT: And to the footnote note, with the introduction of Inspirations in B18, mood is no longer something that has only to be avoided at the low end to stave off mental breaks, but there are significant benefits from pumping colonists' moods as high as possible.

[Edmon]

All of the below could be added or made meaningful compared to movement:
> Room Size [Bigger, Nicer = Production Bonus(es)]
> Dedicated Purpose of Room
> Room Lighting
> Temperature of Room
> Dedicated Room next to but separate from another Dedicated Room (Kitchen, Next to Dining Room for example).
> Attractiveness of Room.
> Quality of tools, benches, etc in the room.
> Skill of the Pawn using the room (This is rewarded in terms of quality of item for items that have quality but not for quantity of items).

Other ideas:
> Less waste or bonus production for high quality rooms
> Penalties for things being in rooms that would actively harm each other (I.E. food production in the same room as mining drills. Which would of course, contaminate food with dust).
> Pawns making things in stacks, rather than per item, for things typically mass produced.

Note:
Many would say that some of the above affects production because it can affect pawn mood. But as long as the pawn doesn't have a mental break, production is unaffected. So you really need only do the minimum that is required to keep mood above a break level.

Regardless of indirect effects on mood, many of these things you've mentioned are already part of the game:

> Larger room sizes effectively mean fewer doors per walk distance, which speeds up movement.
> Dedicated purpose of room is up to the player to furnish efficiently, and if laid out well movement will be optimized as a result (which is essentially the whole point of the OP).  Although, if optimization is the goal, why would you want to limit an entire room to only one function?  That's a big waste of space and resources.
> Light level directly affects movement speed.
> Temperature affects work speed at tables.
> Temperature will affect movement and work speed (manipulation) if a pawn goes hypothermic or heatstrokey.
> Pawns working in rooms with dedicated uses innately benefit in movement speed from adjacency of dedicated rooms because of their beneficial dependent functions.
> Attractiveness of a room can bump a pawn working there into Inspired Work Speed or Inspired Movement Speed.
> Dirt, blood, etc. in kitchens (which can come from buildings like butcher's tables) contributes to the chance of food poisoning, which directly affects movement and work speed.

Like a few people have said before, this thread doesn't acknowledge the effects that the many levels of built-in depth in the game have on movement and work speed (among others), instead offering only an increase in value of base movement speed as the solution to the "flaw".  The brilliance of this game is that these effects can be orchestrated by the player as described above, not clunkily prescribed ad hoc. 

EDIT: And to the footnote note, with the introduction of Inspirations in B18, mood is no longer something that has only to be avoided at the low end to stave off mental breaks, but there are significant benefits from pumping colonists' moods as high as possible.

I don't know how to explain it to you other than this.

You can make a "perfect room" with all the bonuses you mention and if it involves more than a few tiles of movement, it will be less effective at producing (for example food) than a closet where a pawn does not have to move at all. Plus the pawn that doesn't have to move will be gaining skill faster, compounding the issue for the pawn that has to move.

The only exception is obviously, something like a mental break that'd interrupt production. But if the pawn loves the task, then that is unlikely to ever happen anyway.

Many of the things you've mentioned may "speed up pawns" and thus make movement faster, but that doesn't have any where near the impact of not having to move at all in the first place.