Can I change population cap of an active Randy game to that of Cassandra?

Started by The Man with No Name, January 06, 2018, 11:12:05 PM

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The Man with No Name

I'm playing a Randy game and now have 20+ colonists. I think I prefer having less colonists to deal with and so would like to use the Cassandra critical population cap of 18, rather than Randy's 50. Can I do this with an active game?

The file that governs this is, I think, Storytellers.xml in RimWorld\Mods\Core\Defs\Storyteller.

1) Is it possible to edit files in the main Rimworld folders directly? Some games will only recognize changes if they are put in a specified mods folder, and not those that are made to core files.

2) If so, will changes to this file register in an active game that has already begun?

3) Is it simply a case of replacing this section of code from the Randy settings:

<populationIntentFromPopCurve>
<points>
<li>0, 8</li>
<li>1, 4</li>
<li>5, 1</li>
<li>9, 0.5</li>
<li>13, 0</li>
<li>50, -1</li>
</points>
</populationIntentFromPopCurve>


...with this from the Cassandra settings?


<populationIntentFromPopCurve>
<points>
<li>0, 8</li>
<li>1, 4</li>
<li>5, 1</li>
<li>9, 0.5</li>
<li>13, 0</li>
<li>18, -1</li>
</points>
</populationIntentFromPopCurve>


Thanks in advance.

jamaicancastle

1) I believe changes in the core files will not take effect, and anyway, it's bad practice for troubleshooting and mod compatibility among other reasons. Also your changes would get overwritten whenever the game updates. There are some tutorials in the Mods Help forum about how to get started modding if you want.

2) Yes, as long as the changes are to something that happens during the game (that is, not to world generation or initial pawn generation), it will take effect immediately.

3) That will change the population intent, which affects the odds of population-gaining events and actions. However, it doesn't actually cap your pawns, as such, it just slows the rate of getting new ones.

Shurp

Yeah, if you're tired of having too many pawns you'll have to get them killed in some fashion.  Or put them on a ship.  Or put them in a separate colony and abandon it.
If you give an annoying colonist a parka before banishing him to the ice sheet you'll only get a -3 penalty instead of -5.

And don't forget that the pirates chasing a refugee are often better recruits than the refugee is.

Hans Lemurson

Mental break: playing RimWorld
Hans Lemurson is hiding in his room playing computer games.
Final straw was: Overdue projects.

jamaicancastle

You could just abandon the extras, but I guess that's not !!Fun!! enough for the forums here.  ::)

Kirinya

Make a copy of your game folder to avoid updates by steam, and start the game from the copied folder.

Yes, you can make changes in the xml files, they are read at startup of the game and changes will take effect. This includes the files in the Core folder.

The Man with No Name

#6
Thanks for the replies.

There doesn't appear to be consensus on whether changes made to the Core folder will show up in game. I presume it's likely that they do, since the Core files folder is located within the Mods folder, where mods are placed. I'll assume this is the case, unless anyone states otherwise.

Since all that needs changing is one number (50 to 18), it's probably simpler for me to make direct changes to the Core folder, rather than creating a separate mod. I'll just remember to change it again if the game is updated before I finish my current playthrough.

EDIT: I made the change to the Storyteller file in the Mods>Core folder and also added some text to the Randy description to see if it would appear in my current game. It did, and there was no debugging log appearing, so hopefully it's all working okay.

The Man with No Name

#7
I'm now up to a population of 25, with another batch of prisoners coming through. I'm still getting "person fleeing from pirates" events bringing new colonists. Should I still be getting these free colonists once past the upper population cap of 18? I know that this is not a fixed cap, but I haven't really noticed any slowing in the rate of possible recruitment odds.


The Man with No Name

As a way to try lower the number of colonists even further, I've been thinking of modifying the population cap curve to make it even steeper. Here's Cassandra's population cap curve (and Randy is the same, except the final limiting modifier is at 50 colonists rather than 18).


<li>0, 8</li>
<li>1, 4</li>
<li>5, 1</li>
<li>9, 0.5</li>
<li>13, 0</li>
<li>18, -1</li>
</points>


Here's a modified steeper curve which would be interesting to try. I'm currently calling it Angus, after the cat in my current game.


<li>0, 8</li>
<li>1, 4</li>
<li>3, 1</li>
<li>5, 0.5</li>
<li>8, 0</li>
<li>13, -1</li>
</points>


Here's a comparison of Cassandra and Angus displayed on a graph. The curves are not dissimilar.



I think there are some auspicious signs with Angus:

- Since it gets harder at 3, the game is guiding you towards forming a Dynamic Duo.

- Since it gets harder at 5, the game is guiding you towards forming a Fab Four.

- Since it gets harder at 8, the game is guiding you towards forming a Magnificent Seven.

- Since it gets hardest at "unlucky" 13, the game is guiding you towards forming a Dirty Dozen.

The Man with No Name

#9
I've been experimenting with different numbers for both the population axis, such as trying critical caps of 18 and 50 colonists, and the modifier axis, such as changing the critical cap modifier from -1 to -3. I then checked the prisoner recruitment chance stat from the Numbers mod for the prisoners in my game and there was no change to the percentage value under any permutation.

So I'm not sure what to make of it. As I mentioned before, changing the description text of Randy in the Storytellers xml showed up in my game, which would suggest that changes to this file are being taken into account, but I also haven't noticed prisoner recruitment getting any harder than when I had only a handful of colonists.

Another thing I'd like to know is whether population cap is, in theory anyway, just something that just affects the chance of recruiting colonists, or whether the storyteller will also try and actively reduce the players' population, if over the population cap limit, by increasing the likelihood or intensity of raids and suchlike.

EDIT: I've now observed actual prisoner recruitment attempts in my game with various population cap settings and there is no change to the prisoner recruitment chance under any permutation.

Hans Lemurson

The prisoners hadn't already bottomed-out at 99% difficulty, had they?

As far as how pop limits affect the game, my understanding was that it would reduce or eliminate "New Pawn" events, but would not go out of its way to try to "cull your flock".  Then again, I haven't looked into the details as deeply as it seems like you are.
Mental break: playing RimWorld
Hans Lemurson is hiding in his room playing computer games.
Final straw was: Overdue projects.

The Man with No Name

Quote from: Hans Lemurson on January 10, 2018, 02:08:41 PM
The prisoners hadn't already bottomed-out at 99% difficulty, had they?
Nope, still getting prisoners with percentages of 70-80% recruitment chance in their prisoner tabs.

The Man with No Name

Having already decreased the population cap from Randy's 50 to Cassandra's 18, I'm now playing with Angus, who uses a critical population cap of 13. I now have 26 colonists, as well as five prisoners, at least two of whom look to be easily recruitable.

I've just got another "refugee chased by pirates" event, so now my previous two game events in a row have been "gain extra colonist" events.

So something isn't working right. I'm wondering whether it has something to do with multiple colonies, as I've read elsewhere that the population cap is done per colony. I have two resource-gathering colonies aside from my home base, which each contain a hut and no permanent residents.

Could it be that the game is effectively tripling my population cap now because I have three colonies?

Hans Lemurson

Now that's an interesting angle I'd forgotten to consider.  I think I remember seeing some topics asking whether multiple colonies affected population caps, but I don't remember the answer.
Mental break: playing RimWorld
Hans Lemurson is hiding in his room playing computer games.
Final straw was: Overdue projects.