Merging logs and planks

[Dr. Z]

I'd say that you'd need to decide how Metal as a resource should work in the game, and then base this choice off of that.

Metal could be devided in iron and steel, similar to logs and planks. And to build high tech buildings like solar panels you would need to craft something that may be referred to as "premium materials" or something like that, which need both iron and steel (still not very realistic but it goes in the right direction). For the setting of some stranded survivors solar pannels could only made realistic if they're either removed or very very very high tier late-game stuff, but they are not that usefull to justify that, so it's a bit of a pickle.

[Riithi]

Personally I like the planks, sawing just kinda feels at home in the setting of the game. As a side note, I don't really need different types of beds, one is enough.

To really answer any production questions we first need to think what the focus of our colonists should be between raids. When playing right now on normal difficulty my team usually just idle between raids, usually 2 are enough to feed the others.

I would be interested in exploration stuff, maybe having a friendly town in the corner of the map to visit. Or we could have more dynamic things like roving thieves you have to stop.

Another approach could be to go hardcore survival mode, so that the colonists spend most their time with food / firewood? production.
We could have things like seasons, herding livestock.

In general I feel that it's too easy to make a giant base right now.
But since colony wealth is tiedvto raid strength it doesnt make much sense to build a huge base, combine that with the fact that I have a huge problem getting more colonists, 99% of the raiders die after 50 days because of the better guns they get shot with.

[mrofa]

I would shot for more diffrent refining chains and material type building, it would give more variant to in general.
And refining i.e. logs to planks could mean that if you build a bed and wood logis give 10% to happines of that bed, refined version could just give a higher bonus like 15%. Its not a necessity to build a better bed but for min maxing certian aspects of colony would be cool, like in early stages you would try to build better beds for colonist with best shooting skill so they are more often rested when raids occur, or later stages when you upgrade rooms and working places of your crafters to sustain expenses on your colony automated defences ( crafting tons of bullets for turrets ).

[HalfBrother]

I'd rather have them merge, because converting them is pretty time-consuming, especially when the colonists are busy doing other things.

[FowlJ]

My ongoing thoughts on this are: Maybe it would be better to say that logs and planks are usable for almost all the same things, except the things are modified somehow. This becomes a "material system" where a bed can be made of tons of different things, each which modifies its stats somehow. This would also extend into making spruce beds, granite walls, basalt walls, oak log walls, oak plank walls, and tons of pretty dwarfy goodness.

I also like the fact that this is pretty ignorable for new players. My main concern with planks now is that they're such a burden at game start, but if we can have single items which are modified by their construction materials that might reduce the burden a lot because then you could to basically everything with logs and leave refined planks as a later-game, prettier, better material for when you've teched up instead of an immediate requirement at game start.

I really like the idea of doing it this way both for its effects on the game as it stands and the things it could allow later. +1 from me.

[Plunkett]

My big concern is inflating the number of objects. Now you're looking at:

Log wall
Wood wall
Metal wall
Stone wall

I am sure it has been said, so I am just re-iterating. I like the diverse choice of options as it really brings creativity to bases as you can go with different options of how to expand: focus on defences - go with metal walls or maybe expand quickly with wood whilst getting production up with metal.

I would like it to go further with wood as power, as an immediate backup, and more wooden objects.

[b0wd3n]

I somehow feel, that Tynan at this point don't feel alright about having logs and planks for some reason. I would love to have it, because I have an idea of this game and what it might could become. But Tynan, maybe you have to first do it how you feel right about it, merge them firstly together to go on in development and implement your ideas. And perhaps later on there is a better moment to have a somehow more complex "material system" or something like that.

So Tynan, do what you feel is right because I think RimWorld is still in an early development and there will be such huge things you're going to implement. I am waiting for it and I am glad to see what gorgeous things you're going to add.

[Untrustedlife]

I'm strongly considering wiping out the difference between these two resources and just using "wood" for everything.

What do you guys think?

I'm not sure I like this idea.


However, i trust that you Tynan, our illustrious leader will make this game the best you possibly can, do what you feel is right for the game and your vision.

[Utterbob]

My big concern is inflating the number of objects. Now you're looking at:....

I didn't mean to suggest that much duplication. Most things need 2-3 'tiers' at most, imo. For the beds, 2 would be enough... sleeping spot gives you an immediate solution but comes with the negative thought downside, a wood bed (or any early material) would be neutral and a late game bed that takes a bit of investment compared to the earlier one, would give a positive bonus. For things that don't have specific impacts on the colonists like that, though, it really only needs to be 1 item made of a material that allows it to be introduced at whatever point of the game seems to be appropriate.

One of the first things I looked at in A4 was wood floors to see if they had a nice bonus, that's another possible benefit for keeping these materials late game too.

All-in-all I think as long as long as each item has a unique place in the game then there aren't too many! When you start getting new items that come along all the time and give little to no benefit in use, then players are going to skip over things and they are a waste.

[OpposingForces]

I think keeping the two separate would be a good thing. As it is i'm still unsure of the whole magical metal alloy that not only can be come walls but also is copper like and is a good conductor for electricity. i like deep tech trees, which is why i don't really play vanilla minecraft anymore. i only really play it modded. too many games are getting simplified now days.

[Col_Jessep]

Am I the only one who barely uses wood early game? I usually look for a steam spot and build a power station and metal walls around it. It's just a small basic shelter for beds, a stove, a small pile of food. Once that works I decide if I have enough trees close by to start a wood economy. My first research is always stone walls though, simply because I want a perimeter that doesn't burn down.

I'm fine with refining logs to planks. Often it's a problem to find enough trees near my starting spot to really use a lot of wood and I try to get my early base running with the starting logs for beds, butcher table, wooden floor...

[Pulaskimask]

I think the main problem is that Rimworld lacks a real early game that makes use of logs, and just skips straight to make planks. Rimworld just doesn't feel very "survivally" at the start, and instead the beginning just feels like a tedious base-building exercise that you have to go through before you can start the "real" game. If you had a fog of war mechanic then players couldn't just pause the game at the very start and look for the ideal place for their base and start planning out their final bases before the colonists even land. I would like to see an early base begun at the start and then a latter base produced after you are more established and have explored the map more fully.

I would like stonecutting not having to be researched, electricity and metal put off, and the start basically requiring stone and wood, and there being usage/differentiation between stones, logs, planks, and stone tiles. You could spend them on things like:

1. Firepit: requires rocks to produce. Works like a cooking stove but less efficient, colonists bring logs and the food they want to cook to the fire pit, a cooking animation then plays where the logs are burned and the food is cooked. Since it is harder to cook on an open fire and you are more prone to burning food the fire would require more food to produce a meal from.

2. Stone oven: Requires stone tiles to build, uses less logs/food for cooking.

3. Wood walls: just get rid of them in favor of log walls. Keep wood more of a craft that is needed for hardwood floors, beds, tables, and other furniture.

4. Stone walls: stay the same, but without needing to research stonecutting these become a viable option in the early game and can be seen as an improvement to the wood walls but harder to build.

5. Stone floor: I envision this as being the default flooring material until all the furniture has been produced and players want to go with the nicer more aesthetic wood floors.

By using logs for firewood and walls I hope it can be seen as more of a distinctive resource which is used for crude/unrefined things, like cooking and construction, whereas the planks would be more important for furniture making. Having crafting be an important skill is nice. Perhaps metal could be replaced with ore and a stone furnace would have to be made to refine the ore into metal before you could switch to a metal/electricity economy. Whatever you do Rimwold's still in Alpha and now is certainly the time to be liberal with experimentation.

[Morrigi]

Personally, I'd prefer it if logs and planks stayed as two separate resources. It just makes sense that way.

[Plunkett]

Well for now looks like they are going to be merged - hopefully in the future when there can be a larger differentiation between the two planks and logs will be reintroduced.

June 7
For Alpha4f hotfix: Stone wall health raised from 400 to 650. Nerfed pila from 45 to 30 damage. Merged wood planks and logs, cutting the sawmills, until we have a system to handle this elegantly without creating excessive early-game blockages and near-duplicate constructions. Balance rework on Cassandra and Randy storytellers. Fixed animal insanity waves.

[Tynan]

Yeah, I've looked at it and basically some people like the simplicity of one resource, while others want the depth of several. I think both are correct. The reason I'm merging them is because the design isn't ready to smoothly handle such an increased number of resources without becoming clunky with duplicated structures, confusing interfaces and seemingly-redundant economic paths.

When, in future, we can write more code to handle things like being able to build one thing out of several optional resources, I think this will come back. But on review I think the design is a bit immature to be able to do this now.