Unstable build feedback thread

[Broken Reality]

Storyteller: Cassandra
Difficulty: Merciless
Biome/hilliness: Temperate forest (30 days growing) flat
Commitment mode: No, don't want to lose my colony to save corruption
Current colony age (days): 7
Hours played in the last 2 days: 6
Complete mod list: Hugslib,  Rimfridge, Additional Lights, Numbers.

So new colony and I have had 2 gifts already from visitors and caravans (had one of each visit me in 7 days) and both left me a gift because I was "having a hard time". I'm not having a hard time Mr Random Lone Traveler who left me 51 plasteels. Nor am I having a hard time Mr Caravan I just bought 2 advanced components from you for about 600 silver so why do you think I need a 351 silver gift?

Yesterday on another colony at the start I was gifted 11 glitterworld meds and 351 silver again.

I'm not having a hard time. I have food, crops growing, store room, production and bedrooms.  These gifts are too much and unwanted. Firstly they can make the early game too easy (11 glitterworld meds means I am essentially safe from disease and infection even if I don't have a medic), secondly they add wealth to your colony early game. Now if I was actually having a hard time then maybe I could appreciate a gift especially if it was relevant to my situation.

Also can we get patch notes again? Hard to test things if you don't know what to test. I'm not going to test traps for example if I don't know something's changed as I rarely use them.

[Teleblaster18]

Storyteller: Cassandra Classic
Difficulty: Rough
Biome/hilliness:  Temperate Forest (Permanent Summer) - Flat
Commitment mode: No
Current colony age: 478 days
Hours played in the last 2 days: 20+
Complete mod list: None
v.1982


Game Notes:

-I had a rather unpleasant scenario last night fighting a Centipede that I still can't explain.  Here's the screenshot, and note the positions of the colonists Ed, Chris and Yates:


Only 1 colonist was within the maximum range of the Centipede's Heavy Charge Blaster, yet 3 colonists were hit by it.  2 of the 3 were in full Flak Armor (Pants/Vest/Jacket), with another wearing Masterwork Steel Plate Armor, and 2 of the 3 sustained a 60% injury.  If someone can reasonably explain how this happened, I'm all ears: my understanding is that if you're out of range, you're at a 0% chance of getting hit.  It left me having some concerns about the current state of combat mechanics.
 


Last night's Graphs:

[Madman666]

Weapons like miniguns and charge blaster that have forced miss radius actually can miss further than their maximum effective range. Charge blaster probably has forced miss radius of 2 tiles(?). It was shooting at tile 30 (where Ed was standing) but missed and those missed shots traveled futher hitting tiles 31 and 32 (numbers are purely for example). If something was occupying those two tiles - it has a massive chance to get hit with those missed projectiles. This is why you never want to clump up your people when fighting mechanoids and people with miniguns.

Actually scratch all of that, forced miss radius was deprecated it seems (at least its no longer mentioned in the info panel of those weapons, that used to have it). Just any weapon's missed shot can land on any random adjacent tile to its target. So centipede shot at Ed, missed him, the projectile landed a tile behind Ed. Your other guy was standing there so he get his deserved smack. Weapon's effective range only shows at which distance this weapon can aim. Projectiles from it can fly 1-2 tiles further, when they miss.

This is why you never want to clump up your people. Missed shots from any weapon against one pawn can easily hit another thats standing on adjacent tile.

[I ate without a table]

You asked for play stories, so here goes. I've been attempting the "Naked Brutality" scenario lately, and I thought I'd share a few of my stories thus far.

A quick preface: I have consider myself to be relatively experienced with Rimworld (I have around 260 hours in the game), and yet most of my colonies in this scenario have lasted no more than a few days. Despite this, I've been enjoying the Naked Brutality as much as if not more than the classic scenarios. I've found that the added challenge presented by starting with nothing makes the colonist traits, native resources, and events far more meaningful than in other scenarios, which helps to build a stronger story from the game. As I played, I found that my goal for the game shifted from one of "achieve a thriving colony" to "keep the colony alive as long as possible". By changed the way I played the game, I found that I was more invested in mastering this scenario (which I haven't yet come close to doing).

Here follows an account of my first four colonies. For all of the four colonies I used the following setup:
Storyteller: Cassandra
Difficulty: Medium
Seed: Random
Starting Location: Random
Initial Colonist: Random

Colony 1 (Arid Scrubland, Flat, lasted 3 days):
     First, there was Toto. Toto was a 19 year old manboy who was intelligent, but otherwise useless. Toto crash-landed in an arid scrubland and immediately started out harvesting cacti for wood, collecting berries and agave fruit from nearby bushes, and planting potatoes. He took up residence in an abandoned ruin, and successfully constructed a bed and fueled stove. Unfortunately, running about collecting berries all day gave Toto heatstroke and confined him to his bed. Over the course of the next day, Toto's heatstroke got worse, and he became malnourished as he was unable to safely exit his home. Finally, it was safe for Toto to leave his abode in search of agaves to eat - or so he thought. Then the rabbit came. Just as Toto left his home in search of food, a mad rabbit came out of nowhere and attacked. Toto fought the bunny valiantly, but lost. Toto was unable to stand after the rabbit attack, and ended up dying from a combination of heatstroke, starvation, and blood loss.

Colony 2 (Desert, Small Hills, lasted 2 days):
     Next, there was Maya. Unlike Toto, Maya was a generally competent individual who had the misfortune of landing in the desert. She spent her first day constructing a bed, taking residence in a ruin, and growing potatoes - just  like Toto. On her second day Maya became incredibly hungry, and with no plants to harvest her only food source was a nearby emu. She was not skilled enough to craft a bow, so instead Maya created a steel knife and attacked the unsuspecting emu. However, the emu proved to be a worthy adversary and downed Maya with two powerful strikes before escaping. Unable to stand, Maya eventually died of a combination of blood loss and malnutrition.

Colony 3 (Temperate Forest, lasted ~4 days)
     Third, there was Nerhesi. Nerhesi was a beautiful, gay, multi-talented ex-ace pilot, and at first he seemed to do better than his predecessors. He built a house, farm, and storage area without issue, and feasted on the plentiful berry bushes nearby. He killed a mad gazelle with his bare hands, and afterwards created a steel knife with which to fend off attackers. Sure enough, after a few days Nerhesi was attacked by a brute from a nearby pirate band. An intense knife fight ensued between the beautiful ex-pilot and his assailant, in which Nerhesi was downed. Unable to stand, Nerhesi was kidnapped by the pirate and never seen again.

Colony 4 (Boreal Forest, Small Hills, lasted 2 quadriums and 5 days)
     Then there was G. Right from the start, G was the best colonist one could hope for. He was tough, and was skilled with ranged weapons. He could craft, construct, mine, grow, and cook with the ability of a  capable amateur, and he was a professional medic. Somehow he had learned all of these skills from his previous job as a teacher. Upon landing on the rim world, G took a different approach than his predecessors. Instead of gathering food or building a home, he spent his entire first day mining steel and compacted machinery from a nearby mountain. On the second day, he built a windmill and an electric stove.  By the end of the second day, G was ravenously hungry and still lacked the impressive bedroom he had desired since the moment he landed. Therefore, on his way to a patch of berries which would undoubtedly satisfy his hunger, G decided to go into a sad wander. As G spent the next 24 hours milling about dejectedly in the rain, he became increasingly hungry, tired, and deprived of recreation.
     However, on the dawn of the third day, things began to change. G broke out of his sad wander, quickly devoured the entire patch of berry bushes, and built a house next to his windmill. A kind visitor emerged from a marsh and left a pair of pants on the ground for G to wear, before running off. Later, two alpacas appeared from the same marsh, and joined the colony willingly. The wonder of the day's events inspired G to shoot more accurately for the next 8 days. Over the course of the next two quadrics, things went well for G. A man named Santiago came to raid the colony, but G defended his abode bravely thanks to his inspired shooting. Santiago temporarily escaped death by setting G's potato farm on fire and distracting him, however Santiago died of blood loss minutes later in a nearby marsh. G survived the encounter relatively unscathed, and was able to build the bedroom he had long desired. He also built a freezer and a storage room, and harvested the patch of berries once more. An injured pawn appeared in an escape pod, but stood up and attempted to flee the map before G could capture him. The escaped pawn was later found dead in a marsh near Santiago, and G stole both of their clothes.
     Over the course of the next few days the colony was beset by two more raids and a mad muffalo, however G easily defended against his melee - dependent attackers with his shortbow. One of his assailants, a skilled bowman and medic named Haynes, G was able to capture. For the next few days as G hunted muffalo and expanded his home, Haynes remained prisoner in G's storage room until he could be recruited. However, one day in mid fall, Haynes decided he had had enough. He rushed for a spare shortbow and engaged in a close - range shootout with G in a desperate attempt to escape. It was on this fateful day that G's luck ran out. Haynes' arrow struck true, and pierced G in the head, damaging his brain. G fell on the floor, his consciousness fading, as Haynes stepped over his body and out the door to freedom. Unable to stand, G died of his wounds shortly thereafter. He never achieved his sole goal of owning an impressive bedroom.

In short:
Toto was killed by a bunny.
Maya was killed by an emu.
Nerhesi killed a gazelle with his bare hands, but was kidnapped by a man.
G killed one rabbit, an entire herd of muffalo, and three pirates before he took an arrow to the brain and died.

Things I learned:
Protect colonist heads, brains are important and easily damaged.
Berries are a fantastic food source during the warmer seasons.
A downed colonist is a dead colonist - always fight with ranged weapons.

Hope that was helpful!

[Teleblaster18]

Weapons like miniguns and charge blaster that have forced miss radius actually can miss further than their maximum effective range. Charge blaster probably has forced miss radius of 2 tiles(?). It was shooting at tile 30 (where Ed was standing) but missed and those missed shots traveled futher hitting tiles 31 and 32 (numbers are purely for example). If something was occupying those two tiles - it has a massive chance to get hit with those missed projectiles. This is why you never want to clump up your people when fighting mechanoids and people with miniguns.

Actually scratch all of that, forced miss radius was deprecated it seems (at least its no longer mentione in info panel of those weapons that used to have it). Just any weapon's missed shot can land on any random adjacent tile to its target. So centipede shot at Ed, missed him, the projectile landed a tile behind Ed. Your other guy was standing there so he get his deserved smack.

This is why you never want to clump up your people. Missed shots from any weapon against one pawn can easily hit another thats standing on adjacent tile.

I know full well that you don't want to mass your colonists against Miniguns/LMG's/Charge Blasters.  But you do want to line up when mass-firing against an approaching Scyther, which is exactly what was happening here.  The Mech to the NW wasn't being engaged...the dead Scyther to the SW was.  I was keeping an eye on what was moving in on me at the time, and believed that I knew that I was (for the moment) out of the Centipede's effective range.  Even at the very maximum range, which only one colonist was in, I'm surprised that a charge blaster shot inflicted a 60% wound.

So, in essence, the "forced miss" mechanic essentially caused the Charge Blaster shots to travel further than they are physically capable of travelling?


That's flat-out broken.  I wish there was a kinder way to phrase it.

[Madman666]

Nope, its not broken and this was in the game since forever. Any weapon can miss a tile further than its max effective range. And its logical - if a bullet misses you, its not going to just plop down on the ground because it reached its max range. It'll fly past you and hit something else. Your guy in this case. Max effective range doesn't mean that it can't fly further. It just means you can't take aim effectively past that distance is all.

[Greep]

Storyteller: Randy
Difficulty: Merciless
Biome/hilliness:  Sea Ice
Commitment mode: Yes
Current colony age: ~700 days
Hours played in the last 2 days: 12+
Complete mod list: None


3 more years.  Everyone is Jensen.  The jensen where you choose the right dialogue that is.  In total I've got about 50 bionics installed among 9 colonists.  Everyone has dual legs, everyone has a bionic heart and uses wake-up whenever they want.  Arms/eyes/etc are spread around.

With 20+ batteries in the main bank, Zzzzts start incinerating entire rooms.  However, even if chemfuel is cheap, it cuts into my profits, so I like my windmills.  I split my circuit in three:  turrets on a line that is 100% chemfuel always on, and my production in two circuits powered entirely by windmills.  Later, a fourth circuit is a hydroponics powered by chemfuel as I'm running out of space for windmills.

Doing a quick calculation, I find that my power armor is simply not worth it:  literally over 1/3 of my item wealth is from armor.  I have everyone who isn't in masterwork torch their excellent power armor (I'm sure some newbies cried reading this ).  This leaves a single "shielded heavy tank" in legendary armor that is used mostly as a distraction in raiding parties and to suicidally throw EMPs and dangerous mechanoid clumps.  Everyone who isn't a heavy tank gets the "ranger" assignment and simply gets a heavy fur park, cloth pants, and a flak vest. Flak * other than vest is godawful.

Drop pods have been starting to hit regularly.  So far no centipedes, so I just open the door and then follow me into some turrets and get vaporized.  In one case one of my rangers gets storytold by a lancer as I was careless: these guys aren't really supposed to see frontline action  Damned good colonist, too.  High intellectual constructor shooter.  I completely forget that I can just freeze her and hope for a serum, and torch her first.  Whoops.

I've been doing about 10 lumps a year now, each with a shield tank and 3 rangers.  These have varied pretty wildly in difficulty.  13 tribals completely surrounding you from all sides is the worst ambush.  Luckily I got out of there alive, but with 20 that could be fatal for all 4 raiders.  As my raid points increase, while previously I had done nothing but threat:none, I am considering doing everything but those. 

Notably, my one fear, that I will get raided during a lump/stash raid... It turns out this fear is misplaced:  As my wealth increases, a significant part of the raid points comes from colonists, so I literally ended up fighting 3 lancers when I got drop podded once.  It seems like anyone who wants to have an easy time launching the ship on merciless can just limit themselves to 4 colonists and spam turrets and spike traps.  But my goal is just to make the most obscenely rich sea ice fort in existence.

In 10 years I have yet to get a decent item stash opportunity.  My criteria for those are, since they're so dangerous, that I need to be able to get something good that I can't make or buy myself.  Orbital strikes and serums pretty much.

As my fort starts to get more heavily fortified, I can finally handle centipede clusters and let up on the gas on screwing with the raid point system.  Eventually a cluster of 8 comes along, and with some emp grenades and turrets they blow up before they can knock one out.  they're still pretty dangerous on sea ice though.  You just can't afford to lose that many buildings.

The massive spikes up and down in raid points is again me going lumping   There's a lot of these.

[attachment deleted due to age]

[erdrik]

...
So, in essence, the "forced miss" mechanic essentially caused the Charge Blaster shots to travel further than they are physically capable of travelling?


That's flat-out broken.

Im pretty sure this applies to any misses. Not just a "forced miss".
And frankly it is not broken. The idea that a miss can hit the ground behind the target is not "broken". The problem is that the description and stats don't describe or take into account the maximum collateral range.

It would be better if the range values were labeled something along the lines of "effective range" or that there was some kind of warning somewhere that mentions that misses can hit behind targets even at maximum range.

[Teleblaster18]

Nope, its not broken and this was in the game since forever. Any weapon can miss a tile further than its max effective range. And its logical - if a bullet misses you, its not going to just plop down on the ground because it reached its max range. It'll fly past you and hit something else. Your guy in this case. Max effective range doesn't mean that it can't fly further. It just means you can't take aim effectively past that distance is all.

Im pretty sure this applies to any misses. Not just a "forced miss".
And frankly it is not broken. The idea that a miss can hit the ground behind the target is not "broken". The problem is that the description and stats don't describe or take into account the maximum collateral range.

It would be better if the range values were labeled something along the lines of "effective range" or that there was some kind of warning somewhere that mentions that misses can hit behind targets even at maximum range.

Please direct me to the statistic which differentiates between "range", "effective range", or "collateral range".



Range indicates one thing only:  the maximum distance which that projectile can travel. 

The accuracy within that range is already broken down into 4 seperate categories: Close, Short, Medium, and Long.

There is no fifth category here, nor is one implied. 

Any game mechanic which allows a projectile to travel past it's set maximum range is broken.

[Madman666]

Inb4 Tynan renames "range" into "effective range", which if we follow your logic will mend this mechanic, to be not broken. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Teleblaster18]

Inb4 Tynan renames "range" into "effective range", which if we follow your logic will mend this mechanic, to be not broken. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

My logic? 

If a Short Range Ballistic Missile has a maximum range of 650 miles, this means something.

It means it cannot magically travel 700 miles.

I'm finding it hard to fathom how this is even an issue that's debatable.

[Madman666]

Well you said it yourself - "If a Short Range Ballistic Missile has a maximum range of 650 miles, this means something." If we remove the word "maximum" (which actually isn't used anywhere, its just "range" in the game), replace it with "effective" and leave all other values in place - it should all be fine and not broken. Because you will only have "effective range", while "maximum range" will remain unknown to you, justifying what happened to your guy, as he now was out of its effctive range, not maximum.

Give it up, its already a miracle, that we even see that uber-convenient "range-radius", when we select an enemy in the first place. At best you ll achieve, that descriptions on the "Range" weapon stat will be made more clear, which is fine by me.

[Teleblaster18]

Well you said it yourself - "If a Short Range Ballistic Missile has a maximum range of 650 miles, this means something." If we remove the word "maximum" (which actually isn't used anywhere, its just "range" in the game), replace it with "effective" and leave all other values in place - it should all be fine and not broken. Because you will only have "effective range", while "maximum range" will remain unknown to you, justifying what happened to your guy, as he now was out of its effctive range, not maximum.

I'm done arguing semantics. 

The only statistic provided here is "Range", which is clearly defined. This "Range" is broken out into four "effective" categories of accuracy, also clearly defined.  "Long" range covers the maximum distance of accuracy.  There IS no further statistical probability of getting hit beyond "Long". 

Long IS the maximum distance. 

2 of 3 pawns got hit beyond "Long" range.  That's broken.

[Madman666]

The only statistic provided here is "Range", which is clearly defined. This "Range" is broken out into four "effective" categories of accuracy, also clearly defined.  "Long" range covers the maximum distance of accuracy.  There IS no further statistical probability of getting hit beyond "Long". 

Long IS the maximum distance. 

2 of 3 pawns got hit beyond "Long" range.  That's broken.

Long range is defined in Accuracy (Long) as 40 tiles and more. Your people were closer than 40 tiles. They were hit not beyond long range.

[Goldenpotatoes]

I had a raider with no helmet get headshot by an uranium slug cannon for 23 damage, but the guy before with a flak vest took 75 damage to the torso and instantly died (obviously).

Is there some sort of grazing system or did this raider get extremely lucky with somehow not having their head evaporated by an uranium slug?