Unstable build feedback thread

[Franklin]

Can I request a tool to allow me to mine an entire node? Or make steel easier to see? As is, I'm having to dev-mode it to mine full nodes and, frankly, steel is way harder to see than it needs to be (especially around granite and sandstone at least for me. I have the same problem with Uranium and Marble.)

I don't much care for mods, but there's one mod I refuse to not play with and it's that Mine-it-All thing that lets you just select a whole vein and be done with it.

I'd love to see this simple tool get added to the base game. It's such a huge quality-of-life timesaver.

[Serina]

Created first masterwork item, Bluefur tribalwear, with lvl 10 in Crafting. If only I was as lucky when it comes to taming animals.

[Call me Arty]

Might I recommend the bascinet for a medieval helmet? https://i.ytimg.com/vi/JYXu8LGddWU/maxresdefault.jpg

Really? I was thinking something more Italian

There is only one correct answer. Deus Vult, my brothers!

In all honesty, a barbute (visorless helmet) might be the wisest choice. If we aren't getting anything on-par with the Brotherhood of Steel for our power armor, I doubt we'd get it for a medieval helmet. Besides, it's that much easier to identify your pawns from each other.

[Greep]

Yeeah 1.0!  Guess I can finally go back to modding and actually update them now that it's worth the effort xD

Decided to try a bit of 1.0.  Lots of nice improvements, although I'm not feeling very optimistic about a release any time soon since there's a whole lot that just feels very off. 

Tried a few games this is how a few of them went.

Settings:  Randy extreme, crashlanded.  NB looks a bit too hardcore and Rngy for me, although it looks interesting from a roleplaying perspective I guess, having a completely clean slate.

Game #1:  Went for a mountain turtle town strategy.  Ended up getting a beloved "area revealed" essentially making it a useless town now a target for infestations.  Reminded myself why I don't play that anymore, eventually quit because it wasn't fun. 

One amusing anecdote:  I ended up uncovering an ancient danger.  It was some mechanoids that don't attack the base and just loiter.  The battle music just played the entire game which was annoying.  When some siege dudes showed up, they just threw all their mortars onto the caskets, opening them up and killed the colonists inside.  They then went to the caskets to go attack them.  The mechanoids gave them a nice welcome.

Game #2:  Decided to try out the new autocannons, went in with a strategy of just beelining them.  They're terrible.  A turret and a goliath 500 steel 6 component autocannon... failed to kill a single person in a 5 person early game raid against pistols.  Having put everything into the strategy, it failed miserably. 

It looks like the intention is that these aren't really upgrades so much as turrets you put in back of your main line of turrets for a double amount of firepower.  They'd be pretty terrible at that too tbh.  I suggest either halving their cost, doubling their damage, or doubling their range, making them either super expensive sniper turrets or actually effective at their original goal.  In actual gameplay, turrets usually have a wall between them to bunch them up and prevent explosions, so I'm not sure how these special turrets would perform even as a backline of turrets, though.  If you spread out your turrets instead of block the back ones' LOS, you'll probably just end up with the same amount of firepower.

Game #3:  Decided to play a real game rather than a super cheesy one xD

Things go somewhat normal.  Ended up building on the side of a mountain.  Area had two chokes, so I spammed about 3000 steel worth of deadfall traps into both.  Researched mortars and built a couple of them, used rice to make chemfuel for warheads.  I wasn't going to bother with fighting now that the new armor system doesn't reduce damage.  Deflection is nice, but if one lucky pila is death, uh, no thanks.

First recruits:  Someone addicted to wake-up, which was convenient given the starting 10 drugs, so I kept her for temporary use.  Also, another all around decent grower.

Raids just ran into deadfalls, so that's still effective  

Got a quest to save a prisoner, was the wife of one of the recruits.  This turned out to be impossible at this stage of the game.  The husband gets -20 for dead wife and -18 for failed quest.  For 30 days.
that needs working on.

Immediately after that a toxic fallout hits at about day 30.  Since he and the junkie are just deadweight during the event, I banish them both.  Considered executing the husband since he's a frothing pile of depression that will just die anyways, but decided against it.

Both instantly die to my deadfall entrances.  Xom finds this hilarious.

Toxic fallout only lasted about a week, so looks like early fallouts are still not too bad, which is nice.  Another recruits chased by pirates comes along, raiders die to deadfalls again.

I ended up getting a bunch of research done during the toxic fallout and found some weird things.  Multi-anaylzer requires advanced components... but to research fabrication you need... multi-analyzer.  I ended up getting some through an exotic trader, but even towns do not have them nor do caravans or bulk trade ships.  Even then, they were 300 a pop.  This feels too RNGy to me and not at all newbie friendly.

A poison ship lands, and having nothing but deadfalls and a bunch of guys with no shooting, and only 3 people capale of manning mortars, I just let it sit there until a raider comes close.

Either cold snaps got super buffed or the map was just colder than expected, I think winter was only 12C, so I wasn't expecting this.  -20C instantly killed everyone except one recruit which had a parka before I could even throw up a heater when I realized what was going on. 

Decided to keep playing, but immediately after that a power failed occurred right next to some chemfuel, exploding the whole base.

Decided to punch the poison ship out of curiosity at this point.  Only 3 lancers which just died to traps xD

General comments on 1.0

There were lots of nice things.  Like the new art, better trade deals on world map.  A lot of cheesy tactics still work just fine, but ever since alpha 5 bullet sponges went bye bye you have to use some form of cheese anyways xD

Some things, like nerfing animal swarms, just weren't really necessary.  It's a fun tactic that is more talked about because it's amusing that it works as well as it does than it being actually useful, mostly by people who never actually tried it.  Unless you're a tropical tribal, there's much better options.  Fallout and volcanic winter usually means your army collapses, and either you make literally hundreds of boars, or you need like 5 doctors constantly healing them, and even then they turn into mush fast having maybe two or three limbs after a few months.  Nerfing boar hauling I get, but the whole animal upkeep just isn't needed imo.  So for tribals in a warm biome it was about a "7/8" and for everyone else it's about a "6", to use the ratings in your balance thread.  I don't feel like nerfing something that's only powerful in one very specific setting is really worth the effort.

Recreation tolerances are bit out of whack too.  This is something that I can deal with but newbies are going to be confused and annoyed imo.  I needed a mixture of chess, art, recreational drugs, and hoops just to get it down to 50% tolerance, which is pretty high.

Specifically, newbies will probably just have no idea why their dudes are getting depressed, as the tolerances aren't really conveyed very well, you have to know where to look to even find that info.  Iwas actually confused myself at first when I realized after 1 week that my tolerance for private recreation hit like 97% or something.

It was actually worse than being depressed, since my schedules was 4 hour joy, then anything, then 4 hour joy, they just spent all day going for walks and watching the clouds in a vain attempt to stave off depression.

[NagashUD]

Is it me or since the beginning of the 1.0 pawns always need to fulfill their joy meter; i mean they mainly spend their time to play horseshoes or talk at the table.. it been 5 days my pawns just playing, cook a meal or whatever then go back playing for 4 hours... this in a row and i have the bad feeling they didn't do anything really, that breaks the gameplay imo, sadly

( By the way the 'rest until healed' is not fixed yet )

There's a new recreation tolerance introduced in 1.0.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1422604646

Colonist schedules: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1422601348

The more resources your colony has, the more recreational variety your colonists require. I like this new system, personally.

Oh thanks for the explainations, i didn't pay attention to this detail !!

[Yoshida Keiji]

For tribal starts I consider a siege inside 1st game year to be the single most threatening raid type on extreme.  You're outnumbered, outgunned, and if raiders haven't turned up with a sniper yet, you have no realistic way to lift the siege without exposing multiple pawns to death on biomes that aren't animal-friendly.

LOL, I just outranged raiders with my Greatbows!

https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=41782.msg413130#msg413130

[TheMeInTeam]

It looks like 1.0 toned down the snipers.  In B18 standard raids would have 2-4 snipers often, and sieges often had that many as well.  Great bows don't outrange snipers.

But I got a siege in 1.0 and nobody in the 15 man siege had one (and I only had one dropped prior), it looks like they're a lot less prevalent now and that affects my grading on siege difficulty a lot in 1.0 if it's really reduced to this extent.  I'm also doing tribal/extreme and I didn't get touched by the siege after using some scavenged bolt actions.

Maybe sappers are hardest now?  They're all doable though.  In terms of tedium mechanoids >> everything though.  Multiple centipedes take a long time to put down still, though it's a lot better than initial 1.0 release.

[Rockchecker]

I started a new game to check out the latest updates and was reminded of something that's bugged me since it was introduced. The character creation screen has a "Team Skills" section that helpfully lists the highest value your colonists have for each skill EXCEPT animals, crafting, artistic, and social. Why leave those out?

[Tynan]

FYI Nothing changed about pawn movement interactions, it's been the same for years now (since we made it so pawns can't overlap in melee situations, to stop insane imba pile-ups).

It's just called Ultratech because that's the tech level; it doesn't necessarily come from a glitterworld. I've been trying to standardize things a bit towards the RW tech levels (Neolithic, medieval, industrial, spacer, ultratech, archotech).

New build is going up. Raw change list:

------

Fix: Stats window displays armor penetration even for weapons that don't interact with armor (e.g. EMP)
Rebalanced several weapons to increase damage per-shot (and thus armor rating) without changing DPS much: -Assault rifle -LMG -Minigun -Charge rifle
Adjusted mining speed vs walls.
Armor penetration stat now has an explanatory description when you select it in the stats page.
Bloodlust social fight chance factor 2x -> 4x.
Heart attack adjustments.
Remove some erroneous newlines in messages.
Crashlanded no longer starts with wake-up.
Rename SimpleCurve2D -> SimpleSurface.
Reduced soaking wet thought impact to -3. Slightly slowed down movement through water. Marsh now counts as a form of shallow water.
Changed steel graphics to be more visible.
Art cleanup: Ship parts.
Change some armor categories (mainly bomb blunt -> sharp)
Reduces armor penetration on some specific weapons.
Fix: Armor stats' post-process curves are tuned assuming 100% is perfect protection.
Fix 3444: Wide rivers can spawn with unsupported overhead mountains
Fix 3455: Extreme slowdown while right-click prioritize float menu is open
Implemented three-way roll armor system.
Improved art for dessicated animals somewhat.
Made special dessicated version of thin body type and applied it to female/thin bodies. This fixes a bug where clothed dessicated corpses that are thin or female draw the skeleton past the edge of the clothes. Also refactored and simplified body graphic loading code a bit and adjusted head stump graphics.
Fix: Human skin shader is applied to dessicated skull, making it reddish.
Improved art for dessicated humans.
Transport pods now write their contents on the inspect pane.
Tightened up meal graphics.
Changed letter dismissal option text from "OK" to "dismiss". Thanks, Apple human interface guidelines.
Inspirations are now associated with skills and are more likely if a pawn has passions in those skills. Reduced inspiration skill level requirements.
Non-tribal colonies start with nutrient paste researched. (this is so tribals don't get it automatically as well).
Revert "Nutrient paste dispenser no longer requires research."
Brawlers can no longer get shooting inspirations.
Animal infection chance factor 0.20 -> 0.10.
Watermill generator now requires heavy terrain, so it can't be built on bridges.
Power armor research cost 1600 -> 3000.

[Greep]

It looks like 1.0 toned down the snipers.  In B18 standard raids would have 2-4 snipers often, and sieges often had that many as well.  Great bows don't outrange snipers.

But I got a siege in 1.0 and nobody in the 15 man siege had one (and I only had one dropped prior), it looks like they're a lot less prevalent now and that affects my grading on siege difficulty a lot in 1.0 if it's really reduced to this extent.  I'm also doing tribal/extreme and I didn't get touched by the siege after using some scavenged bolt actions.

Maybe sappers are hardest now?  They're all doable though.  In terms of tedium mechanoids >> everything though.  Multiple centipedes take a long time to put down still, though it's a lot better than initial 1.0 release.

This is probably a good thing TBH.  It used to be kind of pointless trying to research good gear fast when it was more likely that you could get a psychic lance to use on an enemy sniper first.

[NiftyAxolotl]

1.0 seems to have changed animal vision range for food.  In the winter, this lets every squirrel, rat, and muffalo beeline across the map, through player defenses, and attempt to eat simple meals.

On reflection I'm thinking this is probably not ideal.  While it can be a mild nuisance in some situations, you can just shut the door for those.  In the vast majority of cases, animals congregating into base to this extent makes it open season on very time-efficient draft hunting, complete with access to doors and pathing manipulation to make the odd revenge less threatening.

I left kibble outside for my muffalos in winter, and exactly as you say, every rodent across the map went right for it. It was great. I just had my best melee colonist club them all to death.

This was silly and unrealistic, but I don't see why baited traps shouldn't be a thing.

[TheMeInTeam]

FYI Nothing changed about pawn movement interactions, it's been the same for years now (since we made it so pawns can't overlap in melee situations, to stop insane imba pile-ups).

Maybe nothing *intentionally* changed, but the difference between B18 and 1.0 is not subtle.  It's not a "oh they might be moving kind of differently", it's "pawns are literally doing things that never happened one time in hundreds of hours of play on the previous build". 

- You can right click a group of 6 pawns and have them bounce into > 3x3 square different from the circles drawn.  If this ever happened in B18, it was near 0%.  I have footage of it happening multiple times in one bout of draft hunting in 1.0.
- 1.0 absolutely introduced pawns blocking other pawns from pathing through, another 0% incidence in B18.
- This cuts both ways.  Load up a B18 vs 1.0 build where raiders or manhunter animals are all trying to beat on one door in a 1 wide corridor.  In B18, raiders/animals could stack as many as 6+ bodies on a tile and all melee the door.  Now, at most one can hit the door as the other one moves away, no possibility for 3 or more attacking from one tile whatsoever.
- Diagonal blocking wasn't a thing in B18.  It is in 1.0.  I used this as part of door micro in both builds extensively.  It's definitely different.

That's not to say the 1.0 concept is worse per se', but there's no question it's different.  Whatever the rules are, it's just nice if they're consistent with the information the game causes players to anticipate.  I would like to see less collision overrides/canceling destination spot reservation though (IE where circles show up = where the pawn stops eventually stops every time).

This is probably a good thing TBH.  It used to be kind of pointless trying to research good gear fast when it was more likely that you could get a psychic lance to use on an enemy sniper first.

On balance I agree.  It's just that it changes my opinion of what is "hardest raid type" since you're not nearly guaranteed to see 2-4 snipers return fire any time you contest an early-ish sieges before having mortars, and player himself isn't running 6 + normal quality or better snipers at a whim.  I like 1.0's gun progression a little better, though I'm not particular (whatever raids you, eventually this is what you have too).

This was silly and unrealistic, but I don't see why baited traps shouldn't be a thing.

Bait seems reasonable, but maybe not baiting 2/3 of the fauna on the map into an open door freezer through 4 other open doors .  I'm not sure what parameters would work to constrain this somewhat so the player has to actually move a little to get food in the winter from hunting.

[Tynan]

I'll have to look into the pawn movement details. Perhaps we fixed a bug or changed something that had an effect. You're describing pawns stacking up in melee in B18, which would be a bug, so if we did fix that it could have had some other effects as well.

Just as a general note, it's a lot more meaningful to try to evaluate the game as it exists, perhaps in comparison with other games, but not so much in comparison with a previous version. A lot of things can really seem more important or impactful than they are when comparing to how things worked before; I don't want all the oxygen in these discussions to be sucked up by talk about neutral changes from B18. Over time, the B18 comparison will become meaningless and the game will just exist .

After all does anyone care to compare B18 to A17 any more? No, because it's forgotten and irrelevant. What's going to matter is what sticks out in an absolute sense, not what sticks out in comparison with B18. So I'm trying to focus on that.

[TheMeInTeam]

Fair enough.  I wouldn't have brought up B18 to quite such an extent, except to note that something pretty significant changed in movement in contrast to what you've stated.  Unit stacking to egregious levels was still a thing before 1.0 (I could get 5-6 on one tile too), so 1.0 is likely closer to the intended functionality.

For 1.0 specific concerns I'd emphasize 3 things:

- Inconsistency with drawn circles vs where pawns actually stand while drafted once they stop moving (most prevalent when right clicking 5+ pawns)
- Inconsistency on when diagonal movement between own-faction pawns is fast vs requires a delay or movement to a side
- Whether or not own-faction pawns blocking others outright is intended.  Example: 3 pawns standing still block a door and you order a 4th through.  I have been allowed to pass through those pawns without them moving in 1.0, only to be unable to return to the spot the 4th pawn started...a one way trip with no other factors.  I'm not sure which outcome is intended, but it's probably not "both" .

I wish I could give a detailed description of what orders allows pass through vs not but I haven't pinned down a way to do it consistently.

[Ambaire]

Why did the difficulty names get changed? The system in .18 and previous was fun and unique.



Now it gets changed to this boring thing?



Please consider reverting this change. It wasn't needed...

edit: at the very least, revert it on the English versions. I understand that stuff may not translate well, but that's no reason to change the untranslated version.