Unstable build feedback thread

[Golden]

I read the updates that mentioned changes to plant growth.  I've been playing in temperate forest in mountains with a year-round growing period and I absolutely HATE the bare ground everywhere.  It should be rare to see bare dirt without some vegetation in this biome.  And it never refills the map, not even close.  It looks hideous.  Please fix this.

I know there might be some balance issues with feeding herbivores if the map is full of grass, but I think it would be worth it.  Growing hay just isn't that hard and having lots of grass isn't going to change anything at all as far as I can tell.  The predators make it more effective to put your colony's herds inside walls anyway.  So what if some don't grow huge fields of haygrass.  It just won't change enough to make it worth the ugliness in my opinion.  And if someone is playing on a biome without longer growing periods, then it would have less effect.

Animals just don't eat the landscape down to the dirt.  And yes, I know that this game isn't about being totally real-life accurate.  But the visuals are important, at least to me.

[Ilya]

I read the updates that mentioned changes to plant growth.  I've been playing in temperate forest in mountains with a year-round growing period and I absolutely HATE the bare ground everywhere.  It should be rare to see bare dirt without some vegetation in this biome.  And it never refills the map, not even close.  It looks hideous.  Please fix this.

I know there might be some balance issues with feeding herbivores if the map is full of grass, but I think it would be worth it.  Growing hay just isn't that hard and having lots of grass isn't going to change anything at all as far as I can tell.  The predators make it more effective to put your colony's herds inside walls anyway.  So what if some don't grow huge fields of haygrass.  It just won't change enough to make it worth the ugliness in my opinion.  And if someone is playing on a biome without longer growing periods, then it would have less effect.

Animals just don't eat the landscape down to the dirt.  And yes, I know that this game isn't about being totally real-life accurate.  But the visuals are important, at least to me.

Something related that I would like to see is slower tree growth, faster grass growth, and slower grass growth where there's a lot of traffic. It would mean that grass would still fill up the map, but you can't just leave a big herd of animals permanently in the same spot, otherwise the area will remain mostly barren. That would be a lot more realistic.

[XeoNovaDan]

So, I just did some closely-controlled 1v1 testing to see which apparel fares better in combat: a bearskin duster, or a flak jacket.

Methodology:
* All pawns are trait-neutral (i.e. no tough people, wimps, brawlers, careful shooters or trigger-happies), 18 or older and healthy
* All pawns had level 20 shooting and melee skills
* All equipment was of normal quality,
* Along with either a flak jacket or bearskin duster, all fighting pawns also wore flak pants, a flak vest and a steel simple helmet
* Assault rifle testing was done with a distance of 20 cells between shooters. There was no cover
* There were walls between each fighting duo so that nobody else got hit by any stray shots
* Maces and gladii were made out of steel
* The terrain was concrete, so there's no dirt kicking

I first did a total of 60 trials when comparing the duster and flak jacket: 20 with assault rifles (a neutral ranged weapon), 20 with gladii (representing sharp melee combat), and 20 with maces (representing blunt melee combat). Each trial in turn consists of 10 1v1 battles running at once, and each score per trial is simply how many people on each side were left standing (pawns that were downed and getting back up again not being counted). Final scores are determined by simply tallying up the trial scores for each side. These were the results (click to expand):



Just to get a perspective on the value proposition for each side:
* A bearskin duster requires 80 bearskin and 167 seconds of work to produce. It's fairly low-tech and bears aren't that hard to find, plus bearskin is far from the most protective textile. Bearskin dusters also offer vastly superior insulation to flak jackets, as well as a lack of a movement speed penalty.
* A flak jacket requires 50 cloth, 80 steel, 1 component and 234 seconds of work.

As the first set of results show, a bearskin duster is basically on par with the flak jacket in terms of combat performance, all the while being much more accessible and practical outside of combat. In terms of stats, a bearskin duster does offer slightly inferior armour ratings (33.6% sharp, 7.2% blunt and 45% heat versus 40% sharp, 8% blunt and 10% heat), but it has the bonus of covering the legs. It's clear that this coverage advantage plays a bigger role than a minor resistance deficit.

Regarding the melee results, I'd personally consider them equivalent; there's a lot more margin of error and test-to-test variance in melee combat due to dodging - this technically favours dusters slightly owing to the fact they protect the legs.

So, after this initial set of results, I decided to see what'd the results would look like when buffing the armour ratings of the flak jacket from 40/8/10 to 60/12/15, and as you can see, the tables have indeed turned:



Melee results are still more-or-less the same owing to the aforementioned test variance. However, where the real improvement has been made is in ranged combat: the flak jacket now often wins against the bearskin duster, which makes sense - yet there are still occasions where the bearskin duster can also beat out the flak jacket (mostly with brain injuries, but still).

Either way, the point remains clear: flak jacket definitely needs a buff because right now, a bearskin duster is decisively the better piece of clothing to go for. Hope this is useful, and if there's any more of this sort of testing you particularly to see the results for!

[Oblitus]

Either way, the point remains clear: flak jacket definitely needs a buff because right now, a bearskin duster is decisively the better piece of clothing to go for. Hope this is useful, and if there's any more of this sort of testing you particularly to see the results for!

What is really interesting is power armor/helmet plus devilstrand underwear (heavy armor class, major investments into research and production) against devilstrand duster/shirt with flak vest/pants and advanced helmet (medium armor class, moderate stuff and research investments) against devilstrand everything (no movement penalties, no steel needed, minor research).

[Scavenger]

After fighting minor mobs in rats and squirrels with a club in melee, I got an infection 3 out of 4 fights from minor wounds no more than 5 damage.

I mean I can play around it so I can 'win', but an infection from a minor wound proving to be lethal to a 20 year old just seems strange to me.

Welcome to life before the early 20th century!! That was basically the quality of life before antibiotics. Even an insect bite could mean death, let alone scratches and bites from disease ridden rodents.

[Scavenger]

You've played way too much Darkest Dungeon, man I like it as well, but i really don't wanna see Rimworld turning into grim Dark Souls level suffering simulator.

Also we probably should end this, before Tynan gets rightfully pissed. If you wanna continue - lets make a separate thread, maybe with a poll and also ask others how they feel about it.

That's kinda what the hardest difficulty is meant to be, there's little room for mistakes. Have to play the numbers and mechanics. Grind, minmax, and exploit the AI. Tynan pretty much said so himself.

And you should! I know how much you love to argue lol, and that's fine, this just isn't the thread for it.

[Madman666]

What it has to do with hardest difficulty? I don't play extreme.

[Sirsir]

I read the updates that mentioned changes to plant growth.  I've been playing in temperate forest in mountains with a year-round growing period and I absolutely HATE the bare ground everywhere.  It should be rare to see bare dirt without some vegetation in this biome.  And it never refills the map, not even close.  It looks hideous.  Please fix this.

I know there might be some balance issues with feeding herbivores if the map is full of grass, but I think it would be worth it.  Growing hay just isn't that hard and having lots of grass isn't going to change anything at all as far as I can tell.  The predators make it more effective to put your colony's herds inside walls anyway.  So what if some don't grow huge fields of haygrass.  It just won't change enough to make it worth the ugliness in my opinion.  And if someone is playing on a biome without longer growing periods, then it would have less effect.

Animals just don't eat the landscape down to the dirt.  And yes, I know that this game isn't about being totally real-life accurate.  But the visuals are important, at least to me.

Agreed. It would be nice if the grass could piggyback off the infestation system, make grass sprout periodically throughout the map and then spread.

Also fix retreat paths please. I had a group of raiders attack my south wall, run away to the left, then try to run down through my base again. Probably trying to pass through to avoid the river. I'm guessing its that enemy pawns don't take doors into account as obstacles when retreating.

[Tynan]

.......flak jacket definitely needs a buff because right now, a bearskin duster is decisively the better piece of clothing to go for. Hope this is useful, and if there's any more of this sort of testing you particularly to see the results for!

This seems to be working fine. The thing is, bearskin is a lot harder to come by than flak jacket ingredients. Bearskin is a specifically "elite" leather type, so it's supposed to give great stats. IIRC it also does better in cold than flak.

You can mass produce flak because you can mass produce steel, cloth, and components. But it's hard to mass produce bearskin because farming bears is difficult and slow.

[Tynan]

Seeking other feedback on the scythers, if anyone has some experience. Too easy? Too hard? Just right?

[zizard]

This seems to be working fine. The thing is, bearskin is a lot harder to come by than flak jacket ingredients. Bearskin is a specifically "elite" leather type, so it's supposed to give great stats. IIRC it also does better in cold than flak.

You can mass produce flak because you can mass produce steel, cloth, and components. But it's hard to mass produce bearskin because farming bears is difficult and slow.

Cass extreme, about 200 days in, NB, temperate. I have had at least 3 manhunter packs of rhinos and at least 2 of polar bears. There's such a glut of elite leather it's being used for chairs and turned into patch leather for quests. Perhaps on high difficulty, these leathers are not so rare...

[Oblitus]

The thing is, bearskin is a lot harder to come by than flak jacket ingredients. Bearskin is a specifically "elite" leather type, so it's supposed to give great stats. IIRC it also does better in cold than flak.

You can mass produce flak because you can mass produce steel, cloth, and components. But it's hard to mass produce bearskin because farming bears is difficult and slow.

Steel is one of the most scarce resources now. It has very limited sources and is used everywhere. High tier leathers? You get it for free and without any actual limit, just go and get them. In fact, I am calling caravans on regular basis, selling premium leather dusters (a lot of work to make - nice xp for crafters and best value per stockpile spot) to buy steel and components.

[Madman666]

Yep, steel is much more valuable.

[Namsan]

I encountered several scythers in my current playthrough(Extra Hard)
They are like durable and powerful panthers.
If I didn't had enough firepower(my pawns had three LMGs and one sniper rife), they could reach my pawns and probably kill them.
I think it was definitely not easy, but still manageable with preparation.

[JavaWho]

I have seen this bug twice today, once on a stream and once on my own map.   Both Temperate Forest, One on Medium One on Hard.  One on Cassandra and one on Phoebe.

When you have pawns set to a restricted area (both due to manhunter packs) if they decide to go outside to watch the sunset they ignore the restriction of the safety zone and the door restrictions.   Walked right through.

Oh btw, I finally got the Tornado generator on a mission .. That is fun!!!