Unstable build feedback thread

[YokoZar]

I'm not certain the new recreation selection algorithm is right.  Why did this pawn choose to stop working and start playing chess?

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1436078442

She was 22% full on cerebral play already, was nearly full on entertainment, and had several other options in front of her.  Also I believe there were other valid work options (she was in the middle of cleaning)

[Tynan]

Thanks for the ongoing feedback!

kreig, you are a true first-post hero. Thank you for writing.

I'm seeking thoughts on research speed. How is it? Too fast? Too slow? How long does it take you to research what you need, and everything after that?

[Tynan]

I'm not certain the new recreation selection algorithm is right.  Why did this pawn choose to stop working and start playing chess?

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1436078442

She was 22% full on cerebral play already, was nearly full on entertainment, and had several other options in front of her.  Also I believe there were other valid work options (she was in the middle of cleaning)

Perhaps she had recreation on the timetable?

[PleaseBro]

I see pawns doing recreation instead of sleep if they are not tired loads of times I don't think it's unusual.

[Teleblaster18]

Research Speed seems slightly fast, but that could be subjective: my last full game was a Tribal Start.  Even with that being said, it seems like a single colonist in a dirty warehouse is moving at a very impressive speed.


Scyther Feedback -

Just had my first true Scyther encounter in 1.0 via Psychic Ship, fifteen minutes ago;  3 Melee, 1 Charge Lancer vs. 6 Pawns wearing Devilstrand Pants/Shirts and various Parkas, quality of Devilstrand ranging from good to excellent - All were carrying ranged weapons with the following breakdown:

Level 15 Shooter - Machine Pistol (good, 99%)
Level 14 Shooter - Machine Pistol (normal, 99%)
Level 13 Shooter - Revolver (excellent, 100%)
Level 9 Shooter (Trigger Happy) - Machine Pistol (normal, 69%)
Level 8 Shooter - Pump Shotgun (normal, 100%)
Level 7 Shooter - Pump Shotgun (normal, 100%)

An ad-hoc granite-walled bunker with sandbags and Steel Deadfall Traps were constructed to provide cover 16 tiles from the Psychic Ship, which can be seen here prior to the fight: https://i.imgur.com/wdrt52b.png

Results (3 tries with the exact same layout as the image above):

1st Attempt - 2 Melee Scythers were downed by 3 left/3 right targeting from behind cover/3rd Scyther broke through on far left after triggering a deadfall, and was downed inside the bunker, wounding one colonist severely.  The Lancer Scyther, firing from the top-left edge of the ship shot off the limbs (1 arm, 1 hand) of 2 seperate colonists behind cover, before being downed by massed gunfire.

2nd Attempt - 2 Melee Scythers downed by massed gunfire; 3rd Scyther broke through in the middle, avoided all traps downing 1 colonist, wounding another before being downed.  Lance Scyther shot off the arm of another colonist behind cover, and was downed by mass gunfire as colonists left cover and closed the distance.

3rd Attempt - 1 Melee Scyther downed by deadfall trap, 1 damaged by Trap and downed by gunfire, 1 broke into the bunker and was downed after inflciting minor injuries on one colonist; the remaining Lance Scyther severely injured 1 colonist who was behind cover, and lightly injured 2 others (1 behind cover, 1 in no cover).  The Lance Scyther was rushed by all colonists from a distance of 4-6 tiles, and was downed by massed gunfire, without any further injuries to colonists.

My impression:  The Lance Scythers are very, very dangerous at that range.  This is the first encounter that I can recall in which I've had pawns who were wearing Devilstrand lose limbs entirely.  Melee Scythers proved to be less difficult than I anticipated to massed gunfire, with guns that are not particularly powerful.

I am concerned about the loss of limbs, which seemed to happen far more frequently in this instance than in similar situations in B18.

[Scavenger]

Thanks for the ongoing feedback!

kreig, you are a true first-post hero. Thank you for writing.

I'm seeking thoughts on research speed. How is it? Too fast? Too slow? How long does it take you to research what you need, and everything after that?

I would love if tribal could advance in tech level as they progress through the research tree so they can recruit higher tech people faster and research faster! I had to use the tech advancing  mod to let me do that so it didnt take ages and now I'm missing it.

[Tynan]

New build! Largely rebalancings on this one.

---

Turrets can now define an inherent accuracy (instead of it being hardcoded at 96%). Rebalanced sniper turret more accurate and slower.
Adjusted apparel optimization algorithm consideration of health. It now ignores health until you hit the frayed/tattered thought thresholds.
Slightly slower research.
Adjust hive tunnel sound distances.
Fix: Redundant text on mad animal letter label.
Pulse-charged munitions requires precision rifling.
Humans can bite. Misc changes to psychite tea.
Adjust berserk pawn max attack distance.
Text adjustments.
Go and work frenzy inspirations last longer.
Slightly increase friendly fire exclusion range and refactor it so it lerps smoothly instead of stair-stepping.
Sappers avoid mining paths a bit more.
Adjusted some warmup and cooldown times on weapons.
Increase steel amount in mapgen. Reduce flak armor cost a bit.
Made smelting slag yield more steel.
Rebalanced stuff stats for melee specialization a bit.
Standardize melee cooldowns into slow, standard, and fast attacks. Rebalance a few melee weapons.
Buff go-juice. Reduce scyther speed slightly. Increase world quest challenge points.
Revert "Adjusted outdoors need speeds."

[YokoZar]

I'm not certain the new recreation selection algorithm is right.  Why did this pawn choose to stop working and start playing chess?

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1436078442

She was 22% full on cerebral play already, was nearly full on entertainment, and had several other options in front of her.  Also I believe there were other valid work options (she was in the middle of cleaning)

Perhaps she had recreation on the timetable?

I checked for this -- just default "anything" or "rest".  Even if she didn't have anything else to do but recreate, she shouldn't have chosen chess -- that's the worst option in that case as you can see in the screenshot (pray, meditate, social, horseshoes all are better there)

[biship]

Ever time I go to my defence positions, my pet dogs come along. They also get shot up by the raiders, so I assign them a safe inside zone - which they ignore. I can remove the owner from the pet, but everytime there is a raid, this is tiring. The extended zone of friendly fire now means they do not get shot by their owners, but the raiders still kill them. Is there any other solution, to keep them alive?

[XeoNovaDan]

Ever time I go to my defence positions, my pet dogs come along. They also get shot up by the raiders, so I assign them a safe inside zone - which they ignore. I can remove the owner from the pet, but everytime there is a raid, this is tiring. The extended zone of friendly fire now means they do not get shot by their owners, but the raiders still kill them. Is there any other solution, to keep them alive?

You can go into the animals tab and set animals to not follow the master if drafted (see attached). You can also click and drag the designator too, so you can designate/undesignate multiple animals with a single click and drag. The designating thing has been a thing since A16 IIRC.

[attachment deleted due to age]

[Fila]

Version: 1.0.0 – 1.0.1958 no mods
Scenario: Cassandra rough, crashlanded unmodified
Map: Standard, have two playthroughs
First: Temperate forest, large river, road, flat
Second: Extreme desert, flat, growing all year.
Playtime in 1.0 just below 100hrs, not sure about total, played since A15.

Things I like:
New armor system, letting melee actually fight close without necessarily gaining lots of wounds is interesting. To combine this with the scythers,  I have one manned them with my melee soldiers,  often without any wounds. They seem somewhat easy, which is okay when they come in large groups. That said, I like the split with lancers and scythers.
Edit: Just had a raid with 12 scythers, and no lancers. Just like with melee only groups we meet them in the field, most of them dead before they arrive. The few that make it to us get cut down by the melees. I think the issue here is mostly that the group is only melee than that they scythers themselves are too weak.
I really like the new prosthetics. They make it possible to fix up pawns and make it so I don't have to replace them after a while in game.
Bridges are great. Fun to use.
Raids spreading out are great. Gives an extra challenge.
Inspirations are fun too.
The new crashlanded start is nice too; less researched makes you try new things. A little different than before, quite nice.

Things that may not be working as intended:
I've had a couple of raids with only one weapon type. Doesn't matter much when it is range, but when it is melee, they can often be slaughtered out in the fields. Seem a little too easy.
Armor having speed penalties. It makes me want to take them off, but it is just too micro intensive for me to bother. Kind of annoying. I would rather see armor have an economic penalty in cost or work to make.
Smoothing walls is really nice, but it is a little sad that the +1 goes away if you have a power line in it. I guess it is to show the power line being on the outside?
Infections.  I have had only one somewhat big mine mined out on the temperate map. I placed down some fire traps+wood and left it. In total we have had 4 infestations that have killed themselves on the fire trap. Seem a little uninteresting. Infestations shouldn't be so frequent on flat maps I would say.
I've had three trade caravans arrive just before or just after manhunters. In the ensuing chaos many of them have died, and faction relations have plummeted. Kind of sad, but I guess it is okay. Not sure if it is intended though.

Other things:
I also have to add on to the watermill, it just have no downsides except wood cost and space use.
Traders seem a little infrequent, might be okay though, as it has made me want and need to go caravanning.
Item quality rework is nice, less confusing. I would like to see a little bigger difference on the legendaries. I have a couple of weapons which seem a little underwhelming (ARs and CRs).
I have used to have many different defensive setups, but with the new attack types, it seem they haven't been used as much. Maybe a little more in the later patches. I don't mind that attackers try to bypass defences. It just makes me design stuff a little different. So can easily have more sappers and the like, but preferably without half manned with grenades, as it becomes very micro intensive.
The trade quest seem to have been tuned down in frequency and worth. Some seem like a little too much work, or use too many resources, or just is too far to travel. I would like at least the frequency tuned up a little.
Ive had no issues with recreation. I have one hour assigned at the end of the day, and they can do it if they want during the day.
Mostly I prefer threats outside of raids, having issues with food is to me more interesting.
Caravanning is fun, but they shouldn't require you to send out half the village, that risk is too big when I mostly defend with pawns.
In regards to research speed it depends very on the researcher. It took forever at the start without a good one, just a few skill 4. I don't mind a slower game, so it seemed okay. Enough time that I built a generator.  At the end with a 20 skill burning passion researcher they seem to go ridiculously fast.  Makes me wish for a research queue.  Seems to be hard to balance when research skill matters so much. Filled tech tree in the start of the third year seems to be the time I get with just one researcher working nearly full time.

[Syrchalis]

Pulse-charged munitions requires precision rifling.

Yes, that's good. While playing I very often skipped this research for pulse-charged weapons. Sniper rifles and assault rifles simply aren't as appealing to research when you can go straight to charge rifles and lances.

[biship]

You can go into the animals tab and set animals to not follow the master if drafted (see attached). You can also click and drag the designator too, so you can designate/undesignate multiple animals with a single click and drag. The designating thing has been a thing since A16 IIRC.

Oh, I did not notice that was added - thanks!

[Serenity]

Hydroponics, the crematorium, and the advanced research bench (but not the basic bench) cannot be un/reinstalled like most production things can now.

The crematorium being fixed is fine. But hydroponics basins should really be movable

[Madman666]

I am still trying out every kind of world map ambushes and i really like what i see. The bump in challenge was slight enough to make it more interesting, without making it annoying death play with having to send crapton of people out to avoid wipes. You go without armor and good weapons - you're kind of hosed. You go prepared properly - armors, melees, long range snipers - you only can fail if you have a major brainfart going on. Like standing in the open, or letting enemy melee units charge your shooters. Or shooting your own melees in the back, instead of focusing on enemy shooters.

Actually most troublesome enemy i've encountered on world map ambushes turned out to be tribals. New armor system done good to make you actually feel like you are a space marine slaughtering idiotic half naked savages, when you fight them, but the sheer amount of them and greatbows (and pilas) make them incredibly dangerous. Couple unlucky hits from a greatbow can really mess someone up even in power armor. And the amount of their melees makes it hard to restrict them, from moving into your shooter melee range too. Still at least now those little skirmishes stay little even at 400k wealth and don't pit you against crazy 16-18 raiders or 14 mechs against your 5-6 people. I also like a lot that now actually having couple triple melee units is kind of mandatory if you don't want to have a wipe on your hands.

Infections are kind of annoying while caravanning though. Even if you're a tactical genius, you'll still be taking hits, its unavoidable. And thankfully armor mitigates a lot of wounds into more or less harmless bruises now, but any kind of bleeding wound still pretty much guaranteed to be infected, without bed treatments. And god save if you don't have a decent doc with proper medicine then. Or if your doc was the one who got that unlucky arrow to his knee.

I am also wondering, if lump sizes from mineral scanner can be adjusted, so that gold and plasteel lumps can be worth going for. Right now i will always go for silver (big size lumps, semi-fast mining), jade (medium to small lumps, reasonably fast mining), components lumps (big size, fast enough mining), but pretty much never go for plasteel (you spend ages mining that and get like 10-12 tiles of it in the lump, which is meh, you get more killing mechs) and gold (currency item, low yields and lump sizes are just insulting - 10-13 tiles). Uranium i usually think about going for, since its a rare material, but the amount is still quite low to justify an expedition.

2 more things for consideration: resources spawn on temp maps again and let us hunt steel with long range scanner. i won't get tired of saying steel is the lifeblood of this game. More ways of getting it without trading - is good.

I might now start getting out of my home map to have fun and interesting combat situations, not for resources. Because colony raids late game with huge wealth are becoming a huge slaugterfests, nearly without any tactics involved, just sheer amount of firepower, to make them flee as soon as you can, before they do too much damage. In contrast to that, small scale combat situations are heaps more fun, since every participant's skill, armor and weapon mean something.