Unstable build feedback thread

[TheMeInTeam]

Roofs are a pretty effective equivalent to graves in terms of preventing trees/fire spreading, even in 1.0.  Trees aren't allowed under roofs and stuff doesn't tend to regrow without any light.  Thus you don't need to floor and I'm not sure roof is actually slower than graves for this purpose.

I consider graves to be something like football helmet stickers, and mood hit from observing corpses when hauling them is pretty annoying so they're okay mitigation for that too.

[Polder]

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?

Edit: this was for the previous version, before research speed was made slower. Will test to see how it is now.

Research speed feels slow. In general this is good because it forces me to make do with what I have and rely on trade more. I delay or skip techs that are not essential though, like plate armor crafting, planting trees, drug tech, colored lights, solar panels, and sometimes even batteries.

Without a good researcher, it's far too slow though. Maybe research with poor skills should be faster, while with good skills it could be slower?

Despite the recent change to alpha beavers, I keep getting beavers on flat arid shrubland even when there are no or hardly any trees. Which means the whole map is mostly a tree free zone. Not saying this to complain, just saying that the event has hardly any impact unless it occurs very early on. That particular biome doesn't have enough wood for any serious wall or floor construction anyway, so the player will be building these with stone.

[Syrchalis]

I like the current research speed a lot. Early tech (especially things you go for as tribal) should be really cheap, because your researcher isn't trained, you might not even have someone with passion or a high stat in intelligence and last but not least you might need your researcher to do other things.

This all slows down research early WAY WAY more than one would expect. Midgame I usually have a dedicated researcher who does nothing but sit at the research bench all the time, with burning passion and good value in intelligence. So I would say early research is easily 4x slower.

Then there is the 60% on the simple research bench.

Then there is the inability to build sterile tiles for a 10% bonus.

Then there is temperature which can be hard to influence as tribe (possible but desert = no wood for coolers, hot, for example).

This is all 100% based on my experience the last 1000 hours or so in Rimworld (not just 1.0) - but it holds true for 1.0. There is so many factors slowing down research early it feels like a 500 point research is 2500 or 5000, depending on conditions.

[Nymcom]

It's in the stove now.
[/quote]
Oh yeah that makes sense, thank you for letting me know. I fucking loved tea

[dnmr]

ahahaha i just had faction B come to help my deep drill fight the bugs off while faction A's caravan was chilling around that spot
https://i.imgur.com/tLz27py.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/A21nR04.jpg

Edit: just got bonus goodwill points for those drop boys leaving my area, pretty sure i didnt deserve them

[SchizoidCrow]

Crashland/Temperate forest/Large Hills/Cassandra/Hard.
6th of Septober, 5501.

My colony is going to be 2-years-old after this winter. My seven colonist are mostly happy now that we remade a lot of old ugly furniture and built the poker and billiards table. I underestimated how much cloth I was going to need because I didn't take into account flak clothing, but I'd say those pants and jackets were worth it, my colonists have not suffered permanent injuries yet.

Raids seem a lot more consistent in size and weaponry. And I can feel the difficulty slowly scaling up, the last four raids were outlanders (two with sappers and one dropped in the outskirts of my base) and lancers. The sappers don't seem to figure out how to approach my base. One of those sapper raids came from the south and tried to move to the north-east, but they were gunned down when they walked near my southern defenses, they did fight after the first couple of shots. The other one came from the far east, and moved to the north, for some reason they went around a mountain and started mining some random rock just near the reach of my assault rifles, I pick them off and then they fled.
The lancers, on the other hand, were scary because they outranged me. Once I noticed they were aiming at my pawns I tried to hide, wait until they came closer and then counter-attack, but instead of getting closer, they went to another side of the base. I was lucky to have a few mini-turrets in place to hold them off for a bit. I managed to send 3 colonists to engage in melee while the lancers attacked the turrets, my gunners supported from behind. It was the first time ever I attack mechanoids in melee and it was a success! I like how battles are more dynamic now.

Now, some thoughts:
- Research feels a bit fast, though I did get a colonist with 19 points in research during the first year, so that might be it. I'm almost done with all pre-multi-analyzer techs.
- While I adore being able to smooth mountain walls, the corners are frustrating, especially when installing wiring. I need to mine one tile just to put conduits in the corners, it looks ugly, it's inconvenient and I lose the +1 beauty from the smoothed wall.
- My pawns also got stuck in a loop, mining and repairing smoothed walls. This happened two builds ago (I think),  and I haven't seen it since; though have not mined more smoothed walls recently either.
- Diplomacy is a bit of a problem. I'm at war with everyone except one tribal faction. I haven't been able to improve relations with the Outlanders, even more so after I captured one of them; the person crashed in a drop pod and I captured for recruitment, only to find out later that it was an Outlander. A warning before capturing an ally, and information about diplomacy in the learning helper would be useful.
- The re-growth of wild plants seems good. The map still looks alive even after winter and the occasional fire. I also find myself foraging more, for some reason.
- Raiders actually bring good weapons, including excellent quality with full hit points. I now have an arsenal of autopistols and shotguns because of it. With the more recent builds, their weapons seem a bit more varied in quality and hit points, I don't recall if that was tweaked. It's nice to get some valuable loot after winning a battle but getting decent guns feels easier than in earlier versions.

[Sirsir]

Tass, why the graves?

They prevent trees/bushes from growing in the kill-corridor and providing cover.

Also... Intimidation!

Don't graves also slow movespeed? Or was that also removed?

[gadjung]

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?

Colony is pretty much self-sustaining with 2 pawns for research (15-16), I'm able to make research go 24/7 (one is Night Owl). Currently switched from Cass Hard to Randy Extreme to see how it goes.
In general i would be for more (logical) dependencies between researches that gives some more feeling of progress rather than just grind of research points (i.e Vitals monitor feels natural while researching)
My thoughts while being 'Industrial' level of technology :
- i would increase time for Geothermal since it's one of the safest and best energy producers. that would give some more reason to use other power generation buildings (also possible bug, raiders love to just skip them and head for main base so no reason to defend/care about them 90% of time)
- Either increase Medicine research points, or make Penoxiciline obligatory. In itself it's also a HUGE game-changer to be able to make it. Maybe rebuild research tree, to include 'sterile materials' before Microelectronics for obligatory Medicine. (locking Medicine it behind non-producable nurotamine does not much work, since it's possible to buy some (40-50) given colony is kind of keeping-it-together
- bionics research feels cheap-fast
- charge rifle too
- ship researches seems balanced but reactor feels huge with it's 8k points.
- half research feels like it's not needed to do, that's nice, since i'm not forced to research stuff that i won't be producing/needing (i.e Solar/Colored lights/all drugs/bows/multibarrel/firefoam/electric cremation)

If I'm going for end game by ship building it drags a lot (since by time of this decision i'm swimming in resources and could build ship in 1-2 days)
When starting colony speed feels OK, even little too fast if one was lucky with more pawns/resources and can afford multiple pawns researching simultaniously.

My idea would be to add more researches and lock some buildings/workbenches behind them, for more 'organic' progress rather than changing research times.

Early tech (especially things you go for as tribal) should be really cheap, because your researcher isn't trained, you might not even have someone with passion or a high stat in intelligence and last but not least you might need your researcher to do other things.

I can't agree with that. Early tech should not be really cheap but imo it should reflect complexity of thing. Research should not be toned down to 'even idiot can invent electricity in one day' but make more real approach - no intelligent guy = slow technological development.

[Syrchalis]

I can't agree with that. Early tech should not be really cheap but imo it should reflect complexity of thing. Research should not be toned down to 'even idiot can invent electricity in one day' but make more real approach - no intelligent guy = slow technological development.

I didn't want to explain my entire approach in the post, but I agree with you. Especially milestone research like electricity should be expensive and take a while. However smaller things like beds, clothing, brewing, devilstrand etc. should be easy to research. Generally Rimworld already went into the right direction with the changes in 1.0 to research.

Another QoL thing I wish for: auto-rebuild drop-pods. A button when selecting the pod-launcher to automatically put a blueprint for a new one down when drop-pod was used.

[ashaffee]

Researching to me feels awkward. I've tried it both on tribal and crash landed. After a sterile room, multi analyzer and advanced research bench are made the path just sky rockets. On crash landed it is worth it to not even build prerequisite things and just go straight for the highest tier weapon or power armor. It really feels like the advance bench needs toning down. Even on tribal you speed through them pretty fast. Granted you have to prioritize a bit more but you can still skip building lower tech items with the knowledge you will get higher tech stuff soon enough.

Research to me feels like the least involved skill in the game. Build a room set someone to never do anything besides that = research faster than items can be made. Here are my ideas on how it could be more interactive.

- Increase all research base values by a huge amount. Give tasks for the tribe to complete to get like a 5x reduction in cost.

Examples: want advanced furniture make 3 bed rolls and torches to unlock buff.

Electricity - Mine x amount of steel and components

Weapons - Create gun a gun with at least "good" quality.

Drugs - Bought/used x number of drugs.

Ship building - All linked to quests. Like mined resource using long range mineral scanner. Abandoned old base. Pillaged hostile tribe.

Tbh I just threw the examples in with like 5 minutes of forthought. But the main point I am trying to make is that increasing/decreasing research speed doesn't really change how it feels which is just a dry box to check to progress. Sort of like if growing wasn't actual crops on the map but just a bucket a pawn would sit at and start pulling out food from it.

Since you can control your wealth pretty easily you can control research need if you ever did make it too slow anyway. Meaning to me that it never matters to much to me if research is slow or fast. Besides the fact that it is basically a countdowner on when you can end the game.

[Copperwire]

First post.  Long time ghost.  Maybe 400 hours, 100 in 1.0.

Coming back this time, its a lot more of a game!  Even simple things like the wildlife tab and UI stuff really "subtract" a lot of the "suck" (tasks and time one wishes one had spent doing laundry IRL instead) from the game.

I have done about 6 2-4 day runs on different versions of 1.0, all on hard.  The doors change took a bit to adapt to.  East said most of the things I wanted to say about that; basically, if doors are so much less the tool to make it through to the new turrets, what do you do?

My answer has been careful wealth management.  I stay at 2-4 pawns and research.  I keep minimum food on hand, frozen corpses preferred for winter larder.  I caravan to trade often (leather, raid trash, whatever), as this always drops your wealth.  I do not harvest materials ahead of time - sending that 12** miner out and getting all the components off the map seems like a good move.  Wrong.  No corners on buildings.  I try and have 3-4 people in my base max.  More then that, I keep in a caravan somewhere.  The right people in a caravan feed themselves and can bring berries home each trip, and "hide" whatever wealth they are carrying.  Workbenches are wealth.  Wood only ones, when not in use I take them apart.  I don't make metal ones unless I need to, and sometimes they wander around disassembled on some alpacas in a caravan.  Floors do not add wealth and the difference between wood and stone wall wealth is tiny, so I do that earlier then I used to.  Again, stone block sitting in a pile is wealth (danger!) so that gets micro'd.  I farm less, because right after a big harvest your wealth spikes...  I make 2 basic turrets and keep them uninstalled in a stockpile.  I make sandbag positions for them on each side of my base.  Because turrets everywhere add wealth but only defend one place, and leaving them assembled and trying to move them is about 5 times as much time.  Once i have most if not all of the research I want for a final base, I think about maybe having more people or building "fancy" stuff.

Research does not add wealth, and as long as you keep it around 20k wealth and 3ish people, you can take the raids you get, so why hurry?

Why farm on your map, when you can send 3 guys to an easy event, do it, and stay on that map for 14 days and bring a mess of food home? (pemmican)

It's an answer.  Not sure I like it.  Seems like more "suck" and less story/decisions until your ready to build the doom fort for the spaceship.

If I could ask for anything, its more story.  More events that are not raids yet still matter.  Social stuff.  Tribes doing nation building and trying to involve you in their messes.  Mutants from the desert selling magic beans.  Raiders who have a motive and act on it rather then just happen like the weather.  I don't care if the "balance" is perfect.  It's a SP game with mods and difficulty options and a dev console.  Biomes certainly do not need to be equal or even viable.  I am hoping that you have a collection of "story magic" and "Firefly" for us when you hit final release and this focus on minutia/raid stuff is just what we see because your testing it publicly.

Love the game.  Thank you for it.

[Syrchalis]

Researching to me feels awkward. I've tried it both on tribal and crash landed. After a sterile room, multi analyzer and advanced research bench are made the path just sky rockets. On crash landed it is worth it to not even build prerequisite things and just go straight for the highest tier weapon or power armor. It really feels like the advance bench needs toning down.

I think what needs to happen is that less often used research (firefoam, mortars etc.) aka situational things should be cheaper and general things you always take should take more time. And maybe boost simple research bench to 75% to take the burden off the early game research, so you can make research in general slower.

And all late game research has gotten a lot faster to research, maybe a bit too fast now? It just doesn't feel right to me right now how early stuff compares to late game stuff. 1000 for trees (neolithic) compared to 2400 deep drilling or 3200 scanner - I think the old 7000 scanner was closer to balanced than currently.

[Madman666]

- Increase all research base values by a huge amount. Give tasks for the tribe to complete to get like a 5x reduction in cost.

Examples: want advanced furniture make 3 bed rolls and torches to unlock buff.

Electricity - Mine x amount of steel and components

Weapons - Create gun a gun with at least "good" quality.

Drugs - Bought/used x number of drugs.

Ship building - All linked to quests. Like mined resource using long range mineral scanner. Abandoned old base. Pillaged hostile tribe.

Tbh I just threw the examples in with like 5 minutes of forthought. But the main point I am trying to make is that increasing/decreasing research speed doesn't really change how it feels which is just a dry box to check to progress. Sort of like if growing wasn't actual crops on the map but just a bucket a pawn would sit at and start pulling out food from it.

Since you can control your wealth pretty easily you can control research need if you ever did make it too slow anyway. Meaning to me that it never matters to much to me if research is slow or fast. Besides the fact that it is basically a countdowner on when you can end the game.

Well, i sure hope this doesn't get implemented in this exact way. A research gated by things you have to buy, or craft of specific quality is way too random. Progression locked behind random is BAD. I thought that locking research behind advanced components showed it off enough. Though some ideas can spring from these. Like maybe some kind of quests that award in research points towards certain projects. That ll justify making research overall a bit longer.

But honestly the biggest problem of all isn't even that research is too fast, but that researchers just don't have absolutely anything to do once major projects get done. They could use some kind end-game activity akin to crafting and sculpting, that could make colony life better, or just brought in some money occasionally. Just something for those egg-heads to do, not just go from being a scientist to being a janitor.

[Jibbles]

With how researching works, I felt most of it was in the right path as well as the speed. I don't feel like having to sit there and wait on research box to fill up for a stupid amount of time just to progress... sorry guys. Things like firefoam or hospital bed could get toned down a little and gear those points to other projects.

[Scavenger]

Humans can bite.

It just killed my best crafter in social fight. I might be biased right now, but 12.5 damage feels like too much for a bite - my pawn got killed before he was downed by pain. See attached picture.

Wait... Wtf? Why does a human bite do more than a lynx bite or a kick from most herbivores..? I had a llama as a kid that killed a coyote with a single kick to the ribs, now idk if he just rolled a nat 20, but that's way too strong for a human bite lmao. Hell, that's more damage than a Timber Wolf bite. I would knock it down to like 4 with a terrier XD