Unstable build feedback thread

[Hadley]

How the heck do you fix Colonists with Braininjuries without EPOE? I have 2 Pawns who are basically useless since they have Braininjuries and since there is no Brain-Surgery in Vanilla, how the heck do you fix that?

I know there is this Med-Artefact you get once every 100hrs from Missions but is there no other way?

[BlackSmokeDMax]

How the heck do you fix Colonists with Braininjuries without EPOE? I have 2 Pawns who are basically useless since they have Braininjuries and since there is no Brain-Surgery in Vanilla, how the heck do you fix that?

I know there is this Med-Artefact you get once every 100hrs from Missions but is there no other way?

Luciferium.

[iamomnivore]

I noticed the Sun Lamps have had their power requirements almost doubled ... Is this going to be final, in 1.0? That kind of requirement seems a bit exorbitant.

Any chance this value will be reviewed before making it final?

[Dashthechinchilla]

How the heck do you fix Colonists with Braininjuries without EPOE? I have 2 Pawns who are basically useless since they have Braininjuries and since there is no Brain-Surgery in Vanilla, how the heck do you fix that?

I know there is this Med-Artefact you get once every 100hrs from Missions but is there no other way?

the mech serum is actually more common in 1.0. I even had a mission to kill two pirates guarding a stash of two. Unfortunately it was my first winter and I had no food.

[gadjung]

Hard to tell whether I'm unlucky or it's by design, but i did not have any trader coming for 2 years straight on Randy Hard (had some quests/caravan requests though) I'm 'prefer to stay in base' kind of player so i'm not so eager to wander for trading (~4 days round trip)

[jchavezriva]

So far the new adaptation system has been a very good addition.

Before it Randy Hard timing of events felt unnatural. Like if the chernobil-like nuclear plants, man-hunter packs, drones, mechanoids and raiders coordinated all together to screw you every few days. Now they come as deadly as ever but with reasonable amount of time in between.

[Lanilor]

Hard to tell whether I'm unlucky or it's by design, but i did not have any trader coming for 2 years straight on Randy Hard (had some quests/caravan requests though) I'm 'prefer to stay in base' kind of player so i'm not so eager to wander for trading (~4 days round trip)

Well, randy is random, so it was basicly your choice/design. You can even have never a visitor in the whole game if rng hits badly. If you want it more reliable, take one of the other storytellers. They work with mean times, so you get a visitor around every X days (can still be very lucky or not but way less than randy).

[Eterm]

> Automatic rebuild does not apply outside home area.

Perfect! I just came here to suggest this and you're already two steps ahead.

[Polder]

I am noticing that on a tropical swamp, there are too many animals self-tamed and animals join the colony events.

[DubskiDude]

I am noticing that on a tropical swamp, there are too many animals self-tamed and animals join the colony events.

Yeah, I noticed that too. Too many monkeys, rats, and chinchillas joining that I don't want.

[kreig]

Version: 1.0.1964 - 1.0.1966 no mods
Scenario: Cassandra Rough, Crashlanded
Map: Standard size, arid shrubland, large hills, no river/road, growing season year round
Permadeath: No
Play time this run: 1d 2h 44m 20s
Play time in total: 972 hours (since A16 iirc)

My feedback is mostly in line with my previous post.

Some random notes:
- Food poisoning: it's threatening/annoying enough to warrant at least one dedicated cleaner once you have enough colonists. Seems fair.
- Wild animals dying to toxic fallout immediately rot. Annoying but makes sense I guess (I wouldn't want to eat a heavily poisoned animal either)
- This might be a bug: Poison ships don't generate poison/snow around them which makes it impossible to see how far the poison has spread already.
- Something that has been bugging me for quite some time: Prioritizing a pawn to mine/operate a drill results in them mining only a little bit before going back to other tasks (or mining steel instead of drilling for that much needed plasteel). I can understand when pawns abandon prioritized tasks for food/rest, but this partial mining seems nonsensical to me.
- The log entry when attempting romance is wrong for the target of affection, i.e "<Colonist A> courted <Colonist A> ..." instead of "<Colonist A> courted <Colonist B> ...". It is correctly displayed in the log of the pawn initiating the romance attempt.
- It would be useful to have a warning in the caravan menu when setting out without bedrolls akin to the warning for low food. I forgot about them twice which wasn't devastating, but a bit annoying.
- I liked that Crashlanded starts with a set of flak armor. Made me more confident in dealing with early threats.


--- Strategies employed & dealing with raids ---

One of the difficulties of Arid Shrubland is the lack of trees (and therefore wood). I played around this by building most things out of steel which was plentiful on this map. I had to employ wind power and research batteries early on (wood fired generators are too expensive on wood for this biome). I built my base around three geothermal geysers that covered most my energy needs once I got that research.

In contrast to my previous 1.0 run, I played a more turtle-heavy style. I didn't build a dedicated killbox but I only left one narrow path into my base unwalled, heavily trapped and overseen by turrets (1-3 autocannons). I also placed turrets in the corners of my base where sappers might break through. I definitely noticed more sapper and siege raids as well as drop pods raining into my base.

The siege raids I either attacked preemptively or shelled once I had salvaged some of their mortars and shells. They rarely managed to squeeze off more than 1 or 2 shells before I damaged them enough to warrant a direct attack on my defensive lines (one shell hit my unfinished ship engines which definitely delayed me by a few days).

The sapper raids and drop pods had to be taken care of by my soldiers, usually in grueling shootouts in my base. I tried to pull them into my turrets whenever possible, but when they go after untrained animals and buildings, you have to engage.

The regular raids were softened up by traps so my turrets and colonists had a relatively easy time taking out the rest.


--- Quests ---

Since my base was close to major roads on the world map, I tried to fulfill as many quests as possible.

I even went to peace talks quests (4 in total). Oddly enough the most succesful peace talk was when my main negotiator (10 social) had a mental break right before we arrived and his companion (2/3 social) had to take over.

The bandit camp quests could use a bit more risk/reward balancing. My earliest (3-man) expedition netted me 30 Glitterworld medicine and a Vanometric Power Cell (2 camps with 5 and 3 enemies respectively) while the later bandit camp quests had either uninteresting rewards or too much risk for mediocre rewards.

The caravan requests were all over the place. I fulfilled the interesting ones (flak vests for resurrector mech serum, components for advanced components, etc.) and ignored the uninteresting ones (that bed/chess table may be made of gold and legendary to boot, but I really don't need it. There are easier/safer ways to make money than travelling there and immediately re-selling it)


--- Ship startup sequence ---

Once again, the ship startup sequence was challenging. In fact, in the beginning it felt harder than my previous run (which was at "Hard" difficulty instead of "Rough"). The main issue was that additional raids were spawning on top of existing raids. I had 3 consecutive drop pod mech attacks in my base within 7 or 8 hours which was really straining.
As if to make up for it, Cassie sent easier raids towards the end of the startup sequence (or at least raids my base could handle easier).
Below is a writeup of the last 15 days.
_________________________________________________________________
On day 242, my ship reactor starts up.
The colony consists of 14 pawns (including 3 brawlers and one almost-pacifist), ~10 adult huskies and ~10 adult pigs as well as a handful of puppies and piglets (I slaughtered all my dromedaries before starting the reactor since I didn't need them anymore)
T-14d: melee-only sapper raid. 3 huskies die. quite a few injuries.
T-13d: mechanoid drop pods right into my bedrooms (scythers & lancers). 4 animals die, 2 colonists get downed, limbs are lost left and right (1 arm and 1 leg are the result of autocannon friendly fire). I replace limbs on two pawns, rendering them unable to help for the rest of the day (which was pretty bad)
5 hours later: another mechanoid drop pod raid (mostly scythers) right into my living room where Dan is currently binging on psychite. He obviously gets downed as well as 2 other colonists. there are barely any pawns or huskies that don't have an injury. Of my three melee pawns only one can walk (just barely). Many bedrooms and my living room are in shambles.
Just 2 hours after, ANOTHER mechanoid drop pod announces itself (5 lancers). This is ridiculous. This does NOT feel good. My previous run was one difficulty harder and it never felt THIS unfair. I quit the game and go to bed.
...anyway, after cooling off and thanks to the cramped environment they landed in I manage to engage them in melee without suffering casualties from their charge lances. My 2 barely standing brawlers get downed again and one pig dies.
At this point I am out of herbal medicine. About 40 regular medicine left. I plant healroot in my hydroponics to recover as quickly as possible.
T-12d: 5 hours after the drop pod mayhem, a sapper raid appears. I manage to kill some of them with a triple rocket launcher. Its wielder gets downed in return. They start digging through a thick chunk of slate, then stop and begin moving towards my choke (thanks AI!)
While this is going on, 2 hours later, a siege appears. Since my base is really close to the southern map border where they spawn they set up camp directly beneath my walls (some of the sandbag blueprints are within my territory and one of their builders actually tries to move into my base). I use another triple rocket launcher on them and a few more rifle shots make them attack through my choke. The sappers and siegers reach the choke at about the same time but I manage to fend them off there with minor injuries
As they flee a solar flare hits - goodbye freshly planted healroot.
T-11d: The piles of corpses and lack of rest really gnaw on my pawns mood. Expert marksman Sam finally breaks (sad wander) but the men of the colony get a little relief through a psychic soothe.
Thankfully no more raids this day so I can bring my colony back in shape and allow wounds to heal.
T-10d: Siege. My 3 mortars are ready to and the first salve critically hits. They flee immediately.
2 hours later, sappers arrive in drop pods (all melee with many shield belts except for one LMG wielder). Interestingly, one of them apparently was in the second to last siege raid - he is still injured and has negative thoughts about losing friends.
A well placed triple rocket manages to take out a few as they advance. Rifle wielding colonists peeking out of doors take out a few more and the rest flees.
I get about a day of quiet and manage to fully heal all but 2 of my colonists.
T-8.5d: mechanoid drop pods (3 scythers, 4 lancers) wreck my little hospital. Brawler Winnie and her huskies clean up most of the baddies. Only injuries, no one killed or downed.
T-7d: 3-way mechanoid raid (centipede/lancer, centipede/2 lancers, lancer/2 centipedes). While these mechanoids make their way towards my base, another 6-centipede raid spawns.
The lancers get killed by traps but the centipedes really hurt. Thanks to EMP grenades and two brawlers valiantly throwing themselves against the machines they are somewhat manageable but 1 colonist still dies in the hail of bullets (RIP Beatriz). 1 husky dies to blood loss since there are just too many wounds to tend to.
This run I anticipated the immense steel cost of turrets so I built up a venerable stockpile in advance that hasn't run out so far (partially because there aren't too many raids that get into range of my turrets)
T-5.5d: 3-way pirate raid (delayed). While they wait, a sapper raid shows up as well. I get most of the sappers with my doomsdays rocket, but my wielder goes down to their doomsday rocket. They manage to dig a hole through my defenses before fleeing. That's when the 3-way raid moves in. Despite my compromised position I manage to fend off the bigger group, and the smaller groups walk into my traps. I also use 2 psychic shock lances to down their doomsday rocket pawns beforehand
Leonard decides this is the perfect time to throw a party! All but 2 pawns are able to attend and the mood boost certainly helps.
T-5d: The party wraps up and a psychic drone (high, female) starts. Let's hope they had enough fun at the party because that drone certainly isn't.
T-4.5d: Mechanoid drop pods (3 scythers, 1 lancer). They do love dropping on top of my animals... They manage to kill two juvenile pigs before I can throw my fighting pigs and huskies against them (quite a few nasty cuts). One husky has to be euthanized due to a shattered spine.
T-4d: regular pirate raid(delayed). once again I manage to catch a few with a doomsday rocket, but they also manage to get my wielder with a rocket of their own. once they attack my turrets handle them well.
Engie has had enough and decides to binge on go-juice, immediately overdosing (thankfully no long-term negatives).
By now, my herbal medicine stock has recovered.
T-3d: 2-way scyther attack (8 in total). They are no match to my traps + turrets + rifle wielders. No injuries.
T-2.5d: pirate drop pods in my base. 3 downed colonists, 2 dead huskies, many injuries. Could have been worse though.
I keep my colonists happy with psychite tea and smokeleaf. The more important workers get wake-up to ensure a quick recovery from base damage.
T-2d: mechanoid raid (4 scythers, 4 lancers). Traps and turrets get them done.
T-4d: mechanoid raid (4 centipedes). They are easily dispatched, but not before an autocannon turret takes off one pawn's foot :/
T-1.5d: 2-way pirate raid. they have no choice but to walk into my traps and turrets and quickly flee
T-15h: Another regular mechanoid raid consisting of just a few scythers/lancers that get handled by traps and turrets.
3rd of Jugust, 5504, 18h. My colonists are safely loaded into their cryptosleep caskets. Beatriz' empty casket stings a bit, but losses are expected (I'm a dummy... I just now realized I could have resurrected her). The ship takes off.

[Madman666]

Now that i think about it, structures like turrets (and walls\doors) should have some armor rating as well. I mean, you'd think a construct of solid steel would shrug off shots more than a tin can with meat inside. Turrets could really use to be a bit more resistant to damage (especially mini-turrets that pop like ballons with their 50% hp blowup treshhold), not through hp, but through armor. Makes no sense that they can't deflect shots. So i suggest to rebalance turrets once more around them having armor.

With their upkeeps being the stick, i think it makes sense to offer a carrot as well, which is the chance to mitigate or halve the damage, like mechs or power armored tin cans do.

[Oblitus]

Now that i think about it, structures like turrets (and walls\doors) should have some armor rating as well. I mean, you'd think a construct of solid steel would shrug off shots more that a tin can with meat inside. Turrets could really use to be a bit more resistant to damage (especially mini-turrets that pop like ballons with their 50% hp blowup treshhold), not through hp, but through armor. Makes no sense that they can't deflect shots. So i suggest to rebalance turrets once more around them having armor.

With their upkeeps being the stick, i think it makes sense to offer a carrot as well, which is the chance to mitigate or halve the damage, like mechs or power armored tin cans do.

Not turrets only. All structures should be more resistant to being punched and stabbed. Hares chewing plasteel like cardboard are really killing my suspension of disbelief.

[Madman666]

Yep, thats why i said - walls and doors as well. Even though they have less hp now, they really should be more resistant to some kinds of damage and less to others. Like only grenades and high caliber destructive weapons should be the most effective way to blast through doors and kill turrets. Three or four crazed squirrels shouldn't be able to gnaw through a steel turret.

Armor rating of structures should also depend on which material they are made off, so making them from more valuable materials pays off. With plasteel and uranium providing really high armor rating, steel - medium and wood pretty much non-existant. It d be also nice to have autocannons and sniper turrets be constructed from stuff again and having material-dependant armor rating as well.

Maybe go even further and make turrets from various materials require said material as "fuel", so that having to replace plasteel turret barrels will require plasteel (which should obviously offer more shots per barrel change, than a steel turret with a steel barrel has). I think that would be a much more interesting system, than what we have now.

[Hadley]

How the heck do you fix Colonists with Braininjuries without EPOE? I have 2 Pawns who are basically useless since they have Braininjuries and since there is no Brain-Surgery in Vanilla, how the heck do you fix that?

I know there is this Med-Artefact you get once every 100hrs from Missions but is there no other way?

the mech serum is actually more common in 1.0. I even had a mission to kill two pirates guarding a stash of two. Unfortunately it was my first winter and I had no food.

Well, I'm in Year 4 and 0 so far. Only mission that rewarded something useful was one for a AI Persona Core.