Unstable build feedback thread

[Sirsir]

Put watermills behind research.

Remove friendly chat prisoner interaction mode since it's purposeless and confusing..

I feel like you may have killed the watermills. Their big edge was they were a consistent power supply you could get from the start.

All electrical sources should be gated behind reseach, wood-generators being pretty easy to unlock. This is a step towards a good direction.

I completely disagree. Electricity should be useful at some degree from the moment the research is there

[Serenity]

It's not a bad move. One of the weaknesses of the game has always been to be able to build a fridge in the first few days. Just way too fast. You aren't stuck in "tribal mode" for long this way, but this forces you to not stockpile tons of meat or to consider pemmican maybe. Which isn't even an issue if you have wood. Without wood you can still build wind turbines. It just won't be entirely reliable.

[Oblitus]

It's not a bad move. One of the weaknesses of the game has always been to be able to build a fridge in the first few days. Just way too fast. You aren't stuck in "tribal mode" for long this way, but this forces you to not stockpile tons of meat or to consider pemmican maybe.

It is a bad move because it makes good researcher mandatory at the start as a crashlanded. Yo already need a good shooter (because shooting is a way to go), a half-decent brawler (because now you HAVE to cover your shooter), a good cook (or you'll spend half of the time vomiting and botching any work), a good constructor (or you can't build a lot of thing you really need and botch a ton of materials). If you want a mountain start (and 1.0 is heavily weighted in favor of mountain bases), you also need a capable miner. Crafting is not immediately necessary, but you'll want it soon. having a good medic is usually a good idea as well. There are 2 combat and 10 utility skills. It is good when all skills are useful, but when they are all vital AND randomly distributed? No. Just no. Main game mode should not require spending an hour pressing reroll button to make a crew that can survive the first month on medium difficulty.

[SpaceDorf]

Caravaning has really become a fun midgame experience now and when the colony runs like clockwork it is fun to watch the yellow dot crawl across the worldmap.
Still, always switching to the Worldmap just to check what the People still displayed on the top of the screen are up to feels sometimes a bit like a child asking "are we there yet ? "
Then I remembered a suggestion I made a long while ago, which I now know should be easily possible.
Display the ETA of the Caravan as Status Bar on top of the Caravan Members and for good looks throw in some Status Icons. One for Travelling, One for Resting and the Location Icon to show where the Pawns are at the moment. 

[Crow_T]

It's not a bad move. One of the weaknesses of the game has always been to be able to build a fridge in the first few days. Just way too fast. You aren't stuck in "tribal mode" for long this way, but this forces you to not stockpile tons of meat or to consider pemmican maybe. Which isn't even an issue if you have wood. Without wood you can still build wind turbines. It just won't be entirely reliable.

I agree, the crashlanded start has felt way too competent in the past, I like seeing the tech broken up a bit. Someday it might be cool to have some basic research randomly attached to a colonist like an injury or addiction, say one colonist may know nothing, but another may know how to grow devilstrand or brew beer because that's what they did before the crash. I think random knowledge for pawns would be cool, but it should be rare, like 5%, and pretty low level.

[Madman666]

It's not a bad move. One of the weaknesses of the game has always been to be able to build a fridge in the first few days. Just way too fast. You aren't stuck in "tribal mode" for long this way, but this forces you to not stockpile tons of meat or to consider pemmican maybe. Which isn't even an issue if you have wood. Without wood you can still build wind turbines. It just won't be entirely reliable.

It IS a bad move, because people naturally flying on friggin spaceships and crashlanding from those should have industrial level of tech, not neolithic. Having former urbworld inhabitants to rely on pemmican instead of a freezer makes no sense of whatsoever. "Tribal mode" should be reserved for tribal start.

I agree, the crashlanded start has felt way too competent in the past, I like seeing the tech broken up a bit. Someday it might be cool to have some basic research randomly attached to a colonist like an injury or addiction, say one colonist may know nothing, but another may know how to grow devilstrand or brew beer because that's what they did before the crash. I think random knowledge for pawns would be cool, but it should be rare, like 5%, and pretty low level.

Crashlanded start should be competent, because its not tribal start with several half naked savages armed with sticks. Idustrial level city dwellers really shouldn't have to research tribal level meat preservation, before constructing a proper powered freezer. You want basic level tech progression - go tribal.

I agree though, that some colonists having a chance to bring some knowledge with them might be interesting.

[Serenity]

They aren't tribals. You can still get proper electricity pretty fast. Even with a bad researcher you can easily get batteries soon. But just because you have the knowledge doesn't mean you should be able to build luxury colony right away. And really the only thing you need reliable electricity at the start is a freezer.

[Madman666]

They aren't tribals. You can still get proper electricity pretty fast. Even with a bad researcher you can easily get batteries soon. But just because you have the knowledge doesn't mean you should be able to build luxury colony right away. And really the only thing you need reliable electricity at the start is a freezer.

We obviously have different concepts of "luxury colony". Just having a basic freezer cannot be considered living in luxury. If you have the knowledge of electricity, it automatically assumes that you have the tech of generating it and storing it (you really should start with battery research as well tbh, though i don't rely on them due to unpreventable explosion mechanic).

I ll say it once again - industrial level people should not rely on tribal means of survival, which includes food storage options. Pemmican should be used as traveling MRE equivalent, not for food preservation.

[bbqftw]

Its not like freezer first for crashlanded is even particularly optimal, but without refrigeration, you are looking at something like 10x more mouseclicks to control your food situation, since it requires far more manual pawn command.

Its interesting the first time around, but tedious the next times.

So you build the freezer, even if it costs you some win %

[Oblitus]

Here we go... Had to fight them off with 5 pawns. Had to rebuild a lot of turrets after. Cass medium.

They aren't tribals. You can still get proper electricity pretty fast. Even with a bad researcher you can easily get batteries soon. But just because you have the knowledge doesn't mean you should be able to build luxury colony right away. And really the only thing you need reliable electricity at the start is a freezer.

Wind generators are awfully unreliable, and all others are gated behind researches. And early research takes weeks due to unskilled pawn, low-efficiency lab and a lot of high-priority work. Manwhile you may need electricity for temperature control (passive coolers are no-go on non-forest maps even after last update), for nutrient paste dispenser if you don't have a cook (and that thing is just awful, and unreliable power makes it even more so), for stove if you do have a cook (again, fueled stove in non-forest is too expensive).

[Madman666]

Wind generators are awfully unreliable, and all others are gated behind researches. And early research takes weeks due to unskilled pawn, low-efficiency lab and a lot of high-priority work. Manwhile you may need electricity for temperature control (passive coolers are no-go on non-forest maps even after last update), for nutrient paste dispenser if you don't have a cook (and that thing is just awful, and unreliable power makes it even more so), for stove if you do have a cook (again, fueled stove in non-forest is too expensive).

Iconic luxury colony you're drawing here

Here we go... Had to fight them off with 5 pawns. Had to rebuild a lot of turrets after.

At least these events do offer a nice meat reward as opposed to human and mech raids, which bring usually only destruction and new colonist disabilities

[Oblitus]

Wind generators are awfully unreliable, and all others are gated behind researches. And early research takes weeks due to unskilled pawn, low-efficiency lab and a lot of high-priority work. Manwhile you may need electricity for temperature control (passive coolers are no-go on non-forest maps even after last update), for nutrient paste dispenser if you don't have a cook (and that thing is just awful, and unreliable power makes it even more so), for stove if you do have a cook (again, fueled stove in non-forest is too expensive).

Iconic luxury colony you're drawing here

Yeah, I like a luxery of not dying to cold snap or heat wave, not having permanent 80% consciousness debuff and not burning all effectively non-renewable wood.

[Sirinox]

They aren't tribals. You can still get proper electricity pretty fast. Even with a bad researcher you can easily get batteries soon. But just because you have the knowledge doesn't mean you should be able to build luxury colony right away. And really the only thing you need reliable electricity at the start is a freezer.

We obviously have different concepts of "luxury colony". Just having a basic freezer cannot be considered living in luxury. If you have the knowledge of electricity, it automatically assumes that you have the tech of generating it and storing it (you really should start with battery research as well tbh, though i don't rely on them due to unpreventable explosion mechanic).

I ll say it once again - industrial level people should not rely on tribal means of survival, which includes food storage options. Pemmican should be used as traveling MRE equivalent, not for food preservation.

Industrial level people nowadays in the absence of freezer don't rush making batteries and freezers from scrap, they just cook food in a quantities that won't spoil before get eaten. Same goes for Rimworld. Vegetables last long enough to store them without freezer for quite a while, meals last about 3 days iirc, a stock of meals ~3-4 for each pawn will be eaten before it spoils. I often play that way even not at tribal start, if I don't want to set up power early, before I get batteries or just still deciding where to place generators.

Anyway, wind generator power output while unreliable ranges drom 70 to 3000, and you only need 250 to power up a cooler. A generator w/o batteries is quite enough for one medium sized freezer, even more with extra insulating double walls.

Though wind and watermill generators work on the same principle, it's somewhat contradictory to have one being locked behind research and other not.

[bbqftw]

Exactly, freezers are a convenience tool, not an efficiency tool.

So why nerf something which primary purpose is reducing clicks while trading away win %?

At the cost of many clicks you can even stretch an animals rot span to 7 days by manually butchering and cooking and eating towards the later parts of the spoilage timer. But it may not be enjoyable to most to have to manually queue command micromanage certain pawns entire workday to accomplish this.

[DariusWolfe]

It is a bad move because it makes good researcher mandatory at the start as a crashlanded. Yo already need a good shooter (because shooting is a way to go), a half-decent brawler (because now you HAVE to cover your shooter), a good cook (or you'll spend half of the time vomiting and botching any work), a good constructor (or you can't build a lot of thing you really need and botch a ton of materials). If you want a mountain start (and 1.0 is heavily weighted in favor of mountain bases), you also need a capable miner.

Absolutely none of that is mandatory. I like a good shooter, a good medic and a good social; Everything else is optional, based on how I want to play this particular colony; I try to get a good mix of stuff, but research, even now, is still one of my lowest priorities, and melee has always been, and continues to be, even in the newer paradigm of considerably stronger melee.

Even industrial-age+ colonists crashlanding on an unknown world aren't going to know how to build all of this stuff from the get-go; It's honestly a kindness that we have electrical engineering. I'm a pretty technical dude, with mechanical and electronic experience, and I couldn't build a generator, cooler or heater without a lot of time spent figuring out how. The fact that I have a basic understanding of principles and a solid idea of what's possible puts me head and shoulders above a primitive tribesman, but I'm not going to have the knowledge from the beginning; And chances are good that a random sampling of 2 other people aren't going to, either.

So while I do some research, I go primitive. I hunt only as much meat as I can reasonably eat in a couple days. If I have even a half-ass farmer, I farm. If I've got nothing but shitty farmers, I still farm. Research is more important than it was, but it's still quite doable without it for quite some time. This feels real, this feels right; It's always bugged me how quickly a random bunch of strangers can build a high-tech colony, so moving away from that is a good change.