Unstable build feedback thread

Started by Tynan, June 16, 2018, 11:10:34 PM

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mcduff

Quote from: Oxxian on July 25, 2018, 05:14:20 PM
Hey been playing the latest build on cas medium

It may just be because medium but my allies seem to think I'm desperately struggling and I'm not sure why they have left me some really shiny gifts like gold and advanced components. I have a handy cattle herd and a defensible mountain base with indoor hydroponics and chem-fuel power gen. Here's the graphs. Been holding raiders at bay with traps and micro along with the occasional summoned allies. Lost 0 colonists not had much in the way of things i felt were a big threat. Is it because of my relatively modest wealth?
I mean, is it not because you're playing on Medium? What kind of play experience do you expect to have on that difficulty setting? Admittedly people leaving you gold is a bit odd, but I'd expect, playing on medium, that I'm probably going to be able to keep most of my colonists at least alive, and if I have really good defenses that they'll probably stay in once piece as well. If you want more threat, why not turn the difficulty up?

Emulsion

Quote from: zizard on July 26, 2018, 05:48:08 AM
Quote from: Emulsion on July 26, 2018, 05:40:32 AM
Regarding workbenches:

I'd like the option to take into account people's stuff on caravans.

Another one that was already in "better workbench management". It had the option to "count colonist items" "even when away". Very useful for preserved food, since otherwise a caravan embarking with a safe excess of food would end up returning and adding a giant surplus.

I used that mod in previous versions but never thought of the food, very good point indeed  ;D

Mehni

Anyone else getting a crapton of "Undergrounders"? I used to be happy seeing them but now not so much. Cabin fever isn't as bad as before so the trait impact doesn't warrant its commonality. Or vice versa.

zizard

Based on my current Cass extreme boreal mountainous run. I found there was very little urgency in the game. I could sit back and tech and dig slowly and be really picky with pawns and as long as I stayed on low wealth the raids would be small. I think it might be interesting to have a small (maybe optional) additive factor to raid points that depends only on time. Then it would not be so beneficial to wait for the perfect cute pawn.

HomelessAbe

Quote from: Ruisuki on July 26, 2018, 03:25:29 AM
guys is it true that 1.0 has mood debuffs for living under mountains and for using bionics without prostophile trait? Please tell me the guy was exaggerating..

There is a debuff for extended amounts of time spent underground, but my people spend enough time outside that I don't really have enough experience with it to tell you how much it is. I think it's comparable to the cabin fever debuff, but could be wrong.

There are debuffs for having multiple bionic parts without prosthophile (now named "transhumanist"), but it doesn't start until they have about three bionics and even then it's only a -1. After that for each additional part it's an additional minus one. Most of my people have 4 or 5 parts and it doesn't really bother them too much. It isn't as big of a deal as it initially seems, everything else I have going on in the colony as far as quality of life stuff has more than kept it balanced, so I wouldn't worry about it too much.

Emulsion

#3830
Quote from: Ruisuki on July 26, 2018, 03:25:29 AM
guys is it true that 1.0 has mood debuffs for living under mountains and for using bionics without prostophile trait? Please tell me the guy was exaggerating..

It has. IMO they are not that crucial. Outdoors need has been nerfed during the different builds and really mostly affects researchers and cooks.
I think the most extreme is -12 but it needs a few days to get there.
I had a mountain base and I dealt with it by drafting the pawn outside for some time once in a while.
I suggested that people who want to go outdoors more often decide to actually do it when recreating, not sure if something in this direction has changed yet but it's really not that bad.
BTW, I like the name change to 'undergrounder' because it's gender neutral.

For bionics debuff:
Can't have a look right now so the numbers could be slightly wrong but I had a woman with 5 artificial body parts and it was a merely -3, if I remember correctly.
IMO it adds character to the pawns if they ask themselves: "What have I become, am I still human?"
And it made me think: "Damn, maybe I shouldn't have given her an arm for two missing fingers, poor soul."
Adds to the RP-factor IMO but doesn't really change the game that much..

But I think cochlear implants shouldn't count in that regard, nobody would exchange a functioning ear. I mostly installed them to get rid of the 'disfigured'-thoughts of other colonists, yeah maybe I exaggerated and the debuff is alright then ;-)

But maybe an option for plastic surgery with glitterworld meds that doesn't get rid of the scar itself but makes people become pleasing to look at again..
Or make friends just ignore disfigured things..
I just really don't like that these people are so superficial that they suddenly like someone less with whom they spent the last years building a new home just because this person got a scar on his ear so I'm looking for ways to fix that in a balanced way..

5thHorseman

#3831
I probably had the most fun I've had ever playing last night. I got sick of my surroundings (it was a random placement) and - even though I'd finished researching and had a solid base - I decided to pack everything up and move. I was 3 days' hike to the nearest road, and from there we hiked another day to a nice semi-hilly location. We built a new and far better planned base, everybody got really mad that they couldn't sleep in the beds they were used to and we almost ran out of food and medicine, I learned just how much the Zzzt event scales with overpowered grids, and ... my colony has bloomed to over 20 people?

That last one makes me wonder if number of colonists was recently raised. I've not had an escape pod nor a chased person in ... a year or more probably. And since moving into this new area I've had an escape pod and 2 chased people. All 3 were relations so I took them all. I even Rescued the escape pod person so she had the option to leave and she didn't. The last chased person showed up when I was at 20 people, and while his chasers were running all the way around my base, we recruited one of the guys who had chased the person before. So now I have 22 people. Not complaining, but I'd basically leveled off at 17 and now it's just crazy.

Also, I've figured out traps and like them again. It's all about the wood traps. Lay down some wood traps on the outside to catch any rodents, then some stone traps to get bigger animals and the first few raiders, and then steel traps to really lay into them. 15 people chased that last person. The first guy took out 7 wood traps, the second died on the first stone trap after taking out the last couple wood traps, the next 3 guys died on the 9 or so stone traps and the first guy to step on a steel trap died, sending the rest running. Bravo! Well worth a couple hundred wood and stone to not take a lick of damage.

One thing, when traps are marked to be rebuilt, they gain a home zone around them. Could that be turned off? Not sure if rebuilt walls do the same. I'm trying to keep my home zone inside the outer wall ring so I can switch everybody to "Home" and keep them safe in a raid.

EDIT: Adding pics...

[attachment deleted due to age]
Toolboxifier - Soil Clarifier
I never got how pawns in the game could have such insanely bad reactions to such mundane things.
Then I came to the forums.

Oxxian

Quote from: mcduff on July 26, 2018, 05:54:48 AM
I mean, is it not because you're playing on Medium? What kind of play experience do you expect to have on that difficulty setting? Admittedly people leaving you gold is a bit odd, but I'd expect, playing on medium, that I'm probably going to be able to keep most of my colonists at least alive, and if I have really good defenses that they'll probably stay in once piece as well. If you want more threat, why not turn the difficulty up?

Oh I don't mind the difficulty its about right for my first go at permadeath with random starters Its challenging for me (because well I'm not that good and like to do silly things) I'm more concerned that my allies seem to think I'm struggling through by the skin of my teeth to the point where they feel the need to shower me with aid when my colony seems to be doing very well. It feels like there something wrong with their perception of how well I'm doing for the difficulty I'm on if that makes any sense? I feel like the UN is swooping in to hand out rice and clean water to wall street.

mcduff


Awe

Started new game a few days ago. Cassandra, survival struggle, tribals, 60/60, mountainous schrublands.

5503, still no turrets/traps. Not that much wood and steel on a map. Probably need to try stone traps, but maybe later, because threats still manageable just with pawns only. Most problematic still mech ships. Barely deal with 8 centipedes(and few scythers/lancers) from poison ship in 5502. Infestations, drop pods and caravan ambushes seems ok.

Also, very big thanks for friendly fire rework. Just kill 26 megasloths manhunting pack with brawlers blocking door and 9 firesupport behind, without any friendly shots. Screens included.

[attachment deleted due to age]

Razzoriel

Quote from: zizard on July 26, 2018, 02:02:16 AM
I've noticed that I barely care about furniture quality at all now. Since masterwork and legendary are barely seen and 2 other qualities were removed, we are effectively left with only 5 from original 9, meaning "end game" quality excellent furniture can be built from day 1. It makes high construction skill pretty useless too. I suggest restoring at least one of the positive regular qualities. Waiting around for a creative inspiration isn't very interactive, and rarely happens on higher difficulties with mood penalties. It's also frustrating to receive a useless inspiration, like repeated "inspired recruitment" on someone that could use "creative inspiration" when you don't even have prisoners (now the norm for 90+% of the game).
Yup. I miss the old quality system too. Made levelling your skills more insightful.

Tynan

I'm not sure I understand the complaint. Excellent is still the same quality as it always was, and MW/LG are both "higher" than they were before. All that was removed was some "steps" to a ladder which were already very close together - the ladder is taller than before.
Tynan Sylvester - @TynanSylvester - Tynan's Blog

5thHorseman

Well things have gone poorly since my last post.

This may be my final message...

[attachment deleted due to age]
Toolboxifier - Soil Clarifier
I never got how pawns in the game could have such insanely bad reactions to such mundane things.
Then I came to the forums.

XeoNovaDan

#3838
So, quick bit of story with my current run where I've utilised transport pods more, and this feedback is also centred around transport pods as a result:

Story 1:

I had one caravan go out about 2 ingame years ago now where two of three colonists (both of them doctors) got the plague on the way to some peace talks. Naturally I forced the caravan to settle since traversal was very slow in the ice sheets where my colony is located, and I rushed transport pods research (which got done very quickly). As I rushed my colonists at base to send enough supplies over for an emergency return journey for the caravan, I noticed one thing: only a single colonist can load a transport pod, unlike caravans where multiple colonists can load one pack animal. This alone made the packing process very slow, and time was ticking for the plague victims a few days out.

As soon as the pods were loaded which took a couple of days, one of the victims had succumbed to the plague, but the other survived. However, the other colonist had another problem: hypothermia. The plague victim had a good enough parka which would've made sure that the hypothermic plague survivor would've been able to get over his hypothermia - off the top of my head, it was -55 to -60C, the hypothermic colonist only had a foxfur parka which only made them good until -40C, but the plague victim had a thrumbofur parka which would've made the hypothermic colonist good until around -65C. However, the hypothermic colonist was incapacitated, and there was no way for the other colonist (healthy) to force the hypothermic colonist to wear this thrumbofur parka which would've ensured his survival, and as a result, that colonist also succumbed to hypothermia.

Thankfully I was able to get the third colonist back as the supplies arrived just after the hypothermic colonist died, but it was too little too late, and if it were possible for multiple colonists to load a single transport pod, both deaths could've been prevented - or even being able to force downed people to wear an item of clothing via another colonist would've prevented one of those two deaths.




Story 2:

This one's just passed, but it's just another general gripe with transport pod loading. There's a trade request which requires 13 heavy SMGs for 4 resurrector mech serums, which of course is an opportunity I'd gladly accept. However, the journey was 8 days and since meat is a scarcity in ice sheets, packaged survival meals aren't a possibility since they require both meat and vegetables - a lot of the journey was also boreal forest and tundra, so ordinary meals would probably spoil. I instead opted for the alternative approach of setting up an outpost just far enough from the base in question to not cause relations penalties, not just to fulfil the trade deal but also for future trading in general and the prospect of growing devilstrand since the site in question is tundra rather than ice sheet.

Naturally I set up my 5 transport pods to be loaded with enough resources to get established: food, medicine, bedrolls, a couple of batteries, steel, components and slate blocks, as well as three colonists. However, the three colonists wouldn't satisfy their needs during the loading process, so as a result, their moods soured because of malnutrition, sleep deprivation and joy deprivation.

I didn't notice this until they had already loaded themselves into the transport pods though, before they'd even loaded all of the other requested items into the pods, and a lot was already loaded in so it wasn't exactly feasible to cancel the loading, and I ended up launching slightly prematurely - also being exacerbated by the fact one of the colonists had the plague, so I didn't want them to be malnourished for too long so that their immunity could stay ahead of their severity.




Ultimately, this context boils down into four suggestions:

  • Multiple colonists should be able to load a single transport pod
  • If a colonist is set to be loaded into a transport pod, they shouldn't ignore their own needs when loading other items - this could be a bug though
  • If a pod is set to be loaded with colonists and items, the colonists should load the items into the pods before loading themselves in
  • There should be a way to make colonist A force downed colonist B to wear an item of clothing of the player's chocie

However, there is also another thing I noticed since the caravan in story 2 was immobilised after the pods landed (not that it mattered in this case, but it could matter in others): There should be a readout for the total carrying capacity of the pawns in the transport pod UI, compared against the total mass of general items in the transport pods. This will help players avoid falling into the trap of setting up a transport podding caravan to be overencumbered, thus being immobilised.

Razzoriel

Quote from: Tynan on July 26, 2018, 08:55:17 AM
I'm not sure I understand the complaint. Excellent is still the same quality as it always was, and MW/LG are both "higher" than they were before. All that was removed was some "steps" to a ladder which were already very close together - the ladder is taller than before.
It removes the visual component of progress. By removing Shoddy and Superior and making the Masterwork and Legendary jumps bigger than the rest of the qualities, you kind of made everyone just aim towards the top and not care too much about what comes. Armor, for instance, which had a nosedive in Awful, huge increase towards shoddy, then normalization up until Excellent, and a double jump to Legendary made it quite flavorful; Awful stuff was exactly that; better than nothing. Now it's the lowest step, which is a step below the second lowest, and so forth. Normalization in exchange for flavor.

For those that don't know what I'm talking about. This is for armor in B18:
        <factorAwful>0.4</factorAwful>
        <factorShoddy>0.7</factorShoddy>
        <factorPoor>0.85</factorPoor>
        <factorNormal>1</factorNormal>
        <factorGood>1.1</factorGood>
        <factorSuperior>1.3</factorSuperior>
        <factorExcellent>1.5</factorExcellent>
        <factorMasterwork>1.7</factorMasterwork>
        <factorLegendary>2.1</factorLegendary>

This is 1.0:
        <factorAwful>0.8</factorAwful>
        <factorPoor>0.9</factorPoor>
        <factorNormal>1</factorNormal>
        <factorGood>1.1</factorGood>
        <factorExcellent>1.2</factorExcellent>
        <factorMasterwork>1.4</factorMasterwork>
        <factorLegendary>1.8</factorLegendary>