Unstable build feedback thread

[Teleblaster18]

Storyteller: Cassandra Classic
Difficulty: Rough
Biome/hilliness:  Boreal Forest (Permanent Summer) - Flat
Commitment mode: No
Current colony age: 320 days
Hours played in the last 2 days: ~20
Complete mod list: None

Debug Graphs/Notes for v.1978


I had to play on normal speed much of today, with the aim of super-microing my ailing colony out of it's death spiral.  For now, it's successful: all 9 pawns are back on their feet, and relatively healthy.  The colony is more-or-less stabilized at the moment.

The Poison Ship which spawned at the end of my last gameplay update (while 7 out of 9 colonists were fully incap'd, and 2 deaths had just occurred) only spit out a single Centipede.  Whew.

No gameplay observations other than the "triple jeopardy" mood debuff for a spouse's death I posted earlier...I was too busy micro-managing to notice much tonight.  The game definitely seems to be pulling it's punches somewhat after a major crisis...which I'm sure won't last much longer.

Graphs for last night's gameplay:

[tomay]

Can't rotate solar panels and marriage spot.
Intended?

[Eterm]

Is it a deliberate feature that when "auto-rebuild" is on that walls are set forbidden?

I had a hole in my main stockpile wall which I didn't notice until everything was down to 80% degraded.

Luckily most my top quality stuff is my secondary stockpile but I did have some bionics lose a lot of value.

[Eterm]

Bionics are really efficient now. For example a single bionic eye gets you to 130% efficiency because the calcuation is now effectively (75% * (best eye) + 25% * (worst eye)).

Just replace half the eyes, ears, legs and arms with a bionic and you get almost full terminator for the price of half.

[5thHorseman]

Storyteller: Cassandra
Difficulty: Medium
Biome: Temperate Forest, small hills, road, permanent summer.
Commitment mode: no
Hours played in the last 2 days: Maybe 20 by now.
Complete mod list: Hugslib, Autoseller, While You're Up, RandomPlus(not used for this run), Simple Stockpile Presets, Numbers, Hand Me That Brick Lite, No Forced Slowdown, Deep Ore Identifier.

I had a terrible cold snap and most of the grass on the map died. Now, all the wild herbivores (who invaded my town through a hole the last mechanoids put in my wall) are running frantically from clump of grass to the next, even though there are other grass clumps they could eat. It's like they're all targeting the same one, over and over.

Not sure if it's just that they're the only ones in the area that have "fully grown" or if it's a bug. I wonder though that my muffalos are not doing the same though grass is their only food supply.

[attachment deleted due to age]

[Lanilor]

Can't rotate solar panels and marriage spot.
Intended?

You should be able to rotate a marriage spot, but it indeed seems to be broken currently. The spot itself rotates but the graphic does not, so it looks weird.
Solar panels are not rotateable.

[alxddd]

Storyteller: Phoebe Chillax
Difficulty: Rough
Biome: Temperate Forest
Commitment mode: yes
Hours played in the last 2 days: 8
Complete mod list: None

I don't have a story to tell, but I am having a very Chillax game so far, and population seems to grow relatively easily. I attached my debug log so far just to have.

I wanted to chime in on the sprites conversation. I love a lot of the new art a lot. Healroot looks really good - it stands out in a totally new way and looks more natural in the environment. Components are great, big and small, because it stands out and actually makes sense for what it is, and it fits the current style. The silver is great for the same reasons. And I actually especially love the bright red cubes of meat. Reading this thread you'd think you'd gone full South Park on the art style or something, but the cubes makes sense, stand out but not too much that they don't fit the art style. They look cut and fresh and are easily distinguishable. The corrective steaks, however, are so dark they look cooked, and don't really match up for me.

I'm really disappointed in this community that they've been so outspoken on such a bike-shed issue that they've taken away such, for me, a welcome style from the game. I'm partially being sarcastic here, but I'm also part not.

Other notes include:
- doesn't the ability to build bridges over marshy soil near eliminate the need for the moisture pump? I get that wood is flammable and has no beauty, but the difference between cost of a little wood versus the cost of the moisture pump is so great is seems that the latter is almost redundant. I know wood is also not always readily available, but wood is very readily available exactly where you would encounter marshy soil, so that seems off. perhaps bring bridge research back to balance? or make the moisture pump a more easily accessible research? or make bridges require more wood. I'm not sure the solution.

- when running electricity through smoothed walls, the single tile at the intersection of four smoothed walls has (no path) to be able to build the conduit.

- i mentioned before that it is counter intuitive that crafting jobs don't build crafting skills and that maybe a name change or reorganization is in order to make that clearer, but I noticed that pawns' crafting skills literally decays while rolling joints. I don't know if any plan is changed in this area, but at the very least could you have the skill stay stagnant while in the time they're crafting?

- Wild Man event spawned a woman. anyone else see a problem here? Perhaps rename to something like - Wild Human, Feral Child, Feral Human, or even just Wildman would be better so at least it's just an exclusionary term and not contradictory.

- I noticed a change in animals not becoming desiccated immediately upon dying during a toxic fallout. intended? If it is I like it. As it was, a toxic fallout would come and immediately 100% of your sources of food were taken away with little recourse. As a tribe especially there's just nothing you can do about it unless you'd already stockpiled huge amounts of pemmican. although, you could probably make the desiccation happen a lot faster, like within hours, that way creating a sense of immediacy for the player and it still keeps the feeling of a toxic fallout without the brutal punishment. just a thought.

[attachment deleted due to age]

[alxddd]

Can't rotate solar panels and marriage spot.
Intended?

You should be able to rotate a marriage spot, but it indeed seems to be broken currently. The spot itself rotates but the graphic does not, so it looks weird.
Solar panels are not rotateable.

for the marriage spot at least you can rotate it, it's just that the graphic while you're placing it seems to be broken, but once you place it down it is indeed rotated. definitely a bug.

[Anniebenlen]

Ooh, just noticed that there is a new prisoner interaction: Reduce Resistance.  We now pick between that and recruit.  I have no idea what the strategy is for this.  I just picked the Reduce option, maybe that will make the recruiting time overall less?

[Koek]

Ooh, just noticed that there is a new prisoner interaction: Reduce Resistance.  We now pick between that and recruit.  I have no idea what the strategy is for this.  I just picked the Reduce option, maybe that will make the recruiting time overall less?

Maybe it's for those who didn't like the option to just chat to be gone without it being an exploit to level the social skill.
Perhaps Tynan is planning to have released prisoners whose resistance is broken to raise faction relations more than usual? (hint hint )

[RemingtonRyder]

Storyteller: Cassandra Classic
Difficulty: Medium
Biome/hilliness: Arid shrubland, Mountainous (no caves)
Commitment mode: no
Current colony age (days): 85
Hours played in the last 2 days: 4
Complete mod list: None

So about a year and a half ago, four wastelanders (new arrivals) decided to build a shelter where they could escape from the effects of a planet-wide toxic fallout.

Trev, Trafficker
Lute, Miner
Greyhound, Linguist
Lips, Messenger

Permanent game condition: Toxic Fallout

They started with research: Gun turrets, Hydroponics

They started with these supplies:

Silver x1000
Packaged survival meals x160
Medicine x30
Component x60
Assault rifle
Steel knife
Autopistol
Pump shotgun
Steel x600
Wood x300

The first order of business was building a place to shelter from the intense heat - this was a hot planet, and the chosen location would had an average temperature of 49.2C. The initial structure was built against a rockface with steel walls and three coolers. The coolers were powered by wind turbines. Occasionally, the wind would calm to the point where the coolers went offline, but not for too long.

After that was taken care of and the threat of heat stroke had passed, the colonists built some rec facilities - a table and stools, a chess table with stools, and a horseshoes pin.

A heat wave began on the fifth day. The tribal raider who arrived on day 6 was not prepared for the heat. It was easy for the colonists to overpower and capture him but he died of heatstroke because his prison cell was too warm. Whoops.

A couple of quadrums later, things are looking good. The shelter has a proper indoor growing area and a more stable power supply with batteries on the grid. Some manhunting monkeys are easily taken care of, along with another tribal raid. However, since the raiders die in their attack, there isn't a chance to recruit someone new to the shelter.

Another opportunity was missed just a little later in the form of a prisoner being held captive nearby. The colonists didn't have enough insulating clothes yet, so maybe it was best that this went by the wayside.

However, I did make it more of a priority to tailor some dusters so that some of the colonists could work outside in the heat. By now everyone has their own room to sleep in.

The colony also expands its facilities a bit so that there is a prison barracks with a nutrient paste dispenser.

Finally, there is a tribal raid in the last quadrum of the year and it yields a prisoner named Cobra that the colonists can start persuading.

The first quadrum of 5501 there is another raid, this time by pirates. The colonists take another prisoner, this one called Crink.

Trev has an inspiration a few days later and is able to use this to persuade Cobra to work for the colony. A few days later he also recruits Crink, so the colony population is now up to six.

By the second quadrum of 5501, the colony has a comms console and orbital beacons, so it can at least trade with passing ships. A turret guards the courtyard which houses the outdoor trade beacon, wind turbines and solar panels.

Later that quadrum a pirate merchant is passing by and the colony pays a fairly steep sum (about 1300 silver) for a tribal named Boxoso. Colony population is now 7.

Finally, with an incapacitated refugee (Eva) calling from somewhere nearby, the colonists decide to attempt their first rescue. As it turns out, it's fairly straightforward. The caravan that is sent out encounters no enemies, so they offer to help Eva and she gratefully joins them.

Overall, it's been quite a fun playthrough. I've used zone restrictions to keep the toxic buildup from becoming too severe. I've learned that caravans can venture out into the world without dying in the toxic fallout, as long as they're able to take the heat. They can even forage food.

Maybe permanent game conditions could be improved a little so that they challenge you even on the world map, though that doesn't necessarily have to be in the same way. For example, there could be tunnels or abandoned mines or cave systems that would provide protection from toxic fallout, but caravans have to scout for them which takes time.

It's also been interesting because of the resources which go into building a hydroponics setup and the power to run it, and also the scarcity of things which would usually be plentiful in a colony this old. There aren't any wild animals to hunt, so the colony doesn't get much leather or fur to work with.

I've also had to do a lot more mining to find hidden deposits of compacted machinery, because traders can't come by land. With transport pods I can think about maybe podding over to settlement to trade some things. However, while the research is in the bag, I've yet to actually get a refinery running, because I'll need to grow more crops to feed it, so I need to dig out more space and expand my power infrastructure. Even if I just build a roofed area over soil somewhere, I still have to light it up.

Haven't needed to use traps in this playthrough.

Here are the wealth and debug graphs!

[attachment deleted due to age]

[JimmyAgnt007]

Just starting an 'out in the open' playthrough.  The new meat looks find I guess, prefered the steak-like version, but the colour makes it look rotten rather than fresh.  Compare it to a rotting animal.  Not a big fan of the silver potatoes either.  Blue berry bushes don't 'pop' out quite as much to the eye but them and the red bushes making purple berries is fine.  Maybe making the blue a bit more distinct?

[5thHorseman]

Storyteller: Cassandra
Difficulty: Medium
Biome: Temperate Forest, small hills, road, permanent summer.
Commitment mode: no
Hours played in the last 2 days: 20 probably.
Complete mod list: Hugslib, Autoseller, While You're Up, RandomPlus(not used for this run), Simple Stockpile Presets, Numbers, Hand Me That Brick Lite, No Forced Slowdown, Deep Ore Identifier.

Turned on the ship!

15: Siege. They tried to set up in a hill, gave up instantly, assaulted one of our trap corridors and then ran away. We did take a few casualties finishing them off but also captured a few. We let them go.
14: Toxic fallout. Even the planet is attacking us. But we got the traps all set back up.
13: We got assaulted by... a group of travelers. They weren't even selling anything.
12: Sappers! Tribespeople sappers. 16 of them. Half of them ran through the same trap corridor, and the others fell for the "No this door's open come on in" trick. The other 5 ran. In the evening, a Male Psychic Drone started. One guy went on an insulting spree but allowed himself to be captured. Another hid in their room. At least they won't get much toxic buildup. The Boomalopes in the area started succumbing to it, though, and started exploding all over. Luckily, only a couple were in the base.
11: Hollis (the insulter above) went catatonic. We let him be. Some random alpaca wool fell into our base. Late at night, we got a huge raid. Mechanoids right on top of us! With all our traps, we took them out with no casualties.
10: A muffalo died of toxic buildup. I set them all to live in the freezer. They can eat the corn we don't really need anymore. The drone ended, thankfully. Some people started getting serious toxic buildup, so I set them to only be allowed indoors.
9: 27 tribespeople showed up. We showed them what traps and turrets do. We didn't even clean up the bodies or the weapons, but we did reset the traps.
8: Over half the colonists are at serious buildup and are therefore stuck inside.
7: Pirates. They got massacred by the traps and turrets. And the toxic fallout thankfully ended after only 7 days. Back outside, everybody!
6: Pirates with sappers, which is just as well as we haven't gotten the traps all set back up because of the toxic fallout. While the sapper tried to dig through a wall, the rest ran through some traps that were set up still, and then they all gave up.
5: Toxic buildup (which was still there but going away) gave someone dementia. They seem fine though. Then he got confusion, a bear self tamed(!) and we got raided, all in a few seconds of each other. They didn't even see the inside of the complex before giving up. We slaughtered the bear for meat. Then a bulk goods trader called and we bought all their meat. That should see us through to the end.
4: Nothing happened. We spent most of the day hauling stuff. Someone (The one with dementia?) wandered off apparently because we now have 18 colonists.
3: Mechanoids dropped on top of us. We eviscerated them but did lose a turret. Then the females of the colony got a psychic soothe.
2: It was so quiet we got all the trap corridors fixed up, right in time for a tribespeople raid. It went as expected.
1: We fixed up the traps that they'd sprung. We actually ran out of wood but with only a day to go, we dismantled an old building we'd not been using instead of cutting down trees.
21h: 17 tribespeople who are clever with their tactics ran into a bunch of traps and then fled.
19h: Psychite tea dropped from the sky. We ignored it.
18h: Mechanoids again! The turrets got some and we got the rest.
13h: We ran out of storage for dead bodies. We left the rest on the ground.
9h: More visitors. We told them we were busy and then ignored them.
3h: We set the muffalos to unrestricted. We're free, they should be too.
0h: 18 colonists lifted off! Woo hoo!

All in all, much easier than I'd thought it would be. Mostly because I was way over prepared. But Man after over 200 hours I've finally won a game!

[Nynzal]

I might found a few things that are not intended, I dont know if they are considered bugs:

Pawns assigned to hauling but not constructing "haul" a grave and start the building even if there is nothing to be done except the building itself (no trees to cut or sth). That means it is a useless trip.

While digging at smoothed stone, pawns assigned to contructing repair the wall.

If an open area (e.g. previous enclosed in a mountain) is closed with a wall, a manually assigned "ignore roof area" is reset and a roof will be build. This happens each time a one piece of the enclosing wall is constructed.

[MoronicCinamun]

gonna try my hand at full report, apologies if the image posts are suboptimal still figuring this out, this is certainly less cumbersome than Steam links and it bypasses the direct upload size limit:

Storyteller: Randy Random
Difficulty: Rough
Biome/hilliness:  Temperate Forest (40/60) - Mountains (with caves!)
Commitment mode: yes
Current colony age: 193 days
Hours played in the last 2 days: a lot, like 26 not sure
Complete mod list: None

I had a very brutal, very suspenseful, and over all most deadly and engaging battle I've ever had.
Living in a mountain I knew bugs would tunnel in eventually, so I sort of prepared: had some stone doors placed in key areas normally held open to function like fire "airlocks", and made sure I had molotovs at the ready.
I got the warning of bugs tunneling in, one of the bedrooms (my overall layout is pretty not-planned, mostly just where ruins were and hallowed out mineral deposits, very asymmetrical and random).

I have everyone except our doctor who can't fight for poop and the guy who was in a psychotic daze armor and arm up: very shortly prior our Social-Chef-Melee Expert returned from a long caravan trip with an AR, Chain Shotgun, and an Archotech arm to replace our "sniper's" prosthetic (she got a hand shot off by a Lancer short time previous).

I guess this was my first mistake: playing it safe, we had our worst shot, wearing no armor so he could stay light, just chuck a molotov the wooden door of the room the bugs were in, as one hive was adjacent. We were just gonna wait for them roast. And roast they did, even as they screamed and tried to tunnel out they didn't breech anywhere or anything, every bug died in that room, eventually.

That hardly would have been a problem, but while the bugs were roasting, not even yet downed, pirates drop down. They came in 3 separate groups across the map, I didn't get an exact total but there were a lot, with multiple chain shotguns, machine pistols, and other nasties; pretty sure most if not all had flak vests too.

My mountain base isn't too well defended, we have a 1-thick slate wall (we only have slate and a little sandstone around here) going around broken only by small hills where we could to save work. They took time to prepare, so we tried to get some food and sleep in but didn't really accomplish much there, while the bugs still burnt. Once they attacked, the full attack squad went out, as the raiders started to punch at different areas along our wall. Took a few potshots that didn't accomplish much, although one guy of theirs did fall to a molotov in a funny fit of running in circles while on fire. Our MVP was our chef-melee expert, with his thrumbo horn (store bought!), good marine armor + normally shield (both gotten from an item stack quest), and a decent advanced helm we built, he rushed out the wall to pick off a few stragglers and only took a few bruises in the process.

I had a few traps placed prior, but they accomplished nothing here: I have some steel deadfalls placed adjacent to some doors, which normally work well against melee gits and big animal, but they didn't get hit here. Worse, I had a few HE IEDs placed. 2 were placed in these ~3wide natural tunnels that form major highways through the area, none of which were tripped despite squads of enemies running through. Another one that was placed adjacent to a mountain in exactly the place someone would seek cover while firing at our door gunners got tripped and exploded off screen, yet the guy took almost no damage, just some shredding to one arm, maybe the armor saved him? The guy was standing over the blueprint, so I don't think he somehow triggered it, ran out of the radius, then back in (he was running away from our power armored mini-thrumbo).

The most brutal aspect of course was this was while the infestation was still being "dealt with". The fire had started to go out of control, adjacent rooms getting air-will-burn-you hot through the smoothed stone walls, soon our hospital was starting to ignite, thankfully we pulled the meds out first but we still lost a masterwork wooden bed and painstopper. Ideally, once the bugs dropped from heat shock we should have rushed in, put the fire out, and finished them off the old fashion way, but we couldn't with the raid going on. Our doc who stayed behind I had running in circles as he's trying to sleep to prop open doors and strip roofs to let the heat out faster, as at this point we pretty much just had to let all the fuel in the bug-room be used up. Once the humans were dealt with, we had as many as we could rush in and put stuff out. got a few minor burns, hopefully nothing gets infected. Our poor guy with the chainshotgun lost a finger to a chainshoty of their own, and then got a eye bashed out as their shotguner charged into melee.

Another thing I've never seen before: the way these raiders dropped in 3 different "squads", each's points seemed to be tracked on it's own, as killing a few would cause that "squad" to flee but the rest kept fighting on.

I'm still kind of torn on the traps: I understand why you wanted them nerfed, and the material cost doesn't bother me so much. It's the fact you can't place them "adjacent", it makes it so unreliable for foes to hit them. placing deadfalls adjacent to doors along the walls still works, as that's the point they would often take cover, run along trying to be clever and avoid fire, or because they're dumb animals that just run in circles against the wall. But I'm really at a loss on how to use the IEDs, maybe I need to build some "fake bunkers" the enemy will see and take coverin and then get blast-O'ed? If anything, I feel the no-adjacent-traps thing actually encourages you to build exploitative tower-defense like tunnels to max their chance of being hit, even if it makes the space-usage less efficient (I'm sure filling in the gaps with sandbags still works wonders), while making just placing a handful at some key doors or corners as I usually would just pure awful. I gotta say though at least being able to uninstall them put them somewhere else is a HUGE boon!







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