Unstable build feedback thread

[khun_poo]

I've been doing a lot of caravaning in 1.0, and I think a large part of the problem with caravans and mood breaks is the way recreation is handled.

You can get a pawn from 0 to 30% recreation in less than a hour just on a horseshoe pin when they're on a map. Even a dirt poor colony can have 4 recreation types from solitary, social, dexterity and cerebral with just a table, horseshoe pin, and chess table.  So if you settle and make a brand new map you can easily max any pawns recreation in an hour or two, tops.

When they're in a caravan it's hard locked to 8% recreation gain per hour when the caravan is not moving, and no gain when it is. It takes around 6 hours to get a pawn in a caravan at 0 tolerance back up to 30% recreation while the caravan is paused. On paper it should only take 4 hours since you gain 8%, but you don't actually gain 8% per hour. Even when the caravan is not moving, pawns recreation still drains at a constant rate.  So that 8% gain is not an 8% gain because you're losing recreation over time.  If you gain 8% an hour but lose 1% an hour, then you're gaining 7% per hour, not 8. 

On top of that, the only recreation type pawns can get in a caravan is Solitary if they're alone or social if they're not.   This means pawns quickly gain tolerance to that one recreation type, very quickly reducing the hourly gain.  The end result is even if you formed the caravan at 0% tolerance to that type of recreation eventually you'll hit 50% and stop being able to gain recreation at all.  Randy help you if you started the caravan at 30-40% tolerance to begin with.

All of these problems are manageable... but extremely tedious to deal with and involve a lot of micromanagement. Two things that would help would be to make recreation gain on paused caravans good enough to actually hit high levels of recreation if the caravan is paused long enough, and add an option to travel to the edge of a map and then rest, so that players can have their pawns can enter the map rested and without recreation penalties.

You have forget the chemical recreation. Bring psychoid tea, beer, chocolate or smokeleaf along with the appropriate drug schedule to ensure a fun trip for your colonist holidays 

[EvadableMoxie]

You have forget the chemical recreation. Bring psychoid tea, beer, chocolate or smokeleaf along with the appropriate drug schedule to ensure a fun trip for your colonist holidays 

That's actually a really good idea, although I wouldn't use smokeleaf and it would slow the caravan down.  The rest of it would work, though.

[Syrchalis]

Usually I do not argue with realism as my argument, but recreation shouldn't be an issue when caravaning. I mean it's a journey, with nature and stuff. That's recreation in itself. At least the recreation loss rate should be really low.

Part of why caravans are tedious to use is because you have to think about so many things. Food, especially food that doesn't rot, animal feed if they can't graze, sleeping bags, taking the right colonists for the job, the right amount, leaving the base not undefended, making sure the caravan isn't too slow due to a variety of reasons - and then recreation? Wouldn't really hurt cutting that out, simply from a gameplay perspective.

[Tynan]

For caravan loading, does simply putting the caravan loading spot adjacent to the stockpile help? If you're loading at a long distance it will indeed be harder.

Also, I'm looking for feedback on the cost of the ship. It's much less than B18, but how is it? Does it feel like it takes too long to build, too short, or okay?

[khun_poo]

My usually stuff I always have on every caravan in any mission is...
- Food,
mostly pemmican. Packaged food is the best though since it give mood buff.
- Sleep bag,
enough for your people. Plus 1 or 2 if you're gonna rescue or captive someone.
- Medicine,
to make sure you won't get infected wound.
- Important drugs,
For addicted and schedule. I usually set drug policy that order every colonist to always carry 3-4 psychoid tea and penoxycyline. So I don't concern too much about it when load caravan unless I'm going on a long journey.

Next is the stuff for the quest, hay for my elephant if I have to travel on winter, shock lance for capturing some super OP raider on the way et cetera.

I think caravan loading time is not that bad. Ever since the update that make caravan animal following the colonist make it a lot better. By the way, I still set all other colonist hauling priority to 1 out of old habit while still in loading stage though .

[spidermonk]

Caravan loading works great for me, but sometimes you'll forget something. Normally you can right-click on the missed item and select "add to the caravan", but sometimes this button is greyed out even if there is still place.

Also, when planning a caravan on the "Form caravan" screen, sometimes you need to check something in your colony and you have to close that screen. All your planning gets lost after that, which is really frustrating.

Sometimes you need to add an item to the caravan after it has already left but still near the colony. You can't do it right now without reforming the caravan, which is kind of sad.

[Dolphinizer]

I got one colonist out with my ship a few weeks and a couple of updates back, assuming the ship cost hasn't changed since then here's my feedback.

It seemed like the main cost of the ship was in labour not in resources, (what was it, 36 advanced components? That was a whole lot of work, even for my lvl 17 crafter working all day). Because of the time it takes to build so many Adv components I started the ship escape sequence before I had all my ship parts built, and managed to finish the last component of it on the same day that the reactor finished charging. All in all I felt the ship cost, time to charge and final sequence are pretty well tuned, challenging but not too hard.

Also I've had a similar experience with caravan recreation and stress as the others in this thread, I feel like either caravan needs to provide a decent amount of recreation, or maybe just apply a flat mood bonus, 'On the Road +5' or something of that sort.

[wastelandr]

Also, I'm looking for feedback on the cost of the ship. It's much less than B18, but how is it? Does it feel like it takes too long to build, too short, or okay?

I think slightly too long personally, but might be ok. Certainly not too short

[xion1088]

For caravan loading, does simply putting the caravan loading spot adjacent to the stockpile help? If you're loading at a long distance it will indeed be harder.

Also, I'm looking for feedback on the cost of the ship. It's much less than B18, but how is it? Does it feel like it takes too long to build, too short, or okay?

Caravan loading would be better if pawns assigned to haul would help more, I know they help right now but some times you see one single guy loading stuff to caravans while others just wander around, save with drop pods, there are some mods that greatly improve caravan loading for B18 and I remember them being better than what it's right now

[Yoshida Keiji]

Also, I'm looking for feedback on the cost of the ship. It's much less than B18, but how is it? Does it feel like it takes too long to build, too short, or okay?

Save file: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1QTgCbaPPPnIYdp_7eDuG8SMi086Llaqd
Story: https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=41782.msg411610#msg411610


I paused my game in a very bad time to share to the public, this is because I found a game bug. The background is that I'm currently playing dual colony. I have many experiences with triple colonies so I'm very familiar with handling multiple colonies. But I found a problem.

I got a manhunter pack event in my First Colony and the Second Colony got a Crashed Ship Part. So I basically set all pawns and animals to "refugee" areas such as "Animal SAFE" and "HOME". Knowing that 1stColony was... safe... I went on to play in the 2ndColony and handle the mechanoids. While I was combating the robots, I got warning of trouble in 1C and I also noticed the flee icon over the colony bar. So, by the time I went back to check, several manhunter creatures are already inside my base... which shouldn't have really happened. Then, since I couldn't understand why everything was a mess there, I decided to write you a report in the bugs section (but went have dinner and watched a movie, so now I came back to the computer and was planning to post a bug report when I saw your comment here). I can either play this out as it is or just save scum, but in all honestly gamer heart this is so exciting moment of dual challenges that I don't feel like reloading. But the thing is... look at the character named "Zug", he is set to "HOME" zone, the home zoning is carefully painted on my map, but... "PATHING" is wrong and making him to go outside... I am currently imagining that "Yakov" tried to do the same thing and was "seen" by the beasts. Note that, the 4 forbidden doors were made so only after I realized chaos had stormed my 1C but not before I went to fight at 2C, so there was "no" way that this was my mistake. If this is too much happening to analyze my situation, I can share autosaves instead but...

Feedback on the cost of the ship and assemblage estimation time... I was asking the same question to  myself.

* I don't have Plasteel.
* I don't have Gold.
* I can get more steel and components for sure, and just started Deep Drilling. Have in mind that this save game I have been playing since the very first day you opened the unstable v1.0, which means many technologies had to be re-researched more like thrice, so tech development had its backdowns.

I am also updating the wiki as my game progresses.
https://rimworldwiki.com/wiki/Special:RecentChanges

So I don't have the exact number of materials needed to fully load a Space Ship yet. My play style has always been to gather all the materials first and then start building all together. So I'm not starting yet. Also, this is my first game ever that I will be facing the 15 days of wave attacks, so it's likely that I will be building a fortress within another fortress and stockpiling a full season of food before I activate the engine. But...

Since I don't have the materials...the preview looks like it will be a never ending story. That is without saying that I barely have 3 Advanced Components. I plan to launch my ship from 1C, so 2C will only be supplying the materials and then everybody will transport pod back to 1C.

In dual colony game... I have had very little Plasteel. I used them all up with Advanced Helmets and some Mini-turrets. But if you look carefully at both colonies... I'm a minimalistic player (and in Real Life too), I don't bother with making lavish/sumptuous rooms. So I don't feel like I wasted Plasteel nor Gold into building unnecessary items for the sake of wealth show off to the RW Community see how great I am...LOL...

Both maps are standard size and small hills. I usually play Large Hills and never Mountain bases. But it looks like I will never finish building the ship.

Considering that we are also addressing the issue of Caravanning... the removal of minerals from temporary maps felt like you amputated us.

I don't know where am I going to get all the requiring materials to launch so many people, to the point that launching just one pawn to consider it game over seems more humanly reasonable... and this statements comes from a very hardcore player... Normally I should be stern enough to go through until the end...

But, I don't know you and your design goal, but as a player I don't feel like playing more than a full in game year (EDIT: since the start of the last third of the game and not talking of time from the beginning itself) to assemble and launch the ship... I don't see myself waiting 5 in game years to finish the game... And then...in my current status... I don't think 5 years would be anywhere near halfway to finish the entire ship.

I am now asking myself where will I get all the Plasteel and Gold to keep on going... without even thinking yet that I will need them to craft who know how many Advanced Components... which was the start of the latest pages within this thread... so I'm back again at the beginning...

[Koek]

Also, I'm looking for feedback on the cost of the ship. It's much less than B18, but how is it? Does it feel like it takes too long to build, too short, or okay?

The last game I played and finished I thought it was just fine. Getting resources didn't take absurdly long whilst still maintaining my base.
I layed out the blueprint and piece by piece put it together when I had spare resources while still creating/buying bionic parts to keep my colonists healthy/superior.
I finished around day 450 iirc, never rushed anything and (little off topic) only managed my colony wealth by launching gifts to keep relations up.
I never had a killbox but abused door peeking and having turrets and eventually shield bubble pawn tank most of the damage.

This all was on a tribal start, temperate forest, permanent winter summer, cassandra rough, no mods game in which I only lost 3 pawns and launched 16 into space.

I can't compare with b18 since I never built a ship before the recent unstable branch.

Cheers

edit: changed winter to summer

[Gadfly]

I will make a longer post later when I want to.

But we are Tribe Pride a 10 year old tribal colony

We have around a 100 dromedaries and a few alpaca's caravaning around the world.

Keeping a stockpile close with all the stuff you want with you works well, my caravans are filled up in no time. Offloading is even more fun, I also keep a caravan outside my town with stuff that is regularly used, that helps a lot.

Altough I make smaller caravans that haul survival meals to a bigger caravan, they resupply other caravans, way faster

For approaching a site, I let a strike team rest before attacking, then in the morning I roll in with the furniture. I check for traps, deal with any dangers and then proceed with installing stuff as fast as possible and make a base for  2 colonist. One colonist mines and deconstructs everything, the other cooks simple meals and packaged survival meals, from berries and local wildlife.
Strike team moves to next target and meets up with another caravan full with furniture and survival meals, Other caravans haul stuff back to base

This works well on mining sites where you can set up a camping site.

Tribe Pride has been hauling megascreen televisions trough the desert, so much fun.

Another thing I very much like are the legendary and masterwork weapons, I have a 77 old granny killing dozens of raiders with her legendary heavy smg.

[RawCode]

population intent is broken or something, stuck with 4 people on day 150 randy merciless, prisoners with 60++ resistance who berserk mindbreak constantly and blow granite doors with bare hands with only option to kill them, as there are no options to keep them happy, they break anyway thx to merciless permanent -10.
not ever single slaver caravan for 150 days.

absolutely empty colony without any valueble resources, ever without food, still colonists think that place is quite rich and they should demand luxury treatment.
also looks like wild animals are counted toward colony wealth.
for some reason, wealth constantly creep, ever if i do nothing, it steady increasing, especially strange to see constant increase of building value when i build completely nothing.

struggle ended on day 157  with tripple pirate sapper raid of 3*8 vs just 4 colonists, shortly after drafting one of colonist broke and wander outside, just to be killed, after his death, two more broke, resulted 24vs1 combat, that ended shorty.

man in black got headshot as soon as come in range, gg no re.

when everyone down, remaining raiders decided to burn everything that burns and break only table in colony just for lulz.
only remaining surviror is "wild" doctor with withwarl, i decided to just arrest him as i was fed up with his mindbreaks, he got 80 diff and 20 res, due to solid -35 resistance dropped by 0.1 per day, best mindbreak ever, ever better then plague.
he berserked and got out of cell after raiders are gone.

probably game should not continue to throw more and more worldmap quests if player ignore them, personally i do not like "caravan" stuff, well, i hate it.
every time i see "give 5 hats and we give legendary power armor in return" i just want to patch this unfair and unbalanced feature out.
running caravan around should not be mandatory for progress and absurdly rewarding compared to everything else in game.

[Goldenpotatoes]

Also, I'm looking for feedback on the cost of the ship. It's much less than B18, but how is it? Does it feel like it takes too long to build, too short, or okay?

Prefacing all this feedback with the general info.

Storyteller: Randy Random
Difficulty: Rough
Biome/hilliness: Temperate Forest Small Hills
Commitment mode: Yes
Colony age (days): 261
Hours played in the last 2 days: 8
Complete mod list: Core
Colony after the ship launch:
colony
Graphs/Stats:
graph
statistics


I just finished a ship run today, and in comparison to B18 the ship construction does take longer due to the extra 'special' materials needed. I managed to get off the planet in 261 days, but that also included some luck with high-tier crafters/miners to actually get the ore quickly and turn it into the required parts. The caskets are easily the longest part though, since you typically want to get everyone off the Rim and at that point you're probably running a dozen plus colonists.


On the topic of the ship in general, I love the defense. Like, I don't think I've had that much fun with vanilla combat since my early days with this game in A6-A7. The constant adjustments, resource and pawn management I had to balance out while dealing with daily multiple raids was probably the best send-off I could want for the colony. I was to a point where I was forced to draw back while inside my own colony and had 3 colonists just lobbing grenades down the hall to try and force the tribal horde back into retreating while my front-line of 2 melee guys just kept hacking away at the ones that managed to push past the grenades. The constant shuffling of my turret front-line to the new choke points created by sappers made even more desperate by the fact mechanoids just decided to drop in while pirates with doomsday launchers are already ruining my front-line, winning said fight, then proceeding to shove everyone into the ship before the next wave can come was fantastic. Also Randy kept sending my cargo pods full of corn and only corn, don't know exactly why but the slag was useful to keep the turrets armed at least.

This game seriously needs more of these challenge events, something to give a stagnating player a goal to achieve. I understand that something like that is out of the range for this update, but I really hope the future has more to come involving these kinds of 'test your skill' events.

[Dr_Starfish]

Storyteller: Randy Random
Difficulty: Rough
Biome/hilliness: arid shrub lands
Commitment mode: No
Colony age (days): around 60

I settled near a friendly town and decided to check out the trading during this playtrough, it was around 0.4 days of travelling to it. What I noticed was that even when I had some good relations with them (60+ , altho not allies) i could not let my pawns sleep there . This let to some debuffs because I forgot to take some bedrolls with me.

I also tried doing some quests, which i feel like are worth tryiing now, however during one of the fights my only doctor got an infection, even though I took some proper medicine with me i was unable to safe him. It would be nice if i could run to another town and request medical assistance there.

Oh well, this game is awesome anyways, cheers