1.0 - Where did all the berries go?

[Farflame]

I always had a standard setup, Boreal, extreme, tribal, start in spring. Not sure why, but I liked it. I had to scrape by on berries until the crops came through - half the time, I never got that far.

In 1.0, there are virtually no berries. I started in summer, on temperate, but there were only 6 ripe berry bushes on the map. There used to be 10 times the amount. The only way to survive now is to kill everything on the map until the crops start coming through.

Anyhoo, I realise I can just go back to the previous version or wait for mods or something. Is there a way in the meantime that I can increase the berries on the map?

[BlackSmokeDMax]

Dev mode maybe?

[ashaffee]

I haven't tried boreal forest yet. But on jungle and temperate forest they were op at first and he nerfed them. My colony didn't need to farm for almost the entire first year because of the bury supply (30/60 winter). After the changes I noticed berries would keep me good until a field of rice could grow. Maybe boreal had some weird bug or didn't cross over?

[Farflame]

Ahhh. I only really play on Boreal and it was nicely balanced to tide me over until the harvest. Made the game interesting and tough because I was constantly balancing between planting, foraging, hauling etc and of course, just when you get it right, some idiots come along and burn your fields down, but that's why we love Rimworld   I get that they may have been OP on other maps and nerfed for that reason but now they've been nerfed into extinction. I don't think it's just Boreal, I just tried on other maps and I see almost none there either.

Dev mode is a possibility just to make it playable for a single game until the mods come online and/or this is altered.

[gwtheyrn]

I think you might have just gotten unlucky. I started a colony in temperate forest and there were quite a few berry bushes the first spring. After the winter, though, there's nothing left, not even grass.

[Teleblaster18]

I always had a standard setup, Boreal, extreme, tribal, start in spring. Not sure why, but I liked it. I had to scrape by on berries until the crops came through - half the time, I never got that far.

In 1.0, there are virtually no berries. I started in summer, on temperate, but there were only 6 ripe berry bushes on the map. There used to be 10 times the amount. The only way to survive now is to kill everything on the map until the crops start coming through.

Anyhoo, I realise I can just go back to the previous version or wait for mods or something. Is there a way in the meantime that I can increase the berries on the map?

I can confirm the scarcity of both Berries and Healroot - I did a Boreal Forest start with Naked Brutality;  both Healroot and Berries were so infrequent, and what was there was so spread out across the map that I barely survived the first winter with 3 colonists.  I had no more than 2 Herbal Medicines at any time during the first year, and had to hunt to survive the winter.  This became a little bit of a problem, because at one point, every animal left the map, with the exception of 3 predators.

By contrast, I did a Temperate Forest start last night, and there were plenty of berries, easily enough to sustain a small colony living hand-to-mouth for quite some time;  I'm just not sure if the change is due to it being a different (and significantly easier) biome, or that one of the daily patches for 1.0 increased the amount of berries on the map closer to B18 levels.  I'm wiping all my previous saves at the moment, and starting fresh with a new game on Boreal again...I'll report back with what I experience.

After I check the morning's patch notes.

[Electroid]

I have had the opposite experience. There have been a lot of berry bushes that spawned and constantly seem to reproduce berries. but once the snow comes and clears them out it seems to take too long for vegetation to respawn.

[Farflame]

Is there any official description of what's happened to the berries? I was hoping that maybe there are less, but they grow faster or something like that. I checked the change-logs but I don't see anything. I think it's probably related to the 'Forageability' stat? Trying to find a new start that's hard, but not impossible. Is 1.0 finished 'for now' or are new changes due in the next few days?

There was a mod which introduced loads of new veggies which also meant cherry trees and other wild berries. That actually made it too easy, but maybe if that gets upgraded, it might balance things out nicely.

[Lech]

I'm quite late to the topic, but what size did you play, guys? I started like 10 games on biggest possible map in 1.0 and there are always 50+ bushes on map.

[Farflame]

I'm on a 250x250 map. There are only about 6 raspberry bushes. Plenty of normal bushes, but nowhere near enough raspberries to survive on now.

[Golden]

You can't really compare starting on the largest possible map to starting on the normal one.  The smaller-than-max size maps need some adjustment to the numbers of berry bushes in my opinion.

[TheMeInTeam]

I've seen some pretty big differences on standard maps even with the same biome type in terms of berry counts.  Maybe rainfall is a factor?  If not I'd guess pure RNG.  I've seen maps with only 2-3 big patches, and maps the same size with double that + more scattered about.

[Modo44]

but once the snow comes and clears them out it seems to take too long for vegetation to respawn.

I guess Tynan still did not get the memo that many plants other than trees also survive freezing winters.

[Syrchalis]

I think it's a bit of a conscious design decision. At the start it's good to have many berry bushes so food isn't so hard to come by. And as the game goes on they disappear (max lifespan reached or winter). This forces you to make sure you get food other ways and so increases difficulty.

Rimworld like many other games is in danger of having the "xcom effect". In the pretty great "XCOM: Enemy Unknown" one major problem was that the early missions were incredibly hard and as you got better tech they just got easier, but usually games should get harder not easier. I don't know anyone who plays games on the hardest difficulty and then replays them on easy... the other way around though, plenty do (me too).

On the other hand I dislike vegetation in general not regrowing after winter because it makes the map look dull, gamey and it's annoying that animals can't graze if you aren't using a mod that allows planting of grass.

[Modo44]

I think it's a bit of a conscious design decision. At the start it's good to have many berry bushes so food isn't so hard to come by. And as the game goes on they disappear (max lifespan reached or winter). This forces you to make sure you get food other ways and so increases difficulty.

Bull. Plants in Rimworld simply do not return at a natural rate after winter because the plant growth algorithm is borked, was for a long time.

Separately, a growing colony could not survive on berries and healroot because it would quickly have too many people for it to be feasible. Thus, plant regrowth is not actually a long-term balance factor.