[0.19][WIP] ED-Excalibur_1.0.0.8 (2018-09-27)

[Jaxxa]

Hey guys, I have the new mod I have been working is upto a state where I would like to open it up for feedback. It is still very early and needs a bunch more polish and enhancements, but I think that the core of it is at the stage where I would like some feedback, mainly focused on the "Quest" style system and how you deploy the new buildings. Almost every part of the mod still has things I want to do still, but I feel that the framework is there.

https://github.com/jaxxa/ED-Excalibur/releases


Description:

When a Strange Signal is detected by your colony, it triggers your symbiotic interactions with an Advanced Ancient Starship as you assist them bringing the ship systems back online from the brink of disaster in exchange for access to their advanced technology.

Features:
* Shield Generators: Static Base Defences.
* Personal Shields: Protecting Specific Colonists and Animals from damage
* OmniGel: Allows Renewable Production of Resources
* Transporters: move people and materials vast distances
* Laser Drills: Drill deep into the surface to unlock the almost unlimited potential of Geothermal Energy.
* Power Transfer: Provide energy over vast distances.

[Jaxxa]

Reserved

[Canute]

Finaly ! :-)
Since i currently lack the ability to play 1.0 i want to ask a few things.
- Does the starship stay forever in the orbit, or does it leave after it got fully repaired ?
- Personal Shields: Are they similar to the vanila ones or like the nanite shield layer and protect from any damage ?
- Does i understand it right, it unlock some unresearchable project, so the colony is able to build these stuff self ?

If the last is right, what do you think about this suggestion.
Instead to unlock special research projects. You gain favour points.
Then you can buy item's from the ship.
Then these item's are more valueable since you can't build them self.
They get delivered minified, and you just need to install them.

[Jaxxa]

Glad you are excited for it

- Does the starship stay forever in the orbit, or does it leave after it got fully repaired ?

Short answer it will stay. Long answer I imagine that from a story perspective it will eventually leave once finished repairs, but I imagine this as a massive ship, the size or bigger than Super Star Destroyers, so even once the systems you want to use are back online there will be kilometers of hull plating to be repaired that will take longer than Rimworld games last for. I may add some end game events or something like that, but no concrete plans right now and I would want to stay away from the ship leaving without you being able to do anything about it.

Personal Shields: Are they similar to the vanila ones or like the nanite shield layer and protect from any damage ?

This should have probably been clearer but these are the continuation from the nano shields. Balancing exactly what damage they block has not been decided, but it will atleast include ranged and melee attacks.

- Does i understand it right, it unlock some unresearchable project, so the colony is able to build these stuff self ?

If the last is right, what do you think about this suggestion.
Instead to unlock special research projects. You gain favour points.
Then you can buy item's from the ship.
Then these item's are more valueable since you can't build them self.
They get delivered minified, and you just need to install them.

This might get changed after players get their hands on it and I get feedback, but how it is currently works sound very similar to your suggestion. First you need to do the intial part of the Quest to stabalise the ship, that involves providing Power and Materials to the ship (this functions as a bit of a tutorial).

Then say you want a Shield Generator. The next step is to Research Shields. This will also get replaced / added to by a repair the ship section section, but I dont have the UI for that yet so it is just a standard research for now. Then you need to provide Power and Resources to the ship. Instead of "favour points" the ship has "Resource Units" you gain by giving it metal and Power that you can send from your grid. Then you order a shield generator and it will be built on the ship for a while using those resources until it get delivered to your colony by Droppod.

[Canute]

I might see a small exploid problem.
You can use the ship to store massive surplus of some resources, and order back omnigel in the case of need. Low wealth -> easyer raids.

Don't forget the balance this proper.

[Jaxxa]

A good point, the Metal / OmniGel that you send to the ship for Repairs / Construction cant be retrieved in resource form. Although the transporter system could be used for that, I should probably look a setting a limit for the amount that can be stored at once.

I will be looking at balance, probably mostly after release. I dont know how much time I will have for play testing myself so I will be focusing on the feedback and discussions with the people using the mod.

[Diedel]

Hi, really looks interesting, but i ran into a strange problem now, my colony is filthy rich

To make sure it is this mod i tried a new colony with only this one and it has a starting wealth of over 700k, but i can't see what item is supposed to be that expensive. This is the same thing that happened to my colony when i added the mod later on, wealth jumped up over 500k.

[rawrfisher]

I noticed this as well. 
My colonists landed and immediately my colony wealth is in excess of 600k my colonists are being even bigger pansies then normal and I am getting raids of upwards of 100+ tribal pawns

[Jaxxa]

Thank you both for reporting this. I am investigating the cause of the issue.

[rawrfisher]

Gonna go out on a limb and say its the ship itself that is the cause.
Edit: I also confirmed that it breaks fluffys research tree

[Jaxxa]

Gonna go out on a limb and say its the ship itself that is the cause.
Edit: I also confirmed that it breaks fluffys research tree

So far looks to be something related to OmniGel recipes, dont know why though.

That is happening with fluffys research tree?

[Diedel]

Gonna go out on a limb and say its the ship itself that is the cause.
Edit: I also confirmed that it breaks fluffys research tree

So far looks to be something related to OmniGel recipes, dont know why though.

That is happening with fluffys research tree?

Interesting indeed, i set the market value of the oni gel to 0 and it fixes the value increase, the resource unit seems to be OK. No idea where the game thinks i have a mountain of omni gel lying around.

[rawrfisher]

Fluffys research tree seems to take issue with the research in this mod

Exception filling window for FluffyResearchTree.MainTabWindow_ResearchTree: System.Exception: TechLevelBounds called before they are set.
  at FluffyResearchTree.Tree.get_TechLevelBounds () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at FluffyResearchTree.Tree.DrawTechLevel (TechLevel techlevel, Rect visibleRect) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at FluffyResearchTree.Tree.Draw (Rect visibleRect) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at FluffyResearchTree.MainTabWindow_ResearchTree.DoWindowContents (Rect canvas) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at Verse.Window+<WindowOnGUI>c__AnonStorey0.<>m__0 (Int32 x) [0x00223] in C:\Dev\RimWorld\Assets\Scripts\Verse\UI\Windows\Window.cs:202
Verse.Log:Error(String, Boolean) (at C:\Dev\RimWorld\Assets\Scripts\Verse\Utility\Debug\Log\Log.cs:78)
Verse.<WindowOnGUI>c__AnonStorey0:<>m__0(Int32) (at C:\Dev\RimWorld\Assets\Scripts\Verse\UI\Windows\Window.cs:206)
UnityEngine.GUI:CallWindowDelegate(WindowFunction, Int32, Int32, GUISkin, Int32, Single, Single, GUIStyle) (at C:\buildslave\unity\build\Runtime\IMGUI\Managed\GUI.cs:1817)

Edit:  This error came up with the latest update

System.MissingMethodException: Method not found: 'RimWorld.DropPodUtility.DropThingsNear'.
  at EnhancedDevelopment.Excalibur.Core.GameComponent_BaseClass.TickIfRequired (Int32 currentTick) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at EnhancedDevelopment.Excalibur.Core.GameComponent_Excalibur+<>c__DisplayClass7_0.<GameComponentTick>b__0 (EnhancedDevelopment.Excalibur.Core.GameComponent_BaseClass x) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at System.Collections.Generic.List`1[EnhancedDevelopment.Excalibur.Core.GameComponent_BaseClass].ForEach (System.Action`1 action) [0x00018] in /Users/builduser/buildslave/mono/build/mcs/class/corlib/System.Collections.Generic/List.cs:361
  at EnhancedDevelopment.Excalibur.Core.GameComponent_Excalibur.GameComponentTick () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at Verse.GameComponentUtility.GameComponentTick () [0x0001c] in C:\Dev\RimWorld\Assets\Scripts\Verse\Game\GameComponent\GameComponentUtility.cs:27
Verse.Log:Error(String, Boolean) (at C:\Dev\RimWorld\Assets\Scripts\Verse\Utility\Debug\Log\Log.cs:78)
Verse.GameComponentUtility:GameComponentTick() (at C:\Dev\RimWorld\Assets\Scripts\Verse\Game\GameComponent\GameComponentUtility.cs:28)
Verse.TickManager:DoSingleTick() (at C:\Dev\RimWorld\Assets\Scripts\Verse\Game\Ticking\TickManager.cs:363)
Verse.TickManager:TickManagerUpdate() (at C:\Dev\RimWorld\Assets\Scripts\Verse\Game\Ticking\TickManager.cs:261)
Verse.Game:UpdatePlay() (at C:\Dev\RimWorld\Assets\Scripts\Verse\Game\Game.cs:512)
Verse.Root_Play:Update() (at C:\Dev\RimWorld\Assets\Scripts\Verse\Global\Root\Root_Play.cs:99)

[Jaxxa]

Gonna go out on a limb and say its the ship itself that is the cause.
Edit: I also confirmed that it breaks fluffys research tree

So far looks to be something related to OmniGel recipes, dont know why though.

That is happening with fluffys research tree?

Interesting indeed, i set the market value of the oni gel to 0 and it fixes the value increase, the resource unit seems to be OK. No idea where the game thinks i have a mountain of omni gel lying around.

Looks like there is code to calculate the market value of things based on their recipe, I assume only if they don't have a set value. So by adding a recipe to use my custom resource that has a value to create Stone chunks each Stone chunk is now worth 500 silver for wealth calculations instead if 0. So you start with a colony wealth value in the 100s of thousands. Have fun with the initial raids. But at least you have a renewable supply of rocks.

[Jaxxa]

Fluffys research tree seems to take issue with the research in this mod

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...
Edit:  This error came up with the latest update

Thanks for reporting. I will look into those. I suspect that Fluffys research might be having issues with research depending on itself. That might need to be changed with their mod.

I will look into the new dropout issue.