Thoughts on the final ship sequence in 1.0

[DubskiDude]

(Randy Rough, Jungle, 400k wealth)

Decided to update this thread with new info instead of making a new one. I took another crack at the final ship sequence, and after some updates it was more tolerable this time around. Granted I had to be at the 400k wealth point to be able to quickly build the ship for 14 pawns, and even then I hit a bottleneck where advanced components became pretty dang scarce. But eventually the ship was built and I started the final sequence.

Lots of raids, but nothing was TOO obscene, besides the mechanoids that drop into your base. That happened at least 4-5 times. I still think it's kind cheap when you spend the entire game trying to build your colony to be efficient, and then it becomes a battleground later in the game.

I maintained 23 autocannons, 23 mini-turrets, and a sniper turret. They put in a huge amount of work and very few were ever destroyed. They slaughtered pirates, tribals, and mechanoids alike. Pirates themselves were no issue unless they had triple rocket launchers or doomsdays. I kept lots of insanity lances to take those pawns down, but never actually ran into an instance where I needed to. Sieges were also easily broken by using 6 steel mortars to harass the siegers until they decided to ditch their mortars and charge my base. Tribals were absolutely no threat, due to their weapons and armor being crap. Not even their sheer numbers were enough to scratch autocannons. Dunno how to buff tribals besides war beasts (something I've talked about in the past), but I think they should be given more firepower... somehow. Mechanoids were the biggest problem, but I'm starting to feel like they should get "buffed" versions for late game raids. "Veteran Lancers/Scythers/Centipedes" or something like that. More armor and higher quality weapons, but they give more resources when killed and disassembled. That way regular mechanoids can stay the same vs early/mid game, and "veterans" can be more of a challenge late game. Though I don't think veterancy should apply to the mechs that drop pod into your base - that would be pretty awful.

The only death occurred during a mechanoid raid where I ordered everyone to just bumrush and smack the shit out of a final Lancer. It double-tapped one of my colonists (one shot in the gut, one shot in the brain). I had already basically beaten the mechs, so I savescummed.

After all that I launched the ship. I felt accomplished afterwards, since the challenge was no longer insurmountable.

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(Cassandra Medium, Boreal Forest, Mountainous, 230k wealth)

The final ship sequence is more than hard - it's downright obscene. From the very beginning, the thought of building the ship means you have some degree of boredom with your current map and pawns, and the ship is a symbolic send-off for your current game. You begin this task by wanting it to end - which puts it off to a bad start. Next you have to gather approximately 5,045 steel, 353 gold, 155 components, 1,680 plasteel, and 420 uranium to make the ship, in addition to all the other upkeep and building costs that your colony requires. Then you build the ship, and it's boring, boring, boring. Once you finish building the ship, you then have to wait 15 entire days of constant, brutal raids. Mechanoids can even drop pod over your defenses, which is insanely unfair given the circumstance (a pirate raiding party entering the map during said mechanoid attack was icing on the cake). It's a titanic difficulty spike because enemies come from every direction, and you have barely any time to breathe. Once you survive 15 agonizing days - IF you survive - you can then end the game. So let's recap: you've played however many hours on a map, you've grown bored of the same map and same pawns and want to "end the game", so mandatory gathering of a huge amount of rare resources begins, so you can build the ship (which takes forever), and it then requires 15 days of insane raids, all for a symbolic "end" to the game. Now for the punchline. What motivation is there to complete this insanely tedious process, rather than just deleting the save and making another?

In my experience, I had already reached the critical mass of monotony with my colony. No more resources to mine on the map, no more research perks to gain, no more enthusiasm to play with and adjust my colony defenses. It was time to go. I tried building the ship the legit way, but it was just an absolute unbearable slog, so I God Moded the rest of it and started the raids. As previously stated, mechanoids dropped in over my defenses, which was just unfair. Before I could kill them all, a pirate raid happened. 2-3 colonists had already been downed and many were wounded, so I just gave up. It wasn't worth my time trying to overcome all the insanity. It only took the first two days out of 15 to sap all the motivation to play along with this charade, and like an ADHD-riddled psychopath, I used the dev tools to bomb everything. And that was the "end" to my first "full" playthrough of 1.0 Unstable.

How would I fix it? Firstly, disable enemies who drop pod in. That's just unfair when you have an astronomically expensive ship to protect. Next I would lower the boot-up time to around 10 days (but keep it 15 days for Charlon Whitestone's ship, since it doesn't require resources to build, just food and defenses). I'd also lower the amount of advanced components the ship requires, because those altogether cost 36% of the total steel, 55% of the total plasteel, 60% of the total components, and 79% of the total gold. They're also few and far between outside of crafting them (fallen ships only give one, and merchants only stock 2-3 in their stores).

Feel free to share your thoughts.

[ashaffee]

It just sounds like you had your difficulty set way to high. Also probably had useless wealth items to increase your event. Trash the legendary beds and stuff delete your old colony. Although I don't do to much of this since I don't mind a little increase in difficulty. I will sell all my art before hand though and drop wealth into dooms day rocket lauchers and such.

Drop pods are extremely fair. Offers a reason to think about defense with every structure you make. Not just a kill box/wall of turrets outside base. It does require a huge amount of micromanage to handle it on higher difficulty. It almost feels like playing chess at times. But I bet on lower difficulty it is manageable with out much micromanagement.


I do agree there needs to be more victory conditions. But I bet it will be a dlc that adds them. He has been bleeding all his profits for 5 years to complete this game. I bet by now to afford to keep releasing huge new content like new win conditions will only be affordable by making it a dlc. Just think of the massive work that would go into making like a activate quest line to win dlc or destroy x number of evil bases dlc win condition.

[Greep]

Medium isn't exactly high.  Having done the ship sequence to myself, with a colony with 23 dudes I succesfully escaped with...

1!

on extreme (on an extremely easy map) xD  The ship sequence is beyond hardcore.  Trashing wealth is the kind of weird metagaming that really shouldn't exist anyways.  So far everyone who's escaped I've seen is the several hundred hour + player, and the few I've seen not escape are not.

Invisible inc has a setting where expert and expert+ are the only difficulties where the ending sequence is over the top bonkers hard.  Maybe a good idea here, I dunno.

[ashaffee]

Medium isn't exactly high.  Having done the ship sequence to myself, with a colony with 23 dudes I succesfully escaped with...

1!

on extreme (on an extremely easy map) xD  The ship sequence is beyond hardcore.  Trashing wealth is the kind of weird metagaming that really shouldn't exist anyways.  So far everyone who's escaped I've seen is the several hundred hour + player, and the few I've seen not escape are not.

Invisible inc has a setting where expert and expert+ are the only difficulties where the ending sequence is over the top bonkers hard.  Maybe a good idea here, I dunno.

I've only done it on rough and I have 400 hours into the game. Extreme to me seemed like it required to much micromanaging my wealth and basically planning my entire run to a T to complete. Like figuring out who can I afford to give 2 x 2 rooms to. Who will have to be on drugs from cramped space. Planning around drugs to delete things like tables and chairs everywhere.

It probably doesn't need all that and I just suck at trap lay out and antigrain/dooms day rocket management, but I don't want to think that hard to win.

If normal requires that much effort show a replay of you attempting normal on the 1.0 thread I bet the mods would love to see it. I haven't attempted it yet so idk. If it is as difficult as you say I bet he will adjust it if you help him see some proof since most of us on these forums are posting from the perspective of people with like 300+ game hours.

[Wanderer_joins]

I think that for a survival game, worse than a hard endgame is an underwhelming end game. And i've already read players on medium being underwhelmed by the ship in the main thread.

on extreme (on an extremely easy map) xD  The ship sequence is beyond hardcore.  Trashing wealth is the kind of weird metagaming that really shouldn't exist anyways.  So far everyone who's escaped I've seen is the several hundred hour + player, and the few I've seen not escape are not.

Cringer escaped the ship on phoebe extreme yesturday, i've seen the end and he didn't seem to be overwhelmed. Sure he has several hundreds of hours in Rimworld at least, but take a look at his base, i don't think he's the kind of player playing for performance, just for fun.

When i did it on extreme i had a dozen of antigrain warheads and 3 orbital bombardment/ power beam targeters before the start up. Which should be standard if you bother with the quests. That alone should get you a long way in the warm up. Since then sapper raids have been nerfed, antigrain warheads buffed and the sniper turret is a nice addition to safety.

In case things went really bad i planned to board the ship and simply wait inside for the final days. Mechanoids will wreck your base but will take days to go through a 3 thick wide wall, and they'll fend off raiders.

I like the idea of blasting off from hell.

[DubskiDude]

It just sounds like you had your difficulty set way to high.

Nah I had it set to Rough because I quickly found out in earlier playthroughs that Hard isn't feasible anymore.

Trashing wealth is the kind of weird metagaming that really shouldn't exist anyways.

Yeah that sounds really weird to me... hope Tynan and the bunch take a look at that.

[Greep]

Heh, as I said, people with several hundred hour plus experience wanderer_joins 

[DubskiDude]

Edited the original post with my experience with a new ship sequence. It was a lot more tolerable this time around.