v1.0.1982 Feedback

[Grapplehoeker]

I have been playtesting the v1.0 experimental builds.
I started with my colony FFS136 and everytime there was another build update, I started over with a new colony.
I have been playing on Cassandra Rough (one down from highest difficulty) in a variety of biomes. Since the updates have come so frequently, I rarely got the chance to make it into the mid game and usually had to start over before year 3. That has meant 20 colony interrupted playthroughs so far!
Until now... for the last few days there hasn't been another build update and so, today I finally managed to get colony FFS156 through to the end game in the 7th year! (v1.0.1982)
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1468013827
Whoohoo! Thanks Tynan for giving me a break and allowing me to complete a playthrough... you may continue with the build updates now. I need a good rest lol

Feedback request details:

A lot has changed, so it would be really good to get feedback game-wide. But especially on these topics:
General raid difficulty progression, noting that the system probably deploys its points more efficiently now and some high-cost pawn kinds were costed down.
How much wealth various colonies actually have. I'd love to see screenshots of wealth graphs of long games to help balance the "Expectations" thought thresholds.
Profitability of various crafting paths. Art should probably be better.
Ally assistance frequency and usefulness.
The difficulty and interest of the ship ending sequence.
The difficulty of training, maintaining, and using a large amount of animals both for economic and warfighting purposes.
The difficulty/balance of maintaining recreation and the clarity of the system.

General raid difficulty progression was on par with what I would expect from Cassandra at this level. I am more used to playing Cass extreme with regular playthrough and so stepping down a level meant I found it quite easy to keep up.
I did notice that I seemed to be slightly better equipped and technologically more advanced than the pirates, throughout the playthrough. This seemed a little odd, especially in the early game where it's usually a case of catch up on my part and gaining tech items/weapons from the pirate raiders was usually the case, but not in this playthrough. In this one, I was always ahead of the game and the pirates used junk for the most part. Only in the end game did they up their game a bit but still, I was always expecting more from them.
So, too with the mechanoids. There were hordes upon hordes of scythers, but comparatively few centipedes. I expected more.
As for the critters, the infestation event location was very predictable, and fortunately for me they spawned 9/10 times in the 10x10 medical bay which meant it was no problem at all to deal with. After the first 2 spawns, I evacuated the bay, built another bay elsewhere in the base and placed 4 incendiary IEDS in the room. This was enough to eliminate the threat for almost every further event as soon as it appeared.

I kept my colony wealth to a minimum, as always, and the wealth was mostly due to the buildings and essential infrastructure. I didn't have masses of stockpiled items other than the raw resources I required and food.
In fact I rejected tons of item stash quests for valuables. If they had no functional value to me, there was no point wasting time and resources going for them if it was just going to make my wealth grow.
The history tab of FFS156 can be seen here,
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1468068348

Crafting profitability was only beneficial in the early to mid game, and yes I used artwork initially. From the midgame onwards, I was regularly trading textiles in bulk and making occasional faction trade quests, bandit outpost quests and item stash quests, all of which netted plenty of silver and valuables for trade.
By the end game, I'm crafting components and advanced components in any case, and profitability simply isn't an issue at that stage as I am swimming in silver from the moment I can deep drill.

Ally assistance frequency and assistance? Hmm... well the early game gifting by visitors was a welcome bonus, but other than that I didn't really experience any other type of assistance.

I loved the ending 15 day shenanigans! That was a lot of fun and the pacing of the events were more like what I'm used to from Cassandra extreme in the end game. While I could cope without breaking a sweat, I did start checking how many days left were on the timer in the last few days because my base was a little worse for wear, given there wasn't enough time to fix her up completely before the next inbound raid appeared. So I focused on the essentials to keep it all secure and my pawns healthy. Not difficult at all really, could be more

I never raise a large amount of animals and since just one pack animal was all I needed to go caravan questing, I saw no need to keep many of those and a handful of wargs (in this playthrough, but I've used bears, rhinos and wolves in others) was all I needed to get by in terms of 4 legged defenders.

Recreation scheduling isn't difficult as long as you have a decent work schedule. In my case this amounted to:
2 hours anything + 1 hour rec, 11 hours work, 1 hour anything + 1 hour rec, 8 hours sleep
Those pawns that spent extensive time out working in the field sometimes didn't have enough time for rec and so I shortened their work period to allow them that. It worked fine.

Hope that helps