Guide to mastery of the game

[TheMeInTeam]

So, if a player doesn't punch every corn, component or bed, it would be sub-optimal play?  And this mechanic is a deliberate, intended and fun part of the game's design?

To each his own, I guess.

Technically, yes failing to optimize is sub-optimal.  Players will leave at least some optimization on the table in favor of their sanity/preferences, but the incentive and optimal play are there all the same.  The real question to ask is why there is a degenerate incentive in the first place, and whether it needs to be there/adds anything to the game.

I flatly reject the notion that people that act on game incentives created by its own rules can possibly be "cheating" in any context but extra made-up rules, and carry a similar refutation for terms like "exploit" or "loophole".  If a belief about these terms can't constrain anticipation to what the person stating it intends, it's not a proper/rational belief.

[fritzgryphon]

I don't think it's cheating either.  The game does reward wealth control, and a player must necessarily do it to avoid large raids.  Don't like it, either, but I accept the explanation; any non-wealth difficulty scaling would certainly become trivially easy or impossibly hard, depending on player skill, biome and event luck.

And agree, taking intentional degradation to it's logical extreme would be beyond anyone's patience, which is why I'd like to see the incentive gone.  Save the hardcore the trouble of testing their sanity on a manual, repetitive task.

100% difficulty value for any item who's utility doesn't degrade with HP.

[BLACK_FR]

Interesting discussion.
I think some people don't like the idea that wealth management IS key to mastery of the game. But problem is that mastery is not dependent on what people like or don't like. It's based only on rules of the game. And before final release I tried my best to change those rules, but developers decided that current wealth and raid mechanics are good.
In this topic there is link to mod that replaces wealth-based raids scaling to time-based raids scaling. I plan to contact creator of that mod to see if he would like to implement some other changes (like creating link between health of item and utility of item).

Also I don't understand why so many people say that item or building degradation is micro-intensive? It's less micro-intensive than growing, making and selling drugs for example.
Getting 40% extra nutrition by manually feeding pawns IS micro-intensive. But it is not needed almost in all cases. But wealth management is needed in almost all cases, so if people have problems with surviving first thing that they should do is some wealth control. May be not full wealth-control, but just getting rid of legendary useless stuff.

[the_red_kraken]

Its a silly mechanic to be honest, manually degrading itens is a very silly and boring thing.

[zizard]

You might survive toxic fallout by eating the rotten corpses.

The degradation change was obviously intentional. They also intended to get away with it because most people don't check the stats.

[BLACK_FR]

@the_red_kraken
Degrading your items tactic (as one of the ways of wealth management) only exists because of this mechanic.

@zizard
You can't because rotten corpses will disappear long before fallout is settled. You need crops. Or you need allow yourself to move.

[BLACK_FR]

There is some fix to hp-don't-affect-utility problem in nearby topic - https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=46412
I will definitely use that mod in my next run.

[bbqftw]

Tox is hard capped to 10.5 days, is really that impossible to hedge against?

[BLACK_FR]

Not if you don't have crops stock. You can just create caravan and "wait it out" that way but it seems to me that restriction on growing crops is not reasonable and fun.

[5thHorseman]

I plan to contact creator of that mod to see if he would like to implement some other changes (like creating link between health of item and utility of item).

That mod also exists. I don't have a link but someone made one just yesterday or the day before.
In re-reading your first post, you use it.

Also I don't understand why so many people say that item or building degradation is micro-intensive? It's less micro-intensive than growing, making and selling drugs for example.

One of the few things I've never bothered to do in the game, amusingly. Mostly because of the added busywork.

However, setting up a drug operation sounds like it'd be fun to try as a logistic exercise and it involves thinking about the chain of production, unlike "hit everything a lot."

I decided today though that I was going to try playing a game following your exact instructions. Except punching buildings. I just can't bring myself to do that. I want to see exactly how easy it is because - as Tynan himself hates - I've been theorycrafting that it's terribly boring and micro-intensive, but haven't actually tried it to SEE if it's boring and micro-intensive.

[zizard]

For items all you need to do is make a stockpile outside with the correct percentages.

[Shurp]

For items all you need to do is make a stockpile outside with the correct percentages.

LOL, now *that* is clever.  Using in-game mechanics to take care of the tedious work of manually exploiting defective game design!  Love it!

(Of course, I'm continuing to play B18.  I refuse to get shot by any tribal carrying a short bow at 23%)

[5thHorseman]

I have a question:

I disable all research
...
I forbid myself to move
...
I disable ... escape ship quest
...
- My goal is to launch ship with all my current colonists and their bonded animals

Okay so even if you didn't disable the ship quest, you can't move to it and you disable research so... how do build the ship?

I can only assume that "disable all research" does not mean what it seems to mean. Unless you found a way to build a space ship with tribal tech You say there will be a link about it but I don't see the link.

[cyberian]

"trap entrance" which is corridor filled with traps

I don't do any trap corridors, killboxes, narrow hallways, walled off map sides or designs like that.

As soon as you build some kind of funnel for enemies to be forced into and be killed with traps or other means like 20 mortars or smartly placed miniguns the game gets boring for me so I don't do it.
I have a big defence perimeter meaning cover and some slowing down stuff all around the base. I got a few scattered traps without any supporting walls so they can be easily avoided and I do a few scattered turrets for distraction which have to be constantly rebuilt. Enemies can attack from every direction and even multiples ones and roam around the outer perimeter, start fires in the back while I am at the front or enter the base with explosives. Big later raids often overwhelm single pawns who will loose organs or might die. You sometimes even have to call factions for help or use other emergency things if Randy does evil things.

Its fun.

Basically the point is don't use architecture to defeat raids. Yes the game gets insanely harder you can't do it with all your restrictions.
My only real restriction is is: Don't do any defense that guarantees a raid being defeated without any effort. So every raid has to have a chance of wounding and killing some colonists. Architecture restrictions are basically a secondary result from that.

[zizard]

Exploiting the AI tendency to wander around a perimeter punching the walls is also a good strategy.