Abort Missions

Started by Jiamil, August 01, 2020, 04:24:15 AM

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Jiamil

Hey there, so after far over 1000 hours into the game I decided it is time for the DLC and got it. The problem I have is, that I accepted a quest (after 200 more hours) to protect someone from Mechanoids. According to the text I thought I had to defend the guy from 1 attack. Now there are constant clusters spawning, each one strong enough to destroy my colony (yes, reloading frantically).
After two attacks side by side and a third one spawning, it is obvious: This mission will bring my colony down for sure. Is there a possiblity to abort the Mission like: "Allright guys, you said 2 stars. This more like 4 stars. Go home, give me -30 influence and finish."
Cancelling the mission does nothing, people stay.
I also can't get reinforcements from the Empire, because the guy I protect is from a different faction (Makes me think: Are those new clusters are put in with the thought of calling in reinforcements for balancing. It feels a lot like it).
So my Question:
Is it possible to abort a mission, or is it intended to being stuck with this specific mission (and have the colony subsequently destroyed). In my whole playtime I haven't encountered similar spikes before, so I can only imagine this not being an intended game behaviour.

Canute

There are only 2 quests you can't real abort, the one with the friend AI and the ship, and the royalty ascendent. You can disable them, but reenable them anythim from the inactive quest list.
All other quests are just random encounters.

If you abort the quest will stop that others cluster's will arrive but it don't remove allready landed ones.
So you need to deal with them.
If the cluster don't got an automortar it shouldn't be that worse and you don't need to destroy it that fast.
Just create an area around the cluster, invert that area and assign it to all pawns so they don't get to close.
The few mechanoids that might spawn through the assembler you should be able to handle.
Maybe some friendlies spawn someday to help you, then you could join to fight them.
Don't forget smoke is your friend (prevent turrets to fire on you) for more cluster tactic search the forum for topics.

If you want to cheat, you can enable developer mode at the option, the use destroy from the debug action menu (one of the icons on top).

Jiamil

#2
Thanks a lot for the fast answer. The tactics aren't the problem here (could go long and in depth now, like most veteran Rimworld-Players, but won't.) Can't invert map parts, because the clusters are basically always spawning either inside the base or in reach of someone. Base is pretty large, because I enjoy more realistic/RP approaches to basebuilding rather than having all sterile min-maxed. So yeah, just ignoring those clusters won't work the slightest. Can't call Imperial Reinforcments because of the Questgiver being of a different faction.

I can "cancel" the mission being running, but the guards and the guest are staying and the clusters are landing anyways (even new ones). No chance to actually "abort" the mission, it just places it in "history", the "guests" stay and the clusters keep coming.

Edit: It seems to be a, in my opinion critically bad, design choice. The tooltip for dismissing a quest says
'Dismiss this quest and move it to the historical tab.
The quest can be un-dismissed at any time. It's effects and expiry times will proceed as normal. You won't receive notifications about dismissed quests.' For this specific quest it does not make sense. I still have to feed the guards (8 btw, should be 11, but it didn't spawn all)... Loosing is fun. Loosing because of flawed gameplay isn't (150hr colony, all autosaves including this quest already)

Canute

So long noone is dead, you don't loose.
You still have the option to flee and leave the map.

I didn't encounter such a quest self that you can't abort the quest beside the 2 i allready mention.
Does that quest is maybe from a mod ?
But yes, the rating of quests are borked. 2 star quests gave me 5 times more raiders (not tribes) then at a standard raid, and that multiple times. At last i didn't need to accept it.

Jiamil

My game goals seem to quite differ from yours, which is okay. I played combat scenarios and tried for over 20 hours of gameplay now and get frustrated. I did manage to fight against everything the game threw at me so far, clusters and all. I love the additions, but this quest just is broken. I do not want to leave a 150 hour main city with huge wealth, that has caravans from source outposts coming in, because it is simply not possible to abandon a quest. I don't want to talk about how salty (answer: very) I am about this specific situation, so I am trying to stay on topic again.

Following facts:
- Canceling is impossible and just silences the quest (intentional behavior deducted from tooltip)
- Cancelling/Silencing lets all pawns spawned by the quest stay, also the enemies still spawn
- No possibility to abandon the quest or send those "esteemed guests" away
- Star rating 2 on this quest (safekeeping of a pawn from mechanoids) is far more difficult than 2 star rated bases to attack on the overworld map (just an example)

I have the feeling though, that this topic is not a Support request but rather transforms into criticism of a seemingly broken game mechanic.

Addendum: Mods were used, but none influencing missions and/or mechanoids.

Canute

Yep, you are right this is basicly not a support question.
Anything is working as intended (i think) so yes it is more a critic about the quest rating description that it don't show clearly that you can't abandon the quest.
Btw. did you try to kill the guest or let him die ?
And could you maybe get a readable screenshot about the quest ?

After all if you think it is a broken game mechanic, you should use the Bugs section.
Describe the problem and don't forget to upload the safegame  somewhere and add the link to it since safegame are prolly to large as forum attachment.


Jiamil

You saved my colony, thank you for the hint! In Decembary there was an unfortunate heater accident, quest failed, guards going home.
Looking at it, it would seem to be more of a suggestion to add the option to abort quests for a diplomatic price (as is possible with most other quests already).
Thanks again for your help. I now have to get hydrated again after being so salty.