Feedback to Tynan about specific Memes

[zgrssd]

I think we all have our view of memes. This is how I see Memes and Precepts.

Animal Personhood/Rancher
These unfortunately have one huge penalty - they can not use pemmican.
Pemmican requires plants and meat. And it is the only long lasting food that tribals without refridgerators can get.
Some replacements food product - preserved food/vegetation? - would go a long way to fix that issue.

Specific issues:
Animal Personhood seems to suffer from a Vegan/Vegetarian mixup.
While ranchers inability to even grow human food crops should lock out stuff like Fungus, which has a lot of uses besides

Pain is virtue/Pain Idealized
This basically has no downside. Comfort will not be a thing you can afford early game and flipping the pain effect is downright broken.

Tunneler
At first I thought it was powerfull, but I quickly realized the Indoors bar is way to sensitive. We will spend a lot of time outdoors, farming or hunting.
I actually need a specific hex to even have a chance to meet the requirements.
It takes forever to mine into the mountain or even do stonecutting, at the same time we only have to do it rarely:
The mining specialist is only rarely usefull - namely when digging somewhere new. The rest of the time he is realy just someone that lost most crafting type skills.
Maybe you could rework it to a "Stoneformer", that also gains some bonus to Stonecutting job? Or reduce the lockouts a bit, to account for it not being usefull a lot of the time?

Tree connection
Aside from the implementation issue with not having my pawns cut trees automagically, there is a lot of substantial issues with that:
- the lack of wood for burning can be somewhat offset by Fibrecorn. But the lack of wood building material is a huge issue. You do not get any skill in stonecutting or construction to offset it.
- the tree clearing might be the worst issue. A single tree does not block 1 tile - it blocks a 3x3 area for many things. Especially farming and roofs
- there is no way to only cut grasses, but leaving the trees alone.

Suggestions:
- give us Pen level cutting controls for all fields. Ideally with a master/default setting.
- a much increased Fibrecorn yield would be very helpfull. Remember that FC is the only reliable source of wood for Tree Conneciton. And they should like wood as building material.
- maybe Tree connection could get to ignore the tree clearing for most purposes? They could plant diectly around the tree with no side effect, for example.
- maybe a work intensive way to move trees? That way a poorly placed tree can be relocated safely to where it does not hurt.
- instead of giving them more wood production, how about another way to build instead? Dwarf Fortress has the "grown" wood, which is shaped to grow into useable form and then be shed. Effectively making "Kosher Wood".
Humanity is already mastering a non-magic/sci-fi version of this. In a time of psionic trees and animals we can milk for rocket fuel, it would be childs play. Game wise we would plant the walls using a Grower. And then they would grow into full walls after a few days.

Nudism
My main issue is that most headgear for some reason is classed as "nudists hate it". This should be drastically reduced, especially for items unlocked by another meme.
Of course the biggest issue after that is the total lack of armor and thermal protection. There should be some way to ease this. Maybe some sort of mago-technical paste they can apply to increase their temperature resistance and give themself some armor? Humans got a lot of skin and nudists should have realy good skincare products.

Blindness
The bonuses are only useable for Psionics. While the penalties affect everyone.
And I am not sure what the Blindfold does.

Cannibal/Canibal: Don't care
Why would I ever set my colony below "Don't care" on the Cannibalism setting? It unlocks a whole additiona food source for no penalty.
However the Cannibal feast is too hard to pull off, with the price for Cannibal Platers. 200 Human meat is a lot in the early game, especially if you also need to eat meat regulary. Meanwhile it becomes trivial later.
Maybe you could add smaler platers and have them work like Ritual Seats? One plater is required, but more aid the Quality.

Flesh Purity
Not being able to use Cybernetics at all is a huge penalty. But they add Biosculpting, Drug use and even Scarrification to the list.
You basically have to run it with "Pain is Virtue" or the inevitable scars will cripple your colony. Nevermind limb loss!
And it does not offer any bonuses for it that I can see.

Precepts
The following precepts are non-brainers, as they lack any visible downside and do not need any meme to pick:
- Execution: Don't Care
- Slavery, Organ Use, Cannibalism: Acceptable
- Insect Meat: Loved
- Skullspike: Desired (to easy to get skulls)

Roles
The incentive to pick items is very low. The possible upside is a mood buff. The guaranteed downside is a mood penalty if you wear anything else, especially armor.
I just intentionally empty the clothing requirements. I see no reason for it.

Rituals
I see no reason to ever pick a Fixed Date Ritual and we can always swap between the two.
I think the fixed date ones should get a buff:
- Stronger Additional Rewards
- Flat increased success chance, as people can prepare for it (or manage their expectations based on the year thus far) - thus resulting in a better perceived festival
- maybe 1-2 fixed date ones could be required? While I would prefer a incentive, that could also aid them being useable.

[Mirador]

Hello there!

Just a few thing I noticed on my side while I read your post.

Rancher:
As long as they have meat in their meal, they are okay. So Pemmican, fine mean, lavish, etc. They are all okay.
They only get mood debuff if the meal don't have meat in it.

I currently play a tribal Rancher colony and have no issue on that side.

However, Animal Personhood do suffer from those issues you named.

Pain is virtue:
You do have a downside for not feeling any confort as high confort do give mood bonus.
Yes, it will help in early game but will show up in the long run.

Tunneler:
The thing with indoor need is that it only raise above 50% when your pawn is undermountain roof, AND it don't work when sleeping.
That why it's a bit hard to keep it full. Yeah mining specialist are a bit so-so compared to some other specialist, like the shooting one, which is incredibly powerful.
A pawn with a drill arm have 160% mining speed compared to the 70% of the mining specialist. Same thing with the plant specialist compared with a pawn with field hand.

Nudism/Blindness/Flesh Purity: While you cannot balance everything, they should atleast give you the tool to make those gameplay possible otherwise, why would you suggest them?
I have a idea for a new memee, pyromaniac. If you don't start a random fire in your colony every quadrum, you will get a stacking mood penalty. LOL.

That being say, Blindness and Flesh Purity do offer one thing, which is Medical specialist. Oh yeah, you gonna need it. Particulary if your doctor is actually blind.

Cannibal: You know, every ideology can already take prefered cannibalism precept. So, this meme just add 2 even more stricter memee and the feast ritual. That being say,
the veritable issue here is that as soon as you will butcher a human, everyone will have a big mood debuff unless they all have cannibal, bloodlust or psychopath trait,
which the game do no enforce during the pawn generation.

Precepts: A lot of precept give mood penalty without bonus to compensate. That being say, I know that Tynan did not really wanted to balance those and just give the option to player.
There is many way that you modify your game experience in rimworld (scenario, storyteller, starting location, pawn selection, etc), and that one more tool going that way.
That being say, I still do wish they were a bit more balanced. Giving some bonus when respecting it instead of only mood debuff.

Some memee are pretty much meaningless as well, like both sex supremacy, individualism and loyalist. But well, that matter for another post I guess.

Thanks for reading!

[zgrssd]

Hello there!

Just a few thing I noticed on my side while I read your post.

Rancher:
As long as they have meat in their meal, they are okay. So Pemmican, fine mean, lavish, etc. They are all okay.
They only get mood debuff if the meal don't have meat in it.

I currently play a tribal Rancher colony and have no issue on that side.

However, Animal Personhood do suffer from those issues you named.

Pain is virtue:
You do have a downside for not feeling any confort as high confort do give mood bonus.
Yes, it will help in early game but will show up in the long run.

Tunneler:
The thing with indoor need is that it only raise above 50% when your pawn is undermountain roof, AND it don't work when sleeping.
That why it's a bit hard to keep it full. Yeah mining specialist are a bit so-so compared to some other specialist, like the shooting one, which is incredibly powerful.
A pawn with a drill arm have 160% mining speed compared to the 70% of the mining specialist. Same thing with the plant specialist compared with a pawn with field hand.

Nudism/Blindness/Flesh Purity: While you cannot balance everything, they should atleast give you the tool to make those gameplay possible otherwise, why would you suggest them?
I have a idea for a new memee, pyromaniac. If you don't start a random fire in your colony every quadrum, you will get a stacking mood penalty. LOL.

That being say, Blindness and Flesh Purity do offer one thing, which is Medical specialist. Oh yeah, you gonna need it. Particulary if your doctor is actually blind.

Cannibal: You know, every ideology can already take prefered cannibalism precept. So, this meme just add 2 even more stricter memee and the feast ritual. That being say,
the veritable issue here is that as soon as you will butcher a human, everyone will have a big mood debuff unless they all have cannibal, bloodlust or psychopath trait,
which the game do no enforce during the pawn generation.

Precepts: A lot of precept give mood penalty without bonus to compensate. That being say, I know that Tynan did not really wanted to balance those and just give the option to player.
There is many way that you modify your game experience in rimworld (scenario, storyteller, starting location, pawn selection, etc), and that one more tool going that way.
That being say, I still do wish they were a bit more balanced. Giving some bonus when respecting it instead of only mood debuff.

Some memee are pretty much meaningless as well, like both sex supremacy, individualism and loyalist. But well, that matter for another post I guess.

Thanks for reading!

Ranching: Central gives you a mood penalty for "Sowed human food plant", unless you are below low Expectations

Plant specialist at least is more generally usefull then Mining specialist. Even the Ranchers still grow Hay, Medicine and Cotton.
And everyone else has to grow food.
Mining Specialist has no such uses.

Cannibal: I heard that there was a bug with Cannibal Meme not locking out "Butchered Humanlike" mood penalty.
However that one was fixed by 3069. I never encountered in my games after that one.

[Mr_Fission]

zgrssd, your points are spot-on.  Specifically regarding ideological/role clothing.  The only clothing I pick anymore is a button-down shirt for everyone, with no clothing assigned to any of the roles.  This is because a button-down shirt doesn't interfere with any armor being worn, and in fact is a source of more armor late-game.

Regarding rituals, I assign four of my six ritual slots to the "burn effigy" ritual, and have a different reward for each of the four burns.  That way if I need a new colonist, I can just whip out a burn ritual and get one.  Or find a ruins, get psyfocus recharge, gain reputation, etc.

I agree that fixed-date rituals need a bigger bonus, like you suggest.  But in addition, I think that the ability to pick a specific bonus for each ritual should be removed, and instead there should be a randomly-chosen reward given.

Also broken is the ability to take a free +50% research speed bonus with the Transhumanist ideology.  This is a no-brainer to take.  Why would anyone not take it every run?

It seems like Ideology was never intended to be balanced in the first place.  It's just a random spattering of traits that are either overpowered or terrible, that you pick to make the game either intentionally harder or easier.

It almost seems like balance was never a goal of Ideology.

[Mirador]

For the central mood penalty at "Sowed human food plant", I simply gather berries and agave fruits, then mix it with meat to get the meal I want. No one complain!

So I don't actually sow food plant. ;o)

You can also easily find some foods in raid and I guess you could also buy some from traders but so far, the berries and agave fruits in the map have been enough. (Playing on arid shrubland, but I do have regrowth mod, so it help!).

Of course, it would not be that easy in some other biome.. That being say, sometime you have to get a mood debuff to get the thing started.. Anyway! ;o)

Yeah, plant specialist is probably a bit better then mining, simply because plant skill is more important than mining, particulary at the start of the game. Still, Shooting and production specialists are soo much better. You just cannot compared those two.

Good thing if they fixed the cannibal memee. Still Cannibal memee is not of much use when any ideology can be cannibal without it.. ^^;

@Mr_Fission, for the research bonus precept, anyone can select it, not just Transhumanist ideology. It depend what kind of gameplay you wish. Transhumanist do get researcher specialist though which have +70% bonus.

[Mojito000]

I simply gather berries and agave fruits, then mix it with meat to get the meal I want. No one complain!

And how do you do that?
When i make simple meals they most often have either potatos or meat. Only rarely are they mixed. And i would not know how to mix that??

Of course i can make fine carnivore meals, that works mid to late game. But i had a hard time getting enough meat at the beginning because ironically, growing season was short (for grass and then hay)

[Canute]

Fruits are the raw vegetable pawn's can eat without negative mood buff, like when they would eat corn/potato.
That's why they don't differ between simple meals and fruits.
But you can get more nutri. value when you exclude fruits from their food policy and made simple meals out of them. Need 0.75 nutri. as resources to get 0.9 nutri. as meal.
Simple meal need 1 ingredent
Fine veg. meal need 2 different ingredent (that what he mean about mixing).
Fine carni. meal need 2 different meat.

[zgrssd]

Fruits are the raw vegetable pawn's can eat without negative mood buff, like when they would eat corn/potato.
That's why they don't differ between simple meals and fruits.
But you can get more nutri. value when you exclude fruits from their food policy and made simple meals out of them. Need 0.75 nutri. as resources to get 0.9 nutri. as meal.
Simple meal need 1 ingredent
Fine veg. meal need 2 different ingredent (that what he mean about mixing).
Fine carni. meal need 2 different meat.

Pretty sure the rule about different Ingeridients was cut for Fine and Lavish meals. Now you just need a whole lot more nutrition in.
The cook can still mix different resources to get the nessesary overall amount, but only Kibble and pemmican currently require a mix.

[Mojito000]

I started a new thread. I bellieve i am derailing this one