Balance ideas

[psychedelist]

Really excited for 1.5 and the new DLC, it's unfortunate that there seems to be no way to provide balance feedback at the moment, but i wanted to throw it out here just in case. I really wish some of this could be implemented.

1. Room with flowers nerf.
It's currently very easy to have a beautiful room with planting some flowers and no floor. Eventually switching to floors is worth it to not have to replant the flowers or have them occupying space, but i feel the flower is too OP in early game still. Maybe dirt tiles should have more negative beauty when in a room, and flowers have less beauty when they are in a room and are planted on a dirt tile?

2. Burnbox nerf.
Applying death chance in a burnbox in 1.5 is great change! It's still too easy to neutralize an infinite number of attackers by just throwing molotovs on the ground. Could the heat spread across the room way more slowly than getting applied to whole room instantly? So that the attackers don't get burn immediately at the opposite side of the snake hallway. Would finally give a reason to use an incendiary trap.

3. Production specialist nerf.
Many have pointed out that production specialist is way too op. I would suggest 30% chance at +1 quality instead of every time. Also +1 shouldn't process when the item would have been master quality, so that "legendary" stays inspiration-only even for production specialists. It's what should be expected from the word "legendary", something that is almost one of a kind, not produced on a regular basis.

4. Weapons balance.
Many have pointed out how bad Charge Lance, Sniper rifles and LMGs are. Personally I feel that the sniper rifle does have a niche use thanks to the range, and the LMG has a use thanks to the stopping power against charging melee/scythers. But I do agree that while the Charge Lance should stay as is on Lancers, pawns should have their own buffed range version of it. Or if it has stay the same for both, then an increased range may be still a good idea and would indirectly buff the Sniper Rifle.

Also the molotovs and Incendiary Launcher don't really have a use outside of utility and the burnbox setup. I would give a +1 AOE radius to both so that they might have a chance to do something in combat.

And finally there is the Pila and a bunch of melee weapons that are considered useless by the community, but i haven't given them a lot of thought yet.

5. Psy powers and animals on tribal and Empire raids.
It feels so wrong that only your tribal pawns can use psy powers, and the Empire grants them to you yet doesn't use it themselves. As long as it's just a few attackers in a raid and they use only the basic ones such as burden, vertigo, stun, skip, I don't think it would be any more unfair than triple rocket launcher on enemies or Lancer one shot kills. There used to be a mod but the author already stated they are not going to update it for 1.5. I really think this should be the base game though. Same for enemy tamed animals in raids, makes sense especially for tribals. Tribal raids are by far the easiest and could really use a buff, psy powers and animals would be perfect for that.

Edit:
6. Ideology balance
Most of the precepts get at least some positive aspects to them, but a few feel not thought out at all. To everyone (including developers) who keep saying that it's all role playing and not supposed to be balanced, i always wanted to ask, when was the last time you played with disabled mining or body purist (if ever)? Was it enjoyable? Why does participating in a raid give a positive thought for raiders, but not mining does not for anti-mining people? Why does wearing a noble weapon give a positive thought, but wearing required apparel for people with roles does not (this may be even a bug because the description says that wearing required apparel pleases people)? All precepts don't have to be equally balanced, but it would be nice if each one had something positive going for it.

- Body purist
There could be many ways and ideas to make it more enjoyable. They make the most of their body, so they get small buffs in movement speed, dodge/hit chance, manipulation, sight, immunity gain speed, damage reduction. They won't be nearly as good as bionic pawns on go-juice, but they get the bonuses right away and for free. +2 mood for not having artificial body parts. Each and any ritual gives a chance at +1 psylink to any participating pawn without a foot/leg/hand/arm/eye, but there is a cap for max level, the cap raises with more limbs lost. Ancient Complexes have increased chance to have healer/resurrect mech serum. A selectable ritual reward - a small chance at triggering the healer/resurrect mech serum effect on a random participating limb-missing/dead pawn.

- Nature primacy
+0.25 mood for each deconstructed unclaimed building block on the colony map, caps at +10. Probably should not apply on temporary maps like ancient complexes, because deconstructing a few blocks just to farm mood and then leaving would seem silly. Mood range from -4 to +4 depending on how much the colony map (the "outer room" that has access to map edges) is littered with dead pawns, artificial items, steel slag chunks, etc

- Mining prohibited
+2 mood for not having mined recently. +1 mood for each mined block of compact machinery (maybe plasteel and steel too if they are considered artificial according to lore), also blocks that came as meteorites, caps at +10.  +100% speed for long distance scanner. Using deep drill gives the same penalty as normal mining. They know how to make the most out of the little resource they have, so cutting chunks gives double yield, they also have +50% construction speed, and created art/buildings always have +1 quality.

- Automated weapons prohibited
+2 thought for not having turrets (activates after reaching moderate expectations), slight bonus to pawns shooting accuracy

- Combat in darkness
Problem causers should eventually self destruct, because having a permanent sun blocker is too good to have, and sunlamps exist. Makes sense that other factions would eventually take care of the problem that also affects them.

- Charity
Bigger bonuses for taking care of prisoners. +1 for not having raided recently. -5 if colony participated in a raid. -10 if personally participated in a raid.

- Blindsight
It should be possible to repeat the blinding ritual even without both eyes, because installing bionic eyes to circumvent it is silly and feels like a hack. Can think of it as "celebration of blindness" or something.

- Ideology Roles
+2 mood for wearing required apparel