How to bring the colonies out into the open again?

[C. Fenderson]

How, as far as my opinions go, should the game be balanced in this regard:

1) Mining should be slower. Right now mining is faster than most jobs, including wood chopping, which is ridiculous to say the least.

Maybe make it slower at the start, and require more research to speed it up.  I would definitely agree with a system like that.

2) Less mineral veins, but they take longer to "tear" down and yield more metal, which will drop in an adjacent square. Those who played dungeon keeper will know what I'm talking about. This way you can carve your mountain better and you can keep the same extraction rate.

Ehh, maybe.  I'd have to try this before I'd jump at the idea.

3) Armor rating for stuff, numeral, not percentage, although you could use both. So rock shouldn't be shot down by punches or pistol shots (nor similarly strong materials, like most walls and powered doors).
This would empower building outside because doors wouldn't be ridiculously weak and VIP entrances to raiders as it is now.

Sounds like a good idea.  Maybe keep the doors as they are now, but require research to unlock higher HP for them?  My researchers need something to do.

To counter impenetrable defenses, a climbing tool or explosives (and an "avoid-killbox" AI behavior) would add to the game diversity without requiring massive amounts of enemies.

Doesn't apply to me, so whatever on this one.

4) Should slots/ tool slots be implemented, the mining tool would be a nice balance, dwarfing would be impractical without the tool. So, then, you could have random drops: random people, random "starting kit", random map.  Conversely, if you'd really like in a particular time to build dwarftown, you could select the appropriate starting kit at chargen.

Ehh... I'm not so sure about that one.  Granted, it's unlikely that there would be three electric pickaxes in a spaceship crash, but it seems like you're cutting that playstyle off entirely, which I don't like.

This could open a myriad of tactics. A starting kit with a mining tool would mean a quicker path to  entrench yourself, but also it means you couldn't bring Cheryl 2000 the sexy cleaning bot, or the mobile extra expensive Templar C3KL medbay or the M68 Gauss Rifle (military issue only) or, perhaps the Mk.4 UJK "Deus EX" mobile artillery (the one with extra accuracy). Flavor aside, you know, "unique" objects that are chargen obtained only or a long branch of a research path, that will give you an edge (a very particular one) and make your start and middle game different for a couple dozen plays.

Forget the last part, I like this kind of tradeoff thing.  Choose your playstyle and have fun!

5) reduce enemy amount. As per the much requested and a7 incoming fix. But make them more of a constant threat. Make them diverse in their tactics. Some will just raid your farms, for example. So you'll need to keep guards and patrols. You'll need emplacements outside either way.

Reducing enemy count seems redundant, since you can do that with the different challenges anyhow.  I like the rest, though.

6) this is a minor, but recently dug walls should provide a small debuff, because you know, they are raw rock walls, ugly and full of spiders. 

Maybe make it so that they always have that, so you have to dig around them and make new walls or something?  I don't know if that's possible, but it's a thought.

Embrasures are needed, dismissing that on the grounds that players will dug- in even more is like saying you don't need power armor because you already have flak jackets. There are a ton of ways to make it balanced and the game even more interesting

Not sure what to say to this one.

[Tynan]

Thanks for the feedback all. Taking some notes here.

[RemingtonRyder]

Embrasures do allow for some serious offensive firepower from behind the walls, to be fair, but colonists can still be injured while they're leaning out to shoot.

I think it would be slightly less cheesy though if walls could have battlements and your colonists could climb on top to fire down at the raider/tribal/zombie hordes.  They would have less cover in that position than full walls provide, but they would be able to duck behind it in between shots.

Also, battlements could track their damage separately to the wall supporting them - meaning that available cover may diminish over the course of a battle.  Or, if colonists are standing on a wall when it collapses, they may find themselves in a sticky position.

[JimmyAgnt007]

It is really only drop pods that make me turtle in the mountain.  if we had some way to secure against them then i wouldnt feel that need.  also, the thing about making the raiders do things like climb walls and such, could be defeated by making extra thick walls.  kamikaze with satchel charges would be fun tho. 

plus id argue against cabin fever being any more oppressive than it already is.  unless someone is claustrophobic (new trait?) then it should only be a minor mood issue.  in WW2 british command was in underground bunkers for months.  that was without comfy royal beds or hydroponic gardens or flower pots.  not saying some people didnt have issues.  but if being outside meant death then stuck underground becomes more acceptable. 

i agree its odd that mining rock takes less time than felling a tree but i see that as an argument to make trees faster to cut down, not making rock slower.

i still think being able to armor the roof of buildings and making them immune to drop pods would go a ways to getting people out of the mountain.  as long as they are supported like they need to be in a mountain.  build them like you do flooring otherwise. 

[ShadowDragon8685]

Good discussion to have. Thanks for bringing this up.

It is a tough balance problem to solve. I think the best, most obvious solution is to put players on the offensive more often. I tried to do that with sieges and the ship part, but I think it's not quite panning out that way with sieges. So maybe I could rework sieges and make them a bit more common, and perhaps add another kind of threat or opportunity that draws people out of their base. Anyone have any thoughts about what this could be?

Historically, sallying out against a siege is the absolute worst thing you can do, because then the advantages of hunkering down - choke-points and hardened places from which to fight - are turned around on you. Sieges either break when the defenders outlast the besiegers, or when the defenders are rescued by their outside allies.

Adding some further mood penalties for being underground for long periods may be a viable option as well. You can live underground, it's true - but it's really awful to be underground all the time.

Too much stick, Tynan. Way too much stick. You've created a situation where the only logical thing to do for defense is to hunker down in the mountain, but you want players to not do that, so you're trying to make that option logistically unworkable from a morale point of view. That'll just result in fear-based colonies being the only viable colonies, because then sure everybody will be miserable, but they'll be too frightened to step out of line, what with having their own ensuite gibbed corpse.


Anyway, the underground lifestyle is a great idea in this kind of situation. Quite frankly, Tynan, you're behaving like a petulant dungeon master who's upset because his players have developed an effective and well-oiled strategy, so you're trying to change the rules so you can smack them around. That is not cool, man. Instead of trying to punish the players for choosing the security of subterranean life, make superterranean life a viable choice, not something filled with constant danger (raiders, raiders, raiders, rampaging muffalo, OMG PSYCHO BOOMSQUIRRELs, lightning strikes, etc,) that you're forced into because the safe option has been artificially closed off.

Give carrots - significant ones - for living outdoors, and reduce the extreme urgency of "Oh my god got to get under the mountain or I'll die" safety, and players may start building out in the open again.

I actually noticed yesterday that if you wall off completely, grenadiers will attack your walls with frag grenades.  So you're not completely safe behind a set of walls.

That's why most players don't build a complete set of walls. Personally, what I did was build a mostly-complete set of walls, with a direct opening into a death-zone which was basically a fortified pillbox, set up so that my shooters would be in darkness and behind walls and sandbags, and blocked from pathing by hydroponics tables, forcing the baddies to go through a set of doors to get to them, with turrets in the middle and obvious defensive positions for people attacking to take cover behind. The defensive positions were mined, so that when the "enemy trench" was full to the gills with baddies, I could blow them all up.

Personally, I think the raiders give up too easily.  Instead of bashing at your walls until they do a set amount of damage, if they aren't dealt with they should set up a camp and move supplies in so that they can keep going for longer.

Why? That makes no sense. They're raiders. They're here to strike fast and grab what they can. They're not a medieval army laying siege to your castle so they can take it for themselves. Raiders have no business attacking a well-fortified position, they should just move on.

I think it would be more interesting then, if you could leave your base through a secret exit to harass the raiders into leaving.  When I play Minecraft I like to have a piston-operated door which blends in with its surroundings.  Or going back a ways, there was something similar in Battle for Middle Earth.  Maybe we can have something like that in Rimworld so that we're not constantly on the defensive.

The problem with that is that nothing is secret from the AI. They'll path to your "secret" exit, blow it open, and oh look, now they're running around in your back tunnels.

[Tynan]

Marvin - Battlements would be cool but I don't want to do 3D half-way. If we do 3D we'll do it all the way. This is sort of a half-hacked-in system is something I very much try to avoid.

Shadow - The lecturing/insulting tone really isn't constructive.

[TheXIIILightning]

Perhaps adding a time limit to Geothermal energy? Let's say that after 7 or 10 months of having built one, the building starts to wear down and eventually stops working at all, making that energy spot pretty much useless. The Geyser could pretty much work as a resource, draining it in order to gain power.

That would force colonists to expand outside in order to build a power source made out of Solar Energy, leaving Thermal energy for night cycles or Eclipses. Of course that means that the output of solar energy could perhaps need to be buffed up a little more. I'd say 1/6 more than the current output it has. That would make large colonies sustainable if all the Thermal options for the map were depleted.

PS: That would also mean that a lot of area would be exposed to a potentially deadly mortar attack, that could cause everything to burn up in flames if the threat wasn't dealt with fast enough.

If that was the case, I would definitely need to adapt a more offensive strategy, and also move my base a little closer to the 'surface' in order to put out any eventual fires fast enough.

[C. Fenderson]

Perhaps adding a time limit to Geothermal energy? Let's say that after 7 or 10 months of having built one, the building starts to wear down and eventually stops working at all, making that energy spot pretty much useless. The Geyser could pretty much work as a resource, draining it in order to gain power.

It wouldn't be too hard to make a solar farm for a mountain base.  I already build mine at the edge of my maps.  Solar energy's also pretty damn good already.  I can fund a fairly large base with six solar panels with room to spare for batteries.

[RemingtonRyder]

Okay well, I feel bad about building killboxes because while they're efficient, they're only that way because raiders pour into them and get nailed.  And then you get their gear.  Rinse well with soapy water and repeat.

So I think that raid need to be a bit smarter as well as smaller.  Let's teach the AI the value of sending in one guy to set off the defences, evaluate, and then say 'right, there's got to be an easier way into this place!'

This in turn makes kill boxes less useful, since the AI isn't going to waste bodies on them, and makes generalised defences more useful, because the raiders will try to find a weak point.  And if they can't find one, then they can give up and go home.

[C. Fenderson]

Okay well, I feel bad about building killboxes because while they're efficient, they're only that way because raiders pour into them and get nailed.  And then you get their gear.  Rinse well with soapy water and repeat.

So I think that raid need to be a bit smarter as well as smaller.  Let's teach the AI the value of sending in one guy to set off the defences, evaluate, and then say 'right, there's got to be an easier way into this place!'

This in turn makes kill boxes less useful, since the AI isn't going to waste bodies on them, and makes generalised defences more useful, because the raiders will try to find a weak point.  And if they can't find one, then they can give up and go home.

I think the solution to this is to make your entire map a killbox.  I'd probably do it.

[stefanstr]

While I din't appreciate ShadowDragon8685's tone, he did bring up one excellent point: we have been all concentrating on sticks: how to force people to change their play styles. What we need is more incentives to go outside/explore.

Some possible incentives to stay outside/explore:
- better supplies falling from the sky - I never bother picking up the falling metal/stone blocks/whatever, as I can make my own. There should be unique stuff there worth hauling to your base (imagine a crashed medical ship with medicine and artificial limbs or something, or maybe every map should be missing some resources by default)
- now that we have multiple ores, have them exist in veins, so that no single mountain has all of them - that way we will at least need mining expeditions/outposts
- make scavenging more useful - add plants which cannot be grown artificially and are too useful to ignore, like herbs that can be used as medicine or super-tasty fruit that boosts the mood significantly or poison you can apply to your pilas/machetes/whatever
- add "lingering dangers" that don't attack the base directly but circle around it and pick off unwary colonists - so that getting rid of them becomes a priority. Examples: a panther that never approaches if there is more than one person around, a group of pirate saboteurs that set up a small base on the opposite end of the map and make small excursions whenever they can get away with it and burn your crops but never actually attack the main base... that kind of stuff.

On topic of sieges: I think mortars should be way more powerful - currently, it is possible to simply ignore the siegers because I can repair my base faster than they can damage it. Or they should have some more artillery options which are not buildable by the colony. It would be logical that factions established on the planet have access to better gear than a stranded ragtag band of colonists. (And winning against the siegers would mean getting access to that superior weaponry.)

Also: siegers should always prioritize destroying power generators.


On topic of mining: one idea would be to make the mountain core made of some very hard material, almost impossible to tear down. This way, you could make a halfway mountain base, but at some point you would literally "hit the wall".

[Materialjam]

While I din't appreciate ShadowDragon8685's tone, he did bring up one excellent point: we have been all concentrating on sticks: how to force people to change their play styles. What we need is more incentives to go outside/explore.

I have to agree with Stefan and Shadow here. While Shadow was a bit rude, that doesn't mean he doesn't have some good ideas in addition to the rest of us. Rather than directly punish the player, perhaps a better approach might be to give them the incentive to establish some infrastructure in the open.

Perhaps we should look at this subject in a different way entirely. Rather than forcing the player to one strategy or the other, why not attempt to flesh both out with their own distinct downfalls and benefits, encouraging the player to play a mix of the two?

I have several ideas and wish to expand on some ideas already discussed, but it will have to wait until I get a decent amount of sleep. Expect a post soon!

[ComradeCrimson]

Good discussion to have. Thanks for bringing this up.

It is a tough balance problem to solve. I think the best, most obvious solution is to put players on the offensive more often. I tried to do that with sieges and the ship part, but I think it's not quite panning out that way with sieges. So maybe I could rework sieges and make them a bit more common, and perhaps add another kind of threat or opportunity that draws people out of their base. Anyone have any thoughts about what this could be?

Adding some further mood penalties for being underground for long periods may be a viable option as well. You can live underground, it's true - but it's really awful to be underground all the time.

My suggestion: Make mortar shells cost ammunition to fire for the players, and have besiegers have LOADS of ammunition as well as being able to produce it on a small scale to more or else replenish what the lose.

Acts as a double edged sword too and makes it even MORE a war of attrition.

[RemingtonRyder]

Having just started in a very mountainous map, I can see how you wouldn't have much choice but to roll with it.  You either dig to clear some space (minding to watch for falling rocks) or you dig to tunnel out a base.

[Jaxxa]

Perhaps we should look at this subject in a different way entirely. Rather than forcing the player to one strategy or the other, why not attempt to flesh both out with their own distinct downfalls and benefits, encouraging the player to play a mix of the two?

Exactly, I don't think that we should not be trying to force colonies into the open, but we need to make it a meaningful and balanced choice, not a situation where there is always one easier way.

I still like my idea of the rock creature giving you an intensive to line your caverns with constructed walls.

My suggestion: Make mortar shells cost ammunition to fire for the players, and have besiegers have LOADS of ammunition as well as being able to produce it on a small scale to more or else replenish what the lose.

Acts as a double edged sword too and makes it even MORE a war of attrition.

I have a mod that I am working on that makes artillery require ammunition.