How to bring the colonies out into the open again?

[ShadowDragon8685]

So much stick, it makes my head hurt.

You want to bring colonies out into the open?

Cut back on the raids. And I don't mean a little, I don't mean fiddle numbers a tiny margin like 5% or 10%, I mean drastically. Move a decimal place at least one digit to the left. At least an order of magnitude here.

People fortify themselves in response to the threat of external attack, whether it's an omnipresent low-intensity risk, or a very rare but catastrophic risk.

Quite simply, make violence no longer the primary threat to a colony, and players will stop prepping for it like militia nut doomsday preppers camping in wilderness compounds in fear of the end of days/the collapse of social order/the attack by the gubmint which they just know is coming when they come to take their guns. Make violence rare, and make it a small attack by a few, well-equipped and well-skilled but few in number raiders.

That way, players won't feel the pressing urgency of producing doom-fort killboxes and putting anything that shoots in the hands of anyone who's able and willing to pull the trigger, and they'll be able to focus on other things, like making livable living spaces, and worrying about disease and blight and stuff.

[Zulgaines]

*Good Stuff*

I feel this is going to be the logical conclusion to balance and creating a storytelling atmosphere as the game gets closer to its completion anyway.

[Mathenaut]

Currently, the game gives you way too much incentive to live within as small a space as possible. Travel time is less, organizing for defense is much easier, your pawns have more conversations, it's much easier to concentrate beauty-enhancing objects, and obviously build costs scale with the size of the building. Giving more substantial bonuses for letting your colonists live in something that actually resembles, you know, a colony (instead of the interior of a submarine) could include some carrots, such as: give outdoor spaces a higher base beauty factor, give a "nice day" bonus in favorable biomes during clear weather (and perhaps a corresponding malus for not being outside on a nice day), and maybe even give random and semi-occasional buffs like "singing in the rain" that give colonists a bonus for interacting with nature.

This has made the most sense of most anything I've read here.

I think another solution would be to make fertilizer pumps increase crop yield.  That would encourage outside farming at least, and give a better utility to something I don't think sees much use otherwise.  Basically, outside needs to be made more appealing because there isn't anything that is not worth tunneling in for.

Sacrificing space and requiring heavy power draw don't mean anything if there is no appeal to having alot of space and power is easily attainable.

Scaling down the pirate zerg means that you can safely scale down energy generation.  At the very least, it makes having a massive pile of turrets impractical, whereas it's all but necessary now.  Would also help if the cost and performance of turrets were upgraded.  Made expensive, but worthwhile.  Wouldn't render them useless, and there would be fewer of them.

Basically, the scale of the threats is disproportionate to the scale of the game.  Having a mob of 20+ people trek halfway across the planet to harass some random refugees  who have nothing that the mob can't get for itself with drastically less effort kinda.. undermines the atmosphere.  Ridiculous circumstance prompts a ridiculous response.

[Aethelric]

So much stick, it makes my head hurt...

Raids being significantly less common will not cause dwarving to be any less optimal as a playstyle. See my post on the last page: there are other significant advantages and efficiencies inherent to dwarving with many of the game's current mechanics, and the cost of mining out a mountain is trivial by comparison. And so long as violence remains a credible threat, even if it's less common, mountain fortresses will be the better defense. Lowering the zerg will help the killbox problem, but that's only a related issue to dwarving--I've built massive killboxes with outdoor colonies without much difficulty.

I know you hate "sticks". But game balance, (un)fortunately, is not a one-way street. If something is significant more optimal on several levels, it's unlikely that players will choose other options. In an "alpha", especially, allowing the design to stagnate by refusing to lower the optimum-ness of a playstyle directly is ill-advised.

Not to mention, though few seem to realize it, the thrill of this game comes from challenge. Everyone currently complaining about the large size of raids could easily just lower the challenge level until the raids were a more manageable size. Yes, the game needs raiders that are smarter, rarer, and smaller. However, adding challenges to dwarving (alongside carrots for outside living) that offset or disrupt its current advantages would still be a net positive for the game, even if some people who were set in their ways get their playstyles upset in the short run.

[Mathenaut]

Throwing arbitrary and gimmicky things at dwarfing won't make it any less appealing or drastically less efficient.  Worst you'll do is reward having extra turrets inside of the fortress.

Scaling down the threats places less emphasis on the max efficiency approach and actually allows other playstyles to be viable.

[RemingtonRyder]

I've decided for the time being to scale back the challenge rating.  It means that I can still enjoy the game, and I can build wherever I like.

I enjoyed the challenge at Rough but with my first playthrough of Alpha 7, this proved to be a bit too rough for my liking, with raider equipment scaling up long before they became more numerous.  In essence, I got what I wanted - tougher pawns instead of more numerous - but now I need to step back and re-think my defence.

It's a delicate balancing process, but I think that I know when I'm being challenged and when I'm just Monty Hauling.  I did a lot of Monty Hauling in Alpha 6.

[EarthyTurtle]

More energy types are always welcome.

Some or most energy production could exhaust waste or pollution, so you'd want to place them in the open (pollution debbuf, more debuffs yay!)

So you either deal with pollution; use very specific power sources or research something like nuclear (and deal with its potential dangers); build outside where you can sprawl around and have more energy options and pollution/waste dissipation available

I think the point of all these energy types we do have is that they are meant to be clean energy solutions. Also relatively easy to build, operate and sustain. Coal, gas, nuclear, fusion would all need to be manned around the clock. Their not really feasible for small colonies, more for developed societies who need the additional power.
If we get flowing rivers, maybe we might be able to include hydro-electric as well.

This has made the most sense of most anything I've read here.

I think another solution would be to make fertilizer pumps increase crop yield.  That would encourage outside farming at least, and give a better utility to something I don't think sees much use otherwise.  Basically, outside needs to be made more appealing because there isn't anything that is not worth tunneling in for.

Sacrificing space and requiring heavy power draw don't mean anything if there is no appeal to having alot of space and power is easily attainable.

Scaling down the pirate zerg means that you can safely scale down energy generation.  At the very least, it makes having a massive pile of turrets impractical, whereas it's all but necessary now.  Would also help if the cost and performance of turrets were upgraded.  Made expensive, but worthwhile.  Wouldn't render them useless, and there would be fewer of them.

Basically, the scale of the threats is disproportionate to the scale of the game.  Having a mob of 20+ people trek halfway across the planet to harass some random refugees  who have nothing that the mob can't get for itself with drastically less effort kinda.. undermines the atmosphere.  Ridiculous circumstance prompts a ridiculous response.

All those resources that would otherwise be wasted building elaborate defences, thick walls and mass turrets could be used to make larger buildings, nicer areas and so on (I could easily spend a good 6000 metal on defensive walls and turrets and about the same in stone). This also costs times as well, cutting stone, mining minerals, building, planning, etc.

[Produno]

I havnt read the whole thread, because I havnt the time to do so .

But my input, I believe creating cave bases should cost a whole lot more than they do. Building into a mountain would take a huge amount of work even by todays standards, let alone some random guys with pick axes!!

If you only have pick axes, maybe they should only allow you to mine a certain amount of blocks into the mountain, to get deeper you would need some heavier machinery, some supports etc.

How many people die from mining even today in this day and age?? Its a very hazardous job. Mining in Rimworld is not realistic, and that's why its too easy to build a mountain base.

[Johnny Masters]

I think the point of all these energy types we do have is that they are meant to be clean energy solutions. Also relatively easy to build, operate and sustain. Coal, gas, nuclear, fusion would all need to be manned around the clock. Their not really feasible for small colonies, more for developed societies who need the additional power.
If we get flowing rivers, maybe we might be able to include hydro-electric as well.

I get what you are saying, but most types of energy should be (and most are) scalable in size. Since this is a sci-fi game, we could agree that miniaturization and efficiency are a few levels ahead of today. We already can build thermal and solar plants out of "thin air" with what looks like a magical omni-tool, despite your skill, so should be possible to build smaller scale fusion tech, cold fusion, whatever. It's not like scientists are not already researching into this as of now.

Anyway, i just threw this one around, it's not a final or the best solution to the discussion in hand.

I havnt read the whole thread, because I havnt the time to do so .

But my input, I believe creating cave bases should cost a whole lot more than they do. Building into a mountain would take a huge amount of work even by todays standards, let alone some random guys with pick axes!!

If you only have pick axes, maybe they should only allow you to mine a certain amount of blocks into the mountain, to get deeper you would need some heavier machinery, some supports etc.

How many people die from mining even today in this day and age?? Its a very hazardous job. Mining in Rimworld is not realistic, and that's why its too easy to build a mountain base.

I mean no offense, but might I then suggest you to read whole thread? This has come up a number of times and variations.

By not reading we just bloat a topic with repeated suggestions (like the littered cheapest ideas thread), while if you read, even if you have a similar idea, you might reach a new one from the exchange.

[Peanutcat]

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.

NO! Dear god no don't make sieges more frequent. I find sieges to be the most game breaking things. They're just not fun. When you get to your 3rd attack they always come with mortars and a massive army. The only way to combat that is to rush mortars yourself, build 4 then just sit there shooting back, switching around who's manning the mortars so they don't panic. You do that for 30 minutes then when they're gone another one pops up instantly. I always stop playing when they start siegeing because it just brings the game to a halt. Even on basebuilder it's like this. If you remove sieges on the other hand it would make me want to build outside since then there's no need for a massive stone roof.

And like they said earlier. Making the turrets way more powerful and the AI avoid them would make me feel safe to build outside. Especially if the AI is reworked to actually stay alive and not suicide rush.

[Varnhagen]

I have been following all your thoughts and like to comment on a select few.

• Simulacrum: "the game's military challenges [might] have to be balanced around [killboxes]"
  I sure hope, that that's not going to be the case as there is no distinct reason to build a killbox. It was a self-fullfilling prophecy and still is to a degree. The game is very well playable without killboxes, turrets and mortars. Think of it as a base way to defend.
  
  
• stefanstr: "From the gameplay perspective, turrets are really anticlimactic."
  That's a great observation!
  
  
• TinnedEpic: "Wind turbines provide a relatively low output [and c]annot be placed under roofs"
  Gameplay-wise it's just another solar powerplant. These have to be placed outside as well and need batteries for output normalization. Wind Turbines wouldn't do anything differently. And the same strategies would be applicable: Build them into a roofed outside room and give the plant-proper a no-roof zone.
  
  
• Anarak: "Some or most energy production could exhaust waste or pollution, so you'd want to place them in the open [where] pollution/waste dissipation [is] available."
  A neat mechanic for conventional energy production. Aforementioned wind turbines might emit noise pollution, but what drawback would the solar plant have? A more diverse energy mix wouldn't mitigate any of the disadvantages of towns or advantages of fortresses. Why build hazardous reactors when a small park of solar (plus batteries) suffices to power your every need? A reduction of solar power output and an increase in battery cost, might do the trick.
  
  
• Darth Fool: "There is a reason people built castles in the middle ages."
  There is a reason why most men's castles were their homes: To build a castle you needed an obscene amount of wealth and castle or city wall construction were a strain on the supporting economies for decades. I mean, why aren't you living in a bunker? Furthermore, castle life was strenuous and more often than not, castles were the deathtrap of their occupants in combat. None of these restraints are currently modeled in the game.
  
  "Malnutrition...With the new diseases, it could be implemented so that over time eating only one or a small number of types of food leads to malnutrition..."
  That's a good point. Supporting a lot of different crops with hydroponics is an expensive task. Even in the current build. There's a reason most players grow berries in their tanks.
  
  
• Aethelric: "adding challenges to dwarving (alongside carrots for outside living) that offset or disrupt its current advantages would still be a net positive for the game"
  That's very true. Challenges are the fabric of a game's storytelling. The linear progression of defense spamming makes the game pretty predictable. I'm glad that the changes in A7 have contributed heavily to a change in playstile for me personally. Goals and achievements have shifted and I'm thankful for a new pace and a break of routine. Other players might not take kindly to that, though. But you're absolutely spot on that routine and tradition should be the very last arguments to fall back to during alpha development.
  
  
• Mathenaut: "Scaling down the threats places less emphasis on the max efficiency approach and actually allows other playstyles to be viable."
  Dwarving is not a max efficiency approach and scaling down the threats doesn't change a bit for players that are set in their ways. Other playstiles are viable and I personally will never tire to repeat that, might others hear the good news.
  
  
• Anarak: "Since this is a sci-fi game, we could agree that miniaturization and efficiency are a few levels ahead of today"
  But are they at the disposal of an oaf, a minstrel and a lordling? I'm looking forward to whatever the future tech tree might hold or how it might be implemented. How progression will work, once Rimworld reaches a state where the emphasis shifts from "more content" to "softening the edges". I share in the skepticism of those that think that neither the knowledge nor the materials of turret, solar plant or battery construction would survive crash of an emergency pod. (Ever noticed how these pods are converted to slag?) It's not plausible that a teacher discovers on some afternoon the basic workings of photovoltaics ("research"). But we'll see how it pans out in the future.

How to bring the colonies out into the open again? I'm gonna go back to my A7 town now and ponder how living in a mountain would benefit my colonists while they are hurrying along the rose-lined pathways and admire their spacious living situation.

[Aethelric]

NO! Dear god no don't make sieges more frequent. I find sieges to be the most game breaking things. They're just not fun. When you get to your 3rd attack they always come with mortars and a massive army. The only way to combat that is to rush mortars yourself, build 4 then just sit there shooting back, switching around who's manning the mortars so they don't panic. You do that for 30 minutes then when they're gone another one pops up instantly. I always stop playing when they start siegeing because it just brings the game to a halt. Even on basebuilder it's like this. If you remove sieges on the other hand it would make me want to build outside since then there's no need for a massive stone roof.

At least in A7, I've found that it's pretty easy to take a couple snipers and harass the besiegers until they launch a premature assault. It's actually a lot of fun to try to find the best position to take a few potshots at their gunners or at stragglers. Quick action is key, though some measure of luck also comes into play as they start fielding more M-24s.

And like they said earlier. Making the turrets way more powerful and the AI avoid them would make me feel safe to build outside. Especially if the AI is reworked to actually stay alive and not suicide rush.

This is the opposite of what the game needs. "Way more powerful" turrets would turn the game into boring Tower Defense with a bit of Sim City on the side. AI improvements would be nice, but there are more common sense and less structural ways to make outdoor colonies viable.

[Produno]

I mean no offense, but might I then suggest you to read whole thread? This has come up a number of times and variations.

By not reading we just bloat a topic with repeated suggestions (like the littered cheapest ideas thread), while if you read, even if you have a similar idea, you might reach a new one from the exchange.

It makes no difference if ive read the whole thread or not, i would have still re-iterated what i said to show my support for said suggestion.
The reason i stated i had not read the whole thread was just incase someone else had infact stated the same and i hadnt acknowledged them.

Another point i would like to bring forward, people have to mine. Whether they want a cave base or not, they still need steel etc from mines. This makes cave bases even easier and a more viable option. Another reason imo why mining needs to be nerfed or needs some boundaries.

[stefanstr]

I agree with Produno there is no need to read the whole thread. We know that Tynan is looking at this thread so if an idea gets repeated, the chance that he will consider implementing it increases.

And it is a good point about the necessity of mining. Mining resources can lead to you having half a mountain base dug out without any conscious decision. Mountain bases are far too cheap currently, compared to outside bases. Whether you look at resources needed, safety or time, a mountain base will ALWAYS be the easier choice. Unless you are playing on a very flat map and have no other choice...

Either mining needs to be made more costly or there need to be some inherent plusses to build outside. Otherwise, it will always be better to make a mountain base.

Also: to add visibility to one of the important topics discussed here, I have created a new thread about turrets. Comment away:
http://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=6618.0

[jaeden25]

I agree with Produno there is no need to read the whole thread. We know that Tynan is looking at this thread so if an idea gets repeated, the chance that he will consider implementing it increases.

And it is a good point about the necessity of mining. Mining resources can lead to you having half a mountain base dug out without any conscious decision. Mountain bases are far too cheap currently, compared to outside bases. Whether you look at resources needed, safety or time, a mountain base will ALWAYS be the easier choice. Unless you are playing on a very flat map and have no other choice...

Either mining needs to be made more costly or there need to be some inherent plusses to build outside. Otherwise, it will always be better to make a mountain base.

Also: to add visibility to one of the important topics discussed here, I have created a new thread about turrets. Comment away:
http://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=6618.0

Just because you find it easier to build a mountain base doesn't mean you have to, it's your choice. Changing mining won't solve anything.