[A15] Right Tool For The Job v1.16

Started by ItchyFlea, October 07, 2014, 01:46:55 AM

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skullywag

He is pretty good....you might say "hes the right tool for the job"....wait...did i just call him a tool...lol! Love you Shinzy!

also your mods great Itchy, given me some ideas.....*wanders off mumbling*
Skullywag modded to death.
I'd never met an iterator I liked....until Zhentar saved me.
Why Unity5, WHY do you forsake me?

ItchyFlea

New version is up.

The textures Shinzy made have been added to the mod.
All tools have had their effects lowered.
Adjusted the tool visual offset to make them appear to be held properly.
All my mods are licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International
Ask for permission before using in ModPacks

Click here for a list of the mods I've created

ItchyFlea

And the v1.0 version is out.

Apart from bug fixes, this is pretty much the final version of this mod.
I'd like to give a special thanks to Shinzy for the amazing textures. :D

Whats new in the 1.0 version?
  • All the textures have been replaced with proper textures. All made by Shinzy, with slight modification by me. (Tinted the textures for the advanced toolbelt blue)
  • The prices for tools have been adjusted to better reflect the cost of their parts. A pickaxe is no longer 5x more valuable than the metal it was made from.
All my mods are licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International
Ask for permission before using in ModPacks

Click here for a list of the mods I've created

JAVAgamer


Igabod

Just now saw the hammer and axe textures and now I'm not feeling quite so good about the ones I made for the same objects. I was really proud of how my axe came out too till I saw this one. Back to the drawing board (gimp).

Noobshock

#20
This mod is a really good addition and the textures look cool, but:

Quote from: ItchyFlea on October 07, 2014, 01:46:55 AM
Auto tools increase the colonists efficiency by 150%

The advanced toolbelt gives 170% increase to global work speed.

Even if you made them the most expensive or rare things ever - and I'd bet they aren't, I'd still consider that "game-breaking" (casually turning your pawns into superman work-wise). If you're going to make an otherwise cool mod with a small number of good-looking well thought-out additions, don't ruin it by having numbers out of whack like this. There's already a lot of mods that introduce good ideas but then the modders can't help making their stuff GODMODE, which is completely unnecessary and only detracts from the quality of their work.

Adjust those numbers to be more reasonable (75 plasteel for 150% work speed is dirt cheap, especially if craftable) and this becomes a very solid mod almost everyone can use. I'd lean towards (significantly) tuning down the efficiency of the auto versions rather than increasing the cost, but of course all of this is my opinion.

Hell even the 10 Metal / 1 Wood is dirt cheap for the regular tools. Make it an opportunity cost, an interesting choice of "do I want to get one or not for this guy" rather than a default resounding "YES let's equip every pawn that ever works with this stuff".

Noobshock

And just to further explain my reasoning, if you make those tools a "gonna make them by default because they're just 10 metal / 1 wood" item, it creates a "making sure your colonists all have the right 'tier' item to work with" concern, which brings you closer to the tedium of MMO mechanics than any meaningful and engaging player choice.

Always think of the opportunity cost, how it fits into the existing game and whether it creates new choices/dilemmas for the player or just a default path.

Felime

I don't mind it for the tools and stuff, even the stronger more expensive stuff, but the no downsides apparel are a bit much.

The tools have the opportunity cost of not giving your colonist a gun, and are specialized, but a massive global work speed buff that doesn't take up a slot, or doesn't take up an important slot feels really strong.

Just my opinion, it's your mod, do what you want!

Noobshock

Quote from: Felime on October 17, 2014, 12:09:36 PM
The tools have the opportunity cost of not giving your colonist a gun

Which you grab and go on your way to the frontline during a raid, that's indeed a minor inconvenience, but I wouldn't call that an opportunity cost. You can still use your tool 90%+ of the time and just switch to gun when the raid shows up. Either way, I've made my point already, and the reason I did in the first place is because I think this is a good mod that needs numbers tweak to go from good to great.

Matthiasagreen

I think it makes sense how it is. It brings the realism in the idea that tools are cheap and make the job easier, but if you get attacked you have to run to get the gun. I don't see the justification in making a hammer the same value and obtainment difficulty as a machine gun. 
Hi, my name is Matthias and I am a Rimworld Addict. It has been five seconds since my last fix...

Noobshock

#25
Quote from: Matthiasagreen on October 17, 2014, 12:26:31 PM
It brings the realism in the idea that tools are cheap and make the job easier

If realism results in more tedium and no meaningful choice on top of trivializing difficulty by buffing all your workers for dirt cheap, then realism is a bad idea.

It's a much better approach to give them a significant cost (relative to when you can start crafting them), make it a dilemma which colonists you are going to equip or not because you won't want to spend a fortune on tools, and as a result have less micromanagement tedium related to switching tools for guns every time a raid shows up (which there would be a lot of with the current numbers). It also adds flavor/uniqueness to the pawns, where some will be the skilled enough ones that deserved the tools as opposed to the others for whom it's really not worth investing, or at least not yet. "This guy is my #1 builder/miner etc"

Eh whatever, it's not my mod. Your loss if this falls on deaf ears.


Quote from: Matthiasagreen on October 17, 2014, 12:26:31 PM
I don't see the justification in making a hammer the same value and obtainment difficulty as a machine gun.

That's not what I'm suggesting. Miniguns are definitely rare and tools shouldn't be anywhere close to that (and they never will because you can't craft miniguns). What I'm suggesting is just that they should have significant crafting costs, I'm thinking at least 50 metal per basic tool, for instance. 20% global work speed is a significant buff. Think how much you'd be willing to pay for it right now in game without this mod. I'd definitely value it above 10 metal / 1 wood.

Igabod

Quote from: Noobshock on October 17, 2014, 12:47:23 PM
I'm thinking at least 50 metal per basic tool, for instance. 20% global work speed is a significant buff. Think how much you'd be willing to pay for it right now in game without this mod. I'd definitely value it above 10 metal / 1 wood.

You realize that you can make a big table for around 35 metal right? Why would a hammer require more metal than a big table around which 8 people can comfortably eat? Increasing the cost in resources is only a good idea if the cost makes sense compared to other items you can build. Costs shouldn't be increased without thought to what makes sense or not just for the sake of balance when there are other means to achieve balance. I would side more on the slight reduction in the benefit to the work speed if balance is truly an issue. I still haven't played this mod yet but plan on trying it tonight when I play.

PKGameOnly

Oh I do agree, I remember trying to get my colonist colored royal beds made out of cloth and it took me like 4 months of them sleeping on sleeping spots before that happens.  Sometimes the benefits dont fit the product to be purchased.  Tweaking the mod a bit to up the metal to say 15 per and 2 wood might be a good compromise, but remember not everyone in your colony will be a constructor or miner, and if everyone had these mod equip/weapons, then in a real fight with say mech, you have to pause the game, have all your 10+ colonist run to gun pile and equip with weapons that shoot bullet, to kill these mechs, and dont let it be a drop in on your beacon stock pile. Not very useable for weapons in all cases and tiresome to change over in panic time.

Noobshock

Quote from: Igabod on October 17, 2014, 02:03:43 PM
You realize that you can make a big table for around 35 metal right? Why would a hammer require more metal than a big table around which 8 people can comfortably eat?

Because a 20% work speed buff on a colonist is a much higher value than a table, and there has to be some sort of cost/benefit relationship somewhere. If too much metal offends you for lore reasons, you could increase the cost using other resources, like silver / wood etc. In a game like DF the relatively low material costs of tools is offset by the fact that you need an anvil, a smith and coal for the furnace to produce tools, and those are where most of the opportunity cost lies. Maybe to make this work the right approach would be a new workstation, and for the auto tools you'd need some form of research. But yeah, that's a lot more work, which is what happens when you want both lore and balance :D

Noobshock

Quote from: PKGameOnly on October 17, 2014, 02:27:34 PM
if everyone had these mod equip/weapons, then in a real fight with say mech, you have to pause the game, have all your 10+ colonist run to gun pile and equip with weapons that shoot bullet, to kill these mechs, and dont let it be a drop in on your beacon stock pile. Not very useable for weapons in all cases and tiresome to change over in panic time.

That's part of the reason why I suggest making them cost more and generally be more "special". The buffs are very solid and the items shouldn't be so cheap that you want to equip every colonist with one automatically, otherwise the scenario you're describing is going to happen a lot for people with this mod, and it becomes a tedious micro fest to run your colony in an optimal way, because you will not want to miss out on buffs that are significantly helpful.