Is the AI RNG or scripted? In any case, the difficulty is off the charts.

[Cat123]

Hi there. New to Rimworld, not new to the genre or strategy in general. Some questions:

1) Playing Cassandra, 100% - are the events / attacks scripted, or RNG? i.e. is there a set progression / escalation of encounters, or is it pure RNG? e.g. First 2 raiders > 4 raiders > 1-2 scythe machines > groups of raiders > and so on?

2) Does anyone play without :cheese:? i.e. I've read the forums, seen the "kill boxes" exploiting the AI's stupidity, and yet the vanilla difficulty is just silly.

Example:

I have ~7 colonists (2 captures, 1 RNG drop and 1 slaver bought), and have begun to turtle - stone wall around my area, x2 geothermal resources, 4 turrets and 2 mortars (only just got the tech) on my main entrance. Firstly, a raiding party sets up 3 mortars, and pummels my base. From about 300 tiles away (far SE corner of a mid sized map, I am in the far N / NW). I have 2-3 combat people, all using light arms, no armor and skill roughly 6-8; I cannot charge them, so... we exchange mortar fire for 15+mins until they run out of food & I can charge them. What this really does is drain my resources as I constantly have to repair. I cannot pick up their mortars to install in my base once I have killed them (!).

Immediately on killing the last one, 6+ raiders spawn and do a direct beeline to my base. I fight them off, just, loosing all the remaining turrets (2) and taking 3 prisoners. This is with the lucky help of 5+ visiting villagers. The raiders all have combat armor, some with power armor and machine guns that can hit turrets just outside the minimum range of a mortar. My toughest person has a single piece of combat armor and a M24 whatever sniper rifle.

Immediately on housing the prisoners and turning one of them (5mins, max), 2 large bug aliens and 1 fast scythe sniper spawns. My two quickly built EMP mortars (using the last of my resources that were depleted earlier) only stun them; my explosive mortars can't hit them. They decimate my walls at a range of 20+ squares (far, far outside normal turret range, but just inside mortar range, of course :rolleye:) then push on through my feeble fire (3 people with sniper rifles) and get a good 75%+ hit rate with their machine guns. All my combat people are down, the remnants have pistols.

I quit - the game simply isn't winnable at this point.


RNG or just bad weighting?
EMP - why does it only stun machine enemies? Fried circuits = damaged circuits.
EMP - stun doesn't last long / mortars are horrendously inaccurate for me... not so inaccurate for the AI.


So: I'm not interested in testing broken kill boxes and/or :cheesing: the AI, I'm just interested to know if the default difficulty is consistently this hard. If this is consistent, then alpha testers are damaging this game - it's an old problem with small niche games with dedicated fan bases (it's a form of mudflation where limited content + multiple replays leads the most experienced testers to demand difficulty curves far in excess of anything sane), but really - not so much fun.

I'm going to try again, but - having moved through the slowish build up to getting a colony onto it's feet, getting ROFL stomped by three over-powered events in quick succession is pointless. I pretty much maxed my colonist numbers and potential before this happened, and it simply wasn't beatable.

[skullywag]

The numbers and ramp up in difficulty is calculated based on your wealth. Some of that is based on the buildings you own. Build too many turrets too early youre gonna get squashed as they arent turrets that murder raiders they are glass cannons. As it stands now as you build/get more colonists itll get harder and harder, after about 3 years yes youll need cheesy tactics to survive. This is being addressed by Tynan in future alphas. Not sure what to suggest right now bar messing a bit more and see which difficulty fits you.

[Cat123]

The numbers and ramp up in difficulty is calculated based on your wealth. Some of that is based on the buildings you own. Build too many turrets too early youre gonna get squashed as they arent turrets that murder raiders they are glass cannons. As it stands now as you build/get more colonists itll get harder and harder, after about 3 years yes youll need cheesy tactics to survive. This is being addressed by Tynan in future alphas. Not sure what to suggest right now bar messing a bit more and see which difficulty fits you.

Reading the forums / most recent patch notes, this was reported as fixed in this build. (e.g. # of turrets =/= sudden difficulty spike).

I had a total of ~6 normal turrets and 2 mortars on 100% Cassandra (normal). All the mobs (pirates and aliens) could easily outrange the normal turrets, even without mortars, making them useless.

However, the real killer was the extreme lack of time between encounters - literally 5-10mins between them, with no chance of repairing / healing etc.

[theapolaustic1]

The numbers and ramp up in difficulty is calculated based on your wealth. Some of that is based on the buildings you own. Build too many turrets too early youre gonna get squashed as they arent turrets that murder raiders they are glass cannons. As it stands now as you build/get more colonists itll get harder and harder, after about 3 years yes youll need cheesy tactics to survive. This is being addressed by Tynan in future alphas. Not sure what to suggest right now bar messing a bit more and see which difficulty fits you.

Reading the forums / most recent patch notes, this was reported as fixed in this build. (e.g. # of turrets =/= sudden difficulty spike).

I had a total of ~6 normal turrets and 2 mortars on 100% Cassandra (normal). All the mobs (pirates and aliens) could easily outrange the normal turrets, even without mortars, making them useless.

However, the real killer was the extreme lack of time between encounters - literally 5-10mins between them, with no chance of repairing / healing etc.

It's "fixed" in that it is now "behaving as intended". Previously, each turret was effectively counted the same as a whole colonist in the calculations. IIRC, they now count as 1/3rd of one. Still a hefty chunk of wealth.

Also, IMO, mortars really are not that useful. Once in a blue moon to throw an extra guy on, sure, but they're pretty slow-firing and unimpressive. Mostly just useful as explosive fodder when ship parts crash, lol.

[Cimanyd]

I've had fun playing colonies without killboxes and mostly without turrets on Cassandra 60%, I suggest you try that. 100% is more difficult, and even if it's the "normal" difficulty, that might be assuming most players build killboxes.

It sounds like you care about whether you have good weapons and armor on your colonists, but not how they're fighting. The combat in RimWorld isn't just about having the most guns. You should build your base in a way that has good cover to use for fights (or in a way that exploits the AI, on higher dificulties). Sandbags aren't good cover. Shooting around corners is great cover, whether that means standing in a door or some place specifically built for the purpose.

I had a total of ~6 normal turrets and 2 mortars on 100% Cassandra (normal). All the mobs (pirates and aliens) could easily outrange the normal turrets, even without mortars, making them useless.

However, the real killer was the extreme lack of time between encounters - literally 5-10mins between them, with no chance of repairing / healing etc.

Yeah, turrets are only useful if you force enemies to come into their range, whether that's a killbox or just putting them inside walls.

I'm not sure what you mean by 5-10 minutes. At normal speed? At 3 times speed? How many in-game days?

You can always try Phoebe if you want attacks far apart and want time to build your colony. There still are attacks in Phoebe, and they're just as strong as they would be with an equal colony in Cassandra, they just have a long time in between. There's no one saying you have to play Cassandra 100%.

Lastly, I agree with you that sieges aren't great. The idea is they're something to force you to come out of your colony and fight outside instead of hiding behind defenses. The reality is that they're what I just said plus enough guards to make such an attack foolish.

[Coenmcj]

I have to agree that the mortars on your side are somewhat worse off in regards to the AI's, as they generally have a much larger target they can hit.

Something that came up in another thread is that due to the forced inaccuracy, it's better to fire at something other than the target at hand.

[ShadowTani]

Cassandra is the most difficult storyteller as you're going to have a hard time maintaining a base "forever" with her - she's better suited if you want to play a game where you intend to escape the planet. Randy Random is ironically enough better if you want a more stable difficulty curve. However, since you don't seem to like killboxes and such then Phoebe might still be the most suitable choice for you. Just remember you can also raise or lower the difficulty percent to suit your skill level with each storyteller.

[Omenpapa]

The game gives u activities based on ur wealth. The more happier ur colonists, the more bigger ur colony, the harder it will get.

My advice would be to first of all, do not in any case build big nice rooms for each colonist at the beginning. That is a death sentence for ur colony, unless u r abusing the AI. Just build a big like 10x10 room with a lot of beds. It's not an issue to build other things too in here, like tailoring,cooking etc. I don't know how exactly the game calculates wealth, but u can actually put a lot of work stations outside, and even if it's raining it wont cause issues.

I also used to build everything out of metal in the beginning, but realized I can actually build a lot of things from wood too and just use the metal for those buildings which actually requires it(u cant build them from other materials) My balanced colony survives a lot longer by doing that, also u have more materials for turrets.

Another big influence is how much colonists u actually have. If u dont expand, thus having only 3, u will get those scary attacks a lot later, but eventually u need more ppl to survive. Just because u can get 4 more colonists somehow easily(slave trader, raiders), it doesnt mean it will be beneficial to do it due to the increased raiders difficulty.

I tend to not build turrets "just because I can". I stack up on the materials, make the layout for them and connect their place with multiple wires(to avoid the case when the lighting or fire or bazooka destroys a line..) to provide power. Then when the actual enemies appear, build 1/a couple more to fight off those(Obviously u want as much ppl there as u can have to minimalize casualties. Don't forget that just because ur colonist cant shoot or use melee weapons, it doenst mean he/she is useless in a fight. U do want repair guys too for turrets,walls, to kill fire from spreading etc).

I'm also playing on a big normal field, not abusing big mountains(those maps r the easy mode in my eyes, and we shouldnt need them in order to survive).

The other thing I had a lot of issue with the past is my technology level. For some reason I bought my marketplace or how its called waaay too late. U should buy it ASAP. It will give u the must have items like weapons and armor to survive. W/o it the traders wont come and u cant trade, but it takes time for hem to appear anyways...so I usually build it right after I managed to get some power and my first big room for the 3 guys. After using this "trade center rushing tactic", I never felt the lack of weapons/armors from traders. Before that I always ended up fighting sniper rifles and aks with pistols and bows which is as u can guess not exactly optimal.

Try out these things, and let us know if u survive longer, if these made ur game experience better/easier.

[REMworlder]

Does anyone play without :cheese:?

I like to think I do. I hate all the killbox stuff, and hope eventually some fixes change that. That said, if you're playing four years into the game (beyond where it's meant to be played) on the hardest settings, a killbox is nearly the only realistic approach. But that's another topic.

The biggest thing to keep in mind is every problem has an answer, and this goes both ways. Raider types are varied so they can deal with a variety of threats. Turrets are really just a stop-gap. They'll get sniped out by most enemies unless they're deployed right, or unless you have sufficient long-ranged firepower able to counter-snipe. I'm not saying build a killbox, but you can use walls and positioning to make sure your turrets are in range of enemies shooting them.

What I'd have done differently:
-I personally wouldn't touch EMP mortars, or most mortars for that matter. They're nice for lucky hits but aren't reliable. EMP mortars are practically useless, especially compared to EMP grenades. Unfortunately you built a lot of mortars.
-Snipers are good at range. If you let enemies get your snipers in range your snipers will lose. The point of a sniper is to attack beyond the range the enemy can engage at.
-Try fighting mechanoids up close. Ambush around corners. Use high volumes of fire from machine guns to proc stuns. When only centipedes are left, melee charge and beat them to death because centipedes are susceptible to that.

I cannot pick up their mortars to install in my base once I have killed them (!).

Just use the claim option, then your colonists can dismantle them.

[RawCode]

AI completely random, but predictable due to limited pool of events and countdown for most events. This will change when number of random events in pool is extended.

Since game throw zerg rushes on you as main threat, that normally cannot be resolved without some kind of killbox or insane micro management with kiting around with large amount of snipers - kill boxes are not cheese and "by design", with proper build your game turn into tower defense at later stages.

I played some time with setting - limiting amount of enemy units to 12 and "buffing" them with items\skills and more health make game very different.

[Darkfirephoenix]

Rule number 1 when dealing with mechanoids: NEVER ATTACK A SCYTHER IN A DIRECT PERSONAL COMBAT! They can deal MASSIVE damage in melee, so either attack from some distance (medium range to close, but no melee) UNLESS you have multiple fighter so the Scyther can't attack back.
Rule number 2: Centipedes suck at melee/they can't attack in melee, but their cannons do massive damage, so use one of your colonists as bait for them to shoot at and let the rest sprint to the centipedes to punch them.

Sometimes the most dangerous enemy isn't sieging raiders but the tribal people who hate you: They come in big numbers and if they come close enough you have a big problem

[Cat123]

Ok, second attempt:

Temperate forest / large hills, medium sized map, 60% Cassandra: launched ship with 14 colonists saved, year 2 November (so 3 years, basically). Hostile native camp, hostile raider camp (so had criminals + lots of tribal attacks).

Some notes:

1) Kill zones: totally required. 1 square entrance, 12 sentry guns & 6 firing positions. I combined this with x3 mortars inside the same kill zone (but past the guns) which could fend off the encamped mortar attacks.

2) Colonists can take cover - this is never explained, but very important! So thanks for that advice

3) Building under mountains - hugely important, mortar fire cannot hit & the AI seems to enjoy targeting it (especially if your kill zone is at the entrance to the mountain).

4) Melee - underwhelming and/or useless. There's simply no useful melee weapons (cannot forge / trade for them either. e.g. where's the power swords? plasteel axes? etc) & even the scavenger claws aren't much use. Colonist with bionic arm + scavenger claws + full power armor + devil underwear = took several mins killing a rabid squirrel and got injured. She had 14 skill in melee, minor passion for it & brawler (!!)

5) No use for flowers or special croprowhatever trees. Farmed them, useless (assumed flowers > herbal medicine, no luck)

6) Would like to see more world threats - floods, earthquakes, monsters spawning (most threatening wildlife so far has been a deer) etc. At the moment there's little sense that this is a hostile planet (although, will try new biomes); mining out mountains, in particular, is too safe & easy to avoid problems; need some chance of tunnel worms / lava etc as a threat!

7) Malaria - seems to spread like plague and/or have the same variables. At one point, 7 people got malaria at the same time (!), despite me draining swamps in my colony. Should be % effected by open stagnant water / swamp / mud tiles. No quinine or cure. Same for plague, which should be curable - perhaps new bench "Medical research bench" in future?

Plasteel - basically what trading is for. Was a bit squiffed that the Alien ship didn't give any. Would be nice to have it craftable at the top of the industrial research tree.

9) Power usage: 3 geothermals are required, plus 7-10 solar. Batteries (x20 ish) seemed largely useless. Lights need to have switches attached so that colonists will auto on/off bedrooms.

10) Blight - why does it effect all crops? Makes little sense. Should be crop specific plus require research to cure or be durational: i.e. cannot grow crop X until time Y has passed or cure researched.

11) Visitors - don't do anything. Would like to have market stalls / bar / social area / campfire etc with special bonuses. e.g. "Spoke to someone outside the colony +7", "Heard tales of native Goddesses +10" etc.

12) Abrasive is vastly unbalanced. You simply cannot have a colonist with this trait.

13) Organs - largely useless. Harvested a full human set, never had to use them. Bionics in general aren't really worth the hassle.

14) Map only had metal, no silver / gold seams. Mined > 26k metal. Saw slate, but the building materials don't seem to be in / matter at the moment. RNG issue, but if the map had had the opposite (silver/gold, no metal), it would have been impossible. I'll try on an open map, but lack of metal will probably prevent a decent colony / ship.

15) Fire extinguishers - should be tradable for. AoE fire fighting. Likewise, need an option for "fire fighting zone" so that colonists don't run out beyond walls to fight fires that might at some point rage near a stone wall.

16) Turtling / concentric rings of stone walls. Like the game Qix, this is 100% the way to win. Slowly expand territory by annexing with stone walls without breaches, continue until most of map is taken (barring your single entrance). The problem is: if my colony had been breached anywhere but the killzone, I'd have been instantly over-run / squished.

17) The research tree / manufacturing trees obviously need work / more options. Research should be split into categories (medical, military, economic, industry, social) and need lots more options for all of them! At the moment, I think I'd researched everything / built everything (barring ship) within the first year - the rest of the time was spent scrounging up plasteel.

18) Colonist died from old age - there was no notification and I only realised once people started freaking out at a rotten corpse. Needs a notification.

19) The RNG only has a few invasion options, and is totally :cheesable:. By far the worst is "criminal drop pods" that drop into the middle of your colony - this is an instant reload atm.

20) The multitude of clothing options are under-used at the moment, and don't seem to have specific bonuses / differences; would be nice if different materials were slanted towards different crafts.

21) Not enough animals; no ranches / breeding, means I could only rarely use fine meals and never made a luxury meal. Would be a good expansion.

22) Noticed that there was fog - would be cool if there were other types of gases. e.g. explosive gasses while mining, poisonous ones near thermal vents etc.


Very enjoyable at the moment, but needs more flesh to it. So, all in all - pretty good experience. Looking forward to seeing the game progress & expand!

[Cimanyd]

Something to keep in mind is, as Tynan said, "Every feature takes at least two alphas to get right." For example, A6 had the new medical system. (apparently people etc. just had a hit points system before then? not sure, started playing in A6) But it had the problem that there was no way to fix permanent damages (missing body parts, damaged eyes) so someone with one leg (M24 shot, pila hit) would be permanently incapacitated and as good as dead, except you still had to feed them unless you actually killed them. Now, in A7, there are replacement and improvement (bionic) parts, so you can replace a damaged (or undamaged!) eye with a better-than-new eye, give a peg leg (or better) to someone who got their leg shot off so they can move again, and so on.

Now, responses:

5: Flowers look nice. That's their only use. If you grow a nice area of them, you can draft a colonist that's about to mental break and make them stand there. Herbal medicine will be in A8. (changelog Nov 3, A8 progress report) Trees are for growing for wood, but you don't need to do that in a forest.

7: Diseases are a feature added in A7, but they didn't even need to wait until the next alpha to get changed some. Make sure you have the latest version. I think the only thing that affects how often they show up, so far, is what biome you're in. You'll get them less often (and with no malaria) in arid shrubland and desert, but even more often (and with sleeping sickness too) in tropical rainforest. I expect diseases will be improved eventually (maybe herbal medicine has to do with that? we don't have details).

9: Bedroom lights are actually pretty useless. Colonists only sleep there, and they don't mind darkness when they're sleeping.

13: Organs can be sold. That's about all they're good for now, though sometimes someone will get a lung or kidney destroyed by a shotgun or pila, and you can replace it if you keep one around, though there isn't much reason to replace it. Organ harvesting, even to death, has no morale effect (aside from the saw-someone-die one for anyone that saw the death). This will be changed in A8 though. (changelog Oct 9, Tynan on reddit)

Bionics are great and very useful, in my opinion. I don't think it's clear enough why, though. Sight and manipulation (eyes and arms) are very important for things. Manipulation makes work faster and better. Sight makes work a little faster and better, and healing and combat a lot better. Bionic eye colonists make great doctors and shooters (if they're already good at it; I have a doctor with Careful Shooter and bionic eyes). And of course, bionic legs increase moving, making them move faster. Click the info "i" on a colonist, then click on the stats, to see what affects what.

14: The system of different rocks is new to A7 (before it was all just rock), and will be finished in A8, with rock chunks, stone blocks, and stone terrain made of specific rocks. (changelog Sept 29, 30)

15: That's what home zones are for. Colonists only clean, beat out fires, and repair buildings if they are in a home zone. New buildings automatically add a nearby area to the home zone, but you can turn that off with a button at the bottom right. If you're walled in with stone walls, you'd want the walls themselves to be part of the home zone, but not flammable plants past them. They can be changed through the Zones section of the Architect menu.

18: Wait, that can happen? Interesting! What did it look like?

19: That event often drops them onto your trade beacon, so try building your trading area outside your killbox. It doesn't always, though, sometimes it targets a colonist instead if I remember correctly? So they could still drop into your base. Or halfway across the map next to the guy hauling something.

20: Armor will be improved in A8 (changelog Sept 26, and Tynan on reddit in that comment I linked at the beginning of this post). I wouldn't be surprised if clothing stuff was improved. (also, most apparel will be craftable and won't require tailoring research anymore, changelog Oct 24)

4: Melee weapons are new to A7, and improved in A8 (sound familiar by now? ). In A8, there will also be longswords and maces, melee weapons will be made of stuff, and melee and tribal weapons will be craftable at a weaponsmithing table. (changelog Oct 3, 24)

(yes, I put 4 at the end, I typed it last)

[ToXeye]

The numbers and ramp up in difficulty is calculated based on your wealth. Some of that is based on the buildings you own. Build too many turrets too early youre gonna get squashed as they arent turrets that murder raiders they are glass cannons. As it stands now as you build/get more colonists itll get harder and harder, after about 3 years yes youll need cheesy tactics to survive. This is being addressed by Tynan in future alphas. Not sure what to suggest right now bar messing a bit more and see which difficulty fits you.

The player's ability to cope with the situation =/= the player's collected "wealth". Perhaps different kinds of wealth would be interesting for different kinds of disasters: Wealth in gold and silver makes invaders try to steal that gold, posing a very different kind of threat (simply by not directly trying to kill the colonists). I believe that making games is not a question of finding an average number and calculate "win or lose", but finding all possible cases and dealing with them.

[Cat123]

<Lots of great info!>

Thanks for the info dump, appreciated


As for 18) - no idea. I suddenly started getting mental breakdown alerts with -14 "Saw a rotting body" and I was frantically checking to see if I'd not cleaned up the last tribal attack.

Nope. Somewhere in the wilderness one of my colonists lay dead. Checked him and it said "died of old age". I'd just not noticed >.<