"Terminal" RNG solar flares

[iSagan]

I like to mention this each post, for contextual reasons... I'm a new player to Rimworld, I've been playing for almost a week now. I have reached 'end game' content, including building into mountains to create vital rooms under 'overhead mountains' to prevent Mechs blasting in and blah blah blah. I feel that in most games, especially games like this (which can be reduced to methodology) the new player experience is JUST as relevant as the Veteran experience.

-

In Rimworld, the RNG is what makes this game exciting and unique. However, there are situations that arise which all but guarantee 'game overs'.

Things such as solar flares + heat wave/freeze can wipe out entire colonies, with no chance of survival. Even high level psychic events seem designed to make sure that only a few people are left, if any.

It took me a couple of hours to get my thoughts together on this issue: does that 'terminal' threat make Rimworld more fun?

For me, the answer is no. Personally... I'm a builder. I have no love for quick scenarios, I'd rather perpetual bliss with events that trickle in and provide opportunity more than 'game overs'. So my perspective is very narrow and my opinions are definitely not a blanket statement; I am not trying to speak for every playstyle. I've decided to post this because I just started a new play through and after my first hour in I had 3 solar flares in a row, close together, which resulted in many people breaking from lack of food. So give your feedback selectively and specifically, to each suggestion I make.

Feel totally free to be as critical as you like or even just show your support by dropping a quick comment.

Suggestion:

Solar flares knock out every interaction power has with every item. However, at the cost of 'realism' (which can easily be 'reexplained' through sci-fi context [e.g. advanced tech]) I believe it should only knock out power GENERATION. This will allow energy already stored in batteries to be seen as an almost necessary survival perk. However, for the sake of balancing, power TRANSFERRING should have a much slower speed/rate. This way batteries can serve their uses but slowly and you'll have the nice added effect of hearing items that use power 'fizz' in and out as the power trickles in.
*Prevents guarenteed loss from multiple solar flares (from being unable to cook, or freezing/heating to death)

TIP: Build cooking stoves near battery house/power generator to increase survivability

[MikhailBoho]

I will say this, I only play with the Less Incident Trolling mod because I found that the vanilla game allows these events to fire too often. I would like it if Tynan would tune these events down a bit, but in the meantime I would recommend picking up the mod for yourself until he gets around to tweaking them.

[Johnny Masters]

It took me a couple of hours to get my thoughts together on this issue: does that 'terminal' threat make Rimworld more fun?

Short answer is 'no', long answer is 'yes, but'.

'Yes, but' because you should be accounted for your mistakes and that's fine. That's what makes a game challenging and moves you to improve your tactics. It's what makes success worthwhile, non cheap.

'no' because currently the game offers little for you in terms of options regarding how you can control this. i.e, like you said, there's little you can do once an eclipse brings down your electrical system. There's little you can do if the game decides to destroy your crops, land a bunch of raiders and drop a a mech pod full of mechs while it's full winter. Should you be able to prepare for winter, lay traps, insulate your power system, migrate to another place...Then you could be fully accounted for your mistakes.

Not that there shouldn't be some hard moments, after all that's what will make your survival more epic. But since there's not much you can do to prevent and since we're still lacking enough events for enough of a rotation, we get the same ones all the time, which can lead to some annoyance. Give it time and there will be more challenges and more ways to fight those challenges

tl,dr: It can be exciting to have 'terminal' events, although it feels like cheating if you have no way to prevent/counter those. It also sounds like you should be playing on Phoebe Friendly. Are you?

[Tynan]

Solar flare plus freeze - build a room/tunnel to a geothermal geyser and use that heat?

Solar flare plus heat wave - that's trickier; I can see that being terminal, maybe. OTOH people should be able to survive heat waves, with much discomfort.

Is it really a terminal event when these events happen? Certainly I don't intend for there to be situations where the RNG says, "You die now." But nor do I want to playskool-ize the game and reduce all those extreme, dramatic, ultra-risky situations that make it interesting.

[Draecesstra]

also airlocks work fine in both situations,  a nice double door with 3 tiles distance and maybe its own cooler. it keeps yor freezer cool enough, at least nothing is rotting in 1 day. same on the other situation, air locks keep your colony much warmer. keep a close look at the temps, every time a colonist opens a door (freezer is great for seeing this) 1-2°C per "opening" depending on the other temps, of course. i played desert and tundra/borean, but no ice sheet.

my experience is from cassandra 60% but until year 5, but i dont think those events are scaled with difficulty. (just time between events from storyteller)

[Anduin1357]

Solar flare plus freeze - build a room/tunnel to a geothermal geyser and use that heat?

Solar flare plus heat wave - that's trickier; I can see that being terminal, maybe. OTOH people should be able to survive heat waves, with much discomfort.

Is it really a terminal event when these events happen? Certainly I don't intend for there to be situations where the RNG says, "You die now." But nor do I want to playskool-ize the game and reduce all those extreme, dramatic, ultra-risky situations that make it interesting.

Tynan, you don't need ultra-dramatic stuff to make it more interesting, little things add up, this is no TV show like Star Trek where a lot of near terminal stuff happens and the plot's all rubbish.
Make a way to avoid the event or mitigate it or else it's just gonna be a crappy plot point everyone hates to happen.

[Drahkon]

I haven't found anything I can't prepare for thus far. However:

I haven't played much on the extreme temperature regions yet.
I can see where some players may not understand the game mechanics enough to be prepared/know what to expect.
Plants dropping dead in hydroponics every flare is a bit silly honestly. I've all but stopped using them, might have one table running on my current colony of 27ish pawns.

[Anduin1357]

So far, I have  not yet experienced a solar flare, a raid, a siege and a mechanoid pod all at once. But when that day comes, I might curse Tynan's name for it.
It's a recipe for disaster that makes no sense, going into a shielded place (mountains) should mitigate the em and flares happen only once every few years but they don't.
It's OP and Tynan says "Oh, it's for fun." 

[Draecesstra]

i think it can only happen with random randy, but thats the reason why he exists.
i thought, the only reason to play randy is, that those events can hit in a close timeframe.

Quote: Tynan, you don't need ultra-dramatic stuff to make it more interesting, little things add up, this is no TV show like Star Trek where a lot of near terminal stuff happens and the plot's all rubbish.

i thought the hole point of randy is ultra-dramatic stuff. else you could play cassandra.

[Anduin1357]

There is such things as over dramatising things to the point of disinterest.
Randy is more like: I might send in 2 raid teams in one day and screw you further with a crop blight.
You can still survive day to day in randy if done right
Solar flare is just too terminal to be of any story use UNLESS there is a way to stop it.

[Draecesstra]

ok, to be more clear, what does kill your colonists in those situations?

no power, ok, not working turrets is always hard.

but the heat/cold wave, does it really hurt you that much?
i try to understand your whole point. i played in really hot and cold areas, i had heat waves before i installed cooling and noone went berserk or died. the queen was not amused, but only the heat for 1 day? As Tynan said, is it really that "terminal"?

i can think of alot of possibilities, in which they could go berserk in those waves. but only with hunger, wound etc... more modifiers not alone the heat/cold.

for example, heatwave and no power, but a sizeable freezer with airlocks. let the workers do their stuff half the day, then draft everyone and send them into the freezer. of course it wont be at +/- 0°C, but because of the nice double doors, it should be cold enough to cool the guys down. the difference between doors and double doors is huge.
your point about "power not generating anymore, but the batteries are still usable" is reasonable and i would support it. but maybe cut their power storage by 50% (just a number, the exact number isnt important at this point), just to make those event not meaningless. if you could just life on with your stored power, it seems not impactful enough.

to be honest, i want events that seriously fuck up the life of my colonists. i would even support sudden death of colonists per event.

please be a litte more clear for me to understand your exact point.

2nd thought:

Personally... I'm a builder. I have no love for quick scenarios

the 2nd Storyteller is exactly for builders, it gives you just more time between events.

[The-MathMog]

That is why there is different game modes and difficulty. If you are the builder type, then choose the builder mode, and set it on a low difficulty. It's not harder than that.
Also there will almost always be a way to counter the threats that your colony may face. Just because you can't handle them on a said difficulty, doesn't mean that they are too hard

[giannikampa]

I never experienced being totally beaten because a solar flare. But I would not understimate the original comment as a suggestion for improve the enjoyability and the depth of the game. The event of the solar flare can be a real pain as it is.
I can think of many tweak to let it remain a punch in your face reducing the ability for it to became deadly in some cases.

- double the chance and halve the duration, cause in rimworld one does not simpley have enought power
- during a solar flare mechs and bionic parts stop working (or maybe the mechs hiccup on/off every few seconds)
- an alternative source of simple meal that uses wood instead of electric power (i can imagine a log as an ingredient for the meal), electric one should be faster (then better) than this one. The camp fire can fit for the pourpose
- power sources take some time to reboot after a solar flare (well, everytime they start working) so you must rely on your battery to limit the no power time.

[MikhailBoho]

Are events ever coded to fire together? I think it would be interesting if during a solar flare, the AI would throw a random enemy wave that was smaller than normal to account for the lack of defenses.

[Johnny Masters]

Or if a sieging force was aware of it, then it could start assaulting immediately.