"Terminal" RNG solar flares

[Hayhorse]

OK, a solar flare tends to last for several hours to weeks in real life, in rimworld ALL energy storage and power generation is knocked out, THIS is also true for non-sheilded objects/objects turned on, if you have a solar flare and a car is on with something draining power then that battery is gonna die, if the car is off however it wont, an easy workaround for Tynan would be to make insulated battery's that will provide power to KEY systems when there is a solar flare, AND make it so battery output can be disabled for backup in-case of a solar flare you turn them off after the initial wave that drains storage, BUT if they arnt insulated they lose ALOT of power, BUT if they are under a mountain then they down lose MOST power while insulated battery's lose NONE under a mountain, also add insulated cable for those KEY systems like AC or Heating/sun lamps, since on my Ice-sheet colony there was a solar flare and we lost are potato and strayberry crops and I was freaking out thinking the Develstand and Xygerium  would die from the 6 degree's Celsius temperature and no light during that time but they did'nt even take damage then. AND it also lasted like 2 hours.

[Johnny Masters]

I wouldn't mind a +version of stuff you build. I like having more stuff to research and build. I also wouldn't mind having the option to build versions of stuff, like building regular cable or the more expensive insulated cable, regular hydroponics or insulated ones, etc.

As a side note, there should always be something to research. There's always something to research everywhere, so its specially true in a rimworld let's-remember-lost tech-stuff situation.

[tuver]

I have never been wiped out from a solar flare. They have been the bane of the events though. By themselves they are just annoying, but if it is paired with other events, they can be really bad. Raid attack and your power grid goes down sucks. I just wished you could build defenses against solar flares. Faraday cages, shielded circuits, being underground. There needs to be a defense against them.

[Listy]

Are events ever coded to fire together?

Well with Cassandra I know exactly when I'm about to be attacked. An Eclipse or solar flare fires off just before100 tribals heave into sight over the nearest hill.
Its gotten to the point where I don't even bother with turrets because of their down time being roughly 90% when needed.

[sagittary]

For me, it's yes and no.

These events serve to disrupt equilibrium. That's always needed in system heavy games or less it boils down to a predictable pattern.

That said, these events are still fairly binary and they themselves are fairly predictable. More variation within the events might help. It would be nice to see varying intensities of flares, for instance, so that the storytellers have more options but also so there are more opportunities to play with. Ways to shift the cost (all or some) of the event elsewhere would help as well - for instance, if I could build an insulation layer on my freeze to help keep it colder longer during a power outage... but at the cost of having a bigger structural weak point during attacks and more space dedicated to non-direct use (extra insulation layer takes up an additional 5 tiles all around the freezer and the extra machinery must connect to the outside).

[Chibiabos]

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.

Solar flares I have found make it /impossible/ to grow Devilstrand in Boreal or cooler climes, except through the 'greenhouse' trick (building a massive room supported by occasional pillars so that it can be heated by encompassing a geothermal generator and several heaters, and lit with sunlamps).  Growing seasons proved too short to grow them outdoors even when planted at first opportunity in spring (by the time the first crop-killing frost sets in the fall, they 're still only half grown or so).  Dunno if your adjustment to day lengths will improve that any ... trying to grow them in hydroponics is completely destroyed by Solar Flares.  I built hydroponics, put in devilstrand, by the time it was down to 15 days' remaining growth or so, a solar flare struck and they all instantly died.  They were replanted after the flare clared, and a few months later they all died again before they could be harvested.  And a third time, and a fourth time ... finally I gave up.  Now that you've removed fert pumps, that's going to make the greenhouse option more difficult, I won't be able to build underground greenhouses for devilstrand at all :/

[MyNameIsSpyder]

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.

I think it would be cool if you could research and build a "Solar Shield", protecting a certain area from solar flares but taking up lots of power and making solar panels unable to work under it ( They would use advanced technology to deflect most of the stuff the sun sends off, including radiation, etc, but allowing heat in).

[Mihsan]

I personally do not believe that solar flare is terminal. Even together with cold snap or heat wave it is more than survivable.

But also for me solar flare is the most annoying and unfair event. Just stupid instant tragedy and no fun at all. IMO it would be much better if it will:
1) Affect only some part of my stuff and be not instant event, but disable devices one by one (like 1-20% chance per hour per device to apply the effect).
2) Have random magnitude, so solar flares would be different every time.
3) Not affect switched off or unpowered devices (= saving critical stuff and having backups).

Also with this would be nice to see different effect of solar flare itself. For example let it not disable stuff for X time, but cause 75% damage and disable until it is fully repaired. Must be more fun to survive solar flare itself, but then die because you could not fix all those broken things.

[Listy]

Surely the obvious answer is electronic hardening?

Either it counts as hardened if under a roof, Can be built in hardened versions or have it as an expensive research path that effects all electronics once researched.

[Anduin1357]

All of your comments are besides to point, solar flares in-game is unrealistic, why put up with it?
The obvious thing to do is to check if there is a roof above the object and calculate radiation hardening.
The not so obvious things are an overloaded circuit which starts fires/ cause electric shocks.
A couple of researches to implement failsaves to most electrical components, if not all.
Building any and all electronic components with something other than just metal to radiation harden it.
Granite for example would work best while wood would be least effective.

[Eleazar]

All of your comments are besides to point, solar flares in-game is unrealistic, why put up with it?

Rim world is a story-telling game, not a solar-system simulator.  There may be reasons to change how solar flares work, but "unrealistic" is not a significant one.

It might not even be true, other stars have much more common and powerful flares than out own.

[Malcom347]

I haven't had major issues with some of the random events. I can see how events can unexpectedly cause the demise of your colony if you don't respond quickly. Remember that Hunting is always an option for food.

>Blight Destroys Crops
>Eclipse Stops New Crops from growing
>Cold Snap Continues to keep them from growing
Etc.

In the situation you either need to be one of two players;
Plan ahead, build an enclosed room with heater/cooler and sunlamps. Doesn't prevent everything, but it'll keep you safer and try to deal with it.

Or, reduce the frequency or stop the events entirely. Since you're a builder id suggest doing this. Its up to you if you want to remove them entirely or lower the frequency. Head into Mods>Core>Defs>IncidentDefs and open it up in something like Notepad++

Code Select Expand

  <IncidentDef>
    <defName>SolarFlare</defName>
    <workerClass>IncidentWorker_SolarFlare</workerClass>
    <chance>1.5</chance>
    <minRefireDays>30</minRefireDays>
    <favorability>Bad</favorability>
  </IncidentDef>

MinrefireDays is how often (base) the event can occur. More = Easier

Chance how often when picking a 'bad' favorability event it will get chosen. Less = Easier but less chance here means other stuff has a higher probability.


As for the events in a game as a whole... I think there's usually solutions to the issues. If you are in a winter environment, id prioritize making parkas. They'll help you survive an eclipse shutting down power followed by a solar flare. Don't forget wonderful Fires.

I haven't had anyone die from heatstroke yet. You can strip all of your people and hope for the best. I'll admit it'd be nice to have some desert wear.

[Agalyon]

I don't think people really understood what Sagan is getting at if they are telling them to play with a different story teller. That is an option that's available to him/her sure, but the point here is that when bad things overlap, sometimes they overlap in such a way that there is basically nothing that you can do to stop the death of your colonists. Long winded and obscenely niche solutions to these problems aside, I also don't think its good design to have to plan so extensively for one or two very specific and overtly threatening combinations of events anyway. If you're proceeding through the entire game planning for something that is not only unlikely to happen, but also so vastly more difficult than pretty much everything else around it that it dominates your experience, I don't think that's good at all.

[Johnny Masters]

I dunno, rimworld always struck me as the type of game where you should expect the worse at any moment and should plan accordingly.

Although i get what you are saying i'd insist that AI directors (not challenge) have an influence on event overlapping, so you wouldn't see phoebe being such a bitch.

I also think that death is to be expected. Just as a RNG could mean a direct shot through a pawn's brainbox, so could the RNG decide to bring down some chained events to fuck you over. What usually happens is that people will reload after a single death, whereas you can't reload some events away (you can reload and get mechanoids instead of tribals, but you're still gonna work up). Problem is that people don't react naturally to death in games, they most often than not will reload a game, and sometimes this is even necessary because of game difficulty, thing is this made for a behavior where accepting loss is unacceptable.

My only complaint, as i've already stated, is how much you have in terms of choices to overcome such challenges. So, to me, it might not be a matter of avoiding or preventing, but also having the power to overcome it.

The most direct example would be the capacity to relocate your colony should you deem it beyond defending.

[FlayedOne]

Hello guys,

I have experienced the "terminal" solar flare twice.
Once I have just started the game during winter in Tundra (Randy casual). I barely managed to make a farmable field in my mountain base before starvation kicked in, and then Randy decided to end this game before it started - first a blight, then a few days later a solar flare - both killed my crops (i did have a geyser inside my base, by it was not enough to keep the temperature above 0 degrees).

The second time was a normal game in a temperate biome - during one of the first raids my turrets went down leaving my 3 colonists to fight off ~12 better equipped raiders.

I thinks such situations are rare enough to not be a problem though - they even make the game more fun to me.

Some new technology allowing you to ward off the effects would be cool though - the danger would still be there in the beginning.