[A12d] More Mechanoids (v1.07b - updated 31.12.2015)

[Scottnov]

Anybody else think mechanoid deterioration is a bit...well annoying

If you have a better way to balance out an autonomic worker without running costs that slaves away day and night without needs for food, sleep or joy, that can be built in almost unlimited quantities, I'm all ears.
Further requirements are of course that it has to make sense, fit the theme and story and not take weeks to implement or require fancy extra graphics.

Perhaps the deterioration rate across all mechanoids should be reduced by around 20-40% and then we add a "deteriorating" battery part to all mechanoids like I had described before, so both concepts are kept but it's a little less troubling to constantly have your colonists having to go repair them?

[Tekuromoto]

I love this mod, but I'm having a problem now that my colony is humming along and I have a few crawlers chipped for hauling: if there's nothing for them to haul, the game lags like mad. If I toggle them to stop working and stay home, the lagginess stops.

Any thoughts? I'm running a slew of mods but I'm hoping it's not a conflict. 

[Orion]

I love this mod, but I'm having a problem now that my colony is humming along and I have a few crawlers chipped for hauling: if there's nothing for them to haul, the game lags like mad. If I toggle them to stop working and stay home, the lagginess stops.
Any thoughts? I'm running a slew of mods but I'm hoping it's not a conflict. 

Hm. I'll take a look at the corresponding code, but I'm not experiencing the problem myself, so there's a good chance it's a conflict. Are you getting error messages when it happens?

[Tekuromoto]

Hm. I'll take a look at the corresponding code, but I'm not experiencing the problem myself, so there's a good chance it's a conflict. Are you getting error messages when it happens?

Nothing that pops the console open, no.

I've removed a few mods for my new playthrough (having escaped the planet for the first time in my previous game, yay! ) so I'll let you know if it happens with this mod loadout once I get up to speed.

[Orion]

I've optimized the code a bit now. So once the next version is released it will also be better.

[Komyets]

I created an account here with the sole purpose to give you my thanks for such a game enriching mod, plusto give out a bit of feedback and info. 

Of course, it isnt the best ***t on the galaxy, but damn it does a good job at trying! I've played with htis Mod for about... one month already, 3 full colonies totally destroyed (mostly by the mechanoid attacks) and probabbly another 7 or 8 which i lost at early game due to my stupidity XD Now, onto a little review of my experiences!

-Awesome stuff.

You will have fun. Rimworld is all about involving yourself into a challenge, and the new mechanoids do really add up to that challenge, I was really interested in the Crawlers, tiny thingys are weaker than I thought, but damn they can tear everyone up if they have the numbers. Skullywag became a veritable security problem, opening up doors for its friends to come in made me rethink and reconsider my building layout, placing strategic walls or collumns indoors just in case things grew ugly (Things allways grow ugly with mechanoids around, but these take things up to a new level, so many died, but that was so fun and challenging XD)

The best thing is, if you somehow survive, you can repurpose your foe's dead metallic bodies to do those meager, yet important jobs your colony needs done, believe me that having a couple of Doctoring Skullywags around is pretty damn neat when after a raid you got over 12 incapacitated people around, be it enemy or colonist, these repurposed robots can lift up a great deal of weight getting everyone patched up and well fed in their medical beds, allowing your more healthy clonists more time to relax after a heated battle.

Mining Centipedes aren't very helpful in Flat biomes, and i havent tested the Growing ones yet, they just require so much space, energy and maintenance, i found it redundant and unnecesary (just my opinion) However I need to futher test these guys out, still, i trust they can tank jsut as much damage as any enemy centipede, which can be useful if they find themselves in between your colonists and a raiding party. (I laughed so much when I saw my centipede killing and incapacitating half a group of Tribespeople melee attackers on its own.)

Scythers? Well... their jobs arent the most usual ones, Repurposing to plant cutting means they will only cut plants you have designated, manually. Which means you cant expect a scyther to go harvest a 100% grown plant on its own, you gotta mark the plant for harvesting first, which gets... not appealing. Tailoring was by far, more useful, keeping your clothing stocks up to date for your colonists to pick up from is always nice, i never ran into the "Naked" thought again after I got this guy to stitch up some clothes.

Crawlers are by far, the most useful and easy to maintain ones. Keeping around 4 Cleaners and 10 Haulers is a blessing! Nobody was angry again about having Dirty surroundings, or getting in a poor mood after not eatiing/resting because they were hauling some Item from one map edge to the other. Brilliant job with those, they can also defend themselves from Mad Animals! Not that they always win though, the animal.... can usually kill themin one blow and... ok never mind XD Dont let your crawlers near any threat, thats final.

About Skullywags, I personally never repurposed one for cooking, since I like to have Colonists at it with "Interested/Burning" passion for it, significantly reducing the chances of food poisoning. Besides, by the time I get to kill a skullywag, I do already have a couple of nice Cooks. They are far more useful as Doctors, rescue is something they shouldnt be tasked for, since they can end up rebooting in the middle of the trip towards your downed pawn, then comming back to base and leaving your guy bleeding on the ground. Nope, allways rescue your pawns yourself! Skullywags excell at actually Healing and Feeding, if you play in a hot biome, where the chances of disease is high, having a skullywag around to help with the medicine treatment while having half your colony incapacitated in bed is very useful.

-Bad things

However I come to warn, playing this Mod with Combat Realism is almost a sentence of death! All the mechanoids are very challenging and balanced, in my opinion... however... Mammooth and Assaulter are, literally, invulnerable to attack, the only ways i've found marginally possible to deal with those Heavily armoured guys is through the use of heat weapons, which, are not reliable at all since they only do little damage through time. There is almost absolutely no way to kill them with any gun with Piercing or Blunt damage, because, as I said before, their armor escalates up to a 90% with Combat Realism, so... without some sort of Anti-Tank gun you're pretty much screwed, Harshly, and painfully. x.x

I do not have experience using More Mechanoids without Combat Realism though, so I dont know how does it work in those cases. Can I suggest a bit of a tweaking for compatibility with Combat Realism? or is this intended? Nevertheless, mixin up this Mod with Combat Realism is absolutely marvelous, although, hard, but who's looking for a walk in the park anyways?

Overall, please, respond when you can, Im really looking forward to know if there will be some compatibility patch for Combat Realism regarding Mammooth and Assaulter. Anyways, great mod man! Youre doing a good job on this, its admirable.

Oh, one more thing! Regarding a couple of posts above, I agree the Deterioration rates are a bit too fast as well. Bye!

[Techgenius]

-snip-

Nice review +1

I also have a problem with the mod, I use prepare carefully to start new games and sometimes I use Crash Landing alongside it and there is a problem with the mechanoids, somehow at random they auto-convert-hack themselves to the service of the colony whilst inside random dungeons, or they break the walls and "Freedom" they wreak havok on my newly created chars and surviving after-crash-landing colonies (that are easy to finish off since everyone is somehow wreaked/broken/maimed..
Oh my GOD dude! you need to fix those damn flamebots, they destroy dungeon/ancient ruin walls, I had collected an entire crash landeded crew to a medic spot, all the sudden some FLAMEBOT came and burned 11 colonists to DEATH, I shed a tear.. that was genocide, I swear.. these mechanoids scream murder.. even had Skynet enabled for the added tension, I regret it most dearly..

[Orion]

I created an account here with the sole purpose to give you my thanks for such a game enriching mod, plusto give out a bit of feedback and info.

Thanks so much for the elaborate feedback! It's always great to hear that the endless hours put into a mod are appreciated.

I don't play with Combat Realism myself, so I just tweaked the Mechanoids for playing without. Since you play with it, I'd like to invite you to give it a shot yourself. There are a few interesting files in the MoreMechanoids mod folder:

• MechanoidFactionDefs.xml - Here you can tweak the chance that a specific mechanoid will spawn (lower selectionWeight = more of them, earlier).
• PawnKinds_Mechanoid.xml - Here you can adjust the chance of crashing and the rate of deterioration (right at the top).
• Races_Mechanoid.xml - Here you can tweak armor, movement speed and melee damage.

Should you get any useful results, I can surely add a link to the front page of the mod, so other users of Combat Realism can benefit as well. There is one thing, if you want to share it, though. Every time there is a new version of the MoreMechanoids mod, you have to make sure that all the settings that you didn't chance are updated to match.

I also have a problem with the mod, I use prepare carefully to start new games and sometimes I use Crash Landing [..]

I'm not sure exactly how Crash Landing affects MoreMechanoids. The problem here is that the core game just grabs all possible mechanoids and spawns them in those rooms. This includes the converted mechanoids and of course the flame bots. So actually I don't know how to fix this one. If you find out more, I'd be interested to know, though.

[Techgenius]

I'm not sure exactly how Crash Landing affects MoreMechanoids. The problem here is that the core game just grabs all possible mechanoids and spawns them in those rooms. This includes the converted mechanoids and of course the flame bots. So actually I don't know how to fix this one. If you find out more, I'd be interested to know, though.

No, they are separeted, no conflicts whatsoever, however.. its the way they overlap each other, day one I have to deal with skullywags scythers and other dangerous mechanoids, crawlers are OK, but what kills my colonisation attemps, and thats not because "I fell from a crashing space ship in some unknown rimworld".. its how aggressive some mechanoids tend to be at the beginning, I'm not sure if you ever tested Crash Landing, if you do you'll see they are different things, but More Mechanoids up the tension, I'm not going to spoil Crash Landing for you, but if you do play it enable More Mechanoids as well, you'll see what I'm typing about.

I think it has to do with the aggressivity of the new mechanoids, the way they behave.. can Home Zoning trigger the attack sequences from the mechanoids? such as they breaking walls of the dungeons they are put in? because they now know there are "Players/enemies" nearby?

Also, could you add Mechanoid husks to Black Markets? in some planets I'm in I hardly ever see Mechanoids, that is assuming.. they don't break off wherever they are and come murder my colonists early, also because I've never seen some of the new types, such as the mammoths, not that I'm sure I won't like that encounter, I think it would be more plausive to have lower class mechanoids at your service at the beginning using your resources to get the parts/husks early, specially if some players fancy the loner/mechanoid nerd paths, extra servos are always welcome!

Have you ever thought about creating new dungeons at world generation and perhaps storytellers? like perhaps.. old mechanoid cities/factories? places where players could set up after they dealt with the mechanoids residing there, this could even include old tech factories and objects players could scavange, to build new mechanoids, joy or production purposes..

Storyteller could simulate a constant mechanoid invasion, but more like Phoebe Chillax and Cassandra Classic, you get to build a base, but you're constantly harassed by mechanoid incursions, for some reason you have something and they want it and their invasion starts to scale.. in the beginning a few crawlers appear, then more, then skullywags start appearing with the crawlers, and then flamebots, and then scythers and more dangerous types, depending on difficulty set by the player.

[Orion]

No, they are separeted, no conflicts whatsoever, however.. its the way they overlap each other, day one I have to deal with skullywags scythers and other dangerous mechanoids, crawlers are OK, but what kills my colonisation attemps, and thats not because "I fell from a crashing space ship in some unknown rimworld".. its how aggressive some mechanoids tend to be at the beginning, I'm not sure if you ever tested Crash Landing, if you do you'll see they are different things, but More Mechanoids up the tension, I'm not going to spoil Crash Landing for you, but if you do play it enable More Mechanoids as well, you'll see what I'm typing about.

I haven't tried the mod yet. I don't think I can do anything about how the mechanoids behave. But you can always tweak your experience by modifying the mod files to make them easier to kill / slower / less.

I think it has to do with the aggressivity of the new mechanoids, the way they behave.. can Home Zoning trigger the attack sequences from the mechanoids? such as they breaking walls of the dungeons they are put in? because they now know there are "Players/enemies" nearby?

Not that I'd know of. But that doesn't mean anything, of course.

Also, could you add Mechanoid husks to Black Markets? in some planets I'm in I hardly ever see Mechanoids, that is assuming..

That sounds like a reasonable request... I'll think about it.

Have you ever thought about creating new dungeons at world generation and perhaps storytellers? like perhaps.. old mechanoid cities/factories? places where players could set up after they dealt with the mechanoids residing there, this could even include old tech factories and objects players could scavange, to build new mechanoids, joy or production purposes..

I have thought about it, yes... but for now I have decided that the effort of creating all the new required content and code is more than the gain. I started a mod once, that adds new dungeons in mountains, but I stopped working on it, because it was a lot of work and I didn't like how the fog of war in the game works. I might be better at it now, but it'll still be a lot of work.

[Komyets]

I created an account here with the sole purpose to give you my thanks for such a game enriching mod, plusto give out a bit of feedback and info.

Thanks so much for the elaborate feedback! It's always great to hear that the endless hours put into a mod are appreciated.

I don't play with Combat Realism myself, so I just tweaked the Mechanoids for playing without. Since you play with it, I'd like to invite you to give it a shot yourself. There are a few interesting files in the MoreMechanoids mod folder:

• MechanoidFactionDefs.xml - Here you can tweak the chance that a specific mechanoid will spawn (lower selectionWeight = more of them, earlier).
• PawnKinds_Mechanoid.xml - Here you can adjust the chance of crashing and the rate of deterioration (right at the top).
• Races_Mechanoid.xml - Here you can tweak armor, movement speed and melee damage.

Should you get any useful results, I can surely add a link to the front page of the mod, so other users of Combat Realism can benefit as well. There is one thing, if you want to share it, though. Every time there is a new version of the MoreMechanoids mod, you have to make sure that all the settings that you didn't chance are updated to match.

No problem! And sure, I will try the new tweaked settings up, CombatRealism esentially adds an Armor Piercing stat to the weapons accoding to their realistical counterpart's calibers. So, of course, makes sense that a Pistol would't even scratch a Centipede's paint job. However, the Armor piercing stats are... apparently/realistically too low for those high tech AI tanks, which, also makes sense. But man, not even the Heavy Machine guns, Sniper Rifles, or even the futuristic Charge Rifle can actually damage the Assaulter(Mammooth does actually receive damage from the 3 weapons named above, however the damage is very reduced, which I DO actually like XD).

I experienced an assaulter charging full force in the middle of the cross fire, a Minigun equiped Centipede was already shooting too, and its bullets were actually hitting the Assaulter right in the back. Well... guess what? The Assaulter never received damage from that. A gatling Cannon. No match for the Assaulter? Thats probabbly one of the main reasons why I came to tell you this. No worries, with the new data you gave me, I'll be abe to test this out further.

Another two things I forgot to point out on my first post.

Enemy mechanoids seem to fall asleep, just like any other animal in the region, they fall asleep, then wake up when the sun rises, or... when a pawn steps within melee range of them. This is... an odd feature/bug... Which is also exploitable. Look, CombatRealism adds a new wall type called Embrasure, which allows people to shoot through them when still being an impassable barrier, it basically behaves exactly like an ordinary wall, but you can shoot though it. I used this feature/bug, + the embrasures to enclose the most dangerous mechanoids, they actually stay within their "cells" and never shoot back, unless the Ship Part is damaged bellow 50%, they will go rampage and take down the walls keeping them captive. One can safely destroy the mechanoids through this method, or contain them until one gets the propper weapons to deal with them, and it is something that annoys me. Feels wrong. Mechanoids falling asleep only occurs when they are in a passive/defensive state, such as guarding a Fallen Ship Part, they do not sleep when in an aggravated state, such as the state attacking enemies begin at when charging your base.

The other thing I wanted to mention, Enemy Mechanoids do seem to actually heal their damage, very, veeeery slowly over time, but they do, they actually frigging heal themselves! (I tested this by enclosing a Centipede inside embrasures, damaging it with Charge rifle shots, then leaving it alone for several days.) Each Charge Rifle shot dealt around 11 damage, the Centipede was fully healed within around two months of gameplay(20 in-game days) I do not know yet if they regenerate fully lost parts, like a limb. This isnt quite a big problem, one can easily do more damage then what they can heal, but just though it was a funny feature that was worth pointing out.

I do not know what is causing these things to happen, Could be conflicts with CombatRealism since it also modifies and tweaks bodypart settings to make limbs tougher, organs squishier, and to also increase the "in shock from exceptional pain" threeshold. I love that feature since it seems silly that in vanilla game, a pawn can whichstand over 10 shots and still walk around, this tweak can make a pawn be incapacitated by a single, well aimed pistol shot on its leg or torso(which can also damage the bones and organs), damn, I have never been shot or stabbed, but I dont think i would be able to stand up if I were in their place >->

That's all! Sorry for the bit wall of text XD, Im not that good at explaining things in english, so I kinda try way more than the nesesary, I'll let you know how went the armor tweaking in a few days. Peace!

[Orion]

But man, not even the Heavy Machine guns, Sniper Rifles, or even the futuristic Charge Rifle can actually damage the Assaulter(Mammooth does actually receive damage from the 3 weapons named above, however the damage is very reduced, which I DO actually like XD).

The original concept was that the assaulter is only vulnerable from behind. But it turned out to be practically impossible to implement, so I made just it a pretty tough, more mobile unit.

Enemy mechanoids seem to fall asleep

I suppose it must be possible somehow to prevent this. It does seem very silly indeed. In the case of the crashed ship part, I think they should just go back inside

The other thing I wanted to mention, Enemy Mechanoids do seem to actually heal their damage, very, veeeery slowly over time, but they do, they actually frigging heal themselves!

This is obviously thanks to nanobot technology, repairing surface damage of mechanoids to prevent the usual decay, wear and tear. Obviously, when converting a mechanoid this mechanism stops working, which causes their rapid deterioration.

Or in other words, probably noone ever noticed this, maybe even Tynan included, so he didn't bother taking it out.

That's all! Sorry for the bit wall of text XD, Im not that good at explaining things in english, so I kinda try way more than the nesesary, I'll let you know how went the armor tweaking in a few days. Peace!

No need to be sorry. It's a nice change to only getting bug reports.

[NuclearStudent]

I can personally confirm that in my games, mechanoids have repaired themselves. I've noticed centipedes and scythers repair gunshot wounds, bow hits,named cracks from mortar shells.

[Komyets]

Im back! And I brought up cookies!

Alright, I put myself tonight onto work on this issue about some mechanoids being unfairly hard to kill while using CombatRealism.

I browsed the .xml files and somehow I managed to put all together and nice to understand. Here is a graph that I made while testing the damages of each weapon, against the heavily armored mechanoids only, since I decided the other mechanoids have good enough armor as it is.

                            / Centipede  /  Mammoth / Assaulter  / Tweaked Assaulter
Survival Rifle           /       3       /       0        /       0       /        0
Assault Rifle            /       5       /       1        /       0       /        0 
Sniper Rifle             /       7       /       3        /       0       /        1
LMG                       /       9       /       3       /       0       /        1
Charge Rifle             /      11      /       6       /       0       /        3
Other Sharp Damage Weapons did absolutely zero damage to all of them.

The mechanoids tested here were of your doing, and their current armor ratings; which I used for the test are:
-Centipede
<ArmorRating_Blunt>0.2
<ArmorRating_Sharp>0.7

-Mammoth
<ArmorRating_Blunt>0.5
<ArmorRating_Sharp>0.8

-Assaulter
<ArmorRating_Blunt>0.9
<ArmorRating_Sharp>0.9

-Tweaked Assaulter
<ArmorRating_Blunt>0.9
<ArmorRating_Sharp>0.84

Here is the list of Each weapon used to deal damage with, along with their respective Armor piercing values. IMPORTANT NOTE: CombatRealism's Author claims that vanilla weapons do not have any Armor Piercing values, this is true. However, CombatRealism adds those values which are the source of the slight imbalance, but are too important to even dare to change, you'll see them bellow right now.
-Survival Rifle Bullet
<armorPenetration>0.55

-Assault Rifle Bullet
<armorPenetration>0.65

-Sniper Rifle Bullet
<armorPenetration>0.7

-LMG Bullet
<armorPenetration>0.7

-Charge Rifle Bullet
<armorPenetration>0.775

You may notice up there that I never changed the Centipede, or the Mammoth's armor values, that is because they seem to be okay just the way they are. Of course that "Just the way they are" Is not technically fair for colonies who might not posess the appropiate weapons to deal with them, so you could choose to lower their armor just a little bit more. Not my place to choose, its your mod after all

Assaulter, however, I had to definitely lower its armor from 90 to 84, if you raise it to 85 armor, only the charge rifle will deal damage, and it will only deal 1 damage per shot. Lowering it to 83 armor made both the Sniper Rifle and the LMG deal 2 damage instead of 1, that also increased the damage of the Charge Rifle, those weapons have a high rate of fire, which made too much of a quick work on the Assaulter, it was dead too quickly, which hindered its Tanky ability too much. So, I believe, 84 armor is the sweet spot. (Bear in mind im kind of a hardcore guy o.o... you might want to make the compatibility patch a little less harsh for others XD).

In conclussion, Survival Rifles, Assault Rifles, Sniper Rifles, LMGs, and Charge Rifles and perhaps an Incendiary launcher too, are Must-To-Have weapons if one is to play MoreMechanoids alongside CombatRealism. There seems to be no other viable way unless you also make intelligent use of Grenades, Mortars, and the heavy turrets that CombatRealism Defense AddOn provides.

Anyways, I think thats all I had to say, I already tweaked my own game to those values, and im pretty happy with them so far, there hasnt been any unbalance for now, except for the exploitable thing about Mechanoids sleeping, so... i'd say give this a go. Or task other players to test these values out too. Cya!

[Orion]

Thanks for figuring those out! I'm gonna use them. I think without CombatRealism it won't make too much difference.

Now looking at the stats, I'm wondering if it's a viable tactic to equip all colonists with melee weapons and to just sneak up and clobber the mechanoids to death en masse. Won't work for the assaulter or mammoth, though...