Questions about moods and mech base drops

Arenji · January 11, 2015, 07:52:38 PM

Hi all,

Couple of questions. I've played through about 4 colonies and apart from the first one when I didn't understand that mechs would out-range my turrets, all my colonies have been successful. But I realise I still don't entirely understand how moods work.

What does the mood bar represent? Does it reflect the sum of the mood stats right now, or is it a sum over time? To put it another way, if an urgently hungry colonist eats a fine meal does the mood debuff instantly vanish or does it take time to build up a positive mood?

What does the white triangle under the mood bar represent? I'm assuming the vertical line is the colonists' breaking point, but not sure how long the mood has to be going down before a break occurs. It seems to me that the bar is gradually moving which doesn't seem consistent with my assumption that the bar is just the sum of mood stats.

Also I've seen the bar going up while there were clearly more negatives than positives. Is this because the colonist mood has become *less* negative than it was?

Even though I don't really understand moods it's not been too difficult to avoid mental breaks. The only major problem I had was when I underestimated the amount of food I'd need at very high latitude (and didn't know about indoor planting) and had to resort to cannibalism to get me through the winter...

The other question I have is about how mechs (or any raiders really) know where to drop on your base. I've seen some on reddit say that the drop always goes where your colonists have spent the most time. For my bases that tends to mean my main stockpile which I place handily in the middle of my kill box. Is this how it works? Or are they locking on to my trading beacon (also in the middle of my stockpile)?

Fantastic game so far. I've totally got my money's worth already. This has all the addictiveness of a 'just one more turn' 4X strategy, plus my personal emotional involvement in the survival of my pawns. The most important thing emotionally for me is that my three original colonists must always survive to the bitter end and escape in the ship.

I'm not sure I have many (if any) suggestions for changes. The only thing I really dislike are sieges because my mortars are so damn inaccurate and I have to run around firefighting and trying to keep the mortar firers fed and my walls and power lines rebuilt until the raiders condescend to attack. And It would be really interesting to be able to attack someone else's base for once. I'd love to attempt to knock out their power system so their turrets don't work and then start fires everywhere and watch them all burn.... Sweet revenge!

. It would also change things around a bit if the AI tried to gain access via some other route than via my blatantly tempting killbox.

DeMatt · January 11, 2015, 08:16:03 PM

Mood is a number from 0 to 100. It represents how "happy" or "stable" a pawn is. It starts at 50, which represents "content" or "neutral".

The mood bar displays the pawn's current mood. It's used to check whether a pawn is about to break. It takes time for mood to shift - this is what lets your normally happy pawns deal with the mounds of corpses in the typical kill box without immediately snapping.

The vertical line indicates the pawn's mental break threshold. That doesn't change over the course of a game. If the mood bar is below the line, the pawn can (but won't necessarily) break.

The triangle indicates where the mood bar will stabilize, given the pawn's current mood bonuses and penalties. You can calculate its position for yourself if need be - 50 plus bonuses minus penalties.

Arenji · January 11, 2015, 08:25:07 PM

Thanks! So the mood bar always gradually moves towards where the triangle is?

Does this mean that if a colonist's break point is 10% then I need a sustained -40 in mood stats over sufficient time for the mood to drop from the default 50% to 10%?

DeMatt · January 11, 2015, 08:56:58 PM

Quote from: Arenji on January 11, 2015, 08:25:07 PM
Thanks! So the mood bar always gradually moves towards where the triangle is?

Does this mean that if a colonist's break point is 10% then I need a sustained -40 in mood stats over sufficient time for the mood to drop from the default 50% to 10%?

More or less. Do note that "sufficient time" is in the range of "a day". So make sure you always have food for your pawns to eat - -20 from "Urgently hungry" isn't something you can afford to ignore for long.

milon · January 11, 2015, 11:36:58 PM

About the raider drops - I believe if they drop in your base, they're attracted to the drop pod. It has nothing to do with where your colonists spend their time.

MikhailBoho · January 12, 2015, 12:02:06 AM

I'm not 100% sure how the game is coded, but this is my theory. Raiders and mechs will target trade beacons, but if one isn't available to land on, they will default to any opening they can find in your home region. I say this because I often get the "landing right on top of you!" event even before I have a trade beacon set up (maybe the beacon completely prevents this from happening though).

You can manipulate this by doing as you've done, put a beacon into or leading into your killbox. Personally, I have two beacons. One which is roofed off at all times (except for during trades) that holds my silver and goods near the center of my colony and another at the entrance to my killbox that is only there to attract enemies.

Arenji · January 12, 2015, 04:38:30 AM

Quote from: MikhailBoho on January 12, 2015, 12:02:06 AM
I'm not 100% sure how the game is coded, but this is my theory. Raiders and mechs will target trade beacons, but if one isn't available to land on, they will default to any opening they can find in your home region. I say this because I often get the "landing right on top of you!" event even before I have a trade beacon set up (maybe the beacon completely prevents this from happening though).

That fits with my experience. The first drop on my base, before I had a trade beacon, was into an area containing my solar panels and wind turbines, far, far, from my kill box. Either this was a random space near a second (walled off) entrance to my base or it was because my pawns had just been very active in that area, building the power systems, mining out steel and setting up a cooler.

After I built the trade beacon, all the drops were straight on top of the beacon, which also happens to be the most active place that my pawns walked through.

On reddit the view seems split 50/50 but no one seems to know for sure.

MikhailBoho · January 12, 2015, 05:33:52 AM

I'm going to do some testing. See if putting a trade beacon with a home region some ways away from my base can force them to drop somewhere random.

mipen · January 12, 2015, 06:32:34 AM

You could also check the incident worker code for the dropped right on top of you raid. It would probably show the method in finding a suitable landing location

Arenji · January 12, 2015, 06:39:07 AM

Quote from: mipen on January 12, 2015, 06:32:34 AM
You could also check the incident worker code

The what now?

mipen · January 12, 2015, 06:48:39 AM

Hm, it's a bit hard to explain, but if there's anyone who's done some modding reading this thread they could open Ilspy and look at the code for the raid to see how it determines where to land it

Kinakin · January 13, 2015, 07:44:30 AM

Centipede health is decides by the number of rings, or modules if you will, that it has. So more pieces means more health. A basic 1 ringer has like 1/3 the health of a 6 ringer.

Therefore while it may look the same graphically the difference in the firepower needed to kill it varies quite a bit.

Goo Poni · January 13, 2015, 08:08:36 AM

Pretty sure all centipedes are built the same and I believe destruction of the first body ring or the head is what will kill it, being roughly equivalent to the head and chest of a human. Destroying the other body rings just impairs it. It's all down to chance though, so, throw more bullets at it for more chances.