RimWorld Alpha 9

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FlowerChild
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Re: RimWorld Alpha 9

Post by FlowerChild »

All righty...sorry for the delay on following up on this one (had a few other things on my plate), but diving back into this today:

On the subject of the difficulty level. Looking into things a bit, the *only* thing the difficulty level seems to affect is the number of attackers in any given group (I was worried that it might also affect stuff like the loot tables and trade values and such). Thus, it's what I think is essentially needed for BTSG to work well and feel less random in terms of getting stomped on by the bloody boot of the gods ;)

I'm going to give this a try on rough difficulty and see what happens. 60% wave size seems like a good point to start balancing from, and I'd like to verify through actual play that it doesn't muck anything else up. What would be cool is having things ramp up slower to where eventually they get as crazy as in challenging (since this mod doesn't really change your ability to make killboxes, just makes it a much longer process to be able to do so), but I can take a look at that after I get a sense of how the 60% base figure plays out.

But really, yes, for people trying this out now, I'd really recommend considering swallowing your pride and bumping things down to rough :)
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kregoth
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Re: RimWorld Alpha 9

Post by kregoth »

I can agree that starting out is much tougher with BTSG, but been having a blast with it! Half the time I'm fighting gun wounds more than guns themselves (Which is great!). It makes the beginning feel much more like a group of people trying to survive after a crash landing. Looking forward to more :)

However, I wonder if the AI storyteller is at fault for sending raids that are impossible to handle, unless I had turrets. IIRC the AI storytellers takes the value and population of your colony into account for how large and/or advanced a threat should be? I wonder if the AI doesn't compensate for the change of not having turrets? Some raids I felt were far larger than what was needed to take me out, unless I had turrets lol.

Has anyone tried Randy Random? I might try a few stock games to see how it goes, though maybe not on challenge lol.
FlowerChild wrote:My theory is that stupidity acts like an infectious organism on the net. Unless it's regularly pruned from your "garden", it will inevitably overwhelm it and kill off everything else.
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Re: RimWorld Alpha 9

Post by FlowerChild »

kregoth wrote:I can agree that starting out is much tougher with BTSG, but been having a blast with it! Half the time I'm fighting gun wounds more than guns themselves (Which is great!). It makes the beginning feel much more like a group of people trying to survive after a crash landing. Looking forward to more :)
Awesome man! Glad you're enjoying it :)

I've put a lot more work into the early game today, so there should more shortly ;)
However, I wonder if the AI storyteller is at fault for sending raids that are impossible to handle, unless I had turrets. IIRC the AI storytellers takes the value and population of your colony into account for how large and/or advanced a threat should be? I wonder if the AI doesn't compensate for the change of not having turrets? Some raids I felt were far larger than what was needed to take me out, unless I had turrets lol.
It's possible, and I'll certainly be looking at it more closely.
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hawk
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Re: RimWorld Alpha 9

Post by hawk »

Well, I'm about a 18 months in-game into BTSG on rough. The early game played relatively easy for me on this play though and has ramped up nicely. I'm not sure if infections are difficultly based or not but it seamed like I had fewer which was a big deal as that was my #1 cause of death before. For the sake of complete feedback, I'm only using BTSG and picked a temperate forest biome with hills. I had a pretty good spawn towards the bottom right corner of the map and was able to to build into a small "L" shaped mountain blocking two cardinal directions. I traded for both sensors for my first four turrets as I had all turret technology researched before my first mech appeared about a year in (first contact was downed ship part, two centipedes). I was't consciously rushing towards research completion but a year and a half in all tech had been unlocked. I wish that took a little longer or had more in it. I still find mortars underpowered (accuracy, not damage) for the amount of work and infrastructure that goes with them. Are you guys finding the same or are my expectations out of whack? ...On the totally awesome side, Troop tactics are much deeper than I thought previously. With turrets not being available early on (or in large numbers mid game), the use of cover along with a better understanding of weapon strengths and weaknesses have made my kill box design process less "one size fits all" and more dependent on what random weapons (and colonist) I've been able to acquire at a given time. Cool stuff. Also, I only just now realized you have a choice of crops in your growing zones. Had to "Haha, noob" myself late last night.

EDIT: Just wanted to add that I've been experimenting with small forward operating bases (structures only at this point) at various points in the map with the aim of drawing a sieging enemy into assaulting my main base while still providing cover for a small gorilla team I'm using for that purpose. Early results are mixed but look promising. Hell, just trying the above has been fun.
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Larmantine
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Re: RimWorld Alpha 9

Post by Larmantine »

Gonna set this in spoilers Hawk, in case you want to discover (if you haven't yet, a lot of people seem to ignorant about this) this on your own, regarding one particular plant

Spoiler
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grow Xerigium, its herbal medicine. It does everything normal medicine does, just not operations. So you can restrict normal medicine when until when there is a critical situation or operation.
Yeah, my experiences with EMP mortars against mechs were similar. I had to wait for quite some time when one of my 4 EMP mortars would land a perfect shot and stun them all. I was considering trying EMP grenades, but I was soon overwhelmed by cavemen in that save, so not tested yet. One thing I discovered that single wall pieces go very well with sandbags for maximum cover.

Something like this:

XHXHXHXHX
XXXXXXXXXX

X-sandbags
H-walls

Colonists stand behind walls for maximum cover.
weldaSB wrote:Edit: grammer
devak
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Re: RimWorld Alpha 9

Post by devak »

I was considering trying EMP grenades, but I was soon overwhelmed by cavemen
I'm sorry but i laughed really hard when i read that one.
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FlowerChild
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Re: RimWorld Alpha 9

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[*** NEW RELEASE ***]

Version 0.00002 of Better Than Sentry Guns is ready for download!

Download Link

This release contains the following changes:

-Added the ability to cook Simple Meals at a Campfire. This means that there is now an extra block required to place one, to designate where the cook will stand. Also changed the Campfire to now appear in the production tab instead of heating to better fit this change. Note that it takes longer to cook a meal on a Campfire than on a Stove.

-Added Solar Cells as a new item, which are required to build Solar Generators. You'll find some surrounding your initial crash site when starting a new game, and I've also added a unique crash event for them later in the game so you'll be able to salvage more of them on occasion. They can never be crafted by the player, but may be traded for.

-Added Electric Generators as a new item, which are required to build Wind Turbines, and Geothermal Generators. They can either be traded for or crafted using a Machining Table.

-Added Electrics as a new research project that is required to build pretty much any electrical device, meaning that in the very early game you'll be dependent on much more primitive technology to survive (hence the campfire cooking addition above).

-Added Food Processing as a new research project, which is required to build a Nutrient Paste Dispenser or Hopper (since there's no point to building a Hopper without the paste dispenser), and which requires Electrics to be researched first.

-Added a Sculpting research project which is required in order to build the sculptor's table.

-Added Communication Systems as a new research project which is required in order to build Comms Consoles and Orbital Trade Beacons.

-Added Temperature Control as a new research project which is required to build heaters and coolers.

-Added Tailoring as a new research project which is required to build the Tailor's Workbench.

-Added a Smithing research project which is required to build the Smithing Bench.

-Changed the Machining, Mechanoid Hacking, Geothermal Power, Hydroponics, Electric Smelting, Cremation, Colored Lights, and Cryptosleep Caskets research projects to require Electrics be researched first.

-Changed the Machining research project description to be a little more general.

-Changed Pneumatic Picks to require Machining to research.

-Changed Neutrient Resynthisis to require Food Processing to research.

-Changed (greatly reduced) the cost of researching Colored Lights since they serve no practical purpose and are simply a decorative option, but they also clutter the building interface so leaving the research project in place makes accessing them a choice on the part of the player.

-Changed the Sun Lamp to require Hydroponics to be researched in order to build it.

-Changed Shipbuilding Basics to require Machining in order to research, and for the Ship Structural Beam to only be available once you unlock it.

-Changed the Gun Turret Cooling research project to be dependent on Temperature Control.

-Changed the Carpet Making research project to be dependent on Tailoring.

-Changed the Mortars research project to be dependent on Smithing.

-Changed the Hospital Bed research project to be dependent on Smithing.

Enjoy! :)
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Larmantine
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Re: RimWorld Alpha 9

Post by Larmantine »

Congrats on the release!

That's quite a change log. I like the emphasis on trading.

I have a fear that I'll need to lower the difficulty even more, heh. The only thing that bugs me is the campfire and that they are burning out, without a way to refuel it (not saying that it should be so). So I have to manually replace all the campfires in all my rooms every time they burn out, but this adds an extra challenge to colder climates and temperature research as one of the first priorities.
weldaSB wrote:Edit: grammer
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FlowerChild
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Re: RimWorld Alpha 9

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Larmantine wrote: I have a fear that I'll need to lower the difficulty even more, heh. The only thing that bugs me is the campfire and that they are burning out, without a way to refuel it (not saying that it should be so). So I have to manually replace all the campfires in all my rooms every time they burn out, but this adds an extra challenge to colder climates and temperature research as one of the first priorities.
Yeah, I was thinking a way to refuel them might be in order as well. I might be able to add a bill to them for refueling, which you could of course set to infinite if you just want to keep it going indefinitely.

Got a lot of other stuff I want to look at first though. For now, you might want to try a temperate climate if you're having trouble with the above (I believe you always start in the spring so you have a few months to prepare). Cold climates are a bit too easy anyways IMO, as once you get a set of parkas you can pretty much just leave them on all the time and forget about heating entirely. Actually, if you have both heaters in your peon's rooms and parkas, it will wind up just pissing them off due to overheating.

Warm climates are more interesting as you can't just manage heat by putting on a Speedo or something :)

As for difficulty, rough seems very manageable right now. I'm a few months into my current save, have a decent power supply going, have researched several techs, and I'm actually playing with something harder than the current release due to some "house rules" I have in effect in anticipation of my next batch of changes (mainly, I haven't planted a single crop yet as farming is next on my todo list).
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hawk
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Re: RimWorld Alpha 9

Post by hawk »

FlowerChild wrote:[*** NEW RELEASE ***]
Good god, man! You've gone all "total conversion" on us again ...at least as far as the early game is concerned. :) I haven't had a chance to download the latest yet. You're updating faster than I can finish a complete game... and I put an obscene amount of hours into it this weekend. I might put my current game on hold to test this out when I get home tonight. It contains a lot of what I was hoping for and more! I'll be sending PayPal message of gratitude your way soon. ;)

Larmantine wrote:Gonna set this in spoilers Hawk,
Yeah, I planted a bit of everything to see what was what. I've been avoiding their wiki and forums like the plague since the autosave system they employ make learning on your own a sort of low risk “win, win”. You probably already know this but I’ll share it anyway.
Spoiler
Show
I found out by testing that having a roof over artillery shells keep them from deteriorating. Basically, I would zone them right next to my unroofed mortars to lower reload times. Inevitably they would explode and take out a colonist or the mortars they were meant to feed. It got to the point that I would only make what I know I could use and I would sell old ones to traders to keep my stock fresh. I didn’t realize that this deterioration was conditional (I think this works for all items). I’m sure some quick research on their forums/wiki would tell you this as well but this game in particular was been a lot of fun to play blind.
It takes care of my biggest problem with mortars. While they still kinda suck and I have a large enough sample size now to be convinced the game forces rain when I get a good fire going on the opposition, at least I’m not penalized for having them.
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Re: RimWorld Alpha 9

Post by Larmantine »

Heh, yeah I noticed it too, didn't have to learn it the hard way though. I learned it when I kept bringing in shells of their siege camps. This gives me an idea - in theory, you could steal them shells while they're asleep at night. :O

I keep mine in a enclosed cave. Right next to ze dicke berthaz of glory. Once you established quite a few of them, it gets fun bombarding the besiegers with fire. Only thing that really pisses me off is that it always starts raining/snowing when I load my incendiary mortars.
weldaSB wrote:Edit: grammer
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Re: RimWorld Alpha 9

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hawk wrote:Good god, man! You've gone all "total conversion" on us again ...at least as far as the early game is concerned. :) I haven't had a chance to download the latest yet. You're updating faster than I can finish a complete game... and I put an obscene amount of hours into it this weekend. I might put my current game on hold to test this out when I get home tonight.
Well, while I thought the game was extremely well balanced for early access on my first play through, with my 2nd I'm taking care of a lot of the details that were secondary to me due to the overall awe I was in over the experience ;)

The modding system is also incredibly powerful, especially in comparison to something like KSP (or particularly in comparison to 7 Days). It's data-driven to a huge extent so practically everything you see in that change log could be done through .xml files with only a couple of things requiring a small bit of C# code, namely turning the campfire into a workstation which was just a few lines to get the fire sprite to display properly, and to display always oriented facing forward once built so it doesn't look weird, and a small event handler for solar arrays periodically falling from the sky for you to scavenge. When all else fails, explicit permission has been given to decompile the source (unlike KSP where it's explicitly against Squad's rules), and from what I've seen it seems to be entirely unobfuscated, so it provides a very easy reference for figuring things out when needed, only really missing the comments and formatting of the original source.

Often times I'm only really limited by what a modding system reasonably allows for, and this one is both very open and very well conceived.
It contains a lot of what I was hoping for and more! I'll be sending PayPal message of gratitude your way soon. ;)
Thanks man! :)
Larmantine wrote: I have a fear that I'll need to lower the difficulty even more, heh. The only thing that bugs me is the campfire and that they are burning out, without a way to refuel it (not saying that it should be so). So I have to manually replace all the campfires in all my rooms every time they burn out, but this adds an extra challenge to colder climates and temperature research as one of the first priorities.
BTW: Returning to this one for a moment, the other thing you might want to consider trying in cold climates is building around geothermal vents. Just be careful not to incinerate your initial builders when you first enclose one :)

I know I wanted to create a heating system revolving around them in my previous game (if you check back to the screenshot of my final base you'll see a long tunnel going to one), but the lack of doors or hatches that could be indefinitely toggled open or closed so that I could route the heat in different directions during the summer and winter held me back. Such hatches are definitely on my todo list once I get back to the mid game, but if you're in a permanently cold climate, you wouldn't need them anyways.
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Larmantine
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Re: RimWorld Alpha 9

Post by Larmantine »

I disagree to some extent about what you said of cold climates, FC.

Latest journal entry (yes, I like to immerse myself) of one of my colonists:


Day 105 since our landing,

Our colony was very sick and we had to reserve all our indoor growing space for Xerigium. After the last native tribesmen swarm we were so exhausted. Our defense line was devastated, but fortunately none of us got seriously hurt. One of our latest colonists, Campbell, had extreme infections in his leg and in his torso. We spent our last medicine treating him, luckily, he developed an immunity. The food was already dwindling and at one moment it was gone. We were just so starving... We couldn't resort to hunting because of our fortified valley, it would take days just to bring back a squirrel... we had to thing of something else. We scrapped all the silver we could find and hope for a trader. Days passed and no one came. The starvation made some of us dazing, some of us mad. There were a lot of corpses... there was no other choice... we will honor every part of the devoured tribespeople. Their flesh will fill feed us and their skin will make us warm. Gods forgive us...


This was my first attempt at cannibalism. With the huge amount of corpses, it was a no-brainer.
Spoiler
Show
The mood hit isn't as large as I expected for butchering people, but since half of the colony were dazing, every point counts. Fun times
EDIT: Oh no, I was wrong, disregard the spoiler.
weldaSB wrote:Edit: grammer
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hawk
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Re: RimWorld Alpha 9

Post by hawk »

FlowerChild wrote:The modding system is also incredibly powerful...It's data-driven to a huge extent...only a couple of things requiring a small bit of C# code...explicit permission has been given to decompile the source...seems to be entirely unobfuscated...only really missing the comments and formatting of the original source.
This bodes well for future greatness.

FlowerChild wrote:Often times I'm only really limited by what a modding system reasonably allows for, and this one is both very open and very well conceived.
From the standpoint of an avid player of BTSM, you seem to be able to do a very good job at working around those constraints when they do handcuff you from approaching it in a more direct way. For your sake, I’m glad this is much easier for you to mod as I suspect that will make it more enjoyable for you to continue doing so. I sometimes feel a bit guilty that we might enjoy the fruits of your labor more than you will because prior knowledge makes it much harder to discover all but the unforeseen emergent gameplay. Then again, I suppose being responsible for said gameplay must be worth it. In any case, thank you for doing what you do.




@kjbrona/Rathan01,

I know I should post this in your video comments but I'm having some issues with that account. I watched your videos (I really enjoyed your BTW series) and promptly downloaded the EdB Interface mod you used. It has some really nice non-cheaty quality of life additions. But that darkness mod... YouTube video compression being what it is I set monitor brightness to the max and I still couldn't see what was going on at night when watching. Friendly Suggestion: You may want to consider going without it for the videos unless there is a way to brighten up the playback on YouTube.
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Re: RimWorld Alpha 9

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hawk wrote:From the standpoint of an avid player of BTSM, you seem to be able to do a very good job at working around those constraints when they do handcuff you from approaching it in a more direct way.
Well...that really requires constant design concessions on my part though and often times hours of banging my head against a wall in order to change the smallest of things when I deem it crucial. With KSP I'm often left feeling like I am just operating on the outskirts of the game occasionally poking it with a stick to get it to go slightly in one direction or another.

Ultimately the extent to which I can mod a game HUGELY affects the end result, and you can be certain I would have done much much more with BTSM given the time I've invested in it if KSP had a more flexible modding system.

I don't think I've run into a situation with RimWorld yet where I've encountered something I can't change. There are a few things I haven't figured out *how* to change yet, as I'm still learning the code base as I go, and I've run into one situation where decompilers tend to throw up on a portion of the code dealing with the AI which has made my work on the farming revisions a tad more convoluted than I had anticipated, but otherwise, the overall impression I have is very much one of "everything is possible".
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Re: RimWorld Alpha 9

Post by Wafflewaffle »

@FC What are your thoughts on the game implementing some of your features over time, i mean in MC and KSP the way the developers were managing their game was kinda parallel to your design, they very rarely cross each other. But from what i've gathered of the game and your mod (given i have yet play any of them) it looks as if the game could just "hijack" some of your progresion changes. You think it would be a scummy move or you'd be happy to keep the game on trails?
Oh great, now nothing can stop the inbred train

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FlowerChild
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Re: RimWorld Alpha 9

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Wafflewaffle wrote:@FC What are your thoughts on the game implementing some of your features over time, i mean in MC and KSP the way the developers were managing their game was kinda parallel to your design, they very rarely cross each other. But from what i've gathered of the game and your mod (given i have yet play any of them) it looks as if the game could just "hijack" some of your progresion changes. You think it would be a scummy move or you'd be happy to keep the game on trails?
I've never objected to any base game I've worked on adopting my changes man. The only time I got pissed about it was when something was clearly adopted based on a direct suggestion I made to the devs based on a feature I had already implemented, without any acknowledgement of where it originated from or with so much as a "thanks", with the Minecraft hoppers. It was a very particular set of circumstances where the underlying design for an entire game system (item transport) seemed to shift dramatically based on a PM exchange I had with a dev, where I thought at least some form of basic acknowledgement was in order.

Whenever I mod a game it's with the understanding that anything I make for it might be integrated into the base game at any time. If it's integrated as a direct result of my work or proposals, I'd appreciate a "thank you" just as a matter of courtesy (and it's something I always make a point of trying to do myself when an idea I use originates with someone else), but that's about the extent of it.

So yeah, no problems at all with that. In a lot of cases here, I wouldn't be surprised if some of the changes I'm making are already the plan, and they just haven't been implemented yet, or are just low hanging fruit that were bound to occur to someone at some point, in which case I wouldn't even anticipate any kind of acknowledgment whatsoever.
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Re: RimWorld Alpha 9

Post by FlowerChild »

[**** NEW RELEASE ****]

Version 0.00003 of Better Than Sentry Guns is ready for download!

Download Link

This release contains the following changes:

-Added seeds as a consideration to growing crops. All seeds come in two varieties: terminator, and fully viable, and each crop type (potatoes, corn, cotton, etc.) has its own set of seeds. Terminator seeds are only good for a single generation, producing no seeds when harvested, and are readily available for low cost from bulk goods traders (if you're willing to grow your own food, they're much cheaper than buying the corresponding food type raw). Fully viable seeds are only available for very high cost through the black market (represented by slave traders), but the plants they grow will produce fully viable seeds upon harvest, in greater numbers than they were originally planted. Fully viable seeds are basically the genetically engineered (so they can survive in alien environments) equivalent of modern day crop seeds, while terminator seeds are essentially the same, but further genetically modified so that you have to keep coming back to buy more of them. Note that crops native to the world (trees, etc.) can still be planted freely without the need to acquire seeds for them. I *may* add seed items for them in the future, but want to playtest it this way for a bit to determine if it's worth adding a bunch of potentially unnecessary items to the game.

-Added some terminator potato seeds to the "survival kit" equipment that's part of your crash site upon starting the game, to give players a little wiggle room in food production at the start, and to clue players into seeds being required for growing crops.

-Changed Electric Generators to deteriorate if they are left exposed to the elements.

-Changed the mechanoid parts added in a previous release so that they are also only traded through the black market (again, represented by slave traders) as a thematic element, and to deteriorate if they are left outside.

Enjoy! :)
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hawk
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Re: RimWorld Alpha 9

Post by hawk »

Sweet! Based on your previous comments I figured we would be getting seeds that had to be purchased but I thought you might do away with the standard growing zones and make growing hydroponics only. These “Rimworlds” have been terraformed but you get the sense that the lore allows for subpar quality on the poor outer reaches. What you ended up doing in having two classes of seeds available is much cooler in my opinion and, coupled with the turret parts, makes the trading system are more integrated part of the game in all of its phases and not just a way to trade art for ship materials in the end game. :)
I wonder if you can sell surplus seeds back to the black market as a cash crop? …And now that getting large amounts of food stuffs requires much more investment and planning, have you thought about opening those up for one of the traders to buy, even for $0.05 each? I’m not sure if that specifically is a good idea but I figure having other, albeit less efficient, means of bringing in income that rely on a different skill other than art would be nice. I really like slave trader transitioning to more of black market dealer. It just fits. The slave trader black market visits are, or as least seem to be, rarer than the others. Sentry guns just got more even more valuable. :)

As always, Thank you for sharing!
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Re: RimWorld Alpha 9

Post by FlowerChild »

hawk wrote:What you ended up doing in having two classes of seeds available is much cooler in my opinion and, coupled with the turret parts, makes the trading system are more integrated part of the game in all of its phases and not just a way to trade art for ship materials in the end game. :)
Yup, that was the idea overall. Not sure if I've ever seen terminator seeds used as a game mechanic before, but while working on the system it occurred to me as an excellent way to throttle player progression without entirely stone-walling it with the acquisition of viable seeds, and to also provide an in-game explanation of why fully viable seeds are so expensive, to correspond to their hugely powerful in-game use.

It also has a rather dark "life is cheap" sci-fi vibe to it which I feel fits a lot of the rest of what's in the game, while the black market mechanoid part thing plays off of what I perceive to be some of the Dune-like aspects in the backstory. I've been humming and hawing on moving the AI core over to the black market as well following that logic, which I personally think is doubly cool due to the associations with slavery, but I want to take a closer look at the exotic traders first to make sure I'm not making them entirely useless for anything other than selling art in the process.
I wonder if you can sell surplus seeds back to the black market as a cash crop?
Nope. I specifically took that into account, as obviously once you get a large farm going this could become a rather problematic and unbalancing source of mass income, especially since it wouldn't even require the same level of work to be involved by an individual peon. Seeds you produce sell back at a greatly reduced rate as a result.

Given the black market traders already have access to such seeds, and given proving the quality of what you're selling back to them would be difficult, I think this kinda makes some sense as well. For example, I don't think there are many drug dealers so keen on buying drugs back from their customers :)
…And now that getting large amounts of food stuffs requires much more investment and planning, have you thought about opening those up for one of the traders to buy, even for $0.05 each?
Are you sure the food stuffs are not already sellable? My understanding of how the trading system works is that if something is sold by a trader (and food definitely is by bulk traders), that it also *had* to be buyable by them. This caused me a bit of a headache with the seeds actually, as I was just going to have the traders refuse to buy them entirely, until I found out there was a value modifier you could apply to such transactions.
I’m not sure if that specifically is a good idea but I figure having other, albeit less efficient, means of bringing in income that rely on a different skill other than art would be nice. I really like slave trader transitioning to more of black market dealer. It just fits. The slave trader black market visits are, or as least seem to be, rarer than the others. Sentry guns just got more even more valuable. :)
Hehe...yeah, as always, I recommend playing this on Rough difficulty ;)
As always, Thank you for sharing!
My pleasure!
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hawk
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Re: RimWorld Alpha 9

Post by hawk »

FlowerChild wrote:Are you sure the food stuffs are not already sellable?
Wait a minute, I always have my food in the freezer… out of range of my beacons. So..uh...yeah. You are most likely correct.
FlowerChild wrote:Given the black market traders already have access to such seeds, and given proving the quality of what you're selling back to them would be difficult, I think this kinda makes some sense as well. For example, I don't think there are many drug dealers so keen on buying drugs back from their customers :)
Agreed, I'm just looking for a more creative way to diversify my income than more sculpting tables and... well put :)
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Re: RimWorld Alpha 9

Post by FlowerChild »

hawk wrote: Agreed, I'm just looking for a more creative way to diversify my income than more sculpting tables and... well put :)
Yeah, I can hear that, but I don't think this is the right way to go about solving it. I think it basically requires additional crafting systems to be added to the game that produce valuable goods but still require the same relative amount of effort as crafting art does (which growing crops definitely doesn't, even with my changes).

I also think art is actually rather overvalued at present and will likely do something to address that shortly. I think that's one of the problems here, as once you get it rolling it so overshadows other potential source of trade income (like say making cloths or weapons) that it gets to the point where they become almost entirely irrelevant. Like in my last game I know that towards the end I started burning corpses with the clothing still on them, as even though selling clothing and salvaged weapons was my primary source of income throughout most of the game, so much money was pouring in once I got two full time artists (and really, one would have been more than enough) working in my souvenir shop, that all other income lost relevance to the point where I couldn't even be hassled to strip corpses anymore (which admittedly is probably a bigger pain in the ass than it should be anyways).

But that falls under my later game tweaks, as like usual, I'm essentially playing and tweaking things as I go based on my observations, and my current colony has finally just proceeded beyond the point of being able to grow some of their own food after I invested quite a bit of work (it may not look like it at from first glance, but I basically had to dig into the AI system for the game and learn how the whole thing works to make it happen) into ensuring that I would feel comfortable with them doing so ;)
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Re: RimWorld Alpha 9

Post by hawk »

Yeah, I don't think the crop thing is best either and said as much above when I brought up non-art skill based income earlier. Ever since my first successful vanilla play through, I too have felt art was a little too effective at making money once you dedicate a talented colonist to it. I'm glad you are looking into rectifying this. In subsequent games I've tried to ween myself off leaning so art heavy. Crafting isn't near as lucrative but it might be more fun. My main complaint is that one trader buys nearly everything worth selling. You mentioned that you are careful to not skew the buying side toward only one trader so I imagine this is also on your radar. I know the mid to late game systems additions you mention are going to be awesome but in the meantime I've got plenty goodies to dig into with the latest update.
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Re: RimWorld Alpha 9

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hawk wrote:Yeah, I don't think the crop thing is best either and said as much above when I brought up non-art skill based income earlier. Ever since my first successful vanilla play through, I too have felt art was a little too effective at making money once you dedicate a talented colonist to it. I'm glad you are looking into rectifying this.
Yeah...I agree. My first full game once I realized the value of art I was rolling in cash. This was something I looked at changing a few days ago, but I decided to bump it down my todo list as my first examination seemed to indicate the art prices were being generated through code, which makes sense given the skill level of the crafter plays a role in it.

HOWEVER, when I saw your last post a few minutes ago I realized that since that first examination, while working on the seeds, I learned there's a modifier you can apply to sell price for items that on a hunch I thought would likely be applied after the code generated the base prices.

So, while I'd normally wait until I had a few more things completed before putting out another release, here... ;)

[**** NEW RELEASE ****]

Version 0.00004 of Better Than Sentry Guns is ready for download!

Download Link

This release contains the following changes:

-Added a new "Components" category for items to help better sort storage areas. It includes things such as Solar Panels, Electric Generators, mechanoid parts, and AI Persona Cores.

-Changed (increased) the cost of all research projects as with BTSG's extended progression, they were rolling by far too fast, often faster than your capacity to make use of them, which made what to research next feel rather meaningless. Note that I've increased the ship-building research projects by a proportionately greater amount to make the decision to begin researching a game ending escape mechanism more significant. Also note that if you're playing on an existing save, you'll need to put additional work into projects you had previously researched to unlock them again, but any work you put into them previously is retained.

-Changed the AI persona core to be a "black market" trade through slave traders as a thematic element which fits better with my changes in previous releases.

-Changed (reduced) the sell price of sculptures substantially, as it was much too easy to get filthy rich by selling them.

-Changed Orbital Trade Beacons to not allow items stacking in the same square, as they would often be visually obscured by the items in storage areas, making it very difficult to tell where they were.

-Removed ability to sow trees as crops as this is a change coming for Alpha 10 (reference: RimWorld change log for March 4th), it suits the seed system I added in the last release very well (largely nullifying the concerns I mentioned about seeds for native plants), makes wood a more valuable resource, increases biome gameplay diversity (making deserts in particular more challenging due to wood shortages), makes alphabeaver invasions and general deforestation a more significant consideration, and is generally a small change full of gaming goodness that I like quite a bit. This still leaves the question of whether to have seeds for flowers up in the air mind you. The amount of wood available for buying with bulk goods traders has also been increased to help balance this change.

Enjoy! :)
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Re: RimWorld Alpha 9

Post by FlowerChild »

Well, rough difficulty with BTSG just kicked my ass :)

It felt like I had everything under control until a couple of pirate raids in quick succession and a well placed grenade brought my colony to a bloody and dismembered end.

Was a heck of a lot of fun though. Really like how the changes so far emphasize the tactical elements of the game. What kind of weapons you arm your colonists with and how you place them during a battle becomes a much bigger consideration, with stuff like having one equipped with a shotgun to take out anyone who manages to get too close becoming a real thing.

Gunning down enemies in smaller volume also makes thing interesting from the standpoint of having potentially fewer prisoners to try and recruit. I know I was tempted a couple of times to abduct passing members of other colonies to try and boost my numbers which definitely didn't happen during my previous play. I decided against it as I didn't want to risk motivating them to attack me, but was definitely tempting.

Anyways, overall, quite happy with how things are shaping up :)
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