RimWorld Alpha 9

[devak]

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.

I started playing a few days ago (on cassandra Rough) and decided not to rely too heavily on base defences. I must say i have one guy who's a good shooter, has the Careful shot trait and a Sniper rifle. Great at making a few good kills before the enemy's even there. Also, those AI invaders became a lot easier to beat when i acquired a hand grenade. however they aren't very effective in regular battle, as the guy stands still when the handgrenade is still flying. "throw and run" tactics simply don't work.

Lastly: i hate it when a pirate group abducts one of my own. For some stupid reason i can't buy the guy back. I would love it if they added some kind of "alarm" button that made my peasants return home so i don't manually have to find out who's roaming and who's not. Especially when one AI ship crashed on a power line, shot up nearly my entire crew in five seconds and i had to continuously watch that nobody ran off to either douse the fire or repair the power line while the rest healed.

[Larmantine]

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.

I actually have done this several times. Last night I was playing with the previous version of BTSG, and seeing how I just had only one faction as enemies, I decided what the heck. Really felt the need for more colonists, as several in game months have passed with just the 3 of my initial guys.

I like the new hardcore sowing system, I hated it at first, because Xerigium essentially becomes rarer than standard medicine, and my production chains got limited due to not being able to get my hands on cotton. But I slowly fell in love with it, same was with hardcore buckets in BTW. I could still make clothes out of leather, and I had a surplus of it. Hunting becomes much more important now.

I don't know about you guys, but my last playthroughs were with randy random. It is much more fun, higher risk, but often higher reward. Makes you lough more often. The orbital drops are completely random. One time, it just dropped hats. HATS. Really? (maybe it wasn't vanilla but still was rofling), and the time that he almost ripped my colony to shreds, but didn't have to worry about food for some time. This playthrough wasn't with BTSG but still:

Spoiler

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Although in later game, it often feels harder with Randy, than it is with Cassandra.

I wonder, what is your typical tech order, guys?

I rushed for electricity and temperature, then towards smithing, machining, and mortars, IIRC.


I'm going to need to refrain myself from playing now, I must write my bachelor thesis. Hope there will be more changes once I return, best of luck with this.

[FlowerChild]

because Xerigium essentially becomes rarer than standard medicine

Well...not really. Xerigium is still much cheaper to grow from terminator seeds than purchasing medkits, so it still very much has its place. Of course, it's also essentially a source of renewable medicine if you manage to get a viable crop going, which is pretty huge.

[hawk]

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.

You and me both, man. I haven't done it yet but I fear the time is coming where my better sense is going to lose out to my perceived immediate need. Besides, the single visitor doesn't seem to have any other use... yet ;)


I am six months in and have had exactly one trader visit in that time. By sheer luck it was the black market (kinda funny since I stated earlier how rare those seemed to be) and I was able to buy one sentry gun worth of sensors and two viable strawberry seeds. I don’t currently have enough power to sustain everything so I'm having guys disable everything but the turret in the event of an attack (I'm basically screwed if it happens late at night & indoor lighting is a luxury I can’t afford at the moment). It may be appropriate to increase trader event rates now that we can't progress without them. My sample size with the recent changes is small enough that I don’t have a strong opinion one way or the other yet but my current game has me leaning towards that being the case.

I must say i have one guy who's a good shooter, has the Careful shot trait and a Sniper rifle.

You are much braver than I am. My good shooters are basically part time mobile turrets who stand behind a series of one wide walls in front of my base in the early game. I make sure I clear out any vegitation in front of these defences so as not give the raiders cover and its still a stuggle as soon wave sizes match start to out match my meager numbers. If I get two raids in a row, my colony generally goes the same way FC described a few posts ago.

I wonder, what is your typical tech order, guys?

I know the first two were exactly the same as you listed and I would do it that way again. A freezer has been, and continues to be, my top priority when starting out. With my power supply issues in my current game, I think I did geothermal next but I haven't had the right trader swing by in order to purchase the required part yet. I'm a little fuzzy on what happened after. This was BTSG version "lots o zero & a 3" and didn't have the much needed research rebalance FC put out last night my time. I pretty much just went down the list sequentially at some point since I could research far faster than I could afford or acquire the technology I had gained access to.

[FlowerChild]

I am six months in and have had exactly one trader visit in that time. By sheer luck it was the black market (kinda funny since I stated earlier how rare those seemed to be) and I was able to buy one sentry gun worth of sensors and two viable strawberry seeds. I don’t currently have enough power to sustain everything so I'm having guys disable everything but the turret in the event of an attack (I'm basically screwed if it happens late at night & indoor lighting is a luxury I can’t afford at the moment). It may be appropriate to increase trader event rates now that we can't progress without them. My sample size with the recent changes is small enough that I don’t have a strong opinion one way or the other yet but my current game has me leaning towards that being the case.

I hear what you're saying, but I'm still not convinced it's the case based on my own play, with one possible exception, which is the exotics traders.

Right now, each of the traders offer you various routes to survival. Slave traders of course provide additional colony members and/or fully viable seeds (I'm finding the decision on which to purchase when a slave trader comes by is a tough one, which is cool). Bulk traders provide a lot of cheap food (both raw and in the form of terminator seeds) and medicine. Combat traders provide better weapons which can really help in colony defense (my previous game I blew most of my cash on a sniper rifle and it was really helping until I brought the walls of my base in too close restricting the time I had to make use of it and letting that grenadier close in with me...that was entirely my mistake though, and lesson learned). Unfortunately though, exotic traders don't do much for you in terms of helping you out with early game survival (my change to the AI core really makes no difference there though which is why I decided to go with it in the end), so if you get one of those early on, I can see it really hurting. I can see that being something I'll attempt to balance a little better in the future.

HOWEVER, don't neglect the final option there in that once you have a comms console, you can call other colonies for military reinforcement if things get bad, so if you don't get a decent trader in a decent amount of time, reserving some cash for that use might be a good backup plan.

I wonder, what is your typical tech order, guys?

As is probably evident from the above, I b-line for the communications node, which I think is entirely appropriate in a survival situation :)

[hordekips]

FC, a few pages back you mentioned the idea of using the geysers as a way of heating your base, and when looking through the Rimworld forums I found this mod: https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=11056.0

This implements some simple vents and I used these along side BTSG and it worked pretty well (except it really isn't really that well balanced for BTSG) and I guess something similar being implemented in the mod would work very well as a way to use the environment as a heating source.

I guess it is just something I wanted to put out here for you to consider :)

[FlowerChild]

I guess it is just something I wanted to put out here for you to consider :)

I've done a pretty thorough survey of the various mod threads over on the RimWorld forums, so yup, I'm aware of what's out there ;)

While it may not seem like it at first glance, this is actually a fairly complicated design issue, which is why I decided to leave it for later and give myself more time to mull it over. For example, doors that can be locked open or closed via switches or what have you are ripe for abuse in colony defense, as the enemy AI will dutifully march into chambers where you can lock them in with the push of a button.

Vents themselves are a potential big exception case for the game as then issues such as whether sound travels through them and disturbs sleep, or whether they properly respect room boundaries and the various systems that make use of them come up.

I do plan on tackling it with time, but it's one of those things where it would be really cool if it required a small amount of work, the large amount it would likely take bumps it down in priority for me while I work on other things.

[hawk]

HOWEVER, don't neglect the final option there in that once you have a comms console, you can call other colonies for military reinforcement if things get bad, so if you don't get a decent trader in a decent amount of time, reserving some cash for that use might be a good backup plan.

I'll admit I don't do this enough currently. I think I get so focused on getting turrets, maximizing troop tactics based on their current gear/skills and overall defensive/economic strategy that I forget how useful it can be when your back is against the wall.

[FlowerChild]

I'll admit I don't do this enough currently. I think I get so focused on getting turrets, maximizing troop tactics based on their current gear/skills and overall defensive/economic strategy that I forget how useful it can be when your back is against the wall.

Hehe...yup. My first full stock game I played to completion I was using that option extensively while I was still figuring out how everything worked. I'd say most of the silver I spent in my first game was in calling in friendly colonists for defense aid and in gifts to keep their opinion of me high.

In the game I had end yesterday with that well placed grenade, I'm pretty sure it would have saved me too, and I even attempted to radio for support only to realize I had previously blown too much money on seeds to call any in ;)

[FlowerChild]

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

But it's elsewhere :)

I decided it was time for the first public release of BTSG, so you can check it out here:

https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=11253.0

If you'd like to discuss the mod further please consider taking the time to create an account over on the RimWorld forums.

Guess that's 4 and counting ;)

[devak]

I must say i have one guy who's a good shooter, has the Careful shot trait and a Sniper rifle.

You are much braver than I am. My good shooters are basically part time mobile turrets who stand behind a series of one wide walls in front of my base in the early game.

Admittedly, he's the only good shooter i have. One guy was hunting with a shotgun, shooting level 13 or so. He had to fire some 20 times to kill a squirrel.

Anyway, my sniper's great for finishing sieges as he can go in and kill people from a long distance. Just gotta make sure i have backup so when the fighting starts, he doesn't get killed and captured.


New feature i'd love to see: names on AI units. When it snows, the entire map is white and i'm trying to find a small white unit among white.

Also, apparently eating raw meat gives a good chance at malaria.

[FlowerChild]

Admittedly, he's the only good shooter i have. One guy was hunting with a shotgun, shooting level 13 or so. He had to fire some 20 times to kill a squirrel.

Not sure if it's the case here, but you might want to check out the health details of your dude as I've found they can have a significant impact on this kind of thing.

I think for example if a colonist is getting old it can have a significant impact on their ability to get stuff done. I know in one game I had a hunter that was getting on in years and he could barely hit the broadside of a barn despite having a very high shooting skill (I think when I check he may have been developing cataracts). In another game I had another that was younger with a lesser skill but he was picking off stuff left and right.

I believe weapon quality also plays a role in this, so it might be another thing to look at.

I can't really speak for shotguns as I tend to hand them to my colonists with the worst shooting skill to act as a last line of defense in case attackers get too close, but I've found the above to be very relevant with the survival rifles I normally equip my hunters with.

[hawk]

Anyway, my sniper's great for finishing sieges as he can go in and kill people from a long distance. Just gotta make sure i have backup so when the fighting starts, he doesn't get killed and captured.

I gotcha. I must have had a brain-fart when I wrote that as I do the same thing to take out sieges (and fallen ship defenders).


FC, Items are stacking in the same square orbital beacons in my current game (I'm playing the latest version).

[FlowerChild]

FC, Items are stacking in the same square orbital beacons in my current game (I'm playing the latest version).

Are colonists putting them there are are they just randomly winding up there due to other causes? It's the former that I prevented.

[hawk]

I can't be sure one way or the other. It was both beacons in my general storage but is a high traffic area. Its entirely possible a colonist dropped what they were carrying if they had been reprioritized while traveling nearby. I'll try to keep better watch of that area and If I catch them in the act I'll let you know.

[FlowerChild]

I can't be sure one way or the other. It was both beacons in my general storage but is a high traffic area. Its entirely possible a colonist dropped what they were carrying if they had been reprioritized while traveling nearby. I'll try to keep better watch of that area and If I catch them in the act I'll let you know.

Never mind, I think I know what's going on there. Will attempt to fix :)

[Larmantine]

Sorry for the bump, but for those still playing Rimworld, there is a mod out there similar to BTSG in the sense of challenge and progression (not as challenging though), in case you want to try it out.

It's called Superior Crafting. https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=11741.0

I found the early game quite satisfying as here too you can't spam auto-turrets. You have to do research on the appropriate research tree. You get only manned turrets at the start, when researched. Auto turrets need to be further researched, and each auto turret costs additional 50 electronic chips, each chip requires plasteel to be crafted.

The crafting is quite extensive, you don't use raw materials on everything, you need to process them, like sawing wood, smelting ores, making sand from chunks, glass from sand, etc.

Electricity also needs to be researched, solar panels now require quite a bit of glass to craft. Geothermals need much plasteel, I'm on mid-late game and only managed to build one.

One other thing I enjoyed in the early game, is that you can't spam beds right from the start. You can build hide beds, but for these you need to hunt, and they aren't very comfortable.

Farming also needs research, and hydroponics tables are modular and now require glass, steel and mulch (which is made in composters), however, it isn't as challenging and scary fun as in BTSG.

There are many interesting points, that I haven't said here, this mod is worth checking out, if you're tired of vanilla, and have finished BTSG several times.

I'd only advise to play without killboxes and with randy on 100% or cassandra on at least 130%. The turrets become quite powerful in the mid-late game when only defending from one direction, even manned ones, there are several different versions of each turret (shotgun-like, minigum, sniper, conventional). The turrets bugged me a bit, and I was already remembering BTSG's turrets and the satisfaction when you disassemble a mechanoid.