RimWorld (New DF-like)

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The Meal
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Re: RimWorld (New DF-like)

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Sepiche wrote: Fri Dec 29, 2017 6:39 pm
jztemple2 wrote: Fri Dec 29, 2017 6:34 pm Question, how do I know the temperature of a room? I have a cooler in the wall and have set the temperature I want, but how do I know what the actual temperature is?
Bottom right of the screen shows the current temperature... I can't remember if it's what your mouse is hovering over, or what you have selected, but that's where it would be.
Yes. Temperature reported is real time at the pointer of your mouse (irrespective of any selected item away from the pointer).
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Re: RimWorld (New DF-like)

Post by Lorini »

I gotta get back to this game and see if I can play it without becoming frustrated. I'm old now and things that used to be challenging have become maddening. I suspect in a few years I'll just be playing cheat mode Minecraft and wishing for the 'good ol days'.
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Re: RimWorld (New DF-like)

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Rimworld appeals to this old because it's such (well, it can be — depending on your game settings) a chill experience. If you run into frustrations, please post and we'll try to help.
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Re: RimWorld (New DF-like)

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With the caveat that it's still getting significant changes day to day, you can now access the development build of the upcoming 1.0 version of Rimworld by selecting the unstable branch on the beta tab.
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Re: RimWorld (New DF-like)

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That's cool. I spent a lot of time loving this one and look forward to running through a more complete version.
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Re: RimWorld (New DF-like)

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I keep forgetting I already own this game :roll:. Looking forward to 1.0 :D
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Re: RimWorld (New DF-like)

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1.0 released!

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Re: RimWorld (New DF-like)

Post by Unagi »

Wow, been a nice alpha. Time to check it back out.

fun video.... one of the reviews: "A rabbit went mad and literally killed my entire colony!"


been there, :D
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Re: RimWorld (New DF-like)

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That is an excellent video that doesn't feed you any lies about the game at all. :D Still glad it's in my roster. Some day I'll get back to it.

If they sold a million copies at $20 each during EA (was that the cost?), I hope the developer is enjoying it. They earned it. It's up to $35 ... which might be too rich for some. The game lets you tell awesome, crazy random stories that evolve with time.
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Re: RimWorld (New DF-like)

Post by LordMortis »

It's up to $35
After watching that video, it makes me regret getting Prison Architect which I lost interest in very quickly. I see the video and want to play but I also see the video and see that I paid for Prison Architect and barely gave it any love at all and they look so very similar, though this looks way better, like I backed the wrong horse. And so to wait years and years and year for it to his bargain prices, warrant having two builder games that are so similar in GUI.
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Re: RimWorld (New DF-like)

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LordMortis wrote: Thu Oct 18, 2018 9:22 amhaving two builder games that are so similar in GUI
Prison Architech and RimWorld share an artistic style at the character and base building elements, but that's about it. I don't regret having both, and don't consider them close enough that playing one would diminish my interest in the other.

Prison Architect is a fun management sim that lets you run a prison. You clamp down on security, watch over inmates, scan visitors, prevent escapes, and collect your paychecks so you can build a bigger, better prison and get more dangerous prisoners - then deal with the new elements they bring to the table. You get the mechanics down and choose how to challenge yourself. A day in the life might have you find a tunnel, put someone in solitary for fighting, deal with a medical emergency, and plot out your next prison wing. You're balancing prisoners needs to keep them placated without breaking the budget.

RimWorld is a fun management sim that lets you run a colony on an alien planet. You train your colonists, plan survival schemes, ward off raider assaults, deal with random natural disasters, and watch as your colonists grow into unique characters that all have a little backstory you can tie together to form a saga. I'd say it's a much deeper, richer game than Prison Architect. It's the version of Dwarf Fortress I didn't have to make a human sacrifice to understand. A day in the life might have you watching your farmer have a mental breakdown, be attacked by an insane rabbit, convert a captured raider to your side (just so your inept guard will stop talking to him), and cross your fingers as your barely trained medic tries to amputate someone's leg and replace it with a wooden peg because you couldn't afford a useful prosthetic from the junk trader that just stopped in.

This quote from Butterknife a couple pages back is a nice summary.
Butterknife wrote: Tue Jul 26, 2016 8:18 pmMy last game was probably the most comical loss I have had so far (even better than one of my characters lighting my whole town on fire). Had a "bad" character who would only fight -- she was getting on my nerves because she wouldn't help out with anything, but I seriously needed her because nobody else was any good with a gun. I was using a mod to help manage things and forgot to disallow hunting big game -- she went after a particularly large animal and got herself killed. I wasn't too upset about it at first -- I had a new person to replace her who was a pretty good shot. While he was traveling out to pick up her rifle, her pet cat went mad with anguish over her death and murdered my other two characters.
Last edited by Paingod on Thu Oct 18, 2018 9:49 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: RimWorld (New DF-like)

Post by Lorini »

Yeah they are not at all the same. That said, I quit Rimworld long ago, I have enough real world drama without game drama. Rimworld is probably closer to The Sims if anything.
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Re: RimWorld (New DF-like)

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Paingod wrote: Thu Oct 18, 2018 9:37 am
It's the version of Dwarf Fortress I didn't have to make a human sacrifice to understand.
That's where you went wrong. You're supposed to sacrifice an elf.
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Re: RimWorld (New DF-like)

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I fired this up last night after getting through the last Legacy mission in XCOM2 and needing a break. It's been so long since I last played, that I can't tell what's new and what's not. It took me far too long to remember that I could assign priorities manually instead of letting them do whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted.

I will say that the first "Raid" events I've run into were pathetic. One person is a Raid? In what world?

My group of 3 crashed ship survivors is doing well. I kept rolling random for them until I got a fairly good mix of skills. The researcher that's a crack marksman, the farmer that's an expert builder. The medic that's a good cook. I'm too chicken to just accept whatever jumbled mess of useless skills and neurosis come out. I have enough trouble managing tame settlers with useful skills.

They crashed in a temperate hill zone, with Granite/Marble/Slate resources and 40/60 growing days and a temp range of -1 to 28. It's taken some time to acclimate to their needs and attending them. As a result, the dog they had has died and the colony has nearly been wiped twice. Once by stress that led to fights that was interrupted by a berserk Cat which ended up with colonists having infections that were almost lethal. The other was a two-man Raid that hit while I had someone immobilized with illness, and the only other colonist I had acquired was a Pacifist.

One of the colonists I passed on arrived to Raid us as well. I'm not sure if she was pissed that we left her behind or what, but she ended up getting killed - which sent another colonist into depression as that was her daughter. I didn't have the facilities to tend to her and capture her even if I wanted to. Another event had the husband of a colonist crash-land in a pod, which was nice - but I didn't know at the time that I had to Capture him to acquire him, so after he healed up he kissed his wife goodbye and left. It was kind of sad, since she slept by his side for days while he recovered (everyone gets a double bed to start).

The farmer/builder can regularly make Excellent furnishings now, and I'm working on replacing what we have with nicer things. The researcher/marksman is doing his part and pushing ahead. The medic/cook excels at both and hasn't botched anyone's care yet, though a few people have gotten food poisoning. The Pacifist I picked up makes a good backup medic, and I'm training her as an Artist/Crafter; she's made us more money with that than anyone else has with their skills.

We've only just put together a couple wind turbines and 6 batteries. Walled in the turbines, and keep the batteries in safe storage underground. The interior of the base has been completely refitted with granite tiles/walls. Lights are on, heaters and freezers are running. Folks say it's starting to feel like home. Defenses are light, though, and turrets are a big thing on the group agenda for the next research project after Hellweave.

One of the terrain features I started with was Caves, which is new - and isn't something I'm sure I like. Sure, I get some free mushrooms. I also get three spider nests to deal with trying to keep people away from. On the other hand, one group of traders decided to walk through a cave and wiped a spider nest for me... so that's something.
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Re: RimWorld (New DF-like)

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I ended up starting over after losing a couple of my best colonists ... and went for the 5 tribals start. I resettled using the same seed and apparenty picked the exact same map tile as it was identical to my last colony's start - insect nests and all. This in itself was an advantage as I knew where raids would come from and what kinds of resources were around.

It's a rough one. Despite having increased manpower, I was at a significant technological disadvantage. To that end, my team was split with two miners, a farmer, a medic, and a researcher. None of the Tribal starts seem to get a bonus to research, so I had to settle for someone with a 4 that had a "Burning Passion" for it. All of them were good shot (between 7 and 10 skill) and had a mixed bag of added skills (like a 10 in Animal Handling) that I would use later. We were sorely lacking anyone with Social skills, though. Trade and prisoner conversion were going to be rough.

Some highlights from the colony so far...
  • The single Husky we brought with us was paired with a purchased male and together they've created a squad of highly trained attack dogs and companions. Each of my colonists has a dog attached to it. I've had such success breeding that puppies are a side business.
  • We acquired three Alpacas as breeding stock, to be used for wool and trade route hauling. The day after purchasing these fine animals, a small herd of them moved in down south and my trainer was able to tame all of them. Tripled my livestock!
  • A lone timber wolf tried hunting one of my colonists for food, and was incapacitated in the ensuing defense. My animal trainer rescued it, nursed it back to health, and managed to tame it over the course of several days. Dolly (the name she chose, not me) is a faithful companion and fighter, but her jaw was destroyed in a bug infestation that erupted inside the base. I didn't feel right putting her down - she was still eating and in minimal pain. I didn't feel right using her for combat. I didn't feel right slaughtering her for food. In the end, I gifted her to a merchant from a nearby city that promised to keep her safe.
  • A herd of cats moved in, showing up completely tame and friendly. Cool. So I thought. After a few days, it became clear that these cats only agenda was eating as much as possible and contributing nothing (we don't have any rodent problems). Everyone already has a pet Husky. The cats started breeding... causing me some measure of concern, but I figured kittens would sell as well as puppies. The tables turned, though, when all at once it seemed the cats were really just there to party. They literally started getting shitfaced on beer, running around the base, and puking on everything. Even the pregnant cats were hammered constantly. I had a herd of useless alcoholic vomiting cats. Not sure what to do with that, I unloaded it on some poor sucker who stopped by. He couldn't even afford them all, but was willing to take them. I threw in all of my beer, just to make sure they followed him. We could make more. It took a couple of days with everyone set to Clean as top priority for the base to return to good order.
  • One of the nearby friendly settlements absolutely has a pants fetish. Twice now they've sent me requests for 25+ pairs of pants - offering bionic limbs and gold in exchange. It's a deal I couldn't turn down. To complete the orders, my tailor worked tirelessly for a couple days and burned through all of our available fabrics and leathers. I'm now the proud owner of two bionic legs - one plain, and the other highly advanced, self-regenerating tech. I have one colonist that dreams of being a cyborg, so I may get to the chop-chop on them soon. I did just learn how to make Medical Beds, and have a surplus (like 60) of standard medical kits I've been saving for a rainy day. Before scheduling the surgery, I need to double check and make sure the legs aren't both left or right oriented. I know limbs used to be left or right before, and may still be.
  • We barely survived last winter. I unwittingly sold off the masses of corn/potatoes/rice that were clogging my warehouse without paying attention to the time of year. As plants started to freeze, the cupboards went bare. The colonists survived on hunting, eating kibble, and slaughtering the wild pigs I had tamed for just this reason earlier that year. Now that spring has come, the first harvests of berries have let me start restocking my prepared foods and I will not be caught like that again. Until I forget again, that is.
Some of the newer features I've noticed since restarting...
  • The overworld map plays a real part in your adventure now. You can send caravans for trade or raids. You get quests to find/help/search/free/etc around your base. You need to stock up for the trip, and Plants skills help you forage as you walk. Pack animals are key, too, as they eat the local grass (assuming there is any) and carry extra weight.
  • Enemy raids seem more diverse in make-up - from pod-landed assaults to tribal warriors. The raiders themselves are a little smarter, too - they don't all commit to the nearest entrance and will split their force to try and flank you. Traps have been invaluable, but I think I need to make them out of something renewable and save my granite for sculptures.
  • Meteor events happen periodically and drop in resources. Silver, steel, gold, limestone ... basically, any kind of mine-able resource I think. It's just a few tiles now and then, but a nice addition.
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Re: RimWorld (New DF-like)

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Last night I learned what happens when you have too many animals and not enough farmland... and the results were not cool. My colony barely survived another winter - but we had to slaughter all of the available wild pigs, most of my chickens starved to death so I turned all of them into food, I lost half my Alpacas to malnutrition, and I hunted the map bare of game animals. My people survived the last few days by eating raw meat. For the love of the game, I can't understand why it would be hard to cook a steak... and shit. As I type this, I remember that I set my stove to use only vegetarian options for Simple Meals - so of course no one cooked the meat. :evil: I was trying to save the meat for Pemmican and Kibble. Dammit! I need a stockpile of Pemmican for road trips, and kibble is the most efficient pet food.

I need to get a grip on winters in this game and figure out how to stockpile correctly. I did just break open the research for Hydroponics, so there's an indoors option I could use... and should use. I have ample space behind my base in the mountain.

The last thing I did before I went to bed was restructure my entire farmland approach. Roughly 1/4 of the map is now configured for growing.

Highlights from the evening...
  • My animal tamer is a global legend at a skill of 19 (the side benefit of having 30 animals and training them all), and successfully tamed both a new female Timber Wolf and a Rare Thrumbo. She only had a 14% chance for the wolf, and a 1.8% chance for the Thrumbo. I'm honestly torn on keeping either of them.
    • On one hand, a fleet of wolves should be better melee combatants than my fleet of Huskies - but I love having the huskies around, and I've proven that I'm keeping too many animals.
    • The Thrumbo is a very valuable catch. It took days of effort and sheer luck to tame. It's 152 years old, and I'm not sure what their breeding ages are or if I'll ever find/tame a male. It has asthma but is otherwise in good health. The thing has a monstrous appetite, though. It fell asleep in my fields while I was taming it, and each morning it devoured five squares of crops before moving around. :shock: I'll keep it on the off chance I find a male, and then see if their gestation/aging process makes them even worth trying to breed. It'd be pointless if they take 100 years to reach sexual maturity. Still - a powerhouse pet. *Edit: Little research shows that the Thrumbo lives to 220, has a gestation of 60 days, and a maturity of 4.0 (I assume that's years). That kind of rules out a breeding program, but still makes for an awesome rare addition.
  • My Transhuman colonist is glowing with pride. Her specialities are +Shooting (14), ++Melee(8), +Mining(13), +and Cooking(12). After installing the bionic leg, advanced bionic leg, bionic spine, bionic heart, and bionic eye - she has a large permanent mood boost. This makes me wonder about the possibilities of forming a colony of pure Transhumanists that pushes hard for quick research and development of that so I can turn them all into cyborgs. I also stuck her in my first and only suit of plate armor. She looks the part :D
  • While I didn't want to waste a lot of Granite on traps, I see the difference now. Wood traps are fairly weak and it can take two or three to incapacitate someone. A granite trap, though, knocks most people right out or kills them. Given the ability to grow wood everywhere, I'm considering trapping large swaths of the raid entrances to weaken them before they ever get to me. I don't mind finishing with sniper rifles.
  • I figured out how to get my Pacifists to fight. I assign all of my war dogs to him, and use him to flank, running around behind enemy lines with the dogs chasing him. As soon as the enemies are engaged with my entrenched defenses, the dogs get set loose to rip them up and chase them out. Best. Pacifist. Ever!
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Re: RimWorld (New DF-like)

Post by Sepiche »

Paingod wrote: Fri Oct 26, 2018 7:51 am Last night I learned what happens when you have too many animals and not enough farmland... and the results were not cool.
heh When you posted that I almost mentioned my experience with animals was they were useful, but eat a LOT of food, but I thought maybe the mechanics had changed. :P
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Re: RimWorld (New DF-like)

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Sepiche wrote: Fri Oct 26, 2018 4:09 pm
Paingod wrote: Fri Oct 26, 2018 7:51 am Last night I learned what happens when you have too many animals and not enough farmland... and the results were not cool.
heh When you posted that I almost mentioned my experience with animals was they were useful, but eat a LOT of food, but I thought maybe the mechanics had changed. :P
No. Not changed at all, as far as I'm concerned.

A Thrumbo eats 5 squares of vegetation per day and has a tremendous appetite. Wargs only eat carcasses and meat. Wolves and dogs will eat kibble and other mixed goods. Dromedaries and Alpacas (my pack animals) travel with me for "free" only as long as there's grass growing outside, otherwise I need to bring hay. I did get my situation sorted out by selling off -all- of my Alpacas (I keep getting them for free from Animal Handling, 20 skill is a 96% chance to tame), so they're a come-an-go profit center. Having nothing better to do with their wool, I make Parkas that my people don't use because they prefer Devilstrand Dusters ... but they sell well.

Continued list of interesting things in my colony so far...
  • My Transhumanist is complete. Well, as complete as I can make her. Bionic or Advanced limbs, she has everything I can scrounge - 2 legs, 2 eyes, 2 ears, 2 arms, a heart, a spine, and a stomach. The only thing left are a couple brain implants I'm not sure about. There's a pain inhibitor, but it warns that if you get hurt you can be hurt badly because you can't feel it. There's also a Joywire, which makes the colonist happy all the time, but ruins their concentration. I send this person out as a community representative to sell off excess goods, mostly because she moves faster than anyone else I have and her stomach makes her food efficient - but also because I'm sure she looks intimidating as hell.
  • On the flip side of Transhuman are Body Purists. They abhor artificial limbs on their perfect skin. My level 20 Animal trainer is such a person. She also suffered a catastrophic injury trying to tame a wolf - it snapped at her and literally ripped her leg off. I let her hobble around for a while on one leg, but it seemed wrong - so against her objections I installed a Prosthetic limb. She hated it. Then she lost her other leg in a Synth attack. Destroyed, but not severed. I had to amputate it and stuck a Bionic one on there. Between hating her legs and being pissed that I sold off animals she was bonded to, she's become my most volatile colonist - frequently throwing tantrums and assaulting people. Last night she even went on a Slaughter spree and killed two Husky puppies before she calmed down. :shock: ... Hm. Maybe I should jam the Joywire into her head... ?
  • I cleaned house on my Alpacas and trimmed back to "just" 10 war dogs (Huskies). I did pick up a few Camels, and they're breeding - but they're superior in every way for caravan work and are worth it ... plus they almost never seem to spawn on the map, where I get a herd of Alpacas weekly.
  • I set up a beautiful hydroponics array inside my mountain stronghold. It yeilded several harvests of fast-growing food before it exploded with the largest swarm of megaspiders I've ever seen. Before I could even rally my soldiers at a crossroads to hack through the things, they had destroyed every single one of the hydroponics bays and the grow light. Most expensive failure ever. This was the third - and by far largest - Infestation event I've had and it makes me wonder if I'm approaching the base wrong. I know the inside of a mountain keeps me safe from mortar fire and other natural disasters - but the infestation price is pretty damn steep. I'm wondering if I need to dig out special large empty rooms in hopes that the spiders will move into them instead of the rest of my base.
  • My master builder tried his hand at making a Royal Bed. It requires something like 5000 labor (about a week's work) and incorporates a fair amount of gold. His first attempt (I queued two) came out as a Masterwork. I stuck it in his bedroom as a reward. The other came out as Good quality... still acceptable. Very cool. Later on, though, one of my colonists snapped and went on a destructive spree. His first target was that Masterwork gold bed. I barely got my builder there in time to repair it and prevent it from being destroyed - but apparently when someone snaps, they don't stop attacking something until it's destroyed. After fixing it for half a day, I called in my Transhuman enforcer to thump the guy and arrest him. Problem solved.
  • I really don't dig the Synth attacks that drop out of the sky anywhere. It's not funny or cute in any way to have them land safely inside my farmland and start killing livestock.
I'm considering an interior overhaul. My base has grown somewhat organically, but always seems short of space and inefficient. Power is spotty, defenses need updating, and my freezer is a bad joke. That might be tonight's project.
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Re: RimWorld (New DF-like)

Post by Unagi »

your making me need to play yet again. and I should, as I played throughout dev...


Regarding your infestation problems, I am pretty sure this is a thing: If you improve the floors (I think wood floors, or even just smoothing the stone) and the insects will not pop up in that space.

Fairly sure that's a thing.
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Re: RimWorld (New DF-like)

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Unagi wrote: Mon Oct 29, 2018 11:07 am Regarding your infestation problems, I am pretty sure this is a thing: If you improve the floors (I think wood floors, or even just smoothing the stone) and the insects will not pop up in that space.

Fairly sure that's a thing.
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Re: RimWorld (New DF-like)

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https://rimworldwiki.com/wiki/Infestation
Insect hives spawn in an area below an Overhead Mountain and within 30 tiles of a colony structure. Other factors such as rock walls and light have some influence on their spawn point of choice. Temperatures under -8°C gradually reduce the spawn chances, with the chance dropping to zero at -17°C. A well-lit base discourages insects from nesting, though it can still happen. If you bait insects to spawn elsewhere the chance of an infestation spawning inside is greatly reduced. Neither heat nor floors have any bearing on hive spawning.

If the hives are kept intact, they will reproduce progressively. If all Megaspiders or Spelopedes are killed, the hives will deteriorate due to lack of maintenance.
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Re: RimWorld (New DF-like)

Post by Unagi »

well thanks for correcting that wrong thought !!

TBH, I turn off infestations.
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Re: RimWorld (New DF-like)

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My first infestation cropped up in a bedroom; marble tile floor, well lit. My last infestation popped up in my hydroponics room; marble tile floor, sun lamp. Both areas were well developed, well lit, and nests pushed up through furniture.

I don't have any openings within 30 tiles that aren't occupied. That really sounds like I need to create a space deep inside the mountain with rows of traps leading to it, and keep it dark to try and encourage the infestations to hit there if they need to hit anywhere.

If there was some option to pour resources into flooring to prevent infestations, I'd take it. It really bugs me (har har) since I keep everything sensitive inside there.
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Re: RimWorld (New DF-like)

Post by Sepiche »

In addition to just turning them off, there's also a mod that adds infestation bait. A bait item you can place that will be the spawn point of the insects if the infestation event fires.
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Re: RimWorld (New DF-like)

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Sepiche wrote: Mon Oct 29, 2018 2:20 pm...there's also a mod that adds infestation bait. A bait item you can place that will be the spawn point of the insects if the infestation event fires.
I'll have to look for that. I don't mind swarms of predators in my base - I'm more bothered by having to rebuild an entire Hydroponics bay. It's not that I can't, it's just that it's an uncontrollable annoyance that doesn't really add to the fun at all.
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Re: RimWorld (New DF-like)

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Paingod wrote: Mon Oct 29, 2018 2:59 pm
Sepiche wrote: Mon Oct 29, 2018 2:20 pm...there's also a mod that adds infestation bait. A bait item you can place that will be the spawn point of the insects if the infestation event fires.
I'll have to look for that. I don't mind swarms of predators in my base - I'm more bothered by having to rebuild an entire Hydroponics bay. It's not that I can't, it's just that it's an uncontrollable annoyance that doesn't really add to the fun at all.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/ ... 1541249195

Yeah, I agree. Tynan added it at one point to counter bases built into mountains being too secure, but I don't think it really solves the issue and adds a lot of not very fun randomness.
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Re: RimWorld (New DF-like)

Post by Paingod »

It's strange that mountain bases needed a counter. They suffer travel time issues for caravans, have less farmland, and fewer safe spots for some things - like solar panels. As an added bonus/penalty, when you're attacked it's a guarantee that your people will be well away from the invaders. My colonists hardly ever get to my defensive lines fast enough to start shooting before the first wave starts getting plucked by turrets. The big benefit is against mortars.

For giggles I paused my current colony with a fresh save and started a "plains" colony. I've never not had a mountain base. Everyone is a Transhumanist (I'm envisioning a tribe that idolizes and fears the Synths, wanting to be like them) and I'm building my base dead-center in the middle of the map. Very little rock to mine, lots of plants to work with. I look forward to buying a lot of granite from traders to build up my base... and it should be nice to have everyone be able to run to a fortification quickly before invaders get to the front lines. I even located specifically to encourage more trade and caravan stuff. I'm planning on skipping the dozen war Huskies that I always felt bad about getting hurt and just focusing on Alpacas and/or Camels. They did start with a Warg, which I don't mind fighting with. The colony is desperately low on shooting skills, which is fine early on but could hurt later.
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Re: RimWorld (New DF-like)

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My sample Transhumanist tribe in the plains is doing poorly - or maybe I'm not pushing the right buttons. I've got a remedial base built up - out of wood - and am slowly plodding through the research tree (at double the normal cost for being Tribal)... and my colonists are constantly getting chewed up, infected, and angry. One guy keeps rampaging and beating my prisoners, which worked I guess since after a beating one of them immediately joined up.

The first winter is upon us, and food stocks have already run out. I was barely able to build a set of Parkas, Pants, and Shirts for everyone before the first snowfall, but at least they're warm. Alpaca wool is what everyone is wearing. I have a small herd of them (again) because they serve to provide both clothing and food in an emergency. I think they make good early-game animals. One quick issue I'm having is people bonding with these things, which is going to make their sale/slaughter problematic. It also means they keep following colonists into battle, despite not being battle-hardened animals.

I'm thinking of building my base as a large keep, with a courtyard that contains solar panels and some crops - so when someone wants to go "outside" they can do it safely.

Fun fact: Eggs count as "Meat" and Wargs will eat it for food. I was hoping they'd instead chow down on the corpse pile I've started, but I haven't noticed them doing that.
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Re: RimWorld (New DF-like)

Post by Sepiche »

Yeah, it seems manageable at first, but the tribal start is deceptively hard. They lack access to a lot of things that make the early game a little easier and without a good game plan it can be rough.
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Re: RimWorld (New DF-like)

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Sepiche wrote: Thu Nov 01, 2018 10:49 am Yeah, it seems manageable at first, but the tribal start is deceptively hard. They lack access to a lot of things that make the early game a little easier and without a good game plan it can be rough.
After the first few seasons, though, you're kind of caught up to where shipwrecked colonists would be, technologically. From there it just costs twice as much to research everything, which isn't a huge burden with a level 20 Researcher... :D

My colony did suffer a setback, though. I picked someone with a Arterial Blockage (Minor). It's no joke, and you should never start with someone like that. They just have a percentage chance to up and die at any time, apparently. He went into cardiac arrest after a few months and despite my mediocre medic throwing pretty much all of my healing items at him, he never recovered and died. Colonists were harvesting and scrounging plants, stuffing them into his orifices as quick as they could. He expired with a pleasant herbal scent.

I caved in and collected a few mods to help improve quality of life and do things that just made sense. From hand-crafting my starting colonists (no more rerolling a thousand times) to creating tilled soil for growing to prosthetic operations for animals and a few things in between. No obvious cheating.

The EdB Prepare Carefully mod lets you create colonists by hand, which is close to cheating, but really just saves time since I've always been willing to obsessively reroll them. Now I can have that Transhumanist/Brawler/Jogger that I always tried to get, or an Industrious/Quick Sleeping crafter. The mod even has a "Points Mode" that you can use to limit yourself so you don't draft a crew of demigods that all start with 20 skill across the board.

I was considering the Psychology mod, too, but didn't want to spend more time in my colonists heads and instead wanted to focus more on building and survival.
Last edited by Paingod on Thu Nov 01, 2018 11:29 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: RimWorld (New DF-like)

Post by Sepiche »

I'm the same way... I like to keep around just a few mods that save me time or just make things play a little more smoothly.

Here's the ones I'm running now for the record:
SF [v1.0] Rain Removes All Filth (Rain cleans things outdoors)
While You're Up [1.0] (When pawns finish a task, they look around for any hauling tasks near where they are headed next)
Color Coded Mood Bar (Just color codes the pawn backgrounds for easier reference)
Tilled Soil (Ability to make good soil anywhere)
Defensive Positions (Lets you save map locations for each pawn and send them there with a button click)
Misc. Training (Adds melee and shooting targets. Pawns will use them for recreation and train their skills at the same time)
EdB Prepare Carefully
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Paingod
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Re: RimWorld (New DF-like)

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Sepiche wrote: Thu Nov 01, 2018 11:13 amDefensive Positions (Lets you save map locations for each pawn and send them there with a button click)
Misc. Training (Adds melee and shooting targets. Pawns will use them for recreation and train their skills at the same time)
I looked at these two but wasn't sure. With my bases, I don't have a single point of entry, and attacks can happen from several angles - so I didn't think there'd be huge value in Defensive Positions.

Misc. Training is interesting and I'll have to look at it a second time. It is frustrating to have someone with 3 skill in shooting taking up a crucial defensive slot, missing everything they fire at, and it would be nice to give them something to do to improve that. I've been using Hunting as a means for boosting Shooting skill for everyone. With my limited tech, food is scarce anyway, so hunting down pretty much everything on the map makes sense. In the winter months most of my people are working on Shooting to survive... :D

*Edit: I went back and looked at Misc. Training again and was wondering what you did to stop your colonists from trying to repair the dummies and walls - and thus not blunder into the line of fire, getting shot.
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Re: RimWorld (New DF-like)

Post by Sepiche »

Paingod wrote: Thu Nov 01, 2018 11:34 am I looked at these two but wasn't sure. With my bases, I don't have a single point of entry, and attacks can happen from several angles - so I didn't think there'd be huge value in Defensive Positions.
Yeah, more useful if you have a single chokepoint. I do generally try to make sure to build walls and use the natural terrain of an area to make sure I have a single chokepoint as soon as I can on a given map.
Paingod wrote: Thu Nov 01, 2018 11:34 am *Edit: I went back and looked at Misc. Training again and was wondering what you did to stop your colonists from trying to repair the dummies and walls - and thus not blunder into the line of fire, getting shot.
I don't think they get damaged, and I have them over to the side where no one really walks over and gets in the way. At least I haven't had any problems with that as long as I've been using them. They don't train up a lot each time, but over time it's at least a safe way to get some of your weaker shooters to improve.
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Re: RimWorld (New DF-like)

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I think a key attribute for a researcher isn't just a Burning Passion for it - but also Industrious. I swear my new guy is spinning out upgrades faster than anyone else I've ever had doing it. He minors in Art, too - so when he's researched everything, he can keep on keeping on.

My little colony is growing, slowly. Raids seem more frequent, as do bits of my people being shot off. I'm missing a few fingers and toes, and have one Destroyed leg to contend with. Again, these are all on people who are itching to get Bionic limbs, so I'm not overly concerned. I'm more worried about finding enough advanced parts to make Bionics or buying Bionic/Advanced limbs on the market. My one Melee person has a Power Claw, which sounds cool... but according to the description, it isn't compatible with a regular bionic arm.

My biggest issues last night were contending with a long winter - 30 days of no growing - and my best builder was laid low by some kind of mechanite infection that exhausted him - he had to sleep twice as often for a week or more. My melee animal handler (don't know why I didn't think of it earlier) is a lot of fun to run out on the flanks. Once she gets behind the enemies attacking my crew, I unleash the Wargs of War and send her in. Sometimes no one makes it out alive when they break and run.

I've started replacing my original wooden walls with stone, but it's slow going. It'll be nice to not live in fear of fire so much... The courtyard setup has been nice to keep farming in a centralized place, and I got in the Tilled Soil under it to make it more efficient. I may not need to go to Grow Lights at all as long as I can build up a stockpile of food for winters. The courtyard contains 4 20x20 growing plots that I section up into different crops and material components (wood, devilstrand, cotton, hops)
Sepiche wrote: Thu Nov 01, 2018 11:54 am...single chokepoint. I do generally try to make sure to build walls and use the natural terrain of an area to make sure I have a single chokepoint as soon as I can on a given map.
I'll have to check out guides/maps/walkthroughs on building good defenses for centralize non-mountain bases. I'm not sure what I want to do for an outer perimeter. I know I need to build *something* but I have four sides to contend with. I've had Raids spawn at each of the four sides. The map is almost completely open with only small hills of stone here and there - absolutely no natural fortifications or choke points to work with. I'm not so sure they'd willingly walk all around the map to find a single opening. Certainly not if they had Sappers.

Maybe I can build a large U shaped wall around my base and then build up a three-way facing fortification on the fourth side there, like a hardened entrance. I have a couple thousand spare logs. I could try out a wooden perimeter wall to see how it holds up before investing in a granite one.

My base is exactly dead-center in the map. I used the Planning tool to measure out 230 squares from one buildable edge to the other, and drew down lines at 115 squares from each side to the middle. That gives me a crossroads in the middle where I've build a nice 2-wide concrete pathway going in each direction, hopefully acting as a central movement hub around the base. I find symmetry satisfying and am working to make my base as symmetrical yet as efficient as I can envision it. The geothermal vents throw that off - but I'll live with it.
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Re: RimWorld (New DF-like)

Post by Sepiche »

The trick to Rimworld defense is knowing that if you completely seal off your base behind walls and doors the raiders will pick a random spot in your wall and attack through it, but if you leave them any path through to your base, they will ignore all other walls and doors and take that path.

TL;DR: Build a wall around your base, but leave one part open. Fortify the opening with traps and bunkers for defense, and attackers will almost always attack you through the chokepoint.

The exceptions are sapper attacks who will usually cut a path in no matter what, and raids that drop troops on you will always drop right on your doorstep, so be ready for those with some internal defenses.
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Re: RimWorld (New DF-like)

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Sepiche wrote: Fri Nov 02, 2018 10:16 am The trick to Rimworld defense is knowing that if you completely seal off your base behind walls and doors the raiders will pick a random spot in your wall and attack through it, but if you leave them any path through to your base, they will ignore all other walls and doors and take that path.
Around ignoring all other ways into the base except the opening... I think I read on Reddit that they simply look for the "Path of Least Resistance" to get in (I'm guessing they're probably aimed at your richest store room). This means I should be able to use double granite doors for my perimeter to let my own forces out, and keep a flimsy wooden door as the "Main Entrance" ... it sounds good, in theory. Theory.

Since I created a "choke point" I've noticed a huge uptick in assaults directly into my base using drop pods and sapper squads. I mean, I wasn't seeing this at -all- before I built my wall. Now that I've got a 2x wall around my territory with a wide opening/kill zone, I've gotten a number of drops directly into my base. Synths and Mercs ... and literally INSIDE my base. Last night one Mercenary company partially crashed through the roof of my store room, set fire to the place, and tried to make of with a pile of Gold and an AI Core. Before that, a group of Synths landed inside my courtyard farms. I think, since I built my wall, I've had three drop pod attacks and two sapper squads. Additionally, Manhunter attacks don't seem to care about the entrance and mill around the wall nearest where they spawned, waiting for me to come out.

So now I'm understanding the balance made for Infestations and mountain bases, and I have a renewed respect for the mountain base. This open base design is becoming tedious to defend - since my defenses aren't working. I've just made a nice looking wall that the game circumvents at every opportunity. I think what I need to do is go back to a decentralized defense with turrets/autocannons on each of the four sides - or pack up my group and caravan to somewhere safer, like a mountain. I shudder to think of the livestock I'd need to move everything. Sidenote: The Infestation Bait mod lets you set the chance it will invoke the spawn on itself - and starts at 50%. I set it to 100%. It's not much good to me if spawns are half-likely to ravage sensitive rooms.

My Warg breeding operation has paid off in spades. I typically have anywhere from 15 to 20 of them at any given time, with at least 10 of them fully combat trained. By themselves, the Warg patrol can route some groups and make mince-meat of a Synth group. I might just need to refit them with Bionic bits after the fight - a mod, not in the base game. The mod also lets me make replacement body parts for non-bionic components, like tails and noses using Medkits and Synthetic Thread, so I'm able to keep my combat animals in tip-top shape.

I'm using just -one- trainer, and she's bonding/running the animals smoothly. It's all she does. She's even a competent Medic, tending her animals after fights to help prevent Doctor bonding... while the regular Doc tends the colonists. I do have four Rhinos. I'm not entirely sold on them - but I do like that they can feed for free on the road, have huge health pools, and live for 45 years. They do about as much damage and move as fast as a Warg does, but have slightly better armor piercing and are far filthier - so I have to keep them out of the house proper. I think the Rhino would make better Bionic recipients, given their prolonged lifespans. I felt a little bad uninstalling a Bionic limb from one of my Wargs just because it had turned 15 and could die naturally at any time.

I'm still struggling to find a good way to manage my animals. They make a HUGE mess if let inside, but I can't keep feed and meat outside or it'll rot. I don't want the Wargs hunting for food, or I'll have to repair them periodically when they botch a Deer hunt or something... so I'm left trying to find ways to keep them in restricted zones, strict pathways, and mostly outside in my open spaces. Their indoor beds are near exits to help keep the mess down.

A couple other highlights.
  • I managed to acquire a small pile of Jade and turned it into a Legendary Jade Royal Bed. I waited until I had a Creative Inspiration on my world-renowned master builder and he spent three days putting it together. I was hoping for a Masterwork, but exceeded my own expectations. It's got a 168% sleep speed modifier, and the colonist I assigned it to gets up about 3 hours earlier than everyone else. Sweet! Oddly, the artwork is simple - a sad pirate...
  • All of my Transhumanists have at least one bionic part. Turned all their frowns upside down from -4 Mood for being frustrated to +4 Mood for having synthetic parts.
  • Gut Worms ravaged my colonists for days on end - except the ones with Bionic Stomachs. I'm guessing this is the first Bionic part I'll be making for all of them as soon as research and components permit it. I did a little math on it, and I think it's actually more costly for me to produce my own bionics than it is to buy them outright - but I can decide which I get.
  • Any colonist with less than 10 Shooting skill is assigned high priority as a Hunter until they figure it out. As a result, I have a lot of crack shots and very little dead weight in combat. I didn't get the training dummies as I'd rather get food out of the deal as well. Side note, assigning a couple Wargs to accompany Hunters helps thwart random Revenge attacks.
  • I accidentally made an instant enemy out of the only friendly "Advanced" faction on the world that would sell me Bionic parts. I did this by Capturing someone that fell out of a transport pod without checking who they belonged to first. I went from something like +15 Relations to -75 instantly.
  • To make amends for this, I told them to screw off and went to visit my biggest enemy - who has a large number of advanced cities I've been unable to trade with. I brought along every extra doodad and animal I had in my colony to try and appease them. It worked. A gift of a dozen Wargs, half dozen Alpacas, a few pieces of Art, and a pile of clothing left them virtually allied with me and opened a whole new market for bionics for me to peruse. I don't know if they're going to slip back into hostiles over time, but I'm willing to expend the resources to keep the markets open.
  • I discovered that Geothermal generators run HOT. I was baffled why some of my colonists were suffering heat stroke at night when they slept, and it turned out that I had walled in and enclosed the generator in the broad space they occupied That whole side of the base was consistently over 120ºF. The wall vents I had set up to keep their rooms heated/cooled were blasting hot air. After walling that off and venting the heat outside (to be safe), they stopped nearly dying while trying to sleep. :shock: ... On the other hand, maybe that can help heat other bases if I can funnel the heat into a sealed passage? Hm.
My base. The crossroads in the middle courtyard is the dead center of the 275x275 map.
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Re: RimWorld (New DF-like)

Post by Citizen »

Nice looking base. I like the idea of a rhino posse. How many winters have you survived? I usually play in Randy random on rough setting and don't usually survive more than 2 winters before tragedy strikes.
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Re: RimWorld (New DF-like)

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Citizen wrote: Mon Nov 05, 2018 1:05 pmNice looking base. I like the idea of a rhino posse. How many winters have you survived? I usually play in Randy random on rough setting and don't usually survive more than 2 winters before tragedy strikes.
The concept of Randy kind of scares the pants off me. I've only ever played on the Cassandra/Medium setting. I'm currently successfully past my third winter and the game keeps ratcheting up the raid difficulties and other events.

In three game years' worth of play...
  • If I'm attacked by Synths, it's 2-3 humanoids and 1-2 caterpillars (total of 4 enemies). It's been this way since the beginning.
  • Raids slowly worked up from 1 attacker to where I'm swarmed now with maybe 15 of them. Sometimes they come from different directions, or split up and try to flank/tunnel in two different places. Until my wall was finished, I hadn't had a drop-pod attack hit me.
  • Manhunter Packs were cute when it was 3 squirrels. Last night I was swarmed with 15 Foxes in one assault, and maybe 7 Wargs in another. Seriously dangerous numbers.
  • In my last base, a mountain stronghold, Infestations started with 2-3 hives and maybe 5-6 bugs. After two years there were at least 15 bugs that poured out of 4-6 hives... after they destroyed all the furnishings and valuable production facilities near them.
  • When I send out a trade caravan, I use two or three people and a lot of pack animals. Ambushes are never more than 1-2 people or animals.
  • World quests like Rescue, Item Find, and Base Assault ave enemies counting 4-6 in total.
I will admit that I think I know enough about the game now that I'd probably be comfortable dialing up the difficulty a notch - but I still don't know if I'm ready for Randy. I've never looked too closely at what he does, but the sound of "Anything, Any Time" doesn't sound easy. In fact, it sounds essentially like you'd rely on luck instead of skill to survive.
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Re: RimWorld (New DF-like)

Post by Fitzy »

How are the quests? I ignored them last time I played as I was always running on the edge of survival anyway. Sending out people seemed like a good way to get wiped. Yet, I was curious.
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Re: RimWorld (New DF-like)

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Fitzy wrote: Tue Nov 06, 2018 9:20 am How are the quests? I ignored them last time I played as I was always running on the edge of survival anyway. Sending out people seemed like a good way to get wiped. Yet, I was curious.
They certainly are a good way to get wiped. It seems that I unerringly get attacked a few times while the trade/mission caravan is out. I never send more than I think I absolutely need. If the mission says there's 6 guards, I can probably handle it with 3 colonists.

It's kind of neat to be on the flip side. The maps are typically small, and enemy bases often have one or two small turrets to contend with and 2-4 tiny buildings (maybe 5x7 squares). Since you're the attacker, you can take as long as you want setting up your position and ambush, pulling the group by knocking out or killing someone. Sometimes a rescue mission results in an ambush - the strangest ambush I had was something like 12 Yorkies running at me from two directions. If you don't think you can handle it, you can escape the mission by moving to the edge of the map (something you can do accidentally, too).

Often when I send a caravan out, I'll run a couple missions and then hit two or three towns to trade goods and sell off animals. The "tribal" markers (Teepees) purchase a lot, but tend to have limited funds and don't sell advanced goods. The "colony" markers (Houses) buy more, have more money, and sell more advanced goods - like bionics and special crafted items.
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