RimWorld - Damned Colonists in Space

[circ]

Easiest because I like to build. I'd imagine harder difficulties follow the rule of - add more HP because LOOOL, more enemies, and they probably try to flank you so you're more likely to want to build a base surrounded by obstacles. What's the difference.

I turned some of the annoying shit off - maniac animals constantly bullshitting you. I mean it's a little variety but to have a deer YOLOing all the time gets annoying. If they did something else it might be interesting, but the current mode is just yawn.

Quite a lot of things can happen:
-Sieges where they just build up mortars and bombard your happy little settlement to pieces
-Tunnelers that instead of running towards your most likely well-fortified entrance just dig/blow their way into it
-Space-Pirates literally drop into your backyard with drop-pods

Not to mention that a lot of times they are vastly outnumbering and outgunning you in regards to decent shooters, quality of armor/weaponry, and will often send in their melee fighters with personal shields first. Or maybe they just set fire to everything and smoke you out. As Zombra mentioned, you cant really be surprised that the game is easy on easy.

I've had all those things happen on easy, when my riches became too tempting perhaps. I've been using concrete floors around buildings for a while now, putting down traps for tunnelers - when that became an issue, etc.

Anyway. I was gonna launch into space finally with a group, but first one guy goes on a drug binge because I didn't check his stats carefully before buying, so he's now in cryo , and two, no one has a fucking AI core for sale.

I also finally noticed that skills degrade when not used. I could understand this dumbfuckery if they're maxed out, but eesh, not even at the mid-way level? Nigga come on.

Also, is there a gamu like this, but without the sci-fi? Just wilderness survival, building huts and barefly functional spears or whathaveyou, no space ships, no toilets that wipe your ass, top-down.

 

[Kev Inkline]

Also, is there a gamu like this, but without the sci-fi? Just wilderness survival, building huts and barefly functional spears or whathaveyou, no space ships, no toilets that wipe your ass, top-down.

You know, Dwarf Fortress.

 

[Zombra]

Also, is there a gamu like this, but without the sci-fi? Just wilderness survival, building huts and barefly functional spears or whathaveyou, no space ships, no toilets that wipe your ass, top-down.

There is also ... this very game, on tribal mode.

 

[circ]

Also, is there a gamu like this, but without the sci-fi? Just wilderness survival, building huts and barefly functional spears or whathaveyou, no space ships, no toilets that wipe your ass, top-down.

There is also ... this very game, on tribal mode.

Em. Doesn't that still have space-age materials, mechanoids, and eventually you can even research things like solar panels? I was thinking more to the tune of - starting tribal, staying tribal.

 

[Zombra]

Also, is there a gamu like this, but without the sci-fi? Just wilderness survival, building huts and barefly functional spears or whathaveyou, no space ships, no toilets that wipe your ass, top-down.

There is also ... this very game, on tribal mode.

Em. Doesn't that still have space-age materials, mechanoids, and eventually you can even research things like solar panels? I was thinking more to the tune of - starting tribal, staying tribal.

There's a mod for that.

 

[circ]

Holy shit what's the mod jackhole?

 

[Saark]

I've had all those things happen on easy, when my riches became too tempting perhaps. I've been using concrete floors around buildings for a while now, putting down traps for tunnelers - when that became an issue, etc.

The difference in difficulty isnt coming from one encounter though. While all these things happen on easy, they are far more spaced out, and so is all the other shit that happens regularly on higher difficulties. That means some of your people may still be injured, or are otherwise occupied.

Ever had a 30 people melee-raid while a solar flare happened so your turrets were disabled, with half your colony lying in bed with malaria, while the other half that can still fight misses almost all of their shots because they can barely keep conciousness due to infection because last week you had an infestation with 6 hives where your medicine18 doctor died, and the remaining ones couldn't keep up with cleaning wounds/injuries because 6 months ago a blight destroyed all your healing-crops and you're out of medicine.

It's the combination of shit that makes stuff difficult, not a single one. And believe me, what looks like an unfortunate amount of conincidences leading to having your colony wiped out, is really just another tuesday.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Had to restart quite a few times ... the game trolled me with some truly shit starting crews as well, like only having one person willing to do manual labour, and it being the same person that can do all the important skill based stuff while some douche sheriff just pisses everyone off and contributes nothing and the other is a worthless pop idol. ... I feel like having 5 bodies from the start would take a lot of the shitty RNG out of the equation.

FWIW you can reroll individual colonists before game start. Completely randomized assholes or dream team scientist/farmer/crafter is up to you.

Yeah but then I'd be too tempted to min/max my starting team, and there's way too much room for that between the learning rates and quirks. Would rather go full random. My current run started with a pretty awful character- drug addicted, greedy, woman hating botanist on a team with 2 women. Annoying fucker is constantly having mental breakdowns and can't be arsed to clean his own fucking bedroom (which still isn't big enough for him, he's really needy.) Still, it keeps things interesting trying to work around him, and the other colonists I started with, wandered in, or captured (awesome feature) are piling up and some are quite excellent.

 

[Zombra]

Holy shit what's the mod jackhole?

I don't know, I assume there is one since there's a mod for everything and his dog. Look it up.

Would rather go full random. My current run started with a pretty awful character- drug addicted, greedy, woman hating botanist on a team with 2 women. Annoying fucker is constantly having mental breakdowns and can't be arsed to clean his own fucking bedroom.

You are playing it right.

 

[circ]

A little hint on how to get people cleaning more likely unless you use manual work toggle. Use zones to clear up home areas you don't care about like a graveyard, dump zone, corpse dump whatevs. Also use zones to limit pet animal movement, and set their zone to that one in the animals tab. They dirty up shit more than anything else. Once that's done keep them [colonists] at their one specialist job that hopefully isn't one that has them working constantly, or mining or something - they'll clean around idle times. If you want to get really anal, build a separate barn for animal feed and limit them to access to only that and some grazing ground or something.

 

[Damned Registrations]

So after playing some more, I've noticed the game is yo-yoing between fucking impossible and cakewalk- first I get a wave of pirates with grenades (which are retarded btw, fucking infinite grenades? Wtf) like every day for a week until I lose my doctor and get a bunch of people permanently crippled, then I get nothing but cargo drops and sunshine for a week, with one 'raid' from a tribe with bows and clubs that was basically donating themselves to my prison. Then, after my base is finally sort of patched up again I start getting more raids from well armed groups. Is this a thing because of the 'storyteller'? Trying to make the colony never get wiped out but never grow either? Because that's pretty fucking lame. I've had the colony running for like 2 years now and I still only have like 6 people- I've lost like 4 or 5 by now. I can't expand because I literally ran out of components and stone dealing with all the fucking damage from cunts with grenades. I can't grow crops because I get like 3 days of good weather a year and the power grid explodes constantly, when it doesn't just shut off or get strangled due to lack of wind or sun. My characters spend basically all available labour cooking, making clothing, and repairing walls and they're still in tatters on all fronts.

Edit: Also, can I change a setting somewhere so dropped weapons won't be forbidden? Half my arsenal has gone to shit because every time someone goes for a sad walk they drop their fucking gun in the dirt and it sits there and rots until I stumble across it ages later and unforbid it.

 

[Zombra]

I've noticed the game is yo-yoing between fucking impossible and cakewalk- is this a thing because of the 'storyteller'? Trying to make the colony never get wiped out but never grow either?

Yes. This game takes the concept of level scaling to incredible new heights (or depths). There's a reason you can't grow your colony to more than 6 guys for example. If this is a dealbreaker for you, get out now now now because it's foundational to the design.

Edit: Also, can I change a setting somewhere so dropped weapons won't be forbidden? Half my arsenal has gone to shit because every time someone goes for a sad walk they drop their fucking gun in the dirt and it sits there and rots until I stumble across it ages later and unforbid it.

I hate that too. If you find a switch for it please let us know.

 

[Zombra]

global unforbid command

Never knew this existed! What is it?

 

[Saark]

So after playing some more, I've noticed the game is yo-yoing between fucking impossible and cakewalk- first I get a wave of pirates with grenades (which are retarded btw, fucking infinite grenades? Wtf) like every day for a week until I lose my doctor and get a bunch of people permanently crippled, then I get nothing but cargo drops and sunshine for a week, with one 'raid' from a tribe with bows and clubs that was basically donating themselves to my prison. Then, after my base is finally sort of patched up again I start getting more raids from well armed groups. Is this a thing because of the 'storyteller'? Trying to make the colony never get wiped out but never grow either? Because that's pretty fucking lame. I've had the colony running for like 2 years now and I still only have like 6 people- I've lost like 4 or 5 by now. I can't expand because I literally ran out of components and stone dealing with all the fucking damage from cunts with grenades. I can't grow crops because I get like 3 days of good weather a year and the power grid explodes constantly, when it doesn't just shut off or get strangled due to lack of wind or sun. My characters spend basically all available labour cooking, making clothing, and repairing walls and they're still in tatters on all fronts.

Sounds like randy random, who can fuck you over in a week or not be challenging at all for a whole year. Might also just be a shit seed with 2 hostile tribes and only 1 hostile pirate/raider base instead of 1/2 respectively?
I also had issues with my power grid exploding constantly until I stopped linking all my stuff to the same grid. Instead I now have multiple ones with seperate batteries, keeps the "active" energy smaller and less explosions happen. Also makes for smaller explosions when a battery overloads, I learned that one the hard way after I had a 24battery powergrid overload and blow half my colony to pieces. Most stuff only gets used during the day so you might aswell link those machines/workshops to solarpower, noone gives a fuck about them not working during the night.

If you cannot grow your colony past a couple of guys try buying new people from slave-traders or when there's a particularly shitty raid send your people in with clubs. Stay away from high-powered weapons like rifles, those almost always kill their target rather than just cripple them. Turrets also suck since they dont stop shooting unless turned off.
I generally have 2-3 people with pistols and one brawler so the last few raiders just get shot with pistols and kited. They either fall unconcious from the blood-loss or try to retreat which is where they get a club to the face. Makes for 4-5 prisoners per raid, usually 1-2 are easily recruitable. Check for the ones that you can recruit quickly, all the others get harvested for organs or released. Or both. Either way I try to minimize prisoners since most of the 1% recruitment chance guys will sit there forever just being a waste of space, energy and food.

If you have a lot of menial tasks that need to be done, get some slaves to do it for you. Having a dedicated janitor saves all of your other colonists a lot of time for example.

If you're still lacking manpower... Unearth an ancient evil and hope for the best.

 

[Damned Registrations]

I think it's probably time for me to start a new colony anyways. I made a lot of mistakes in the fundamental layout of my base, I didn't realize what a huge disadvantage it would be having it near the edge of the map for example, or next to a marsh. Time to crack open some sealed buildings and see what I can find.

 

[kris]

I've noticed the game is yo-yoing between fucking impossible and cakewalk- is this a thing because of the 'storyteller'? Trying to make the colony never get wiped out but never grow either?

Yes. This game takes the concept of level scaling to incredible new heights (or depths). There's a reason you can't grow your colony to more than 6 guys for example. If this is a dealbreaker for you, get out now now now because it's foundational to the design.

I normally played mods that allowed more colonists and played on the biggest maps.

 

[orcinator]

There's a reason you can't grow your colony to more than 6 guys for example

The storyteller file clearly says the critical population size is 18 for Cassandra and a much higher number for Randy so I have no idea what you're talking about.

When I played vanilla I made it to 15 before I quit because the endgame was "wait months and months for a a merchant with plasteel or a robot attack" and everything was incredibly shallow.

 

[Johannes]

Yeah, the endgame is boring atm. When you reach a certain point of people, infra, and resources shit becomes a cakewalk. It's the process of getting there that's the tough and interesting part, when your people are still breaking down and your base isn't yet feature-complete. It's the same shit in DF too though, once you have your ready done base you can just chill.
Will see if the next version will change that, with apparently featuring map travel.


Getting plasteel wasn't that hard either I think, research the deep drilling tech and check the various mineral spots for what they contain. Finding just 1 plasteel field will last a long-ass time.

 

[you know what time it is]

Been playing a lot with hardcore modpack. Shit's pretty brutal even on Challenge. Pretty sure i'm on 20th try at this point, the best colony I ever had got to a gunpowder, but then was sieged by a huge band of raiders and fucked up the ass from afar. Went for a straight assault eventually (they already set up sandbags and other basic defenses) but got unlucky and lost my best men early in the fight.

Now I'm just chilling in tundra with a hand-tailored group of 5 dudes made after me and my friends. They fight all the time and food is scarce, so we are already making bets irl on who's gonna get eaten first.

 

[Johannes]

Been playing a lot with hardcore modpack. Shit's pretty brutal even on Challenge. Pretty sure i'm on 20th try at this point, the best colony I ever had got to a gunpowder, but then was sieged by a huge band of raiders and fucked up the ass from afar. Went for a straight assault eventually (they already set up sandbags and other basic defenses) but got unlucky and lost my best men early in the fight.

Now I'm just chilling in tundra with a hand-tailored group of 5 dudes made after me and my friends. They fight all the time and food is scarce, so we are already making bets irl on who's gonna get eaten first.

Is it some ready-made modpack or some combo you made yourself?

 

[you know what time it is]

Is it some ready-made modpack or some combo you made yourself?

Modpack - https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=12996.0 very easy to install, but you can fiddle with it and improve it to your liking. Requires an older game version though, my steam setup got updated automatically so I had to find 14e elsewhere. If you need links, lemme know.

Game is very moddable but fucks something up with every major update, so modpacks usually lag behind (they plan to up it to v15 somewhat soon though).

 

[Space Satan]

Welp. Anyway that open a way to ransom prisoners and raid for prisoners(and organs) and trade overall

 

[Space Satan]

New public testing of Alpha 15 is out. And changes are huge. Caravans, drop pods, resettlement, abandoning colonies, distant mining and other stuff I did not even encountered. Will test more after work

 

[Saark]

Can't wait to be able to pillage nearby settlements for their food, animals and women.

 

[Agesilaus]

I am not on the unstable version, but the updates make it look really, really promising. If it's not released by the weekend, I'm going to switch over and try it out.

I tested the Lovecraft Cults mod recently, and... it's interesting and well made. I don't particularly love it, and I'm going to remove it, but if you're into that Lovecraft stuff then try it out. Personally, I don't care for that theme at all. The graphics are well made, though, and it really does make for a much different game.

Specifically, I started the 5 tribesmen scenario and built a big wooden fort. Then, a settler discovered a glowing red tree and it told him to draft a tome containing strange symbols. After studying the tome, I built a temple and made some cool uniforms and an altar. Later, I researched some gods and started burning hecatombs in their honour. Before long, I had discovered that human sacrifice would result in being granted special favours from the god. So, I arrested some visitors, sacrificed them, and was showered with rare raw materials. Then I got raided, so I cast another spell to summon giant fishmen to kill my opponents. I win.

Not sure if I want to keep playing this mod, really. I could build a giant jade temple with evil statues or something, and maybe better housing for my prisoners (you need sacrificial victims on hand at any given time for monster summoning). It is a much, much different experience than the original Rimworld. I only communicated with the "Dagon" god, so I don't know what you can do with the other ones.