RimWorld - Damned Colonists in Space

So I decided to check it out after all the raving reviews and still not sure what to think of it. It's definitely a massive timesink with all the micromanagement of getting all the ingredients, food, etc. But if there was no micromanagement, there would be not much game left, so I suppose you have to like that. If I had to summarize it, I'd say it's Minecraft meets The Sims.

Also, the UI could be better. I have raw rice and a stove, but cannot figure out why they keep eating the raw rice instead of cooking it. What am I missing?

 

You have to order them to either keep cooking food indefinetly or until X number is reached in which case they'll stop until the number drops below that, you can do this from the orders tab when clicking on the stove.
Yes, it could be simplified a lot.

 

I also recommend going into food restrictions (I just change lavish instead of making new ones so new colonists default to the right shit) and disabling shit they shouldn't eat, like corpses, raw food (you can leave berries if thats convenient), and kibble. Otherwise your cook will wake up hungry, and instead of butchering and cooking the rhino your hunter brought in, will eat the raw rhino and throw a tantrum. Oh, and also disable ambrosia if you ever harvest any, so you don't fucking flowers for algernon your colony.

It's definitely a game of a million and one details that can fuck you up, but most of them are entertaining the first time around.

Like today when I discovered berries can cause food poisoning. To my caravan. Which can also contract malaria apparently. And thereby wipe out two thirds of my colony. Yay. Good to know foraging is totally fucking useless, even for a tribe when it's literally their only advantage.

 

When you ask that question it tells me you haven't really worked out the basics of how to automate your colony (which I didn't either for a long time because it's kind of an arcane system). But basically, every "workbench" has recipies that you can adjust, both in terms of what to make, what ingredients are allowed to make them, AND how many they should produce. Once you "get it" you can set everything up so your peoples will do mostly automated stuff. The last one is notably useful for letting your dudes know to stop producing once they reach a certain threshold.

You can forgo a lot of the most annoying micro by taking the time to setting up each workbench to produce desired stuff only from desired components. It's basically the same system as when you set up what's allowed in a Stockpile zone.

For me, the most annoying micro is the fundamental building material upgrading and cleaning. For the first one, destroying walls, floors etc. to put up new stuff takes a million years and I bet something like 1/3 of a playthrough comes down to just doing that. For cleaning, I think it really highlights the game's core weakness, because it's not a matter of finding the right balance: since your colony changes so much over time, you have to adjust cleaning priorities for your guys all the damned time, especially once you start putting down "roads" between your buildings.

The worst part of this is keeping your cooking area clean. It's basically impossible to do automated. If you set up cleaning schedules to where your kitchen is always clean, you'll have "overcleaning" wasting your pawns time. But if you set up cleaning lower than that, your kitchen will constantly be too dirty, even with sterile tiles. It's annoying as fuck.

So as for your overall initial sentence about how the game wouldn't be there without micro... at least it's true that this is one of those games that is infinitely more fun, somehow, than what you actually do. Moment-to-moment gameplay is often even tedious, but seeing it all come together at those progress intersections is immensely satisfying.

Still, after a couple of playthroughs I find it really hard to start a new game. Even if I know I'll enjoy it once I've got a lot of the initial stuff setup, that initial phase is just mindnumbingly boring to me.

 

Dude the "Replace Stuff" mod is the most MUST HAVE mod ever. You will be saved from all that.

 

Just use nutrient paste dispenser men

 

I want to, but it seems pretty cheaty. It saves A LOT of time.

 

Yeah but it improves a feature that , as you said yourself, is only a hassle. Of course you decide how to play your game

 

So I decided to fiddle around with replace stuff and... did they change the algorithm that gives you more chances to recruit people, specifically, transport pod drops in the expansion? In two test playthroughs I've been at 3-5 colonists for a ton of time and my only recruits have been from taking prisoners - prisoners which seem to take way more time to recruit and who are more prone to do bad shit.

I recall the opposite being the problem - getting to the cap so quickly raids could be overwhelming

 

Well, now you can recruit pretty much anyone, but more time is required.

 

I don't see how time saving is cheating. It's pretty much just an interface and convenience mod. Your colonists don't get an easier time, they still have to deconstruct a wall and then construct a new one in its place, but for you it's just one order rather than 2 orders in sequence.

 

It equals cheating same as in using QualityBuilder or RT Fuse and lots of other mods. Meaning, it is not cheating... until you realize Rimworld often relies on being time consuming and tends to mask this feature as a challenge or level of difficulty.
Or to put it straight, Rimworld sucks at having an efficient UI and pace. Using certain mods helps do deconstruct this intended problem and, here we are again, it's kind of cheating because you don't have to deal with this shit anymore.

 

I guess after one run through of about 5-6 years I got tired of this game. Yeah, it's actually pretty well done in many ways.

It was fun to figure out the best defense system for the colony, how to structure it all, have 30 animals, make beer, and what not.

Destroyed 4 mechanoid bases - first one with an orbital strike, second and third spawned next to each other and were mostly taken out by a random caravan that stumbled on them.

Only the last one was hairy. Went with 6 people to pick up a core persona on a map that had a base, and lo and behold you can't leave the map without destroying the base. And the base had a bullet shield, so the snipers were not useful unless inside the shield. Lost one colonist who had a mental breakdown and started wandering. The rest also needed to be patched up. Good that I brought two good doctors with me and used the house as a field hospital.

 

Some new stuff in a big update today. Nothing super crazy, mostly new magic powers and meditation to get mana back. Looks cool.

 

Since you guys are now bored of RimWorld, join my succession game, so you can start with a situation where you wonder what IDIOT could have this base layout, really how is one supposed to work with that, and then see more idiots ruin your legacy.

https://rpgcodex.net/forums/index.p...-one-another-in-rimworld.133205/#post-6720817