RimWorld the sci-fi colony sim Catch-All

Wink_and_the_Gun wrote:

A page, or two, or three, ago... I tried to show it "ascii-style" what I was trying to describe RE: "trap maze" and kill-zone funnels.

Link me bruh

Wink_and_the_Gun wrote:
Aaron D. wrote:

^^^ pics, please.

Bad guys enter here.
.......I...I
.......I...I
.......I...I
.......I...I (long enough that a sniper can't hide)
......I.....I
.....I.......I
....I.........I
...I...........I
..I.............I
.I...............Iwwwwwwwww

All this area is a killing field

Sssssssssssssss (sandbags)
Closer-ranged guys here.
wsswwsswwsswwss (walls and sandbags)
Longer-ranged guys here.

Steam tells me I'm approaching 100 hours played on this game. Current game is on Cassandra Classic Challenge. it can be brutally difficult but I'm now up to 12 colonists and have almost completed the research tree. I'll freely admit to reloading several times, mostly due to stupid friendly fire incidents. This is perhaps my biggest complaint about the game right now. I like how combat works and friendly fire should be a consideration (especially with the turrets) but colonists right now are just too stupid to not result in some degree of frustration. There should be some sort of setting that holds fire for friendly units directly in front of you or something. I'm tired of seeing friendly tribes getting slaughtered in the crossfire and hating me as a result of their stupidity.

Anyway, a few random tips:
1. Don't built your base too cramped. Colonists will complain and eventually you will need to fight in your base and constricted fields of fire will result in much gnashing of teeth.
2. Feel free to disassemble and rebuilt beds and furniture over and over until you get superior or better results. It is good training and will help colonists mood to be using good quality furniture.
3. There is no substitute for colonists who are good natured. Psychologically challenged colonists are more trouble than they are worth.
4. Melee is not worth it. It can be very effective situationally but since you can only carry one weapon (would love to be able to carry a second weapon) ranged is the only viable means of keeping your colonists healthy.
5. EMP works wonders on caterpillars and scythers.
6. The best way to break sieges are to send one or more colonists with sniper rifles to pester them. Kill one or two and they will raid your base, which is exactly what you want.
7. Save your medicine as much as possible for hospital beds. Grow herbal medicine instead. It's almost as good.

1. Don't built your base too cramped. Colonists will complain and eventually you will need to fight in your base and constricted fields of fire will result in much gnashing of teeth.

I usually will make my first batch of bedrooms fairly small, and once I have enough resources rolling in turn those into my prison beds and build bigger, more well-appointed rooms for my colonists.

Remember to make the walls and door more durable, if the first draft was out of wood though - a berserk prisoner will bust through wood faster than you might think possible.

Wink_and_the_Gun wrote:
Wink_and_the_Gun wrote:
Aaron D. wrote:

^^^ pics, please.

Bad guys enter here.
.......I...I
.......I...I
.......I...I
.......I...I (long enough that a sniper can't hide)
......I.....I
.....I.......I
....I.........I
...I...........I
..I.............I
.I...............Iwwwwwwwww

All this area is a killing field

Sssssssssssssss (sandbags)
Closer-ranged guys here.
wsswwsswwsswwss (walls and sandbags)
Longer-ranged guys here.

Where do the traps go?

Hold on, gotta get in the trap spirit.

Wink_and_the_Gun wrote:

The deadfall setup is scalable too, but if you make it reaaaally long, the AI will probably path around it.

O = open
W = wall
D = door
T = trap

Bad guys enter at "OoW" then turn right/down starting on their path though your trap-maze.
wwwwww
OoWoow (might be able to D the Ws, but AI might just try to break the Ds)
Wtwtwtw
Wtwtwtw
DoDodod
Wtwtwtw
Wtwtwtw
DoDodod
Wtwtwtw
Wtoowoo (bad guys exit here)
Wwwwwww

The idea is to keep it short enough that the AI will take a chance stepping on the traps, rather than just bash your doors down, bypassing the traps. If you make this too long, they'll just go for the doors.

Substitute the "normal" doors for auto-doors, on the ones your colonists will use to go in/out regularly.

You're also only doing 2 walls/traps (between doors) so your colonists have access to reset the traps.

Horizontally, while trying to keep everything lined up properly (different fonts will probably mess this up...)
0 is open (paved is best)
= is wall
* is door
+ is trap

Bad guys enter, from the top left 0
=0==*==*==*===
=0++0++0++0+0= space, trap, trap, space...
=*==*==*==*=0= turn here
=0++0++0++0+0= space, trap...
=0==*==*==*===
Exit here, or continue the zig-zag...

Never have more than 2 traps (in a row), so they can be reset from a doorway/open ground. This will reduce (not eliminate... they can be dumb) the likelihood of your colonists stepping on them.

Also, if you make too many traps, as part of the enemy path... they'll choose to just smash through your doors - you want it short enough that they'll take the chance, but not so long that they'll just go another way...

Thanks for the help!

If you're going to combine them (I'd keep the trap run very short (only a few traps))... you want the traps at the entrance of the funnel, not the exit - less likely to get damaged in the firefight in no-man's land.

So right before the "bad guys enter here" part of the funnel.

I haven't tried it, but I suspect that playing with zones may prevent trap accidents. Define a zone over traps, and then forbid all of your people from entering that zone. I suppose if you want to rearm traps you can enable the zone for your re-armer and have them re-arm the traps one at the time. Then forbid that zone again.

MoonDragon wrote:

I haven't tried it, but I suspect that playing with zones may prevent trap accidents. Define a zone over traps, and then forbid all of your people from entering that zone. I suppose if you want to rearm traps you can enable the zone for your re-armer and have them re-arm the traps one at the time. Then forbid that zone again.

Doing zones would absolutely work. It's just an extra level of micromanagement. Still not all that bad if you set up the 'regular' non-trap zone. Then the 're-arm' zone. Only flipping it on one character after a big fight.

I'm working on constructing the spaceship and don't have enough steel to build all 13 of the cryogenic chambers that I need. That's 6,500 steel and I've only got about 3,000 worth. Been deconstructing stuff and strip mining but I've just about mined the entire map and don't see how I'll get the rest other than waiting for enough mech raids and poison ships to make up the difference. Maybe I should just blast off with half of the colonists and leave the rest behind. I'm sure they'll get over it.

You could always find ways to eliminate them.

Have you tried buying steel from orbital traders?

boogle wrote:

You could always find ways to eliminate them.

Part of the charm of this game is that you grow attached to your tribe, however psychotic they may be.

Aaron D. wrote:

Have you tried buying steel from orbital traders?

I have but I've only seen two orbital traders in over 2 years of game time so they seem to be few and far between. Would be nice if I could find one willing to sell lots of steel. I have the coin.

I have a similar issue but with plasteel. I have about 12k steel from strip mining, but only about 500 plasteel entirely traded/from raids etc. I haven't found a single ounce to mine myself. If I'm right, you need at least 1000 Plasteel for the ship?

omni wrote:

I have a similar issue but with plasteel. I have about 12k steel from strip mining, but only about 500 plasteel entirely traded/from raids etc. I haven't found a single ounce to mine myself. If I'm right, you need at least 1000 Plasteel for the ship?

Plasteel has not been a problem for me. I've found three mined deposits on my map but, more importantly, you get 50 plasteel for every centipede and 25 plasteel for every scyther you disassemble. Later game I am getting like four centipedes and several scythers from every poison ship/psychic ship/mech raid. I've had stockpiles of well over 1,000 plasteel and have taken to using it for medical beds and sculptures.

I'll trade you?

... but Power Armour!!!!

Omni (or was it idgaf...?), on your stream, you were talking about the "foreboding danger" rooms - I've had 3 versions of that...

One had a bunch of sealed cryo-pods - when opened, a bunch of insects, and survivors (some awake, some dying, others dead) popped out. Another had mechanoids, and survivors (running, dead, and dying) inside cryo-pods. And yet another had 2 scythers already attacking the survivors (and a couple hostile survivors) as soon as I broke through the wall.

Yeah I have a pretty big room waiting to be cracked open. Maybe next stream I try and prepare an assault - purely in the name of trying to get more plasteel. I won't be ashamed to reload when my entire colony gets wiped out

If you want, I can tell you how I handled those rooms with minimum effort.

I did it! Got enough steel from poison/psychic ships and sieges (man, sieges give a ton of resources) to build 13 cryogenic chambers and launch my ship with all passengers on board. Took about 30 hours of real life playtime to finish this game. One of the best gaming experiences I've had in the past several years. Ready to start my next attempt.

MoonDragon wrote:

If you want, I can tell you how I handled those rooms with minimum effort.

I would be interested in this :p

Alpha 15 looks like it will be interesting. Big addition: drugs.

Looks like they're overhauling and substantially beefing up the Tutorial system.

I think that's a great idea now that the game has Steam exposure & success.

omni wrote:
MoonDragon wrote:

If you want, I can tell you how I handled those rooms with minimum effort.

I would be interested in this :p

Assuming the room is inside the mountain, so you can dig, but building walls would suffice I guess.

Spoiler:

I dug a long tunnel through the mountain. Single tile width. Then some distance from the evil room, I had a room/widening for a number of turrets. The trick is that the turrets should all have visibility to the entrance into the room, but also not have visibility to each other since at least some of them will likely explode. Something like this (t = turret, . = rock, e = entrance, s = sandbags, d = door), squished for demonstrative size:

.......... .......t.. ....t .. ....ssss........ t e d ....ssss........ ....t .. .......t.. ..........

The trick to not getting my settler killed was to build a door (or a couple) close to where you're going to breach the wall. Your settler will breach, and then run through the door, giving them time to get away, while the bad guys smash through. Once they are through the door, they will most likely beeline for the closest turret. This will make them enter the killing room at 'e'. At which point the turrets will do their job. I've successfully taken out a couple of scythers and a worm(?) with this set up. I did lose a turret or two, but that's a small price to pay when my best weapon was still a hunting rifle.

I was really proud of my colony yesterday. Early on one of my colonists managed to accidentally clip a bear while hunting a deer. Said bear thought the best response would be maul my colonist nearly to death and take his left leg as a trophy.

The rest of the colony rallied to save their comrade, dragging him back to safety (and, eventually, killing the bear). They dedicated their research efforts to getting him a fancy hospital bed. They discovered TV so he wouldn't be bored in his hospital room. They took turns visiting him every day and bringing him food even when there was so much work to do.

They pushed hard to get climb up the tech tree so they could contact orbital traders. Then, even though they were so short handed, they worked to craft items they could sell so they could get their buddy a prosthetic leg and free him from his hospital room prison.

Finally, after literally waiting two entire years they heard a weapons trader was in orbit. And, as luck would have it, they also had a leg for sale.

The colony's best doc, someone they had saved from the local savages, did the surgery and it was successful. The colonist was able to leave the hospital room that had been his entire world for nearly three years. He immediately bolted outside and just laid on the ground looking at the stars instead of the ceiling of that tiny room.

Sure, he couldn't move like he did before. But he was eager to make up for lost time and he wanted to give back to all his fellow colonists for taking care of him all those long years.

And then in a raid the very next day he caught a round to the head and was killed.

That's just amazing. And tragic. But amazing.

This game is pretty great.

Great story! I'd really like to get into this, I'm just afraid that it'll suck up too much time Sooo many games to play right now!

See also all the stories from the 3MA on this.