All it takes is one cold snap to show the serious flaws in the game design.

[Martin]

You take control and force them to stay in one room.
Then the fire runs out of kindle, so whilst you're guiding one person to get firewood, they others get bored of being controlled and decide to run outside and freeze to death.. i mean seriously.. wtaf.

Even reloading the game they just keep suiciding into the freezing cold.. you can't control them or order them they just ignore you and run to the coldest part of the house and kill themselves..

40 days into the game, barely got my house built, severe cold snap.. 14 below.

After an hour of pissing around sending people to sit in chairs, then taking control and forcing them to stand in front of the fire or moving items around, including smashing up the house I made because the fire only heats 4 tiles away.. and 4 tiles away in front of a fire was -10 Eventually got all 5 heaters and the fire into one room. Which made it a comfortable 20 degrees. Then the cold snap ended.. in between all the "i'm going for a walk to make a snowman when I'm literally freezing to death" and the "I want to go shoot at the target because I'm bored" I give up for now.

I know the ai is simple. The pathing is simple, everything is funny the first time around. But severe cold snaps simply should not occur in the first year.. even on medium difficulty.

Now it could just be a fluke.. I've not seen this before in the game having played over 200 hours now on easy and medium settings but this is seriously screwed.. the endgame alone is just weird.. evacuate everyone off the planet because unending waves that are every increasing.. what's the point in that? Where's the challenge in pointlessness. You think I'm going to spend 20 hours building up to get slaughtered.. not going to happen.

This game would be fun just messing around defending against moderate waves building up a base.. but it's like people get off on punching themselves in the face these days.

No fun in that.

[DarkHorse]

Maybe a an early priority for you should be to get winter clothes.

[Martin]

Originally posted by DarkHorse:

Maybe a an early priority for you should be to get winter clothes.

In the first 40 days? Have you even played this game? Lucky to even research the bench to do that on, let alone get the materials together to make sets of winter clothing by that point.

Don't make stupid suggestions. An early priority might be to get heat pumps.. or maybe to make it so that it just doesn't happen. An 8 degree cold snap is bad enough in winter a 14 degree one in the first 40 days will kill your game.

[Turbo Torben]

Maybe a "locking" mechanism on the doors could solve that issue. Or as you say, maybe there should be a limit the types of random events happening during the first year.

That said, 40 days into the game you should approach wintertime, right? By then you should've been able to do the minimum amount of preparation in order to survive. Clothing, heat, proper insulation, and having a stockpile of wood inside near your heat source as well. There's also the possibility to adjust the tasks of each person, so they dont have anything to do outside

But yes, the lack of control is annoying. One would expect that the players' commands overrides any AI priority, even if the AI believes it leads to the toons death.

[morph113]

Originally posted by Martin:

Originally posted by DarkHorse:

Maybe a an early priority for you should be to get winter clothes.

In the first 40 days? Have you even played this game?

You can totally have winter clothes for everyone when the first winter comes if you prepare for it properly, even without Vivienne.

Originally posted by Martin:

Lucky to even research the bench to do that on

The clothing workbench is one of the first things you can research. Don't tell me it takes you 40 days to research it. If you wait that long to research it then it's your own fault.

[DarkHorse]

Originally posted by Martin:

Originally posted by DarkHorse:

Maybe a an early priority for you should be to get winter clothes.

In the first 40 days? Have you even played this game? Lucky to even research the bench to do that on, let alone get the materials together to make sets of winter clothing by that point.

Don't make stupid suggestions. An early priority might be to get heat pumps.. or maybe to make it so that it just doesn't happen. An 8 degree cold snap is bad enough in winter a 14 degree one in the first 40 days will kill your game.

Yes I have played the game.. and yes went for prioritizing getting some winter clothes as soon as possible. You just must be trying to do ' OTHER ' things which is fine.. you can certainly survive in a small wood cabin while you get winter clothes made there is plenty of cotton around. Your just being .. well .. not too bright.

[jojobe]

not rim world where they try to protect themselves.

[Lysos]

putting campfires near workstations and common areas outside seem to help for me. improvising is what makes these games great. use your head. stockpile sticks by planting bush crops and boom. problem solved

[RealRobD]

Originally posted by DarkHorse:

Your just being .. well .. not too bright.

You're*
The irony.

[Martin]

Originally posted by Turbo Torben:

Maybe a "locking" mechanism on the doors could solve that issue. Or as you say, maybe there should be a limit the types of random events happening during the first year.

That said, 40 days into the game you should approach wintertime, right? By then you should've been able to do the minimum amount of preparation in order to survive. Clothing, heat, proper insulation, and having a stockpile of wood inside near your heat source as well. There's also the possibility to adjust the tasks of each person, so they dont have anything to do outside

But yes, the lack of control is annoying. One would expect that the players' commands overrides any AI priority, even if the AI believes it leads to the toons death.

I tried it on same map seed on easy mode, there was no severe cold snap, and I was able to get winter clothing started within 40 days, had 2 warm coats made by then, but I also had a much better group and I got 6 within 20 days of starting.

On medium is was much tougher, I was being attacked contantly, by bugs, shriekers and rakka with some big groups of cows.. I also had a much smaller house. More "compact" the cold snap came out of nowhere and it wasn't really that it was a severe but the way the ai acts when you're not really thinking about it. Micro management is one thing but I had to break the external door to stop them running outside..

You don't really realise just how brain dead the ai is until something like this happens, I had to reload the game 4 times just to get them to do what was needed, even with pausing the game etc.

[Martin]

Originally posted by Lysos:

putting campfires near workstations and common areas outside seem to help for me. improvising is what makes these games great. use your head. stockpile sticks by planting bush crops and boom. problem solved

Yeh that's a good tip. Same with the lightning conductors I got Katina hit by 2 blasts of lightning and she just became utterly slow and useless had to confine her to the house she was down to like 25% speed and 40-60% in pain, had to keep dosing her with herbal tea etc..

[Martin]

Originally posted by morph113:

Originally posted by Martin:

In the first 40 days? Have you even played this game?

You can totally have winter clothes for everyone when the first winter comes if you prepare for it properly, even without Vivienne.

Originally posted by Martin:

Lucky to even research the bench to do that on

The clothing workbench is one of the first things you can research. Don't tell me it takes you 40 days to research it. If you wait that long to research it then it's your own fault.

Researching it isn't so much the problem, but having the cloth and leather done by then is. Although you can sprint for cotton early on, in this map, it is literally on the other side of map, right next to the wheat.

I think the real issue is if you go with a completely random group of survivors.. and get the wrong people.. it makes the game alot harder. I currently have 4 people who are indifferent to combat and they just miss continually.

[City312]

Yeah you have to make your own group of survivors and choose a map with clothblossom nearby. Also glitter caps are amazing for food, as they don't spoil regardless of temperature and still grow during winter so you don't have to worry about food as well.

[TheNDGhost]

hmm... if anything I'm confused at how you are dying that first winter especially if you had a house. my people were sleeping outside in scrap shelters, my only campfire was placed right next to their beds so that they were warmed by it whilst sleeping. and a couple of them had better clothing from scavenging. I did not have clothing crafting started, I did not have a house, it was... worrying how frequently I had near lethal cold but I made it to summer without losing anyone and made damn sure I was ready for winter 2 :D

[DeadSilent]

Cold snaps in the early game suck, but you can make it through if you put down enough camp fires or stoves in the areas your survivors work. It's much easier to stockpile sticks than it is to make winter clothes that first year. But, If you're dead set on clothes, pick a crafter with a high skill like Kana and set her activities so she will do nothing but craft and research tailoring asap. You should be able to get 4 coats and beanies made before it gets cold, provided you find enough cloth/leather/etc.

[WhamyKaBlamy]

It's definitely possible to get a decent sized house built by day 20ish and have all the required research to start making clothes / heaters. Echoing what others have said; If you put heaters down (even the wood fuelled ones) you can use the fact they give heat in a local area to help with hypothermia.

You can also beeline for the clothes they're going to need survive winter. I don't try to build winter clothes specifically and go for just a coat and a beanie. Someone starting on 1 crafting can still get to the point of bashing out the required coats by the time winter comes.

But the devs have said that they're addressing the crafting speed issue, and severe cold snaps early in the game are sucky for sure.