Serious slowdown in early-mid game

[Kreddi]

I quit the game in 2018 after 30-40 hours over a few colonies, primarily because I feel like I got stuck at a point in the game.
I was researching but found few of the resources needed for anything advanced I discovered.
Other colonies were so far away I couldn't comfortably send out a caravan, as the food cost was too high for what I had.

Assuming I take the default starting team and I start in a forest region, what should my first three steps be that'll help me create a strong foundation for the colony?

[StinkyMonkey]

The Ground Scanner pays off in the long term for finding resources locally, worth starting it up as early as possible. The Fabrication Bench is the same, you need to start making advanced components asap - the ground scanner providing the gold, plasteel, etc for this. The Long Range Scanner also helps but again its a long term prospect.

If you use mods, More Trading Ships type mods would increase your supply & demand capabilities. To be honest, because of mods there is little cause to put up with things in the base game that make playthroughs less enjoyable for you. It's a very personal game and easily customised to make it more in with your own tastes, which is why its so popular maybe.

[flu007]

- Steel: it's rare to have anything less than plenty of this in a normal biome, though if you're on a map with very few hills or mountains, it can happen. Either way it's a good idea not to use it for things that don't really need it, like walls (better to make walls out of stone anyway.)
This is a basic resource which you'll need quite a lot of over the course of a playthrough, so it's always a good idea to grab some if, for instance, you're out on a quest to destroy some outpost. Grab whatever useful stuff you can carry to bring home, steel being high on the list, unless you really have plenty of it at home.

- Components: this can be a bottleneck item in the mid game. Once you have a fabrication bench, you can make these out of steel, but until then, it's wise to use these sparingly.
This would be higher than steel on the "grab whatever useful stuff you can carry" list. And if traders drop by your base and sell some of them, and you can afford it, it's never a bad idea to stock up on them.
Apart from crafting them, you can also get more of these with the Deep Drill/Ground Penetrating Scanner and with the Long Range Scanner. Once you unlocked those options, you'll be swimming in them if you want to.

- Advanced components: A crucial resource in the mid to late game, but you can craft them at a fabrication bench. You do need two of these, however, to craft the fabrication bench in the first place. So if you see a trader sell a few of them, and you can afford it, never a bad idea to grab two, even if you don't need them yet. Otherwise you may end up having to hunt some down when you do need them.

- Plasteel: Another important advanced resource (not in the least because you need it to craft advanced components.) You probably won't find much of this through standard mining, but you only really need it in significant quantities in the late game. As with components, the Ground Penetrating Scanner and the Long Range Scanner will be the most convenient ways of getting plenty of it. Traders sell it occasionally as well, but it's not cheap to get it that way.

- Uranium: useful, but not crucial. As with plasteel, you may not find a lot of it through above-ground mining, but you can get plenty of it later with the scanners. Unless I'm forgetting something, it's not really needed for any item that might block your progress, but it's used for an advanced turret type, and useful to make melee weapons out of, and perhaps armor.

- Gold: you won't need a lot of this, but it's crucial to have at least a little bit of it by the mid-game. Need small amounts to make advanced components and if I'm not mistaken you also need a small amount to make the multi-analyzer, which you'll need to build to open up advanced research. There's almost always at least a little bit on the map, though, and later it can also be found with the scanners, so it's rarely a problem resource, but still important to keep at least a bit in store for those few things you need it for.

[crgzero]

Everyone is going to play differently, and I know you asked for the first 3 steps but it's more complicated than that. I'll try and work through my thought process and how I start out. Bare with me, as of this moment I've no clue what I"m gonna say or how long/short it's gonna be.

When my pawns first slam into the ground I ALWAYS pause and immediately look over the map and get an idea of where the easiest first deposits of steel and components are. Also I look at the most convienent (I cain't speel) places might be to construct a building to hide my starting equipment in.

While I'm looking over the map I'll set up some trees to be cut, put down a stockpile zone, and lay out walls to close it in.

If you've not played since 2018 your crap needs to be completely enclosed now to keep it from decaying where as before just having a roof was good enough. I also make this just a little bigger than needed so I can put beds down as well. You mentioned starting in a forest region so you'll have plenty of wood. I ALWAYS put down beds and tables/chairs at this point unless wood is scarce. I'll make the tables out of steel but I always make beds out of wood and if I'm playing modded, titanium.

After the stockpile is built and walled in I put down an 8x8 growing zone and put down rice. Depending on how much time is left in the day I'll put down another zone growing taters or corn, taters if the ground is poor and corn if I can find enough of the fertile soil close by to make it worth the effort.

During the above, day 1, I micromanage like crazy and don't worry about setting up the priorities or anything. Well I will set them up, then patently ignore it so I can get stuff done faster.

Next day I either build a barracks or individual rooms. Normally I go for individual rooms it just depends on the map. People like to complain about their pawns freaking out over stuff and then try to justify the merits of a dorm/barracks and I can't do anything but sigh and shake my head.

I lay my rooms out in 5x6 (that's floor space) squares, with the 5 being the door side and the door right in the middle. That is MY preference and works great. I like symmetry and being able to put the door right in the middle makes me happy. Plus it seems to be a great size for keeping pawns happy.

With 3 pawns 3 rooms should be quickly built. At this point I also build a big 15x15 room which will eventually contain my shop and most if not all of my construction and research benches. This is just for starting out. Symmetry allows the doors to be placed in the middle and now you don't need mods for roof support, the game comes with pillars you can put right in the middle and the roof won't collapse. You only need 1, right in the middle, that makes me happy. Right in the middle...happy...

Research bench, possibly 2 depending on pawns. Don't be afraid to use torches for light, it's just temporary, and watch temperatures, you'll have access to the wooden airconditioning things from the beginning. Use'm if needed.

Section off a part of your new shop to fit a wood fired stove, put down a floor and make sure it's ALWAYS clean. Put down a floor in your entire shop is preferable but make sure the kitchen part is clean always. Food poisoning at the beginning is irritating as hell and preventable. Floors in your bedrooms would be nice as well.

First research IMHO should be batteries, once that's done build a windmill and a battery, then I normally go for solar. Replace all torches with lights for convienence. I still can't spell that word.

Then I normally shoot right for turrets as far as what to research next. I play a heavily modded game so normally I have some crappy ♥♥♥♥ turrets available already, but I still go straight for better turrets.

For workbenches, depending on my starting pawns, 1 or 2 stonecutting benches is next, I immediately start cutting the strongest stone available. Granite or,,, ♥♥♥♥, brain just quit on me, the yellowish one are the strongest as far as HP goes. AT this point I start laying out walls for my settlement. I don't like being tortured so I play the walls and killbox game. It's something I'll focus the entirety of my efforts on depending on mods and what difficulty I play on.

1 pawn will research no matter what, the other 2 maintain and build. Occasionally the researcher will also be my farmer, that's IMHO preferable in setup. Whatever keeps that idjit thinking up better weapons and stuff that goes boom and still being useful in other areas.

The moment I'm able I'll immediately start constructing better guns, preferably rifles depending on what else is going on. I do NOT like getting up close and personal. IRL if something is in your face you've already lost, so it's my mindset in the game. Pawns who are not good with ranged I'll give them some sort of fast firing/fast cycle weapon.

I haven't tested it since 1.1/Royalty, but previously pawns got firing/ranged exp based on how many shots they take and how many bullets are fired. Say a minigun fires a lot of bullets and you got exp for that, but it took a long time to cycle for the next firing so really it didn't give your pawns as much exp as say a machine pistol that fired 3 rounds all the frickin' time. So bad shooters get fast guns even if the guns technically suck.

Since the update, many dropped weapons are "biocoded", which is like modern day biometric and thrumbprint locks you can occasionally find on guns which are extremely over priced and don't work right... In the game however, they work perfectly and you can even find it on wooden clubs. Basically it means, that shiney new charge rifle you just got from a raider probably isn't going to be very useful now.

Back to research path, after I've gotten basic vanilla turrets, I"ll hit microelectronics, then go for the fabrication bench so I can start making components.

Once you hit the microelectronics research, start looking for advanced components from traders, you MUST have 2. Mech drop ships will drop 1, and driving a caravan to another settlement is a good way to get them as well.They're expensive but you must have 2 for a fab bench.

Ehh,,, enough rambling and I'm forgetting my point.

[Kreddi]

Thanks for all the tips.
I just had a colonist join me without the possibility of me declining him. He is quite ♥♥♥♥, so I don't want him. How do I get rid of him with as little penalties to the rest of my colonists as possible?

[BurlsoL]

If you feel you're in a rough spot for materials and advancement, if you have packaged survival meals and a few pack animals, abandoning settlement and moving somewhere else is a fairly viable option now. You'll lose most of what you built and most of your stuff, but with reasonably trained up colonists building a new base can be done fairly quickly.

[flu007]

Originally posted by Kreddi:

Thanks for all the tips.
I just had a colonist join me without the possibility of me declining him. He is quite ♥♥♥♥, so I don't want him. How do I get rid of him with as little penalties to the rest of my colonists as possible?

I've never done it, but I believe simply banishing them only gives a small mood debuff to the other colonists. (the wiki says -3)

[brian_va]

Originally posted by Kreddi:

Thanks for all the tips.
I just had a colonist join me without the possibility of me declining him. He is quite ♥♥♥♥, so I don't want him. How do I get rid of him with as little penalties to the rest of my colonists as possible?

Don't underestimate the value of a dedicated cleaner with a backup in hauling if they aren't incapable of dumb labor. Not everyone needs to be an elite mercenary or genius researcher.

[BurlsoL]

Originally posted by brian_va:

Originally posted by Kreddi:

Thanks for all the tips.
I just had a colonist join me without the possibility of me declining him. He is quite ♥♥♥♥, so I don't want him. How do I get rid of him with as little penalties to the rest of my colonists as possible?

Don't underestimate the value of a dedicated cleaner with a backup in hauling if they aren't incapable of dumb labor. Not everyone needs to be an elite mercenary or genius researcher.

Then there are Rancher pawns that spawn as staggeringly ugly, volatile, jealous. While you can make use of such a pawn as a dedicated animal handler setup in a gold-lined room, working a schedule opposite of most everyone else, secluded away from everyone else... It's usually easier to just prompt them to go berserk by forbidding clothes, and sticking their bed in a 1x2 closet with the door forbidden once they're inside, and pacify them using a firing squad when they break out. Their death was just an unfortunate accident, and can be offset by just having anyone particularly bothered drink some tea.

[brian_va]

If you're gonna go through all that trouble, invest it in the dining or rec room to counter the colonist organ harvest rebuff. But to each their own.

[Kreddi]

Originally posted by flu007:

I've never done it, but I believe simply banishing them only gives a small mood debuff to the other colonists. (the wiki says -3)

Under which menu do you do this?

I've just started my fourth colony, and I'm still enjoying myself despite the failure.

First run I had two colonists contract Malaria on the first day of staying on the planet; I didn't quite know how to treat them and they died within days.
Second run I learnt that when you hunt there's a chance you'll anger the entire flock, not just the one animal you are shooting at. While my hunter got beaten up by a herd of horse/lama creatures, a ferral Lynx was eating a different colonist.
Third run was over quick; roof collapsed day one on a colonist, killing her instantly.

This game has a lot of lessons you gotta learn the hard way

[Gamefever]

My first step is to have a look at the map.
Get the lay of the land, see where the resources are on it, and of course that means fertile ground.

My second step is then to determine if there are already standing structures to make use of as the base, and there usually are plenty of structures around to pick from. Its a matter of deciding alright are there viable resources near that standing structure.

Then the third step is to just move all the material I started with to that structure and then fix it up.
By the end of the day, I might have everything hauled over, the roof built, and even some beds put together. I've even had a table and 3 chairs built plus a horse shoe pin or a chess board set up before dark.

Thats literally the first 3 steps.

Next thing is actually a few more steps,
1) set up kitchen and butchering area
2) Set up some food crops, cotton, and drug/hops.
3) Weapons/skills check, decide if the pawn will hunt alone or if Draft all colonists to force kill an entire herd.

Next day,

1) Stock pile wood, since its fast to gather a lot of it
2) plan out refrigerator
3) plan on a wood burner for a power plant

Considering that you cant get a lot of stuff done with 3 pawns, so you have to pace yourself in blocks.

[flu007]

Originally posted by Kreddi:

Originally posted by flu007:

I've never done it, but I believe simply banishing them only gives a small mood debuff to the other colonists. (the wiki says -3)

Under which menu do you do this?

It's on the colonist's Bio tab, a door icon at the top right.

[Kreddi]

Cheers once again!
I'm having some issues in terms of stockpiling, as my colonists are putting decayed corpses in the freezer. Thing is, if I don't allow 'rotting' to go in my fridge, my colonists won't haul herbal medicine at all.
So how do I get rid of these skeletal remains that are filling up my fridge?

[brian_va]

critical priority dumping stockplie, set to only rotten corpses is probably the easy answer.

resolving your mod conflict is the better answer though.

[Kreddi]

Here's the situation

I have 5 guys and pack animals out in a new tile, where a mission was to kill animals defending a drug-plant. There is only 2 tiles between the caravan's current position and home base, the travel took 0.1 day.
I won, but it took hard on my team. Everyone got hurt. My two medics can't walk, and one of the medics is risking death.
https://imgur.com/BnTfoCr < Picture of the current situation

So my question is, how do I avoid Dweeb (My medic facing death that is unable to walk) from dying? I have medicine with me, the ones above the grade of herbal medicine.
Should I chop down trees for a proper bed? Does that even matter when I don't have a good medic standing? My highest medic skill is 2.5, excluding the two medics I brought along.
The only guy at my colony is incapable of healing, so I don't see going home as anything that would help.