Strategy: sun blocker ftw?

[Imperial Topaz]

So I've got a Darkness/tunnelling cult going ... and one of the big problems with a darkness cult... is that nasty yellow thing in the sky.... Can I just trigger a sun blocker quest and leave it up without major repercussions?

Enemy:"muahahaha! we've blocked your sun, now you will never bask in it's warmth ever again!!!"
My Cult: *goes on as normal*
Enemy: "hey, evil bad guy here, I'm blocking out your sunlight, you're going to starve!"
my cult: *noms fungus*
Enemy: "aren't you going to come stop me?"
my cult: "why would we attack our ally who defeated the sun for us?"

[Astasia]

Yes. I managed to get a sun blocker up with my first darkness colony, it was incredibly useful and I of course left it alone for the rest of the game. You abandon growing anything on the surface or harvesting trees, but it's interesting to note Fibercorn only has a light level requirement of 30 and is easily grown in caves with a simple darklamp.

Edit: Oh, it does kill the anima tree.

[Imperial Topaz]

Originally posted by Astasia:

Yes. I managed to get a sun blocker up with my first darkness colony, it was incredibly useful and I of course left it alone for the rest of the game. You abandon growing anything on the surface or harvesting trees, but it's interesting to note Fibercorn only has a light level requirement of 30 and is easily grown in caves with a simple darklamp.

Wait so I can't grow nutrifungus outside? I thought the wording of nutrifungus was that it CAN grow on fungal gravel.... not that it has to.

[ᖇIᑎ]

Can't you just sunlamp the anima tree? And plant shrooms outside without having to build roofs over it?

[Astasia]

Originally posted by Imperial Topaz:

Wait so I can't grow nutrifungus outside? I thought the wording of nutrifungus was that it CAN grow on fungal gravel.... not that it has to.

Oh you can, I meant normal crops that require sun. Like cotton, or devilstrand. You can just use sunlamps instead. Didn't occur to me to plant nutrifungus outside, I had so much of it growing under the mountain already.

Originally posted by Stariali:

Can't you just sunlamp the anima tree? And plant shrooms outside without having to build roofs over it?

Sunlamping the anima tree might keep it alive, but requires building near it and reducing the effectiveness of it.

[ᖇIᑎ]

Well, with the tunneling meme, pawns only like fungus, no veggies. So you wouldn't really care about other plants in that scenario unless you wanted variety or something. And the anima tree effectiveness is just a sacrifice you're either willing to make or not. But I'm playing ice sheet and don't even have a tree to begin with :'D So what do I know!

[qualified turtle ship]

//So you wouldn't really care about other plants//
plants aren't just for eating...
cotton
devil strand
drugs

other effects of a sun blocker:
* Sunlamps are harder to power w/o solar power.
* wild life has nothing to graze on. Duknow, if that affects the spawn rate but it will cause them to flee the tile once they get hungry enough. But your on an ice-sheet so I doubt there was any grass to start with.

** I think tunnelers still suffer movement penalties if they don't have some kind of light...
** Blindsight might be worth considering/testing:
last I checked, blindsight (blinded/blindfolded pawns) had no movement penalties (but did have aiming penalties- (it is a unclear to me if this combo was/is intended hence my caveat)
so... tunneler + darkness + blindsight might be worth adding. I don't know how they interact though. e.g. Do blindfolded darkness pawn still get their darkness shooting bonuses? Does the shooting bonus of being in darkness outweigh the penalty of wearing a blindfold? I also never tested one eyed blindsight stats e.g. remove both eyes and replace one with bionic + archotech.

[ᖇIᑎ]

Originally posted by tearfang:

//So you wouldn't really care about other plants//
plants aren't just for eating...
cotton
devil strand
drugs

True, true. Although I prefer to grow devilstrand indoors, personally, with a sunlamp since outdoors it's exposed to the elements and I'd rather not lose any of it to due weather and events. And I guess I've been spoiled by being able to recycle clothes for cloth C:

[Astasia]

Originally posted by tearfang:

** I think tunnelers still suffer movement penalties if they don't have some kind of light...

Colonists with the darkness precepts do not suffer any movement or workspeed penalties in the dark.

[qualified turtle ship]

//Colonists with the darkness precepts do not suffer any movement or workspeed penalties in the dark.//
interesting, so the darklights are purely for the +4 moodlet then?

[RCMidas]

Apparently. Useful, then. You can go without early on, then actually make darklight later on purely to boost morale by a fair bit just for existing.

[Caz]

And there's people saying this DLC is shallow.... Every day I see a new thread talking about the creative ways to play with the new ideologies. Shallow.... pfffff Not sure what they're playing, but it aint Rimworld!

[Makeithappen]

Originally posted by Astasia:

Yes. I managed to get a sun blocker up with my first darkness colony, it was incredibly useful and I of course left it alone for the rest of the game. You abandon growing anything on the surface or harvesting trees, but it's interesting to note Fibercorn only has a light level requirement of 30 and is easily grown in caves with a simple darklamp.

Edit: Oh, it does kill the anima tree.

i was laughing and enjoying the OPs post and then your edit killed it for me. Yeah... I can't lose that thing until i get at least 1 pawn to psy level 6

[Makeithappen]

Originally posted by Caz:

And there's people saying this DLC is shallow.... Every day I see a new thread talking about the creative ways to play with the new ideologies. Shallow.... pfffff Not sure what they're playing, but it aint Rimworld!

typical first week jitters of all the new content. Happens with every game I've played. Community just goes ballistic. Given a few weeks things settle down and people realize its not as bad as they think it is.

[Security Cam #7]

Not gonna lie all these threads are pushing me closer and closer into buying the ideology DLC. Seems much more content packed than royalty.

[Astasia]

Originally posted by tearfang:

//Colonists with the darkness precepts do not suffer any movement or workspeed penalties in the dark.//
interesting, so the darklights are purely for the +4 moodlet then?

For the most part ya, just the mood, and so you can actually see stuff in your base as you play. I think you still need one near your hospital beds, the light bonus on medical success is applied to the bed not the pawn, I didn't check but I can't see the meme canceling that.

You can also use darklights to grow fibercorn and tinctoria, or flowers. It's ridiculously slow, but you can make large fields of fibercorn in caves on fungal gravel using a few darklights, for low power cost.