400+ hours and I still suck

[MadCre8tor]

I had 1 colony where I got to bionic limbs.
But it always ends the same. Random bs happens, most of my colonists die in one sweep and I just don't feel like continuing anymore.
Am I doing something wrong?
I generally like difficulty in games, but Rimworld is so unbelievably oppressive I get the sense that I ultimately don't stand a chance. It's just a question of time until an infestation hits me at an unfortunate moment.
And after losing the majority of your colonists it's also just not fun to continue, I feel like I have to grind back all the progress I've lost and at that point I might as well start all over again.

[Atrophus]

You can always dev mode your colonists back to life, or play reload anytime mode and reverse to before. Why punish yourself when you are aware its not fun to you commitment mode while still learning?
There are some tricks you can learn that will massively help you. Keeping animals around for melee blocking in doorways with a shooting line of colonists behind against insects, for example. You only loose a dog if any and the entire infestation is dead.

[Dreay]

It’s a game where you learn from your mistakes, I’m over 2,000 hours away from playing and I do ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ and thoughtlessness that sometimes cost me dearly

[Zorelnam]

In my opinion the limiter to gameplay progress is the research, even if you lose everything you own, having micro electronics and the research for marine armor can allow you to come back around very quickly even if starting from scratch and you can use this to really swing around and raid villages, traders, caravans, etc and make big money to recover.
I would typically not reccomend aborting your playthroughs unless there is 0% chance of survival, even if all you've got left is a single pawn you can always abandon the colony and settle from nothing in a new place with your research

[MadCre8tor]

Originally posted by Atrophus:

Why punish yourself when you are aware its not fun to you commitment mode while still learning?

I have tried it, but it ultimately feels hollow. If I don't die now, it will be on the next wave of enemies. But you are probably right. I might just play my next colony on literally the easiest difficulty. Or create custom settings that make raids less of a difficulty spike.

[schnappkatze]

Not sure if that is still correct, but wealth management might be important. Raid size is dependend on your wealth, whichis measured by everything you produce. So weapons and security should always come first when you advance in technology or scope.

But in the end the game wants to be a drama/story generator and will throw some ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ at you - it is more of a survival game than a base builder.

I share your frustration with losing all the progress and think it is a difficult balance: I want to feel the danger of getting wiped out, but I never want to lose 20 hours of progress and all my favourite pawns. My "least cheaty way" out of this is hitting alt + F4 when I get wiped and reload to see if I can rescue anything.

[Edit]
I guess that is one reason why killboxes are so popular: You get the excitement of dealing with dangerous raids but you have a rather failsafe system that they won't do lasting damage.

[Dreay]

It’s not necessarily the most difficult raid, but more a combination of different misfortune that falls on you
At my beginnings my biggest big breakup was a toxic rain that lasted a long time when I played a tribe the last of my pawns died in mental pause under the rain after eating human meat

[schnappkatze]

Originally posted by FRDreay:

It’s not necessarily the most difficult raid, but more a combination of different misfortune that falls on you
At my beginnings my biggest big breakup was a toxic rain that lasted a long time when I played a tribe the last of my pawns died in mental pause under the rain after eating human meat

Which sounds pretty much in line what the game wants to offer its players: a memorable story.

[MadCre8tor]

Originally posted by schnappkatze:

Not sure if that is still correct, but wealth management might be important. Raid size is dependend on your wealth, whichis measured by everything you produce. So weapons and security should always come first when you advance in technology or scope.

But in the end the game wants to be a drama/story generator and will throw some ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ at you - it is more of a survival game than a base builder.

I share your frustration with losing all the progress and think it is a difficult balance: I want to feel the danger of getting wiped out, but I never want to lose 20 hours of progress and all my favourite pawns. My "least cheaty way" out of this is hitting alt + F4 when I get wiped and reload to see if I can rescue anything.

I have read about the wealth factor and I do believe this is a huge problem for me since I like to hoard stuff and build pretty bases. Maybe changing that wealth scaling can help.

I just wish the game could give you more of a hint of what's coming. Raids shouldn't just spawn out of nowhere or even drop into the middle of your base.
Almost every challenge or even somewhat unfair challenge can feel a lot fairer by making it more predictable and giving the player a bit of information to make plans before ♥♥♥♥ hits the fan.

They could also make the AI smarter instead of spamming enemies in numbers.
You wanna feel like you are outsmarting the enemy and implementing effective strategy, not abuse the dumb behaviour by having them all funneled into a long tunnel with gun turrets.

It's just like the game itself says, it's not a skillcheck, I should stop trying to look for it.

[schnappkatze]

Originally posted by MadCre8tor:

They could also make the AI smarter instead of spamming enemies in numbers.
You wanna feel like you are outsmarting the enemy and implementing effective strategy, not abuse the dumb behaviour by having them all funneled into a long tunnel with gun turrets.

When that happens, a lot of people complain about their kill boxes not working anymore :)

Not sure what difficulty you are playing on, but if you want to play the game more like a city builder instead of a survival rougelike-ish drama generator, there is absolutely no shame in lowering it to fit your playstyle. Maybe wealth adjusting might already be enough.

[Atrophus]

Originally posted by schnappkatze:

Not sure if that is still correct, but wealth management might be important. Raid size is dependend on your wealth, whichis measured by everything you produce. So weapons and security should always come first when you advance in technology or scope.

Thats actually one of the most important points. The raid system doesnt care whether you gained 50.000 wealth in nothing but armor or weapons, or in a giant stockpile of smokeleaf to forever be high upon. So when freshly starting out, its better to beeline for stuff like blowback operations and flak armor, so all your colonists got a shooting iron and a flak vest plus helmet to protect their vital organs with. The usual mistake is to stockpile everything in too vast quantities while not increasing the combat power accordingly.

[The Deaf Guy]

Originally posted by MadCre8tor:

I had 1 colony where I got to bionic limbs.
But it always ends the same. Random bs happens, most of my colonists die in one sweep and I just don't feel like continuing anymore.
Am I doing something wrong?
I generally like difficulty in games, but Rimworld is so unbelievably oppressive I get the sense that I ultimately don't stand a chance. It's just a question of time until an infestation hits me at an unfortunate moment.
And after losing the majority of your colonists it's also just not fun to continue, I feel like I have to grind back all the progress I've lost and at that point I might as well start all over again.

Try planning things out as much as possible, create a plan for every scenario. Colonists having constant mental breaks? Add a few art pieces and make places they visit often very nice. Also maybe play on reload anytime mode and learn how to counter different events (this helped me a lot with toxic fallouts)

[JonWoo]

Originally posted by MadCre8tor:

Originally posted by schnappkatze:

Not sure if that is still correct, but wealth management might be important. Raid size is dependend on your wealth, whichis measured by everything you produce. So weapons and security should always come first when you advance in technology or scope.

But in the end the game wants to be a drama/story generator and will throw some ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ at you - it is more of a survival game than a base builder.

I share your frustration with losing all the progress and think it is a difficult balance: I want to feel the danger of getting wiped out, but I never want to lose 20 hours of progress and all my favourite pawns. My "least cheaty way" out of this is hitting alt + F4 when I get wiped and reload to see if I can rescue anything.

I have read about the wealth factor and I do believe this is a huge problem for me since I like to hoard stuff and build pretty bases. Maybe changing that wealth scaling can help.

I just wish the game could give you more of a hint of what's coming. Raids shouldn't just spawn out of nowhere or even drop into the middle of your base.
Almost every challenge or even somewhat unfair challenge can feel a lot fairer by making it more predictable and giving the player a bit of information to make plans before ♥♥♥♥ hits the fan.

They could also make the AI smarter instead of spamming enemies in numbers.
You wanna feel like you are outsmarting the enemy and implementing effective strategy, not abuse the dumb behaviour by having them all funneled into a long tunnel with gun turrets.

It's just like the game itself says, it's not a skillcheck, I should stop trying to look for it.

There's mods that can help with some of that. Otherwise just make sure your colonists are ready for raids. Beeline research to make sure each one has a gun and armor that isn't hot garbage. I find several mortars to be a great addition to base defense as well.

And it probably goes without saying but if you want less predictability, don't play with Randy.

[Morkonan]

Originally posted by MadCre8tor:

...
Am I doing something wrong? ...

Well, you're not having the most fun you could have with the game, but that may only be your fault "indirectly."

A note: I think the game is a bit more difficult these days than it was in previous incarnations. I think Ludeon is aware of this and hates "killboxes" as a player-tactic, among other things. And, that's without realizing that they're the ones that forced that tactic.. So, one day, sticking a finger in the dike won't be an effective strategy to prevent the flood because someone has decided that dikes are not effective barriers to water.... and then where will we be when surrounded by water?

Wealth is an issue, of course. But, honestly... I don't really pay much attention to it and I've been playing for years. I don't normally play with all the hardest difficulty settings because I want a specific type of game experience and I can't get that at Randy/Merciless.

Bad Habits <-- In a lot of testimonials I see players complaining about something, which is usually a legit thing, but then note that they do something that maybe they shouldn't be doing. They may mention it in passing with little emphasis, further communicating that they apparently have little regard for its significance, like it's habitual and "everyone does that thing that way."

You may have a couple of bad habits that tend to creep up on you mid-to-late game that contribute to the problem. They may not be the ultimate cause, but Rimworld is finicky about critical stuffs that cause the downfall of so many playthroughs.

So, it may not be the loss of half your colonists that would truly kill off your playthrough, but the fact that one colonist got hit by a bad moodlet and smashed an IED or set the pile of mortar shells on fire... Rimworld loves it some "chains of events."


What is the first indication you're having a problem that typically crops up in plays where you're going to ultimately... have a problem? :)

[adobo]

Don't be afraid to just load up your best pawns in a transport pod and just start anew and abandon the colony. At least you keep your research progress.

[SupMellow?]

You can always add mods to make things a little bit easier for you. Give more traits to some of your colonists. Or give yourself a Godly colonist that does accomplishes a whole lot while all the others kind of just help with other tasks.

As for the fighting, when you build into mountains, you'll get infested a lot, so that's a risk. Make sure to build your base with "T" chokepoints in mind so 3 of your melee can go up against 1 insectoid at a time. If an area is infested too often, you can kind of block it off from your base, and put a bunch of incendiary bombs over hay/wood tiles inside the blocked area, and watch them burn while struggling to break through your walls.

If you're no longer having fun with the game, you can also take a break from it, and come back when you're feeling like playing again. :)