completely stuck mid-game - what are your strategies to rebuild/upgrade?

[Adidas]

Hi, I've played this game for 100+ hours and I still don't get how to get past the 'mid game'. I have energy sorted, but everything is made out of wood and ends up burning etc.

I read you have to micromanage quite a bit past a certain point. But how? Are granite walls better than wooden ones? If so, do you demolish your entire walls and rebuild from scratch?

What about furniture and equipment and drugs for example? I can't make drugs because none of my colonist have intellectual + crafting at + 4 and I can't seem to manually 'force them' into learning since they have no passion. I'm stuck, drugless, in colonies that invariably collapse due to people being unhappy despite having all the recreation possible.

Thank you for any tips or links to a guide, I'm on permadeath so it sucks to restart each time from zero.

[LIMP BISQUICK]

Are granite walls better than wooden ones?

Of course. Higher hp, not flammable. Other types of stone walls work just fine too. People also like to build in mountains. I don't demolish all my rooms when upgrading, I simply upgrade to stone. I assume most players do that or build with stone from the start.

What about furniture and equipment and drugs for example? I can't make drugs because none of my colonist have intellectual + crafting at + 4 and I can't seem to manually 'force them' into learning since they have no passion. I'm stuck, drugless, in colonies that invariably collapse due to people being unhappy despite having all the recreation possible.

How many colonists do you have? Usually players will choose pawns that are skilled in these areas from the start, or at least recruit some when possible. Various ways to level them up you should look into. You need to take care of their needs. Perhaps you should list common mood hits that you struggle dealing with cause there are many reasons why they may not be happy, and there are plenty ways to improve moods.

I'm on permadeath so it sucks to restart each time from zero.

Why play this way if it sucks? Might be best to lower difficulty settings, you can always change this at any point in a normal game.

[Archotech]

Granite should be the strongest material for walls, slate is the weakest.

[ROE]

Ideally, one of the first things you build is a stone cutters table. That way walls are made of stone from the get go.

To answer your question, yes you will need to rebuild your walls. It isn't really that bad of a deal though. Just cut some stone and start to replace one section of wall at a time. Soon it will all be done. There is a replace mod but I can't remember the name of it.

As far as stone strength is concerned it really doesn't matter that much. Unless you plan your defenses correctly the raiders will just bust through any wall no matter how strong.

Furniture isn't an issue unless it has crap quality.

Every colony should have a dedicated cook, crafter, researcher, and builder. If you want a crafter then you need to "acquire" one. How you do that is up to you.

[brian_va]

Generally the starting building will be wood or steel, but everything after that is stone if some kind. Early stone cutting is a good option, but deconstructing ruins yields stone blocks and pawn XP, where cutting blocks doesn't grant XP. It is slower to get expanding, or at least can be, but long term it's usually for the best.

As for the skills question, sometimes you just have to grind up their stats however you can. It's obviously ideal that each skill is done by a passionate pawn, but that's notbalways possible, especially with solo starts.

Rec is only a portion of their moods. Check the needs tab and figure out what the problems are and fix that. Buffs are nice to stack, but ignoring underlying problems will eventually catch up with you.

[burlswirl]

Make one good room that has both the main dining table and their rec sources. They should get both a "good dining room" and "good rec room" buff, the two of which can off-set a lot of the lesser negative buffs you'll run into.

[Edmund Greyfox]

I generally don't build anything in wood after the first day or two of a new map. Day 1 i build a storage area and the walls for 3 bedrooms out of wood, but on day 2 i usually build the stone cutter and convert those rooms to stone as fast as i can. Everything from that point on is made of stone.

Drugs aren't ever the key to long term happiness, though having them drink a beer or smoke a joint can give you a short term fix to avoid a mental break. Giving them good bedrooms, fine meals, and keeping their recreation satisified are the easiest way to boost mood early game. Stone walls/floors and several items of furniture are all it takes to get a decent or somewhat impressive room. Don't forget a potted plant.

Micromanaging is actually more of an early game thing. By late game the only thing you should really need to micro manage is combat, because you should have enough pawns to keep all the work done without needing a lot of micro.

[Adidas]

haha i'm laughing but crying at the same time (OP here) - just finihsed a 25 h run that was going so well (all comms up, all machinery, eveyrone happy), and some jerk threw ONE molotov cocktail no more base in the space of 30 second. I got to laugh. Stone everything from now on.
PS: did they make the wall bugs less annoying in the latest version? I remember building cave base but they would get invaded by giant bugs haha.

[Edmund Greyfox]

Originally posted by Adidas:

haha i'm laughing but crying at the same time (OP here) - just finihsed a 25 h run that was going so well (all comms up, all machinery, eveyrone happy), and some jerk threw ONE molotov cocktail no more base in the space of 30 second. I got to laugh. Stone everything from now on.
PS: did they make the wall bugs less annoying in the latest version? I remember building cave base but they would get invaded by giant bugs haha.

If you build into mountains/hills bugs can spawn anywhere that has a natural overhead ceiling. When i do mountain maps i try to build them a room to spawn in (good size. kept dark, far away from my main base area) that only connects to the rest of my base through a 1 square wide passage so i can block the exit area off an only face one bug at a time. You can also fill the room with flammable's and put in a couple of incendiary traps and kill them all off through heat, but you need to make pretty thick stone walls to keep them from digging out of it, and a series of steel doors for the same reason. You also have to restock the room with fresh flammables and traps after every use.

[ROE]

Originally posted by Adidas:

haha i'm laughing but crying at the same time (OP here) - just finihsed a 25 h run that was going so well (all comms up, all machinery, eveyrone happy), and some jerk threw ONE molotov cocktail no more base in the space of 30 second. I got to laugh. Stone everything from now on.
PS: did they make the wall bugs less annoying in the latest version? I remember building cave base but they would get invaded by giant bugs haha.

No, infestations are still a ♥♥♥♥♥. If you don't want to deal with bugs then turn that off in the scenario editor when you start a new game.

If your pawns didn't die then this might be a good time to weed out the dead weight and rebuild using stone. It shouldn't take that long to do, of course all this is dependent upon what biome you're in.

If you're problem with drugs is that you have the chemical fascination trait on a pawn then you can just roll a few joints and make them happy. Make sure to put them on a schedule or they will smoke 24/7.

[Kittenpox]

Why not make your initial walls out of wood, then insulate the external walls by putting a second layer - but make that from stone, so your base is less susceptible to forest-fires? :-)

https://youtu.be/QUNAs5aTww0