No humans - only bugs and mechs. Why?

[Gold♥Shield]

My colony has been going on for quite some time and the only raids I get are mech clusters or infestations. I can't honestly remember the last time humans raided my base and it's been so long I took a raiding party and decided to attack them. It's become so bland that I intentionally angered all but two factions just to increase the chances of a raid and still nothing.

I remember in vanilla that your overall colony wealth played a factor in raids and raid strength and given how much stuff I have, there's no reason that humans aren't raiding me.

Am I just getting incredibly unlucky or does Royalty tone down the human raids later in the game? Also, it's been a very long time since I got a quest, so I'm curious if I've just let this colony go on for too long and the game/storyteller is somehow breaking.

Only two mods active. The one where you can tailor your pawns at the start and one called Lights Out (just has your pawns turn off machines and lights when they aren't using them).

[Jaggid Edje]

I had a thread where I presented this exact same issue a few days ago.

What worked for me to get more variety in the raids and start seeing human raids more often again was to change my story teller, which you can do in the middle of an ongoing game.

Here is a quote from that thread which explains why we may be seeing the "only bugs and mechs" as the game progresses.

Originally posted by Astasia:

As far as major threat weighting goes, raids have a weight of 7.4, infestations have a weight of 2.7, and manhunters have a weight of 2. So manhunters usually aren't going to be that common. Most of the time when a storyteller rolls a major threat, the game will pick a raid, then pick a faction for that raid.

When picking that raid faction mechanoids get a further bump in selection weight based on colony wealth, most factions have a weight of 1 while mechanoids go up to 2.7 at 4000 raid points, so even if all factions are left alive mechanoids eventually become the most common raid.

If you want to see the other responses I got, the thread is here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/294100/discussions/0/5358712989072314961/

Edit to add: oh, and about the quests, changing story teller seemed to kick start those again for me as well. I changed to a mod story teller, which I linked in the thread above.

[Gold♥Shield]

Thanks. I'll change the storyteller and see what happens. I was getting so burnt out that every time I heard that raid horn, I would just get annoyed because it was either run back into the mountain with explosive traps or switch most of my pawns with EMP gear.

[Jaggid Edje]

Yah, that was pretty much what bothered me too...the lack of variety. That and the fact my prison was sitting empty all the time.
This is my first game where I am playing with the Meme that has "Gladiator duel" ritual and I really want to have enough prisoners that I can do the ritual with them every time it is off cooldown.

Since switching storytellers I am getting a lot of variety and my prisons are rarely empty again. My prison getting empty is actually a pretty sure indicator I'm probably going to see a raid really soon now.

[Gold♥Shield]

I ended up building eight additional prison cells and the last time they were full was when I had a task to house some royals for a while and I had to turn them back into normal rooms. Now that you mention it, I can't remember the last time I had more than one cell being used..

When you changed the storyteller, did you change the settings too? Or did you just swap from one person to another?

[Jaggid Edje]

I just swapped from one person to another.

I was using Cassandra and switched to the mod one named Rainbeau Flambe. He's supposedly a mix of several of the vanilla storytellers. I'm enjoying him so far.

I didn't want to change any other settings until I had a feel for how he was going to treat me. LOL

[Gold♥Shield]

That's fair. I went from Cassandra to Phoebe so later today I'll have to see what she throws at me. If it's still pretty tame (I had to keep turning up the difficulty with Cassandra) then I might just swap to Randy.

[Morkonan]

This is one of the reasons I think something has changed in the difficulty presented to the player in some fairly recent patch, likely having to do with the DLCs. To me, it felt as if the difficulty there had increased, but I think most were just comfortable with telling me to "git gud" so I just stopped asking about it.

[Astasia]

Humans also stop raiding after around 30-45 days if the temperature is above 45C or below -40C.

Storyteller doesn't have any effect on which major threats you get, the storyteller rolls for which event to trigger like a major threat then passes that off to another system where another roll happens to determine which one. But changing the RNG by changing the storyteller will probably mix things up a bit and sort of restart the process I guess you could say. The ol' turn it off and on again.

Originally posted by Morkonan:

This is one of the reasons I think something has changed in the difficulty presented to the player in some fairly recent patch, likely having to do with the DLCs. To me, it felt as if the difficulty there had increased, but I think most were just comfortable with telling me to "git gud" so I just stopped asking about it.

I mean the vast majority of the process is handled by XML these days and I could link any part of the code if you are interested, it's a really basic RNG system so there's not that much depth to it. This is basically the entirety of Randy for example, everything that makes him what he is, the brain:

<mtbDays>1.35</mtbDays>
<minIncChancePopulationIntentFactor>0.2</minIncChancePopulationIntentFactor>
<randomPointsFactorRange>0.5~1.5</randomPointsFactorRange>
<categoryWeights>
<Misc>3.5</Misc>
<ThreatBig>1.4</ThreatBig>
<OrbitalVisitor>1.1</OrbitalVisitor>
<FactionArrival>2.4</FactionArrival>
<ThreatSmall>0.6</ThreatSmall>
<ShipChunkDrop>0.22</ShipChunkDrop>
</categoryWeights>

On average every 1.35 days he picks something on that list based on the weighting, roughly a 15% for a major threat which he multiplies by a value between 0.5 and 1.5 for difficulty scaling. That is the extent that Randy is involved with determine big threats. It's passed off to the incidents system where most major threats are defined in Incidents_Map_Threats.xml based on weights. If a raid is rolled it's passed off to the factions to determine the weight of each faction being picked.

Since 1.0 here is what has changed in this system:
-Mechanoids are much less likely to raid at higher values, they used to scale up to almost certainty at the highest colony wealth where almost the only thing you would see were mechanoids except for sappers and sieges which used to be human only.
-Tribals are a lot more likely to raid at higher wealth than they used to be, they had an inverse scale where at higher wealth they were less likely to raid, this was removed, they now have a standard rate of 1.0 at all wealth levels like the other human factions.

If you want to see certain bits of the XML where anything I just said is defined let me know. I'm not telling you to "get good" but this is one of those things I think where an RNG game or certain conditions (or mods) can cause you to see patterns that perhaps don't exist.

I didn't mention it in the other thread Jaggid Edje linked here, but he was talking about infested ship chunks which are a Vanilla Expanded incident, mods can certainly throw off the weighting, adding any major threat to the pool will adjust the chances of anything else happening. I think that mod also has a slider for each event commonality.

[Jaggid Edje]

Originally posted by Astasia:

I didn't mention it in the other thread Jaggid Edje linked here, but he was talking about infested ship chunks which are a Vanilla Expanded incident, mods can certainly throw off the weighting, adding any major threat to the pool will adjust the chances of anything else happening. I think that mod also has a slider for each event commonality.

s'okay you didn't mention it in that other thread, that bit of things I was already aware of (because you had talked about it in a different thread a few months back).

And yes, Vanilla events expanded lets you adjust the weighting of all of the events.

That's one of the reasons I was kind of freaking out that infested ship chunks crashing were the majority of the "threat" type events that I was seeing. I can SEE the weighting of that, and it shouldn't be that common.

Things are still good with the new story teller...several game years later. So I dunno what was going on with Cassandra.

[Gold♥Shield]

Originally posted by Astasia:

Humans also stop raiding after around 30-45 days if the temperature is above 45C or below -40C.

My colony has rarely gone below -40 and only hits above 113F (freedom units) a few times during the summer, but it seems ridiculous that mechs get a larger priority over human raids, especially when all it takes is about three or four pawns with EMP launchers to completely disable all mech clusters. Human raids are far more dangerous and devastating and I honestly miss getting late in the game with 40+ pawns mostly outfitted in high-tech armor and weapons, then seeing raiders with Doomsday launchers showing up. Now, it's just overstock on medicine for when 30 hives burst out of the mountain for the 17th time this month or craft a few extra EMP shells and mortars for when the 34th mech cluster drops down.

I'm guessing there's a mod that resets this priority so could someone recommend one? I've fought so many mechs I'm highly considering finding a mod that just removes them from the game entirely.

Originally posted by Astasia:

Since 1.0 here is what has changed in this system:
-Mechanoids are much less likely to raid at higher values, they used to scale up to almost certainty at the highest colony wealth where almost the only thing you would see were mechanoids except for sappers and sieges which used to be human only.
-Tribals are a lot more likely to raid at higher wealth than they used to be, they had an inverse scale where at higher wealth they were less likely to raid, this was removed, they now have a standard rate of 1.0 at all wealth levels like the other human factions.

Is that 1.0 base game or does Ideology affect this? I recall getting human raids constantly on my last vanilla (pre-Royalty) colony all the way until I left the world. Ever since I installed Royalty, I honestly can't remember the last time I saw human raiders and it's been even longer since I was given a quest that involved invading a base (clearing out enemy locations or looking for high tier loot). All the quests I get now are just "hide this prisoner for X amount of days" or "keep this royal entourage happy for X amount of days while they freeload in your colony". The last quest I received I turned down because they wanted me to house 35 royal guests for 19 days. I already have 39 pawns and wasn't about to dig out a whole new mountain just to have the space to build 35 new bedrooms (I do have a barracks but it only holds 12).

In some aspects, Royalty feels like a massive step backwards for Rimworld.

[Jaggid Edje]

Originally posted by Gold♥Shield:

I'm guessing there's a mod that resets this priority so could someone recommend one? I've fought so many mechs I'm highly considering finding a mod that just removes them from the game entirely.

As was mentioned above in this thread, Vanilla Events Expanded lets you adjust the weighting of ALL events in the game, which includes the weighting of the various types of raids. It also lets you toggle any that you don't want at all to be completely off.

Of course, it also adds a bunch of new types of raids and events, but again, you can completely disable any that you don't want.

Even without mods, you can do the same thing with the scenerio editor. Though I think either approach will still have mech adverseries in some quests. I'm not familiar with any way to customize those to remove them.

[Gold♥Shield]

Originally posted by Jaggid Edje:

Originally posted by Gold♥Shield:

I'm guessing there's a mod that resets this priority so could someone recommend one? I've fought so many mechs I'm highly considering finding a mod that just removes them from the game entirely.

As was mentioned above in this thread, Vanilla Events Expanded lets you adjust the weighting of ALL events in the game, which includes the weighting of the various types of raids. It also lets you toggle any that you don't want at all to be completely off.

Of course, it also adds a bunch of new types of raids and events, but again, you can completely disable any that you don't want.

Even without mods, you can do the same thing with the scenerio editor. Though I think either approach will still have mech adverseries in some quests. I'm not familiar with any way to customize those to remove them.

Thanks, I'll definitely look into this. I'm so close to leaving the planet in my current colony it would be pointless for me to grab that now. I'd be fine if there was a quest to get high level loot that was guarded by a mech cluster, but the non-stop clusters are just boring.

I was also curious if base defenses played a role in what kind of raids were triggered. I seem to recall in vanilla that building massive funnels of death along the outer boundary of the map was a viable strategy and also very useful for the final ship launch sequence, but it seems like as I added more defenses, the raids became incredibly localized in only one area of my map.

Edit: It took a while, but I just had back to back raids from hostile tribes.

[Astasia]

Originally posted by Gold♥Shield:

Is that 1.0 base game or does Ideology affect this?

Those are base game numbers. Royalty doesn't change things really, the mech clusters are their own threat type that get added to the major threat pool, but it swaps weights with the psychic/defoliator ship part events so you don't actually get mechanoid events any more often, technically you get them less often as a random threat. The Royalty quests though can fairly often cause extra mech clusters if you accept them.

Ideology doesn't do anything related to threat weights, but the 1.3 updated added breach raids which have been mixed into the raid type pool and those do allow mechanoids. That makes sieges and sappers a little less likely to happen which are both raid types that mechanoids can't do. So in a sense, 1.3 made mechanoids a little more likely to show up in the form of breach raids. It's hard to math out the actual change but it's likely less than a 10% difference.

[ASMR gaming]

grab some alien faction mods should mix it up, vanilla expanded is another option

[Morkonan]

Originally posted by Astasia:

...an RNG game or certain conditions (or mods) can cause you to see patterns that perhaps don't exist.
..

That possible bias is another reason why I haven't fully committed to that interpretation.

Do you know if the wiki info on raid formulas was ever updated?

I think on my next-to-last playthrough, which was admittedly quite awhile ago, using the patch around Ideology's release (Haven't updated), I received two crashed ship events and at least two advanced Raider type raids. I think I had one very early game primitive Raid. Two Acid Rain and some other environmental that I've forgotten, atm. Two bug events as well, btw. (Not at the same time, of course. But, I used part of a mountain and Bugs absolutely love them some fine dining... Built a Bug Trap, later, but hadn't yet received another spawn before quitting.)

All this was before my normal "late-early/early mid-game" stage. (Hadn't yet built any Geothermal, no fab bench yet) The second crashed ship, while colonists were still recovering from Raid wounds, sort of turned me off from continuing that particular play. Basically, it was a no-breathing-room play... on "Adventure" I think, then bumped it down to Community Builder at some point to see what would happen. Cassandra, IIRC, then switched to Phoebe just before the second crashed ship.

Note: None of these were heavily multiplied, like a Randy Raid. That much I am sure of. They were a normal type of event/raid at expected levels, just... all that was really a bit more frequent than I would have otherwise expected. One Acid Rain was unusually long, too.

I can recall feeling as if I hadn't really gone through a period without some kind of "bad" RNG event. I recall having enough breathing room to get my Freezer and food-production up, bedrooms, basic dining/rec and to begin on a "Hospitality" barracks/area and that was about... that, really.

Hospitality and Rimfridge being my only content/buildable mods. Prepare Carefully/Prepare Landing/Graze up (added, due to the change in snow cover grazing, before "Pens"), and dependencies. No other shenanigans, just built some colonists with Growing/Construction, found the very rare river/medium mountain/cold'ish hex type I was looking for and then hit "play."

I remember the playthrough because it wasn't... fun. :) It was hectic and annoying and I kept wondering if the game was trying to "give me" something like components or more colonists. IIRC, I had six colonists or so - I remember being short on labor. Somewhere around here I may have posted in a thread giving more details. (I did feel I had more trouble getting recruits than I thought I should have had given the circumstances. But, when it's a non-primitive raider type, you don't go in swinging without Shield Belts backed by armor and I didn't have any. Strangely enough, none of them delivered any, either.)

Could it have just been RNG? Absolutely, 'cause "RNG." :) But... I don't normally come away from Rimworld with "that was annoying" lingering in my brain. That's not "RNG." :)

(HD is borked, boot-sector corruption/bad-sector, IIRC, but I think I may be able to get data off of it when I rebuild. Will compare files/values if I can.) /sub'd