Archonexus feels kinda, weak.

[believor in Prawn]

So, you go, make an original colony that probably could have built the ship on it's own (350k is a lot of money). You sell that colony, probably lose a person or two, and then have to rebuild, albeit with pawns that probably have good armor, implants, and skills, but not even any research. So, again, you go and again sell your colony, and again make a new colony, (and you get to research everything again, woo-hoo).

Finally, you build your *third* colony, befriend whatever idiots want your colony this time, and then fight the archonexus mechs.

And then you just get fade to black credit screen, no mention of your ideoligon, no song, nothing really. Just, "the big tech thing says hi and it confuses you a lot because it's a complex "hi." Do you die?????"

[Raymond]

it's the journey that count, not the destination :D

[Vermillion Cardinal]

I've read a discussion on Reddit about this before, and I got the impression that the consensus there was that the endings in RimWorld are perfunctory; the fun is in the journey rather than the endings, which is why apparently a lot of people like myself never really reach the end per se, either choosing to perpetually play the same colony (sometimes sending people off planet from time to time), expand into SOS2, or simply moving on to the next colony.

The endings are there just to give a goal to those who want an end goal to work towards. Reach that goal, treat it as an ending, move on; it's largely up to you to imagine what happens after.

To me, the archonexus thing is just a new game+ situation given an official veneer so you can restart a colony twice with some hard earned advantages carried over.

[ichifish]

The archonexus quest is a clusterphuck of ludonarrative dissonance that would be better titled “a sociopath’s tale.”

All of those colonists you convinced to adopt your ideology get sold along with your colony to some freaks from another ideology. The friends, lovers, saviors of your chosen five. You literally have moments in your second colony when you are murdering your former colonists from colony one while recruiting new colonists, knowing that you’ll do the same thing to them. Toad, this great pawn in my first colony, who ate the best food on the rim, made love to his wife in a slightly impressive bedroom, and got so inspired he carved a symbol of the ideology so magnificent it was known across the planet, went from a persona-zeushammering space wizard who single-handedly saved the colony to a raggedy-ass club-wielding tribal, only to be ripped to shreds by those his former moral guide drove violently insane.

This isn’t “a tragic thing that happened because it’s a violent world,” it’s a tragic thing that you cause each time you sell out.

And why would you do that? Is it because awakening the archonexus will bring enlightenment and peace? Shield the planet from the mechanoid incursion? Reveal the sacred Z Level? There isn’t a shred of redemption: the only thing you know is that before the archonexus went silent it had almost succeeded in destroying humanity.

Then there’s the conflict between the narrative and the mechanics. You’ve supposedly negotiated a deal to sell a colony, but for some reason you can only take a paltry amount of gear with you on the delivery shuttle -even though you can take five elephants! There’s no rationale for this. It’s just another McGuffin.

And the ending?

There’s no big climatic battle, no exhilarating challenge, you just cross that third 350K, get a location on the map, go to it, and are rewarded with 2-3 sentences of text.

It would be so easy to reframe the archonexus a hero's quest and have something like "When the mech hive learns of your intention to initiate the archonexus they'll obliterate the colony with a space laser. For their own protection all remaining members of the colony will adopt secret identities and live amongst your allies." Throw in some kidnapped quests and make all ritual joins be pawns from the former colony and it would be fulfilling, like “get the old team back together.” Instead we have “you screwed over your friends so kill them before they kill you.”

Or instead of selling out the original colony the quest could let you keep it but forfeit X amount of wealth to get below a certain threshold. For example, once you reach 350K and the agreement is made you get a trade screen and that shows all of the buildings, items, etc. and have to sell 250K worth of stuff. Then have the quest missions be additional, but distant, settlements. The player could choose to either have the original tile active and play two colonies, or have the original colony go into hibernation until the end of each stage. That would allow the player to try the quest with or without support from the original colony. Running multiple colonies would also be a fun challenge for many players.

The problem with rebuilding a colony with the exact same goal is it emphasizes one play style, generating wealth, not how the game literally tells you to play it: by enjoying the story the characters tell. Why bother designing a cool base? Just stockpile a bunch of crap. Why care about new colonists if you're just going to sell out anyway? It’s like a techbro sim where I’m just trying to cash in on a succession of shady startups.

It’s frustrating because there are many ways they could have taken the quests that would have been equally easy:
1. Do a nomadic run to hack X number of nodes with a countdown timer that throws massive raids at you every 3-5 days, forcing you to keep moving.
2. Tunnel into a buried complex on a tile that is 90% mountain in search of a buried node, trying to avoid chambers full of mechs and bugs.
3. Survive in a disease-infested swamp where the node causes all wildlife to go insane every few days and throws wall-attacking manhunter packs regularly.
4. Survive on an ice sheet, in the extreme desert, or in toxic fallout while hacking the node for a year.
5. Rescue a number of scientists (rescued pawn join events) in distant locations in order to hack a node.
6. Build a massive structure around a nexus point that funnels energy into the nexus.
7. Place five animus stones or guaranlen trees in the proper configuration to channel energy to the nexus.

etc.

If there were multiple possible scenarios and each time you did 3 of them (maybe a choice between two each time) there would be lots of replayability. The run wouldn’t be so tediously long, either.

The quest and the "Now with even more evil!" focus of the ideologies really makes me wonder if Tynan is a sociopath.

[ichifish]

Originally posted by YariMurai:

it's the journey that count, not the destination :D

Yeah, like they say, it's the friends we made and then killed along the way!

[believor in Prawn]

Originally posted by ichifish:

Things I agree with

Yeah, like, if they give us one ride to our new destination for 350K (LOTS OF MONEY), why cant we get like, 400k and have the extra damm 50k give us the ability to bring all our people along? Why can we only carry such small amounts of silver and gold, and why can we only bring 5 different types of items? Why can we bring our 500kgs of armor but not 10kg of guns?

And then, the nexus itself has like, at most 3200 research that needs to be done, the same amount of research that has to be done for GEOTHERMAL, not for building a spaceship or anything...

And then also, we give them all our research (and for some reason dont take a flash drive with all the blueprints on it) and then they never use it? I gave a base with a damm NUCLEAR REACTOR TO THE TRIBALS. What do they do with this nuclear reactor???? Do they attempt to just break it and have the entire map become littered with fallout???

One of my maps had nearly all it's wealth in a stockpile of around 50k chemfuel, what are tribals going to want 50k chemfuel for???

And then, you are in your new tile, and they choose to start you off with what you originally started with, so why did they give me a revolver and a bolt action, instead of a charge rifle and a machine pistol? its the same mass.

It is also so weird that say, a raider, supremacist, slaver ideoligon is completely okay with trying to befriend other factions, why dont the other factions have, say, a big capitol off in their own area, which is of course, highly defended, and possibly even has your caravan get consistently ambushed as it gets too close to their capitol?

Also, the pirates know where your colony is from the very start of the game, something that may be marked by literally nothing if you are tribals. So, why dont the pirates also know where the archonexus is and just invoke its power??

[ichifish]

Originally posted by believor in Prawn:

And then also, we give them all our research (and for some reason dont take a flash drive with all the blueprints on it) and then they never use it?

Yeah, losing research is just adding insult to injury. Somehow you forget how to make top hats after making dozens? The crafter who made a legendary harp can't make another one? Research is a gating mechanic meant to pace your play and provide interesting choices, but doing it over (and OVER) doesn't make narrative sense. Especially on tribal it's just a McGuffin-grind.

And what's the reasoning behind all faction relations being reset?

The worst part is, you could literally keep the EXACT SAME mechanics and still generate a compelling narrative simply by writing good flavor text:

First notification: You are contacted by a mysterious power calling itself the archonexus. It promises to show you the secrets of creation, but demands you prove yourself worthy. You must build a powerful coalition and ensure you can persuade even your enemies to support your cause. It will contact you once you have satisfied its opaque demands.

[forboding archnonexus description]

[requirements]

Colony 1 end: The archonexus manifests as a radiant sphere of scintillating light. In an inhuman voice it tells you the time has come, and you should prepare to depart. It will teleport its chosen ones to a portal that can only be accessed by human minds.

In order to shield itself from those seeking to lock it in eternal darkness the archonexus will destroy this colony. All other colonists will be forced to live in secret among the various factions of the world.

[select pawns, gear, animals]

Colony 2 start: You awaken, empty and dazed, a patchwork of memories flashing sporadically through your mind. The archonexus calls on you to begin the next stage.

...

For the ending the quest should at least reward you by revealing some lore, like your colonists become anima trees.

[zebra03]

Originally posted by believor in Prawn:

It is also so weird that say, a raider, supremacist, slaver ideoligon is completely okay with trying to befriend other factions, why dont the other factions have, say, a big capitol off in their own area, which is of course, highly defended, and possibly even has your caravan get consistently ambushed as it gets too close to their capitol?

Also, the pirates know where your colony is from the very start of the game, something that may be marked by literally nothing if you are tribals. So, why dont the pirates also know where the archonexus is and just invoke its power??

Yeah I found it weird too that you can't just raid each faction for the information instead of giving to their demands to give another location, so much for raider and supremacist precept

[Crim]

You lose research? thats dumb

Everything else is fine

[believor in Prawn]

Additional suggestion, the pirates REALLY want this map, they would so love to be able to harness its power. (also they hold the final part). So, when you actually are about to get a new part of the archonexus map, you have to go and protect the caravan that is bringing it to your base from pirate raiders who want the next piece. This also allows the size limits to exist because if too much is mobilized it will alert the pirates to the new archonexus location, and the raids they would launch would simply be too severe.

This repeats for the 2nd map part, but for the 3rd map part you have to go to a newly revealed pirate vault, get in, find the archonexus map piece, and start having someone with high intellectual skill use the pirate comms to transmit the meaning of the map back to your base, all the while they are incessantly mobilizing more of their forces to stop you, this then allows you to find the archonexus (with no mech fight because that's kinda stupid, isnt giving the thing full control of your mind right after it attempts to kill you a bad idea??)

Originally posted by ichifish:

The worst part is, you could literally keep the EXACT SAME mechanics and still generate a compelling narrative simply by writing good flavor text:

...

For the ending the quest should at least reward you by revealing some lore, like your colonists become anima trees.

honestly I would have liked it so much more if it had a few passing comments on how my ideoligon affected my pawn's feelings, they are all transhumanists and believe that archotechs are the true holders of morality, so they should be completely thrilled, they are about to reach the gods they have been dreaming of.

[eMYNOCK]

what happens if one actually founds a second colony before selling the first one?

is that 2nd colony sold along with the primary one? can we keep it, prepare it in advance, hoard stuff and important colonists there?

i stayed away from the entire nexus thing because for some reason it always wants to buy the Derelic Space Station i start my Games on (SoS2).

Screw you Game... i won't sell you my piece of floating Space Junk!

[ichifish]

Originally posted by eMYNOCK:

what happens if one actually founds a second colony before selling the first one?

is that 2nd colony sold along with the primary one?

Everything is sold. Nothing remains except the chosen pawns, their gear, and the former colonists, who become world pawns (they don't keep their gear).

[eMYNOCK]

ok, thanks.

guess i keep my space junk than.