Whhy would yu ever go to tundra or other cold environment?

[jacobellinger]

Is there some kind of advantage to starting in a super cold environment? and if not why even have these sorts of environments in the game? Honest question.

[Majere]

Humm, I disagree with your theory.

On ice planet there is little to no wood to burn.
You are pretty much stuck using heaters to heat areas, and in cases where you try to create an animal enclosure, or even your own base, one power failure or battery short at the wrong time will cause you to lose all your animals to the freeze - not to mention ontop of this, there are no animals at all or very few animals on the map - Typical to see 1 or 2 snow fox or hare - which do not feed anyone very well and are impossible to start an animal enclosure. On top of all that, IF you could manage to over come ALL that - how do you feed them? It is almost impossible to feed your 3 starting toons, let alone provide food for animals. They certainly are not able to graze the natural gress - there is none.

Add to the fact that as soon as you land your toons are under dressed and unprepared for the cold - Not unusual for 1 of my starting 3 to be 100% naked.

Where as in a desert biome, if you lose power you do not lose crops. AC is only helpful for your toons health and happyness. But it certainly will not kill your toons if you lose power and it takes you some time to repair.

I think you might want to try playing on an ice biome and see what I am talking about.

[Zubenelgenubi]

I was saying before it would be nice if there was some kind of incentive to play the colder maps.

[Majere]

Well, if you look at it, as a challenge, then there is incentive. Again, a map where I have a year round growing zone, or a zone where i have a long growing season before winter, is just not hard for me anymore. I prefer to conquer this Ice biome, just so I can say I did it. I am actually playing right now!~

[Zubenelgenubi]

Originally posted by Majere:

Well, if you look at it, as a challenge, then there is incentive.

It's not an incentive for everyone. And even the people who do would appreciate something else.

Think of how Terraria or the Witcher games have special items in high difficulties as well as other things. Maybe they could have a special material in cold climates required to make something cool.

[Majere]

But to your point then, what is the incentive to play in any biome?

[Majere]

Grrrrr, solar flare, followed instantly by mental breakdown and a raid! WTF!

[grapplehoeker]

Originally posted by Majere:

I think you might want to try playing on an ice biome and see what I am talking about.

Been there, done that... it's not that hard tbh.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=773340985

[Zubenelgenubi]

Originally posted by Majere:

But to your point then, what is the incentive to play in any biome?

There are a variety of factors which decide the type of map they choose. For a lot of people cold is just a deterrent.

[Mnemovore]

A big advantage to ice sheets is raid refense. Snow movement is about 50% and there's rarely any cover. Once you secure a food supply ice sheets are actually kinda easy. That's a big hurdle though.

[Mnemovore]

Honestly, how I play the game is to pick a random starting spot without even looking at the first 3 survivors - to best simulate a crash landing. It gets ... interesting at times. Fastest fail was when I had 3 people incapable of dumb labor. They were left to the wolves in a hurry.

[Majere]

Originally posted by Zubenelgenubi:

Originally posted by Majere:

But to your point then, what is the incentive to play in any biome?

There are a variety of factors which decide the type of map they choose. For a lot of people cold is just a deterrent.

Well, again, I am trying to stay on topic - the question was, what is the incentive? Not deterrent.
So if the incentive is, easier game - by all means yes..Tropical growing season is sure to help.

Originally posted by grapplehoeker:

Originally posted by Majere:

I think you might want to try playing on an ice biome and see what I am talking about.

Been there, done that... it's not that hard tbh.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=773340985

Well, again...I wish some people would actually read before responding. Nobody is saying it can not be done. I am saying it is the hardest Biome to deal with - Ice sheets. There are far many more deadly issues, very early to deal with. So for you, if you can do Ice Biome, certainly everything else is also pretty easy.

[Andrius227]

It's all about the challenge. Easy games can be very boring to some ppl.

[ministrog]

I'll have to agree with grapplehoeker, not that it's a bad thing. Deserts presents for me a challenge that's more unpleasant. Mainly because cooling has only 2 options, and 1 arbitrary option coming from clothing. AC just requires you to get the tech and hoard steel/components. It's very similar to ice sheets playstyle.

However, Passive coolers need wood. This is more difficult to source since you'll have to wait for traders or watch your tree plantation like a hawk. That's extremely annoying since most plants die prematurely in gravel (70% fertility); the most abundant farmable soil type in deserts. Even if you got good soil, you know you'll use it to plant crops for food over trees for wood.

Heating in ice sheets is a little easier for me. You can use camp fires for light and heat. You can use torches for a little heat. Building smaller rooms increases their effectiveness in heating the room. Lets not forget clothing that you get from hunting and raid defence. Then, once you researched electricity, you get heaters which can be reinstalled anywhere you want, any time you want.

Once you get a solar flare, your AC just dies. In the desert, that's bye bye to your meat, and cooling. During early game, that can spell disaster. As someone said before, you don't need a proper freezer in ice sheets.

[Mikhail Reign]

Real icesheets - the ones that get down to -100 for seasons at a time, offer the challange of 'if anyone is outside for more then a hour they are probably dead'. Early game it can be hard to even get a room up before a pawns lose fingers to frostbite. A poweroutage can pretty much flashfreeze a colony. It has pros in that raiders can die before they even get to you

[SakuraKoi]

Originally posted by Zubenelgenubi:

Originally posted by Majere:

Well, if you look at it, as a challenge, then there is incentive.

It's not an incentive for everyone. And even the people who do would appreciate something else.

There's nothing that's for everyone. This game is not for everyone, no game is. "t's not for everyone" is a non-argument

Originally posted by Mikhail Reign:

Real icesheets - the ones that get down to -100 for seasons at a time, offer the challange of 'if anyone is outside for more then a hour they are probably dead'. Early game it can be hard to even get a room up before a pawns lose fingers to frostbite. A poweroutage can pretty much flashfreeze a colony. It has pros in that raiders can die before they even get to you

Well, for the first ones it's true but soon after mostly mechanoids and guys like these arrive:
http://puu.sh/ruoLn/617a05f4d7.jpg
which spike the wealth even more (each is like 3500 worth and have very well one advanced bionic part, removing it does give no debuff)