Genemodding-Demotivation

[El Chupacabra]

hey mates

I had big plans with (vanilla) gene modding... like create the best waifus on the whole Rimworld. And create super soldiers.... and so on.

I was looking for as many gene packs I could get... Now I finally got most of them and started to create the Species I want.

Suddenly, I realized: The Archeo-Packs extracted from Sanguinophages are so damn powerful. Every Soldier-Xenotype should use Immortal. Every lovely parter should use (at least) ageless.

...but wouldn't be the game be boring then? If my pawns lovely wife will never die of age or illness, where the nice tragic stories come from?

My problem - why I write this, why I need advice - is that I really struggle to NOT create "too cheesy" Xenotypes. I've got all the genepacks by hours of fair play. It would be totally unlogical to not use them, as long I have enought Archites. And I have too many of them.

It would feel somehow totally out of character, to not use the knowledge and ressources gathered in many ingame years.

But I really afraid that it will kill the game because my Colony will just be too stable and that there will be no thrill from the Threat of losing great pawns (or not as many times as before).

How do you would handle such a situation?

[The Blind One]

You finished the game in essence. You won.

You've reached the end of the game, your quest for immortality and genetic superiority is all but over as you achieved everything you set out to do.

Now rest and enjoy the fruits of your labor.

Now here's a question ... do you have any enemies left standing? If yes I'd go on a maniacal genocidal war against all your enemies and slaughter them with your superior genetics and new found powers of immortality. See how efficient you can be in wiping out the enemy

But yeah basicall you finished your objective and the game is over ...

[MadArtillery]

All the archeo genes are absolutely busted. If you have gotten to the point of both having all those genes, and the ability to archeotech a whole colony with all the best augments perhaps it's time to send your colonists off to space or become god or something. Not always a lot to do once you become almighty, perfectly stable, and untouchable, it's why there are endings in the game. Though I can assure you deathless can still die, had it happen damn lucky brain shot. Nothing like giving someone deathless and they die literally the first raid the participate in I can assure you. You can make some pretty powerful people but if you don't cheese the combat too bad with killboxes it can still throw some curve balls at times.

If you ever get truly bored you can always just up the difficulty mid run and if that doesn't help there's always another run, you can fiddle with modifiers to the world and starting genes to make some hella interesting scenarios.

[Astasia]

You can't extract the archite stuff from sanguophages. You have to scour shops or quests to find the gene for that, and that could take an extremely long time depending on RNG.

Deathless does't literally mean "never dies." Decapitation, burning, grenades, mountain collapse, kidnapping, and lost caravans are still a risk. Progression wise it's a lot like going from no armor to legendary cataphract armor, threats become a lot more trivial to deal with after your hard work to get to that point, but it doesn't fully invalidate risk, just adds another level of safety.

Ageless on the other hand is a useless gene and a waste of archite, unless you are a transhumanist colony and are tired of age reversal cycle demands. There is no "death from old age" in RimWorld, and deathless or even the Super Immunity gene already protect from the weakened immune system of a 120 year old. Assuming you ever plan to play a colony for like 60+ years and don't have Ideology, otherwise aging never really becomes an issue to be concerned with anyway.

[The Blind One]

Originally posted by Astasia:

Ageless on the other hand is a useless gene and a waste of archite

True, but I think you're forgetting the most important part about this gene;

Roleplay or 'aesthetic'.

[Astasia]

Originally posted by The Blind One:

Originally posted by Astasia:

Ageless on the other hand is a useless gene and a waste of archite

True, but I think you're forgetting the most important part about this gene;

Roleplay or 'aesthetic'.

I've been getting that a lot lately, but I don't forget these things, much of what I do in my own playthroughs is inefficient and done for RP reasons. My advice and data on the forums here is not a representation of how I play, my way of approaching games is to find the most optimal way to do everything so I can create enough slack to be sub-optimal in many areas. If I do A at 150% then I can do B at 50% and it will balance out basically. I just don't feel it's necessary to remind people that they are allowed to be inefficient when playing their games, for whatever reasons they want to. The question of whether ageless makes the game boring or too easy though, definitely not since it basically has no effect on gameplay in the vast majority of cases.

[El Chupacabra]

Originally posted by The Blind One:

You finished the game in essence. You won.

You've reached the end of the game, your quest for immortality and genetic superiority is all but over as you achieved everything you set out to do.

Now rest and enjoy the fruits of your labor.

Now here's a question ... do you have any enemies left standing? If yes I'd go on a maniacal genocidal war against all your enemies and slaughter them with your superior genetics and new found powers of immortality. See how efficient you can be in wiping out the enemy

But yeah basicall you finished your objective and the game is over ...

Damn. I guess you're right. Thats really what I'm afraid of.

How do I fill my life now?

I could try to genocide this one faction killed my one of my beloved pawns back then... yeah, but it's like an 30 days march to their base^^

You cannot exterminate the machine thread, yes? Because the machanoids are my main enemy, nearly 50-80% of all attacks launched from them.

Originally posted by MadArtillery:

All the archeo genes are absolutely busted. If you have gotten to the point of both having all those genes, and the ability to archeotech a whole colony with all the best augments perhaps it's time to send your colonists off to space or become god or something. Not always a lot to do once you become almighty, perfectly stable, and untouchable, it's why there are endings in the game. Though I can assure you deathless can still die, had it happen damn lucky brain shot. Nothing like giving someone deathless and they die literally the first raid the participate in I can assure you. You can make some pretty powerful people but if you don't cheese the combat too bad with killboxes it can still throw some curve balls at times.

If you ever get truly bored you can always just up the difficulty mid run and if that doesn't help there's always another run, you can fiddle with modifiers to the world and starting genes to make some hella interesting scenarios.

Hm, yeah, guess going to space would be an option too. Still somehow sad, I wanted to Crusader-Kings my colony with various generations of pawns, but surely the game isn't made for that. My colony is still controlled by it's first leader. His son is 21st and have it's own small baby... But I would need at least 50 years of ingame time more to be satisfied.

Maybe try with higher difficulty if I ever start a new run. But tbh, my difficulty was really nice to play, just progression was "too fast".

Comes to another question: Whats the average playtime of an Rimworlds save? Are there any statistics? What are yours?

Originally posted by Astasia:

You can't extract the archite stuff from sanguophages. You have to scour shops or quests to find the gene for that, and that could take an extremely long time depending on RNG.

Deathless does't literally mean "never dies." Decapitation, burning, grenades, mountain collapse, kidnapping, and lost caravans are still a risk. Progression wise it's a lot like going from no armor to legendary cataphract armor, threats become a lot more trivial to deal with after your hard work to get to that point, but it doesn't fully invalidate risk, just adds another level of safety.

Ageless on the other hand is a useless gene and a waste of archite, unless you are a transhumanist colony and are tired of age reversal cycle demands. There is no "death from old age" in RimWorld, and deathless or even the Super Immunity gene already protect from the weakened immune system of a 120 year old. Assuming you ever plan to play a colony for like 60+ years and don't have Ideology, otherwise aging never really becomes an issue to be concerned with anyway.

Strange. Because I had exctracted them for sure. And I didn't used mods for that.
BUT I guess it is because that was changed in the past? I started this Colony some years ago and only just got back into recently. I already had the most Archite gene packs from these "old" times and just had to collect some other stuff to master my new H.omo Superior.

Sadly, beside genetics, I'm already very strong. I have an 8 pawn strong standing army (always full equipment for combat) for fast response and armours for the others in storage. Most attacks can just be repelled by my "army" and all the defence towers. Legendary Armor satification is long gone ;)

About "Deathless" see below. Of course you are in theory right, but I use a mod that Pawns can die just by old age.

After all, "Deathless" has one big plus for my pawns: The female pawns dont get "out of service". My Leader-pawn(s) do not like to have 70+ wifes with missing fingers and cancer. So they want to stop the ageing of their wifes while they are into there mid 20s. Sounds horrible just like that, but trust me, it's just their strange ideology and it all has good reasons. xD

Originally posted by The Blind One:

Originally posted by Astasia:

Ageless on the other hand is a useless gene and a waste of archite

True, but I think you're forgetting the most important part about this gene;

Roleplay or 'aesthetic'.

Yup, I'm totally into both.

Originally posted by Astasia:

I've been getting that a lot lately, but I don't forget these things, much of what I do in my own playthroughs is inefficient and done for RP reasons. My advice and data on the forums here is not a representation of how I play, my way of approaching games is to find the most optimal way to do everything so I can create enough slack to be sub-optimal in many areas. If I do A at 150% then I can do B at 50% and it will balance out basically. I just don't feel it's necessary to remind people that they are allowed to be inefficient when playing their games, for whatever reasons they want to. The question of whether ageless makes the game boring or too easy though, definitely not since it basically has no effect on gameplay in the vast majority of cases.

I'm fully with you. And while you're right I'm sorry that I do not mentioned that I use a mod which will let the pawns die by age.

And so, I fear it makes the game family-aspects boring, since the pawns and their wifes, friends, children, will never die anytime soon, which somehow takes away any thrill (for Crusader Kings like playstyle).

[MadArtillery]

I think what the run is heavily affects how long it lasts. Sometimes the twists I add to my run can keep me playing them for a very long time, I have had age actually matter, other times they can end in only a few in-game years.

I do find my more challenging ones to last longer, especially if stability is what is difficult to achieve. Generally the nicer the biome the shorter the run by a longshot. Fiddle with global temps, take challenging biomes. Nothing like a temperate snoozefest to end up being over quickly. Other things, like my tendancy to make the game harder with my mods helps there too. I'm at 13 ingame years on my current one still got a ways to go because just getting stuff off my own map tile requires large armed escorts and setting up turrets. A mechanitor run that 13 years in still has steel on the map because I haven't managed to haul it in? Spicy! Not even a mountain map. Poor traders are hard to make use of too though the occasional dead pack animal to rally the whole colony to collect is fun.

I also find banning prisoner recruitment makes the game a bit more interesting and longer lived. You can balloon a colony so fast with it you hit stability very quickly but if organic joins and kids are needed to fill roles you have more time before stability. Always felt wrong to me too that a bit of time in a cell magically makes someone 100% loyal with no risk. Bad for my immersion and role-play.

[Steelfleece]

If progression feels too fast, you can reduce research speed in either custom difficulty settings or add a stat multiplier for research speed factor to the scenario editor.

[The Blind One]

Originally posted by MadArtillery:

I also find banning prisoner recruitment makes the game a bit more interesting and longer lived. You can balloon a colony so fast with it you hit stability very quickly but if organic joins and kids are needed to fill roles you have more time before stability. Always felt wrong to me too that a bit of time in a cell magically makes someone 100% loyal with no risk. Bad for my immersion and role-play.

Yup, I have a policy of no raider scum.

The only exception to this rule is if one of the raiders is family or related to an existing pawn in the colony. This is the only time they are allowed to be recruited imho. I'll treat them as if they were forcefully indoctrinated into a cult and need to be deprogrammed.

This significantly extends the gameplay and makes each pawn more unique as you'll end up with families and close knit relationships within your colony rather than a random assortment of pawns you scooped up because they have the best pawn stats.

[El Chupacabra]

Originally posted by MadArtillery:

I think what the run is heavily affects how long it lasts. Sometimes the twists I add to my run can keep me playing them for a very long time, I have had age actually matter, other times they can end in only a few in-game years.

I do find my more challenging ones to last longer, especially if stability is what is difficult to achieve. Generally the nicer the biome the shorter the run by a longshot. Fiddle with global temps, take challenging biomes. Nothing like a temperate snoozefest to end up being over quickly. Other things, like my tendancy to make the game harder with my mods helps there too. I'm at 13 ingame years on my current one still got a ways to go because just getting stuff off my own map tile requires large armed escorts and setting up turrets. A mechanitor run that 13 years in still has steel on the map because I haven't managed to haul it in? Spicy! Not even a mountain map. Poor traders are hard to make use of too though the occasional dead pack animal to rally the whole colony to collect is fun.

I also find banning prisoner recruitment makes the game a bit more interesting and longer lived. You can balloon a colony so fast with it you hit stability very quickly but if organic joins and kids are needed to fill roles you have more time before stability. Always felt wrong to me too that a bit of time in a cell magically makes someone 100% loyal with no risk. Bad for my immersion and role-play.

yep, true. I wanted to make it a bit harder for me and created an very cold, dry world. Most of the planet surface was (extreme) desert or tundra...

Then let the game choose an random starting pos... but I didn't realized it was more or less on the equator... with my setting: whole year between 0°C-20°C and no seasons. Was kind of too easy to grow food^^
Thats something I will not do again :D

Originally posted by Steelfleece:

If progression feels too fast, you can reduce research speed in either custom difficulty settings or add a stat multiplier for research speed factor to the scenario editor.

yep, I had all techs very soon (okay I also had nice tech pawns from start), thats something I think is very important in term of game balancing. With normal setting you end up with high tech stuff just too early/fast!

Originally posted by The Blind One:

Yup, I have a policy of no raider scum.

The only exception to this rule is if one of the raiders is family or related to an existing pawn in the colony. This is the only time they are allowed to be recruited imho. I'll treat them as if they were forcefully indoctrinated into a cult and need to be deprogrammed.

This significantly extends the gameplay and makes each pawn more unique as you'll end up with families and close knit relationships within your colony rather than a random assortment of pawns you scooped up because they have the best pawn stats.

Interesting idea. I for myself have the policy to only recruit prisinors with the same ideology. Make recruitment time much longer, but yes, still got too many pawns too fast I guess... My 2nd outpost is totally "natural grown" currently, one guy and 2 gals and like 7 children. But since the adults are all damn good fighter, I have many turrents annd the outpost is (beside food stock) poor as ♥♥♥♥, then can handle every attack without problems :D