As much as i like the terrorists in the allied caravans, is it possible to have them invisible to turrets or something?

I dont really enjoy micro-managing all possible turrets in range to avoid allied pawns in the clustered caravan formations being hit by turrets once the obvious deserters turn hostile to me, but also kinda need turrets to cover all the angles for raids.

@CTH2004
That seems rather overcomplicated, personally. You can already turn on the deserters from the quest, and turn on the Empire but just joining the deserters. I don't think a complex system like what you're proposing would add to the experience enough to make the work required to implement it worth it.

@Alfador
Making them invisible to turrets seems like it would cause a lot more frustration than it would solve, as it would end up with a lot of people questioning why they're turrets aren't targeting hostile pawns.

I have a problem with the evacuation shuttle from the privilege branch. Firstly, it cannot be called from the global map as a transport shuttle. This is strange because it replaces the regular transport shuttle. And secondly, I cannot call for an evacuation in winter at 35 degrees Celsius below zero due to temperature conditions. Wat?

Originally posted by legodude17:

@CTH2004
That seems rather overcomplicated, personally. You can already turn on the deserters from the quest, and turn on the Empire but just joining the deserters.

Thing is, that locks you to the deserters. I mean being a part of the empire, and causing dissent from within

Originally posted by legodude17:

I don’t think a complex system like what you're proposing would add to the experience enough to make the work required to implement it worth it.

Fair enough. Perhaps one day, if you have enough factions with extra diplomacy features (classical, empire and deserters are the main ones right now), a Vanilla Expanded: Eapionage will be made, which allows what I mentioned above, and more, but for all factions.

Eh, probally not anytime soon, if at all.

Either way, thanks for looking at that wall of text!

I've noticed that whenever deserters show up in a caravan and they decided to "follow" one of my royal pawns who are currently incapacitated (death-resting, in a coma, etc.), the deserters will simply approach them, turn red, do nothing, and the message "Deserters are leaving as they have eliminated their target" appears. Then they just slowly walk away.

I guess it's because the AI is set to incapacitate your pawn, rather than kill them, so they behave like they've completed their task.

I don't know if I'd call this a bug, but I assume it's something that wasn't accounted for. Either way I thought I'd post it here.

@E
Yeah they won't finish off targets, since that'd be rather unfair. They should probably ignore already downed nobles, though.

Could you create separate mods like storyteller and scenario? Vanilla Storytellers Expanded - Ariadne Archduchess

I
A lot of the psycasts are insanely strong, to the point of being at the verge of brokenness compared to their wealth-increase and/or compared to just about any other Vanilla Expanded mod. A few examples:

Psychic Shock trivializes getting prisoners, interacting nicely with the chrono branch of psycasts. Further, they can inexplicably down mechanoids, which will then lose their weapons (I assume this is a bug?)

Enchant/Mend makes it very easy to get any gear of any quality, or to just enchant gear for profits.

Speed Boost increases productivity by a large margin if used outside of combat.

Word of Alliance is far too strong, as with even just a little bit of investment in psychic sensitivity, the caster can easily ally any faction that comes visiting. The alliances can be refreshed without any effort by simply inviting a trade caravan of that faction to your base.

Any sufficiently upgraded Psycaster can build an enormous army of steel constructs, which have zero maintenance beyond 20 heat and can easily swarm opponents. Their heat demands should be drastically increased or their combat effectiveness should be reduced, they should be more accounted for in terms of wealth and I would even increase the cooldown for steel construct by a day, or at least by a few hours.

Psycasters in somewhat developed colonies can farm a few psycaster levels with timeskip meditation without much effort. The aging can be turned back with some ease thanks to the psychic shock matter mentioned above.

Mindbreaking. I mentioned a bug in the bug reports thread about them regaining their ability to do skilled work when they get enslaved, but aside from that, they are still capable of combat and meditation. By enthralling a food and psychic sensitivity optimized xenotype and putting them on meditation duty for all their time (outside of combat), they can get a lot of psylink levels really fast. What's more, the interaction with the psychic harmonizer makes mood trivial for the entire colony. Handling is also excluded from skilled labour, which seems wrong to me.

Enchanting, being a level 1 psycast, makes competent crafters completely obsolete. After high investment into psychic sensitivity, they'll turn anything into a masterwork.

It is rarely prudent to invest into the skilltree part of psycasts, given that they can be found for free, without raising psycasting level. I suggest making either unlocking the tree itself and/or the previous skills a requirement.

Psyfocus demands are too easy to work around, even in the base game. Once you have a Persona Weapon with Killfocus (which is very easy in this mod to get thanks to the rewards at Baron tier), you can just kill 5 chickens whenever you need to recharge (this comes at the cost of gaining psycaster experience, yes, but sufficiently skilled psycasters are not desparate for that). Therefore, the costs associated with Steel Construct, Enchant Quality, Mend, Word of Progress/Word of Healing, Aging and many more are absolutely trivial.

Comas should not be shortened with increased psychic sensitivity. They are the only real restriction (see above) for some of the best psycasts in the game, yet I can almost always afford to lose my pawn for 6 hours at a time. I think it would be interesting if comas were actually lengthened with increased sensitivity, coinciding with stronger effects.

The ability to summon psychic soothes trivialized the risk of psychic drones. The high mood boost also trivializes mood management for both genders, again, because of the psychic harmonizer. It is also objectively better than Word of Joy as it does not reduce consciousness.

Regrow limbs is an incredibly strong psycast that in my opinion is not sufficiently expensive. It also combos too well with word of healing, but that is not relevant right now. The regeneration coma should be as long as the bioregeneration. It also heals brain damage, which again trivializes the risks of psychic shock.

Static Pulse has a huge range, which makes mechanoid attacks perhaps a bit too easy.

I have yet to get "Craft Psyring", but it seems to me like it would make death trivial, should a sufficiently skilled necromancer (or someone with the right psytrainer) get it. You could recruit just about anybody, give them a revive psyring, let them revive up to 10 people, then remove the ring and banish them. Getting 6 or 9 honor is trivial thanks to psychic shock and the Empire Honor Trader that comes once a year.

Group link makes it way too easy to inspire a whole colony. Or make a whole colony more productive. Or heal a whole colony. Or double their learning rate for 10 days. Do anything with a whole colony, really. It should be much more expensive, or the cost of the words should still scale with the number of targets. Perhaps link it to a coma?

Essence Transfer works with Steel constructs, again trivializing the cost of essence transfer.

Skipgates make raiding/looting incredibly simple thanks to an infinite wellspring of supplies and allies. They should be more expensive in terms of heat upkeep, and/or they should have cooldowns.

Psylink level should weigh more heavily into the value of a colonist. This could be exploited to some degree for "prisoner farming", yes, but as it stands, a colonist capable of defeating just about any threat is barely considered for raid purposes.

Guided Shot + Firing Focus make for an absolutely horrifying gunner, though I have yet to try this out since a bunch of other ways have already made most things trivial.

It seems like Raid Pause would trivialize cooldowns or surprise and work way too well with timesphere.

Mind Wipe, whenever I was privy to it, has removed all complexity from recruitment. To be able to recruit anyone, at any time, with a huge mood bonus, even those who are unwaveringly loyal is absurd.

Aging can be used to incredible effect to pacify prisoners. It limits their life, true, but 5 days of danger-free unconsciousness are well worth it, most of the time.

Craft timeskip can be used to increase the productivity of a workshop by orders of magnitudes. The aging is not nearly as problematic when the age can just be drained again.

I understand the importance of de-aging for the chronopath branch, but it should be more expensive. two age reversal chronopaths (see Craft Psyring criticism) or a sufficiently filled prison make this barely a consideration. I suggest replacing it by an age-reduction meditation which reduces their age by a year per day meditated. It should also be a very high level psycast.

With the Craft Psyring psycast, you can offload heat generation to mindbroken meditation soldiers (see above) or just any pawn who is barely invested in the psycasting system. Having hundreds of steel constructs is therefore very viable.

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I also have a few criticisms about the new permits. A lot of them are considered upgrades without being a direct upgrade. The Evac shuttle, for example, is limited in how long it stays, has a longer cooldown and needs more honor, but it fully replaces the transport shuttle.
The same issue exists around the combat support permits. Particularly problematic are the textile permits here, which drop ever-decreasing amounts of workable material. If I need 350 cloth to re-dress my pawns, that'd be a lot more useful than 55 hyperweave.

The Gold Drop permit, if my math is correct, generates 2.5 honor per 4 honor. That is okay, but with the royal meme (which may come from another part of the Vanilla Expanded Modpack), we are at 2.5 honor per 2 honor. It should also probably not be available from the get-go.
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Titles have a few problems as well.

Gaining 1 honor every 5 days with the title is incredibly strong. That amounts to 50 gold every 20 days (10 with aforementioned precept from Royal), or just getting through the early ranks at a rather fast pace. Even more broken in that regard is the "Wielder of the [Persona Weapon]" title, which can easily generate 15 honor per raid. That is disregarding the Honor generating vassals.

The "Destroyer of [FACTION]" title can lower selling prices below buying prices.

The fact that titles have no costs associated with them makes them very exploitable. Applying a title should have an increasing honor cost so that you don't have folks running around with EVERY title.

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The Deserters are too low a threat if the player doesn't go too far with the title system. They should be much more present as opponents, fighting against other psycasters is very fun. At the very least, they should cause more trouble. Perhaps allow the player to do more to oppose the deserters?


That said, the mod is INCREDIBLY fun otherwise! I really enjoy working with the new psycasts, I just wish they wouldn't trivialize every aspect of the game with some consideration. Many of them should definitely be tuned down, nerfed or restricted in some way, as it would make the game more fun when you can still struggle. I like the Deserter system, the stronger empire, the creative psycasts... There is a lot of good stuff here!

EDIT:
Oops, I just now realized that the Psycast criticisms would be more relevant in the Psycasts Expanded Mod. My bad. Since it is the same team, I figure I'll just leave it here to not waste your time with it.

hi, I wanted to create an underground empire with a cult of darkness, but when I installed the candelabra, I saw that they only emit bright light. could you add a switch to the dimming mode or something like that?

hi, could there be a slider in the mod option to adjust the max distance for vassalages from your colony

You make Rimworld better. There's no words to describe how much good you do by modding this game for others to enjoy. It's people like you who have skills to be remembered in history.

Now, the criticism: Not much. The stellic throne, love it - but if I use dev mode, grab the Emperor title, slap down the throne, the emperor colonist isn't happy about his throneroom.

But good job. Keep using your skills.

Because you were never meant to reach the Emperor title. It never spawns in the game, thus it's not coded.

Strange, I can only use the normal flower pot but not the decorative ones from furniture expanded for bedroom of titles higher then duke...
P.S. Making a makeshift patch to deal with it.

Just finished my first playthrough with this and here are my thoughts:

1. The grand ball and art exhibition quests happen way to rarely. Despite having both rooms for a long time, i only got the exhibition quest once in about 8 years of colony time. The grand ball i had to trigger with dev mode just to see it once. Would be cool if you could set the probability in the vanilla events expanded mod options like you can with events from other mods.

2. The bombs are kinda OP because they supply you with anti grain warheads which make the late game raids very easy. When it was time for the parade i had about 13 AGW and used them to blow up the deserter raid xD Maybe make the bombs drop regular HE shells.
All in all terrorism was easy to spot and handle. I only got a poision attempt once and the guy tried to poison a survival meal droped by raider far away from the colony ^^

3. Imo the impressiveness requirements for the ballroom and gallery are absurd. especially for the ballroom its a chore to get it up to 240 when its supposed to be an almost empty room. Also i think out of all rooms the throneroom should have the highest requirement and not those two rooms.

4. The texts in the letters of a few quests are unfinished. For example you get to read the placeholders like "VFEEmpire.GrandBall.Success"

5. The new starting scenario is great. Very hard to get going but its cool trying to preserve your mansion and rebuilding it.

6. It felt weird to constantly invite nobility over but never be invited yourself. So i think id be cool to have a quest where some of the player nobles get invited to some others court for 2 days.

Thats my expirience with the mod. Enjoyed the run overall and want to thank you and the team for making the mod :)

Bug report discussion is locked as we're not accepting bug reports on Steam. Please use the google form in the mod description.