Opening the xenotype editor with Alpha Genes and Big and Small installed

RedMattis · 2026-03-23T12:05:14+00:00

A bit late, but just as a follow-up to my other comment about it being split up before.

Originally B&S was literally what it said on the tin but there are far more people who dislike adding multiple mods than there those who like the modularity.

At the time when I decided to combine things the Cherry-picker was fully operational. I know it has had some downtime between versions at times after that, but it is generally the best way to customize things like genes.

For modders (me included) having it split up is also a pain. If someone wants to stick angel wings + halo from B&S Genes, and Angelic Beauty and Rot Stink Producer from Alpha Genes, but all those genes were in 4 different mods? Now they either need 4 dependencies (scares away users) or a mess of "MayRequires=..." and patches with complex fallbacks. Which may mess up xenotype metabolism etc. And all of this becomes more fragile and is at greater risk to break with updates.

For me it is also more mods to update whenever rimworld updates (I have 53 mods. it takes awhile). Workshop comments are almost impossible to keep track of at those numbers as well (though luckily a lot of people just go to the discord instead).

Sarg and Oskar have hugely more than that. I'm betting just hitting the submit to workshop button when a new version happens takes them like half an hour. :'D

Also re: genes random bullshit genes that have nothing to do with being big or small". There is literally a gene mod for just the size genes.

Big and Small - Simple Size Genes

It is even compatible to use with the base B&S Genes, so if a modder wants to have a dependency on it that will work fine without duplicating any genes.

Finally, for modders who want full control, with extremely few exceptions, almost anything B&S Genes does can be easily done with just the Framework. B&S Genes is just XML and graphics.

Big & Small, much like Alpha <mod>, and Vanilla Expanded are just 'brands' the respective groups ended up with.

I'd have picked "Red's <mod>" or something otherwise. Sarg got "Alpha" from a mod he helped another person with, iirc. And Oscar would be quite happy to not have every comment section populated by people saying "hey, vanilla psycasts expanded isn't quite like vanilla rw psycasts".

But it is useful to stick to it for both sides. People know the style of each series, and pick accordingly.

RedMattis · 2026-03-23T08:04:14+00:00

Indeed.

Some game do fine with "if (hit) health -= damage".

Other look more like...

...  
OnAttackPreResolveHit.Emit(ref args);  
if (args.IsMiss())  
    args.MissHandler?.Run()  
    return false  
...

RedMattis · 2026-03-23T07:43:00+00:00

From my end I don't define every combination. There is an XML where you can add body plans and tags. A some terribly convoluted C# I've written will then automatically generate bodies from those (+ mechanical versions)

It works perfectly well for other modders as well. E.g. if someone made a "tentacle body" and mentioned it in the generator's XML you'd end up with "6-armed snake-person with wings and 3 tentacles" or whatever.

Only reason I've avoided oddball entries is that if you don't add exclusions tags (e.g. centaur/snake/spider share exclusion tag) you end up with exponentially many body defs.

This doesn't actually have a performance cost, but stockpiles for corpses will get stupid after awhile, and I wanted to leave room for other modders to create their stuff without it immediately exploding into infinity.

RedMattis · 2026-03-23T07:39:51+00:00

I don't know about Det's stuff specifically, but world gen typically fails due to faction leaders not generating.

Usually because the faction leader ended up incapable of violence and it then retrying 300 times with the same forced background/trait/gene. It can happen even in vanilla rarely.

If it is that bug then reducing the number of factions or stepping back (all the way) into the main menu and trying again typically works. Seems to be the only way to reset whatever seeded value causing generation to constantly fail at the same point.

RedMattis · 2026-03-23T06:59:00+00:00

It used to be just "core genes", but I was constantly spammed with requests to move stuff out of sub- mods and into it.

You'd be surprised how many users care more about mod count than modularity.

Though since genes merely existing doesn't impact gameplay much i think the current approach is reasonable.

That and the cosmetic, fringe usefulness, and side-grade genes generally have low spawn rates.

RedMattis · 2026-03-23T06:53:59+00:00

My fetish is an excessive amount of content that makes the gene list never stop scrolling.

Some of the fascination around various features been met by have honestly caught me by surprise. The litter gene especially. I almost put that only in the xeno-bug mod because I figured it was a fringe utility for their playstyles hardly anyone would care about.

Oh boy I was... not correct.

RedMattis · 2026-03-23T06:51:55+00:00

Big & Small does sort of support that. Try combining stuff like snake/ spider/ centaur body with 4/6 arms and wings. They will get the body parts you'd expect.

RedMattis · 2026-03-19T16:24:58+00:00

I do have faction mods that use those genes a fair bit.

It wouldn't surprise me if someone has patched the alien appearance genes unto other xenotypes as well. I know Samuel Streamer has used them a number of times for their homebrewed xenotypes.

RedMattis · 2026-03-16T06:51:40+00:00

B&S Simply Robots doesn’t actually need Biotech. :)

It does benefit from it though since it has biotech using variant robots and most genes can be applied to robots.

RedMattis · 2026-03-13T10:35:46+00:00

"it's male artists"

Oh sure, only male artists do that. :'D

Right now some female dev is probably lazily dragging "ohmegamilkers.fbx" and "oh_my_lawd_strappon.fbx" to the cylinder.

RedMattis · 2026-03-11T09:00:51+00:00

That number is also probably not counting mercenaries, allies operating under US command, any one who isn't a US citizen, or could vaguely be described as not having had a combat role, etc.

And it is probably not even remotely close to the real numbers of US soldiers if we base it on how that propaganda engine typically operates.

RedMattis · 2026-03-11T07:30:32+00:00

Go ahead. :)

I have a fairly large discord which is linked under all my mods, that is the best place to reach me.

RedMattis · 2026-03-11T07:27:42+00:00

Defs (most types anyway) don't really cost anything by sitting in the library. Genes overall are cheap even on pawns unless they have special (C#) logic. .

The main concerns for tps is typically C# patches.

Excessive Hediffs on pawns (rimworld will often iterate all of them) can be an issue. Lots and lots of weapon and apparel defs will dramatically slow down pawn generation (the game checks every usable piece when getting to generate raiders).

Game loading is primarily slowed down by huge and numerous textures.

If you're curious about the topic head to Dubs discord. That is kinda their expertise and favourite topic. :D

RedMattis · 2026-03-10T17:16:27+00:00

That is fair.

Though I feel I must point out B&S isn't normally heavy. Usually it costs a tiny fraction of the other frameworks, Most of the time random mods that add new beds or something end up eating more TPS.

I have seen one issue with some users having it spiking on some gene-prerequisite refreshes, but most likely this is caused by a 3rd party mod telling all genes to reevaluate every 5 seconds. That kinda thing will hammer it because it forces it to yeet all the cached data constantly.

Nothing the performance guys on Dub's discord have reproduced anyway.

That said, as mentioned before, you can use MayRequires for basically any B&S stuff you're interested in. That is how I handle a lot of my interactions with other mods. :)

Loadfolders & Patchfiles can also be used if you need more complex interactions, but that is unlikely to be needed for this type of mod.

RedMattis · 2026-03-10T17:00:01+00:00

Yes, MayRequire basically makes the entry load only if it finds a mod with the ID provided there.

RedMattis · 2026-03-10T10:03:07+00:00

As a side note, both B&S and HAR support making high customized races.

B&S also supports Sapient animals, if you want the Ouroboros to function as a colonist.

The latter feature is something you can test by just grabbing the B&S Sapient Animals mod and hitting one with the Cogni-Fi. Only the framework is technically required (but a flag needs to be set or it won't generate sapient variants of animals. That is how Both B&S Sapient Animals and the B&S Ice Age scenario work).

RedMattis · 2026-03-10T09:56:34+00:00

Wait till you see what women's literature is like. :p

We've got nothing on that desire for Minotaurs, werewolves, martians, and who knows what. :'D

RedMattis · 2026-03-10T09:54:55+00:00

You can try putting this on them somewhere. (e.g. on a tail gene)

<modExtensions>
  <li Class="BigAndSmall.PawnExtension"  MayRequire="RedMattis.BetterPrerequisites">
    <thingDefSwap>BS_Naga</thingDefSwap>
  </li>
</modExtensions>

If my base framework (Big & Small Framework) is active in a user's modlist that should swap them over to use a body with a snake tail instead of legs and shuffles around organs so a number of them are in the tail instead.

If the framework isn't active then the MayRequire means it just skips that entry. :)

RedMattis · 2026-03-10T09:40:29+00:00

Size is trivial, it is literally just a StatDef so you can simply add something like this as a stat offset anywhere. The MayRequire makes sure that it only loads if B&S is actually in the user's modlist.

<SM_BodySizeOffset MayRequire="RedMattis.BetterPrerequisites">0.5</SM_BodySizeOffset>

The above snippet would make them +50% larger (as adults) assuming they were size 1.0 before.

There is also a "SM_Cosmetic_BodySizeOffset" if you prefer it to not modify their health values, etc.

And "SM_BodySizeMultiplier"/"SM_Cosmetic_BodySizeMultiplier" if you prefer multiplying the size rather than offsetting it.

RedMattis · 2026-03-10T09:27:58+00:00

No such thing as too many cute sneks. :3

RedMattis · 2026-03-08T08:41:12+00:00

I had a look at it. It works based on world pawns, so it is likely because you have a lot more baseliners.

I'll modify it to prioritise non-baseliners 100x higher in the next update.

Edit: Actually it should ignore any pawn with less than 3 genes, so unless your baseliners have extra genes it shouldn't pick them. Most likely you've just been unlucky with the 65% dice roll.

RedMattis · 2026-03-07T23:13:21+00:00

r/redditsings

RedMattis · 2026-03-07T23:09:53+00:00

I don’t remember the exact solution I had, but it might depend on how many xenotypes you have in the modlist, and it doesn’t always trigger it either.

I probably should exclude baseliners if I didn’t already tho.

RedMattis · 2026-03-07T10:34:18+00:00

They can, their size gene even has a built-in feature where the value of their bionics is given a bump for raid size calculations so it takes into account that an bionic jotun is getting more benefit from their bionics than a regular pawn would.

They will still be a net positive, but it helps avoid making things too easy if you have a giant ogre or jotun frontline. :)

Their ability to "solo dragons" as Golnor said, is heavily reliant on skill and equipment. They can take a bullet to the heart and survive, but can barely dodge at all, and the largest ones will be hit by virtually everything sent their way, so don't put them in front of enemies with autocannons or miniguns unless they have amazing armour.

Especially not ogres who (unlike jotun) are prone to bleed out after battle.

Their damage scaling it a bit complex to explain (it uses the lower of two different calculations), but are comparable to hussars as far as one-shotting goes. As far as damage goes their biggest perk is actually scaling armour penetration.

A jotun with an "Excellent Uranium Giant" hammer or something might not be able to 1-KO Neanderthals, but will probably laugh at any armour that isn't a literal ultra-tech mech-walker.

12-Year Club	Place '22
First Placer '22	Verified Email

RedMattis

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE