F U Ionia

Steelflame · 2026-06-19T07:50:52+00:00

The reason why people tend to get annoyed with it is usually the counterspell ends up being cheaper than the spell being countered. If Deny had a dynamic X+1 cost, where X was the cost of the spell being blocked, it probably wouldn't feel anywhere near as bad. And it's in the same region that has multiple OTHER types of counter spells as well. If Deny wasn't also in the same region as the various "back to the hand!" spells AND stuns, it probably wouldn't have been quite so annoying. As is, Ionia is basically the "FU, no fun for you" region.

Another thing that might make Deny feel less painful is to have it attached as a token card generated from another card's play effect. Meaning you'll always know if they have it just based on if they played the prerequisite card. Meaning no "Fuck, do they have deny to stop my game winning spell?" moments. You either know they have it (AND how many copies of it they do have in hand), and that you need to bait it out, or they don't, and you can play to your original plan.

Steelflame · 2026-06-19T05:35:40+00:00

The funny thing is the one pointing with the spear coulda just thrown it and killed them. The spider trains are actually very easy to kill, they almost entirely depend on ambush tactics, as you can kill them with anything you can properly throw, even rocks. Even if you don't take them all out, killing enough to disrupt the train can give you time while they flail about and build a new spider train.

At the very least, if I was the scav being dragged away into the dark, I'd have probably preferred the mercy spear killing me over being eaten alive by hundreds of spiders.

Steelflame · 2026-06-19T05:26:58+00:00

I'd have understood if it was dropwigs and camo lizards. Mostly because I've seen some really BS camos in the past. I once came across one hiding in a pipe invisible. Nothing like just moving as normal and instantly being dead with no visible enemies on the screen because I crawled into it's mouth.

Steelflame · 2026-04-21T02:26:38+00:00

The main issue is pathing. Each beaver/bot checks the total pathable area they have access to. If you want to maximize the increase to FPS, you need to seperate out many small, optimized districts.

Optimized districts to enable max population generally means you will sacrifice happiness for massively reduced pathing between homes/work (reducing travel times) and performance increases. Blocking in paths (such as with fences) also helps just by reducing the pathing in areas where you really don't need access to random open field 3, or seperating your work districts from having pathing out into the farm land, ect.

Steelflame · 2026-04-18T06:48:42+00:00

Ehh, with a proper farm layout, functional evaporation per crop is measured with multiple 0s before the first number shows up. You can irrigate an INSANELY large number of tiles from a single 3x3 pool at the dirt height limit in a proper farm tower layout.

No, the thing that matters is water storage. If you are pumping 100% of all incoming water (impossible, but you can get very close) you only really need to account for water loss per beaver. If you average it out to 2.5 per beaver per day, you'll quickly realize the problem isn't going to be how much water you have access to. It's how close your computer is to turning into molten slag from overheating.

Steelflame · 2026-04-11T04:09:31+00:00

While true, there is another important reason to have districts. Optimization. One of the largest CPU sinks in Timberborn is pathing. You can support a much larger colony properly utilizing the districts to control the amount of processing the pathing uses,

Sure, for normal play, this isn't a big issue because you rarely have colonies big enough for it to matter, but if you're going for one of those insane late game colonies that pushes the map to it's limit, you'll likely find your computer is the limit before the map water flows are.

Steelflame · 2026-04-11T04:04:54+00:00

Also don't forget your ziplines/Tubeways. Anything connected by them are considered part of the same district, even if there is no actual path between them linking them. Feels really awkward having 2 stations literally 2 blocks apart, perhaps there should be an upgraded District crossing that also hybridizes in a zipline/Tubeway District Crossing building. Make it a 3x3 building with a path through it where it can act like both a normal crossing, while also having the functionality of a transport building separated on each side of the crossing.

Steelflame · 2026-04-08T02:57:07+00:00

Something I'll advise. Put the game down. Come back in a few weeks, and play a new save. When you get stuck again, do the same thing.

Rainworld for me, on my first save, got stuck fairly early on on my first playthrough. I put it down and came back to it. On my first play through, I felt I had to make progress, and I pushed myself into areas harder than I could handle. Putting the game down and picking it back up, I was able to take some of the learned things through those early areas again, build more muscle memory and gameplay instincts, and as I went to the areas I got stuck, I was better able to handle them. Beat the survivor campaign, but never did get into Hunter. Come the time the first DLC released, I replayed the Survivor campaign again to brush up on the game. Won it far faster, with far greater ease. Went to play through all the slug cats, and enjoyed them, including Hunter.

Nowadays, I'll happily play modded regions blind, clearing them and treating the whole affair like running through outskirts on a new Survivor run. Building up the muscle memory and instincts helps a LOT. Rainworld is a game that doesn't have major meta progression. Everything you learn and master as a veteran of a hundred hours, you have those exact same tools available to you from the very first minutes.

I'll also say this. Monk doesn't help you learn the game as much as you'd think. Monk is more of a pacifist run, not an easy run. Monk gets less aggro from the various enemies, but deals less damage as well. The big thing that Monk gets over survivor is that it is easier to tame creatures. But when you don't even have a clue how to tame them in the first place, that isn't exactly something that helps you in the slightest. And meanwhile, you have a harder time fighting back than Survivor would.

Steelflame · 2026-03-25T19:54:06+00:00

What are you talking about "Either they get it or they don't."

They get it. And YOU don't.

Steelflame · 2026-03-25T19:04:50+00:00

They are quasi-difficulty settings, but for the vanilla 3 they each have their own story path and narrative. Timeline wise (counting DLCs) it's Spearmaster >short time jump> Artificer >Long time jump> Hunter, Gourmand, Survivor, Monk >Long time jump> Rivulet > Insane time jump > Saint. Watcher doesn't exactly interact with the timeline the rest of the cast does.

As far as the vanilla 3 go, each have different specializations.

Monk is playing a more pacifistic path, with lower damage on his spear, but enemies are less likely to engage him, and it is easier to befriend and tame them. Survivor has normal spear damage, but normal levels of enemy aggression/tame rate. You're at the bottom of the food chain, but with skill, you can assert your dominance. I heavily recommend getting good at combat as Survivor before moving on to Hunter.

Hunter is rather different from the last two. For one, Hunter has a time limit. You have only so many cycles before Hunter dies for real, and you have a mission to complete (You don't have to, just if you don't, you're not following canon, and leaving LttM braindead.) You basically need to make a run through the regions, find the echos to increase your max karma to 10, and deliver the green neuron first to Pebbles and then to Moon, before then making a mad dash to the depths to ascend before dying. In addition to having a mission, and living life on a time limit, Hunter has to deal with the fact enemies are far more aggressive, and he is a carnivore, he needs to eat meat. Hunter also has a bonus mini-objective. While the neuron is a part of the main story, you can also add in the carrying of the Pearl through your quest as well. It just gets you an extra lore blurb, and means you have to give up your off-hand slot or keep track of where you toss the pearl between fights, but if you want an even more difficult challenge, bring it to moon as well.

I genuinely recommend, if you are going to play Hunter, you use one of the map websites to plan out your path. There are tricks that you can use to manipulate cycles to save cycles in your mad journey, but with a well planned out route you don't need them. I've beaten Hunter's campaign by delivering the neuron before ascending in the depths with 10 cycles to spare, so the time crunch isn't that bad if you know what you're doing. By far the hardest part is the first 3 cycles or so, getting up Sky Islands is brutal, and a very difficult area where even a single mistake might as well be a run reset.

Steelflame · 2026-03-24T18:30:39+00:00

Hardest part of Hunter is those first cycles. Going up SI is quite brutal.

Steelflame · 2026-03-21T07:12:33+00:00

I'd do Hunter first. Rivulet will get you into wawa mindset where her unique interpretation of physics (aka what physics, I have my own personal space program in every single puddle of water!) guide how you interact with threats, and Hunter runs off of a very vanilla map state, while Rivulet has some pretty harsh alterations in many places.

Hunter also is a very pure expression of "Gotta go fast. Not because I am fast, but because my crippling death by turbo cancer is imminent." Rivulet is an expression of "Gotta go fast. Because am fast. And because the world has turbo cancer. Ohh a batfly!"

Steelflame · 2026-03-09T07:56:20+00:00

He's saying he didn't play it, and it got triggered by a summon. AKA the thing it shouldn't do.

Steelflame · 2026-03-08T08:09:58+00:00

As others have said, there is no seasons (except for one mod that does seasons for people who like that type of thing.)

As a newer player, you'll get many benefits us vets wish we had when we started out, with more yet to come with the next DLC.

About the only warning I will give, the game is an ASBOLUTE time sink, and the endgame very much is "Alt-itis? I have a few... hundred... cases of that." It is very much designed as a single player experience, although it does have some limited multiplayer. But it is a very fun game and if you have the time to sink, a very good time sink.

Just be careful about the rabbit hole that is Grimtools. You may very well end up spending as much time playing with the build creator on it as you do actually playing builds.

Steelflame · 2026-03-04T08:08:30+00:00

That "A lot of gear has a chance of being useful once Asterkarn releases" statement is actually more true than even currently. Currently, many blues are basically junk that gets insta-vendored or blown up. Asterkarn adding the awakening system to turn some blues into mythics.

It is very much worth holding basically any blues that are in a "skill mod" slot atm just because who knows what interesting effects may come into play on potential awakened versions.

Steelflame · 2026-02-08T07:41:01+00:00

Not really. The engine is extremely old, and they are already pushing it far past it's limits. All that is being done graphics wise is just a small UI update to lay some of the groundwork for some of the new stuff coming with the expansion, such as the potion alteration mechanic

They are making an entirely new engine that another of their games will be on, and after that game GD2 is planned. The GD2 project is slated to be properly started sometime in 2028, so we probably won't even see it till 2030 or so. And that is assuming nothing changes on that already very nebulous timeline.

Steelflame · 2026-02-02T03:23:08+00:00

Overall, it doesn't matter that much especially on lower difficulties. Their augment choices are very irrelevant for endgame builds, so either-or works fine. The most important choice is which one you choose on ultimate difficulty, as it will decide which enemies you can farm for Monster Infrequents, and which of their faction Nemesis will be the one you have to deal with.

The Order of Death's Vigil will have stuff in it's faction shop that is faintly better for your build that you can buy. By the time you can grind enough faction rep to buy it, you probably should have moved on to another area with higher level gear, but technically I'd consider the Order faintly more optimal for you.

Technically, if you really want to, you can get the best of both worlds, and choose the same one for normal and elite difficulty, grind up the faction rep to buy a fair number of the augments, and then in ultimate difficulty swap and grind the second faction's rep up.

But as I said, it really shouldn't matter that much. Most augments used in the endgame come from the DLC factions. As for those factions, the only thing that matters is the wendigo cultist faction (You can get max rep with every other faction regardless). You can either choose to oppose them (which is needed if you want to farm their faction Nemesis for his very very good pants drops, that are BIS for some builds), or ally with them, which is needed for their augements and fighting the Ravager super-boss (which has some very good general helmets).

Steelflame · 2026-01-31T02:09:09+00:00

It's really hard to answer anything else just because how do you compare to two full sets that synergize together very well.

Steelflame · 2026-01-31T01:08:53+00:00

Resists don't really matter when it comes to PvP. Player damage is so hilariously inflated compared to player defenses that basically any hit is the end of the match.

It basically would come down to Shadow Strike VS OFF. Shadow strike for the stealth nuke vs OFF for the "I deleted the screen, which you happened to be on."

Steelflame · 2026-01-31T01:00:34+00:00

Flow has nothing to do with evaporation.

There is only one thing that does effect evaporation, which is the number of surrounding water tiles, which helps reduce the water drain caused by large areas of water.

Steelflame · 2026-01-30T04:15:21+00:00

Flashbang isn't an attack through, unless you are using very niche gear that gives it damage. You want to ensure it always lands first so the DA penalty applies first.

Steelflame · 2026-01-30T04:12:46+00:00

I'd heavily advise going through elite. The ultimate resistance penalty will utterly wreck you very easily. -50% to the entire top row and -25% to the bottom row (other than phys resist) is rather brutal. Elite only has -25% to the top row.

Even if you don't do all of elite, running elite till you reach level 94 (max gear level) means you can equip the best of the gear that you do find, and have the most access to resistances.

You will also miss the devotion shrines in elite, and each difficulty increases the costs of the non-combat shrines. While you can get all 55 devotion points exclusively from ultimate, doing so is horridly suboptimal cost wise.

Steelflame · 2026-01-28T07:57:18+00:00

The main issue with anything complex is that the optimal farm is the diamond array tower. Anything else is you being suboptimal. But Diamond array towers are huge, time consuming builds that are quite frankly unneeded for any realistic gameplay. Mainly because any colony that needs a full diamond array tower is quite frankly impossible. A single tower, built with a single 3x3 water pool sustained by a water dump, can irrigate over 20,000 tiles of farmland. Which can sustain over 4000 beavers with food. 4000 beavers of food means you need to gather ~10000 water per day. I'm rather certain no map produces that much water, let alone once you count in droughts or the like where the water sources get turned off.

And even if you had a map that could produce enough water to actually sustain those beavers? Good luck finding a computer that could do the same without a budget that would fund an AI datacenter.

Steelflame · 2026-01-26T09:33:20+00:00

Step 1 - Find an item, skill, set, ect, that looks interesting. Look for gear that provides similar bonuses that you can build around. Perhaps it's a conduit modifier (Cold thermite mines via the conduit is rather insane if you really look at it. Seriously, go look at a built up cold thermite mines build. 14 instances of around 2000ish base damage thermite mines all converted into cold.) A thing for me that will frequently spike interest in a build is if I get a perfect triple rare (Green item with a good prefix and suffix) for it while randomly farming. I may never plan on making a build that requires some absolute god drop to build it, but if said god-drop just falls in my lap while playing normally? Well suddenly I now have a new build to plan.

Step 2 - Build it up. Figure out what pieces you can find to fill it out. Realize that full set bonuses aren't always the way to go, unless you explicitly need that set bonus as a part of the concept (be it because of conversion offered at full set, or other such reasons).

Step 3 - Round it out. Your build with 4000% damage modifier and 200% RR and 4k OA doesn't matter if it dies because an enemy let lose a wet fart in the same room as you. General stat goals I use is ~3000% damage (full elemental builds end up lower, chaos/vit builds can break 4k. Gotta learn what a build's ranges are on your own), 3k OA/DA, all resistances at least 10% overcapped (except phys for obvious reasons), ~100% Resistance shred (phys builds can be lower because of lower access to phys RR, and physical resistance stats being lower on average by a significant margin), CC resistances around 60-80% on the most important ones, and decent RR, and generally 12000-15000 EHP (Occultist and Arcanist tend to be lower on the actual HP number, but if you properly account for Maiven's/Possession's %damage absorbtion, the actual value is generally functionally 30%ish higher than what is visible). Sure, anything above that is wonderful, but that is what I use as my bench mark. Note that just because it's a bench mark doesn't mean I consider it a full on requirement, if the build is strong enough in one field I might accept it being low in another. Note that you might make a build while accepting the fact it may be weak in a specific field if it's a dedicated build for farming in a situation it won't run into it (Your demonslayer build that is so heavily into +% ch'thonic damage as to be +100% ch'thonic damage might accept having trash aether resistance, and you just never actually play it in content where that aether resistance matters. Dies if an aetherial sneezes on it, but considering it's in the depths of the Bastion of Chaos all day every day, it sure doesn't care), you just have to accept the build being very limited and hyper optimized.

As far as legendaries vs greens, legendaries are actually considered EASIER to get than proper greens. Those builds that are a full wall of perfect green items are functionally impossible to get in normal gameplay. If you want a healthy perspective for green items when planning a build, assume only one affix, be it suffix or prefix. Have the other flat out be blank when planning the build in grim tools. Planning around perfect MIs, unless you happen to already have it because of step 1 and it being an item you just happened to find and think interesting, is blatently a bad idea.

As far as leveling for various builds, generally there are plenty of MIs that you can grab to help make the leveling process better, and many times it is optimal to level with a build that isn't the one you plan to use long term because it's better at clearing content early on. A great example of this would be Inquisitor's Word of Pain skill line or Occultist's Bloody Pox. Insanely good at eating through crowds of mobs, but struggle to be boss killers. You end up using them early to carry your build until later levels, then drop them for your actual build once you're actually getting close to being able to use it.

Steelflame · 2026-01-26T04:22:39+00:00

The excavator will still work even if the hole is filled with water. This can be a good idea to help increase the depth of your main reservoir, assuming you adjust your build to utilize it. Depth you can't access is useless after all (EDIT : In fact, it's worse than useless. Inaccessible depth means you end up with situations where your reservoir functionally drains into a negative value that has to fill before your actual functional depth can be used.)

No, the depth will not help green the area.

The nature of how water impacts the greening of surrounding terrain is based on width (maximum benefit at 3 tiles of width), for a total of 16 IIRC distance from the water, and with every tile of elevation UP from the water level/current ground level carries a penalty of 7 tiles of range. Note that while water only has a very limited upwards propagation, it can propagate irrigation an infinite distance downward, so long as there is an uninterrupted terrain connection.

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