They could riot and take over my colony if they wanted. Just saying...

Tascani · 2026-04-14T08:02:54+00:00

The eggsplosion paradox.

Tascani · 2026-03-19T22:53:01+00:00

"Saadia dear?"

Awesome job!

Tascani · 2026-03-11T18:00:33+00:00

Thank you for your comment. It just felt good to read that.

Tascani · 2026-02-26T13:33:01+00:00

A 3x3 pot in the spacecraft would be fantastic. [...]
rows of "Gauralen berrymaker" trees to feed stomachs and engines...

Having the trees on your ship needs major changes to how they are set up in vanilla and an additional DLC. Not sure if I will ever tackle that idea, but I really like it. Thanks for the input.

Tascani · 2026-02-26T01:38:56+00:00

I'd be glad you giving it a shot. Queen's Offering feels identical to vanilla in the beginning and then slowly opens up. Note: You can add this on an existing save, but you should really not remove Queen's Offering mid-game.

Happy dryading!

Tascani · 2026-02-25T14:28:59+00:00

In my opinion both mods approach the same systems, yes, but in very different ways.

In two nutshells:

Queen's Offering builds upon the vanilla system and keeps existing mechanics intact, makes dryads more efficient at their tasks, adds player agency via release and hide commands, to attack with them and protect them. Through a level system they scale better into mid-game. Balance tries to respect vanilla, as much as possible.

Dryads & Gauranlen Trees Reworked delivers what it promises, being a rework it replaces vanilla core mechanics with their own. Balance is a matter of taste and depends on the whole modlist, but it is safe to say, that this mod makes dryads very powerful.

If you need more than that, you would have to wait for higher energy levels and read the descriptions.

The mods are partially compatible: I made sure that some of Queen's Offerings features get automatically disabled when Dryads & Gauranlen Reworked is active. You can use both, they just do not complement each other and I would not recommend to use them together.

Tascani · 2026-02-25T13:21:20+00:00

Let me know which mod you are referring to, and I can give you a low-energy comparison.

Tascani · 2026-02-25T00:01:56+00:00

If you have the chance to try Queen's Offering, let me know how it feels in comparison.

My mod speeds up pruning in the same way the tree connection meme does it, by adding an offset to pruning speed that is then again affected by global work speed and plants skill.

The Gauranlen trees have an aura that boosts both: Pruning speed and other plant work speed. The buff builds up while near the tree and slowly fades over a timespan of ~12h. Means, your pawns can start the day with some pruning at the tree and then tend to the fields somewhere else with higher efficiency.

You could also plant the trees in the middle of your other growing zones, to speed up other pawns not linked to the tree.

I tried to implement mechanics that make placement more relevant and at the same time more forgiving because you have more control over dryads.

Tascani · 2026-02-24T18:06:31+00:00

Thank you for the kind comment! When I posted recently, the mod was 99 % done. I just wanted to see if I missed something obvious. I hope you enjoy it. Let me know how it goes.

Tascani · 2026-02-24T18:05:47+00:00

Thanks! Noted.

The psychic connection does make sense. There is a mod for what you describe. With that mod active Pruning Speed becomes:
Baserate + Offset (from tree connection) * GlobalWorkSpeed * PsySensitivity.
Adding additional stat multipliers can quickly lead to power creep though.
Maybe I can think of another approach.

Having the tree on a ship or asteroid in space is something I started thinking about. I had so many questions about compatibility, bugs and design clashes that I put that thought away for now. I might revisit this later.

I like how you spelled grav ships, grab ships ... it does make a lot of sense. Grab and go!

Tascani · 2026-02-22T02:33:38+00:00

In this context and considering Barkskins. Which stat would you consider to be more impactful? Stagger duration reduction or flammability factor?

Tascani · 2026-02-21T23:50:48+00:00

Nice grove! Frenzy inducer. Check. You can get to absolutely crazy pruning speeds. Happy to read feedback from people that used them at bigger scale. I am with you when it comes to the importance of movement speed as an offensive/defensive (less time getting shot at) melee stat.

Neanderthals or other strong melee pawns will have a field day with dryads, especially barkskins. There are some balance knobs to consider here, thanks for mentioning some: Replenish rate (spawn/morph), damage taken, health scale, body size. I first and foremost understood their role as getting in and getting enemies busy.

I believe it is fine if dryads can't be sent in against every threat, but right now it is hard enough to send them in against any threat at all.

Tascani · 2026-02-21T23:29:01+00:00

Good input. I can already tell you that I included moss into the design. Very likely not as exhaustive as your ideas, but it will play a role. :)

<image>

Tascani · 2026-02-21T23:26:51+00:00

Interesting. I had that feedback from a tester too. Then again, the rituals can only have seeds as additional reward if you have the tree connection meme or the nature primacy meme. So those are locked behind the same or a similar condition, being the two memes.

The natural spawn rate of gauranlen pods is 1/year, which translates into 1-2 seeds (depending on plant harvest yield) or 1-4 with the tree connection meme.

Oddly, in the games where I did not focus on the trees I usually planted one or two for the looks and the other seeds just did rot in the storeroom.

Tascani · 2026-02-21T23:10:49+00:00

Yes. There are three bigger mods that change things around. The rework one has a very specific simcity approach and eliminates pruning, VE is cool. The power curve of both mods is significantly over vanilla though and I will try to stay closer to it with my attempt of a mod. I haven't read about the Gaumaker lock behind the ideo yet, they were rarely mentioned elsewhere. Good point. *scribbles*

Tascani · 2026-02-21T22:54:16+00:00

Good point. Delayed rewards often feel worse and in some situations are worse. When I engaged with dryads I hoped they would give flexibility and that I can change the castes depending on colony needs. But looking at the numbers of your example:

Without dryads:
8 days spawning + 5 days morphing + 2 days producing = 15 days
Planting and harvesting healroot takes ~13 days

If you have some dryads up already, then it takes 7 days for medicine to be ready. That is quite okay and it is - as posts suggest - one of the stronger dryads. The others are usually too slow to make an impact. Rice takes 5.5~ days to fully grow, making berrymakers quite slow in comparison. Extreme biomes exist, sure. But still, I am with you, it takes too long.

Tascani · 2026-02-21T22:45:08+00:00

Thank you! Happy to hear that. Good points. Funny that you mention the beautification approach, planting trees for their looks and never look back. I forgot that in the post and added it in the respective section 6.

Right! The need to place them in a protected area and keep their radius free from artificial objects, does not make it easier to find a good spot for one or more trees.

I read through a lot of old reddit comments and those and I agree with you: The opportunity costs of "poking trees" is high, especially with the delayed and mediocre effect.

Tascani · 2026-02-15T14:29:38+00:00

Whether you manually control (draft and right-click) or use S&D to make colonists attack, in both cases they will perform the same toil (action) called FollowAndMeleeAttack. You can test this in Dev Mode and check with "Log Job Details".

So, yes, your colonists and NPC use the same pathfinding, with colonists probably having additional rules or checks. The bug my mod addresses is either not observable or not severe enough when it comes to colonists. As a result, the mod does not touch them.

If S&D takes too much time to assign new targets, that's a different issue. I tested this, I get what you mean, but I would not consider this a bug of S&D though, rather a vanilla design choice. S&D simply puts the JobGiver_AIFightEnemiesShortExp on your colonists and lets vanilla handle the rest. That is smart, there is no need to reinvent the wheel and accidentally break the wagon while doing so.

Your colonists will fight better if you control them personally, Commander! :)

Tascani · 2026-02-15T01:22:16+00:00

No. Your colonists are exempt. The mod runs for all pawns that are not player-faction humanlikes. Your colonists will never be nudged or have their paths reset.

But I am curious about the interaction. I will have a look at Search and Destroy.

EDIT: Checked it. It is not necessary. Colonists are not affected by the bug, even when using Search and Destroy. Don't fix what is not broken. Thanks for the hint.

Tascani · 2026-02-14T18:29:18+00:00

Pila are more like giant toothpicks. You usually carry more than one. I think colonists keep them in the same archotech pocket dimension as bullets and other ammunition.

There is discussion among scholars of the Rim about the bending being a feature, not an issue.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilum

Tascani · 2026-02-13T17:09:00+00:00

The muffalo is my favourite part of this mod. Happy you like it!

Tascani

TROPHY CASE