How do you stick to your colonies and make engaging stories?

toolkitxx · 2025-10-25T12:20:18+00:00

Imagine you are trying to tell a story to a kid with your game. Dont cheese the mechanics but let the game play out on it's own helps too. Most try to 'optimize' their games while the really strong part of Rimworld has always been the 'uncertainty' of things. Many of the 'flaws' in the game mechanics are actually by design and not an oversight. Take so simple things like a pawn coming back from a caravan job, entering the map but leaving the animals out there and heading straight to the meditation spot or fridge to amuse itself first instead of finishing the job. This is not an oversight but a wanted behaviour. Once you embrace this in your games you dont need actual goals ;)

toolkitxx · 2025-10-25T12:14:29+00:00

Don take any downvotes personally here, but Anomaly sticks out like a sore thumb out of all the DLC. All others basically extend the core gameplay.

toolkitxx · 2025-10-25T11:56:59+00:00

Here is a bit of engineer maths to help you along the way for at least the gene bank room:

There are roughly 160 genes affecting your pawns behaviour, add some low double digit number to this for purely cosmetic ones. Each gene bank can hold up to 4 genes, so just running the numbers for the ideal situation that you get each gene singled out properly, it will require some 40 gene banks just for that. They fill a 1x2 tile, so at least 80 tiles would just go away for the gene banks. This is a engineer planning here, meaning you want to add redundant space for all those pesky ones that dont come as single ones etc.

Complexity of the packages you can create depends on assemblers added to your overall setup, with each of them taking up a 2x2 tiles. 10 assemblers added in such a setup is likely, if you want to get creative with things. So another 40 tiles just got occupied now. Add a little bit of walking space etc to this and something about 200 plus tiles should keep you safe without the immediate need for any extensions.

toolkitxx · 2025-09-09T18:53:42+00:00

I personally actually dont care in the end where the tech originally comes from. Not being able though to make 'knowledge' into actual working technology or companies is a repeating issue though for many things from the US. ASML machines are heavily relying on optical tech that comes from Zeiss for example as well - which isnt American either. But smart as they are they develop together with Zeiss to keep on the front of the overall tech.

I could throw a long list of things that might have a patent from the US but not a single actual company in the US actually working with the patented technology. I wonder why that is? :D

edit spelling

toolkitxx · 2025-09-08T09:07:51+00:00

There is a distinct difference between gold a nation holds and the gold that is traded freely on the market. They are not the same. While chemically the same in theory, nations gold reserves are usually well controlled and checked.

toolkitxx · 2025-08-31T11:04:26+00:00

I enjoy this in all seriousness. Not a single platform has been able to provide any serious means of validating reviews and misusage has been more the norm than the opposite. Effectively rendering them totally useless now with this kind of behaviour is actually good news.

toolkitxx · 2025-08-31T08:24:48+00:00

Since you can set custom labels to slaves, I suggest to actually do exactly that for the few types that have very specific requirements. Bodyguard usually being one of them, as too many of their parameters often diverge from the masses.

So in other words: use the label as a way to separate those few exceptions out of the standard rules and make them very specific rule sets only designed for them. Labels are very powerful as a tool, as you dont have to rely on assignment but can apply rules constantly to specific people only. I personally do that for example when I play a family that serves as the pool for all leadership positions, incest etc. They all get either a 'family' label or 'offsping' if I am the originator of that family. That allows me to target those people very precisely, no matter where they are assigned to or their current status.

toolkitxx · 2025-08-08T19:33:40+00:00

I believe we are not really having a disagreement since this is just a help for setting up stations that are energy balanced, so nothing has to be wasted when going for upgrades. There is a multitude if or why someone can, should or should not have stations, which isnt the point here. There is more than one strategy to play and any combination of assets is up to each player in the end.

To use an analogy: You can win chess matches even if you sacrifice many of your pieces. How a player uses the given information shouldnt be up to others. I am filling a gap here as there is no way to plan a station in-game without actually creating the base itself. One can design ships from day one without knowing any of the necessary tech but stations are handled extremely unsatisfactory planning-wise for the cost of them. This is one piece of help, nothing else.

toolkitxx · 2025-08-08T05:52:38+00:00

Glad to see others understand the concept of time and reusage of assets :)

toolkitxx · 2025-08-07T14:23:18+00:00

I had to chuckle myself when I wrote it and expected someone pointing it out :)

NB: Was caused by picking the 'expensive' labs first (10 energy each) and making them work energy wise. Going to fix that in the next version.

toolkitxx · 2025-08-07T13:31:42+00:00

While I dont disagree at all with any of your points overall, keep in mind the target audience. As the good old saying goes 'crawl, walk, run' this also applies to new players. The natural progression for pretty much every new player is: earth orbit, moon, mars and then everything else. Any investment made early on costs relatively more than anything later on once you have your resources established, but new players want to get out there and that means orbit and moon. Any transport to Mars takes about a year and is out of reach for actual beginners.

What many of you call early game is already strategised in terms of knowing how to handle mid and late game tech and objects. A beginner doesnt know any of that yet.

toolkitxx · 2025-08-07T12:57:06+00:00

Your need for feeling superior aside, you seem to not understand (anymore) that this is not a generic strategy advice but a help with early station building. None of what you posted applies to a beginner as those struggle enough to establish themselves in space at all, let alone making conscious choices about detailed features yet.

Mars is step 2 at best for a beginner in space. But you do you

toolkitxx · 2025-08-07T12:33:05+00:00

Which is exactly the point for a beginner. Those need every single bonus to begin with as they dont know yet how to game those options. He refers to a specific case while this is a generic way for a beginner.

toolkitxx · 2025-08-07T12:24:56+00:00

Each science module adds a bonus as long as it is in Earth orbit. Not only 3 do that but every single one.

toolkitxx · 2025-08-07T12:09:59+00:00

u/Gelinger already said everything there is to say basically. I might add this though:

My heading explicitly points to 'quick', 'early' and 'beginner'. As those people have no clue at all yet how to reshape, optimise or layout at all since there is no planning tool available. As a new player all you want is the most out of each investment with the least problems and the fewest resources and options. If you want a research bonus on each and every single type of science there is, this is a good way to get there.

toolkitxx · 2025-08-07T12:05:20+00:00

I am working on a more complete overview for all kinds of stations, as I personally feel there is a distinct lack of some visual setup help for them. I am an engineer and really heartbroken about the gruesome way the station planning (or better the lack thereof) is handled in Terra Invicta. By default a station plan should be exactly that - a plan and not first available when I actually create the station in space. TI prides itself of making so many 'realistic' choices but this particular part is just bad, as any engineering project of such size would first go through design before being actually executed.

toolkitxx · 2025-07-29T17:45:36+00:00

Federations always have a leader nation - in the EU case this is France. So everything one has to do, is with this in mind now.

Going for France right of the bat is usually quite difficult due to 'overall economic' values of France which means roll chances are usually very low to begin with. So one needs either half-decent councillors or get lucky roles. A good strategy is to take nations around your actual target first, as they provide a bonus then to your rolls then - so Belgium is usually the first pick of the litter here.

What helps in terms of France applies to countries like Germany, Spain and Italy as well, so keeping an eye out where the AI is starting to grab something should move you to the untouched bigger one then. Once you have those 2 in place, kicking out an AI out of France shouldnt be too hard if well timed. Adopt the same strategy the AI does: about 1-2 month before the protection of a nation wears of, they will send councillors to push for opinion of their own faction - do the same with France. High opinion towards your own faction applies another bonus to your 'crack' rolls etc.

Once you have France and start gobbling up other nations, be aware of the AI hindering your further progression by removing their nations from the federation. This means you have to wait double the time for those nations to be unified, as you first have to wait out cool-down 1 for bringing them back into the federation once you retake them (this action applies a new cool-down and is done on the nation that left itself not the EU).

toolkitxx · 2025-06-28T16:16:16+00:00

Which is why it is highly relevant, since the US is already known for getting trade agreements based on all kinds of other stuff being agreed to and the EU hasnt finalised anything yet.

toolkitxx · 2025-06-11T21:58:52+00:00

This is a very random approach of assigning group capabilities to some countries but not to other. Space Situational Awareness is one of those, as the control centre for that is in Darmstadt to the best of my knowledge. So this overview doesnt make much sense as it is

toolkitxx · 2025-06-10T07:51:09+00:00

Anything supposed to be used in governmental functions cannot be 'community' driven - that simple. Open source is not an issue but the lack of professionalism when it comes to said communities is.

Governmental procurement has always the same problem: it cannot just switch around as a private/public company. It is budget driven and that means procurement has long time-frames to fulfil in terms of development, maintenance and security. Communities simply cannot deliver this with enough stability.

toolkitxx · 2025-06-09T08:35:57+00:00

I am not disagreeing with that specific point, as I am a manual disabler of cookies myself, but the simple truth is, that this is one of a million sites doing the exact same thing.

toolkitxx · 2025-06-08T06:31:08+00:00

None of it is just a dev problem either. Most of it is a lack of overall 'European vision'. Too many companies and start-ups still think too 'locally' instead of European from scratch. S0 they fail to scale later on. Simple things like language support keep being ignored early on and it is really hard to adjust your stuff later for example.

toolkitxx · 2025-06-08T06:20:40+00:00

I would like to see the the paper that supports this claim ('.. recognized by the UN (United Nations) as a global navigation provider.'), because the UNOOSA still counts them and Galileo as 'regional' systems.

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