RimWorld

RimWorld

Semi Random Research
Difficulty and research-weighting
Hm. So my playthrough with this mod is definitely fun, novel, and different; but good *god* is it difficult.

I've ended up having to set the research-speed to 300% in the storyteller to make any progress at all, or have any chance of my technology-level keeping up with my wealth/resources/threat … but, even at 300%, it's kinda a nightmare. Which maybe isn't a bad thing, it's still fun!

The problem is mostly that, in the games that inspired this like Stellaris, there's a *weighting* system: really important, key technologies that gatekeep overall game progression have much higher weight than random tertiary stuff you can live without.

For example, I'm 4 years into my current colony; well-established, have mostly reached a steady state … except that I just, continuously, cannot progress, because Microelectronics will. not. show. up. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Now, implementing this for the core game wouldn't be *too* hard; but doing so with enough mods available could be … uh … problematic to write enough patches for?

So here's my though: What about weighting the built-in research tree by hand; and then exposing an API for other modders to set weights for their modded techs?

(Also, not enough to open a second thread for, but: in Stellaris, you're guaranteed to *never* see the same research-option twice in a row, no matter how highly it's weighted; that is, all previously-ignored techs from the previous hand of cards have their weight temporarily set to 0 for the next hand. This helps both helps 1. ensure variety, and 2. add a bit of a trade-off to some of the draws: "man, I *really* need both Mortars and Medicine Production … but whichever one I don't take, I'm guaranteed to not see next time, either!" I think this mechanic is worth cribbing, too.)
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liosalpha 12 Jun, 2021 @ 11:07pm 
No, please dont make it weighted. It wil end up being a fixed beeline researching, instead of what it aims to do.

the charm of random research is that it forces you to stop going for that one thing you always do and find other solutions. And yes that harder then normal but you can always lower the games difficulty it self.

I would sugest starting a custom senario with that one mush have tech enebeled.
Or tech advancing mod with "finish the lowest tech first" option with in the mod.

I started a heavy moded (over 200 mods) trible start and it was fine. I did grab stonecutting from the get go and have big clunky mod installed like rimworld of magic and cullts. Those clutter op the neolithic research with long researches. (not to mention the timed race of the cults mod to get the altar befor people rebel or go insane ) it was fun thou.
But like normal tribal starts its advice to lay low (in wealth), and have more than one researcher. And if things realy get dire to just run of the map and start over.
im in year 5 now and got to electronics. but im still working normal benches to finishe them easie techs of. Most of the time 4 pawns are researching and it going by quicker then i can keep up. so i just enabled the auto research option.

i do wish there was a little letter when a research was done.
I wouldn't be bothered if it was toggleable, but I still think it's a pretty necessary feature for most playthroughs.

I, too, am enjoying my "totally random" playthrough; but it would have been nigh-impossible without setting the raid-difficulty down to 50%. I'd like to keep playing with this mod, but I'd like to play a more ... balanced ... playthrough, next time.
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