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RimWorld >  Workshop > Oskar Potocki's Workshop > Vanilla Psycasts Expanded > Discussions
Vanilla Psycasts Expanded
Description Discussions213 Comments4603 Change Notes
RedPine 7 Aug, 2022 @ 2:31pm
Honor Rules
This mod is very fun, but kinda OP. What are some good honor rules to make me feel less guilty about enjoying this mod? Here are my favorite rules thus far:

-No Anima Tree.

This thing lets you mass produce psycasters, and lets you ignore the scaling EXP costs of levelups on a single pawn.

-No Empire

The empire should either be hostile (take the Deserter in) or nonexistent. In exchange for a mere 7 honor, a Yeoman can enter closed door cultivation for a few months and come out stronger than most stellarchs.

-No Psycast Ability Neuroformers

Unlock an ability tree, an ability, and possibly skip multiple prerequisites, without spending a single level up? OP. Axe it. (Neuroformers are fine though, that would be the only way to become a psycaster in the first place. Optional: Use mods, dev mode, or scenario editor to get your first neuroformer.)



Here are the rules I'm iffy on:

-Three Trees per Psycaster

Forces you to pick and choose synergy, instead of having it all. With this rule enabled, it's okay and even encouraged to use Psycast Ability Neuroformers (up to a limit of 3 to unlock 3 trees.)

-Wealth Progress Mode

Meditation time now has a cost.

-Install Vanilla Mechanoids Expanded.

Meditation time now has a cost.

-No more than one superpawn (if abusing anima trees)

-No more than 6 psycasters total (with 15 ability trees, that's enough to cover all ability trees and then some)

-Treat Psycasters like Royalty (ie, treat them like the kings they are. Let the wealth skyrocket!)

-No upgrading the Psy Stat

Power vs flexibility is an interesting choice, but

1) You get plenty of max heat from psylink levels alone.
2) Not needing Eltex clothing/gear to increase max heat/heat dissipation is strong.
3) Increasing psyfocus gain - read, EXP gain - early is strong.
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Showing 1-6 of 6 comments
RedPine 9 Aug, 2022 @ 7:08am 
In my current playthrough, I have current honor rules to make things interesting/difficult:
-No Allies (debug all factions to be enemies)
-No Traders (trade is a fast way to skip the early game)
-Wealth Progress Mode (surprisingly punishing depending on playstyle)
-Randy Strive to Survive (I've had two near party wipes, with multiple kidnapped colonists.)

Anti-Psycaster honor rules:
-No Anima Tree use
-Empire is an enemy

This means the only way to get psycasters it to either kidnap them, or get extremely lucky and find a neuroformer via quests, ancient dangers, or ancient ruins. Yes, each psycaster is extremely powerful, but this makes them equally rare.

Without anima tree use, and no way to buy neuroformers, I'm stuck with levelling the long slow way. That means investing in multiple focus types, making a dedicated meditation area that combines as many focus types as possible, and having only one psycaster (my starting pawn) for the forseeable future.

So far I'm on day 92, and I have only one psycaster.

Flo Tang.
Psycaster 7
Starting Foci: Artistic (default), Arcotech (SOS2),

Additional Foci: Minimal, Research
Paths: Technomancer
Abilities: Enchant Quality, Haywire, Steel Construct, Word of Progress
Psystats: None

Heat Max: 65
Sensitivity: 100
Psyfocus Gain Rate: 109%/day

He can support up to 2 constructs, and enchant 3-4 times per day. That's hardly gamebreaking. Compare to my last playthrough that abused anima, which by now had my main caster at level 10, and multiple tribals at 4-6.
#1
ScoSteSal 9 Aug, 2022 @ 8:32am 
Whoa, that's even more strict by far than what I was going to use! I was thinking that existing mechanics like anima tree and imperial titles might be ok if I set the 'xp gain rate from meditation' slider in mod options to a very low value (.1 or .05).
#2
ScoSteSal 9 Aug, 2022 @ 8:33am 
Are there any psycasts which you've found uncomfortably strong and have sworn off using for now?
#3
RedPine 9 Aug, 2022 @ 10:01pm 
Originally posted by ScoSteSal:
Are there any psycasts which you've found uncomfortably strong and have sworn off using for now?

Mindbreak from Archon feels a little strong, but the minions it produces can't do much more than clean and haul, so it's not that bad. If I used mindbroken thralls as psycasters that don't need sleep, THAT would be broken (may get patched out). I could also use mindbroken thralls as a disposable slave army, but that feels unethical even by rimworld standards (and I'd still need to feed them, so it's not unbalanced, just evil).

Aside from that, all the psycast trees are quite balanced. It takes 1-3 years to unlock an entire tree, after which point you can choose between spamming psystats or trying to go for multi-tree synergy. By that point you're looking at 3-10 in game years of dedicated cultivation, so if you make it that far, congrats, you deserve to be a little bit OP. A _lot_ can go wrong in that amount of time, so good luck making it that far!




As long as you honor rule a restriction in how fast you acquire casters, VPE is surprisingly well balanced. Most of the imbalance comes from vanilla: Tribal wizard spam, yeoman spam-ish, buying T6 psytrainers for the cost of a few shock lances...

I've heard rumours about the elemental abilities, but I haven't tested those myself yet. I suspect that most of the exploits, cheeses, synergies, and strategies have yet to be discovered.
#4
k47 10 Aug, 2022 @ 9:08am 
The Chronomancer tree is super fun. One of my colonist lost both her eyes in the first 10 days of the game and I rolled with it, turned her into my psycaster and picked Chrono.

The first power is a "get a ton of psy xp" at the expense of growing 5 years older, but a couple of levels in you can start draining age out of people (they grow 10 years older, you grow 2 years younger). If you don't mind being evil, you can turn your prisoners into power-levelling batteries.

You can also insta-grow a 5x5 field of crops/trees, so insta corn or whichever long-growing plant you want a nice yield of.

The "Foretelling" power let's you spam alliances so that you can always call for anti-raid defenses, the "Time Bubble" that ages everything inside insta-kills insectoids since they only live 5-6 years.

Aside from Time Bubble, it's more of a "colony support" character and less of a combat character, but it's very very fun.
#5
RedPine 10 Aug, 2022 @ 10:35am 
I look forward to trying out Chronomancer, but my colonists are still young. My first caster went Technomancer for Psyring, as that will let ALL future casters borrow eachothers abilities. My second caster had to go Protector - she's an armourer pacifist with a side in medical. It made too much RP sense to pass up, and my colony already has missing digits that need healing.

Due to my honor rules, psycaster are hard to come by, so I have to choose paths based on needs more than wants. I'll probably go frost or skip next, and I definitely want to give Harmonist a try. I suspect that, if used correctly, Harmonist could be the most powerful tree of all. The tooltips on some of it's abilities are as weird as they are vague.
#6
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