ALPHA 43: THE TERRIBLE TRUTH NOW AVAILABLE ON STEAM

I was hit by a half-dozen bandits on day 6 (having already been raided by a three man group on day 4) but funnily enough I didn't receive a warning/opportunity to surrender until several minutes AFTER they had attacked, sending my tiny, fledgling military and citizens into hysterics. I closed the window since it was a moot point by the time it had come up. Then, suddenly, they offered a truce; I hadn't killed a single one of them.

Bizarre, probably bugs.

Edit: Also, soldiers NEVER stop training. Doesn't matter if they're already redcoats; this strongly pushes all their emotions to zero.

 

Noticing the Redcoats never stop training behaviour as well. I've trained up 3 militia into my starting NCO units at this point and every couple of minutes the NCO will get the redcoats training again.

The biggest problem I'm now experiencing with Alpha 43 is that the work shift rota impact on colonists is much too Borg-like.

Countless times now I've had colonists that for whatever reason have decided they don't need to sleep during the night and have stuck around chatting, eating, dancing or in some cases finishing off long trip orders, during these nights Beetles or some other threat may turn up at the colony and my colonists even though wide awake and able to be aware of the activity do ABSOLUTELY JACK SHIT, their "React to anything" switch is just flipped off because it's "Not work hours". Which just makes the whole thing feel cheap.

In one situation I sat there watching a single lone mini-beetle chow down on half my wheat crop during the night whilst more than 7 colonists walked by or in the case of 2 colonists had a bit of a gossip standing right next to the beetle as it chomped down on field crop, yet acted completely oblivious to the goings on until suddenly the time of day shifted from night to morning and like pre-programmed Borg drones they suddenly noticed the Beetle eating the crop and stomped on it.

I seriously hope that revising how work schedules are implemented is incredibly high on the list of things to tackle before Alpha 44, as having colonists not adopt new jobs when it's their off-duty time is one thing. But having work schedules just act as a binary switch for half their behaviour as colonists just feels cheap and tacky and creates a few problems when colonists aren't all just asleep at night but are finishing off lingering activities but have all the behaviours they normally have when doing those things during the day now disabled.

 

I feel like military should respond to rally commands as a first priority, even if it's their break, at night, or if they are currently doing something else.

As for the tiny beetles, farmers really need to stop shooing them and start stomping them. I've had to deal with beetles in my farms by rallying soldiers to the farms since my farmers don't want to stomp them.

 

Here's a 32 day, 52 pop colony with most of the buildings. I'm honestly impressed by the stability of this build, though there are fair number of little bugs, both aesthetic and functional. I'll post the files here for the hell of it.

 

Not had the opportunity to fire up the game too much since 43 rolled out, so only had a limited range of encounters to see how they react to various things when off-shift at night yet, but they most definitely refuse to acknowledge small beetles chomping on crops until they're on an active work period, even if they're wide awake and socialising right next to the small beetle as it chows down on a entire field.

I had one situation where a Bandit wandered close to the colony and everyone woke up and legged it, so that seems to work fine when they're off-duty, assuming Fishpeople aggression uses the same reaction behaviour then I guess what would be fine in which case.

Not seen a single faction military unit across 4 different fresh starts even after getting colonies into their 3rd week since Alpha 43 released, so don't know how colonists react to them when off duty.

If a colonist is performing a extra long job (like hauling goods across half the map), if the time of day shifts to a off-duty period then it seems they immediately inherit their lack of responsiveness to certain events such as wandering by aggressive Beetles whilst carrying their goods completely oblivious to what's going on.