REVISION 37A HOTFIX NOW IN EXPERIMENTAL BRANCH

Crashes for the Crash Throne, Bugs for the Bug God!!!
and more info for you...

In this game I got a script error, the included saves are from before and just after the error. I've included a screen shot of the error dialog.

Unfortunately I relaunched the game without thinking and so don't have the console file from the crashed game. The console file I've included is from the relaunch, the game quit right after leaving the launcher.

I attempted to regenerate the console log by running the game replay but it crashed at a different and earlier point.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4bxMjEzI-oKUWtfOXhWcjA2WTA/view?usp=sharing

 

As an aside, the mac build still suffers from heavy crashing, I'm able to play no more than 4-6 days tops before the game tanks. I've resorted to saving every morning so I can resume as the crashes in most cases are not reproducible so there's a good chance that the game will be able to get further along.

 

It is now day 23 in my colony. I've had precisely two supply drops.

This is going too far. They should be more frequent than that.

 

I love the limited supply drops, personally.

It forces you to think about food/resource management and actually make things, instead of waiting for drops. Things feel more like a game and less like a sandbox this way.

 

True, but like I said this is going too far. 5-7 days is more reasonable.

By the way, I thought we had dropped the idea of making favors cost prestige because then it's just another metaresource. What prompted the reversion?

It also makes requesting food next to useless as you'll get, at most, 15 units of food and booze, which is a drop in the bucket for any decent-sized colony, starving or otherwise. It's utterly pointless.

 

I noticed that, at certain point, only a few colonists are selectable: I can't open the information window just by clicking a person for a big part of my population! I can't really see a regularity like "only new ones" because I can select without problems one of my oldest workcrews. Not only I can't select them, but any possible interaction with the mouse is impossible. Also happens with some modules, like the iron ovens. I tried to dismantle one of them to recuperate some iron plates but it didn't work. In the the end I tried to dismantle a mining module (selectable) but, since nothing happened, I decided to dismantle the whole mine. Crashed to desktop -.-'

 

Current game I have made it to day 34 with 90+ colonist without a crash or script error. I had to save and reload at day 2725 for work, so I don't have the console for those days.

Issues that I am observing:
--Hauling does not seem to be working at all. They are moving nothing that is not going into a module.
--Two of my crews are idle and never do anything. I believe they are stuck on two burial duties that are listed as unassigned. I see no way of removing them. **found it - it seems a work crew will disable all of their work duty options.

Bah, as I type this I place a stockpile over an area where I previously had removed a stockpile and game crashes. I had to remove the previous stockpile as I was unable to install new better ovens, even though there footprint is the same as the stone ovens.

 

All the way out to 70-odd colonists. Certainly the furthest I've ever got, reflecting the stability improvements (mac build). Still crashes randomly though and needs regular saves. There has been a distant lack of any sort of Funny Business whatsoever.

Booze doesn't seem to be being drunk. Got about 30 bottles of whisky knocking about...
..which means I've been able to make laudanum. Or at least, the chemist says he's made some. I've never seen it. Suspect he is using it himself.

This is the first time I've gotten to the middle / upper class house building point. Do these work? No-one claims them, they just attract people needing a kip and somewhere to eat their cabbage.

Have had several stuck work crews - I think changing their workshop or putting on exclusive farm duty sorts them out.

Have had several colonists beaten to death because they've got stuck while running away - that can be quite frustrating.

Have been able to keep up with food production, but not sure what it would take to maintain a cooked food supply. More than one kitchen for sure, as you'd need multiple work crews I think.

 

Here is a dropbox upload of my last game. Console for day 25-34, save for day 1-25 and then 25-34, their relays, and the dump for the crash.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/pv8e7ow42isfoks/AAAyaSzhQBEAN8ZLNUJxIt9Sa?dl=0

Several works died at towards the end, running in place while a fishperson beat them to death.

 

Ok, ok, I know you want to bug me for my really frequent supplies of TOTALLY LEGAL stuff, but I think that this is going a bit too far... This dear fellow did cause some trouble, she even tried to assult me!! It was a act of necessity! She was obsessed by my prestigoius figure, she even bribed a functionary from the minister to accouse me of trading with bandits! D: When she turned berserk on me I just defended myself!
And then it happened again! Well, so why does she still persecute me from the dead?? Why?? D:

 

Just happened to me too! :/

 

Just tried starting a colony on New Sogwood again and I was immediately reminded why I try not to play in that region anymore.

While the constant attacks from Fishpeople weren't quite as severe as before there were no stone nodes - not a one - within ~2 screens of the starting point. It's technically playable, but it would have been like banging my head against a rock until something cracks. Not fun.

EDIT: ...And I lost 3 NCOs during the first 2 days.

 

Aha! I was wondering why Myrtle kept up her complaints from beyond the grave. I figured she was just unusually insistent, as per standard bureaucratic regulation.
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As per Kiojan, it does seem as if there's a mild problem with making sure colonies are viable. I realize this is not as big a deal as... everything else right now, but it might be good to look into a way to make sure that there's at least a few blocks of stone, clay and wood around initial starting points. I don't really mind and just restart games until the random generation throws up something useful within a reasonable distance. Otherwise it's sometimes easy to get stuck by accident.

Iron plates for instance, is needed both for ovens and smelting forges. But smelting forges is how you make iron plates. It's easy to get stuck not being able to complete your smelting forge, and especially if there's no stone either, forcing you to make brick ovens.

... interestingly, the excess of questionably-legal goods helps mitigate this somewhat per 37A, which means once your colony is off the ground you're allright. Until then though it's still difficult.

Oh and smelting forges (speaking of) ignore stockpile restrictions on brass ingots.
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There might be a bit of optimization needed to be done on bandit spawns. Observe the following MEGA-encampment of bandits, along with the 4-6 brave redcoats fighting of 6 seperate gangs.
Another 3 camps on the rise and 1 more down by the SW corner, all just off screen.

 

Distant resources aren't as big a deal in New Antipodia. The problem in New Sogwood is that the best, only strategy to survive is to minimize your colony's footprint and keep your colonists from wandering off too far. Otherwise you'll get hammered by fishpeople. If you manage to establish a colony with a solid perimeter you can start branching out a bit. You can get away without iron, copper, coal, and zinc at your starting position if you're economical with your starting commodities (and later on you can just build a mine or, once your military is large enough, send out a squad of guards to protect miners). However, if the resources you need to BUILD a colony and perimeter are distant, you're boned.

I'd actually like to propose a new zone: The Quarry. It can be placed anywhere and acts like a mine. It only produces stone and clay (and at a fairly slow rate). The larger the quarry, the more colonists can work it at a time (and there is an upper limit to how large it can get). As the quarry is worked, the zone elevation drops until it's basically a pit. Once you've hit bedrock the rate at which it produces clay/rock plummets. Just as with mines your colonists can discover artifacts, disturb beetle nests, etc. while working there.

 

I was feeling in a masochistic mood tonight so I tried to start another colony in New Sogwood. I ran into the same problem as before - a lack of stone nodes coupled with incessant (but again, not QUITE intolerable) wandering fishperson attacks.

Only this was worse.

I literally spent 4 days doing nothing but trying to find a rhyolite node and didn't find a single one. I sent a militia squad out exploring around my colony. I used the select unexplored terrain exploit to order colonists to mine undiscovered nodes, all of which turned out to be iron, sulfur, or coal. Towards the end I had explored a huge area around my colony and killed, geez I dunno, fifty fishpeople, and all I had managed to build was a small carpentry workshop. I quit at this point, but any rhyolite deposits that I missed would have been at least 2 screens (maximum zoom) removed from my colony. Not only would transporting the blocks to my colony have taken too long I would have had to commit a sizable portion of my none-too-impressive military to guard the mine and path back to the settlement (leaving virtually no-one to guard the colony itself!). The only other possible way I could have gotten around this is to a) know in advance there were no stone nodes b) build a minimum-sized mine with the paltry few stone blocks I started with and c) sit around waiting to accumulate enough stone blocks to build a decent-sized colony (which would have likely taken weeks). Not really challenging, not fun. It's sitting around hoping your miners will dig up a block while watching footsoldiers fend off the 148th wandering fishperson.

I realize the procedurally generated nature of the game means sometimes you'll get resource poor and resource rich regions, but all starting points should be at least playable. In situations like this there should be a less tortuous method of gathering essential commodities. That is..

There needs to be another alternate source of stone (and possibly clay)

Either that or starting points should automatically have an adjacent rhyolite node (and possibly clay node).

P.S I got another game crash when I attempted to quit and save on this one as well. Here ya go.