I've been getting back into Rimworld after a few years. I've played a bit but never gotten very far. I'm a huge fan of colony management games in general (Dwarf Fortress, Oxygen Not Included, etc.) but Rimworld has always been tough to me. I think part of it is that the tech tree just doesn't make sense in my head.
I think I'm more used to medieval style games with clear "Minecraft like" material progression (can't think of a better term lol). Plus a lot of games I play a gun is just already the highest tech you'll get, so it's this weird thing where I view my weapons as really strong then they're really early game things. Further, I probably think of other weapons I see that are powerful as being super late game weapons.
Can someone give me a breakdown of what techs to research over the first year or two of gameplay? I also might not be researching enough in general. I am 3 seasons in and only have one tech unlocked, batteries. Is that a good pace? I know later it will be faster.
Right now I mostly die to things in the second year it seems like. My new game I am playing with Phoebe Chillax on Adventure Story. Seems like Cassandra Classic on Strive to Survive is the "default". But going over the things they actually change it seems like this will mostly give me smaller raids and events slightly less often, as opposed to doing things like giving me more food from crops. I'm mostly dying to external threats at the moment so I'm trying to make that a teeny bit easier as I learn.
You want to focus on power generation, batteries(you got good instincts), and air conditioning. With air conditioning you can make freezers to preserve food (pemmican is not bad either early). You can speed up research if your research bench is in a well lit area and if sanitation is high (put it on at least a wooden floor ideally sterile flooring).
Also just turn off raids until you get a handle on the game.
I'm a little past that lol, coolers are a starting tech! Also I tried building under a mountain this game and everything has been nice and comfy. My freezer is working well, it's on the edge and exhausts through a hole like it should.
Gotta watch for insects under the mountain. There's some ways to cheese this, but I personally like the semi real risk it brings. I do advise avoiding plasma swords for your guys. Its too easy to start fires by accident, and in a large mountain base, a bad fire is death.
Ah okay, so it's like Dwarf Fortress in that regard I think? I think DF scales threats on wealth.
Yes, that is a thing in RW, but wasn't the thing I was referring to.
Eventually you will start seeing high tech weapons (don't think you can build them yourself?), and so on the melee side, that's the likes of the Zeushammer, monosword, and plasmasword. I think plasmaswords are the strongest for raw damage, but they also set the target on fire like 50% of the time.
If that happens in the middle of the enclosed portions of your base, you can see why that'd be a problem. Also shows why fire poppers are important.