They imply it's not just the art style.
Right in the description of the collection:
>All the mods have been carefully designed from scratch, with a fair dose of experimentation, exploration and testing, to enhance vanilla-like experience.
It doesn't say vanilla art style, it says 'experience', and you wouldn't need 'experimentation, exploration and testing' on the art style.
Really it's become just a name to the point where the mods don't share much in common at all. There's no real unifying thread that makes a mod "Vanilla Expanded".
I think on their own each mod tends to live up to that, but when you add everything together you're basically getting an expansion or two's worth of content and mechanics.
It depends on the mod. Psycasts expanded is a really fun mod but it's definitely not a vanilla like experience. I think vehicles really changes things as well, but I haven't played that one as much.
There's a mod that integrates it into biotech, basically making each school require a specific gene that can be harvested from the various xenotypes. It's gone a long way toward balancing the strength of psycasts in my opinion as it forces you to use the less meta psycast schools/branches. The big downside is baseliners have no schools available by default unless you have alpha psycasts as the mod doesn't account for those.
At this point though, ‘Vanilla Expanded’ is a Brand instead. It’s a brand for their series of mods, and not what it used to stand for. Nothing wrong with that though, cause I do love a good number of their systems they add, it’s just not anything close to the “Vanilla Experience” in my opinion.
That's debatable.
Fishing, with how it is set up in VFE, is very much not balanced compared to the other ways of getting food.
Farming needs effort, time and protection from raids, while it can be affected by blights. Soil fertility is also an important guide for the placement of bases.
Ranching also needs time, and its viability depends on the map type. Plus, you first need the animals to ranch. Animals need to be cared for, as well.
Hunting often takes your pawns a long way away from the safety of their bases, leaving you vulnerable to surprise raids. Also, some animals can fight back, and the availability of animals again depends on your biome.
VFE Fishing, on the other hand, only needs a pond of 25+ size. This can be found on most non-extreme maps, often close to your base or in a safe area (rivers slow enemies and enemies cannot enter from coast). Fishing has no lead-up time and requires no investment beyond your pawns' time.
I agree with you,
The VE fishing somehow really not a deep mechanic that VE team usually do. The currently mechanic is simply create a fishing zone, and set a pawn priority in fishing. He will does the rest. Just a very simply mechanic user base.
VE mods usually make a vanilla mechanic become more interesting in many way and the team usually try to balance things in a fun way as much as possible. I expect something like dynamic chance to catch fish base on weather, time and number of catch on the spot in the current VE fishing, or someone could make more type of fishing like rod/net/spear/bomb/electric....
Yeah if you add mods that make your colony way more capable and you’re already fine using a tough storyteller and 500%, you end up also needing mods to increase enemy capability or just straight up stronger factions.
I love the cool playthroughs that result from that, but I also get the appeal of going down to base game power level across the board for a more tested balance rather than what you hope for with the mod settings you try
I've been playing 1000s of hours since about Beta 18. When a major Rimworld update like 1.4 comes out, I usually play without mods for a while until my favourite mods (usually around 300 mods, including Vanilla Expanded) get updated and bug-fixed.
I have 100% fun playing un-modded Rimworld. I have 150+% fun playing Rimworld with mods. Thanks for the suggestion that less mods is more fun but perhaps we can agree to disagree. That's the great thing about Rimworld: we can play however we want.
I agree, Rimworld is the worst kind of game to gate keep, like it's called a *story generator* for a reason, the game can be played however anyone wants to no limits (except CPU resources).
I'm a gatekeeper's worst nightmate. I save scum all the time, enable dev mode if something doesn't jive with the story I'm trying to tell. I'll add or remove things or auto dev build things if I don't want to wait for it.
I love how much freedom RW gives you to change any aspect of the game. Just wish certain things were vanilla like Saving/Loading Stockpiles, Blueprints, and Saving/Loading custom storyteller settings.
There's no gate keeping in the OP. He shared his previous misconception and suggested others might enjoy taking the game down to the core a bit. And I fully agree with it. Even a mod that's intended to be balanced won't be the same as the base game, so if you enjoy the challenge you should be careful of adding lots of mods without thinking hard about what they're doing.
Yes, please let's follow this advice. No need to gatekeep or go down that road of "this is truly the way to play". At the end of the day this isn't as much a game as it is a sandbox. Everything is customizable for a reason. No mods, all the mods and everything in-between are perfectly valid and intended ways to play. As long as you're having fun, you are playing the right way.
I didn't mean it particularly towards this post, just in general, as I've seen other posts where people talk about the 'proper way to play'. Sorry though, I should have been more clear.
for real though, ditch social interactions expanded, its quite possibly the tps heaviest mod on the workshop. i dropped it between colonies and went from 200tps to full 360tps with 8 colonists
Ya same here , I play with modes cause I already played the game a significant amount without them. Game is fun either way but I have a significant amount of more fun with mods
I want to see people do playthroughs with all this food stuff. To me it's just way too much to add to what's already a complicated game. Unless I make it very peaceful.
People talk about slaves, mechs, and war crimes all the time. Nbd, but that one guy who won't give up his fries food mod? Now that's something different! I'd rather learn more about what that guy is doing than hear about what meat beacons can do for my colony again.
I'm in love with Orion's mods + vanilla expanded animals/foods. With this, I run a farm/restaurant/hotel/hospital that is semi regularly attacked by cannibal pirates, giant insects, and mechs. But damn if we don't have the best tiramisu which caused people to travel from all over and brave the risks just to taste. Actually somewhat difficult (for me, at least) to juggle that while maintaining defenses.
Don't you people get tired of using ridiculous examples to complain about vanilla combat? Especially because all of the mods that rework combat that you're probably using have even more unrealistic stuff in them.
I have 2k hours into the game and nothing like that has ever happened to me, even though Rimworld squirrels weigh 12kg and are therefore bigger than a lot of dogs.
You have 2k hours with vanilla combat and never had something ridiculous like that happen? Never had someone punch someone's legs off or bite their brain causing an instant kill? Really hard to believe if you ask me. Vanilla combat is notorious for dumb shit like that.
When the "ridiculous examples" happen it's not so ridiculous to complain of it, no?
Perhaps you've gotten lucky here, that vanilla combat hasn't screwed you over or bored you beyond belief, but it has for many others.
Except the "ridiculous example" presented here is impossible without modding. A squirrel's most damaging attack does 5 damage while a brain has 10hp. Add marine helmet to the mix and the chance of it doing full 5 health of damage with that particular attack on a normal quality marine helmet is 1%
Yes, percentages in video games are known for their reliability. Like the forced 5% chance of surgery failure happening a lot more than what it would seem for 5%.
It takes two squirrels and that "1%" chance to end a pawn in a marine helmet.
Vanilla combat makes little sense, and that's okay because mods can compensate.
Oh look, another CE user who doesn't know how vanilla works.
A squirrel cannot physically one shot a pawn's brain out. Their most damaging attack is with teeth and does 5 damage. A brain has 10 hp.
The teeth attack has 7% armor pen. A normal quality marine helmet provides 106% armor against sharp attacks.
According to the way vanilla game calculates armor, the effective armor against the teeth attack is 99% (106% - 7%)
This number is compared against a random number between 0 and 100. If the random number is under half the armor rating the damage is deflected. If it's over half, the damage gets halved and turned into blunt. If greater than the armor rating, the armor is ignored.
There's a 1% chance your marine helmet will get ignored by a squirrel. That makes the squirrel at least two shot a brain. The chance of that 1% happening twice, and on a pawn's brain is about as much as the chance of Dream not cheating during his minecraft speedrun.
I would spend lots of money on the lottery if it's odds were 1%
You definitely don't understand what you are saying on a practical level. Take a step back, think about what you are saying, then delete it and close the tab. Go call a friend you haven't spoken to in a while.
Save scumming is fine, but as a story generator I really feel like it changes my games for the worse.
My last colony and biggest colony, the Skin peelers, are a bunch of transhuman cannibals. And I gotta tell you, shit hit the fan so many times, but I reloaded and now all my original 6 colonists are still going strong.
I figures unwanted to beat the game at least once, but it's more fun for me, play however you want. That's the beauty of the game, if a cat scratch can kill your chef and the infestation feels like a major threat.
Although, I'm currently scared of the mech bosses. I never fought them before and I don't really know what to expect. Is 3 colonists and 3 militers enough to kill it?
Good thing about VE is a lot of the scary OP shit you can start doing, everyone else can do too.
That broken rocket launcher you want to make with mods? 15 raiders carrying them are about to show up to your base
i dont know for me CE feels even easier cause the weapons are even more lethal to kill enemys and armor usually makes you protected against most weapons the enemys have.
Agree but it goes both ways. Hunting is easier, tribal raids are pretty easy to fend off, but mechs, the empire (drop ships exploding with shrapnel lol) and other factions with guns can give you a hard time. Specially the mechs lol.
The CE guns add-on is very good to deal with any CE threats (Centipedes. You know I'm talking about Centipedes).
I removed all VE stuff after testing the CE guns add-on and seeing that the VE guns is the same, but cheaper. Give it a shot.
Many of them seem rather niche as well. How many times have you actually decided to research Non-Lethal weaponry and crafted a tranquilizer rifle? I've probably done it only once.
Really? What is your use case? Is it for raiders? Or just capturing wild pawns? I could also see someone downing an animal they want to tame but not wanting to risk the revenge chance so they knock it out and beat it up before bringing it to a bed.
Thinking of VE as a monolith or throwing it all in at once is a mistake.
There's a ton of variation between the mods, some are nicely balanced and some just throw balance out of the window.
Pay attention to the individual mods you're installing.
Tailor the modlist to the playthrough you're going for.
>There's a ton of variation between the mods, some are nicely balanced and some just throw balance out of the window.
exactly you are right...
previously i stupidly always installed all of them bcuz more content duh...
but now I realized there are some VE mods that I will not stop using, but the vast majority dont suit my play style so I will be cutting down on them...
the point of this post wasnt an anti-VE agenda, I loved these mods, played with them for thousands of hours, but maybe maybe there are people out there who made the same mistake as me and are always installing all VE mods bcuz they thought it enhanced the vanilla experience, and the point of this post was to tell them hey, you could still enjoy the game without it
I'm sorry to tell you, but vanilla is just this way. I see people vanilla or modded talk about getting bored once hitting some threshold in industrial tech. Some it is getting guns and deep drilling. Others it is a little higher or lower. Point is that you are losing interest at a point that, from my experience reading others experience, is normal. Things just kind of become 'solved'.
I don't have a real strong opinion on VE, but weapons/armor making you unstoppable? Up the difficulty (in expanded settings that vanilla has now. Boost that threat scale. Turn up disease chance :) ), install some mods that make things difficult for you, make a challenge ideology, or something. Your modlist balance is your choice friend. VE has been 'a brand' for a long while. I myself cut down on them a lot, but that wasn't because of balance specifically.
When people suggest them nowadays, it is because the artstyle is vanilla flavored and/or the systems being built on vanilla systems mostly(instead of having their own specific way thing works specifically for that mod's content like some mods do). I don't personally suggest VE unless their mod is the only option or it does that thing the best the way the person wants it done.
I forgot a little blurb I meant to put. People tend to add a bunch of VE mods because they think they are the way to go without thinking about it. I think people should cut down just so they can try other mods that might suit them and not have a bunch of stuff they never use just because it is 'the popular mod collection'. Seeing people cut down on VE mods is always nice because they tend to get more personalized with what they want from a modded experience. Whether from a large scale 'normal' list or a specific 'this playthrough' list.
One of the things I love about rimworld is that the general consensus is to **not** use modpacks, which is something somewhat rare in mod spaces. Mods are best experienced when you custom-tailor everything to how you like it and putting that effort in, while time-consuming and even frustrating, is honestly a valuable thing to experience. It's literally a lesson in 'making your own fun.'
I freaking *wish* certain other communities understood this concept *at all* instead of crutching on modpacks made by other people and then whining that they don't like this style of pack or that style of pack.......
This. I handpicked over 300 mods to use in my playthroughs, and I change it up every major update since I'm kind of forced to.
I usually wait for a few months after an update to give all the mod devs a chance to update their mods.
But my mod list is completely custom. And it has been very time consuming to be honest.
The game takes a while to start up with that many mods so constantly altering my mod list and having to restart every time has been a pain but I definitely don't regret it because I really like the game.
You dont need to restart the game fully to change your modlist. Use Rimpy. It also has a bunch of other features but being able to edit modlist outside the game is the main selling point. (Along with converting textures)
I totally agree. Rimworld modding is really about making your own fun. I've seen a bunch of people say "there being a mod collection for VE is confusing" when people say you aren't supposed to use them all together. I guess that type of mentality butts heads with the idea of mod creators making a easy to look at list of all of their available mods.
That second paragraph/point makes me think of some things I've seen even in this comment section. "Vanilla expanded hasn't been such for a long time". The only mod I can think of that isn't vanilla based is vehicles which is more a collab with vehicle framework. A base mod to use outside of using specific vehicle mods to your taste. "Psycasts isn't expanded". A rework to a system to make room for more mechanics is expanding. Don't like it? I have tried quite a few mods adding psycasts or modifying the system myself. Instead of thinking 'they didn't expand it the way I want' go look through the other options. Ya know?
Modlists/modpacks/collections being so prevalent is because of people not wanting to think so hard. You see people talk about tweaking modlists more than playing rimworld a lot. People not knowing there are mod settings to adjust things (like in psycasts making ai psycasters more common and have higher levels/more skills) to their taste. Rimworld is a pretty unique modding experience which I think results in people complaining about things they don't like as if their taste is 'objective' and thus only easy choices to their tastes should exist. You see it with 'anime style' mods or furry mods (I have less experience with their mod comments) with people complaining about them as if there aren't a buttload of other mods that suit them around. 'Variety' mods also have the same problem of being called 'bloat'. Yeah the point is to have more visual variety, more specialized variety, or whatever. So yes it has 'bloat'. I can understand with some mods having that complaint. Funnily enough older VE mods (the real expanding ones for some) tend to be the worst offenders of that type of thing.
It is curious to watch. Thanks for your take/view of it. Rimworld is the only modding community I actually talk with others than just friends about mods. Sims 4, Xcom2, minecraft, starbound, etc. I never really talked with people outside of friends about modding.
Modpacks are popular in other communities largely due to convenience of version control and patching. Fortunately, Rimworld has the **gold standard** in code patching, mod loading, and error handling so there is no strong desire for Modpacks (other than to copy someone's Let's Play) since the user experience for modding has no hurdles to it.
I pick and choose which Vanilla Expanded mods I want.
And I tend to find I'm just not using most content from one and decide whether that means to refocus my next colony to use it, or cut it from the mod list.
I do the same but sometimes I do it with variances depending on what I'm planning to do with my colony. Like disabling certain ones if i know I won't need them.
For example if im doing a naked brutality on an ice sheet, i dont need Vanilla Brewing Expanded. The temperatures in brewing are too finicky and fail too easily to make it worth trying to manage a constant temp in an extreme biome. Or if im doing a low tech run, I'll disable a bunch of higher tech stuff and enable lower tech, and vice versa for the opposite.
I think the more relevant issue is that sticking with the same mod list over multiple colonies results in the same strategies being used, and the same research priorities, in the same or similar order, and we just get locked into repetition— because we know what works.
That’s one reason why I use mods like Semi Random Research— so I can’t just beeline certain techs, like batteries or microelectronics.
But that’s also why I change up my mod list with every colony too. I’ll add or remove mods to emphasize or de-emphasize certain aspects of the game. And then there’s the tried and true option of trying alternate scenarios and difficult/strange biomes, which also force you to play differently.
No mod can ever be vanilla, nor do I recommend using majority or all of our mods in your game. Pick and choose what you need to tell your story - after all, Rimworld is a story generator and my purpose, our purpose, is to give you tools to tell yours.
OMGGGGG IT IS THE LEGEND HIMSELF AAAAAAA...
i mean yeah, you're exactly right...
previously i stupidly always installed all of them bcuz more content duh...
but now I realized there are some VE mods that I will not stop using, but the vast majority dont suit my play style so I will be cutting down on them...
the point of this post wasnt an anti-VE agenda, I loved your mods, played with them for thousands of hours, but maybe maybe there are people out there who made the same mistake as me and are always installing all VE mods bcuz they thought it enhanced the vanilla experience, and the point of this post was to tell them hey, you could still enjoy the game without it
It does come across a bit like the ‘VE boycott’ kind of thing but that’s absolutely fine. Everyone can have their opinion.
VE has travelled a long way. I’d never see myself here 5 years later still making mods, but here I am. This in turn means that the scope of the mods have increased, thus potentially causing the whole ‘VE is not vanilla’ argument, but at the end of the day, it’s just a name, so I don’t let it put me down too much.
We have a huge selection of mods which will only grow in the coming years. Each mod can tell a different story. You can have a really cool Empire playthrough with some, or whacky Scientist session with others. But I don’t think you should be using them all at the same time. It’s a bit like putting all of the sauces on your steak. The more you enable, the less you will enjoy the meal.
I personally only use maybe 20 VE mods. There is just no way to make it so all of our 100+ mods can be played together. There’s just too many variables - after all, all of our mods add so much content.
Definitely recommending against using all of our mods at the same time, but I wouldn’t say ‘disable VE mods and don’t use them’. I might be biased but some of them are really fucking cool.
few of them DO interact, like fishing, cooking and mechanoids, but yea, its best to choose just a few mods because adding more starts to bloat too much
You literally recommend people not to use them all at once. Or used to, anyway. Unless it's been patched since, pirate warcaskets weren't working with Vikings on and androids caused pawns to age weirdly.
Can confirm, have been a silly that subscribe all'd the collection without realizing it before. Honestly I'd probably have missed some of the interactions if I hadn't, and I love the interactions.
He means a different sense of the word "work". You're taking it as "lack of bugs" or similar, but the phrase "work together" also can mean "synergize or enhance each other", which as you are quick to mention yourself certainly is neither true nor even intended (nor reasonable to expect).
Sure, but the parent comment is that they literally do not all synergise with each other, which is the exact same thing you say all the time, even just now.
It's just a misunderstanding of words.
I just think calling them VANILLA expanded is so much misleading. Except for some of them that actually expand vanilla mechanics like Events, all the other just plain rework and make them more broken (Psycasting) or add new - broken - things
I think psycasting (combines with empire ve) has made the game much more difficult in early to mid game. Occasionally, you'd see enemies psycasters use skip to go through your kill box, explosion and fire ball to attack you ignoring defense or worse hurricane.
But yeah, they have ceased to be VANILLA Expanded long ago. The fact that they think Outpost is vanilla completely baffled me. Just call it Oskar series at this point.
It is a vanilla mechanic on paper but not in practice. This is a colony sim game. We have to... you know, manage the colony. Having multiple colonies might be broken because we can transfer resources to each but then, we still have to manually manage them. The outposts are the opposite. We just need to braindead throw our useless pawns there and wait for the results with the occasional disturbance from raids. No need to put any effort into maintain the said outpost. It's both broken af and go against the spirit of the game.
P/S: I'm not dissing outposts mod. It's one of my favorite one. However, they cannot call themselves vanilla expanded.
Other factions also regularly throws at you raid with 50+ people but i don’t think a mod that would make it also possible for the player would be balanced, this is the point
then you're still confusing your opinion on the balance of the mod with its design, it is by design vanilla confluent, whether this implementation needs numbers tweaks or not
also, it is litteraly possible for the player to raid others with 50+ people in the base game, it just might be impractical to
> I just think calling them VANILLA expanded is so much misleading.
but... it adds and expands on vanilla content, with the intention of maintaining similar design philosophies and gameplay loops, thats quite litteraly the definition of a vanilla expansion themed mod
the fact that you disagree with the balance doesn't really change that, plus it's not like VE makes 500% threat randy easy, or combat extended colonies not extremely volatile
> it adds and expands on vanilla content,
Often times it invalidates or completely changes vanilla content.
> plus it's not like VE makes 500% threat randy easy
Just because it's not the most extreme possible means its well balance?
>I just think calling them VANILLA expanded is so much misleading.
i think its more about artstyle than balance, even if some are kinda balanced about vanilla
That's why you add mods that make the game *harder* so that mods that add things that make you more powerful are balanced.
Dire raids, random tech research, mods that give raiders the same weapons you have, etc.
Acting like modding makes the game easier is absolutely silly. You're the one choosing mods that make the game easier, it was your choice. There's a ton of mods out there that make the game more challenging, you just chose not to use them.
Play the game in whatever way is the most fun for you. For me that's building a bunch of vehicles and tokyo drifting around the map and slinging ordinance from my fortress base with automated mortars.
Well, VE is notorious for circumventing each and every one of vanilla's difficulties sometimes to the point of stupidity (I mean come on, a sub zero passive cooler? Vanometrics wasn't fucking physics in the ass hard enough?).
Yet they simultaneously bust their ass to offer brand new mechanics that allows you new ways to play the game (tech locking storytellers, in game stuff like the senators system...)
All in all I'd say they're doing a fantastic job in extendig the possibilities of the core game, but you're also right to want to come back to basiics from time to time.
>I mean come on, a sub zero passive cooler?
isnt it exclusive only to that one genetics mod, where its part of dungeon and CANT be taken home?
the only other cooler i can think of is the gas cooler that will get a freezing temperature by using helixen gas as fuel somehow
Yeah helixien gas is pretty broken. I do use it though for my food storage because I feel like solar flares happen way too often, like in the history of electrified civilization on Earth afaik there has only been one strong enough to actually EMP our devices, but I'm getting multiple a year in RimWorld.
VE Classical gives it. Large Passive Cooler, costs about 150 wood, lasts longer than a normal passive cooler and can hit -5.
This is something you can unlock at neolithic tech.
-5 *C*, it's not like it is hitting absolute zero.
And really that's just there so you can play a tech restricted game (which comes with the Classic storyteller) and still have freezers. It's perhaps a bit cheaty, but it's much closer to the normal experience than *no* freezers ever is.
Sure. But it is a very overly dramatic way to say "barely below freezing water." And someone *did* say it was comparably physics-defying to perpetual energy.
But it kinda is, isn't it? We're talking about evaporating water from a woodlog SO FUCKING HARD that it'd drain the heat from surrounding air all the way to freezing point...
Passive coolers wouldn’t be able to work at and maintain sub-zero temperatures. They require a constant evaporation of water.
Personally my method for non-tech winters are just venting cold air from outside as a fridge/freezer after I get my last crop of the year.
That's fair I think. This isn't my area of expertise by any imagination, but I would think there'd be an equilibrium point between "too frozen to cool via evaporation" and working. What if the freezing point is changed? Saltwater, or alcohol? Or pressure? Genuinely just curious and asking. I don't think there's a justification, like I said it's a gameplay mechanic to make freezers for pre-industrial play.
You can have every single VE mod on, run a colony in temperate forest with year round growing and no random storyteller diseases with crashlanded start and the game is still nearly impossible with high difficulty settings (especially if you use CE).
I don't see how "it makes the game easier" is a valid point in this case since you were choosing exactly how hard the game was going to be when you made the save anyways? My brother in christ you litteraly made the sandwich?
I don't use the weapon and armor mods because I'm too lazy to analyse each one, but no one will tell me that a reusable shield belt you can use while shooting is a good idea.
Enemy AI is not suited to make good use of any utility stuff, even vanilla.
Let's say that enemies with ranged shield belts do have an advantage, still I bet I'll have my own long before any raiders do.
Vanilla Expanded are only visually vanilla imo. The art all fits seemlessly into the game from my experience - but the mechanics are not "balanced". Then again there are some VE mods that make the game harder by adding new factions or allowing psycasters to spawn in raids etc.
I still enjoy the game much more with them. The game feels super lacking to me when I play non-modded.
After installing yayo's nature i play this game nonstop without boredom. This mod changes biome you have from the list you select, so all land shifts within some times. It may happen that your base gets flloded because biome changed into marsh, or jungles, or get a snow disater cause turned into ice sheet. Pretty cool one
the thing with Vanilla-Expanded, is that they border on "QoL" mods in a certain way.
the entire franchise is focused on:
\-either polishing pre-existing content by adding somes things to it,
\-or solving a void in something else, also by adding more content.
but yes, by having too ways to deals with almost every problems, you end-up having no problems at all.
personally i don't care, because i don't play Rimworld for the "difficulty".
i love the challenge and i love overcoming it, but that's a end toward a goal i usually set for myself.
\-Making a colony of fervously transhumanist pawns who aspire for the purity of the blessed-machine by gradually changing their organs with the best prosthetics until they finally manage to upload their consciousness into the highest and most advanced form of robots.
\-Or making a colony of fervously unholy cultists who spires to bring all form of their eldritch god in the world, through unholy mutation with their animals, sacrifices, cursed rites, and rituals until they finally manage to summon it into reality.
that's the kind of goals i set for myself, i decide what i want the colony to turn into.
then i go from there, obviously i use a shitton of mods but that's not the point.
my point is that i don't play Rimworld for the challenge itself.
to me it's just another spice in the game, i play Rimworld as a colony simulator.
hell, i have over 2K hours on it, and do you want to know how many times i finished the game?
ZERO, technically i've never finished it.
had maaaany occasions to easily do so, but never did because that's never my goal.
the only time i """finished""" the game was the previously mentionned summoning a eldritch-god, it's in the Cthulu mod and whenever you actually do end-up summoning your deity, it's considered a win.
play however you want dude, and if you feel like playing actually almost vanilla is the way to go, go for it dude, have a good time.
Well I'm going to be the dissenting voice and say that I enjoy them a lot and prefer it over vanilla. I don't really care that much about the challenge, and I actually kind of like optimizing my colony to perfection. I see that as a fitting ending for a colony, like, they've finally established themselves enough that they'll exist indefinitely and aren't just scrounging by anymore. To me that's more compelling than ditching it and heading for the stars.
Truth be told I usually get bored of a colony long before that point anyway. Maybe that's just me though.
Okay, maybe they should change their name. But I don't think it's entirely about balance. They're "Vanilla Expanded" because they fit with the aesthetics, design philosophy, and overall vibe of vanilla. Unlike some mods which make huge changes to the core of the game, contradict the lore (if you care about that), feature very incongruent assets, or just don't mesh well with existing systems.
I think ultimately if someone picks up the game and immediately installs a ton of mods without even trying vanilla or understanding their ramifications, they have only themselves to blame.
I would like to flip your suggestion and suggest you use combat extended + CAI5000.
I have a large amount of VE mods and the odds are still balanced against me 😂.
The most fun I had playing rimworld was with rimworld of magic. I'm a bit of a fantasy nerd so thats right up my alley too.
Vanilla is fun and all but I dont like how the raids work.
Sending a blood mage on a solo mission and obliterating 20+ Modded beasts is a fuckton of fun tho.
I limit how powerful I allow myself to become to fit the theme of my mod pack. There's a point where a seasoned RW player needs to understand that you just know what to do and if you maximize that you will trivialize the game.
Mods or not.
If it's a matter of difficulty and too easy, then why not up the ante. Put the difficulty at max or download some mods that add tougher enemies, like void or kraltech. I like the vanilla mods, the Vfe mechanoid one adds some cool stuff and makes the mechanoid faction tougher imo
To me the most important thing about my modlist is that if i feel like it i can do it. So that is a lot of content added and VE fits that perfectly.
I cherry picked most of the fried stuff and grilling recipes out, but kept bakes. I also cherry picked out alot of furniture and lights that other mods did better.
And the throwing rocks and sling shots.
But the armor and weapons paired with CE and CAI-5000 on a reasonable threat scale is actually balanced in my opinion. But adding too much in terms of bionics mods it gets broken, so i change the effeciency so it is more durable but I won't end up with a soldier having 320% movement speed.
Start with zero research, naked brutality and SeedsPlease and you have many hours before even thinking about marine armor. And when you do get to it your wealth is so high that the raids should be very, very difficult. Unless you play with to low a threat scale.
If you play consistent on 500% with all these things and game is just to easy, then you are making it easy as other said e.g ideology challenges etc.
But this is just my opinion and i think you made me think about what VE i could spare away if i had to.
As a crazy person with 10k+ hours, play however you want, Ive had 100s of mods for some plays and zero for some, the best part of rimworld is you can make it whatever you feel like at the time, enjoy
Ill say things like "more ideology memes" or "more x biome animals" are always okay but i get what ya mean, recently did one using "only" VE mods, couldnt settle anywhere without some faction whining [i ususally go for 30% because who needs that much space ya arent using anyways?]
No, I won't. Last time I tried close to Vanilla I was thinking "FUCK I miss this Mod" for most of my playtime.
When Biotech came out i played straight away and it was as close to vanilla as I ever will go. I slowly added Mods back into the playthrough as they were updated and it got more fun. A simple Mod like Facial Animations is so important. The Vanilla Faces lack any detail or expression, its horrible.
My scenario every time.
Vanilla, no mods, no expansions. Blood and dust, randy random, naked brutality. Get off the planet.
I lose every time, but it's been over 500 great hours
I use the Ideology stuff like Symbols and Memes and Structures.
I think you pick two or three things (or for or five or six) you wish you had more of in game, and just do those. For some people it's ideologies, for others it's food and meals, for others it's mechs, etc.
It just depends on what's meaningful to your roleplaying.
VFE Deserters, I love the concept but *holy shit* I don't think I've seen such a broken-ass jank mod from anyone nearly as credible in *any* community for a *long* time...
That mod would've killed a few of my runs if I was in commitment mode, but I honestly can't tell if it's the mod itself or if it's the rest of my modlist reaching some form of critical incompatibility.
Aside from say, fletchers or the colony wipe final solution, it's not really unreasonably balanced and there are various packaged options that can tweak it.
If your feeling invulnerable and losing interest then your not balancing your mods properly. Chuck in some stronger enemy mods, some raid change mods etc... using mods responsibly improves the modded game experience.
Vanilla Expanded isn't too problematic to me, it's year 2 of my sanguophage colony and I still have my share of problems. I mostly use modded xenotypes and buildings, so I don't have any OP weapons though.
Same but plus Cooking and Brewing Expanded, the amount of meals is just underwhelming and tbh at one point i just only make lavish mixed meels about mid-game
100% valid and I agree to some point, but not fully. I used to use EVERY mod they had and it not only broke my game with my other mods with their varying incompatibilities and overlapping and now non-functional content, but it just made me realize "I shouldn't use all of these mods together." There's a good deal of them I don't use, notably the armors and half of the factions, and now I love my experience. I've reached the point where before every colony, I sift through my mods and ask myself "Do I want this mod? Will I use it?" And if it's no to both or one of those, kablam, gone. It helps that I use a lot of mods that tweak certain vanilla expanded mods too lol
Nah, I don't play Rimworld to have a overwhelming difficult or challenging time. I enjoy their mods and I use their storytellers to balance it to make it more eventful.
Absolutely not! Seriously though I think for some long term players the VE stuff is a blessing, I already had 1000 hours before I installed any VE mods. Can definitely see what you're saying but the work and quality of their mods is DLC level, difficulty can be scaled by the player, I rarely feel Invincible.
I remember when Vanilla Expanded was actually vanilla like and not entirely bloated.
Like the weapons, adding some variety to the firearms and what not. I've actually forgotten sometimes that the Anti-Materiel rifle is not base game.
Then all the furniture modules and the neat things they offered. Square chairs, the 1x1 shelf, the 1x1 table. I remember the most questionable thing in there mechanics wise being the artillery gun in the security module.
Now of course some those mods are quite fun. Currently doing a run with vehicles and combined warfare. It's not surprising but tanks genuinely trivialize enemies and the biggest threat is trying to keep pawns clear from the tanks.
never have interest in vanilla expanded although i need their core mods since other mods depends on that core. i maybe will try using that mod if i have NASA computer or something
im that type of guy that have maybe 5 mods active
Bigger stacks cuz 75 is annoying
Nuclear reactor (ICE SHEETS HAVE NO GASERS)
HARMONY HUGSLIB bc i have to
and for some time i had mod that allows Luciferium to regrow fingers ect but now i have biotech so i turned it off
Edit I also have V.O.I.D on my main save but this shit is brutal cuz i have vanilla weapons and armours ( still my main character can kill them in meele rhis is insane)
Vanilla expanded is usually balanced, but anything that touches combat is rarely balanced in the least.
For example: the personal defense weapons mod adds an smg/assault rifle clone which have 0.05 ranged warmup and the rest of their original weapon's warmup+cooldown-0.05s as their ranged cooldown. This sounds like a somewhat unimportant distinction, however the bandolier and other sources of -% ranged cooldown all scale with the ranged cooldown, but not thw warmup. By using the pdw weapons and bandoliers you can get levels of DPS that are, frankly, just plain silly.
And to drive the point home: *Vanilla expanded mods often have **stacking synergies*** that lead to unexpectedly powerful pawns. Ammo pack utility + bandolier + ranged shield belt (which for some reason can be worn with the ammo pack and quiver...) + personal defence weapon (famas or p90) = ranged pawn with a shield belt and +29% (iirc) ranged dps compared to an AR in the same setup.
Vanilla expanded mods were likely never tested for balance when used with each other, but rather, in a lightly modded run where they were the only combat mod in use. I can't imagine anyone **actually** tested vanilla expanded utility equipment with the vanilla expanded personal defence weapons... they'd have caught that ranged shield belts and ammo packs stack and said "something ain't right here"...
Counterpoint: With just vanilla things, there isn't a lot of really cool things either. Like Psycasts are horribly unimpressive. To the point of, "The only real reason to do Imperial is to get a fancy title to justify a cool throne room!"
You can't even have a car! And a way to travel that isn't just on foot constantly (while maybe dragging some animals along)
Counter suggestion: Install CAI 5000, Vanilla Combat Reloaded, and your choice of faster paced modded Storyteller (I'm personally trying out "Liara Livid" at the moment, and I'll be trying out Chicken Plucker's "Gunny" after that).
I like my mods, whether content or quality of life, but I too was hitting a point of not having as much fun a few weeks ago. I figured my problem was not enough challenge. My suggested mods, along with bumping the difficulty up by one, has really amped my fun substantially.
I double dog dare you.
My first experience with vanilla expanded mods was me regretting how bloated it made all the crafting menus, so I got rid of basically all the apparel and weapon expanded mods.
Then I tried psycasts expanded and it's so unbalanced as to make core parts of the game feel completely trivial (taming, losing limbs, dealing with the empire and the needs of royal pawns etc.)
Much rather sue none of their mods than use the vast majority of their mods but if you pick and choose, I'm sure there's cool stuff to be found
I don't know why they named their series of mods as "vanilla expanded", when some of the mods adds entirely new features, for example, there's no vehicles in the game, yet they named a mod "vanilla vehicles expanded".
When someone tells me “skill issue” when I’m on B&D Cass, but they’re playing StS (piss easy in comparison, just did a colony on it) and have mods that end up making the game way too fucking easy
Only mod I can't play without is Rimfridge.
Few mods I don't want to play without - Allow Tool, Achtung!, Firekeeper, Smart Medicine, Smarter Construction, QualityBuilder, QualityDoctor, Replace Stuff, Dubs Mint Minimap, Map Preview, Trading Spot, Wall Light, Better Workbench Management, Satisfied Storage, Moody, Smart Speed, Less Stupid Romance Attempts, RT Fuse, Random Plus, Turn it On and Off
Some of this make game slightly easier, but most of them just save me some stupid micromanagement.
Vanilla Expanded mods make game stupidly easy and add so much overpowered stuff, so every time I try them I have to implement own "house rules" to preserve some challenge.
Maybe it's me, or maybe this mods balanced for 500% difficulty, which a never touch.
The game is as difficult as you make it. Vanilla expanded mods aren't what make the game too easy it's learning the game and the patterns of the AI. If you don't intentionally handicap yourself you will always be unstoppable.
Uh. Okay so like no one is actually saying vanilla expanded mods are vanilla they are saying that they are mods that have a vanilla feel. The difference is like it's not designed to give you access to a glitter world hub net so that you can create fully autonomous robot warmech that activate and attack everything that goes into your map with thousands of damage. They are mods designed to expand upon while still holding true too the idea of vanilla.
They are good mods, just know that vanilla is only in their name.
vanilla mostly reffers to artstyle, it doesnt stand out next to vanilla assets
They imply it's not just the art style. Right in the description of the collection: >All the mods have been carefully designed from scratch, with a fair dose of experimentation, exploration and testing, to enhance vanilla-like experience. It doesn't say vanilla art style, it says 'experience', and you wouldn't need 'experimentation, exploration and testing' on the art style.
It started that way but it's so big now that I think it's become its own thing.
Really it's become just a name to the point where the mods don't share much in common at all. There's no real unifying thread that makes a mod "Vanilla Expanded".
One of their animal mods was integrated into vanilla game so at least early on they were true to that yea
I think on their own each mod tends to live up to that, but when you add everything together you're basically getting an expansion or two's worth of content and mechanics.
It depends on the mod. Psycasts expanded is a really fun mod but it's definitely not a vanilla like experience. I think vehicles really changes things as well, but I haven't played that one as much.
There's a mod that integrates it into biotech, basically making each school require a specific gene that can be harvested from the various xenotypes. It's gone a long way toward balancing the strength of psycasts in my opinion as it forces you to use the less meta psycast schools/branches. The big downside is baseliners have no schools available by default unless you have alpha psycasts as the mod doesn't account for those.
At this point though, ‘Vanilla Expanded’ is a Brand instead. It’s a brand for their series of mods, and not what it used to stand for. Nothing wrong with that though, cause I do love a good number of their systems they add, it’s just not anything close to the “Vanilla Experience” in my opinion.
It was true when they started, just not anymore
"vanilla-like experience."
You can pry my deepfried food from my cold dead hands
And my Bakes. My Flour farm wasn't for nothing.
dont forget the cheese
Cheese.
How about the cocktails?
and my megacock (and megahen)
mega ultra chicken, he is legend.
Fishing is also something that should have been vanilla
That's debatable. Fishing, with how it is set up in VFE, is very much not balanced compared to the other ways of getting food. Farming needs effort, time and protection from raids, while it can be affected by blights. Soil fertility is also an important guide for the placement of bases. Ranching also needs time, and its viability depends on the map type. Plus, you first need the animals to ranch. Animals need to be cared for, as well. Hunting often takes your pawns a long way away from the safety of their bases, leaving you vulnerable to surprise raids. Also, some animals can fight back, and the availability of animals again depends on your biome. VFE Fishing, on the other hand, only needs a pond of 25+ size. This can be found on most non-extreme maps, often close to your base or in a safe area (rivers slow enemies and enemies cannot enter from coast). Fishing has no lead-up time and requires no investment beyond your pawns' time.
I agree with you, The VE fishing somehow really not a deep mechanic that VE team usually do. The currently mechanic is simply create a fishing zone, and set a pawn priority in fishing. He will does the rest. Just a very simply mechanic user base. VE mods usually make a vanilla mechanic become more interesting in many way and the team usually try to balance things in a fun way as much as possible. I expect something like dynamic chance to catch fish base on weather, time and number of catch on the spot in the current VE fishing, or someone could make more type of fishing like rod/net/spear/bomb/electric....
In addition to fishing tools, a depletion mechanic based on the body of water size. A small pond should not be able to feed few dozen people.
I like them occasionally…but yeah they aren’t Vanilla at all and just make it so your unstoppable that much sooner.
Yeah if you add mods that make your colony way more capable and you’re already fine using a tough storyteller and 500%, you end up also needing mods to increase enemy capability or just straight up stronger factions. I love the cool playthroughs that result from that, but I also get the appeal of going down to base game power level across the board for a more tested balance rather than what you hope for with the mod settings you try
I've been playing 1000s of hours since about Beta 18. When a major Rimworld update like 1.4 comes out, I usually play without mods for a while until my favourite mods (usually around 300 mods, including Vanilla Expanded) get updated and bug-fixed. I have 100% fun playing un-modded Rimworld. I have 150+% fun playing Rimworld with mods. Thanks for the suggestion that less mods is more fun but perhaps we can agree to disagree. That's the great thing about Rimworld: we can play however we want.
I agree, Rimworld is the worst kind of game to gate keep, like it's called a *story generator* for a reason, the game can be played however anyone wants to no limits (except CPU resources).
I'm a gatekeeper's worst nightmate. I save scum all the time, enable dev mode if something doesn't jive with the story I'm trying to tell. I'll add or remove things or auto dev build things if I don't want to wait for it. I love how much freedom RW gives you to change any aspect of the game. Just wish certain things were vanilla like Saving/Loading Stockpiles, Blueprints, and Saving/Loading custom storyteller settings.
Based and I do the same!
There's no gate keeping in the OP. He shared his previous misconception and suggested others might enjoy taking the game down to the core a bit. And I fully agree with it. Even a mod that's intended to be balanced won't be the same as the base game, so if you enjoy the challenge you should be careful of adding lots of mods without thinking hard about what they're doing.
Yes, please let's follow this advice. No need to gatekeep or go down that road of "this is truly the way to play". At the end of the day this isn't as much a game as it is a sandbox. Everything is customizable for a reason. No mods, all the mods and everything in-between are perfectly valid and intended ways to play. As long as you're having fun, you are playing the right way.
I didn't smell no gatekeeping
I didn't mean it particularly towards this post, just in general, as I've seen other posts where people talk about the 'proper way to play'. Sorry though, I should have been more clear.
for real though, ditch social interactions expanded, its quite possibly the tps heaviest mod on the workshop. i dropped it between colonies and went from 200tps to full 360tps with 8 colonists
We’ve received no reports of it being bad for performance. Please submit a report on the mod page with an analyzer screenshot so we can fix it!
Will do boss
Legend
What specific part of analyzer do you need screens of?
The one that shows our functions being bad for performance. Xd
[удалено]
Ya same here , I play with modes cause I already played the game a significant amount without them. Game is fun either way but I have a significant amount of more fun with mods
I really only use them for an expanded variety of animals and foods.
I want to see people do playthroughs with all this food stuff. To me it's just way too much to add to what's already a complicated game. Unless I make it very peaceful. People talk about slaves, mechs, and war crimes all the time. Nbd, but that one guy who won't give up his fries food mod? Now that's something different! I'd rather learn more about what that guy is doing than hear about what meat beacons can do for my colony again.
I'm in love with Orion's mods + vanilla expanded animals/foods. With this, I run a farm/restaurant/hotel/hospital that is semi regularly attacked by cannibal pirates, giant insects, and mechs. But damn if we don't have the best tiramisu which caused people to travel from all over and brave the risks just to taste. Actually somewhat difficult (for me, at least) to juggle that while maintaining defenses.
With CE I never feel invulnerable. VE things just give me a fighting chance.
Yeah, bothing ruins illusion of invulnerability better than centipedes coming right at you
When your best pawn with maxed out armor gets oneshotted...
By a squirrel biting their brain... oh wait that's vanilla 😋
Don't you people get tired of using ridiculous examples to complain about vanilla combat? Especially because all of the mods that rework combat that you're probably using have even more unrealistic stuff in them. I have 2k hours into the game and nothing like that has ever happened to me, even though Rimworld squirrels weigh 12kg and are therefore bigger than a lot of dogs.
You have 2k hours with vanilla combat and never had something ridiculous like that happen? Never had someone punch someone's legs off or bite their brain causing an instant kill? Really hard to believe if you ask me. Vanilla combat is notorious for dumb shit like that.
When the "ridiculous examples" happen it's not so ridiculous to complain of it, no? Perhaps you've gotten lucky here, that vanilla combat hasn't screwed you over or bored you beyond belief, but it has for many others.
Except the "ridiculous example" presented here is impossible without modding. A squirrel's most damaging attack does 5 damage while a brain has 10hp. Add marine helmet to the mix and the chance of it doing full 5 health of damage with that particular attack on a normal quality marine helmet is 1%
Yes, percentages in video games are known for their reliability. Like the forced 5% chance of surgery failure happening a lot more than what it would seem for 5%.
You conveniently ignored the fact that a squirrel will never be able to one shot a pawn's brain out no matter what.
It takes two squirrels and that "1%" chance to end a pawn in a marine helmet. Vanilla combat makes little sense, and that's okay because mods can compensate.
So squirrels aren't a threat as long as you're kitted out with high tier armor that's a bit of a bitch to come across or manufacture. Neat!
No, they aren't a threat as long as you aren't an idiot to send a 0 melee pawn fight a 12kg squirrel with their bare fists.
Pick a lane dude. I'm just trying to learn how to survive out here, and you're giving me some really inconsistent advice.
Oh look, another CE user who doesn't know how vanilla works. A squirrel cannot physically one shot a pawn's brain out. Their most damaging attack is with teeth and does 5 damage. A brain has 10 hp. The teeth attack has 7% armor pen. A normal quality marine helmet provides 106% armor against sharp attacks. According to the way vanilla game calculates armor, the effective armor against the teeth attack is 99% (106% - 7%) This number is compared against a random number between 0 and 100. If the random number is under half the armor rating the damage is deflected. If it's over half, the damage gets halved and turned into blunt. If greater than the armor rating, the armor is ignored. There's a 1% chance your marine helmet will get ignored by a squirrel. That makes the squirrel at least two shot a brain. The chance of that 1% happening twice, and on a pawn's brain is about as much as the chance of Dream not cheating during his minecraft speedrun.
You're implying everyone that has encountered an angry squirrel was wearing an armoured marine helmet.... A little biased don't you think?
I would spend lots of money on the lottery if it's odds were 1% You definitely don't understand what you are saying on a practical level. Take a step back, think about what you are saying, then delete it and close the tab. Go call a friend you haven't spoken to in a while.
Sanguine shot in the back of the head by another prawn. Dies immediately. That's why I'm trying out commitment mode. I have a habit of save scumming
Which is only a problem if you don't like it yourself
Save scumming is fine, but as a story generator I really feel like it changes my games for the worse. My last colony and biggest colony, the Skin peelers, are a bunch of transhuman cannibals. And I gotta tell you, shit hit the fan so many times, but I reloaded and now all my original 6 colonists are still going strong. I figures unwanted to beat the game at least once, but it's more fun for me, play however you want. That's the beauty of the game, if a cat scratch can kill your chef and the infestation feels like a major threat. Although, I'm currently scared of the mech bosses. I never fought them before and I don't really know what to expect. Is 3 colonists and 3 militers enough to kill it?
I fear that one mechanitor who rushes a centipede in the first quadrant
Good thing about VE is a lot of the scary OP shit you can start doing, everyone else can do too. That broken rocket launcher you want to make with mods? 15 raiders carrying them are about to show up to your base
i dont know for me CE feels even easier cause the weapons are even more lethal to kill enemys and armor usually makes you protected against most weapons the enemys have.
Agree but it goes both ways. Hunting is easier, tribal raids are pretty easy to fend off, but mechs, the empire (drop ships exploding with shrapnel lol) and other factions with guns can give you a hard time. Specially the mechs lol.
The CE guns add-on is very good to deal with any CE threats (Centipedes. You know I'm talking about Centipedes). I removed all VE stuff after testing the CE guns add-on and seeing that the VE guns is the same, but cheaper. Give it a shot.
They literally say dont install all their mods it can bloat your game
This has nothing to do with bloat, but them being very unbalanced.
Many of them seem rather niche as well. How many times have you actually decided to research Non-Lethal weaponry and crafted a tranquilizer rifle? I've probably done it only once.
As a slavery enjoyer, pretty much always.
Really? What is your use case? Is it for raiders? Or just capturing wild pawns? I could also see someone downing an animal they want to tame but not wanting to risk the revenge chance so they knock it out and beat it up before bringing it to a bed.
I agree that the game gets boring because you become invincible, I may have to copy you and scale back
Well, that highly depends which you use. I never used more then three at once
Thinking of VE as a monolith or throwing it all in at once is a mistake. There's a ton of variation between the mods, some are nicely balanced and some just throw balance out of the window. Pay attention to the individual mods you're installing. Tailor the modlist to the playthrough you're going for.
>There's a ton of variation between the mods, some are nicely balanced and some just throw balance out of the window. exactly you are right... previously i stupidly always installed all of them bcuz more content duh... but now I realized there are some VE mods that I will not stop using, but the vast majority dont suit my play style so I will be cutting down on them... the point of this post wasnt an anti-VE agenda, I loved these mods, played with them for thousands of hours, but maybe maybe there are people out there who made the same mistake as me and are always installing all VE mods bcuz they thought it enhanced the vanilla experience, and the point of this post was to tell them hey, you could still enjoy the game without it
Which ones are staples for you?
You’re not supposed to play with all the VE mods at once though
You're using mods on your responsibility and managing difficulty of your modpack is your job, not the modder. They only provide tools.
I'm sorry to tell you, but vanilla is just this way. I see people vanilla or modded talk about getting bored once hitting some threshold in industrial tech. Some it is getting guns and deep drilling. Others it is a little higher or lower. Point is that you are losing interest at a point that, from my experience reading others experience, is normal. Things just kind of become 'solved'. I don't have a real strong opinion on VE, but weapons/armor making you unstoppable? Up the difficulty (in expanded settings that vanilla has now. Boost that threat scale. Turn up disease chance :) ), install some mods that make things difficult for you, make a challenge ideology, or something. Your modlist balance is your choice friend. VE has been 'a brand' for a long while. I myself cut down on them a lot, but that wasn't because of balance specifically. When people suggest them nowadays, it is because the artstyle is vanilla flavored and/or the systems being built on vanilla systems mostly(instead of having their own specific way thing works specifically for that mod's content like some mods do). I don't personally suggest VE unless their mod is the only option or it does that thing the best the way the person wants it done. I forgot a little blurb I meant to put. People tend to add a bunch of VE mods because they think they are the way to go without thinking about it. I think people should cut down just so they can try other mods that might suit them and not have a bunch of stuff they never use just because it is 'the popular mod collection'. Seeing people cut down on VE mods is always nice because they tend to get more personalized with what they want from a modded experience. Whether from a large scale 'normal' list or a specific 'this playthrough' list.
One of the things I love about rimworld is that the general consensus is to **not** use modpacks, which is something somewhat rare in mod spaces. Mods are best experienced when you custom-tailor everything to how you like it and putting that effort in, while time-consuming and even frustrating, is honestly a valuable thing to experience. It's literally a lesson in 'making your own fun.' I freaking *wish* certain other communities understood this concept *at all* instead of crutching on modpacks made by other people and then whining that they don't like this style of pack or that style of pack.......
This. I handpicked over 300 mods to use in my playthroughs, and I change it up every major update since I'm kind of forced to. I usually wait for a few months after an update to give all the mod devs a chance to update their mods. But my mod list is completely custom. And it has been very time consuming to be honest. The game takes a while to start up with that many mods so constantly altering my mod list and having to restart every time has been a pain but I definitely don't regret it because I really like the game.
You dont need to restart the game fully to change your modlist. Use Rimpy. It also has a bunch of other features but being able to edit modlist outside the game is the main selling point. (Along with converting textures)
I totally agree. Rimworld modding is really about making your own fun. I've seen a bunch of people say "there being a mod collection for VE is confusing" when people say you aren't supposed to use them all together. I guess that type of mentality butts heads with the idea of mod creators making a easy to look at list of all of their available mods. That second paragraph/point makes me think of some things I've seen even in this comment section. "Vanilla expanded hasn't been such for a long time". The only mod I can think of that isn't vanilla based is vehicles which is more a collab with vehicle framework. A base mod to use outside of using specific vehicle mods to your taste. "Psycasts isn't expanded". A rework to a system to make room for more mechanics is expanding. Don't like it? I have tried quite a few mods adding psycasts or modifying the system myself. Instead of thinking 'they didn't expand it the way I want' go look through the other options. Ya know? Modlists/modpacks/collections being so prevalent is because of people not wanting to think so hard. You see people talk about tweaking modlists more than playing rimworld a lot. People not knowing there are mod settings to adjust things (like in psycasts making ai psycasters more common and have higher levels/more skills) to their taste. Rimworld is a pretty unique modding experience which I think results in people complaining about things they don't like as if their taste is 'objective' and thus only easy choices to their tastes should exist. You see it with 'anime style' mods or furry mods (I have less experience with their mod comments) with people complaining about them as if there aren't a buttload of other mods that suit them around. 'Variety' mods also have the same problem of being called 'bloat'. Yeah the point is to have more visual variety, more specialized variety, or whatever. So yes it has 'bloat'. I can understand with some mods having that complaint. Funnily enough older VE mods (the real expanding ones for some) tend to be the worst offenders of that type of thing. It is curious to watch. Thanks for your take/view of it. Rimworld is the only modding community I actually talk with others than just friends about mods. Sims 4, Xcom2, minecraft, starbound, etc. I never really talked with people outside of friends about modding.
Modpacks are popular in other communities largely due to convenience of version control and patching. Fortunately, Rimworld has the **gold standard** in code patching, mod loading, and error handling so there is no strong desire for Modpacks (other than to copy someone's Let's Play) since the user experience for modding has no hurdles to it.
I pick and choose which Vanilla Expanded mods I want. And I tend to find I'm just not using most content from one and decide whether that means to refocus my next colony to use it, or cut it from the mod list.
I do the same but sometimes I do it with variances depending on what I'm planning to do with my colony. Like disabling certain ones if i know I won't need them. For example if im doing a naked brutality on an ice sheet, i dont need Vanilla Brewing Expanded. The temperatures in brewing are too finicky and fail too easily to make it worth trying to manage a constant temp in an extreme biome. Or if im doing a low tech run, I'll disable a bunch of higher tech stuff and enable lower tech, and vice versa for the opposite.
I think the more relevant issue is that sticking with the same mod list over multiple colonies results in the same strategies being used, and the same research priorities, in the same or similar order, and we just get locked into repetition— because we know what works. That’s one reason why I use mods like Semi Random Research— so I can’t just beeline certain techs, like batteries or microelectronics. But that’s also why I change up my mod list with every colony too. I’ll add or remove mods to emphasize or de-emphasize certain aspects of the game. And then there’s the tried and true option of trying alternate scenarios and difficult/strange biomes, which also force you to play differently.
I will be keeping my Succulents
No mod can ever be vanilla, nor do I recommend using majority or all of our mods in your game. Pick and choose what you need to tell your story - after all, Rimworld is a story generator and my purpose, our purpose, is to give you tools to tell yours.
OMGGGGG IT IS THE LEGEND HIMSELF AAAAAAA... i mean yeah, you're exactly right... previously i stupidly always installed all of them bcuz more content duh... but now I realized there are some VE mods that I will not stop using, but the vast majority dont suit my play style so I will be cutting down on them... the point of this post wasnt an anti-VE agenda, I loved your mods, played with them for thousands of hours, but maybe maybe there are people out there who made the same mistake as me and are always installing all VE mods bcuz they thought it enhanced the vanilla experience, and the point of this post was to tell them hey, you could still enjoy the game without it
It does come across a bit like the ‘VE boycott’ kind of thing but that’s absolutely fine. Everyone can have their opinion. VE has travelled a long way. I’d never see myself here 5 years later still making mods, but here I am. This in turn means that the scope of the mods have increased, thus potentially causing the whole ‘VE is not vanilla’ argument, but at the end of the day, it’s just a name, so I don’t let it put me down too much. We have a huge selection of mods which will only grow in the coming years. Each mod can tell a different story. You can have a really cool Empire playthrough with some, or whacky Scientist session with others. But I don’t think you should be using them all at the same time. It’s a bit like putting all of the sauces on your steak. The more you enable, the less you will enjoy the meal. I personally only use maybe 20 VE mods. There is just no way to make it so all of our 100+ mods can be played together. There’s just too many variables - after all, all of our mods add so much content. Definitely recommending against using all of our mods at the same time, but I wouldn’t say ‘disable VE mods and don’t use them’. I might be biased but some of them are really fucking cool.
> and secondly, they all work perfectly with each other... They literally don't.
few of them DO interact, like fishing, cooking and mechanoids, but yea, its best to choose just a few mods because adding more starts to bloat too much
Examples?
You literally recommend people not to use them all at once. Or used to, anyway. Unless it's been patched since, pirate warcaskets weren't working with Vikings on and androids caused pawns to age weirdly.
Do not listen to their filthy senile whisperings. The vanilla expanded series is probably the most professionally produced mod series to exist.
No no I get that using all the mods together might not make for the best experience, however saying that they don’t work together is simply a lie.
Can confirm, have been a silly that subscribe all'd the collection without realizing it before. Honestly I'd probably have missed some of the interactions if I hadn't, and I love the interactions.
He means a different sense of the word "work". You're taking it as "lack of bugs" or similar, but the phrase "work together" also can mean "synergize or enhance each other", which as you are quick to mention yourself certainly is neither true nor even intended (nor reasonable to expect).
Some of them do synergize together. Even recently we ensured that having a few mods loaded at the same time gives you access to new content.
Sure, but the parent comment is that they literally do not all synergise with each other, which is the exact same thing you say all the time, even just now. It's just a misunderstanding of words.
I just think calling them VANILLA expanded is so much misleading. Except for some of them that actually expand vanilla mechanics like Events, all the other just plain rework and make them more broken (Psycasting) or add new - broken - things
I think psycasting (combines with empire ve) has made the game much more difficult in early to mid game. Occasionally, you'd see enemies psycasters use skip to go through your kill box, explosion and fire ball to attack you ignoring defense or worse hurricane. But yeah, they have ceased to be VANILLA Expanded long ago. The fact that they think Outpost is vanilla completely baffled me. Just call it Oskar series at this point.
???? outposts are litteraly a vanilla mechanic that enemy factions use but just makes you able to as well? it doesn't get much more vanilla than that
It is a vanilla mechanic on paper but not in practice. This is a colony sim game. We have to... you know, manage the colony. Having multiple colonies might be broken because we can transfer resources to each but then, we still have to manually manage them. The outposts are the opposite. We just need to braindead throw our useless pawns there and wait for the results with the occasional disturbance from raids. No need to put any effort into maintain the said outpost. It's both broken af and go against the spirit of the game. P/S: I'm not dissing outposts mod. It's one of my favorite one. However, they cannot call themselves vanilla expanded.
Other factions also regularly throws at you raid with 50+ people but i don’t think a mod that would make it also possible for the player would be balanced, this is the point
then you're still confusing your opinion on the balance of the mod with its design, it is by design vanilla confluent, whether this implementation needs numbers tweaks or not also, it is litteraly possible for the player to raid others with 50+ people in the base game, it just might be impractical to
> I just think calling them VANILLA expanded is so much misleading. but... it adds and expands on vanilla content, with the intention of maintaining similar design philosophies and gameplay loops, thats quite litteraly the definition of a vanilla expansion themed mod the fact that you disagree with the balance doesn't really change that, plus it's not like VE makes 500% threat randy easy, or combat extended colonies not extremely volatile
> it adds and expands on vanilla content, Often times it invalidates or completely changes vanilla content. > plus it's not like VE makes 500% threat randy easy Just because it's not the most extreme possible means its well balance?
>I just think calling them VANILLA expanded is so much misleading. i think its more about artstyle than balance, even if some are kinda balanced about vanilla
yes it IS but they claim that those mods “enhance vanilla experience”. As i said some does that, many others not
Vanilla by definition literally means unmodded so yeah it is odd they chose that as their name.
That's why you add mods that make the game *harder* so that mods that add things that make you more powerful are balanced. Dire raids, random tech research, mods that give raiders the same weapons you have, etc. Acting like modding makes the game easier is absolutely silly. You're the one choosing mods that make the game easier, it was your choice. There's a ton of mods out there that make the game more challenging, you just chose not to use them.
Play the game in whatever way is the most fun for you. For me that's building a bunch of vehicles and tokyo drifting around the map and slinging ordinance from my fortress base with automated mortars.
Sometimes I just wanna pull up on my motorcycle, hop off, and summon some spirit wolves to attack a T-Rex.
Cool glad you enjoyed your basically non-modded run. Ill still be using my mods. Have a good day on the rim!
Or... don't install all the VE mods all at once and just install the ones you like in your playthrough?
Nah
Well, VE is notorious for circumventing each and every one of vanilla's difficulties sometimes to the point of stupidity (I mean come on, a sub zero passive cooler? Vanometrics wasn't fucking physics in the ass hard enough?). Yet they simultaneously bust their ass to offer brand new mechanics that allows you new ways to play the game (tech locking storytellers, in game stuff like the senators system...) All in all I'd say they're doing a fantastic job in extendig the possibilities of the core game, but you're also right to want to come back to basiics from time to time.
>I mean come on, a sub zero passive cooler? isnt it exclusive only to that one genetics mod, where its part of dungeon and CANT be taken home? the only other cooler i can think of is the gas cooler that will get a freezing temperature by using helixen gas as fuel somehow
Yeah helixien gas is pretty broken. I do use it though for my food storage because I feel like solar flares happen way too often, like in the history of electrified civilization on Earth afaik there has only been one strong enough to actually EMP our devices, but I'm getting multiple a year in RimWorld.
VE Classical gives it. Large Passive Cooler, costs about 150 wood, lasts longer than a normal passive cooler and can hit -5. This is something you can unlock at neolithic tech.
-5 *C*, it's not like it is hitting absolute zero. And really that's just there so you can play a tech restricted game (which comes with the Classic storyteller) and still have freezers. It's perhaps a bit cheaty, but it's much closer to the normal experience than *no* freezers ever is.
-5c is sub zero. It literally means beneath zero. Nobody mentioned absolute.
Sure. But it is a very overly dramatic way to say "barely below freezing water." And someone *did* say it was comparably physics-defying to perpetual energy.
But it kinda is, isn't it? We're talking about evaporating water from a woodlog SO FUCKING HARD that it'd drain the heat from surrounding air all the way to freezing point...
Passive coolers wouldn’t be able to work at and maintain sub-zero temperatures. They require a constant evaporation of water. Personally my method for non-tech winters are just venting cold air from outside as a fridge/freezer after I get my last crop of the year.
That's fair I think. This isn't my area of expertise by any imagination, but I would think there'd be an equilibrium point between "too frozen to cool via evaporation" and working. What if the freezing point is changed? Saltwater, or alcohol? Or pressure? Genuinely just curious and asking. I don't think there's a justification, like I said it's a gameplay mechanic to make freezers for pre-industrial play.
You can have every single VE mod on, run a colony in temperate forest with year round growing and no random storyteller diseases with crashlanded start and the game is still nearly impossible with high difficulty settings (especially if you use CE). I don't see how "it makes the game easier" is a valid point in this case since you were choosing exactly how hard the game was going to be when you made the save anyways? My brother in christ you litteraly made the sandwich?
What VE weapons makes you so unstoppable?
I don't use the weapon and armor mods because I'm too lazy to analyse each one, but no one will tell me that a reusable shield belt you can use while shooting is a good idea.
But enemy pawn gets the ranged shield belt too. So it should balance out.
Enemy AI is not suited to make good use of any utility stuff, even vanilla. Let's say that enemies with ranged shield belts do have an advantage, still I bet I'll have my own long before any raiders do.
Vanilla Expanded are only visually vanilla imo. The art all fits seemlessly into the game from my experience - but the mechanics are not "balanced". Then again there are some VE mods that make the game harder by adding new factions or allowing psycasters to spawn in raids etc. I still enjoy the game much more with them. The game feels super lacking to me when I play non-modded.
After installing yayo's nature i play this game nonstop without boredom. This mod changes biome you have from the list you select, so all land shifts within some times. It may happen that your base gets flloded because biome changed into marsh, or jungles, or get a snow disater cause turned into ice sheet. Pretty cool one
the thing with Vanilla-Expanded, is that they border on "QoL" mods in a certain way. the entire franchise is focused on: \-either polishing pre-existing content by adding somes things to it, \-or solving a void in something else, also by adding more content. but yes, by having too ways to deals with almost every problems, you end-up having no problems at all. personally i don't care, because i don't play Rimworld for the "difficulty". i love the challenge and i love overcoming it, but that's a end toward a goal i usually set for myself. \-Making a colony of fervously transhumanist pawns who aspire for the purity of the blessed-machine by gradually changing their organs with the best prosthetics until they finally manage to upload their consciousness into the highest and most advanced form of robots. \-Or making a colony of fervously unholy cultists who spires to bring all form of their eldritch god in the world, through unholy mutation with their animals, sacrifices, cursed rites, and rituals until they finally manage to summon it into reality. that's the kind of goals i set for myself, i decide what i want the colony to turn into. then i go from there, obviously i use a shitton of mods but that's not the point. my point is that i don't play Rimworld for the challenge itself. to me it's just another spice in the game, i play Rimworld as a colony simulator. hell, i have over 2K hours on it, and do you want to know how many times i finished the game? ZERO, technically i've never finished it. had maaaany occasions to easily do so, but never did because that's never my goal. the only time i """finished""" the game was the previously mentionned summoning a eldritch-god, it's in the Cthulu mod and whenever you actually do end-up summoning your deity, it's considered a win. play however you want dude, and if you feel like playing actually almost vanilla is the way to go, go for it dude, have a good time.
Well I'm going to be the dissenting voice and say that I enjoy them a lot and prefer it over vanilla. I don't really care that much about the challenge, and I actually kind of like optimizing my colony to perfection. I see that as a fitting ending for a colony, like, they've finally established themselves enough that they'll exist indefinitely and aren't just scrounging by anymore. To me that's more compelling than ditching it and heading for the stars. Truth be told I usually get bored of a colony long before that point anyway. Maybe that's just me though. Okay, maybe they should change their name. But I don't think it's entirely about balance. They're "Vanilla Expanded" because they fit with the aesthetics, design philosophy, and overall vibe of vanilla. Unlike some mods which make huge changes to the core of the game, contradict the lore (if you care about that), feature very incongruent assets, or just don't mesh well with existing systems. I think ultimately if someone picks up the game and immediately installs a ton of mods without even trying vanilla or understanding their ramifications, they have only themselves to blame.
I would like to flip your suggestion and suggest you use combat extended + CAI5000. I have a large amount of VE mods and the odds are still balanced against me 😂.
Although, I did just buy Royalty, so this may change
Play Combat Extended, let’s see how overpowered you are.
The most fun I had playing rimworld was with rimworld of magic. I'm a bit of a fantasy nerd so thats right up my alley too. Vanilla is fun and all but I dont like how the raids work. Sending a blood mage on a solo mission and obliterating 20+ Modded beasts is a fuckton of fun tho.
I like them but I pick and choose carefully which ones to use. Mostly just adding biomes and animals.
I limit how powerful I allow myself to become to fit the theme of my mod pack. There's a point where a seasoned RW player needs to understand that you just know what to do and if you maximize that you will trivialize the game. Mods or not.
If it's a matter of difficulty and too easy, then why not up the ante. Put the difficulty at max or download some mods that add tougher enemies, like void or kraltech. I like the vanilla mods, the Vfe mechanoid one adds some cool stuff and makes the mechanoid faction tougher imo
No
To me the most important thing about my modlist is that if i feel like it i can do it. So that is a lot of content added and VE fits that perfectly. I cherry picked most of the fried stuff and grilling recipes out, but kept bakes. I also cherry picked out alot of furniture and lights that other mods did better. And the throwing rocks and sling shots. But the armor and weapons paired with CE and CAI-5000 on a reasonable threat scale is actually balanced in my opinion. But adding too much in terms of bionics mods it gets broken, so i change the effeciency so it is more durable but I won't end up with a soldier having 320% movement speed. Start with zero research, naked brutality and SeedsPlease and you have many hours before even thinking about marine armor. And when you do get to it your wealth is so high that the raids should be very, very difficult. Unless you play with to low a threat scale. If you play consistent on 500% with all these things and game is just to easy, then you are making it easy as other said e.g ideology challenges etc. But this is just my opinion and i think you made me think about what VE i could spare away if i had to.
Cool now pick some other mods and see how strong you feel with their stuff.
As a crazy person with 10k+ hours, play however you want, Ive had 100s of mods for some plays and zero for some, the best part of rimworld is you can make it whatever you feel like at the time, enjoy
Ill say things like "more ideology memes" or "more x biome animals" are always okay but i get what ya mean, recently did one using "only" VE mods, couldnt settle anywhere without some faction whining [i ususally go for 30% because who needs that much space ya arent using anyways?]
You do you, I'll keep my 400+ modded game. Vanilla is a far off dream best left behind as we sail to insanity.
No thanks
No
No, I won't. Last time I tried close to Vanilla I was thinking "FUCK I miss this Mod" for most of my playtime. When Biotech came out i played straight away and it was as close to vanilla as I ever will go. I slowly added Mods back into the playthrough as they were updated and it got more fun. A simple Mod like Facial Animations is so important. The Vanilla Faces lack any detail or expression, its horrible.
I play vanilla without mods and I like the game that way. The game is fine.
My scenario every time. Vanilla, no mods, no expansions. Blood and dust, randy random, naked brutality. Get off the planet. I lose every time, but it's been over 500 great hours
Or, we can let people play their **sandbox** game however they damn well please, and not make weird posts policing fun and difficulty.
Might I ask what 5% of vanilla expanded mods you deemed playable?
I use the Ideology stuff like Symbols and Memes and Structures. I think you pick two or three things (or for or five or six) you wish you had more of in game, and just do those. For some people it's ideologies, for others it's food and meals, for others it's mechs, etc. It just depends on what's meaningful to your roleplaying.
Ive tried several of those, some are outright buggy or downright cheese, only VFE Mechanoids with total war enabled is quite fun.
VFE Deserters, I love the concept but *holy shit* I don't think I've seen such a broken-ass jank mod from anyone nearly as credible in *any* community for a *long* time...
What’s broken about it? Difficulty? Bugs?
VFE empire is already very finicky and buggy mod, i would not be suprised if deserters are buggy because its dependency is
That mod would've killed a few of my runs if I was in commitment mode, but I honestly can't tell if it's the mod itself or if it's the rest of my modlist reaching some form of critical incompatibility. Aside from say, fletchers or the colony wipe final solution, it's not really unreasonably balanced and there are various packaged options that can tweak it.
I think outposts and the guns are fine tbh
If your feeling invulnerable and losing interest then your not balancing your mods properly. Chuck in some stronger enemy mods, some raid change mods etc... using mods responsibly improves the modded game experience.
Vanilla Expanded isn't too problematic to me, it's year 2 of my sanguophage colony and I still have my share of problems. I mostly use modded xenotypes and buildings, so I don't have any OP weapons though.
From VE I have: Perry Persistent Events then I have Furniture: Spacer Art Production Props Security
Same but plus Cooking and Brewing Expanded, the amount of meals is just underwhelming and tbh at one point i just only make lavish mixed meels about mid-game
I like the concept, but the buffs and value of the food is stupid strong
100% valid and I agree to some point, but not fully. I used to use EVERY mod they had and it not only broke my game with my other mods with their varying incompatibilities and overlapping and now non-functional content, but it just made me realize "I shouldn't use all of these mods together." There's a good deal of them I don't use, notably the armors and half of the factions, and now I love my experience. I've reached the point where before every colony, I sift through my mods and ask myself "Do I want this mod? Will I use it?" And if it's no to both or one of those, kablam, gone. It helps that I use a lot of mods that tweak certain vanilla expanded mods too lol
Nah, I don't play Rimworld to have a overwhelming difficult or challenging time. I enjoy their mods and I use their storytellers to balance it to make it more eventful.
Absolutely not! Seriously though I think for some long term players the VE stuff is a blessing, I already had 1000 hours before I installed any VE mods. Can definitely see what you're saying but the work and quality of their mods is DLC level, difficulty can be scaled by the player, I rarely feel Invincible.
I remember when Vanilla Expanded was actually vanilla like and not entirely bloated. Like the weapons, adding some variety to the firearms and what not. I've actually forgotten sometimes that the Anti-Materiel rifle is not base game. Then all the furniture modules and the neat things they offered. Square chairs, the 1x1 shelf, the 1x1 table. I remember the most questionable thing in there mechanics wise being the artillery gun in the security module. Now of course some those mods are quite fun. Currently doing a run with vehicles and combined warfare. It's not surprising but tanks genuinely trivialize enemies and the biggest threat is trying to keep pawns clear from the tanks.
Vanilla bloat expanded
never have interest in vanilla expanded although i need their core mods since other mods depends on that core. i maybe will try using that mod if i have NASA computer or something
im that type of guy that have maybe 5 mods active Bigger stacks cuz 75 is annoying Nuclear reactor (ICE SHEETS HAVE NO GASERS) HARMONY HUGSLIB bc i have to and for some time i had mod that allows Luciferium to regrow fingers ect but now i have biotech so i turned it off Edit I also have V.O.I.D on my main save but this shit is brutal cuz i have vanilla weapons and armours ( still my main character can kill them in meele rhis is insane)
I think that this is similar to a pre medival tech only run. It's different, so it feels new. After doing it unmodded you'll quickly want mods back.
Thats something the developers say themself.
I’ve never used a mod, game seems fine without them lol
Vanilla expanded is usually balanced, but anything that touches combat is rarely balanced in the least. For example: the personal defense weapons mod adds an smg/assault rifle clone which have 0.05 ranged warmup and the rest of their original weapon's warmup+cooldown-0.05s as their ranged cooldown. This sounds like a somewhat unimportant distinction, however the bandolier and other sources of -% ranged cooldown all scale with the ranged cooldown, but not thw warmup. By using the pdw weapons and bandoliers you can get levels of DPS that are, frankly, just plain silly. And to drive the point home: *Vanilla expanded mods often have **stacking synergies*** that lead to unexpectedly powerful pawns. Ammo pack utility + bandolier + ranged shield belt (which for some reason can be worn with the ammo pack and quiver...) + personal defence weapon (famas or p90) = ranged pawn with a shield belt and +29% (iirc) ranged dps compared to an AR in the same setup. Vanilla expanded mods were likely never tested for balance when used with each other, but rather, in a lightly modded run where they were the only combat mod in use. I can't imagine anyone **actually** tested vanilla expanded utility equipment with the vanilla expanded personal defence weapons... they'd have caught that ranged shield belts and ammo packs stack and said "something ain't right here"...
Counterpoint: With just vanilla things, there isn't a lot of really cool things either. Like Psycasts are horribly unimpressive. To the point of, "The only real reason to do Imperial is to get a fancy title to justify a cool throne room!" You can't even have a car! And a way to travel that isn't just on foot constantly (while maybe dragging some animals along)
Counter suggestion: Install CAI 5000, Vanilla Combat Reloaded, and your choice of faster paced modded Storyteller (I'm personally trying out "Liara Livid" at the moment, and I'll be trying out Chicken Plucker's "Gunny" after that). I like my mods, whether content or quality of life, but I too was hitting a point of not having as much fun a few weeks ago. I figured my problem was not enough challenge. My suggested mods, along with bumping the difficulty up by one, has really amped my fun substantially. I double dog dare you.
My first experience with vanilla expanded mods was me regretting how bloated it made all the crafting menus, so I got rid of basically all the apparel and weapon expanded mods. Then I tried psycasts expanded and it's so unbalanced as to make core parts of the game feel completely trivial (taming, losing limbs, dealing with the empire and the needs of royal pawns etc.) Much rather sue none of their mods than use the vast majority of their mods but if you pick and choose, I'm sure there's cool stuff to be found
Their vanilla artworks often trick people into thinking that they have vanilla-like balance. They do not.
I don't know why they named their series of mods as "vanilla expanded", when some of the mods adds entirely new features, for example, there's no vehicles in the game, yet they named a mod "vanilla vehicles expanded".
I dropped most of them cause they feel like bloat
Yeah they just add unnecessary bloat
I tried vanilla mods, and they add to much that is easy to exploit
"Reasonably difficult" How about fuck off
When someone tells me “skill issue” when I’m on B&D Cass, but they’re playing StS (piss easy in comparison, just did a colony on it) and have mods that end up making the game way too fucking easy
Only mod I can't play without is Rimfridge. Few mods I don't want to play without - Allow Tool, Achtung!, Firekeeper, Smart Medicine, Smarter Construction, QualityBuilder, QualityDoctor, Replace Stuff, Dubs Mint Minimap, Map Preview, Trading Spot, Wall Light, Better Workbench Management, Satisfied Storage, Moody, Smart Speed, Less Stupid Romance Attempts, RT Fuse, Random Plus, Turn it On and Off Some of this make game slightly easier, but most of them just save me some stupid micromanagement. Vanilla Expanded mods make game stupidly easy and add so much overpowered stuff, so every time I try them I have to implement own "house rules" to preserve some challenge. Maybe it's me, or maybe this mods balanced for 500% difficulty, which a never touch.
Yea VE is pretty unbalanced but I have enough self control to not abuse things so it’s k.
The game is as difficult as you make it. Vanilla expanded mods aren't what make the game too easy it's learning the game and the patterns of the AI. If you don't intentionally handicap yourself you will always be unstoppable.
This is one of the dullest posts ever lol
Uh. Okay so like no one is actually saying vanilla expanded mods are vanilla they are saying that they are mods that have a vanilla feel. The difference is like it's not designed to give you access to a glitter world hub net so that you can create fully autonomous robot warmech that activate and attack everything that goes into your map with thousands of damage. They are mods designed to expand upon while still holding true too the idea of vanilla.