We are open for ideas of other categories besides escape.

Sample ideas with annotations: — ✓ Neutralize ancient danger (time ends when you have neutralized all dangers lurking inside an ancient danger enclosure, opened all the sarcofagi inside, including mechanoids and other defenses and hostile spacers) — ✓ 20 healthy prisoners (time ends when you have ≥ 20 restrained but walking-capable prisoners inside the walls of a prison, not presently carried by a colonist; wounds, infections and missing organs/limbs do not matter as long as they can walk) — ✓ Human leather hat (time ends when you finish crafting this, in any quality; purchasing or looting one does not count) — ✓ Grand gold sculpture (time ends when you finish crafting this, in any quality; purchasing one does not count, but you can acquire materials by disassembling purchased/looted goods) — ✓ Wondrously impressive room (have a “wondrously impressive” thought on any colonist on any room; time ends when this text first appears on screen in a mood modifiers listing on any character, whether colonist, prisoner, or visitor) — ✓ Devilstrand harvest (time ends when you first harvest ready-to-harvest devilstrand mushrooms) — ✓ Naked Brutality, as a sub-category — ✓ 99 bottles of beer (brew at least 99 bottles of beer; outsourced wort & beer are banned) — ⛹ Pirate the pirates (kill all pirates in a pirate colony and claim their colony) — ⛹ Pirate all pirates — ⛹ Befriend all factions (require at least three enemy/neutral factions) — ⛹ Kill a thrumbo (time ends when you first kill a trumbo) — ⚐ Build a ground-penetrating scanner (time ends when this device is connected into power grid) — ⚐ Drinking problem (time ends when a colonist has the blackout status; outsourced beer is forbidden) — ⚐ Finish all research — ⚐ Cook a lavish meal from insect meat — ⚐ Colony on pegs (replace the legs of all colonists with peg legs; banishing is forbidden; colonists must originally have natural legs) — ☹⚐ Accumulate 500 components (time ends when your stockpiles count ≥ 500 components) — ☹⛹ Just married (time ends when a marriage celebration concludes in your colony without being interrupted) — ☹⛹ Explosive breakfast (milk a boomalope)

Legend: — ✓ Approved — ⛹ Likely too RNG-heavy — ⚐ Potentially boring or too similar to another category — ? Waiting for community feedback — ☹ Rejected

What do you think?

The ancient danger, 20 healthy prisoners, and pirate the pirates all sound like a hard one that would be fun. One I was thinking of was a Die category where the goal is to die as fast as possible with the extra rules being 1.You can not banish any colonists or indirectly banish them by forming a caravan and abandoning a colony with colonists inside. 2. (maybe this one) Your colonists can not kill each other. 3. The time ends when the game over screen is seen. Though, it might be a bit too easy to die.

I would rather avoid game-over goals or other goals that require minimal time&effort, because they can become a burden for judges due to the large volume of submissions that do not provide interesting watching (as currently seen in Ending 1 goal for Papers, Please). A low-effort high-yield way to gameover is to start a rich explorer scenario and assault a dangerous animal.

True. I like pretty much all of the ones you listed and think they would present their own challenges.

I would discourage you from pushing the more RNG heavy achievements, and those that can be cheesed by selecting certain starting pawns; such as marriage ceremony (RNG), and drinking problem (select alcoholic pawns). But many of those look like very fun benchmarks to work for!

I agree on the RNG heavy. That’s why I forbid outsourcing where possible.

As for the drinking challenge, colonists can be forced to drink alcohol, and therefore the blackout status does not depend on RNG; the bulk of the task is in the alcohol brewing. Or do you mean you can get a colonist that begins the whole game already in blackout status?

The gold sculpture may be a bit too hard on RNG though. Gold is pretty hard to come by without trading, and we all know how random traders are. Same goes for the components one.

As for marriages, I am not sure, but I think you can pretty much force a couple to happen by influencing moods with things like working together and mutually performing rescues in a downed-situation. Haven’t really tested this theory though. I don’t think you can avoid random break-ups though.

Ones that come to my mind on new challenges would be:

• Befriend all Factions (Must show on world map screen before starting the run that there are 2 enemy factions)
• Tame a thrumbo (Tamed by either handling it or wounding it and healing with a doctor)
• Craft a legendary item. (Can be weapon, clothing, furniture or sculpture, so long as it shows that it is legendary)

Taming a thrumbo is way too dependent on RNG, as is crafting a legendary item. And the latter will be almost impossible in the upcoming 1.0, without an inspiration at least, and they come randomly.

Befriending all factions however… How feasible is that? If I recall correctly, pirate bands naturally regress to −99 periodically no matter what you do.

Why did you do this: 'Wondrously impressive room' in the middle of an hour long speedrun attempt of it. It is so hard.

Suggestion: 99 bottles of beer. Rule: Brew at least 99 bottles of beer. Hops can be grown on soil, in hydroponic basins, or purchased or looted or received from sky. Outsourced wort & beer is banned. If beer or wort is dropped by incapacitated pawns or falls from sky, the runner must either take care to not bring them into colony, or have pawns consume all of them immediately, in a way that is clear enough from the video.

You need to construct both a brewery (research required) and some fermenting barrels to accomplish the task. Each barrel produces a maximum of 25 bottles, for 25 units of wort, in 10 days. The fermentation process in each barrel can be launched even by just one unit of wort, and more can be added later without restarting the 10-day timer. A less-than +30°C temperature must be maintained for the barrels at all times, or the wort becomes spoiled. In negative temperatures the fermentation process becomes paused.

The arbitrary-sounding number 99 comes from the well known folk song that begins with the name of this proposed category.

Minimum time: 10 in-game days to ferment beer + 17 work to brew wort (if perfectly parallelized); undefined time to acquire hops + 400 research for brewing + undefined time to research hydroponics (optional) + build and haul times and other delays.

Minimum ingredients: 495 hops, which becomes 99 wort. 99 wort becomes 99 beer. Plus building materials and research.

Votes? Suggested changes? Should the rules also ban outsourced hops (to make it less RNG)? Also it would be interesting to do in a more challenging environment, such as extreme desert, where day temperatures never fall below +40°C.

With Pirate the Pirates colony. I feel a more challenging one would be to wipe out the pirates, with ancient danger strategies and using items like tornado generator, orbital targeter and the lances. It is possible to go around the map and clearing them out. Taking out just one you'll have to enforce a rule about restricting any items found in the danger and must be brought or made to add some challenge to it.

99 bottles of beers is a good one though. Focuses more on an individual item just like the devilstrand category.

Any idea how to make the hops acquisition less RNG-heavy? Also how make the rule about outsourced beer/wort easier to track in case e.g. raid/ancient danger produces that stuff.

So, I was saying in discord. I've started messing around with Pirate all Pirates. I quite enjoy it so far and it strikes me as some that even with the best seeds will take hours and hours (like wondrous room did/does).

I think it has all the elements a good game speed run (of this sort of game) tends to have min/maxing a good seed. doing everything you can to "get in", "fight","grab" and "move on" as fast as possible. I've been trying it on brutal/merciless (cause i like that sort of game) but the crux of clearing out the pirates keeps even a chillax peaceful game worth running.

I am not the person to reject a run just because there is no category for yet. If you submit such a run, chances are there will be a category made for it. But as usual, it needs fair and clear rules. In a "all of the planet" run that "pirate all pirates" would fall to, the world size is definitely a factor, for instance.

i certainly wouldnt recommend doing a 100% run. i had to hunt through a few seeds to find sub 18 hostible bases. (i think the one i found is 13 ... blood1 if you want to check it out) temp would definitely effect this run. (base position/number) but its another thing to min max. it seems unlikely an extreme desert of sea ice run would be possible since you would have bases outside of the temp zone. though pirate a pirate (not all but 1) might be possible with the right seed... hard to do, especially for sea ice, but possible.

further messing with the environment settings got the pirate bases down to 11. I mean, its still going to be an effort to clear them quickly. I'm sure people will find seeds with an even smaller number of pirate bases. but as long as there is at least 1 ... we have a game. Also once you get a new record posted, everyone will know the seed. So, that keeps it a pretty level playing field.

final thoughts (for now), much like wondrous room. its WAY harder on merciless. that wont stop me... but it makes me think pirate a pirate (just 1 base) should be a game as well. (kinda like grand gold statue vs wondrous room)

in fact in that case it is a much better game on merciless or peaceful. well better in that its not 10 hours long. also you can have sea ice and extreme (for pirate a pirate). 1 of the rules though (to be keep people from just orbital bombarding it. is there should be no originaly-hostiles on screen (all dead, captured or off screen), not just running away. I don't remember if there is a message like when you do an enemy outpost or not. i'll update a little later when i can check (i dont think there is, just 1 about them running)

so I played some more pirate a pirate. I'm not sure it's worth creating a category for it. i was able to beat a base in under a minute on peaceful and under 2 on merciless (same seed and starting spot). there just wasnt much to it. if we do have it. it shouldnt be when you see them running. you need to see the blue message "Base Destroyed" . if you dont have the message the base will remain on the map. (both of my "wins" i just quit at running. so i'll need to redo them if we want to do this)

For pirate all pirates, i do think we should should add a category. it's an effort (and a lot of fun). even on peaceful it takes time. i'm gonna try it again today. i'll submit it when I get a win :). i wont be using blood1 for that seed as it turns out 1 pirate base is on the other side of impassible mountains :(

lol okay. so pirate all the pirates. i've tried it a couple times and it unfortunately is a category that needs a better seed. best seed i've found so far is "ooo" and it gives you 12. it becomes a real boring project after the first 3 or 4 bases to destroy the other 8. i still like it as a category, perhaps someone can find a seed with say 6-8 which would make it far more enjoyable and less of grind. that being said... okay i think pirate a pirate is out. pirate all pirates needs something to make it more doable... BUT.

how about just a "single hex - escape". that is you can't leave the map and you need to build a ship and leave. it's like everything you want in the game base building. making the spaceship. works in all environments. everything has a purpose (ex: pods are the best way to send goods to wood-be-allies) the only 2 rules are never send a unit off the original map/hex and escape. I'm gonna try it tonight. don't get me wrong it will be a LONG game (at first at least). very susceptible to RNG and picking the right hex and units... but it'll be interesting and fun to learn to min/max.

what do you all think?

edit i tried it and clearly forgot 1 thing. there is no way to get an AI core unless you leave the map. i actually rather enjoyed the run. 8:45 on peaceful begining to end (on a random hex) built a ship but couldnt launch it cause there was no way to get a core. So, the real question is, is that even a viable game? don't leave the hex till the ship is almost done. or don't leave the hex except for trips to get the ai core. (you can't deliberately stop anywhere else or settle anywhere)

Was messing around with a new challenge/speed run idea. base value. now i was playing around with it on merciless and dieing cause well merciless. but i think even in peaceful its an interesting thing to speed run. the real question is how high in total value would be best. i was going for 1,000,000 ... as a million is just ludicrous and i like a challenge. also can you imagine the raids on 1 million value on merciless (lol) ? It that might be too high as even on peaceful you are going to have to raid something like 20-40 hexes to get that kind of value. 100,000 is trivial so maybe 500,000 is a better number. I'll no more after i play around with it some.

the ai ship is probably the best hex to setup a base since that is just free instant value. but on the same note mining gold and making works of art might trump that ... it might just be better to send someone down to deconstruct it. anyway. i'm going to keep messing. anyway what do you all think?

to be clear i've been clickin on history to see how high my value is. I look at the highest peak. there may be a better way

edit i picked really high values to make a game out of it. i think the solution though after trying it some is to stick to 100k but to not allow the ai ship. thoughts? I think peaceful this is a good game. i think in merciless it'll be a struggle to not die hehe.