DLC Max difficulty

[misotoma]

What's your strategy?

I personally stopped trying 

Can't keep from reaching 100% stress reactions. Not enough calories after 50 cycles. Tried mush fry bars- all the works.. 

I almost even started digging into the cold biome for frost buns.. there's just no chance. Mealwood was OP for sure.

Will give one more try with skilled farming and rancher at the start.. but that's just squeezing out so much that it isn't the same as classic. I am sure they will balance it out in the future.

In any case I just want to hear your strategy ultimately. Your approach and perspective. Thanks.

[chemie]

what is causing your stress?  The only time I struggles with max stress was on 100k mod map since there was liquid CO2 all over the place and mopping it would just spawn more.  This this map, no reason you can't control most debuffs and don't over promote.

[Lilalaunekuh]

2 hours ago, misotoma said:

Can't keep from reaching 100% stress reactions. Not enough calories after 50 cycles. Tried mush fry bars- all the works.. 

Reaching 100% in a frankly depressing colony isn´t that hard and I don´t mind most of the time.

[The first cycles are always stress free with the new arrival buff, afterwards the stress will slowly creep up for the first 10-50 cycles depending on what I needed to focus on. But with the introduction of plug slugs it didn´t took me long to build a massage clinic, without having to deal with productivity-loss of using a manual generator.]

 

If you run out of food so early, you most likely didn´t expand agressive enough.

[Sure, I like to preserve wild food sources and biome temperatures, but there are times you just need to dig towards every food source^^]

 

 

PS: Select starting duplicants with the "Duress to impress" attribute, it is awesome early on.

[Which is or should be the only time with an elevated stress level.]

 

[nessumo]

First: please clarify what you mean by max difficulty - is it just max settings or carnivore/locavore too?

If no achivs, you have problems only first few cycles, when you don't have enough red seeds, but that can be mitigated by expanding and hunting critters/frost buns. Obviously, farming is your first priority. You can replenish bugs later if you save just one, and once you have enough seeds food isn't a problem.

When going for achivs your best option is IMHO sweeties - there are many of them to start with and you can use starvation ranches effectively. Again - expanding for wild plans to deal with early cycles.

Yes, this biome is slower. Slower, not harder. You can't get that many duplicants in early cycles (I suggest just 4 or 3 if you have good traits initially). And you must expand - wasteland (or whatever it is called) biome its friendly and has a lot of resources. Also, you must be smart when dealing with polluted water pools - it takes more time, but many can be dealt with without any soaking if you analyse mud and dig smart.

 

[hegemontree]

I made 2 runs at all max difficulty successfully and they were a lot of fun.

The first run was researcher,2xdigger.  The map was very wet and the game was brutal.  The team comp was not optimal, there is no time to research enough to make it worth it.  I had to restart 3 times.  The wetness of the map seed made a huge difference.

The second run was 2xathletics,1xdigger with one dupe starting with hard digging 1.  This was a much better composition.  Athletics is the best skill for most dupes.

Strategy

Explore and stay dry.  If you can't stay dry use priorities or doors to allow only 1 duplicant to get wet.

Dig out quickly to explore the map to start the natural food growing.  Don't build floors and ladders, dig walkable paths instead.  This is much faster and helps sweetles and grub grubs to boost plants. 

Build the oxygen generator before you get low oxygen stress. Don't deodorize oxygen until food and stress are comfortable.

Leave the natural plants for food and farm the leftover seeds.

Don't build a mess hall early.  Too much time spent running from food to table.  When you are almost out of food and a dup is running to the edge of the map you want them to harvest, eat, harvest again rather than run to the mess hall.

Build a nature reserve and and put your entrance to latrine and or barrack into it.  This is enough morale to skill as specialists.

The game turns the corner for me and becomes easy when I start cooking the sleet wheet that I explored early and is now producing.

Have fun.

[kerosene]

If you have high stress, it the problem is probably that your dupes get wet too often.

[misotoma]

5 hours ago, Lilalaunekuh said:

PS: Select starting duplicants with the "Duress to impress" attribute, it is awesome early on.

[Which is or should be the only time with an elevated stress level.]

 

Thanks to everyone for the suggestions. Definitely just need to adapt from the old play style. Hiring certain traits and not conventional dupes definitely helps with this starting biome. 

5 hours ago, nessumo said:

First: please clarify what you mean by max difficulty - is it just max settings or carnivore/locavore too?

You guys truly are masochists. I only crank the difficulty options to max. The achievements I let them roll in without a care. I guess I’m just not trying hard enough lol

[QuQuasar]

I dipped my toes with Rumbly Tummies rather than Ravenous and two Bottomless Stomach duplicants among the starting three. Setting it slightly easier was a good call, because I'm an idiot who didn't realise that both Bog Jellies and Grubfruit can be grilled for extra calories until after I'd eaten them all raw.

Otherwise, keeping the dupe count low and making it an early game priority to obtain a consistent food source seems about right.O2 and Temperature aren't a problem in the polluted swamp, and stress is fairly easy to manage if you keep your dupes dry, so you can dedicate your first 20 cycles almost entirely to setting up food production.