Mass Death: Bug Or Feature?

[Sirbomber]

I've been noticing that if I research medicine early on I don't encounter the mass death bug, which leads me to wonder if it's really the plague. Not that I tested it 100 times.  Any other thoughts?

[White Claw]

Mass death isn't a bug. It's almost ALWAYS a lack of food...

It may be that medicine helps in the "recovery" after starvation.

[Sirbomber]

I was referring to this:

Sometimes, players will find the colonists on the planet dying en masse unexpectedly, thus causing the game to end when everyone has died. The colonists' death rate during this occurrence is one of exponential growth, following the equation 2^n, where n is the number of turns passed since the widespread death bug began.

[Flameoftheabyss]

I don't know, hasn't happened to me yet. I'll have to try more games when I have the time.

[Psudomorph]

According to This thread, mass death is usually due to a resource shortfall somewhere that creates a downward spiral of destruction.

Click each of your important buildings, and check the "Resources" panel to see if anything is in the red. That would mean the building is not receiving the resources it needs to function.

EDIT (leeor_net): fixing broken link

[Flameoftheabyss]

By the way, when does this "mass death" thing happen?
Usually around which turn, or after how many turns?

[White Claw]

(I know this was an old post, but I haven't been on for a while. It's a long post, read at your own risk...)

Ack! Once again, I can't say with 100% certainty, but I've never encountered a "sudden death" or "mass death" BUG in any games (ever!). It was always (!!!) due to resource mismanagement!

Just because Wiki says it doesn't mean it true.

Unfortunately, the way OP1 calculates and displays resources can mislead you into thinking you have enough food/metals when you don't! There is no bug, but many people experience mass death around 50 or 100 turns (coinciding with the death of several initial structures).

Things I've encountered which led to colony loss:
-Seed smelter quits for some reason. (Might be a bug). It just decides it doesn't want to process ore anymore or it isn't being sent to the storage tanks (stacks up in the smelter). This means the resources aren't getting to the important buildings (CHAP, agridomes...)
-Expanding a mine too early. If you only have one mine and you dig it deeper, it stops producing for 7 (I think) turns. What this means is if you don't have enough resources built up, your important buildings will, once again, run out of resources.
-There aren't enough agridomes for the colony. i.e. you have 201 colonists but only 2 agridomes. That 1 colonist will eat up 1 food unit (while the other 200 take up 20). Which means that if you don't have enough stored up before you get Agridome #3 built, your people WILL starve (all of them!!!!!, not just the 1 extra dude!) Once they start dying, it's hard to make them stop even though you will have several turns where there is plenty of food. I know, you'll say "But I click on resources and I have 20 units of food in storage." Right, but that's AFTER everyone has eaten (and starved) because you only had 20 last time. And you'll only have 20 next time. You need 21 for people not to starve (if you have 201 colonists). Morale plummets and colonists end up in a death spiral, typically with no recovery...
-Digging your only underground tube deeper. If you only have 1 shaft down to the lower levels and decide to make it deeper, your colonists will start dying because they will have no power, food, air, etc. The tube that is under construction does not act as a connection while it is under construction. This leads to rapid death...

Those are the main problems I've encountered (among other lesser ones). It's a long post so I don't expect anyone to read it all. Please refrain from "Please summarize for me" because this already is a summary!  :lol:  :lol:  :lol:

[Sirbomber]

You call that long? I read that in 10-20 seconds.
You should see Hooman's posts.
While that is an interesting theory, would simple resource loss account for a precise formula (2^n)? I'd imagine starvation to be less formula-based and more "# of people without food die now".  Whereas that formula seems to simulate a disease spreading from person to person (starts with 2 people, then 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, ...).
Though I must say that I, personally, have never experienced this "bug" myself (as far as I can tell).

[White Claw]

I believe death is related to morale more so than simple "Not enough food = X# of colonists die".

The "bug" may be more of a spiral from morale, but I've always seen this caused by some sort of trigger. And that trigger is usally the lack of something. I've not seen exactly 2, 4, 8, 16 deaths. Mine are usually some percentage of my population that increases on order of 2^n. All of my theories that I posted I have confirmed. I've forced mass starvation, lack of air, and lack of resources. Every time my colony dies it is in the same manner regardless of how it actually starts. The morale usually pulmmets from 999 down to nearly zero in just a few turns.
Food shortages are extremely touchy and I have managed to bring back a handfull of colonies that begin the death spiral caused by this (usually requiring massive demolition). But it's not always possible because the exact margin of the food shortage needs to be fairly tight.

I think death is related to moral and that's why the death sequence is so precise. Birth, death, production, etc are all formulas based on morale.

I guess my real point is that there is definitely a death spiral, but it is usually triggered by something and isn't simply a random event. The fact that so many colonists die so rapidly might be (in itself) a bug, but I think that's more of a matter of morale having to much input into death rate.

[Strategos' Risk]

My people keep on dying because CHAP doesn't work because it lacks "PrecA", something none of my mines produce- what do I do?

[Flameoftheabyss]

You must've wasted too much PrecA (which is hard to find) in building and maintaining facilities.
Perhaps you're overbuilding Factories and Labs? Those use a lot of PrecA and PrecB.
Putting buildings on Idle will cause them to stop draining your reserves.

Also, build a SPEW, if you haven't. It helps greatly.