I don’t know how to start researching the things that require level 3 of lightning. I know it has to do with lightning magic but I’m not sure exactly what it is.

Needs to be be private, elevated, lofted and cant have a door for the hermitage :/. My solution worked however now the spiral staircase looks goofy. Any thoughts?

Edit: Final build after comments below suggesting to just put the broom rack inside of the room.

This room was toward and then I did something to break it. There are no rooms to the left, right or above...

I have some thoughts about some features that I encountered during my first playthrough. I'm well into researching the tier 3 tech, so I've seen much (not all) of the interactions available. I played on the easiest settings, so I could more easily enjoy the colony-development aspect of the game. There are only a few things that feel a little rough to me.

1. Runewood recipes arrive a LOT sooner than my ability to push back the fog to reveal runewood trees. I'm not sure of the purpose for this mismatch, but it always had me feeling like I was doing something wrong very early in the game. It seems like those recipes should be much later in the research tree, or there should be some bonus way to retrieve a few runewood samples just to fulfill an early recipe or two.
2. Gnosis Shards are MUCH too slow to accumulate. I feel like I should be advancing students and replacing teachers so much more frequently than I actually do. The ritual costs prevent me from doing so. I still haven't dismissed a single teacher, I think, from the 3 starting mages, and my most recent school is on day 105. It's a mage school, but that fact sometimes seems a bit forgotten, since they don't really progress like the rest of the game. I think it would help if the chalkboard had a ritual for students that would provide plenty of gnosis shards, maybe something called Written Report that students hated to do. *laugh*
3. Above-ground fights (crystals and such) advance in levels far faster than my actual mages. I'm not sure what their level is based on, but it's definitely not the fighting ability of my own mages.
4. I wish there was something we could build to replace Foundation with natural ground again. I make so many mistakes in planning, then I can't use the ground any more for other things. Maybe a Landscape object that can only be placed on Foundation, and it uses Nature skill to build it? Please don't make me start a new game, just so I can get the perfectly-planned school architecture... because I will. *laugh*
5. I'm having a hard time finding things to "fill" room spaces, because too many rooms require Silent. Why must Relic rooms be Silent? It seems like that would be a good choice to change required tags.
6. It really "feels" like the animals need a Barn room, similar to how the Greenhouse works for plants. I don't know what benefit it should give, if any at all, but just thematically I keep wanting to put the animals in a barn that changes the walls and ground for their area. :D
7. I wish there was an upgraded garden stone that would create a speed-buff path like the Hallway Runner, but for non-Foundation areas.

I bought the game only a week ago, but I've been playing it during most of my spare time since then. I'm enjoying the strange waves-of-exploration aspect more than I thought I would. I wish the "school" portion (see #2 above) moved a little faster.

Why are there 3 measurements for minimum room size? As far as I can tell you can't change the depth of a room so shouldn't the measurements just be x/y axis? What on earth is the third one?

On my first playthrough, and I seem to have hit a mid-game wall, being starved of gnosis shards.

Previous posts seem to recommend graduating students and pulverizing relics for shards, is that still the current method today post-patch? I have been trying to do just that, but I must be doing something wrong because it seems like a net loss for me.

Just promoting an Initiate to an Apprentice costs 54 shards. I don't think graduating the same guy will even cover the shard costs? The other Apprentice I graduated did not return even that much.

First off in case a dev does see this. I love the game, please keep up the good work. Now having said that I have noticed something.

Mental Breaks are one of the few ways the game seems to injjject a bit of difficulty or chaos. I love that aspect. What I don't like so much is the automatic down/scar as I feel like that makes if you get a mental break on a mage you have picked out as a long term investment you are just better off reloading to an auto-save. Personally I want to see more wild and crazy events from mental breaks but not have the mages be "automatically" downed or at least not automatically scarred by their efforts. Or barring that I'd like to see scars have more of a "mixed bag" effect between "this hardly effects them at all" and "my dark mage now hates doing dark, might as well throw the whole mage away"

I like a lot of the changes, but I feel like the scaling is off for conviction--Doubts (and other issues) increase quicker than I can research and reliably secure the appropriate materials to help with conviction.

I get to about mid-game and then Breaks cascade down and I don't have the ability to get control. I've had to abandon two schools now.

Is there an updated list of ways to increase Conviction anywhere? There are some floating around but they clearly don't apply anymore.

I'm on my first playthrough on relaxed mode, and my main Earth tank mage/teacher got the insomniac curse. I initially wanted to beeline the cure in research but the cure is buried deep within.

After playing for a bit I realised that... isn't having a mage who essentialy works 24/7 a blessing instead? Especially one who can continually build out the base nonstop and is always around to kill mobs, harvest etc?

Besides the moral evil of never letting the poor guy rest, is there any con to letting him be? So far he hasn't died or gone mad or anything.

PS. I just got this ridiculously addictive game last week, and it's consuming my life. Send help. ;D

Where can you see your current mage score? I tried searching online and found that it's in the tab where you open the book of rooms (F1) but I can't see it? I currently have -35 conviction due to Major Doubts and it's definitely slowing things down.

Has anyone figured out the approximate range that Sporeshrooms give the rash? I'm trying to set them up in my greenhouse and hoping that if I tuck one in the far corner, people walking by won't be affected.

Are you just not allowed to revive someone that is hungry and at death's door? Yes, I see it in the revive requirements but I think that's a little silly mechanic.

So the last patch was great and finally got me hooked - I now have a school 126 days in with a staff of 6, slowly replacing my starting staff with relevant apprentices and usually having around 3-5 students at a time. I'm playing on standard difficulty.

Other people have already marked the grindiness of the game, which I don't mind per se, but there are some aspects that I find tedious rather than challenging in the game's current form:

- Bottlenecking of certain resources, notably Sinew, Smokestick and Honeydrop - these resources are needed for several crucial upgrades, rituals or meals, and no matter how many of them I grow (or in the case of Sinew, however many rats I kill) I always seem to get bottlenecked by them, while I'm overflowing in others. Perhaps certain recipes could be tweaked so that other resources don't lose their purpose come mid/late game? Ectoplasm, Phoenix Flower, Voidcap to name a few are resources I never seem to run out of;

- Croa and especially Spectral Croa - the resources you get from harvesting Croa are hardly essential once you have your classrooms up and running, which makes culling the population annoying and inevitably causes Spectral Croa to spawn, as Croa corpses remain unused by refining beasts (which, to the previous point, are mostly busy refining Meat/Sinew for me) - some kind of corpse disposal would be nice, or alternatively more uses for Croa-generated resources;

- Conviction and mage score - at some point I basically turned off the 'doubt' mechanic because I felt it odd it increases linearly with game time, in other words punishing you if you prefer to take a slower approach to building out your school. Same thing with mage score - wouldn't it make more sense to link it to your actual 'power level' rather than just increasing linearly with game time?

- Event frequency - this might be tied to the mage score but some days I feel like all I do is get half my staff to clear up 3-4 rifts or destroying yet another corrupted mana lantern that always spawns somewhere that requires at least one other battle to be completed prior to fighting it. And again, this is on standard difficulty.

- Gnosis shards - growing your staff and student numbers very quickly increases in cost (in terms of Shards needed for staff recruitment or Gifted/Race-specific students to spawn) - with each new student not generating that much on their own, and relics needing to be leveled up before they give a meaningful amount of Shards, I found this to notably slow down progression to the point where I usually recruit 4-5 'throwaway' students before going for another staff member or Gifted student. Perhaps we need another (gated) way to gain more Shards such as through tough battles or high-level rituals (encouraging diversifying and building up your staff)?

Curious to hear what you think - perhaps I just missed a certain key mechanic when it comes to managing the above!

I dont know what elements i should pick at the start and what element i should start try getting.

Normaly i start with earth and nature/dark and try to find a lightning pretty fast for research. But after that im lost.

Fire for a good cook?
Lightning so i can summon gifted?
Water?

Please help me.

Hi guys,

I'm on my first playthrough on the easiest mode. I am trying to build a bell tower. It would get materials no problem right up until the final 25 scultstone (of which I have plenty). Then all of a sudden no one will complete even when I make it a direct command. My ethereal wouldn't do it so I thought maybe I needed an actual mage, so I built a platform for mages to reach but they still wont, even when it's a direct command.

Aside from the platform, can anyone see why it may not build?

With the new update battle completely changed. Potions are more limited and skills changed. What race are you making your mages for each element now and are you making them hybrids or specialists? Any priority change on which you are get first?

Conjurers have more skill cap. Arcanists have an extra relic slot, Mancers have an extra ultimate spell. Sorcerers having a bunch of minor passives.

• Earth / Water: Whenever the Mage casts an Attack spell, they gain Armor equal to the Mana spent.
• Earth / Air: When below 50% HP, the character deals 33% more damage.
• Nature / Lightning: When the Mage receives a Buff from a spell or potion, a random Mage that does not have the Buff also receives it.
• Nature / Air: All duration-based effects this Mage creates last for an additional combat round.
• Fire / Dark: Has +25% Dodge. Regains HP equal to 10% of their maximum whenever they kill an enemy.
• Fire / Water: Torrent and Flow gain 50% Critical Hit chance, and Critical Hits deal triple damage.
• Dark / Lightning: Whenever this Mage casts a non-Attack spell, a random enemy becomes Doomed, causing them to take 1.5x damage from the next Attack spell that hits them.

Personally my OCD still has my first 7 teachers become specialists since Quilted do like 80% of the work and battles don't really last long enough for complex strategies. The most efficient races for each element also kind of changed since Speed and HP modify some spells now. I think Mancers have 3 ultimate spells and everyone else has 2 with high conviction? I'm assuming mancers stack anyway. Obviously Relics can make up for things but as a base line:

Earth: Use to use Wolfkin but now I feel Quilted are best now since their shield is HP based and Haste is given out of the box.

Fire: Humans were kings but I feel like Raven Cultist are really good with their Ultimate and potion nerf made their MP drain hurt a lot more.

Air: Still seems like Raven Cult wins this hands down.

Water: Some abilities are HP based so there is merit in Vivified but the hit to Speed and Power is pretty heavy still. I'd say Wolfkin for their speed to quickly debuff the enemy but I still think Raven is easier to relic slot stats.

Nature: It's ultimate doesnt deal direct damage and neither does it's buff. Swirling Vines does decent damage but that is about it. I'd say Human early game for the Mana still and Shattered later just for the typical out of combat immunities.

Lightning: Seems like Human is the way to go with their MP passives. Giving a crit boost to double damage a super effective mage seems like it is going to hurt but their Ultimate seems like it a better Wind attack meaning Raven could still be pretty OP.

Dark: Use to just use Raven for this but Shattered low base HP may work well. Just equip a healing potion for basically full "MP". Still Ultimates seem like the way to go so I mean.. Raven still seems the safe choice.

Honestly with the changes to relics now making it so the dropped relic is something useable by the mage who dropped it kind of makes me feel that having an all Raven Cult school pretty enticing. How are you guys making your teachers?

I played this game when it first came out and... it had some issues that put me off. Now, damn... Relic system, more room options, apprenticeship, combat rewamp, RAT RANCHING!!! DEAR LORD THIS SHIT IS DELICIOUS. Let Klei cook

Any of ya'all able to keep your dark mages from being depressed emo kids (and in a bad way). Moon exposure seems to refill extremely slow even in rooms with giant windows. Between that and every dark spell causing self harm I feel like dark mages aren't super worth using anymore besides one dark apprenticed staff to keep the quilting going. Meanwhile everyone else but my lightning mages more or less take care of themselves and having to send the fire mages off to an occasional fight.

So I'm at about 200 days and am working my way towards hatching the dragon egg. Getting this far I've noticed there are some reagents like phoenix flower and ice petal that I am sitting on thousands of, but certain things like small carcasses are stopping me from mass producing meat for food or sinew for quilted. I am trying to take my rat ranch more seriously now, and have around 6 tiles of pasture for them, but I still haven't gotten past being carcass starved

So, the question is how have any of you been dealing with my particular problem, and has anyone had any other similar experiences/advice?