Hey,
my name is Syrchalis and I work as a game designer in germany. I've been playing Rimworld for a while now, enjoying the stories it tells and am now starting to add more and more Mods.
In a lot of mods I see value, but as mods not as part of the base game. However, the idea of coffee has really interested me, because right now there seems to be no drug that fills the niche of "requires work and effort to produce, for minor benefit, but also minor risks".
My idea is the following:
Step 1:
Coffee has to be planted. The growth rate could be slow (imagine corn with less yield) or it could be hyper sensitive to soil conditions (e.g. it could maybe only grow decently fast on rich soil). -> It should not be too easy to acquire.
Step2:
After harvest it would need to be roasted, similar to like yayo and joints have to be created - which yields a long lasting item - roasted coffee beans. This could happen in the cooking station, a campfire, the crafting station or even the brewery (see later why that might be a good fit)
Step 3:
After that it would still need to be made into cups of coffee. This should happen in the cooking station, creating maybe 5 at a time. It would probably improve gameplay to make the cups of coffee rot away in 1 day with temperature having no effect on it at all.
Benefits:
+5 to mood
Reduces tiredness slightly - effect only happens when coffee is drunk without the buff active, so you can't just keep drinking coffee. (balancing reasons, not realism reasons hehe)
Risk:
Indirect risk, because you're using effort and space (possibly on rich soil) for plants that do nothing but give a small mood boost.
AI:
Pawns should drink coffee irregularly when available, similar to other drugs. Those with chemical fascination should try to have the buff up most of the time when coffee is available. Teetotalers should refuse to drink coffee.
Via the drug policies pawns can be encouraged to drink coffee (the mood threshold thing).
Role:
It's a luxury good. But not one that requires high tech, but one that is available to tribes already. Unlike beer there is no hangover, no addiction but the mood boost is much smaller and no pain reduction.
Note that I read previous topics about this idea and I know there are mods for this. This is pretty much why I am suggesting it for the base game. It adds barely any complexity, because it uses the same systems that are already in the game, and gives the interesting decision "do you want to bother with making coffee for a small mood boost (can you even? Do you have the space/rich soil for it?) or not?" It's for those who really really don't want to bother with addictions (not even from beer) but still want to give their colonists some luxury.
I think temporary decrease of tiredness should be the primary effect, not mood bonus. There are situations in Rimworld when you have to mobilize your pawns in the middle of the night. If there was a way to combat the negative effects of lack of sleep on the next day (or just boost awareness right after you wake them up), that would be fantastic.
As for preparation, IMHO full realism is the best here: coffee is not cooked at all, instead you have a "coffee machine" device. When a pawn wants to get a cup, (s)he goes to the food stockpile, picks some roasted coffee beans, goes to coffee machine and makes h(er/im)self some coffee.
Optionally, pawns with high cooking skill might make their coffee at the stove and receive higher benefits. Pawns with low cooking skill may use stove as well if there's no coffee machine available, but results will be... variable. :-)
The idea behind the mood bonus was that it is generally useful to have, so all your pawns can drink a nice cup of coffee each morning. Theme: Luxury. With the tiredness thing being the main focus I feel like it's too niche. I mean, there is wake-up already. Sure, it's a hard drug, but it fills that niche.
What you could do instead is that tiredness goes up slower while under the effects of coffee, like 10-20%. So your colonists would sleep less each day and they could get more work done.
Either way, I wanted the benefit to be something generally useful so that you nearly always have an incentive to go for coffee - that is, if you have the time/space etc. for it.
Currently you can give your pawns only so much luxury. Basically a clean and well constructed base (with good floors) is all you can really do. Maybe flower pots and eventually some sculptures. But you will max out on beauty eventually. This would add another possible way to make them feel better - one that goes a completely different route than beauty.
I like OP's idea to add it as a luxury item. IMO it shouldn't have an energy boost to it at all though, as coffee's effect is mostly psychological and game wise it would be very hard to balance to make it optional.
I like the coffee suggestion like the OP described it.
In my mind it should remove a bit of tiredness, not much, add a bit of luxury and beauty need, and a slight mood buff for 4-8 hours ..
A High Tech Coffee Production Device would still be cool, as a form to up the bonus a tiny bit.
removes just a bit more of tiredness, and adds 1 or 2 points to the mood bonus
Maybe only available from Traders, like the High-Tech TV's
Quote from: SpaceDorf on March 22, 2017, 01:51:39 PM
I like the coffee suggestion like the OP described it.
In my mind it should remove a bit of tiredness, not much, add a bit of luxury and beauty need, and a slight mood buff for 4-8 hours ..
A High Tech Coffee Production Device would still be cool, as a form to up the bonus a tiny bit.
removes just a bit more of tiredness, and adds 1 or 2 points to the mood bonus
Maybe only available from Traders, like the High-Tech TV's
Yeah I can imagine coffee will just be prepared in the stove but you can buy a coffee machine from traders. It has to be "refueled" with coffee beans and whenever a colonists interacts with it they get a better mood buff.
There could be "simple coffee" and "fine coffee."
Simple coffee is prepared using the stove, in real life the way to do this would be putting the beans in a strainer and pouring the hot water through the strainer into the cup.
Fine coffee could be made using a coffee machine, either a regular one with a pot and filters, or one like a Keurig, and maybe the fine coffee machine could only be bought from traders or unlocked through research.
Quote from: MeowRailroad on March 26, 2017, 11:07:54 AM
There could be "simple coffee" and "fine coffee."
Simple coffee is prepared using the stove, in real life the way to do this would be putting the beans in a strainer and pouring the hot water through the strainer into the cup.
Fine coffee could be made using a coffee machine, either a regular one with a pot and filters, or one like a Keurig, and maybe the fine coffee machine could only be bought from traders or unlocked through research.
I was trying to avoid two separate items.
+1 to in-game coffee
If you're going for colonists that like a daily cup of coffee, perhaps a insta-joy boost like beer rather than a mood boost makes more sense. Unless the mood boost lasts a while.
Quote from: Greep on March 30, 2017, 04:23:12 AM
If you're going for colonists that like a daily cup of coffee, perhaps a insta-joy boost like beer rather than a mood boost makes more sense. Unless the mood boost lasts a while.
The general idea is - a cup of coffee in the morning, +3 mood throughout the day.
I'd model it instead as a malus percentage of tiredness and a (small) bonus percentage of consciousness. No mood boost; +consciousness is already really useful. (Consciousness affects almost all skills.)
Make it somewhat easier to make - there are a lot of small steps in food or drug production that Rimworld just doesn't model. I'd think coffee beans directly to cups of coffee would be fine. If you don't want to have a whole bunch of prepared mugs lying around, put in a coffee-maker pawns use, like the nutrient paste dispenser (but much smaller, of course).
Finally, tolerance and addiction should go up fairly rapidly, until you hit moderate tolerance. For addiction, I don't mean anything as bad as flake, just slightly more than beer.
Withdrawal should give a -5 mood modifier, and be pretty fast.
every office background should start with a hard addiction ..
Quote from: Jovus on March 30, 2017, 12:02:46 PM
I'd model it instead as a malus percentage of tiredness and a (small) bonus percentage of consciousness. No mood boost; +consciousness is already really useful. (Consciousness affects almost all skills.)
Make it somewhat easier to make - there are a lot of small steps in food or drug production that Rimworld just doesn't model. I'd think coffee beans directly to cups of coffee would be fine. If you don't want to have a whole bunch of prepared mugs lying around, put in a coffee-maker pawns use, like the nutrient paste dispenser (but much smaller, of course).
Finally, tolerance and addiction should go up fairly rapidly, until you hit moderate tolerance. For addiction, I don't mean anything as bad as flake, just slightly more than beer.
Withdrawal should give a -5 mood modifier, and be pretty fast.
The whole idea was to NOT have addiction be part of it. The positive effect should be small, because the negative effect should only be the time/space you sacrifice for the coffee production. Coffee isn't really addictive IRL either.
True :)
The feeling of addiction is the caffein tolerance that builds up ..
So the real insomniacs switch between Tea and Coffee every few weeks.
Quote from: Syrchalis on March 30, 2017, 04:30:34 PM
The whole idea was to NOT have addiction be part of it. The positive effect should be small, because the negative effect should only be the time/space you sacrifice for the coffee production. Coffee isn't really addictive IRL either.
My wife would disagree with you. If she goes more than roughly 28 hours without caffeine, she develops a powerful headache as a physiological withdrawal symptom.
(She also drinks about a liter of espresso a day, having a mind-boggling tolerance.)
Coffee as a thing isn't really addictive, but caffeine is :P You can replace coffee with soda or tea or whatever, but suddenly stop caffeine and you'll notice for weeks/months/years.
In real life roasted unground coffee has a shelf life of 15 days, don't believe what the labels say!