Brain Damage

[jack020]

so somone was shot in the head� is this possible to fix.??

in game, hit ESC > Options > Open save data folder > A new Windows explorer tab will open > in the new tab go into the "Saves" folder.

you will see your saves listed in that file, open your save by pressing the right mouse button on it, then: Open with, and then: notepad.

then search for the colonist with brain damage by hitting Ctrl + F and then to search the file for your colonists last name.

when you found her CTRL + F again and search for : healthDiffs

in between <healthDiffs> and </healthDiffs> all conditions of that colonist are listed.

to "Heal" your colonist Delete everything in between <healthDiffs> and </healthDiffs> and then save.

when you load the save file again your colonist will be healed.

if it's your first time doing this make a back up of your save by just copy pasting the file into the same folder or your desktop, w.e you want.

[keylocke]

How about a risky surgical procedure?

If successful, it reduces the severity of the damage. If not you run the risk of crippling your character further? If done right it could be be one of those weighty decisions.

hmm.. bionics are kinda expensive so the "risk" factor is gonna be a rage point if RNG keeps throwing the player a curve ball..

so how about just adding a skill requirements for the different operations, the same way that cooking lavish and fine meals have minimum skills required?

so maybe :

-cuts, bruises : no requirements
-fractures : lvl 3 doctoring skill minimum
-peg legs, dentures : lvl 5 doctoring skill minimum
-internal organs : lvl 8 doctoring skill minimum
-bionic implants : lvl 10 doctoring skills minimum


(perhaps you someone can tweak this idea more)

[milon]

I'm really enjoying this thread, the range of views and Tynan's approach are interesting to hear.

Also super relevant with some of the responses
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kübler-Ross_model#Stages

Corrected URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%BCbler-Ross_model#Stages

[tuver]

I enjoy that brain damage isn't fixable. While I technically run a mod that allows me to fix it, I don't use that ability. I find it adds to the game having to deal with the problem. My worse case bit is to throw them into a cyropod until the ship is built, but I usually just set them to clean only.

[durann31]

Lol from me asking one question to many ideas that would actually be cool to add to the game the ideas are amazing here

[Monkfish]

Hello Rimmers! I'm here because I have a vegetative prisoner I wanted to post about.

"Floater", an apt name if ever there was one, turned up at my colony several game months ago and was unfortunate enough to catch a bullet right in the head as one of my colonists waved their survival rifle around a corner in defence. I was watching it happen and saw "headshot" ping up above him and he immediately dropped to the ground incapacitated. Curious as to his still-living state having been shot in the dome at point blank range, I rescued him back to a prisoner medical bed and treated his injury. There he has stayed doing nothing but slurp up the fine meals brought to him by my warden(s), which is the only interaction they have with him. They do not chat to him and they leave him alone, even if he's set to "release" in the prisoner menu. His only injury is an old gunshot wound to the brain.

I decided to keep him alive until I'm in a position to harvest his organs, though I am also tempted to see what happens if I mentally break him whilst he can't do anything.

I may post some screenshots later.

As to the current conversation, I love that this is a thing and most certainly don't want it removed, or have any 'easy' way to get around it, otherwise where would the risk/challenge be? Sure, it'd be a massive pisser having your best colonist at <job> turn into a meal hole, but then that's Rimworld and seemingly anything can happen, or the smallest of issues could cascade into disaster, and part of the fun of it is taking what it throws at you with gusto.

[Vexare]

I've actually quite deliberately never thought of it as a strategy game. The entire design process has very explicitly been guided by the notion of RimWorld as a 'story generator' above all.

Mainly this is because there are tons of great strategy games on the market that I can't beat. But there are very few decent story generators.

Obviously it's good to create meaningful multivariate decisions for players (tundra/non-tundra is a good example). But this takes a backseat to narrative drama where necessary.

sorry Tynan, but there always MUST be a way around. cos if there is none then there is no need to fight, no need to live cos you'll die anyway...
you just killing your game.

In one way I agree with you that the finite forced ending of the game is too rigid and limited, but I disagree having unfixable storytelling bits such as brain damage to one of your colonists is killing the game. Have you never played a full on RPG or tabletop style gaming? Crap happens with a random roll of the dice and you have to live with the consequences, it's part of "life" in the game. I see that's where Tynan is taking RimWorld and I absolutely love it. I *don't* love being forced to fight endless and increasingly larger waves of enemies as the only outcome however (see my long winded rant in endless play thread, haha).

I love the storytelling in RimWorld and perhaps that's why I want it to go on and on forever the way Dwarf Fortress does but with robotic interface I can't wrap my brain around.

I love the fact that tragic things happen. I disagree that there MUST be a way out of every situation as you put it. The workaround if you're playing it like an RTS is that you never keep just one key critical type of character who is so valuable you can't risk them every going outside and getting shot. You *could* lock them away in a bunker somewhere every single battle to ensure they don't get shot in the head. I made that mistake, my high skilled doctor got in the cross fire while trying to rescue someone downed. Now I use useless characters to do the rescuing and never put my doc out there in danger. It's a workaround, that's learning strategy. If I lose my best fighter/shooter to brain damage, well that's the breaks. I have to train up someone else to do the job and retire my fighter to being the colony's cleaning drone or put him/her out of their misery. Yes it's tragic and it makes for memorable gameplay.

[b0rsuk]

Actually I like it brain damage in this game is unfixable. It does create more drama. There are so many games where everything is fixable that this feels fresh.

Another story generator which comes to mind is Dominions 3. It's a fantasy strategy game where you command hundreds, even thousands of troops. Every single one of them has stats like age, experience, and a list of battle afflictions (lost an arm, limp, battle fright, never healing wound, lost an eye, lost a couple of eyes (spiders etc)). When you have an army of veterans, their experience bonus gives them a definite edge. But while they can hold a line, you'll find many cripples among them. If you have good memory, you'll remember that this trooper, or that commander, has that wound because he caught an arrow when breaking a siege. Or fought off an assassination attempt. Or messed with forces beyond understanding and went insane.

There are ways to fix wounds like that,  but they're very limited and some stuff can't be healed except by the most powerful means, like the Holy Grail or magic rituals you can only afford on your best commanders. Many nations just don't have access to that stuff, so for most part you just have to deal with it. Dice rolls are open-ended in that game. It is possible for a fresh peasant conscript with a halberd to kill the King of Elemental Fire equipped in powerful magical items. You can do your best to minimize the odds, but accidents just happen.

[Mathenaut]

But why do you want less drama in your game? Drama is the whole point.

There is drama in the difficulty of overcoming an obstacle.

Random non-crippling inconvenience isn't really an obstacle nor does it really affect difficulty. I think you'll see this sentiment in mods like 'less incident trolling', as things like frequent solar flares, blights, and battery blowouts don't really add to drama.

There's no buildup, there's nothing to prepare for, no anticipation, it's just an arbitrary setback that doesn't seem to serve any purpose or add much to the game.

The question of brain damage is more a question of "why aren't they just dead?". On one hand, I like the reaction this provokes in players who are attached to their pawns. On the other hand, players recognize this as kinda arbitrary and it can foster hints of resentment.

[tommytom]

Brain damage? Try getting a frail/bad back with a foot blown off and install a pegleg and realize they can't even get out of bed.

She was a useless slow brawler to begin with without the peg leg (only good for cleaning, and barely even then).

I put her down. First fatality and it was intentional. lol.

Not spending what little money I had to "fix" a broken person that can't be fully fixed. Maybe I'm a psychopath (in-game anyways), but felt no remorse or loss harvesting her organs.

[Darkhymn]

I remember, in my very first RimWorld game, alpha 6, one of my initial colonists had her leg blown off in my colony's very first encounter with mechanoids. The other soldier she was with hauled her back to the medical bay and a reserve force went out to intercept the remaining mechanoid. At this point I had no idea that she was missing a limb. When she was fully healed a few days later and still in bed, I checked her health tab and found that she was legless. I was stunned. I went in search of answers online and found that there was nothing I could do for her. She was the last colonist to die in that colony. The doctor, her long-time friend and the last remaining healthy member of the original team, bled out in the doorway of her room, killed by raiders defending her. The storytelling that having a bed-ridden, useless member of the team added to the game made the effort of feeding and caring for her worth it. Likewise, I recently read a thread - here - in which a couple of people relate stories about their brain damaged survivors that range from merciful euthanasia and almost ceremonial interment to modifying their base to allow the wounded survivor to continue to serve in their way. It's really quite excellent.

[warden]

Bad back/frail/braindamaged colonists have their uses, i obtained a dedicated and very thorough cleaner when an invader got most of his juices drained by a stray bullet. He's slow, but ticking off all tasks except cleaning keeps him safe and happily wandering around the colony, keeping the beauty ratings up.

It was a boon since i'm usually having trouble allocating a cleaner, as there are always more pressing duties than cleaning a pile of puke by the front door.

[SSS]

I've actually quite deliberately never thought of it as a strategy game. The entire design process has very explicitly been guided by the notion of RimWorld as a 'story generator' above all.

Mainly this is because there are tons of great strategy games on the market that I can't beat. But there are very few decent story generators.

Obviously it's good to create meaningful multivariate decisions for players (tundra/non-tundra is a good example). But this takes a backseat to narrative drama where necessary.

Why is "drama", particularly "tragedy", king? Certainly there are more ways to develop a story than with tragedy. Even if we say "most" stories require conflict, this is hardly universal and it doesn't mean there needs to be insurmountable occurrences. A story about the rise of a group who overcame all the odds could be inspiring and uplifting: Forcing tragedy forces a cynical view of the world into the stories Rimworld generates, when a story can and should be allowed to be idealistic if the creator of the story so desires. You're just limiting possibilities based on your own preferences.

Now, you could argue that something like Phoebe Friendly still provides a "lighter" experience for players, but there's a difference between "lighter/softer vs. darker/edgier" and "idealism vs. cynicism". A story can be "dark and idealistic" or "light and cynical"- light doesn't need to be idealistic nor does dark need to be cynical. The darkness or lightness of a work mostly has to do with the setting, which is where the difficulty and Cassandra Classic vs. Phoebe Friendly comes in: Is conflict common? Do harsh circumstances occur? (Often?) Is death a reality?

Idealism vs. cynicism is completely different and separate from the aforementioned, however. (I will pattern my questions assuming a dark setting, since that's the most pertinent in this case.): Does the power of friendship/love overcome all, or does the world crush such "foolish" notions? Is death "unfair and cruel" or does the manner of death depend on who it is that dies (what goes around comes around)? Is life harsh and unrewarding, or harsh but redeeming? Can obstacles be overcome, or are some obstacles insurmountable? And so on. All of these questions mark a difference between an idealistic story and a cynical story.

If you're thinking "I'm just going the realistic/plausible route"- then I have to ask why you insist that (current) realism is supreme? Everyone has a different degree of "willing suspension of disbelief", which is why we have hard science fiction and soft science fiction in the first place. But, moving back to point: Can you honestly say that realism is always the most important thing in a story? (Isn't the answer to that merely a personal preference?) Cannot realism ever detract from a story? Why is it that Shaggy Dog Stories are often regarded as pointless or bad? What's the difference between a Shaggy Dog Story and a tragedy (I know the difference; I ask rhetorically)?

So, in the end, I have to say this isn't about making Rimworld a "better" storytelling engine, but rather about making it tell the sorts of stories you personally are interested in seeing. I'm not saying that this is necessarily a bad thing: There may be many others that prefer this sort of story. In fact, that may be the primary sort of people you plan on marketing this engine to, but don't say it's just about making Rimworld better at storytelling, because that's not what disallowing such a possibility truly does. It merely makes it better at a specific type of storytelling.

Addendum: Let me explain the significance of my Shaggy Dog question. The premise that Rimworld tells stories is flawed. Rimworld doesn't tell stories; it is the players who tell stories. Rimworld is merely the medium through which the story is told. Is it up to the player to give meaning to the events that transpire. If Rimworld is truly to be a great storytelling medium, then it should allow for more than one sort of story, namely cynical ones. Meaning must be added for there to be a point; it's not much of a story if there is no meaning or point to it. This is why allowing players to tell the sort of story they want to tell is important: If you force a cynical circumstance onto someone who doesn't want to tell a cynical tale, then the occurrence becomes pointless to said player's narrative, and is only an unwanted irritant forced on them by the medium... much like how censorship or executive meddling might force a creator to change their story in ways they don't desire in traditional storytelling mediums.

Another Addendum: The end result of this, if storytelling in general is deemed to be more important than a specific type of storytelling, is most likely going to be more pre-world config settings. We can already control how dark or light the game is through difficulty and storyteller. Now we need the ability to control how cynical or idealistic the game is. The ability to heal any wound would obviously be more idealistic; an inability to do anything about it would be more cynical; and an ability to do something about it with consequences (e.g. "fixing" the colonist, but they are no longer themselves, like the drone suggestion) would be an in-between option. I'm picturing a three-way global setting of "idealistic, cynical, or neutral" (or whatever terms you want to substitute for those options) that would affect a lot more than brain wounds. That's definitely the sort of feature that would add a great deal of depth to the game and make it "great" as a storytelling medium, in my opinion.

[Pirx Danford]

Great posting @SSS.
The way I read you, you do want the player to have more control about the nature of the story, probably the best way to go about something like this would be customized storytellers... maybe this can be solved through modding.
But to give the player total control would remove the game aspect, its not as simple as saying that the players do create the stories and RimWorld is the tool they do it with, its more like that RimWorld provides a more or less hostile environment in which the player and the storyteller together tell a tale.
How much of a tragic tale depends on how crass the dangers created are in combination with how good the player is with overcoming them.

I believe in time we will have the rose-colored glasses storyteller, the fairy tale storyteller (happy everafter ;-) ), the Cthulu storyteller (you always lose in the end) and my personal favourite would be the Murphy's law storyteller.

But you are definitely right about the player needing to have a great deal of control, else the game would just force the stories on the player, which basically is what the normal media already provides in every quantity and quality and certainly is not the goal of Tynan (I assume).

[Headshotkill]

Probably not. If everything's fixable, nothing's tragic.

Maybe a very skilled mechanic could turn an AI-persona core into a new digital brain, the operation would be very dangerous though...