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Alpha 1 was released today, where/when can I get a download link?

It should be emailed to you. I was wondering that myself once I saw the newspost and saw no related email. It came in eventually. Give it some time. If you don't see the link in your inbox (don't forget to check spam folder for something from 'sendowl') soon, then I guess email tynan about it. But give it a little time to filter through the systems first.

We probably won't have any hardcoded factions; I'm planning on doing factions which are generated from some list of "types". So they'd generate a name, a hometown, a slogan, a basic history, a style, stuff like that. It remains to be seen how much room there will be for actual authored content in this. However much room there is, though, you'll be able to mod stuff in to fill it.

In that case, how will factions differ from one another, other than the story based items you already listed? Will there be different strategies? Will one be more diplomatic whereas another will attack without question?

Do you have any specific factions planned yet?

How about an acidic environment.

All bodies of water (if they are implemented) are toxic to drink and cause damage to anything and anyone in them. Acid rain falls, causing faster wear on exposed construction and minor damage to people in the rain. It also damaged crops. Water must be purified to be drank.

The trade off is that rock is more brittle. Mining goes faster, however roofs cannot be supported as far from rock as they can be from built walls. Perhaps steam vents can be more common (implying that there's perhaps volcanic activity underground, causing the acidity as well as the increased steam).

Another one is: Arid environment
There's no mountains at the side of the map, and very few rock outcroppings around. Almost no steam vents, if any. There will be no natural water sources, and very few locations with fertile ground (but they do still need to exist, lest it be impossible to survive on that map without a very specific research progression). Water needs to be drawn from wells. Perhaps the fertile areas could be very fertile though, growing food at a much faster rate.

Advantages are that there's very little natural cover for raiders to use for themselves as they approach. Other than that, there's no real advantages or disadvantages, just a completely different style of play required for this type of map.

btw sorry for bringing back this thread, but it seemed interesting enough to revive, rather than make a new one on the same topic.

I have my cell block set near my main entrance (though not right next to it). In there, there's a handful of private rooms without doors, a communal nutrient paste dispenser and table and chairs. I have plants in each room, and keep the area carpeted and well lit (red carpeting).

I also have gibbet cages around the main area and a pair flanking the entrance. These are loaded with assassins that have been involved in raids against my base. This is my warning to my prisoners. I will treat you well and I will provide for your needs, but if you cross me, this is your fate!

They join fairly quickly usually.

Lots of clothing is in the game now. However, you can't actually manipulate it yet - it's just spawned as part of the character and stays with them forever.

Woud be nice if you could loot some of the more interesting clothing from raiders that you kill.

What about being able to assign more than one bed to a colonist?

More than likely a colony will have it so that 1 colonist = 1 bed, but sometimes you don't pick up more colonists but build several bases. You could assign a bed in each base to each colonist and he'll simply go to the closest one.

Nice really pumped for the new stockpiles. Like it the way its now but a little something more would help.
Maybe use the icon thing but have them only pop up while the curser is hovering over that stockpile. and make the icons pop beside/around your curser so this gets around the problem with the stocks being 1*1 and not showing all the icons.

I think that would work. So long as there aren't too many resources added later on.

I really like the small icon add.
But how would that look on a 1*1 or 2*2 stockpile that holds everything.

Maybe have a minimum of 1 square per item it can hold. Afterall, how can you put both food and metal into a 1*1 square?

Not but what if you use the food and metal gets dumped inside instead.

True... But I was thinking to limit the ability to only being able to assign a resource to it if there's enough space to accommodate it. 1*1? only 1 resource can be assigned. 2*1? 2. 2*2? 4 max. Icons would be a bit crowded on 'packed' dumps like that, but at least you'd be able to use them. Same deal with stripping the colours of the stockpile. If it's too small, your stripes are going to be too hard to see.

Alternatively you could have an icon representing multiple resources, when insufficient room is allowed for each individual one.

I really like the small icon add.
But how would that look on a 1*1 or 2*2 stockpile that holds everything.

Maybe have a minimum of 1 square per item it can hold. Afterall, how can you put both food and metal into a 1*1 square?

I think it would be great it you could assign a stockpile a certain type (or types) of good(s) to store, rather than an everything goes type of deal. Then you could have colours based on the goods it can accept. Brown for metal, grey for food, beige for metal & food (or stripped brown/grey).

Same deal with dumping zones, of course with a different colour scheme.

This way I could place my food stockpile near where my colonists are going to eat, and my metal ones near where they are going to build, etc).

Almost without fail, everytime I go to light my graveyard/body dumping site on fire to eliminate the bodies, a huge torrential rain starts falling. Sometimes it'll happen while my colonist is walking to the site, although normally it'll only happen once they are already there and have lit a fire or two.

Almost without fail, I cannot clear more than 15% of my graveyard before the fires are put out and I need to wait a day or so for the rain to stop to try again.

I'm pretty sure the game sees 'excessive fires' and sends rain down to compensate...

Galileus is right, it's already been brought up and seen by Tynan. I don't remember where, I just know he acknowledged it already.

That being said, the OP's idea sounds like it might work. I think the main drawback to anything of the sort is the amount of processing that will take when you take into account you're doing that over and over again for each colonist, each time he chooses a new task to complete. Now if you get those large colonies where you have 70 colonists, then you might find it runs slow even on normal hardware. Optimization of handling tasks is as important as optimization of utilization of processing power.

[Semmy]

Of course it would help if list of suggested features was updated, Semmy!

Was thinking that myself.

Well the old thread only touched on this idea. I thought it would be most likely to spark a discussion if I took the time to explain the idea in more detail.

Hi everyone,

I mentioned this idea in a previous thread, along with other ideas. However no one addressed this idea as being either good or bad. I am anxious to have a discussion about it, and rather than dig up an old thread, thought I might make a new one dedicated to this idea, instead of mixing it in with others.

My idea was to adjust turrets. Nerfing them to start, but adding additional research options that would bring them to on par with what they are now, but with various options to help customize them to your individual playstyle.

I am on the fence as to whether the first iteration of a turret would need to be researched or not. I am leaning towards not, because without any research, a turret would be nothing more than an immobile gun emplacement (something which might be able to be built with only metal parts.

Essentially it would be gun emplacement into which any smg/assault rifle/sniper rifle can be installed, and which needs to be manually controlled by a colonist. It would then assume the 'shooting' skill of the colonist maning it. Perhaps it would require power (servo controlled turning perhaps?), at which point maybe it adds or subtracts a point or two from the colonists skill. Then with further research (faster servos), the turret would either match, or even exceed the colonist's shooting skill. A colonist manning a turret would gain cover equivalent to a sandbag while inside of it.

Researched upgrades could be applied to the turrets. We would limit a turret to having a maximum upgrade capacity of 2 (or maybe only one, with a second upgrade slot unlocked through research), so that players would need to pick which upgrade combinations work best for them. This would be done on a turret by turret basis, so you could have a different setup for your forward turrets than you do for the ones closer to the back of your defenses. Upgrades would include:

Turret Cooling: Faster rate of fire of attached weapons.
Turret Armour: Increased HP for the turret, also increased cover for any colonists manning the turret.
Turret Capacitors: Decreased power requirements? (maybe have this be universal instead of a turret specific upgrade?)
Automation: No longer needs to be manned, but is assumed to have a default shooting skill of 5. (this means that it may perform worse or better than if it were manned, depending on which colonists you were comparing to).
Extended barrels: Increased turret range.
Auto-repair droid?: Slowly repair damage to the turret
Anti-radiation shielding: Allowing the turret to remain operational during a solar flare (again this might be a turret specific upgrade, or a universal upgrade applied to all turrets and not taking an upgrade slow. Not sure which is the better option).
Battery backup: Allowing the turret to remain operational while power is out (until the battery runs out).
Dual barrel: Allows a second weapon to be attached to the turret. Must be identical to the first one. Each shot would include two projectiles then (same hit or miss chance, not calculated independently).

I'm also thinking that the basic turret, without upgrades would only explode in a 1 square radius, therefore only killing the colonist manning it. However with each applied upgrade the explosion radius might increase by 1, to the current explosion radius which it has now of 3 if it has 2 upgrades applied to it.

Any other upgrades anyone can think of? Is this a good idea?