Messages

[Animals spawn food when killed]

Animals spawn food when killed - I've noticed watching LPs that player can bury Muffalo corpses, but other than that and psychotic animals there doesn't seem to be much interaction with wildlife. If animals spawned food on death it could make hunting a source of food. It also sets up for a future introduction of different types of food, like vegetables and meat.

Sims-style speech bubbles - Tynan has written a number of blog entries about game design, and in this one titled "The Simulation Dream" he mentions the effect conversations in The Sims series have on players. Should we use the same kind of thing when Colonists talk to each other, with a speech bubble and some image of the conversation topic inside? That wouldn't have to change any behavior, just display extra graphics.

Chemical/Persistent Fires - Fires that don't extinguish unless a colonist puts them out.

Seems like getting the Pirate King pledge (or higher!) might be a good idea. Thanks for making the thread for questions, salt1219!

For the Pirate King or similar tiers, it seems like so far the ideas have been for human raiders. Do the characters have to be human?

So here's one thought for Tynan.  At the very least, a visually distinctive notice for the player that a colonist is drafted.

I like Spike's idea of making the Draft button more visible when a colonist is drafted, though the specific implementation should fit well with the visual themes of the game.

While I was watching an LP, I noticed the player had to look for which colonists had guns and draft them individually. I think being able to choose soldiers in advance and draft them all at once might be useful functionality. Here's a mock-up (thanks for the image Spike!):



Elsewhere in the interface the player would have a "Draft all Militia" button. Then players could get all the soldiers they want with one click.

For people who are already playing the pre-Alpha, does this seem like something you would use?

You know what's cheap? Data Entry! I was watching Blitzkriegsler's LP and noticed things like Mineral has Health but doesn't say it can be mined for Metal. Just UI-wise there doesn't seem to be a way to tell the difference between Mineral and Rock. Similarly when selecting things like Muffalo it tells you what the Muffalo is doing but not what a Muffalo is.

I think having a "description" field in the display when selecting things would be a valuable, cheap addition. For example, Mineral's description could say "This can be mined for metal" and a Muffalo's could be "A large herbivore". These descriptions could help new players get acclimated to the game. Also, if you wanted to get fancy you could parametrize the descriptions to make them different for different instances of a thing (like having fat/thin, large/extra large, wooly Muffalo).

*awesome stuff!*

Wow, I didn't expect you to have thought of so much detail already! And the commissioned image looks good! The half-concealed gun is a nice touch.

Spiderbots sound very cool! It's good that you're thinking of concepts like balance and their roles in the game. I think the concept image conveys the idea well.

I'm sure the forums would help you flesh out your character! You've mentioned he's a reluctant pirate, but otherwise we haven't heard much about him. What kind of backstory have you thought of so far?

[Rough Terrain]

Thanks to Tynan for doing such a good job involving the community and responding on the forums!

Weapons:
i've said it before and i will say it again, tasers and other nonlethal options would be a great alternative way to capture raiders.   how about a rubber bullet or bean bag firing riot gun? sadly i think these would require a knocked unconscious mechanic.

I agree this is a good idea, but like you said the extra mechanics could be costly. An easy way to implement it might be to give people a "stamina/subdual health" variable that worked like health, but when it reached 0 they would be incapacitated instead of killed. "Stun" weapons could damage this.

As far as cheap ideas are concerned, I think it's still important for additions to have significance. For instance, adding objects that do nothing would be one of the cheapest things to do, but I think that would only hurt the game rather than adding depth.

Rough Terrain - Barbed Wire is an artificial structure that slows movement, should there be a natural terrain that slows movement?

Cat-like animal - follows colonists around.

Teleport Raids - raiders spawn in middle of player's base.

Turret Drone - Turret with Raider AI.

Giant Bones/Spires/Monoliths - map objects with no functionality but looking nice.

E.g. Some topics would be off the tree; you'd only get them as a side-bonus if you had a colonist researching something related and got a critical hit. So, while researching turret cooling, you might stumble upon turret accuracy (which cannot be directly researched).

Could be too complex, that part, though. Anyway, thanks for the well-thought-out writeup!

In addition to being complex, my fear here is unless every "off the tree" topic had an infinite amount of related research topics you could get locked out of ever researching them. As Hypolite mentioned, while something like this would be a cardinal sin in a strategy game it's less egregious in a story-focused game like RimWorld - but it wouldn't be good if players kept being disappointed by missing out on content.

However, research events like disasters or breakthroughs might add more depth to researching. Besides events delaying or speeding up research, what other effects could there be? Research disasters could involve things like fires or explosions, while breakthroughs could give a bonus to the research stat or spawn a bonus object related to what's being researched. If we do have research events I like the idea of them being based on what's being researched, for instance a Fear research disaster could give a Colonist the "Terrifying Appearance" or (hypothetical) "Traumatized" traits.

What would be good research events for the different research topics?

One of the basic design principles I follow is that one one mechanic for one purpose. There's a lot of reasons why this is usually a good idea. It reduces designer burden, it reduces player learning burden, it makes the game cleaner overall. And with the same number of mechanics, you can get more experience if each one does something totally different.

Always great to hear more about your design philosophy Tynan! I do think one of the strong aspects of RimWorld is the intuitiveness of the interface and the friendlessness to new players, so I definitely think that should be continued. If you have the time, here's a situation to consider:

An equipment rack holds 2 weapons. Assume a player gathers ~30 weapons. Would it be better to make the player build ~15 equipment racks, have multiple equipment racks with different capacities (e.g. small, medium, large, etc.), or let the player upgrade the capacity of their equipment racks?

[One Way Doors]

Boomrats chew your power conduits, then explode once they get through the rubber (or whatever coats them)

This idea seems like a great addition, but might take a deal of time and effort since it's a new behavior and a new mechanic. But it seems like it would be better as an occasional surprise than something Boomrats actively pursued. Maybe something like:

Code Select Expand

chewingWiresRoutine()
if (boomrat is within X distance of a power conduit && % chance)
     //move to nearest power conduit and start chewing wires

Modify the Overview window so that it also shows what weapon the colonist is equipped with.

Showing more information to the player is a good thing! If there's already a check in game to see which weapon a colonist is carrying, and each weapon already has an associated icon, it seems like it would be easy to run the check and display the icon.

Would anyone like to see One Way Doors? The obvious application is a prison, but I think there are other uses like routing traffic and such. For people who have played the game, does this seem like something you would use? If a door normally opens by detecting colonists on either side is seems like it should be easy to cut that functionality in half, but if AI behavior has to be adjusted it could be more complicated.

As for tool racks in general, that could be abstracted easily to some kind of structure that gives a modifier.  Build a Workbench that is described as "being stocked with tools for any purpose", and all construction gets a 10% time/cost bonus.  Something like that, versus equipping a colonist with a hammer.  Or screwdriver.  Or welder.  Or pick.

Although I agree with the idea that an inventory system should be kept simple and straightforward, I think replacing it with structures that give a global bonus might be going to far in the other direction. For instance, in the example Spike described above I would build a room off in a corner somewhere with a bunch of workbenches so that everyone magically gets a big bonus. If we decided to do something like this I think it would be better done with research than structures, i.e. research "laser picks" for more effective mining or etc. That still uses a global bonus system, but without the abusability of associating the bonus with a structure.

As far as Equipment Racks go, it is true that an inventory system would probably necessitate a bit more complexity there. However, I think as long as we implemented a simple interface for them it should still be intuitive for players. As an example, consider an Equipment Rack that holds nine items. Clicking on the rack could display its items. Here's a mock-up (rack image stolen from the wiki, thanks for keeping it updated British et. al):



Does that seem intuitive enough to be used by most of our players?

If we start adding hand-held items other than weapons, there would indeed need to be items for every basic action (mining/building/growing crops/cutting herbs/cleaning blood/cleaning debris/... the list goes on).

In my opinion, held items should be limited, as weapons currently are.  Carrying a medkit would let the player direct someone to bandage up someone on the battlefield, instead of simply carrying them to a bed to heal.  I wouldn't want to see something way too complex, like needing picks or drills to mine, hammers to build, etc, etc.  The basic work should not require any explicit item; however I could see some advanced items that give a substantial boost to work being done.  But that's just my opinion.

I think Spike has the right idea here. British said inventory means there needs to be item requirements for basic tasks, but I don't think that's the case. Instead, all colonists could perform basic tasks at a default speed/effectiveness, but having specialized equipment could make them perform better. This way players don't have to micromanage everything, and they can make meaningful choices about what equipment to give which colonists. Choices like that add to the depth of the game, and the more depth it has the more interesting the stories will be.

With that being said, it is always important to look at both the advantages and disadvantages of an idea. British, if colonists don't need equipment for basic actions, what other disadvantages would we need to think about for a simple inventory system?

From what I've have seen of gameplay videos, introducing consumable ammo for common weapons would also introduce a lot of micromanagement for players. I don't think the benefits of it would be worth the liabilities.

However, we could still have an ammunition system without the need for an inventory. There could be different ammo types that are researched, and weapons could have an option to use different types of ammo. Examples would be things like armor-piercing bullets, hollow points, and rubber bullets.  A system like assumes an infinite amount of each kind of ammo so we don't have to worry about consumption or ammo management, but it still provides some amount of depth in ammo selection.

Would that satisfy people looking for an ammo system without introducing the micromanagement of consumable ammo?

The turret is a bad example, as it has been discussed elsewhere that we probably won't end up with too many turret types
Now of course it depends on how many tiers we would end up having...
The problem with slots is that it tends to give too much micro-management.

Thanks for the links British! When community-oriented projects use forums for communication it can be easy to miss out on good information, so I appreciate more experienced members like yourself linking to good posts for new members like me.

I agree that the building system would have more depth if structures could be upgraded or modified. The research system British recommended works well whenever the changes are a direct upgrade. I don't think players should be able to choose to build from every upgrade level though, since with a number of upgrades that could become over-complicated.

If there are going to be changes to a structure that modify its behavior rather than directly upgrading it (for instance, a hypothetical research lab specializing in a type of research or changing the color of lights) than it seems like those should be handled by slots or other optional settings.

Not to mention in my early years I was a lover of swarm-based organic threats like Warhammer's Tyranids, no I think it's likely I'll end up picking a creation that's used more widespread rather than once or twice as a BIG threat.

It will be really great to see how all the different Designer ideas come together to create RimWorld! I'm looking forward to AspenShadow's and salt1219's ideas in game.

I hope that the designs won't overwhelm the gameplay though. AspenShadow brought up a good comparison here between  how BIG a concept is vs. how widespread it is. If a design is a MegaBeast or super-powerful weapon it should be extraordinary (uncommon), whereas if a design shows up frequently it should have a more subtle effect. If the gameworld was covered in deadly robots or colonist-eating plants every game story would end early with all the colonists killed!

You guys talking about your cool ideas makes it very tempting to pledge at the Designer level, but that is an awful lot of money...

Great to see people embracing the story aspect of RimWorld! I am looking forward to reading more game stories as more players have access to the game.

As far as research is concerned though, I'd be wary of introducing random elements to research or hiding research from the player. Games that have tried systems like this include Paradox's Victoria II and Sword of the Stars 2. Victoria II's research system is not considered on of its strong points, and the less said about Sword of the Stars 2 the better.

Lechai, you see good at coming up with a lot of in-depth details for your ideas. Do you have any player-friendly ideas for research (i.e, not taking control or information away from the player)?