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Having no patch for over a month is not too serious. I thought people were joking when they were saying it's been too long. I mean seriously? 1 month isn't the end of the world. Particularly when you take into account Tynan did actually keep us in the loop through blog posts and forum interaction.

He explained, very clearly what he's been working on and what he's been spending his time on. I'm not sure what the issue is. He didn't disappear. He didn't promise a patch then not deliver. He didn't take our money and run...

I mean if in 2 more months there's still no changes to the game in our hands, then I'd start to wonder (I mean half the reason so many of us pledged was to have early involvement and see the game progress and evolve). But a little patience is a requirement in a project like this.

Being patient is not being a sheep.

Hi Tynan,

I looked all over the old boards I used to play on, but they seem to have deleted the older content (it's been a few years since I've been on them).

However, I did find this on an online character sheet that was still available. It's the Character Bio for a Gnome Illusionist I made back in the day. I loved RPing this character as he had a lot of personality. Particularly when it came to his fear of fire.

So here it is:

Description
Standing at 3'8" tall. Dimble is a gnome with little stature. He makes up for it with his ego however, as he believes his magic makes him mighty and powerful. He is not very strong, but has a strong body. His hair is black, and his eyes are brown. But there is little of note about this diminutive little man.

Personality
Dimble believes himself a powerful mage in the body of a small gnome. He does not think of his small size as a limitation. But he does believe that he will one day be recognized as being great. This is learned from his master, not an inherant trait in his personality. He has a strong sense of right and wrong, and justice.

Background
Dimble grew up in the town of Waterdeep. He lived with his parents who worked long hours and scrapped by on only modest wages. Though his childhood was nothing special, it was a time in his life that he remembers being happy.

His parents both worked in their own Alchemy store, but did not earn enough to live with anything but the barest essentials, at least that's how it appeared to Dimble. He was happy living with his parents, but sometimes resented them for not being able to provide the comforts and toys he had wanted.

Still as a young boy, Dimble found a piece of parchment laying around outside his parents store. Thinking it to be trash he picked it up and went to discard it, but upon looking at it, he saw symbols the likes of which he had never seen. Over the next few months, he spent many hours trying to figure out exactly what it was he had.

One night, it just seemed to click into place, and he was able to read the parchment, but as he finished reading the last word out loud the writting suddely flashed then faded and the parchment crumbled in his hands. At the same time his hands started to glow, fairly brightly. He ran to his parents crying, afraid of what had happened.

His parents recognized the spell at once (Light) and soothed their son. Soon after they arranged for Dimble to meet with a local mage who often came into the shop for potions. This man was named Aldus Spellslinger.

The man walked in with an arrogance around him. He knew who he was and that, no matter what, he was more important than you. His arrogance was also obvious in his voice and speach:

"Is this the boy? He does not look too impressive. I really don't have time for an apprentice right now, but I could always make an exception..." That last he had said while shaking a coin purse.

Only later did Dimble find out that his parents had been putting money aside for him since he'd been born. They lived such modest lives so that he could have a future. They spent this savings on the "fee" for this mage.

It was through years of training with Aldus that Dimble managed to develop his focus and power. It was also by being around such a man that he managed to become egotistical and arrogant in his own right (but not nearly to the same extent).

It was not for much longer though, that he would continue his education with his mentor. The day he died was one he would remember for the rest of his life.

Dimble was in the library doing some studies, when he came upon a new spell, one which he hadn't yet learned. Aldus would be out for a while longer yet, and Dimble wanted to try this new spell. Gathering the required components together, he quickly went to work.

Dimble did not realize the extent of damage a miscast spell could cause. That realization came with a sudden flash of light, and flames shooting all around him. It also happened right as Aldus walked into the room. Dimble's world turned red, then black.

Dimble slowly awoke to the sounds of a voice, but not that of his mentor's. The voice coaxed him out of his sleep and back into the real world. Looking up, Dimble realized he looked into the eyes of a priest. One devoted to Lathander by the looks of his garments. This man had just saved his life.

Upon proper introductions, Dimble thanked the man, who he learned was named Radleigh, and Dimble then quickly vowed that so long as he lived, and Radleigh wanted him, he would follow this man as a friend and companion. After a short period they also became quite good companions, although they sometimes appear to be 2 sides of the same coin. Whereas Bradleigh was always noble and kind, the goodness in Dimble's heart was sometimes hard to see properly due to his (learned) arrogance.

Not long after meeting, Dimble shared with his new friend the barest details of the events that led up to their encounter. All Dimble shared with Radleigh was that he had caused an accident with a spell, and his master had died. Realizing that he was not truly ready to discuss this, Dimble has failed to mention it again since.

His friend Radleigh had also spoken (at great length) about his Deity. Dimble worshipped Boccob (or Mystra if Boccob isn't available), but he had no major loyalty to her. So when the conversation turned to religion, Dimble did not have much to discuss, so he normally just listened.

Not long after meeting, Radleigh informed Dimble that he had important business in a town called Bywater. Dimble did not even hesitate to agree to follow Radleigh. Radleigh already knew that to get there, they'd need to take a caravan from Baldur's Gate. Upon signing up with the Caravan in Baldur's Gate, Dimble noticed a small boy get chased away. Radleigh excused himself for a short period of time and returned shortly after with the boy in tow. Dimble was proud of his friend for his actions, and slighly embarrassed that he hadn't thought of doing it himself.

During the trip, Radleigh made several attempts to introduce Dimble to the boy, but the lad seemed to want nothing to do with the diminutive gnome, and Dimble also had little outward interest towards the boy.

I'd like to put my name forward too.

Are you a clear, concise writer?
I like to think so.

Are you interested in the RimWorld fiction?
Very much so. So far I love all things Rimworld

Are you willing to help moderate creative rewards?
I don't think I'd be responding here if I wasn't.


It would also be good if you answered:
1. What is your writing experience?
Nothing professional. Most of my creative writing has come from play-by-post D&D forums online.

2. Why do you want to help out?
So far I love all things Rimworld and am excited about this project.

3. How much are you available to help out?
I have a handicapped child which must be my priority. Also I work a full-time IT job. So the likelihood is my availability will be limited to some evenings and most weekends. Depending on my son's needs, that may vary. As I'm sure I've mentioned to you, I live in Montreal if ever you need to meet in person for a discussion on the subject of Rimworld.

I'm going to try to find some of my old PBP forum posts to give you an example of my on-the-fly creative writing. Once I track those down I'll email you with them or post them here...

I wonder if maybe instead of reducing the likelyhood of having a traveller pass by, or incapacitating raiders once you get a higher population, that instead it would limit your ability to recruit them. It should never be nil, but could perhaps be as low as like 0.5% each try. This way you could actually see yourself acquiring prisoners. I usually build myself an elaborate prison, with a dozen beds and their own nutrient paste dispenser and dining area. But 99% of the time it's empty and the rest it's got a single prisoner in it. I'd like to see myself with 3-4 occupants most of the time. With perhaps as many as 8 or 9 at a time. When you have many prisoners increase the amount of slave traders which come by (but maybe they don't have anyone to sell, or have more useless characters). Or you could periodically execute them to keep fear higher in the colony.

Perhaps instead of an artificial limit on population like no more than 15 colonists, there could be a dynamic one. When you try to recruit, it takes into account the following: Are there free beds? Are they private quarters? Is there enough food production to support more population? Are there available weapons (with higher quality weapons being worth more in this calculation than a simple handgun)? How long has it been since there's been a fatality? How often do colonists get hurt? Are there many incompatible colonist already (a warden who constantly beats a prisoner isn't likely to be that prisoner's friend once he's a full member of the colony, or a religious colonist may not want to live in a colony filled with courtesans and assassins)? etc.

Depending on these answers a prisoner may or may not be inclined to join. So you can't recruit if you don't have the ability to support them, or your colonists tend to be unhappy most of the time, or your colonists are always dying... If a prisoner is too happy, they might not want to join if they see it's likely they'll be less happy as a colonist (why join the colony to work hard for little reward if you can sit back in prison, being well fed, taken care of and enjoying leasure time with the warden)? Might make using fear tactics on your prisoners more appealing... (you might not want to become a servant for the colony if you're trading in your casual conversations, but maybe you're more likely to if you are always being beaten, or periodically see other prisoners being executed).

Just a thought. And I think it builds off an idea I read earlier in this thread...

The biggest problem with making the game more realistic, insofar as gun damage, again comes back to the turrets. If raiders die in one or two hits from any bullet, I could just set up a wall of turrets to throw as much lead in any direction as possible, and never have to worry about losing colonists again.

Agreed.

I'm not yet convinced that realistic damage would be better, but I'm not convinced it wouldn't be either. Certainly it would need balancing, along with balancing for the turrets too. But it does raise a few ideas.

Turrets:
I've mentioned in a previous thread (with no comments on this one way or another), that the following turret changes could be implemented:
Initial turrets would need to be researched. You don't just start with the ability to make them.
The first generation of turrets would be weak, and manually controlled... Essentially a gun emplacement for a colonist to man. Granting him say 50% cover while he's manning it, but he's still vulnerable to taking damage.
Perhaps the turret would be nothing more than a shell, and an actual gun, from a list of compatible ones, would need to be installed in it, making it so you need to chose to use that R4 rifle in a colonists hands, or install it in the turret.
Further turret research could include upgrades... like automation (which grants a 'gun skill' of 5 to the turret, which may or may not be better than being manned by a colonist). Increased damage, increased range, increased cover for the occupant (not compatible with automation), increased rate of fire, etc. Limit the turret to no more than two upgrades applied, and for each upgrade increase the explosion radius (however decrease the base radius for an un-upgraded turret to 1).

If you then balance the cost to build a turret and to upgrade it, then you can make it near impossible for a colony to make a wall of auto turrets. But if they do, then they probably cut other essentials out, like larger/more rooms for colonists, more energy from generators, etc.

Also basic turrets might only require a small amount of power, but upgrades could increase their power consumption, automation of course requiring the most).

Other ideas come to mind, though like turrets are not necessarily dependent on 'realistic' gun damage. One that comes to mind right now is another piece of equipment you can find... body armour.

Ballistic vest allows the absorption of 1-2 more bullet hits, or perhaps simply cutting down bullet damage so that a single sniper rifle will still likely be fatal, but a person could most likely survive 2-3 assault rifle rounds, and 4-5 pistol rounds. A ablative vest to help negate energy damage (R-4 Rifles), concussive vest to reduce explosive damage, and a fireproof vest to make the colonist immune (almost) to fire, while providing little or no other benefit to the other damage types he may face. These would be far more valuable when found in a raid (and far more devastating to lose when destroyed), if the ballistics vest increased your bullet absorption from 1 to 3 bullets than  from 5 to 8...

Which then brings up the idea of weapon categories. Ballistic, Energy, etc. Energy weapons currently only include the R-4 rifle, but could in the future include a weapon from each type... energy shotgun, energy handgun, energy grenade, etc. Energy weapons (at least projectiles) would have a higher hit rate but lower damage... Meaning your colonists may die from 1 or at most 2 bullets from an uzi, but at least they don't get hit often... Or when using an energy uzi, they'd get hit more often, but likely survive 4-5 bullets. I guess I could see it being argued the other way, with lower accuracy than bullets, but higher damage, depending on how you want to describe your weapons... an energy wave, a lightning bolt, a laser, etc.

That's enough of a rant for now, but many more ideas put forward.

I was thinking recently about the story from my most recent play-through. Forming the narrative in my mind. Something didn't seem quite right with it, which made me think of something.

See for yourself.

***
We lost another colonist yesterday. Roy, was one of the senior colonists. I remember him being a survivor after a raider attack and despite some objections decided to recruit him and put him to work. Turns out it was a good decision as he ended up being a valuable asset to us. I can't recall what he said he did in his childhood though...

His death is particularly devastating, as the eclipses we've been having recently have been a serious setback to our food production. Coupled with the fires from repeated lightning strikes to the growing area, we've been just shy of starving to death for a few weeks now.

I shouldn't have ordered him to the front. The raiders were closer than I thought. I pointed out some cover ahead and he ran to it, trying to get behind it under a rain of bullets. He was hit twice on his way there, but managed to stay up. He started returning fire, and things were looking better for him as some of the raiders chose more accessible targets after. Through the next few minutes I saw him get hit 2... 3... 4 more times. Finally I decided to get him out of there and called for him to come back, telling smith to take his place.

A sniper from the back of the raider group had been missing badly the whole time. I mean every shot went wide and didn't come near Roy when he was even aiming at him. But this time, as soon as I waived Roy back, he fired again, and his shot hit Roy clear in the head. He went down immediately. No cry of pain, no grunt, no stagger... just dropped where he was. That was the end of Roy. I can't even remember what his first name was...
***

That story made me think... what kind of a God is Roy where he can get hit by not only 6 bullets in a regular firefight and keep going, but it takes a final sniper shot to end him? And all this from a Farm Oaf? Then I realized that all my colonists get hit multiple times before being most likely incapacitated. And the raiders too... But they can take even more because they are less likely to fall unconscious. They just fight until they die.

So it made me think... should bullet damage be more realistic? One hit will either kill or incapacitate a target. Let it be the range, weapon accuracy, and shooter skill that determines the outcome of a fight, and not how many bullets you can take. It would definitely affect your strategy, and that of the raiders. No more running through gunfire to get to closer cover, or running to get that incapped pirate out of the middle of the fight... Cover would become invaluable. Each hit you score a major victory. Each hit you take a major loss. All weapons become very powerful, but also very dangerous to fight against.

But how would that work?

Each weapon should have a different damage distribution. Look at the chart at this link (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/88/Nc_student_t_pdf.svg), but mirror it, so that it didn't start high and trail off, but gradually grew to a 'climax' then dropped off suddenly. The 'X' axis would be damage and the 'Y' axis would be # of shots... A sniper rifle could have a higher damage than other weapons with less deviation. So more shots hit in that 'critical' zone, with very few flukes allowing someone to survive (although they do happen). An assault rifle would have good high damage but with a wider distribution of damage, allowing more flukes that are just flesh wounds. And work your way down to handguns which would have a wide range of damages, from critical one-shot kills, to situations where he might take two or even three bullets to drop.

Of course, just weapon damage isn't enough. If you get hit by a sniper bullet and survive, you are probably still out of the fight. So we would say that sniper bullets have a 75% chance of incapacitating someone. assault rifles would be 50%, and handgun and uzi would be 30%. Shotgun would be 90%. This is of course assuming they even survived the damage, which would be distributed in such a way as to mean that most people wouldn't survive more than a single shotgun or sniper bullet, but it's possible they do... if they are lucky.

Explosive damage would have a 100% chance of causing incapacitate if they survived, and they would only survive in a very lucky situation. Fire would never incapacitate someone, as they'd be running around burning until they died (or the fire was put out).

What does anyone think of this? Would it be better to be a mod? To be implemented in the full game or is it just a bad idea?

Just a thought on the leader role... perhaps one of your initial three colonists needs to be the first leader. Chosen when creating the colonists (a check box saying 'Leader' should be sufficient).

Then to replace him while a leader is still alive, only those with a higher social skill can be made leader. If dead, then after the waiting period the new leader is automatically assigned to the colonist with highest social (representing them voting a new leader in?)

For sheriff, you can only replace him if a leader is alive and not incapacitated. This represents the leader choosing who to fill that position, and if no leader is available, no one can be a sheriff unless they already were...

Perhaps the raiders could evaluate threat levels of your base before attacking. If they see that most of the entrance areas of your base are highly guarded and defensible they will avoid those. But they see a wall off to the side which they can access easily, they bring in a few grenade toting guys with them, blow the wall up and enter your base that way. They avoid your most highly defensive areas while keeping most of their people alive for the assault. Avoiding having exposed areas like this is part of good base design, but not always possible.

Maybe they only use this type of strategy if there is a leader with them, so normal raider raids just attack what they want, but the leader will coordinate and plan a proper assault (or perhaps withdraw if it's determined an assault is impossible against the available defenses).

[Walls/Doors:]

Hey everyone,

This is my first time posting in the forums. I've been reading over the general and modding forums quite a bit, but haven't yet looked too deeply into the ideas forum here, so please forgive me if many of these ideas have been put forward before.

I guess before I begin, let me say that this game is awesome. I haven't really stopped playing it since I got it when 254 came out. I even play hookey at work in order to get more play time. So none of these ideas are a criticism on the way the game is. Only ideas that I thought of that may or may not be any good.

I thought I'd just put a big list out there of things I've thought of and see what people think of some of these things.

Walls/Doors:
Wooden Door: Requires wood (not metal). Doesn't require power. Needs to open and close manually, which is slower than a powered automatic door, but faster than an unpowered automatic door. Can come in different iterations (light-duty, heavy-duty) which affect cost and HP, but not flammability. Highly flammable. Less durable than metal doors. If adding wood as a resource isn't a good idea, then this could simple be a 'basic door' instead, being made of metal, but with no option for automatic open/close. If metal though, highly-flammable doesn't make sense.

Cargo Doors: Doors which cover two or three tiles. Opened or closed state can be toggled manually only, and only with power. Heavy duty, high durability and non-flammable. Perhaps an option (research-able?) is a battery backup allowing you to toggle the open-close state once when power is out. Could work well as a gate to a main entrance or courtyard, or if vehicles are implemented could be garage doors...

Reinforced metal doors: Non-flammable, high-HP, perhaps only available with some research. Requires more metal to make, or perhaps manually upgrading a door once already in place. Perhaps too heavy to open manually, so only works with power. Perhaps with the battery backup option also, allowing a few open-closes without power or to 'lock' the door in the open state once until power is restored?

Isolation door: If any sort of viral disease is ever thought of, it can't pass through this type of door unless an infected person goes through it. Good to mark off a medical bay, or possible for an external airlock type deal. Only effective with an 'Isolation' wall, which is the wall equivalent of the same. They would have a slightly different appearance, perhaps something in a white hue, to allow for a true 'med-bay' type feel. Research-able.

Reinforced walls. Low-flammability, higher HP. Again either requiring manual upgrading after a regular wall is built or simply being it's own separate build menu item. Probably requires research to enable.

Shielded walls/doors. Highly expensive. Perhaps low HP. Perhaps requiring a new resource which isn't available yet (lead?). It would allow any electrical equipment within a room made entirely with shielded walls/doors to be protected from solar flares. Probably requiring research to build.

Gun-holes: Can be built into reinforced walls/doors to allow colonists to shoot through them while receiving 90% cover. However takes a long time to retrofit a wall/door for this, and if the wall/door is on fire, the colonist manning that position also catches fire (hit it with a Molotov and the colonist is having a bad time).

The walls/doors options above, they could all either be a separate build menu item, or I think might work best for some/all of them to have an 'upgrade' option available when a single or group of walls/doors is selected. This would allow you to designate those to be re-built into the new walls when a colonist has time.

Defenses:
The initial iteration of the turret should be research-able, and only manually controlled. Requiring a colonist to man it. It would provide cover to the colonist equivalent to a sandbag, and if the colonist is killed/incapped, then the turret goes 'offline' until manned anew. If the turret is destroyed while a colonist is inside, then a 1 square explosion would happen, killing the colonist and hurting (though not necessarily killing) other nearby colonists/walls/doors/etc.

Auto Turret Upgrade allows the turret to be unmanned. This allows your colonist to man his own gun, but the turret accuracy is likely equivalent to a colonist with a shooting skill of 5. So it may be more accurate or less so after being unmanned, depending on which colonist you used. This should be a turret-by-turret upgrade, allowing you to have some automatic and some manual, depending on your play-style. Should this allow a manual-control override in case you want to man it with a more accurate colonist?

Other turret upgrades, including increasing damage, accuracy and re-fire rate. Perhaps only allowing a turret to accept one or two upgrades max, so you have to chose between a faster turret with more damage but requiring manual control, or an auto turret with increased accuracy, but firing more slowly and doing less damage than the previous example. Perhaps each upgrade in a turret would increase it's explosion radius by 1? Not sure if that's a good idea or not... But then again the max explosion size you could have with 2 upgrades would be 3, which is the same explosion size they have right now... so maybe.

Concrete 'sandbags.' Filling regular sandbags with concrete instead. This would allow more HP before the sandbag is destroyed and remove all flammability from it. But you couldn't sell it back afterwards. you'd have to haul it away like debris if you wanted it moved (which could be good or bad depending on if you simply want to move it to a new location or get rid of it altogether). Of course this would cost more than regular sandbags.

Food:
eating raw potatoes or onions would make your colonists unhappy, but not as much as eating raw meat. Eating raw raspberries or agave though does not make then unhappy. In fact raw raspberries might even make them happy. Eating raw food would restore less 'hunger' than cooked food, which in turn restores less than nutrient paste. Nutrient paste would remain as is, but cooked food would either negate any negative effects or even add some positive ones, depending on the food.

This might require food to be sorted into a few categories though, so not sure if it's plausible or desired. If so, said categories would be:
- meat (very unhappy from eating raw, but gives most hunger benefit uncooked)
- root vegetables (unhappy from eating raw, but gives more hunger benefit uncooked than 'lower' categories)
- other veggies (no unhappiness from eating raw, but only some hunger benefit uncooked)
- fruits (some happiness from eating raw, but very little hunger benefit).

Nutrient paste would be generated from the dispensers as it is, but if categories are used, dispensers could be programmed to use one category of food before another or not at all, should more than one be available. This would allow you to chose to leave your fruits untouched for when power is out, or to use them first to maximize their hunger benefit, as nutrient paste always gives the same amount of hunger, which is the highest you can get from any source.

If food categories are used, then you could assign hydroponics tables to only grow certain types. Perhaps allowing the food event to only wipe out certain categories which are growing, or all of them.


Colonists/Prisoners/slaves:
Prisoners don't always have to join you as a full-colonist. If you want to talk to him and convince him of your cause then you can do so (perhaps some colonists convinced in that way will turn on you when the next raid comes around, indicating that they didn't truly accept to join but were simply pretending?).

What if you don't want to allow them the freedom of your base for fear of them turning on you in the next raid, or you keep capturing nobles, and you want to force them to work rather than letting them chose not to. You would then beat them, or execute other prisoners to increase their fear. Once their fear is sufficiently high, then they would join your colony as a slave instead of a colonist. They would always remain shackled, slowing their movement. They would never be able to participate in protecting the colony, but they could be made to do any manual labour task regardless of their 'profession.'

This could possibly require a new 'jailer' task, or fold it into the warden responsibilities. Which would be to feed your slaves and keep them sufficiently scared so they don't try to escape. Or perhaps to make them happy so that they could be convinced in the future to join your colony properly. A jailer (warden?) would also automatically try to recapture a slave which is trying to escape, which could happen at any time that they are unhappy and not scared enough. But since they are shackled, unless your warden is on the other side of the map, he should have no trouble recapturing one. Once a slave is recaptured, he will not try to escape again for several days, allowing you time to correct the issue which led to his attempt in the first place.

You could perhaps work your slaves to death, never allowing them to eat or rest, or you could treat them with respect and increase their happiness. If they are happy, then you can later convert a slave (with some interaction from the warden) to a colonist.

So again, happiness would be to convert prisoners or slaves into colonist (or to prevent slaves from trying to escape), and fear would be used to convert prisoners into slaves and to keep slaves from trying to escape.

Any slaves purchased from a slave trader would automatically be a slave in the colony until converted into a normal colonist. A slave trader will buy either prisoners or slaves from you. Although perhaps they will pay more for a slave than they will for a prisoner of the same type, simply because the work of converting them to slave is already done.

I guess that's it for now. I imagine this post is ridiculously long at this point. Not all of these ideas have been thoroughly thought out so they may have significant flaws, or be impossible to implement. I present them only for discussion on their strengths, and to give Tynan some ideas he may not have thought of already.