Faction Idea: The Lawmen

[Barley]

So another thread posed the question:

Not sure if anyone else had though about why isn't there any 'law' enforcers or at least any peacemaker of sorts in the Rimworld. I'm baffled at the hostile factions' ability to pump out so many raiders in such short notice, yet not a single man of law in sight we see.

Now the obvious answer to why we see no law enforcers on the Rimworld is, simply, that it's a rimworld; their is no central government to uphold the law. But, I figure there is an opportunity here.

Faction: [insert name here] (Lawmen)
Information: These men and women are the self-proclaimed rulers of the Rimworld. They enforce the peace, provide material aid, and drive off pirates...for a price.

Game Mechanics: Lawmen are a nonentity until the player builds a comms array and beacon. Once the Lawmen detect both buildings, they will begin sending envoys just like other friendly factions. However, unlike other factions your relationship with the lawmen is never static: Instead, it drops slowly over time at a rate dependent on the wealth of the colony. In short, you must pay taxes to the Lawmakers or suffer their wrath.

As Hostiles: Lawmen will either raid or besiege your settlement, depending on the settlement size. Unlike hostile tribes who kidnap your settlers, the Lawmen will try to steal wood, metal, silver, and manufactured resources. If they succeed in taking enough resources, your relationship with them will reset to zero (They've collected their 'tax').

As Allies: Lawmen do not want to destroy you. In fact, they want you to thrive so they can keep taxing your resources! So as long as you pay tribute, you will have access to two diplomatic options:
-Barrow Resources: For a diplomatic penalty, the Lawmen will deploy a stockpile of metal, wood, and food to your location. Good for recovering from a deadly attack.
-Call for aid: Just like every other faction

As an Army: The lawmen are, man-for-man, the strongest humanoid faction in the game. They never leave home without full body armor, and generally pack a combination of energy assault rifles and M24s. They also come to fights en-mass, and thus as allies can be generally relied on to bail your ass out during a pirate siege. Their greatest drawback is their self-preservation: Lawmen will fight from a distance whenever possible, and if one of their own is incapacitated they will attempt to rescue him/her. That means for every lawmen incapacitated, another will be lost taking the wounded back to base. Further, any Lawmen brought below 30% health automatically retreats.


What do you think? Too much of an annoyance? Too powerful? Just fine? Or completely untenable as a design idea?

[Ink.]

I like the idea of a faction that is more interested in the resources of a colony than the actual colonists, but I don't think "Lawmen" would be that faction. I think that the lawmen would be similar to the tribe and want to kidnap your members. Certain members that they deem (for whatever reason) are criminals and need to be "brought to justice". However, unlike the tribe instead of the "kidnap who they can and leave" they intend to kill or kidnap a specific colonist, making it sort of a VIP mission where now you have to protect whoever they have as a target.

As allies, I think they would consider you "above the law" and refrain from attacking you, perhaps even ask for assistance in capturing another target of theirs.

Your idea for the taxation of resources and all that though is an awesome idea, and it would be cool to see that. Perhaps they could be a rogue like trading faction that attempts to deal in all forms of trade, but are more aggressive and steals the stuff they sell rather than producing them. They raid various colonies (generally hostile to everyone) and steal their resources so that they can sell them back or to other colonies. Meaning that if these guys are raiding you, you want to keep protection on your stockpiles as they'd target that.

That's just my .02 cents though, or how I would do it. It'd be cool to see some of these factions with a little more flavor, with ideologies and goals of their own. Rather than just raiding you to kill you, raiding you for your resources or because they think one of your colonists are "law breakers". Etc etc.

[bullwinkle]

I like this idea a lot, seeing how I always end up with all factions being hostile against me. Being able to have some support would be great. I wouldn't mind paying a tax to them at all neither

[BetaSpectre]

In Rimworld my colony IS the law of the land :3

[Untrustedlife]

I like this idea