Your Cheapest Ideas

[skullywag]

I believe the select all option has been added to most if not all places its needed for alpha 8.

[REMworlder]

This one's pretty simple and not too important: make devilstrand cloth red!

It's weird that all devilstrand clothing is red, but when harvested devilstrand yields white cloth. As it has the same white image, devilstrand cloth is also indistinguishable from cotton.

[alphadude]

These might be simple or hard (IDK) but would be quite useful for RP and other things.

A storage rack for armour and clothing- because laying it around is weird.

A storage rack for food and stuff ( food on the floor???)

More foodplants that you can grow, the 2 that you can grow is quite limiting.

A guard/patrol mode to defend the colony from threats and rampaging things. I hate it when I am attacked and most of my guys are doing something elsewhere and no one is left to defend the base, also the turrets use power and sometimes doesn't target things, and keeping guys drafted only gets them into a rampage.

A rallying point, and assigned defensive positions in case of an attack (Easier management).

An alarm system that when heard by colonists while trigger them to get into their guard positions, and maybe draft them as well.

Some more surgery options, as well as some braces for broken bones and sprains.

Colonists in their free time (idle time) go shooting on a range, or learn new things (low xp boosts in learning areas), or gain more xp in areas they know (also low xp gain)

Also a practise target for shooting.

Customisable weapons and armour

Maybe even families as well but these would probably need a lot of time for devs and colonists to do.

Ways of entertaining people, like plays, games, etc...

Walls that have holes in them so colonists can shoot out of them.

Being able to go to other settlements and attacking them or making peace with them.

Colourable clothing (because one colour is not very fashionable)

Stun weapons that incap people, but is very short ranged and requires a long reload.

That is actually a longer list than I had expected. Some cheap ideas (I hope) but others do it if you have time.
Just some ideas for making this game even greater! Good job Ludeon on making such a wonderful game!

[StormProxy]

Indoor animals/pets?

[Wulfik]

I already added some ideas here but here is more of em :

1.) Force open doors. So they will be non stop open so animals etc. wont attack them.

2.) Mines/Stun mines. EMP mines which will affect only mechanic units.

3.) Traders. Not factions nor ships just some lone wanderer with two bodyguards or so selling random stuff.

4.) When you are typing something e.g. at the beginning of the game ( resources and stuff ) you CANT type you have to click and when you wanna more of them you are just clicking. ( Maybe I just didn't find way how to actually type those values )

5.) Random encounter that will cause people to join your colony. Can be armed or totally naked, healthy or sick, damaged etc. they might bring resources ( basic ones ), 1 or 5 or 5654 your choice so it wont be OP.

6.) Weather : wind => will slow movement of fauna and your colonists. Might increase spreading of any fire.

7.) Power armor training ( Fallout 3 ) - you have some tribesman who wore some animal skin all the time then you ordered him to get Power Armor and BAM suddenly all knowledge of this technology appears. There could be some research for this.

8.) Ditch would be great like sandbags but this will be indestructible ( its in the ground ( might be blown up or covered up with dirt, rocks, wood etc. your colonist can hide inside, will lower enemy effectivity of ranged attacks. Can be used AGAINST you as well if enemy will secure this position during attack.

9.) Low range AoE turret like tesla tower or those from Tower Defense games.

10.) Options to beat up prisoners which might lower their difficulty to be recruited AS WELL as lowering their mood so you cant just keep beating them and BAM new recruit.

11.) Those you treat good as prisoners might call others from their tribe/faction to join you OR get better skills ( just tiny little bit like 1 point in social or so )

12.) Funny would be if there was wheelchair or something like this some hover boards for those who lost their legs so they can still move in case you can't afford surgery.

13.) Characters could have FAVORITE JOB ( in their best skill or fastest learning skill or even different ones ) which when they WORK ON they will get bonus mood.

14.) Workaholic trait which will increase happiness during working.

15.) Man-mounted turret which will be affected by their skills like shooting or when colonist has no eye accuracy will decrease but rate of fire and number of shots will be same ( unless better turret is build ).

[Snowpig]

5. is already in the game.

[Zael]

I don't know if it's been asked or suggested already, but would it be difficult to add a second weapon slot to people? It just makes sense to me that people could carry a knife as well as a pistol to defend themselves. Shoot at the tribals till they get close then start stabbing at them with your knife.

[Unwitnessed]

Here's a few I had:

Wireless Power Generator Stations: A building that you can construct which will power any non-connected objects within a certain radius.  Stone or thick walls might reduce the effective range and perhaps a small random chance that a nearby plant or tree within the radius will catch fire (misdirected power).

Cooking fire: Could be constructed out of wood and used to cook animal meat before power is available so that colonists don't have to rely only on ration packs.

Refrigerator: Similar to Equipment Racks where perishable food items can be stored inside and kept cool.

Inventories and Item Volume: Certain constructions like an equipment rack for example might have a certain volume that could store an amount of items and display the list when you click on it.  This could allow for the future construction of storage shelves which could make for more tidy/efficient stockpiles after the colony gets richer.

Possession: A rare occurrence where a colonist gets possessed psychically by an unknown force and is given a random behaviour (destroy crops, build masterpiece, construct random walls, sell things, binge eat, run around the map, etc).  Other colonists can try to use their social skill to break them out of it, but if there is too much damage done, you might decide to arrest and imprison or kill the colonist in question.

Natural medicinal herbs: Plants that grow wildly that can be harvested on command.  The final product can be combined with cotton (for bandages) and wood (splints?) and made into a medkit.  The raw medicinal herbs could still be used in place of a medkit, but with less effect.

Move Order: Ability to move certain objects (like furniture, workbenches, potted plants) to a different location instead of selling it and rebuilding.  This could be added under the construction category or maybe the haul category.

Nuclear generator: Building that can use uranium to power it.  1 unit of uranium might provide a large amount of power for a long period like 6 months.  It would produce a nuclear waste by-product that would negatively affect mood if near colonists.  Also, colonists hauling the waste might get radiation sickness in the future if they aren't wearing proper gear.  Could also meltdown and irradiate area.  This sort of idea could be implemented in stages.

Fencing & Gates: Could be created to make animal pens in the future where an animal can be wrangled and brought there alive for later slaughter, shearing, or milking. 

[Unwitnessed]

And a few more:

Beartraps: Could be built and stored in a stockpile and then deployed by colonists at choke points during raider attacks.  %chance of crippling an enemy (or friend) that walks over them.

Interaction options with visitors:  If you right click on a visitor while a colonist is selected, the colonist could:
-Welcome the visitor
-Give a meal
-Give a gift (clothing or sculpture?)
-Ask to leave.
-Etc
These can have different effects on relations with neighbors depending on the social skill of the colonist.

Footwear:  Can wear shoes or boots or sandals or socks.  Each type effects movement and can be made at a tailoring workbench.

[amul]

1. For some reason, Colonists always seem to select the furthest unforbidden meal they can get their hands on. They should go for the closest grub.

2. Likewise, their preference for how far they are willing to walk in order to sit down and eat is not in scale for the game. They should be willing to walk about twice as far in search for a chair.

3. There are very few character backgrounds that grant medical skill. The pool of potential backgrounds could easily be expanded by harvesting the best of the user-submitted backgrounds. This could easily be done with the help of your forum moderators.

4. During initial colonist selection, there could be an option to guide the randomization to focus on the skills you are looking for. This could be as simple as a check box that when set to YES, auto-discards any background that forbids that task.

5. Keyboard shortcuts for everything, including the various menus.

6. Windows that you can shoot through.

7. I notice that my colony stays listed on the world I've landed them on when I launch a new colony on that world. Why not include them in the faction list and randomly generate their relationship score?

8. Allow trading with neutral factions on your world. This should be pretty simple, since you're just booting them into the existing comms system.

"More Sci Fi Themed Stuff"
9. Alien critters wandering around. They can have the exact same stats and icons (maybe colored differently) as existing beasts. Maybe some that glow in the dark?

10. Shield fencing - easy to destroy and shoot through when not powered.

11. Alien cloth crops that provide different colored fabric. "Martian Cotton," "Centauri Hemp."

12. Ship wreckage : randomly generated metal wall rooms, like the existing stone buildings.

Edited to add: It would also be nice if colonist immediate hauled things after harvesting/chopping/mining. Slightly tricky, since you want them to finish their series of mining/chopping chores before then proceeding to haul, but it wouldn't take that long and would emphasize the difference between non-haulers and haulers.

Researching carpets should also allow you to turn cloth and wood into couches.

ETA again: The trading screen should use a different rubric for measuring the value of the sale price. Right now, it's always a "very low price," because we're substantially below the price we would BUY it for. Give me some idea of whether or not I'm getting a good value for it! The difference between selling Gold at $9.50 versus $8.25 should be color-coded.

[Wulfik]

Releasing prisoners. I would like to see options to release somebody to increase reputation with his faction. And decreasing difficulty of prisoners recruitment could be affected by helping them in case their limb was lost during fight or so.

Raids which won't be only direct attack but negotiation. "500 silver and 250 food and we won't touch you for next 7 days" or something like this. Might work with prisoners as well or giving enemy research.

*edit*

Some kind of research tree so I can see what I need to research in order to achieve something else. Would really help when I use mods.

Amount of total autosaves ( now 5 e.g. ) / duration between autosaves or options to completely turn this off.

[mrlembek]

I was thinking if maybe add Alien races. That's all I got 

[Cimanyd]

Releasing prisoners.

Changelog, Nov 18

• You can now release prisoners.

[FridayBiology]

Research ideas
Advanced trade beacon research : increases range of beacon?
Advanced smelting processes : allows chance of rare metals from slag?

Visitor zone. Same as prisoner zone selection allows visitors to sleep in beds, eat at tables, stay abit longer...

[NeyoWargear]

How about expanding what we can make at the tailoring table? Dusters and jackets.