Messages

I'd love to be a tester. I'm on leave so I have a lot of time on my hands.

I could definitely see having slow carts that can help haul a little more at a time. Balance them by making them big (2x2? 2x3?) and slower than walking speed.

I second @Monkeysaur's leadership idea. Though I think there should be a "leadership skill", and it should just be a constant, blanket mood increase for the entire colony. A good leader, someone you want to follow, would make rampages and attempts to leave the colony less likely. Maybe you could select a single leader or maybe just the colonist with the highest leadership skill would have any effect.

Just a couple ideas that seem to me, in my unprofessional opinion, to be relatively easy:

1 - A roof layer. Some shortcut to see which areas are roofed. I know about the shadows, but a keyboard shortcut that, while held, actually displays any roofs would be nice. Constructed roofs can be displayed as the same corrugated tin as always, while overhead mountain could just appear as rock. Everything is already in game, and it would make gameplay a hell of a lot easier.

2 - Skill should determine not only the time it takes to build something, but also the amount of construction material needed. (An experienced carpenter might know to 'measure twice and cut once' while a rookie might make a lot of mistakes and waste wood.) A higher skilled crafter would use less material to build the same structure. This can also apply to cooking, or the production of anything and everything. (A slightly tweaked version would be crafting, where, for example, a skilled crafter could produce a couple more stone blocks per chunk.)

2.5 - Since less skilled workers waste more materials, waste wood, waste stone, etc. should be byproducts of construction, produced in greater numbers by those less skilled workers. Rock waste could look the same as the small rocks swept up after mining, waste wood could just be textured brown, etc. Waste could be generated randomly from construction the same way rock chucks generate from mining. I have two thoughts to the consequences of waste material, either, one: it could be an alternative material to fill sandbags/defenses, or two: it could have no uses at all, and build up to only get in the way. I like two better because it adds a new elemental challenge, because you have to find a place to put all of the waste. I would also add that waste could pile up on top of itself (just like piling resources), slowing down settlers more and more, until it becomes impassible, blocking doorways and halls, until a cleaner sweeps it up and either a cleaner or hauler hauls it off somewhere else. It would also eventually disappear, blown away into the wind or carried off by nesting birds perhaps, but not for a while.   

3 - Along with number 2, the skill of the worker should also determine the quality. A wall built by a skilled craftsman would be much better constructed. So it stands to reason that it should also affect hit points. Same goes for food, etc.