Now that we have a world to venture out into, we need vehicles more than ever.
1-they would make it much faster to travel to other colonies, making trade much more viable
2-they would add more depth to combat. You could face off against lowly scouts, straggling biker gangs, armored convoys, or even mad-max style raider trucks raming down the walls of your base.
3-It just makes sense that there would be ways of getting around the planet faster than walking, and more efficient than launching what are basically ICBMs.
Don't you agree? Vehicles are one of the best additions that can be made to the game at this point. Even something as simple as a bicycle would make the game so much better.
The problem with vehicles would be balancing, do they take fuel? if so how much? would they be limited to flat areas only? if not then how much of a speed penalty should they get in hilly or mountainous areas? what happens if a vehicle runs out of gas mid caravan? will the pawns push it home at a movement penalty? will they just flat out abandon it meaning you lose whatever resources (probably alot) that it took to make it? How much carrying weight will they add for caravans? and so many more questions
As much as I agree with you I also agree with Primal Lord. It's hard to implement vehicles into Rimworld. Even the biggest maps are quite small for vehicles, if you want to to attack siegers than it's probably easier to just make pawns go there on foot as they are probably somewhere close anyway. And also how do you solve travelling in forest that most of maps are. Is they vehicle 1x1 title large? I would agree that a bike can be but cars and trucks HAVE to be larger so do they just run over the trees or do you have to make wide streets?
Don't get me wrong. I'd love vehicles in Rimworld as an End Game feature (something that needs lots of research and resources) but only to make travelling easier. As for the fact that you can run out of fuel I guess that you could have an option, abondon it and resources or push it with great speed penalty. Drop pods with fuel would be an option as well.
In conclusion, I think that vehicles would be a good addition but only as end game, expensive feature only for travelling across the world, but they would need a lot of balancing, because they could be easily over or underpowered.
A few thoughts --
If a grizzly bear can get around the woods, a small 2-4 person buggy should be able to. This would apply whether it's self-powered or drawn by animals. Maybe even travois for natives. Anything that doesn't have legs would be slower over unfavorable terrain, especially if it's low tech.
The simplest way I can think of implementing it is, vehicles add travel speed and cargo capacity in the global map, but when you see them in game -- say when raiders ride up on your colony -- you see them parked at the edge of the map.
I suppose animal-drawn vehicles would just take up a certain amount of haul capacity from animals trained to haul. Or it could require a new trainable ability, like 'draft' or 'yoke'.
One word: horses
Here's how to balance vehicles, make them require chemfuel and increase the cost in harsher terrain.
I think vehicles should take up 2x2 space or 2x3 space on the map, and in order to effectively use them it would be the players responsibility to make sure there are sufficient roads and areas cleared of obstacles in order for the vehicles to fit, as well as a place to park them for convenience. Horses (I really think the frontier feeling of this game REQUIRES horses) should take up 1 tile like a human and they would need to be handled like any other animal.
Personally, I always put 5 tile wide gaps between my buildings with a stone walkway and sidewalk concrete on both sides, mostly for fire breaks but also because it looks nice. Vehicles would fit nicely down such roads.
maps are so small, theres no need for vehicles? Maybe you could set up assembly lines somehow, like underground assembly lines to run from deep drills, but that would be as close to vehicles as I could see feasible for this game. The map is just way too small to make it practical.
Also- wtf does "if a grizzly bear can get around in the woods so could a 2-4 person buggy" - this might be the silliest statement to try and justify a car being practical lol, like grizzly bears cant get around in the real life woods cause they are that big? They live in the woods.... Are extremely agile and can even climb mountain sides.
Horses would be great though for caravans, would perhaps allow them to travel an extra 2-4 hours per day. Horses should be in the game anyways.
Some of the larger maps in the advanced settings could warrant Vehicles, travel time is pretty tedious from end to end even on a normal map, but especially on a 400x400 map. But the inclusion of vehicles could have other utilitarian features, such as flatbeds to haul larger amounts/varieties of items across a greater distance in a single trip, or to quickly get drafted soldiers out to combat raiders/wounded soldiers back to the hospital. They would also make decent mobile cover in the event of a fight outside the colony. but would surely have the risk of blown tires or just exploding.
In general, shortened travel time improves colony efficiency, so transportation would always be a plus, but it's not the kind of thing that should be used automatically by the AI, it should be something the player makes a conscious decision about, to prevent it's abuse. You don't want something like this to just turn into "easy mode" for all tasks.
Yeah, the largest two maps have distances that are too long to walk. Especially when there are mountains to go around. By the time you get somewhere the pawns are tired and hungry
Dont see why we cant designate a muffalo (or other animal of decent size) as a people carrier which will speed up travel if all pawns have seats. Nobody needs to see it as its on the world map. So its literally a flag on some animals and a tiny bit of logic to check everyone has a seat.
Quote from: skullywag on December 29, 2016, 10:04:45 AM
Dont see why we cant designate a muffalo (or other animal of decent size) as a people carrier which will speed up travel if all pawns have seats. Nobody needs to see it as its on the world map. So its literally a flag on some animals and a tiny bit of logic to check everyone has a seat.
I think we are looking for vehicles and mounts within current play areas, not on the world map. Something that would allow a pawn to quickly move from a storage warehouse on the south west corner of an area, to the building site on the north east corner of the same area.
Unless I am mistaken.
Quote from: Primal Lord on December 28, 2016, 05:44:21 PM
The problem with vehicles would be balancing, do they take fuel? if so how much? would they be limited to flat areas only? if not then how much of a speed penalty should they get in hilly or mountainous areas? what happens if a vehicle runs out of gas mid caravan? will the pawns push it home at a movement penalty? will they just flat out abandon it meaning you lose whatever resources (probably alot) that it took to make it? How much carrying weight will they add for caravans? and so many more questions
And the problem of that is?
Games designers can't design because?
why make anything at all if these are content blocking problems?
Quote from: Primal Lord on December 28, 2016, 05:44:21 PM
The problem with vehicles would be balancing, do they take fuel? if so how much? would they be limited to flat areas only? if not then how much of a speed penalty should they get in hilly or mountainous areas? what happens if a vehicle runs out of gas mid caravan? will the pawns push it home at a movement penalty? will they just flat out abandon it meaning you lose whatever resources (probably alot) that it took to make it? How much carrying weight will they add for caravans? and so many more questions
None of these seem to me like insurmountable obstacles, they would just require some playtesting.
At some point in the future I'm sure it'll become possible to "save" visited tiles, therefore if your vehicle runs out of fuel you can always return and retrieve it at a later date. For now, though, suffice to say a vehicle isn't allowed to join a caravan if it has insufficient fuel.
I think part of the issue here is some people are talking about vehicles for the world map, other people are talking about vehicles for the local area map. This is causing some friction and misunderstanding. Personally I was speaking locally.
I've broached the idea of vehicles for local maps before as well. I had three basic ideas for vehicles at the time:
car/ATV: A small, single-person vehicle. Good for getting a person across the map really fast. Ideal for snipers who want to take pot shots at enemies and then zip back to the base (for example, if they have mobility issues).
Pickup truck: The truck bed would operate as a zone, of sorts, with maybe 3-6 stacks on it. That way a colonist assigned to the truck could mine away a whole row (or chop a small forest) and then load it up in one trip.
Ambulance: Like the pickup truck, but for crashlanded pawns or your own wounded.
Additionally, I suggested an option for training be "mechanic", and every vehicle has a chance to break down at any time. Vehicles also take damage like people do - by losing function to certain areas. There were a few issues with vehicles at the time I suggested it:
1.) using vehicles in this way would require retooling of AI, and doesn't seem so intuitive for an unfamiliar player.
2.) Graphically, it would be very clunky to attach a pawn into a car (someone told me on my thread that two objects cant occupy the same space, though I don't believe that to be true since pawns stack over each other all the time).
All in all though I think that vehicles would add a lot to the game.
I think Vehicles would be interesting for 1 primary reason
That they would make a Caravan travel style of Game play more fun and interesting.
being able to have a wagon which could haul a load of equipment and a some medieval production tables would make a Organ trail style game style less tedious and more fun. 4 pawns 1 wagon, permadeath mode, they must transverse the continent and one must reach the destination. or will everyone die of dysentery.
I don't think we need Vehicles to do stuff on the Colony Tile Map, the one exception to this would be combat vehicles. Then a MAD MAX style of game play would be more doable and fun. 1 awesome pawn, extreme desert and one car, can he fight back the raiders. help peaceful settlements and get refueled and healed. or you could be the raiders