There are probably a lot of suggestions that are around the baby making genre and before you yell at me to look at other baby making suggestions, I have (maybe) extra ideas wrapped around this topic that would be a reason I made my own topic.
First off, In the game your colonists make love randomly and I was thinking a way to control population in an update where you could have babies would be that you have an option to "try for baby" just like you have options to try to recruit prisoners, with the ability to go back to just making love once you have produced as many children as you want. Or there could be a game option to turn on or off the ability to make babies if you don't want it at all in your game.
second, I know that time of colonists are extremely short and it would not be so great for the parents to die while they have a baby or child. That's why I think if (in similar ways as sims) baby stage only last a few days and then they go into the child stage that last around 10-15 days and from the child stage they move straight into adulthood. If the parents of the child does die in that time, then other colonists could adopt the children if they were same sex couples or too old to have children or was a friend/sibling of the parents.
Having children in the game could add new aspects to the game. Such as, in the child stage, a colonist could be a teacher/tutor in a certain area of work (farming, cooking, fighting, etc) and teach specific children to grow into adults with higher stats in that area or have more interest in that area of work. Having a school like system would mean a new tab of work called "education" and colonists that are higher in education are more likely to be better at teaching/tutoring children. Another possibility for children that is going along the line of teaching children would be that the parents can teach their children in work that they are proficient in.
Having children could also create new events. Such as: finding an abandoned baby, babies being in escape pods, raids where children who have moved in adulthood revenge you killing their parents, colic babies keeping up colonists which in turn stresses them out, some babies not making it in birth and lowers the moods of parents or causes them to break, mothers dying during birth causing the husband/wife/lover to break, having a prodigy child that excels in an area of work, etc.
I just think adding the ability to have children to the game could add such a new level of gameplay and make the game even more realistic and enjoyable with the huge amount of possibilities that can come from this.
It's been discussed to death and I don't believe there are any new ideas here except for children seeking revenge for the death of their parents, which could actually be added into the game as is. I think THAT is a good idea.
As for children in rimworld, many people are against it for good reason, and it basically boils down to controversy and difficulty to inpliment in a meaningful way. The game doesn't last long enough for realistic children growth, but if they aren't kids for very long why bother having kids at all if they're just going to be adults after one season. It's a no-win situation.
I know this is a dead horse but I just wanted to point out that Dwarf Fortress had infants and I think Banished could have children be killed, also Sheltered. Pregnancy and child birth should be in the game.
I think since Rimworld doesnt have much going on in terms of graphics it can get away with having children. Also, the old "not enough time in game to raise them cause have to leave on ship" no longer applies.
In a game about storytelling, think about the stories that will be told of Pawns from their birth all the way to their eventual death? Its exciting!
Right now the only way to get people is to either rescue them, convert them or buy them. You might as well just have slave colonies atm.
(Id rather have it part of vanilla instead of mods. )
There might be hope, someone told me about this:
He mentioned human pregnancies before. Look what he said about kids here recently: https://twitter.com/TynanSylvester/status/794003347376377856
https://ludeon.com/blog/2016/01/progress-continues/ -- Here he says he hasnt added kids YET
@ Xannieh - We do not need yet another thread for this suggestion. Neither pointing out that other games have pregnancy and children, nor Tynan's various comments on this subject (which are not new or news), warrant the need for a new thread. What you wrote could have been posted in pretty much any of the (many) existing suggestion threads on this topic, and as such I have merged your thread with the most recent thread that a quick search turned up.
Please can you use the search function next time to check if a suggestion has already been made before creating a new thread for it. Thank you.
Very, very short answer to the age-old discussion of babies: Most likely a big, fat N.O.
Just curious. I didn't see anything about this. They can't have babies now (I understand that there must be some game play challenges), but are there plans to enable it, or make it possible?
There is mod for that. Not sure where i have seen that. Probably russian mods site.
Only if Ludeon is a Russian mods site: https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=28747.0
Children and Pregnancy was updated to B18 some time ago. I've been using it to try and establish a permanent colony on the Rimworld in the face of Lovecraftian Horrors: my victory condition is for a colony-born pawn to reach the age of 16. Also, shooting unspeakable monstrosities in the face(?) with charge rifles.
...That's not to say that you're wrong; there probably are such mods, and they're probably creepy: this IS the internet we're talking about here.
Quote from: Dargaron on January 17, 2018, 02:38:05 PM
Only if Ludeon is a Russian mods site: https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=28747.0
Children and Pregnancy was updated to B18 some time ago. I've been using it to try and establish a permanent colony on the Rimworld in the face of Lovecraftian Horrors: the victory condition is for a colony-born pawn to reach the age of 16. Also, shooting unspeakable monstrosities in the face(?) with charge rifles.
...That's not to say that you're wrong; there probably are such mods, and they're probably creepy: this IS the internet we're talking about here.
Curse your ninja powers! >:( *shakes fist*
...Seriously, does no one use Google? Or even Bing *shudder*?
By the by, this is the 1st time I've actually wanted to mod the vanilla game; thanks for that idea.
@ Walkaboutout - I've moved your thread to suggestions and merged it with one of the (many) threads about children/pregnancy (because we don't need yet another thread for something that is never going to be added to the vanilla game). Your post was framed as a question rather than a suggestion, but it is a suggestion none-the-less (and so belongs here in suggestions and not GD).
Please can you use the search function next time to check for relevant threads first to find an answer to your question before making a thread to ask it. Because if you had you would likely have found this thread, or certainly one of the other many suggestion threads about children/pregnancy. With most of them being able to provide you with the answer you sought. That being no, it's not happening, and there aren't any plans to.
Just to make it clear for everyone who wants to see babies in RimWorld.
How would you implement them in a meaningful way?
Young babies and children would literally be a dead weight on the colony because they eat and do nothing else. A domesticated pig would be more valuable at that point. But let's say children get implemented. They'd do nothing, absolutely nothing for you until they're at least 6 years old. Maybe then they could help you sow/harvest or something. Forget hauling, they're too weak. Forget crafting, they're easily distracted. Forget research, they're stupid. Even in Dwarf Fortress children only rarely help with harvesting and they're useless for 12 years! Tell me which colony would survive for 12 years? And by "survive" I also mean not die to FPS death or gets abandoned due to boredom. Hell, in Dwarf Fortress people casually flush down babies off their mothers' hands with an elaborate grate system just to get rid of those damn parasites.
But Dwarf Fortress doesn't have cannibalism (unless modded or mooded) or organ harvesting. There's a reason why children are undying in Fallout 4. Imagine the negative PR by several gaming sites and news sites if they found out players make colonists give birth so they can harvest the babies' organs and butcher them afterwards. Many people lost their shit when they found out female colonists have different algorythms for romance than male ones, imagine the shitstorm after this. Yeah, probably wouldn't do much good, especially considering the next version will be the 1.0 official release.
-facepalm-
Would someone please tell me why children are viewed as useless until they are 12? It -must- be a modern thing, related to the compulsory education that keeps children locked indoors for 8/12 months of thr year until they are adults....
One of the many reasons preindustrial, and even post-industrial familes had many children was so they could help with the work. On a farm, children didn't just sit and drool until they were 16. Even children barely out of toddling years could hold a mop, or put things away, and children 5-6 could (read:would) be given chores like firewood gathering, animal milking, or water drawing. Anything older and stronger than that would basically be a small adult.
In the "Children and Pregnancy" mod by Thirite, children are FAR from useless. Even when they are infants and toddlers, when they can't really do much of anything, the mood bonuses bequeathed from a successful childbirth are often more benefitial than whatever labor they could provide.
Because child labor would also be great PR for the official release of the game. Yeah.
Quote from: Boston on January 18, 2018, 01:37:02 PM
One of the many reasons preindustrial, and even post-industrial familes had many children was so they could help with the work.
Pre-industrialization, families had tons of children because half of them wouldn't reach adulthood. Even childbirths were exceptionally deadly for both the child and the mother until Semmelweis realized doctors should probably wash their hands with disinfectant in 1847 (which reduced mortality rates to below 1%, yet did not become a widespread method before the germs theory was finally confirmed to be true decades later). Antibiotic treatment didn't exist at all until 1942. Over 35% of children died before reaching the age of 5 worldwide in 1950.
Children could do cleaning and even sowing/harvesting with an appropriate work speed penalty. But they can't tailor, they can't smith, they can't treat wounds, they can't tame animals, they can't haul 25 kg stone chunks, they can't cook, they can't research, they can't shoot a firearm without serious injuries to their underdeveloped muscles and bones, they can't realistically use melee against an adult opponent with any realistic success and they'd be taken advantage of by prisoners if they were on warden duty due to how easily one can manipulate children.
Now tell me, what else remains? Wood cutting? Sure, with a 50% work speed reduction. Mining? Sure, but expect a heavy PR shitstorm related to child mining labor and the very high mortality rates it caused in the industrial era.
Like it or not, 90% of jobs in RimWorld are too complex or hard for children.
Who told the forum necromancers that today was beating dead horse day? ;D
Quote from: Harry_Dicks on January 18, 2018, 03:05:47 PM
Who told the forum necromancers that today was beating dead horse day? ;D
It was a forum moderator who decided to merge a similar thread with this old one.
Quote from: Granitecosmos on January 18, 2018, 03:17:59 PM
Quote from: Harry_Dicks on January 18, 2018, 03:05:47 PM
Who told the forum necromancers that today was beating dead horse day? ;D
It was a forum moderator who decided to merge a similar thread with this old one.
Thank you for telling me what the moderator posted just above you ;)
Quote from: Granitecosmos on January 18, 2018, 02:31:44 PM
Because child labor would also be great PR for the official release of the game. Yeah.
Dude this is already a game where you can literally sell people into slavery, harvest human organs, abuse animals, and commit cannibalism. And those are just the
optional parts: In order to fend off raiders, you essentially are forced to murder dozens of people every year
just to survive. So enough of your moral grandstanding.
Quote from: Granitecosmos on January 18, 2018, 02:31:44 PM
Because child labor would also be great PR for the official release of the game. Yeah.
-snip-
Mining? Sure, but expect a heavy PR shitstorm related to child mining labor and the very high mortality rates it caused in the industrial era.
You are insufferable. A SJW who is worried about RimWorld's PR reputation, when like the other poster said, we have murder, ransoming, prisoners, organ harvesting, cannabalism, etc. I will never understand how some people can just, so...
LAME! If it were up to you, this game would have been a tetris bubble pop clone. You are okay with everything else in the game, but won't
SOMEBODY PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN?!?!Please, stop being so pathetic. Outside of internet lala land, not everyone get's as offended at inane shit like you do. You remind me of those losers who got all pissy about RimWorld's sexuality BS. I think I can say with 99% confidence that
no one is going to be sitting there on the fence, trying to decide to buy the game or not, but then they hear the "PR shitstorm" about child labor in the game, and they think, "OMG! Child labor in a video game! That crosses the line for me!"
Fine, let's ignore the possible PR hit. You guys still fail to address the elephant in the room, though.
Quote from: Granitecosmos on January 18, 2018, 02:31:44 PM
Children could do cleaning and even sowing/harvesting with an appropriate work speed penalty. But they can't tailor, they can't smith, they can't treat wounds, they can't tame animals, they can't haul 25 kg stone chunks, they can't cook, they can't research, they can't shoot a firearm without serious injuries to their underdeveloped muscles and bones, they can't realistically use melee against an adult opponent with any realistic success and they'd be taken advantage of by prisoners if they were on warden duty due to how easily one can manipulate children.
Now tell me, what else remains? Wood cutting? Sure, with a 50% work speed reduction. Mining? Sure, but expect a heavy PR shitstorm related to child mining labor and the very high mortality rates it caused in the industrial era.
Like it or not, 90% of jobs in RimWorld are too complex or hard for children.
Children would be dead weight if implemented in a realistic way. Provide an answer to this instead of nitpicking about PR (which is the lesser problem of the two and is only somewhat valid because the next version is the official release). Want an example? Look at Dwarf Fortress. Children are so useless there, most people just turn it off.
Lol page two and Harry can't stop them self from breaking multiple rules and just generally being mean over a disagreement. Alright Harry, consider this your warning before I give you a cozy 2 week ban.
I know it seems ridiculous, but I think Granite makes a point. Children are a touchy subject.
It's about commonly held social values, even if there are some falacies / inconsistensies from a strictly logical point of view. Many people view kids as being innocent, and needing protection. Having children put in adult / extreme situation is considered tabboo, and it's frowned upon if they face the same harsh realities as adults in media.
There are many things in the media with transgressive themes such as Rimworld, but the general rule of thumb is that you can't go too far with children. A manleather hat is dark, but a babyleather hat would be crossing the line (since most would consider it far worse involving a child).
From a gameplay point of view, I don't see them as useful, mostly because of the timescale involved. It would take 5 years to maybe get them to do anything basic, and another decade or so for a fully capable pawn.
Ah, this brings me back to the old days of playing Black & White...
I had positioned shortcuts at my sacrificial altar and the daycare, so I could more quickly transport the babies. 16000 faith for a toddler was really effective.
I can't really remember there being much of a hubbub about it on the news either, but I DO recall there was some controversy over Fallout 2.
In todays media landscape, tho? Horrible :p it's probably for the best that childrearing be kept as a mod.
Quote from: lancar on January 19, 2018, 09:36:52 AM
Ah, this brings me back to the old days of playing Black & White...
I had positioned shortcuts at my sacrificial altar and the daycare, so I could more quickly transport the babies. 16000 faith for a toddler was really effective.
I can't really remember there being much of a hubbub about it on the news either, but I DO recall there was some controversy over Fallout 2.
In todays media landscape, tho? Horrible :p it's probably for the best that childrearing be kept as a mod.
Mmmm... when your first Crèche just makes it easier for your Wolf to fling children into the pit so you can throw more fireballs at Lethys...
Truth be told, and I don't speak on behalf of the dev team on this one, but I'm pretty sure children aren't in or being added because they don't really make much sense in terms of gameplay.
Woman gets pregnant, pops out child, child is borderline useless until it hits a certain age. Now for a game like Dwarf Fortress where playing for a large amount of time is just step one of playing the game RimWorld doesn't have that luxury per-se. I'm not playing my same colony for 18-30 years in game, neither are 90 percent of the current playerbase. Eventually your colony gets boring and you either make a new one, put the game down for a while, or just add a million mods. I mean granted it could be a case of not wanting to annoy censors/parents worldwide but honestly as far as I can tell Tynan doesn't exactly need to advertise the game, it takes care of that on it's own.
Quote from: Ramsis on January 19, 2018, 09:51:06 AM
Truth be told, and I don't speak on behalf of the dev team on this one, but I'm pretty sure children aren't in or being added because they don't really make much sense in terms of gameplay.
Woman gets pregnant, pops out child, child is borderline useless until it hits a certain age. Now for a game like Dwarf Fortress where playing for a large amount of time is just step one of playing the game RimWorld doesn't have that luxury per-se. I'm not playing my same colony for 18-30 years in game, neither are 90 percent of the current playerbase. Eventually your colony gets boring and you either make a new one, put the game down for a while, or just add a million mods. I mean granted it could be a case of not wanting to annoy censors/parents worldwide but honestly as far as I can tell Tynan doesn't exactly need to advertise the game, it takes care of that on it's own.
This. Even DF players tend to disable children because they are useless even for that game. 12 years is too damn long, even in that game where time generally flies by a lot faster.
Quote from: lancar on January 19, 2018, 09:36:52 AM
I can't really remember there being much of a hubbub about it on the news either, but I DO recall there was some controversy over Fallout 2.
In todays media landscape, tho? Horrible :p it's probably for the best that childrearing be kept as a mod.
This is the only reason I mentioned PR. Currently, media of every kind is excessively allergic to things like these because apparently everyone is a special snowflake nowadays. Media can make or break games and lives and the least thing I want to see is Ludeon Studios and the dev team getting bashed all over in social media sites. There is a reason why children are undying in Fallout 4 and it's not for gameplay reasons.
Quote from: Granitecosmos on January 19, 2018, 04:54:27 AM
Fine, let's ignore the possible PR hit. You guys still fail to address the elephant in the room, though.
Quote from: Granitecosmos on January 18, 2018, 02:31:44 PM
Children could do cleaning and even sowing/harvesting with an appropriate work speed penalty. But they can't tailor, they can't smith, they can't treat wounds, they can't tame animals, they can't haul 25 kg stone chunks, they can't cook, they can't research, they can't shoot a firearm without serious injuries to their underdeveloped muscles and bones, they can't realistically use melee against an adult opponent with any realistic success and they'd be taken advantage of by prisoners if they were on warden duty due to how easily one can manipulate children.
Now tell me, what else remains? Wood cutting? Sure, with a 50% work speed reduction. Mining? Sure, but expect a heavy PR shitstorm related to child mining labor and the very high mortality rates it caused in the industrial era.
Like it or not, 90% of jobs in RimWorld are too complex or hard for children.
Children would be dead weight if implemented in a realistic way. Provide an answer to this instead of nitpicking about PR (which is the lesser problem of the two and is only somewhat valid because the next version is the official release). Want an example? Look at Dwarf Fortress. Children are so useless there, most people just turn it off.
I keep hearing this argument over and over, and I keep finding it unconvincing. Why do people seem to think that children are going to be completely useless? I would argue that one of the greatest strengths of adding children to the game is that you can essentially tailor their skills as they grow up. You could mold their entire childhood with proper teaching and training to have whatever skills you want them to have. No need to rely on luck to get a new colonist that might vaguely have the right skills you want: if you want a really good doctor, for example, just have one of the kids grow up as the doctor's apprentice. It might take a few years, but eventually the kid will get really good at medicine and even surpass the doctor you originally had. So with this in mind, I reject the notion that children would just be "dead weight". Children learn very quickly, and this would give them a worthwhile advantage in obtaining valuable skills.
Really the only argument against children that I find somewhat convincing is that it takes too long. I don't think children are useless, but I can understand why someone wouldn't want to spend 12+ in-game years nurturing one. This is, however, completely a matter of subjective opinion.
Beyond that, children would be very useful, provided you are willing to invest the time and effort into raising them.
literally just what granitecosmos said, literally just that.
Quote from: Third_Of_Five on January 19, 2018, 01:59:10 PM
I would argue that one of the greatest strengths of adding children to the game is that you can essentially tailor their skills as they grow up. You could mold their entire childhood with proper teaching and training to have whatever skills you want them to have. No need to rely on luck to get a new colonist that might vaguely have the right skills you want: if you want a really good doctor, for example, just have one of the kids grow up as the doctor's apprentice. It might take a few years, but eventually the kid will get really good at medicine and even surpass the doctor you originally had. So with this in mind, I reject the notion that children would just be "dead weight". Children learn very quickly, and this would give them a worthwhile advantage in obtaining valuable skills.
Really the only argument against children that I find somewhat convincing is that it takes too long. I don't think children are useless, but I can understand why someone wouldn't want to spend 12+ in-game years nurturing one. This is, however, completely a matter of subjective opinion.
Beyond that, children would be very useful, provided you are willing to invest the time and effort into raising them.
This is true. Both the potential to make them learn skills and possibly have passions/incapabilities based on that and the fact it takes too damn long.
But keep a few things in mind. First, the average lifespan of a player-made colony is easily less than 10 years. This means the benefits this would bring wouldn't be seen by many players at all. Second, the fact that making such a new and complex system is not going to happen because devs have stated no completely new game mechanics will be added after B18. Maybe, just maybe an after-release patch but I wouldn't bet on it. And third, children entering the map. They shouldn't be part of a raid (no way a 110 years old child can properly handle a sword or a rifle), so the only way for them to appear other than birth is as wanderers/drop-pod refugees/slaves. Wanderers stop appearing after you get a few colonists. Same for drop-pod refugees and slavers stop selling slaves after you have more than a handful of colonists for balance reasons too so good luck with that. A change for this could be justified if children remained mostly useless until they grew up. But considering these children weren't part of the colony from the very beginning, the game would have to add a special partial system for them as well so you have some influence but not as much as you have for children born in the colony. And then we have potential exploits with people harvesting newborn infant organs and selling them so they'd have to add new "child-sized" organs with decreased value (since increasing the mood penalty won't work; players can just make a secondary one-man colony with a psychopath doctor to cheat the system entirely even in the current version of the game, or just do it the normal way; current mood system is not hard at all: +10 from joy which is basically a free buff, +5 from comfort due to chairs on work station interaction tiles, bonuses for nice dining/rec/bedrooms; it's too easy to keep the mood high, this is why devs had to hit organ values directly in the past already).
This would be a very complex thing to add and balance. Better leave it in mod territory and leave the balance issues to the mod author.
Quote from: Granitecosmos on January 19, 2018, 04:56:29 PM
This is true. Both the potential to make them learn skills and possibly have passions/incapabilities based on that and the fact it takes too damn long.
But keep a few things in mind. First, the average lifespan of a player-made colony is easily less than 10 years. This means the benefits this would bring wouldn't be seen by many players at all. Second, the fact that making such a new and complex system is not going to happen because devs have stated no completely new game mechanics will be added after B18. Maybe, just maybe an after-release patch but I wouldn't bet on it. And third, children entering the map. They shouldn't be part of a raid (no way a 110 years old child can properly handle a sword or a rifle), so the only way for them to appear other than birth is as wanderers/drop-pod refugees/slaves. Wanderers stop appearing after you get a few colonists. Same for drop-pod refugees and slavers stop selling slaves after you have more than a handful of colonists for balance reasons too so good luck with that. A change for this could be justified if children remained mostly useless until they grew up. But considering these children weren't part of the colony from the very beginning, the game would have to add a special partial system for them as well so you have some influence but not as much as you have for children born in the colony. And then we have potential exploits with people harvesting newborn infant organs and selling them so they'd have to add new "child-sized" organs with decreased value (since increasing the mood penalty won't work; players can just make a secondary one-man colony with a psychopath doctor to cheat the system entirely even in the current version of the game, or just do it the normal way; current mood system is not hard at all: +10 from joy which is basically a free buff, +5 from comfort due to chairs on work station interaction tiles, bonuses for nice dining/rec/bedrooms; it's too easy to keep the mood high, this is why devs had to hit organ values directly in the past already).
This would be a very complex thing to add and balance. Better leave it in mod territory and leave the balance issues to the mod author.
You are right that children would be a complicated and difficult feature to implement, but I don't see how this changes anything about my original point. Children would not be 'useless', as you claim, and rather I have come to the conclusion that the source of the controversy around this issue is whether or not people are willing to invest the huge amount of time in raising children in order to reap the benefits. Which, like I already said, is entirely a matter of opinion.
Also, you said "devs have stated no completely new game mechanics will be added after B18"
Could I get a source for this? I was not aware that the devs made such a statement.
You know what the most annoying part of Lost, Breaking Bad, and The Walking Dead are? The frickin' babies. No babies plz. Drop pods make pawns sterile, dontcha know? There's some sort of a pollen floating around on the planet that makes conception impossible as well. True facts. Babies are lame. Down with babies in video games. Don't need 'em, don't want 'em neither. If you want a negative byproduct of lovin' how about STDs instead? Seems much more thematic to Rimworld. Burning pee > babies. Did I mention no babies? No babies.
Quote from: Crow_T on January 19, 2018, 05:42:59 PM
You know what the most annoying part of Lost, Breaking Bad, and The Walking Dead are? The frickin' babies. No babies plz. Drop pods make pawns sterile, dontcha know? There's some sort of a pollen floating around on the planet that makes conception impossible as well. True facts. Babies are lame. Down with babies in video games. Don't need 'em, don't want 'em neither. If you want a negative byproduct of lovin' how about STDs instead? Seems much more thematic to Rimworld. Burning pee > babies. Did I mention no babies? No babies.
I'm confused, is this satire?
Quote from: Third_Of_Five on January 19, 2018, 05:13:30 PM
Also, you said "devs have stated no completely new game mechanics will be added after B18"
Could I get a source for this? I was not aware that the devs made such a statement.
Source. (https://ludeon.com/blog/2017/11/rimworld-beta-18-a-world-of-story-is-released/) Fourth paragraph, first sentence.
Quote from: Third_Of_Five on January 19, 2018, 05:13:30 PM
Children would not be 'useless', as you claim, and rather I have come to the conclusion that the source of the controversy around this issue is whether or not people are willing to invest the huge amount of time in raising children in order to reap the benefits.
Thing is, these walk hand-in-hand. If an investment takes a decade in-game to finally start showing any real benefits then it's pretty much useless. This, alone, is why I keep saying children would be useless. It would be totally nonsensical for them to do the vast majority of tasks the adults do until they grow up (or at least grow past a certain age). Combat would totally be off limits until the age of 12 at the very least; a powerful rifle's kickback would break children's elbows and a 12 years old has no realistic chance to use a longsword against an adult armed with a similar weapon effectively. At that point it's basically like being stuck with very weak pacifist pawns, except children shouldn't be able to do complex tasks like smithing a proper blade, assembling a rifle from scrap metal or tailoring a duster that can withstand several point-blank frag explosions before becoming completely unusable (yes, dusters are that strong in the game). But I've stated this one already and so far noone managed to come up with any counter-arguments against it.
Quote from: Ramsis on January 19, 2018, 09:51:06 AM
Quote from: lancar on January 19, 2018, 09:36:52 AM
Ah, this brings me back to the old days of playing Black & White...
I had positioned shortcuts at my sacrificial altar and the daycare, so I could more quickly transport the babies. 16000 faith for a toddler was really effective.
Mmmm... when your first Crèche just makes it easier for your Wolf to fling children into the pit so you can throw more fireballs at Lethys...
OMG, so great memories. Sacrificing childs and pregnant women just to destroy that bastard's temple.
Talking about the subject, I don't think that it will be implemented neither. Probably in some kind of DLC/expansion it could be added, but not in other way.
I just hope that the modders could have a more paved road to implement it by themselves in the meantime, because I think it would be interesting. Contrary to what is generally thought, colonies can sustain in large periods of time if you're playing in Rough or less. Of course, it depends of the in-game events too.
Quote from: Granitecosmos on January 19, 2018, 06:06:18 PM
But I've stated this one already and so far noone managed to come up with any counter-arguments against it.
Not only is this not true, as I literally just provided my own counter argument, but you seem to have in fact proven my point. You said at the beginning that "If an investment takes a decade in-game to finally start showing any real benefits then it's pretty much useless."
This is a completely arbitrary statement of opinion. How much time someone is willing to invest into raising children is, like I said
completely subjective.
As for the rest of your argument, I've already stated before why I think this is wrong. Sure, a kid won't be as good at doing anything as an adult, but with proper teaching, they can learn, and they would do so much faster than adults. A child under 12 would be rather unskilled, but would also have a very malleable skillset, which would allow you to train them to become exceptionally good at certain skills in the years to come. Yeah, an 8-year-old child won't be able to smith a sword or assemble machinery, like in your example, but spend a few years teaching the kid how to do those things and they'll be better at doing it than anyone else in the colony.
Quote from: Third_Of_Five on January 19, 2018, 11:46:45 PM
You said at the beginning that "If an investment takes a decade in-game to finally start showing any real benefits then it's pretty much useless."
This is a completely arbitrary statement of opinion. How much time someone is willing to invest into raising children is, like I said completely subjective.
You seem to ignore something rather important here.
Quote from: Granitecosmos on January 19, 2018, 04:56:29 PM
...the average lifespan of a player-made colony is easily less than 10 years.
We've already concluded implementing such a system properly would be quite hard. But is it really worth it for the devs when 90% of the playerbase would never truly use it? Certain features being cut from games because it would be too much work for too little benefit for the average player is a very common practice in the gaming industry. It's simply an investment of time; devs could be working on something that could be used by the vast majority of the playerbase instead of catering to a minority.
Besides, this isn't going to be implemented anyway. Devs have already stated "no new game mechanics after B18". Yes, it would be nice to see children implemented but the game wasn't designed around decades-old colonies in the first place. Thre is a reason the end-game involves getting off-planet with a ship.
Quote from: Third_Of_Five on January 19, 2018, 11:46:45 PM
Sure, a kid won't be as good at doing anything as an adult, but with proper teaching, they can learn, and they would do so much faster than adults. A child under 12 would be rather unskilled, but would also have a very malleable skillset, which would allow you to train them to become exceptionally good at certain skills in the years to come. Yeah, an 8-year-old child won't be able to smith a sword or assemble machinery, like in your example, but spend a few years teaching the kid how to do those things and they'll be better at doing it than anyone else in the colony.
I fail to see you proving me wrong because
this is exactly my point. If I can pick between having a child colonist and be forced to watch as the little brat does nothing for 6 years, or just get an adult who can work from the very moment he is part of the colony, then guess which one will I take. The inherent problem of children is that there is not enough reward at the end of the extremely long investment it takes to raise one. They eat, get sick and thus waste my medicine, run around making extra work for the cleaners and do nothing productive in return for at least 6 years after birth. After that it would be fine to have them clean and help growing/harvesting with a work speed debuff but nothing else. Not even hauling because a 6 years old child can hardly haul a 25 kg stone chunk around. So after another 6 years or so, they can finaly do what everyone else has been able to do from the very beginning. Even if they get 10 levels and burning passion in every skill with no incapabilities and no bad traits, it's still not worth the time and resource investment because after 12 years you're either already building the ship because raids start scaling hard enough that you're worried about a colony wipe (remember, the game was meant to end with you fleeing the planet, this is why very late-game raids are overwhelming and generally require an exploit a.k.a. killbox to manage) or get wiped eventually after a few years anyway.
But even if we ignore all these problems, devs have told us they won't add a new system like this.
Quote from: Granitecosmos on January 20, 2018, 05:04:44 AM
I fail to see you proving me wrong because this is exactly my point. If I can pick between having a child colonist and be forced to watch as the little brat does nothing for 6 years, or just get an adult who can work from the very moment he is part of the colony, then guess which one will I take. The inherent problem of children is that there is not enough reward at the end of the extremely long investment it takes to raise one. They eat, get sick and thus waste my medicine, run around making extra work for the cleaners and do nothing productive in return for at least 6 years after birth. After that it would be fine to have them clean and help growing/harvesting with a work speed debuff but nothing else. Not even hauling because a 6 years old child can hardly haul a 25 kg stone chunk around. So after another 6 years or so, they can finaly do what everyone else has been able to do from the very beginning. Even if they get 10 levels and burning passion in every skill with no incapabilities and no bad traits, it's still not worth the time and resource investment because after 12 years you're either already building the ship because raids start scaling hard enough that you're worried about a colony wipe (remember, the game was meant to end with you fleeing the planet, this is why very late-game raids are overwhelming and generally require an exploit a.k.a. killbox to manage) or get wiped eventually after a few years anyway.
But even if we ignore all these problems, devs have told us they won't add a new system like this.
*sigh* Honestly I don't really care enough about this argument to keep spending time on it. I see your point now, granted, but you seem to keep coming back to this implicit claim that there is an objectively correct way to play the game, which I disagree with. Some people want to play far into the late game, building up a massive settlement that lasts decades. Others will just play the game normally, like you said, and max out the tech tree after 12 years or so in order to build the ship and leave the planet. How long the player wants to play the game is up to them, and subsequently how much time they are willing to invest in raising a child in their colony is also their choice. You may not think it's worth the investment, but there is no objective basis for that claim.
Anyway I've rambled on enough. This just isn't worth my time anymore, and I will concede that you do have a very good point of pointing out the devs' statement regarding adding new game mechanics, which I was not aware of, making this whole argument pointless anyway. So if it brings closure; you win.
I still disagree with you on a few things, but these disagreements are entirely a matter of opinion so there's no point in continuing.
The problem with generational colonies is that the pace of the game isn't really set up for it. The passage of time is simply too slow to feasibly make children that grow up to be adults an interesting mechanic (or at least, a mechanic that would have much of a payoff). IMO the years go by much faster to make childbirth a meaningful way to grow your colony.
That being said, I'm not quite of the opinion that there is zero point to having anyone below the age of 18. While it's probably a post-launch project, I can see a lot of things you could do with that. Having a child might be a source of joy for the non-pychopathic parents, or at least another thing that might change mood. You could find children in pirate bases you raided, lost in the wilds after their town was destroyed by something, and maybe have it be a quest to re-unite them with their family, or have the colony adopt them to raise as their own. You can avoid most of the moral and PR backlash by doing things like making them impossible to harvest or butcher, always have pirates and the like attempt to capture rather than kill them, and have them "run away" with Houdini-like ease when their life-or-death needs aren't met. Most would accept that I would think, and you can leave the repugnant stuff for mods.
Really? This again? Can someone re-sticky my Frequent Suggestions Thread?
Quote from: Third_Of_Five on January 19, 2018, 05:45:05 PM
Quote from: Crow_T on January 19, 2018, 05:42:59 PM
You know what the most annoying part of Lost, Breaking Bad, and The Walking Dead are? The frickin' babies. No babies plz. Drop pods make pawns sterile, dontcha know? There's some sort of a pollen floating around on the planet that makes conception impossible as well. True facts. Babies are lame. Down with babies in video games. Don't need 'em, don't want 'em neither. If you want a negative byproduct of lovin' how about STDs instead? Seems much more thematic to Rimworld. Burning pee > babies. Did I mention no babies? No babies.
I'm confused, is this satire?
even if it was, i completely agree with the statements made. no babies please. i have played video games for decades now and none have implemented children as a part of the game that i couldnt live without. each and every child could have been replaced by an adult until now, no problem. maybe a little person, in some cases. no need for them to be actual babies.
all this said, i believe i have quite some arguments FOR having children in the game which have either never been posted before, or just not in this thread and others i have read on this topic.
1) tell me the longest ongoing, most recognizable and on the surface child friendly looking tv show. i assume everyone just stood up and said "that would be the simpsons, mr. patoka, sir" and i would congratulate you on your excellent answer. the simpsons - where child abuse (most prominently a dad choking his own son so hard that his head swells up repeatedly and it used as a dank meme) is made family friendly.
say what you want, that the days have changed or that sjw's are too stronk nowadays or that 'murica is the most important market and they have lotsa wusses among them. the simpsons is a flagship of american entertainment and social values. if homer simpson can strangle his child in prime time so can we do whatever we like with children in rimworld (just to be safe, rimworld is at least rated pg 13, right?)
2) now that that ridiculous moral issue is out of the way (in 2018 AND on the internet, discussing moral issues of this kind...who would've thought?) we can go to the interesting stuff: who said children had to be the same in rimworld as they are in real life on planet earth? adults get the same age related diseases after much less time in rimworld as people get in real life (because of shorter rimyears), so why not expand on this and make them grow up even faster? we could even cheat with their age and make them "adult" (i think in rimworld 15 year olds are already controlable and 18 is considered adult, right?) before they spent that many years in your colony? heck you could even hide their age and after let's say 4 in game years give them age 15 and done, you can use that pawn. 3 years later it will get an adult backstory and noone cares if you didnt actually sit there for 18 in game years. besides, pregnancy is also long, annoying and kind of useless. just make it take a quadrum or so. elephants arent pregnant for two whole years either like in real life, right?
3) already forgot about vatgrown soldiers? sure, if you dont wanna screw with time, i get it, no need to make point 2 reality. but vatgrown humans are completely made up and therefore the time to form a baby and for it to grow up are completely up to tynan (and us, i guess). just gotta add a new researchable thing called "evolution vat", a building called evolution vat, some basic functions and babies. research it, build it, send a male and a female pawn there (only sex matters. no matter what gender or sexual orientation or what relationship status, even granny and grandchild are POSSIBLE. if it is any good for pawn thoughts is a different thing), let them spend some time with the evolution vat, (maybe send a third person who is a doctor), send everyone on their ways, wait for a quadrum or something and boom you have a vatgrown child of your own and those bad boys are canon. only question is if evolution vats should be implemented as actually buildable and usable objects. like with most things in the suggestions topic i'd guess no. which is ok since i dont actually want them implemented. just wanted to show you some options.
4) and last option is not being able to "make" babies yourself. you just get them through events and stuff, everything that has been already talked about before. babies never have ages that you find this way. at some point thex just turn adult and claim to be 15/18 or whatever. no need for childbirth, pregnancy, incest, everything is nice and simple. and if the foster parents get rekt, any other random couple can take them in
also, kids wouldnt be useless worms. asia shows us day for day that children indeed can tailor. how else would you guys buy your cheap clothes in h&m and all the other shops? it's because kids are able to do good worm fast and get paid little even by third world standards. harsh, but true. and you dont see people going to the barricades over this anymore. it is an ugly but accepted reality. kids can work under the harshest of circumstances. no wonder they were and still are used in unregulated mines in africa and asia as cheap workers. might not be strong enough to use a pick axe efficiently, but surely they can carry and light a little candle and then walk away (actually is dynamite). they can easily work the fields and can definitely play and teach animals to do stuff. children are approximately as smart as the smartest animals out there so they can learn from eachother aswell. like hauling stuff. attacking people with teeth and claws/fists. feeding animals should also be easy as pie, just as taming them. ok, they cant research for shit, but they can easily craft. like how hard can it be to roll a blunt? if kids can make footballs, they can also make joints end of story. kids CAN do art. most people dont see it as art, but so do i not see their works as art ;) i guess i dont count, but there have been child prodigies in recorded history like beethoven and mozart, so the argument of children producing art still stands. next one on my list is construction. while i havent found any specific data or have anything in memory, i am sure children have worked on construction sites and still do in some places. heck, even in the first world it is widely accepted to send 16 year olds to work there. it isnt far fetched that considerably younger children could also do a good job there, not unlike other child labourers. ok most children suck at cooking, but would it be too much to ask of a child to cook a simple meal every now and then when its comrades produce t shirts? especially when it comes to pressing a button on a nutrient paste machine, even two year olds should grasp that no matter what. teens could definitely cook better though, even lavish meals. smithing could be some trouble, but it shouldnt be too hard for them to swing a lighter hammer and make nails and smaller stuff. smithing longswords and maces would be definitely too hard for anybody else than a teenager. and no matter how tough females and how emancipated we are, i highly doubt even one in a thousand women could become blacksmiths in real life, but since rimworld is more progressive in that regard and even lets sick fat old women produce weapons no problem, even if the quality is a bit questionable, the end result will always be functional. i honestly dont think it would be too mucb of a stretch that even kids can smith. social. easy. everybody likes kids. but kids are naive. if you go trade with a kid you'll get worse prices. kids wont make for good prison guards either because they essentially cant do any useful melee. but for recruiting prisoners their cuteness could be a plus. also, if you're a prisoner and a group of people wants to recruit you for their causes, if there was a healthy and happy child wandering about among them, wouldnt that kind of show how good and safe of a place that is? i'd much rather join a group of strangers in a long term survival situation like this if they have a child. then, medicine. you might think this is the one point aside from research, where kids are useless, right? indians taught us that this is wrong. look it up if you dont believe me. many regions of india are so poor that they only have child docs and they dont care about child labour laws either, so perfect combo for overworked and undereducated docs in a hospital. all kidding aside, kids can be docs good enough for many things. especially since there are so many health illiterates, kid docs can help a lot, even if they probably cant pull off a cancer removal surgery or lung harvest, yet. i let the most burning of all questions for last. it also happens to be the possibly darkest of them all. can children shoot and therefore fight? yes they can. i myself have shot a weak pistol as a 6 year old and guns arent even legal in my home country for civilian use. (dont ask how i did it, i dont wanna get my teachers into trouble) anyway. i can shoot a pistol and i never did it before or since. it is a simple task. i even shot an aim reasonably well at a distance. now let's go to current day africa. or 2012. kony 2012. remember? the guy that kidnapped children to work in his army? give a child a fully automatic assault rifle and it suddenly has the same possible damage output as an adult. probably cant aim for shit, but that is beside the point. the child can shoot, it has been prooved enough times already on the internet aswell as in rl.
will a child do all its tasks like a level 20 adult? no. will they do it at a reasonable rate to be worthwhile? definitely. worth to feed? yes. worth to save up a bed? quite so. worth to wait for it to be born and grown up enough to do some jobs
sorry about the wall of text, wife is awaiting