The industrial processes in the game at the moment are relatively simple and would benefit very much from being more fleshed out.
Your pawns shouldn't mine steel out of a wall, they should be able to mine iron and coal and then smelt these two products into steel. Copper should be added to the game for conduits and electrical products such as power-plants and batteries. Steel is not a good conductor of electricity (being x10 less efficient than copper) so it makes no sense for steel to be used in conduits (even less for it to be used in power generation).
Until Z-levels are added (if they ever are) there should be a mine building that pawns can work in the extracts resources from the ground (creates them out of nothing). The frequency of products being created would depend on the pawns mining skill. Perhaps low mining skill pawns could even take infrequent minor injuries from working in the mines from collapses, etc (ensuring that you can't just continuously mine and mine and mine with everyone in the colony).
With the addition of coal we could have coal-fired steam boilers for power.
Allowing the processing of titanium would be great and could be a go between for steel and plasteel.
You should be able to collect sand and smelt it into glass and silicon chips.
Ideally constructing a solar panel should take copper, steel, glass and silicon chips.
We could also mine gemstones for art projects.
Different semi-precious rock types (such as the ones in Dwarf Fortress - Mica, etc) would help with improving options for base design and art again.
One of the mods in the modding forum adds taxidermy which would make a fine addition.
I feel that expanding the resources available should be the #1 priority now. People can burn out of the game if there's not much to do and even simple variety objects add a lot to the entertainment value.
Let's see...
- Not mining steel, requiring to smelt iron and coal into it? And how exactly would we build anything TO smelt those, without ready to go steel? The way the game is now, this would just be a very, very big nuisance...
- Meh, one of the challenges is dealing with the materials you have on the map, having an "infinite mine" you get stuff out of would remove that a bit. Also, z-levels are probably never being added, Tynan doesn't even want to talk about them, it would be a major, major thing...
- Coal powered things? Sure.
- Titanium, sure.
- Don't see a use for it.
- The solar panel part, so adding two new entire things, having to smelt sand into glass and silicon chips to make solar panels? Not all maps have sand, but solar panels are VERY important, and this would just be more nuisance then worth it...
- Gemstones for art? Makes sense.
- Meh
- Taxidermy... not much use base game yet really
- Expanding resources available so people don't burn out? See, that just, honestly, is a stupid thing to say. Adding ANYTHING adds to the entertainment value, and adds to the game. Saying only adding expandable resources, that would literally help nothing, it would just allow more things to be built out of it, possibly new objects. New objects would be the entertainment value, aka new stuff at all. What Tynan is working on, and has been always working on, is providing new content to the game for everything, such as the animal husbandry update for alpha 12. Expanding resources does not require being a top priority.
Considering you canonically start with tools (even if you can't see them), supplies, weapons, I am assuming here you also have something like an STC from WH40k (http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Standard_Template_Construct_(STC)) Literally everything and anything you could ever need to know would be on there.
Plug in: How to make steel?
gives you chemical equation for process, as well as basic materials, and different methods as to how
Plug in: how to smelt iron? Make charcoal? Build a smelter? From these materials?
gives you different methods as to how to do these things
Plug in: schematic for solar panel
Gives you schematic
Plug in: materials needed?
Gives you materials
considering how the majority of colonists are HILARIOUSLY incompetent at some of the most basic tasks, yet somehow manage to pull a working solar panel out of their ass, there has to be something going on in the background, here. Considering WH40k is an influence on Rimworld, something like an STC makes a whole lot of sense.
I agree that the game could benefit from fleshing out the production chain and adding a FEW new resources. I don't think adding another step in the process to making steel would help anything, but I could dig adding copper for electronics and keeping steel for structural works. Also, sand is a must. I play Superior Crafting and whenever I do play vanilla, the absence is unbearable.
Speaking of SC, vanilla could benefit from taking a few of its ideas. Like the early game stone made smelter and unpowered saw table, as well as crafted resources like smelted metal and cut lumber.
Its a tricky thing, though, to keep the balance between 'Enough that it actually feels like we are surviving and its a challenge' and 'Dear god why are there so many arbitrary resources to deal with'
Quote from: kingtyris on August 13, 2015, 11:56:54 PM
I agree that the game could benefit from fleshing out the production chain and adding a FEW new resources. I don't think adding another step in the process to making steel would help anything, but I could dig adding copper for electronics and keeping steel for structural works. Also, sand is a must. I play Superior Crafting and whenever I do play vanilla, the absence is unbearable.
Speaking of SC, vanilla could benefit from taking a few of its ideas. Like the early game stone made smelter and unpowered saw table, as well as crafted resources like smelted metal and cut lumber.
Its a tricky thing, though, to keep the balance between 'Enough that it actually feels like we are surviving and its a challenge' and 'Dear god why are there so many arbitrary resources to deal with'
I do love me some Superior Crafting. Not to knock the developer or anything, but the game just feels ... better, for a lack of a better term, when played with Superior Crafting.
One thing I don't like about SC, however, is the fact that you NEED power in order to weave cloth.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warp-weighted_loom
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spindle_(textiles)
Essentially, you should be able to "Survive, and make the most basic of materials (cloth, leather, basic melee and ranged weapons, etc)", without power. Want anything else, or want things fast? Use the powered workstations.
Also, steel is leftover from structures and crashed ships and such, not actually naturally there by land.
Quote from: Z0MBIE2 on August 14, 2015, 03:47:55 AM
Also, steel is leftover from structures and crashed ships and such, not actually naturally there by land.
1. How did it end up inside the mountains?
2. How did it survive decades of corrosion that should have turned it into rust heaps?
3. How did it compact into a mine-able form?
1. Plot.
2. Plot.
3. Plot.
I'm all for adding a few new resources to the game but we can't micro-analyze every facet of the game world. Steel is already there. Accept it. Maybe future societies found a way to treat steel chemically so that it never rusted or corroded?
Quote from: kingtyris on August 14, 2015, 12:08:43 PM
1. Plot.
2. Plot.
3. Plot.
I'm all for adding a few new resources to the game but we can't micro-analyze every facet of the game world. Steel is already there. Accept it. Maybe future societies found a way to treat steel chemically so that it never rusted or corroded?
Maybe they should be able to mine guns out of the mountain-face too.
And potatoes...
It makes as much sense.
Quote from: The13thRonin on August 14, 2015, 07:49:37 PM
Maybe they should be able to mine guns out of the mountain-face too.
And potatoes...
It makes as much sense.
Hmm, that could actually work. Not literally from the mountain itself but a hidden room that's actually a sort of armory or a room containing space meals.
Quote from: A Friend on August 14, 2015, 10:45:08 PM
Quote from: The13thRonin on August 14, 2015, 07:49:37 PM
-Inhalt-
-Inhalt-
Don't you love when sarcasm turns into an idea? Also, it should say somewhere in the lore. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pIZyKif0bFbBWten4drrm7kfSSfvBoJPgG9-ywfN8j8/pub And https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fUO3KKbAbTxMP1lqphnnodY0NPoOVblCUkDw-54MDUc/pub @The13thRonin I think it should say somewhere in here. It's what someone said on another thread, so.
Quote from: A Friend on August 14, 2015, 10:45:08 PM
Quote from: The13thRonin on August 14, 2015, 07:49:37 PM
Maybe they should be able to mine guns out of the mountain-face too.
And potatoes...
It makes as much sense.
Hmm, that could actually work. Not literally from the mountain itself but a hidden room that's actually a sort of armory or a room containing space meals.
No it should come from the walls themselves... Don't you know these are magic walls? Sometimes when you mine them a pawn named Merlin appears and grants you three wishes, but only if you click your heels three times and say there's no place like home...
Also mining the walls automatically heals all pawns in a mile radius but also ages them one year per strike because... Magic walls... Why not.
So I kind of like the idea of taxidermy, you could place them about the colony as 'art' objects. It would be especially cool if they had a story generated description like sculptures do.
As far as making steel out of iron and coal specifically...well, I'm going to be That Guy and note that:
A) The RimWorld universe is 'only' a few thousand years ahead of ours.
B) If I remember the backstory document correctly no alien life of any kind has been discovered meaning that all planets with life were terraformed *VERY* recently, relatively speaking.
C) Coal takes an exorbitantly long time to form from dead plants, with the coal we mine on Earth now having come from plants that died on the order of ~300 million years ago.
So no coal for steel.
Having said that, there are ways around this fact. What you'd have to do is char wood in a reducing environment to make charcoal, and smelt iron ore with that.
Which might make an interesting manufactured resource, burning wood for charcoal is something the colonists could figure out how to do early on and it would have numerous uses.
Quote from: DoctorNick on August 17, 2015, 10:09:59 AM
So I kind of like the idea of taxidermy, you could place them about the colony as 'art' objects. It would be especially cool if they had a story generated description like sculptures do.
As far as making steel out of iron and coal specifically...well, I'm going to be That Guy and note that:
A) The RimWorld universe is 'only' a few thousand years ahead of ours.
B) If I remember the backstory document correctly no alien life of any kind has been discovered meaning that all planets with life were terraformed *VERY* recently, relatively speaking.
C) Coal takes an exorbitantly long time to form from dead plants, with the coal we mine on Earth now having come from plants that died on the order of ~300 million years ago.
So no coal for steel.
Having said that, there are ways around this fact. What you'd have to do is char wood in a reducing environment to make charcoal, and smelt iron ore with that.
Which might make an interesting manufactured resource, burning wood for charcoal is something the colonists could figure out how to do early on and it would have numerous uses.
Good point Doctor Nick.