So. . .
The lore. We have a primer. In essence it has three main points:
1)There is no fast way around space - it's takes forever
2)There are no sapient alien species
3)Humanity has spread but there is no rhyme or reason to this, no structure, so each settled planet rolls a D20 to see if it regresses or advances in technology.
Now, I've been designing game systems and worlds since I was little, having two D&D nerds for parents. I know this differs from video game design, but I think it shares enough parallels to validate the point I'm going to try and make.
Setting must come before mechanics. Without a fleshed out setting that works, your mechanics are going to be convoluted and ill suited to your world. If you use stock D&D magic, but your magic users draw the power from living things in lore, then that magic system isn't going to make sense.
If you say there is no FTL/Warp/Hyperspace then every ship that launches out of your solar system is basically a one way trip. You don't know what their destination is going to be like when they get there, or even if they survived that trip.
If you say there are no sapient species, then that kinda flies in the face of secular wisdom that states that is highly improbable given how many planets can support life as we know it. That isn't counting for the possibility of sapient life that isn't how we know it.
If you say that humans regress more than they progress once they leave their space travel capable society, then you run into a whole slew of other issues when you don't account for technologies present and the viability of life at all levels of human technology. It is further complicated when you have a bunch of people of all different technology levels sharing a ship and then a planet. How would that work? How did they end up on the same ship and planet without the lesser technologically advanced being slaves? I find it difficult to imagine some glitterworld dudes stopping off at some planet full of primitives and convincing them to hop aboard. Then we have the elephant in the room: Language. If people have changed so much on all these planets, how can we logically assume they all speak the same language still? Even people who left a glitterworld 1000 years ago and retained their technology level, they would probably have seen their language change enough to make communication a pain in the butt.
Then we have this amazing amount of space traffic. . . Populations that are nigh infinite that care nothing for their losses. Humans living on planets so close to the sun that their spacecraft would melt in orbit. Zero personal hygiene, no need to bathe, and apparently get enough water to survive by eating potatoes which are incredibly starchy...
We got folks going one place, but just happen to flyby a life sustaining planet when their ship messes up and they end up on the planet. Then they want to leave. They want to build a space ship. They build a spaceship with a couple of cavemen, some medieval dudes, some dudes who were trying to kill you and take all you own a couple days ago, and a transgender jeweler.
Maybe I'm alone in these inconsistencies irking me - could very well be because of my passion for world building. Just figured this would be a much more reasonable request than some of my other more difficult to implement suggestions.
That is basically my main gripe with the setting.
-We have "neolithic" tribal peoples that wander around with steel weapons. Hint: if they use metal, they aren't neolithic. Neolithic means "New Stone Age". Oh, and according to the "factions" tab, these tribes are mostly nomadic, following Muffalo herds. That isn't "Neolithic" either. The New Stone Age is essentially defined by the use and spread of agriculture.
-Said "Neolithic" peoples can be contacted in seconds via radio. Somehow, they have radio and electricity, all while being stuck in the Stone Age. ::)
-Said Neolithic peoples use bows, spears and clubs, while you can trade for firearms pretty easily. In "real life", close to 99% of aboriginal peoples dropped "primitive" weapons like hot potatoes as soon as firearms became available, for a multitude of reasons.
-EVERYONE speaks the same language, even people from off-world, and there is zero possibility of there being a miscommunication.
- You can ask a faction for help, and they show up within 5 minutes or so........ after teleporting over the multiple miles/kilometers of terrain ::)
- As above, "space travel is hard", yet there are massive trading ships passing over your isolated and far-flung "Rimworld" with alarming regularity EVERY COUPLE OF DAYS.
-You can build an interstellar spacecraft while LIVING IN A CAVE, WITH A BOX OF SCRAPS.
And so on. It is really funny when the details behind the setting don't actually work in the setting.
Thank the nerd gods I'm not alone.
Anyone else think that space trade outside of within your own solar system would be a bad investment? By the time you get to that place with what were fancy high tech guns, they've had hundreds of years to completely make those guns obsolete. Same for food - that food you are lugging to your destination could have developed into an allergy for those people, or a cultural taboo in the time you traveled there - they might even want to trade for your dog when you get there and it's a capital crime in their society to keep animals as anything but food. Slavers? What happens when they are in cryosleep and pass over a glitterworld that wasn't there when you planned your trip. Now they just blew you up because slavery is punishable by death.
Pirates. Dudes who drop pod from their perfectly good space ship to attack your colony. Pirates are pirates to get rich and live hedonistically. Why are they trolling rimworlds - I thought I cleared the tech tree, but maybe I missed the strip club tech.
Maybe the tribal people have electricity and metalurgy but forgo clothes and guns due to void god related worship reasons or social reasons. Also There is a linguistic issue between colonists and tribals (harder to recruit).
Quote from: MarcTheMerc on February 29, 2016, 08:55:49 PM
Maybe the tribal people have electricity and metalurgy but forgo clothes and guns due to void god related worship reasons or social reasons. Also There is a linguistic issue between colonists and tribals (harder to recruit).
The characters in-game have no issues talking to the tribals, either in-person or over the radio.
Quote from: Vagabond on February 29, 2016, 02:23:10 PM
...Setting must come before mechanics...
Incorrect. (emphasis mine)
If your building a game to be
centered around the narrative/setting/story,
then setting must come before mechanics.
But not all games are centered around those things and thus do not
require Setting before Mechanics.
In fact many games have no setting at all. Here is a famous and prolific example:
Tetris.
Simulations and semi-simulations are not excluded from this.
Many flight simulators have minimal if any setting.
I love setting, I love world building, and I love well written narrative.
But it is
in no way a requirement for any game, and no developer is beholden to include it.
Oi vey.
You are completely right, I was a little hasty when I said that setting must come before mechanics. I forgot to add "except when the game doesn't have a setting, or world. Or dealing with complex systems such as human behavior, human survival, research, development, and establishment of said technologies and constructs.".
Really? You had to go there with tetris? That is specifically a game with no setting, that never had a setting, and doesn't need a setting. Poker doesn't have a setting, or chess. That is because they are strictly games with mechanics meant to employ player skill and luck with no story to tell. I'm sure you see the difference in a game that releases with a lore primer, has a setting, and deals with real life equivalents to humans, plants, and animals interacting in a worldspace.
I would also argue that most flight simulators had their settings before their mechanics. If it is simulating world war 2 aircraft, you have WW2 planes with WW2 plane specs (acceleration, top speed, armaments, ect). It just so happens that they have no narrative to go along with their setting aside from "fly".
Finally, within the context of my post I'm pretty sure it's plain that I was talking about how this game is seriously lacking in the setting department by mostly having a flawed premise that doesn't work with it's mechanics.
Quote
If your building a game to be centered around the narrative/setting/story, then setting must come before mechanics.
This game is centered around it. So what is the problem? Did you just want to point out how I was wrong in using "must"?
Quote from: Vagabond on March 01, 2016, 08:33:49 AM
... So what is the problem? Did you just want to point out how I was wrong in using "must"?
Partially. Ill admit mentioning Tetris was a bit of a reach in context of a Rimworld discussion.
But also because, your post seemed to imply(to me) that any game with
even a bit of setting must place that setting before mechanics.
Simply put, I don't agree with that. If a dev wants to make a mechanics based game with only a minor setting attached, then they are perfectly free to do so. And that design choice(With a setting, but Mechanics before Setting) is
not a bad thing.
The presence of a setting does not make it the focus of the game, regardless of how fleshed out that setting is.
Id like to say that technological regression is a bit more realistic than you think.
Imagine two groups land. One in relative safety the other into great danger. Tools and such are left behind as you flee. Maybe the other group steals them. Whatever happens they are lost too you. Your next generation will grow up without those tools and the previous generation will have little in the way of teaching you how it all works. So the generation after that might only have a passing familiarity with the concept of guns (dangerous, loud, can kill you from a distance) but no functional way to manufacture them. So if some tribe has been wandering about for several generations we get the tribal we are familiar with in RIMworld. Then also the more modern colony whos always had access to these tools can maintain that knowledge.
Sure the tribe might eventually crawl its way back to scientific understanding faster than it took us to do the first time but maybe it just hasnt happened yet. Id like to see trading with tribals to slowly change them. Keep giving them shotguns and stuff and maybe they become modernized.
As far as aliens are concerned, until we actually find life elsewhere we have only one point of data for life and cant make any kind of accurate judgement. There might be factors we havent thought of. Even Earth itself spend a lot of time as a lifeless rock even though all the other conditions were right. So its not unrealistic to presume the possibility that either we are alone because we are simply the first life or that the previous life is all gone. Or that its simply so rare that maybe they are just in their own galaxy and RIMworld hasnt gotten there yet. Just because a thing might exists doesnt mean it has been discovered.
space trade has already been established as a half-measure until planetary based trading is implemented in game.
Hygiene? Water? there is a limit to the number of things people want to micromanage.
The ship just happened to crash on a hospitable world? you're telling a story. For every story that gets told, there are probably 100 ships that...just explode.
Primitive people building a spaceship bothers you? You're managing the colony...why are you having them build a spaceship instead of simply establish and improve an agricultural village? The "win condition" was also kind of tacked on to the game for those people that wanted to "win." Nothing is stopping you from playing an open ended game.
The different tech levels is something of an issue....While i don't see the medieval being slaved to the glitterworld, i DO see the medieval indirectly and inevitably advancing several technology levels just by existing near the glitterworld folk (on ship or planet)....a la star trek. The only explanation i can come up with here is that the different society levels crashed, landed, or settled independently with minimal interrelation. Individual advancements or catastrophes wouldn't affect their distant neighbors, resulting in tribals and settlers and technologically advanced pirates.
Language is an issue of course....it could also be simplified though...maybe there is a reason that tribe is hostile? they don't understand you? Maybe thats why the prisoner has a recruitment difficulty of 99? Yes, i'm fully aware that there are OTHER reasons in the game that those happen, but the OP at least has stated he's D&D experienced....pen&paper RPGs rely on participatory storytelling. There's no reason the PLAYERS as opposed to the GM (or game designer) can't come up with the reasons for why stuff happens.
yeah, there are lore concerns, but there are also explanations already given or easily conceived with some minor suspension of disbelief for many of the concerns listed.
in earlier versions (not sure if still present) by default tribals are harder to recruite because of the language gap.
Quote from: Vagabond on February 29, 2016, 02:23:10 PM
So. . .
The lore. We have a primer. In essence it has three main points:
1)There is no fast way around space - it's takes forever
2)There are no sapient alien species
3)Humanity has spread but there is no rhyme or reason to this, no structure, so each settled planet rolls a D20 to see if it regresses or advances in technology.
Now, I've been designing game systems and worlds since I was little, having two D&D nerds for parents. I know this differs from video game design, but I think it shares enough parallels to validate the point I'm going to try and make.
Setting must come before mechanics. Without a fleshed out setting that works, your mechanics are going to be convoluted and ill suited to your world. If you use stock D&D magic, but your magic users draw the power from living things in lore, then that magic system isn't going to make sense.
If you say there is no FTL/Warp/Hyperspace then every ship that launches out of your solar system is basically a one way trip. You don't know what their destination is going to be like when they get there, or even if they survived that trip.
If you say there are no sapient species, then that kinda flies in the face of secular wisdom that states that is highly improbable given how many planets can support life as we know it. That isn't counting for the possibility of sapient life that isn't how we know it.
If you say that humans regress more than they progress once they leave their space travel capable society, then you run into a whole slew of other issues when you don't account for technologies present and the viability of life at all levels of human technology. It is further complicated when you have a bunch of people of all different technology levels sharing a ship and then a planet. How would that work? How did they end up on the same ship and planet without the lesser technologically advanced being slaves? I find it difficult to imagine some glitterworld dudes stopping off at some planet full of primitives and convincing them to hop aboard. Then we have the elephant in the room: Language. If people have changed so much on all these planets, how can we logically assume they all speak the same language still? Even people who left a glitterworld 1000 years ago and retained their technology level, they would probably have seen their language change enough to make communication a pain in the butt.
Then we have this amazing amount of space traffic. . . Populations that are nigh infinite that care nothing for their losses. Humans living on planets so close to the sun that their spacecraft would melt in orbit. Zero personal hygiene, no need to bathe, and apparently get enough water to survive by eating potatoes which are incredibly starchy...
We got folks going one place, but just happen to flyby a life sustaining planet when their ship messes up and they end up on the planet. Then they want to leave. They want to build a space ship. They build a spaceship with a couple of cavemen, some medieval dudes, some dudes who were trying to kill you and take all you own a couple days ago, and a transgender jeweler.
Maybe I'm alone in these inconsistencies irking me - could very well be because of my passion for world building. Just figured this would be a much more reasonable request than some of my other more difficult to implement suggestions.
Nonsensical nit picking rant.
Quote from: Livingston I Presume on March 03, 2016, 08:57:58 PM
Quote from: Vagabond on February 29, 2016, 02:23:10 PM
So. . .
The lore. We have a primer. In essence it has three main points:
1)There is no fast way around space - it's takes forever
2)There are no sapient alien species
3)Humanity has spread but there is no rhyme or reason to this, no structure, so each settled planet rolls a D20 to see if it regresses or advances in technology.
Now, I've been designing game systems and worlds since I was little, having two D&D nerds for parents. I know this differs from video game design, but I think it shares enough parallels to validate the point I'm going to try and make.
Setting must come before mechanics. Without a fleshed out setting that works, your mechanics are going to be convoluted and ill suited to your world. If you use stock D&D magic, but your magic users draw the power from living things in lore, then that magic system isn't going to make sense.
If you say there is no FTL/Warp/Hyperspace then every ship that launches out of your solar system is basically a one way trip. You don't know what their destination is going to be like when they get there, or even if they survived that trip.
If you say there are no sapient species, then that kinda flies in the face of secular wisdom that states that is highly improbable given how many planets can support life as we know it. That isn't counting for the possibility of sapient life that isn't how we know it.
If you say that humans regress more than they progress once they leave their space travel capable society, then you run into a whole slew of other issues when you don't account for technologies present and the viability of life at all levels of human technology. It is further complicated when you have a bunch of people of all different technology levels sharing a ship and then a planet. How would that work? How did they end up on the same ship and planet without the lesser technologically advanced being slaves? I find it difficult to imagine some glitterworld dudes stopping off at some planet full of primitives and convincing them to hop aboard. Then we have the elephant in the room: Language. If people have changed so much on all these planets, how can we logically assume they all speak the same language still? Even people who left a glitterworld 1000 years ago and retained their technology level, they would probably have seen their language change enough to make communication a pain in the butt.
Then we have this amazing amount of space traffic. . . Populations that are nigh infinite that care nothing for their losses. Humans living on planets so close to the sun that their spacecraft would melt in orbit. Zero personal hygiene, no need to bathe, and apparently get enough water to survive by eating potatoes which are incredibly starchy...
We got folks going one place, but just happen to flyby a life sustaining planet when their ship messes up and they end up on the planet. Then they want to leave. They want to build a space ship. They build a spaceship with a couple of cavemen, some medieval dudes, some dudes who were trying to kill you and take all you own a couple days ago, and a transgender jeweler.
Maybe I'm alone in these inconsistencies irking me - could very well be because of my passion for world building. Just figured this would be a much more reasonable request than some of my other more difficult to implement suggestions.
Nonsensical nit picking rant.
beautiful response old chap. Just wee bit too heavy on the ol' criticism eh?
I dont want you or Tynan to make up most of the story. This game is about creating a narrative and i as the player want to create that in my head how i see it. Having loose rules is fine but detail isnt needed.
Quote from: skullywag on March 07, 2016, 03:02:37 AM
I dont want you or Tynan to make up most of the story. This game is about creating a narrative and i as the player want to create that in my head how i see it. Having loose rules is fine but detail isnt needed.
Skullywag laying down the law.
Skullywag style.
I think the whole lore would make more sense if the superluminal travel was introduced, just so it would take months to travel, instead of dosens of years. The presence of Rim Worlds would still be explainable, as they can be just worlds without much resourses, located away from everything, so nobody cares about them. Also, i don't think that with the amount of living space that can be acquired by humans with FTL technology is so immense, that the population density throughout galaxy would still be low by the 5500's and a group of people could be lost really easy. And it would be unlikely for someone to find them, so they'd have enough time to degrade to medieval level or even lower.
Maybe i did not consider something immersion-breaking in this scenario though, idk.
FTL travel can be very slow, but this doesn't preclude frequent space travel. Spaceships could be traveling between different points on the planet's surface, different space stations/asteroids, different moons of the planet, or other planets in the same star system. All of these are thousands of times closer together than another star.
Too many people think "a spaceship is a spaceship". The reality is that space travel is a bit like ocean travel. You can't cross the Pacific on a dugout canoe - but you can get between nearby islands. That's where the space traders come from. An orbital ship isn't a starship the same way a dugout canoe isn't an ocean liner.
As for the varying development levels of the people you encounter (tribal, medieval, industrial, glitterworld), I find this reasonable because all of these exist on Earth right now. There are places where millions of people still live tribal or near-tribal village lifestyles. Others in mid-low developed countries (India, Africa, etc) make use of a lot of medieval-like technologies like hand-forging of metal and hand-threshing of crops. Then we have variations on the modern world, from the "glitter capitals" of New York or Tokyo to the dirty industrial cities in China.
Now spread these on different planets, isolate them for a while, then pick them up onto refugee ships or science ships or whatever and send them into interstellar space. It's RimWorld.
Of course there are a few stretches in the universe backstory. It's all done in the goal of making an interesting and unique universe to play with. Other things just aren't fully fleshed out in this particular game (e.g. tech tree stuff). In any case, with some imagination suspension of disbelief shouldn't be impossible. At least, that's what I shot for.
Quote from: Tynan on March 11, 2016, 06:21:19 PM
...
Too many people think "a spaceship is a spaceship". The reality is that space travel is a bit like ocean travel. You can't cross the Pacific on a dugout canoe - but you can get between nearby islands. That's where the space traders come from. An orbital ship isn't a starship the same way a dugout canoe isn't an ocean liner.
...
Do you think it would help to re-write the in game descriptions to reference them specifically as "In System" Traders/Ships/Pirates?
Quote from: Tynan on March 11, 2016, 06:21:19 PM
Spaceships could be traveling between different points on the planet's surface, different space stations/asteroids, different moons of the planet, or other planets in the same star system.
I see a weak point in this scenario. Let's say that a rimworld is indeed a forgotten place with just a few (thousands) people living on it. What chances are that they are interested in space traveling from one point of the planet to another? I'd say chances are low, as there are much easier ways of moving around, like airplanes (which are also much lower tech than space travel). Also, where would such traders take super-hi-tech stuff from? Are they manufactured in a community of a few thousand people, struggling to survive on a distant planet? Seems unlikely.
Spaceships from different celestial bodies in the star system? Chances are low, or else the whole system is not that uninhabited and forgotten, as i assume it takes a strong high-tech community to do space travel.
Another life-sustaining planet in the star system with a developed civilisation? Seems unlikely. First of all, i'd suppose chance of having two habitable planets in a star system are rather low, unless it's a double planet where both planet are of similar size and properties (located on the same distance from the star, obviously). But then i think that civilisation would show itself much more evidently than just sending trading ships.
I like the RW lore, but the way we have space traders right now just makes the lore self-contradicting. If we take away this part of the equation the lore makes perfect sense. I hope there will be found a replacement for space traders, or the lore will be altered to make them more fitting.
The next alpha will introduce ground-based caravans.
Muffalopacks heck yea
Quote from: Dive on March 11, 2016, 11:58:05 PM
I see a weak point in this scenario. Let's say that a rimworld is indeed a forgotten place with just a few (thousands) people living on it.
What make you think its a "forgotten" place? as I understand it the term "Rimworld" is just meant to mean on the frontier or far from the "core" worlds and more heavily populated space... it's just the space boonies.
Quote from: Dive on March 11, 2016, 11:58:05 PM
What chances are that they are interested in space traveling from one point of the planet to another? I'd say chances are low, as there are much easier ways of moving around, like airplanes (which are also much lower tech than space travel).
True, I can't argue with that.
Quote from: Dive on March 11, 2016, 11:58:05 PM
Also, where would such traders take super-hi-tech stuff from? Are they manufactured in a community of a few thousand people, struggling to survive on a distant planet? Seems unlikely.
By high tech do you mean bionics and glitterworld medicine? Because I don't think that they would be "struggling to survive" if they have a high enough level of technology, I can easily imagine a heavily automated glitterworld colony with little to no manual labor on the part of the colonists.
I can also imagine such products coming from a completely automated facility controlled, run and protected by mechanoids that are still following their original programming to mass produce (insert high tech item here), the machnoid are programed to take raw resource x and turn it into product x and people have learned "if I deliver x units of x resource to the facilities deliver bay the mechanoids will produce x amount of x item and drop it off at the dispatch area for pick-up."
Quote from: Dive on March 11, 2016, 11:58:05 PM
Spaceships from different celestial bodies in the star system? Chances are low, or else the whole system is not that uninhabited and forgotten, as i assume it takes a strong high-tech community to do space travel.
Don't know why you think the system would be uninhabited, if Rimworld just means its in the space boonies then it could have multiple inhabitable worlds.
Quote from: Dive on March 11, 2016, 11:58:05 PM
Another life-sustaining planet in the star system with a developed civilisation? Seems unlikely. First of all, i'd suppose chance of having two habitable planets in a star system are rather low, unless it's a double planet where both planet are of similar size and properties (located on the same distance from the star, obviously). But then i think that civilisation would show itself much more evidently than just sending trading ships.
Please do consider that one of the sources of inspiration of Rimworld is firefly and here is a brief summery of the firefly universe.
http://firefly.wikia.com/wiki/The_Verse (http://firefly.wikia.com/wiki/The_Verse)
Quote"The star system is a star cluster, of the likes of the triple star system Alpha Centauri. It consists of five main sequence stars, around which orbit an assortment of protostars, gas giants, asteroid belts, planets, and their moons.[1] Four of the main sequence stars orbit a central star."
Quote"White Sun - also known as Bai Hu - is the center of the 'Verse by all reckoning. Around it orbit the Central Planets, also known as the White Sun system, and the home of the Alliance."
Quote"Georgia - also known as Huang Long - is the principal star of the Georgia system, the largest system orbiting White Sun (Bai Hu). Here is where the Independent Planets first stood up against the Alliance. The memory of this lies across the surface of Shadow, a planet bombed so hard at the beginning of the Unification War that nothing lives there and never will again."
The player's rimworld could just be a planet like shadow, it was destroyed by a civ with higher tech and just left to rot, really sucks to have crash landed here.
Quote"Red Sun - also known as Zhu Que - is the coldest of all the suns in the 'Verse. It is the principal star of the Red Sun system. It shares an orbit with Huang Long, sitting in its L3 point in orbit around White Sun (Bai Hu)."
Quote"Kalidasa - also known as Xuan Wu - is the start of the Rim Planets. It is the principal star of the Kalidasa system."
This is why I think Rimworld just means it in the space boonies. :D
Quote"Blue Sun (not to be confused with the Blue Sun Corporation) - also known as Qing Long - sits out on the edge of the 'Verse. It is the principal star of the Blue Sun system. It was here that the first attacks by Reavers took place."
it should be keep in mind that in firefly each of these systems does have multiple inhabited planets that where terraformed to be inhabitable.
Quote from: Dive on March 11, 2016, 11:58:05 PM
I like the RW lore, but the way we have space traders right now just makes the lore self-contradicting. If we take away this part of the equation the lore makes perfect sense. I hope there will be found a replacement for space traders, or the lore will be altered to make them more fitting.
Its not as contradicting as you'd think, from a certain point of view :P, also Tynan said that they are adding ground based caravans, read the dot points in this blog post.
https://ludeon.com/blog/2015/11/ongoing-progress/ (https://ludeon.com/blog/2015/11/ongoing-progress/)
Quote from: JesterHell on March 12, 2016, 02:34:35 AM
Quote from: Dive on March 11, 2016, 11:58:05 PM
What chances are that they are interested in space traveling from one point of the planet to another? I'd say chances are low, as there are much easier ways of moving around, like airplanes (which are also much lower tech than space travel).
True, I can't argue with that.
I can. Primarily because building an orbit capable ship is apparently well within the reach of any group of shmucks that happens to crash land on a planet and can gather enough materials for it.
If 5-15 player colonists can
build a system ship from scratch in
a few years or less it kinda set a precedent on the ease by which system ships can be built and used. Combine the apparent abundance of drop pods with orbital ships being able to travel to any geosynchronous position a hell of a lot faster than any atmospheric craft and suddenly space ships seem quite a bit more appealing.
Quote from: erdrik on March 12, 2016, 03:22:36 AM
I can. Primarily because building an orbit capable ship is apparently well within the reach of any group of shmucks that happens to crash land on a planet and can gather enough materials for it.
If 5-15 player colonists can build a system ship from scratch in a few years or less it kinda set a precedent on the ease by which system ships can be built and used. Combine the apparent abundance of drop pods with orbital ships being able to travel to any geosynchronous position a hell of a lot faster than any atmospheric craft and suddenly space ships seem quite a bit more appealing.
True... but I felt that the easy ship building was a place holder.
You know a thread is good when someones post is a good quarter page long. And no epic roasts either! quite rare!
Quote from: JesterHell on March 12, 2016, 02:34:35 AM
What make you think its a "forgotten" place? as I understand it the term "Rimworld" is just meant to mean on the frontier or far from the "core" worlds and more heavily populated space... it's just the space boonies.
Thank you for such a big response, even though i'm going to disagree with some of your points, i respect you for making effort to proclaim and prove them :)
I'm going to use the only sources of officlal lore we have:
RimWorld Universe Quick Primer (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pIZyKif0bFbBWten4drrm7kfSSfvBoJPgG9-ywfN8j8/pub)
Longsleep Revival Briefing (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fUO3KKbAbTxMP1lqphnnodY0NPoOVblCUkDw-54MDUc/pub)
So, what's a Rimworld? The definition we have is
QuoteRimworlds - Distant and isolated planets lacking in strong central government and low in population density. These places tend to hover around the industrial level of technology or lower. Because they're not homogenized by a central government, they tend to see a lot of interaction between people of different technology levels, as travelers crashland or ancient closed valut communities open up.
I'd like to note the word "isolated". Maybe it's not as bad as "forgotten" but still, it's a pretty strong word. Also, it says that "These places tend to hover around the industrial level of technology", which reduces the chance of a small high tech society being there. But it's not excluded completely, so maybe it's possible.
Mechanoid facilities is a good theory that would also explain occasional mechanoid raids.
Now to the whole firefly thing. Rimworld may be inspired by the series, but not in such literal way. It might at some point feel like you're on a firefly's "Rim Planet", but it's certainly not the same thing. Let's check the lore:
QuoteHumanity is smeared across a region of the galaxy about 1,200 light years wide.
This pretty much proves that in RW universe humanity has much more than 5 stars, it most likely has many hundreds of systems. The next point i have against the firefly theory is based on the assumption that Tynan respects the laws of physics of our reality (and so far there was no reason to think he doesn't). If the assumption is true, this video becomes related to the topic:
(YouTube)Could the Firefly Universe Exist? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEB0PGwavUA)
And yep, i've read about ground caravans and i'm really happy they're going to exist. But as far as orbital traders are in the game, the issue is not gone.
Quote from: erdrik on March 12, 2016, 03:22:36 AM
I can. Primarily because building an orbit capable ship is apparently well within the reach of any group of shmucks that happens to crash land on a planet and can gather enough materials for it.
If 5-15 player colonists can build a system ship from scratch in a few years or less it kinda set a precedent on the ease by which system ships can be built and used. Combine the apparent abundance of drop pods with orbital ships being able to travel to any geosynchronous position a hell of a lot faster than any atmospheric craft and suddenly space ships seem quite a bit more appealing.
That's actually a really good point that i missed. Actually, in a universe where building a spaceship is that easy, space traders can occur much more frequently. However, this still leaves a contradiction. That is:
If it's that easy to build a spaceship for an entire group of people using only what that group is capable of, why are there still towns on a rimworld? They should be gone rather soon, unless there's a reason for them to stay.
Ar they too low tech? But then there's a precedent of the player's colony, that get's to space-travel tech level in a few years, it should be even easier in a town of a few thousand inhabitants.
Quote from: Dive on March 15, 2016, 03:14:02 PM
...
If it's that easy to build a spaceship for an entire group of people using only what that group is capable of, why are there still towns on a rimworld? They should be gone rather soon, unless there's a reason for them to stay.
Ar they too low tech? But then there's a precedent of the player's colony, that get's to space-travel tech level in a few years, it should be even easier in a town of a few thousand inhabitants.
I think the difference is in motivation.
The goal of your colonists is apparently to get offworld.
Tribals are too low tech and Pirates love isolated areas to hide in.
But the other towns may not
want to leave.
Maybe the planet was actually their intended destination.
Or maybe they crashed and just decided not to leave.
Its not like everyone on the planet came from the same ship.
Quote from: Dive on March 15, 2016, 03:14:02 PM
Thank you for such a big response, even though i'm going to disagree with some of your points, i respect you for making effort to proclaim and prove them :)
Thanks and feel free too disagree, outside the word of god there is no correct answer. :P
Quote from: Dive on March 15, 2016, 03:14:02 PM
QuoteRimworlds - Distant and isolated planets lacking in strong central government and low in population density (1). These places tend to hover around the industrial level of technology or lower. Because they're not homogenized by a central government(2), they tend to see a lot of interaction between people of different technology levels, as travelers crashland or ancient closed valut communities open up.
I'll come back to this in a bit, see points 1 & 2.
Quote from: Dive on March 15, 2016, 03:14:02 PM
I'd like to note the word "isolated". Maybe it's not as bad as "forgotten" but still, it's a pretty strong word. Also, it says that "These places tend to hover around the industrial level of technology", which reduces the chance of a small high tech society being there. But it's not excluded completely, so maybe it's possible.
The possibility of it existing however improbable is all we need, after all probability almost guaranty's that alien life exists somewhere out there but Tynan has established that "true" aliens just don't exist in this setting.
Quote from: Dive on March 15, 2016, 03:14:02 PM
Mechanoid facilities is a good theory that would also explain occasional mechanoid raids.
Thanks.
Quote from: Dive on March 15, 2016, 03:14:02 PM
Now to the whole firefly thing. Rimworld may be inspired by the series, but not in such literal way. It might at some point feel like you're on a firefly's "Rim Planet", but it's certainly not the same thing. Let's check the lore:
QuoteHumanity is smeared across a region of the galaxy about 1,200 light years wide.
I didn't mean that the Rimworld universe was literally the same, you know with copyrights and all, just that the inspiration for Rimworld a has Core World Government called the Alliance (2) that don't care about the low tech Rim "planets" (1) which are frequently attacked by Reavers (pirate's) and that a similar setup could explain the frequency of space traders without the lore contradicting itself.
Quote from: Dive on March 15, 2016, 03:14:02 PM
This pretty much proves that in RW universe humanity has much more than 5 stars, it most likely has many hundreds of systems. The next point i have against the firefly theory is based on the assumption that Tynan respects the laws of physics of our reality (and so far there was no reason to think he doesn't).
I never said they had only five stars as they could have thousands, just that the player happens to be on one of the worlds in orbiting one of these five stars. hell given that there are "transcendental" human society's out there and that ship that go into their space can disappear then such a setup could be created and controlled by such a society just for fun or even experimental purpose's... e.g. the player ;)
Quote from: Dive on March 15, 2016, 03:14:02 PM
If the assumption is true, this video becomes related to the topic:
(YouTube)Could the Firefly Universe Exist? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEB0PGwavUA)
This is why I finished my last reply saying that how contradicting you find Rimworld lore is dependent on your point of view, because I watched that video and I heard a lot of "possible but Improbable" but not a single its impossible.
Quotethe chance of finding five stars each orbited by a brown dwarf is about 1 in 3 million
that's better odds then winning the lotto.
Quotereal world stars like those in the verse are at least 3-4x less likely to have any planets
less likely isn't the same as impossible.
Quotewhen you consider the probability of finding five stars orbiting each other, with six brown dwarf companions, plus the dozens of planets and moons within their stars habitual zone, our chances of finding a real life version of the "Verse" are pretty low
So it's not impossible which means Tynan can use this "super" system and still respect physics but choose to ignore probability in favor of what makes for good storytelling and when you consider that Rimworld already defies probability with the complete non-existence of "true" alien life then the existence of such an improbable system becomes less of an issue... for me at least.
Quote from: Dive on March 15, 2016, 03:14:02 PM
And yep, i've read about ground caravans and i'm really happy they're going to exist. But as far as orbital traders are in the game, the issue is not gone.
Add in ground caravans and reduce the frequency of space traders would make it easier to rationalize the how's and why's of their existence, also this is less of an issue if there is even 1 other inhabitable planet nearby and it becomes a non-issue once you reach Firefly's levels of populated planets.
All of which can technically exist in a single super system far out from the galactic core and however unlikely that is, its not impossible.
Quote from: Dive on March 15, 2016, 03:14:02 PM
Quote from: erdrik on March 12, 2016, 03:22:36 AM
I can. Primarily because building an orbit capable ship is apparently well within the reach of any group of shmucks that happens to crash land on a planet and can gather enough materials for it.
If 5-15 player colonists can build a system ship from scratch in a few years or less it kinda set a precedent on the ease by which system ships can be built and used. Combine the apparent abundance of drop pods with orbital ships being able to travel to any geosynchronous position a hell of a lot faster than any atmospheric craft and suddenly space ships seem quite a bit more appealing.
That's actually a really good point that i missed. Actually, in a universe where building a spaceship is that easy, space traders can occur much more frequently. However, this still leaves a contradiction. That is:
If it's that easy to build a spaceship for an entire group of people using only what that group is capable of, why are there still towns on a rimworld? They should be gone rather soon, unless there's a reason for them to stay.
Ar they too low tech? But then there's a precedent of the player's colony, that get's to space-travel tech level in a few years, it should be even easier in a town of a few thousand inhabitants.
I said that I felt like the ease of ship building was a place holder and I found this old thing which suggests the current easy is not intended.
Quote from: Tynan on September 17, 2013, 03:19:40 PM
So basically, making the ship means collecting lots of tough-to-get resources by trading, theft, construction, research, etc and assembling them into the ship.
I really want to do some drama at the end of the game where not all the colonists can go, or really bad things start happening just as you approach the finish line. Again, this is all storyteller-driven. Because that's how real stories work best - great challenge near the climactic finish line. No reason we can't generate that adaptively in a simulation.
It's also possible that colonists could start exhibiting some special behaviors when they anticipate being left behind (like pre-emptive psychotic breaks).
Also there this more recent one on the topic of research which should make shipbuilding a bit harder.
Quote from: Tynan on March 11, 2016, 05:59:48 PM
Quote from: Play2Jens on March 11, 2016, 05:17:08 PM
Quote from: Tynan on March 06, 2016, 02:25:01 PM
There is much, much more research in A13, with several tiers involving multiple different research facilities. So this should satisfy you, for a while, I hope :)
Hi Ty,
Will there be categories/visual tree of the research in A13?
No, the interface will probably be the same. Might improve it for future though. It was fine before but it's a bit overloaded now.
Seems like ship building might not be as quick and easy of a process as it was before.
Quote from: JesterHell on March 15, 2016, 10:09:42 PM
...Seems like ship building might not be as quick and easy of a process as it was before.
Its still not going to be "Industrial Infrastructure" levels of difficult tho.
However difficult, or however many loops the player has to go through, the game has still been designed around a max population of about ~15 colonists.
Unless its going to take decades to build the ship it is still relatively simple enough that system ships would be a common thing.
Quote from: erdrik on March 15, 2016, 10:22:47 PM
Its still not going to be "Industrial Infrastructure" levels of difficult tho.
However difficult, or however many loops the player has to go through, the game has still been designed around a max population of about ~15 colonists.
Unless its going to take decades to build the ship it is still relatively simple enough that system ships would be a common thing.
While that is true I do think it shows that shipbuilding isn't supposed to be as easy as it is and is subject to change.
Also if you treat construction like cooking and lock certain building options by skill or skills then you can have a situation where research is treated like scientific knowledge so building the ship could require min 15 construction and min 18 research.
After all you want someone whom can understand high level physics to build your ship's power plant or else it explodes when you switch it on, combine this with increased salvage requirements by adding more things that the player can't just build like the AI core and you can end up in a situation where your ship is a space junker held together by duct tape and chewing gum and is far below the specs of a industrial production ship.
I also found this which while being very old and far from a promise it does help contextualize how Tynan views/viewed the ship.
Quote from: Tynan on June 16, 2014, 04:21:50 PM
-snip-
Perhaps you guys would find it fun to have a couple different endgames. Maybe a short one, where you outfit an expedition to leave and try to get to some distant city. And a middle one, where you can build the ship after a period of research and construction. And a long one, where you conquer the area and become more than just a little colony. And players who want to bypass all these can just play forever. I think the idea of different "exit ramps" to end the game at different points might be interesting, so people can choose the length of experience they want. Just an idea.
So if Tynan does decide to act on this idea then a "short" victory might take 1-2 years, a "medium" one 5-10 years and a "long" one 20+ years.
TL;DR
My point is basically as an alpha Rimworld's gameplay mechanics can't be considered indicative of what the finale product will be so criticizing the Lore based upon what I think the evidence suggests is just a place holder system is kind of excessive imho.
Quote from: JesterHell on March 16, 2016, 12:18:09 AM
...
TL;DR
My point is basically as an alpha Rimworld's gameplay mechanics can't be considered indicative of what the finale product will be so criticizing the Lore based upon what I think the evidence suggests is just a place holder system is kind of excessive imho.
I generally side with what I think is the most definitive evidence presented, and mechanics already in the game will beat(but not disregard) non specific promises.
(no matter how much I trust the person giving them)
Besides, if the "exit ramp" in question (medium) is 5-10 years as you suggest, that still seems:
at worse: too swift to, from scratch, make system ships too rare a commodity to be used as common trade vessels.
at best: still doesn't hit the minimum to make system ships unlikely as common trade vessels.
(But it is a pointless number argument anyway, since Tynan hasn't actually given any numbers on how long these exit ramps would be designed around)
But whatever, I wasn't criticizing the lore.
I was criticizing comments that claimed system ships were not feasible as a common trade vessel.
Quote from: erdrik on March 16, 2016, 04:45:54 AM
But whatever, I wasn't criticizing the lore.
I was criticizing comments that claimed system ships were not feasible as a common trade vessel.
Sorry about that, I went off on a bit of a tangent there as I actually agree with the fact that all evidence support in system ships as quite a common thing. :-[
I think my point was how their not intended to be that common... or something.
QuoteBut then there's a precedent of the player's colony, that get's to space-travel tech level in a few years, it should be even easier in a town of a few thousand inhabitants.
I find It funny that you can build a spaceship out of bits of steel, But you can't craft the most basic of firearms.
Quote from: Pactrick Willis on March 16, 2016, 11:43:54 PM
QuoteBut then there's a precedent of the player's colony, that get's to space-travel tech level in a few years, it should be even easier in a town of a few thousand inhabitants.
I find It funny that you can build a spaceship out of bits of steel, But you can't craft the most basic of firearms.
:P But you can. Turrets and mortars are guns.
Quote from: Mikhail Reign on March 17, 2016, 12:20:44 AM
Quote from: Pactrick Willis on March 16, 2016, 11:43:54 PM
QuoteBut then there's a precedent of the player's colony, that get's to space-travel tech level in a few years, it should be even easier in a town of a few thousand inhabitants.
I find It funny that you can build a spaceship out of bits of steel, But you can't craft the most basic of firearms.
:P But you can. Turrets and mortars are guns.
But yet you can't crank out a musket, which at its most basic form is literally a metal pipe, welded shut at one end, with a hole drilled in it?
Quote from: Boston on March 17, 2016, 06:28:03 AM
Quote from: Mikhail Reign on March 17, 2016, 12:20:44 AM
Quote from: Pactrick Willis on March 16, 2016, 11:43:54 PM
QuoteBut then there's a precedent of the player's colony, that get's to space-travel tech level in a few years, it should be even easier in a town of a few thousand inhabitants.
I find It funny that you can build a spaceship out of bits of steel, But you can't craft the most basic of firearms.
:P But you can. Turrets and mortars are guns.
But yet you can't crank out a musket, which at its most basic form is literally a metal pipe, welded shut at one end, with a hole drilled in it?
Exactly.
There is a pretty plausible way to rationalize the technological differences. Like, building a space ship out of ores and bits of makeshift electronics.
It's all about knowledge and resources.
Think about it, prehistoric humans had the exact same resources at their disposal as today's humans, that didn't change. Yet back then they made due with wooden spears and they lived in caves, but today we live in skyscrapers and fly to space. The only thing that changed is the knowledge.
Even today, if you somehow get stuck in the wilderness with basically nothing on you, if you read some survival guides and had a good general education, you can create stuff that would seem magic or witchcraft to someone from ancient times. You can make a water filtration system from sticks, leaves, stones, sand and bits of charcoal. Sure, it's not gonna be as effective as a modern water treatment plant, but it'll work in a pinch. We also know a myriad of ways to light a fire using only sticks and stones, shards of glass or whatever is at hand. If you had some bits of wire on you, you can make a battery from a lemon or a potato and make fire using the arc in seconds. Hell, if you had the basics of metallurgy, like a forge and some tools and resources around, you can make a makeshift rifle like improvised pipe guns or even a friggin rocket. With enough technological knowledge and available resources, given enough time, you can construct better forging and tools, instruments, and with those construct even better and more precise machines, tools and instruments. After a few iterations of this, it's not impossible you'd be able to make different alloys, powered tools, vehicles, even programmable circuits.
This is all just using old materials in new ways using the knowledge we've acquired as a civilization. Now try to project this into the future, Rimworld's future, where space travel is mundane and we have all sorts of new technology we can't even comprehend today. Now image those people, with the knowledge of that future technology, crashing on a planet. Sure, not all of them would possess the know-how to create a space shuttle out of rocks and bits of chewing gum paper, but basically that's what a compass or a potato battery would look like to a prehistoric person. Using old materials in new ways. And given enough time, research, and iterations of technology (you have to build a forge, workbenches, get tools, etc in-game), you COULD be able to build a rudimentary space ship. Sure, the in-game progression is waay exaggerated, but with the right mindset, is plausible.
Quote from: Playbahnosh on March 22, 2016, 06:13:54 AM
...
Think about it, prehistoric humans had the exact same resources at their disposal as today's humans...
I think your underestimating the importance of and effort/cost/manpower required for proper infrastructure.
Personally, Im not gunna disagree within the context of the game and how easy it seems to build stuff that should be
way harder. It just irks me a bit when I hear talk about how "easy" it would be to restart civilization with our current knowledge. Our current civilizations exist on the backs of the work and knowledge of previous generations.
A lot of what was built was done so using infrastructure that no longer exists and knowledge that has been forgotten. While there are some of us that retain some of the older knowledge, we don't have it all and not nearly in the numbers to be useful on a national scale.
Besides Knowledge and Infrastructure IS a resource, so no. Prehistoric humans did not have the exact same resources.
I never said it would be "easy", I only said it's PLAUSIBLE!
Quote from: erdrik on March 22, 2016, 07:40:54 AMBesides Knowledge and Infrastructure IS a resource, so no. Prehistoric humans did not have the exact same resources.
I meant natural resources. Even if they didn't know how to access them or what to do with them. Like coal and crude oil was down there, metals and minerals were inside mountains and underground, certain plants and flora with medical and industrial use were right there. All that unutilized.
And yes, infrastructure is convenient, but I never talked about mass-production or built-to-order professional machinery. Aggregate knowledge is indeed the key here, and I'm sticking to that. Given enough time, effort and knowledge, one COULD build a working internal combustion engine from scratch using makeshift die-cast components and home made tools and instruments. Granted, it most likely won't be perfect and it's efficiency and longevity would be sub-par compared to a Bugatti, but the fact is you DON'T need a robotics automated modern car factory to do it.
QuoteA lot of what was built was done so using infrastructure that no longer exists and knowledge that has been forgotten.
No useful knowledge is ever forgotten. What has been forgotten along the years and centuries is stuff we no longer use because either we invented something better or is no longer valid considering today's scientific knowledge.
For example I no longer need to know the proper technique for bloodletting or trepanning, because medical science progressed way beyond that. You learn how set a breakage or a sprain, how to properly clean and suture a wound in basic first-aid, and unlike people of old, we know willow bark contains aspirin and the white mold Penicillium is an antibiotic. Same goes for other things, like I don't need to know which caves are safe to live in or how to make a hovel using sticks and mud because I know I can make way stronger shelters using bricks made of clay and mortar made of sand and burnt lime, while tar/bitumen can be used for waterproofing. All this is not even specialized knowledge, I learned this in school many years ago. Also, none of this requires specialized infrastructure, just the knowledge of where to get the raw materials and how to utilize them.
From an in-game standpoint, it's not unfeasable the survivors managed to save a data storage device from the wreckage or had it on them. Nowadays you can fit an entire national library on a memory card or USB stick, not to mention a tablet or smartphone. Think about what kind of data storage they'll have in Rimworld-time. The survivors themselves don't even need to possess the exact knowledge on how to build all the stuff they do if they have a data pad with so much information, and just have research the means on how to suit those technologies for the planet's resources.
Quote from: Playbahnosh on March 22, 2016, 09:10:16 AM
No useful knowledge is ever forgotten. What has been forgotten along the years and centuries is stuff we no longer use because either we invented something better or is no longer valid considering today's scientific knowledge.
I believe that this is incorrect, I give you Starlite. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxqFyDugqs4 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxqFyDugqs4)
QuoteIn 1993, an episode of Tomorrow's World (the once popular BBC science and technology television programme) opened with a close-up of an intense blue flame heating an egg. The welding torch was working hard against the egg's shell, producing temperatures of 1200 °C, yet the egg appears normal and unscorched. The presenter leaves it under the torch's glare for a few more minutes, then extinguishes the flame and picks the egg up. He flashes us a knowing smile, and cracks it into a glass bowl. It is completely raw.
QuoteThe egg had been coated in Starlite
QuoteHe refused to send further samples away to be tested. Sadly, in 2011, with Starlite's composition very much still a mystery, Maurice Ward died.
http://www.isciencemag.co.uk/features/the-secret-life-of-starlite/ (http://www.isciencemag.co.uk/features/the-secret-life-of-starlite/)
QuoteIn fact, Ward let a sample out of his sight only once. In June 1991, a sample was sent to White Sands atomic weapons testing site in New Mexico, in the care of the SAS, and subjected to a simulated nuclear onslaught. 'It was classed as the biggest bang in town. I've seen a video [on which] it shredded forest to sawdust, rolled some tanks around, stripped an aircraft into pieces.' But Starlite survived. Further tests at Foulness had subjected it to the force of 75 Hiroshimas, and it survived that, too.
QuoteStarlite has a Q-value [an energy absorption rating] of 2,470. The space shuttle tiles have a Q-value of 1.' Not only that, but because Starlite is so lightweight – 1mm thick, compared to 75mm for the space tiles – it's actually '2,470 x 75 times better'.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/5158972/Starlite-the-nuclear-blast-defying-plastic-that-could-change-the-world.html (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/5158972/Starlite-the-nuclear-blast-defying-plastic-that-could-change-the-world.html)
A great invention, that was better then anything we have right now but all the sources I've found say that Maurice Ward took the formula to his grave.
^To add to what JesterHell said...
QuoteWhat has been forgotten along the years and centuries is stuff we no longer use because either we invented something better or is no longer valid considering today's scientific knowledge.
Infrastructure is not just "convenient". It is the very foundations that allowed "today's scientific knowledge" and technology. We don't use the old infrastructure any more because we built and learned things
with it that made it obsolete.
But if we lose what we built and learned we will need that old infrastructure again to rebuild and relearn the more modern stuff. And maintaining the knowledge of how to do that, to the extent that you suggested(rebooting from the stage of prehistoric humans), is insanely difficult.
But as I said in my previous post,
I don't disagree within the context of the game and how easy it seems to build stuff that should be way harder.
I just get irked when it
seems like someone lessens the importance and difficulty of the infrastructure of previous generation.
Quote from: erdrik on March 23, 2016, 03:54:42 AM
^To add to what JesterHell said...
QuoteWhat has been forgotten along the years and centuries is stuff we no longer use because either we invented something better or is no longer valid considering today's scientific knowledge.
Infrastructure is not just "convenient". It is the very foundations that allowed "today's scientific knowledge" and technology. We don't use the old infrastructure any more because we built and learned things with it that made it obsolete.
But if we lose what we built and learned we will need that old infrastructure again to rebuild and relearn the more modern stuff. And maintaining the knowledge of how to do that, to the extent that you suggested(rebooting from the stage of prehistoric humans), is insanely difficult.
But as I said in my previous post, I don't disagree within the context of the game and how easy it seems to build stuff that should be way harder.
I just get irked when it seems like someone lessens the importance and difficulty of the infrastructure or previous generation.
Pretty much. Kinda like how, if OUR "real-world" society collapsed, and took technology with it, we would be highly unlikely be able to have a second Industrial Revolution, due to the fact that we have used up so much of the necessary raw materials?
People often forget that
1) raw materials are
hard to get. Humanity has known about Iron for around 3000 years, yet actual "dig a hole in the ground" mines (this goes for other materials, as well) have only been economically feasible for the last 300 years, due to the development and improvement of the the steam engine, which in turn allowed for effective water pumps. Without steam power (and the accompanying labor-saving practices), the overwhelming majority of iron (and other metals/materials that can't be found on the Earth's surface) was made laboriously by hand, usually in the form of "bog iron" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bog_iron), which can generally only be "used" once in a generation. Or, that without the Bessemer Process, actual steel is really fucking expensive and hard to make? Not to mention charcoal, seasoned timber, clay
2) People aren't stupid. Take a "caveman" (hint: actual people in the Paleolithic, even Neanderthals, didn't actually live in caves, they built houses/tents from stone, bone and hides), throw him in the modern day, and with an adjustment period, they would have no problems. The Greeks and the Romans discovered steam power, more than once. Take a "modern" human, throw them back in time to the Paleolithic (or, hell, even a Classical time period), and they are likely going to die. People who lived in earlier time periods were more skilled and "intelligent than people living in modern eras. They HAD to be, or they would die.
Take, for example, a medieval peasant. In real life, and in game-terms, they are often portrayed as stupid and uneducated. Uneducated (that is, illiterate), maybe, but not stupid. Tell me, could you know:
1) How to plant different crops, how much "return" you will get from your land, and how to best manage the crops (treat diseases, when to harvest, etc)
2) How to raise numerous different species of animals, how to treat them for disease, how to birth new animals, etc etc
3) How to build houses that will keep you warm in the winter, cool in the summer, and dry all year round?
4) How to accomplish different crafts (smithing, weaving, leatherworking, etc) that you actually make money off of?
And they did all of this without having references, like seed packets or animal manuals. By experience and passed-on knowledge.