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Introduction
Wild Wild Rim is the culmination of a few weeks of work on my part. I fell in love with RimWorld ages ago and have always loved the early game challenge, and decided to take that to the next level by expanding and extending the base game while keeping that same RimWorld spirit. I plan to balance it to play on Pheobe Chillax since progression will be much slower, but it should be playable on any difficulty or story teller. In part, I want to reform the early and mid-game to feel a bit more wild and rough. I love the feel of settings like Mad Max, Firefly, Borderlands, and Half Life and want to incorporate the wild, jury rigged feeling you get when exploring those universes. I will include common features found in many other mods as a matter of personal convenience and taste (Growing fields of grass, medical expansion, neutroamine production, etc). It's playable in its current state, it just has a few placeholder textures pulled from the base game.

Here's what I've done so far and what I plan to do:

Electricity and Technology
In order to fit in better with the themes of survival and struggling to start out, electricity will be much more difficult to obtain. It seemed odd to me that without any instructions or training a rag tag band of colonists were able to make solar panels and batteries right off the bat, so I intend to make survivors rely on buying generators or clawing their way through the tech tree to use electricity. I've also created a new player faction called "Survivors", which starts with absolutely zero research completed. Electrical items will require more resources, such as silver and gold, and be made from new items, such as glass and solar cells. This means that you'll be able to do some basic electrical work by default but won't be able to utilize more advanced pieces until you've done the research and gathered the materials. Simpler power plants such as wood burning and wind mills will come along much sooner than solar power, and as a result will see much more use.

To assist in the early game I've minified a lot of electronics, such as coolers and batteries, so that you can still set up some rudimentary modern bases early on if you buy them from merchants.


Items and Resources
Solar Cells - A required part of making Solar Panels. Frequently sold by traders, but with specialized manufacturing equipment they can be made by hand.
Generators - Bought from furniture traders or made when you obtain the appropriate research. Currently only one is implemented, but I may include a high efficiency model.
Centrifuge - Basically a rewrite of the fermentation vat that allows your colonists separate the chemical slurry harvested from boomalopes and boomrats. Harvesting (Boom animals), separating (Centrifuge), and isolating chemicals (Drug station) is currently implemented. Currently the production chain results in reactive gel, synthetic fuel for generators, and, of course, neutroamine. I'd like to have it only drain electricity while it's running, but I'm satisfied with it running on magic for now. Editing DLL files is draining and I'm far from an expert.
Rocketrees - Genetically modified trees that produce synthetic fuel, usable from the moment the tree is harvested. They take a very long time to grow and don't produce any wood. They're an alternative to trading and raising boom animals.


Weapons and Armor
With most of the weapons and armor locked behind electricity and my focus on making electricity more of a mid-game resource comes the necessity of expanding the early-game arsenal.

Scrap Guns
Scrap weapons are cobbled together from whatever steel and components you have lying around at a crafting spot. Scrap guns are generally less powerful than their machined counterparts and extremely inaccurate, but make up for it to some degree by throwing more lead downrange. Scrap items are mostly finished. This is not a complete list.

Scrap Bolter
(http://i.imgur.com/Vw9T1SC.png)

Scrap Burster
(http://i.imgur.com/QNUYUZL.png)

Scrap SMGs
(http://i.imgur.com/YbM2o0y.png)(http://i.imgur.com/FIS7ac3.png)

Expanded Weapons - I felt like the game was missing some important default weapons, so I added revolvers and lever-action rifles for a bit more of a wild west feel.
Scrap Armor - Made from random bits of steel that're laying around. It slows you down quite a bit, but it's the best protection nobody would buy.
Guardian Armor - Heavy duty military armor. Think Starship Troopers.
Survivor Armor - Masterfully crafted armor with a powered exoskeleton that prevents it from slowing a pawn down.


New Factions
Transients - The outcasts, wanderers, and addicts of the rim. Specialize in drugs, scavenging, and animal herding. They stick together, and while they may be more accepting than others they're wary of strangers.
Gangs - Toughs and hooligans who deal heavily in drugs and illicit goods. Despite being free in their trade dealings they'll never ally with anyone who isn't in their own gang.

Medical and Bionics
Surprisingly the easiest to implement, and therefore the most complete. I'll work on prosthesis levels after Mechanical Bionics later. Since this would clash pretty hard with other medical mods I'm considering implementing common features from those, such as harvesting limbs and including a pet-friendly variant of every level of bionics. I also have this crazy idea about saving pawns who are technically dead from the brink of death, but that's A) way out of my current skill range B) probably better implemented as a mod independent from this one and C) way down the line if it's even in the cards.

Primitive Prosthetics - I've included these to hold colonists over until they get electricity.

Mechanical Bionics - I've mostly implemented a complete set of mechanical bionics made from scrap, ranging from mechanical arms to eye cameras. Gives the game a bit more of a Borderlands feel. May be a bit imbalanced because it's rather cheap to steal a prisoner's organs by replacing them with crappy bionics for massive profit, but then again you're on the Rim. Giving them a replacement heart is rather generous, all things considered.

Skin Grafts - Grafts synthskin into the flesh, healing scars. Not implemented.

Synthetic Bionics - Exactly as effective as the real thing, including the ability to feel through it. Includes a generic "synthetic digit" item for replacing missing fingers and toes. I'd like to make it so pawns can feel pain through them, but that's way out of my breadth. I may just have it replace the part with a "natural" one. Alternatively I could skip the bionics angle and go for vats that clone body parts, I haven't decided. I'd just like an ethical way to fix up prosthophobes. Not implemented.


Artificial Life
Since there's so many bionic bits and bobs, it's a small step towards creating artificial life. These probably won't be straight-up new pawns, just mechanical pets. Think Alyx Vance's pet, Dog, from Half Life 2. This is a bit of a pipe dream, right now I'm focused on other features.


I've done a fair deal of the XML files so far, and even done some DLL work to create a special fermentation barrel for chemical production. So far I've finished the scrap armor textures and have started on scrap weapons.

I've just recently begun the process of changing jobs, however, and may not have a lot of time to get back on track with modding soon so I figured I'd post what I have so far because I may not have a lot of time and energy to work on it in the near future. You can download it below if you want to help, play around, get some idea of how to implement your own fermentation vats (I can give some more detail if anyone's interested), or modify it for your own use. Just ask my permission before using anything in your own mods, I'm pretty easy.

Also, "Wild Wild Rim" is very much an in-progress name and I'm totally up for suggestions that don't sound like a bad porno.

Download it HERE - Version 0.5 (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwsyMEWlwhgQZzVkUjVNSlRGb1E/view?usp=sharing) (Google Drive)

Thanks!

Love the sound of this, will give it a whirl. Sounds very ambitious!

Thanks! Hopefully it's not too ambitious, but from what I've been able to learn from my time elbow deep in Defs it's mostly just going to take time.

Speaking of ambitious, I love what you've done with your own mod. Feel free to hit me up on Steam if you want to boggle over XML's or DLL's.

New version is up. This version mostly focused on reforming and extending the early game experience. It's mostly playable right now, but I still have to minify a bunch of stuff and give it to traders. Once I do that I'll probably begin working on graphics.

Update Log:

• Expanded the research tree to make it more complicated in relation to electricity and to include new items.
• I've made a large number of power buildings require more research as well as modifying their requirements. Currently the only way to produce batteries is through harvesting "wool" from Boomalopes and Boomrats and using Blasting Gel, whose uses will be expanded in the future. Eventually I'll make it so you can purchase booth blasting gel and batteries from traders, as well as possibly adding multiple methods to manufacture different chemicals. These methods would be more difficult and time consuming, perhaps requiring special items, since keeping an exploding animal in your base should be rewarded. The idea is that Boom animals were developed to simplify a complex process.
• Modified power buildings requirements. Most now require silver.
• Made nutrient paste a more viable early game food source by decreasing its research cost. It'll still probably never get used, but at least it won't take so long to research it. It's not like grinding food up is all that hard to figure out.
• Added Solar Cells. There's currently no way to produce or buy these, so Solar Generators don't require them yet.
• Solar Generators are no longer unlocked by discovering electricity. Once they require solar cells they'll feel like proper solar cells. I'm considering bumping the energy gain from them to balance this out, but I'm open to feedback. I may make them buildable by default, or minified like synth fuel generators, as an expensive early-game power plant.
• Learning to lay electrical conduits now comes before discovering electricity. This will allow colonies to place conduits without having to discover the light bulb. Once synth fuel generators are available with traders this will be more useful. As of right now it's just an extra step in discovering electricity.
• Made boomalope products a little less volatile. If you're quick you can still put out a fire over one and keep it from starting the wick. Despite this, I'd recommend keeping them in safe, isolated places.
• Added some abstracts I missed.
• Armor now requires research.

Feedback and suggestions are welcome!

Version 0.3 is up. This version focused on adding two new factions and trade. At this point I'd say that it's viable to start out as Survivors, who start without any research completed. If you get lucky you'll be able to trade for a Synthetic Fuel Generator, and with a little effort begin producing your own fuel for it from boomalopes. Failing that you can make a bee line towards researching electricity and build wood burning generators.

Update Log:

• Generators, lamps, and solar cells should now appear in traders' inventories. They're pretty rare, but one of the new factions' new trade caravans, scavengers, have a high chance of having them.
• Added the gang faction. They deal in drugs and illicit goods. They're friends with no one but themselves, but that doesn't stop them from sending out heavily armed trade caravans.
• Added the transient faction. These wanderers and vagabonds specialize in animal trade, drugs, and scavenging old ruins. They take care of their own, but they're not against becoming allies.
• Drug dealers add a little give and take to the economy. Drug ingredients, such as neutroamine, are more expensive with them (Gotta make the next batch!), while the drugs themselves are less expensive.
• Since I'm fluffing synthetic fuel to be relatively common some traders are much more likely to carry it.
• Air Conditioning research now requires Passive Cooling.

Known Bugs Features:

• Synthetic Fuel Generators can be minified properly, but there's something odd with their job tasks that prevents it from being "reinstalled at". For now the workaround is super simple: Designate where you want it reinstalled and then uninstall it. Not sure how I can fix this, but it's far from game breaking so I'm not worried about it for now.
• Female models don't look like they're wearing tank tops from the front, and therefore don't meet the sexiness quota for the mod.

Next up is fiddling with the item definitions so traders aren't hauling around scrap armor (Scrap weapons are acceptable, however). After that I'll be adding a few missing furniture items (LEDs from Advanced Electricity) and creating placeholder files for when I start doing the artwork. I may start the artwork this week at this rate.

If anyone has a way of increasing the odds of the default traders having particular items without replacing the files, I'd love to hear it. I want to avoid modifying core definitions I don't have to, but right now things just spawn too rarely.

Feedback and suggestions are welcome!

Hi there

For your problem with the traders, I'm at that point for several of my mods. I have items in them and want the traders to take account of them but without having to overwrite complete vanilla defs. I'm at that point for a moment now for some mods and I still searching around looking for solutions. Here is what I gathered so far ;

- using CCL or Mod Friendly Overrides (in the miniaturisation mod thread) you can inject or modify tags without having to overwrite everything - I've never done that but I definitively will try that at some point. Several modders, more experienced than me, have pointed me this solution was the best in that case but it seems more complex than what I usually use.
- depending on the size/scope of the mod; you could simply write a complete set of new traderkinddefs (or use some of vanilla ones and new ones) and make a modded faction to have traders using them

Hope it can help you a bit. I'm following your progression so far and I like what I read ;)

Keep up!

Best regards

Quote from: Pajama Zach on October 31, 2016, 09:00:02 PM
Thanks! Hopefully it's not too ambitious, but from what I've been able to learn from my time elbow deep in Defs it's mostly just going to take time.

Speaking of ambitious, I love what you've done with your own mod. Feel free to hit me up on Steam if you want to boggle over XML's or DLL's.

Sorry Zach, didn't see this! Sounds good, Defs are a haul to get through, but oddly satisfying as the edit and testing aspect is relatively light I find.

I'll be giving your latest build a test run at the weekend, looking forward to seeing how it plays out!

Thanks for the support, guys! This is the first time I've ever sat down and modded anything; I'm glad it's piqued your interest.

Injecting trade goods may just be something I'm going to have to wait on; just looking at the miniturisation mod's code made me dizzy. Scavenger traders should provide a decent enough source of electric stuff for now. It makes the challenge more random than I'd prefer but I guess the Rim is a cold, hard place sometimes.

I probably won't be able to get much else done this week. Between school, work, a spontaneous social event and being exhausted by it all I'll see what I can do to get a release out before the weekend that'll add another fuel source inspired by the official fluff (Hint: Rocketrees!) and add minify some essential electronics for traders to carry. From there it's mostly adding a production method for solar cells, LEDs, some minor adjustments, and then I'll start working on the art for the full release.

Thanks again!

Version 0.4 is up. This is a pretty small update that just rounds some things out. I added the final touches to items that needed to be minified and they should appear semi-regularly with scavenger traders and very rarely with other traders. Synthetic fuel generators are fairly expensive, so if you plan to get a head start with energy be sure to start producing some trade goods early on. For the full experience use Phoebe Chillax and make a custom scenario with the Survivor faction.

Update Log:

• Minified heaters and coolers.
• Added the gang faction. They deal in drugs and illicit goods. They're friends with no one but themselves, but that doesn't stop them from sending out heavily armed trade caravans.
• Added Rocketrees, which are an alternate source of Synthetic Fuel. You'll have to research Genetic Plants to be able to plant them and the skill requirement to plant them is fairly high. Inversely the requirements to research them are low. I'll likely add more plants in the future to make it easier to obtain certain ingredients, like Blasting Gel for batteries. Speaking of which, I'd love a better name than "Blasting Gel"; it doesn't quite describe how versatile it is and makes putting it into your electronics sound like a terrible, terrible idea. (Which it probably is.)
• Added silver as component to a few more electric buildings.

Known Bugs Features:

• Synthetic Fuel Generators and coolers can be minified properly, but there's something odd with their job tasks that prevents them from being "reinstalled at". For now the workaround is super simple: Designate where you want it reinstalled and then uninstall it. This appears to be a problem with how scripted objects are handled so fixing it is out of my league. I'll probably just wait for a core fix on this one.
• Rocketrees don't/can't explode right now. This puts me back on the disastrously compounding explosives quota for my mod, but plants are weird when it comes to the scripts they use. I'd have to rebuild a custom combination of the Plant and ThingWithComps classes. I'll leave that for when I'm actually up to the task.
• Transient caravans are a little drug crazy right now. I'll tweak their stocks so they carry mostly cheaper drugs at a later date. Until then don't go insane scarfing down the boatloads of Luciferium they bring to your colony.
• Transient drug dealers cart around slaves despite their fluff being generally against that sort of thing. I'll make a separate Gang/Transient trade group for drug runners to differentiate between them a little better once I get around to it.

Download it HERE - Version 0.4 (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwsyMEWlwhgQN0kya3pDcU94dG8/view?usp=sharing) (Google Drive)

Only a couple more things to do before I actually start the artwork and head towards version 1.0.

Feedback and suggestions are welcome!

Version 0.5 is up. This is the first graphics update! I'll edit the original post with screenshots once I've got some more variety. So far there's only scrap armor and the scrap bolter. Give me some feedback on the scrap armor - I won't be redoing it all right away but I'll definitely keep any advice in mind for future updates. I'm not completely happy with it but it works for now.

Update Log:

• Added textures for scrap armor for all body types.
• Gangs and transients now have separate caravans for slightly more unique interactions. Most noticeably gangs will carry more hard drugs and deal in slaves.
• Refined the defs for the new armors. Tribals won't be showing up decked out in futuristic armor now and colonists shouldn't be spawning with it either. I'm considering letting tribals use scrap armor again, but it clashed a little bit with their tribal look and even this really basic armor made them a lot more powerful. Maybe I'll add a tribal-esque wood armor in the future. I would love to deck them out like the Lost Boys from Hook.

Known Bugs Features:

• Nothing I haven't mentioned or noticed yet.

Download it HERE - Version 0.5 (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwsyMEWlwhgQbGZTbWFadWdpdE0/view?usp=sharing) (Google Drive)

Next up I'll be knocking out the rest of the scrap weapons and the expanded weapons. I've already got concept art for the scrap weapons finished so it's just a matter of pumping the game textures out. Once that's taken care of I'll be working through the Guardian and Survivor Armor sets. Eventually these will get their own weapon sets too, but probably only after version 1.0.

Feedback and suggestions are welcome!

Here's my feedback:

Got a mod with a compilation of the best textures in previous mods, featuring hundreds of weapons. The scrap bolt-action rifle looks awesome. Get those done so I can insert in my own mod (with all due credit, obviously, to each modder as the creator of each texture).

In all seriousness, I'd be glad to feature Wild Wild Rim textures in Outer Galaxies. Let me know what you think of it.

That sounds great! I'll be updating this thread as I do more, so just keep an eye on it. Once I've finished the initial textures and a few other bits and bobs I'll be doing a full release in the other subforum, but that probably won't be until next month. Just give me a link to your compilation so I can direct people to your mod if they're just interested in the weapons.

Thanks for the feedback!

Version 0.6 is up. This is the second graphics update! I can only stomach so much drawing in a day so I fiddled with a dozen different things. Major changes below.

Update Log:

• Added textures for Scrap Bursters, Scrap SMGs, and Dual Scrap SMGs. Check the OP for pics, or just download the mod to check them out in-game.
• Added Throat body part to most organics - You can now literally tear out the throats of your enemies! Throats are slightly more vulnerable than the neck and have a very high bleeding rate. Pawns can survive having their throats destroyed for a short time, but will bleed out if a doctor doesn't reconnect the jugular veins quickly (Assuming it's bleeding). A pawn can survive this long-term but they will experience severe penalties. Speaking, eating, and breathing are all affected by throat injuries. Because the voice box is centered in the throat pawns can now communicate crudely without a jaw.
• Added Throat Bionics - Two versions: Nonvocal and vocal. Nonvocal is useful for dealing with pawns who hit on everyone constantly or cause drama. Vocal throat assemblies comes with three default voice modulators: Angry Austrian, Sexy GPS, and Stephen Hawking.
• Added Remaining Mechanical Bionics Recipes - And you can now make them at the machining table instead of an extraneous workbench!
• Removed Bionics Workbenches - I'm trying to keep the number of workbenches I add low. You can craft primitive prosthetics and scrap goods at a crafting spot and mechanical bionics at a machining table now. Later on I'll probably add a new workbench for advanced bionics.
• Changed Blasting Gel to Reactive Gel
• Solar Generator Changes - You can now produce solar cells at a machining bench, which are required for making Solar Generators. Solar cells require silver, glass, and reactive gel. I may add another ingredient later on and pump up the power generated by solar, but I'm satisfied with it for now. Solar Generators are now a little tougher and provide less cover (Making them harder to hit) in order to counterbalance the difficulty in building them.
• Added More Genetically Modified Plants - Rocketrees produce synthetic fuel, reacto vera produces reactive gel, and glass flowers provide a source of glass. They produce little and take a long time to grow, but are safer and less resource intensive than other methods. There are also two new grasses that live longer and grow thicker for prettier lawns.
• Added Glass - Glass is stuffed, so you can make a bunch of things from it. It's pretty but breaks very easily. It's mostly useful for light bulbs and solar cells, but if you get a decent supply going it's a decent mid-tier sculpture ingredient. Glass walls are too thick to let any light through. Glass can be found buried or sticking out of the hillside like most other remnants of ancient civilizations. I'd like to make it slightly transparent, but it's not imperative. I may take away its ability to be stuffed; I'm looking for feedback here.
• New starting scenarios - No longer must you make your own scenario to play as a true survivor! Includes two flavors: The traditional threesome and the lone survivor. You're free to use the scenario editor to give yourself supplies if roughing it isn't your idea of fun. Remember that these are balanced with Phoebe Chillax in mind, progress will be very slow!
• Placeholder Textures are In - You won't see this on the front end but all placeholder textures are in and working, so it's just a matter of me making the custom versions and replacing the placeholders.
• Mechanical Bionics Descriptions Updated

Known Bugs Features:

• Drawing is slow. so slow.

Download it HERE - Version 0.6 (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwsyMEWlwhgQZzVkUjVNSlRGb1E/view?usp=sharing) (Google Drive)


Soon to come:

Glasshog, a genetically modified hedgehog that sprouts glass out of its back instead of spines.

Biological slurries for growing your own limbs and organs.

Reworked Hediffs to allow spine replacements to cure bad backs.

Even more textures!


Feedback and suggestions are welcome!