This is in the General Discussion, because it's not a Suggestion, but a question for debate. I do make some suggestions near the end, but they're for debate's sake.
Should there be Trading and Raiders?
The setting of RimWorld is thus, you are on some sort of deep space passenger liner, think Titanic not Princess Cruise Lines, and there is no "Faster Than Light" travel. All the passengers and most likely the crew are in stasis, "long sleep sarcophagi," presumably for a journey through interstellar space that could take decades or even a centuries. Something goes terribly wrong, and the ship breaks up within the sphere of influence of the moon of a gas giant the "Rim World."
Now for a moment lets assume the ship had no navigation malfunction and this Rim World is near a "major shipping lane," and occasionally a ship will fly by. But given the cost and expense of sending a ship such a great distance, and the time scale of the journey. Logically a ship might pass by every few years, or so. And even if one did, would not all the crew be in stasis, who would receive the call.
But what if the Rim World is close enough to inhabited worlds for short range "waking vessels" to pass? Then we run it to a logic problem with the plot. If the Rim World is close enough for that, would not rescue be a simple affair. Suddenly our colonists aren't so stranded.
The same space travel restrictions apply to Raiders, are the raiders waking up from stasis every few months or so just to check if there is anyone to steal from?
This leaves us with some hard questions to ask, and some decisions about mechanics vs plot, game-play vs story.
Raiders provide drama, and conflict that are central to good story telling, without them our tales may be bland.
And Trade provides access to necessary materials without which there may be no story.
There are some solutions: Trade could be replaced by random events involving meteor showers to deliver new materials, or the very rare star ship crash.
New colonist could be obtained from primitive native people, they don't affect our plight, as they lack the technology to leave the planet. Perhaps they're the descendants of the crew of a ship that crashed centuries ago. This could also make a source for Raiders, as they'd be keen on stealing our fancy technology that their ancestors spoke of.
So what do you folks think?
Should the trade ships and raiders from above go away?
Should Rim World focus more on the sense of isolation, and distance from any rescue?
I have been wondering where all of the raiders have come from as well. It seems like there are thousands upon thousands people up in space ready to drop down and raid, but with no availability to lift off once you are destroyed. In a long game, I would estimate that we kill over 500 raiders from space. This is a discontinuity in the story that didn't make sense to me.
I like to think of the game in sort of a borderlands style setting. It is distant from earth. There is some good tech, but mostly older rusty run down things. The pirates have guns and mechs. The animals are strange and interesting. There are factions in space are stronger, but harder to get to you.
I think this is where we could borrow from Dwarf Fortress. If the raiders/crazed fauna/natives/pirates actually came from the edge of the map, it would make sense that they were actually on the planet and had settlements. This could add a lot of !story! to the game with a scout coming in and then sending a combat/trading squad depending on what the scout encountered. We could also focus on the fauna a little more.
Space trading to me seems logical, but I think it is too frequent, and without enough resources. If we had 1 massive trade ship that did its route and would stop by the planet every X time with all of the goodies we needed, it would make more sense. You would actually prepare for the trade and know what you want. You would NEED for it to show up, it would serve a purpose other than to get rid of guns and to stock your metal surplus. If you missed it, you would miss out on the gear and tech it would have for you to buy.
Quote from: Blitzkriegsler on October 22, 2013, 11:45:30 AM
Lots of good stuff.
I'm with Blitz.
Local Raiders make more sense to me, rather than ones that come from space.
And less frequent but larger traders mean that you would plan for them but also be biting your nails if you miss them due to excess amounts of FUN.
In the end gameplay should always come first. You can always adjust the story to fit it.
The raiders and traders seem to provide fun gameplay opportunities looking at the LP's and thus belong in the game imo.
In the future, much more of these will just walk onto the map. Almost all the raiders will. And I'm looking at doing traders who are people that just walk around. As for the orbital traders, fictionally I'm saying they come from the same planet or, at most, other planets/moons in the same star system.
After reading your great piece of fiction: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fUO3KKbAbTxMP1lqphnnodY0NPoOVblCUkDw-54MDUc/pub (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fUO3KKbAbTxMP1lqphnnodY0NPoOVblCUkDw-54MDUc/pub)
It might be nice to have one type of interstellar trade vessel that comes by very rarely, they won't take passengers due to their being a nomadic (and xenophobic) tribe that has chosen to live a life on ship, rather than risk existence on a planet. These vessels would carry masses of cargo and more money then you could imagine, accumulated over generations in space. Communication would be simple once they were in range as these would be waking vessels on which the inhabitants live out their lives, have families, etc. So someone would be there to "pick up the phone."
P.s. Tynan, I would love to write some fiction with you sometime. :)
Aren't the traders being from the same system a step backwards? Seems to me that if they're that close to a interplanetary civilization, the whole point of making a colony seems to be "make ourselves comfortable while the transport comes".
I like to think that the seemingly endless hordes of raiders that come at you time and time again, in ever increasing numbers, is all a chain reaction caused by the actions of your opportunistic, exploitative desperate, frightened survivors.
You see, one fine day, Sally Mendez, 24 year old deep space miner, is out for a walk in the country to relax, minding her own business. However, your spacewreck survivors spot her wandering aimlessly near the outskirts of their new settlement. Recognizing the opportunity to gain more hands to work Worried for the safety of another human in this inhospitable environment, your settlers immediately arrest Mendez and drag her to their newly constructed jailhouse. You know, for her protection. After learning of her considerable skill in mining, you make every effort to convert her to your cause.
Meanwhile, Sally's family and friends are worried- after all, she has disappeared into the wilderness. After a few days, a party goes in search of her. Knowing the dangers out there- herds of psychotic muffalo, rabid squirrels, slave traders, and so on, they set out with a few guns in the direction poor Sally was last seen alive.
After a while, the search party spots a heretofore unknown settlement. Perhaps Sally ended up there? They move closer to inspect, when suddenly automated gun turret is raining fire down on them! After a brief exchange, some of the search party are dead, some are wounded, and those still able to run back home to report their losses and tell of the extremely hostile new neighbors.
Soon, another party is established, this time to 1) find Sally Mendez, 2) rescue the injured members of the first search party, 3) avenge those that were killed, and 4) eliminate this new threat. Before you know it, your new colony is at war with the entire region. And Mendez, deep space miner, has succumbed to Stockholm syndrome has joined your hardy gang of survivors.
That's horrible awesome Jojomon. ;)
It's like Tropico but with space ships. I love it!
Well, you know, two sides to every story :)
Tropico with spaceships? Brilliant! Rimworld sounds even more enticing now...
I surprised no one has mentioned this yet, but one solution to the "isolation problem" is to simply make the Rim World our colonists destination. I'm not saying you have to eliminate the crash, but having this planet be where they want to be helps to explain why our colonists, are not simply rescued; is because they don't want to be. The landing may have sucked, but they're where they want to be. They were on their way here to build a new colony all along.
This does alter the endgame idea somewhat.
One other thing this could effect is the starting supplies, as the colonists could begin with their escape pods, and a cargo container of colony building supplies.
Thoughts?
As I had mentioned in another thread somewhere, they all could be from the same ship. Take the movie Pandorum (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1188729/), for example. The ship broke up in orbit. Some parts/people crashed down many years ago - enough for them to descend into barbarism. Other parts of the ship are still in various orbits, and your section finally arced in on re-entry, activating the emergency revival system.
Quote from: Spike on October 23, 2013, 06:42:19 PM
As I had mentioned in another thread somewhere, they all could be from the same ship. Take the movie Pandorum (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1188729/), for example. The ship broke up in orbit. Some parts/people crashed down many years ago - enough for them to descend into barbarism. Other parts of the ship are still in various orbits, and your section finally arced in on re-entry, activating the emergency revival system.
That's a good one. I do think many of them could be from the same ship, but it doesn't have to be all of them. But it would be cool to find other survivors wandering around. In fact some already arrive in crash pods.
Pandorum is certainly a good source of inspiration.
And of course it doesn't have to all be one ship per se, take the Trigun Seeds fleet for instance: perhaps something (like a central AI failure/sabotage) went wrong with a whole fleet bound for the Rim World to build a colony, and ships have spent decades in decaying orbits. Some crash before they awake, maybe others have more control over their situations.
Quote from: miah999 on October 23, 2013, 06:50:49 PM
Pandorum is certainly a good source of inspiration.
And of course it doesn't have to all be one ship
It could be a Sargasso area of space, where some oddity of physics causes ships to lose control. Or there could be pirate wreckers there, who set a false signal to lure ships in to crash. There could be lots of reasons, and for the player, they don't even have to be spelled out - just hinted at. :P
Quote from: Spike on October 23, 2013, 07:16:43 PM
... they don't even have to be spelled out - just hinted at. :P
That's true, full exposition isn't necessary, but I do love complex back-story.
As for the Sargasso idea, that reminds me of Voyager: Elite Force.
Here's an idea:
Instead of having a "stranded, robinson crusoe-style" scenario, have the planet be an exile/prison planet. The sort of place where people get banished and stranded as punishment - without the sort of support structures needed to ever get off the planet on their own. (perhaps a possible end-goal can be to defy the odds and create a craft from scratch capable of reaching orbit and thus escaping Rimworld).
I think this could make a lot of sense.
- Your colonists could be there because they are/were really terrible criminals - or you could still crash there. Either works. Pick one for the story, or leave it open to interpretation/roleplay by the player.
- It explains how there can be orbital traders that are willing to trade, but unwilling to otherwise help in any way (they know that no one is allowed to interfere, under extremely harsh penalties). Local traders make sense to have in the game too though. I don't see why you should not have both. Orbital traders can be much more rare, but have larger stocks and access to technology levels that are nearly impossible to get your hands on planetside. Of course... the orbital traders would know this very well - and would squeeze you for every dime they could much more so than local traders. They know how desperate people are down there and don't care one bit about exploiting "criminal scum".
- It explains well how you seem to be on a planet with seemingly endless hordes violent raiders and assorted other criminal scum (which doesn't make sense at all otherwise especially if it's supposed to be some random uninhabited rock)
- Plenty of opportunities for all sorts of stories and characters and "quests". There are bound to be some good guys there too, not just crazy criminals. Political prisoners, children of criminals ect. The place isn't a "prison" so much as it is a place to dump people you want to make disappear from the "real world". Rimworld can be basically however you need it to be under this setting - but with a perfectly logical reason for why it is almost completely isolated from the rest of the galaxy.
-Stigma
That's certainly an interesting take on the colonist plight Stigma, and would definitely explain/justify a crueler play style.
What about the idea that the planet is not for criminals but for "leapers" or some other sort of outcasts, maybe it's where a race of Transcended send ships that stray into their territory.
Quote from: miah999 on October 24, 2013, 03:17:00 PM
That's certainly an interesting take on the colonist plight Stigma, and would definitely explain/justify a crueler play style.
What about the idea that the planet is not for criminals but for "leapers" or some other sort of outcasts, maybe it's where a race of Transcended send ships that stray into their territory.
Well, transcendents never send ships or communicate - just to clarify :)
Quote from: Tynan on October 24, 2013, 05:02:28 PM
Quote from: miah999 on October 24, 2013, 03:17:00 PM
That's certainly an interesting take on the colonist plight Stigma, and would definitely explain/justify a crueler play style.
What about the idea that the planet is not for criminals but for "leapers" or some other sort of outcasts, maybe it's where a race of Transcended send ships that stray into their territory.
Well, transcendents never send ships or communicate - just to clarify :)
Party pooper :P But seriously I hope you're finding some inspiration in this thread and many of the other great threads on this forum.
Quote from: stigma on October 24, 2013, 08:24:08 AM
Here's an idea:
Instead of having a "stranded, robinson crusoe-style" scenario, have the planet be an exile/prison planet. The sort of place where people get banished and stranded as punishment - without the sort of support structures needed to ever get off the planet on their own. (perhaps a possible end-goal can be to defy the odds and create a craft from scratch capable of reaching orbit and thus escaping Rimworld).
-Stigma
When I read this, the first thing that came to mind is the RimWorld being the Australia of outerspace, complete with fauna that are out to kill you.
Not that it's a bad thing though.
Quote from: Tynan on October 24, 2013, 05:02:28 PM
Quote from: miah999 on October 24, 2013, 03:17:00 PM
That's certainly an interesting take on the colonist plight Stigma, and would definitely explain/justify a crueler play style.
What about the idea that the planet is not for criminals but for "leapers" or some other sort of outcasts, maybe it's where a race of Transcended send ships that stray into their territory.
Well, transcendents never send ships or communicate - just to clarify :)
According to your write up Tynan, you mentioned that Transcended races have a variety of ways to deal with ships straying into their region of space. Perhaps one such race sends any ship that "trespasses" onto a far off Rimworld, sorta like, you're minding your own business cruising along in space, asleep, your ship passes through some sort of space anomaly, like a wormhole, and appears back in real space too close to a planet to get out of its gravitational field and crash lands/breaks up in orbit/burns up in the atmosphere/bounces of and into an orbiting moon and explodes...
I do like the Pandorum and Trigun hypotheses as well, if there were no major malfunctions, perhaps the ships were never able to land on a planet wholesale (much like how many of our current spacecraft are built), the systems to wake the colonists to descend to the planet never did, so they were stuck orbiting the world until power reserves became critical and they had to jettison their cargo of colonists and supplies.
Raufgar: that's how I read the suggestion too, and it seemed to make sense to me at least. I think Tynan might have misunderstood what he said.
That scenario works fine to explain a remote isolated rimworld with a surprising amount of survivors on it, but orbital traders wouldn't make much sense in that case, as the transcendentals would not be making it known that interference with the moon is forbidden (unlike a regular old government of some sort could easily do).
If you remove orbital traders and stick with on-planet trading only then that angle works though.
-Stigma
Ah yes, you're right, I did misread it. Sorry about that.
So yes, this may make a sort of sense. But even the transcendents have to follow the no-FTL law, remember.
I probably wouldn't go this way just because I think it adds unnecessary complication to the backstory. The transcendents are not a really present part of the universe; they're more of a poorly-understood force off in the distance that only very occasionally evidences itself, and never in really consistent ways. Kind of like the gods of the LOTR mythos. Putting them right in every player's backstory is just a bit too Star Trek; a bit too cozy.
Hi, new to the forums, haven't created an introduction but will soon :) I have a few ideas I've been thinking about since reading this.
The Alastair Reynolds influence on this game really got me interested, one of my favourite authors, especially the revelation space series.
I'd like to imagine that once this Rimworld may have been a valuable and frequently visited location, a long time ago. The reason it's still populated and ships still arrive is the time it takes a light speed signal to travel. Many ships may have set course for this system fully thinking it was a civilised gem amid the desolation of the rim. Any number of events could have rendered this system barren/hostile. Turning back isn't really an option when travelling a fraction of the speed of light, so you're stuck where you're going.
To explain the raiders, people paid to get to this system, it's current state of civilisation is of no concern to the people flying the ships, they dump their sleepers at their target location and dont give a damn thereafter. These poor souls aren't as resourceful as you and develop into raiders.
Perhaps with a gas giant this system may have once been a popular Helium3 mine :)
Quote from: miah999 on October 22, 2013, 11:09:18 AM
This is in the General Discussion, because it's not a Suggestion, but a question for debate. I do make some suggestions near the end, but they're for debate's sake.
Should there be Trading and Raiders?
The setting of RimWorld is thus, you are on some sort of deep space passenger liner, think Titanic not Princess Cruise Lines, and there is no "Faster Than Light" travel. All the passengers and most likely the crew are in stasis, "long sleep sarcophagi," presumably for a journey through interstellar space that could take decades or even a centuries. Something goes terribly wrong, and the ship breaks up within the sphere of influence of the moon of a gas giant the "Rim World."
Now for a moment lets assume the ship had no navigation malfunction and this Rim World is near a "major shipping lane," and occasionally a ship will fly by. But given the cost and expense of sending a ship such a great distance, and the time scale of the journey. Logically a ship might pass by every few years, or so. And even if one did, would not all the crew be in stasis, who would receive the call.
But what if the Rim World is close enough to inhabited worlds for short range "waking vessels" to pass? Then we run it to a logic problem with the plot. If the Rim World is close enough for that, would not rescue be a simple affair. Suddenly our colonists aren't so stranded.
The same space travel restrictions apply to Raiders, are the raiders waking up from stasis every few months or so just to check if there is anyone to steal from?
This leaves us with some hard questions to ask, and some decisions about mechanics vs plot, game-play vs story.
Raiders provide drama, and conflict that are central to good story telling, without them our tales may be bland.
And Trade provides access to necessary materials without which there may be no story.
There are some solutions: Trade could be replaced by random events involving meteor showers to deliver new materials, or the very rare star ship crash.
New colonist could be obtained from primitive native people, they don't affect our plight, as they lack the technology to leave the planet. Perhaps they're the descendants of the crew of a ship that crashed centuries ago. This could also make a source for Raiders, as they'd be keen on stealing our fancy technology that their ancestors spoke of.
So what do you folks think?
Should the trade ships and raiders from above go away?
Should Rim World focus more on the sense of isolation, and distance from any rescue?
To be honest I couldn't agree with this more. A low tech planet where the tech that you have landed with is sort after.. Makes sense why you are getting constantly raided.