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RimWorld => Ideas => Topic started by: stefanstr on September 08, 2014, 09:13:12 AM

Title: Alternatives to endless waves of enemies
Post by: stefanstr on September 08, 2014, 09:13:12 AM
As much as I love RimWorld, I am not quite happy with how it basically becomes less and less of a colony sim and more and more of a tower defense game as the colony grows. So I would like to open a few points for discussion.

1. These endless waves of enemies are not realistic. I mean, if a hundred tribals had assaulted a colony, and only three made it back, the news would spread. In real life, the tribesmen wouldn't be so eager to go attack the base again, knowing it meant certain death. Moreover, there probably wouldn't be so many of them left in the tribe.

2. For beginners, these waves put a quick end to colonies. For long-time players, they are a minor annoyance, and a source of free weapons, as they inevitably die in the elaborate killboxes.

Some ideas on how to provide growing challenges without the current grind:

  - battering rams/tanks/mammoths, RPGs - basically, if the AI discovers that the colony is heavily walled in, it would start sending "heavy cavalry" instead of bigger and bigger numbers.
  - saboteurs - the AI could send small groups or even single pawns with explosives to target the colony's vital structures (like power generators or walls). They would come unannounced or could even be just a random event ("a saboteur has blown up your wall..."). Logically, an attack would follow quickly after such an event.
  - more reliance on local politics and trade. I have the feeling that this is planned, but if maintaining good relations with the local factions is necessary for trading and such (e.g., because of less frequent trader ships and inevitable shortage of resources), more political events could be introduced. E.g., one faction asks you to take side in their conflict with another faction - basically, one of them will hate you for supporting the other. Or a faction could require you to pay tribute to them in exchange for stopping the attacks (this would allow for attacks to be even more devastating, as now there would be a non-military alternative to deal with them).

OK, I will stop now.

TL;DR:   factions should have more awareness of the results of their previous assaults and have some cleverer scenarios on how to breach through walls and killboxes
Title: Re: Alternatives to endless waves of enemies
Post by: Iwillbenicetou on September 08, 2014, 09:44:46 AM
That would be cool, it could be simply made, and also reduce lag! As you grow bigger and bigger, you get huge raids, thus causing immense lag. would be nice to have small groups but incredibly good.
Title: Re: Alternatives to endless waves of enemies
Post by: Monkeysaur on September 08, 2014, 10:04:22 AM

I Like the idea of stealth invaders who you are not notified about, but rather your defenses have to detect.

With having more intelligent raiders, they could target your power if it's vulnerable anywhere, that would be quite smart. Or they could set up camp until there is a power failure. Or perhaps they could dig underground into your base if you have it walled off. It would give a good incentive to have important areas patrolled, and guard towers. I would like to have guards/patrols too. - Out of interest how many colonists/raiders can the game deal with at one time?

I also like the idea of colonists being able to become compromised if they are dissatisfied with their situation. I dream of one day having to worry about my Colony leader being assassinated from within by a colonist who feels undervalued and was turned by the enemy.

Maybe one day XD
Title: Re: Alternatives to endless waves of enemies
Post by: Mystic on September 08, 2014, 10:22:10 AM
I like the last idea of more reliance upon politics and trade as the game goes on.  If a particular faction gets a beat-down in its attacks upon the colony enough times, you'd think they would eventually get a clue that another approach to dealing with the colony is needed.  Of course, since the player has no way to actually attack any of these other groups except when they send their people into the area of the colony, the other parties won't ever be dealing from a position of real weakness or fear of being destroyed because they've never been counterattacked, and presumably they will also know that the colony in question is only made up of a handful of people. However, after getting a few of their attacks trounced, they might become willing to offer peaceful coexistence that includes some sort of payment made by the player's colony to the other party (either a one-time payment to ensure peace for some period of time, or an ongoing tribute).  This would give a more peaceful-coexistence-oriented player an opportunity to not fight so many battles but instead have to concentrate more on generating enough income via trade to maintain such tribute payments (which, if he doesn't make a payment, will invariably mean a resumption of attacks, and likely with increased intensity and new capabilities purchased with some of that tribute silver ... imagine the wildcard factor of a tribe of natives that's managed to obtain a couple of advanced sniper rifles, or a mortar).
Title: Re: Alternatives to endless waves of enemies
Post by: stefanstr on September 08, 2014, 01:53:52 PM
Quote from: Monkeysaur on September 08, 2014, 10:04:22 AM
Out of interest how many colonists/raiders can the game deal with at one time?

I think it depends on the rig. Dead bodies, animals, etc., are also objects the game has to handle, so having hundreds of bodies can cause lag the same way a big invasion can. Or so I think.
Title: Re: Alternatives to endless waves of enemies
Post by: Xerberus86 on September 09, 2014, 06:35:06 AM
QuoteTITANS / MEGABEASTS:
----------------------------


in contrary to the bolded letters i don't mean actual fantasy titans and fantasy monsters but a rimworld equivalent. let us have bigger enmies which are much stronger with way more HP and more importantly MORE THAN ONE WEAPON!

in dwarf fortress there are wild animals, night creatures (werecreatures, undead, vampires), invading factions like goblins, megabeasts (both full and semi-megabeasts) and titans.

in rimworld we only have the equivalent to invading factions which is nice on itself but these game mechanic offers us the challenge to fight a horde of easy to medium difficulty groups, the challenge is basically in numbers and that we have to spread our firepower. the equivalent to titans / megabeasts would be the opposite, a HUGE and strong enemy where we have to focus our attacks against. also making him able to destroy walls (not instantly but at a reasonable fast pace) would mean that we also have to go on the offensive (mortar attacks from raiders are fine but they are more like attrition damage which is a thread over time than an immediate threat). of course this would be lategame encounters! i know mechanoids are supposed to be that lategame enemy but they still fall in the category of many enemies, dividing our forces and / or firepower. having a huge killer-robot fore example attack with laser beams and rockets would be neat (or the rimworld equivalent).


raider gunboats:
--------------------


now having a medium to big-sized army of raiders walk towards your colony is good and fine but it would also be a nice idea to have them come with gunboats which are give them some cover from incoming bullets and have some (smaller) canons and machine gun nests (both explosive when damaged too much).

now i don't want to have vehicles now in the game, of course after fighting this what remains is more of a building than a vehicle. this idea adds more challenge to the game and after the battle you have kind of a building near your colony which will remain and remind you of your battle :).

here is what i mean (more or less):

(http://s7.directupload.net/images/140904/temp/6g96vmog.jpg) (http://www.directupload.net/file/d/3735/6g96vmog_jpg.htm)

(http://s1.directupload.net/images/140904/temp/5f58875a.jpg) (http://www.directupload.net/file/d/3735/5f58875a_jpg.htm)

i agree with you that we need something stronger lategame, the ideas above are from my suggestion thread :p

http://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=5942.msg57455#msg57455

Quote(Shameless self-promotion.)
Title: Re: Alternatives to endless waves of enemies
Post by: LordJulian on September 09, 2014, 12:19:16 PM
Here is my thread on the same idea that you have, shameless self-promotion at the same time (lol)

http://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=6009.0;topicseen (http://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=6009.0;topicseen)

So yes, a suggestion to the end of endless wave massacres
Title: Re: Alternatives to endless waves of enemies
Post by: Xerberus86 on September 09, 2014, 12:24:39 PM
Quote from: LordJulian on September 09, 2014, 12:19:16 PM
Here is my thread on the same idea that you have, shameless self-promotion at the same time (lol)

http://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=6009.0;topicseen (http://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=6009.0;topicseen)

So yes, a suggestion to the end of endless wave massacres

i wrote it 3 days earlier though  :P .