Topics

First of all, i found something which i think is a bug. When one of your colonists goes on a, say, drugs binge and you arrest them, they become prisoners. If you release them they join the colony again, naturally. That's cool. However, if you select "chat and recruit" they will have some difficulty to be recruited. It took me many failed attempts to recruit one before i realised i could just release her and she would join back the colony.

Second. I would suggest not to make the rooms automatically created. I mean, i had a simple research table outdoors along with a butchering table and a table where they were eating and some crops here and there etc. However the "room" was supposed to be a laboratory according to the game (the items were Room: Laboratory). Of course that was because of the simple research table. However it ruined my immersion, since the item was next to the gathering table (where they all relaxed socially and eated). When i removed all those items and put them in separate rooms the room changed into "Rec room" because i had a chess table. So again, what i'm suggesting is that "outdoors" should be just outdoors. Actually i would go as far as to suggest to let us show the game where each room is via making an area (or zone) and selecting a precreated name. Selections could be "laboratory" or "rec room" or "bedroom(s)" etc, as they are now, but we show the game where each thing is. Although i suppose that would be needlessly tiring and complicated for the player. Anyway.

Third. I think forming caravans is not properly explained. I haven't tried it yet but i don't get what do i need to form a caravan beforehand.

Fourth. Foams (the things that pop when fire occurs) should be automatically replaced. It should leave a blueprint behind when it pops. Or at least we should be able to toggle that automatic process on and off (for those who don't want it).

Fifth. When you melee walls or doors without any melee items should cause you bruises on your arms or legs. A prisoner went to berserk (he was going through go-juice withdrawal) and started punching a marble door as i was continuously repairing it. So i naturally checked his health tab thinking his arms would break (he was a former colonist so i wanted to capture him before they broke) only to find that he was fine and could go on punching that *marble* without anything bad happening to his fists. I wouldn't even dream of punching marble in real life, let alone being able to destroy it with bare hands.

Sixth. I would love to be able to rip clothes to make new ones. I had a ton of tribalwear that i couldn't rip to get skins, nor could i sell them (they sell as exotic). I think it's only natural to add a bill "rip clothes". Then we could select the quality or hp and just rip and remake anything we don't like.

Seventh. Something else on clothes is those dreaded D ones. Right now the stockpile allows or doesn't allow "non-D", why? Why isn't that allow or don't "D"? I mean, i want the stockpile where my colonists get their clothes from NOT to include D clothes, and the stockpile where i put the ones i want to sell to include D. Why was non-D implemented instead? I'm honestly asking, as i thought the opposite was the more "natural" thing to implement.

Eighth. If we're getting a deep scanner, we might as well get a surface scanner. I'd like to see where all the mats are in my mountainous area, especially if i have the ability to see where they are underground.

Ninth. That's a bit harder to implement but here goes. I think that the bills should also check a target stockpile. So, for example, keep on making simple meals until "Food" stockpile can't hold any more items (if the stockpile has mixed items that's the more sensible approach). Actually i mostly thought of this for the dumping stockpiles. Like, keep on cutting rocks until target stockpile is empty. Or cut rocks forever but only from that stockpile. So basically the bills would have you select where will they get the mats from with "anywhere" being the default.

Tenth. Hunting, harvesting and woodcutting areas. I would love to be able to select an area where the colonists would always harvest berries (when they are ready for harvest) or cut trees (when they are fully grown) or hunt specific animals. So you can hunt for hares or rats just outside your colony automatically.

Eleventh. Can we move to an empty spot on the map and gather resources? I mean, next to me there's a mountain and i want to see if there's any machinery (for example). Can i go there and mine the mountain? I mean, without making a new colony. If not, then that's another suggestion.

Last but not least, something that isn't a suggestion, i read that you don't advise us to have two colonies at the same time but i don't understand why. Is it because it will make the game really easy?

Anyway, to close this, i'd like to say that this new release was amazing and actually something i never thought would happen because of how much work it would need. We now have a proper planet and we can actually move on it! Awesome work. Keep it up!

So i read somewhere in the forum that robots are supposed to be glitterworld tech. I have no idea why. If we can build a comms console and a tube television, programmable air conditioning and even solar panels (in the latest version we don't even need specific tools, they just have them already i suppose) then what's keeping us from creating a simple cleaning robot? Maybe it just cleans the room it's installed in, and the room has to be square or rectangle shaped. But tech-wise it's far from "glitterworld", we even have it now, we can even make it ourselves in our homes right now.

I think glitterworld techs are supposed to be nanotechnology and genetic engineering, but not robots. An exo-skeleton is not glitterworld, a cleaning robot isn't, not even a hauling robot (as long as it carries stuff on a straight line) isn't glitterworld. Or a robot that smelts steel bars or a robot that chips stone. There are a ton of really basic jobs that look silly when you can actually build a spaceship. We can build a functioning cryo-chamber but we can't build a cleaning robot or one that picks items from one place and puts them in another place.

Now mechanoids are different. They can move freely, target and fire weapons. Although targetting and firing have already been achieved (our improvised turrets are just that) moving freely on unexpected ground shapes is extremely difficult. That, to me, is glitterworld tech, yes. But a cleaning bot isn't. I'm thinking of buying one myself and i live on Earth, and we don't have cryochambers or spaceships able to hop from planet to planet yet!

Robots should be available as a tech and buildable before the spaceship. And they should replace really basic jobs but also be programmable (move 5 feet, turn left, move 3 feet, pickup, turn left, turn left, move 3 feet, turn right, move 5 feet, empty cargo). All this is simple to implement without ruining the immersion.

Greetings! So after all this time i finally played the latest version. My previous posts were unfortunately concerning the very first playable alphas and what i imagined the updates would be like gameplay-wise. So now i can finally tackle a few points in regards to where we are now.

First of all, about the topic's title. Do we really need rimkids? Because as i was playing the game i was thinking i am really not low on personnel at all. Furthermore rimkids would add a hell of a lot more stuff to think about and the most important of all was education. I mean they aren't born knowing the language. Animals are fine since you can just train them, however education is a lot more complex. For example, we would have to add a new skill, "teaching" or something like that. We would also have to add "human handle" which is completely different to "handle" (which concerns animal handling). We would need a classroom, a playground, and what about the mother that gave birth? She could die, or she could otherwise be affected by the fact that she gave birth. What i'm saying is, it's stretched way beyond the limits of the game as it is now. However, converting slaves or pod survivors is actually pretty productive. Also, with the inclusion of biological/chronological age, i had a guy who was biologically 16 and chronologically 100+ so basically he's my "main" char (i've reached spacer technology and he's still 21). So do we need rimkids? I think the devs should focus on travelling away from the colony (i don't know if it's implemented now, because there was a hint somewhere of a food that lasts for long distances or something? but i haven't found out if or how i can do it yet).

Travelling away from the colony would mean resettling, forming your own caravans, attacking a different colony or tribe, etc. Why not even form a second colony and be able to switch between them - that's not very far away - although it is far from the original concept (escaping).

Anyway the topic remains, do we really need rimkids? And i think the answer is not yet (if ever). I was getting the feeling that the planet's atmosphere has some sort of birth-inhibiting essences that stops women from getting pregnant by simply breathing in the air, and it was fine! It's sad to see, of course, that your favourite colonist's genes won't pass on, however i think it's a bit more plausible this way. I now have about 8-9 people and i have turned down many opportunities for more, or converting prisoners, because right now, 9 is all i need. So if my 9 colonists started making babies, then i would need to expand, and then i would need to expand even more, and soon enough the whole map wouldn't be enough.

Actually i think the map should be enlarged. Actually it could be an industrial-level tech, to enlarge the map plus one tenth map size in every direction, and the tech would have 10 tiers, each tier costs more (3000 - 5000 - 7000 - 9000 - 11000 and so on). Would it affect the fps that much? However we don't even need that one.

I really look forward to seeing the transport pods (was that the name?) i saw in the teaser. However, let me say it again. Right now the game is perfectly playable. A technological curve was added, so i basically started with wood and butchering and cooking in fuelled cooking tables, slowly researching i reached the point that i could contact ships, and i could only reach even the state to start making the ship towards late-game (where i am now). What can i say? Most of the things i disliked in the early alpha are gone or replaced with a much more plausible and immersive gameplay.

And last but not least, to get back to the topic, i think we should let the devs work on our own caravans and colony expansion, rather than rimkids. At least for now. Maybe, we could research how to stop this birth-inhibiting atmosphere towards late game, which would mean we choose to stay instead of leaving (and the ship could be used for something else).

Now on other feedback. I actually don't have much to say as most of it is positive, but i'll try to raise a few points anyway.

1. When a person has a mental break and starts removing his/her clothes, the items have to be re-enabled in order for the person to re-wear them or other people to haul them. I don't understand why is that. If the item was reserved for the person who dropped it, then it's understandable but i think it has to be enabled for even the same person to use it. The problem with this is that then you have to go tracking down all the objects that were dropped and you might even miss some.

2. When there's a bzzzt event, the power cables in the explosion area vanish and aren't automatically re-blueprinted. I mean, the solution is in the problem. They have to be re-blueprinted. Or at least show us where the cables were before they were destroyed ? Or at least make it optional ?

3. You can repair a turret but you cannot repair a weapon. And there i thought an automatic robo-turret was more sophisticated and complex than a pistol. I would also like to see repairable robotic parts (like arms and legs and eyes). The only reason i've stayed away from them is because as i remember they can break down and you need new ones. I think in spacer-level tech you should be able to repair them yourself. It's just repairing, there is a percentage already there, so why not ?

4. Why can't the colonists somehow fire from inside the walls? I mean, either climb the walls, or just make holes and fire through them with an accuracy handicap. Or let us create bunker-like structures so we can man them when the raiders come.

Anyway that's all from me. Sorry for the long post! I'll go back to my colony now. I have two thrumbos, male and female, visiting my colony and i'm trying to tame them. Imagine the faces on those raiders!

Ok, i'm gonna say the word, don't hate straight-away, ready? Aircraft.

Well, this also goes towards vehicles in general but what i imagined was aircraft. I mean small plane-types like in the movie "oblivion". Maybe the aircraft doesn't even have an engine and relies on the wind but again, what i imagined was "proper" aircraft. A vehicle that you sit in, drive it and land it etc.

It occured to me when i thought about the procedure of making the actual escape ship. I said previously that the escape ship should be extremely harder to build so i thought making a regular one-or-two-person air vehicle could actually take the amount of time and resources that the escape ship takes now.

So why would you need a plane (let's call it what it is) ? Trade, travelling, attack from behind on sieges, MAYBE attacking from above (imagine the terrified tribesmen when they notice your ship taking off), hauling (this is HUGE), etc.

It could be an automated aircraft (hauling, assisting in battles, carrying wounded, etc.) it could be manned (that's what i prefered) it could be small (i was honestly imagining a one-person plane) or big (that would be unrealistic) and it would be as expensive, tiring and troublesome to make as the escape ship (this, again, goes along with making the escape ship MUCH harder to make) AND it would need a specific fuel to run on, let's say not as expensive as glitterworld meds but close to it, so you would probably only make one. I imagined a grown colony, the size of a village, and suddenly a pod crashes. A trained guy goes to the plane, flies over there, but there's a thunderstorm, so he crashes. He's wounded but manages to carry the survivor back. In the morning the sky is clear so people go and haul the ship's parts. In the colony they are repaired and re assembled (another week's work). Your colony's plane would be your prized asset!

Now concerning "automated planes" this idea could expand to other "levitating" mechanisms. Imagine a cleaning bot, a nurse bot, a watering bot etc. Levitating bots would be fast mechs that run on power (you would need large amounts for even one of them). The tech could come from alien spaceships (the ones that have the automated guards).

BTW i'm not advertising this idea as realistic, i'm just saying it would be fun, i completely understand there are other issues right now.

I haven't played the latest versions but i saw the changelog at rimworld's wiki and saw that a TV has been added for the patients. Now, i know i'm stretching it a bit here, but what exactly are they watching on TV ? They are supposedly light years away from civilization so aren't TVs and radios (with the exception of communication via radio) a bit unrealistic? I understand they could be watching news from their neighbours but i doubt they (or their neighbours) would be making movies and i also doubt they carried disks with movies with them while crashing - even so the movies would be limited to a certain maximum so after a while, after having watched all for about a billion times, you would be driven crazy even at the sight of a TV screen.

If we suppose they are getting the signal from the nearest planet, then a) why can't they signal that planet (you could say it would take ages to reach that planet, so why do it-but still it makes no sense not to do it even out of desperation) and b) supposing they are getting the signal which has travelled many light years to get to them, wouldn't it be mixed with other interferences, thus making it completely unwatchable?

Which leaves us with the first two options, either the signal is coming from a neighbour on the same planet, or from a disk that someone carried with him while crashing. I suppose we're mostly talking about the second option here, since the news can't be on all the time and they can't be worth your attention all the time. So if you're a rimkid (supposing there will be rimkids in the future) you will have watched all the movies towards the middle of your generation - either for fun or as a patient. I will, of course, assume that the movies are downloaded from the disk into the TV, otherwise only one TV can operate at any given time.

Anyway i'm saying all this mainly because when i hear TV i imagine a normal TV with different channels etc, while in this case it should be more like a computer screen, with pre-stored "fun material", and no "outside" signal whatsoever.

In order to keep the forum clean of multiple same threads it would be wise to delete new topics that have the same suggestions over and over again (for example, the ability to procreate). I read the "frequently suggested" sticky and i got lost in the replies (like one-liners asking for z-levels) and i assume it would be a good thing to add those to the "frequently suggested" topic and delete them so at least the stickies remain clean.

Right now there is no way to know if an idea someone comes up with hasn't already been expressed in the 200+ pages of topics in the suggestions forum. Not only that, but maybe someone in page 143 had a really interesting idea that has now been forgotten. Another possibility would be to add some sort of timer so posts are deleted after a certain period (even a year). They could be automatically archived for Ludeon's use. If a topic's suggestion is already included in the "frequently asked" sticky then the topic should be replied to and deleted i think (let's say a day after it's closed). If a topic has multiple suggestions while one of them is included in the frequently asked then the poster may be asked to edit the topic and exclude that particular suggestion (since it has been noted numerous times).

The sole reason for all these suggestions here is because it would be a shame for a cool idea to get lost, or an already existing idea being reposted over and over again, cramping the forum.

Has anyone played space colony ? Although i hated its gameplay (not that user-friendly) it focused largely on social interactions and character backgrounds (you can't make a "bimbo" fall in love with you by inviting her to a chess tournament - this is not an example taken from the game, i'm just saying, character backgrounds).

Although this is a far target it would be cool to see their backgrounds actually affecting their interactions or, even, their ability to fall in love with one another. A space pirate and a police officer won't really be friendly to each other. This could be negated by bonuses like "they fought together" or "he tended to his wounds" etc.

I'd like to start off with the fact that i have only played a very early version - i don't even remember if it was alpha or beta (but my bets are on alpha). However i have read about all the major changes since then and i am patiently waiting for the opportunity to have a neverending colony - i.e. multiple generations.

However the reason behind many people wanting multiple generations (apart from the fact it's pure realism) is, i guess, because they want to keep on playing - although the game is advertised for survival and escape, not establishing a village or city. I too get attached and want to stay there and be some kind of significant power on that new planet. Obviously this goes against what would happen in reality, for example some people may have families back home and want to escape as soon as possible etc.

So, you survived, you escaped, and...well that's it. And it's actually pretty easier than making a dominant colony with defenses etc. And it only makes sense that making and launching a missile into space is much much harder than actually creating a dominant village-like power. I understand that these guys aren't random and they're supposed to come from a technologically advanced civilization (i.e future humans) but if it's this easy to make a spaceship able of interstellar travel, i can only imagine it's extremely easier to make a simple sniper rifle, or a marble statue - which basically means it should take much less work. Obviously what i'm saying is that the ending should come much later, so the spaceship should be much more difficult to make.

So this would call for the "neverending colony". When you're heading towards this new endgame that i'm suggesting, you will have built so much and explored the game in such depth among multiple generations that you would be cool with it to end. Or keep on playing forever - that's your choice.

Before i go to more specific suggestions i have to mention some things that don't make sense to me. This is supposed to be an alien planet, right? Even if it was picked automatically by a computer so that it has "Earth's standards" it still doesn't explain how everyone is cool with breathing without any masks, modifications or special equipment. The planet even has squirells if i remember correctly or boars. I mean, it really only has but a few alien animals ("cantaloupes"? do i remember correctly? It was some camel-like animal) and all of them are actually Earth-like. I know i'm stretching it a bit here but it was a real let-down that i thought i'd visit something alien but it's basically Earth. Now that i think about it, it would be cool if it was actually Earth and it was revealed that it's Earth's past. Anyway, another thing that didn't make sense was that although you're trying to escape the planet and you can signal incoming ships to trade with them you cannot ask for help. That's the first thing anyone does anywhere if he's cast-away, signal for help.

Now, what i would adore would be to actually survive, in a very difficult and "grim" sense. It's called rimworld, which i suppose it means it's really really far away, which would mean that no trade ships go there on purpose. So i'd say, no trade-ships, at all, just debris or random events like hunters or thieves or killers escaping justice. Or even malfunctioning trade-ships which you can loot or come to some agreement with them - but always within the "noone will hear you here, we're in rimworld now" motif.

I understand all these would probably call for a "rimworld II" however i'd like the devs to consider it at least food for thought.

So now let's go on to list these and others into groups:

1. The colony needs to be able to be kept throughout a neverending game. The answer to this is simple, and everyone has said it, the people need to have children. You could make the children able to do other tasks rather than work, like caring for animals or gathering herbs or carrying medicine or flipping switches. You would need a teacher profession i guess but let's make it simple, it could be something like the coding used in animal training. For a child to be able to become a fully functional member of the colony, you would need to "train" him in "language" or "mathematics" or even just label it as "education" and be done with it altogether.

2. The game should be more about survival and less about escape (escaping should of course be the ending trigger but it needs to be much more difficult to achieve). When it starts it's grim and scary, that feeling should be preserved. Soon enough it becomes kinda "i wanted to start a colony here guys, i did it on purpose, i'm not shipwrecked at all" which should come (if ever) when you reach the endgame (and your village has become more like a space station)

3. There should be no comm-links and trading with passing ships, otherwise you could just escape this way. No talking with the outside world, we're stranded here, and we're alone, and we have to deal with this world's problems now, and its natives. As if noone has any idea this world even exists (let alone trade with it).

4. The planet needs some more "alienation", right now it's so similar to Earth it's as if it almost is, in fact, Earth. In fact it should be so alien that there is a hazard in everything (air, water, food, predator-type animals)

5. Diseases/illnesses that last forever - these should all be treatable towards the endgame. Like many suggested, if you have cataract you could get an eye implant or a bionic eye. That of course should happen towards the end, let's say third generation.

6. You should be able to send people on missions outside your colony. Contact a tribe or mine for resources (or find water, why not) or whatever.

7. On the subject of water, being close to a river should have some advantages. In snowy grounds you have to melt the snow, or in grounds away from the sea you have to build wells. When you're next to a river you could build a dam for electricity, get water straight from the river, or even "fish" whatever alien fish-life you'll find.

8. Please oh please dig deeper into the mech civilization you encounter. Their parts could hold some secrets or they may have their own story, it was really fascinating when they showed up but that was it, you kill them and you get metal. I really think this is a great idea.

I will finish this list here because i don't want it to become unreadable (maybe it is now) and i sincerely hope this becomes food for thought since i think this game has a *huge* potential to become one of the greatest sci-fi/colony/survival sims out there. Also, i didn't double-check what i wrote so i apologise for any typos or grammatical errors. Anyway. Feel free to discuss.