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Thanks!

Any word on water bodies?

I was looking through the forums but I couldnt find any posts on map sizes. Is the map thats currently in place the final size? or will it be scaleable?

Also will there be water bodies? streams? lakes? ice? I mean there is rain, The water cycle exists!   

I haven't been able to tell this was happening in the LPs I've watched. Since hovering over the box displays numeric data, do you think the numbers could just be displayed in the first place? I think that would be easier for players to understand, rather than trying to judge relative brightness.

I am actually torn between the current state which as we can see isnt very intuitive but I agree with pheonox that it is rather elegant. Although as you point out, it would be difficult to discriminate the brightness of the box between skill level say 5 and 6 or maybe even 7.

[Malfunctioning comms:]

I thought of already existing gameplay devices and how they could have their own albeit minor or major influence on the story.

You are going to see a recurring theme here 

Malfunctioning comms: You aren't able to contact passing ships for a limited period
Malfunctioning turrets: A turret starts to fire at colonists/structures
Malfunctioning research table: Research is lost or there is an explosion causing fire indoors
Malfunctioning hydroponics table: could create a mutant strain of inedible crop that would get wild and ravage the landscape, muffalos starve and colonists have to find alternate protein source.(Suggestion: Allow colonists to hunt or domesticate Muffalos as a source of protein)

Malfunctioning solar panels: Efficiency goes down for a limited time due to equipment failure. Another variation could be decreased sunlight on cloudy days/rainy days
Malfunctioning generator: creates an EMP blast that knocks out some surrounding electronics
Malfunctioning replicators: For a limited duration construction and repair capability is drastically reduced. You are only able to manufacture/repair basic things like walls and sand bags. Can't repair comms, research tables, power generator, food dispensers or turrets.

Squirrels gnawing on power conduits: Ecological disaster makes the squirrels seek out more sources of food. Makes the player keep an area clear of squirrels. Players could place a certain amount of food next to a mine and wait till a lot of squirrels come to eat it. Then detonate the mine before the food counter runs down. Could be further expanded to allow for a research option. Rodent repellant. You place these devices to keep boomrats and squirrels away or it makes power conduits un-gnawable (is that even a word? lol)

Haha, I know you!

4. I haven't actually noticed that. Most of the LPs I've seen to date the players order them one at a time. I guess this is also taken care of then.

5. I was wondering why there were varying levels of brightness in the overview. Makes sense now. I guess the LPers I've been watching haven't realized that yet XD

Thanks for pointing these out

I'd initially posted this on the reddit. But I wanted to hear what other people thought about the suggestions. I wasn't sure if I should separate them into independent thread or keep them all here so I just put them all here for now.

While watching the various Let's plays I felt that the management could be organised somewhat. So far it seems that with larger raider parties the players seem to get overwhelmed and run around like headless chickens, even more so when their is a large gap between the number of colonists vs number of raiders. Here are a few suggestions to organize things a little better.

• Control groups
• Alert levels
• Capture assignment
• Target priority
• Skill Chart

1. Control groups: Units/characters could be assigned to a control group to manage builds, fight raids, take shelter. Prioritize firefighting etc
Same could go with structures such as turrets and mines. So you could bring them online for example, or set the countdown for the mines so that you can better manage raids.

2. Alert levels:
The other thing that could be a feature is a customizeable procedure for various alert levels. Like you'd do in a real situation. The red, yellow and green alert levels from Star Trek is a good analogue for explanation purposes.

For example:
At green:

• Colonists are free to do and go where they please.
• Draft statues are set to undraft
• Units go back to their prior assignments
• Turrets and defensive structures could be powered down
• Other equipment could be powered back

At yellow - for when it is unsafe outside or raiders show up, the colony could be set to yellow alert where the units do things like:

• Not travel further than the home base area/maintain a certain distance from the raiders so as to not aggro them
• Turrets groups are brought online
• Defensive structure repair and construction is prioritized
• Non essential equipment is powered down.

At red alert

• Selected units would be automatically drafted - player manages the others
• The same units could also fall into predefined defensive positions.
• Remaining important units fall back to inside structures and take cover - predefined
  

These procedures could be a predefined selected list of options the player can use (limited functionality) or player defined - Let people set up their own (like a macro) and see how players use it, could be interesting

3. Capture assignment: A lot of times players want to capture a target but end up killing them instead. With this feature you'd set a target to be captured. This way the units would use a sliding level of force weapon/melee that wouldn't be lethal to the target. Saw that the arrest feature was implemented in the game in the latest build.

4. Target priority: During a raid, targets could be selected and prioritized so that a control group would focus fire and say kill the grenadiers first.

You can highlight all your colonists and click on an enemy and they will all focus fire on that enemy until dead.

So it looks like focus fire is already ingame.

5. Skill Chart: When assigning jobs to various colonists the players would have to open up each colonists skill list to compare them. A sortable chart with all the colonist skills next to each other would allow the players to easily see who is best at for eg. social and assign the job of a warden in just a few clicks as opposed to cycling through 5 or 6 colonists and AND then assigning the job.