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[1. Ground control, bases and hives]

Thakn You for welcoming me That was most nice out of You

So it is problematic for other people to read "wall of text" I guess... Well, I myself feel very comfortable when reading such things, and propably that is why I am doing it in such way. It is good to know that for other people it is not the case, so thank You for this information.  Ok, so I will try to put it in short version now.

SHORTER VERSION
1. Ground control, bases and hives
Basicly I propose to implement into Rim World some kind of living creatures that would be showing strong territorial behaviour, and would be also organized. Those could be in worst case scenario groups of bandids which are simply building their operation camp and guard it, with land in certian radious around it. More iteresting though would be some kind of native form of big insects that could move into aera, form it's hive and take control over ground around it in certian radious. Best example in our real world are ants. Note that it still should be possible to sneak throu their territory undetected.

More detailed description in my first post (yes, that wall of text), as well as detalied reasons standing behind it.

2. Learning
In short - another statistic for every character, which would represent his ability to gain exp. points. It would be like our genes and early childhood - some are lucky and are good at learning, other are less lucky. It would bring more diversity to game, and would bring realism. Also this statistic would unchangable by any activity - so no "Go read that book so Your learning will rise". Insted it might be affected by accidents, being hurt in head in combat, drug addiction, being alcoholic and so.

More detials and better explenation in my first post (yes, wall of text).

[1. Ground control, bases, hives.]

Hi everybody.
I am Modest, and I am new in this forum. I read a lot about Rim World, and watched many youtube "Let's Plays" and I think there are few suggestions which I would like to propose to developer, and to Rim World Community. But before that, I want to make two points very clear for everybody. Firstly - I do not have acces to game, which means that I do not know for sure if my vision of it is correct and up to date. I can only assume that it is up to date because "Let's Plays" which I watched were like 8 hour old (now there are older by few hours of course). So please, do understand that if I make suggestion which is already implemented in newest version of game it is not my badwill, trolling or being silly. It is caused by lack of knoledge and information, and is done in goodwill. Second thing is that I am not a backer of Rim World. If that should exclude me from making suggestions, please - just tell me and I will not make such mistake again, I promise. But than I would highly reccomend of making it impossible to register into forum for non-backers to make such situations crystal clear from now (But I must say that I do not believe it will be the case).

And now, that I propelry introduced myself, we can go into proper suggestions.

1. Ground control, bases, hives.

From what I saw, we always have at begining 3 peoples, which are being delivered to planet surfface via escape pods. From what I learned - they are stranded on this new planet, and must do whatever it takes to survive. So the colony building starts. Some are build in caves, other in the open (for example Reykjavik by ChristonianA). By doing it player is taking certian amount of land (with all it's resources and potential benefits) in his possesion. This is mostly represented by placing Sentry Turrets - whatever is in it's fire radius it's mine! Player may now concentrate on other things and may send his units to do certian job inside mentioned fire radius without worrying much about theirs safety. If said Sentry Turrets are cutting of completly part of map (for example by covering only way in) we can see cleary importance and influence of this "safety" on player and his development strategy. Of course sometimes it is just illusion of safety - and it is than only illusion of ground control, but that is another story. So what about rest of map? It may be out of player control, and sending units there may cause player feeling little unsecured, but that is it. From what I could see there is not real danger out there apart of raiders, which arrival is well known to player. In other words there is no real tension when You are sending colonist somewhere away in order to bring those ship parts into our colony. You are not asking Yourself (at least I did not asked myself this question even once when I saw somebody doing that on Youtube) "Will everybody return safely? Will they manage to pull this off?" Insted of that You know they will - You know that land beyond Your control is apsolutly under no one's control. So it is neutral. Adding some predators in, that are hostile to hummans, would make it more interesting. But bunch of individual predators that are living in certian aera is one thing, and fully organised lifeform that is capable take land in it's possesion is another. And that kind of situation I would like to suggest - somethink that would also try to control ground quite like our newly found colony. In worse case scenario I am suggesting that there would sometimes come raiders/pirates/bandids/<enter bad guys faction name here> and form their base/camp, from which they can control land in certian radius, sent scouts around and occasionally form attack group on player's colony. I am calling that worst case scenario, because there are already humman enemies in game, which are trying to attack and kill colonist. What I really think would be great is some sort of social animal/insect that could build hive in certian aera of map, and slowly expand it's influence and control by spreading itno other parts of map (if unchallanged). In real life my favourites are Ants, so in my example I will talk about gigant ants, but I think that gigant spiders would better fit this game and it's setting. So how would work such gigant ant colony?  It could start from single ant queen entering playeble area and starting her own hive at choosen place (i think that caves would be best places for it - maybe it could dig it's own tunnels in rock?). For some time (up to few days) nothing would be happening, and ant colony would be very opened for attackers, and would not pose any threat to anybody - it would be good if player would be not informed about where hive is being build, so it will have chances to grow undiscovered). But afther some time, ants are being... Ok, You know what? Everybody knows this story. Right? So I will just skip it and go to gameplay wise important part - how diffrent would be that from raiders base? First of all - raiders are player enemies, right? They come, raid and kill (and rape) and all that is left are smoking, abandoned ruins. Gigant ants are not enemies - they are taking some land into control, and they are becoming more like natural risk at that location. Raiders are attacking on sight - ants can not see at all (lack of eyes) so it would make it quite possible to sneack throu their territory - additional flavour into our story. Also they would bring even more of "living world" effect itno game - as they would hunt on their territory for food, and preferably cut some kinds of plants. Moreover, imagine what interesting situations it could provide when raiders party is going to Your colony, and tresspas ants' territory? Will they be detected? If yes, what it does mean for You? Will they end up as ant food? Or maybe they will start running afther suffering few losses and bring problems on Your shoulders, right into colony? Will You see them as a threat? Minor annoyance? Shield and protection? And what about those loone travelers, that are unaware of danger lurking on their path? Will You sent armed team to take them in? Or will You let them see  how bad is it to wander around alone?
To sum this part up - I suggest some kind of lifeform, prefferably insect like (gigant spiders, ants, termites) that would be forming hive and taking control of land around it in certian radius (and of course that may spread by forming more hives if storyteller would choose so) and influence how things are going around (in both - negative and possitive ways). What I am NOT suggesting is and another type of enemy, which will build bases and whom player must defet, because nothing good would come out of letting him be.

2. Learning

This one will be shorter, I promise. I think that we all agree that people are diffrent from each other. Some are good at solving manual based problems, others are better at thinking about new possibilities, other are having strong body and can be great fighters. As far as I know - Rim World already have this in. That is good. From what I know, characters are learning new stuff by doing it, right? Farmer may be good at farming, but he also may become good at shooting, mining, fishing, hunting and so. I also bet (yes, it is a bet, as I am not 100% sure) that the better certian character is at some things (let's say in this example mining) the longer it takes for him to get even betteer - at least that is how it work in most RPG like elements with geting exp. points. What I am trying to suggest now is to make also diffrent people more, or less capable of learning new things. It would be represented by additional ability labeled as "Learning". Baisicaly level 10 in learning (or other number, that is considered in this game to be norml lever for ability - not advantage, nor disadvantage, just an averange) would mean that a character get 100% of exp. for doing certian activity. Level 5 in such case would mean only 50%, and level 15 an astonishing amount of 150% of exp. Important note is that "Learnign" stat should not be changable by any "normal" means. So You may not order Your character to play chees and improve his learning. Nope. Once determined by Your genes and chilldhood, You are stuck to it most of Your life. But still some things might occure and have influence on it - like having accident that involve in damaging brain, being drug addicted, alcoholic and so. This could let us to have for example mentally handicaped characters, chracters which starts with good manual skills but can't learn too fast, or young geniuses that may be not good at anything at all at begining, but they learn very fast, and it will not be too long for them to be good at most of things. I think this would bring more variations betwen characters, and more uniquity* (did I created new word?).

Now, if You managed to read all of this - Congratulations to You Sir! I hope that You did liked mine ideas.