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Raid comes in, intense fighting leaves raiders with two still standing and me with one guy, immobilized in a bed. So, I'm screwed, but I decide to watch them tear my base to the ground.

They're headed to break down the main door when a mad squirrel, forgotten amidst the gunfight, races out and starts gnawing on one of them. In a panic, the second spins around and unloads on the scuffle. She gets the squirrel, but not before blowing her comrade's brains out onto the sand as well. Still, she's got a job to do, so she trudges back to the main door to burn down the rest of my base...however, did I mention said door is on fire? She didn't notice, apparently, and immolates herself while trying to kick her way in. So, even though my last colonist is passed out and doomed to starve, I'm still the last man standing, b*****s! 

I think randolf is assuming that we'll have mortars of our own, in which case we'll want a no-fire zone to keep our own colonists from blowing up the base.

Obviously if both sides have mortars, any no-fire zone we set would be faction-specific and wouldn't apply to the raiders.

Definitely like this idea, as it would be a little extra to differentiate the start of each game...but, as mentioned above, would only work once we've got a much larger research tree. Currently, three free researches would be half the total.

Would add one more thing that people would metagame at the start screen when "randomly" selecting their colonists, though.

I think there's got to be a better name for the "Buildings" submenu, considering none of the items within it are actually buildings. It's not an intuitive handle, and despite playing Rimworld since the first alpha (though not obsessively) I still can't habitually find the right tab when I'm looking for generators (those are structures, right?) or comms console (why not sorted with the other colonist workstations?).

I can't really think of a better title that encompasses the current contents, as it's something of a miscellaneous category right now...considering it's mostly power items but also contains graves and gibbet cages. Raises the question of UI organization in future updates, though. I can't imagine that all of the future additions will fit in these 4 tabs without leaving them too cluttered. On the other hand, I don't think you'd want to add many more buttons to the existing set, or it will start consuming too much screen real estate.

One possible solution, just spitballing: there's a single construction button in the left box, instead of the 4 we have now. Click this, and a row of tabs slide up from the bottom of the screen with the different building categories. Select one of these and the individual options pop up above in a row of their usual boxes. This would allow for more categorization options, making for a more intuitive breakdown of items. Would also provide the space for modders to add their own new tabs, if they were adding something they felt was a unique category. I'm no designer, though...any other thoughts?

...space flu...

Space dementia!

Maybe calling them zombies or the living dead would be too much of a stretch, but I like the idea of a different kind of attack to fend off. Different rules about how the attackers operate would break raider monotony, and a scenario where colonists under melee attack have a chance of contracting the disease themselves and turning a couple days later could be tense and fun. Call it a cordyceps-like fungal infection or a 28-Days-type viral contagion if you're too hung up on "zombie".

I definitely like the ability to go no-save (Ironman mode in XCOM was my latest go). However, I think there are a lot of people that want to spend time building sprawling fortresses, and the ability to go back to an old save I think is essential for something like that, if you've planned totally wrong or something unexpected happens that messes up your blueprint. So, like XCOM and Diablo, would be best if there was an option whether or not to run the game that way.

There's an existing thread with some different ideas thrown around.

I think everybody feels like that the first time you respond to one of their posts. I did, even though I already knew you were pretty active on here.  It's just awesome to be involved with the process.

I was thinking of making a leader position once there are a few activities that demand it. Specifically, going to negotiate with travelers/besieging pirates.

What if the leader gets bonuses with certain tribes/traders based on their skills? Maybe a high-social person does moderately well with everyone, but someone skilled in construction does way better with industrial traders, or someone with high melee cooperates better with low-tech tribes. Would make things a lot more interesting than simply picking the colonist with the highest social level, to the exclusion of all other skills.

With something like this in place, though, I think there'd have to be some way to prevent players from switching leaders constantly to minmax tribe/trader interactions. Timer seems contrived...maybe a moral loss when leaders change (or die)? Or maybe the longer a leader is in control, the higher people's satisfaction gets with having someone in charge.

I don't know how easy this would be to implement, but I like it a lot. Would help connect players to their colonists...makes them more than just a series of expendable dudes.

Doors - A simple internal door that requires no power but can still segregate rooms would be nice. Having a structure full of doors each drawing 50W soon eats through battery supplies. The simple door should be cheaper to make and still slow the Colonist down as unpowered doors currently do, but still be able to segregate rooms so that simple bedrooms can be constructed without including power-sapping doors. A strong lockable door could also be added that, when locked, prevents all movement but is quite resistant to damage. This could be used on complex entrances or high value areas (stockpiles etc.)

Tynan's already added a simple door for the next build ("Added simple door. Cheaper, but cannot be powered."), so you're good on that one. I like the heavy lockable door as well, though I think it should require a colonist to do the locking and unlocking, rather than operating it yourself from godmode.

I'd prefer to see an integrated use of the tables. In my current colony (which is sizeable at the moment) I have a long table with 8 chairs and have designated a stockpile for just meals in the same location as the table. What this means is that cooked meals are placed onto the table and colonists come to the table to eat. However, this is a bit clunky as I'm making best use of the mechanics available and they're not really intended for this purpose. So, I suggest the following...

- Cooked meals must be stored at a vacant slot on a table
- Cooks will only cook a meal if there is a slot vacant
- Cooks will move a cooked meal to the table rather than dropping it on the floor and a hauler moving it as happens now.
- Colonists coming to the table to eat would sit at a chair that has a meal ready and eat directly from the meal rather than picking it up and taking it somewhere else (sometimes happens currently)

This setup would mean that you could schedule a cook to make infinite meals of a given type and not worry about them making thousands that would spoil, it makes the table a functional item rather than decorative (unless eating at a table already provides a buff to happiness), prevents food being stored on the floor (no significance at the moment) and generally just looks nice). This would also mean that meals don't need to stack.

I'd be happy with this system. Wouldn't even require the refrigerators that people have been clamoring for.

Seen it suggested before that there be a toggle to have your colonists only work in the home zone. Seems like that would achieve the same goal of keeping your people in-base, but require a lot less micro-management than work zones everywhere. For example...when supplies drop down across the map, currently we just mark them for hauling and we're good. With a work zone system, you'd have to mark them for hauling, create a work zone, find your haulers one by one and mark them for that zone, and then delete the zone when the resources have all been picked up.

plant pot everywhere.

Yeah, that'd keep everybody pretty dang mellow.