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So, I know there are already a lot of really great mods with clones, prosthetics, and other transhuman fun that can make your pawn more machine than man... but I'd like to see it go one step further.

Basically, I'd like to see or find a mod about taking a colonist's brain (and/or possibly have them pull a Karen S'jet) to basically be the AI to (remotely?) control an aspect, or possibility multiple aspects of the base. Some ideas I had were:

-Hook up to your research bench to assist your meat and bones researcher/research 24/7
-Take control of your turrets and lend their shooting skills.
-Optimize your power grid, taking less power for the same tasks.
-Assist crafters at powered benches to make things faster/higher quality.
-Fine-tune hypdroponics for higher yields
-Take over salvaged mechanoids/lobotomized"meatsuits" to assist in physical tasks or base defense. (but NOT characters from my favorite game involving Space Ninjas)
-Possibly a requirement for new buildings that help in automating the base.

Most importantly, however, Brains would still have feelings and a mood level, meaning they can have mental breaks and start doing things you don't want. Including, of course, using their control of the base for homicidal ends. Might have some kind of Nerve Staple/consciousness level to let you use raider brains to run the nutrient paste dispenser without risk of it shoot out hardened paste at high enough velocities to critically harm anyone trying to eat from it, at the cost of only affected the dispenser and not having as much of a bonus as, say, with the brain of a colonist who was Transhumanist.

To the Pain?

I've also gotten "left the map healthy" for releasing prisoners that almost certainly died 5 tiles off the map from infections, or who were still recovering from wounds.

Rimworld is a limited game because of its underlying design. It relies overly much on scripted, mostly randomized events instead of on organic interconnected systems creating problems that emerge from the simulation.

Fair enough. Which games would you point to that did this the best?

Obviously, I'm not Lightzy, but if I were to pick the story creator-type game that does interacting systems very well, I'd go for Crusader Kings II.

Every landed character from count tier up is literally playing the same game as you, having access to the same mechanics, forced to make nearly all of the same skillchecks, even experience many of the same random events (if you go through CKII's event files, you will find almost every single event involving two or more people have different versions depending on who you are when playing... even events that are virtually impossible to see from that perspective).

When an AI character makes an assassination attempt on you, it isn't just a random thing that the RNG picked to happen, it's something that the AI deliberately pursued based on their traits, garnering the support from other like-minded people to get everything in place, with its success depended on the skills of him and his collaborators, and is a direct consequence of their opinion of you.

Add on top of that the fact that most random events are triggered based on traits (both yours and sometimes those of your courtiers) previous event decisions, or the state of your realm, and you can get a lot of excellent stories that happen, and still have space for the "You have an infection from that minor injury you acquired from a random event, now watch your favorite character, and all the plans you had for them, die." events that Rimworld currently has.

[do]

1. Should the game have a such a thing as bad luck outcomes that's not induced by some obvious, non-pressured, voluntary player decision? Or should I make a universal design standard that nothing bad ever happens unless the player actively induces it or makes some clearly-traceable mistake to cause it?

2. Should I just ignore some classes of player feedback as simply not linking up with what RW is? Are some players worth leaving alone to try to make a game that's different from the usual assumptions? Even if it leaves them pissed off because they intepreted a story generator as if it were a skill test?

I believe recovering from disaster is part of the fun of this game myself, and its not something that mainstream games have completely shied away from either.(XCOM probably being the best mainstream example of "I did everything right, but things still went wrong." Crusader Kings II has also netted a loyal fanbase and has no moral qualms about sending your carefully-laid plans into chaos with a series of "fun" events.) Though I feel sometimes the game could be a bit more transparent about why X happened, I don't think it's wrong for you to expect players to accept "Stuff happens" as a part of the game, at least to a degree.

That's not to say that there is nothing to be gained from listening to the feedback of those players, as they might be the canaries that are warning you of frustrations that go beyond just the story generator you are trying to make. (I do think there is a genuine problem of minor events snowballing into serious, pawn crippling-or-killing scenarios, specifically in the first quadrum, which can be extremely frustrating depending on how much time you spent picking pawns and the place you land) But IMO trying to make a game that appeals to everyone is a fast track to a game that appeals to noone.

3. Should players be able to consistently avoid losing people/resources even at high difficulty? At any difficulty?

I feel like that answer comes with your answer to a question:

Is Rimworld a game with defined win conditions that players are suppose to strive towards? Is the game supposed to be played until all the colonists are dead/offworld/whatever new ending you can think of, or is it OK for you that players might merely play until they achieve some personal goal of their own and then leave that game for a new one under new settings?

I know there are the spaceships, both the nomadic one and the one you build, but it has always felt to me you put those there so people can say they've "beaten" Rimworld. (I've never gone for it myself... though I've yet to have a game get that far either.)

...But if that's what you want, if you want people to go for the spaceship, or other victory conditions you might create in the future, then I would say yes, you want to give players, especially players that might have spent double-digit hours on their game, ways to avoid all but the greatest disasters.

On the other hand, if that is not something you really want or care about, and Rimworld is all about players creating a story and setting their "own" win conditions (whether that means going for an official one or not), then you don't need to... Unless, of course, you think it would create a good story. 

That being said, you could always add a new Storyteller that can do that: ensure that the player always has a way to recover.

4. Is there a way to set expectations (relative to the whole game, or relative to a given difficulty level) to encourage players to accept some degree of randomness to game outcomes? Or will they always reject this randomness and demand to be rewarded in accurate proportion to their skill/effort?

You might do what Darkest Dungeon does, where the very first screen basically goes, "In this game you are going to fail for BS reasons, many times in fact, and recovering from that, even if it set you back to square one, is the whole point. You have been warned."

You might also give some acknowledgement to what the player has achieved up to that point when their colonists are all dead and/or they start fresh with a new group, so they can feel like they've accomplished "something," even if it ended in perceived failure. I don't know your opinion about achievements, but there is a reason why they are so popular.

Again, I think it's OK to accept some people might not ever "get" your game, as long as you remember that criticism =/= ignorance of your sublime genius. That's always the tricky part.

Two big ones for me:

1.) Lack of uses for surface water. No, I'm not preaching for a thirst meter or irrigation for plants, but I mean more things like the Hydro generator that's already been mentioned for 1.0, things like fishing, bridges, building moats, rafts, water freezing over in the winter and possibly drying up in the summer, Things that make water interesting and potentially useful, not simply a hassle to basebuilding.

2.)Personal interactions between faction members. You get a visitor, they stay for a while, leave... and you often never see then again. I'd love to see land caravans or explorers comprised of the same people that do regular trips (especially if your colony is on or near a road) with pawns making friendships and even romances with visitors. Could probably lead to some new interesting ways to get new recruits as well.

First, you have Feline and Canine mixed up (dogs are canines, cats are felines)

Second, I think this is already in the works for 1.0, or at least it is on the leather end, where you are often stuck with a bunch of leftover <20 stacks of leather because you can't combine them to craft anything. It might not be though, especially since other than space, having a meat type for most animals isn't as much of a dealbreaker (as you can cook a simple meal with 10 types of meat just fine.)

Temperate forest is like the vainilla one. Simple and balanced whatsoever, but boring after a few games.
I also like Boreal forest, and I found Arid Shrubland very interesting too. Lacks of wood, but the huge meatballs creatures are a pro.

So... I'm between those two.

Arid Shrubrand was actually the original biome, as fitting for a Space Western ascetic.

I like it too, but it's year-round growing season + it can still get rich soil (unlike deserts) means that food is rarely ever an issue without ever having to touch hydroponics, even if you'll have to grow a tree farm to make up for the lack of vegetation.

I think arctic/high altitude biomes are my favorite overall. Cold is much harder to deal with than heat in Rimworld for a variety of reasons, so having to deal with cold snaps and snow and short growing seasons (especially for tribal) is much more interesting. Haven't tried a high latitude desert yet though, might be the next for me.

I'm also starting to think Large hills is my preferred topography as well, enough natural stone to incorporate into defense, but not so much that having enough vegetation on the map for wildlife and forestry is an issue. If it's a coastal tile, I can still get the advantage of blocking off all raids from at least one cardinal direction as well.

[this is not an open thread for new ideas, related to animals or not]

1. Are animals useful in combat? Do you use them? If so, why?  If not, why not?

Not really. I mean, I usually train the starting pets (unless they're a cat). But my experience has not let me to specifically seek out pets that would make good warbeasts.

Main reason is friendly fire, animals get shot by my bow and gun-equipped colonists almost as much as they get bashed or stabbed by the raiders. There is also a bit related to how difficult it is to tame most animals that would be good at fighting (though I understand that's a balance issue more than anything) especially compared to animals that can be sheared and/or milked, like Alpacas and Muffalos.

2. Are there annoying/weird points about animals in combat?

The fact that I can't control them, yet they can get in the way of drafted pawns if, in sticking to another pawn, stand where I want another pawn to be.

3. How are you using animals in combat?

Usually have them stay near my gun-toting colonists to help ward off melee attackers so they can keep shooting. Works decently against manhunter packs, but with raiders, especailly grenade-carrying pirates and mechanoids, this does me little good, but as I mentioned before, releasing them just to get shot from both sides isn't much more helpful.

You don't have to suggest any solutions at all, of course. I';m very happy to just collect notes on player experiences. However, suggestions are also welcome. But, this is not an open thread for new ideas, related to animals or not. I'm only attempting small refinement-oriented adjustments, balancings, and fixes to animal combat mechanics. Off-topic posts are likely to get deleted.

Thanks all!

Might be beyond the small adjustments, but instead of it being just a toggle, could "releasing" give us the ability to control the animal while drafted? Or at least some ability to tell them which enemy I want them to harass.

Idle pawns wandering or doing joy activities have a relatively long interval between new job ticks. This is deliberate, because if they don't, having too many idle pawns checking for new jobs too often really slows the game down - and especially frustratingly, because whereas most times the game slows down it's because too much is happening, and the player can at least see that, here it's because too little is happening.

When a job is given, that should be a check in itself for an idle colonist to do it.

Because of this behavior, I don't give busy work in large lots. But it doesn't have to be. If there are 5 colonists awake, and I select one compacted steel square, there's a rather large possibility a busy one will take the new job.

So priorities are a workaround. Maybe mining is more important than that duster, but I don't care - I want both done by both colonists!

Sounds like what you really need is to turn on manual priorities and set the exact order of what you want your colonists to do.

That way, you can do things like make sure your main crafter only does mining when there are no bills to fulfill, or that your researcher still does research all the time without having to disable all the other jobs they are decent at so don't have to re-enable jobs in order them to help with any emergency work that still needs done *now* (like saving as much as you can when a solar flare knocks out your hydroponics.)

You can just draft/undraft your idle colonist(s) before you unpause the game after coming up with something for them to do, that will force an immediate check for new jobs.

Not even that obtrusive either. Make the job, click on the idle pawn you want to do the job at the top of the screen, double-tap R, and they'll do the thing. Works even if they're a pacifist that can't fight; still draftable.

Granted, having them do this *without* having to make 3 extra clicks would be nice, but you have to decide what orders would do this recheck, which at the end boils down to personal preference, which means to do it "right" means you need to make an extra screen for the work tab, UI work, bug testing, making it so mods can use it for any new jobs they add and the like...

Simplest might just be a "force idle pawns to check for jobs" hotkey, but as said, if you have a lot of idle colonists, there would be a noticeable slowdown whenever you pressed the key, which is probably the only thing more annoying than slowdown for no obvious reason.

The problem with generational colonies is that the pace of the game isn't really set up for it. The passage of time is simply too slow to feasibly make children that grow up to be adults an interesting mechanic (or at least, a mechanic that would have much of a payoff). IMO the years go by much faster to make childbirth a meaningful way to grow your colony.

That being said, I'm not quite of the opinion that there is zero point to having anyone below the age of 18. While it's probably a post-launch project, I can see a lot of things you could do with that. Having a child might be a source of joy for the non-pychopathic parents, or at least another thing that might change mood. You could find children in pirate bases you raided, lost in the wilds after their town was destroyed by something, and maybe have it be a quest to re-unite them with their family, or have the colony adopt them to raise as their own. You can avoid most of the moral and PR backlash by doing things like making them impossible to harvest or butcher, always have pirates and the like attempt to capture rather than kill them, and have them "run away" with Houdini-like ease when their life-or-death needs aren't met. Most would accept that I would think, and you can leave the repugnant stuff for mods.

(1) - maybe player created characters only appear in your game if you say to add them on the option menu.( maybe they don't get to live in the Rimworld forever once created, sadly )

IIRC names are suppose to be drawn from random. I get the sneaky suspicsion that names with unique backstories seem to come up more often because the two are exclusive to each other. I.E. anyone can be a Teacher, but only Samantha "Sam" Haxton can be a Bush Sniper.

(2) - how does one create their own character?

http://store.steampowered.com/app/367680/RimWorld_Name_in_Game_Access/

Used to be able to do backstories as well, but that ended I think last patch? (relative newcommer as well)

I think it is kind of funny when my colony gets raided by, for example, Ally the pirate, and Ally the pirate was one of my colonists last game.

(just discovered this game a month ago)

Yeah, it's amusing, but sometimes gets annoying when you run into the same exact pirate time and time again.

I settled on 5x5 just because. Nice to see I picked a good size for any pawn that isn't jealous or greedy.

I feel like half the fun is dealing with the oddball-ness of your colonists. Sure I try to make sure the initial three have at least an interest in the essentials (construction/growing/cooking/medic/intellect/shooting/etc) but beyond that as long as they're under 45 and every job is covered by at least one person, I'm good, even if that means all of them are abrasive and only one of them ever bothers with hauling.

I think my favorite "oddball" pawn was a Pop Idol who almost couldn't do anything but social and artwork. luckily, "Almost," meant she had an interest for construction, so she was my main builder. And once the colony got large enough and she recruited someone else that could set up all the buildings, she focused her time on making Master-level artwork that was the colony's chief export.