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That's gotta sting...

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Make a fireproof predator.

Life finds a way.

No idea what happened.  Error log attached.

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Rimworld is already awash in the Western motiff that made "Firefly" so popular, so I was thinking that it would be pretty cool to see total overhaul style mod that just ditches all the scifi elements and makes a true Western town building/survival sim.

I would think that this would be pretty easy, as you'd be removing a lot more than you'd be adding.  Right off the bat all the powerplants and most issues of electricity could get thrown out the window easily enough.  Mostly - it could be left in for lights & fans, but overall you power requirements - or rather things you can build that actually use it - would be so low that you could easily live without it entirely.

Pirate bands would simply need to be renamed "Outlaw Gangs" and tribes... well, they can pretty much be left exactly as they already are. 

All of the of heating/cooling stuff can go, though I suspect some kind of "grain silo" mechanism would have to be added so that there could be some kind of food preservation.  Turning meat into jerky (already in other mod) would have to make a comeback, as well as drying & canning plant foods.

Reintegrate the hospitality mod to get some use out of your saloons & make a few extra Silver Dollars (replaces raw silver, of course) off those passing merchant caravans.

Animal list can be shortened (or lengthened, depending) to only use real world animals.  Muffalo becomes buffalo, while rabbits, wolves, beats, cougars, etc all remain as they already are.  Honestly, mostly you'd just be saying goodbye (and good riddance) to exploding crap.

Devilstrand, plasteel, body armor and the rest of all that can get tossed.  Ah, the simple life.  We'd have to bring fences back, though, for the all important cattle ranch.

Weapons overhaul would be fairly simple, as it would basically boil down to just Six Shooters, Breach Loading Shotguns and Lever Action Rifles.  Turrets can be completely replaced with a single "Manned Gatling Gun" installation.

You'll notice that almost everything mentioned here has already been in other mods already.  It would really just be a matter of sifting through them, copying & updating what was needed.

Suggest adding new directory layer to the mods forum based on development iteration.

Meaning instead of "Finished Mods" and 50+ pages dating back to day one, have:
"Finished Mods/"
"Ver 9"
"Ver 10"
"Ver 11"
"Ver 12"
"Ver 13"

Because right now it's a complete mess, with 12, 13, and even 9 stuff all thrown together on the same page in some places.

[instantly]

Farming Tips: Most of the time the fast-track to winter survival is in one of two directions...

1) Power research refrigeration, build a giant freezer, and stockpile enough crops to last the winter.
2) Power research to hydroponics and grow food indoors during winter.

Of these options, both have their faults: The time & resources to build up enough power generation & storage to keep a freezer running will take up all of your Spring and most of your Summer, leaving you with Fall's meager harvest at best for your first year's winter stockpile. 

Hydroponics takes up even more power but does allow you to reliably grow food during the winter months.  Wait, did I say reliably?  Ha, well let's backtrack on that part, then.  Any Rimworld veteran knows that the minute the first snowflake lands your colony will suddenly start getting hit with solar flares every other day, which instantly kill your hydroponic gardens completely.  Thus this option doesn't work in reality anywhere near as good as it does in theory.

But there is an alternative that requires less power, less resources, and is far more reliable: Greenhouses.

Take a look:


To build a greenhouse just wall in (and roof) an area, add a couple of heaters and as many sun lamps as you can manage.  Then simply zone it all in as a grow zone.  Do not add floors!  The result will be safe, year-round indoor farming.  The downside is that it's not quite as fast as hydroponics.  However, the upside is that when the inevitable solar flare knocks the power out, you only lose one day of growth.  The plants will shrink a little, but they won't all curl up & die in two milliseconds.

Hunting Tips: Get a Cat.  Your adorable little kitty will spend it's free time wandering around the outskirts of your colony, looking for things to kill.  And that's what your cat does, all day long: Kill.  Mostly squirrels and rabbits, but your results may vary.  Now when you cat kills something it will try to immediately eat the corpse (unlike real life), but so long as you have a colonist on Butcher Table duty (read: cooking high priority) they will run out and yoink the carcass away from the cat & butcher it for meat. 

Your cat, still hungry, will then immediately go right back into "find something and kill it" mode... thus getting you more meat.

Cull the Herd:  When food gets scarce, domestic animals will wander into your colony and eat your food.  Not just the kibble, oh no, they'll eat your vegetables, meats, and even your prepared meals.  Which means that unless you plan on fencing the animals in (currently impossible without mods, btw) then you need to just slaughter them once the snow falls, lest they end up driving your colonists into starvation with their Yogi Bear antics.

See attached image.

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Just installed latest version (12.911, as of 8.27).  No mods.  Old planet no longer viable, erased.  Created new planet.  Went to pick Storyteller, no problem.  Got to "select world," one one choice, hit "select" ... and nothing happens.  Game pauses for a second and that's it.  It's not stuck - I can back out of that screen, but I can't go forward.  No new colony.   

[Add the ability to rename them.]

"Technological advance is an inherently iterative process. One does not simply take sand from the beach and produce a Dataprobe. We use crude tools to fashion better tools, and then our better tools to fashion more precise tools, and so on. Each minor refinement is a step in the process, and all of the steps must be taken." - from Alpha Centauri

I've been thinking about the Droids from Mechanized Defense and ways to improve up them further.  Here are some ideas.

First, the simplest: Add the ability to rename them.  I hope that this would be a simple change.  That touch of personality for them would be nice.

Second, more complex: Expand functionality in different directions.  I mentioned this in the thread, but it's worth repeating here.  Instead of a flat rate universal skill level for all Droids in their selected fields, change the research tree to include variations that can be selected based on need.  For the purpose of this, we'll call them the left and right branches for easy visualization.

The left branch would be simple: Increasing their skill at higher research levels.  The first tier of droid in the left branch would have a skill of 5, the second tier 10, third 15 and finally the last (and highest) tier would have a skill of 20.  Each tier would require, naturally, more and more research to unlock (and possibly more advanced components, or at least more of them). 

The right branch would be to expand their work types, making them more "general purpose" rather than more skilled.  For example, just as the Logistics Droids includes the Cleaning skill of the Cleaning Droid on top of it's Hauling, each rung of this ladder would expand the range of a Droid's abilities.  For example, starting in the second tier we could have "Heavy Labor" droids that do Cleaning, Hauling, Mining and Building.  Along side that would be a "General Labor" droid that could do Crafting, Repairs, Plant Cutting, and Tailoring.  It's third brother would be the "Social Services" droid that would have Cleaning, Growing, Medicine and Cooking.  Finally, the "Combat Droid" of the right branch would have both Melee and Ranged (more on that later).  Each of these would be fixed at the same base skill level of 5, however.  As the tiers increase so does their range.  At the third tier you could combine more skills with a "Organic Specialist" with Growing, Plant Cutting, Cooking, Cleaning, Medicine and Art paired with the "Materials Specialist" with everything else - Crafting, Tailor, Building, Repairing, Mining, Hauling and Cleaning.  At the forth and final tier you'd get the "Universal Robot" with all skills.  Keep in mind, the right branch is still fixed at skill level 5... for now.

That's when we get to the Central Branch.  It's research rungs would only unlock when you already have both side branches unlocked to the same level or higher, and would be the most costly research (and manufacturing) of all.  Being the highest cost it's the highest reward, as (you guessed it) it would combine the virtues of both branches to all multi-purpose droids of higher levels.  In the end, if one managed to complete all twelve blocks (four in each branch) it would unlock the ultimate droid - all skills at max level.  Game breaking?  Not really - by that point you've earned it.

The third, and probably most difficult aspect of droids would be to completely rework their Health & Body mechanics.  Not to make crafting more difficult, per se, but more involved & modular.  Those who've played "Cradle" recently will get what I mean, here.  Instead of having the droid just be a lump of metals and chips on a crafting table, expand that to include all the parts of the droid: Body (chassis), four limbs, eyes, ears and the CPU - all crafted separately.  Then you put all the pieces together at the crafting table afterward.

Now why do this?  Not only to change the make-up of Droid assembly but repair as well.  Obviously most of these parts could be copy pastes (even literal originals) of the parts available at your bionics worktable.  That's perfect.  Now when a droid gets caught in an explosion and has an arm and an eye blown off, it no longer has to return to a repair station and eat raw metals until healed.  Instead, it would suffer that same Manipulation and Vision penalties that a human would from losing those parts, until such time as you pull a new arm and a new eye out of the bionic parts bin and repair them manually yourself (in effect, the same as normal Surgery except that Crafting is used instead of Medicine, and no physical medicine packs would be required.)

Why go through all that effort?  Well, realism for one thing, and more depth for another.  But it also would factor into the Combat Droids that I've managed to avoid talking about much until now.  To revamp them:

1st Tier (Left): Melee Droid, Skill 5, it punches things.
2nd Tier (Left): Melee Droid, Skill 10, can equip melee weapons. 
3rd Tier (Left): Melee Droid, Skill 15, comes with built in Stun weapon. 
4th Tier (Left): Melee Droid, Skill 20, replaces one arm with Scyther Blade. 

1st Tier (Right): Combat Droid, Skill 5, Melee & Ranged, uses fists or guns.
2nd Tier (Right): Combat Droid, Skill 5, As above and can Rescue (can rescue downed friendlies), all weapon types.
3rd Tier (Right): Combat Droid, Skill 5, As above plus Capture (can capture downed enemies & lock them up).
4th Tier (Right): Combat Droid, Skill 5, As above plus Medicine (can do basic first aid once person is delivered).

1st Tier (Center): Warbot, Skill 5, abilities of both Left & Right branches and Double Hitpoints (per area).
2nd Tier (Center): Warbot, Skill 10, as above and Internal Armor (natural damage resist, doesn't decay).
3rd Tier (Center): Warbot, Skill 15, as above and Personal Shield (Only protects itself, recharges over time).
4th Tier (Center): Warbot, Skill 20, as above, left arm is Scyther Blade, right arm can hold any weapon.

Obviously, by the time you've got a functioning 4th Tier Warbot you should have something that can go one-on-one with a Mechanoid, and that's good because for all the Research, parts and weapons that thing would take it dang well better.  Of course, getting the Scyther Blade to build it in the first place... yeah, you earned your Warbot.

This should be, I would hope, easy for you guys:

One problem that I have with Nutrient Paste (and similar) automatic cooking machines is that, unless I build them inside a large freezer room, the hoppers that they depend on for supply are not refrigerated and food left inside them slowly but surely goes bad & rots away.

So the first thing that I'd like to see is Refrigerated Hoppers.  Simply a changing of internal stats to make hoppers use a small amount of power but also that they are locked in with a permanent temperature setting of just below zero for their one square.

From there, if you'd like, you could expand that to larger refrigerators which could hold stacks of finished meals.  Again, draws it's own power, keeps it's one work square at a frosty sub-zero level with no spillover.  That could let us build dedicated kitchen/cafeteria areas, instead of having to stockpile food inside freezers alongside the bulk raw foods.

Yes, I know this has been requested before... I just wanted to add to that request.

The current problem with trade is that you only have one option: Space trade.  The problem with this is that it requires a beacon, and that beacon must not be covered by a roof, which means that anything made available for space trade is automatically, by default, left outdoors.

This wasn't a problem long ago before item decay was added to the game, but now everything left outdoors that isn't raw stone or metal slowly rots away.  Not only does this make it less useful, but it also rapidly wrecks any trade value it might have.

The easiest solution would be to add caravan based trade synchronized with the random passing villager spawns.  Next would be to link caravan trade to zones, as opposed to the beacon.  By linking to zones you could allow trade from indoor locations (including refrigerated areas), which would open up the possibility of actually being able to export things like food, medicine, and crafted goods without worrying about them all rotting away to nothing while waiting for the right spaceship to come along.

I am thinking that for his next project Tynan should team up with the Dwarf Fortress guy and make a new version of DF with Rimworld style graphics.  Because let's face it, the ASCII is the only thing that's held DF back all these years, and having a game with that kind of depth (no pun intended) in a more user friendly interface would be awesome.  Plus it would be great to see what other ideas they can come up with together.

This seems like the next logical step, considering that the latest release added visiting villagers from non-hostile powers as part of the game mechanics.

It is somewhat immersion breaking that you're supposedly playing survivors from a destroyed ship who are stranded against their will who just happen to be able to easily make contact with dozens of passing spaceships on a regular basis.  Spaceships which, if you look at how slavers work, are perfectly capable of loading people off the planet with ease.

So my suggestion is this: Replace the current space trader mechanic with a good old fashioned "Dwarf Fortress" style of wagon traders who roll into town, courtesy of those same non-hostile powers already mentioned.

This would make things interesting in many ways:

1) Traders would no longer be by item category.  Instead, they would be trading whatever wares are appropriate to the tech level of their village.  So tribal traders would be your best source for cheap food, but would lack advanced technology of any kind.  Other lost colonies would have tech on par with your own.  Raiders, if you could ever someone negotiate trade with them, would be an ideal source for weaponry.

2) Having physical trade caravans mean that unscrupulous players - and rival NPCs - could attempt to raid them.  Do you intervene, or join in? 

3) This opens the door for the procedural general of these other villages, so that later down the development road they could be places that you could actually go to yourself (thus sending your own raiding parties or trade wagons, as the case may be).

By getting rid of "magical" space trade you not only make the game more interesting but also helps along the immersion level.  The only group that should have access to space trade should be the very pirates that shot down your ship in the first place, so that gives you another good reason to try to raid their main base at some point - thus creating actual endgame content with the goal of capturing the pirate base and their ship so that you can finally leave the planet once & for all.

[working]

Download

Ok there is the mod, it's got all the needed files and textures (I think).  Most of it was just copy-paste-edit from already existing working mods.  Yet whenever I try to load it in game, the item never shows up on the build menu.  For the life of me I cannot figure out what I missed or did wrong.

If anyone can download this, look at it, and repair my mistakes I'd be very grateful.  Thanks!

I know that the existing damage types can be slightly modified, but I've had no luck in getting the game to recognize new damage types.  Is this possible, and if so, how?

[METAL]

Download IronWeed (MediaFire)

Sick of mining?  Tired of waiting weeks for the industrial trader to return?  Don't you wish metal just grew on trees?  Well, too bad, it doesn't... but it does grow on bushes!   

Does what it says on the tin: You can now grow a new plant type called "IronWeed" in both Growing Zones and at Hydroponics Tables (via the drop down menu available on both).  While you can't actually eat IronWeed, that's no problem, because when you harvest it you get METAL instead of food (about 5 units per bush)!   

This mod was stupidly easy to make and should be bug-free straight out of the box.  Overpowered?  You betcha!  I'd almost consider it a cheat but remember that farmer who is growing IronWeed aren't growing any actual food, so you are still putting out some kind of effort to get your precious metals.  The only difference is that now they're a renewable resource.

I know that the character traits aren't implemented yet, but just so you know ... the other day I rolled a male colonist who's trait was "pregnant."

Might wanna fix that before traits go live.   

(Or not ... will the wonders of science ever cease?)