In order to make bigger maps work, i. e. your colonists not getting tired and hungry because they have to get to the siege or hunt and haul far away from their beds and stoves, we need faster or more durable colonists. The option of faster colonists seems easier to implement such that the game balancing is not completely broken (if the colonists get too tough, the game is too easy). To make them faster, I suggest to use bikes or horses.
Bike
Horse
Looking at both lists, bikes are probably easier to make. If one opts to make them in the machining table, it would result in kind of a new type of item: can be crafted, can be put in a stockpile and is movable. While I feel a lot of code can be copy and pasted for bikes, I have absolutely no idea how much complexity bikes or horses would add to the pathfinding algorithm A*.
So, that's my suggestion for bikes and horses, hopefully it's extensive enough for a good approximation of how complicated it is to implement. IMHO, we need faster travel or at least the possibility of transport or otherwise, sieges are just the death of colonies because they are unreachable.
Any questions or suggestions? Just shoot them, I'd love to discuss with you!
Bike
- Bikes are made on the machining table. Seems more logical than making them a build-able item, but that would also be possible.
- Bikes can then be mounted (code from manning mortars can be recycled here). Mounting takes a short amount of time such that bikes are not always used for every small step.
- When mounted, bikes provide colonists with 100-200% movement bonus (can maybe be linked with some trait or skill?). This also means that grass and the like will reduce overall movement as well.
- "Half-defenses", i. e. everything you can use for defense but also climb over (sandbags, chunks), are impassable with bikes.
- Riding a bike, you cannot pass through doors (I understand that this might be complicated due to the fact that bikes could be stockpiled both inside and outside the base. So this is definitely a maybe).
- Bikes also allow normal transportation of items (so max. 75 of resources, 1 of rockets/meals and the like). Especially transporting meals will be beneficial for surviving meals.
- Research might allow for more transport capacity/faster bikes.
- Shooting from a bike is possible, but only if the skill level is above 10 or the like. Accuracy is reduced.
- Bikes cannot be used for defense.
- Bikes can be destroyed. They naturally lose integrity with time and can (can't?) be repaired. Not being able to repair them maybe is a possibility of balancing them.
Horse
- The horse is a new animal spawning in packs, not unlike the muffalo. It roams around, it eats plants. Gives around half(?) the meat of a muffalo.
- Unlike the muffalo, horses are fast and also can, when fleeing from hunters, leave the map with the whole pack. They do not attack hunters.
- The horse is tame-able. The mechanic for this would have to be implemented, making this probably a much harder implementation than bikes. I'm not sure if taming is planned? For the sake of a completed suggestion, here an idea for taming:
- New order: Tame.
- New structures: gate and sleeping spots for animals (hay). Effectively making stables.
- New animals in the stable are like prisoners and need to be tamed after being held captive. Tamed animals will not run away likely if the gate is open and sleep in the same spot every night.
- Animals in the stable need to be fed food. Mood is not affected by the type of food eaten.
- New item: saddle for mountable animals.
- Tamed mountable animals allow for being saddled. Mechanically one could think about gear for animals.
- Animals in the stable can also be marked for hunting. One could think about making it a melee-hunt at that point (cut the throat).
- Plan A: Animals marked for taming are hunted in a usual manner, but are likely to be incapacitated. They can then be rescued and be brought to their new stable. They are like prisoners, need to be doctored. Seems relatively easy to implement, but is rather cruel
. - Plan B (more complicated, probably more fiddly, but less cruel): When an animal is marked for taming, a colonist (either new skill Taming or using Hunting (seems somewhat logical as the first dogs were probably used and tamed by hunters)) takes food and tries to approach the animal.
- The animal will approach the colonist with a certain probability p (depending on skill) or run away respectively, making the colonist retry. It makes sense for a horse to run away more often than a muffalo.
- The colonist then tries to lure the animal back to the base. Startling the animal (shots fired at other animals) at this stage will result in a failure.
- It will be lured to a free haystack to sleep in. It is then in the process of being tamed.
- A saddled horse can be mounted by colonists.
- It is very much like the bike-suggestion otherwise.
- Unlike bikes, it can move over the half-defenses. It can also be used as a meat-shield, so that it gives defense.
- If being shot while mounted, it can get a panic attack and run away, throw down the rider etc.
Looking at both lists, bikes are probably easier to make. If one opts to make them in the machining table, it would result in kind of a new type of item: can be crafted, can be put in a stockpile and is movable. While I feel a lot of code can be copy and pasted for bikes, I have absolutely no idea how much complexity bikes or horses would add to the pathfinding algorithm A*.
So, that's my suggestion for bikes and horses, hopefully it's extensive enough for a good approximation of how complicated it is to implement. IMHO, we need faster travel or at least the possibility of transport or otherwise, sieges are just the death of colonies because they are unreachable.
Any questions or suggestions? Just shoot them, I'd love to discuss with you!