Hi guys. So I wrote this text document a short time ago and I forgot to upload it. It contains suggestions of my personal view of Rimworld, suggestions to improve the game and fix general annoying things. Feel free to read or whatever.
//- Introduction.
I am a game developer myself and I also use Unity3D to make my games. I am interested in seeing Rimworld become a really cool and awesome game since I really enjoy playing it.
I have carried out an analysis on version 1.0 of the game and I would like to bring the following points to your attention.
Some of these tips are related to micromanagement and general difficulty playing the game and also some entries which break immersion.
Note: These are suggestions and tips based on my personal observation of the game, so apologies in advance if I am too 'abrasive'.
Also this list is not entirely complete, however I will not be writing another observation again if majority of the immersion issues are fixed. (unless you want me to? Idk bye)
Organized (sort of) by category:
//- Micromanagement issues
-- When new pawns are fleeing from a colony, they are forced to join the colony, rather than being a refugee. This makes it harder to micromanage your colony.
-- There are no ways to 'banish' an undesirable colonist without the other colonists feeling bad from that colonist dying; they seem linked even through the world map.
- They should not have to be arrested to be banished, rather sent on a dead-end mission on the world map seems sufficient enough.
- Even if these new pawns have not met the pawns in your base (or acquaintance) the other pawns still care if they die. (even if they barely knew them or never met them!)
-- Similarly, colonists don't care when a colonist is missing for too long.
-- Colonists don't follow any First in, First out (FIFO) rules when maintaining food. Food can sit there and rot while newer food is eaten first.
- This can be worked around by assigning food that has low hit points to another area, but colonists can still use newer food first.
-- Doors that are marked 'hold open' don't get held open if there is another door next to it that is already held open.
-- Pawns that are incapable of hauling can still haul items to their work, complete the work and haul the finished product.
-- Storage spaces don't seem to be customizable enough to allow assembly lines to be built in secure and clean areas.
- Setting the output of a particular production bench to a specified storage space would be good.
- Letting pawns automatically sort deteriorating items by item health. (or making a machine or mech do it)
- Maybe conveyor belts and sorting machines? Seems applicable for this sort of game.
-- Automation and allocation of items, rather than having to create 100 different storage areas for different categories and qualities of items.
(Copy and Paste helps thanks)
-- Graves are marked as part of the home area, but what if you want to make a graveyard far from your buildings so pawns don't look at it?
(They will still clean it and put out fires in that area, reducing their mood)
- Event issues
-- Event generation seems to be more random, rather than situation based. Here are a few examples:
-Electrical shorts happen randomly without taking into consideration the builder's skill level,
-Eclipses happen without taking into consideration planetary orbit,
-Colonists seem to get diseases like malaria without apparent disease sources like mosquitoes or dirty water
-- There are no ways to prevent some preventable incidents (ex: fuses for electrical shorts).
-- Malaria is very nasty in itself, but the game should have a way to cure it effectively (even at great cost), if it is to stay the way it is.
//- Immersion issues
-- Colonists cannot provide food to animals when they are starving without that animal needing rescue.
-- Large rooms are marked as 'outside' even if they are missing one single door or wall panel.
-- Roofs are sometimes not completely built and they can be hard to see without viewing the roof tab.
-- Buildings like campfires for example, cannot be 'deactivated', rather they must be deconstructed and rebuild to demand.
-- Air conditioners still drain power (albeit at a lower level) when the target temperature is reached, or if they are in a colder area.
-- Colonists don't keep their skills at max level even if they are repeatedly trained in that skill again and again.
-- Some stories (like those of factions and pawns) don't explain events and stories in enough depth:
- The 'story generator' seems to be more of an event generator instead:
- Ancient tribes don't explain the origins of that tribe in enough detail ("Maybe their ancestors...", "Maybe they survived...").
- Pawns don't show exactly WHY they are running away from pirates or guards when they are fleeing.
- Some job titles and professions on pawns seem a bit unrealistic for a space age game ("Medieval doctor").
- The games does take into account cultures (to a limited degree), however it assigns random jobs for all factions.
- Visitor pawns and other pawns don't show their entire event history, rather only the time they entered the map (this might be too unrealistic to implement fully).
- While some stores are fun and interesting to read, there seems to only be a limited amount of them, making them appear generic.
-- Pawns that are 'banished' (on current workaround) currently are still tracked and generate alerts when they are about to die or metal break.
-- Pawns that hate each other that much to the point they fight all the time still care if their rival dies.
-- Pawns that barely met each other can instantly be rivals or hate each other. (seems a bit hyper-realistic).
-- The game can instantly sway to one side and all colonists can die, even on base builder mode.
//- Inconsistencies
-- Pawns available for purchase in a slave trader (untested elsewhere) don't have their chronological age shown.
//- Misc issues
-- When playing the game on fast speed, thunderstorms can causes quite an annoyance when playing on subwoofers and surround sound.
-- Pawns can get stuck if they are able to build walls and wall themselves in.
-- Pet pawns don't notify the player if they are sick or about to die.
-- Certain types of pawns have unused statistics and these could be removed to save RAM.
-Pets don't get to shoot guns. Or mine.. or be colonists..or.. wait. even receiving and performing operations? You're nuts mate.
//- Just a bit of funny stuff I noticed
-- It costs steel to build concrete. Um yea that's some small concrete truck u got there...
- It costs one more steel for concrete tiles... Should I even be wondering about this?
-- I have a female colonist named David...
--
//- Additions
-- Adding a new work type (Inspector) to allow a qualified and trained pawn to inspect and carry out audits, especially on electrical buildings.
-- Adding fuses to help mitigate the electrical short event would be good, since these events can cripple advanced and late game colonies without warning.
-- Allow creation and deletion of water tiles (bridges are super awesome by the way)
-- Concrete or stone (or even plasteel) bridges that don't break under pressure, but cost more to build.
-- Allowing direction of animal pawns to do direct actions on base builder mode. ([IRL]Since I can tell my own dog to fetch something in particular)
## The following entries don't necessarily need to benefit the player or show any extra HUD elements or anything:
-- Only just a few more weapons to add to the collection, like sniper rifles.
-- Attachments for weapons like silencers, extended ammo clips, rate of fire controllers (burst/single round) and scopes, to name a few.
-- Stealth equipment such as throwing knives, timed explosives, hacking equipment to make raiding more interesting.
-- A stealth and detection system to match.
-- Missions requiring stealth and stealing items of interest from other factions and giving them to factions for payment.
-- Vehicles or other carrying devices to make carrying large quantities of items easier for pawns, rather than relying on animals.
## End
-- Tie in these additions with different faction types, and other enemy pawns should be able to use all of these new additions against the player's faction.
- Imagine if they could hack turrets.. That would be problematic..
//- Introduction.
I am a game developer myself and I also use Unity3D to make my games. I am interested in seeing Rimworld become a really cool and awesome game since I really enjoy playing it.
I have carried out an analysis on version 1.0 of the game and I would like to bring the following points to your attention.
Some of these tips are related to micromanagement and general difficulty playing the game and also some entries which break immersion.
Note: These are suggestions and tips based on my personal observation of the game, so apologies in advance if I am too 'abrasive'.
Also this list is not entirely complete, however I will not be writing another observation again if majority of the immersion issues are fixed. (unless you want me to? Idk bye)
Organized (sort of) by category:
//- Micromanagement issues
-- When new pawns are fleeing from a colony, they are forced to join the colony, rather than being a refugee. This makes it harder to micromanage your colony.
-- There are no ways to 'banish' an undesirable colonist without the other colonists feeling bad from that colonist dying; they seem linked even through the world map.
- They should not have to be arrested to be banished, rather sent on a dead-end mission on the world map seems sufficient enough.
- Even if these new pawns have not met the pawns in your base (or acquaintance) the other pawns still care if they die. (even if they barely knew them or never met them!)
-- Similarly, colonists don't care when a colonist is missing for too long.
-- Colonists don't follow any First in, First out (FIFO) rules when maintaining food. Food can sit there and rot while newer food is eaten first.
- This can be worked around by assigning food that has low hit points to another area, but colonists can still use newer food first.
-- Doors that are marked 'hold open' don't get held open if there is another door next to it that is already held open.
-- Pawns that are incapable of hauling can still haul items to their work, complete the work and haul the finished product.
-- Storage spaces don't seem to be customizable enough to allow assembly lines to be built in secure and clean areas.
- Setting the output of a particular production bench to a specified storage space would be good.
- Letting pawns automatically sort deteriorating items by item health. (or making a machine or mech do it)
- Maybe conveyor belts and sorting machines? Seems applicable for this sort of game.
-- Automation and allocation of items, rather than having to create 100 different storage areas for different categories and qualities of items.
(Copy and Paste helps thanks)
-- Graves are marked as part of the home area, but what if you want to make a graveyard far from your buildings so pawns don't look at it?
(They will still clean it and put out fires in that area, reducing their mood)
- Event issues
-- Event generation seems to be more random, rather than situation based. Here are a few examples:
-Electrical shorts happen randomly without taking into consideration the builder's skill level,
-Eclipses happen without taking into consideration planetary orbit,
-Colonists seem to get diseases like malaria without apparent disease sources like mosquitoes or dirty water
-- There are no ways to prevent some preventable incidents (ex: fuses for electrical shorts).
-- Malaria is very nasty in itself, but the game should have a way to cure it effectively (even at great cost), if it is to stay the way it is.
//- Immersion issues
-- Colonists cannot provide food to animals when they are starving without that animal needing rescue.
-- Large rooms are marked as 'outside' even if they are missing one single door or wall panel.
-- Roofs are sometimes not completely built and they can be hard to see without viewing the roof tab.
-- Buildings like campfires for example, cannot be 'deactivated', rather they must be deconstructed and rebuild to demand.
-- Air conditioners still drain power (albeit at a lower level) when the target temperature is reached, or if they are in a colder area.
-- Colonists don't keep their skills at max level even if they are repeatedly trained in that skill again and again.
-- Some stories (like those of factions and pawns) don't explain events and stories in enough depth:
- The 'story generator' seems to be more of an event generator instead:
- Ancient tribes don't explain the origins of that tribe in enough detail ("Maybe their ancestors...", "Maybe they survived...").
- Pawns don't show exactly WHY they are running away from pirates or guards when they are fleeing.
- Some job titles and professions on pawns seem a bit unrealistic for a space age game ("Medieval doctor").
- The games does take into account cultures (to a limited degree), however it assigns random jobs for all factions.
- Visitor pawns and other pawns don't show their entire event history, rather only the time they entered the map (this might be too unrealistic to implement fully).
- While some stores are fun and interesting to read, there seems to only be a limited amount of them, making them appear generic.
-- Pawns that are 'banished' (on current workaround) currently are still tracked and generate alerts when they are about to die or metal break.
-- Pawns that hate each other that much to the point they fight all the time still care if their rival dies.
-- Pawns that barely met each other can instantly be rivals or hate each other. (seems a bit hyper-realistic).
-- The game can instantly sway to one side and all colonists can die, even on base builder mode.
//- Inconsistencies
-- Pawns available for purchase in a slave trader (untested elsewhere) don't have their chronological age shown.
//- Misc issues
-- When playing the game on fast speed, thunderstorms can causes quite an annoyance when playing on subwoofers and surround sound.
-- Pawns can get stuck if they are able to build walls and wall themselves in.
-- Pet pawns don't notify the player if they are sick or about to die.
-- Certain types of pawns have unused statistics and these could be removed to save RAM.
-Pets don't get to shoot guns. Or mine.. or be colonists..or.. wait. even receiving and performing operations? You're nuts mate.
//- Just a bit of funny stuff I noticed
-- It costs steel to build concrete. Um yea that's some small concrete truck u got there...
- It costs one more steel for concrete tiles... Should I even be wondering about this?
-- I have a female colonist named David...
--
//- Additions
-- Adding a new work type (Inspector) to allow a qualified and trained pawn to inspect and carry out audits, especially on electrical buildings.
-- Adding fuses to help mitigate the electrical short event would be good, since these events can cripple advanced and late game colonies without warning.
-- Allow creation and deletion of water tiles (bridges are super awesome by the way)
-- Concrete or stone (or even plasteel) bridges that don't break under pressure, but cost more to build.
-- Allowing direction of animal pawns to do direct actions on base builder mode. ([IRL]Since I can tell my own dog to fetch something in particular)
## The following entries don't necessarily need to benefit the player or show any extra HUD elements or anything:
-- Only just a few more weapons to add to the collection, like sniper rifles.
-- Attachments for weapons like silencers, extended ammo clips, rate of fire controllers (burst/single round) and scopes, to name a few.
-- Stealth equipment such as throwing knives, timed explosives, hacking equipment to make raiding more interesting.
-- A stealth and detection system to match.
-- Missions requiring stealth and stealing items of interest from other factions and giving them to factions for payment.
-- Vehicles or other carrying devices to make carrying large quantities of items easier for pawns, rather than relying on animals.
## End
-- Tie in these additions with different faction types, and other enemy pawns should be able to use all of these new additions against the player's faction.
- Imagine if they could hack turrets.. That would be problematic..