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Just an addition to OP's observation of the cryptosleep pods:

While a colonist is in the pod, they can pick up new bad moodlets (prisoner executed), but those moodlets don't expire because they're in the pod. If you leave them in the pod long enough, they'll collect bad moodlets for every bad thing that happens in your colony:
- prisoner executed
- colonist left unburied
- prisoner sold
- plus any other global bad moodlets that exist in the game.
If any of these stack normally, they can stack for the colonist in the pod.

Then, when the colonist is eventually let out of the pod, they could very easily go nuts. I'm not sure that this is expected behaviour.

Conducting materials absorb the ElectroMagnetic radiation from the solar flare hitting the atmosphere.

What does this mean for RimWorld?
Long conductors (like power conduits) have huge currents induced in them, overloading power systems, and hence knocking out the power.
Mountains do nothing to block the effects, because they're mostly just rock, which isn't especially conductive.

The only way to shield against it is to use a metal box. Using a conducting material as an enclosure is an effective defense against EM - that's why if you break open a cellphone you'll see a metal box on part of the circuit board - it's there to block external radio signals from interfering with it. Using an insulating box doesn't do anything to stop EM.

So it actually isn't unrealistic to have solar flares ruining your power system. You might say that the plants should live longer without power and light, and I'd agree with that. But in terms of the effects of big solar flares on your power system - it should cause actual damage to your power structures, like blow up your batteries and make your generators catch fire. I would imagine that your colonists have been super clever with the design and have managed to get the systems to shut off fast enough to prevent damage.

Any questions? I'm in University doing an Electrical and Electronic Engineering degree, so matters of electricity interest me.

It should be easy to do rainwater collection and storage - we already have weather affecting the output of solar panels and wind turbines, and we don't need water to be super well modelle. Tynan could just make it the same as the power net - pipes act the same as conduits, tanks the same as batteries, and some sort of pump added as an afterthought. Easy. Then we would have outlets where pawns can go to drink, and each time they drink, some of the total water in the system is used up, reducing the levels in the tanks.

I would love to see this sort of thing. It is a key survival challenge in deserts, and to lesser extent, ice sheets. I think this would wonderfully augment the differences between biomes

[maintain]

The pump should just turn normal soil into the rich stuff BUT at like a stupily slow rate or some thing else i am okay with that but tynan was right it was op at its current form

I think that they were overpowered in their previous implementation, but could be added in a balanced way.
Something that need work from pawns and takes resources.

New workbench that turns bones / food / decomposing animals into fertiliser.
Require pawns to use the fertiliser to build the soil so the process is not completely automatic.

I like these two suggestion. Using a fertilizer pump to maintain rich soil, at the cost of material put in a hopper, like bones etc.

Perhaps the fertilzed area could be produced in a radius, like the snow from an evil ship part, and degrade over time, or perhaps after 1 or two plant growths. It would need to be on existing soil already, as it should only fertilize soil automaticall, not generate soil.

Thoughts?

But.. single beds are too small! In real life anyway..

To be honest, you don't need a bed at all. I've been quite happy standing up in a crop field

Oo yes please. I would love to see more ship part types to account for the rest of the ship.

The weapons rack can be used for clothing.

Really? That sounds like a bug tho

Them pathing outside their allowed area is a feature;

It's not a bug.
It's a feature.

i saw this on Facebook yesterday and was going to post it! I'm happy to see you had the same idea

God that sounds intense. I want it

Jimyoda, i love that you brought this up and I can't resist putting in my thoughts. I hope you don't mind.


My thoughts here:
I don't know how exactly the cover system works but I think these numbers need revisiting.
Using 40 as a maximum and 0 as a minimum below:


- Armchair: yes I agree that an armchair should provide appreciable cover. It is a big vertical barrier. Maybe 30

- Bed: How much vertical surface does a bed really provide? If it is just a mattress on a four legs slat base design, there's a fair big of space underneath to see a target and shoot it. Maybe 30 here too.

- Dining chair: the way these are shown graphically, they would offer precious little cover. They're a horizonal surface (the seat), sitting on 4 small vertical legs, with some interlocked bars as a backrest. Very little vertical area to block sight and incoming fire. So, maybe 5 cover.

- Equipment Rack: this one I see as offering maximum cover out of the list given by Jimyoda. In the game they appear to be a big solid looking set of shelves, with no opening. It would be like taking cover behind a big thick bookcase. Full sight cover and full bullet cover. Only question is bullet stopping power. That's why I agree with this one being 40.

- Hospital bed: this would be the same as a normal bed, with so medicinal equipment stored underneath, giving a little more cover. So if we're generous it could be 40 too, but i feel 35 is a better option.

- Plant pot: this could go either way - it depends on how big you imagine the plant pot actually is. It could be tiny - 20 would be too muc. Or it could be huge (after all, it is built on location, not hauled) so it might be as 2 or 3 feet wide. In the larger case, 20 is a bit low. So, I think 20 is actually a fair middle ground.

- Royal bed: this big luxurious bed should provide more cover than the standard and hospital beds, so it seems right to give it 40.

- sleeping spot: it's just a spot of ground, like a reserved parking space. No cover here.

- stool: just like the dining chair, the stool doesn't have much vertical area at all to hide behind, so very low cover makes sense, but maybe not no cover. So maybe 5.

- Standing lamp: a matter of vertical area again. It depends on how wide the lamp's trunk is. It could be a small spindly pole, or a thick one. My guess is spindly, so little or no cover makes sense.

- Short table: Tables are just like stools but much bigger. Not much cross-sectional area to hide behind (very easy to get shot under it), unless we employ a narrative twist like imagining the colonist flips it onto one side. Flipped: 40. Not flipped: generous 10 maybe.

- Long table: same as short table above.


If anyone has anything to add, or would like to disagree with my reasoning, I'd love to hear it.

Tynan - what do you think? What reasoning process do you use to decide how much cover something provides?

As an Electrical Engineer, I can confirm that you can get horribly shock by the voltage difference between your feet.

If one foot is on the ground and zero voltage, and the other foot steps on the exposed high voltage cable, you get zapped my friend.

Interestingly, if there is a high voltage point in the dirt, the voltage actually radiates out, dropping in magnitude with distance.
If there wasn't proper safety measures in place you could get zapped just approaching the cable due to having your feet at different voltage levels on the dirt.


In this image, you can see how this man can get shocked as he steps away from a high voltage point in the ground.



In this image, you can see how the substation is all the same voltage level, (thanks to a buried mesh of conductors usually), but that voltage level drops as you go further away from the outside of the substation. The voltage between your feet (step voltage) isn't going to dangerous though unless you are very close to the substation, because the slope of the voltage is quite steep there, so you get a big voltage difference.

Any questions?

I'm enjoying this :-)

+1 many times over. This sounds like a perfect progression.

Only downside I can see, is assigning prison by bed is easy. Areas are not as obvious. And beds define prison occupancy, while an area would not.
I would like to be able to have a prison with no beds in it, but I also want my colonists to be smart about how many prisoners they put in each prison.
So, the plot thickens.
With a new prison area system, questions come up like - how is the capacity determined? If you want one per cell but a common dining area, how do you designate that?

Edit: Further consideration.

That's incredible. And it inspires me to defend myself in foresty zones with a fireproof concrete border around my base, and teams of molotov throwers.

"We got raiders boss!"

"Alright Fire Team go! Set up that firewall!"