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Messages - Eddlm

#1
Mods / Re: [Concept] - Religions and Beliefs
December 22, 2017, 12:58:17 PM
Of course, I totally agree. Religions should be fictional. Not like I have any problem with real religions present in the game actually, but I do think fictional ones would produce way more interesting experiences and gameplay. Christianity would be boring in Rimworld, for example.

Also, implementing real religions would also force the developer to follow their rules, which is a limitation. With fictional religions, imagination is the limit.

Quote from: corestandeven on December 22, 2017, 11:32:20 AM
Not keen on your idea of Divine Consequences. Doesnt fit with the sci-fi setting imo.

Completely understandable. Anyway, if I ever implement this set of concepts into rimworld, all three concepts would be toggleable. We should be able to pick and choose.
#2
Ideas / Re: The Nemesis System
December 21, 2017, 09:11:33 PM
I like the Cheap system and would love to see it implemented in a mod. I don't think it really fits the direction Rimworld's development is going though, so I doubt anything similar would be officially implemented.

I'd take the Vengeance concept and make it a very long-lasting (15-days) +5 mood buff that can dissapear over time. While its present, it represents this pawn's need for vengeance. When it finally dissapears we take it as the pawn forgetting about it or coming to terms with the event.

While its present: If the Nemesis dies, make it a +20 long-lasting (4-days) buff. If your guy killed it, +15 permanent and +20 long-lasting.

Also, only violent pawns should use the Nemesis system. Brawlers, Gun nuts, etc.
#3
Ideas / Re: Killing killboxes.
December 21, 2017, 08:59:43 PM
Newbie with no experience with killboxes coming through.

Quote from: Granitecosmos on November 30, 2017, 07:08:20 PM
How to measure a killzone? Why, that's easy; by kills, of course! Well, by "downs", to be more precise. The game already can track a pawn being downed or killed. All we need is to give this yet another value and assign it to the map. This is where my idea comes in. Let's add a new value to every cell on the game map. Let's call this value "heat" for now and should be zero by default, as well as zero for minimum value too. For performance reasons the game should keep track of the cells having non-zero heat to prevent the game from trying to update all the tiles all the time. (...)

You would be adding an entirely new value to every single cell of the game, that you would just use a few times per raid or may not even get to use ever (no killbox designed). That's a very unbalanced set-use ratio.

I on the contrary would just set a new variable per raid, a 2D vector containing the place where the last raider died or got downed. When a new raider dies compare distances and timeframe. If both (time of death and location) are too close to each other, start getting suspicious.

After three or so raiders die this way, make the rest rethink their tactics. Either hang around waiting for you to come out of your bunker,  call in for a Siege, or just give up and next time use drop pods.

To make sure the game gets it right you could check that the raiders actually die from a player enemy and not a random Manhunter, or an event from Sometimes Raids Go Wrong.

I'd like the concept of Raiders capable of learning. Next time they could focus on armor and/or one hit-kill weapons to try and break your killbox quickly. Maybe cycle through a few different loadouts or AI sets.
#4
Mods / [Concept] - Religions and Beliefs
December 21, 2017, 07:42:50 PM
This is a topic i've seen mentioned multiple times but there's not an actual game mechanic or mod for it yet.
So here's me writing down the concept I would implement into Rimworld, and how I would do it.

Keep in mind, its only an idea. Not a mod, not a suggestion for the game.
I welcome any kind of discussion about it in this thread. Its implementation, its logic, etc.




Religion & Beliefs
(& Divine Consequences)

Religion & Beliefs is a new game mechanic that would take care of your colonists' view of the world and make them have an impact in their lifes, enriching their stories in the process.

Your pawns will now have their own opinion of the world that surrounds them at large, and may think that robots are work of the Devil. Or that drugs are cool and should be consumed more. Or that the last eclipse was Nñorgl, The World Eater, passing near your planet.

All the relevant information would be displayed in a new tab on each pawn. It will list their beliefs and religions, and other useful information related to them.

       Religions

Religions are, in this case, a big umbrella that covers and touches many aspects of a pawn's daily life.
Unlike beliefs, religions are not exclusive to a pawn. Multiple pawns can share the same religion.
However a pawn can only have one religion to follow.

Regarding their design we can go two ways about this. Handcrafted or Generated.


Generated
Generated Religions will be generated when the game World is generated.
They'd be simple but easily expandable to modded content.

Generating Religions
Each religion will be defined by two concepts. Its Concept and its Stance about that concept.

Concepts: Combat, Health, Wealth, Raiding, Intelligence, Kindness, Nature, Animals (all/specific type/specific species)... you name it.
Stance: Worship, Condemn.

Roughly, a pawn's religion affects it whenever the concept enacted or acted upon in the game.
It should always have a positive effect and a negative effect.

Examples:
Worship Combat:
Mood Buff: Whenever you harm another pawn.
Mood Debuff: If your colony has long timeframes without killing anyone.

Condemn Raiding:
Mood Buff: Whenever you kill a Raider.
Mood Debuff: Whenever you raid a base.



Handrafted

Handcrafted religions would be manually defined and more complex.

Types of Handcrafted Religions
Similar to Generated Religions, Handcrafted religions would be dedicated to concepts like combat, o a specific animal species.
However, their rules would be more specific about it, using Commandments.

Examples:
- The Church of the Live Earth, which has two Commandments.
1. Thrumbos are sacred. - You cannot harm Thrumbos. You'll get a big, long-term mood debuff if you do so. Taming them is okay.
2. Trees are to be respected. -  You can build stuff out of wood, but burning wood is sacrilege. So, a mood debuff whenever wood is being burned. Actual fire and wood-fueled generators count.


- The Cult of the Blind Rage, which has one Commandment.
1. Violence is the most raw form of expression. Celebrate it. - Pawns will get small mood boosts whenever they (or any other pawn) harms or kills anything. Bigger boosts if they're the one harming or killing.



       Divine Consequences

Religions can have a god, which enables the possiblity of Divine Consequences for the set of rules of that religion. Basically, game modifiers.

Ideally these consecuences should be kept vague enough to fit the sci-fi theme of Rimworld, where everything has some sort of credible explanation.

Positive Examples:
- While there's a thunderstorm, or just rain, some random lighting bolts may hit your enemies, or set-to-hunt animals.
- Chunks of spacecraft fallen from the sky may hit your enemies too.
- Cold Snaps/Heat waves aren't as severe.
- An animal set to tame gets tamed more easily than it should.
- An illiness/infection gets gradually cured within reasonable limits.
- Mood Boosts for the colonists that need it (I'm suffering... but we're doing what's right. For that, I can't let down this community.)

Negative Examples:
- Lighting bolts may hit your stuff instead.
- Targeted blights.
- Manhunter packs




       Beliefs

A belief would be, simply put, a game condition that would provide a small mood buff/debuff when met. It can also be a set of game conditions packed into one single belief. Think of them as opinions strong enough to affect their lives.
Unlike Religions, a pawn can have multiple beliefs, although no more than two, to keep it doable for the player.

Generated vs Handcrafted
As with Religions, they could be generated on the fly or handcrafted.



Generated beliefs would follow the same rules as Generated religions but toned down, and kept personal to each pawn.
Examples: [animal] is bad (Wargs are monsters), [item class] is good (drugs/guns are cool), [action] is good (trading is beneficial), etc.
They'd get buffs for doing things they think are good, harming/not doing thing they think are bad... And debuffs for harming good things or enacting in bad actions/owning bad items.

Doing, Owning, Protecting good: Buff.
Harming good: debuff.

Doing, Owning, Protecting bad: Debuff.
Harming bad: Buff.




Handcrafted beliefs would follow a complex logic.
Examples:
- Aaron believes that Thrumbos are a very intelligent creature, and butchering or taming them is a horrible thing to do. Aaron would get a big temporary debuff if something like that happens. He will, however, get a decent temporary buff when he gets to see one.

- Pepa believes Raiders are the scum of the earth and will never understand their motives. She will get a big, buff whenever a Raider is killed.

- Din believes that Combat-capable Machines are a mistake. They're dangerous, hackeable, even unpredictable on their own. Just look at these Mechanoids! He's cool with bionics though. He will get a mood debuff whenever he sees a Friendly robot and a mood buff whenever a robot, any robot, is killed.




Fun concepts:

Religions about War that specifically worship BFGs. Imagine a Church of the MOAB that worships Antigrain warheads!

Beliefs related to religions themselves.
- Aaron believes religions are the only way humans can reach enlightement and has a permanent +25 relationship with anyone that's religious.
- Din believes religions are for sheep-minded people. He has a permanent -10 relationship with anyone religious and a +15 relationship with non-religious people.

Pawns joining a religion after talking with a religious pawn, or after a near death experience.

Beliefs could be invoked by pawn backgrounds or traits, making them make more sense and have real connections to the pawn's past, making their backgrounds have more of a real impact in their actual lifes.



Hope you found the concepts and rules interesting and worth discussing! Thanks for reading 'till the end.
#5
Ideas / Re: Dungeon Crawling
December 21, 2017, 02:11:59 PM
I love it.
It would heavily focus on the combat aspect of the game and drafting your guys, taking damn good advantage over the complex combat mechanics Rimworld features. You know, angle, relative size of target, cover...

If handled properly it wouldn't even take away from the normal gameplay, as its simply another generated map which works exactly like the rest. You would need to caravan there, set up camp, bring the food, the bedrolls, etc. A perfect quest.

Definitely something I want to see in the game. It probably can even coded and set up as a mod!

It could be implemented in two different ways: as a Quest, and/or as a terrain feature in your own map, for montainous maps.

How I would go about it:
- Define who owned the building years ago. Was it a tribal civ? a Spacer one? You could even probably get a specific existing faction and pull the items and enemies from their lists.

- Get a basic montainous map and generate sets of square/rectangular rooms with random designs. Tombs, corridors, throne rooms, armories... Each one with a few different layouts of course.

- Spawn the neccesary buildings. Then, spawn the enemies. Be it other adventurers roaming around, automated defense systems, enraged animals... mechanoids...

Voilá.
Then you either spawn it as an event in a nearby map tile ("Yo dude my people found a dank abandoned building in the [Planet zone name]. We're too cowardly to loot it but you may be interested.") or , if its in your own map (only montainous maps), have a pawn alert you about it as it already happens with Ancient Dangers.

My only worry would be the lighting, as these dungeons tend to be poorly lit, you know. And in Rimworld we certainly don't have on-hand torches.
#6
Ideas / Re: Your Cheapest Ideas
July 17, 2016, 03:29:46 PM
Game Mechanics:
Windows: Basically, walls that let light through. This would let players illuminate rooms using natural light. Its also something very basic, all man-made (above ground) buildings have it. Being able to use natural light would be really useful.
Doors with windows would be a nice addition to this base idea.

A cheap way of implementing this would be to create a light source on the inside side of that wall whose intensity and color would be defined by the intensity/color of the original day light, so it would stay coherent all day.

And then:
An option to toggle lamps off during daytime: This would save energy, and the room would be lit by natural light from the feature above anyway.
I'm thinking this feature would could be done by auto-tasking pawns with the Flicker job with switching the lamp on/off at 20pm/7am every day. An upgraded version could have the lamps switch automatically.

With these two features combined, the now-dynamic change in lighting (white sunlight during the day, orange/blue/red/whatever lamp color light during the night) would add a sense of dynamism, and give the player appropiate visual mood for the situation (aka day/night cycle).

Traits:
Fears Thunderstorms: This pawn would be forced to seek inside areas while there's a thunderstorm (and a temporary negative thought?). They would resume normal behavior when the thunderstorm goes away.
Thunderstorm Lover: This pawn would simply get a good thought for some hours when there's one.

Fears fire: The pawn wouldn't be able to put out fire and would get a big negative thought (-15) for around two ingame hours if he sees fire.

Likes [random animal from the current map]: The pawn would get temporal positive thoughts when they see that animal. It would only work with non-tamed animals, to prevent permanent mood boosts.
With this feature, players might prefer X (depressed) pawn to tame Y animal simply because of the mood boost.

Dislikes [random creepy animal, like insects or rats]: The pawn would get temporal negative thoughts when they see that animal (tamed or not).
Fears [random creepy/aggresive animal, like wolves, bears, insects or rats]: Extreme version. The pawn would temporally flee if they get too close to that kind of animal.


Pawn behavior:
Pawns whose rooms have a lamp should switch off said lamp when they go to sleep.
Wouldn't it be nice to see such human thing on them? Nobody sleeps with the lights on!

Items/Entities:
Wardrdobe: Fancy piece of furniture for storing clothes. While not being used, it would show the doors closed, but if a pawn goes there to get/store clothes, it would change the sprite to an open-door version, ideally showing at least one of the items it currently stores.
Shower: Pawns would get filth on themselves by working outside or mining. Going to the shower -while on idle time- would remove it and give a small good thought.

__________________

My two cents! Now that the game is more easily moddable, I might try to make some of them reality myself.
#7
Yeah, it would probably be frustrating, given there is no cure for the virus. However, I still think the rest of the events could be interesting. And not neccesarily every few days! The timeframe would, ovbiously, be decided by Justin. These are just ideas.

I agree on 2 too. Limiting that to friends/family would make more sense.
#8
Happy to see the mod is being updated! Haven't played the mod myself, but I've seen a couple of videos. I look forward to get the future A13 update and enjoy it myself.

I have a couple of suggestions about what I think would make the mod even more enjoyable, if the author doesn't mind.
(Keep in mind that I don't know the Rimworld scripting limitations, so I don't know if what I suggest is possible at all)

About zombie presence
I see the current spawning system used is a modified Raid. To make it more interesting/dangerous, I'd use a different way.

The idea: Define a "MaxZombiesInMap" threshold and keep spawning one/two wandering zombies each X days to reach it.
Why: Keeping a minimum amount of zombies always around would increase the overal tension a lot, and the delayed but steady supply of zombies would accurately emulate how zombie populations work. They aren't organized groups, but an inmense group of random individuals.

Going out for resources would still be possible, because of the delayed spawns. Players would wipe out the current zombie population and get to the resources as quick as possible.

The idea: Different seasons/events could modify the MaxZombiesInMap threshold.
Why: Things would be even more interesting if the mod took into account some of the vanilla events, like Cold Snaps, Toxic Fallouts, etc. This would make the experience a lot more dynamic.

The idea: Events. Big groups of zombies wandering to your area (not raiding you directly). A survivor trying to get to your base, chased by zombies. A strong wind that disables the Zombie Virus for a few days. A pawn contracting the virus randomly. A team of soldiers sent to your area to wipe out all zombies... and your pawns, just in case they are infected.
Why: Why not?



About the zombies themselves

The idea: Make sure that, if one zombie is attacking a pawn, nearby zombies enter combat too. Zombies should be able to comunicate when there's prey to others.
Why: Zombies should be aware of their surroundings and know when it's time to attack. This mechanic would help with that. Also, if you were to implement the "Zombie presence" above explained, it would help trigger massive attacks that would replace the current "Raids".

The idea: Zombie animals could be a thing. Either bitten or reanimated.
Why: You would be taking advantage of th Rimworld's natural animal spawning system to dynamically spawn zombies. Also, different locations would bring up different dangers, as there is a big difference between a Zombie Bear and a Zombie Squirrel.

The idea: Zombies always reanimate, as long as their brain is not destroyed.
Why: Losing is fun. Also, it would allow for interesting situations, like a zombie reanimating for the third time without jaws, arms, and  having broken feet. Each time they reanimate, the damage from the last kill would make them more and more inefficient, so they wouldn't be as much trouble as the first time.

The idea: Buried non-zombies would have a small chance of reaminating every X time.
Why: Apart of the "dead raising" feel, this would make burying your people still somewhat dangerous. Bonus spook points.

About the pawns
The idea: Your people would get a negative mood for seeing a zombie.
Why: This way, the mod would poke into the Moods feature of Rimworld!
______________________

Regardless of these ideas, I think the mod in its current state is awesome. As everyone says, take your time, Justin!