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Maybe add an event where you need to leave your base to contest something. For example, a medship with valuable tech crashes, and immediately or shortly thereafter raiders show up and try to loot the ship and leave, ignoring the rest of your base. This would be both realistic and reward going on the offense.

You actually can save colonists with drafted colonists. You just select the drafted colonist and right-click the incapacitated colonist like usual. There's still the problem of said colonist running right into the firefight to get to a bed, though. Also, you have to make sure to give them orders or undraft them after they reach said bed, otherwise they'll literally stand there until they go insane.

Yeah, the issue of running through a firefight is the problem   I didn't realize they would stand by the person's bed after rescue though! Thanks for saving one of my future colonists.

[Only You Can Prevent Forest Fires]

Two simple quality-of-life changes:

1. Only You Can Prevent Forest Fires. Right now, the only way to put out a grass fire is to zone it as "home" and THEN manually assign colonists to put it out. It would be great if you could manually assign colonists to put it out by clicking on it (and they would automatically attempt to put out nearby fire when finished) without having to zone random chunks of terrain as "home."

2. Saving Colonist Ryan. Currently, a drafted colonist can not rescue an incapacitated comrade. However, you can't control an undrafted colonist. This has led to awkward situations where my colonists literally stand next to an expiring comrade in a shoot-out, but can't rescue him because if they "rescued" him they would immediately attempt to carry him right through a pack of raiders on their way to a bed. If colonists could "rescue" while drafted, heroic rescues under fire would be much more doable. Alternatively, zoning regions where colonists will not enter would allow the same thing, though it would be much messier from a user perspective.

I think multiplayer would actually be really fun, though I understand it is low on the priority list because of its technical difficulty. Imagine contesting resource drops with another human player, leading raiders to another person's base, or banding together against a 3rd player because he is getting too strong. It would add a lot of user-generated complexity and really good stories to the game. I also personally find competitive/cooperative games offer more replay value than single player ones.

You would barely need to change anything for multiplayer from a gameplay perspective. I don't think you even need fog of war - having complete vision would prevent people from doing unfun "sneak up on you and kill all your colonists before you can react" shenanigans. Eventually, a "negotiate trade deal via com console" would be nice, but that's not at all required.

[Spray-and-Pray]

I also like this idea; I think it would add personality and story. I remember getting a minigun from a trader early one game and imaging one of my characters as "the TF2 Heavy Weapons guy" the whole game. But when I have 3 copies of multiple guns, it becomes difficult to treat them as anything more than convenient objects. Some ideas for weapon modifiers, beyond just simple "+5 damage." Most of these seem pretty cheap to implement too.


Spray-and-Pray: aim time is reduced to 1/4 of its original value, but miss chance is drastically increased.

Cruel: weapon does 1.5x damage, but upon hit, target can not be incapacitated for 30 seconds (target can still die).

Piercing: bullets go through enemies, stopping only upon hitting terrain.

Ultra-tech Piercing: bullets go through EVERYTHING, and only disappear when they leave the map.

Concussive: stuns targets hit.

Blunt Bullets / Cinematic Knockback: substantially increases knockback (targets should go flying!).

Poisoned: weapon does damage-over-time after hit.

Incendiary: weapon does reduced damage but sets target on fire

Poor Aerodynamics: weapon does extra damage at close range but reduced damage at high range.

Illegal Modifications: does 3x damage, but has a 0.1-1% chance of exploding every time it is fired. Explosion destroys the weapon and does something like 75 damage to the user and those nearby (instantly incapacitating a full health colonist, killing a wounded one).

Vorpal: has a small chance to instantly kill the target regardless of HP.

Excessive Recoil: knocks the user back slightly when fired.

Terrifying: being hit by this weapon slightly increases the likelihood of raiders fleeing (could use same code as seeing gibbet cages). Most appropriate for a weapon with another power-boosting modifier.

Target Identification AI: can not hit allies. Very fast aim time against enemies actively shooting, long aim time against unaware enemies/animals.

Silenced: less likely to draw aggro from enemies (especially when other targets are available).

Obnoxiously Loud: much more likely to draw aggro from enemies.

Tidy: hitting enemies with this weapon produces no blood splatters.

Piecemaker: hitting enemies with this weapon produces 5x normal blood splatters, and killing them with this weapon produces chunks of human meat instead of a corpse.

Designed by the People Who Make Control Panels in Star Trek: has a small chance of setting user on fire every time he or she is hit.

Mix and match these types of modifiers with increases or decreases in damage, aim time, range, accuracy, and number of bullets for extremely unique weapons! For balance purposes, keep in mind that players will use the best weapons and discard the worst, so unless the "average" modified weapon is less powerful than the vanilla average weapon, increasing the variance in weapon strength will increase player power. And even then, late-game colonists may be carrying all-positively-modified weapons, so late game raids will need to increase in power to maintain difficulty.

[Ill Gotten Gains]

Here's a list of "cheap" ideas I had that I think also have strong story potential. Apologies if any of them have already been posted, I'm new here.

Ill Gotten Gains
A group of well-armed but wounded raiders arrive, each hauling random items they stole from another colony. The group rests for awhile, then attempts to traverse the map and exit (shooting at any colonist they encounter, but not pursuing them). If the colonists defeat them (same programming as for any raid), the player is immediately offered the option to return the goods to the original colony (resulting in a goodwill boost, possibly proportional to the percentage of goods recovered) or to keep the goods for themselves.

Stampede!
An enormous herd of muffalo (20+) spawn on one side of the map and rapidly move to the opposite side (preferably on a route that takes them near colony structures).
Optional: the muffalo may detour to consume player crops.
Optional: the muffalo may attack anyone (or any structures) that get within a certain distance of them.

Most Dangerous Game
Attacking a muffalo could, rarely (<1% of shots), trigger the entire herd to attack the perpetrator. I can imagine stories about running the length of the map pursued by berserk muffalo would be highly entertaining, and it would make hunting require more care from the player. Players could always shoot at the muffalo with other colonists while the original hunter ran, so even if the muffalo didn't give up the chase for several minutes, the hunter wouldn't be doomed.

My Friend Muffalo
a muffalo (or any other animal) takes a liking to a colonist and follows him or her around exclusively. The muffalo attacks anything that attacks that attacks the colonist and is within a few tiles (to avoid the muffalo running to its death in a long range shootout). If the colonist is disabled, the muffalo picks him up and carries him to his bed. Having your last colonist revived by his loyal animal companion would be heartwarming.
Optional: doors open for the muffalo as if it were a colonist (to avoid awkward pathfinding, but at the price of some realism).  OR doors do NOT open for the animal. When the character is disabled, the muffalo knocks down all doors needed to get the colonist to his bed.

Squirrel of Caerbannog
Initially, there is no notification that this (rare) event is occurring. Instead, an astute player might note a particular squirrel (or other animal) is eating dead bodies that have been left out. When the squirrel has eaten a certain number of bodies down to 0 hp, a notification pops up informing the player that a local squirrel has developed a taste for human flesh. The squirrel attacks colonists like existing mad squirrels, but moves faster, does more damage, and is much harder to hit than normal. This event would be more realistic if it were implemented with a predatory animal, though the squirrel version is pretty funny.

Little Shop of Horrors
A carnivorous plant spawns. It gradually spreads (using the existing algorithms for grass or other plants). Bullets can reduce the plant to 1 hp, making it inactive until it heals, but can't kill it. This makes fire the only effective way to remove it. It attacks any colonists, animals, visitors, or raiders that come close enough. Killing the occasional boomrat would hopefully give players a chance to eliminate them even if they have no molotov cocktails. Though, if players make no attempt to eradicate them, having most of the world be covered in man-eating jungle would make a great story (as would an attempt to burn the world to finally remove them). A crafty player could also try baiting raiders into a patch.
Optional: colonists could haul a disabled plant to a plant pot before it heals. Potted carnivorous plants would still attack anything in range, but would not spread. If the pot is destroyed, the plant reverts to wild form at 1 hp. I imagine an excited player hauling a defeated plant into a pot in his base, only to find the plant attacks his colonists when it heals, would be pretty funny, and honestly what he should have expected.