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If religion were implemented, I'd like to see it
A) Tied to the 'fun' and 'mood' systems
and
B) Trait-based

So say, a pawn may be spawned with the 'devout monotheist' or 'casual polytheist' traits, and depended on how fervent they are they could take a simple mood debuff if they go too long without having a place to worship. Just add like 3 religions like monotheist, polytheist, and shamanist and you're set. Monotheists could have a podium with a holy book that they pray at, maybe polytheists have an altar where they burn offerings of raw meat, and shamans have an outdoor garden area to pray at. Recent prayers/offerings could give them a mood buff.

I think this way we could have a meaningful yet non-convoluted religion system.

I'd still like to see passions tied to recreation, but in a low-impact way. Like say, darts and horseshoes fill a pawns joy meter faster if they are passionate about shooting, but don't confer any experience or other bonuses. So we have an incentive to build a variety, without it being crucial or a requirement.

Is there going to be any incentive to build a diversity of fun stations? Otherwise I can see players building a minimum of the cheapest stations to keep their colonists happy.

Positive Activities:
- Playing pool
- Hunting animals
- Swimming (??)
- Playing cards
- Listening to music (maybe something like record players with music discs)

Negative Activities:
- "I killed a man."
- Burying dead bodies
- Cremating corpses
- Stripping prisoners
- Beating prisoners
- Killing prisoners
- Killing incapacitated people

<!-- ============ maybe some joy bonuses? ================= -->

If the joy bar is close to full, maybe colonists could have increased speed, a moodlet effect, and a better global work speed? Maybe some opposite-stat-deterioration where instead of slowly losing stats they gain them very slowly? and the opposite for non-joy

Some of these I guess depend on whether Tynan is going to limit joy to purpose built structures or allow other tasks to contribute. Although certain activities like burying the dead should lower joy, realistically. So a work activity like that would lower passion more than say planting flowers. Seems a bit labor intensive to code though, as you would have to tie a joy value to literally every possible action in the game.

I suppose that doesn't sound too bad. I suppose I'd request that the length of a day be extended slightly if the colonists are going to be idle for longer periods of it.

Thats apart of the risk/reward mechanic. Colonists need food, they have to spend time and space making and storing food. Pawns need sleep, they spend that time not working.

Since joy is still a muddled concept and we don't know how it will interact with mood, i'd say traits shouldn't specifically give joy as they already give mood. So, let's say that we'll have a "joy meter" similar to hunger and mood, what is the impact of having a high joy or a low one? A mood buff or mood penalty? If it is so, then giving joy for having these traits is redundant.

Having 'mood' and 'joy' in general is a bit redundant, as the difference seems a bit arbitrary. I've been waiting for such a system to be implemented, but I was thinking about it more along the lines of 'leisure' than 'joy'. Exercising or watching holo-dramas seems more along the lines of relaxation than joyful pursuit.

Piggybacking off of the beauty system, where certain items increase the colonies beauty score withing a given radius, what if we added two new scores - Danger and Resistance?

The idea is that a turret will generate a high Danger score within its firing arc, and this score could be stackable so that multiple turrets create a much higher Danger Zone(Copyright Kenny Loggins 1986). Armed pawns maybe also generate a Danger score appropriate to the weapon they are carrying?

The Resistance score is generated by buildings, walls doors and other unpassable objects. Weaker constructions such as wood doors would produce much less Resistance than 3 tile deep unmined granite.

Tied together, the raiders would choose the path that offered the lowest Resistance offset by Danger; they would rather attack walls than wade through the combined fire of 6 turrets. Raiders already know how to batter down doors, or how to fire a rocket at a colonist, but what about firing a rocket at a stone wall to create a breech?

My other main idea would be to script the raiders to all travel at the speed of the slowest raider in the group; I've defeated raids before simply because the fastest raiders ran up unsupported and got picked off while the slower raiders arrived piecemeal or not at all.

Finally, a suggestion that I have seen multiple times and support whole-heartedly; Give raiders a clear objective! Raids should be flavored by unique objectives. Maybe an alert pops up with a pirate company demanding Maker and Redfields as tributes, and if you refuse you suffer an all out assault. Or tribals demand 2000 nutrition in food in order to stave off an attack. Or maybe an outlander colony simply attacks without warning and makes off with any silver, gold or other valuables they can before retreating.

Maybe certain 'joy' activities could have a cooldown, reducing a pawns satisfaction if done repeatedly over a given period. Ie, Playing the same videogame 5 times every day would stop being fun after a while, but would become fun again if you put it down for a time and returned to it later. This would incentivize creating a variety of leisure stations for your pawns to enjoy.

Also, maybe each leisure station could tie into a certain skill, and the pawn recieves a higher joy buff if the station is related to a skill they already have a passion for, Ie Maker likes crafting, so the Ship-in-a-bottle leisure station fills him with utmost joy, and he takes longer to grow tired of it.

As for specific ideas,

Maybe decorations can be made lowest-priority constructions, and pawns with a passion for construction will construct decorations as a leisure activity, since beautifying the colony would seem more relaxing to them than work like. Same with maintaining flowers for growers. Also, artwork for pawns with a passion for art would be a fulfilling activity.

Workout stations for pawns with a passion for melee would seem logical.

I've thought about this before as well. I think it would be cool to see a wall of settler-level pawns assault you with a line formation of muskets.

But as for their actual value in-game, I'm not sure adding them would really deepen gameplay. Like Johnny said, its mostly about the tribals not having access to the same technology. Adding ANOTHER tech level would just create more item spam.

Not sure if its a bug or if I simply misunderstood, but I was under the impression that the fortress shield should prevent drop pod attacks within their zone of cover? Yet I had an army of mechs drop right in on my fortress shielded trade zones.

I like that turrets explode, because it gives you a reason not to build them so close together.

But there is an exploit there, its true. Maybe have an exploded turret send out blasts of electricity? They could damage electrical components and stun organic characters like pawns and animals.

This. If we had entertainment, say TV sets or exercise equipment, then instead of bland 'Wandering around in a daze' soft breaks, colonists could have 'Taking the day off' breaks where they still feed themselves and rest, but do no work and only fiddle with entertainment media.

Love the feast idea, but I'd also like to see different food options made more necessary in the game period. Eating nothing but potato meals should get old, but a varied diet with lots of different meats and veggies should give a mood boost to balance out the 'High expectations' debuff.

I like the idea of requiring certain skills for research. Like, it would take a level 10 doctor to design a medical pod, or a level 10 miner to research pneumatic picks. And the research skill merely makes the research time faster.

I also like adding in material requirements, and some research requiring buildings to unlock.

A few bugs to report:
1. Create Nanotech exoskeleton bill appears on the bionics workbench, rather than the nano workbench.
2. Nanotech apparel has two listings on the stockpile configuration menu, although only the first contains any items.

Love your mod, I'll let you know if I find anymore bugs.

I like this. +1