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none of you have me convinced that FoW is actually bad. I mean, im convinced alot of you are really great at obfuscating a discussion and turning it into an argument, but your actual cons are either blessings you just havent thought through very well, or else non existent issues. Take the premise that FoW is bad because it adds more to the game. Thats literally what was said a few posts up. Thats ridiculous. Thats possibly the silliest thing ive every read in a forum about a game where things are built, because it literally means "oh its bad because ill have more things to build. how dare you give me more things to do". Or the comment about how an FoW RW would just be a completely different game. Thats hyperbolic, but completely disingenuous. Of course itd still be the same game. You all keep arguing like you would be playing RW starcraft edition, but thats just stupid. You dont just bolt a whole new mechanic onto a game in development. You design it, integrate it, and then tweak it. Every mechanic works towards the same goal.

As such, let me paint you a basic FoW that would enhance the game, and not piss you off. First up, assume the ai has been fiddled with. Your colonists now have basic self preservation instinct. When they see someone with a weapon, they try to work out if its a friend or foe, and they run from foes. They even zig zag, try to hide, or shoot back. The enemy ai has also been tweaked. It can no longer see the whole world, so in order to attack a colony it first has to scout locations(so it cant just pick the weakest spot, or beeline straight to your home). Or, it may not even be an atttack, and may simply be an enemy force moving through a locale(different event). Assume a whole raft of other quality of life ai stuff has been done. Basically, if you think to yourself "but the ai cant deal with blah" just stop and think it can.

So, the Obfuscation itself. I personally like a static overlay. so not even fog. i like that better because then weather effects like actual fog still exist and dont get confusing. I also think there should be a shroud over the fog(the black terrain blocker, but ill be negating alot of the annoyance this has for you all in a few sentences). Id lock all maps to be the same size, and make em massive(so theres actually places to explore. It may need a bit of work to have the map maintain itself, but if its not looked at by a character, it doesnt need to render an can probably be made to be rather light on the processor), but id get the storytellers to actually drop events that are beneficial kind of close to some LoS. So colonists dont have to explore too far to find them. Then, when our colonists turn up, id have a big chunk of the map around there starting spot revealed to the player. So they have some room to make decisions. In terms of the static, i would have it close back in really slowly. like a day or two would pass before it got to the point where players cant see anything in an area. Id even have it move in in stages, so at first its only a little staticy, and then a little more etc. We do this because we want to make slow burn tension on the player. We dont want to jack up their anxiety in minutes, thats just shitty. We wouldnt have the shroud move back in. its actually just there so players can see where they have never explored before. Its not there to annoy, but to inform. We also give our colonists a relatively large site radius... during the day. At night, we narrow it down heaps, and bring it in close. Make it link to light sources at night. Basically, during the day the game wouldnt actually play much different to the way it does now. There might be a few more jobs colonists can do, but the fog itself isnt there to fuck around with the day to day running of a colony. Hell, we dont even let the fog move within a certain radius of the players home. It'd be really weird for the colonists to forget they have a shed just because they hadnt been there in a day or two.

quality of life things, we make the planning tool more nuanced. We let it track notes, and also track different commands like mining or harvesting. An we make sure its nice an clear over the static, so even if the players lose sight of terrain, its really easy to see what they might like to do out there if they planned for it. Another thing id do is maintain the current notifications, but make it so that once its clicked, it takes you to a position somewhere near where the thing happened. Id probably remove some of them and tweak them, but once again the goal here is not to make the players life hard, just more interesting.

Finally, as to jobs and items. Truth is, not that much needs to be added to this system. Its not designed to kick players, its there to help them. As such, you would only need a security job. The hunt job would get changed a bit to make colonists go off and actually look for game, and they would have to prioritze bigger better game as they got better at hunting(so they wouldnt shoot squirrels when they could shoot elk). The security job would probably be a whole new bunch of stuff much like the timetable and the outfitter was for update 10, in that you would have the ability to set up patrols that colonists might follow, or else have them man some variety of console that has security consoles linked. Thats literally all that would need to be added. Other things could be added, but they dont need to be. No radar, no scouts. The only iffy thing is if you would want a dedicated explorer job. But that would just need some poking.


now look, im sure your looking at that design and trying to poke holes in it, but you need to stop. Its rough, i smashed it out in five minutes. That design though would work. An it wouldnt fundamentally change the game, or add too much stuff, or be too hard on the player, or make them have less reaction time or anything like that. It would basically make the game play like if you were on a small map currently, right now. BUT you would suddenly not be on a small map. there could be things to find out there. Interesting stories an other such things. Suddenly, theres an actual sense of discovery in your game. An it wouldnt be a shallow sense like civilisation, because the world itself would change. Sure, you dont see the raiders kill the tribals, but you might miss that right now in this game. What you will find is the scene of a massacre, and maybe  some carrion eaters. You gain lots of things you dont have right now, and if you're gonna be really close minded about what you can gain, then i have no idea why your playing a game called rimworld where you play as random colonists out in the far side of the galaxy trying to survive in whatever way they can.

on my play through i did note that prisoners were very difficult to recruit( i ended up with five prisoners without realising and the colony starved in its first winter... honestly i wasnt as focused on the game as i could be lol). However, i dont think lessening the difficulty is the answer. Truth is, the recruiting prisoners thing always felt a little weird to me. like, i get that the colonists might decide they are ok ppl, but why in all the hells would anyone join a colony that locks people in a room for days, just nagging and feeding them. i wouldnt mind if wardens did things like took the prisoner out for a walk or something. thus they could chat at them, and theyd lose the cabin fever thing they have over time. Of the top of my head thats the quickest solution i can think of to fix the recruit problem without drastically changing anything or adding a bunch of mechanics ala the prison mod.

the war game issue straight up isnt an issue. we have to assume a system like this that is implemented will support the initial design of the game. thus, it simply will not work the way it does in an rts. its not even be suggested as yet that it does, because rimworld is clearly not a rts and not intended to be one. Just because a mechanic exist in another genre doesnt mean it cant be changed, tweaked or otherwise made useful to any design, and presenting a mechanic as such is not useful as a constructive discussion. we know you dont want an rts, otherwise youd be playing starcraft*

next point. the thing about weapon ranges, is that the scope is abstracted into the weapon. people dont run around looking through their scope. so that creates an interesting situation where you actually want to position a sniper so he can then look through his scope.. meaning suddenly snipers are an interesting part of the design and arent just some other gun. In fact, lets be quite honest here. while there is a bunch of nuance to combat design in rimworld, its still lacking.. alot. Most weapons of a ballistic variety simply feel like different forms of the same gun. so any mechanic that helps to flesh them out more and differentiate them more and apply more choice to the game seems like a gain to me, and also makes your story more interesting(since thats the part we are supposed to focus on in the overall design). Additionally, LoS will support melee much more. since i expect ammunition is going to be a thing at some point in this game to make melee more viable, giving it a bit of a boost by allowing ambushes to exist seems particularly important.

that of course brings us all back to a specific problem. the AI atm is garbage. as far as i know Tynan has already identified this as something he wants to fix, so considering that, now might be an excellent time to actually revisit FoW in context. Its simply not feasible(or interesting) to have either the players or the ai be omniscient, so fixing one necessitates fixing the other. An the thing is, we cant fix the omniscience of the player without some way of obfuscating the map, regardless of how you want to fluff the inital mapping. You are, currently, able to plan around any problem. You are given notifications that inform you not only of the problem, but where it is. You then can plan around it. Your colony(and the story of it) suddenly becomes this contrived sequence of events where they knew exactly where the sieges were, or the beavers, or whatever, and they immediately planned around that problem and ended it. I agree that with the ai making every colonist a lemming,t hat FoW right now would be shit. However, we know the ai needs work, and i think it would be better to incorporate fow into that rework. For both stories and gameplay.

An just so we are clear, as yet no one has actually provided a solid justification for why FoW is actually bad. Theres lots of hyperbole, and apprarent fear of change in these responses, but you need to put that away and try to actually refine your answers to why it would be bad for the game in the long term. Yes, there are no systems in place at the moment that support FoW, because at the moment it doesnt exist. that doesnt mean they cant, so the question is why would it be bad long term, or why would it be good. I feel ive provided strong reasoning for why its good, but as yet the answers for its bad are as follows:

(paraphrasing of course)
->because i like having a map and feel that losing that would disadvantage me
->because other games did it and i dont like them
->because i simply assume the game will not change and just randomly strap this new mechanic on top with no thought whatsoever.
-> because i feel that limiting my vision will somehow fundamentally change the stories that RW tells.

those are kind of not great reasons to not do a thing folks, or more specifically, they arent very well reasoned. There's merit in the last one, but it still feels kind of hyperbolic, and it is a problem that is actually quite simple to design around. So, acknowledging that, is there anything more nuanced we can say at the moment(acknowledging of course that we cant know for certain one way or the other without something to actually test).

*side note, id like to point out that the first terran missions where you are playing with jim raynor as space cowboy remind me a lot of rimworld, in the sense that they try and convey that tone of being alone out on the edges of space... plus the soundtrack was super appropriate

since im still trying to be constructive, lets try to address the rts thing. first off, you guys are rad, thanks for telling me how you feel even though the threads at risk of becoming a scary place*

second, your right. a fog of war implemented like it is in an rts would be a pain and kinda shit. This is because they have different goals. in an rts the fow is there to encourage players to scout and engage the enemy. since they dont know where they(or anything else) is, they have to spread out. it keeps the games economy working. Its vital to that economy in most cases. Its vital to really alot of stuff that rts's are built on tbh

See a trend, its not really about exploration, its about threat engagement. rts's want battles, and you dont get battles without players moving off in search of the things they need. RW though, is about story. the fog has to be built around different goals. That though, is possible. you seem to be thinking that the mechanic will always be the same even in a different game, but it cant be. thats not how system design works. you build the system to achieve the things you want. In Rimworld, the thing you want is mystery and the possibility that anything can be out there. you want the fog to encourage new stories. so it has to be less about being blindsided or covering up the enemies. it would need to be relatively forgiving, and not difficult to "defeat". it needs to be there in the background, a tool to aid the story, not a central theme. its the same premise as the costing overhaul that happened to the traders. that seemed like a really extreme response to the traders, but once you get used to it it actually made purchases be more valuable, more meaningful to the overall game. Same premise here. To me, the joy system presents some tools that can be used to help work with the fog(every morning people go for a stroll etc). same goes for the job system, since scouting and patrols could eventually be a thing. In the long run, a fog of war that exists and can be addressed will aid almost every aspect of the game.

Like i said, you're right that it could be shit, but i believe Tynan is a good designer, capable of overcoming that. So, what other concerns could be had about fow???

*if i see it become like that, if i see sides to this conflict being drawn up and constructive discussion being killed, im out of the thread btw

im not here to debate it

im a designer, i like to hear the things that communities and people have to say. an Rimworld is an interesting thing for me to watch as it goes forward. its rare that i disagree with decisions that Tynan makes about design in regards to his game, so it surprises me that it seems that way on this. ill read the other thread.

having said that, im still interested to specifically hear what it takes away from the experience for individuals. im wondering if this is an occasion where sensible design doesnt necessarily feel right in play. it happens. Im also curious if its just that it isnt generally done in sims and people just balk at the idea of it. There is a darkness mod out there tries to jerry rig the game to work much like gnomoria does, but the systems just arent in place to do it well at the moment.

personally i still find it jarring to be omniscient, thats where i stand, and it seems to me that the overall design is trying to move away from that omniscience(locking doors an such) so i was just cursiou since this seemed like such a hotly debated thing

Edit: welp, i read that thread. its disturbing to me that a half dozen people argued in favour of a thing, and one angry person managed to belittle, derail and generally nay say them into having the thread closed down. thats outrageous, and the moderator was correct in shutting down that thread.

As such, ill add something constructive. Its clear the ai isnt capable of dealing with it at the moment. So, part of the objectives for implementing a fog system would have to be an overhaul of enemy ai(both siege and raiders, as well as visitors). that overhaul isnt a small thing, so i cant imagine this would be a week long job.  Follow on, it sounds like the only thing actively lost from fog is players being able to watch the world interact with itself. Thats not a small thing, but its also not a particularly big thing. the story RW tells is the story of the colonists, thats the one players care about. thats the one that should be interesting to watch.

So, we would lose a chunk of dev time, and the ability to watch the world interact with itself easily. However, i believe(an it seems alot of others do too) that wed gain mystery, a sense of actual danger and being alone. A lack of verisimilitude breaking omnicience, and the information overload will be removed. the feeling of working might even be lessened as players wont just be hauling everything ever. An hell, wed gain a smarter AI thats more interesting to interact with(which i am a big fan of personally). Theres probably more, but in balance, a fog system is a hell of a gain by my math. there's my constructive thoughts

thats clever, but kinda counter intuitive :\

maybe some more asshole behaviours would help make it less so. can you make all oc personnel spawn with the abrasive trait

hiya

big fan of your weapons. i especially like the way your descriptions sound like a sales pitch. Unfortunately, some of your grammar and phrasing was off(thats fair enough, english can be a very painful language) so i took the liberty of correcting it for my current copy of your mod. Ill post the changed descriptions down below, and if you want you can copy them in to the main I really appreciate all the work you put in, the variety is great

Jotun:

<description>The Jotun Interstellar JA-55A4 "Grendel". The legacy of a grim mechanoid war, the Grendel siege gun is one of the most formidable man-portable siege weapons acrosss the galaxy. Perfect for home defense or scaring the neighbours away from your daughters</description>

<description>A JA-12A2 "Beowulf" heavy rifle, manufactured by Jotun Interstellar. The designer of the Beowulf was never concerned about ascetics. What he focused on was just pure fire power.</description>

<description>A JA-32A6E "Trollbane". It is the most Popular large caliber pistol made by Jotun Interstellar. Fires a 50 caliber plasteel alloy round, fire from a Trollbane can solve most of lonely colonies problems.</description>

<description>This oversized shotgun is the Jotun Interstellar JA-66A2 "Fafnir", Made by splinting multiple AA gun barrel's together. The Fafnir is a weapon used to fight against mechanoids in urban warfare. If a person was to accidently take a burst from this siege shotgun, they would be instantly turned into sticky red mist. Not recommended for hunting purposes</description>

<description>A JA-67A1 "Notung" Anti Mechanoid rifle. As heavy as a small truck and just as hard to wield, the recoil from a Notung is as strong as the kick from a mule. Recommended for use against heavy mechanoids only</description>

Greydale:

<description>A Greydale Defense P04 "Ocelot". Light and easy to use, ideal personal defense weapon of noncombatants.</description>

<description>A Light marksman rifle that is manufactured by Greydale Defense, the PR02 "Puma" is a great rifle for precision fire support.</description>

<description>A Greydale Defense GPR08 "Panther". A number one assault rifle for any colonial militia. High accuracy and durability makes the Panther a great colonial defense weapon.</description>

<description>Designed by Rook I. Rims, a Greydale Defense Contractor, the GL05 "Jaguar" is a simple but effective indirect fire support weapon.</description>

<description>A SW11 "Lynx". A light support weapon that is manufactured by Greydale Defense. is a well known weapon because of its simple but durable design. With this weapon, you can halt any overwhelming enemy with unceasing bursts of bullet.</description>

Arms Dynamics:

<description>The Arms Dynamics M202 "Pacificator" Optic rifle, the standard issue rifle of the notorious Federation Peacekeepers. This rifle fires focused beams that vaporise everything in their path. It has does however have a relatively slow fire late due to possible overheating.</description>

<description>The M33 "Negotiator" is an optic pistol produced by Arms Dynamics. The Negotiator is a lightweight pistol with an unconventional fire mechanism called "the energy crucible". The M33's vulnerable point is its painfully slow rate of fire for a pistol. However, its fire power and high accuracy offset this flaw.</description>

<description>The Arms Dynamics M154 "Arbitrator". In the Federation, use of the M154 was rigorously controlled; As such, This incendiary laser weapon is reserved for Federation Peacemongers, the most capable of the already able Peacekeepers of the Federaion.</description>

<description>The favored weapon of the Federation Peacebringer assassin corps, Arms Dynamics M270 "Intercessor" is a long range optic sniper weapon. Although Intercessor's firepower is slightly lower than a conventional sniper rifle, it's high accuracy and longer range makes the Intercessor a most fearsome weapon.</description>

<description>The last argument of the Federation, the M656 "Harmonizer" is the most powerful anti personnel weapon available to the corp. A plasma sphere from the Harmonizer is a very slow and easy to avoid projectil. However, just one shot from a Harmonizer can ruin an entire platoon of oppositional troops day.</description>

Yunhwa:

<description>The Yunhwa Precision Model-489a 'Frost '. Compared to a conventional assault rifle, the Frost is equipped with a larger clip and a higher rate of fire. However, to achieve this the rifle sacrifices damage and armor piecing capability.</description>

<description>The Yunhwa Precision Model 481c 'Chill' shard SMG. In spite of the Chill's aiming assist pseudo A.I , it's accuracy drops sharply at long distance's. However, the Chill is an ideal tool for dealing with soft targets at close range.</description>

<description> Yunhwa precision's latest sniper rifle, the Model-492 'Glacier'. Unlike more common precision rifles, the Glacier fires spikes of carbon crystal at velocities up to three times the speed of sound. Its extremely high muzzle velocity and class IV targeting assist pseudo A.I ensure no target can escape from its fire.</description>

<description>A pair of Yunhwa Precision Model-480g "Snowburst" pistols. The Snowburst has an extremely short range but while within close range the pistol can tear enemies to pieces. As the old saying goes "Double the gun, double the fun!"</description>

tell ya what, im just curious as to why we dont get a random number of initial colonists between say 3 and 6 or something, some busted up. it always seems so convenient that three random pain in the neck colonists get off the ship... but only three... for every ship... it must be a conspiracy right O.o

i agree in regards to enemies, that creates better gameplay. but as to it being your home. sure you can certainly learn about the geography around your home(that would be removing the shroud if were gonna talk in the sense of a fog system. the shrouds the black stuff, the fog sits under that). but that doesnt mean you should be omnipotent. more important, why does that kill it for you though. you say your against it but your reasoning is basically just "because reasons".

an toggleable seems like a solid choice, but im still not getting the whole "little point in having it". for one, it creates a bit more of an organic map, less random squares. for another, it will lower the min maxing of a colony for the first few months an get people used to just setting up shop. importantly for me though, itll reduce alot of the hauling overhead by shedloads, and would allow the map to be a bit more organic. i seriously dont see downfalls... well, i see one. specifically sieges will be a shit to deal with, but thats why enemies should have to deal with the fog too. they'd have to actually spot your base before they start shelling. aside from that though*, this isnt really telling me why people dislike it?

*that though may be a big enough reason to not worry about it for a long while. ai is always a bitch, but im still curious

you dont need embrasures.. you barely need sandbags. you need t o  t h i n k  l a t e r a l l y . this isnt a tower defense game, your not making a dorf fort, you can do better . modern warfare is very different to old school swords bull. think sideways, youll be fine

the search function yields a nice big huge ass list of non relevant conversations, and a single thread from 2013.. so i aint going any further back to ask these questions, im not interested in necroing threads, and im new to the community.

point is, why the hell did people not like the fog of war?? did they still get updates that told them stuff had fallen onto the map that they couldnt see(couse thatd be annoying) and or was it actually a part of the experience or just a tacked on extra(since it seems like its pretty old in development).

i just cant for the life of me see how fog of war and actual darkness in the game would make the experience negative, specially compared to the fifty thousand suicidal tribals or the sieges that arent all that good at their job --> hey boss, should we like, keep them in their home while we shoot at them... nah bob, well just hang out in our square of sandbags, theyll die eventual.. *SPLAT*

rimworld to me seems like it wants to create a sense of survival against the odds, your colonists versus the world an such... omnipotence will litterally never help that. So can some old timer explain to me why people found it infuriating?? was it just that the ai couldnt handle it?

the thing about a barricade is that people are able to climb over them... thats in real life along with most things. your goal shouldnt be to keep them from climbing over your barricade, but to kill them before they get there.

im not really sure where your complaint is coming from though, it seems like you were all using objects in ways they werent supposed to be used, and the devs fixed that. the only thing that should actively stop movement is walls and other structures such as that. just learn to play without needing barricades?? generally, my sandbag barricades are the last line of defense, something to fall back to for extended firefights... are you using them as some sort of extended maze like thing where you can shoot at the enemy like they're fish in a barrel?

if we are gonna talk about radical changes to behaviour, can we sort out the fact that our robot colonists are really just lemmings in disguise, more than happy to run towards a mob of angry gun toting loonies in search of anything shiny??

simple answer: the pacing is solid.

longer more convoluted answer: i think the pacing is more supportive of a longer, less planned out game. as far as i know, thats one of your stated goals, so it seems like you're hitting the right notes.

since every plan takes longer to accomplish, it forces the player to spend less time planning, since they cant guarantee that the map will b the same when they get there or that they wont get delayed a dozen times on their way there. the problem though, as far as i as a player am concerned, is that it makes the progression a real kick in the balls. not difficult, just kinda dull. every small win is a solid victory, an accomplishment, but the time in between those wins drags with stuff that needs to be done. its kinda like being at work tbh. i think this might be an overall issue thats just easier to see now, and im not entirely sure how to fix it.

I would suggest a large increase in the amount of interesting events* though. Basically, if you can put things into the bits in the middle of the day to day running of a colony, then that keeps it feeling like things are happening. of course, then you run into the problem of colonists simply not being able to cope. they dont have any kind of adrenaline, so ramped up conflict has always been kind of an issue, and there isnt enough time in the day for them to achieve everything they could, so we end up expecting them to be as productive as normal people... an they very much arent. of course, fixing that will lead to weird things like construction times being all over the place. so yeah, weee complicated design issues

basically, the really rad things about rimworld are the fights and the interesting things. all the dull stuff needs to exist to make that other stuff stand out, but its still dull, and slowing down the progression of the game is definitely making the good stuff shine, but its also making the dull stuff stick out like a sore thumb.

*interesting events like the thunder storms, not the blight. i dont mean anything rude, but the events we cant do anything about like the blight and the exploding batteries and the solar flare can just exist less. i dont mean get rid of them. variety is the spice of life, but their design is a bit lacking in player agency and they arent particularly interesting when they occur. You need more events that have the players participate in them.  faction wars in your little block of the world where your neutral, or animal migrations, or more random terrifying animal events like the beavers. possibly even events that have players make actual choices like the random events of ftl or crusader kings. things that engage the player basically. Admittedly, if you could make events that engage the player but dont necessarily require the colonists attention you would probably solve your problem

if they break before they get off the map, it tends to delay them leaving. then, when they snap out of it and they are starving, they tend to prioritize eating over imminent death. i guess they sleep on the floor because you're not a good thief if you dont sleep in front of the people you stole from O.o

point is, broken people do shitty things when they recover because of the way they prioritise their needs. tbh it seems about right for the tone of the game(though sleeping in front of your colonists prolly not so much). the real question is why you dont kill them and string their corpse out as a warning to other thieves