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Topics - Vagabond

#1
Ideas / [A14] My thoughts.
July 16, 2016, 11:43:21 PM
Two things.

1) EdBs mods seem to have been mostly integrated, save the pawn editor from "prepare carefully". I think this should be put in game and integrated into the scenario-new game set up. Would make the start of the game more interesting.

2) More tech levels, with each tech level being able to afford appropriate healthcare, weapons/armor/equipment, survival, and happiness.

Humans are incredibly adaptable at all levels of technology throughout human history. Being able to thrive nearly anywhere, with whatever their level of development affords.

More than ever, I believe my suggestion for multiple requirements to a particular technology is needed.

Starting tech level is decided by the scenario, but it isn't just some arbitrary limitation. It simply dictates what kind of backgrounds you have available during pawn creation. It is the pawns, and their backgrounds that determines technology level. What this means, is that if you start out with primitive characters due to a scenario, then you must start from the very bottom of the tech tree.  If you start as with glitterworld pawns, then you start with all previous research researched, but must research glitterworld tech.

Each technology corresponds to a particular tech level, and has skill level requirements. Every tech "recipe" requires:

-Research of X
-Construction or craft of X
-other skill of X

So hydroponics would require research of X, construction of X, and farming of X. While something like mining lasers would require research of x, craft of x, and mining of x. The three colonist involved in unlocking and researching the tech would all have to be of the same or higher technology level of the technology itself. So in the case of hydroponics everyone would have to be at least of Indworld tech level or higher (ie, an indworld farmer, urbworld builder, and glitterworld researcher).

My reasoning behind this is that you need someone to have the idea (the farmer for hydroponics), someone who is capable of understanding the idea and devising a strategy to implement it (the glitterworld researcher for hydroponics), and someone capable of actually building or crafting the object or device from the researcher notes/blueprint/ect. (the urbworld builder for hydroponics).

This makes it sufficiently difficult to advance in technology level while not making it to easy, or just having an arbitrary limitation of advancement.

EDIT: To clarify- when one starts out a low technology level, and acquire pawns from a higher tech level, they don't automatically advance as if they started at that tech level. They must work all the way through the tech tree and the technology levels in order to advanced as opposed to starting as a higher technology level and already having everything before it already known and working up from there.
#2
Ideas / Fog of War & Line of Sight
May 16, 2016, 10:03:40 AM
Hello,

I would like to put forward (again) that we need Fog of War and Line of Sight mechanics. Player controlled characters and npcs should both be equally affected by this system. I believe that this will benefit the game as it will provide a real challenge to gameplay and allowing us to move past the arbitrary system of artificial challenge increase via ever increasing amounts of hostile npcs.

The map will start blacked out and be discovered by pawns as their line of sight passes over it. When they aren't actively looking in a direction it is still visible to the player, but you can't see any activity going on in the area - it being "greyed" out. Terrain features and buildings can still be seen, but entities can't, and any changes to terrain or structures since your pawns last looked at it won't register until they do.

Ideally line of sight will pretty much extend a certain distance based on degree. Best explained with a picture:



Red extends the farthest. Green extends less, and blue extends way less. The reason for this is what I would call "Useful vision" - what you can actually process, react to, ect. Just go outside and look at some point in the horizon - you can USEFULLY see everything in red pretty much as far out as you can see before obstructed by something. You can USEFULLY see everything in green to a distance of about 10 meters. You can USEFULLY see everything in blue to a distance of about two or or three meters. So assuming we consider a tile a meter, a pawn on a tile can see two/three tiles where the blue would be, 10 where the green would be, and as far out until obstructed with the red. Again, for gameplay purposes this would be sufficient to simulate what we can do in real life, as in real life that is about those are about the distances you can actually make use of what you see.

The perks of such a system should be quite apparent. It would make simple things like finding materials actually something more than just scanning around the map in pause. It would make hunting actually hunting instead of magically knowing where the herds are. Bandits would have to search you out, and you wouldn't know when or where they landed - we wouldn't have to have as many enemies flooding the map. The bandits could actually do stuff without us knowing, which would provide all sorts of opportunities for them to eff us over - setting crops on fire, sapping our walls, blowing up solar panels or wind turbines, sneaking into our storage and stealing stuff.

We could have interesting characters come into our colonies. Consider a wanderer who asks to join our colony and after a time we suddenly lose his vision cone and he no longer shows up on any of our info tabs. Then your colonists start coming up missing. The guy is a psychopath and now he's murdering your colonists. In this system, there would be flanking bonuses, there could be executions if you can manage to sneak up on someone and put a bullet in their back of their head or a knife in their back.

Injuries to the eyes would mean more than just loss of accuracy. A colonist who just lost an eye also just lost part of his vision cone.

Watch towers could have a bill that allows citizens with certain weapons to go and keep a look out. Scoped weapons and binoculars could extend vision.

Cameras could be a thing, so when you have a pawn monitoring them remotely you will have vision in those locations. Prison Architect has a lot of really good, fleshed out systems that could be utilized in Rimworld to give REAL challenge, not the arbitrary difficulty curve we have now.

Cheers,
Michael
#3
Ideas / Lore
February 29, 2016, 02:23:10 PM
So. . .

The lore. We have a primer. In essence it has three main points:

1)There is no fast way around space - it's takes forever
2)There are no sapient alien species
3)Humanity has spread but there is no rhyme or reason to this, no structure, so each settled planet rolls a D20 to see if it regresses or advances in technology.

Now, I've been designing game systems and worlds since I was little, having two D&D nerds for parents. I know this differs from video game design, but I think it shares enough parallels to validate the point I'm going to try and make.

Setting must come before mechanics. Without a fleshed out setting that works, your mechanics are going to be convoluted and ill suited to your world. If you use stock D&D magic, but your magic users draw the power from living things in lore, then that magic system isn't going to make sense.

If you say there is no FTL/Warp/Hyperspace then every ship that launches out of your solar system is basically a one way trip. You don't know what their destination is going to be like when they get there, or even if they survived that trip.

If you say there are no sapient species, then that kinda flies in the face of secular wisdom that states that is highly improbable given how many planets can support life as we know it. That isn't counting for the possibility of sapient life that isn't how we know it.

If you say that humans regress more than they progress once they leave their space travel capable society, then you run into a whole slew of other issues when you don't account for technologies present and the viability of life at all levels of human technology. It is further complicated when you have a bunch of people of all different technology levels sharing a ship and then a planet. How would that work? How did they end up on the same ship and planet without the lesser technologically advanced being slaves? I find it difficult to imagine some glitterworld dudes stopping off at some planet full of primitives and convincing them to hop aboard. Then we have the elephant in the room: Language. If people have changed so much on all these planets, how can we logically assume they all speak the same language still? Even people who left a glitterworld 1000 years ago and retained their technology level, they would probably have seen their language change enough to make communication a pain in the butt.

Then we have this amazing amount of space traffic. . . Populations that are nigh infinite that care nothing for their losses. Humans living on planets so close to the sun that their spacecraft would melt in orbit. Zero personal hygiene, no need to bathe, and apparently get enough water to survive by eating potatoes which are incredibly starchy...

We got folks going one place, but just happen to flyby a life sustaining planet when their ship messes up and they end up on the planet. Then they want to leave. They want to build a space ship. They build a spaceship with a couple of cavemen, some medieval dudes, some dudes who were trying to kill you and take all you own a couple days ago, and a transgender jeweler.

Maybe I'm alone in these inconsistencies irking me - could very well be because of my passion for world building. Just figured this would be a much more reasonable request than some of my other more difficult to implement suggestions.
#4
Mods / [Help] Mod Packs
February 25, 2016, 04:00:30 PM
Hello,

So, I've got HardcoreSk installed currently. The Mod Variety Pack looks cool and I wanted to try it out, but I don't want to mess up my install of HardcoreSk. Is there any way to have multiple modded installations?

Thanks,
Michael
#5
Ideas / [Feature Change] Traits
February 15, 2016, 02:00:48 PM
Hello,

With the upcoming alterations to relationships in Alpha 13 I find myself thinking of a way to provide a "relationship web" type of thing to aid in determining how colonists decide if they like each other or not. Skimming through my old suggestions I found that I already had the idea before. I want to put it forward for people to see again.

Traits

Traits are used to define the personality of each character and how they interact with one another. There are four categories of traits: Physical, Mental, Social, and Interests; each character has one of each. Certain traits are incompatible with other traits or backgrounds. Each trait has at least one trait it reacts positively to, at least one trait it reacts negatively to, and at least one trait it reacts neutrally to. A trait need not react the same way another trait reacts to it. Traits can affect relationship levels through proximity, proximity during work, proximity during free time, and conversations.

Physical
-Traits that affect a colonist's muscular strength, finesse, and physical resilience. Affects relationships through proximity.

Example: Body Builder- Physical fitness is like religion to [Character Name], [he/she] spends an hour a day doing a  grueling workout. (Ignoring work, [he/she] works out for an hour, but can haul twice as much as other colonists and deals extra damage in melee combat; receives a negative moodlet if prevented from [his/her] workout)

Social
-Traits that determine a colonist's presence, charisma, and composure. Affects relationships through conversations.

Example: Pacifist Convert- An enlightening moment of self reflection made [Character's Name] decide to lay down his arms and take up rhetoric ((Ranged + melee)/2 added to social. Social made available if otherwise disabled, and ranged and melee made unavailable.)

Mental
-Traits that affect a colonist's ability to process information, responsiveness to things perceived, and mental fortitude. Affects relationships through proximity during work and conversation.

Example: Genius Recluse- [Character Name] is a genius in [his/her] field, but is anti-social. ([Character Name] receives a work speed modifier and x amount of skill points in either researching, medicine, art, or crafting; whichever is highest.)

Interests
-Traits that determine what colonists particularly enjoy or dislike in regards to activities or even foods; things that aren't related to experience based skills. Affects relationships through proximity during free time and conversation.

Example: Video Gamer- [Character Name] love playing video games, and would do only that if [he/she] could, as such, "easy" food has always been a must. ( Will spend every minute he has to spare playing video games, negative moodlet if he doesn't have access to games; [he/she] treats lavish meals as simple, and simple meals as lavish)

Colonist have one trait from each category as a way to help flesh out their personalities. Colonists will like or dislike each other based on their traits. Compatible traits will yield positive relationship gain, incompatible traits will yield negative relationship gain, and of course some traits don't have any impact on each other.

As examples:

The body builder trait would react badly to a "Couchpotatoe"  trait.
but positively to a "Yoga Girl" trait.
and neutrally to a "Survivalist" trait.

The Pacifist Convert would react badly to a "warmonger" trait.
but positively to a "Zen Gardener" trait.
and neutrally to a "Lawmaker" trait.

The Genius Recluse would react badly to a "Resident Gossiper" trait.
but positively to a "Talented Writer" trait.
and neutrally to a "Inquisitive Mute" trait.

The Video Gamer would react badly to a "Sarkeesian Follower" trait. >.>;
but positively to a "Game Developer" trait.
and neutrally to a "Discordant Blogger (A.k.a Troll)"

As an addendum, I think the examples I provided show how we can make traits that add interesting elements to game play.

Cheers,
Michael
#6
Hello,

So, this suggestion is a rework of how researching is handled. I'll call it a passive research system.

Research to be renamed to Devising.

Technologies require you to have (a) pawn(s) with a requisite skill level in one or more skills. Through interaction, the technology is made available to "Devise".

Example:

Colonist A has a construction skill of 10. Colonist B has a crafting skill of 5. They talk and come up with the improvised turret technology. The technology becomes available to devise. You select it and Colonist C, who has a Devise skill of 13, goes to his drafting table to work out how it will work. Throughout the devising process he will go talk to colonist A and B - these talks cause the work timer to progress (as well as when he is on the drafting table).

Improvised Turret requires 9 construction skill, crafting skill of 5, and a devise skill of 10. It has a work time of 1000.

Now, the actual turret also has a requirement for construction. To make it better, perhaps a crafter has to make the gun which would require X amount of skill, and the constructor would need x amount of skill to put it all together.

Hope that makes sense. . .

Cheers,
Michael

Edit: When you unlock a tech it stays unlocked even if for some reason you no longer have colonist whom meet the requirements. Though you still need someone capable of building or making something you've researched.
#7
Ideas / [Feature Change] Incapable of. . .
February 15, 2016, 02:06:30 AM
Hello,

I propose we differentiate a character's refusal to do certain tasks and character's dislike of certain tasks for backgrounds.

Incapable of: The character, for whatever reason, refuses to do a certain kind of work.

Dislikes: The character is capable of doing the task, but receives a penalty to mood, work speed, and skill gain for that task.

Examples:

Character A has pyrophobia, they are incapable of firefighting.

Character B is a snobby yuppie, they dislike manual labor.

Character C has severe asthma, they are incapable of pretty much anything where they move.

Character D has aspergers, they "dislike" caring and social.

Cheers,
Michael
#8
Mods / [Mod Request] Backgrounds
February 15, 2016, 01:13:29 AM
Can someone either

A) Make a mod that goes through and makes all vanilla backstories gender neutral and nameless, built off a "point buy" system to make them balanced, and update them to reflect the current feature list (ie: animals).

or

B) Point me in the direction to do this. If it's as simple as Mipen's Backstories mod, I can do it without a problem.

Cheers,
Michael
#9
Ideas / Backgrounds.
February 11, 2016, 07:06:08 PM
Hello,

I know backgrounds might be a touchy subject, considering they were part of the rewards system...

I just think that it'd be better if they were all made ambiguous so they can work for both males and females of any name.

That's all,
Michael.
#10
Ideas / [Feature Change] Living Arrangements
October 14, 2015, 04:34:36 PM
Hello,

So, in my experience the best bet for any colony irregardless of tech progress, or days in, is to bunk your colonists in a barracks type situation. This is due to time, resources, and size requirements of building separate bedrooms. My suggestion covers how I think both the barracks approach and bedroom approach could co-exist.

QuoteWhat I suggest is to remove living arrangements from the rest of the room size systems.

Barracks Zone: No longer gives the "Sharing Room" debuff to colonists. The "Disturbed Sleep" debuff is the main concern in this living arrangement. Visitors will never go into a Barracks Zone

Bedroom Zone: The bedroom zone designates an area as a colonist's personal space. Walls can't be designated, but doors can, allowing multi-room apartments. Colonists will not go into a bedroom zone that isn't theirs, unless it is to construct, repair, haul, or clean. Visitors will never go into a bedroom Zone.

Room size mood modifier:
4-8 tiles: +0
9-15 tiles: +1
16-24 tiles: +2
25-35 tiles: +3
36+ tiles: +4

The mood bonus increases by +1 for each piece of furniture, while beauty is calculated separately.

QuoteException "Greedy" Trait

Trait specific modifiers for barracks living and room size.

Barracks Zone: Sharing Room Debuff (-4, -40% Global Work Speed)
4-8 tiles: -3, -30% Global Work Speed
9-15 tiles: -2, -20% Global Work Speed
16-24 tiles: -1, -10% Global Work Speed
25-35 tiles: 0
36-48 tiles: +1, +10% Global Work Speed
49-63 tiles: +2, +20% Global Work Speed
64-81 tiles: +3, +30% Global Work Speed
82-100 tiles: +4, +40% Global Work Speed

The mood bonus increases by +1 for each piece of furniture, while beauty is calculated separately.

QuoteException "Ascetic" Trait

Trait specific modifiers for barracks living and room size.

Barracks Zone: Sharing Room buff (+4, +40% Global Work Speed)
4-8 tiles: +3, +30% Global Work Speed
9-15 tiles: +2, +20% Global Work Speed
16-24 tiles: +1, +10% Global Work Speed
25-35 tiles: 0
36-48 tiles: -1, -10% Global Work Speed
49-63 tiles: -2, -20% Global Work Speed
64-81 tiles: -3, -30% Global Work Speed
82-100 tiles: -4, -40% Global Work Speed

The mood bonus increases by +1 for each piece of furniture, while beauty is calculated separately.

QuoteA related, but misc. idea: Hospital Zone

The perks of a hospital being no disturbed sleep debuff or sharing room debuff, to prevent possible exploitation, a hospital zone will automatically switch beds to medical beds.

Cheers,
Michael
#11
Mods / [Mod Request] Fallout [Solved]
October 13, 2015, 01:58:07 PM
Hello,

So. Mods have given us Norbals, Jaffa (from Stargate), among other things. One thing that seems to be missing that I always thought would pop up: Fallout inspired gear, factions, backgrounds, ect.

Just figured I'd throw it out there. Imagine a pack of Deathclaws showing up on your doorstep...

Cheers,
Michael
#12
Ideas / Gear
October 13, 2015, 01:45:23 PM
Hello,

My suggestion:

Make gear less complicated. You'll have five basic clothing slots: Hat/Helmet, shirt, pants, gloves, and boots. Two accessory slots for items such as a coat, cloak, scarf, ring, or necklace. One body armor slot that may or may not remove other items to equip- so long as the armor is in this slot it's equipped. If it's a armor that unequips other items, you'll have to put the armor away to reequip them.

All gear has a "Work Time", or "Equip Time" to put on. Some are faster than others.

A primary weapon slot and secondary weapon slot. The primary weapon slot would be for a two handed weapon or tool, the secondary weapon slot could be for a one handed weapon or tool. A secondary could be equipped in the primary, but a primary can't be equipped in the secondary.

Switching between your primary and secondary has a "Work Time", or "Equip Time" based on the weapons/tools you're switching to/from.

Tools!

Making tools part of progression. We'll have two types of tools: Tools that are required to do a job, and tools that improve job performance.

Performance improving tools are tied to jobs in which there is a workbench, thus assuming that all basic items are already present there. Consider these specialty tools that simply give the user an edge in production. These aren't suitable for melee combat and are instead made as tool belts, or kept in the character's inventory.

Tools that are required to do a job are tied to tasks in which there is no workbench. These make good melee weapons.

Logging:
- Lumber Axe/GMA (Gyroscopic Mass Accelerator) Axe that uses magnetic fields, gyroscopes, and other stuff to keep balance and generate extra force.
- Chainsaw
- Vibrocutter, a serrated glaive like tool that vibrates at ultra sonic speeds to shear through material, the length of the shaft aids landscapers in pruning trees, while the blade can easily fell a tree outright.

Mining:
- Pickaxe/GMA Shovelpick (mix between this and this)
- Pneumatic Pick, think jackhammer held like a minigun and battery powered.
- Plasma Cutter, a self contained unit like the Pneumatic Pick, but projects a foot long "blade" of plasma modulated with a magnetic field.

Construction:
- Multi-tool/Vibro Multi-tool like this but bigger
- Fubar/GMA Fubar like this

Farming/Plant Cutting:
-Sickle/Vibrosickle
-Scythe/Vibroscythe

I think thats it...

Cheers!
Michael
#13
Off-Topic / Make a Wish
March 19, 2015, 01:57:09 AM
If you could commission a game to be made, what would it be like?

Dwarf Fortress with Gnomoria's physical scale, a 3d environment/camera control/animation like A Game of Dwarves, and a gritty-realistic art style akin to warhammer fantasy battles.

Just 'cause it popped into my head just now:

I'd really like to see Rimworld with characters and animations like in Doorkicker's (slightly larger scale graphics to support the added detail); It would be nice to have Z levels as well.

Cheers,
Michael
#14
General Discussion / So... Tynan; Emergence?
March 19, 2015, 12:16:59 AM
Tynan,

I understand you're a very busy man, so don't feel obligated to respond if you don't have time to sort through my dribble.

Basically, I want to probe your brain for information regarding emergent gameplay; Emergent AI to be specific.

A game from one of my favorite series is being developed at the moment by GolemLabs called The Guild 3. They've written some interesting articles on their form of Emergent AI, called "Evolutive Human Emulator", or EHE. Just for reference, here are the links to them:

Here,
Here,
and here.

I know you attribute your AI Storytellers to Left 4 Dead's AI Director. Apparently Everquest Next is working in colaboration with Storybricks, using their Emergent AI engine.

Is the emergent AI the future of AI. Will it come to a point where it is simply the new standard for "the computer"? Especially given the fact it adds so much to the feel of narrative, newtonian law, and emotion.

I know there is much more to it than is covered by those articles, but what I'm really interested in is exactly how different (on the programming level) is an emergent AI from one that isn't emergent, within the realm of game engines.

Cheers,
Michael
#15
Ideas / Expanded Traits
March 02, 2015, 07:14:02 PM
Hello,

So, today my suggestion is to expand traits. This is not a request to simply have more, but a request to group them and have them act in a more complex manner. I propose that traits be broken up into the following groups:

Physical
-Traits that affect a colonist's muscular strength, finesse, and physical resilience.

Example: Body Builder- Physical fitness is like religion to [Character Name], [he/she] spends an hour a day doing a  gruelling workout. (Ignoring work, [he/she] works out for an hour, but can haul twice as much as other colonists and deals extra damage in melee combat; recieves a negative moodlet if prevented from [his/her] workout)

Social
-Traits that determine a colonist's presence, charisma, and composure.

Example: Pacifist Convert- An enlightening moment of self reflection made [Character's Name] decide to lay down his arms and take up rhetoric ((Ranged + melee)/2 added to social. Social made available if otherwise disabled, and ranged and melee made unavailable.)

Mental
-Traits that affect a colonist's ability to process information, responsiveness to things percieved, and mental fortitude.

Example: Genius Recluse- [Character Name] is a genius in [his/her] field, but is anti-social. ([Character Name] recieves a work speed modifier and x amount of skill points in either researching, medicine, art, or crafting; whichever is highest.)

Interests
-Traits that determine what colonists particularly enjoy or dislike in regards to activities or even foods; things that aren't related to experience based skills.

Example: Video Gamer- [Character Name] love playing video games, and would do only that if [he/she] could, as such, "easy" food has always been a must. ( Will spend every minute he has to spare playing video games, negative moodlet if he doesn't have access to games; [he/she] treats lavish meals as simple, and simple meals as lavish)

Colonist have one trait from each category as a way to help flesh out their personalities. Colonists will like or dislike each other based on their traits. Compatable traits will yield positive relationship gain, uncompatable traits will yield negative relationship gain, and of course some traits don't have any impact on each other.

As examples:

The body builder trait would react badly to a "Couchpotatoe"  trait.
but positively to a "Yoga Girl" trait.
and neutrally to a "Survivalist" trait.

The Pacifist Convert would react badly to a "warmonger" trait.
but positively to a "Zen Gardener" trait.
and neutrally to a "Lawmaker" trait.

The Genius Recluse would react badly to a "Resident Gossiper" trait.
but positively to a "Talented Writer" trait.
and neutrally to a "Inquisitive Mute" trait.

The Video Gamer would react badly to a "Sarkeesian Follower" trait. >.>;
but positively to a "Game Developer" trait.
and neutrally to a "Discordant Blogger (A.k.a Troll)"

Whelp...There it is. Hope it wasn't too much of a wall.

Cheers,
Michael
#16
Ideas / Self Preservation and Food
February 23, 2015, 03:57:51 PM
Hello,

I think that just like colonist ensure they get to bed and eat, they should also ensure they do not face weather conditions they are not equipped for. This could either be something they do themselves i.e if it is cold enough outside that they would get hypothermia due to unavailable warm clothes, they should opt to stay indoors where it is warm. Or it could be something we micro by being able to decide who can pass through which doors i.e It's cold as heck outside and you've got two colonists dressed warm and the other with hot-skinned and regular clothes so you remove all the other colonist from the pass list on the main entrance to your colony.

In regards to food, I think that while MREs should have good nutritional value, such a spread isn't really appealing. Colonist should always choose cooked meals before the MREs. Either that, or allows us to designate things as haulable, but not usable. Where as right now you can either make something as accepting tasks or not accepting tasks.

Cheers,
Michael
#17
General Discussion / Valve and Steam
February 22, 2015, 07:56:52 PM
Tynan (or someone else qualified to answer this),

Has something like this: http://stonehearth.net/faq/ been considered?

Basically, you buy the game through humble on their website, and it nets you a steam key. You just can't buy it directly from steam. I'm assuming it's so people don't just grab it and then bitch about it not being done.

Getting a steam key is attractive. Steam also allows for easy updating and easier access to all the news to all your games.

It might sway more people to buy. It is what innitially kept me from getting it... It just started to look too cool to pass, and the development was really active.

Cheers,
Michael
#18
Mods / Traders
February 22, 2015, 07:17:11 PM
Hello,

I play with just Epyk Mod Pack. Before that it was Tech Tree Minami w/ EdB mods.

I'm not sure if it is vanilla behavior or modded behavior, but traders bum rush my base and ruin my zones with the trade zones they set up.

Anyone know what mod this is caused by, or if it is vanilla?

Cheers,
Michael
#19
Ideas / Simulated Populations and Raids.
February 22, 2015, 03:15:23 PM
Hello,

Given that we now have a world generation that not only allows choice of where your colonist settle, but also where all npc factions are settled, I propose the simulation of populations for NPC factions.

By simulating the state of NPC factions, there can be a finite amount of NPCs on world. This would allow for many interesting game mechanics to be introduce. Before I continue, I would also like to point out (for those whom are unaware) that there is no faster than light travel, and the game takes place on a planet on the outer rim of the galaxy. Offworld reinforcement and supply isn't the norm.

With NPC factions simulated it would open the doors to being able to raid -them-. Being able to open the world map in game, and after researching some form of transportation for long distance travel, we would be able to take the fight to the enemy (or become raiders ourselves).

This would also force factions to decide whether or not the possibility of losing their raid team is worth it by judging the projected size of your force and it's composition.

In the same line, it would open up the possibility for 'missions'. Off map actions that you can send a colonist on in order to secure some benefit, at the cost of losing a working member of your colony, and a resource cost (food/transportation/ect.). Scouting another faction could be one of those actions that would give you the basic state of an NPC faction.

I've stated many times that children and an abstract timescale where a single day represents three months would be benificial for immersion's sake. This becomes all the more true with finite populations, the actual time it takes to do the tasks colonists do in game, and recognizing there is no FTL travel. NPC factions' main way of replenishing their forces would be through time and childbirth. By having the suggested abstract timescale, it would take three game "days" for a pregnant colonist to give birth, and between sixty to ninety game "days" for them to become breeding adults.

I feel challenges should be more than just more and more raiders comming to get you. I remember a suggestion I made a long time ago about a Dragon Riders of Pern style corrupting plant. Starship trooper style bugs, Tremors style worms, or even some sort of dog-like war beast that humans breed to bolster forces. Animals life cycles are faster and would be a cool way to bolster that six man raiding party that is comming after you. Enemies factions shouldn't send what essentially boils down to non combatants on raiding parties. If they only sent people whom were good fighters, their raiding parties could be smaller. With the introduction of children and complex relationships, colony layouts would have to adapt to colonist demand and "kill boxes" wouldn't really be viable due to the size of the colony. This would increase the effectiveness of raiders because they aren't just being funneled to their death; another immersion breaking thing.

Thank you for reading.

Cheers,
Michael

#20
General Discussion / Depth
February 21, 2015, 12:13:15 AM
Hello,

I was curious if there is any indication of whether or not "depth" is something that is planned? As in... Moving up and down the Z axis so colonies can have multiple structural levels?

Cheers,
Michael