Messages

Hello,

Really fun mod. I just have a couple questions regarding some of the tools:

1) There is a Hammer, Hand axe, and Pick axe. They only do one damage; do they improve any skills while equipped?

2) Is there a plan to make them craftable from other materials, and viable for combat use?

3) There used to be Pneumatic Picks which seemed like something ripped from Red Faction. Were those from a mod that wasn't included? Futuristic, high impact tools would be cool for both improving gathering, as well as melee; anything that crushes a building, rock, or tree should be good enough for combat.

I think it'd be cool if they could be used as weapons, to add more variety to the selection of melee weapons; bad ass miners with hard hats and pick axes and all.

cheers,
Michael

I paid the $30 for access now. I have more than received $30 worth of value. I am glad I am NOT burdened with steam for this game.  I only bought the game 1 month ago, so possibly no steam key, did not affect my decision. When rim world gets released on steam, I will have a choice to make, all depending on if I still want to play this game then, can I still get access to updates via ludeon studios, or do I pay steam for the inconvenience of their delivery system. 

All comes down to what is rim world worth to you? $30 is a drop in the bucket for a game. I have spent $50 on games that I did not receive the enjoyment I have from rimworld.

Steam does not enter in to my decision on purchasing a game.

Luckily I opt into every kickstarted and early access (even non steam) game at their lowest price point. I've had people offer me 40-50 bucks for my rimworld key because it will net them a steam key down the road, and cost less than buying into both early access and steam integration.

I'm not sure what everyone's squabble is with steam that it could be a "burden". . .It has never given me an issue before. I get triple A titles that aren't worth the thirty bucks Rimworld is, for a quarter of their price. I back every game I come across that seems like it could be even remotely good, so that I get a steam key down the road. Steam loads fast. Updates well. Has options for games like Rimworld to maintain multiple versions.

My one wish for steam is that they buy out nexusmods, replace the workshop with nexusmods, and hire on the developers of it to maintain it. Then I can have all my gaming stuff in one easy to use client.

Thinking about it... That isn't my only wish. My other one on the subject is that other companies would abandon their DRM clients and just use steam's...because all the knock offs are horrible and keep me from buying their games.

I might be the only person in the world who hates the Half-Life series and thinks it is hyped...So feel free to ignore my blasphemous ramblings.

As a side note, I judge whether a game has been worth it's cost by multiplying the cost of the game by five. If I put at least that many hours into the game, it has been worth it. For example: At 2078 hours into mount and blade: warband, It has more then been worth it since I bought it day one. I bought Civ V (and all dlc) for 30 something bucks when it was on sale and have only put 85 hours in because mods aren't usable in multiplayer without shady tweaks. That game still hasn't payed off...Just noticed they have released two more 5 dollar dlc since I bought the game...they could have spent that time allowing modded multiplayer. Jerk faces.

No idea what happend up there ^

My new pain meds seem to be effective...

Cheers,
Michael

Hello,

I'm curious if sales have increased, decreased, or remained steady since it was announced that steam keys would no longer come with purchase of the game. Especially with it being stated that it will release on steam, and more than likely it will be integrated with steam features, since they are so popular. Does it affect sales with people knowing that they buy in at thirty dollars for early access, but down the road they will have to buy in at thirty dollars (if price remains the same) for steam integration? Will people think that is unfair? Does it matter what they think? Will they buy it anyways even though they do? Would sales increase, decrease, or remain steady if released on steam?

Not that it applies to me, due to the date.

Cheers,
Michael

Hrm... My ideas on this!

I would like to see the "Gear" tab altered to a more RPG look, with slots.

Head: Helmets/Hats
Shoulders: Cloaks/Shoulder pads; specifically shoulder mounted items.
Arms: Bracers
Hands: Gloves
Chest: Breast Plate
Legs: Greaves
Feet: Boots

Ranged Weapon Slot: Gun/Bow
Melee Weapon Slot: Pneumatic Pick/Sword
Shield Slot: Bubble Shield/Riot Shield/PLEADS
Accessory Slot?: Toolbelt?

Weapons are categorized as either one handed or two handed, and light or heavy. A heavy ranged weapon would be things like rpgs, bazookas, and miniguns; they are the only weapons where they can't be equipped with a melee weapon, and keep current weapon behavior.  A gun and a melee weapon can be equipped at the same time.
-One handed gun, one handed melee: can be used at the same time (space marine style)
-one handed gun, two handed melee: when engaged in melee, the gun will be holstered and the melee weapon drawn
-Two handed gun, one handed melee: When engaged in melee, the gun is holstered and the melee weapon drawn
-two handed gun, two handed melee: when engaged in mele, the gun is dropped and the melee weapon drawn.


In regards to clothing and armor, they can take up more than one slot, but can also be overlapped. As an example: A jumpsuit would cover everything except the head, hands, and shoulder, but you could wear power armor over it.

Two types of shields:

-Conventional shields are like riot shields, kite shields, and gungan-style energy shields. Conventional shields act as mobile cover with a chance to turn a hit into a miss depending on the size of the shield. Each shield could have a damage threshold that would allow things like high powered rifles to nullify the m

-Then there is the "bubble" shield. These shields work on a 'charge', meaning that each hit removes a charge that regenerates over time. It would be based off kinetic force, as in, it requires a certain amount of force to be applied to the shield in order for it to block entry/exit. Melee attacks and primitive ranged weapons could pass both ways through the shield.

-A final type of shield could be a "PLEADS", Personal Laser Energy Advanced Defence System. I named it myself! It is based on the Navy's LaWS. Basically, this is like a body mounted laser that tracks incomming projectiles and shoots a laser at it, either cancelling out another form of energy or vaporizing a conventional projectile. This would require a battery, that once depleted would have to be recharged or simply a new put in.

I also like the idea of a way to gauge each pawns strength to determine how much they can carry/their inventory space and an encumberance system with all items having weight. . .

I've found combat AI quite interesting myself. I've often tossed around the idea ammunition. Instead of specific ammunition types, why not have just four types?

Projectiles: Arrows, Bolts, *javelins, ect.

*In the case of hand thrown weapons, the last one is always kept so they can melee with it if needs arise. But you can order them to "reload" if you'd prefer them to continue throwing.

Light Rounds: Basicially any conventional pistol, rifle, carbine, shotgun, browning turret.

Energy Rounds: Used for energy weapon systems

Heavy Rounds: Ammo for rocket launchers, grenade launchers, and things like mortar turrets.

You would craft these, and they'd have large stacks. You could stock them in resupply caches near engagement zones. Enemies will have these same restrictions; if they come to your base to siege, they will bring extra ammo cans with them, it would take a certain amount of time for them to get more based on how far their base is. If they come to "raid", they leave when they all run out of ammo, but will resupply using your stock if they can safely path to it.

I also think that tactical orders, similar to Dragon Age: Origins would be interesting. Being able to sell your colonist with the sniper rifle to target the farthest enemy (who is most likely a sniper themselves) would be nice. As well as having your guy with the minigun target "groups" of enemies of three or more. Your dudes with pistols could be told to attack the closest enemies.

I think cover should be way more powerful. The chance to hit someone peeking around a corner should be very high. At the same time, weapons should be way more accurate. The first time my dad took me to a shooting range (first time using a gun; he's military so he felt it important I learned) I hit the target seven out of ten times. Four of the shots were kill shots. My brother (20) and I put bows into my seven year old son's and ten year brother's hands and had them shoot. By the end of the day, they were hitting the target reliably at ten yards. I won't get into bullseyes with them, because a lot of their 'hits' didn't penetrate the target (due to their strength, and the practice points).

A target standing still, or moving towards you can be reliably hit by even people new at shooting. Though I understand the difficulty of hitting laterally moving targets. A year later, my son took a fat rabbit down at about nine yards as it fled. With a bow. Good soup.

So...there we are. I think cover should mean a lot more. Increased accuracy against open targets. Make it so characters won't fire at an enemy if a friendly is between them and the enemy. Tactical options would be nice too.

There could be tactical presets based on weapon for AI controlled pawns. . .

I could see like...firing 'cones' when you select a pawn or object that fires. The length and width of the cone would show you where and how far they could fire. They could interact with objects so that the cone's path will "break" when it hits a solid object. In the same situation of a combative unit/object being selected, any enemy units can have a specific highlight color.

Ie: a green to red spectrum in which the brighter the green, the easier they are to hit. Then you'd have yellows/oranges and then finally reds which would be the lowest chance of hitting.

These points from my last post are ones I do stand behind:
-Cover should make it incredibly hard to be hit; obviously influenced by how 'good' the cover is.
-Pawns should elect to fire at another enemy if there is an ally in the line of fire; or not shoot at all.
-Enemies moving towards a pawn should be easier to hit
-pawns moving laterally, in relation to an attacking enemy, should be harder to hit.
-Generally improving the accuracy of attacks against pawns not in cover.

Cheers,
Michael

Hello,

To start, I would like to say I agree with better simulated physics in regards to mining.

In the same vein of digging/mining... Think the materials to mine and from mining should be discussed.

Steel is an alloy of iron and carbon.

Plasteel? From Harlan Ellison to Frank Herbert to finally George Lucas.... It's basically a composite of steel and some form of plastic. In real life it is specifically finberglass and steel.

And why is uranium so loosely regulated in game? Gold/silver's use in crafting?

With that in mind... Why not have...

Eh.

Cheers,
Michael

Oddly enough I was thinking this morning about posting a similar thread. When Tynan talked about changing the behavior of raiders, so they would avoid killboxes and in general learn to siege and assault a fortress better, it seemed to me a good problem to evolve offline with a genetic algorithm. Set up a fortress, some regular colonist AI well armed. As a fitness function simulate populations of chromosomes that represent different orderings and configurations of a behavior tree (if you are actually using one) and the weights of utility functions (again, assumptions). High scores for those configurations that damage side walls, inner buildings, kill most people, stay alive longer, etc. After some (likely plenty) generations, could end up evolving very interesting stuff.

A classic example of that was in the first AI Game Programming Wisdom book (the "Evolving the Perfect Troll" article). I'm mostly interested in those kinds of crossovers of academia and fun, so I don't know how useful they would be for an accomplished game programmer. However, those kinds of tunings of offline parameters and AI configurations would seem very likely to benefit from that category of machine learning methods.

On a personal note, I was waiting for some great Dwarf Fortress-like game to appear and this is the best by far. The other concept I regret the industry didn't evolve was that old mid nineties "Creatures" game.

I agree. As a student working on my bachelor's, I kind of have this notion of "I wan't to be the one to do it". Realistically, I know I'm no where near the ability of industry veterans. Failure is inevitable, but the ride could be worth it. If everyone just throws up their hands and goes "It's never gonna work"... Well.

The addition of mental states, hunger, and weather... This game is already emergent. Tynan defines it much the same way as Peter Molyneux, technopedia, Warren Spector, Richard Garriot, and others. It is simply adding more and more layers of complexity , wherein the character stops being pre scripted to do actions, and instead does them for reasons involving their state of being (Not that they are some advanced form of AI-Skynet..  ).

Take a look at... Oh.. Skyrim. Good rpg, but in comparison with Rimworld, all those characters are so lifeless. They don't have routines (that aren't prescripted, go here at this time, unless there is this weather condition, in which case go here and do this). They don't have needs, nor desires, nor a model for health. Imagine if they did, though?

The emergent narrative, or storyteller/director is a product of these variables. When the game determines what to do based on the state of the actors; the players progress and the current state of psychosocial behaviors occuring at various intervals of time... Well... This is emergence. The intentional emergence that comes from complexity, not from glitches in programming; not the emergence that comes from exploit or flawed design.

One of the things I'm eager to see is an expansion of the backgrounds and traits to include more in depth personality modifiers. I touched on this somewhat in my "Expanded Traits" suggestion thread. In this, relationships could evolve between colonists, with (I think) amazing results. The storyteller could use these relationships to good use, such as by inflicting a colonist with a heart attack the moment a conversation pops two colonist from best friend to a couple. She has a mental break, and he's on the ground floundering. Save him in time and alls well. If not, he dies, and she loses someone very dear to her.

The storyteller could send someone to join your colony that will obviously not mesh well. Or maybe someone who will? Maybe the guy then send you is a complete and total prick, but if traits can be changed over time, depending on outside influence, that guy could eventually be an integral part of the colony.

As to the personal note: The Creatures series is one of my favorites. Steve Grand is currently developing "Grandroids" which seems to be the evolution of Creatures you might might be interested in- I've been following; Check these out:

Kickstarter
Steve Grand's Blog

Cheers,
Michael

Vagabond is wondering if Tynan is tapping into deeper AI ideas or leaving it to a simpler random roll type functionality in determining outcomes for situations in RimWorld not just for 'events' randomly (or predictably) generated by the storytellers but also for the individual colonists actions and responses.

Exactly this.

The difference between even Rimworld's colonists and NPCs in just about any rpg is vast simply because there is an emotional state based off of world variables. Then you have Steve Grand's Creatures/Grandroids and Rimworld's colonist; another big leap between them with Grand's creatures being things with evolving ability to understand as they age, ability to learn new things, and ability to start or stop doing things they have/haven't learned.

I suppose the "proper" term would be VI rather than AI. Considering the way they are defined, with AI being self aware, I don't want anyone to think I'm under the impression that any of these games are somehow having a magical digital human in their processor. I'm not delusional, I'm just facinated with the intricacies of virtual intelligences. I understand that it is all programmed behaviours, but the method in which the computer determines what happens next is vastly different than games which don't elect to program their game in this way.

Once you begin to code emotional states, personalities, and genetics, they cease being simple moving stat blocks with specific lists of actions to be done at certain times based on priority of task, and become emergent virtual intellegences.

Take a colonist who has firefighting disabled. Wouldn't it be so much cooler if it wasn't simply disabled, but something that simply scared them; they would see the fire and become unable to function normally, given the urgency of the situation of a buildign being on fire, they could attempt to put it out given a normally high level of bravery, but their resolve would flounder as they went closer to the fire, till they began to cry or feint from anxiety. What if they were somewhere where fires occured often, is there a way for the colonist to get over this fear?

It is far more evolved than say an npc in Skyrim. They are just... there. They have a specific list of conversation topics, a specific list of places to path to and when, and no real personality or emotion. This is the standard "AI" I was talking about, versus the more complex one.

I don't know... I just wanted to see what an active developer thought about it.

Cheers,
Michael

Hey!

Something my mom put on the TV at my folk's yearly St. Patty's Day party where we drank copious amounts of Guinness and Jameson.

The uproar this caused...I'm just glad I wasn't the only one to snort up alcohol out of my nose.

Enjoy,
Michael

P.S: For those who've seen this, don't shoot me. With as much as I'm online, I'm pretty much out of the loop on anything not relating to the games I play.

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

[Suggested:]

Suggested:
Anno 1404 (Dawn of Discovery in America)
Craft the World
Startopia
Stonehearth
Rues
Tropico 3/4
War for the Overworld
Clockwork Empires
Timber and Stone

Others:
Total War: Shogun 2
Eador: Masters of the Broken World
Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes
King Arthur: The Roleplaying Wargame (1 and 2)
Omerta: City of Gangsters
Star Wars: Empires at War
Jagged Alliance: Back in Action
Maurader
Men of War: Assault Squad 1/2
Earth 2150
Homeworld Remastered Collection
Massive Chalice
Age of Wonders III

Worth Watching:
Castle Story
The Mims: Beginning
Folk Tale
After Reset

Edit: Removed Prison Architect after I noticed it was suggested

Hello,

Modern remakes aside, medieval bows and crossbows had an average bolt/arrow speed of 135 feet per second. Most crossbows bolts traveled marginally faster than arrows, but not enough to make a difference in just that regard.

What mattered really was how close they were, and the point on the arrow/bolt. Regardless, there was no blowing off of anything except maybe a finger or toe...But hitting those are more likely accidents, since I'd much rather try to kill you with the fast moving pointy stick of death than maim you.

Neither bows nor crossbows were particularly efficient and poking through a knight's plate armor at distances where you actually had to adjust for arc, movement of target, and wind speed. Basically a crossbow was a pike with long reach. You'd have a bunch of guys with them and when the knights got close enough, they'd let bolts lose. This is versus the tactic with bow where they sent volleys of arrows at really long distances; arrows are much more effective at longer distances than crossbows in regards to getting your arrow in the general vacinity of your target (not talking robin hood  crazy shots, so don't lynch me).

Even early firearms were countered by better armor smithing, proof of this is in pieces of armor and recorded accounts of smiths firing on newly pieces of forged armor to prove they could withstand a shot from point blank range. Eventually, the armor just became to expensive and ungainly to use.

So... I'd love to see more intricate ballistics. Firing modes. Penetration (vs different materials). Range. Damage. Less chance for someone to continue firing after a arrow has successfully penetrated their armor and is sticking out of their leg. Of course, certain backgrounds/traits could make incompacitation less likely (No way Rambo would drop after catching an arrow to a shoulder!).

Cheers,
Michael

Sources: W.F. Paterson and Stephen V. Grancsay. Check out their written work. It is facinating.

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

Hello,

In case there is a fan out there that is unaware of the new Firefly game, Check this out.

Keep Flyin',
Michael

Hello,

So, I agree that it would be cool to be able to set a sort of schedule for colonists. The method I've advocated is, in fact, the same method used in a game called "Diggles: Myth of Fenris".

Basically each Diggle/Wiggle/Gnomy had a little clock that would pop up when you clicked on them and you could manipulate the two hands to determine the hours in which they worked.

Having a "schedule" button on the gui that you could click to open up a menu with all the colonists and their start and end times would be cool. In their time off they could take care of needs and have some fun.

Cheers,
Michael

Hello,

I voted that it sounded like a good idea, but needed work. I think this would benefit greatly from a new approch to research. One I like to call "Ideas and Research". Within this system colonist of varying backgrounds, traits, and skill levels would have ideas. These ideas are disseminated amongst like minded individuals through conversations, and eventually become mood effecting desires that can be analyzed to unlock features (whether they be techs, things that affect social or ethical quandaries, quality of life issues, ect). I think that ideas should 'die' over time, so the mood effect eventually goes away as the desire for the idea to be analyzed is diminished. This would also remove the option to analyze the idea as well. An idea that is analyzed and implemented would turn into a positive mood boost.

Ideas could be things that fit into the "research" category, but are simply made available sooner because you have a colonist from an advanced society with a background in that area. So that glitterworld farmer who has reached x construction skill level would have an idea to build advanced hydroponics instead of farming in soil. These ideas would open "research" that would take less time than standard research, because you have a colonist that knows about it/is experienced enough to visualize it already.

Ideas would also be things like social/ethical issues, such as the "ranking" system proposed by the OP. This type of idea would be things that simply don't make sense in the research bench. Say you have Henry the colonial governor whom is a good guy. He's a strong leader; decent in a fight, and developed social skills. One of your colonist may get the idea of him being the leader, and then an icon pops up on one of Henry's menus to make him the leader (maybe with a type box next to it to customize what he's called).

I see this working by a new value being added to each trait and background that gives it a "leadership value", with current social skill acting as a modifier. If the social skill is locked out for that colonist, they can't be a leader.

Similar values could be added to backgrounds to determine their candidacy for various positions. Mushinto the Bounty Hunter would be an awesome candidate for a 'general' position (which can be renamed by the player), once again such a position would be determined by a tallied score of the backgrounds and trait's value in that position, modified by an averaged  shooting, melee, and social.

A leader's presence might inspire people to work harder, they could be responsible for negotiations, and their loss could devastate the colony.

A Military leader's presence could increase movement speed when in combat, increase shooting/melee skill gain, and him dying/being incompacitated in battle could cause a huge moral drop for fighters.

There is a lot that could be done with a system like this.

It is very much worth brainstorming on. Could go further with it, but gonna go out for a ride. Central Illinois weather is breaking and there is heat and sun. My virago gathered too much dust over the winter and I need to take her for a spin!

Cheers,
Michael