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Raiders are nice and all, but the constant raids from one type of enemy can get very repetitive. It would certainly help a lot if people had more to fear than just the standard, predictable raiding parties.

Tribes - A small clan wandering the Rim World. They arrive with about as many men as a raiding party, but appear without warning and are armed with only basic tools like bows and possible some light arms. They are a sudden threat that forces people to be ready for an attack more. However, if they are ready they can handle it in almost all circumstances.

Planet-Crackers - A certain type of criminal that specializes in using advanced machinery to bore deep into the core of a planet and harvest its vast natural resources. The process destroys the planet's crust, but is very profitable. Unfortunately they've chosen your planet, and your colony is the ideal spot to begin cracking. They move in small teams with advanced technology. They begin by launching a small bombing run on the Colony, enough to disrupt but not destroy it, and then landing a team of 5-6 guys with a wait type slightly longer than a raiding party. They then attack. They are very rare, and the benefit of beating them is access to all-sorts of advanced weaponry and gear and possibly even some technology.

Mad Scientist - A mad scientist and his 2 loyal assistants has set up shop in your area for planetary domination. If he's allowed to set up a laboratory, he will begin pumping out mutant animals and people to attack your base. Ideally, you'd move in to destroy him before he gets to this stage and he's fairly defenseless. If you wait or cannot move however, you'll have to fight mutants and his 2 assistants before killing him. You can gain a lot of tech and resources from his laboratory though if you allow him to get to the mutant production stage.

Slaving Party - The standard slaving party, often suggested on the forums. They would be like raiders only with a focus on capturing (instead of killing) the colonists.

Otherwise there could be things like evil animals, ancient and deadly artifacts in the mountains, and other crazy ideas. However I'm not entirely sure how much Tynam wants to tread into ideas like robots and aliens and mutant animals, so I'll just keep it at this.

Fireproof is fine, But we will have mortars and other siege engines, so they will still be able to be destroyed.

They should be a little weaker to a direct hit from an explosive but since they can't be lit on fire they'd be much more effective at taking stray shots from it. Basically, a trade-off you have to way.

If there is a sort of Raid-o-meter, it should probably be invisible to the player and only predict the odds of a raiding party, rather than deciding if it comes. Basically, if the Raid-o-meter is 50% full, there'd be a 50% chance of a raiding party in the next 7 days, if it's 75% full, then there's a 75% chance, etc. However it should be invisible (at least without research or something) so that people can't predict raiding parties easily and make them a non-threat.

Also I think the real reason raiding parties are so annoying is because they are the only possible threat, so the game has to throw them at you constantly to keep any sort of tension. I'm assuming as more threats are added they'll be used less and we wont be annoyed so much.

How about therapy normally occurs at a relatively slow rate, but adding a couch and a therapist's chair gives you doubles the speed, and having medication (expensive/imported from ships) for the specific mental illness (+ the couch) would increase it to 3x the normal rate.

Also, how about a Solar-flare detector? It shouldn't be too hard to build something that can detect forming solar flares before they happen.

GENIUS idea here, what about an Observatory? It could be a very expensive machine that requires research, loads of resources, and a scientist to check on it on occasion, but it could tell you when solar flares will happen, when eclipses will happen, and when trade ships will arrive. Perhaps even raider parties, though that might be a bit much.

Allowing colonists to have children could also have the opposite effect that you think would happen and possibly would just make each individual colonist less memorable if alot were born (your population would increase exponentially, making every colonist more of a "cannon fodder" then anything) . "Who is that guy, oh hes their kid".

As much as I hate cutting just cutting out segments of posts (has a way of making things a lot harder to comprehend and much more cluttered), I would like to say that even identifying someone as just "that guy's kid" is a lot more than random dude that got picked up 20 minutes ago.

Really I think families would be a nice addition to the colony because they add some sort of permanence to the colony. Rather than just being a Hell-hole where people live for a year max and then die, horribly, it can be a place where you can see people survive, then actually live, raise a family, and start a proper life on the colony. It makes the whole ordeal come full circle, I suppose. You've gone from a small survivor team to a proper colony with families and children and people living their lives. Rather than just survivalists surviving and dying.

Amazing story. Too bad it went inactive, it was a great read.

For the factions, I was thinking it'd be fun to have them be generated.

We'll still have to define types of factions (police, imperial, tribal, pirate, etc), but in each playthrough the game will make a world with unique factions inside these types. Including fun generated names

Sounds similar to Dwarf Fortress. It would be nice if the terrain and location of the planet changed the odds of which factions would generate. For instance a world that's barren and in deep space would be more likely to have tribes and raiders while one that's lush and just outside the core worlds is more likely to be civilized.

To break the monotony of the late-game it might be nice to have very rare, very odd events like this. So suddenly at day 336 a weird kudzu lands on the planet. You could eliminate it, OR you could try to capture a sample and research it, getting cool stuff from that research.

Other events might be stuff like a string of murders that the player has to solve (CSI: RimWorld) or about 5 people total will die. Basically just rare, engaging events. There could be many of them so that variety was never scarce.

You should be able to click on the turret and check for shooting animals as well as enemies. However it should be default off so turrets don't unload on a squirrel while raiders murder the colony.

It could just fall under the doctoring tasks so as not to overcrowd the jobs sections.

I like the idea do drugs offering amazing short term benefits but being painful in the long run. You could use drugs to increase the size of people to make them better fighters and manual workers, but they will start having health problems in a month and die within the year (and be unsellable as slaves). Other drugs might increase productivity less but not require the user dying, at the cost of being addictive. People get very aggressive when they don't get their drugs, and these people will be buffed up. You could also have sedative drugs to easily capture raiders. Maybe even drugs that turned people into more or less cooperative zombies, so as to instantly recruit them at the price of -1 in all skills.

Of course these drugs have down sides. They could be made from parts of certain plants that are scarce on the colony and run out quickly, thus habit forming drugs will need to be constantly restocked by trade. Also they'd require a lot of research and certain machines to produce.

Perhaps there could even be dedicated issues like PTSD from repeated fighting when not trained for it or some other psychological issue. Eventually the issues would get more and more prominent and need a Counselor to deal with it. At that point, the person gets a 20% chance to enter the a state of recovery. Until that time, the issue gets worse and if you're very unlucky they may even snap. However once they did start recovering they would gradually be treated and the issue would eventually get entirely removed. Of course a dramatic event may occur to set them back into the issue.

To elaborate, issues are on a 1-10 scale. When they first start they are 'Active' (getting worse) and every day they will go up one on the scale. To use PTSD as an example, a particularly bad battle might start the scale. If it is noticed by the player they can force the character to get treatment at a low level and treat them early on when it is easier (40% say). After it reaches 3 on the scale though an event is given to the player saying so and the character will go to counseling on his own. At this stage, there will only be a 20% chance for success per visit.

Once that chance is reached the issue will become 'Inactive' (unchanging) and stay the same. At this point the issue will gradually decrease in scale by 1 with each visit. However, if that chance is not reached or is not treated then by scale-7 they will be 25% less productive in any job, by scale-8 they will be 75% less productive, and by scale-9 they will refuse to work and will need people to bring them food. By scale-10 whatever the issue is will reach culmination. A person with PTSD will snap and go berserk, a person with depression will attempt suicide, etc.

When an issue is inactive, though, it may still be reactivated if events allow. In PTSD, again for example, if the person is reintroduced to combat they MAY become active again and will gain 2 ranks on the scale. The issue will return to 'Active' as well. The likelihood of reactivation will depend on the scale's rank. Someone with 2 will be a lot less likely to reactivate than a person at 8.

I like the idea of using blast charges as a last ditch effort to prevent raiders. It seems silly that a colony would fall because no one wanted to use them purely on rock. Possibly making them have longer fuses, being not particularly effective on walls and people, and making them better at mining would be nice. Also an alternative like mines would be great as people wouldn't need to or really want to use blast charges for fighting in the first place.

Note: These 2 ideas are in the same thread because I find that they merge together very well. Read the thread if you're so interested in knowing how.

Currently, it seems that colonists are very similar people just sort of faffing about. While the amount they have going on is nice, I feel very little sorrow about a character getting shot, even if they were skilled in something. I've been playing Crusader Kings 2 off and on lately, and I find the characters more interesting. Each character has about 7-14 traits that define them. One character might be very cowardly and patient while another is cruel and cynical. It would be nice to see each character start with about 8 traits and gradually acquire and lose more based on what happens.

For example, a person might start out very kind and charitable, but then a raider attack comes and slaughters half the colony. Suddenly this very dramatic event changes him into a cruel and survivalist person who is fiercely loyal to the defense of the colony. He may even be paranoid of the people he doesn't know. He changes just like a person changes in real life based on dramatic events that happen to him. Children would be especially susceptible to these changes since people do change a lot more as kids than adults.

These traits may even be the things that affect what a person is good at. A person is patient? They get a buff to gardening. They're cruel? Guess who has no qualms about shooting. But Person 1, who is charitable, isn't going to get along with Person 2, who is a greedy jackass. Person 3 on the other hand is neither particularly charitable or greedy, so Person 1 and Person 2 are fine with him.

This brings me to my next suggestion - families. Characters are easily replaced and forgotten now. Imagine how much more interesting it would be if a father was shot dead and left their wife and kid, changing their traits due to the event. Suddenly interesting events can happen to characters that can make you vested in them. Who cares if Beard dies so long as you have enough guys to man the wall next time the raiders show up. If the guy who's been shaped for years by his environment and parents dies then you might shed a tear at an interesting character committing the ultimate sacrifice (or starving to death because you sold too much food by accident).

Families would start organically. People with likewise traits drift together and males and females hook up and start reproducing. Kids grow up and will likely take traits from their parents and possibly from others in the colony. Which brings me to heritable traits. They'd be very rare (usually) but also very defining to the person. Heritable traits would have a chance to be passed down (double if both parents have it). Of course they can be good (genius or strong) or bad (imbecile or weak). There could even be traits like inbred from bloodlines being too closely aligned.

These families would breed, pass on traits, and be shaped by their environment. Suddenly you could see totally different communities form each time you played. One time might see a fairly easy run with little problems so people are more kind and generous, due to an environment that never brought suffering to them. Meanwhile another that is plagued by raids and famine might be cruel, unkind, and hateful of the world that tormented them. They would see great differences, but switching back would never be impossible. Since fresh people regularly join the colony and traits are only heritable by chance, in time the population will always even out to equilibrium - assuming players don't go eugenics in their colony. But then that's just too much idea for one thread.