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I surprised no one has mentioned this yet, but one solution to the "isolation problem" is to simply make the Rim World our colonists destination. I'm not saying you have to eliminate the crash, but having this planet be where they want to be helps to explain why our colonists, are not simply rescued; is because they don't want to be. The landing may have sucked, but they're where they want to be. They were on their way here to build a new colony all along.

This does alter the endgame idea somewhat.

One other thing this could effect is the starting supplies, as the colonists could begin with their escape pods, and a cargo container of colony building supplies.

Thoughts?

That's horrible awesome Jojomon. 

After reading your great piece of fiction: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fUO3KKbAbTxMP1lqphnnodY0NPoOVblCUkDw-54MDUc/pub

It might be nice to have one type of interstellar trade vessel that comes by very rarely, they won't take passengers due to their being a nomadic (and xenophobic) tribe that has chosen to live a life on ship, rather than risk existence on a planet. These vessels would carry masses of cargo and more money then you could imagine, accumulated over generations in space. Communication would be simple once they were in range as these would be waking vessels on which the inhabitants live out their lives, have families, etc. So someone would be there to "pick up the phone."

P.s. Tynan, I would love to write some fiction with you sometime.

What story teller did you use, Cassandra and Randy would never let me build all that.

Ps. there's a button to add images in the tool bar first one in the second row.

Here's your colony!

This is in the General Discussion, because it's not a Suggestion, but a question for debate. I do make some suggestions near the end, but they're for debate's sake.

Should there be Trading and Raiders?

The setting of RimWorld is thus, you are on some sort of deep space passenger liner, think Titanic not Princess Cruise Lines, and there is no "Faster Than Light" travel. All the passengers and most likely the crew are in stasis, "long sleep sarcophagi," presumably for a journey through interstellar space that could take decades or even a centuries. Something goes terribly wrong, and the ship breaks up within the sphere of influence of the moon of a gas giant the "Rim World."

Now for a moment lets assume the ship had no navigation malfunction and this Rim World is near a "major shipping lane," and occasionally a ship will fly by. But given the cost and expense of sending a ship such a great distance, and the time scale of the journey. Logically a ship might pass by every few years, or so. And even if one did, would not all the crew be in stasis, who would receive the call.

But what if the Rim World is close enough to inhabited worlds for short range "waking vessels" to pass? Then we run it to a logic problem with the plot. If the Rim World is close enough for that, would not rescue be a simple affair. Suddenly our colonists aren't so stranded.

The same space travel restrictions apply to Raiders, are the raiders waking up from stasis every few months or so just to check if there is anyone to steal from?

This leaves us with some hard questions to ask, and some decisions about mechanics vs plot, game-play vs story.

Raiders provide drama, and conflict that are central to good story telling, without them our tales may be bland.

And Trade provides access to necessary materials without which there may be no story.

There are some solutions: Trade could be replaced by random events involving meteor showers to deliver new materials, or the very rare star ship crash.

New colonist could be obtained from primitive native people, they don't affect our plight, as they lack the technology to leave the planet. Perhaps they're the descendants of the crew of a ship that crashed centuries ago. This could also make a source for Raiders, as they'd be keen on stealing our fancy technology that their ancestors spoke of.

So what do you folks think?

Should the trade ships and raiders from above go away?

Should Rim World focus more on the sense of isolation, and distance from any rescue?

This is really nice, but have you thought of a radial lay out, liner tech trees are overdone.

Guess you could build a wall along the border, but that could be expensive.

Yup, that's what I said I do

Sorry I meant to indicate that I agree with you on that point, but sometimes I type faster then I think. 

Relevant comic.

Good one

Fair enough. We are always told not to mix parts, as its will decrease reliability and may lead to a breach explosion. Maybe that could be a random event if you cobble weapons together, every now and then it blows up in your face.

That could be interesting.

I love the cleaning/repair bot idea, they could use your power and stop working during a solar flare or when they are unable to charge up.

I can see some cool random events happening with them too.

Yeah, like they sweep you to death in your sleep.

I know, less lethals like the tasers suggested above my be the way to go in the future.

But as it stands now, you might need to let the raiders get in close before you fire at them, so you can get to them to capture them. I'll have to try a couple ideas, and see how they go and report back.

Its very unrealistic though.... ...you cant mix and match working weapon parts (Sure you can change the butt or magazine, but the internals all need to stay with the same weapon)

That's not entirely true, I'm an armorer certified for M16/AR15 and I work extensively with the AK47. While it is not recommended to exchange internal components from one weapon to another (it has to do with wear patterns and reliability/safety). It is not physically impossible. If I was stuck on a planet and I had two guns damaged by a grenade blast, and I could cobble something together out of them I'd use it. This is especially true of the AK which has very lose tolerances, and is often built form spare parts throughout the world. Also almost any AR pattern upper receiver, can be fitted to any lower; we switch them all the time.

So I'd support a system that allowed damaged weapons to be made into one. I'd also support recycling them. I've mentioned a Molecular Recycler before, that would turn guns and scrap into metal, and corpses into food.

Another solution would be a super rich trade ship event, that would allow you to sell dozens of guns at once. Right now the average trade ship can only buy one or two.

Of course making guns really rare would help as well, making raiders more melee focused would greatly reduce the number of guns a player has. To balance this out the turrets would have to become far more expensive, maybe even 1000 metal each.

Also grenades/cocktails should be limited use, maybe 5 or so and then their gone. That may also encourage players to use them. As using them will get rid of them.

Honestly I haven't found an effective method to deal with this, if I try to be lees lethal, I end up with dead colonists. So, I just buy slaves.

I wonder how hard it would be for Tynan to implement such a system?