Messages

I'm quite happy with the graphics as they stand, for the reason Tynan mentioned above. Also pleased that he is prioritize more/better events over graphical issues, which I think is the correct direction to go. I imagine it is possible to mod the pawn graphics, if one desires.

Two things that helped me a lot, at least with initial colonists, is to use the EdBInterface and EdBPrepareCarefully mods - the first to have a bar at the top of the screen constantly reminding me of who has what face, and the later to make sure at least the initially colonists have distinct faces.

I much prefer the idea of the world being barren, empty, not an overpopulated lump of hyper-fertile sponge... (I never understood how many people there must be in other colonies... must be millions of them).

It would be nice if there was a custom story teller where a few dials could tweak the frequency/probability of different kinds of events.

I agree that a barren world challenge would be a good one, although I think more work may be needed on natural and internal colony challenges - otherwise it would just be similar to Phoebe Basebuilder.

I do like the idea of some animal types eating the corpses - which perhaps sets up a killzone for edible meat. Although this may not be worth the invested time.

Does biome selection impact the relative composition of events? E.g. more natural disasters over raiders?

+1 for soundtrack - this is such a positive for the game as it is, and I hope can be expanded gradually over time.

I like for the cycle-pawns buttons to allow cycling without jumping to their location. Also, a "nearest pawn" or "nearest idle pawn" button would be great. My main usage would be to assign a loafer to a task I'm looking at - if the screen jumps to them I have to navigate back!

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correct me if I'm wrong but raids are scaled to your relative power, so theoretically if you deconstruct some turrets the raids should spawn in smaller numbers

The main thing is there aren't any serious threats besides raider waves as of now. The game just needs more events that can really throw off a well-established, "comfortable" colony (basically a large enough pool of events that scale well into "late" game). If that's feasible, then "eternal" play is really not that hypothetical and even pretty reasonable to think of.

And when it comes to creativity with events, I'm not sure the sky's the limit but close enough.

I think it is correct that raider waves are scaled to wealth of the colony, so those will become more challenging. I agree that what is needed is additional types of events scaling with time/wealth beyond just raid sizes. I mention a few possibilities in another thread, but it could include new raid types, weather/natural disasters, internal strife, the combination of multiple events at once, etc. Anything to throw equilibrium off, even for those that have a very secure-kill-box-mountain-fortress.

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Not for vanilla game please, it's much more interesting to examine your invading party

'Oh that guy only has a shiv? I won't really worry about him, I'll put my melee guy closer to the front. Oh crap, they have three snippers?!
Lol, one of the snipers is a brawler, she is no problem. I might have to charge them. ARGH, what am I going to do when these guys get here!?'

As opposed to.

'I'm going to shoot at the random things that are going to bust down my door... meh.'

Perhaps Fog of War could be a toggle - one additional way to raise challenge/tension without increasing the difficulty level of the story teller.

oh my god
"You hear group of something land in the distance they attack immediately"
I can already feel how intense the wait would be you drafting everything to defence and then just having to wait with no idea what's coming
them stress levels would be so strong

And maybe not even that much! Could just be "You hear something strange in the distance." and have then immediately attack - or never! Need to maintain uncertainty, especially before you research and install the proper facilities

Or sometimes you don't even get a notice. Imagine - all your pawns are peacefully asleep in their beds, the world outside is pure darkness, and when the first one wakes up to exit the house - there are raiders positioned for ambushes around every room exit. Suddenly instead of having kill boxes against enemies, they are using your corners against you! Of course this assumes they were able to sneak past your defenses, ladder/tunnel your towers, etc. Shouldn't be every event, but certainly would add something to the mix.

"Eternal play" is quite a goal to promise to people. I'm conservative when it comes to promises. I think it makes you more credible in the long run.

+1

Clearly RimWorld is a game where the player's own creativity and goal setting can enrich the game quite a bit. In my view this a great feature.

That said, it would be nice if there were a few more branches on the tree out of the colony. In addition to research/building paths in that direction, I think it would be nice if colonists had strong personality inclinations towards certain paths. For example, a "Homesick" trait could slowly increase mental instability over time if there is limited progress towards the space ship. Having a few possible "end game" states (rather than eternal play!) and characters with varying inclinations towards them could increase the tension in latter years, eventually forcing some type of end that is not related to raiders. (Note that this could be due to internal strife, not just successful escape!)

What I think would help a lot with the endgame satisfaction without changing the game much itself is a better "game summary" screen after a colony population drops to zero. Perhaps this is already being pursued with the "Tale" system. One possible iteration of this is that the game could take a screenshot every hour (?) of your home base, and creating a video at the end to summarize the growth of your colony, including some normal speed portions during major events (e.g. damage within a day is X factor of total colony health - so big raids would be captured, but not a squirrel hunt). This could be done without heavy text annotations, and if exportable could help support more "casual" players in sharing their experiences (and viewing others, too!) with brief narration (rather than full blown Lets Plays). I think this kind of tool would encourage more creative scenario playing, given you could very easily be sharing your unique play-through with the world.

+1

In addition to the great suggestions above, I'd like to see some form of fog of war as the default, at least until proper tools are invested in - such as binoculars, look out tower, radio signal interceptor, radar, etc. This would help add a lot of tension to the game - e.g. you audibly hear a landing party nearby, but have no idea about their composition or exact position if you've fully bunkered in.

• Fog of war - this really increase the tension in the game. I think it is reasonable to know the entire map layout on start, given you just fell from space. But active knowledge of every creature and enemy incoming is too much, I think, without investment. Line of sight should limit views, as should traits/skill levels. Thus, in some cases a character that is a great shot may still have terrible range.
• Fog of war tools - a first step might be a viewing tower, which gives you a view in all directions for a few dozen (?) tiles, granted there is no mountain in the way. A radio signal interceptor could give you early insight it where pirates or ships are landing, but not exact locations, just general areas (e.g. NE of the base). The pinnacle could be a varying types of radar - thermal for organics, radar for all (incl mecs), etc. You wouldn't know exactly what was there, just see the signature red heatmap when switched on.
• Fog of war traits - psychics have short range ESP, allowing them to see heatmaps around corners in the near vicinity - think of the value of a psychic helping you target around a blind corner. Hunting as trait would help track animals more quickly, rather than just random walks until bumping into one (as even a skilled marksman may do without wilderness training).
  
• Trading screening improvement
• More interaction with visitors. Perhaps make the trade beacon a harder tech to achieve, making reliance on regional trade much more important at first.
• Revamp the tech tree and what is immediately available to build on landing. Increase the challenge/duration of tech research.
• Increase variety of events, especially non-human ones - more local nature and flora/fauna events, colony growing-pain events, etc.
• Make raiders/pirates more robust - at least at higher levels - able to use ladders to jump walls, may pop up from underneath via a tunnel into your fortress, etc.
• Similar to the above two, events to nerf turtling - rains sharply increase the chance of severe mountain flooding, destroying all goods and injuring/killing people in subterranean rooms without installed drainage systems. Underground beasts that may consume your miners and run into the shadows (Fog of War!) before you even see them.

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