Messages

[Right-click manual work re-assign]

After spending a decent amount of time playing RimWorld lately I came up with few ideas how to improve game play experience and make certain things less annoying. I hope many will agree with me. Those things are:


Right-click manual work re-assign - I hate when I can't assign a task to a certain colonist because it is reserved by some other one. And especially when your base is on fire. How many times you wanted to extinguish last "piece" of fire, but it was assigned to colonist which is on the other side of the map? I know you can deal with it by setting eager-to-do-it colonist to a weapon-ready mode, but there should be an easier way to do it. The grayed-out option should be simply a re-assign option.

Safe area and lockdown button - Option to set a "safe" zone (within the walls of your base I guess) and when you hit an emergency button (it could be a siren which one of your guys would need to turn on, that would be cool) all your colonist outside the safe area would return to the safe zone and would operate only within this area during the lockdown.  So your cooks would not stop cooking but colonists hauling plasteel would drop it and run to safety. Few of my guys died during "all-boars-went-crazy" event just because I did not noticed they are screwing around somewhere.

Groups - There should be a way how to set a colonist group like in strategy games. It would make selecting your "hit squad" members much easier. Cycling through 30 colonists to select 7 good shooters every time you are being besieged is annoying.

"No-screwing-around" area - Area where idle colonist would not go. For some reason walking through freezer door is a favorite activity of my colonists. And during summer it is a really big deal. RIP spoiled food.


These are my ideas. What do you think?

Definitely good suggestions. The task re-assign is a no-brainer. Dwarf Fortress has zoning options like this, and Rimworld is obviously inspired by the zoning features of DF. As for the emergency button, it could be a feature of the Comms Console (I'd think a toggle).

[the remaining slavers nuke you from orbit with their high-powered Glitterworld space weaponry]

Imagine that you purchased a slave and the slave ship collectors came down to collect the silver you used as payment and get captured themselves, then sold back to the slave ship.  Sweet sweet irony the remaining slavers nuke you from orbit with their high-powered Glitterworld space weaponry

More levels of Bionics. Instead of just going peg-leg->prosthetic->bionic the game could have a number of levels of bionic equipment with increasingly higher cost and bonus.
In the same avenue, complex medical operations like amputations, organ removal and application of cybernetic limbs should really have a skill limit.

In regards to the operations, in A9, there will be a chance of a surgery failing, most likely based on skill level.

Yeah, I noticed I missed that in the changelog. Looking forward to it.

Klitri is right on the money here. With the whole focus on the stories that emerge from the games, and the Tales system, children seem like a natural addition to the game.

I certainly don't see babies and children as being an impediment to an "Escape the planet" endgame, they're just another factor. By the way, why is it we don't just catch a ride on any one of the number of ships we trade with?

Implying I want to leave. 

Well as far as I understand, it's the developer-stated goal of the game.

More levels of Bionics. Instead of just going peg-leg->prosthetic->bionic the game could have a number of levels of bionic equipment with increasingly higher cost and bonus.
In the same avenue, complex medical operations like amputations, organ removal and application of cybernetic limbs should really have a skill limit.

Also, on the low-tech end of things, forging basic steel hooks or making wooden hand replacements could be nice, create a broader spectrum of prosthetic technology overall when it goes from peg legs and steel hooks til full Bionic Man with a skullgun

I like that idea, having a hook hand replacement would be great, it would be a huge manipulation penalty but would flesh out the low-tech end like you said.

Large manipulation penalty but better than not having a hand at all (although only barely), and in a pinch it'll work as a melee weapon as well.

You could rename your colonist to more helpful names though
Farmer1 farmer2 miner construct etc etc

The game is in Alpha - this is the time we should be asking "Is this the right way to do this" and not the time to be looking for workarounds.

In my opinion - we're asking the wrong question here. The right questions are "Why is it advantageous for everyone to weak power armor?"  and "Why does my farmer look like a space marine?"

Clothes mask the character sprites, and at this point serve two purposes - armor values and temperature protection  -  as such there is a 'best fit' solution - that needs to change. A farmer wearing power armor needs to be a crappy farmer - there needs to be tradeoffs to wearing different garb - the farmer is safer in his power armor, but he keeps stepping on plants and breaking his tools.

I think there's a -10% global work speed debuff on Power Armor actually, which is nowhere near enough. Power Armor should probably excluded most tasks being done, other than killing stuff or talking to people.

At the very least, I think the game could do with prosthetic and bionic hands and feet, instead of only just arms and legs (and the Power Claw). Artificial organs would be cool too and if you really wanted to go nuts, improvements like subdermal armor plating or skullplating could be fun as well. Also, on the low-tech end of things, forging basic steel hooks or making wooden hand replacements could be nice, create a broader spectrum of prosthetic technology overall when it goes from peg legs and steel hooks til full Bionic Man with a skullgun

Here's my "cheapest suggestion" on the subject of pawn visual uniqueness:  remove all stats from the hats and helmets.  In other words makes them purely aesthetic.

That way we can leave the hair visible if it makes the pawn distinctive, or we can add some sort of hat or helmet to make them unique or to identify their role.

Its hard to resist going for any slight increase in survivability that's available in the current hats and helmets.

That's actually not a bad idea. On one hand, I like "complexity" of having both helmets and armor with stat effects but it's true, everyone becomes Power Armor guys pretty quickly. With purely aesthetic headwear, at least there'd be a reason to wear that snazzy cowboy hat over Power Armor helmet.

Would dumping materials reduce my wealth? Human Leather is kinda tricky to sell...

Nerf research! 

Seriously though, seems like research skill shoots through the roof compared to, well, everything else and amazingly quick as well. With the amount of research skill gained just by a x1 guy, I can only imagine it being even more crazy with someone with a higher passion for it. Seems like the skill gain from researching could easily be reduced significantly, or the target numbers set higher.

The size of the raiding force relates to your wealth in items and buildings. It doesn't take into account factors like solar flares.

In a situation like that, I would wall off the main entrance and wait for the solar flare to pass while the raiders try to bash down the walls with their bare fists.

I guess I should stop stacking the meat of any killed raiders in my "emergency freezer"...

I'm going to ahead and assume that in the final version of the game, end-game might easily take longer than one or two in-game years to achieve. I'm not sure what time frame the developer has imagined but I'd guess it could easily take more than 10 years to establish a colony with enough materials and support to build a spaceship, but I suppose I might be wrong.

During that time, babies would grow into children who would have limited usefulness (simple hauling and such) and might even grow up to be skilled colonists. Considering all the other advanced tech in the game, a Growth Enhancer build project wouldn't be out of the question either, allowing for children to age faster and thus become useful members of the colony faster (but maybe less skilled since they haven't had as much time to learn).

He doesn't. He has one with an M16 the rest have rocks

Well, handguns and a shooting skill between 1 and 0 but that's pretty much the same thing. Things picked up a bit after I got a Power Armor. It's still one man against somewhere between 6-10 but when I don't get Solar Flare'd at the same time he can usually hold raiders off until they flee. Of course, if he ever gets downed my colony is dead. I should probably fit him with all the bionics I can afford.