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Yeah. I have to agree, this is a rather good alpha. I jumped on Godus and Spacebase DF-9 and both were from people with huge reputations and both disappointed me utterly. DF-9 was by a professional studio and what they produced and abandoned was nowhere near as playable or enjoyable as Rimworld is now. And as Minecraft has been brought up, that one was a slooooooow process as well, but the core game was worth playing and worth waiting for.

The reason why I bought a copy of Rimworld in its current state is because it looked like a game that might actually make it to the goal proposed. The current game is good, the work is good and the future looks good. The point of my earlier comments was that yes the code needs debugging and it could be cleaned up, but what it could really use is more growth. I like what I see now and I'm happy with my purchase, but I'd also like to see it grow. I'd like to see more complex systems be expanded upon, tech tree's develop and new systems become implemented and fail or succeed.

Regarding the controversy issue. I think that for some there are some who want a game that is more realistic (so to speak) and want the in-game timescale to represent that. Then there may be others who like the idea of it being a short lived colony aimed at getting off-world. And then there might be others who just don't like games that introduce mechanics for having offspring for whatever reasons. So there are a lot of places to approach the issue from.

For me, I like the idea of expanding on concepts of community and colony growth. I'd rather go for some sort of conquest/sustainability/etc victory than just a "get off planet" victory. Maybe I'm playing the wrong game for that desire, but I like Rimworld either way. So it's not going to kill me if it went one way or the other.

One story-oriented solution for the time jumping (per Vagabond's fast grow model there) could be the colonists research some sort of sci-fi fast growth mcguffin. It worked for movies like Pandorum (among many many others) and it could work here as an excuse for fast gestation and fast development.

To be honest, I only recently discovered Rimworld thanks to the Rock,Paper,Shotgun article. But after looking it over I thought it was worth buying even at the current state. Mostly because I got a feel for what Rimworld might become.

I have 2 big thoughts regarding the future of Rimworld.

1. I want to bring up the "dwarf fortress clone" issue mentioned before. I love old school games and I'm a fan of world/community building and survival games like this. From time to time I'll play some X-Com Terror from the Deep or some Darklands. But I cannot stand the GUI for Dwarf Fortress. I've tried the graphics packs but I just cannot get beyond to interface. I love the idea of similar genre games that embrace even basic graphics and what Rimworld's presents is fantastic. I love the art style. I bring this up because other games have done a somewhat similar take on the genre. Gnomoria is a good example. I bought into Gnomoria early on and like it but (and this is my point) I lost interest after a short while because little content was being added at the time. The strength of these games comes from the complexity. From the level of detail and the sheer number of options available. I would much rather see more item/weapon/monster types be added to Rimworld than just variants of existing ones as I think that'd give the game a longer life. How about environment specific monsters like sandworms in the desert. Or more from the megascarabs? Part of the attraction that Rimworld presents is the sci-fi setting so I'd love to see more of that.

2. Mods. Ok, I don't know what the policy is in terms of mod content, but I'd like to see some of the more popular mods become a part of the vanilla game. I know that happened with Minecraft but I've got no idea what the legal issues would be. I kinda hope there's someway to merge both the development of the official game and incorporating concepts from mods to enhance the entire game experience. I do appreciate that Rimworld appears to have mods in mind as a core aspect of the game's design. That's always refreshing.

I think what Ive written covers my thoughts on your first point, but I'd like to chime in on your second point. I think cloning should be less personal than that.  The "Vatgrown" backgrounds give a good feel for it, I think. If you invest in cloning, it should produce, in the end, a character with a "Vatgrown X" background. This would simply determine what skills have experience boosts, and which skills are disabled (if any).

I think it is important to note that while I imagine at some point you could clone someone perfectly, so the clone has all the knowledge of the original person, It is somewhat of a stretch. Especially since anything you do where you rely on your senses or physical abilities would still require the same level of dedication and practice as the original person had in life. You could clone a master swordsman but his clone wouldn't have the muscle memory, physical fitness, or action-sense response of the original because they are all trained qualities.

I think the way that vatgrown should work is that they are simply genetically "perfect". They are engineered to not have the flaws that are associated with people born naturally. Ie: people who get alzheimer's and cancer from genetics. They are immune to most of the small things. What differentiates a Vatgrown Soldier  from a Vatgrown Sexslave would be what they are indoctrinated to be. In most circumstances, I imagine they were be made for a purpose and would only serve that purpose. Our colonist would, however, allow vatgrown people to develop more or less naturally.

Though in regards to passions, for increased experience gain, I would imagine the genes could be manipulated to make them developmentally predisposed towards certain tasks and behaviors.

Cheers,
Michael

You make some interesting points here. I like the idea of a "vatgrown" trait assigned to any colonists born from the cloning tanks. And a randomizing aspect to it would be interesting as well. I mean these are supposed to be colonists heading to a nicer world right? Maybe 2 research items: cloning vats and genetic library? The colonists' ship had an extensive genetic library that got jettisoned into orbit as they crashed so research is needed to connect remotely to the library. That way any clones are based on the library's collection of human samples.
And that's the reason why any clones are randomized and not offspring or copies of existing colonists.

The trick would be the C# coding to create a random NPC that's allied with the colonists, and to add that "vatborn" trait to both the game and the NPC. I'm not the best at C# though.

So what would be the effect of the "vatgrown" trait, and should that then count towards any sort of "children as win condition" as mentioned in the original post? Perhaps a more accurate definition might be population size or sustainability as a win condition?

Though Children would be interesting as well. From the op, the idea could work in either case. "Children" would be useless colonists, only eating and with zero skills (given how slow the game's time scale is).

I mentioned this in another thread on the topic. What about cloning pods like in the Dr. Who episode "The Doctor's Daughter"? It takes the colonist's DNA, randomizes it a wee bit and produces a fully grown colonist. Really it just spawns a new adult colonist.

Just make it difficult to build or very slow to produce clones.

I've got 2 thoughts on this.

1. It wouldn't just be "reach X number of kids" for the win conditions. You'd need both a set population level and a healthy level of births to deaths. That way the colony's actually growing and sustaining itself. The game would need to record the number of colonists lost in a certain period as well as the number added, then use those to find the growth rate.

2. One solution to the time issue might be cloning pods. Put the cost of the cloning pod on par with ship parts (like the cryosleep pods). The pod acts as a workstation, and converts food (nutrient paste?) and maybe some other resources into a new colonist. If the game can be set up to add new random colonists on command then it'd be possible. What might be tricky would be making it so that the player can select a colonist that the "offspring" will be based on, keeping his/her last name. I got the idea after recently watching the episode of Dr. Who "the doctor's daughter" with the clone armies fighting each other.