Topics

Took someone else's idea of joining an outlander town to win the game and changed it around.

What if you could win by BECOMING an outlander town?

Some sample requirements:
- must have 100 faction relationship with at least 2 factions
- must have at least 20 colony members
- wealth, technology, accomodation requirements (x number of beds or other features a TOWN might require over a temporary colony)
- X number of raids fought off
- X years since planetfall
- some other requirements, like some behavior tracking over the course of the game (less than 40% of game time with any colonist having a "butchered humanlike" or "cannibalism" mood?)
- upon reaching however many requirements were implemented, perhaps a prompt or option on the communications device could come up.  Either triggering a win screen or starting something like a 1-year grace period where raids were significantly more common from hostile factions trying to keep you from becoming a power, now they know you're bent on permanent settlement.

Would be extra cool if upon "winning" like this, your faction could become an outlander town (the map save file gets modified to simply add a new outlander town or a new type of colony, maybe "spacer refuge" at the location of your old colony)....to be simple, your faction becoming a new faction on the map wouldn't retain any character names or anything (keep it simple) but the town would be named whatever the save file was named.  Lastly...limit it to maybe 8 total factions on a world...after you reach 8, any new "win" colonies would either not be added or would replace a faction of your choice (so long as at least 1 of each type is represented?  no removing pirates completely!)  Exceedingly simple to add, all that needs to be tracked is map location (would shut off that location for future colonies!), colony name, and current allies/enemies at the time of winning...copy that into the map file with a new faction, edit in the relationships with the existing factions (randomize relationship if a new faction got formed since starting your "won" game...eg. started colony1, started colony2, won colony1, added it to the map, as i play and perhaps win colony2, it won't have any relationship with colony1, since colony1 wasn't on the map when colony2 was formed)...boom, done.

Thoughts?

Until bonds get changed, animal combat as a tactic is dead.  There are still some fringe uses...i could see having a melee colonist sneak around back of a pirate raid and unload 3 rhinos on the snipers...but in general, the mood loss is too long and too severe to use (it makes sense...a pet loss WOULD be devastating, but there is no way to avoid the bond while training "disposable" animals).

That being said, there is now also a mood loss for not being the master of a bonded animal.  That means that i MUST bring my pet with me INTO combat if it is trained at all, or suffer a mood loss.

Instead, allow me to "turn off" obedience ("stay" Fluffy!  "stay...."  Good Rhino!) while NOT setting master to "none" so that my colonist can fight while keeping the pet safe without my colonist being MORE upset just because his puppy isn't with him while bullets whiz past.

Alternatively, allow hauling and rescue to be trained without training obedience first.  Rename obedience to "guard."  People can still use it, but won't have to choose between having their pet die or having a permanent -3 mood for not being a bonded animal's master just to keep the pet safe.



PS.  Yes, i understand i COULD have the pets restricted in area (and i do), and i COULD set all the masters to none only during combat, then manually set them all back to their bond after combat, but that is a lot of extra, unnecessary micromanagement, as well as having an unnecessary mood penalty DURING the combat (when negative mood factors are flying around already, arguably the most dangerous time in the game to have a mental break!)

Ready.....DISCUSS!

I'm not sure if you want to consider it a bug or not.  I figured i'd report it and you can say "oh we should fix that" or "thats unfortunate, but lets keep it" or "working as intended"

I had a cat pet in a boreal forest.  Winter got cold...-25F, 30F colder than the cat could take.  I decided i'd sell the cat to traders that showed up to avoid the death penalty.  I got hit with a -10 "sold my bonded animal" penalty...didn't see that coming but oh well, it makes sense.

Then, because the cat wasn't mine, and spent time milling around outside as part of this trading faction, the cat died to hypothermia (no warning...cuz it wasn't my cat anymore).  Now i have a stacked -15 mood penalty for 20 days on top of the -10 penalty for selling. 

Persinally, i think selling should remove the bond, or if not, the bonded death should replace and override the sold mood penalty (upgrading from -10 for 10d to -15 for 20d INSTEAD).

Additionally, as an aside that could make these extreme cold or hot starts better, would it be possible to make a starting pet take a day or so to form a bond, so we can have the option of starting without a pet (rather than kill ourselves starting with a pet mouth to feed or have a -15 mood for the first 15 days in a tough biome because i butchered the animal in the first 15m)

So i just had my first prison break.

3 unarmed prisoners exited their prison and incapacitated or killed all 7 of my colonists...who had 2 snipers, 2 assault rifles, 1 survival rifle, and 2 plasteel gladius shielded fighters...

they chased a sniper into a tiny room, beat her to death, and took her gun, then came out, where i had all 6 of my other colonists waiting and aiming.  They proceeded to miss miserably while the 2 unarmed prisoners beat down my melee gladius fighters, grabbed the swords, and tore up my shooters.

Thus endeth my first A13 colony...

Butchered humanlike negative mood is now colony-wide and fairly long lasting.  If you want to reap the profits of human leather and meat, you now have to deal with a colony-wide -6 mood.

Sick people will now get out of bed much more often to tend to their own needs and the doctor job (since it is rated higher than bed rest).  Good and bad, depending on the illness severity.

Nuzzling seems to happen again (or to clarify, i have now seen a nuzzled mood bonus...for the first time ever.)

Animal deaths affect the bonded colonist...-15 mood for a whopping 20 days.  This adds a huge liability to an already mixed-review feature (namely, many people don't care about pets).  This is offset by a constant small mood bonus for being bonded to an animal, but that mood penalty is probably the death knell for the already inefficient "combat animals" strategy.

Parties and marriages are a huge, long mood buff...parties giving +15 mood for 10 days, and marriages giving +25 mood (and +50 to the couple for 25 days).

Missing limbs affects relationship...the previously inconsequential missing nose is now a -15 relationship modifier.

Please post other changes you noticed in your gameplay that aren't readily easily noticeable and identifiable.

The irritation of aging for animals.

Started a random colony with random people, got rainforest...started taming animals...chinchillas, cobras, alpacas, and labradors...

Parent labradors died after giving birth twice, 5 months apart.  The first batch is now 9 months old and are still puppies, unable to be trained to haul.  The second batch is 4 months old and just became juveniles...and can now be trained to haul...*sigh*

I'd like to be able to dismantle clothing for some of the material used to make it.

Gate it behind research, make it need manually labelled "deconstruct" commands, give it a separate workstation....whatever.  Whatever it takes to be able to pull apart clothing for the materials.

Additionally, even more easily, allow military helmets, personal shields, power armor, armor vests, tinfoil helmets, and maybe kevlar helmets (somehow) to be smelted in the electric smelter.

Both are common sense additions which use existing interactions (the current electric smelter function, or the deconstruct command (you can already use deconstruct on items like uninstalled beds and other furniture), and would help in keeping clothing meaningful and of good quality.

currently social is used for prices, prisoner recruitment, and bribing factions.

Of those 3 uses, i believe only the second one actually builds skill, and it does so rather slowly.

I'd like to see social used more, and used in an intra-colony regard.  All the current uses involve OTHER factions.  It would be great to see the social skill used more often on your OWN colony members.

in a semi-unrelated post in a different suggestion, user "Livingston I Presume" brought this up, giving me the idea: https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=16653.msg180357#msg180357

He asks for using social to talk to and boost your colonist's moods, as well as possibly talking broken colonists out of their, ummm, broken-ness.

Now the faction system might well be on its way to expansion, and that might revive the social skill a little bit right there, but being good at talking really does feel like it should have an effect on the people that your colonist talks to the most - his/her fellow colonists.

The idea of mood boosting thru social, and at least some version of the coding seems already in place, with the "convinced by warden" buff when talking to prisoners as well as the "had social chat" buff.  Either of those could be applied to the social skill...whether it involves job priorities and directed talking in order to stack a weaker version of the "convinced" buff on needy colonists, or simply scaling the "had social chat" buff based on the social skill of the person being chatted with (+1 to +5, stacking up to 5 times or something...or a longer persisting buff)

The "talk someone out of broken daze" would simply be an adaptation of the animal taming system.  The speaker approaches the broken colonist, talks and follows them 4 times, and then a % chance based on social skill to snap them out of it (should probably peak at 50% or lower at social 20, or soft breaks would never be a problem).  Like taming an animal, it can only be attempted once before needing to wait a while.  There could even be a 1% chance to go berserk on a failed attempt or something (like rhino taming!).  I think it probably shouldn't require food to attempt it though 



TL;DR - I'd like to see the social skill usable on your own colonists for mood boosts and ending soft breaks, for more diverse use and easier levelling of the skill.

I'm gambling that the community will respond in a non-condescending way, but three of the implemented features in the game kind of have me confused as to the exact implementation, or wondering what the purpose is.  I'm hoping some people can help to eliminate my problems or tell me how THEY use these items.

#1) Food Dispenser - My colonists often refuse to use the food dispenser when i have one, opting instead to eat raw food (no, they're not cannibals).  I know the hoppers need to have food in them, and i'm not sure if they've still eaten raw food when hoppers are full, but i can't seem to get the option to have colonists manually reload hoppers...sometimes they do it, but the "prioritize X" option doesn't seem to appear for me for filling hoppers (i've seen it once, but haven't actually been able to get the option to reappear, strangely). 

Where do you put food dispensers in your base?  do hoppers have to be on a certain side of the dispenser?  can the colonists manually fill hoppers and if so, are there requirements to be able to fill them (not job capabilities, i'm aware a non-hauler probably couldn't fill one)?  Are there foods (other than hay or otherwise ready to eat meals) that can't go in food dispensers?

#2) deadfall traps.  I've tried using deadfall traps once in a mountain base i've made.  The opening was 2 squares wide, and i put in 2 traps.  The second colonist to walk out of the base "accidentally" triggered a trap, nearly dying, and i promptly removed the traps. 

Are deadfall traps worth using?  How do you use them?  what kinds of structures do you build in order to place them effectively?  Is the risk to colonists worth placing them in a high traffic area, or are they placed exclusively in places that take advantage of a weak AI (like places that raiding pawns will cross, but that working colonists never walk on)?

#3 Cryptosleep caskets.  Not the ship ones.  What are the purposes for this item?  I've literally never used one for any reason (other than opening ones i've found in the "ancient danger" buildings).  Will colonists heal in a casket?  Why would i put a colonist into a casket?  why would i put a prisoner into the casket (i'm assuming you can't recruit them in a casket...) as opposed to attempting to recruit or release them?  Are there any drawbacks to putting colonists or prisoners into cryptosleep caskets?

Thanks in advance!  sorry if some of these questions seem ridiculously dense.  I love knowing how everything in a game works, and those 3 things are just getting to me.

Just a simple, easy to check/uncheck option at the start:

Hidden map:  The map is only revealed for 10 squares around where a colonist has been.  So the whole of the map except the landing site is blacked out at the start.  As you move the colonists around, the map is revealed...permanently.

It would make picking an ideal start spot harder, somewhat more realistic (while your colonists might have been able to map the planet from orbit, the odds that they've memorized the local layout as they're CRASHING IN CRYOSLEEP is unlikely!), and make finding those initial scattered resources WAY cooler!  It would make the traditionally favorable mountain terrain a little bit worse, as it would be harder and slower to explore

This should be an option at start...NOT forced on people.  I'm aware some people want to take every strategic benefit they can, and would like to IMMEDIATELY begin building their permanent base in the best place they can.  Some people just don't want to deal with drafted colonist exploration when they could be doing something else (interestingly, maybe colonists incapable of "scary" couldn't be sent to move into unexplored territory and wouldn't willingly explore more in regular mode - they could still reveal more territory in drafted mode by slowly moving through revealed terrain to explore via sight radius).


As a summary for Hidden Map start:
-Option at colony start...check/uncheck a box
-Anything revealed is revealed permanently
-Map is revealed by colonists as they move about the map (remember you can control movement in drafted mode)

Thoughts?  I'm aware Tynan wants us to be able to see everything, and this is NOT a "fog of war" suggestion.  This is simply a suggestion to make finding ideal colony locations include a little risk/reward (slower base setup times if you search for the "ideal spot), and make found resources seem cooler.  Packaged meals, steel, or a herd of muffalo that you come across will feel FAR cooler when you happen across them in those first 10 days than when you just scan the map in pause mode upon landing.

I installed the mod "Prepare Carefully" and ofc started making colonists with a mix of 20s and 0s in skills.

It was rather overly easy, so i stopped and went to the other extreme.  Pick a spot, and play with the colonists it randomly gives, and go from there.

There are loads of interesting challenges, but what is really obnoxious is dealing with pirate raids.  The actual raid?  no big deal.  The aftermath is a pain.  I capture the surviving pirates...release the ones i don't want...

...and feed the ones i do want for the next 8 months, as my social person goes from 9 to 12 skill with a whopping 1-2% chance per attempt to get them to join. 

I'd love to see some researchable "drugs" that you can give to prisoners to make them easier to recruit.  Maybe reduce recruitment difficulty by 15 or 20?  It might even be usable on visitors to some effect.

It would CERTAINLY have to piss off your current colonists (like executing a prisoner or selling one to slavery).  Your colonists should certainly wonder at the morality of your "recruiting" methods and have some negative reaction.  Maybe it could even push the target's mental break threshold 5% higher (5% more likely to have a mental break) or give a random bad trait if under 3 traits or something.

I'd like to be able to grow my colony bigger - I think prisoner "drafting" could be a really cool tool to grow your colony at a cost.

Yes i'm aware that wanderer joining, and pirate merchants with slaves to buy do happen, but i think a more proactive approach to recruitment could be rather nice.

Playing a hard game, finally got everything going, then you get hit with a combo of Heat wave and solar flare?  There goes your food stockpile. 

Or maybe you're playing in a very cold biome, your initial stockpile is running out, you're looking to go out hunting to get enough food to last until your internal gardens produce or bulk goods trader arrives.  Oops, now there's a toxic fallout and you're stuck in your base for the next 2 weeks...and starve.

I'm sure the hardcore out there LOVE these situations, and it makes a heck of a dramatic game.  Some people, obviously, wouldn't love this though.

As Tynan has mentioned he wants this game to cater to as wide a range of people as possible. 

This very well may already be planned, but what about a colony start up screen with a checkbox for events.
Say you HATE HATE HATE solar flares *whistles innocently*  you could uncheck solar flares and ta-da! you now have a complete game that will never have solar flares.  You could even implement a slider instead of checkbox for frequency.  Maybe you could move solar flare from "occasional" to "very rare."

It might even be possible to flag good events like "rare Thrumbos" or certain tradeship types.  Reduce or increase their frequency. 

As far as catering to as wide a range as possible, This seems to cover the whole gamut: hardcore players could turn off some good events or increase bad events.  More casual players could do the opposite.  Specialist players could even cater to their psychopathic/psychically deaf/cannibal colony by increasing raids, Wanderer joins and pirate merchants to "frequent."  Basically, whatever you want to make the game fit you...OR just leave it with cassandra classic or robby random and play the default game.

I'm not a coder, i know jack-all about game design, but I suspect that it wouldn't be horribly hard to set the new game menu to include that.