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@ Damien Hart thanks for not just saying it would be easier to kill them 

on the topic of individual cells maybe the starting prisoner could down a certain colonist take their key and unlock the rest of the prison rooms or just bust down the door to the prisoners room

Stealing the keys would make sense, I actually forgot about colonist's having them. If that were possible, then some form of expensive but more secure door should be added (scans your entire body or something along those lines). You need to have some way to manage the problem, just not too easily, or it becomes redundant.

It does pose an interesting question though - if a prisoner can knock off your keys, why can't a raider? Carelessness or just plain bad luck could see the raiders have the run of your colony. It would definitely make for some very tense situations. 

I like it, I question why slavers would transport slaves by walking but I like your thinking. Got any other ideas on what else could be done?

Slavers aren't necessarily all space faring. They could belong to outlander towns/tribes/other surface-bound factions added in the future. Plus Tynan has mentioned that he'd like to have some direct interactions between the player and the other factions, as in not just talking to a monitor all the time.

As an alternative, if they belong to a non-hostile faction, they could be coming to visit the colony to sell their "wares". You could also expand on an event like this and have them traveling with pack animals hauling goods, or even using slaves to haul goods (jackpot!).

These sound interesting on paper, but I think escapes/riots might be too easy to mitigate to be really effective.

1. Violent escape attempts: would most likely take long enough that your colonists could easily get to your prisoner before they get out, unless there are factors preventing them from doing so (eg. an attack). Designing a prison with multiple walls/doors between prisoners and the outside world would  pretty effectively hold an individual prisoner, even if you couldn't act immediately.

2. Hunger strikes: this one could be quite interesting, if used as an offset for the super effectiveness of warden talks ie. if you're in a cramped, rough hewn underground dungeon, in complete darkness, and with nothing but a sleeping spot (my typical prison cell), you've been there for days, and the only entertainment you have is when the warden pops in once a day to chat with you (or maybe not even that), then you'll probably start acting out, but not necessarily violently.

3. Riots: I always build individual cells, and putting more doors between individual prisoners so they can't help each other would easily mitigate this one, downgrading what would otherwise be a riot into a violent escape attempt. If there were no contact between prisoners, an event where they all arbitrarily riot, even though they are nowhere near each other, and for all intents and purposes don't even know each other exist would be more annoying than anything.

That being said, if prisons were to be diversified eg. prison labour, or even just allowing prisoners to use the NPD to feed themselves, giving players reasons to actually allow prisoner interaction, then having a group of prisoners potentially riot would be a nice trade-off feature.

I think raid size/tactics balancing is mostly a separate issue, one of how to defend, because it affects everyone, regardless of whether they build on the plains or under a mountain. It does affect people's decision of where to build, but it's not the deciding factor. As far as underground vs. outdoor colonies goes, the biggest issue is that there are pro's (eg. avoiding drop pod raids and mortar fire altogether, free smooth stone floors that are more beautiful than any others) for building beneath a mountain, and none for building outdoors.

One way to mitigate that would be to make a trade-off between safety underground, versus efficiency outside. For example making mud more fertile than hydroponics (I'm thinking of the Nile here, but any form of non-reproducible soil with higher fertility would have the same effect). Another way of accomplishing this (inspired by Towns, but don't hold that against it) would be to have a work speed bonus for workstations not under a mountain roof.

You could also increase the beauty of wild plants, ie. the trade-off of having a small, free mood bonus, or having to invest resources to achieve the same effect. Smooth stone should probably also be balanced down, as 5 beauty, with only a one-off time investment, compared to 2 beauty for wild grass, -1 for tall grass, or requiring constant replanting in the case of planted flowers is just another reason to stay underground. Even wood floors and carpets - beauty 3 and 4 respectively - fall short. Crops could also stand to have their beauty nerfed to a more neutral value.

Mood bonuses for just being outdoors would give people another reason to build in the open. People could also derive enjoyment/be upset by different weather types (it can't be all carrot), depending on personal preferences. For example a caveworlder might dislike sunlight, being naturally adapted to being underground, and so they get the jobs that have them indoors for long periods (warden, miner, cook, etc.), whereas an urbworlder, whose planet was so heavily polluted that seeing the sun was a rare joy, receives a higher bonus from sunlight exposure. Individuals could obviously also have preferences independent of their race etc. People farming in the sun could receive a +5 mood bonus, while your underground hydro-farmers miss out on this, but are slightly safer.

Yeah, only the light level of the target's cell is important. StorymasterQ is right, it doesn't make it easier, it just cancels out the accuracy penalty.

Building roofs over your colonists' defensive positions gives them an advantage through the day, and building lights where your enemy will be standing gives you an advantage at night.

Probably not the dumbest thing I've ever heard, but this is definitely up there - several people have come onto these forums, where Tynan is active pretty much daily, and openly admitted to pirating the game. I mean really, you've just said "Oh, hey, I stole your game, hope you don't mind. I'll pay for it one day, I promise. You can trust me, I'm a complete stranger on the internet."

Really, how did you expect that to go down?

So I tried to log on to update some stuff, but I keep getting an error that says "RimWorld Wiki uses cookies to log in users. You have cookies disabled. Please enable them and try again."

I know for a fact that I have them enabled, chrome even registered that there were cookies from RimWorld Wiki present, so anyone have any ideas as to what could cause this?

I even tried adding the site to the exception list, no dice.

I like the way this thread took off. I will surely reference it if I want to try something new.

I have seen someone mention Towns and that we should stay away from it. Why is that? I checked out their website and the game looks pretty interesting.

Basically, it was an alpha release that never got finished. The developers got slower and slower on updating, and then one day, after something like five months of silence, they announced that they were giving up.

On top of that, the Steam page made it sound more along the lines of Minecraft, which is complete, but still having additional content developed, whereas Towns was still in alpha. It wasn't really until steam users started complaining that the game was shit and the people who owned it before the steam launch started defending it with the "It's not finished" argument that it became clear that it was in fact an unfinished game.

And after that, I completely understand why Tynan wants to hold off on the Steam release of RimWorld.

Timber and Stone is a medieval themed game in the same colony management genre as RimWorld, but in 3D. There's a decent bit of fun to be had with what's currently available too.

Kenshi is another, the theme is kind of post-apocalyptic, set on a completely alien planet. Gameplay has a lot of similarities to RimWorld, in that you take command of a person/small group of people and can make a base and fortify against attacks etc. but it gives a lot more freedom to travel the world with your little group of people, to assault enemy camps, trade goods, buy gear from other towns, recruit new people, rather than being entirely focused on base building.

Lastly, avoid Castle Story like the plague - it's all potential, and no development. It looks more and more like towns by the day.

Really? Phoebe has a lower pop than Cassy? I figured she'd have the higher of the two, considering she is the 'base builder' who wants to see a colony grow, I figure she'd be all about making a MASSIVE fortress of 20-30 people bustling about their daily lives.

Nope, you want massively populated colony, go Randy You want massive colony with 3 peeps, go Phoebe. Just so you know, Phoebe on high difficulty will still pod drop mechanoids on your colonists.

Actually, they are identical with a desired minimum of 3, max of 11, and a critical of 16, while Randy is min 3, max 16, critical 50.

Basically, that means that between desired min/max, recruitment is normal difficulty, random joiners and drop pod crashes happen at regular frequency. After desired max, recruitment becomes harder, and joiners/drop pods become exceedingly rare/non-existant. At critical population, recruitment becomes nearly impossible (if not actually impossible).

At some point, we'll be able to capture centipedes and strap legless colonists to them in place of their guns. 

Spacers are a hidden faction that the people who crash down in pods belong to.

So, any chance that Tynan would adjust the damage system instead?
Pierce for Spears, Arrows, Bullets (bleeds, also penetrates shields)
Slash for Axe, Sword (bleeds, also easier to cut off limbs)
Blunt for Hammer, Shield, Hand to Hand, Club (causes bruise or breaks bones)

Also, can we consider what would happen if you equip a pair of shield as the main and sub? Dark Souls?

That's mostly how the damage system works, though armour penetration isn't a thing (that system is still WIP though) and limb removal depends on damage dealt, type is not a factor.

As for shields, I guess that would be a matter of whether or not to give shields some sort of bash attack. Plus for bigger shields shouldn't be possible to wear two of because of their size. If they were, one would be treated as a weapon, the other as a shield. I guess it makes sens that both would be able to block, and that their cover could stack, possibly with like 80% of the total cover.

Yeah mostly 3x but for when the colony requires micromanagement. Though I do spend a ridiculous amount of time paused while I design stuff.

That wouldn't make any sense though - we can't get guns for ourselves, so we'll just make some...

It completely defeats the purpose of having a melee focused starting point; if the turrets have guns, the colonists may as well too.