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As of right now, I agree with O Negative on Pawns not having any more daily needs than eating or sleeping (bathroom needs come up often as well, in these threads).

Although, to touch on your idea, I think water for plants would be an interesting mechanic: they would need rain to enrich the soil every few days, and in the absence of rain you would need to dig wells to irrigate from groundwater or pull water from a river/ocean.

I also have been fond of the idea of incorporating bridges as good bottleneck points/ to access unreachable parts of water-heavy maps, or water mills as alternate power ideas, or fishing in the shallows.

Tl:dr I would actually like to see water play a more direct role in this game, but not as a consumable.

I see where you're going with this, and I see how it conforms to historical trends in real life, but that's just CREEPY.

I get that, but the issue is how is it balanced?

ALL colonists and prisoners need to be fed, and cared for, to an extent, and they add up into your colony wealth for what determines raids

True. And good point about slaves contributing to colony wealth. But i think there are many ways to balance slaves. For this example I'm comparing them to pack animals, which would probably do the same stuff:

For one, they need food, and a degree of mood buffs like normal prisoners (nice prison, nice talk, good food) to keep them from going berserk, which makes them a bit harder to keep than animals who can haul. There's also the chance they could go berserk or rebel, and to this end they would NEED to be kept close. If they attempt escape when you send them to the opposite side of the map from you, they're gone.

On the other hand, they're better than animals because they're more readily available (a good pack animal requires a good handler/lucky trade event. Raids are certain), require no training to do dumb labour, and assuming you were going to keep them in your prison anyway, you're putting to work mouths which would otherwise just drain your resources.

And while they'll never be better than colonists, many colonies suffer from a dumb labour shortage at one time or another, so a slave or two to haul and clean would be invaluable. You would just need to disallow slaves in any areas where there are powerful weapons.

So in my opinion, slaves CAN be balanced if done right. I don't see how having a slave would ever be preferable to a full colonist or even a fully trained pack animal, but the point of them is to be able to fill a role in a pinch.

Once played a Randy game as tribals. Got a few early raids, but then went two full game years with no raids. Got complacent, had no researchers so researched VEEEERY slowly.

By the time the raid came, I'd amassed enough wealth for it to be enormous, with triple rocket launchers, incendiary cannons, what have you. Meanwhile, since my tech was low and I had very few low level raiders to plunder from, only half of my 15 or so tribals had firearms. Needless to say I got rolled, I think I barely killed any of them.

Roll of the dice....

Good suggestion - I always though the presence of an eye patch or blue eye would be a no brainer for eyeless colonists/bionics. In their hud icon at least, if not their in game model.

Wow, I didn't even know there was a relationship thing for "you killed my family member", Tynan really does think of everything!

Now that I know it exists, though, I quite like it and think the 3 things you posted are fine.

1.) the reason has no effect, but when it comes to loved ones rationality isn't always a thing, especially in the days following (and most colonies happen in a short time span). The only answer to this I could give is a "forgiveness" possibility to roll after a certain amount of time.

2.) the situation you list here is pretty specific. In most cases I'd imagine they know because somebody else in the colony witnessed it, and the colonists talk. That would be my hand wave, anyway.

3.) you're right here, but this manner of execution is a very common exploit in Rimworld in all situations (killing prisoners, visitors, traders etc). An an obvious exploit, I wouldn't consider it an argument against.

4.) true, the situation you list is a shitty one, but it would be in real life as well. Again, I think this is where a forgiveness mechanic would come in handy.

All in all, I think this is a neat system that makes a lot of sense. I've never personally experienced it, and I imagine it must be quite rare (did you make up these scenarios, or are you just REEEEEEEALLY unlucky with family scenarios?)

Or, if they have to have the debuff, counterbalance it with a 24 hour (equivalent) buff for "survived raid".

I haven't played A16 enough yet to really explore (heh) the possibilities offered by offmap travel, but from the demo video I had taken it as a given that you could set up a quick camp in a tile to hunt for more food. As a tribe, you could maybe set up a crafting spot and make some furs or weapons from the different biome's resources while you're at it.

If A16 doesn't already have the tools to make this kind of nomadic travel feasible, then it's really missing out on a golden opportunity. I mean, walls don't take forever to build, so the "crate" thing isn't of paramount importance, but the exploring random tiles thing is, IMO, a necessity.

It's  a good idea. The idea to reload your old colony after your colonists finish with it (which is a similar concept) has already been suggested a few times, but I think it'd be a cheap, easy addition. Having it all be affected by the ravages of time would work nicely, too.

I once lost an entire colony to disease after a raid, but decided to fast forward the colony and watch what happened. The bodies rotted, an electricity breakdown spoiled all the food, and an infestation occurred in one bedroom and slowly chipped its way into the whole bedroom wing. When the first new wanderer joined the colony, I used dev tools to spawn two more and some weapons, and then cleared out the colony (I resorted to killing it with fire).

Of course, the mood debuffs from the corpses, the blood and the spoilage were too much, so I actually had to forbid the colony and build a small one from scratch nearby. It was quite a few months (and a psychic soothe lance) before I could actually go in and clean it out.

I've broached the idea of vehicles for local maps before as well. I had three basic ideas for vehicles at the time:

car/ATV: A small, single-person vehicle. Good for getting a person across the map really fast. Ideal for snipers who want to take pot shots at enemies and then zip back to the base (for example, if they have mobility issues).

Pickup truck: The truck bed would operate as a zone, of sorts, with maybe 3-6 stacks on it. That way a colonist assigned to the truck could mine away a whole row (or chop a small forest) and then load it up in one trip.

Ambulance: Like the pickup truck, but for crashlanded pawns or your own wounded.

Additionally, I suggested an option for training be "mechanic", and every vehicle has a chance to break down at any time. Vehicles also take damage like people do - by losing function to certain areas. There were a few issues with vehicles at the time I suggested it:
1.) using vehicles in this way would require retooling of AI, and doesn't seem so intuitive for an unfamiliar player.
2.) Graphically, it would be very clunky to attach a pawn into a car (someone told me on my thread that two objects cant occupy the same space, though I don't believe that to be true since pawns stack over each other all the time).

All in all though I think that vehicles would add a lot to the game.

Should maybe go in the "cheapest ideas" thread, but I think windows would be a good addition to the game. You can build them into walls (same as the air conditioners or the power conduits) and they provide light as well as permeability to bullets (ie, your colonists can shoot through them similar to a gap in the wall, and raiders can shoot back).

As cons, this drastically reduces the health of the wall segment, as well as lets out some heat.

The only thing in the game I could see this majorly disrupting is animal attacks, since you could then just hide indoors and take potshots through the safety of a window. Ideas to get around that?

The problem with vehicles would be balancing, do they take fuel? if so how much? would they be limited to flat areas only? if not then how much of a speed penalty should they get in hilly or mountainous areas? what happens if a vehicle runs out of gas mid caravan? will the pawns push it home at a movement penalty? will they just flat out abandon it meaning you lose whatever resources (probably alot) that it took to make it? How much carrying weight will they add for caravans? and so many more questions

None of these seem to me like insurmountable obstacles, they would just require some playtesting.


At some point in the future I'm sure it'll become possible to "save" visited tiles, therefore if your vehicle runs out of fuel you can always return and retrieve it at a later date. For now, though, suffice to say a vehicle isn't allowed to join a caravan if it has insufficient fuel.

I'm not saying anything here that hasn't already been said, but I hate pets in combat. I hate how they follow their master around, and then just wait out in the open and get shot all the time - and I hate that I have to unbond every animal from every master before a fight. Can't there be a "wait around the base" option alongside the "release" option, so that animals' default isn't walking into battle with their bonded masters?

Even in combat, all animals do is get in the way of my shooters, and they're too valuable to my colonists both emotionally and as hauling assets to justify being used as the meat shields they currently are.

My opinion: animals mulling around the base all the time, staying in their restricted section should be the default, while "accompany master" and "release" should be the options - not the other way around.

You never play for the stories.
You play for the strategy, and if the game is designed well, you get amazing stories.

That way the stories are 'real', and so, impactful.

VERY good point, is it too late to change my poll answer?

I don't know, I always thought that the "anyone can die" aspect of Rimworld meshed really well with its "life is tough and ultimately meaningless" theme. Having robots to do all your fighting for you would take a lot of the suspense out of the combat. I'd say if you want "disposable" fighters, recuit fighters who are really only good for combat.

Every time I've lost a favourite colonist for a dumb reason, it's managed to resonate with me - and that's what this game's about. I still remember the time that I sent Lucy, Drifter (armed with a shotgun, wearing power armour and a helmet) alone to take out a straggling, elderly bandit with cataracts who was shooting a solar panel in the middle of the night. Thanks to RNG, this blind old lady with hardly any clothes and no shooting skill took out one of my pluckiest, longest-lasting, most versatile colonists with a single headshot.

That kind of event sticks with you far longer than if this old lady had just sniped some robot, mercenary or turret.