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It's true, random relatives don't make sense. In a vast universe finding your ex-girlfriend in a random planet in a settlement is completely non-sense even if it only happens once in the game let alone it happening all the time. But it didn't ruin my immersion.

Artificial wombs is a good suggestion ! I was thinking inside the box, traditional families and growing of children, but it could just be that! I'll write more later.

Greetings! So after all this time i finally played the latest version. My previous posts were unfortunately concerning the very first playable alphas and what i imagined the updates would be like gameplay-wise. So now i can finally tackle a few points in regards to where we are now.

First of all, about the topic's title. Do we really need rimkids? Because as i was playing the game i was thinking i am really not low on personnel at all. Furthermore rimkids would add a hell of a lot more stuff to think about and the most important of all was education. I mean they aren't born knowing the language. Animals are fine since you can just train them, however education is a lot more complex. For example, we would have to add a new skill, "teaching" or something like that. We would also have to add "human handle" which is completely different to "handle" (which concerns animal handling). We would need a classroom, a playground, and what about the mother that gave birth? She could die, or she could otherwise be affected by the fact that she gave birth. What i'm saying is, it's stretched way beyond the limits of the game as it is now. However, converting slaves or pod survivors is actually pretty productive. Also, with the inclusion of biological/chronological age, i had a guy who was biologically 16 and chronologically 100+ so basically he's my "main" char (i've reached spacer technology and he's still 21). So do we need rimkids? I think the devs should focus on travelling away from the colony (i don't know if it's implemented now, because there was a hint somewhere of a food that lasts for long distances or something? but i haven't found out if or how i can do it yet).

Travelling away from the colony would mean resettling, forming your own caravans, attacking a different colony or tribe, etc. Why not even form a second colony and be able to switch between them - that's not very far away - although it is far from the original concept (escaping).

Anyway the topic remains, do we really need rimkids? And i think the answer is not yet (if ever). I was getting the feeling that the planet's atmosphere has some sort of birth-inhibiting essences that stops women from getting pregnant by simply breathing in the air, and it was fine! It's sad to see, of course, that your favourite colonist's genes won't pass on, however i think it's a bit more plausible this way. I now have about 8-9 people and i have turned down many opportunities for more, or converting prisoners, because right now, 9 is all i need. So if my 9 colonists started making babies, then i would need to expand, and then i would need to expand even more, and soon enough the whole map wouldn't be enough.

Actually i think the map should be enlarged. Actually it could be an industrial-level tech, to enlarge the map plus one tenth map size in every direction, and the tech would have 10 tiers, each tier costs more (3000 - 5000 - 7000 - 9000 - 11000 and so on). Would it affect the fps that much? However we don't even need that one.

I really look forward to seeing the transport pods (was that the name?) i saw in the teaser. However, let me say it again. Right now the game is perfectly playable. A technological curve was added, so i basically started with wood and butchering and cooking in fuelled cooking tables, slowly researching i reached the point that i could contact ships, and i could only reach even the state to start making the ship towards late-game (where i am now). What can i say? Most of the things i disliked in the early alpha are gone or replaced with a much more plausible and immersive gameplay.

And last but not least, to get back to the topic, i think we should let the devs work on our own caravans and colony expansion, rather than rimkids. At least for now. Maybe, we could research how to stop this birth-inhibiting atmosphere towards late game, which would mean we choose to stay instead of leaving (and the ship could be used for something else).

Now on other feedback. I actually don't have much to say as most of it is positive, but i'll try to raise a few points anyway.

1. When a person has a mental break and starts removing his/her clothes, the items have to be re-enabled in order for the person to re-wear them or other people to haul them. I don't understand why is that. If the item was reserved for the person who dropped it, then it's understandable but i think it has to be enabled for even the same person to use it. The problem with this is that then you have to go tracking down all the objects that were dropped and you might even miss some.

2. When there's a bzzzt event, the power cables in the explosion area vanish and aren't automatically re-blueprinted. I mean, the solution is in the problem. They have to be re-blueprinted. Or at least show us where the cables were before they were destroyed ? Or at least make it optional ?

3. You can repair a turret but you cannot repair a weapon. And there i thought an automatic robo-turret was more sophisticated and complex than a pistol. I would also like to see repairable robotic parts (like arms and legs and eyes). The only reason i've stayed away from them is because as i remember they can break down and you need new ones. I think in spacer-level tech you should be able to repair them yourself. It's just repairing, there is a percentage already there, so why not ?

4. Why can't the colonists somehow fire from inside the walls? I mean, either climb the walls, or just make holes and fire through them with an accuracy handicap. Or let us create bunker-like structures so we can man them when the raiders come.

Anyway that's all from me. Sorry for the long post! I'll go back to my colony now. I have two thrumbos, male and female, visiting my colony and i'm trying to tame them. Imagine the faces on those raiders!

@NeonOverIon

That could work too

@Tagasaki

I agree. I love the idea of at least a cleaning drone or a watering drone or a harvesting drone.

Ok, i'm gonna say the word, don't hate straight-away, ready? Aircraft.

Well, this also goes towards vehicles in general but what i imagined was aircraft. I mean small plane-types like in the movie "oblivion". Maybe the aircraft doesn't even have an engine and relies on the wind but again, what i imagined was "proper" aircraft. A vehicle that you sit in, drive it and land it etc.

It occured to me when i thought about the procedure of making the actual escape ship. I said previously that the escape ship should be extremely harder to build so i thought making a regular one-or-two-person air vehicle could actually take the amount of time and resources that the escape ship takes now.

So why would you need a plane (let's call it what it is) ? Trade, travelling, attack from behind on sieges, MAYBE attacking from above (imagine the terrified tribesmen when they notice your ship taking off), hauling (this is HUGE), etc.

It could be an automated aircraft (hauling, assisting in battles, carrying wounded, etc.) it could be manned (that's what i prefered) it could be small (i was honestly imagining a one-person plane) or big (that would be unrealistic) and it would be as expensive, tiring and troublesome to make as the escape ship (this, again, goes along with making the escape ship MUCH harder to make) AND it would need a specific fuel to run on, let's say not as expensive as glitterworld meds but close to it, so you would probably only make one. I imagined a grown colony, the size of a village, and suddenly a pod crashes. A trained guy goes to the plane, flies over there, but there's a thunderstorm, so he crashes. He's wounded but manages to carry the survivor back. In the morning the sky is clear so people go and haul the ship's parts. In the colony they are repaired and re assembled (another week's work). Your colony's plane would be your prized asset!

Now concerning "automated planes" this idea could expand to other "levitating" mechanisms. Imagine a cleaning bot, a nurse bot, a watering bot etc. Levitating bots would be fast mechs that run on power (you would need large amounts for even one of them). The tech could come from alien spaceships (the ones that have the automated guards).

BTW i'm not advertising this idea as realistic, i'm just saying it would be fun, i completely understand there are other issues right now.

@Songleaves

The satellite idea isn't that bad at all. But we would still need to build something to gather those signals. And it would still need to be mentioned somehow.

However i still think it would be awesome to uncover random buildings that give you bonuses - and those would be region-specific and also their appearance would be governed by luck.

@Boston

True. Like i said in another forum when i played i chose a region close to a river because those are the most food-wealthy regions irl. Furthermore you basically get the basics of survival, easy to access food and water. Wood from the trees that grow near it. Energy from dams. I thought, must be aware of the tides as well - or crabs - just as any cast away would. I also thought it would be easier to defend since the river is either impassable or it really slows down the attackers with a chance to even drown or get carried away by the river - especially if they're coming from mountainous terrains or deserts or wherever far away from water. It would also give attackers a better reason for attacking you, if you've managed to build some sort of fishing station.

@Boston

If we could uncover it in our map then it would be our job to fix it / provide it with power. The material will have probably been degraded but, like i said, for the sake of simplicity, let's say it hasn't. It's still far more realistic than just implying you are receiving a signal from god knows where.

Also, it would be cool to uncover things that give bonuses to our colonies. And maybe maps would differ. One map doesn't have a broadcast station but something else, another map may have some machine that auto-crafts (i don't know i'm just saying).

In another topic of this suggestion i said the following (no quote): Fishing could be an ineffective but steady way of gathering meat. You could gather a low amount over a large period of time which would basically mean you wouldn't want to go fishing in the first place. However people with "hunt" attribute could do that whenever they are just chilling. I have had occasions where a person was only good for hunting and it was the only thing he ever did, so why would this person be chilling all the time instead of fishing since it's basically his job to provide the colony with meat?

However the fun would begin if you could automate this process. This could happen by research (build a fishing machine) so you get a low but steady meat income while not occupying anyone, or, like i said earlier, anyone who has "hunt" as a priority would go fishing if no other orders are issued. So (and combining this with what our friend said) for example if the school of fish is above 1% and a person's priority list is 1. building 2. hunting 3. crafting and no building is being built he will simply go fishing until the school drops to 1%.

This way whoever has a list of priorities in which hunting is the last one, then whenever they have spare work-time they could just go fishing.

But even without the "sauce", like i said in the beginning i had a guy who would only hunt, so when he wasn't he would just chill, so most of the time i would find him sitting idly. That guy could spend his time fishing even without me ordering it (a school of fish could have a toggle button for example)

@Thane

Thanks for mentioning this, as i did not know it. However like you said, the program loop would be a week's worth.

As for the steel deposits, since it's (in my imagination, always) an alien planet, you could find anything. Even a pool of alchohol. So i never really considered finding steel or plasteel deposits as unrealistic. The things i find unrealistic are those that imply other things which aren't mentioned. For example, growing crops imply you have/gathered seeds. If you already have them, it means you brought them from your spaceship. However you never get to gather seeds in the game. Anyway, i never cared for this as well, since i thought let's just imagine you gathered them for simplicity's sake.

The reason i talked about TVs in particular was the "survival" aspect of the game. While implying the gathering or possession of every type and amount of seeds isn't removing the "cast-away" aspect of the game, watching a TV broadcast just like you would on Earth does. However, if, like you said, you are watching a "forgotten loop" then it actually adds to it if that's actually part of the game (i mean, for example, in order to have a signal you should uncover a (broadcast pylon?) in your own map first)

I haven't played the latest versions but i saw the changelog at rimworld's wiki and saw that a TV has been added for the patients. Now, i know i'm stretching it a bit here, but what exactly are they watching on TV ? They are supposedly light years away from civilization so aren't TVs and radios (with the exception of communication via radio) a bit unrealistic? I understand they could be watching news from their neighbours but i doubt they (or their neighbours) would be making movies and i also doubt they carried disks with movies with them while crashing - even so the movies would be limited to a certain maximum so after a while, after having watched all for about a billion times, you would be driven crazy even at the sight of a TV screen.

If we suppose they are getting the signal from the nearest planet, then a) why can't they signal that planet (you could say it would take ages to reach that planet, so why do it-but still it makes no sense not to do it even out of desperation) and b) supposing they are getting the signal which has travelled many light years to get to them, wouldn't it be mixed with other interferences, thus making it completely unwatchable?

Which leaves us with the first two options, either the signal is coming from a neighbour on the same planet, or from a disk that someone carried with him while crashing. I suppose we're mostly talking about the second option here, since the news can't be on all the time and they can't be worth your attention all the time. So if you're a rimkid (supposing there will be rimkids in the future) you will have watched all the movies towards the middle of your generation - either for fun or as a patient. I will, of course, assume that the movies are downloaded from the disk into the TV, otherwise only one TV can operate at any given time.

Anyway i'm saying all this mainly because when i hear TV i imagine a normal TV with different channels etc, while in this case it should be more like a computer screen, with pre-stored "fun material", and no "outside" signal whatsoever.

In order to keep the forum clean of multiple same threads it would be wise to delete new topics that have the same suggestions over and over again (for example, the ability to procreate). I read the "frequently suggested" sticky and i got lost in the replies (like one-liners asking for z-levels) and i assume it would be a good thing to add those to the "frequently suggested" topic and delete them so at least the stickies remain clean.

Right now there is no way to know if an idea someone comes up with hasn't already been expressed in the 200+ pages of topics in the suggestions forum. Not only that, but maybe someone in page 143 had a really interesting idea that has now been forgotten. Another possibility would be to add some sort of timer so posts are deleted after a certain period (even a year). They could be automatically archived for Ludeon's use. If a topic's suggestion is already included in the "frequently asked" sticky then the topic should be replied to and deleted i think (let's say a day after it's closed). If a topic has multiple suggestions while one of them is included in the frequently asked then the poster may be asked to edit the topic and exclude that particular suggestion (since it has been noted numerous times).

The sole reason for all these suggestions here is because it would be a shame for a cool idea to get lost, or an already existing idea being reposted over and over again, cramping the forum.

Implementing psionic powers is a bit of a longshot i think. Maybe after the version becomes 1.0 they could start thinking of expansions to add this. But until then there are other matters that need to be added to reach that 1.0.

As long as willpower is concerned someone said "the colonist has hardened up through the years and gained increased willpower", i think that would suffice.

It could be random, or selectable, but also pre-created by the game with a bit of lore.

What was the ship's mission before it crashed determining your team.

A scientific purposed mission: top farmer, top researcher, low builder/miner (these three also have medium doctor status)and a low guard/hunter

A prisoner transfer: top guard/hunter, medium builder/miner, medium farmer/butcher and one prisoner

A military ship: top guard/hunter, top builder/miner, low farmer/butcher, low researcher

These are just examples. Obviously these would also have secondary skills that i can't get into at the moment but if it's a good suggestion then i can expand ( however i am leaving today for a job far away and i don't know if i'll have any time in the next 6 months). An example would be that in the military ship scenario you get an officer (no need to add this as a trait, just as lore) who is a good hunter/builder/farmer (survival skills) and a medium(or low) doctor (first aid skills). However the rest of the team's skills would suffer.

Also, you could get an interesting intro scenario of what the mission was all about and the names of the people. This way you get attached to your team before you even begin to play. You could even design the entire crew and then get a random four people (one in each perspective field) that survived from that particular crew - although that's a bit of a longshot.

Other missions could be

Construction ship, Trade ship, Exploration ship, or digging deeper a research ship whose mission was to research and explore a Transcendent world. Space pirates, tribals that were slaves in a slaveship and ended up surviving the crash, anything goes.

Some other aspects would be to add where do these come from to determine certain perks (like starting resources or researches), so for example if it comes from a glitterworld then they should start with some perks of that world.

However one of these scenarios should be the scenario as it is now. The default one. Maybe a "cruise ship" which was supposed to be for vacations, so you get random people.

The good thing about these scenarios is that you will be able to provide a predetermined experience to the player, while leaving the choice to him. Also, there is nothing that needs to be added apart from text and creating characters according to each scenario. Obviously there would be some need for balancing (maybe one mission is too hard, another is too easy), however nothing new is being added code-wise.

This could later on affect the ending, each scenario could have its own, maybe the military group has to bring its mission to completion, maybe the war is over until that point.

Also, some scenarios could be unlockable by certain events. So for example, as one stated in some endings/triggers he wrote about, if you get everyone united under a cyber-hive mind, then you can unlock a team that comes from a transcendent world (how cool would that be) but again, that's for later on.

To sum up: My cheap idea is to implement the ship's original mission which determines what your team will be, while keeping the default option of the team being random (or "rolled" let's say).

@keylocke

I would suggest that it's selected from the beginning of your colony, rather than being a toggle button. Like saying, easy mode, normal mode(how the game was intended to be played), hard mode (with an option for "harder" that includes FoW), everyone is happy.

To be honest what i think the game is missing is some late-game weapons. I am assuming the sniper rifle is supposed to be mid-game. It would be awesome to have some beam weapons, or satellite weapons (provided you can build and launch a satellite - not the same as building a ship that can escape the planet), mecha weapons (with bonuses to accuracy - for example they could have an auto-targetting system) etc.

What i would suggest would be that these weapons become largely available towards the end-game however you can obtain one really powerful weapon or two using different means (i suggested somewhere else that researching the mechanoid cadavers you can perhaps get one of their weapons to function for you. So maybe you don't reverse engineer it, maybe you can't actually build that weapon yourself, but you can at least use it, and it could be really powerful - or maybe you could add a specific auto-targetting chip to one of your weapons - thus building a huge-accuracy minigun or mortar by applying that chip to those).

Speaking of mortars, in the version i played the mortars were extremely inadequate. With these suggestions you could greatly enhance the weaponry which is already there, instead of adding new weapons. But i'm obviously all for sci-fi weapons too.