Messages

Why is this, anyway? It's a bit immersion-breaking IMO.

Because Ty doesn't want it to be a high-population game, which is a little silly in a game which is so explicitly inspired by Dwarf Fortress.

Indeed. Generally speaking, hard caps for arbitrary reasons tend to detract from the gameplay experience. Even with Dwarf Fortress, the population cap is editable and most players can't even reach the default and get higher than 10 fps.

I support this as well. It could add a lot if it's implemented well.

On the subject of human reactions, I think there should also be prisoners who outright refuse to join your colony. Basically while imprisoned just give them a -50 fear/happiness modifier called "Refuses to recruit" and disable the try to recruit option. I mean, think about it - not every raider is gonna get shot nearly to death, watch you murder all his buddies and then happily assimilate into your population 4 days later. Perhaps have a trait like "loyal" or something that makes it much less likely for colonists with it to defect but also much less likely for prisoners with it to be able to be recruited.

That's a good idea. It would give the "execute" option a use...

I'm with the guy who suggested the huge thing on gun parts and tech trees.

That seems like a really cool feature to me that solves all points nicely.

This. And it adds depth to the game, which is sorely lacking at the moment.

I absolutely agree with the OP. "Survival" is not all about shooting wave after wave of mindless minions. The most basic elements of survival are food, water, and shelter from the elements. Yet it always seems that the challenges of these have minimal impact on the long-term well-being of your settlement. Food can be grown with minimal effort or literally falls out of the sky. Water? What water? And the weather has no impact aside from setting everything on fire, and occasionally putting them out.

I am a strong supporter of the idea of 'more challenges', but they all need to balance. Building bases under ground shouldn't be hard just to stop building bases underground. Building bases under ground should be hard because building a base in general is hard.

Various stone types is a good place to start, which make it more interesting to begin digging out underground. Air circulation is another interesting thing that could be added, and have it affect both above and below ground structures. (After all, nothing says the air above ground actually as to be safe. Maybe you've landed on a moon with a mostly toxic atmosphere and need to maintain a sealed environment with scrubbing equipment? Best not to step outside without your space suit, or allow people to wander too far from a recharge/supply station/cart.)

I've also spent months at a time in confined environments and not seeing the light of day. In parts of Canada they also call that "Winter". I like to assume I've kept all of my sanity after those expeditions. But that does give us another point to expand upon that would add more flavour to the characters. Just think of having a claustrophobic crew member on a tainted air world? Would make the player have to work extra hard to provide things like 'artificial windows' and improved lighting to keep that character's sanity up.

Side note: The average human on earth can produce something like 1000 units of vitamin D a minute in good weather with a reasonable amount of exposed skin, and needs around 200 units a day to maintain good health. Peak production is found at a few narrow bands of UV light, and you can actually produce it in a safer and more controlled manner with artificial UV lights at those specific bands, rather than broader spectrum light as from the sun which will dose you in lots of radiation at a low efficiency level.

This.

Many people entirely fail to realize that it is possible to balance unbalanced features of a game by way of realism and still avoid punishing creativity.

Yes, living in an underground structure should be hard. Should there be a multitude of unforeseeable dangers that you have no way of protecting against or avoiding? No, that's bad gameplay. Should there be a way to surmount the challenges thrown at you while building an insanely fortified underground complex, with the necessary effort and knowledge? Absolutely.

I think adding air would work fine for that.  With no ventilation, your colonists would suffocate if they dug too deep.

There's a law in game design that states that if there is one solution to a problem that is always available to the player that is clearly superior to the rest (i.e. not limited by rare resources), the player will always choose that solution to solve the problem. If your game falls into this category, chances are it's a bad game, because most games that fall into this category are games in which not much thought was put in. Rimworld is an exception - it is still a good game despite this, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be fixed somehow. I think, rather than making building underground super-dangerous (I'd rather deal with fires than insta-killing cave ins), I suggest we make building above ground a sort of high-risk high-reward scenario. You're more vulnerable to raiders and fire, but you can get great rewards. I'd say that we should make hydroponics more inefficient and above-ground farms more efficient so that you can get more food should you choose an outside life. Likewise, we ought to include happiness boosters. "Nature is beautiful" kind of things that give colonists happiness if they spend enough time outdoors rather than inside a dingy old cavern.

Hmm, I wonder if Tynan covers that topic in his book.

Instead of making hydroponics less effiecient, if oxygen is re-added air cleanliness affects plant growth. above ground will have fresher air and caves will have stale / low oxygen so you would have to invest in air purifyers (or however you spell it)

That would be cool. More atmospheric effects in general would be a good addition, I think.

Question:
Will the colonists at some point be able to create walls and electric cables that are not filled with some combination of gasoline and short circuits?

Also.
Will there come a time where one does not have the ability to create fully-powered defense systems, metal walls, and solar panels in the early game? Will more basic materials and items like wood, stone, and campfires, along with a few bits of tech you've managed to salvage from the escape pods and wreckage, eventually define the starting experience?

What are your current plans/ideas regarding gameplay progression?

Why is this, anyway? It's a bit immersion-breaking IMO.

I definitely support this.

...So, why exactly is it that a few random, ragtag bands of raiders feel like it's a good idea to attack a base bristling with fortifications and automated turrets, when all they have is a few rusty rifles and a grenade or two?

Yes, there's an AI problem. However, there's also a tech problem. I hope that sometime in the future, we will not be able to build high-tech automated turrets, comically explosive walls, and solar panels right off the bat. Instead you might have to use basic materials such as wood, stone, scrap, and homemade, improvised firearms in the early game. Where exactly are these colonists pulling schematics for remotely detonated mines and electric lights out of? In a survival situation, wouldn't you start with pitfall traps and campfires?

Sure, the escape pods and what bits and pieces of the ship you may be able to find would help, as well as offer a limited amount of advanced technologies and items. That said, not a whole lot is able to survive being blown up, re-entering the atmosphere, and hitting the ground at terminal velocity.... Especially in a society where they have something resembling nano-assemblers but can't make OSHA-certified wiring with that very same handwavium. Maybe the ship the colonists were on blew up because of an electrical fault, it's not all that much worse than Star Trek wiring. Maybe circuit breakers and fuses were never invented in this universe...

Think about how often the circuitry in your house short circuits during the rain, or the power lines that are just hanging there outside all the time.

World logic vs. game logic.

And usually game logic winds up being downright silly. Artificial difficulty is usually not fun.

Repair frequency for things with no moving parts should definitely be reduced. When's the last time a freestanding metal wall fell apart within a couple of days of being constructed?

That probably depends on the worksmanship and the quality of the materials. Do you reckon the walls we're putting up are proper, prefabricated walls or ramshackle things of corrugated iron welded together over a wooden framework with a power cable strung through them, Borderlands style?

I could see Borderlands style wasteland scavenger walls needing fairly frequent maintenance.

This is true. They look pretty prefab at the moment though. But if we do wind up with various tiers of construction and materials, that should certainly be taken into account.

Smelter: Convert Slag into Metal, or any other kind of debris (like those 50+ pistols you have laying all over after your twentieth raider attack).

Forge: Convert metal into melee weapons.

Advanced Forge: Convert metal into firearms.

Chemical Processor: Convert Food into Fuel.  Opens new possibilities for vehicles, flamethrowers, explosives and ammunition mechanics.

Resource Types: Base Metals, Noble Metals, Plant Nutrient (veggies), Protein Nutrient (meat), Water (already mentioned elsewhere), Fertilizer, Rock/Stone (cement/concrete when processed), Chemicals, etc.

This. All of the this. Air as well, if that gets re-implemented.