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[More than just pictures!]

More than just pictures!
When I think of visual art, I forget about how many artistic media exist. A starving artist may be wrapped up in photography, composing music, filming, or designing the next great door stop... Expanding art's impact beyond mood modifiers gives the player options to use their colonists' artistic skills to accomplish more than just pleasing aesthetics.

Art in Rimworlds
On RimWorld planets the role of art is pretty diverse. Glitterworld artists mix may genetics with the latest fashions, then lovingly fashion ornate armors with exotic materials. Medieval worlds pass on knowledge through illuminated manuscripts and commemorate bloodlines and battles with tapestries. Tribes do their thing with earthenware crafts and salvaged cloth. Urbworlds are plastered with Orwellian propaganda and memetics. Even mechanoid AIs have been found to have variants of mysterious, seemingly superfluous programming and visual codes.

With all the worlds that interact with your colony, your colonists' exposure to art could be very extensive. Below are some areas art can be applied to, aside from the entertainment aspect that already exists.

^{Da Vince on making better hydroponics tables.}

Educational
Throughout history art has had an educational aspect. Art is used to clearly illustrate concepts and maintain a reader's interest. Great inventors like da Vince also being great artists isn't a coincidence. Currently, skilled professional artists like medical illustrators are often in high demand.

In a RimWorld colony, educational art could be used to create works similar to very basic neurotrainers, slowing skill degradation or improving the skills of colonists that use it. Educational art could play off colonists with high levels of art and another skill. Having a lvl 16 "Planetary Master" chef who's also a capable artist could lead to a profitable export of instructional cooking codices to traders.

^{Wear your safety goggles! (also clickable)}

Instructional
Similar to education, instructional art is used to directly influence colonist behavior. Instructional art could provide small stat boosts for different working environments. Think of the installed instructional works as informational bulletins on best practices, or as reminders to wear safety equipment. With updated colonist danger AI incoming¹, instructional signs could also be used to tell visitors or colonists to avoid certain areas.

It's easy to think that any colonist could prop up a "wear your goggles" sign, but only the best artists create messages that are influential and memorable. Most importantly, in the diverse and expansive RimWorld universe communicating to all viewers is a difficult task. An analogous example would be the struggle to make sure future generations don't accidentally uncover nuclear waste.


¹Oct 27 - Created initial colonist danger avoidance AI so they can avoid areas that are too hot or cold to survive in their current apparel.

A spotlight.

A light source that extends much farther than any other source of light. Only shines in one direction, in a highly-focused beam of light. Meant to improve night fighting by removing the darkness modifiers against accuracy.

Could use large amounts of electricity to ensure they're only used temporarily as combat aids (off of batteries), as opposed to aesthetic or plant-growing light sources.

Would be the only light source that's weatherproof, so as to be used outside.

On that note, how about a UMP too?

On topic, I don't mind having the specifically-named weapons. With some of the changes being introduced, like quality-based weapon crafting, I'm excited to see where combat's headed and figure more cosmetic stuff can come later.

[SOUNDS BORING]

The main reason this came to mind is it would cut down on replacing all the doors that get destroyed by raiders and psychotic deer. But the more I thought about it, these *simple* changes could introduce some interesting scenarios.

SOUNDS BORING
Forcing doors open could be an interesting way to force players to build bases differently. This could, for example, encourage players to segregate their power systems. Certain door types could stay closed during power outages, while others open. This could force players do make a really critical decision -- be trapped inside, or totally open? It's the type of choice some great games offer, like Faster Than Light.

^{fun! with a capital F}

HYPOTHETICALS
-With weather changes coming, doors opening slightly quicker to bandits could stop players from just building 4-5 doors and letting banditz freeze to death trying to break in.

-Similarly, players could just repair 90% of a door instead of having to build a completely new one during a blizzard. With weather systems incoming, having to repair 90% of a door instead of completely fabricate a new one could make gameplay a lot simpler while still building on the same colonist skills (construction and repair skill).

-Requiring power for doors to stay closed/open brings up questions about base building. Do players segregate circuits so all doors don't fail at once? Will mountain bases with exposed wires feeding in become vulnerable?

-This could penalize one aspect of killboxes: sally ports.

-Plasteel becomes much more useful as a door material when players are less likely to have their investment destroyed.

-Powerline fires becomes much more dangerous. Prisoners escape. Cold and heat seep in. Makes batteries and battery placement more important too.

-Raw foods without cooling will rot, so a constant power supply for cooling and door control could be key to storing enough food for winter (or losing it all).

-Excessive heat could also cause cheap doors to open.

^{WHY DIDN'T I BUILD MORE BATTERIES}

THAT'S STUPID, WHY MAKE THE GAME HARDER?
Not all doors need to pop open when damaged or unpowered! And the damage or power levels needed for opening to happen could be appropriately balanced. Super expensive and heavy doors, for example, may not be susceptible to being forced open by loss of power.

There are a few different options for implementing this, especially options I haven't thought of too! The point here is to force the player to make some choices and open up the game to some serious Fun by allowing problems (like attacking raider) to escalate into other issues (my vulnerable power grid got cut, so now my food's spoiling and prisoners are escaping and boomrats are wandering the halls).

Towns uses a system similar to the craft-then-place one suggested for art. It's neat to be able to move stuff around rather than always deconstruct, or be able to have an inventory of furniture ready to be place. That said, I'd rather see the game expanded (like with temps) than have a ton of time spent initiating a new building system.

Is this a vanilla Rimworld feature? I thought personas were only useful for spaceships.

I kind of hope art introduces something completely unexpected! But I imagine it'll probably be some sort of mood-modifier like everyone expects (which is cool too).

Does anyone play without :cheese:?

I like to think I do. I hate all the killbox stuff, and hope eventually some fixes change that. That said, if you're playing four years into the game (beyond where it's meant to be played) on the hardest settings, a killbox is nearly the only realistic approach. But that's another topic.

The biggest thing to keep in mind is every problem has an answer, and this goes both ways. Raider types are varied so they can deal with a variety of threats. Turrets are really just a stop-gap. They'll get sniped out by most enemies unless they're deployed right, or unless you have sufficient long-ranged firepower able to counter-snipe. I'm not saying build a killbox, but you can use walls and positioning to make sure your turrets are in range of enemies shooting them.

What I'd have done differently:
-I personally wouldn't touch EMP mortars, or most mortars for that matter. They're nice for lucky hits but aren't reliable. EMP mortars are practically useless, especially compared to EMP grenades. Unfortunately you built a lot of mortars.
-Snipers are good at range. If you let enemies get your snipers in range your snipers will lose. The point of a sniper is to attack beyond the range the enemy can engage at.
-Try fighting mechanoids up close. Ambush around corners. Use high volumes of fire from machine guns to proc stuns. When only centipedes are left, melee charge and beat them to death because centipedes are susceptible to that.

I cannot pick up their mortars to install in my base once I have killed them (!).

Just use the claim option, then your colonists can dismantle them.

This would be really cool to see! That's probably one of the more practical ways of making jobs less binary.

 Â¯\_(ツ)_/¯

May 9
-Created basic colony wealth counter and colony recent damage record.
-Created statistics overview page.
-Rewrote storytellers to drive raid strength off colony wealth and recent damage taken, with colony combat strength as a secondary factor.

But for some tips, here are some things that may not be immediately obvious:
-Cowboy hats give a +10% social modifier.
-Wood beds are faster at restoring rest than stone beds.
-You can mouse over enemies, while having a unit selected, to see the probability of shooting the enemy.
-Sand bags don't give turrets cover. But (I think) rubble and stone dumped on dumping stockpiles do.
-If you incapacitate -- but don't kill -- a scyther you can remove its undamaged arms and use them as prosthetics.

Also:
-Manual priorities are a great way to help your colonists focus on their best skills. Skills slowly degrade past lvl 10 when not put to use.
-Keep fire in mind when building. My early colonies all went up in flames due to raiders+wood walls+power lines. Rain only helps when roofs aren't in the way.
-When you get the chance to buy cheap medicine, usually from combat sources, buy as much as possible (eg, all of it). Running out of medicine and being unable to properly treat colonists causes Bad Things to happen.

Don't overbuild turrets. Raid strenght is directly related to the number of turrets you have.

I think this was changed in Alpha 7, so raids now are based on amassed wealth.

Is there anything the community can do to help?

I'm personally really excited to find out how temperature/seasons/deciduousness can affect things.

just imagine cockroach size of dog, it will be "mega" compared to normal size.

Plus megascarabs are on the workers. I think the potential for the megascarab to be interesting lies in exploring its bigger/deadlier insectectoid relatives, or the relation megascarabs could have towards mechanoids (their natural enemies).

I try to reduce the number of bullets in play if I want to capture someone. If you try to incapacitate with a minigun, for example, the first bullet might take off the guy's leg (good), while the next few bullets go through his skull (bad).

Of course it's a balancing act between having enough firepower and not enough, so I like to use my bionic-legged colonist to run them down as they flee and beat them into submission (hopefully not to death).

[Existential Spacy Stuff]

Existential Spacy Stuff
We clothe ourselves in flame.
The universe created us.
Ignorance is fatal.
We are the last page.
Together we fix the broken god.
Our ashes return to space.
Even a broken mechanoid is right three times a day.

Ambient Chatter
Congratulations colonist 00019, you have been chosen for transcendence.
Today's task force is AGATHA. Thank AGATHA for their service.
You have been warned and this is your last warning.
Law One: A robot may not harm authorized humans.
Law Two: Colonist 88170-a is the only human.
Law Three: CLASSIFIED
05 Memorandum: level three clearance required for prison bay access.
05 Memorandum: agricultural output not satisfactory.
Reminder: wash all crematorium clothing before wearing.
Be advised, memetic outbreak detected. Please avoid contact with text.
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