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I'm really against the idea of 'farming out' combat to an AI it just feels wrong to actively remove something that works from the game

I think this is the bigger issue at hand and will be more so once the kickstarter ends and more people are playing.  If micromanaging combat is fun and meaty, compared to the rest of the game, then people will gravitate towards keeping it in and most likely expanding it.  Already on the forums there are plenty of combat related suggestions that would add much more tactical depth. 

Another problem with micromanaged combat is that you have undue ability to 'beat' the game.  There is no way that enemy AI will ever compare to even an average player who has complete control over his colonists.  So the major inflection points of the game will always occur in combat where the player can really extract maximum value from situations.  The only way to counter this is to send many more raiders and then that puts you into the normal strategy game situation where you are clearly smarter than the computer and they stop feeling like an opponent and more like a cheating game system.  Think how high-difficulty levels in Civilization amp the bonuses available to the other civs.  Not smarter, just more. 

will be interesting to see how this pan's out

I think it has panned out since trade ships are already in the game.   

keeping score ... will still give the player motivation to play the game and try to beat themselves or their friends in a global leaderboard.

I'm not sure where but I'm pretty sure Tynan is against any form of scorekeeping, as it makes the game more about 'winning' than in telling interesting stories.  If there is a score involved, that is basically the game designer telling you directly what they value in the game, in stead of letting you decide that for yourself.

I would expect the final product to make sense or at least give a reasonable explanation for everything

That's interesting to me.  I view most Sci-fi games as basically a fantasy game with a sciency theme (because that's what they are).  I would expect the game designer to be able to explain the design philosophy for everything in the game but hardly rationalize every thing within the context of reality.  I mean, there are exploding rats, right? 

Tynan, if you want to move to a less fiddly combat system, I'd recommend implementing some version of it before the post-kickstarter build comes out.  Judging by a lot of the comments, there could be a semi-revolt if 1500 people get used to micro-managing their battles and then you take it away.  Just a thought. 

I don't think that the backstory or endgame need to make a full circle of logic.  I don't think absolute realism is a major feature of the game.  Its a romantic story about people surviving in a hostile world and using their own abilities to set themselves free (if you want them to actually leave  )

Quote from KickStarter

As it has be said, there's a very neat and deep combat system... what's the point if we can't enjoy it by actually playing it ?

I guess that's like saying whats the point of a deep relationship system, if you can't directly make one character have an affair with another.  The depth comes from the interaction of the colonists and the world you create around them.  So relationships might live or die based on the placement of bedrooms, and the colonists might live or die during a battle based on the layout of the defensive structures and the weapons technologies you've made available. 

Traveler, as far I can tell, it pretty much has to do with the in-game time-scale, as opposed to implementing ageing being a big technical challenge.  Days and weeks are not passing very fast in the game.

For example: If one equivalent day last 5 minutes, then a week is 35 minutes, and a year is 30 hours.  I just pulled those times out of thin air, but unless the scale is smaller than that by a factor of 10, its not feasible that you would ever play a colony long enough for anyone to age significantly, even it was a complete sandbox. 

As far as I know, Tynan doesn't specifically mention direct control during combat as a feature in the kickstarter

RimWorld uses an engine that I originally developed to power a tactical sim similar to Jagged Alliance 2. This means it has a lot of features designed to make small-team firefights interesting. For example:
•There's a cover system that models low cover and leaning around corners.
•There's a really nuanced algorithm for determining and reporting hit chances based on distance, skill, weapon, lighting, angle, and cover.
•Weapons have some pretty deep stats.
•The AI plans and executes tactical moves like flanking while trying to stay out of the enemy's line of fire. It uses a number of heuristic algorithms to analyze the battlefield and use the space effectively. It works with allies and avoids bunching up.

I think most base-builder developers wouldn't put this much effort into a tactics engine, but having inherited from that earlier project, RimWorld benefits greatly in unexpected ways.

Because of how important cover and positioning are in gunfights, our combat interacts deeply with the colony's layout and structure. This means players have to think about how they want to position their constructions to maximum advantage in future firefights. Combat in general is a lot more interesting than the traditional trading of blows you might expect in a base-building game. And it's possible to build a wide variety of base configurations for maximum tactical advantage against diverse foes.

Gazz, I guess that's where having less-lethal raids would help a lot.  I agree that if every single time a raid comes, its live or die, that it could be risky to let the colonists AI work things out for you and ruin a lot of what you've already done.  But if you are given the option of peaceful surrender during a raid, then you could decide whether to let someone valuable die and maybe you fight on to win the battle, or you surrender and let them live. 

Also, you could give colonists battle 'modes', basic frameworks for how they will react in combat.  If a character is absolutely critical, then you set them to 'do not engage' mode and they'll just wait inside till the battle is over. 

the game might get kind of boring if all we have to do in the game is from a distant perspective ...  we are following the story ... Now, the battles are different.
Once we draft colonists, we are in control ... We *are* the story.

I really see what you're saying, but it just seems like the game you're describing (which may accurately describe the current build) is a combat sim with a colony sim as the backdrop.  That is, the game is most enjoyed and 'won' on the battlefield and the colony aspect is a supporting role to that ultimate end.  This is basically how XCom:EU works, though in a very different manner. 

If the game is to be a colony sim first, which I hope it will be, then the battles need to not be as important or time consuming.  Tynan has already talked about adding objectives for the raids that do not include all-out destruction.  Thus, you could lose a battle without losing the colony.  Also, there need to be ways to 'lose' other than through combat as well, such as mismanagement. 

In a game like this where you can pause at any time to issue orders, combat at later stages in the game has the potential to become a circlejerk of infinitesimal micromanagement where you pause, issue 20 orders, unpause for 1 second and then rinse and repeat. It just doesn't quite feel right to have that level of control during combat and only combat when the engine just seems to accentuate macro-management in general. It's going to become a more cohesive experience when combat is a little more streamlined and will HUGELY benefit the game.

This makes a lot of sense to me.  You don't want to pace of the game to slow down drastically during combat. 

Well I viewed it as a discussion, not a suggestion thread, but if someone wants to move it, that's fine. 

You make a lot of good points.  One question I have, what percentage of gameplay time is spent dealing with battles? 

I just read this quote from Tynan in the kickstarter comments. 

Currently battles are kind of micromanagey; I'm considering ways to make them less directly controlled.

I'm just curious what people think about this general direction with regards to combat.  I haven't played the game yet so I'm actually not sure what would feel right to me.  I guess I just read so many topics that talk about increasing the complexity of combat that I was forming an image in my head that involved more direct tactical control.   But those are just user suggestions, of course, and don't necessarily reflect where Tynan is actually going with the game. 

Thoughts?

Zodiac is definitely too arbitrary, in my opinion, to be used as a means for making colonists relate to each other.  If they must have a deeper level of compatibility/incompatibility, it should be based on their current traits that have something to do with the way they contribute to the colony. 

I meant in more tongue-in-cheek since Tynan has made it clear colonists will not be aging in the game.