Modders, please!

[SrGrafo]

Have you ever felt like this?



I love this game so much but after playing for years (rim years ha) raids are justs borderly annoying rather than a fun event, a lot of things about them just kills the inmersion of the game, like when a raider enters the map and instantly knows where is your colony and starts walking towards it, whats this? Alien Isolation?, because they do this I just cant see them interesting, they feel like flies that go to just get murdered either by my traps or my bullets.

I would just love if someone could mod the game like this.

Factions should have Scout events



Instead of "oh we know you are there and RNG will just make us pop up there every 5-6 days, how about we have an event where 1 scout raider from that colony, enters the map in point A and leaves in point B, if he comes in contact with any building structure you have, then he starts leaving the map and notify his colony, from that point THEN they should send attacks, cause know they "know" where you are, and this should be only that faction, in the case he didnt spot anything then it should be a long time until they send another scout.

This should be posible since we already have the "people is passing by" event, where some strangers are just walking in the map and leaving.

In the other hand, if the scout spotted you and starts running away to leave the map, you could just kill him, which will just make another scout sometime appear and search the "missing scout"


War prisoners



Dealing with raids gets super repetitive really fast, and to be honest there is no way to make peace with hostile factions, meaning that RNG has a solid excuse to always just throw raiders, and lets be honest, the only reason we capture raiders is because

a) they have good stats
b) they damaged our fave pawn so now we are gonna imprison, beat up everyday and heal them for like a quadrum and once they are full of scars and broken bones, then remove one by one their organs in an order that will keep them alive so later we chop it and eat them
c) ah, and sometimes cause we misclick

how about capturing have an actual mechanic, see it this way, if you capture raiders they are war prisoners, in other words "hostages", this should stop raids from happening cause you are threatening them to kill the hostages, so the events by capturing a raiders should be:

a) that faction ask you to free that pawn, in exchange they will not bother you for X days
b) that faction ask you to exchange the pawn for goods, (like they fucking do when they kidnap one of ours)
c) that faction enrages and send raids more often until they rescue their prisoners (low chance event)

in any case something interesting could be done, lets say the faction has a Moral %, and they are most likely to not bother you when you capture:

someone younger
someone who has relationships with their faction
multiple people
or if you have a reputation of killing downed raiders

this would have pros and cons overall, main pro is that the faction wont bother you anymore, main con is that you now need to maintain having a prisoner, (and recruiting them should lower even more the chances of them bothering you (the faction))

War furniture



lets face it, we all have a big plot of graveyards for our enemies, which forces us to rush the crematorium thing to burn bodies, other people get mods that solve this but in any case we all can agree that the bodies just stack and dont have use, how about we can craft furniture made out of corpses and put it outside, whenever raiders come some of them should flee being scared of it, something like this would depend on the amount of war furniture you have or their mental break point, so whenever raiders ask where is the entrance of your colony, its a nice way to awnser



War territory



On a final note, the overall factions hostility behavior makes no sense at all, they are practicaly distributed all around the world and you get attacked by whoever the RNG feels like choosing, this pretty much makes also travelling a bit completely unnecesary, most of the time when we start a game, we set location and thats where we will live, there is absolutely no reason to travel to any place to actualy get resources or do something other than "I feel like having a cold weather now", there was an update with events but those feel a bit way specific and one time event.

to make my rambling clear, colony locations are just arbitrary located with no real purpose.

with a huge world and the dedication certain aspects of the game has, the colonies from other factions should follow something more logical, by this I mean

1) each faction should actualy grow as the player do, I get to read that "chief from x died, this fella is now the new chief", so the game keeps track of the chief diabetes condition but cant make that every certain number of ticks new colonies spawn or get destroyed (or captured)
2) each faction should have territory expansion, the more colonies they build the more territory they get, in that case it would actualy makes sense that a faction is hostile towards another faction, if too much enemy territory is taken away by other factions creating colonies, thats a logical reason to say "hey, I dont like you"
3) if factions would actualy have territories and limits, and grow/get destroy, then it would be a reason to actualy travel or decide where to stay, some factions could be more open and allow your colony to chill in their territory, other factions could be dicks and raid you often until you leave or die, or eventualy as you grow, you become your own faction and you become the dick.

((also following the first point on these, if there were to be scout raiders, they should only reach the territory limit of that faction, if you are in the middle of icesheet and you get raided there, all I can think is "who the f or what the f is the motivation of these raiders to freeze their butts in the middle of nowhere for my farm))

Conclusion

I know this might be way too complicated to be added, but if any modder around can handle this or is also annoyed by these aspects of the game, please work on this >:C

I can provide all art assets needed. have more ideas for other things but jesus this thing from all kills me.

[Canute]

At first do you know Real Fog of War (v1.0.0) - The Unknown ?
https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=34724.0

- "Factions should have Scout events"
You forget about footprints and other signs your pawn leave all over the map. A good scout should notice these sign and know here is someone near, lets send a hunting party.

- "War prisoners"
Shoot him, thats our job risk, we kill you anyway and when you are busy to kill him we got better chances to kill you.
And btw. we need to divide the loot to 1 person less.

- "War furniture"
If you beliefe it or not, similar furnitures got removed as the mood system got implement.
Wouldn't such furnitures reduce the mood of your own pawns too, not everyone like the look for rotting heads on the pike.

[maculator]

I'm with you!
You got some really good points and also made a really good post!
I've been looking through the forums for ideas and brainstormings about raids because I as a "new" player (played A11 the last time) got my problems with raids because they always seem to scale ahead of you. The moment you got yourself prepared for a pack of 5 they'll show up with 8 folks...

Not beeing able to make peace with pirates seems reasonable, but you should be able to calm down others!

Since we got a really big thing going with relationships between pawns I feel we also should have the same with factions.
Maybe beeing able to side with them so they might jump in and help you in raids, maybe convincing a faction to not attack you anymore.
Maybe paying tribute to a bigger faction for protection? Maybe, if you're into the whole war thing, forcing weaker ones to pay you for not raiding them/protecting them?
Hostages sounds like a nice thing too, in fact anything that prevents you from beeing forced to go the "cold war" way would be neat. If you settle far away from factions and just want to be a caravaning/trading colony you should be able. Aside from Pirates beeing attacking you for wealth the others shouldnt really bother you if you stay the F away from their territory.
I mean whats the point in just hating someone who stranded in the tundra 5000 miles away from your base? You go there to raid him for his 5 survival meals and a stool?!

War is a thing and a mayor part of the game, but you should be able to somehow avoid some of it if you really go for apeacement.

[Modraneth]

+1 here... i really love the idea

i like ur comics u should make a book xD

[Canute]

Not beeing able to make peace with pirates seems reasonable, but you should be able to calm down others!

Even when you don't got a com console to tribe them to be friendly.
You just need to imprison and release raiders to get peace with them.
Each released prisoner give +15 relation to that faction, normaly 5 are enough to turn them to neutral.

And if you don't want a raid, try Phoebe peaceful.
You allways can change the storyteller ingame if you get bored or overwhelmed.

[maculator]

Not beeing able to make peace with pirates seems reasonable, but you should be able to calm down others!

Even when you don't got a com console to tribe them to be friendly.
You just need to imprison and release raiders to get peace with them.
Each released prisoner give +15 relation to that faction, normaly 5 are enough to turn them to neutral.

And if you don't want a raid, try Phoebe peaceful.
You allways can change the storyteller ingame if you get bored or overwhelmed.

This is about enhancing the interaction with other factions and not about turning off combat.

[SrGrafo]

At first do you know Real Fog of War (v1.0.0) - The Unknown ?

its one of my must have mods, tho I just use it cause it makes it harder and more realistic, however its something that just affects me as a player but doesnt affect much mechanics in game (also I wish it werent so buggy when settleing a new colony/camp hah)

- "Factions should have Scout events"
You forget about footprints and other signs your pawn leave all over the map. A good scout should notice these sign and know here is someone near, lets send a hunting party.

this is a great point and forgot about the tracks the pawns leave, something I was thinking that get alone with the scout part would be researchs.
like:

Enviromental Camouflage - reduces the scout pawn vision range, making slightly easier to hide, this is the equivalent of learning how to build your base to hide with the enviroment instead of flashy it like a mcdonalds sign
Scouting - should show the most likely routes enemies scout will take, and also provide a pre event notification saying that an scout has been spotted in the distance
Negotiations - allows you to capture enemy scouts and bribe them with silver so they do the "I didnt see anything here"
and now with the point you mention
Tracking - Makes your pawns dont leave tracks that can be traced

- "War furniture"
If you beliefe it or not, similar furnitures got removed as the mood system got implement.
Wouldn't such furnitures reduce the mood of your own pawns too, not everyone like the look for rotting heads on the pike.

The idea behind these furniture is not to cause mental breakdowns, those are not only hard to force on raids but not too beneficial (I tried once having a psychic ship with -50 on the map for months, raiders came and they didnt trigger mental breaks before reaching me, just some got few after attacking me and it was minor-major

The idea of this furniture is to trigger the "raiders are fleeing" event, that way it can be awful to look to your pawns but will not cause any other damage to you, also this should be harder to achieve, the most reasonable way to use it, its that it "scares" some raiders, making them stay where they are or "go find cover" for a while, in the mean time the brave raiders continue to enter and later once they stop being scared those raiders come to your base, and with some little % these scared raiders should also flee the map

And if you don't want a raid, try Phoebe peaceful.
You allways can change the storyteller ingame if you get bored or overwhelmed.

I cant stand the game on anything below extreme or intense haha, also I love raids but I hate things that just dont add up, like after a year of raiding its a dying fest for them, nothing interesting but instead they become an annoyance, however I like that with harder difficulties crops yield less, prices are super low, and there is even not much of a positive mood bonus overall,(also with these difficulty I can get infestations and mechanoids ships falling) intense/extreme make the game feel right, however raids that come with them is just really annoying instead of insteresing, thats why the mod idea is up there 

[Razzoriel]

You can spot a lot of things from a mountain. Just saying.

[Nameless]

I come here for the comic.

[Modraneth]

I come here for the comic.

they are so funny xD

[Techgenius]

"Oh, they removed such a amazing feature to prevent your own pawns from having mental breakdowns".... OH THE BS is too strong for me... WHY ARE YOU GOING TO PLACE EFFIGIES INSIDE YOUR BEDROOM? You... you some kind of psycho?

Just PLACE IT AWAY from the colony, construct where you know they will come from that was no reason to remove a feature. Oh Tynan...

Also, if you have psychopaths, why worry? my pawns seem confortable enough worshipping the Mad Void Gods, sacrificing prisoners for power, but can't fucking stand a corpse lying outside without needing mental healthcare..

[Jaxxa]

People Making Suggestions, please!

A descriptive Subject would be helpful.

[Albion]

Love the comics.

In regard to your points:
1. Scout events could probably be implemented but would just result in an unnecessary extra step:
- first scout shows up and gets killed
- second scout 1-2 days later shows up, gets killed
- third scout party shows up (gets killed?)
- war band shows up to check why the fuck scouts keep disappearing... so now you got a raid
Also once some dude escapes from your colony word is out and there will be no scouts except to case the joint before the actual raid
The flipside by the way will be that you have to cease all outside communication to not get raided because once some wanderer or visitors walk by, word gets out that there is a raidable colony. Same goes for (orbital) traders.
In the end: neat idea but unfortunatly not really viable.

2. War prisoners: Pirates don't really give a shit about prisoners from a failed raid. Also you would need to have prisoners of all enemy factions. And the way the game works is that if the human won't attack anymore guess who's coming for a visit: mechanoids.
Mechanoids just don't care and kill everything
However you mentioned an interesting point: Exchange money/goods for prisoners. Especially if that prisoner is the faction leader. I'll have to look into that and maybe create an event for that in my mod.

3. War furtinture: An early flee trigger might be possible to implement into the game but to be honest: why bother? If you don't want raids just lower the difficulty or change storyteller. What other benefit or fun interaction is there for the player?

4. Factions: Having a sphere of influence would be interesting but I guess it's difficult to implement and I don't want to imagine the hours of coding necessary for this. Also you have to remember that these factions have been living on this planet for quite a while now... hundreds of years maybe. Everyone has carved out their spots and there is cooperation between the camps within a faction but in the end I view the whole thing more like city states in the medival ages that a coherent faction. So having them distributed all over the place is alright in my mind.

[maculator]

^I gues the scout point you got there is an actual point, but your number 3 is just ... not a good point.
Its about dealing with a thread, not lowering the difficulty. Possibilities! The player should be the one who decides how he wants to take care of stuff. Want to fight 24/7? Go ahead. Want to negotiate some sort of a no attack deal? Go ahead.

Saying you can change the difficulty is like saying theres a mod for that.

[faltonico]

I cant stand the game on anything below extreme or intense haha, also I love raids but I hate things that just dont add up, like after a year of raiding its a dying fest for them, nothing interesting but instead they become an annoyance, however I like that with harder difficulties crops yield less, prices are super low, and there is even not much of a positive mood bonus overall,(also with these difficulty I can get infestations and mechanoids ships falling) intense/extreme make the game feel right, however raids that come with them is just really annoying instead of insteresing, thats why the mod idea is up there 

Tynan please read this.
Just pumping more and more raiders doesn't cut it. There has to be more to it, a better AI would make things more interesting.

- I think scouting mechanic is implemented in Dwarf fortress. It makes sense to have just an scouting party on the early game, they should try to find out if you are worth raiding, because i don't think getting a shoddy bed would be profitable, and they shouldn't magically know how much money you have. The scouts shouldn't be announced with warning letters though, they should be sneaky. They could see where the traps are, the turrets and weak spots overall to tell their friends.

AND other factions (instead of pirates) should just declare war to you because you invaded their territory.
Also... Thieves! It would be a reason to have pets!

- War prisoners is a good idea, and there is already a mod for that just like you imagined it:
PrisonerRansom It is not on the forums though.

- With war furniture... the mechanic has so many ramifications that it is very difficult to see how it would end up, in the end you can have a new "best way to play the game" that wouldn't be appealing to some people. I think that is the main reason Tynan removed the fear mechanic some time ago.

- Factions, the thing you said have been proposed many times, mainly the way things are now is because how incipient the world map generation is in its current state (its got nothing to Dwarf Fortress world map generation). I am really hoping Tynan would make it more complex the more alphas come.

- Keep those comics coming!