My huge list of additions/rebalances for B18

[DubskiDude]

We're back for another dump of a small novel's worth of (sensible) suggestions and rebalances for Rimworld, this time updated for B18.

Two things first:
1.) Yes, this list is long and unorganized. If you're going to complain about the format instead of discussing the things I'm proposing, please move along.
2.) I'm not against mods, but I don't consider them when offering suggestions to vanilla Rimworld (the product I paid for).

Additionally, if a change in B18 fixes anything I've listed, let me know so I can edit the list.

The list:

- Add a filter to stockpile zones to prevent deadman's apparel from being stored there. Also add a filter to NPC outfits to prevent them from wearing deadman's apparel.

- (Crashed ship parts may be happening more often, so this might be fixed) Increase the amount of components found, or add more ways to conserve components. Components are scarce around late game. Buffing the Component Assembly bench is one example of a quick fix for this.

- Uninstalling/reinstalling items should not depend on a pawn being assigned to Constructing - being assigned to Hauling should allow a pawn to do so.

- Camouflage option specifically for melee users. Temporary invisibility against only human-like enemies. Tribal faction enemies may see through camouflage easier. This is because melee users seem very underpowered mid-game, before personal shields are acquired.

- Unforbidding tool (like harvest/mining tool)

- Buff to address "joy deprived" when raiding an enemy base. Raids are more important than playing horseshoes.

- Randomly generated camps, structures, or abandoned caches that are discovered (rarely) while caravaning. Could contain valuable items, an injured recruitable pawn, or enemies. Something to make caravanning more exciting.

- A mid or late game bench for repairing expensive items like Power Armor, with appropriate balance to its cost effectiveness.

- Ability to at least partially gauge a refugee colonist's usefulness before accepting them (and triggering the raid). I've accepted a colonist only to find that they're useless, and the raid then proceeds to smash us.

- Randomized and/or better rewards from fallen ships. Currently they're only a chore and not very rewarding. Silver + steel isn't all that valuable as the game progresses, and AI Persona Cores are more of a requirement rather than a decent incentive. EDIT: so far it seems that AI Persona Cores no longer drop from Psychic Ships, so even less incentive.

- Rework or remove "ate without table". Firstly, too many NPCs just forget there's a table(s) available to them, and also, why would someone IRL be sad they ate without one? Doesn't make much sense in general.

- Caravans should not be immobile at night. A colonist died of starvation (2 days without food - gasp!) because the caravan I sent to save them wouldn't move at night.

- Social fights (especially with colonists that aren't armed) shouldn't result in destroyed limbs. Broken (and fixable) fingers maybe, but not digits being torn off. Doesn't seem very reasonable to me.

- Add barbed wire fences that prevent large animals from crossing, to allow for creating tamed animal pastures. Humans and small animals should be able to cross; with humans having slowed movement equal to that of sandbags, but with less cover so that sandbags aren't made obsolete.

- (BUG) Colonists shouldn't have the option to use a neurotrainer if the associated skill is disabled for them.

- Customize or revamp the "hunt" command, i.e. allow the player to remove small animals like rats and raccoons from being selected.

- "Favored weapon" traits instead of Brawler trait. Thread about that here: https://www.reddit.com/r/RimWorld/comments/6rn850/new_favored_weapon_traits_replacing_brawler_trait/

- Friendly fire should be retooled, especially for miniguns firing at friendlies. I made an entire thread to discuss it, you can find it here: https://www.reddit.com/r/RimWorld/comments/6jj80r/lets_be_real_about_about_friendly_fire_for_a/

- Add market value filter for smithing, destroying, etc. For example, I can set weapons to be smelted, but only if they are lower than a price that I set in the menu.

- Add an option to recruit family/lovers from allied factions without having to arrest them and get badwill, or something simple like a "hey, want to join our colony?" while they pass by. EDIT: Seems that the spawning of pawns with family relationships are exceptionally lower now, be it Visitors or Raid events. Raid (Family) now no longer occurs.

- Pawns and tamed animals should never walk through fire. Self explanatory.

- Option to spay/neuter animals. Constantly having to micro their newborns that only eat your food is a drag if you don't want them.

- More miscellaneous items like telescopes and glow pods. Doesn't have to be anything beyond aesthetic - just rare-ish stuff to collect for your settlement. EDIT: new items like orbital bombardments alleviate this, though more never hurt anyone.

- "Doctor needed" event. Thread explaining it can be found here: https://www.reddit.com/r/RimWorld/comments/6lgqb5/doctor_needed_event_allies_with_ailments_come_to/. Seems to be very well received!

- Craftable bionic parts during the late game - would require significant resources and time to craft to keep things balanced.

- Animals put into a frenzy due to the "revenge" event should lose their "manhunter" status after downing/killing the pawn that triggered the event. Doesn't make sense that they attack the hunter and then decide to bumrush the colony without any sense of self-preservation.

- (BUG) Hunter pawns that are incapable of hauling will haul the animal they hunted, but not when you tell them to manually.

- Craftables to solve currently unsolvable medical wounds: torn off noses, broken ribs, fractured pelvis/radius/etc, and hearing loss.

- Allow pawns with higher social to attempt to snap people out of mental breaks, and a counseling option to help deter breaks such as pyromania or drug binging.

- (BUG) Allow pawns to release a prisoner if the prisoner is sleeping (if they're sleeping, you have to undesignate their bed as a prisoner bed in order to wake them up, and then be allowed to release them).

- Add more implants to enhance a pawn, but have drawbacks such as disabling skills like Social. Could even give mood debuffs to other colonists if its done too much ("are they even human anymore?")

- Add painkillers that can be crafted at a drug lab, to help with pain (there is currently no option to do this other than a painstopper).

- Nerf Muscle Parasites by removing the tiredness debuff. Entire thread on it here: https://www.reddit.com/r/RimWorld/comments/6ksiov/muscle_parasites_needs_to_be_nerfed_and_heres_why/

- Allow the player to arrange the order of pawn icons at the top of the screen (allows player to, for example, line up all fighter pawns for easy selecting when a raid occurs)

- Fix caravans going the exact opposite direction of their objective when traveling on the world map.

- Buff penoxcycline or switch up its effect. One Penox per colonist per five days, and you don't even know if using it even blocked a disease? It doesn't seem worth the trouble.

- Add a late-game multivitamin to automatically boost NPC immunity by 5-10%, or further increase immunity% gain. Would be much more useful than penox.

- Swap the "master" column and the bonded animal follow options column in the Animals tab. Currently, the bonded animal options are right next to animal training (making it seem like they're a part of animal training), and that makes it confusing. Having them to the right of the "masters" column would be less confusing.

- Outdoor temperature should rise/fall with the weather, i.e. temperature drops slightly during rain or fog, depending on the biome and time of day.

- Add a "study" option for pawns, or a study bench, which would keep them stationary, sacrificing work they could be doing for accelerated EXP gain in a skill of the player's choice. This would, for example, help train a pawn who is terrible at shooting, but you don't want to risk them getting mauled by wild animals or shot up by raiders.

- Different stages of Torso Frailty/Hearing Loss/etc. Seems silly that, for example, someone's Moving and Manipulation permanently drops by 30% in one step. It should be more like artery blockages, where it develops in stages.

- Disable "Fire!" alerts when its raining. They're a pointless nuisance, since the fire will go out anyway.

- Make "Overhead Mountain" removable. By far my biggest gripe with Rimworld. If you can mine out the entire base of a "mountain", then its not a mountain. Plus "Overhead Mountain" forever means that hives can spawn there, regardless of whether or not your base is inside or near a mountain. In mountainous maps where there is more mountain than actual land, you have very few options when choosing a location for your base. Digging out a base is just too risky and unreliable, and that should not be the case.

- Smelting certain advanced guns should give one component each (maybe based on gun quality?). This could help with the problem of constantly running out of components mid/late game.

- Add a "short range mineral detector" that can show whether or not mountains or large hills on the map have ore inside them.

- Tamed animals shouldn't get food poisoning. Doesn't make sense how a boar can eat a ripped up animal carcass lying on the ground out in the woods and not get food poisoning, but when its cleaned and chopped up and in a fridge, they can get food poisoning.

- Other faction types besides tribal, outlander, and pirate. Tribals have low tech but high numbers. Outlanders/pirates have medium tech and medium numbers. Why not have an NPC faction (besides Mechanoids) that have low numbers but higher tech? Android/cyborgs or interstellar private military corporations come to mind.

- (BUG) Colonist won't stay in their hospital bed, even when prioritized and with Patient and Bedrest set to 1. I've seen one get out of bed to change clothes and then not return to bed, even when they have a severe illness. Pawns should also never get out of a hospital bed if prioritized to stay there and are wounded/sick.

- No instant death when a colonist's liver is destroyed/removed. A person can survive about a year without their liver in real life, so instant death due to liver removal doesn't make much sense.

- "Deep Space Beacon" alternate ending/game mode. Similar to building a rocket, but you construct a beacon instead to call for a ride home from a nearby trade ship. Similar to a Wonder in Age of Empires 2, building one would increase the frequency and ferocity of raids. Also, rocket building would be disabled in this mode. It would turn Rimworld into a tense, more combat based "hold out until the time is up" game mode, with a clear objective to work for and a clear ending. The "countdown" could be several months to several years, depending on game difficulty or other factors.

- Fire extinguisher item. Would be a better alternative to Fire Poppers, and would allow a pawn to do more than just kick the flames.

- Give Research more uses besides just upgrade unlocking. Once you've researched everything, the skill is effectively useless from then on, which shouldn't be the case. More research items would also be nice.

- Work stations should list what skill they require at a glance, for convenience. Machining tables and component assembly benches should say "smithing" on their tab or menu, drug labs should say "crafting", etc.

- Animals should not be able to stun players when they attack. Its the single worst thing about a herd of wild animals strangely decide to attack a colonist with a loud, scary rifle. Colonists can still be hurt, as most animals can outrun them and get damage in. But as it is now, a lone hunter against 3+ Manhunter animals will ALWAYS go down. They at least need a chance to run. Either that or rebalance animal pack revenge chance.

- Ability to set a "firefighting" zone. There are some areas that I don't want to designate as a Home zone (colonists would waste time cleaning it), but I WOULD want them to fight a fire there, if there was one.

- "Replace with" command. Say I want to replace my walls for my fridge. Currently it wastes time having a pawn walk to it, deconstruct the wall, and then me having to micromanage them to pick up resources, then walk back to build a new wall; all while my food is rotting. Having a "replace with" command would tell them to grab the necessary items, go to the thing being replaced, deconstruct it, then proceed to build the structure that is replacing it.

- Pawn schedules in the Restrict tab should not take precedent during a raid/siege/manhunter pack. Self explanatory. Also, I've seen my own pawn, who had his arm freshly shot off, doing Joy activities instead of going to a hospital bed to get treated.

- Doctors should never prioritize anything over doctoring when their priority is set to 1. I've seen my doctors eat, sleep, do joy activities, etc. when there is a patient bleeding on the operating table. Also, tending to all patients first should take priority over feeding a patient.

- Switch up "ugly environment" debuff. It seems to me colonists always get this when outside, which is odd, because nature can be beautiful as well. Animal blood should also disappear quicker under unroofed locations. EDIT: the blood part may have changed, as blood and filth disappear under rain and snow.

- Arresting someone (say, for starting fires or binging) removes the pawn from their previous bed's ownership. This results in their significant other getting a mood debuff because they're not sleeping with them anymore, and you'll have to constantly check the Needs tab and micromanage the pawn back to the correct bed after they're freed.

- Don't force the player out of a raided map with a time limit once the fighting is done. The player should be able to decide when and where to leave, especially if his colonists are wounded.

- Categorize wounds/dismemberments by the limb they're attached to, and not sort by the type of dismemberment. Its slightly confusing to see "left finger, right finger, left femur, right shoulder". A menu with a body silhouette showing what limbs are missing would also be helpful.

- Bigger, more intricate NPC colonies and camps. As they are now, they seem tiny and disappointing.

- Faction "capitals". Each faction should have a larger, better defended location to serve as their capital, with better trade options and better fortifications. Destroying it would affect morale for every other settlement, and in a few days time, another capital on the world map could be designated for that faction.

- Make an NPC less likely to start a social fight after they're arrested for it, or add a small buff to other colonists when an arrest is made for a fight (to encourage enforcing the law in your settlement).

- Add more traps besides deadfall and IED. The variety of traps currently in Rimworld seems really underwhelming. Some ideas are pitfall traps, moats, bear traps, or swinging log traps.

- NPC factions should not lose goodwill if the player was not involved in their NPC's death. Several times I've had visiting NPCs die for reasons out of my control, like a fire or manhunter pack. I couldn't stop any of those things, so I shouldn't lose goodwill because of it.

- Combine "colored lights" with "microelectronics basics". Colored lights is only aesthetic and doesn't seem important enough to be its own research item.

- Allow NPCs to tend to others without the need for a bed or sleeping spot by selecting a doctor, right-clicking a standing NPC, and choosing "tend to". The NPC selected to be treated should also stop moving, or walk towards the doctor.

- Rebalance sandbags to be either cheaper to make or more effective at cover than walls. It doesn't make sense that sandbags cost 6 steel per tile and give 65% cover, when steel walls give 75% cover and cost 5 steel.

- Lower sterile tile cost. 15 silver per tile is quite a steep price. A medium(ish) hospital room could cost up to $2,500 or more in silver to make. 10-12 silver per tile would be more reasonable.

- More combat-based challenges in Rimworld. This could be a variety of things, like answering calls for help from friendly factions (i.e. helping break a siege on their camp, attacking a huge mechanoid/bug hive that has spawned on the world map, etc.). Besides animals, mechanoids, and raids, combat events in Rimworld aren't utilized as much as they could be.

- Underground maps. Rimworld is based solely on a flat map currently. Why not add a smaller, more condensed underground map where more treasures can be found? They could even be populated by bug hives, ancient rusted mechanoids, or troglodyte mutants (B18 caves aren't good enough). EDIT: Caves spawning in mountains and hills is okay, but not good enough.

- Reduce the time it takes for moisture pumps to increase their radius. Moisture pumps run at the speed of smell, and they're extremely inconvenient when expanding your camp or setting up a border wall isn't possible due to running into mud or water.

- Add an option to allow pawns to turn stone ground into farmable earth. I'm constantly being forced to work around stone ground when planting, and this would fix that entirely.

- Allow pawns to haul more than one drug item to the crematorium. I noticed they only grab one at a time, and it wastes time.

- There should be a "forage" option for caravanning pawns, allowing them to stop off in a randomly generated map to collect food. Doesn't make much sense how caravans just run out of food and can't find any along the way. Foraging could also have a risk, such as provoking an animal or raider attack. Should also be affected by the time of year and environment.

- Downed/sleeping animals at night seem much harder to hit with a ranged weapon. Not sure if this was an intended feature, but its silly to watch an experienced hunter shoot 20+ shots at a downed or sleeping animal and miss them entirely. Either that or make hunters stop hunting during the night.

- Add a "Victory!" mood buff when the colonists fend off a raid/siege, or destroy a raider outpost. Colonists should feel good about winning and/or defending their home.

- Add an "organize items" command to order pawns to stack similar items together on the same tile up to the maximum. This would help save space in stockpile zones.

- Add an "edit caravan inventory" to allow the player to correct any mistakes in caravan preparation. I've found numerous times that I had forgot something when packing up for a caravan, and I can't fix it without disbanding the entire caravan and starting over.

- Setting IEDs next to a crashed ship part should not alert the mechanoids within. How is it that colonists can literally rub their faces on the ship and not cause a mechanoid attack, but the second they build something next to it, all hell breaks loose? IEDs are meant for strategic placement. It effectively makes IEDs vs crashed ships useless, since you can't place them adjacently to said ship to go off when the mechanoids come out.

- Lengthen the time it takes for a drafted NPC to undraft themselves, or having a setting for "stay drafted". Its frustrating when you're trying to position your pawns around, say, around a crashed ship part or ancient cryocaskets, and a pawn(s) decide to have ADHD and leave right in the middle of you setting up defenses.

[DubskiDude]

- Increase the detection radius for fire poppers to go off. It seems very wasteful to have to build so many fire poppers to defend a wall or building from potential fire. It should have a 1x1 or 2x2 detection radius, instead of triggering only when fire touches the popper itself.

- Add an option for doctors to surgically fix shattered ribs/femurs/etc, either with surgery or adding a splint. There's currently no way to fix these kinds of broken bones.

- Add a cheaper, less effective version of the personal shield belt for early/mid game melee pawns. It seems silly that you have to wait so late into the game to get something that's so beneficial to melee users. This item could even be a forged shield, made in a smithy.

- You should be able to prioritize an NPC to sleep. Too many times I've seen an NPC exhausted, but still continue to work, even if they don't have an action prioritized for them. Currently there is no way to tell an NPC to go to bed and fix this.

- You should be able to manually prioritize multiple NPCs at once. Say you have to collect a resource at an urgent pace. Highlighting multiple NPCs and prioritizing them all to the same action would be helpful. They don't necessarily need to be able to work at the same source (like all three cutting the same tree, mining the same rock, etc). It'd be much more convenient to be able to assign multiple prioritizations at once instead of micromanaging each one at a time.

- NPCs should not drop the item they're hauling when re-prioritized to a different action. For example, a doctor holding medicine will drop their medicine when prioritized to a different patient, or a pawn hauling wood will drop the wood when prioritized to pick up more wood. Pawns should also factor in the item they're holding when performing an action instead of dropping it, or ignoring the fact that they have the resource right in their hands.

- Nemesis system. This would involve enemy NPCs (or animals) escaping from a fight and retreating off the map, only to have them return a few months later with a "nemesis" buff, which could add damage/armor/etc, and offer better equipment or rewards for killing or capturing them. Killing or capturing them could also net a mood buff.

- Remove the "Area Revealed" notification for areas that are 1x1 or 2x2 in size. I get sick of having my miners open up uselessly tiny areas with nothing in them and having the game announce them as something important.

- Nerf or remove prisoner execution mood debuff, or extend the time it takes for "guilty" to wear off. If they tried to attack the base, they should be able to be executed with little to no remorse, especially in a harsh environment like Rimworld. If the player can't recruit them or keep them around, and doesn't really want to release them (to risk having them come back in another raid), they shouldn't get a debuff for executing them. The only other alternative would be to simply not capture downed enemies and let them die out in the field, which seems more cruel than executing them.

- Add more "reinstall" functions for most constructable items. Some items can be reinstalled, like lights, beds, and turrets, but other items like generators, crafting stations, coolers, and deep drills aren't reinstallable. Having to break them and rebuild them is annoying and a waste of resources.

- Show NPC skill efficiency percentages next to "overview" stats. NPC efficiency should be there at a glance instead of having to hover over their stats every time. For example, instead of Manipulation just saying "poor", it should say 45% right next to "poor". This would make managing NPCs easier.

- Show skill efficiency with "overview" stats calculated in. Currently I've had to judge an NPCs skill in cooking/crafting/etc by their respective skill level, but their stats like sight, smell, hearing, manipulation, etc. are all factored in to their success rate of that skill. The game doesn't show this on the character page. Currently you can only guesstimate or have to tab out to the wiki to figure it out.

- Fix pod launching. NPCs are massively inefficient at loading pods, because some will load their pod, and then themselves, and just sit there when other pods need help being loaded. NPCs should help each other load all the pods in the launch group and then load themselves in last. This would make it much more efficient, and eliminate the problem of pod loading taking exponentially longer to finish up (the same can be said for forming caravans as well).

- NPCs should not shoot "Berserk" NPCs. 9 times out of 10 you want to beat them over the head and send them to the hospital, not riddle them full of bullets, which have a higher chance of permanent damage.

- A simple "Hope" mood buff to all NPCs when a rocket piece is built, to add some significance to building the rocket. Can apply to only one piece built or multiple pieces built.

[DubskiDude]

Read over the list and made some edits and deleted a few minor suggestions that either were too inconsequential.

New additions to my list:

- Trees, mountains, and foliage should gather snow after it snows. A snowy field with perfectly green trees looks odd.

- Colonists assigned to hauling should haul items on the way back home, when either returning for food, rest, or any other reason. Will take some refining but it would significantly help efficiency for players who play on large maps.

- Animals should stay put when being handled, either by training or taming. Same for prisoner colonists. Animals or prisoners walking around aimlessly while they are being handled wastes time.

- A clock showing in-game time, in addition to (or rather than) a clock showing real world time.

- 1-tile hidden stashes of item(s), hidden behind walls and/or occupying the odd 1-tile empty spots in mountains and hills. Would make digging out hills/mountains more interesting (different than ancient dangers).

- The "gas" coming from Poison Ships shouldn't be snow (or anything white-colored) since you can't actually see how far it extends after it snows.

- Important change: players should be able to adjust the work categories under the work tab and create their own priority list. For example, hauling is a much more important task than art, so hauling should appear before art on pawn priorities.

- Buff tornadoes to have a wider effect radius. Currently it only seems to hit one tile (directly beneath it), instead of dealing damage along a wide radius.

- Add "Medical Tab" by Fluffy to the main release. The tab works flawlessly, and is a huge help.

[doomdrvk]

Something like this makes it almost impossible to criticize all these suggestions. Also you're suggesting all these features without thinking about the balance with them.

[DubskiDude]

Something like this makes it almost impossible to criticize all these suggestions. Also you're suggesting all these features without thinking about the balance with them.

Not impossible, there's just a lot of ideas here. We can start by you listing some of the points where I apparently haven't thought out game balance and I'd be happy to argue the contrary of that notion.

[Tynan]

I appreciate you taking the time to write all this out. Thanks.

[DubskiDude]

I appreciate you taking the time to write all this out. Thanks.

Sorry its so unorganized and at an intimidating length, though this is several months worth of observations I've made about Rimworld (I sometimes take notes in a notebook as I play). I hope they're useful!