Raids with no warning. Or an option to turn off the alerts.

[Ekarus]

On one hand, this could be interesting and add a layer of difficulty to the game. As it stands now if you've got a couple mortars and a few well-trained operators a siege or "stage then attack" is fairly easy to defeat before it gets anywhere near you simply because you order your colonists to the mortars, they immediately lock onto the target, and fire.

On the other hand, the difficulty of setting something up like this probably outweighs the benefits. Sure, a fog of war could be added, but then during sieges your forced to send people out of the colony (Who could be putting out fires and tending to the wounded) to hunt down this mortar before it reduces your colony to rubble. While setting up a mortar to perform counterbattery fire could allow for indirect attempts to neutralize the enemy's artillery, but now we're getting a bit too complex.

Honestly, it might do better as a mod than a base game feature since work should probably be focused on more important things before this kind of thing is tended to at all. With a mod you've got someone else handling it so that no "work" is pulled from the base game and in the end, if enough people like it, it might end up in with minimal time wasted.

[Kegereneku]

The problem with "FoW" is that it is a game-feature much easier to get for players than what Rimworld would actually profit from. Which you could call "extremely localized and contextual withholding of specific information".

btw : I'm one of the guy making rivers of text for "FoW hating" as it's called by some players who didn't understand my post.

Anyway, "Raids with no warning ?", do you actually understand the gameplay it imply ?
Did you try to imagine in your mind how it will play most of the time ?

Example :
- You are building, you sent a colonist hauling, you sent another one hunting.
(NO WARNING RAID)
- You are notified at the last moment that one/two of your colonist are now in situation that will inevitably lead to them DEAD or KIDNAPPED barring reloading an earlier save.
- You aren't "playing" anymore, you are just being punished for not being able to plan those situation

Consequence :
You'll be asking for more and more feature to "balance" the idea up to the original assumption, like patrol, AI-Fog, gradually turning Rimworld into the Millitary-Wargame of some guy.
(This is of course assuming Tynan don't know better and don't reconsider the things as a bad idea AGAIN)

Edit : many minor correction and rewording.

[Colonist51]

Just bumping an old topic because I believe such option is essential for a tactical and survival-oriented game like Rimworld.

[Third_Of_Five]

I would support this as a toggleable option, much like permadeath mode.

[TheMeInTeam]

Constantly panning the map to manually search or spamming a tab is bad enough with predators.  That doesn't add much to the game aside from mundane micromanagement.

"Counterplay" that requires this kind of constant busywork is a net detriment to the game.

[Colonist51]

Constantly panning the map to manually search or spamming a tab is bad enough with predators. That doesn't add much to the game aside from mundane micromanagement.

Wrong. That adds the element of surprise, which immerses you in the game if you enjoy playing a challenging and unpredictable game. And as a result forces you to think of new better ways to defend your colony from the said unpredictable threats, such as building a wall and turrets early on and taking additional measures like restricting the access of your colonists to the "unprotected" zones. This would also make a use of those colonists that aren't good at anything other than the combat skills, you'd use them as scouts/guards instead that would replace the warning system but in a much more realistic and fun way than it is currently implemented. Imagine this for a moment: you could build a small "guard post" on the outskirts of your colony, with a bed for the scout/guard and some basic supplies so he can live there on his own. As soon as he starts shooting at something you'd hear the noise of shooting and go check on that guard post to see what's going on, if it's a small threat like a rabid animal then the guard would probably be capable to deal with it on his own, but if it's a raiding party then well, he'd better retreat quickly back to the base and meanwhile you'd prepare your other colonists for a fight. To me personally, this sounds a lot more fun and realistic than just getting a warning 10 mins before I actually get raided as if I magically have an AWACS flying over the colony and detecting all those threats...

"Counterplay" that requires this kind of constant busywork is a net detriment to the game.

Again, you're looking at it from a very one-sided point of view. Obviously, if you're more into playing with Phoebe Chillax and peacefully breeding muffalos on the lowest difficulty such a feature would indeed be a "net detriment" to your game. Which is exactly why it would have to be an optional feature, like someone two posts above said. This wouldn't require you to play with this feature, but at the same time give us, the players who enjoy realism and challenge, a good way to make our game even more fun than it already is. Sounds like a win-win to me.

[doomdrvk]

I would say this should just be a modded option as most players would ignore the option and it would just be more work for the developers with little benefit for the whole of the game. Also where would this option fit in, in either the scenario editor or options menu. It definitely would not fit in the options menu, and in the scenario editor at first glance it doesn't even look like a difficult handy cap.