Children as a win condition

[Vagabond]

Why set 18 as the magical adulthood point? 14 should be more than old enough to handle all colony tasks, even medicine with the caveat that they'll be starting at 0 skill points. I'd go so far as to argue being able to draft them that young.

Harvesting and cleaning can probably be done as young as 8, maybe with efficiency or time penalties.

Gennadios,

In the third post of this thread I linked one of my replies from another thread:

https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=8122.msg105183#msg105183

Here are my ideas for each life stage (names of them are just placeholders, but I feel I cover each important milestone in development):

##Time and Aging##

Time: Each day could abstractly represent three months, given real life times on construction and production. The length of a day might need adjusting. A 24 hour clock could have somewhere around 30 seconds to a minute being the length of a game hour. Leasure time would fit in here, basically the way it worked in diggles was when you clicked on a dwarf it had a little clock in the corner with two moveable hands. The hands would be manipulated to decide what hour they start work and what hour they end work. During the time they were off the clock, they would build relationships, eat, sleep, and do little fun things.

Aging: Basically there would be eight age categories, each with interesting aspects. The base time is the standard length of time they are in that age group, the extra day is a "late development" factor. For example: Crawlers have a base time of one day. So they will always be in that stage for at least one day. After that day, the game will "roll" with a 25% chance at a second day. If they get that second day, the third day will be rolled with a 15% chance of them getting it; alternatively it could simply be an RNG, where it will just pick a number from one to three.

Aging could look like this:

Infant
-Infants are unable to do anything; they simply stay swaddled on their mother, which precludes the mother from certain activities.
-Base time, two days. One extra day possible at: 25% chance (Alternative: RNG, 1-2)

Crawler
-Crawlers do nothing but get under other colonist's feet.  X% chance of a colonist tripping over a crawler when passing.
-New bed type: Childrens bed. Upon being claimed by a crawler it's graphic switches to a crib
-Base time, one day. Two extra days possible at: 25/15% chances. (Alternative: RNG, 1-3)

Walker
-Walkers tend to wander off from the home-zone, possibly endangering themselves.
-25% chance to do a light hauling task.
-Claimed by changes graphic to look like a toddler's bed.
-Base time, five days. Four extra days possible at: 25/20/15/10% chances. (Alternative: RNG 5-9)

Talker
-Talkers talk. A lot. X% chance to distract another Colonist from their task.
-50% chance to do a light hauling task.
-Base time, twelve days. Four extra days possible at: 25/20/15/10% chances. (Alternative: RNG, 12-16)

Helper
-Helpers try to emulate the adults. They can do simple tasks like fetching pails of water.
-Can do a light hauling task, and 25% chance to do a medium hauling task.
-claimed bed changes graphic again to look like a smaller version of the colonist bed.
-Base time, twenty days. Eight extra days possible at: 50/45/40/35/30/25/20/15% chances. (Alternative: RNG, 20-28)

Worker
-Workers start really helping the colony.
-Can do light/medium hauling tasks, and 50% chance to do a heavy hauling task.
-Unclaimed from their bed (Workers/breeders/elders can't sleep in children's bed). Can either create a new bed in the parent's house (will get negative moodlet if it's not it's own room/room not big enough) or can be moved out.
-Base time, twenty days. Twelve extra day possible at: 75/70/65/60/55/50/45/40/35/30/25/20% Chances. (Alternative: RNG, 20-32)

Breeder
-Able to marry; Each colonist requires a piece of jewelry. There must be an available Private Quarters with a double bed.
-Married Breeders can have children. Pregnancy lasts 3 days.
-Can do light/medium/heavy hauling tasks.
-Become Elders at two hundred days old.

Elder
-No longer work themselves, but instead "Mentor" other colonists, it increases that colonists skill gain and increases production speed. It is much more effective than the "Aid" feature, which allows two colonists to work on a single task to help a less skilled person benefit from a more skilled worker.
-Has a 75%/50%/25% chance to do a light/medium/heavy hauling task.
-After they are 240 days old, they have an acumulative 5% chance per day to pass away.

Cheers,
Michael

[thenightgaunt]

A great idea, but then it would require the implementation of a much more complicated system to cover life cycles. A good final goal needing a first step. So what would the first step be from a development perspective?

I'm thinking that this would involve 2 new systems, and this will be vague as I know a little C# but I'm not sure what's in place already or what could be done.

The first, an NPC (or are they called Pawn's in this game?) spawner. Say a bed for 2 colonists based on the Royal bed (can that fit 2?) using the sprite for 2 colonists sleeping in beds placed next to each other. One side is set to only be used by a male colonist the other only females. So there's your "woohoo bed". If used by a male and female colonist at the same time, it spawns a "pregnancy" illness in the female colonist. On the end of the illness, it spawns a new colonist.

The second, a more complex aging system. This is already partially in place though isn't it? Colonists age and become more susceptible to illness right? It'd just be a case of modding those to suite the characteristics of the ages desired. Children would be tricky though as you'd have to limit the activities that they could do. The early ages could be restricted to a bed and that would simplify matters.

[Kegereneku]

Urgh ! I wish to reformulate again my opinion on why this is a very bad idea. Worse it would really keep us from finding better, more flexible, yet equivalent features.
also mostly because Vagabond's categorization with word like "breeder" irked me to be sincere

Rimworld just isn't shaped right for transgenerational story. It really isn't, this is not only because of time although it would be pretty jarring / brain scratching to pump out a kid to maturity in less than 5 in-game years or 20 seasons.
Rimworld is a tales of day after day struggle narrated for group of less than 10 colonists, never mind 50 as over 30 colonists I'll bet most of us loose track of individual name/traits/background/health, therefore caring less about the "deep characterization" the game is meant for.

Not breaking immersion also goes by not forcing in a features if you have to twist absurdly to do so. Either it fit or you have to accept it don't. Rimworld is hill-suited for endless game.
Other game-mechanic such as skills, research, combat, health, trait, faction relation, resources...etc would have to be modified if not limited specifically to accommodate the possibility of children. (If loosing a colonist wasn't hard enough, a child should be a Reload Save guaranteed).

Lastly I insist again that child would make a meaningless "win condition". It doesn't mark the beginning/end of anything. 100 colonist is too low to perpetuate a species yet is barely significant compared to other factions (cutting down infinite wave to faction of 100-200 persons)

The transition described above being the only things I would consider them relevant for. Else I simply cannot comprehend the in-game interest for them.

Seriously,
We would gain more at discussing actual characterization (including romance of course) within the bound of adulthood. You want Jealousy ? You don't need child for that.
You want to embark on large scale colonization ? You don't need child either for that. Better create a new way of attracting people to your colony, set new colony or other flexible multi-use features.

[Argon]

-Married Breeders can have children. Pregnancy lasts 3 days.

Three day pregnancies? Ridiculous.  You do realize the game is balanced until day ~300 and has 15 day months. Nine in game month pregnancies would be perfectly reasonable, even for short games, let alone the 5+ year endurance plays.

-Argon

[absentminded]

 I would only want pregnancy in the game, if it took nine in-game months and had a high risk of killing the mother.
Then resulted in a baby/child that would eat lots and contribute nothing for atleast 12 in game years.

You'd get around the taking super ages to grow up, not by speeding up time or growth rate, but by accepting that kids are a burden in this situation where day-to-day struggle is the name of the game.
And by having kids occasionally turn up as space refugee crashes.

Maybe three life stages
0-4-baby, eats alittle, needs to be carried around
4-12-child, eats alot and will occasionally haul but has a whole heap of autonomous idling tasks/playing/mucking around which have higher priority so will hardly ever haul.
2-∞-Adult, what we have now.

You might not even need to code for transition, the game doesn't generally go that long. They could just be separate pawn types that just always stay what they're created as.

[Vagabond]

Urgh ! I wish to reformulate again my opinion on why this is a very bad idea. Worse it would really keep us from finding better, more flexible, yet equivalent features.
also mostly because Vagabond's categorization with word like "breeder" irked me to be sincere

Rimworld just isn't shaped right for transgenerational story. It really isn't, this is not only because of time although it would be pretty jarring / brain scratching to pump out a kid to maturity in less than 5 in-game years or 20 seasons.
Rimworld is a tales of day after day struggle narrated for group of less than 10 colonists, never mind 50 as over 30 colonists I'll bet most of us loose track of individual name/traits/background/health, therefore caring less about the "deep characterization" the game is meant for.

Not breaking immersion also goes by not forcing in a features if you have to twist absurdly to do so. Either it fit or you have to accept it don't. Rimworld is hill-suited for endless game.
Other game-mechanic such as skills, research, combat, health, trait, faction relation, resources...etc would have to be modified if not limited specifically to accommodate the possibility of children. (If loosing a colonist wasn't hard enough, a child should be a Reload Save guaranteed).

Lastly I insist again that child would make a meaningless "win condition". It doesn't mark the beginning/end of anything. 100 colonist is too low to perpetuate a species yet is barely significant compared to other factions (cutting down infinite wave to faction of 100-200 persons)

The transition described above being the only things I would consider them relevant for. Else I simply cannot comprehend the in-game interest for them.

Seriously,
We would gain more at discussing actual characterization (including romance of course) within the bound of adulthood. You want Jealousy ? You don't need child for that.
You want to embark on large scale colonization ? You don't need child either for that. Better create a new way of attracting people to your colony, set new colony or other flexible multi-use features.

Kegereneku,

I honestly can't comprehend what you are getting at. Almost every aspect of Rimworld is super accelerated: Plant Growth, Research Speed, Construction Speed, Crafting Speed, Art Speed, Mining Speed, and the list goes on.

If anything, making time abstract will make everything else make sense, including children. I don't understand why you feel the feature will be "forced" or why you think their speeds will need to be altered. The beauty of my suggestion is that (after arduous coding effort) be plopped right into the game, as far as I can tell. I can't think of any systems it would disrupt.

Furthermore, I have suggested that time be alterable by players during the creation process on a few metrics: Amount of real life time per game hour, amount of game hours per game day, and amount of abstract days per game day. Default values will exist, but the ratios would be easily adjusted.

In this, you can adjust how you want time to flow: Less realistically (as it is now) or more realistically (as I suggest).

You can't base the ability of a colony to sustain a population by the population it starts with, as there are ways to get more colonists to join your colony, and more than likely even more (due to demand of things like bars and such for that specific purpose) ways will come.

I'm sorry, but the only headscratching I'm doing is over your post, man. Your arguments make no sense to me. Scratch that, there is one thing that does make sense to me; Children as a victory condition isn't appealing. I agree. But I'm of the opinion that Rimworld should be a sandbox where we can determine the reasons and goals of our colony, with an AI storyteller to keep us on our toes.

P.S. Kegereneku, can you PM me your reasons for the word "breeder" being so offensive? As I mentioned in my post, they were just words used as placeholders to get the idea out there- nothing else. Having two kids, I'm quite the accomplished breeder. Hehe.

-Married Breeders can have children. Pregnancy lasts 3 days.

Three day pregnancies? Ridiculous.  You do realize the game is balanced until day ~300 and has 15 day months. Nine in game month pregnancies would be perfectly reasonable, even for short games, let alone the 5+ year endurance plays.

-Argon

Argon,

In my suggestion time would be abstract in that one game day will represent three months. So in essence, pregnancies will be nine months long.

There are many instances of abstract time in games. My favorite being The Guild II. In which a single day represents a year (or four months, depending on the option you choose).

As I mentioned above, think about the super accelerated speeds at which things happen in game and you can come to two conclusions:

1) In order to improve immersion everything would have to be slowed down to a snail's pace in which it would take real life days to get things done.

2) You could make time abstract so that researching geothermal energy takes months, rather than days. Or mining out a cave complex to install walls, room, and power will take years rather than weeks. Mind you, the time is abstract. One in game day being representative of three in game months.

I would wager that the second option is more appealing, because it conforms to both gameplay and realism. Where as the first one would be horrible for gameplay. The current set up is only good for gameplay. Which is why I think the second option seems the most attractive, and why I suggested it.

I would only want pregnancy in the game, if it took nine in-game months and had a high risk of killing the mother.
Then resulted in a baby/child that would eat lots and contribute nothing for atleast 12 in game years.

You'd get around the taking super ages to grow up, not by speeding up time or growth rate, but by accepting that kids are a burden in this situation where day-to-day struggle is the name of the game.
And by having kids occasionally turn up as space refugee crashes.

Maybe three life stages
0-4-baby, eats alittle, needs to be carried around
4-12-child, eats alot and will occasionally haul but has a whole heap of autonomous idling tasks/playing/mucking around which have higher priority so will hardly ever haul.
2-∞-Adult, what we have now.

You might not even need to code for transition, the game doesn't generally go that long. They could just be separate pawn types that just always stay what they're created as.

absentminded,

Because the ability to harvest and replace most bodies parts in game with grafted ones from other bodies or artificial (sometimes high tech) versions would mean that pregnancy would be a high risk thing, right?

Sorry for the sarcasm, but that makes no sense.

Cheers,
Michael

[Kegereneku]

Meh, no need to PM for that, I simply don't like using the word breeder when talking of expectedly sentient human being with aspiration and dream, you know, the thing we should be focusing on rather than making them nameless breeder.
It just motivated me to write another river of text.

That aside, you are taking the subject from the point of view of realism. But this isn't the only problem. You could pretend one need to be adult to travel in Cryptosleep pod and justify the whole lack of child/abstinence realistically.
Rimworld would need a major redesign even in its alpha state to fit what is not a trivial addition to the game, such feature would be better as a TC mods.

I'm not surprised you defend a endless sandbox, in my opinion it's kind of like a cancer nowadays "you must be a infinite-sandbox or else you ain't doing the best" regardless if originally you planned to have carefully balanced game phase with small but interesting population leading to several ending making riveting tales... and used a finite sandbox environment to that mean.
(Not that I know precisely how far Tynan want to go, but I bought Rimworld because it has a end and the Storytellers are not described as simple dynamic-difficulty system)


I do know of the "Game is already abstracting plant growth time" lines of arguments. Again child would only fit if the game was shaped for transgeneration game, like Banished, where it is a major gameplay imperative to care about that, or game like SIMS although I grew to dislike the license precisely because it tried anything to be relevant again.

But back on subject. Yes the game abstract plant growth, research...etc, that's the best argument I see in favor but it's not enough. The same game-logic also make plantation less productive than they should be, make you research no-brainer things, lack many events, more natural danger, lack a fully developed tech-tree and other game mechanic like Diplomacy and is still working on characterization.
All will certainly follow major rebalancing anyway.

On this, remember when I talked of other game-mechanic that would need modifying ?
If you want to add in kids... and also becoming elder as things that matter, all without making a joke of it, you would have to slow-down/increase research/change mining/skills to accommodate them.
Oh and certainly cut down the rate at which the game tell you colonists birthday.

It's all a question of scale and what it take to justify the whole child game-mechanic.
Let's take 5 years (abstracting copiously) until a child can pull his worth.
- First, just to grow a child you need to make survival more simple and increase optimal population beyond 10 just to increase the likelihood of couple (because you ain't gonna force them are you ?).
- Now you want that child to reach adulthood then matter. You must rebalance game duration to 10 years, more resources to mine, decrease the risk of kids dying. At that point you MUST have already researched everything unless you want to impose child to other players who wanted to play years and reach an ending.
- To have transgeneration consideration, adding not only child but also elder as a gameplay mechanic you would have to increase by say another 10 years. You are not so much playing than timewarping through events, still Phoebe is meant for that kind of game.
- Lastly... if you want a "sustaining colony condition".
As said, child won't make a difference. You will need outside blood and a least 150 unrelated colonists for short-time survival. At that point you should be abstracting the children mechanic as well.
Either through a "Diplomacy End" or a "Colony End" for reaching a state at which point it should be clear you won the game and will just struggle with its limit.

A last note on your suggestion to "allow player to decide of how much time is abstracted" : it enter precisely in the "twisting idea to absurdity until it fit" case I mentioned and I wish I shouldn't have to explain why : You are suggesting to break the link between simulated-event and a game-mechanic just to justify a game mechanic that a new player shouldn't have to balance manually.
Next someone will be asking a slider to change day duration, the speed at which crop grow, at which art happen, optional game mechanic... at which point the game will never be complete because of mutually exclusive game-mechanic.

ps: this topic make me think of this :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7GAtSIy4-w

[Vagabond]

Meh, no need to PM for that, I simply don't like using the word breeder when talking of expectedly sentient human being with aspiration and dream, you know, the thing we should be focusing on rather than making them nameless breeder.
It just motivated me to write another river of text.

I assure you that none of that was my intention by using that word. As I said, it was simply a word to describe a life stage. Every suggestion I make is with the intention of enhancing (R.S.S) realism, simulation, and survival aspects of the game. In the case of this particular suggestion, it is just a single part of an overall innitiative to humanize the colonist. If you doubt my words, then look at my other suggestions and posts.

That aside, you are taking the subject from the point of view of realism. But this isn't the only problem. You could pretend one need to be adult to travel in Cryptosleep pod and justify the whole lack of child/abstinence realistically.
Rimworld would need a major redesign even in its alpha state to fit what is not a trivial addition to the game, such feature would be better as a TC mods.

As made obvious by my suggestion, I don't want to pretend or make justifications for this. So clearly I'm biased. However, I believe my suggestion is grounded in my overall goals of increasing R.S.S, without the need to justify or pretend anything, because it makes sense on it's own. More so than the current state of affairs.

I'm not surprised you defend a endless sandbox, in my opinion it's kind of like a cancer nowadays "you must be a infinite-sandbox or else you ain't doing the best" regardless if originally you planned to have carefully balanced game phase with small but interesting population leading to several ending making riveting tales... and used a finite sandbox environment to that mean.
(Not that I know precisely how far Tynan want to go, but I bought Rimworld because it has a end and the Storytellers are not described as simple dynamic-difficulty system)

What... What... and what? I'm sorry, but sandbox or "open world level design" has been around since the 80's. Many of the best games, story wise, are games with open world level design. By design, and with increasing fidelity, they attempt to simulate a living world with the purpose of emergent gameplay. I know you're wounded by the use of breeder, but I'm sensing the same tone with the word sandbox, and it's one thing I will not defend, because it is perhaps one of the best mediums for emergent gameplay and simulation. What exactly do you think the AI Storyteller is? It is an engine for emergent gameplay, like Skyrim's less than perfect Radiant system, or Left 4 Dead's AI Director. I'm sorry, but you have absolutely no arguement on this one.

I do know of the "Game is already abstracting plant growth time" lines of arguments. Again child would only fit if the game was shaped for transgeneration game, like Banished, where it is a major gameplay imperative to care about that, or game like SIMS although I grew to dislike the license precisely because it tried anything to be relevant again.

But back on subject. Yes the game abstract plant growth, research...etc, that's the best argument I see in favor but it's not enough. The same game-logic also make plantation less productive than they should be, make you research no-brainer things, lack many events, more natural danger, lack a fully developed tech-tree and other game mechanic like Diplomacy and is still working on characterization.
All will certainly follow major rebalancing anyway.

For one, you keep throwing around the arguement of the game not being set up to be transgenerational like banished, thus the mere thought of children is moot. Let me argue then that the game isn't set up for complex diplomacy like Civilization or other 4X game, thus the idea of it is horrendous. Wait, I want that too. Hold on.

Of course the game isn't set up to be multi-generational if none of the systems have been implemented yet. However, just because there isn't a shadow of a system present, doesn't mean that it can't be implemented or that it wouldn't fit. Take a real close look at the game. Factor in complex diplomacy, children, enhanced traits (a suggestion thread of mine), an abstract time scale (that allows for speed of gameplay, but realistic passage of time in the meta scale), and there can be no doubt, in my opinion, that the game couldn't be multi-generational. It could tie into so many things; Inherated traits, Simulated npc factions, more realistic colony building.... The list goes on, and not a single system in place would be disrupted. By not disrupted, I mean they can keey their current settings. Ideally, they would be integrated into the whole.

On this, remember when I talked of other game-mechanic that would need modifying ?
If you want to add in kids... and also becoming elder as things that matter, all without making a joke of it, you would have to slow-down/increase research/change mining/skills to accommodate them.
Oh and certainly cut down the rate at which the game tell you colonists birthday.

Why would the current rates need to be altered? They can stay the way they are. My abstract time scale favors the current rates in game, and has them making more sense in regards to the amount of time they actually take.

It's all a question of scale and what it take to justify the whole child game-mechanic.
Let's take 5 years (abstracting copiously) until a child can pull his worth.
- First, just to grow a child you need to make survival more simple and increase optimal population beyond 10 just to increase the likelihood of couple (because you ain't gonna force them are you ?).
- Now you want that child to reach adulthood then matter. You must rebalance game duration to 10 years, more resources to mine, decrease the risk of kids dying. At that point you MUST have already researched everything unless you want to impose child to other players who wanted to play years and reach an ending.
- To have transgeneration consideration, adding not only child but also elder as a gameplay mechanic you would have to increase by say another 10 years. You are not so much playing than timewarping through events, still Phoebe is meant for that kind of game.
- Lastly... if you want a "sustaining colony condition".
As said, child won't make a difference. You will need outside blood and a least 150 unrelated colonists for short-time survival. At that point you should be abstracting the children mechanic as well.
Either through a "Diplomacy End" or a "Colony End" for reaching a state at which point it should be clear you won the game and will just struggle with its limit.

What? Combining my children suggestion with my abstract time scale suggestion it would take ~60-90 days for a colonist to mature physically and mentally to an adult. Thats ~180-270 abstract months. Which is 15 years old to 22 years old. You seem stuck on the sustained population arguement, but the aim of my suggestion isn't to create a sustained population (that isn't the goal in the game as it is now). My suggestions are about realism, simulation, and survival. A small family clan isn't a sustained population, but they brought in outside blood to secure their future. There is enough outside blood to offer options to continue the legacy, however just as the game is now, once all your colonist die, your story is over.

It would be the same in my proposed system. Lose all your colonist and you die. THe difference is you can bolster your population through childbirth (which is needed to offset death from old age). It only adds story elements, it doesn't take them away, so in my book that is a win.

A last note on your suggestion to "allow player to decide of how much time is abstracted" : it enter precisely in the "twisting idea to absurdity until it fit" case I mentioned and I wish I shouldn't have to explain why : You are suggesting to break the link between simulated-event and a game-mechanic just to justify a game mechanic that a new player shouldn't have to balance manually.
Next someone will be asking a slider to change day duration, the speed at which crop grow, at which art happen, optional game mechanic... at which point the game will never be complete because of mutually exclusive game-mechanic.

ps: this topic make me think of this :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7GAtSIy4-w

Why not? There are other games that allow you to decide how fast/slow time passes. Why not not add a slider for those things? Whom does it hurt? No one. Who would it make extremely happy at the developer for adding those little options? The ones, like me, who find it astounding that there are developers who let us peek into the brains of their game and adjust things; the developers whom implement it into the game. It is a magical feeling to see all the things the developer allows us to tinker with without modding.

It doesn't hurt anyone, and it only increases the majesty of the game in the eyes of those (many) whom care about things like that. I love options. I'll take all the options I can get hardcoded and in the game already. It's awesome being able to adjust things. It amazes me you are against the idea of being able to do that, because it means a tailored experience.

You mentioned The Sims. My wife plays those games. I know for a fact that they have sliders for growth rate. There are default rates for those whom either don't know the game well enough to tinker, or for those who just don't want to bother. Absolutely no skin off their backs.

I'm sorry, but the only absurd twisting I see are your arguments. I'm starting to think you are trying to troll me. Lol.

Cheers,
Michael

[Argon]

In my suggestion time would be abstract in that one game day will represent three months. So in essence, pregnancies will be nine months long.

So by your logic a colonist eats twice every three months?  Your logic also states that a colonist should grow from an infant, age, and die within two in game years.  Does a two year human lifespan sound utterly ridiculous to anyone but me?  Besides if children are to exist as a way to win the game it should not be easy.  Just as a spaceship is not built in a day, a child should not be gestated in three.  In order for children to be an effective "win condition" pregnancy should be long, arduous, and risky.  It makes for better drama.
Example:  "this sculpture shows ________ colonist in her thirty sixth hour of labor screaming in pain, as an incendiary mortar shell falls outside the window."

-Argon

[thenightgaunt]

In my suggestion time would be abstract in that one game day will represent three months. So in essence, pregnancies will be nine months long.

So by your logic a colonist eats twice every three months?  Your logic also states that a colonist should grow from an infant, age, and die within two in game years.  Does a two year human lifespan sound utterly ridiculous to anyone but me?  Besides if children are to exist as a way to win the game it should not be easy.  Just as a spaceship is not built in a day, a child should not be gestated in three.  In order for children to be an effective "win condition" pregnancy should be long, arduous, and risky.  It makes for better drama.
Example:  "this sculpture shows ________ colonist in her thirty sixth hour of labor screaming in pain, as an incendiary mortar shell falls outside the window."

-Argon

To start, I'd like to point out that as a game Rimworld is not realistic. In contrast it's also not idiotically simple. So we have to draw a line at what is considered acceptable reality vs silliness. This is a game of simplistic, cartoonish construction and mining, and brutal survival against the elements. I think that arguing vehemently about what's too unrealistic or too harshly realistic is beneath us. It's a point that should be made but it might be more reasonable to say "I prefer a more realistic/stylistic style of gameplay". There is nothing wrong with either.

To Argon:
An interesting point. It seems that children might be used as a design element in two ways (at least).

The first as a way to augment the growth of a colony. In this case children grow up fast and develop into productive colonists and the colony expands as a result. This would require faster gestation and growth periods to simulate the life cycle. To that end there are countless sci-fi McGuffins that could be appropriate.

The second is breeding as a way to make the game more difficult. Given the short lifespan of many colonies in this game before a win condition is reached, realistic pregnancy would not strengthen a colony but weaken it. Colonists would become restricted in their actions as they became pregnant (mining is not a safe task for a woman in her 3rd trimester) and infants/children would be resource drains for most of their existence (barring a very long game of course). In that case, breeding would be a way to increase difficulty. Can you build a colony that can not only survive but support a growing population of unproductive colonist babies?

Lastly, yes "breeder" is a loaded term and it can be a distasteful term depending on when and in what context it is used. From what I've seen here I think that we're all mature enough to both recognize that fact and to possibly acknowledge that it can also be a functional and somewhat appropriate term. Human and all life can be designated into periods based on the ability to breed. Infant, breeder, elder for example. And given the topic of the thread and it may be an appropriate and functional term in the design of a system designed to mimic reproduction. If it becomes too loaded and contentious a term then perhaps we could avoid it.

[Vagabond]

In my suggestion time would be abstract in that one game day will represent three months. So in essence, pregnancies will be nine months long.

So by your logic a colonist eats twice every three months?  Your logic also states that a colonist should grow from an infant, age, and die within two in game years.  Does a two year human lifespan sound utterly ridiculous to anyone but me?  Besides if children are to exist as a way to win the game it should not be easy.  Just as a spaceship is not built in a day, a child should not be gestated in three.  In order for children to be an effective "win condition" pregnancy should be long, arduous, and risky.  It makes for better drama.
Example:  "this sculpture shows ________ colonist in her thirty sixth hour of labor screaming in pain, as an incendiary mortar shell falls outside the window."

-Argon

Argon,

Are you intentionally disregarding what I said, or did you just not really read it? My "logic" as you put it, neither states that colonist eat twice every three months, nor that their lifespan is two game years. If that is what you took from my post then I blame the institution in which you acquired your education.

To clarify, just for you: According to my suggestion (not my "logic" as you put it), an infant becomes physically and mentally mature in 60-90 game days. According to the time flow model I suggested, in which one game day represents -abstractly- three months, this would mean that the time represented would be 180 to 270 months. Which is 15 to 22 years. At 200 days old, which is 600 months (or 50 years old), the colonist becomes and elder, with ever decreasing chances to live through the seasons.

I specifically stated that I didn't support children as a win condition, so I don't know why you bring that up in response to my posts... Furthermore, as modeled above, children are gestated in nine months, since each game day represents three months -abstractly-. Your space ship analogy makes more sense in my proposed time model, because they take much more time to make than they currently do in game.

You still get to play each season (for areas that support all four seasons). You still get that day to day management feel; but you also get a much more realistic flow of time and progression than you do now. The 'so colonist only get to eat twice every three months' amounts to an eye-roll because out of everything, you choose that to nitpick about. When on every other front, time meshes well.

To reiterate: Time would be abstract. You are only playing "one day" of every "three months", but you get more accurate scaling of time in regards to research, construction, mining, research, growing, and last but no least the suggested aging model. You have to sacrifice watching your colonist eat more than twice in the three month abstract period, though, sorry. It can't be perfect.

I continue to be baffled, but I assure you, the mental exercise is worth it.

Cheers,
Michael

User was warned for this post: inflammatory.

[Kegereneku]

I join thenightgaunt' point on realism, and we can indeed stop talking about breeder. I was rambling around because I do feel forcing children in Rimworld as described give breeder its loaded meaning. But that's just rhetoric and we are no puritan (especially playing Rimworld).

Vagabond :

What... What... and what? I'm sorry, but sandbox or "open world level design" has been around since the 80's. Many of the best games, story wise, are games with open world level design. By design, and with increasing fidelity, they attempt to simulate a living world with the purpose of emergent gameplay. [.................] What exactly do you think the AI Storyteller is? It is an engine for emergent gameplay, like Skyrim's less than perfect Radiant system, or Left 4 Dead's AI Director. I'm sorry, but you have absolutely no arguement on this one.

Sandbox come in different and unequal favor. Finite / Infinite. Both in term of size and playtime.
For clarification assume now that :
- "finite/infinite" refer to the sandbox physical area. (Minecraft being roughly 'infinite' while GTA is finite)
- "End/Endless" refer to the playtime. (Minecraft having been endless for years, while GTA always had a clear End)
Any game have limitation and not only technological limitation. Good developer put limit to themselves over the gameplay they make. This is why Minecraft isn't a story driven RPG/strategy game, why GTA don't have a child-system, why the old Elite Frontier game didn't have a story-mode
...and why RIMWORLD is not suited for endless game : finite-to-infinite /or end-to-endless sandbox isn't inevitably better...I shouldn't have to explain that !

Note : Oh and please don't play on word with emergent/hybrid game and insult our intelligence, we all know a game can't be everything equally.
You aren't even using emergent gameplay right !

Next : "Storyteller" is by definition one that tell a story, a story being defined as finite, a sequence of events. Whether the storyteller must "thread" or "push" the player toward an end (including death) is up to discussion but you cannot claim Tynan's storyteller (which have ending, credit and a Tales system) are timeless "Dynamic difficulty system", nor claim they are meant/best suited for the endless play YOU want.

For one, you keep throwing around the arguement of the game not being set up to be transgenerational like banished, thus the mere thought of children is moot. Let me argue then that the game isn't set up for complex diplomacy like Civilization or other 4X game, thus the idea of it is horrendous. Wait, I want that too. Hold on.

I only used Banished because it was pointed out as an example before and to make you understand you can't have 2 different in one. Forget the Banished, my point still stand that Rimworld isn't shaped to make a worthwhile use of the clearly transgenerational gameplay you suggest. This is not because X did it that Rimworld can do it without major redesign (as explained everywhere in all my posts).

Aside, Rimworld do have all the base for any sort of diplomacy system.

It would be the same in my proposed system. Lose all your colonist and you die. THe difference is you can bolster your population through childbirth (which is needed to offset death from old age). It only adds story elements, it doesn't take them away, so in my book that is a win.

Again : It's all in the scale, reread my explanation.
You would be forcing a minimum play time of 5 years (with your 60month data) JUST to get one colonist adult... assuming the colonist get busy the very first month. Then if you truly want him to "bolster" your population, you need to add another few years and more colonist, double if you want child to die of old age.

Hence you are talking of a feature already so twisted it look absurd, which only matter for what we consider non-standard population, non-standard game-duration and require a non-negligible amount of Tynan's work for an "minor" features that I doubt a representative-majority is interested with.

Why not? There are other games that allow you to decide how fast/slow time passes. Why not not add a slider for those things? Whom does it hurt? No one. Who would it make extremely happy at the developer for adding those little options?

"Other game" do it because they either know what they do or because they didn't and hope the fanbase will cut them some slack. I can easily give you games that are hellish to make playable, with any number of sliders or simply take your own logic to absurdity.
ex : What would it be if the developer of <insert game> let/forced the players to tweak slider(s) of <more complex than it look game mechanic> ? (Count that plural because if we keep including features with sliders like this one it will go fast)

You call me a troll ?
You are the one weaseling your case over "Technically it's possible" neglecting or dismissing the implications & changes needed to make the feature worth its existence, all arguing from your own over-10y-game standard whereas I suggested equivalent alternative.

If you asked me if I wanted a "Red Mars"-like colonization game (novel by Kim Stanley Robinson) with complex character, building and uniting colony over multiple generation and waging/averting local war, the answer would be "yes". If you asked me if I think Rimworld could evolve into it, the answer would be "no, but it's good in its own right"

User was warned for this post: inflammatory

[Vagabond]

Hello,

Foremost I would like to apologise to both Kegereneku and Argon for anything I might have said that could have been seen as a personal attack. It was uncalled for and ill suited to debate.

Secondly, I do not think any of us will concede to the point of the other. My proposal was just that; I feel it'd work seamlessly. It is something I would like to see (which are what suggestions are in this medium). I know it isn't everyones cup of tea, but the good thing about this is that I am not the one developing this game.

Lastly: Hitler. By Godwin's Law, I lose, and the topic should be locked  . Seriously though, I think this topic has ran it's course and no further use can come from it.

Cheers,
Michael

[Kegereneku]

Indeed,
This debate is proving unproductive for both of us and would have probably ended in a flamewar (with actual flame)
You've stated your suggestion, I've brought counterargument.
It's ultimately up to Tynan decide if he can address the concept and how,

So I agree to disagree.

[lusername]

Why set 18 as the magical adulthood point? 14 should be more than old enough to handle all colony tasks, even medicine with the caveat that they'll be starting at 0 skill points. I'd go so far as to argue being able to draft them that young.

You already sort of can. Pawns can ALREADY spawn with ages like that, complete with an adult background..."Wait, you have an adult background? You're a kid!".