Vanilla-friendly fog of war?

[akiceabear]

Suggested etiquette in this thread:

• Only provide affirmative suggestions - e.g. answering one/both of the two questions in the poll.
• Don't post to disagree with another person - we have plenty of threads like that already - they're boring and fast closed.
• Keep answers brief - max 300 words.
• Keep answers independent - no massive quoting.

Background reading:

• Fog of war?
• Uncertainty Veil (Fog of War)

Vanilla-friendly fog of war:

• Most basic fog of war implementation as an option.
• When starting a new game, fog of war toggle is included in the difficulty settings.
• Fog of war is an additional difficulty option, and not imposed on players that would prefer not to use it.
• Vanilla-gameplay remains balanced for non-fog of war as the default.
• 3 stage fog of war:


• Blacked out - default on start. Alternatively, all ground-level terrain is visible due to ship scanning before crash.
• Shrouded - terrain is visible, but other things (enemy pawns/animals/items/fires) are not.
• Visible - everything is visible.
• Pawns generate visibility via their cone of vision, with radius r and angular width a. Pawn sight impacts r and a.
• Visibility persists on a square for t ticks until becoming shrouded.
• All areas are reset to shrouded on sunset, except those in direct pawn vision.
• Sleeping pawn vision is reduced to r=1.
• Player controlled pawns/turrets can not acquire a target unless visible, but can still force attack ground within firing range even if shrouded.
• Player controlled pawns will still move to and haul items that are unforbidden even if shrouded - no need to over complicate the AI.
• Enemy AI unchanged - they remain all-seeing in their tactics.
• Vanilla FOW implemented in a way that modders can tweak balance (e.g. via r, a, t) or add FOW related items/abilities/events on their own.

In my view, this would be a good starting point to satisfy a persistent demand on this board without tackling the unsizably large task of rebalancing everything and without negatively impacting gameplay of those uninterested in the challenge. Think of it as a hardcore mode - don't like it, don't touch it. Prison Architect does this quite well, I think.

Two types of response most welcome:

• If you support vanilla fog war implementation and assuming it is implemented - what would you like to see added on top of it (by modders) - e.g. mechanics, interface, convenience tools, items, traits, events, etc.
• If you don't support vanilla fog of war implementation - what 1-2 'big' features do you most want to see implemented first?

[Frankenbeasley]

No for the simple reason that the next Alpha is already going to significantly change combat both mechanically and environmentally. I would like to see the next few alphas concentrate on more storytelling and events (including the approach to prisoners and colonist recruitment) and also, perhaps, on engineering the interface and skills systems (I would love a more nuanced approach to skills). Let's see how the A11 changes pan out before rushing headlong down the road towards potentially making RW more a wargame than a survival story.

[Dive]

I don't think FOW would add much to the game, but would indeed take a significant amount of work to implement. After all, RW is more about resource management, it's not as much about combat tactics and strategy.
Instead of FOW, I hope Tynan works on making relations with other factions more complex, because right now the entire system feels like a placeholder. Relations between pawns is also a thing that might need to be more complex, even though it's less important at the moment.

[TLHeart]

Fog of war is not needed with the limited map size, and the aspects of the game.

Why waste time on a game mechanic that adds so little, and detracts so much.  I would rather see the time be used for interactions with the other villagers who come to visit, add trade, add an inn/tavern that the visitors could stay at, and improve relations, and maybe have a new way for them to join, from being impresses with your colony.

This game is not about discovery, or war, it is about surviving on a KNOWN planet, that is sparsely settled, where ships come into orbit to trade.

[Kegereneku]

Well, those who read the linked topics know what I think of it.
The basic feature of a "Fog of War" (persistent regenerating fog) are fundamentally incompatible with the leading ideas of Rimworld.
There is much more potential in increasing events variety, to generate in a controlled fashion the stuff epic story are made of. Including features FoW is supposed to bring.

What I would like to see added first :
- Diplomacy and/or trading revamp, caravan or else. Including Guest-class pawn, welcomed for a time.
- Various themed Storytellers, to satisfy everyone of us.

[Adamiks]

No. Arguments above ^

[Wolfen Waffle]

But I don't want a Fog of War...
Not ever...

[Devon_v]

I don't see it as a priority. It would necessitate new mechanics for scouting which is at odds with an optional feature that is not balanced against vanilla. Better might be a partial implimentation where raiders are invisible until they enter the sightline of a pawn, so you don't know where the attack is coming from, but it doesn't interfere with normal survival gameplay.

[Colonist51]

Fog of war would add a lot of immersion to the game. I'm all for it.

[Klitri]

Make it an option and the fog should lift in view of your colonists + turrets.

[akiceabear]

Assuming the suggested basic FOW is implemented, a convenience tool would be a patrol system.

Perhaps this could be based on the flick task, and recycle some code from switches with timers (see the power switch mod). In effect you would create patrol waypoints around the map that would reset every x hours, prompting a pawn to automatically go back and reswitch them. Recall that visible area persists for time t or until sunset, possibly greater than zero, so this would allow you to prioritize some areas to make more frequently visible.

A better implementation might be a new task class called patrol so you could fine tune priorities, but beggars can't be choosers

[Anduin1357]

All I want to know is, does it benefit in practice?
Anything can come after this trial implementation.
If it is not such a good feature, it can be left as is.
This is not even hard to do, this is probably the simplest sounding feature for relatively good effect.

Edit: Just implement it as soon as is reasonable.

[akiceabear]

If you don't have anything constructive to add to this thread, please don't post. There are plenty of derailed threads full of criticism, hyperbole and speculation.

I'd prefer for this thread to stick to suggestions, as described in the OP.

Two types of response most welcome:

• If you support vanilla fog war implementation and assuming it is implemented - what would you like to see added on top of it (by modders) - e.g. mechanics, interface, convenience tools, items, traits, events, etc.
• If you don't support vanilla fog of war implementation - what 1-2 'big' features do you most want to see implemented first?

[RemingtonRyder]

I've pruned three even more posts from this topic. Please respect the limits set in the OP. No meta-discussion.

[akiceabear]

The intent of the poll is probably better worded in the op than in the poll itself. I'm not sure if editing the poll will reset the votes?

Two types of response most welcome:

   
• If you support vanilla fog war implementation and assuming it is implemented - what would you like to see added on top of it (by modders) - e.g. mechanics, interface, convenience tools, items, traits, events, etc.
• If you don't support vanilla fog of war implementation - what 1-2 'big' features do you most want to see implemented first?

On wording and intent: Feel free to replace "before" with "instead". I wasn't intending to prescribe FOW as an inevitability. My intent with this post was to take what is always a toxic debate and force each side to make positive statements, rather than bicker. So far, not so good - please respect the OP.

Note: edited to remove response to off-topic posts.