Uncertainty Veil (Fog of War)

[Hypolite]

Currently RimWorld has no fog of war. Player can see everything that is going on anywhere on the map. It makes it very easy to spot mineral veins and geothermal geysers at the start of a game, and later on it makes defense very easy since raiders always wait for the middle of the night to attack after hanging out in a corner of the map for a half day.

I guess "fog of war" is ill-named in the case of RimWorld. I personally think it should be named "story-inducing Uncertainty Veil" because it allows a lot of new behaviors for players:
- Scouting raiders positions when the raiders alert pops up
- Mounting search parties to look for survivors when the crashed pod alert rings
- Exploring to find minerals, geothermal geysers and resources stacks
- Building scout towers to increase view range, of course they would need to be powered and would be choice targets for raiders.

It goes along well with some character traits (near-sighted, eagle eye, nocturnal vision) to be translated in game terms.

[Spike]

I could see the Crash Pod computers building up a quick map of the area as you come in, so maybe you should know about obvious things like geysers.  Less so on minerals.

I'd agree with animals & pirates though.  The player could compensate by researching & building camera's & other spy gadgets (self powered, so you wouldn't have to run wires).  And of course, pirate tactics (if they're smart/led by pirate king) would be to disable those, so you can't see them.

[AspenShadow]

Uncertainty Veil works, I'm definitely for the idea.
The map seems bigger if you can't always see all four borders.

[British]

That suddenly makes RW sounds a whole lot like your run-of-the-mill Civilization-type games...

I could see the Crash Pod computers building up a quick map of the area as you come in (...)

That's how I see it as well.

[Hypolite]

That suddenly makes RW sounds a whole lot like your run-of-the-mill Civilization-type games...

I don't know if it's a good or bad thing to you, so I'll assume the worse and continue on my idea.

Right now RimWorld with its total vision is very predictable and thus closer to pure management games (in the german spirit vein) than RPG or Strategy. So yeah, with Uncertainty Veil it would become closer as common strategy games. However, its goal is different of those of games like Starcraft, for example, that's why I changed its name.

After all, it's a choice: do Tynan want RimWorld to be close from Starcraft and Civilization than Farm Simulator and Cities in Motion. But I personally feel there's more potential stories coming out the first games than from the latter. Surprise and exploration are elements of successful stories. Careful planning and management, however enjoyable for other very good reasons, aren't as inspiring storytelling-wise.

[AspenShadow]

If you prefer there's the middle ground of having the map need to be explored... in the beginning, but it stays "in-view" afterwards?

[Nero]

I like the idea. In Empire Earth you could launch a flare (at least I think it was EE) and it would reveal and area for a certain amount of time and then everything in that are would remain. Sometimes you would get there and the village that you revealed would've been wiped out by the AI, but you didn't know that because of the FoW. I like the idea that it helps with the story and creates tension. Maybe in the mid-late game you can build a radar dish or something that scans the area and reveals all, or something like that.

[Zeiph]

Maybe this could be a difficulty option, for example having a checkbox under the narrator to render him omniscient to stick to the uncertainty veil.

[enystrom8734]

I do believe this is a good choice.

Maybe along the lines of the pod computers scanning, they just point out areas of interest and don't reveal that section per say, requiring more investigation.

As of right now, the way that the game plays is, see notification, look for crash/raiders/mad muffalo etc. This would provide a more tense story and therefore raises a suggestion.

Make fog of war part of the storyteller selection. If you have the easy version of the storyteller they don't add fog of war and vice versa. Or a storyteller customization, want easy and fog of war? Check! So on an so forth.

I'm all for the added possibilities of scouts, patrols and guard towers. Turrets providing limited sight compared to towers/motion only and not sure what it is (just a squirrel or sneaky raider?).

I see I got ninja'ed

[British]

Yes for having it as optional (if we have it our way, RW will be the game of the thousands options !), as it still bothers me that while the fog of war is fine for strategy games, this is not how I would label RW...

[Tynan]

This actually used to be in the game back in June. I took it out after seeing people get really confused and blindsided by stuff from outside the fog of war.

Consider: Raiders approach, some muffalo go mad and attack them and there's a dramatic battle. With FoW over them, you never see any of it.

Actually, the FoW system is still in the game, but is only used for undiscovered underground features.

I may re-consider this some day, but at this point hiding information does not seem like the right direction to go for story generation. To me that's more a strategy game mechanic, and it only really works well in multiplayer strategy games where human players can fake each other out for strategic advantage.

It's one of those ideas that seems good but just doesn't work out that well. RimWorld has had and lost several of those so far.

[Zeiph]

As RW is not a strategy game, for a real bunch of players, including myself, the exploration is a very fun part of the game. I may add that there is some sort of veil currently in the game (reference, courtesy of christonian: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pOpZC27K9g&feature=player_detailpage&list=UUjkPQ1mhkC0ZShIkvBcmfwQ#t=436).
Apparently areas not linked to the "main world" do not appear on the map at the beginning. Moreover there are some ore veins that are not shown at the beginning of the game.

this time I got ninja'ed

[Pheanox]

When I heard this, I too first thought of strategy games, and how RimWorld is not a strategy game.  But on second thought, this came to me.  RimWorld is supposed to be primarily focused on telling a story about your colony.  Uncertainty and lack of visibility adds to ambiance and tension to a story.  It may not be to everyone's taste, and it could make the game more difficult, but a Fog of War system would generate a more desperate atmosphere to your colony.

Since it can be turned on and off, perhaps some AI Storytellers use it, and some don't.  Phoebe Friendly doesn't want you to stress out, she wants to be your friend, so no FoW.  But Cassandra Classic knows that uncertainty is helpful to a rise in tension, so has it.

I also agree that the general lay of the land should be known to the player, anyway.  And any event that involves a crash pod should have an area marked on your map.  Its fairly hard to miss a streaking ball of fire heading towards a location near your base.  Especially if you have a com box, which could pick up distress signals or pirate raid chatter.

[Blitz]

I think a FoW would be an interesting idea for higher up difficulties. Instead of the typical FoW depending on the entity movements, I think it would be nice to see it depend on a centralized structure that you would have to research and build. something along the lines of a beacon. You could set up the beacons all over the map along with their own solar panel to keep them running overnight.

This would make the planner think of where to place them and make him explore. It would also add the uncertainty of where the attack would come from and how strong the raiders were, but it would leave it up to the player as to how much of the map he would maintain.

[British]

I think a FoW would be an interesting idea for higher up difficulties. Instead of the typical FoW depending on the entity movements, I think it would be nice to see it depend on a centralized structure that you would have to research and build. something along the lines of a beacon. You could set up the beacons all over the map along with their own solar panel to keep them running overnight.

This would make the planner think of where to place them and make him explore. It would also add the uncertainty of where the attack would come from and how strong the raiders were, but it would leave it up to the player as to how much of the map he would maintain.

This concept has merit (as long as it's in "higher up difficulties").