I'd like an endgame that allows you to make a town of your colony

[Joog]

Hiya,

I'd like an option for the endgame where you can make a town of your colony, instead of building a new spaceship let them build a spaceport or something. The idea is that you need to meet some basic needs before you can convert to a town, maybe even allow yourself to be joined into a space civilization and get the needed protection against the raiders.

Maybe you can choose between various civilizations, a farmer-minded, industry-minded, warlike or just some decadent one.

Each of the choices will have different conditions and if you meet those conditions you will get invited to join them after you built the spaceport or something. And when you get to join the civilization you can just play on and it will revert to the easiest mode ad infinitum.

(Yeah, i always have a hard time leaving something behind.)

edit: changed the word city into town to make it clear what i mean .

[Kolchack]

I'd definitely welcome an 'endgame' which didn't involve building a space-ship, but would prefer it to be natural. I.e. My colonists decide the planet is quite nice, and that they'll step in an be the government. This could be via a technology which requires every other tech and 25 colonists (or a seriously high number when balanced) to unlock - and would allow you to get more colonists easier,  weapons and vehicles good enough to beat all raiders (and possibly the ability to build ship defences to stop raiders)

[Joog]

That would also be cool, as long as there are other options then getting off the planet. Only thing is that the game cannot be built into a simcityish game, that would take it to far out of the original premise of the game. So when the goals are met of joining a galactic civ or securing the planet in a way any sane raider would give it a wide berth and reverting the game into the pacifistic setting of the easiest mode would be OK. Maybe with some end game story how your colony grows into a mayor planet [in whatever goals are met] to give it closure and muck about tweaking the game.

[AmalgamSnow]

I like the concept of an improved civilisation endgame, but also, i thought "well maybe not everyone wants to get to that level of complexity" and you could have a variety of endgame options, or rather, things to do post-full tech/base:
The First: As you say, the option to make a little town of some kind, adding complexity, but perhaps (due to a larger population) removing the gritty micromanagement of the population, as micromanaging, for instance, 50 people could be a grueling task.
The Second: The option to leave some colonists behind to maintain your little base, then head out and colonis another rimworld with a few select colonists (minimum of 3, to a max of 5  - your choice), but also, as the intention of this colonisation is not a crash, you would have a 'shuttle' (not necessarily a physical object, just a backstory concept) that automatically transports some resources you wish to take (more than the starting amount of colony 1 (perhaps with a maximum setting i.e you cant take more than 500food, or 800 metal for example).
The Third: The option to raid others, heading to AI encampments and just screwing stuff up! (like our current dear AI raiders), but of course, you return to your normal base after, and dont really gain much; but it's something to do that could be fun!

Of course, these are just three variations of how end game selection could work, there could be many other options, or just one; yet pivotally, i feel you cant use them in conjuction with each other, aside from the raid option, but that could only be done prior to the other two for your specific colony, as i imagine once converting to a town/mini civ, combat would be difficult to manage xD

[Galileus]

I like the concept of an improved civilisation endgame, but also, i thought "well maybe not everyone wants to get to that level of complexity" and you could have a variety of endgame options, or rather, things to do post-full tech/base:
The First: As you say, the option to make a little town of some kind, adding complexity, but perhaps (due to a larger population) removing the gritty micromanagement of the population, as micromanaging, for instance, 50 people could be a grueling task.

Just to make sure, you are aware that complexity is a negative term in game design, right? The positive one is depth - meaning amount of different outcomes that can be achieved with the same tools. Complexity is the amount of tools and difficulty of their use. Ideally you want maximum depth for a good, low amount of complexity (yet not too low either). Then there comes depth per complexity per buck and heeere... and here's the problem.

Switching from micromanaged colony to macromanaged city is reasonable depth per way too much complexity (changing of game concept) per waaaaaaaaaay too much buck. We're talking about re-writing AI, optimization for a new gameplay, addition of whole new level of gameplay, addition of all new stuff, need to get back to drawing board to re-design UI and mechanics to fit the new gameplay... Don't get me wrong, this can be done - in a game that is about transfering from a colony to a city to a megapolis. This is simply not that game. To get the town part right and reasonably good you need to take away a lot from colony part. And in the end no-one wants a "reasonably well made" games, this is just a nice way to say "completely mediocre". Then there comes the problem of it being an optional part of the game. This is completely unreasonable. Now if you really spend time on this town macro part - you get punched on micro part way harder, because this shiny macro part is optional and many player simply won't see it and thus won't get the lack of polish on micro. If you don't polish your macro part - then there comes a giant question, why even add an optional and unpolished part to the game?

[AmalgamSnow]

Well then screw the town concept, i wasn't all for it, i preferred my latter two suggestions anyway xD just trying to be supportive! That's why options two and three aren't really endgame at all when you think about it, you either A) build a new colony (with slightly better start stats essentially) or B) carry on and just survive or kick the s$^t outta others. For rimworld, i really dont see a 'true endgame' being a viable concept, because face it, there ain't no IRL endgame is there, and the whole point of a sim is "well if it were IRL..."

[Galileus]

New Game + concept is really great, I believe it was suggested already and I do support it with my whole heart. Especially if we come with a good strong base of different planets (biome changes, different encounters and events (un)locked or game modifiers) if would be a great game to get that great "one more game" feeling. I don't know if I would start a new colony knowing gameplay will be mostly the same for the X'th time, but I know for sure I would if:
A) I could take my most liked colonists
B) I could take Cherry's grave (or what was left from it after the honourable C4 salvo) with me
C) X < 176

As for the other suggestion, I would rather see it as a part of the mid-late game rather than an endgame option. There were some great ideas for off-map expeditions, acknowledged by Tynan already.

[Joog]

Just to clarify, the converting the colony into a town (on it's own or as part of a civ) does not make the game any more complex. It's a  'game over, you made it!' *credits roll* kind of thing (like the building of a ship to get the hell out of there). It does not give you 100 new colonists to break the game, no skyscrapers or any of that nonsense. It just means you have a town and the raiders will pretty much leave you alone so the game reverts to Phoebe Friendly and that's it. Maybe you can add some more people in you colony but nothing more, the game is done and people can put their feet up and relax a little.

[Galileus]

Just to clarify, the converting the colony into a town (on it's own or as part of a civ) does not make the game any more complex. It's a  'game over, you made it!' *credits roll* kind of thing (like the building of a ship to get the hell out of there). It does not give you 100 new colonists to break the game, no skyscrapers or any of that nonsense. It just means you have a town and the raiders will pretty much leave you alone so the game reverts to Phoebe Friendly and that's it. Maybe you can add some more people in you colony but nothing more, the game is done and people can put their feet up and relax a little.

So... your suggestion is to add a storyteller changer. And maybe mod the buildable escape shuttle's name to "townhall" and change the text of quit message. I don't get it. It would take proximately 87 seconds to mod this.

Not to mention ramping up difficulty once per X days makes way more sense than lowering it. If someone wan'ts to play on low diff, he will - if someone want's to play on a challenging one, he'll be pissed.

[AmalgamSnow]

Well i vote, if we need an 'endgame' it would have to be my previously suggested option two of just getting a head start for another colony, because, if you think about it, a little credits scene or something and a "hey you lived" or {"make a town?" - [yes/no] - [yes] "now you just sit back and relax! the people love you!"} just doesn't feel right. I could appreciate that perhaps the story telling AI could have somethig like a "congratz" but i dont think you can ever finalise a game like Rimworld; it seems that it should be something ongoing because that's what sims are about, the endless possibility of one little (or quite large) area!

[Joog]

Just to clarify, the converting the colony into a town (on it's own or as part of a civ) does not make the game any more complex. It's a  'game over, you made it!' *credits roll* kind of thing (like the building of a ship to get the hell out of there). It does not give you 100 new colonists to break the game, no skyscrapers or any of that nonsense. It just means you have a town and the raiders will pretty much leave you alone so the game reverts to Phoebe Friendly and that's it. Maybe you can add some more people in you colony but nothing more, the game is done and people can put their feet up and relax a little.

So... your suggestion is to add a storyteller changer. And maybe mod the buildable escape shuttle's name to "townhall" and change the text of quit message. I don't get it. It would take proximately 87 seconds to mod this.

Not to mention ramping up difficulty once per X days makes way more sense than lowering it. If someone wan'ts to play on low diff, he will - if someone want's to play on a challenging one, he'll be pissed.

I never realised this game was just a ad infinitum setup to be honest. And be realistic; everything is modable into the game. This type of game should have an endgame. Make the survival mode optional and ramp up the difficulty until every single colonist is dead or something but i and a lot people with me need an end too live up to and to make it a mod will cause a situation where a lot of people will never experience any kind of endgame or have to sift through a lot of crap before they get to a good one.

I really hope different kinds of endgames will be incorporated into the original game and not only the 'get the hell out of here' option and would certainly hate if there is no built in endgame at all.

[Galileus]

Ok, I'm lost. One second you acknowledge existence of "let's get the hell outa here!" game ender, and in the next you're talking about there not being one...?

Anyhow, sure, different end games, cute. But how is adding a "make a town" one any good at all, if all you do is switch the endgame text and it's pretty much the same? Gather 10k metal to get the hell outta here or gather 10k food to make an agricultural city? Well, they do seem identical to me.

Well, not really. Get the hell outa here ender with a new game plus sounds like something awful. Goddamn awful. I mean, I can already see these sleep-less nights spent on playing NG++++ ramping up into two-digit number real quick. Can't say the same about "gather 10k metal, congrats, it's now a town and not a colony". Ok, a different endgame, cool - but what is it? What is the meat of this endgame? Why would player want it? Because if it's just going to show me YOU WIN screen after some unbelievably plain objective, I would actually be sad I did win. With "hellout" I at least feel the weight behind it, I get my guys home. I can't feel that with city, because there is no feel to that objective if I have 20 colonists anyway. An open-ended game needs either a real meaty endgame objective or no endgame at all. And the meat can either be the work put towards that objective or the end itself.

We need meat! I don't know if you can make this idea for an endgame work? But it won't work without meat for sure. There's your homework

[palandus]

I too would like a more of a colony endgame rather than a starship endgame. How I'd see it working out is that:

-> You could set up preset priorities for all colonists of a specific class (ie Shipwright, Miner, Pirate, etc...).
-> You could build up a small town. Not a large town, but a small town (Min 100, Max 500 people [which is still a lot]).
-> You could build specific buildings that provide a specialized bonus for whatever activity the structure is for. (ie A Recreation building that houses Rec Room Equipment; A Medical building that houses medical beds and supplies). These specialized buildings would get a +25% effectiveness or something attached to anything within that specialization and a -25% effectiveness for anything outside of that specialization (ie Rec Room Equipment in a Medical Building). In the short-term game, its generally not useful to build dedicated rooms for things; rather put things wherever you have space for them. In the long-term it would be better to have specific structures set up to perform tasks.
-> You could build more advanced long-term structures, such as a Communications Array (Trader ships flock to the signal; gets you more traders with larger stocks), Advanced Defensive Turrets (say something with a plasma cannon or laser cannon in it), Vehicle Factory (allows you to build vehicles; nuff said), Borehole Mine (Constantly spits out metal from deep underground; costs a lot of metal to build, but needed for larger colonies to handle the metal costs), Fusion Reactor (produces a ton of energy but costly to build and operate) etc... These structures would be fairly unpractical for a smaller colony but nigh-essential for a larger colony. These structures would be unpractical for several reasons: 1) Power Requirements 2) Metal Costs 3) Size of the Structures themselves, 4) Build Time to construct them, and 5) Some advanced buildings would require higher colonist skill to use them.
-> Ideally, it would be a gradually switch from smaller colony to larger colony, and it would make sense to advance to a larger colony. Consider that it would be a group of people settling down for the longterm, and the longterm has its own difficulties of its own.
-> The tutorial system in place could be used to instruct players on how to advanced from small to large colonies.

Also, a starship option would only make sense if you had a larger colony anyways. The costs in terms of metal, and specialized equipment would be too much for a tiny group of people to accomplish anyways. Whens the last time (in real life) you and a group of your friends built a starship from scrap metal with little to no experience in building starships? I personally think the starship option is unfeasible as you'd need at least: 1) A very large supply of metal and 2) A drydock facility of some kind to build it. In Outpost 2 (1996 or 1997 cant remember which) you escaped the planet by building a starship. In that game you had the specialized equipment, drydock facilities, plenty of well-trained colonists and tons of metal (like 20,000+ units), and built a starship. The only possible way it could be done in Rimworld is to have the same kind of facilities, which would REQUIRE a larger colony anyways.

If a starship option is desired, you'd need to have the larger colony anyways.

[Joog]

Ok, I'm lost. One second you acknowledge existence of "let's get the hell outa here!" game ender, and in the next you're talking about there not being one...?

My assumption was that there will be a game ender but what i read from you previous post it made me doubt. I'm not to well versed in this game because i just discovered and bought it a few weeks ago so everyone can say just about everyhing and i will not have a clue about the validity of the statement. But in the event of a end game wich i fervently hope there will be one in the basic game i would like a choise in whatever game ender there are, so the replayability will skyrocket. A bit like civilization where you can work towards all kinds of 'victories' (and afterwards will be able to continue the game if you want ).

Anyhow, sure, different end games, cute. But how is adding a "make a town" one any good at all, if all you do is switch the endgame text and it's pretty much the same? Gather 10k metal to get the hell outta here or gather 10k food to make an agricultural city? Well, they do seem identical to me.

It's all in the mind, of course. You make your choices and work towards them. But that is just some (easy, non complex) icing on the cake. The big choices are no more than staying or leaving. Personally i would like to have a choice in the matter. On the staying side you would have the flavors of joining a excisting civilization of your choice (make it  3 or 4 options) and on the leaving side you can choose to leave all at once and be done with it or send out a shuttle that will look for help and the colony will have to survive for a little while longer until help gets there.

Well, not really. Get the hell outa here ender with a new game plus sounds like something awful. Goddamn awful. I mean, I can already see these sleep-less nights spent on playing NG++++ ramping up into two-digit number real quick. Can't say the same about "gather 10k metal, congrats, it's now a town and not a colony". Ok, a different endgame, cool - but what is it? What is the meat of this endgame? Why would player want it? Because if it's just going to show me YOU WIN screen after some unbelievably plain objective, I would actually be sad I did win. With "hellout" I at least feel the weight behind it, I get my guys home. I can't feel that with city, because there is no feel to that objective if I have 20 colonists anyway. An open-ended game needs either a real meaty endgame objective or no endgame at all. And the meat can either be the work put towards that objective or the end itself.

We need meat! I don't know if you can make this idea for an endgame work? But it won't work without meat for sure. There's your homework

OK, i can deal with that but what you just said is that you prefer to go to get closure and fantasize about going home, i want my colony to be safe. Maybe i'll choose to go and maybe i just feel the place growing on me and want to make something out of it. The meat is in the head and because the game should not be too complex (agree with you there!), it would be pretty impossible to keep on growing and developing on a finite map but this game is about new beginnings. The new beginning is the crash and you will be the one that chooses how to handle it,(stay or leave) the 'create a town' has to be the game ender for staying because else it will mutate in some kind of micro-managed Alpha centauri game.

Give the choise to stay some nice but in the end token rewards, a hyper modern hydroponic farm for the hippies, a weapons-factory for the warlike-ones and so on and so on and when you want to create your own budding civilization make it a option (as someone else here said) to take some of your colonists into a new ship to have another freak accident on another planet! Or make it a option for all stay games and 'farm them out' into other new games, give it some continuity while starting new games.

And of course, if you want to play on forever (without reverting to Phoebe Friendly) just do not start the end game project (building a spaceship/spaceport)

Something like that.

[Creepypastaanime]

i would definitely like an endgame where you become a town and possibly get anti ship weapons to stop raiders before they come, but theres a catch. you've beaten the weakest, but now terrorist, Anarchist organizations (or democratic rebels if you keep loyalty through fear) now group, and assimilate, and become strong and attack from the inside when you least expect it, they set up secret bases, and now you need to survive an even greater threat that comes with greater responsibility. When you say "oh, i want a safe end game" then your just being stupid. go play Phobe friendly if you want to play safely, otherwise don't shove a peaceful endgame onto people who like the tense feeling when you don't know weather your colonists will survive the next day.