Maybe 5500 is TOO far in the future.

[Elixiar]

I made a couple of posts about, well, stuff that would make sense in the distant future: brain transplants, more futuristic guns etc.
But it made me think the opposite way, maybe rimworld is set too far in the future.

Because by contrast of them using modern day weapons, it's like us having just discovered you can hurt someone with a sharp stone.
Even with that fact that people could have been on the rimworld for Hundreds of years, there's nothing really that says futuristic.

Weapons range from tribal to a few years ahead pretty much. Both in names and type.

(I get the western outback kind of setting but borderlands has the right asthetic for its weapons.)

It's just hard to believe that our colonists, that I presume are from some sort of fairly tech savvy spaceport or glitterworld would be using a 4000 year old colt pistol after crash landing.

Others thoughts?

[Boston]

The whole setting kind of falls apart after some careful examination, yes

If the tribals have been on the planet for even 1000 years, why haven't they discovered iron, or even copper, yet?

If the Outlanders have been there for longer than you, why don't they also work on building a ship to escape?

See, this whole "Rimworld" thing works FAR better in Warhammer 40,000, because 1) space-travel isn't "casual", like it is in Rimworld, and 2) because of this, societies remain isolated (often deliberately so)

[TheDirge]

How dare you oppose the almighty Tynan?

[milon]

If the tribals have been on the planet for even 1000 years, why haven't they discovered iron, or even copper, yet?

Read the game lore, it's fairly consistent.  Even if tribals have been there for 1500 years, they may have had major wars and plagues decimate them.  This tends to set people back technologically (when immediate survival is more important than long-term research).  Also look at Earth's history.  There are indigenous tribes today that still haven't discovered copper, yet they've been around for 2000+ years.

If the Outlanders have been there for longer than you, why don't they also work on building a ship to escape?

Who says they're not?  They could have launched 3 escape ships already, and still have people left in their Outlander town.  We know precious little about the towns & villages around us.  It's also possible that they don't have the first clue about interstellar travel.  (Maybe that's why they visit so often - to get ideas about our Ship building research!)

[CB elite]

Normally, I wouldn't care about the year, because it doesn't really change how the game works or how fun the game actually is. But, given that this is a storytelling game, I would have to agree that 5500 is a bit out there.

Standardized pistols that we use today wouldn't really be a thing 3500 years from now. Or, at least I don't think they would be... lol

There are only a few really advanced forms of weaponry in the game: the charge rifle, charge lance, and inferno cannon (meh)

The game is still in alpha, and I know Tynan and the other developers are working hard to make this the best game that they can. But, the utter lack of futuristic tech/weaponry in a game set in this time period is a bit sad. I think I would be a little more forgiving if the year was a lot closer to present day.

Something around the year 3000 would be much more realistic, in my opinion.

[b0rsuk]

The show Firefly is one of main inspirations, and there's very little in it that actually feels futuristic, that's not just a reskin. Very few plots which wouldn't be possible if it wasn't sci-fi.

High tech stuff is in the game, in the form of glitterworld items. Glitterworld medicine works pretty much regardless of who uses it and in what conditions. Power armor is just more effective armor. Power armor helmet is futuristic in the sense it's a helmet which can save the wearer from a headshot (military helmets can't... even if it doesn't go through, you'd still have a broken neck). Bionic limbs are just more effective prothetics. Neurotrainers - okay, instant manuals, but they don't change how the game plays. They could increase a skill over 5 days and that wouldn't change anything.

Yes, the game needs tech that actually feels like something from the future. Something fresh.

Space elevators. Robots of some sort that are not just repainted colonists. Genetic engineering. Nanobots. Artificial intelligence.

Maybe Tynan needs to read Philip K. Dick's short stories. They're oozing with creativity. Dick's short stories often include inventions which radically change how people live. That's also true for Wells.

[Cimanyd]

For anyone that hasn't seen these yet:

RimWorld Universe Quick Primer
Longsleep Revival Briefing

These explain why there are different levels of technology.

There are also other interesting things there. For example, boomrats were "originally engineered as a weapon," so now that we can tame animals, we should be able to use boomrats as weapons, right? I also hope someday we have boomfruits and/or whip cacti in the game.

[Devon_v]

Aye, the tech level in the universe is actually all over the place, and the story explains why.

The planets with the tech people are thinking about are the Glitterworlds and beyond that, the Transcendent worlds.

[Kegereneku]

The time scale Tynan choose is actually not bad to allow a wide range of civilization.

Starting years : 2500-3000

Even traveling at the speed of light you don't go very far (and habitable/terraformable planet are scarce)
Worse if you had a inefficient drive : you can easily arrive 1000 (50%) to 5000(20%) years to late, plus, it take a lot of time to build up a population at an human rate (unless you use cloning massively)
Next, 2000 years is long enough for a colony to reach (today's) industrial age or short enough to fall in a dark age for 1000 years. Giving 1000 more years allow for Glitterworld to appear and disappear.

So :
Count 1000to2000 years of travels.
+1000 years to colonize/build up population high enough to be really productive (we leave aside Robot-utopia)
If civilization crumble, you lose 2000 years rebuilding
Else you take another 1000 to reach Glitterworld level and say 500 to Transcend.

So worst case : by launching in 2500+1000darkage+2000 you are a primitive civilization by 5500
Best case : launching in 3000+high-tech1000+1000 you are a glitterworld by 5000, Transcendent by 5500.

And think about it : It took us 2000 years to reach today's technology starting with several millions of individual and reaching 8 billions in the next years.
On a newly colonized planet with a small starting population you'll take a lot of time even inheriting the colony-ship technology and avoiding wars.


tl;dr :
It's as consistent as it can be.

[Tynan]

The date makes more sense when you realize (as some posters above have noted) that

1. Planetary apocalypses are a regular event in this universe
2. Without FTL travel, planets are very isolated from each other

For example, the rimworld on which you crash in the game was pretty obviously developed by a technological society at one point (this will be even clearer in A12 with new archaeology finds). The reason they're back to frontier-level technology is because of some catastrophic apocalypse which destroyed technology and knowledge and killed almost everyone.

Or maybe it killed everyone entirely, and the people you meet are descendants of crash survivors. Or of people who woke out of cryptosleep or other bunkers. There are lots of explanations. You just have give up the idea that societies only get smarter, bigger, more powerful.

Just think - what would a Roman at the height of the Empire have thought if you told him that in 1000 years Rome would look like this?



I like this idea because it provides story opportunities for entities widely spaced on the development scale to interact. What happens when cowherds graze their cows in the shade of a shattered Colosseum? What happens when a tribal shaman interacts with a superintelligent artificial intelligence? It's interesting.

[Wolfen Waffle]

I don't wish to sound racist but much of the Americas and sub-Sahara Africa never really 'Advanced' after a very primitive point. They were too isolated and too uhh... 'collective' to really try and better their civilizations on their own.


This could be the case after a collapse of a great human galactic empire.
People would be more isolated, and may never really advance at all.

[Tynan]

Yep, there's lots of reasons why a people might be stuck in a dark or tribal age for a very long time. Or forever.

Even something as simple as being in a place with a really low population capacity. E.g. the Inuit couldn't ever really advance in their northern climate with a nomadic hunting lifestyle; the land just couldn't sustain a non-nomadic settlement, which is necessary to do anything complex and civilizational. So if you crash-landed on Hoth, 100 years later your descendants might be living a lot like the Inuit, with some scattered bits of old tech around. For a thousand years.

Then 3 survivors crashland nearby and.... the game begins.

[A Friend]

Hmm, lores.

Question: How do guys with medieval backgrounds end up with a vastly different job and can board spaceships?
I thought they were more like tribals and wasn't advanced enough to have ship ports. And I imagine their reaction to spaceships would be more like "Witchcraft!", making them very unlikely to board them. While yes, they could've been taken prisoners but I still just find it quite strange.

[Toggle]

Yeah, and as for the fact there isn't that much more 'advanced' technology, we may just not advance far. The weapons or technology we unlocked may just be at it's limit, and in-game we could of just not advanced that much in year 5500. The guns we use may be the most efficient guns because we don't have better technology.

[Boston]

If the tribals have been on the planet for even 1000 years, why haven't they discovered iron, or even copper, yet?

Read the game lore, it's fairly consistent.  Even if tribals have been there for 1500 years, they may have had major wars and plagues decimate them.  This tends to set people back technologically (when immediate survival is more important than long-term research).  Also look at Earth's history.  There are indigenous tribes today that still haven't discovered copper, yet they've been around for 2000+ years.

If the Outlanders have been there for longer than you, why don't they also work on building a ship to escape?

Who says they're not?  They could have launched 3 escape ships already, and still have people left in their Outlander town.  We know precious little about the towns & villages around us.  It's also possible that they don't have the first clue about interstellar travel.  (Maybe that's why they visit so often - to get ideas about our Ship building research!)

That isn't quite how "tribal, primitive" warfare works.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prehistoric_warfare

Essentially, it would be constant, "low-intensity" fighting, instead of the current "ERRYBODY GRAB UR SPEAR" 200+ person raids we have right now. Think people being sniped from the woods, ambushed when they are alone, or resources being stolen. Most Native American "wars" were little more than kidnappings.

Oh, and it is probably because real-life technology doesn't advance in levels like every game thinks it does, but we tend to move forwards, rather than backwards. Hell, look at the Black Death, one of the worst plagues to eve strike the planet. Afterwards, we advanced both socially and "technologically".

Hell, the most isolated tribe on the planet, the Sentinelese, have metal tools.

Warhammer 40k works with the different technological levels because 1) technology is controlled in a literal iron-grip via a priest-caste, that deem any and all (a little exaggeration here, they do develop new things every couple centuries) technological development, or anything not based on already lost-and-completely-misunderstood technology... "tech-HERESY", and mindwipe+enslave you for it, and 2) planetary isolation is forced via governmental controls, for military purposes. The entire galaxy is controlled by one government, that burns to the bedrock any planet that disobeys.

That .... doesn't happen in Rimworld. The "neolithic" (hint: if they have metal tools, they aren't Neolithic) tribes can communicate via radio, interplanetary corporations with apparently zero governmental controls zoom past your supposedly-isolated rimworld AWFULLY frequently, and a pirate-faction with orbital assault pod-capable transportchills out and does jack-all. We are not that isolated.

Hell, the planet we land on is essentially empty. Two tribes, two towns, and a pirate group. In an area the size of New York state, there were 6 tribes with a rough population of at least 200,000 people, 300 years ago. Consider the whole continent.