Pawn Relationships: Friendship, Rivalry and Romance

[The13thRonin]

I'm sure this is not the first time this has been suggested but more nuanced pawn relationships would be excellent! Ideally pawns should be able to form romantic relationships, marry, etc. They would also be able to form friends and rivals.

Perhaps if a rivalry gets particularly bad (perhaps two pawns interested in the same romantic partner) the pawns would use their fists to fight it out and you'd end up with pawns in hospital beds.

Friends could get a mood bonus and/or a work speed bonus for being around their friends immediately respond to each other when they need help (priority 1 rescue, first to treat their friends when ill or injured, automatically engage enemies attacking their friends, etc.

Friendships would be formed by allowing pawns to spend time together on joy objects or dining and would more frequently happen when pawns have good moods.

Rivalries would be formed when pawns do not spend time together and would more frequently happen when pawns have bad moods.

I believe this system would add an extra dimension to game-play and reason to improve the moods of the colonists.

[Mr.Cross]

Yes, this has been heavily suggested before. a user known as Lord Fappington even went as far as making a mod, this mod was more focused on the Romance part however, as you would see if you could find his post.

[Tynan]

I'm actually strongly considering making relationships the 'big thing' for Alpha 13 (the one after A12). I think it may be time.

[Mr.Cross]

That would be great, even if there is no romance to it just having friends and enemies within your own colony would be amazingly interesting!

I may even be willing to beg on my virtual knees, and sacrafice my entire colony for this!.

[Play2Jens]

I guess it's also what the people want:
https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=13606.0

[JesterHell]

This quote

I'm actually strongly considering making relationships the 'big thing' for Alpha 13 (the one after A12). I think it may be time.

while Far from being a promise it had me asking myself "If I was going to do it how would I go about it?" and while I'm no game developer and you can take what I say here with a grain of salt this is what I've come up with so far.

I think there are four components to consider, I used percentages to represent a general bonus to "Base" socialization values under certain circumstances.

Social Interactions
Is about expanding the currant all inclusive "chat" socialization to be more in-depth with a verity of possible interactions, some of the possible interactions include.

• Talking: +0%
• Shaking hands: +0%
• Playing Games Together eg. Team Sports: +10%
• Drinking together: +5%
• Brawling: -5%
• Hugging: +5%
• Kissing: +10%
• Sex:+20%

I'm sure you can think of more possible interactions or expand upon these ideas... for instance your colony vs an outlander town at Soccer/Football?

Social Events
Is about expanding the reach of both "normal" player controlled/influenced events and storyteller controlled events to effect relationships as well as adding some relevant new ones, here are some examples of effect from normal events.

• Completing taming/training: +5% trainer/animal
• Winning a game: +/-5% depending on who wins/loses and how they already feel about one-another
• A Night Drinking: +/-5% from things like Drunken Hook-ups  or drunken brawls depending on how they already feel about one-another
• Captured Person: -20% to captive/captor
• Recruited Person: +10% to recruiter/recruited
• Rescued Colonist: +25% to rescuer/rescued

and then there's the storyteller events.

• Heat Wave/Cold Snap: +/- 5% depending on temperature traits
• Enemy Attack: +20% while drafted eg brothers in arms
• Traitor: while not currently included in-game a -100 to the traitor and all colonists and 3 day of -20% to all because of doubts and mistrust
• Refugee Chased: +10% to the Refugee feelings towards colonists for a few days
• Psychic Drone: -10%
• Psychic Soothe: +10%

and a couple new events

• Marriage: while loves and friendships should form organically marriage seam like something that should be out of the player hands
• Pregnancy: +20 mood for parents, +10 mood for like mined colonists for 2 days
• Birth: +20 mood for parents, +10 mood for like mined colonists

As before I'm sure you can think of more possibility's or different effects so feel free to share them.

Relationship Status
Are just a list of possible relationship types, first the basics.

• Unknown: never met before
• Acquaintance: -24/+24 known, but not friends or enemy's
• Friend: +25
• Good Friend: +50
• Best Friend: +75
• Rival: -25
• Enemy: -50
• Nemesis: -75

Then theirs family, while I don't think its likely for some of these relationship to manifest in game I still think its better to have them and not use them then "need" them and not have them, I will admit that I'm unsure if these should have bonuses or not and just went with yes.

• Mother/Father: +10%
• Brother/Sister: +10%
• Aunt/Uncle: +5%
• Cousin: +5%
• Grand Mother/Father +5%

and finally there's romantic

• Crush/Infatuation
• Partner/Significant Other
• Husband/Wife

The Mechanics

With all three previous components I've given percentage modifiers to "Base" socialization but how is socialization handled? what factors influence friendships? and what causes them to hate instead of love or to put it simply what are the "Base" game mechanics.


I think traits should play a part and the easiest method I can think of as a non-coder is having opposing sides of the same trait "group" act like the abrasive trait to each other, an example being Work-Ethic.

• Work-Ethic

Industrious - Hard Worker - Average - Lazy - Slothful

Lazy vs Hard Worker = -1 to all social interactions
Lazy vs Industrious = -2  to social interactions
Hard Worker vs Slothful = -2 to social interactions
Slothful vs Industrious = -3 to social interactions

After all have you ever worked with someone who you feel is not pulling their weight? how did that make you feel about them? but there are also positives for when they "align"

Lazy vs Slothful = +2
Slothful vs Slothful +3
Hard Worker vs Industrious = +2
Industrious vs Industrious = +3

this can be applied to most trait groups with out it being too weird, although some trait groups would need extra traits to be added, the speed trait group for instance would need a fourth trait to be the second negative, I would suggest dawdler.

• Activity Level

Jogger - Fast Walker - Average - Slowpoke - "dawdler"

I'm unsure how to handle sexuality as its obviously a touchy subject and should not be subject to the modifiers I posted earlier but I guess it could probably be something like this.

• Sexuality

Homosexual - Bisexual - Heterosexual - Asexual - ?

I'm not confident in doing it this way and I'm unsure of what you would put as the fifth trait, Pansexual? Transsexual, Zoosexual? I just don't know...

But even this doesn't really cover what would be needed as I think more trait groups are ultimately required for good social dynamics and stories, so I went to the cited source of inspiration for the "deep simulation" Dwarf Fortress for ideas and damn there's a lot of them.
http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Personality_trait

but here are a couple choice ones, although I can't think of names for all the possible traits

• Merriment

Party Animal - ? - Average - ? - Killjoy

• Love Propensity

Romantic - ? - average - ? - Cold-Hearted

• Lust Propensity

Promiscuous - ? - Average - ? - Frigid

• Hate Propensity

Bigot - ? - Average - ? - Tolerant

but while there are tons of possible trait groups there many don't seem to fit rimworld like the "Law" or would be hard to program like "Ambition".
[/list]

So thoughts? please feel free to expand upon any of these points... or tell me why I'm wrong if you disagree.

[LouisTBR]

This is a strongly suggested feature, and I can see it being implemented sooner rather than later. Although, like with animal husbandry and taming, it will take a hefty amount of programming to work well.

[Psyckosama]

I'm actually strongly considering making relationships the 'big thing' for Alpha 13 (the one after A12). I think it may be time.

Thank GOD. PLEASE PLEASE do it! 

Of course we're probably going to get Rape Apes with Groinsaws instead... 

[Kajin]

I'd enjoy having pawns romantically entangled, if only so I could save on living space by throwing a royal bed into their shared bedroom. Two pawns sharing a bedroom without the mood penalties from it being a barracks. That's something I'd love to see.

Could even have associated traits! Rough Sleepers tossing and turning, disturbing their partners and such.

[A Friend]

TBH

What I'm hoping most about the relationship system are deaths having a alot more meaning for your colonists. Because right now it's just:

• "Bob just died in front of me, the only person who had my back as we fought back relentless pirate groups and blood thirsty tribal hordes to last us another day... Well, that blows. Nothing a beer can fix." -14 for the day.
• "Bob died? Wait, who's Bob?"

With colonists forming friends, acquaintances and rivalries. Deaths of others would affect them greatly, depending on how close they were or how much they hated each other. The greater the friendship points, the more severe the effect. -20 for months or perhaps... permanent.

Then you can add in another thing to do for social colonists: Consolation.
Social colonists would try to comfort sad colonists and gradually the lessen mood penalty. That is if successful... failure would result in the sad pawn temporarily lashing out or saying something really mean to the other colonist that would give them quite the large mood penalty. Success would probably depend highly on the social skill and how much of a friend they were to the colonist. Because I don't think getting told "Man up." by your rival would be helpful.

Also butchering up someone's best bud will obviously become a big NO.

Edit:

Something that can tie in with the joy system. Pawns going to nearby friends to chat or walk along with. Further improving relations. (Or destroying them with rivals.)

[Bob_Namg]

I'm actually strongly considering making relationships the 'big thing' for Alpha 13 (the one after A12). I think it may be time.

Make sure to include actions/inhibitors based on relationships
I.E. Colonist 1 is the uncle of Raider 453 and Raider 453 might relent from shooting at him or something.

[CB elite]

I see this game benefiting immensely from a colonist relationship system. Even if we, the players, have absolutely no control over the relationships... It doesn't even have to be super complex.

Just use the "passion" system that's already in place. When two colonists have a conversation, the game would pick a random passion to check, and then just check for compatibilities/incompatibilities with that passion to determine a negative or positive relationship change. For example, people who are "incapable" of dumb labor wouldn't get along as well with people who are. While people who share a passion for a task (ie growing) would get along great if they were to have a conversation about plants! Of course, you could always make it as advanced as you wanted

If you wanted to include things like friendly-fire (negative relationship effect) and rescue/treatment (positive relationship effect), that would give players some slight way to control relationships between colonists without giving too much control. Although, I can't say I know how hard that would be to code...



JesterHell has a lot of really cool ideas as well.

[Burger]

I'm actually strongly considering making relationships the 'big thing' for Alpha 13 (the one after A12). I think it may be time.

YES! Its whats missing! do it

[hawkinator]

I'm actually strongly considering making relationships the 'big thing' for Alpha 13 (the one after A12). I think it may be time.

I'm strongly for this. Also, it could potentially pave the way to another feature that has been suggested a lot, which is colonist procreation. Basically, we currently have a procreation system that applies to animals, right? A relationship system could then tell colonists when to procreate, the mechanics of which could be handled by the existing system used for animals.

Disclaimer: I might be totally and completely wrong about one or more things at any point