Relationships and Social Interaction

[LouisTBR]

Right, now Alpha 12 and its animal taming feature has been released, let's focus some attention on what we want Tynan to include in the next alpha. It could be lots of things, but I think it is time for something social. This is why I have compiled a list of relationship statuses and social interactions to boost (or drop) friendship levels. This will also include romance and unfriendliness. The way to see the relationships of colonist is by ticking an option above the menu called 'Relationships'. This will activate a system where, if you mouse over a colonist, you will get a box that lists all of the other colonists and what they are to the selected colonist. This will have a friendship scale, which tells you whether a colonist is friendly or unfriendly with another colonist, and a separate scale for the 'Romantic Interest' between the colonists. The friendship bar starts at 0, and can be pushed down to -100 (nemesis) or +100 (Best Friend). The Romantic scale goes from 0 (No Interest) to 100+ (Married).

Let's start with some friendly interactions, what they mean and how they would affect the relationship of two colonists.

Talking (Already in the game, 1+ friendship points per conversation.)
Relaxing Together Would include the appearance of a new item, a sofa. Colonists can relax together while sat on the sofa, 3+ friendship points per hour of relaxing together.)
Eating Together (This would consist of two colonists eating their meals at the same table as one another. 3+ friendship points per meal.)
Doctoring Each Other (A colonist doctors a fellow colonist, (Not Operations, though, as under anaesthetic) this would give 2+ friendship points per wound bandaged)
Rescuing Each Other (A colonist would rescue a downed colonist, which would give them 7+ friendship points per rescue.)
Fighting Together (Two Colonists fight raiders together, maybe within a 5x5 proximity they would gain 10+ friendship points per killed raider.)

Now we move on to unfriendly interactions and their effects on friendship levels:

Argument (Same level as a chat, -2 Friendship Points)
Avoiding Social Interactions (If colonists don't engage in social interactions with each other for 3 days straight, it will cause a loss of -5 friendship points.)
Fighting Each Other (If a colonist gets drunk, goes berserk or for any other reason attacks another colonist, the two suffer a -15 friendship points loss.)

There is more to add to this list, but I will save it for a sublist at the end. It is to do with the bad aspects of Romance.

Now for the romantic bit. This will be a list of all the romantic interactions two colonist can participate in:

Flirting (Same concept as chatting, with +2 Romantic Points.)
Hugging (A bit more than flirting, two colonists can hug or embrace each other. They will gain +4 Romantic Points.)
Kissing (An interaction in which two colonist kiss each other. +10 Romantic Points.)
Sexual Interaction (Where two colonists have intimate time. This can only be achieved when a double bed, either unassigned or assigned to one of the romantic colonists, is accessible. +30 Romantic Points.)
Marriage (The most influential romantic interaction, two colonists get married to each other. Would need a chapel building, with certain objects. Friendly colonies may send visitors to spectate the event, and all colonists are excused from work to watch the event. No raids or other bad events can happen on the day. Bride needs wedding dress and veil, Groom needs suit and top hat. Can be tailored (Cloth, Hyperweave, Synthread or Devilstrand) or bought from an exotic goods trader. Homosexual marriages need appropriate gender dresses/suits when marrying.

Romantic interactions can only be achieved in order. Flirting and Hugging can begin immediately, Kissing can begin at 20+, Sexual interaction can begin at 50+, Marriage can begin once at 70+.

Now, it isn't all lovey dovey, because colonists can cheat on their romantic interests at any time they like. This will cause (for the victim) a -100 friendship status loss with the other woman/man, a -100 friendship status loss with the romantic interest, as well as a -100 romantic loss with the romantic interest. All of these friendship/romantic statuses give off buffs and debuffs:

Having an nemesis will give a normal colonist a -10 debuff, whereas having a best friend will give them a +10 buff. Having a romantic interest gives a +10 buff, but when someone cheats, the victim gets a -20 debuff. All of this can be affected by traits, though:

Sentimentalist (Gets a -5 debuff for not being in a relationship, gets a +5 buff when in a relationship. This adds onto the general buff/debuff.)
Cold-Hearted (Cannot enter a romantic relationship.)
Loner (Cannot enter any sort of relationship apart from an unfriendly one.
Popular (Finds it easier to enter a friendly or romantic relationship, but gets half of the +10 buff when friends/romantic interests, and gets -20 when in an unfriendly relationship.)

Abrasive colonists would find it easier to enter an unfriendly relationship, but harder to enter a friendly/romantic interest relationship. They would get a +10 mood when having a nemesis.)

Sexual Interactions could result in childbirth, in which a pregnant female would spend a week in a hospital bed leading up to having a baby. It would act like immunity to a disease, if the mother doesn't give birth in one day, then she dies and no offspring is born. If all goes well, the mother will be back to normal and will have a child! The father would need to stay in the room until the baby is born.

For the first 6 months of the child being born, it will be confined to its cot and will be fed lying in the cot, similar to injured colonists. In a year, the baby will be a child and can start cleaning, working with animals and flicking switches. It will need its own bed like an adult, and will eat the same way as an adult. Then, after 18 months, the child is a teenager and can start to do manual labour like the adults. The teenager will develop his/her three traits. Teenagers can also start interacting with other teenagers and can start relationships together. These will be carried on to adulthood.

[LouisTBR]

Any suggestions?

[zandadoum]

sounds good enough. i think i would come up with ideas once i see it in place...
one thing tho: about marriage. i think needing a chapel building and/or other items is too much.

in first place, i am sure many players aren't even religious. i am not. so why force me to marry through conventional christian ceremonies in a chapel? so, is it worth the effort to implement different systems for different religions to make everyone happy?

and what if i want to have children without marrying?
and what about gay couples, will they be able to adopt a slave kid or something?
i mean, you don't want to piss off George Takei, right? xD

also: you just crashlanded on a planet, where do you get a priest from? should you get one from slave vendors or capture one... who can really say he's the appropiate thing to service your marriage?

in short: i would leave all the religious stuff out. at least at the start, maybe implement that later.


hijack/offtopic for a request related to relations and social interaction, but with friendly tribes: will we, at some point, make some use of all those guys that visit us? right now that seems rather pointless, except if you're being raided at the same time. maybe romance them? maybe even be able to trade with them directly instead orbital beacons?

[LouisTBR]

No, no, I am not religious either.

[JesterHell]

I have a question, why did you create a new thread on the same topic as a previous thread in which you already commented?

https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=14969.msg161878#msg161878

I mean not only is it against the forum rules.

First of all, a reminder of the main forum rules:

We want the forums to be enjoyable, informative, and inviting to all, while also supporting spirited debate and respectful disagreement. To that end, we've got some guidelines/rules here that everyone can refer to.

Unless otherwise noted, all rules apply both in the forums and in PMs. Violating any rule can lead to a perma-ban or a warning, depending on the specifics of the situation. Once warned, further violations will almost always lead to a perma-ban.

9. Find existing discussions: Before creating a new topic, please invest some time into looking if it hasn't been discussed already. Use the search function.

But your post seam to expand upon my post in the old thread and even improve upon it in some areas but it requires its OWN thread? and can't be apart of the old one... because?

Edit:I cleaned it up a bit, couldn't be bothered late last night with making it look all nice.

[LouisTBR]

Yeah, sorry jester, I couldn't really be bothered to hunt through pages to find your thread again! And, I find it easier to check people's feedback if I have my own thread, just quicker to get to...

[JesterHell]

Ah, its was not my thread nor is it much of an issue, I was just confused because I hunted down that thread mostly because Tynan posted in it and thinking that until he makes an "official" thread on the topic that the best way to discuss the topic is in a thread in which the dev has already replied.

but in the spirit of goodwill I will point out that you did improve upon my idea by actually including a relationship/love system something I forgot  to handle in my post

So I think its a net gain in the end

[LouisTBR]

Good working with ya', partner!

[Toggle]

Also though, you could of cut out most of the rules except the single one xD.