Ideas-Drafting?

Started by IdeaBoy, October 07, 2013, 07:36:23 PM

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IdeaBoy

When i was watching videos, when someone drafted a person it said they can't stay too long or you're colonist will die so i thought if he and his other drafted people was done killing off threats they could patrol the home zone (if they had no other things to do) and you can assign their patrol spot by clicking and drag where you want them and if they see treats like wild animals,fires,raiders,and mental colonists they can seize the threat and if they get hungry (assuming when relationships come) they will eat but ask another person with a gun to guard but if they have a bad social no one will guard until he's done eating. 8) (has to be in the home zone)

Spike

Yeah, I'm currently watching Blitzkriegler's playthrough, and he left a soldier drafted for about 3 days.  Perhaps there needs to be some default behavior order, so they can at least go eat if there are no pirates attacking.

Actually, instead of the Drafted Soldier/Undrafted Civilian, I'd like to see a more robust system if it would be possible.  For example, Drafting would put them in as  a militia, with 3 behavior modes.  1) Normal - do ordinary jobs.  2) Pirates landed but not attacking - patrol player defined routes.  3) Pirates attacking - player control or default (defensive/aggressive) actions.

Along that line, it would also be good for some default Civilian behavior when pirates attack - maybe define a bunker zone, maybe just stick to the home zone, maybe just avoid the area where pirates are.

AspenShadow

Personally I like drafting pretty much the way it is, it's not hard to remember to turn them off so they can eat and sleep again after all and it stops people having colonists solely dedicated to soldiering/patrolling the base for the opportunity to kill a squirrel that strayed too close.
Fires get put out pretty sharpish even if someone isn't on the watch for them and raiders are polite enough to give you advanced warning in the current Alpha version lol

Spike

At the very least, I think there should be more of a visual notice about it.  Maybe that will be part of the artwork design, so that a drafted soldier is visually different from a civilian, maybe just a button change so that it's a bit more noticeable when drafted.

IdeaBoy

#4
Yea like they could wear a green uniform or something like that and yea, i think it would be cool spike to have like a emergency plan for your civs if pirates are attacking they can go to the weapon rack and grab all the weapons there to help fight if the militia has to retreat inside and they reached the place where you assign them.                                       

So they have weapons/bare hands to  try to fend them off or activate boobytraps that you set up and forgot to initiate them  and fight to the last man so they will still have a colony to live in.

British

I'm not sure if that will answer the initial questions, but here goes anyway:
  • As of now, drafting a colonist makes him/her directly controllable by the player, so having them patrol on their own would defeat the purpose of their controllability
  • Idle colonists DO patrol the home zone on their own

IdeaBoy

When put them to patrol you can still control them to i thought i said that.....

British

Sure, just like I thought I said the sole purpose of drafting, as of now, is to control the colonists.

Now, what could be done (besides redesigning the whole drafting system) that would go well along what you're saying, is to have a way to define "patrol zones", just like there is a "home zone" now.
There would be differences, of course, like the colonists won't do any cleaning or maintenance there.

What do you think ?

Spike

Yeah, that would work.  I just think that the biggest issue that I've seen (from watching videos) is that if you forget to Undraft a colonist, they stand there and do nothing - until they starve.

British

True, because drafting/controlling is the higher priority.
I would then take it that if we can define patrol zones, they might behave the same way: what would be the point of setting a patrol zone, which is supposed to be important to defend/scout/whatever if the colonist(s) affected there just leave to get a nap ?

It may require some way to get around this without the patroller going crazy (or dead).

AspenShadow

Once again I really think this issue could be solved simply with a red exclamation mark/symbol over the drafted colonist's head. If people still have trouble remembering a colonist is drafted with that addition I'm not sure they're capable of playing the game at all.

British

A patrol zone command would be a worthwhile addition, provided the few caveats mentionned earlier are taken care of.

About the drafting itself, I suspect the problem is when you send your soldier(s) away from your colony, and just forget about them because they are not in sight anymore (especially true the more colonists you have).

Spike

Quote from: British on October 08, 2013, 10:26:03 AM
A patrol zone command would be a worthwhile addition, provided the few caveats mentionned earlier are taken care of.

About the drafting itself, I suspect the problem is when you send your soldier(s) away from your colony, and just forget about them because they are not in sight anymore (especially true the more colonists you have).
Actually, is this your video?  I thought I saw the name "British Blitzkriegler" somewhere, so not sure if you are the same.  Anyway, this is the one that made me think it needed some kind of tweak.

So here's one thought for Tynan.  At the very least, a visually distinctive notice for the player that a colonist is drafted:
Left is the current view.  Middle is a simple button swap, instead of the current "Draft/Undraft" button - when drafted, the button is not the normal black text on tan button, but visually distinctive.  Or a third alternative on the right, instead of the Draft/Undraft, the buttons are colored different and labelled to the purpose of Civilian/Soldier.  It could show only the active button, or maybe have both shown with the inactive one greyed out.




British

My only interactions with YouTube are passive ;)

A possibility would also be to have a reminder in the top-right of the screen that says "You have colonist(s) drafted".
The message would stay there as long as it's still valid.
We could also have alerts (the messages) every so often reminding us of the drafting status.

Zeiph

Or you can simply have your colonist disobay when their "moral" is not high enough, for example when they are missing sleeping time or feeding.