Reusing failed colonies

[twoski]

I think this idea would require the use of the steam workshop but I think its cool nonetheless.

Basically, when your colony dies, you would be given the option to upload your colony to the workshop. Note that only the stuff within your home zone would be copied.

Other players, upon generating maps, will notice these bases scattered around their newly generated world's, similar to pirate bases.

This could be unfair to start players off with a functional base, so maybe have the game automatically "weather" the saved colony. All corpses become bones, all clothes become dirt, all weapons left outside disappear and all weapons left indoors lose 50% of their durability and become Awful tier.

Other stuff outside like solar panels break down into their metal components. Wooden walls break down.

You're left with a creepy derelict base on the map that players can choose to inhabit or explore. Plus, its one way for your (failed) legacy to live on in someone else's game.

What do you think?

[b0rsuk]

Most people probably don't play until the very, very end. They just don't load the savegame anymore. Won't work.

[twoski]

Well those who so would be given the option to upload. This being implemented might also give more people a reason to see their colony through to the bitter end

[rexx1888]

could be a rad perk of ironman mode... run the game to the end, help give you an insentive to grit your teeth through the worst parts.

ed. "oh fuck, everyones dead cept this one guy.. fuck it... but.. i want others to see my rad colony... ill keep going, hell probably starve".

i mean, that may even cause the colony to recover, an all they needed was that extra push for radness

[Thane]

I would add one more condition. All the colonies suitable for upload would have to be made in a special hardcore, read no save-scumming, mode. As it stands now I just reload when my colony is wiped especially if I was any sort of distance along. That would lead to a lot of map covering 'relics' of mega colonies.

[Grubfist]

Most people probably don't play until the very, very end. They just don't load the savegame anymore. Won't work.

Knowing this was a thing would make me play to the end more often.

[JimmyAgnt007]

Id suggest that using a colony location from a previous game would make the existing colonists a separate faction.  So your new people show up and there are your old people running about.  Or maybe a pirate/native/mech faction has moved in and all the previous colonists are dead.  Half the stuff has been set on fire and burned away and you need to clear it before you can use it. 

That being said, this has been discussed before.  Maybe I should add it to the frequently suggested list.

[twoski]

Most people probably don't play until the very, very end. They just don't load the savegame anymore. Won't work.

Knowing this was a thing would make me play to the end more often.

Precisely why I think its a cool idea. It encourages story-driven gameplay.

[Shipwrecked_and_Comatosed]

What about adding some cryosleep caskets in there which persist let some of your guys get assimilated into another person's colony! Or they could just defrost enraged or dead, so you could hide them inside a mountain and wall it back up as a little surprise, just like those random ones.
Now I'm imagining a super eerie derelict colony base being explored, only to find a room at the centre that has no entrances, but when through the wall they discover a whole bunch of caskets, which only contain the 1000 year old insane zombie former-colonists!

That's some good scifi right there.

Though I would add that bones left inside the roofed areas remain rather than disappear, for added mystery and lore.

[Jamini]

...so community "bones" files?

I dig it. I dig it a lot.

[Shipwrecked_and_Comatosed]

I think it would be neat to have some kind of unwritten rule of etiquette where you simply wouldn't post a description about it, beyond the bare minimum. Let it be a pure discovery, no screenshots either.

[twoski]

Since starting off with a derelict base might be considered too advantageous, maybe have maps with derelict bases have a higher difficulty at the get-go.

[Johnny Masters]

The game Towns had the bury feature, which had the ability to do exactly that which is being discussed: Basically you save your town to be found later (by digging underground), either by you or another player, with varying decaying.

A similar system could go hand in hand with something I (and others) have been wanting for some time: the capacity of abandoning your colony. I mean, people have been nagging (with all right) about re-settling a new colony after leaving the planet, but its so much easier and logical to simply pack up your stuff and go when those 500 raiders are knocking at your door that i'm baffled about how we can't do it yet. So a system that lets you enjoy a [logical] and healthy departure from a doomed colony, together with that said colony remainings being enjoyed by other players would be a-some.

Ofc, we wouldn't find it underground because this game for some reason lacks z-levels (big unfortunetly here), but i'm sure a couple of dust and vines growing here and there and some random block destruction would be a charm

[Rahjital]

So basically the YATACS thread but handled automatically by the game? I looove this idea.

I think it shouldn't be integrated with Steam, though, cutting off the non-Steam players from this would be dumb.

I don't even think any artificial weathering has to be done, since any colony that dies after a raid tends to be damaged and on fire anyway. Just simulate any fires that remain and perhaps also set time forward a bit (with appropriate food rot and outside item degradation), apart from that there's no need for any special logic, the game will be trashed anyway.

Also, any turrets that manage to survive should become hostile - after all, to them there's no difference between you and some random space pirate. That would mean dead colonies could still be a potential danger if they were built well enough and force you to capture the colony first before being able to use it.

[twoski]

Steam integration would be more of a help for Tynan I imagine as it handles content downloading, curarion, hosting, etc. Not a necessity but I imagine it would make this a much easier feature to do