Your Cheapest Ideas

Started by Tynan, October 09, 2013, 12:17:07 AM

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walti921

#75
BOOMRATS:

Boomrats chew your power conduits, then explode once they get through the rubber (or whatever coats them)

Boomrats occasionally try to nest in your geothermal power generators when they go offline and when re-enabled BOOM!

Boomrat infestation, Boomrats start breeding VERY prolifically...

Strange Boomrat plague which results in mass boomrat insanity... this could be a problem.

Also i think a giant aggressive squirrel should be implemented.

huxi

A lightning rod that prevents lightning damage in the surrounding area?

Spike

Modify the Overview window so that it also shows what weapon the colonist is equipped with.

Lechai

<Tim sticks his head into Colin's room>
Tim: "Colin, i just wanted to thank you for burying all those raider corpses, you never seem to complain and i.... "
<Tim points at a table full of alchemical equipment and a sack of potatoes>
Tim: "whats that?"
Colin: "What's what? Oh, um, that. It's, ah, for research.... ing?!"
Tim: "Colin, are you making moonshine?"
Colin: "No, I'm, ah.... Yes. Don't tell anyone."
Tim: "Never mind that, where did you get the coin for the gear?"
Colin: "Raider Wallets."
Tim: "Ahhhhh, so that's why you never complain about digging graves."
Colin: "Your not going to tell everyone are you?"
Tim: "No."
<Tim turns to leave, then stops and smiles.>
Tim: "Let me know when the first batch is ready!"

Cheap idea's:
Burying Corpses nets 0-10 credits
Moonshine distillery: Increases happiness, decreases all skills a little.

Gazz

...chance to cause blindness. =P

BananaFromHell

A farm which is more efficient and where you can grow more crops on

miah999

When Raiders arrive, during their staging period, allow the colonist to contact them via the com system so they can try to bribe them to make them leave without a fight.

You could make so the raiders have a specific set of demands, that if the colonist can't comply they'll be attacked as usual.

This could allow players to develop a less bloody strategy.

Ben

I'm not sure what's cost effective as I'm Fifteen and the only scripting knowledge I know is Pawno, for San Andreas Multiplayer where all of the functions are premade for you--... Anyway onto my idea.

I believe this is cost effective as it's essentially a tile that script wise just freezes the movement of the AI, changes the sprite to a different animation and allows a simple interaction. My idea is called the Pit, and is essentially a trap for not only animals and inspires hunting but may be great as defense for your base. There's two ways this can go, I believe the first is more cost effective or time effective.

The first way is that the drop of the pit is so low that it knocks the enemies unconscious, where you can simply just implement the pre-made capture system. However then for those picky users, like myself, you have to find a way for you to realistically pull a body from the pit instead of just teleporting him out.

The second way will take a whole new system, where when the enemy drops they are still conscious and can fire up out of the pit they are in and you can either leave them to rot or attempt to capture them with a chance of getting shot.

It's simple but I think it'll play a large part in defense mechanicsms and can go even futher. Such as camoflauging the pit may only work on grass land and enemy detect it on sand or other materials. Perhaps you can implement Z-Levels so they drop into a premade prison!?

SpaceEatingTrex

Quote from: walti921 on October 11, 2013, 01:25:56 AM
Boomrats chew your power conduits, then explode once they get through the rubber (or whatever coats them)

This idea seems like a great addition, but might take a deal of time and effort since it's a new behavior and a new mechanic. But it seems like it would be better as an occasional surprise than something Boomrats actively pursued. Maybe something like:
chewingWiresRoutine()
if (boomrat is within X distance of a power conduit && % chance)
     //move to nearest power conduit and start chewing wires


Quote from: Spike on October 11, 2013, 08:22:18 AM
Modify the Overview window so that it also shows what weapon the colonist is equipped with.

Showing more information to the player is a good thing! If there's already a check in game to see which weapon a colonist is carrying, and each weapon already has an associated icon, it seems like it would be easy to run the check and display the icon.

Would anyone like to see One Way Doors? The obvious application is a prison, but I think there are other uses like routing traffic and such. For people who have played the game, does this seem like something you would use? If a door normally opens by detecting colonists on either side is seems like it should be easy to cut that functionality in half, but if AI behavior has to be adjusted it could be more complicated.

GC13

What good does a one-way door do? A warden needs to enter the room to feed and speak to the prisoner right now, so you'd just need another way out.

Tynan

#85
When trying to think about whether your idea is cheap, be sure to consider: Will the AI need to act differently to handle this addition without seeming dumb?

For example - the reason I haven't put a dangerous sandstorms in the game yet is because it's much more expensive than lightning storms or fog. Not because the effects of the storm are any more complex - it's easy to make a system that harms everyone out of doors (since RW already tracks indoor and outdoor spaces). What's hard is making colonists respect that and avoid going outdoors. Consider the behavior implications of this. What happens if:
-A colonist wants to haul a piece of metal but there's a sandstorm and it is outdoors?
-A colonist is hungry but the only available food is outdoors? What if they are starving? What if they are warden and a prisoner is hungry or starving? Something has to happen, so what would it be?
-A fire is burning the colony outdoors?
-Raiders are staging an assault when the sandstorm comes in?
-There are more!

There are other implications too.
-Do raiders still land during sandstorms?
-If they don't, how does the AI Storyteller compensate for this lost threat? Does she hold onto it until after the sandstorm? But then that might create a weird high threat density just after the standstorm?

A good game designer thinks through all the implications of an idea instead of only those that are most obvious or interesting. So try to do that!

Boomrat wire-chewing would be affected by this. Yes, it's easy to make Boomrats chew wires. But what do colonists have to do to respond to that? What new notifications have to be given to avoid frustrating players? Is this notification spam? It's not a bad idea, but these things need to be addressed.

So - looking forward to more cheap ideas!

New weapons
Animals with one simple new behavior
Simple new raid types or raider types
New objects to have on the map at game start


Tynan Sylvester - @TynanSylvester - Tynan's Blog

salt1219

#86
i was thinking about animals, you mentioned that "aliens" would be genetically altered or evolved earth animals.
along those lines i would expect almost all animals to be common pets and farm animals.

unpopulated rimworld planets would likely be seeded with farm type animals.

I think adding a new type of grazing animal like a herd of pigs would be a good addition.

a chicken type animal would be good to, maybe it prefers to hang around your dump site and farms.

lastly i was thinking a lone predator would be cool, something that feeds on the local wildlife and is dangerous if it gets to close to you.  maybe a dog that evolved from a domestic pet but went feral

Weapons:
i've said it before and i will say it again, tasers and other nonlethal options would be a great alternative way to capture raiders.   how about a rubber bullet or bean bag firing riot gun? sadly i think these would require a knocked unconscious mechanic.

Map objects:
a random chance to have a small run down abandon building on the map when you start the game.
nothing big just one or two buildings 8x8 with 1/4 of its walls collapsed and maybe a chair and a table inside


Conti027

Wall lamps/lights

A light source to put on a wall, Would be great when mining into a mountain or just to put in buildings


salt1219

Quote from: Conti027 on October 11, 2013, 06:29:26 PM
Wall lamps/lights

A light source to put on a wall, Would be great when mining into a mountain or just to put in buildings

Chem-light a light that doesn't require power.  this would only last about a day cycle and would be really cheap to make.

Keyreper