Your Cheapest Ideas

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

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Geeves

Already in the game :) select the mods button on the main menu, select the ..bed mod and play a game.
You know it is bedtime when you open a file called GeneralEffecters.xml and the first 2 words you notice are: Butcher and Children.
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Learning to program is easy. Learning to put what is in your mind into programming code, now that is the hard part.

yuo123

I have just looked at the changelog, and noticed the following line:
QuoteBed is now made of wood.
Does that mean it requires wood to build? Because if it does, I have a better idea: have two kinds of beds, a metal bed and a wooden bed. Each will require its own material to buld. The metal bed will be more resistant, but only have a sleeping efficiency of 9 instead of the regular 10. The wooden bed will be prettier, and have the max 10 sleeping efficiency. 

Jamodon

#827
Here's a list of "cheap" ideas I had that I think also have strong story potential. Apologies if any of them have already been posted, I'm new here.

Ill Gotten Gains
A group of well-armed but wounded raiders arrive, each hauling random items they stole from another colony. The group rests for awhile, then attempts to traverse the map and exit (shooting at any colonist they encounter, but not pursuing them). If the colonists defeat them (same programming as for any raid), the player is immediately offered the option to return the goods to the original colony (resulting in a goodwill boost, possibly proportional to the percentage of goods recovered) or to keep the goods for themselves.

Stampede!
An enormous herd of muffalo (20+) spawn on one side of the map and rapidly move to the opposite side (preferably on a route that takes them near colony structures).
Optional: the muffalo may detour to consume player crops.
Optional: the muffalo may attack anyone (or any structures) that get within a certain distance of them.


Most Dangerous Game
Attacking a muffalo could, rarely (<1% of shots), trigger the entire herd to attack the perpetrator. I can imagine stories about running the length of the map pursued by berserk muffalo would be highly entertaining, and it would make hunting require more care from the player. Players could always shoot at the muffalo with other colonists while the original hunter ran, so even if the muffalo didn't give up the chase for several minutes, the hunter wouldn't be doomed.

My Friend Muffalo
a muffalo (or any other animal) takes a liking to a colonist and follows him or her around exclusively. The muffalo attacks anything that attacks that attacks the colonist and is within a few tiles (to avoid the muffalo running to its death in a long range shootout). If the colonist is disabled, the muffalo picks him up and carries him to his bed. Having your last colonist revived by his loyal animal companion would be heartwarming.
Optional: doors open for the muffalo as if it were a colonist (to avoid awkward pathfinding, but at the price of some realism).  OR doors do NOT open for the animal. When the character is disabled, the muffalo knocks down all doors needed to get the colonist to his bed.

Squirrel of Caerbannog
Initially, there is no notification that this (rare) event is occurring. Instead, an astute player might note a particular squirrel (or other animal) is eating dead bodies that have been left out. When the squirrel has eaten a certain number of bodies down to 0 hp, a notification pops up informing the player that a local squirrel has developed a taste for human flesh. The squirrel attacks colonists like existing mad squirrels, but moves faster, does more damage, and is much harder to hit than normal. This event would be more realistic if it were implemented with a predatory animal, though the squirrel version is pretty funny.

Little Shop of Horrors
A carnivorous plant spawns. It gradually spreads (using the existing algorithms for grass or other plants). Bullets can reduce the plant to 1 hp, making it inactive until it heals, but can't kill it. This makes fire the only effective way to remove it. It attacks any colonists, animals, visitors, or raiders that come close enough. Killing the occasional boomrat would hopefully give players a chance to eliminate them even if they have no molotov cocktails. Though, if players make no attempt to eradicate them, having most of the world be covered in man-eating jungle would make a great story (as would an attempt to burn the world to finally remove them). A crafty player could also try baiting raiders into a patch.
Optional: colonists could haul a disabled plant to a plant pot before it heals. Potted carnivorous plants would still attack anything in range, but would not spread. If the pot is destroyed, the plant reverts to wild form at 1 hp. I imagine an excited player hauling a defeated plant into a pot in his base, only to find the plant attacks his colonists when it heals, would be pretty funny, and honestly what he should have expected.



Sion

Quote from: Jamodon on May 09, 2014, 06:57:28 PM
Here's a list of "cheap" ideas I had that I think also have strong story potential. Apologies if any of them have already been posted, I'm new here.

Ill Gotten Gains
...

Stampede!
...

Most Dangerous Game
...

My Friend Muffalo
...

Squirrel of Caerbannog
...

Little Shop of Horrors
...

Excellent ideas!
I hope they will be implemented.
So many ideas... so little time...
Silence is the worst answer.

JorDash

Not sure if this has been mentioned, The ability to sell stone, howitzer rounds, and missiles.

Jamodon

Two simple quality-of-life changes:

1. Only You Can Prevent Forest Fires. Right now, the only way to put out a grass fire is to zone it as "home" and THEN manually assign colonists to put it out. It would be great if you could manually assign colonists to put it out by clicking on it (and they would automatically attempt to put out nearby fire when finished) without having to zone random chunks of terrain as "home."

2. Saving Colonist Ryan. Currently, a drafted colonist can not rescue an incapacitated comrade. However, you can't control an undrafted colonist. This has led to awkward situations where my colonists literally stand next to an expiring comrade in a shoot-out, but can't rescue him because if they "rescued" him they would immediately attempt to carry him right through a pack of raiders on their way to a bed. If colonists could "rescue" while drafted, heroic rescues under fire would be much more doable. Alternatively, zoning regions where colonists will not enter would allow the same thing, though it would be much messier from a user perspective.

SSS

Unhappy thoughts for being idle too long (boredom) would make sense. It would also make idle colonists an actual problem.


Quote from: Jamodon on May 15, 2014, 05:56:10 PM
2. Saving Colonist Ryan. Currently, a drafted colonist can not rescue an incapacitated comrade. However, you can't control an undrafted colonist. This has led to awkward situations where my colonists literally stand next to an expiring comrade in a shoot-out, but can't rescue him because if they "rescued" him they would immediately attempt to carry him right through a pack of raiders on their way to a bed. If colonists could "rescue" while drafted, heroic rescues under fire would be much more doable. Alternatively, zoning regions where colonists will not enter would allow the same thing, though it would be much messier from a user perspective.

You actually can save colonists with drafted colonists. You just select the drafted colonist and right-click the incapacitated colonist like usual. There's still the problem of said colonist running right into the firefight to get to a bed, though. Also, you have to make sure to give them orders or undraft them after they reach said bed, otherwise they'll literally stand there until they go insane.

Jamodon

Quote from: SSS on May 15, 2014, 07:40:01 PM
You actually can save colonists with drafted colonists. You just select the drafted colonist and right-click the incapacitated colonist like usual. There's still the problem of said colonist running right into the firefight to get to a bed, though. Also, you have to make sure to give them orders or undraft them after they reach said bed, otherwise they'll literally stand there until they go insane.

Yeah, the issue of running through a firefight is the problem :(  I didn't realize they would stand by the person's bed after rescue though! Thanks for saving one of my future colonists.

metalicelvis

I personally think that the negative trait that you get for seeing a dead body should be nerfed.

It's not so bad when there is 5-6 raiders; easy enough to make the colonists prioritize burying them.

But I've just had a massive army attack me and the pile of corpses afterwards made half my colonist's happiness dip dramatically and nearly half of them wandered off from a mental break.

I understand from a realistic stand point that seeing that many bodies would upset most people, but in terms of fun for the game, you don't have a choice but to kill the raiders and when they come in large amounts like they do now, your colonist's happiness drops way too fast for me to have time to bury them all.

Ketzal

First off, love the game.  Looking forward to Alpha 4.

Not sure if this has been said already, but it would be great if you could select "Shoot Target" from the right-click menu even when the target is out of range and have them move within shooting range (or around obstacles) instead of first having to manually move within range.

Some other ideas (I'm sure most, if not all have been mentioned):
- Animal breeding (both wild - slow, and captive - fast)
- Basic stone tech (walls, furniture, weapons) that can be made with raw stone
- Research to protect electrical systems from flares
- Defensive research to hide colony from raiders (less frequent attacks, more time to prepare)
- Radar that provides a mini-map, or just a mini-map
- Animals feast on corpses - will help get rid of ones in the open.
- Small animals should only take 1 or 2 hits to kill, but they should be very difficult to melee
- Armor for colonists
- Lightning rod - component that will draw lightning and protect colony from lightning strikes within the radius.
- More details on the comm screen.  See what type of trader they are and/or your relationship with them without first opening the trade screen.
- Trading with visitors at beacon.  Visitors go to beacon and then you can click on them to open trade screen.
- Bartering - don't just trade with/for silver.  Trade with other resources as well.
- List orders when a colonist is selected so you can easily order the colonist to gather something.

AmmOKay

I have only two cheap suggestions but they would make my life a lot easyer playing RW:
- Numbers show up while dragging out structures and zones to show their widths and lenghts
- Right-klick (including drag) to cancel out construction / placement of objects

Cheers

Ketzal

Just remembered a couple more:

- Colonist/Prisoner counters (display could be in resource area)
- Harvest zones.  Set a zone where wild crops (berries and such) get harvested when grown instead of a regular manual process.
- Hunting zones.  Same theory as above, but maybe with a max/min threshold (when there are more than y animals, kill until x animals remain).  Would work well with animal breeding/ranches.

TripplExN

You should make a Sandbox mode in the game  ;)
---Nico4544---

FtDLulz

Developer mode is pretty much sandbox.

Jagginlaz0rz

Cheap Ideas:

Allow us to order colonists to repair things when drafted

Allow us to order colonists to do anything we want drafted including crafting jobs

Why? because in the real world military get ordered to do all kinds of jobs all the way.