Your Cheapest Ideas

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

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Sprote

Being able to select what foods a colonist is allowed to eat would be nice. We could set prisoners to eat only paste or simple meals so they wouldn't eat all your expensive meals. Or set the other colonists to eat lower tier food so you can build up your stocks of luxury meals you're making for a unhappy, nearly psychopathic colonist.

suppowjoe

#916
i havent yet read through all 62 pages so far, but here are ideas meanwhile: 

* RESEARCH - Gunsmithing: allows you to craft guns, could be different levels of research to craft different or better guns, and/or parallel researchs to craft specialized types of guns. 

* PRODUCTION - Gunsmithing Bench: used to  make guns 

* BILLS/ITEMS - Gunsmiting Bench>Craft pistol/rifle/etc. depending on researched (guns already exist, it would just be bills allowing them to be produced)
* BILLS/ITEMS - Gunsmiting Bench>Craft gun augmentations (attachable upgrades to guns - scopes, reloaders, cartridges, grenade launchers, bayonets, flamethrowers, etc etc) (this could allow for modders to just make a custom augmentation, and the corresponding resulting weapon)

* BILLS/ITEMS - Gunsmiting Bench>Craft augmented gun (use the base gun + attachable augmentation as ingredients and spawn the corresponding gun class item) 

* BILLS/ITEMS - Gunsmiting Bench>Detach augmentation (take upgraded gun, and spawn base gun and attachable augmentation separately.   

* BILLS/ITEMS - Gunsmiting Bench>Disassemble gun,  (take base gun, and return its components)

* STRUCTURES - Bulletproof Walls/Doors: still susceptible to melee, but immune or very resistant to ranged fire attacks. 

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* RESEARCH - Wireless Power/Electricity: allows you to transmit electricity within a given range without the use of metal wires 

* POWER - Wireless Power Transmitters: can receive and send power wirelessly to other transmitters, but needs to be wired in order to to emit power from a source, o transmit power to another cable. maybe electrical devices can directly receive power wirelessly from the transmitter, or maybe they need to be connected to it. maybe another research is needed to would allow them to receive the power wirelessly straight from the transmitter. 

* ITEM - Charcoal: from burning wood 
* POWER - coal-burning power/electrical engine: generates electricity by burning coal (or less efficiently wood) 
* RESEARCH - Solar Panels: allows building solar panels to generate power, making the coal generator a 1st Tier power source, and stepping solar panels into a 2nd Tier. 
* RESEARCH - Thermal Generators: allows building thermal generators, making them the 3rd Tier and most reliable power source. 
(all of these could be part of a Power Research Tree) 

* POWER - Mechanical/Hand Operated Generator: could be used when super low on resources and low Tier, doesnt consume fuel, works at night, etc, but requires someone to be continually operating it to produce power, or else it produces no power. maybe the operator would get hungry and tired faster than normally.

* PRODUCTION - Mud/Adobe Oven: can be built out of dirt (ie: nothing so far) and burn wood or cook bricks
* ITEM - Mud/Adobe Bricks: made out of dirt and heated in the oven 
* STRUCTURE - Mud/Adobe Walls: quick and cheap solution for building 
* STRUCTURE - Mud/Adobe Brick Walls: much stronger than simple Mud/Adobe Walls, but not as resistant as Stone Brick Walls 

also: the ability to use coal/wood as fuel to cook food instead of electricity. 

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* ITEM - minable rocks (as they already exist in the game) from mountain sides: when you mine rock walls sometimes you stones (the better the skill, the higher the chance), like the ones found else where, used to make bricks. 

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* MISC - Box: 1x1 object to store item stacks, like a stockpile but only takes 1x1 space and has a limited storage capacity
* MISC - Trunk/Chest: 2x1, like the box, but stores more and takes a bit more space
* MISC - Cabinet : 2x1x?, like the chest, but "higher", can store more, same size footprint as the trunk. 
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i think most if not all of those followed the criteria of easy to build and implement, as small separated modlings with incremental results 
i dont know if these would be simple to add in: 

* desensitization to prolonged exposure to violence/death : ie - characters no longer getting freaked out for seeing death for the 1000th time, or beatings, etc 
* affinity for violence after a prolonged exposure : ie - a likelihood that a character will develop past desensitization and towards an enjoyment for violence 
* affinity to cannibalism: the idea that characters will rejoice in eating their enemies or victims 
* aversion to human flesh: the idea that characters (specially foreign ones) will be deterred by seeing a colony's use of human flesh. ie "oh shit, they're cannibals! they eat people! is that an arm?!" 
but also not having to eat human flesh to feel ill, but rather even just see it ("hideous environment", "saw human corpse", "saw human flesh" aka "saw MUTILATED human corpse") 

that just took a dark turn, but oh well

Opie

Flesh-eating traders that buy corpses

For that little bit of extra pocket change

ApexPredator

Quote from: sexualjesus on June 25, 2014, 11:42:11 PM
The ability to prioritize cooking, currently if i have two bills, in any order, cooks will randomly choose, i have a 3 star chef and a 10 star chef so my stove needs to have two bills, one for fine, and one for simple, then my 10 star chef gets lazy and cooks a simple meal instead of a fine.

Alternatively scrap the the bill, and just make it so the chefs will cook the best meal they can possibly cook, this way my 3 star chef who is can't do anything bar research and cook, can actually acheive something without my 10 star chef creating bad food.

In my game the cooktop already has a priority; whatever bill is first on the list will be done first. Whoever gets to the cooktop will do as many bills as they have the time and ability for. If you have the fine meal first on the list and the 10 level cook comes up they will cook the fine before the simple and if the simple was first the person would do that first then do fine. However, if the level 3 shows up to cook it will only make the simple meals because they cannot make the fine. All of my cooktops are set to “make until you have X” so this could be different for other options but why use any other option? I disagree with your scraping the bills all together. I have two cooks that can make lavish meals but I choose to keep them building fine because lavish use double the resources and I don’t need the extra happiness boost from lavish.

ShivaFang

#919
* Squirrels could occasionally (about as often as they go insane) try to nibble on the nearest power cable left outside.  If they chew through it they get electrocuted and die.

QuoteBeing able to select what foods a colonist is allowed to eat would be nice. We could set prisoners to eat only paste or simple meals so they wouldn't eat all your expensive meals. Or set the other colonists to eat lower tier food so you can build up your stocks of luxury meals you're making for a unhappy, nearly psychopathic colonist.

Reading this made me think of something I tried to do that didn't work as expected.

I tried to install a paste machine in the prison area so that prisoners could feed themselves (I had the hopper behind it so that my colonists didn't have to go in the prison to put stuff in the hopper.

The prisoners were still delivered meals.  So I turned off the 'gets food' so they didn't get delivered meals.  They starved (even though the paste machine was in the room).  And I know the paste machine works because at one point I had no meals cooked (the power was out to my oven, but not my dispenser) and my colonists ate from it.

I don't really 'get' the point of the paste dispenser because the cook oven is so much better, I thought it was for prisoners, but it apparently isn't.

SO, to sum all that up into the 'cheap ideas'....

*  allow prisoner AI to use the paste dispenser when hungry if one is accessible.

Blackjack

fire-extinguisher turrets.  [cheap, low-hp, require energy, dont explode when damaged]
should request minimum coding since the fire-detection is already there. and the turret "template" too.

invisible worm

If this is all about the stories, why not record them in a diary? I'd have thought it'd be relatively easy to just generate a simple text version -

"Dear diary, day 14. Today was a good day. We finished building our geothermal generator, and AJ the Medieval Minstrel joined our colony."

"Dear diary, day 17. Disaster! Raiders from the Grey Knives attacked, blew up two improvised turrets and then shot Lestrat. Katten was injured, and had a mental breakdown when she saw the bodies."

That'd make for quite a nice record of it all.

luxSolisPax

Have the "orders/plan" tool print to screen the total number of currently highlighted squares.

milon

More random cheap ideas:

  • Research Tables
    Research tables should use a Bills system like the crafting tables. That way, multiple crafting projects can be undertaken at once. Additionally, multiple researchers could collaborate on a single project.
  • Doors are not cramped
    Doors should not be considered "very cramped rooms".  Watch a colonist's thoughts when they walk through a door.  Weird, eh?  Maybe a good solution is to not let doors contribute to the cramped/spacious room thoughts, or simply set all "door rooms" to a neutral/hidden thought that affects happiness/mood by 0 points.
  • Priority Screen
    Manual priority tweaks should all be applied at once when the priorities screen is closed.  Super minor detail, but I started a new colony and on day 16 I switched to manual priorities.  Because priorities are applied on-the-fly, a colonist dropped what he was doing to do something else - which was a lesser priority after I finished my tweaks.
  • Running Totals
    The game should track a running total build cost for everything I've planned. It currently shows the cost of a single set of plans until I place it, then it goes away.  If I have 40 metal in stock, I can build a small wall with it.  But I'd also like to know how much I need for the suite of rooms I just laid out.  Maybe it could track the total build costs in the top-right of the screen?

Herpititus

There should be another game mode or you can just change the entire game and make all of the tribes and different groups all live and have their colonies inside of the map, and then give the map a fog of war so that you can explore and find other tribes and such and be able to attack them and raid their colonies.

Also I think there should be more animals like horses (to make travel faster or create a battle advantage to colonists on foot) And other animals that give a wider variety to food.

I've seen a few other people suggest this already but melee weapons would be a cool addition too.

Austupaio

None of you guys really get this whole 'Cheap idea' concept, do you? ;D

absentminded

Quote from: Austupaio on July 02, 2014, 11:00:33 PM
None of you guys really get this whole 'Cheap idea' concept, do you? ;D

Darker nights sounded pretty cheap..

StorymasterQ

New animals: Chicken. Cheep cheep, motherf*er.
I like how this game can result in quotes that would be quite unnerving when said in public, out of context. - Myself

The dubious quotes list is now public. See it here

milon

Two more cheap ideas: Object Reservation

I'd like the game to tell me (in the lower-left corner of the screen) who is currently reserving an object I click on, ie. Fire in the home zone, a conduit blueprint, or my half-constructed geothermal generator.  I hate cycling through my colonists or attempting to prioritize a task just to discover if someone is already doing it or not.  This should be a fairly simple addition to the game.

I would also like to be able to override a current reservation.  Sometimes Johnny wants to put out a fire on the other side of the base, which means Omar (who is right next to the fire) can't touch it.  Which means is spreads more.  It's fine if Johnny wants to help out, but I'd love to be able to tell Omar to handle it anyway and let Johnny find a new task to do.  (My current work-around is to recruit Johnny, tell Omar to prioritize the fire, then un-recruit Johnny.  A little annoying.)  I picture this change by tweaking the right click menu to say "Fire is reserved by Johnny (override)".   Again, should be fairly simple to implement.

CDR-RAGE

#929
my idea is not to add any new items but a small settings tab for something... the turret, it should have a setting tab were you can chose if it shoots anyone, just animals, just opponents and what not
i don't believe this would be to hard to implement as i am a coder myself and i can see that there are already such mechanics for other things

oh and also have it so you maybe don't have to capture people to get new members... oh and maybe a slave system were there like normal members but you can trade silver and other materials for them