Spaceship

[JimmyAgnt007]

If RIMworld was a spaceship game, as so many people wish it were, what would you want to see in it?

Currently Im in the concept stages and developing art assets for my code monkey to use.  It will be as if Dwarf Fortress and FTL had a baby on RIMworld.

So when you think of that.  Whats the first thing that pops into your head?  Also note that this isnt constrained by RIMworld lore at all.

The setup is that you are the AI of a ship that has suffered an accident during FTL transit and ended up in the space between realities.  An empty void where the ships of many realities and timelines are dumped.  Your goal is to survive and escape... maybe.  Im focusing a lot on the crew, giving them immense depth and choice.  The play wont have any direct control over the crew, rather give them orders that they follow based on how much they trust the AI. 

Since this is the only online community im really active in I hope I can get some ideas that i havent thought of.  Ive got a lot, but I dont want to miss something thats totally obvious to everyone else.  Thoughts?  Comments?  Suggestions?

[Dspendragon]

I play a lot of warhammer 40k. And when said void I thought about the chaos gods giveing them hell

[P.S. if you don't know what warhammer 40k is just google it . its a universe where everything is grim and dark.]

[JimmyAgnt007]

ive got over 20000pts worth of space marines, the space hulk board game, almost all the video games, and two bookshelves of 40k and horus heresy novels.   im a little familiar with the setting lol

but before i get into that kinda stuff i need to sort out the dwarf fortress level of detail for running a ship.

[Ouan]

Space Hulk! In the eddy where your ship is trapped, you should make it so that this ship (AI/ player) is alerted to various systems that are out of the norm. These systems could either need a robot or a crewman to fix (robots AI controlled for simple tasks, crewmen for more complex tasks). Some systems are more dangerous than others and may damage or kill crew-members, so have a trust scale. Priorities could include say health center repairs over drive functions, and so forth. The Space Hulk portion comes in when ship stocks run low or are too damaged to repair, thus involving away parties to scrap other ships which may or may not have the same tech as your ship. This would then revolve around your understanding of "alien" components and how much customization your ship can handle and remain functional. Additionally, crew replacement will be tricky, which is why perhaps saving of colonist corpses (if not too badly destroyed) could come into play so that when you get the right tech running, you could 'borg them, unless the power goes out and they rot before you get there. PM me if you dig any of my ideas, I have millions of them, sometimes one or two stick.

[killer117]

I have pushed this idea so many times in my own post its stopped being funny. But i always said itd be really cool if u could jump around in a rimworld ship to different maps/solar system. U could land on planets and have the same rimworld landing zone selection as normal. Except for u spawn with a ship. And if theres an astroid belt, u could spawn in the middle of a black space area with ur ship, with astroids around like rimworlds mountains, and you could go out and mine them in space suits. I just thought u might like this specific idea. If u need any other ideas though i have loads, i just didnt wanna text wall the post

[JimmyAgnt007]

@Ouan:  When a new game starts I plan to have (based on difficulty settings) ship systems in need of repair.  Crew will need to fix them with parts and such, every major system will have 'body parts' like the pawns instead of a straight-up HP counter.  Im not having fully AI bots running around but drones and droids probably. Very much the trust rating!  Depending on how things go they will loose or gain trust.  It wont be a cut and dry 'trust below threshold cannot do' just make it less likely for them to do things based on how much trust they have.  You got the idea tho.  Priorities will get worked out but you nailed that too.  You also nailed the salvage and repair tactics im going for.  Human, alien, same tech level or higher, scrapping other less vital components to repair vital systems.  Understanding of other tech levels or alien tech will play a role for sure!  Crew replacements will come from found escape pods, people either rescued from other ships or prisoners taken, and i do plan on being able to 'borg' people.  Id love to hear more of your thoughts but post them here, id like others to see and maybe think of other things based on that.

@killer117 It wont be a rimworld game of course but i agree.  Now there wont be any landing on planets (landing ships and taking off take way too much fuel, play Kerbal Space Program to get an idea lol) but i will have away missions of sorts.  So that you can do stuff on planets despite being stuck in the void between realities where there are none.  I do intend to have EVA mining and such. Just of derelict ships and whatnot. 

Feel free to give me a wall of text, just space it out in paragraphs lol

[killer117]

Haha no probs. and i realize its not rimworld. But i like the idea of having taken extensive ship damage in some kind of FTL like ship battle, and have to land at a planet and build fortifications and deffend your ship during repairs using local resources.

But even more than that, id like to have a 3d galaxy map, centered on the very center of the humans colonies, and radiating outwards. The planets in the center being glitterworld like places, with it getting less and less advanced the further u go, with tribal and then rimworlds on the outer edge. And wouldnt the ability to land at glitterworld like planets just be awsome. Land and trade with some resources and obtain advanded shipbuilding materials and equipment. But at a glitterworld planet food and water might be a little more costly than at a midworld agricultral planet.

And imagine walking ur crew around in a city. Going to stores, recruiting more crew, maybe a pub brawl or two. Clash with the local authorities. Maybe needing a hasty retreat to orbit.

And is there any possibility of a political system. Where there are specific local goverments in continents or whole planets. That way i could have goverment support if im friends with them. Be wanted if they dont like me. This might allow us to do stuff like take over planets, wage continental wars, or maybe even colonise a planet and start my own empire

Thats all i got off the top of my head atm. Im sure ill come up with something else eventually

[JimmyAgnt007]

There wont be any planets or politics.  At least not that I'm planning on.  I want the focus to be on the ship.  There are no stars in the space between realities and no planets.  With no reference points like that there cant be governments or money or anything like that.  Everyone is out for themselves.  I might expand on this later but for now its about keeping your ship alive against all the other ships.  The main reason for this is that most governments in space games are just really shallow too distracting.  I dont want fetch quests or whatever getting in the way.  Id love to make a 4x space game with politics and whatnot eventually but not for this game.

[killer117]

Ok then. How about debris fields made up of dead ships that you could explore and mine for basic matirials. And is there any possibility of space stations. Couse those could be the places you could trade and recruit. And of course they too could've been sucked into the void

[JimmyAgnt007]

generally space stations dont do FTL but id thought about doing it anyways.  ships that get re-purposed because their engines got damaged.  I totally want to do non-hostile encounters where, depending on the crews, may result in exchanges or recruitment, but I dont ever want the void to feel like a civilized place.

[Zokora]

Yes space station are not seen perform FTL ;-) . But you can use this background: Several stranded ships are gathered and mended to form the space station for the drifters living in it.

[JimmyAgnt007]

In the webcomic Vexxar there are some aliens that slap a FTL drive to a station so its not so impossible.  but several merged ships is in my notes now for stations.

[Shad]

Yes space station are not seen perform FTL ;-) . But you can use this background: Several stranded ships are gathered and mended to form the space station for the drifters living in it.

And you get Space Station 13.
*Cannibalism: check
*"Fun" medical procedures: check
*Setting people on fire: check
*Raids: check
*Base wipe: checkcheckcheckcheck

[JimmyAgnt007]

never played that but yea, thats kinda what im going for. 

[killer117]

Yeah that sound similar to what were going for here. But stations can still have ftl. Read halo cole protocol. Besides being a great read, to escap a space city to flee the covanant, they have a massive hollow astroid, fill it with thier people, slap 20+ slipspace drives to it, and jump halfway across thier galatic arm. Sure it disintegrated afterwards, but only because they had to rush building and launching it.