Forcing players to use a more complex architecture

[wbonxx]

Looking at my previous games I tend to reproduce the same architecture; this because of the simplistic implementation of the characteristic associated with the purpose of a room.

I suggest would be much more fun for players, to have to deal with a larger number of room associated situations.
For example: Building the whole colony around a single room is possible. Putting there all the production tables and optimizing beauty and cleaningness of a single room.

I would suggest:
Sculpture table should be noisy and produce lot of dirt (artist sitting at the table shouldn't be affected by this).
Stone cutter table should also produce a lot of dirt and noise.
Cooking stove should produce a lot of heat.
Generator: ugly, heat, noise.
Batteries: heat, a lot just to force smart placement.
Butcher table I think already produces blood around, should also be really hungly and noisy.
Science tables: This should just be really ugly - efficency could be related to noise - can't put them together with the stone cutter.
Tool crafting: should produce dirt and noise - need also a rather concentrated environment.
Smelting table: - tons of heat, some dirt and noise.

And so on... in this way players would be force to think twice where to put a bench and I suppose they would end up having multiple workshops...  maybe putting some distance between the putative "science lab"... "the crafting shop" "the energy room" and where people sleep that has to be quite.

I'm not sure how you deal with noise in the current implementation, I thought was more or less like heat generated over time when people pass by or do something.

At the end 50% of rimworld is a building game, forcing some criteria would introduce a challenge and flatten ugly architectural randomness. 

[Diana Winters]

Why would a science table be ugly? Same with the butcher table. So long as it's clean, it wouldn't be too terribly ugly.

As for sound, that'd make use of the "hearing" stat, but could be hard to implement as it would be difficult to have a visual display of sound. As for anything that produces heat, you could just put them outside and build a roof over them in most environments that aren't polar ice sheets. In that case, you could just plop it in any room.

[1000101]

btw, the stoves, smelter and crematorium all produce heat when they are in use.

[Andy_Dandy]

Lots of jolly good ideas here.

[Tynan]

I suppose I could have 'distractions' affect work rate.

The same way they disturb sleep. When you get hit by a distraction, you go to half productivity for 5-10 seconds, for example.

This way, it's really valuable to have workshops isolated from each other.

Not a bad idea, though it could be kind of obscure and annoying for some players.

[wbonxx]

A minor "distracted while working" mood penalty is not a bad idea. Would be self explanatory and could be balanced later. Can the trigger be the activation of another working bench (activity of the colonist in range)?

What about increasing heat - dirt produced and ugliness of the other bench I mentioned?
At least the dirt and ugliness should be easy to implement.
The smelter should produce at least some heat.

[milon]

If you are going to incorporate "distracted while working", then you may want to consider some new accompanying traits.  For example:

Focused - While working this pawn is less vulnerable to "distracted while working", ignores light social chatter, and is less impacted by the "stronger" social (de)buffs.  Slight buff to work speed and/or quality.

ADD - More vulnerable to "distracted while working" (via range/workspeed/quality). Occasionally self-distracts while working, unless doing a task they're Passionate about (in which case it functions like Focused).

[Fluffy (l2032)]

I'm not sure a distraction mechanic would really add much, it'd just mean each workbench needs it's own small room...

The initial suggestion of various kinds of 'pollution' sounds better in that it would create a real puzzle in where to place buildings (assuming there's some kind of rock paper scissors thing where some groups of buildings only care about some kinds of pollution). Problem with that is that it's a pretty hefty new mechanic - possibly more suited for a  business sim kind of game (I personally would love it, but I like those kinds of games).

[wbonxx]

If you are going to incorporate "distracted while working", then you may want to consider some new accompanying traits.  For example:

Focused - While working this pawn is less vulnerable to "distracted while working", ignores light social chatter, and is less impacted by the "stronger" social (de)buffs.  Slight buff to work speed and/or quality.

ADD - More vulnerable to "distracted while working" (via range/workspeed/quality). Occasionally self-distracts while working, unless doing a task they're Passionate about (in which case it functions like Focused).

This could also be done. Now or later.

What about the temperature affecting the efficiency while working?

A smelter, producing heat, would be force to be outside/alone/in a conditioned room.. or one could smelt inside in winter to heat up a room

Just noticed that the butcher table already produces blood (or was due the a bloody animal being butched), maybe is not too complicate to have dirt being generated while working on stone cutter - scupturing.

@Diana Winters : Scientific benches are dirty (and a mess) by definition... or at least the ones I work on are   

[wbonxx]

I'm not sure a distraction mechanic would really add much, it'd just mean each workbench needs it's own small room...

The initial suggestion of various kinds of 'pollution' sounds better in that it would create a real puzzle in where to place buildings (assuming there's some kind of rock paper scissors thing where some groups of buildings only care about some kinds of pollution). Problem with that is that it's a pretty hefty new mechanic - possibly more suited for a  business sim kind of game (I personally would love it, but I like those kinds of games).

Fluffy : The distraction would apply to bench were you are supposed to be focused, not all of them. Could be introduced just on the scientific ones to start and see how the game plays.

The rest of the mechanics should be not so hard to implement. Some items already produce heat (i.e. generator) so this is easy to extend to the smelter/cooking stove.
Same for the dirt I think (see my previous post).

I don't think this few changes would make a Sim game out of this. They would just introduce another simple layer of complexity, that would add to the game.

The idea came to me when I first played. I didn't know the dynamics, so I just made things separated, because I thought was obvious that a bench would have disturbed the sleep... a stonecutter would have produced dirt and science had to be in a clean room (I even put a fancy floor there ).

It is sad that in the last 4-5 games I played I ended up just making one central room because this is the best way to play (my first base was much more realistic and nice).

[_alphaBeta_]

With this idea in my head, I'll be giving this some thought on how to implement. Cleanliness, a new noise mechanic, and possibly expanding temperature would probably be a good start. Incidentally this can probably safely move to the suggestions forum for a larger audience.

I do agree that there should be some game mechanism that provides for some positive and negative effects on productivity structures. I almost always make a large common room with pretty much all kinds of industry and leisure in it. I used to build a separate workshop with all the industry, but it's usually more efficient for me to have everything together with the stockpile etc. While this make sense for keeping the colonists happy with all that space and socialization opportunity, it really wouldn't play out this nicely in real life. I know colonists are fighting for survival, but I don't think my sculpting would be so great listening to stone cutting, machining, tailoring etc. going on a few feet away. Tool cabinet sharing only proliferates this further.

[Kryc8]

I would like to see toilets and showers not to make game realistic but to make more rooms that would force player to think more about creating efficient colony. It would be also a great way to make colonist more like real humans. Now they only sleep,eat,play games and work. It would make them have breaks in routine that would make game more ehm realistic but it could create great story (colonist goes to toilet where bugs created a hive. Colonist is then killed by bug while sitting on a toilet.)

[Wex]

Wait, wait, wait.
Are we ignoring a fact?
Don't you think that 2 or 3 sculptors, working in the same place, can be of inspiration, one to another?
For me, I already divide the workshops, because of my compulsive building (5x5 - colonist room, 11x5 workshop); but I agree, the smelting table (and the crematorium) should be miserably hot in summer, and a blessing in winter;
the stove should be a source of heat (and if it is already it's not noticeable),
the smithing should be hot and dirty (a lot dirty)
and the machining table should be unbearably noisy from time to time.

[Kegereneku]

OP's sound a little... "let's make everything ugly".
Needing to separate every single crafting table would hardly deepen design.

And if Tynan wasn't too good for that I think the same could be said of "distracted during work". Having to relocate the kitchen because it heat up, or isolate crafting table from people entering/leaving is one thing, but if we reach the point where you are basically failing as long as you don't separate all tables, it would just be frustrating.

Noise, heat, dirt & ugliness, still are good ideas to balance the infrastructure. But I think we need other criterias so they don't all get the same "ugly and dirty".

ex :
- Stonecutting could be something better done outdoor (and not caring about distraction)
- Butchering would be better done within a clean kichen.
- Brewery could ask for a optimal temperature and don't mind noise.
- Kitchen would produce heat, but also be more efficient in clean room
- Sculpture would be more efficient within a social room (for inspiration and stuff, inverse of a distraction).
- Research could be the only one asking for silence and isolation. (no need for ugliness, science is beautiful)
- Tailoring would profit more than other from being in a beautiful room (without being ugly nor noisy).
- Machining, Smelting & Engineering would make noise but also NOT CARE about any other noise or people entering.

tldr :
Don't make everything noisy and ugly, that's don't encourage any thinking beyond "isolate all table".

[b0rsuk]

At the very least distractions should be a big factor when Researching.