[WIP][Phase 1] Knowledge is Power

[RatedM4everyone]

THE MOST CURRENT DOCUMENTATION CAN BE FOUND HERE

I'd like to test the waters around here to see if this kind of mod is desired by the community, so give it a read let me know what you think, or if you have any advice. Tomorrow I'll write up the spec sheet and post it as a reply. Instead of a spec sheet, I've broken development into phases, each of which I study for and build incrementally in an agile way. See the documentation above for more info.

Thanks folks.

[UPDATE 2016-07-23] Planning is complete, and development of Phase 1 is underway.



This write-up is for planning purposes and is subject to change. See the link to the documentation at the top of the page for the most current write-up and progress log.

Knowledge is Power

What it is:
A complete restructuring of the research system to one where knowledge can be lost, found, and traded.

Why?
From the RimWorld Fiction Primer, under the heading 'Varied Technology Levels':

"In [the RimWorld] universe, cultures do not always progress forward technologically the way many science fiction worlds assume they will. Often, a culture will blow itself up or suffer plagues and other great catastrophes. These regression events send them 'back to the stone age'."

There is already an abundance of ways to die in RimWorld. However, the current research system doesn't allow the death of information. Knowledge is acquired by standing at a desk and waiting, and once a discovery is made, everyone has that knowledge forever. There are no great thinkers or wise people, no such things as books or libraries containing wealths of knowledge, and no dark age when that library is struck by lightning and burnt to the ground, taking decades or centuries of information with it.

In short, this mod sets out to make RimWorld's research system more true to its universe. Discovery takes effort, information is easier to lose than to find, and people are valued not just for what they can do, but also for what they know (I'm looking at you, nobles).

Mechanics:

Memory
People keep what they know how to do in their own memory. A thing can only be done if at least one person who is both on the map and in your faction knows how to do that thing. If a thing is in the process of being done, but the people who know how to do that thing suddenly die or leave, then progress on that thing will halt until someone else who knows how to do that thing comes along.

Be advised that certain diseases such as alzheimer's, dementia, or severe head trauma can temporarily or permanently destroy parts of a person's memory.

Memory Tab
A new character tab next to Health and Needs, the Memory Tab contains a list of what that person knows, as well as some options related to lecturing. The memory tab is not visible for people outside your faction. It becomes visible for your prisoners after the warden has talked to them at least once or once they've joined your faction.



Media
Media (singular: medium) are objects where knowledge can be stored. These range from stone tablets to quantum dataspheres. Different media can hold different amounts of knowledge; the more advanced the medium, the more knowledge it can store.

Creating basic media falls under the Crafting work type. Basic media includes books and everything more primitive. Creating more advanced media is part of the Smithing work type, as it requires a more specialist approach, often involving complex machines.

Authoring
Authoring is a new work type which lets people write down their knowledge onto media. Authoring to basic media can be done by hand, like etching a stone tablet at a stonecutting bench, or writing in a scroll at a table. Authoring to more advanced media require the use of intermediate devices, like CDs needing computers, or quantum dataspheres needing Cryptoterminals.



Research
Research is now a bit more involved than the old "stare-at-a-bench-until-you-learn-something" system. It consists of three research methods:

Studying
When a research topic is chosen and there's a medium on the map containing the desired knowledge, a researcher may study that medium to complete the research. Studying basic media may be done anywhere, but can be done faster at a research bench. Studying more advanced media requires the use of intermediate devices. The speed of the research is determined by the person's Research skill, and the the quality and integrity of the medium (tattered papers are much harder to read than clean ones).

Experimentation
When a research topic is chosen but Study is not possible, a researcher will gather at a workbench materials related to that research topic (e.g. cloth for Carpetmaking, devilstrand for Devilstrand Planting, etc.). The researcher will then analyze these materials, consuming them slowly until the research is completed or until there are no more materials to study. The speed of the research is determined by the person's Research skill, how advanced the research bench is, and if the bench has augmentations like a Multi-analyzer.

Reverse Engineering
The most destructive type of research. When a research topic is chosen and neither Study nor Experimentation are possible, but somewhere on the map there's an item or structure that is a product of the desired research (e.g. a charge rifle for Charged Shot research, or a mortar emplacement for Mortars research), the researcher may either take the item to the research bench and slowly destroy it, or if it's a structure, slowly deconstruct it. Once the item/structure is destroyed, the research topic will advance by a certain number of points. How many points is determined by the researcher's Research skill, the quality and integrity of the item or the integrity of the structure, and the research bench and its augmentations, if applicable.

Because this method of research has the potential to destroy structures and high value items, it will not be used without explicit permission from the player. If the player denies use of Reverse Engineering, the research topic will not be selected, as performing the research will be impossible at that time.


Revelation
On rare occasions, someone may be walking along, doing their thing, and something may just "click". They'll spontaneously learn something they didn't know, usually something that's not too far from what they currently know, but in extraordinary cases, a caveman COULD discover quantum mechanics. This can happen to any person at any time.



Spread of Knowledge
What good is knowledge if it can't be spread? In a world as harsh as RimWorld, information redundancy can mean the difference between recovery and collapse after a catastrophe.

Lecture
A person may hold a lecture on a topic they'd like to teach people. People will attend the lecture if they are idle, have the Research work type enabled, and don't currently know the subject. If you possess media about the topic, the teacher will keep it in their inventory during the lecture. The lecture lasts a few hours. After the lecture, the people who attended may or may not have learned anything. The chance of them learning is determined by the teacher's Social and Research skills, and whether or not media containing the knowledge was used in the lecture. Lectures may happen automatically if the person thinks it worth their time, or they can be triggered manually from the Memory Tab.

Trade
All media can be traded. Traders will often sell media as part of their goods. The price of media is determined by the advancedness, quality, and integrity of the medium, and the value of the information contained in it.

[LustrousWolf]

Sounds like an amazing and original idea! Everything I was going to suggest was mentioned as I read through the rest of the post I look forward to seeing this mod in the future

[RatedM4everyone]

I guess some things as making fire can be forgotten, but should still be possible, but with much more effort (=time) needed.

Forgetting how to make fire will be possible, and without knowledge of how to build fire, building a fire will not be possible. However, firemaking will be a very easy piece of research, and the only thing you need to perform the experiment is a bunch of wood.

Thanks for the Evil Genius insight. It's very similar to what I have planned, though mine is a model simplified for gameplay reasons. To be clear, the tech tree will still exist, but it will be much larger and more granular, and pieces of it can go missing if the people who know it forget it/die/leave. The spec sheet will have more information on all of this.

Sounds like an amazing and original idea! Everything I was going to suggest was mentioned as I read through the rest of the post I look forward to seeing this mod in the future

Good to hear I got everything! I appreciate your interest.

Thanks folks.

[Raccoon]

This is an amazing idea. Do you think you can make an easy implement for us Modders? I woud like to make my small Mods compatible with these if you release it.

I woud give you a "Like" if i coud :b

[RatedM4everyone]

Do you think you can make an easy implement for us Modders?

What I'll try to do is find avenues that will make RimWorld's existing research implementation completely compatible with my mod, in other words making it to where all you have to do is nothing. Realistically though, what I'll probably need to do is create a table where the materials needed for research are defined for each research topic. We'll see though. I'm writing the algorithms in the spec sheet as we speak.

[Mr.Cross]

Would love to see this done.

[RatedM4everyone]

As I have developed a sincere distaste for forum formatting, the documentation has been moved to a Google Doc. Anyone with the link may view it here.

[Fluffe]

I like how you where typing it while I was reading it lol but I really like the idea so far hope this dose not get abandoned  :p

also on a different note will other factions be able to advance as well say a tribe kidnaps one of your people and after months of interrogation they learn all that persons knowledge would it be possible like a month to a year later that if the person they took the knowledge from knew how to make guns you could have tribals armed with guns ready to shoot you?

This may be to hard/impossible but im kinda just spitting out  ideas lol going to put more here as im thinking of them.

Also one of the possible things that could happen is you encounter a enemy group marching toward a colony (possibly you) and depending on your weapons will determine if anybody gets injured killed or captured  the odds of this happening should highly increase if the place your going to is close to or intersects a enemy base.

[RatedM4everyone]

will other factions be able to advance as well

Memory and research simulation for other factions will be a Phase 5 feature. It'll take some work.

Also one of the possible things that could happen is you encounter a enemy group marching toward a colony (possibly you) and depending on your weapons will determine if anybody gets injured killed or captured  the odds of this happening should highly increase if the place your going to is close to or intersects a enemy base.

Raid interception is beyond the scope of this mod. However, encounters and events based on the path taken through the world will be a thing, though these will be ambushes and environmental hazards, not assaults.

To my knowledge (someone correct me if I'm wrong), no one has ever done World Map-level simulations. Phase 5 may take quite some time.

[Fluffe]

k cool like I said before I REALLY hope this dose not get abandoned lol

Also I know there was one mod where you can send out your colonists to this abandoned ruin type thing but I dont think it took the map in account.

[RatedM4everyone]

Hey folks, planning is complete and development of Phase 1 is underway.

[Fluffe]

Great! Wish you good luck

[eskoONE]

hey, is it possible to get the research screen look like in civ? here is an example http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/109168/CIV_FFH_Alt_Tech_Tree_C.JPG

i rly dislike the look of the research tree in vanilla and wish someone already made something like this already. this will help ppl orienting a lot better id imagine. i was kinda lost when i started playing this game. especially with the a lot of mods.

kinda late for the suggesting phase

[RatedM4everyone]

Quick update: The memory system was a doozy to design, but I think I have it down. If all goes well, modders will be able to define new research projects exactly as they've always done.

hey, is it possible to get the research screen look like in civ?

That'll be a phase 5 feature, if it ever happens. I'll have my hands full with engineering the underlying systems. I'll let you know though, and I appreciate your interest!

[kaptain_kavern]

Please keep us updated on your project advancement. I'm dying to see this, especially now that there are techlevel in the game now