Colonist Relationships and Colony Population Expansion

Started by Traveler, October 13, 2013, 01:25:19 AM

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Traveler

Hi there,

I’m new to the forum and game, and get very enthusiastic about base building/micromanaging simulations. I’ve just only heard about this game from Quill18 on youtube. From the small gameplay footage I was able to get a hold of; I have to say I’m pretty impressed with what I’ve seen.

What I’m wondering about though is if colonists will be able to spawn more colonists if paired up. I’m not saying The Sims type of “get married, have kids, white picket fence etc”. I see that  Hypolite had already suggested something about relationships. I’d like to concentrate on after good relations between opposite sexes have been made.

What I’m thinking is that:

1.   If two colonists are of opposite sex and have compatible personality types, they will eventually pair up and create a new colonist. (nothing explicit obviously, just that they maybe go into the same living quarters or whatnot)

2.   Once successful ‘copulation’ has occurred the female will have a status on their profile saying she is impregnated.

3.   Over time the female will suffer penalties (akin to a debuff, since that’s kinda what pregnancy does lol). Penalties will become increasingly worse over time until ‘birth’ (again nothing explicit, just maybe the baby colonist will spawn in the same room as the female). Gestation* period could be realistic (months) so that overpopulation does not become a problem. The number of times females and males would copulate are based on personality types and if the pair are on good terms. The success of impregnation could be based on colonist traits?

4.   Child colonists would again have a realistic growth period. Maybe a three stage cycle of infant (needs to be taken care of by parent), child-teen(learns skills), and Adult (fully functioning colonist.

This could also bring about a teaching system, where colonists would gather to teach child-teen colonists. Or where child-teen colonists follow Adults around (in a kind of mentor system [assign child-teen to Adult; child-teen gains skills based on mentor]).

The teaching/mentoring idea could be a standalone mechanic too. That way you could train useless colonists that you capture or recruit some useful skills. But I just wanted to get my main suggestion about population expansion on the table.

Thank for reading and keep up the good work! Game looks great!

Pheanox

Hey there, welcome to the forums.  In case you were curious, Tynan did actually say something about this in the Kickstarter comments:

Quote from: Tynanit's very unlikely considering the time scale the game takes place on. The closest would probably be a colonist arriving pregnant and giving birth some time after to a child (who never grows up). But we'd need a system for children in the game first.

So he has considered pregnancy and relationships, but because of the time period of the game, it probably isn't a very high priority.

nomadseifer

also from Tynan
QuoteKids could definitely be in the game. They wouldn't grow up though. I think that works. I mean, it's about stories, right? And there are lots of stories where a kid begins and ends the story as a kid. Nothing wrong with having a character who is just a child.

As for whether they're "useful", sure, you could kill or banish them if not. But what does that say about you? And how might your colonists react to this policy? I think these are interesting questions in a survival situation like in RW.

Babies fall into basically the same category.

Procreation is less likely just because it takes a long time.

Love of an Idea is love of god - FLLW

GC13

We could still have a system in the background where a child ages from an infant all the way up to an adult, depending on how long the game was meant to take. I wouldn't think it would be worth it unless the colonists were meant to be on the planet for over a year, in which case we'd have one colony up long enough for any child to move up one category (so if a family of refugees showed up, they might go from adolescent to adult, for instance).

nomadseifer

My two cents.  If children growing up ever was added, we'd also need to see an aging/dying system for the adults.  I mean, lets keep things Simu-real.  :)
Love of an Idea is love of god - FLLW

GC13

I'm not sure that would be helpful. Children grow in meaningful ways (requiring supervision less to survive and more to keep them out of trouble) a lot more quickly than adults become infirm. If a colony is expected to last for ten years, sure, you might see your fit initial colonists finally start getting a bit slower by the end, but you'd have seen your children change a lot.

nomadseifer

I meant in more tongue-in-cheek since Tynan has made it clear colonists will not be aging in the game. 
Love of an Idea is love of god - FLLW

Juice

Am I the only one that kinda likes the idea of having a colony indefinitely, I feel like currently while playing you are supposed to die. The game mechanics point toward your colony becoming stagnant and eventually, overtaken. I really would love to see my colony progress over much longer periods of time. For some reason I keep mentally referencing to The Walking Dead. They start struggling to survive, but eventually become more and more self-sufficient, but with that new, more difficult problems arise. Eh maybe I should make my own suggestion thread about this...

As far as reproduction, I completely support that. I think having colonist relations and watching kids grow up in a certain environment sounds awesome. It would certainly exemplify the story telling aspect that Tynan wants to achieve. 

Traveler

Hey guys,

Thanks for the feed back, and pointing me to quotes answering my questions. Just thought I should throw the idea out there to be sure. Er, what kind of timescale for each play through are we talking about? Is the game going to end at some point even if the colony is running well? I had thought since its a sandbox game you're supposed to keep your colony running as long as you possibly can or want to. In that case aging and pregnancy seem pretty fine; as you'd be spending a long time on one map. Having a colonist arrive pregnant and then give birth with a child that doesn't age isn't very appealing. Rather is pretty dam immersion breaking. I'd rather children not be implemented all together if that's the case.

If implementing children and age is a large game design hassle I'm fine with that. If its not being implemented because it "takes time" in game, then I'd have a problem. I think children and aging is a pretty big side effect of living. If colonists get along, and are 'compatible' with each other they would procreate.  Consequences of that would follow. Hell even if they don't get along all that well, kids are still a possibility (suspension bridge effect anyone?). Are aging and children a fun game mechanic, probably if people want a realistic challenge. Perhaps (much?)later, aging and children would be put in. It could even be an option to turn on and off for those who don't want to deal with that kind of thing.

I'm a little concerned that the teaching idea hasn't been talked about, was that already suggested or was it a bad idea?

Anyways, thanks again for the comments!

Aerouge

Hmmm the timescale is measured in day/night cycles. How many hours those days last is not known (to me) but it could be a standard 24 hour cycle (as the colonists seem to drop dead at the break of night ... which they probably would not if a day/night cycle would only last 5 hours).

Depending on the storyteller most colonies last 10-30 cycles (Judging on the available you-toube material) as the raider-waves get really agressive by then.

I dont know if the peaceful-mode is actually so peaceful that it allows you to play forever... but yeah ... most of the colonies will probably die very soon... i.e. no baby would live from birth to it´s first steps, even when born on the day of the crashlanding.

British

One thing to also consider is the over-population of the colony.
As of right now, having 20+ colonists seems not to be that much of a fun experience.
Add colonists being able to breed, and that might become management hell :P

nomadseifer

Traveler, as far I can tell, it pretty much has to do with the in-game time-scale, as opposed to implementing ageing being a big technical challenge.  Days and weeks are not passing very fast in the game.

For example: If one equivalent day last 5 minutes, then a week is 35 minutes, and a year is 30 hours.  I just pulled those times out of thin air, but unless the scale is smaller than that by a factor of 10, its not feasible that you would ever play a colony long enough for anyone to age significantly, even it was a complete sandbox. 
Love of an Idea is love of god - FLLW

AspenShadow

How about we move the thread away from the hot button reproduction topic for a while and focus on expanding the systems for Colonist Relationships?

For example:
Will age groups jam better with each other?
It's obvious that we'll have romantic relationships in the game, but will there be disapproval? Jealousy?
I'd say in such a setting as RimWorld I'd say the possibility for "mentor" relationships are likely, it's already been mentioned somewhat but I quite like the idea of that.

It's been discussed that lazy/idle colonists and hard-working colonists might suffer relationship loss with each other. But would that work on a bigger scale?

Questions? Suggestions? Thoughts?
We need to expand this topic a bit!  :)

Hypolite

Strict colonist-to-colonist relationships are discussed in that thread. Please do it there instead. :)

Spike

Quote from: AspenShadow on October 16, 2013, 03:22:10 PM
Questions? Suggestions? Thoughts?
We need to expand this topic a bit!  :)

Another idea, given the disparity of the backgrounds we've seen is common ground.  Nobles vs oafs.  Educated vs illiterate.  That kind of thing.  Does the scientist discuss philosophy with the well-read noble, or avoid him because he's not willing to get his hands dirty with work?