Punji traps.

[mumblemumble]

Traps which have relatively low cost, but can accidentally kill your own colonists if they are careless. I could see these being used as cheap, but HIGHLY risky weapons, for players on a metal budget. Very cheap to make, but with poor planning one could easily get their own colony injured or even killed.

A few examples are pits covered with cloth / brush, which if someone / something steps on, they will get pierced by spikes, and injured. This of course effects anyone however, so you could easily injure / kill your own party if they step on the tiles, and not around them. Alternatively, a door trap of a metal "swing" lined with spikes which releases when a door is opened, swinging into the person opening the door and stabbing them. Could be used to brace for raiders breaking in, so the first one through a door would be gored by the blow, making it easier to fend off breaking in raiders.

Both of these could be very cheap to make, but a 1 time usage, so ideal for entry level because of the high risk, and ineffectiveness later on for big numbers. Also, perhaps make raiders more paranoid to check for them and move slow if someone falls victim to them, so someone cannot spam punjis and win.

To anyone who doesn't know what I'm talking about, here are a few videos to show what these are. Very NASTY traps they are.

Punji traps : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jo7XBaG_-SE
Door trap : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BrCSyONCBU

[British]

The problem with the colonist being able to step on the traps is that you don't control exactly where they walk.
When they do their tasks, they walk all over the place, and can step on just about any tile the pathfinding system will guide them through.
When they're drafted, it's the same, only *you* tell them which tile to ultimately stop at.

So colonists would have to watch out of traps all the time, or not at all, in which case you'll probably get a lot of casualties.
An idea would be to say that if a trap is in a home zone, the colonists will know it's there and thus avoid it.
But out of the home zone... anything could happen.
You could also still drag a drafted colonist directly into a trap, even in your home zone, but... that would be mean !

[mumblemumble]

I got that, and that's part of the beauty of it. I would think that the path-finding could be altered to TRY to avoid such traps, and you could try to engineer pathways away from them... But there's still a risk someone might forget it was there, or walk into one while on a mental break...stuff like that.

I do know with the current games programming its perhaps not ideal to suit this kind of idea, but remember its in pre-alpha. I just think having traps which are self endangering, but cheap would be a wonderful game-play option. There's also the idea that you would set them up a bit away from your base, so that the risk would be lower. Alternatively, perhaps rain / storms could eventually fill in such punji traps with mud, making them disabled?

Just remember, this game is nowhere near finished, and this is only a suggestion...Its plenty possible trap avoiding, and memory could be part of the AI somehow, even if its as simple as a dice roll every-time someone nears it if they will remember it or not.

[Wonky]

So i have read ton of ideas about trap mines and such but how about a pit trap? for example they fall in and can't escape but can still shoot from it, so you have to wait till they faint cause they get hungry, and then you could capture them. Or spikes, they step on it and get either killed, it hurts a lot or get stuck and bleed out which gives you opportunity to capture.

[AspenShadow]

...you have to wait till they faint cause they get hungry, and then you could capture them. Or spikes, they step on it and get either killed, it hurts a lot or get stuck and bleed out which gives you opportunity to capture.

Unfortunately atm the game hasn't developed people fainting due to hunger, illness certainly, and after a while of starving it will start damaging their health but they'll never faint completely from hunger or tiredness sadly. It's quite possible the spike idea could be implemented like laying down 'caltrops' the spikes dig into their feet/shoes and they can't move as quickly or they'll hurt.

I like the ideas on this thread even if the pathfinding idea could be an obstacle. Though a better way of dealing with the home-zone-idea -considering you can just homezone the area of the trap, people don't seem to realise you don't have to drag a massive select of land but can do squares here and there- is to have a RED ZONE where colonists will not walk, which will be useful for more than traps I think. Minefields (real ones, not blasting charges) and trapped areas need to be red-zoned after being built or colonists won't consider them when pathfinding and will meet a sticky end. It's fairly realistic considering not every colonist will be around when one of your other colonists is building the trap and he might not be able to tell everyone (in a large colony) before someone steps on the wrong bit of turf.

[British]

The red zone is an idea, but if the traps are anything like every item built so far, they would be subjected to wear and tear, and thus need to be maintained/repaired (or not, at the risk of mines going off, spikes getting dull...).

[Marcuss2]

I was thinking of more traps, like trapdoors, flamethowers and plessure plates.

Anyone remember Evil Genius? That had trap system I would like to see in Rimworld. (Picture attached)


PS: Sorry for big size, Im too lazy to resize it

[British]

Traps are discussed in this thread.
Feel free to post your ideas there
merged topics

Regarding the size of the image, Imgur does provide thumbnail links when you upload an image.