Management, Leadership, and Roles

[James009]

I feel like one thing that Rimworld is missing is a "noble" system from Dwarf Fortress. For example, at the beginning your best leader (highest social skill) or colonist should be designated as the Expedition Leader. This guy (or gal) would help to keep unhappy colonists sane and would have a buff against going insane himself. This guy could also have a cool control room or desk to sit at on his free time (we need more flavor!).

You could also have roles such as:
- Chief Medical Officer- Is designated as the main medic and is also responsible for stocking Medbay (when we have a medical zone for healing injured). Gives a bonus (based on medical skills) to all healing.
- Chief Science Officer- The designated Scientists who helps oversee R&D. Gives a bonus (based on research skills) to all research projects.
- Warden- You can specifically designate one person as the Warden (can have a staff of Baliffs or prison guards to help).
- Head of Security- Appoint a primary defender who can help bolster defenses. Gives a bonus (based on combat skills) to all people fighting in a radius. Can conduct patrols around the base in off-time (we need patrols).
- Psychiatrist- Appoint a person to help with sanity issues of your colonists. Helps with re-recruiting friendly prisoners and preventing people who are unhappy from breaking.
- Chief Engineer- Is the main person in charge of construction, maintenance, and repair projects. Gives a bonus (based on construction and repair skills) to all building and repair actions.

Only certain colonists could become certain roles, they'd have to be well skilled and able to perform the function. However, being appointed to these roles would make them happier and give them a bit more respect from within the community.

Anyways, I'm sure we could come up with a ton more unique roles that you could have in your little outpost. Things such as Assassins, Courtesans, Merchants and Traders, and Soldiers would be welcomed additions. The number of roles available can also scale with the size and population of your outpost unlocking more options over time.

From here you could go wild and implement defensive squads, medical teams, and a command structure with your base... however deep you want to get with it. If you use the options you have a bit few more features, if you don't then you simply don't.

[Armorat]

I don't know how easy this would be to implement, but I like it a lot. Would help connect players to their colonists...makes them more than just a series of expendable dudes.

[Benny the Icepick]

Have you tried using the "manual" control of colonist priorities?  It allows you to rank the job priorities of each colonist on a spectrum from zero through four.  It's not as glamorous as these titles, but as for game play it achieves more or less the same end.

[Tynan]

I was thinking of making a leader position once there are a few activities that demand it. Specifically, going to negotiate with travelers/besieging pirates.

[Armorat]

I was thinking of making a leader position once there are a few activities that demand it. Specifically, going to negotiate with travelers/besieging pirates.

What if the leader gets bonuses with certain tribes/traders based on their skills? Maybe a high-social person does moderately well with everyone, but someone skilled in construction does way better with industrial traders, or someone with high melee cooperates better with low-tech tribes. Would make things a lot more interesting than simply picking the colonist with the highest social level, to the exclusion of all other skills.

With something like this in place, though, I think there'd have to be some way to prevent players from switching leaders constantly to minmax tribe/trader interactions. Timer seems contrived...maybe a moral loss when leaders change (or die)? Or maybe the longer a leader is in control, the higher people's satisfaction gets with having someone in charge.

[starlight]

I was thinking of making a leader position once there are a few activities that demand it. Specifically, going to negotiate with travelers/besieging pirates.

The current system of capturing travelers and then recruiting seems like a lot of effort for very little fun.
Would really love to see this replaced with:
1. Either DF-style migrants: they are not fancy but they work.
2. Negotiating with travellers (2nd option for me)

[starlight]

I feel like one thing that Rimworld is missing is a "noble" system from Dwarf Fortress. For example, at the beginning your best leader (highest social skill) or colonist should be designated as the Expedition Leader. This guy (or gal) would help to keep unhappy colonists sane and would have a buff against going insane himself. This guy could also have a cool control room or desk to sit at on his free time (we need more flavor!).

You could also have roles such as:
- Chief Medical Officer- Is designated as the main medic and is also responsible for stocking Medbay (when we have a medical zone for healing injured). Gives a bonus (based on medical skills) to all healing.
- Chief Science Officer- The designated Scientists who helps oversee R&D. Gives a bonus (based on research skills) to all research projects.
- Warden- You can specifically designate one person as the Warden (can have a staff of Baliffs or prison guards to help).
- Head of Security- Appoint a primary defender who can help bolster defenses. Gives a bonus (based on combat skills) to all people fighting in a radius. Can conduct patrols around the base in off-time (we need patrols).
- Psychiatrist- Appoint a person to help with sanity issues of your colonists. Helps with re-recruiting friendly prisoners and preventing people who are unhappy from breaking.
- Chief Engineer- Is the main person in charge of construction, maintenance, and repair projects. Gives a bonus (based on construction and repair skills) to all building and repair actions.

Only certain colonists could become certain roles, they'd have to be well skilled and able to perform the function. However, being appointed to these roles would make them happier and give them a bit more respect from within the community.

Anyways, I'm sure we could come up with a ton more unique roles that you could have in your little outpost. Things such as Assassins, Courtesans, Merchants and Traders, and Soldiers would be welcomed additions. The number of roles available can also scale with the size and population of your outpost unlocking more options over time.

From here you could go wild and implement defensive squads, medical teams, and a command structure with your base... however deep you want to get with it. If you use the options you have a bit few more features, if you don't then you simply don't.

I agree that "nobles" would help. I would call them officers, though.

They would have requirements - not artificial ones like mandates in DF.

Rather,
Emergency Medical Officer: needs *first aid area* (1 bed, 1 non-dedicated colonist, medical supplies kit)
Medical Officer: *small* hospital (1 bed, 1 dedicated colonist who does not work on anything else, medicines, sutures, casts)
Sr. Medical Officer: *medium* hospital (3 Beds, 1 dedicated Medical Officer under him, 1 non-dedicated nurse, ICU area, heart-lung compressor, hygiene controls, more machines, etc)
Chief Medical Officer: *large* hospital (3 Beds, 1 dedicated Medical Officer under him, 1 dedicated nurse, ICCU area, heart-lung compressor, anti-infection controls)

Note that it should be possible to have 3 Beds and still not have a large hospital, the above are *AND* conditions.

Further:
1. Hospitals should provide benefits to healing faster. More from small, medium, large with progressive benefits.
Ailments should be specific - bleeding, fracture, infection, etc.

2. There should be requirement also for the Medical officer to be promoted:
A. Research using books
B. Books themselves to be obtained


the above would, of course, be defined by the game.
1 no of beds
X equipment
etc, etc

Really nice extra (of course, comes with extra programming) would be to have addable modules in it like Simcity.
So start a hospital with 2 beds, then right-click on it to add 2 more.

[Kirid]

Any space captain I've ever seen is usually barking into a comms system at some point, and strolling around control rooms with seemingly important tasks.
These are just ideas to try to break the nobles system mold to fit Rimworld a little more.
These might work better with a fog of war and a more dangerous world, but could function without

Head of Personnel, Psychiatrist, or one of captains main jobs. Every colonist notifies the leader/HoP before leaving the colony home zone, who has a sort of staff roster. Some colonists might wander off by themselves and get killed and the leader wouldnt know until not seeing them for 12-24 hours, in which he would start looking for them. Also tells low happiness colonists to take a break, or lazy ones to get back to work. (I imagine eventually some colonists will be slackers while others might work themselves too hard)

Comms officer role. Upkeeps trade comms and radars. This role could work on boosting your comms to get more trades, like sending an advertisement planet-wide instead of just relying on passer-bys; This would also be a dinnerbell for raiders I imagine. The radar works like the "raiders are preparing for an attack."  If the console isn't manned properly, you might get false warnings, or no warning at all. If you had a larger colony with a good radar person and machine, you could get a warning like "unknown ship spotted in orbit above colony" for those new drop-in raiders, which would be impossible to spot and deadly otherwise.

[starlight]

Any space captain I've ever seen is usually barking into a comms system at some point, and strolling around control rooms with seemingly important tasks.
These are just ideas to try to break the nobles system mold to fit Rimworld a little more.
These might work better with a fog of war and a more dangerous world, but could function without

Head of Personnel, Psychiatrist, or one of captains main jobs. Every colonist notifies the leader/HoP before leaving the colony home zone, who has a sort of staff roster. Some colonists might wander off by themselves and get killed and the leader wouldnt know until not seeing them for 12-24 hours, in which he would start looking for them. Also tells low happiness colonists to take a break, or lazy ones to get back to work. (I imagine eventually some colonists will be slackers while others might work themselves too hard)

Comms officer role. Upkeeps trade comms and radars. This role could work on boosting your comms to get more trades, like sending an advertisement planet-wide instead of just relying on passer-bys; This would also be a dinnerbell for raiders I imagine. The radar works like the "raiders are preparing for an attack."  If the console isn't manned properly, you might get false warnings, or no warning at all. If you had a larger colony with a good radar person and machine, you could get a warning like "unknown ship spotted in orbit above colony" for those new drop-in raiders, which would be impossible to spot and deadly otherwise.

I like the idea of a "military control room".

You would appoint a Lieutenant  to start with, and then make him General. Similar progression to the details described in my hospital post above

Small Control Room: 1 Comms console
Medium Control Room: 2 Comms console - lets you equip colonists with 2-way talkies. Without them, there is a small chance that they will get kidnapped by raiders. (Now that is a way to make raiders more interesting)

Other things that could happen here would be fitting out expeditions to go and raid other colonies. (Or maybe that is a separate building that requires having a control room first).

[Monkfish]

I was thinking of making a leader position once there are a few activities that demand it. Specifically, going to negotiate with travelers/besieging pirates.

I've always wondered why this wasn't restricted to your Wardens in the first place. It seems a little odd to have Wardens that deal with prisoners, yet anyone can go out and arrest someone wandering about (hauling incapacitated people would be different and not included in Warden tasks)

Also, I like Starlight's idea of a medical bay, although I'm not sure how it could be implemented short of allocated rooms as  in Prison Architect.

[Jack 123]

Agreed

[Mr.Styoopid]

i couldnt agree more on this feature being implemented in the game. Perhaps in addition to that, adding outfits to distinguish the officers/leader from the other colonists. I believe this feature would add so much in the game besides making the game more realistic.