Rim world story clarification

[omzh]

(Note: first paragraph is an intro so you can skip this) Ok so newbie on the forums today. Let me just say I've been following Rimworld's development since I saw Quill18's Let's Try video a little while back. It's great publicity I've heard of a lot of people seeing Or hearing about Rimworld from his video. Anyway, I was intrigued enough to pledge in the Kickstarter which I actually upped so I can get the alpha when it ends. Needless to say I'm pretty excited, but let me get to the point of this post.

As a side note everything I'm saying is based off of YouTube videos of the game as I have not actually played it myself.

I was looking through the proposed modules on the Kickstarter page as well as suggestions on this forum and reddit. My understanding is, in terms of the end game, it's more or less set that the goal will be to build a space ship to leave the planet. I understand that having a defined endgame gives the player the motivation to finish the game for lack of a better term. But I feel like there are a few inconsistencies that I noticed with that.

The first thing is the idea of setting up a colony in the first place. Assuming the survivors goal is leaving, wouldn't the priority be gathering materials and constructing a ship to leave the planet right away? It almost doesn't make sense for the player to set up a colony if the goal is to leave it.

My second issue is that there are ships (the traders) coming through the planet. So why don't the colonists just hop on one of those ships and just leave? I mean if they can sell prisoners to the ships there is obviously the capacity to send all of the colonists to a ship given room on board so there is no reason to try and build their own scrappy rocket to get to a civilized world.

My first suggestion to simply give the player multiple endings. The player develops their colony, and in the late stages they have the option of leaving the planet and colonizing a new one (sort of like a new game+ thing?) or staying with the colony they have. The resolution in that situation could be either surviving until the colony falls apart, or if the player reaches a certain condition like colonists or resource wealth the game ends on it's own and the player is assigned a score based on stats. Not really my preferred idea but I'll leave that to the community and Tynan to decide one.

My second suggestion is to make two game modes. One mode would be tailored so that the goal is to just survive until the colonists acquire the ability to make a ship to leave the planet. This can be something simple like a tutorial mission or more developed as a true game mode. In this mode things like traders, passing ships, etc. would all be limited as to set the fact that these people are like Tom Hanks in Castaway and their goal is to just survive until they can build a life boat to get home. Also the actual colony population would be limited, or in the end like Tynan was thinking the player would have to choose who to bring and who to leave. I think it would be a shorter game mode, somewhere around 4 hrs more or less depending on other game features as to keep it fresh and to reduce player attachment to their colonies when the game comes around.

The second mode would be a more sandbox/true colony building game. Admittedly this would be a lot tougher to implement because there would have to be a lot of feature described in the modules to keep the game and the story interesting. I'd say this is more of a long-term development goal if it were to be implemented. The way I envision it, the game starts out with the player outfitting their ship for a colony, choosing starting resources, colonists and their traits. The ship would either crash on a planet or be an actual colony ship that would land and leave the colonists to build and expand on their own. I see it as similar to dwarf fortress; the goal is to survive as long as possible before it inevitably crashes and burns. The thing is I could not envision a mode like this without more complex systems like relationships, children, aging, larger research tree, more and varied events, interconnectedness with the Rimworld universe (as in feeling as though the map is a part of a bigger world; I'll expand on that in another post) all of which will come together to give the player an interesting story with many great moments. Like I said though, I can't imagine this being implemented right away as the depth of the game has to be relatively deep to keep the player engrossed in the gameplay. Besides that, I feel that this would be the better option looking forward.

Anyway my suggestion would be that in the current stage of development the goal should be to implement a definite endgame that keeps the game short and interesting to increase awareness and interest. As the development goes on and more modules get implemented, the idea of a sandbox mode might be more appealing but that depends on a lot of parts coming together. I am still very excited for the development of this game and I have a lot of faith in it as it is the first Kickstarter project I have backed. I would like to hear both Tynan and the community's thoughts on the story as well, to see what ideas other people have.

p.s. Excuse any weird spelling errors or word/grammatical errors, I wrote this on my phone. Also I know this is essay sized but I'll try and write up a TL;DR summary when I get a chance to sit down at a computer.

[Spike]

Yeah, the backstory is something that has been discussed often.  It is a flaw that needs some tweaking - if they are trading with passing ships, why can't they hitch a ride?

I've had a couple of thoughts, and I'm sure there are other ideas:

1) Simplistic answer is that the trader won't or can't pick them up.  Which is flawed by the fact that you can sell slaves to traders.

2) Change the story so there are no passing spaceships.  Everyone, you, pirates and traders, all come from the wrecked ship and are stuck on the same planet.  Other groups on the planet will stumble across you (or fall out of the sky) and either trade with you or try to take your stuff.

[Semmy]

Yeah, the backstory is something that has been discussed often.  It is a flaw that needs some tweaking - if they are trading with passing ships, why can't they hitch a ride?

I've had a couple of thoughts, and I'm sure there are other ideas:

1) Simplistic answer is that the trader won't or can't pick them up.  Which is flawed by the fact that you can sell slaves to traders.

2) Change the story so there are no passing spaceships.  Everyone, you, pirates and traders, all come from the wrecked ship and are stuck on the same planet.  Other groups on the planet will stumble across you (or fall out of the sky) and either trade with you or try to take your stuff.

@2 sounds awsome... mad max like even

[nomadseifer]

I don't think that the backstory or endgame need to make a full circle of logic.  I don't think absolute realism is a major feature of the game.  Its a romantic story about people surviving in a hostile world and using their own abilities to set themselves free (if you want them to actually leave  )

[Pheanox]

Hey there, figured I'd give my own thoughts on to this.

1.  The endgame is there to give motivation, yes.  The point of building the colony, actually, is so you can survive until you can build the ship.  Tynan has already said it will take advanced research far along the tech trees, and perhaps even having to trade for rare parts you can't make on your own.  If your survivors just waited around outside for all that, they would never survive leaving.  Basically if you are going for the spaceship endgame, you would view your colony as a work-city to make that ship.  Tynan has also said that there is a good chance there will be multiple endings, on top of the fact you don't have to go for the spaceship ending.

2. This one is a bit tougher, but it has been addressed in some ways before.  Tynan mentioned that the traders could simply be inter-solar traders that don't really care to take you along.  There are other good reasons as well, though.  The way I like to think about it, is that space travel is very dangerous, and ships have to be carefully constructed.  If the traders are relativistic traders, that hop from system to system buying and selling goods, traveling mostly at relativistic speeds, their ships are very specially designed.  The cargo ships are going to be mostly just cargo space with small cabins to live in.  The limited life support in their living area would make them not even consider taking passengers, as it would be a threat to their own safety.  So why do slaver ships come?  Obviously the slaver ships are converted passenger liners with plenty of oxygen to spare.  So they have room for you on their lovely ship, if you want to pay the fee of slavery for it.

This is just my take on the in game lore and the way the universe works.  There are other interpretations, and I'm sure someone will shoot holes in my own reasons.

[omzh]

Yeah, the backstory is something that has been discussed often.  It is a flaw that needs some tweaking - if they are trading with passing ships, why can't they hitch a ride?

I've had a couple of thoughts, and I'm sure there are other ideas:

1) Simplistic answer is that the trader won't or can't pick them up.  Which is flawed by the fact that you can sell slaves to traders.

2) Change the story so there are no passing spaceships.  Everyone, you, pirates and traders, all come from the wrecked ship and are stuck on the same planet.  Other groups on the planet will stumble across you (or fall out of the sky) and either trade with you or try to take your stuff.

I do like number two there. Either way, I think it would be interesting to have a world/universe that goes on around the colony even if the player does not see it. It would also be interesting if say raiders attacked a caravan on its way to the player's colony, slaughtering all of them depriving the colony of necessary resources. I think it could make for a very interesting story, although the idea of a grand space western in the vein of Firefly would make the game feel bigger without actually making the "game space" (correct my terminology if I'm wrong, I'm referring to the map the player plays on) bigger, if that makes sense.

@2 sounds awsome... mad max like even

The Mad Max idea is interesting, although I wouldn't want to lose the space western feel of the game. It's not so much surviving in a nuclear wasteland, it's about living off the frontier where every mistake can cost the lives of the colonists.

Hey there, figured I'd give my own thoughts on to this.

1.  The endgame is there to give motivation, yes.  The point of building the colony, actually, is so you can survive until you can build the ship.  Tynan has already said it will take advanced research far along the tech trees, and perhaps even having to trade for rare parts you can't make on your own.  If your survivors just waited around outside for all that, they would never survive leaving.  Basically if you are going for the spaceship endgame, you would view your colony as a work-city to make that ship.  Tynan has also said that there is a good chance there will be multiple endings, on top of the fact you don't have to go for the spaceship ending.

I think it would interesting to have a long running sandbox survival mode. I personally have played games like Civilization, and I know one of things that helps its replayability is that 1) you can change starting conditions to be harder or easier and 2) your gameplay is scored at the end. I'm no programmer, but I can't imagine a score system being hard to implement. IT would factor in how long a colony survived, how many resources it had at its highest point, the number of colonists, etc. and I think it will still give the player motivation to play the game and try to beat themselves or their friends in a global leaderboard. I'll be upfront and say that the spaceship ending isn't what I could consider the ideal ending as it is too abrupt and it would leave me feeling that this colony I've built and kept together for so long was for naught.

I don't think that the backstory or endgame need to make a full circle of logic.  I don't think absolute realism is a major feature of the game.  Its a romantic story about people surviving in a hostile world and using their own abilities to set themselves free (if you want them to actually leave  )

At this point in the game's development, game mechanics should be the priority to implement. While there are a lot of inconsistencies in the back story, I would expect the final product to make sense or at least give a reasonable explanation for everything. I believe that is what makes a game truly polished.

[nomadseifer]

keeping score ... will still give the player motivation to play the game and try to beat themselves or their friends in a global leaderboard.

I'm not sure where but I'm pretty sure Tynan is against any form of scorekeeping, as it makes the game more about 'winning' than in telling interesting stories.  If there is a score involved, that is basically the game designer telling you directly what they value in the game, in stead of letting you decide that for yourself.

I would expect the final product to make sense or at least give a reasonable explanation for everything

That's interesting to me.  I view most Sci-fi games as basically a fantasy game with a sciency theme (because that's what they are).  I would expect the game designer to be able to explain the design philosophy for everything in the game but hardly rationalize every thing within the context of reality.  I mean, there are exploding rats, right? 

[omzh]

keeping score ... will still give the player motivation to play the game and try to beat themselves or their friends in a global leaderboard.

I'm not sure where but I'm pretty sure Tynan is against any form of scorekeeping, as it makes the game more about 'winning' than in telling interesting stories.  If there is a score involved, that is basically the game designer telling you directly what they value in the game, in stead of letting you decide that for yourself.

This I can understand. But having stats tracked for each game, like number of colonists to raiders killed, etc. and being able to view it from different games so that the player can gauge their improvement for themselves based on what stats they find important.

I would expect the final product to make sense or at least give a reasonable explanation for everything

That's interesting to me.  I view most Sci-fi games as basically a fantasy game with a sciency theme (because that's what they are).  I would expect the game designer to be able to explain the design philosophy for everything in the game but hardly rationalize every thing within the context of reality.  I mean, there are exploding rats, right?

I should clarify, I meant the story has to be polished with no holes for the game to be truly polished. I would never expect any game developer, unless it was the premise of the game, to have a PhD in Physics to explain how space travel works. I would say it would make the most sense if there were either no space ships, like traders, and the endgame was to escape or that the point of the game is to expand the colony until you lose and keep the space trader elements.

[AspenShadow]

I would expect the game designer to be able to explain the design philosophy for everything in the game but hardly rationalize every thing within the context of reality.  I mean, there are exploding rats, right?

I'm sorry to nitpick but it's grating on me.

A theoretical model of a Boomrat is perfectly capable of existing according to the current natural laws and a simple compound that reacts strongly with the atmosphere of the planet when in such large quantities due to the sudden loss of equilibrium dispersing the particles, dependent upon each other for sharing electrons amongst their individual shells would make the theoretical compound come apart explosively; with radiation naturally produced also.
May have gone overboard but the gist is: Boomrats are perfectly capable of existing even if the broad concept of them isn't seen in nature.

Nowww... on to more important topics lol. I tried to address the plot inconsistencies quite a few times across the forum:

As far as raiders go, they have drop-pods capable of surviving the descent planet-side with breaking up but don't have the energy/capability to leave the atmosphere by their own power when landed. The greater ship in orbit is relied upon to bring the pods back home with raiders inside and recognised by unspecified software/sensors, using supermagneto-lift by artificially inducing a small monopole in the upper atmosphere it can remote-recall the pods.

As far as trade ships go, we're on a RIMworld it's very far out in space people don't like to usually travel due to the increasing distance between each system making it more and more likely you'll run out of fuel and be stranded. Traders can do fly-by drop-offs of goods after being contacted, but the method of extracting your bartered supplies is lethal to living beings and can only be used with inanimates.

As far as slaver ships go, I'm fairly certain someone's tried to cover it before but I've yet to think up a semi-credible explanation for 'selling' as a weak excuse for buying could be the same as raiders.

[salt1219]

Having extra people on a ship costs extra resources like air, water, food.  They might not have much or any to spair.  Having extra resources takes up space and weight not to mention fuel.
Trade ships may not rescue you because your too costly or they simply cant, a slaver might just not want you because you take up room that "inventory" could fill.

A cargo type ship might only have a small habitable living area and the vast majority of the ship would be cargo area that has not life support nor a need for it.

[Pheanox]

Having extra people on a ship costs extra resources like air, water, food.  They might not have much or any to spair.  Having extra resources takes up space and weight not to mention fuel.
Trade ships may not rescue you because your too costly or they simply cant, a slaver might just not want you because you take up room that "inventory" could fill.

A cargo type ship might only have a small habitable living area and the vast majority of the ship would be cargo area that has not life support nor a need for it.

Exactly what I said.  I suppose I just don't understand why this very logical explanation isn't good enough for people.

[Lechai]

I still believe the easiest solution is to rename them from 'Trade Ship', to 'Trade Caravan'.
That way they're also on the planet, possibly natives or other survivors.

That way any passing ship becomes a MAJOR event.
Possibly you need to pay the ship $X per colonist as one of the endgame escape scenario's

[Pheanox]

I still believe the easiest solution is to rename them from 'Trade Ship', to 'Trade Caravan'.
That way they're also on the planet, possibly natives or other survivors.

That way any passing ship becomes a MAJOR event.
Possibly you need to pay the ship $X per colonist as one of the endgame escape scenario's

I still don't see why the trade ships don't make sense.  In fact, I think the fact you are a survivor on a rimworld is MUCH less interesting, less dramatic, if you are getting trade caravans coming through constantly.  You are stranded here from a crash, have a bunch of resources, and traders approach.  Why don't you just leave the meager colony you have made and go with them?  A trade caravan system implies a working infrastructure of settlements on the moon.  No longer are you alone, struggling against wandering raiders, but just a bunch of crashed people on an already heavily settled moon.  And it would have to be heavily settled for there to be constant and consistent trading caravans to continue passing by your colony. 
And a trade caravan leading to settlements don't have a single reason to not take you in.  There isn't the life support issue, no cargo space issue.  You just come in with your tons of food and minerals, your cash saved up, and now you are a member of their settlement.  Game over, no need to play.  This basically shatters the entire narrative background of RimWorld.

[Lechai]

I still believe the easiest solution is to rename them from 'Trade Ship', to 'Trade Caravan'.
That way they're also on the planet, possibly natives or other survivors.

That way any passing ship becomes a MAJOR event.
Possibly you need to pay the ship $X per colonist as one of the endgame escape scenario's

I still don't see why the trade ships don't make sense.  In fact, I think the fact you are a survivor on a rimworld is MUCH less interesting, less dramatic, if you are getting trade caravans coming through constantly.  You are stranded here from a crash, have a bunch of resources, and traders approach.  Why don't you just leave the meager colony you have made and go with them?  A trade caravan system implies a working infrastructure of settlements on the moon.  No longer are you alone, struggling against wandering raiders, but just a bunch of crashed people on an already heavily settled moon.  And it would have to be heavily settled for there to be constant and consistent trading caravans to continue passing by your colony. 
And a trade caravan leading to settlements don't have a single reason to not take you in.  There isn't the life support issue, no cargo space issue.  You just come in with your tons of food and minerals, your cash saved up, and now you are a member of their settlement.  Game over, no need to play.  This basically shatters the entire narrative background of RimWorld.

hmmm true dat,
will be interesting to see how this pan's out

[SpaceEatingTrex]

spamtastic92's ideas for the backstory reminded me of the Backstory Introduction thread. There are similar ideas in the opening post there.

I like the idea of allowing the player to influence their backstory instead of making it the same for everyone. Here's one of my ideas from the Backstory Introduction thread:

Story Start - this would be like the King of Dragon Pass Opening, where players build a story that determines how they start. For instance, the game starts with a space liner crash, but what if was it a military ship, a cargo ship, a research ship, or something else? Where was it headed, and what did the captain do when it started to crash? By letting the player make decisions about how their story begins, we give them the chance to be invested in their story before the game even starts. I think this kind of option could add depth to both players' stories and starting gameplay.

Here's a quote from the linked page:

How much land did you claim?

• As much as we needed, no more
• More land than we needed, to grow into
• Lots more than we would probably need
• Huge tracts, far more than we needed

I hope that provides an example of how we could allow players to influence their backstory by letting them make decisions, like whether the crashed ship was a space liner, cargo ship, pirate ship, etc.

As far as "why don't they just get on a trade ship?" goes, if you can't suspend your disbelief remember we're talking about a few people stuck on a moon somewhere in space. When you see a car on the side of the road, do you stop to help? Or more appropriately, do you expect semi-trucks to stop and help? What makes you think a trade ship is going to leave their route to pick up three space-bums?