Magic Doors

[bclewis]

Door behaviour has been bugging me since I started playing Rimworld.  Does anyone have a compelling explanation why "enemies" cannot open doors, but friendly traders and pets (piglets!) can open them without trouble?

I'm sure there are some "gameplay" considerations at work here, but I find it highly unintuitive.

[MeowRailroad]

I always assumed (and this used to actually be shown) that the colonists all have keys for the doors, and the keys are also given to friendly traders. It would be good if you could decide which factions to give keys to, and if there was a lockless door for that could be used for trade guesthouses or also for prisons, so that prisoners could have separate rooms and a dining hall, etc.

[bclewis]

And my piglets also carry keys?  And if I antagonize a friendly trader, they immediately drop their key? Seems far-fetched...

Personally, I'd prefer if doors behaved a little more sensibly, e.g.
- most animals (friendly or otherwise) cannot open doors
- doors can be explicitly locked/unlocked by my human colonists, but not by enemies or friendlies.
- friendlies and enemies able to open unlocked doors

[RandomGirl]

Considering they come from an advanced civilization, you can get around all that by simply saying "it's keyed to open to anyone the colonists designate as friendly". That would include animals that obviously belong to the traders.

[Shurp]

Or just accept that it is magic and move on

[bclewis]

I mean, it's not like I'm losing sleep over it, but personally I don't like current behaviour either from story-standpoint OR gameplay-standpoint (I think it would make things more interesting if my hauler-animals could NOT open doors, if I could leave some doors unlocked so enemies could use them, etc.)

I know colonists have "advanced technologies" and all, but I mean, I have to do extra research before I can build auto-doors, and that feature seems less advanced to me than friendly-detecting-doors.

[mumblemumble]

You know, if we had locked / unlocked doors as a feature, this would help.

not the same as forbidden, by the way, just certain doors are locked and cannot be opened by traders, prisoners, raiders, ect, and take slightly longer to open with locking and unlocking.

As for animals... ...doggy doors?

[Goldenpotatoes]

As for animals... ...doggy doors?

My war elephants must use some pretty big doggy doors.

[Mr.Cross]

You know, if we had locked / unlocked doors as a feature, this would help.

not the same as forbidden, by the way, just certain doors are locked and cannot be opened by traders, prisoners, raiders, ect, and take slightly longer to open with locking and unlocking.

As for animals... ...doggy doors?

See, we haaad locked doors, then the brilliance of many people used those loveable locks to kill traders all cheats like. And thus the legend that is Tynan destroyed all locks leaving only the forbidden...

[night777]

RFID Chips

[mumblemumble]

You know, if we had locked / unlocked doors as a feature, this would help.

not the same as forbidden, by the way, just certain doors are locked and cannot be opened by traders, prisoners, raiders, ect, and take slightly longer to open with locking and unlocking.

As for animals... ...doggy doors?

See, we haaad locked doors, then the brilliance of many people used those loveable locks to kill traders all cheats like. And thus the legend that is Tynan destroyed all locks leaving only the forbidden...

This was kinda also a problem with building them in walls, but THAT was fixed too, so I dont see why we cant re-add it.

As for elephants, I think they could open normal doors.

[bclewis]

See, we haaad locked doors, then the brilliance of many people used those loveable locks to kill traders all cheats like. And thus the legend that is Tynan destroyed all locks leaving only the forbidden...

Huh... I figured there were probably some "gameplay considerations" to explain the bizarre door behaviour, but that sounds like the wrong solution to that problem to me.

Seems more sensible to me that a locked-in trader should panic and break the door down and possibly also become aggressive.

[skullywag]

Game used to have keys and no animal taming. Its a leftover from that. So yeah i agree its not perfect.

[Dingo]

How can it be magic when the handles aren't even aligned? I heard in A16 they're being replaced with muffalos.

[TomatoWalrus]

When animals would like to get inside your colonist would have to open the door every time. Unless you forbid the animals outside.