Overhaul - New Aggression System and other cool ideas - A16

[Elok]

Hello everyone,
I've just finished my 2nd game and I wanted to share a few ideas of my own.


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1- New Aggression System
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This one is inspired from the game AI Wars's AI Progress, which is aimed at the endgame. I find that the new A16 update add a tons of new possibility for more interesting endgame and this is how I see it.

- A new enemy faction have control of the planet and want to kept it. They doesn't want you to leave.
- When you crash, they doesn't care too much about you. But as you get stronger he'll start to get annoyed and send raid to you.
- If you attack it's settlements, they'll start sending more powerful raid.
- If you start building a ship, they'll fear that you'll fetch the universe police or something to wipe him out. So they'll send everything at you.
- By destroying it's HQ, you eliminate the thread and could no longer receive big enemy raid (only by pirate or brigand). But this should be very, very hard and not aimed as an objective.

This could be a Aggression Counter at the top of the screen that'll kept you updated at how much pissed off they are. If you do something they don't like (building High-Tech stuff, attacking it's settlement etc.), the Counter will increase. I also think attacking others settlement should be a part of the endgame like fetching unique item designed to build the ship.





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2- New Eng-game Long-Term Event
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I think the game would benefit to some new interesting long-term event. Like "An experiment have gone wrong" and a new aliens species roam on the planet, resulting in frequent aliens raid (Some new defence structure will be needed like better manned turret and fortification) for a years ending unless you personally attack the Hive (others friendly faction could attempt to attack it and ask for your help). You could also receive distress signal from close settlements asking for help and you have X-day to save them. Speaking of helping other colonies...





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3- Vehicle
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The first caravan is cool, but it rapidly become irrelevant when you have a solid base running. To help with moving around, some new expensive vehicle (powered by Chemfuel) could help with endgame. Of course, if you can use car, other colony should use them too (if making a big car moving around is too hard, you could always just "spawn" the immobile car at the corner of the map.





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4- New Health System
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Right now, the Health windows is a little pain to use and could be simplified. I'm thinking about an interface similar to Fallout 3-4's pimp boy status :

http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/fallout/images/4/42/Angled_PimpBoy_female.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20150225152110

The idea is to see easily where the colonist is hurt/handicapped. Also, it'll be great to right-click the right arm and select the "Install Bionic arm" more easily.





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5- New Equipment/Inventory System
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Similar to the new Health System, an inventory would be nice (and I'm sure it have been asked a lot). It's pretty hard to know what part of the colonist is with or without clothes. Also, I think it should be easier to see the stats of the weapon/armor in the game. Right now, it's really tedious to enter the detailed description of each weapon to see which one is the best. The way I see it, while selecting a colonist, if I hover the mouse over a poor assault riffle, a windows should pop to tell me the Stats of the weapon with Green and Red arrow to indicate how it compare to the weapon the colonist have currently equipped.





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6- More Realism
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I know there's some game balance decision behind this, but there's many place where the realism lack.

For instance, a whole buffalo can only feed 18 person. Sometime, it feel a little silly and I think some rework could be done in the yeild of animal meat and plant. Also, I think colonist should be able to cook in batches. Like taking a lot of vegetable and meat and create one gigantic meals to feed the whole colony for a week. It feel a little off to have 2 cook making meal all-day for my 12-person colony. To kept the balance, other task could be longer.

There's also a few event that feel a little stupid. For instance, the colonist are advanced enough to build energy weapon and spaceship but seem to have never heard of a Circuit breaker (I'm looking at you Zzzztt!!!). I think this equipment should be added. Furthermore, many "rare" event happens way too often. When the cold snap happens 4 years in a row, it's not really a "unusual cold" anymore.





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7- Combat Toggle Switch
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Weapon and armour are heavy. But interestingly enough, it doesn't seem to affect the colonist. I think the inventory of the colonist should be spitted in two part (Everyday outfit and Combat) and work in a more obvious way.

If a colonist have a drawer in his room, when you "Toggle Off" the Combat Alarm he'll drop it's gear there (so he'll be way more efficient at everyday task). For hunting herbivore, the colonist could only take it's weapon and some patrol could kept their equipment on them all the time.

But if a raid happen, you "Toggle On" the Combat alarm and all colonist will go grab their stuffs and go to the meeting point for combat. This will allow surprise attack to really caught you off-guard.





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8- Storage With Inventory
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Probably already planned, but a few construction with inventory (same as the colonist) to hold a bigger number of items would be nice like a Food Rack or the Equipment Rack. It'll clean the Food storage and a allow you to have a decent-sized equipment room.




That's it for now,

Elok