Ability to have babies

[Harry_Dicks]

Who told the forum necromancers that today was beating dead horse day?

It was a forum moderator who decided to merge a similar thread with this old one.

Thank you for telling me what the moderator posted just above you

[Third_Of_Five]

Because child labor would also be great PR for the official release of the game. Yeah.

Dude this is already a game where you can literally sell people into slavery, harvest human organs, abuse animals, and commit cannibalism. And those are just the optional parts: In order to fend off raiders, you essentially are forced to murder dozens of people every year just to survive. So enough of your moral grandstanding.

[Harry_Dicks]

Because child labor would also be great PR for the official release of the game. Yeah.

-snip-

Mining? Sure, but expect a heavy PR shitstorm related to child mining labor and the very high mortality rates it caused in the industrial era.

You are insufferable. A SJW who is worried about RimWorld's PR reputation, when like the other poster said, we have murder, ransoming, prisoners, organ harvesting, cannabalism, etc. I will never understand how some people can just, so... LAME! If it were up to you, this game would have been a tetris bubble pop clone. You are okay with everything else in the game, but won't SOMEBODY PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN?!?!

Please, stop being so pathetic. Outside of internet lala land, not everyone get's as offended at inane shit like you do. You remind me of those losers who got all pissy about RimWorld's sexuality BS. I think I can say with 99% confidence that no one is going to be sitting there on the fence, trying to decide to buy the game or not, but then they hear the "PR shitstorm" about child labor in the game, and they think, "OMG! Child labor in a video game! That crosses the line for me!"

[Granitecosmos]

Fine, let's ignore the possible PR hit. You guys still fail to address the elephant in the room, though.

Children could do cleaning and even sowing/harvesting with an appropriate work speed penalty. But they can't tailor, they can't smith, they can't treat wounds, they can't tame animals, they can't haul 25 kg stone chunks, they can't cook, they can't research, they can't shoot a firearm without serious injuries to their underdeveloped muscles and bones, they can't realistically use melee against an adult opponent with any realistic success and they'd be taken advantage of by prisoners if they were on warden duty due to how easily one can manipulate children.

Now tell me, what else remains? Wood cutting? Sure, with a 50% work speed reduction. Mining? Sure, but expect a heavy PR shitstorm related to child mining labor and the very high mortality rates it caused in the industrial era.

Like it or not, 90% of jobs in RimWorld are too complex or hard for children.

Children would be dead weight if implemented in a realistic way. Provide an answer to this instead of nitpicking about PR (which is the lesser problem of the two and is only somewhat valid because the next version is the official release). Want an example? Look at Dwarf Fortress. Children are so useless there, most people just turn it off.

[Ramsis]

Lol page two and Harry can't stop them self from breaking multiple rules and just generally being mean over a disagreement. Alright Harry, consider this your warning before I give you a cozy 2 week ban.

[gipothegip]

I know it seems ridiculous, but I think Granite makes a point. Children are a touchy subject.

It's about commonly held social values, even if there are some falacies / inconsistensies from a strictly logical point of view. Many people view kids as being innocent, and needing protection. Having children put in adult / extreme situation is considered tabboo, and it's frowned upon if they face the same harsh realities as adults in media.

There are many things in the media with transgressive themes such as Rimworld, but the general rule of thumb is that you can't go too far with children. A manleather hat is dark, but a babyleather hat would be crossing the line (since most would consider it far worse involving a child).

From a gameplay point of view, I don't see them as useful, mostly because of the timescale involved. It would take 5 years to maybe get them to do anything basic, and another decade or so for a fully capable pawn.

[lancar]

Ah, this brings me back to the old days of playing Black & White...
I had positioned shortcuts at my sacrificial altar and the daycare, so I could more quickly transport the babies. 16000 faith for a toddler was really effective.

I can't really remember there being much of a hubbub about it on the news either, but I DO recall there was some controversy over Fallout 2.
In todays media landscape, tho? Horrible :p it's probably for the best that childrearing be kept as a mod.

[Ramsis]

Ah, this brings me back to the old days of playing Black & White...
I had positioned shortcuts at my sacrificial altar and the daycare, so I could more quickly transport the babies. 16000 faith for a toddler was really effective.

I can't really remember there being much of a hubbub about it on the news either, but I DO recall there was some controversy over Fallout 2.
In todays media landscape, tho? Horrible :p it's probably for the best that childrearing be kept as a mod.

Mmmm... when your first Crèche just makes it easier for your Wolf to fling children into the pit so you can throw more fireballs at Lethys...

Truth be told, and I don't speak on behalf of the dev team on this one, but I'm pretty sure children aren't in or being added because they don't really make much sense in terms of gameplay.

Woman gets pregnant, pops out child, child is borderline useless until it hits a certain age. Now for a game like Dwarf Fortress where playing for a large amount of time is just step one of playing the game RimWorld doesn't have that luxury per-se. I'm not playing my same colony for 18-30 years in game, neither are 90 percent of the current playerbase. Eventually your colony gets boring and you either make a new one, put the game down for a while, or just add a million mods. I mean granted it could be a case of not wanting to annoy censors/parents worldwide but honestly as far as I can tell Tynan doesn't exactly need to advertise the game, it takes care of that on it's own.

[Granitecosmos]

Truth be told, and I don't speak on behalf of the dev team on this one, but I'm pretty sure children aren't in or being added because they don't really make much sense in terms of gameplay.

Woman gets pregnant, pops out child, child is borderline useless until it hits a certain age. Now for a game like Dwarf Fortress where playing for a large amount of time is just step one of playing the game RimWorld doesn't have that luxury per-se. I'm not playing my same colony for 18-30 years in game, neither are 90 percent of the current playerbase. Eventually your colony gets boring and you either make a new one, put the game down for a while, or just add a million mods. I mean granted it could be a case of not wanting to annoy censors/parents worldwide but honestly as far as I can tell Tynan doesn't exactly need to advertise the game, it takes care of that on it's own.

This. Even DF players tend to disable children because they are useless even for that game. 12 years is too damn long, even in that game where time generally flies by a lot faster.

I can't really remember there being much of a hubbub about it on the news either, but I DO recall there was some controversy over Fallout 2.
In todays media landscape, tho? Horrible :p it's probably for the best that childrearing be kept as a mod.

This is the only reason I mentioned PR. Currently, media of every kind is excessively allergic to things like these because apparently everyone is a special snowflake nowadays. Media can make or break games and lives and the least thing I want to see is Ludeon Studios and the dev team getting bashed all over in social media sites. There is a reason why children are undying in Fallout 4 and it's not for gameplay reasons.

[Third_Of_Five]

Fine, let's ignore the possible PR hit. You guys still fail to address the elephant in the room, though.

Children could do cleaning and even sowing/harvesting with an appropriate work speed penalty. But they can't tailor, they can't smith, they can't treat wounds, they can't tame animals, they can't haul 25 kg stone chunks, they can't cook, they can't research, they can't shoot a firearm without serious injuries to their underdeveloped muscles and bones, they can't realistically use melee against an adult opponent with any realistic success and they'd be taken advantage of by prisoners if they were on warden duty due to how easily one can manipulate children.

Now tell me, what else remains? Wood cutting? Sure, with a 50% work speed reduction. Mining? Sure, but expect a heavy PR shitstorm related to child mining labor and the very high mortality rates it caused in the industrial era.

Like it or not, 90% of jobs in RimWorld are too complex or hard for children.

Children would be dead weight if implemented in a realistic way. Provide an answer to this instead of nitpicking about PR (which is the lesser problem of the two and is only somewhat valid because the next version is the official release). Want an example? Look at Dwarf Fortress. Children are so useless there, most people just turn it off.

I keep hearing this argument over and over, and I keep finding it unconvincing. Why do people seem to think that children are going to be completely useless? I would argue that one of the greatest strengths of adding children to the game is that you can essentially tailor their skills as they grow up. You could mold their entire childhood with proper teaching and training to have whatever skills you want them to have. No need to rely on luck to get a new colonist that might vaguely have the right skills you want: if you want a really good doctor, for example, just have one of the kids grow up as the doctor's apprentice. It might take a few years, but eventually the kid will get really good at medicine and even surpass the doctor you originally had. So with this in mind, I reject the notion that children would just be "dead weight". Children learn very quickly, and this would give them a worthwhile advantage in obtaining valuable skills.

Really the only argument against children that I find somewhat convincing is that it takes too long. I don't think children are useless, but I can understand why someone wouldn't want to spend 12+ in-game years nurturing one. This is, however, completely a matter of subjective opinion.
Beyond that, children would be very useful, provided you are willing to invest the time and effort into raising them.

[tmo97]

literally just what granitecosmos said, literally just that.

[Granitecosmos]

I would argue that one of the greatest strengths of adding children to the game is that you can essentially tailor their skills as they grow up. You could mold their entire childhood with proper teaching and training to have whatever skills you want them to have. No need to rely on luck to get a new colonist that might vaguely have the right skills you want: if you want a really good doctor, for example, just have one of the kids grow up as the doctor's apprentice. It might take a few years, but eventually the kid will get really good at medicine and even surpass the doctor you originally had. So with this in mind, I reject the notion that children would just be "dead weight". Children learn very quickly, and this would give them a worthwhile advantage in obtaining valuable skills.

Really the only argument against children that I find somewhat convincing is that it takes too long. I don't think children are useless, but I can understand why someone wouldn't want to spend 12+ in-game years nurturing one. This is, however, completely a matter of subjective opinion.
Beyond that, children would be very useful, provided you are willing to invest the time and effort into raising them.

This is true. Both the potential to make them learn skills and possibly have passions/incapabilities based on that and the fact it takes too damn long.

But keep a few things in mind. First, the average lifespan of a player-made colony is easily less than 10 years. This means the benefits this would bring wouldn't be seen by many players at all. Second, the fact that making such a new and complex system is not going to happen because devs have stated no completely new game mechanics will be added after B18. Maybe, just maybe an after-release patch but I wouldn't bet on it. And third, children entering the map. They shouldn't be part of a raid (no way a 110 years old child can properly handle a sword or a rifle), so the only way for them to appear other than birth is as wanderers/drop-pod refugees/slaves. Wanderers stop appearing after you get a few colonists. Same for drop-pod refugees and slavers stop selling slaves after you have more than a handful of colonists for balance reasons too so good luck with that. A change for this could be justified if children remained mostly useless until they grew up. But considering these children weren't part of the colony from the very beginning, the game would have to add a special partial system for them as well so you have some influence but not as much as you have for children born in the colony. And then we have potential exploits with people harvesting newborn infant organs and selling them so they'd have to add new "child-sized" organs with decreased value (since increasing the mood penalty won't work; players can just make a secondary one-man colony with a psychopath doctor to cheat the system entirely even in the current version of the game, or just do it the normal way; current mood system is not hard at all: +10 from joy which is basically a free buff, +5 from comfort due to chairs on work station interaction tiles, bonuses for nice dining/rec/bedrooms; it's too easy to keep the mood high, this is why devs had to hit organ values directly in the past already).

This would be a very complex thing to add and balance. Better leave it in mod territory and leave the balance issues to the mod author.

[Third_Of_Five]

This is true. Both the potential to make them learn skills and possibly have passions/incapabilities based on that and the fact it takes too damn long.

But keep a few things in mind. First, the average lifespan of a player-made colony is easily less than 10 years. This means the benefits this would bring wouldn't be seen by many players at all. Second, the fact that making such a new and complex system is not going to happen because devs have stated no completely new game mechanics will be added after B18. Maybe, just maybe an after-release patch but I wouldn't bet on it. And third, children entering the map. They shouldn't be part of a raid (no way a 110 years old child can properly handle a sword or a rifle), so the only way for them to appear other than birth is as wanderers/drop-pod refugees/slaves. Wanderers stop appearing after you get a few colonists. Same for drop-pod refugees and slavers stop selling slaves after you have more than a handful of colonists for balance reasons too so good luck with that. A change for this could be justified if children remained mostly useless until they grew up. But considering these children weren't part of the colony from the very beginning, the game would have to add a special partial system for them as well so you have some influence but not as much as you have for children born in the colony. And then we have potential exploits with people harvesting newborn infant organs and selling them so they'd have to add new "child-sized" organs with decreased value (since increasing the mood penalty won't work; players can just make a secondary one-man colony with a psychopath doctor to cheat the system entirely even in the current version of the game, or just do it the normal way; current mood system is not hard at all: +10 from joy which is basically a free buff, +5 from comfort due to chairs on work station interaction tiles, bonuses for nice dining/rec/bedrooms; it's too easy to keep the mood high, this is why devs had to hit organ values directly in the past already).

This would be a very complex thing to add and balance. Better leave it in mod territory and leave the balance issues to the mod author.

You are right that children would be a complicated and difficult feature to implement, but I don't see how this changes anything about my original point. Children would not be 'useless', as you claim, and rather I have come to the conclusion that the source of the controversy around this issue is whether or not people are willing to invest the huge amount of time in raising children in order to reap the benefits. Which, like I already said, is entirely a matter of opinion.

Also, you said "devs have stated no completely new game mechanics will be added after B18"
Could I get a source for this? I was not aware that the devs made such a statement.

[Crow_T]

You know what the most annoying part of Lost, Breaking Bad, and The Walking Dead are? The frickin' babies. No babies plz. Drop pods make pawns sterile, dontcha know? There's some sort of a pollen floating around on the planet that makes conception impossible as well. True facts.  Babies are lame. Down with babies in video games. Don't need 'em, don't want 'em neither. If you want a negative byproduct of lovin' how about STDs instead? Seems much more thematic to Rimworld. Burning pee > babies. Did I mention no babies? No babies.

[Third_Of_Five]

You know what the most annoying part of Lost, Breaking Bad, and The Walking Dead are? The frickin' babies. No babies plz. Drop pods make pawns sterile, dontcha know? There's some sort of a pollen floating around on the planet that makes conception impossible as well. True facts.  Babies are lame. Down with babies in video games. Don't need 'em, don't want 'em neither. If you want a negative byproduct of lovin' how about STDs instead? Seems much more thematic to Rimworld. Burning pee > babies. Did I mention no babies? No babies.

I'm confused, is this satire?