A more lively world (bad things happening to more than just your colony)

Started by Goldenpotatoes, November 14, 2017, 01:10:38 AM

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Goldenpotatoes

A17/A18 has done a lot in expanding the world map and encouraging players to leave their colonies for events, but at the same time this is only further exposing the fact that apart from a faction leader occasionally dying, nothing even remotely interesting happens to faction settlements. It's like there's a magnet attached to each player colony that draws every single bad/good event to them on the planet.

It doesn't even necessarily have to be hugely content-adding, just some sort of randomly done tidbits that the player can hear about via messages. Maybe Cliff-On-The-Hill was raided by the Phantom Dongers and are asking for military aid. What about that terrible blight that wiped out half of Table-Piooner's crop and are now in need of some surplus food to help with the coming winter months? Maybe a crashed ship part spawns a horde of mechanoids that managed to wipe Redtrunk-Plains off the map entirely, leaving only ruins on the world map. It doesn't even necessarily have to be all bad, it could be good things like friendly factions boasting of their bountiful harvest this season or maybe striking lucky and uncovering an ancient tomb filled with old-world valuables.

Stuff like this would really help flesh out the world around the player to make it seem more lively and even potentially provide more ways to help raise reputation with those said factions/kick them while their already down.



anotherrimworld

+1. I want to put my bionic supermen to good use instead of forcing them to act exclusively as a death squad in the immediate area

mistomaxo

yeah, youre right. despite the hard work going into the caravaning and questing systems, it feels like your colony's the only really living place in a region

when the toxic fallout or the dust plume that causes a years-long winter comes, how are the other factions handling it?

this sort of thing may be well expressed not only thru the comms console, but perhaps thru a new radio/radio tower to listen in on news from other lands, or antenna and dish for your tv to pick up on channels from other lands.

Third_Of_Five

Yeah, I find it odd that while you are struggling to survive all the surrounding towns seem to be doing just fine. Maybe there could be random events where a nearby town is destroyed or abandoned due to a raid or natural disaster, or conversely, a random event where a new town is created by another faction settling a new area?

BadgeAddict

Additionally, it would be nice to see raiders taking over tribal villages, or tribes expanding to new locations or villages creating new settlements across the map.

Third_Of_Five

Quote from: BadgeAddict on November 14, 2017, 02:58:50 PM
Additionally, it would be nice to see raiders taking over tribal villages, or tribes expanding to new locations or villages creating new settlements across the map.

This. It should probably be rare for these events to happen, but it would be really cool to have different factions fighting over territory.

Limdood

I don't mind seeing "stuff" happen to other factions...new bases appear, some are destroyed or change hands, etc.

A "news update" would be cool too, as your world changes over time.

But i don't see much justification for "come help our village fight off the attackers"....it already makes little sense that when the player calls for help, help is there immediately...with hours to days to weeks travel times, depending on terrain and season, there's little chance that any player could be expected to arrive at a friendly settlement in time to help.

Goldenpotatoes

Quote from: Limdood on November 14, 2017, 03:59:11 PM
I don't mind seeing "stuff" happen to other factions...new bases appear, some are destroyed or change hands, etc.

A "news update" would be cool too, as your world changes over time.

But i don't see much justification for "come help our village fight off the attackers"....it already makes little sense that when the player calls for help, help is there immediately...with hours to days to weeks travel times, depending on terrain and season, there's little chance that any player could be expected to arrive at a friendly settlement in time to help.

The immediate aid requests are odd but you can wave it off as the group drop podding outside the colony and coming in on foot. The player could do the same as well, so them requesting their own military aid isn't exactly that far-fetched.

BadgeAddict

But how do they know to come and help if I didn't ask them to.

I personally wish there was a better way to go about building faction relationships than just, wham, these guys are friendlies and these ones aren't. I mean, you're crashlanding on a rimworld...you don't know these people and they don't know you. Why not start everyone buy pirates off at 0 and let you the colonists F stuff up.