What's the most lacking part of Rimworld for you, and how would you improve it?

[EnterTheNameHere]

Minimap.

Get that colonist running around with wrench to do something productive - make a f****ng radar or something so we can see all the spies in the immediate surroundings. I mean animals. Definitely animals, no ninjas.

[Foefaller]

Two big ones for me:

1.) Lack of uses for surface water. No, I'm not preaching for a thirst meter or irrigation for plants, but I mean more things like the Hydro generator that's already been mentioned for 1.0, things like fishing, bridges, building moats, rafts, water freezing over in the winter and possibly drying up in the summer, Things that make water interesting and potentially useful, not simply a hassle to basebuilding.

2.)Personal interactions between faction members. You get a visitor, they stay for a while, leave... and you often never see then again. I'd love to see land caravans or explorers comprised of the same people that do regular trips (especially if your colony is on or near a road) with pawns making friendships and even romances with visitors. Could probably lead to some new interesting ways to get new recruits as well.

[MisterVertigo]

Two big ones for me:

1.) Lack of uses for surface water. No, I'm not preaching for a thirst meter or irrigation for plants, but I mean more things like the Hydro generator that's already been mentioned for 1.0, things like fishing, bridges, building moats, rafts, water freezing over in the winter and possibly drying up in the summer, Things that make water interesting and potentially useful, not simply a hassle to basebuilding.

2.)Personal interactions between faction members. You get a visitor, they stay for a while, leave... and you often never see then again. I'd love to see land caravans or explorers comprised of the same people that do regular trips (especially if your colony is on or near a road) with pawns making friendships and even romances with visitors. Could probably lead to some new interesting ways to get new recruits as well.

I would agree with both of these. I'd love to see a good use for the water on the maps. Also, I know of the hospitality mod for visitors. It feels a bit unbalanced though, as it was too easy to gain colonists. I really like the idea of colonists having romances with visitors, and then they could possibly come join your base, or if they are unhappy enough, leave yours to go to them!

[Kiter5]

I'd be happy if my colonist could put their own bandage on their own extremely minor cut.
They get food on their own when they ae hungry, Why can they do some simple 1st aid on their own scratches?

[Mihsan]

I'd be happy if my colonist could put their own bandage on their own extremely minor cut.
They get food on their own when they ae hungry, Why can they do some simple 1st aid on their own scratches?

There is a "self-tend" switch in pawn's health tab. Dont you know about it?

[Taramafor]

Vehicles for faster caravan speed. Current tech and "future tech" alike. Maybe we could have bikes, cars and trucks. Spaceship should probably be the only "future tech" vehicle. Unless we're talking about very small single piloted ones (helicopters and jets maybe?).

These things wouldn't really work in the "top down colony map" movement wise (building them wise, sure) but I can see the potential to use these things on the world map. A bit like in Xcom. We could build them and see them and maybe use the bikes on the colony map but the others can be world map only. They would of course all need chemfuel. So they can't just be overused and cheesed either.

Imagine if the enemy also had things like this. We could get AA turrets set up and the like. A big shadow could represent an enemy chopper on the colony map if it's too much work to animate the chopper moving itself. The enemy ground troops can move in at the same time or it could be a single chopper to harass the player.

Ultimately it feels like all we deal with are raiders when we could be fighting more organised enemy types. I don't want just weak enemies. I want enemies armed to the teeth as long as we can have the same tech advantages. The "high tech" we are the more we could be on the radar of higher tech factions. Friendly and enemy alike. The star wars mod makes the game feel more challenging because of the tech they have. I want to fight rimworld version of the brootherhood and enclave, not face tribes and raiders 24/7 in fallout. A faction should be more then "Same type of people with a different name here".

[ceofiofy]

1-I think Fishing should exist and if there should be another way to get food easily, it would be fishing and depending on the biome different types of fishes will appear that are either tasty or gross.

Totally agree with you Kirby. The rivers are dead right now... I only use a river as a strategic advantage during fights.
Also, water was left behind. It must have had a bigger impact in a game like this.

[KozmoD]

1 - Water mechanics. Things like generators, fishing, water animals, but also thrist, irrigation and maybe a sewer/hygiene system. Water opens up so many interresting things, imagine youre are fishing and instead of getting food a manhunter Legged Shark spawns and attack your colonist or youre using the bathroom and a giant rat spawns out of the toilet. Tilting and fun XD

2 - Combat. Right now is the gameplay resumes to "Make a killbox and deal with sappers" but if you dont make a kill box, the game will tear your colony apart every raid. I had a colony that got raided only by tribals, my weapons were mostly bows and pilas, then pirates came with 5 people using shields and swords. They kidnapped half of my colony. I wish we had more types of weapons and armors, stuff like barbed wire to slow raiders. Also a way of knocking someone down, like a Poison Dart would be pretty cool and useful, but also tilting when the raiders have said darts. More eletric/fire weapons, better stuff for melee and different turrets, like what they did with Mortars and maybe Mech weapons.

3 - Animals. Not only more animals, cause they same set of things spawning over and over again gets boring, but make them more useful and interactive. Give us horses so I can raid other bases quicker, war animals trained to kill and only kill, like a armored polar bear with a taste for raiders flesh, trained animals to make people happier, like a therapy dog. And obviously bionics, I want my end game War Rhino with a minigun horn dream to be true.

4 - Human to human interaction. We can only trade with other people, imagine making trading deals with other factions so we get traders in a regular basis bringing things that we ask in exchange of thing they want. Making "No agression Pacts" with pirates in exchange of money and goods. Calling the leaders of the factions to talk and make said deals, but also things like tribals "arranged marriage" to make peace between factions and other love/hate relationships. And this wouldnt be only for your colony. Imagine we get an alert like "The factions X and Y are now in a trading deal" and you can try raid their caravans.

5 - Personality and modifications. This is probably the least "action packed" thing in the list, but I love to see the little interactions between colonists. A better sexuality system would be cool and more complex relationships, also something like "Favorite food" and "Favorite animal" feature (an improvement of the "bond" stuff). If the colonist eat a meal made out of a certain meat/crop it gets a little mood boost for some time. (this opens the possibility of making different food like sandwitch, pizza, cake and other things) and with you have X animal as a pet in your colony, that colonist will get the same little mood boost. Imagine something "John's favorite food is simple sandwitch with pork. And its favorite animal for pets are Elephants".
And for modifications, I really want to see a "non baseline human" genetically modified to do/be a certain thing, or a human that evolved in a different planet. Like a heat/fire resistent human that evolved in a Inferno Desert planet. Or a modified model made to be extremely beautiful.

6 - A complete rework of certain mechanics like "Incapable of X" and the trading system. Its really annoying to get a "wanderer joins" and it cant do shit. And have trade every single little thing one by one, having to stare at the trading window literally hurts my eyes. The economy of the game could be more flexible, I would love to put my prices on things.

[nefarian11]

Backstories (and occasionally relations). I play Rimworld in a RP heavy way, and backstories play an enormous part.

I can't stand when i see a pawn with a medieval/midworld childhood that somehow ended up being a space marine in some imperial navy, or a researcher close to discovering the secrets of transcension. It's even worse when they have a relation that doesn't make sense at all, like Vatgrowns having parents.

I think that maybe creating different categories for backstories based on their technology level could help, so that no medieval farm boy grows up to be a mechanoid hacker or something like that.

[Mufflamingo]

Give them favorites

Favorite dish - Example would be the vegetable garden mod with its cooking add ons. I like to give that meat pie to Jack who is working so hard. Because he deserves that favorite pie of his.

Favorite pet - Like bonded pet but more severe penalty if died and if not the current master

Favorite room/hangout - Will choose a random spot in the colony. It will give mood boost if he/she is inside that room or mood penalties if the room is dirty or destroyed (Will get favorite room destoryed debuff for couple of weeks)

Favorite artist - People like Jack's sculptures! Make more of them!

Favorite weapon - I like knives! I like that pistol! I like that MEGA MACHINE GUN!!!

Favorite the list goes on and on

But this is just for me. This is so impossible to be put in the game.

[Jackalvin]

Animals. Just ANIMALS!
I hate that my rat terrier can't do anything but fight, and gets their lil legs torn off by a horde of rats.
I thinks some animals should have unique training, like boars can charge and knock someone over, a warg could disarm, Bears could grapple, and yes, rat terriers can sniff out infestations before they occur. So finally, your rat, cat, and bat (if that's implemented) can be useful.

[loc978]

On the subject of animals... one of the most frustrating things in the game for me has to do with predator AI as it relates to combat.

If I keep a pack of combat trained bears/dogs/wolves/muffalo/boars/cougars/rats/tortoises in my colony, they should be territorial. A hunting predator should not be able to get into my compound without having to fight all of them, much less attack any of my people or animals (members of the pack) without being swarmed.

Probably not an easy thing to simulate... but it's enough of a glaring weakness that I just don't deal with animals anymore. Kill on sight policy for all of em.

[Call me Arty]

If I keep a pack of combat trained bears/dogs/wolves/muffalo/boars/cougars/rats/tortoises in my colony, they should be territorial. A hunting predator should not be able to get into my compound without having to fight all of them, much less attack any of my people or animals (members of the pack) without being swarmed.
Probably not an easy thing to simulate... but it's enough of a glaring weakness that I just don't deal with animals anymore. Kill on sight policy for all of em.

Probably not, actually. There could be a set radius around animal spots, boxes, and beds, to keep people from just letting their animals sleep anywhere. That, or there could just be a kind of limited "release" within the designated home area. Wouldn't be too tough.

[Rulin]

I want a better Endgame (goal). Something that gives your colony and its inhabitants some kind of persistence.

It would be cool to convert them into a "legacy colony" at the end, so there is a chance they will appear as a faction in future worlds.

[Shurp]

My biggest complaint right now is the missed shot mechanic.  Have three pawns standing next to each other behind sandbags.  Have someone shoot at the one in the center.  The two next to him will get brutalized, because cover doesn't apply to missed shots as far as I can tell.  This makes fighting centipedes a real pain in the ass...