Ship part crashes containing space soldiers

Swarx · September 19, 2018, 12:01:30 PM

It's interesting how ancient soldiers can be found in cryptosleep pods in ancient ruins; I've always gotten the impression that they were something along the lines of 'hypersleep reservists' that were essentially being kept in stasis until a crisis happened, but they were never activated due to the collapse of their society.

Other events involving soldiers might be fun as well, such as ship part crashes. In these specific cases, I think they'd have to be renamed to their original form of 'space soldier' rather than 'ancient soldier'. Perhaps they could spawn with identical outfits, probably either green, black, red or blue, either made from synthread, hyperweave or cloth. Kevlar and simple helmets would be worn, and perhaps they could use 'biolocked' charge rifles so that players can't easily get advanced weapons. In later games, they could arrive with marine armor.

Main description

A mysterious crashed piece of a spaceship. It may contain exotic materials, computers, or crew members. It has the markings of a space navy, suggesting that it possibly belongs to a petty space empire, a planetary republic, or an authoritarian regime. Either way, any crew still inside will most likely view this Rimworld's inhabitants as hostile.

Variants

Jammer ship part crash: This spacer ship part is equipped with radio jamming equipment, which will make it impossible for you to use your comm console or receive communications from factions until it is destroyed.

Signaller ship part crash: This spacer ship part is emitting a distress call to whatever long-lost government it once belonged to. This is dangerous to your colony, as it will increase the frequency of raids on your colony as enemies pick up the signal. The signal will only cease if the ship part is destroyed.

EMP ship part crash: This spacer ship part is emitting EMP waves that will fry your power systems and cause more frequent short circuiting until it is destroyed.

Kirby23590 · September 20, 2018, 12:49:22 AM

Hmmm instrumenting...

I may like this since it almost reminds me of the crashlanding mod prison blocks but more worse, but with good equipment & bionics they have with them including power armor.

I don't if mechanoids or human enemies are worse. But they are good for getting recruits & free bionics or organs if they survive or their equipment. Heck my guys are armed to the teeth & know how to fight them raiders all the time, decked out with sniper rifles & assault rifles with some melee in mid or late-game.

This can be very interesting & lead to parts to be saying, oh no not this, this is Bad!! Or Good!! Free items & free guns!!

+1

Emulsion · September 20, 2018, 02:46:16 AM

I like the idea, diversity is always good

+1

BLACK_FR · September 20, 2018, 02:23:45 PM

I like that idea. More different challenges - more fun.

Alerter · September 20, 2018, 04:16:47 PM

Good idea, but it requires too much balancing.

First of all, how will other factions/raiders react to those soldiers? Signaller ship part crash can probably just kill them after a few raids, potentially rewarding players with tons of resources for nothing in return. Jammer ship part crash and EMP ship part crash can be just annoying (tribe run challenge says hi), but not deadly (unless you're using hydroponics). Therefore, players can get a decent defense by just ignoring this event.

Also, those soldiers must have their source of food. Making farms is not going to work against a human players (there are there are too much options to burn/destroy it), so I assume that their ship should generate food for them (just like hive for insectoids). Or they will constantly receive cargo pods from their "dead civilization". It just looks strange for me: probably doable and maybe logical, but strange.

Anyway, that could be a nice addition to a RimWorld's story. There are definitely good points in your idea overall.

Swarx · September 20, 2018, 04:22:00 PM

Quote from: Alerter on September 20, 2018, 04:16:47 PM
Good idea overall, but it requires too much balancing.

First of all, how will other factions/raiders react to those soldiers? Signaller ship part crash can probably just kill them after a few raids, potentially rewarding players with tons of resources for nothing in return. Jammer ship part crash and EMP ship part crash can be just annoying (tribe run challenge says hi), but not deadly (unless you using hydroponics). Therefore, players can get a decent defense by just ignoring this event.

Also, those soldiers must have their source of food. Making farms is not going to work against a human players (there are too much options to burn/destroy it), so I assume that their ship should generate food for them (just like hive for insectoids). Or they will constantly receive cargo pods from their "dead civilization". It just looks strange for me: probably doable and maybe logical, but strange.

Anyway, that could be a nice addition to a RimWorld's story. There are definitely good points in your idea overall.

I was thinking that they would only appear when the ship part is damaged (similar to mechanoids), rather than spawn immediately. Raiders arriving from the signaller ship would assume it was a signal from the colony and possibly ignore the ship part rather than agitate it.

Alerter · September 20, 2018, 04:43:21 PM

QuoteI was thinking that they would only appear when the ship part is damaged (similar to mechanoids), rather than spawn immediately. Raiders arriving from the signaller ship would assume it was a signal from the colony and possibly ignore the ship part rather than agitate it.

Yeah, I also thought about that. The question is: how will space soldiers behave after appearing from the ship? Can they just defend it and sustain their needs, similar to mechanoids? Probably no. But even if they will assault colony right after their ship will be damaged, good timing can just force them to fight your next raid (which can be spawned by them). What I am trying to say is simple: in many scenarios those conditions can't really force players to destroy that ship as fast as possible, rather than just abusing it (unlike poison/psychic ships).

Swarx · September 20, 2018, 04:59:10 PM

Quote from: Alerter on September 20, 2018, 04:43:21 PM
QuoteI was thinking that they would only appear when the ship part is damaged (similar to mechanoids), rather than spawn immediately. Raiders arriving from the signaller ship would assume it was a signal from the colony and possibly ignore the ship part rather than agitate it.

Yeah, I also thought about that. The question is: how will space soldiers behave after appearing from the ship? Can they just defend it and sustain their needs, similar to mechanoids? Probably no. But even if they will assault colony right after their ship will be damaged, good timing can just force them to fight your next raid (which can be spawned by them). What I am trying to say is simple: in many scenarios those conditions can't really force players to destroy that ship as fast as possible (just like poison/psychic ships can do).

Yeah, poison ships and physic ships do cause a sense of urgency. But it might make it more interesting to have some ship events where you actually have a choice on whether to deal with it, though. Having the option to put up the ill effects of the ship and trying to live with it.

EMP ships would cause a lot of problems for large colonies I think, since big freezers would stop working.

If you have a jammer ship on the map, you could still receive popups for passing trade ships, fleeing pawns, etc., but in a distorted form and no real option to do anything. Just so it reminds you what you're missing out on.

I've never been able to intentionally sic mechanoids on raiders, or anything similar- so I guess that'd just take a crafty player in regard to the signaller. And if the player somehow draws out the spacers and flees, the spacers could potentially just leave the map instead of doing a suicide assaults. Could just be up to chance.