World map and faction interactions fleshed out

[glowner]

I think it'd be wonderful if the world map and faction interactions could be fleshed out more. My ideas would be more event based interaction with other factions, more insentive to go on caravan, more pack animals to make it easier to happen and maybe add some new techs that could help with food preservation and creation while on the caravan, like lets say, a tech for animal driven carts, you can bring along more weight with you, or you could strap on a fridge on them to be able to carry perishables.

i think its a shame that currently the caravan feature and the faction interractions are way more hassle than theyre worth. I'd love for the world map to be a way to make you feel like instead  of your game being centered on your colony, it'd highlight the fact that you indeed are stuck on a foreign planet, you indeed are a part of the planet as much as the other factions.

another idea i had was, what if you added biome spesific goods, like exotic fruits that can only be grown in the jungle that give a mood buff or something or other. you could piggy back off of this idea and add the possibility of establishing trade routes between factions, where you get a discount on resources transported across that trade route, but it has a chance of being raided and your income source being weakened. it would add a layer of liveliness to the game.

you could also add a feature where you'd get factions or single settlements to join your faction, they could provide cheap goods and defence help, and you would need to supply them from time to time and maybe help with defence once youve researched launch pods.

my main complaint is just, the game still feels awfully centered around you. i want it to be more, i want to grow my faction to a planetary power, i want to feel apart of something bigger than just my own colony.

[BasileusMaximos]

You are correct in saying that interaction on the world map is far from interesting or worthwhile.

The root of the problem is caravans. Sending out caravans is dangerous and a hassle and I see people using them more as a self-imposed challenge mechanic for nomad colonies than anything else. Since caravans are you primary way of interacting with the world at large it is important that using them is easy, or better yet, engaging.

In terms of making caravans easier to use, the game should allow caravans to automatically collect the amount and type of food for the journey they need. It will remove a tedious step in the caravan forming process. Pawns should also be able to apply medicine and first aid outside of a sleeping spot so that medics can stabilize and treat pawns on the spot if they get ambushed. Being able to set up continuous trade routes that don't need your constant attention would also go far in making world-map interaction more worthwhile.

In terms of making caravans more engaging as well as more useful I think the obvious choice is the addition of vehicles of various tech-levels which provide transport for pawns and goods. Primitives and medieval factions can have wagons of various types and should of course be allowed to ride certain trainable animals. Industrial factions should get trucks and such which consume fuel instead of food. Spacer factions can get flying transports that make traversing even a 100% sized world trivial. The higher your tech, the longer your reach and the more you'll become invested in the world beyond your colony.

Hopefully now that the game is in 1.0 Tynan will start making DLC which will be heftier and more focused than a regular update. I'd fully suggest that the first piece of DLC add vehicle's as well as an overhaul of how factions behave (Attacking one-another, founding colonies, being less centralized, trading with eachother, etc...)

[TheWranger]

I think it would also be better if factions weren't just randomly spread out across the world like they are right now. It makes absolutely no sense to me why there would be a single unified pirate faction (doesn't this sort of go against the whole point of pirates?).

Would be nice if we saw factions fighting over isles as I imagine those would be regions of interest, especially if there isn't already another faction with a colony on that isle.