Issues that I found when I played RimWorld

Started by _Rainbow, December 01, 2018, 06:41:23 PM

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_Rainbow

Hi guys. So I wrote this text document a short time ago and I forgot to upload it. It contains suggestions of my personal view of Rimworld, suggestions to improve the game and fix general annoying things. Feel free to read or whatever.

//- Introduction.
I am a game developer myself and I also use Unity3D to make my games. I am interested in seeing Rimworld become a really cool and awesome game since I really enjoy playing it.
I have carried out an analysis on version 1.0 of the game and I would like to bring the following points to your attention.
Some of these tips are related to micromanagement and general difficulty playing the game and also some entries which break immersion.
Note: These are suggestions and tips based on my personal observation of the game, so apologies in advance if I am too 'abrasive'.
   Also this list is not entirely complete, however I will not be writing another observation again if majority of the immersion issues are fixed. (unless you want me to? Idk bye)

Organized (sort of) by category:

//- Micromanagement issues
-- When new pawns are fleeing from a colony, they are forced to join the colony, rather than being a refugee. This makes it harder to micromanage your colony.
-- There are no ways to 'banish' an undesirable colonist without the other colonists feeling bad from that colonist dying; they seem linked even through the world map.
   - They should not have to be arrested to be banished, rather sent on a dead-end mission on the world map seems sufficient enough.
   - Even if these new pawns have not met the pawns in your base (or acquaintance) the other pawns still care if they die. (even if they barely knew them or never met them!)
-- Similarly, colonists don't care when a colonist is missing for too long.
-- Colonists don't follow any First in, First out (FIFO) rules when maintaining food. Food can sit there and rot while newer food is eaten first.
   - This can be worked around by assigning food that has low hit points to another area, but colonists can still use newer food first.
-- Doors that are marked 'hold open' don't get held open if there is another door next to it that is already held open.
-- Pawns that are incapable of hauling can still haul items to their work, complete the work and haul the finished product.
-- Storage spaces don't seem to be customizable enough to allow assembly lines to be built in secure and clean areas.
   - Setting the output of a particular production bench to a specified storage space would be good.
   - Letting pawns automatically sort deteriorating items by item health. (or making a machine or mech do it)
   - Maybe conveyor belts and sorting machines? Seems applicable for this sort of game.
-- Automation and allocation of items, rather than having to create 100 different storage areas for different categories and qualities of items.
   (Copy and Paste helps thanks)
-- Graves are marked as part of the home area, but what if you want to make a graveyard far from your buildings so pawns don't look at it?
   (They will still clean it and put out fires in that area, reducing their mood)

- Event issues
-- Event generation seems to be more random, rather than situation based. Here are a few examples:
   -Electrical shorts happen randomly without taking into consideration the builder's skill level,
   -Eclipses happen without taking into consideration planetary orbit,
   -Colonists seem to get diseases like malaria without apparent disease sources like mosquitoes or dirty water
-- There are no ways to prevent some preventable incidents (ex: fuses for electrical shorts).
-- Malaria is very nasty in itself, but the game should have a way to cure it effectively (even at great cost), if it is to stay the way it is.

//- Immersion issues
-- Colonists cannot provide food to animals when they are starving without that animal needing rescue.
-- Large rooms are marked as 'outside' even if they are missing one single door or wall panel.
-- Roofs are sometimes not completely built and they can be hard to see without viewing the roof tab.
-- Buildings like campfires for example, cannot be 'deactivated', rather they must be deconstructed and rebuild to demand.
-- Air conditioners still drain power (albeit at a lower level) when the target temperature is reached, or if they are in a colder area.
-- Colonists don't keep their skills at max level even if they are repeatedly trained in that skill again and again.
-- Some stories (like those of factions and pawns) don't explain events and stories in enough depth:
   - The 'story generator' seems to be more of an event generator instead:
   - Ancient tribes don't explain the origins of that tribe in enough detail ("Maybe their ancestors...", "Maybe they survived...").
   - Pawns don't show exactly WHY they are running away from pirates or guards when they are fleeing.
   - Some job titles and professions on pawns seem a bit unrealistic for a space age game ("Medieval doctor").
   - The games does take into account cultures (to a limited degree), however it assigns random jobs for all factions.
   - Visitor pawns and other pawns don't show their entire event history, rather only the time they entered the map (this might be too unrealistic to implement fully).
   - While some stores are fun and interesting to read, there seems to only be a limited amount of them, making them appear generic.
-- Pawns that are 'banished' (on current workaround) currently are still tracked and generate alerts when they are about to die or metal break.
-- Pawns that hate each other that much to the point they fight all the time still care if their rival dies.
-- Pawns that barely met each other can instantly be rivals or hate each other. (seems a bit hyper-realistic).
-- The game can instantly sway to one side and all colonists can die, even on base builder mode.

//- Inconsistencies
-- Pawns available for purchase in a slave trader (untested elsewhere) don't have their chronological age shown.

//- Misc issues
-- When playing the game on fast speed, thunderstorms can causes quite an annoyance when playing on subwoofers and surround sound.
-- Pawns can get stuck if they are able to build walls and wall themselves in.
-- Pet pawns don't notify the player if they are sick or about to die.
-- Certain types of pawns have unused statistics and these could be removed to save RAM.
   -Pets don't get to shoot guns. Or mine.. or be colonists..or.. wait. even receiving and performing operations? You're nuts mate.

//- Just a bit of funny stuff I noticed
-- It costs steel to build concrete. Um yea that's some small concrete truck u got there...
   - It costs one more steel for concrete tiles... Should I even be wondering about this?
-- I have a female colonist named David...
--

//- Additions
-- Adding a new work type (Inspector) to allow a qualified and trained pawn to inspect and carry out audits, especially on electrical buildings.
-- Adding fuses to help mitigate the electrical short event would be good, since these events can cripple advanced and late game colonies without warning.
-- Allow creation and deletion of water tiles (bridges are super awesome by the way)
-- Concrete or stone (or even plasteel) bridges that don't break under pressure, but cost more to build.
-- Allowing direction of animal pawns to do direct actions on base builder mode. ([IRL]Since I can tell my own dog to fetch something in particular)
## The following entries don't necessarily need to benefit the player or show any extra HUD elements or anything:
-- Only just a few more weapons to add to the collection, like sniper rifles.
-- Attachments for weapons like silencers, extended ammo clips, rate of fire controllers (burst/single round) and scopes, to name a few.
-- Stealth equipment such as throwing knives, timed explosives, hacking equipment to make raiding more interesting.
-- A stealth and detection system to match.
-- Missions requiring stealth and stealing items of interest from other factions and giving them to factions for payment.
-- Vehicles or other carrying devices to make carrying large quantities of items easier for pawns, rather than relying on animals.
## End
-- Tie in these additions with different faction types, and other enemy pawns should be able to use all of these new additions against the player's faction.
   - Imagine if they could hack turrets.. That would be problematic..

pllovervoltage

#1
Addressing just a few of your poitns

Doors that are marked 'hold open' don't get held open if there is another door next to it that is already held open.
I can't seem to replicate this. I can hold open doors that are side by side and in front of each other. Picture?
Setting the output of a particular production bench to a specified storage space would be good.
You can do this in-game
Letting pawns automatically sort deteriorating items by item health. (or making a machine or mech do it)
You can set the health of items in storage areas
- Graves are marked as part of the home area, but what if you want to make a graveyard far from your buildings so pawns don't look at it?
You can disable automatically expand home area and there's a tool to expand and clear your home area.
Event issues
These were gameplay decisions made by the devs. And yeah there are people who don't like it and just disable it in dev mode.
Malaria is very nasty in itself, but the game should have a way to cure it effectively (even at great cost), if it is to stay the way it is.
There's a drug to prevent it.
Colonists cannot provide food to animals when they are starving without that animal needing rescue.
You can create a storage area to deliver. It would add a lot of unnecessary computation for a pawn to check each animals food levels(especially if you have a lot of animals) and deliver food to them.
Pawns that are 'banished' (on current workaround) currently are still tracked and generate alerts when they are about to die or metal break
? Think this is more of a bug.
Pawns that hate each other that much to the point they fight all the time still care if their rival dies.
They get a mood bonus?
Pawns that barely met each other can instantly be rivals or hate each other. (seems a bit hyper-realistic)
It has to do with their traits.
Pet pawns don't notify the player if they are sick or about to die.
The game should give you a yellow notif that colonist animals got a disease.

A lot of your additions exist in the form of mods

Modinstaller

#2
Quote from: _Rainbow on December 01, 2018, 06:41:23 PMThere are no ways to 'banish' an undesirable colonist without the other colonists feeling bad from that colonist dying; they seem linked even through the world map.

The pawns losing morale when somebody they don't even know dies or gets banished makes some kind of sense. If someone randomly shows up and wants to join, especially in the context of this game where everyone is kind of in the same undesirable situation of wanting to leave the planet, it does make sense to feel bad for refusing them. In some cases it could almost be a death sentence. What doesn't make sense is that (in my experience) colonists don't lose morale over refusing a refugee chased by people. Their behavior isn't really consistent.

As for the hivemind problem, I started assuming that they're all always in contact. Cases where you send someone out unprepared, he gets sick soon after, and you have to send a doctor to help him wouldn't make sense if your colonists couldn't communicate over long distances. It's weird but not impossible. The same way other factions can send you messages before you've built orbital comms, or some survivors or refugees can ask for help from a distance.

Quote from: _Rainbow on December 01, 2018, 06:41:23 PMPawns that are incapable of hauling can still haul items to their work, complete the work and haul the finished product.

Pawns that can't haul still haul for their job, it is indeed pretty stupid but then again if they couldn't haul anything, ever, they'd be completely useless. You'd have to assign them to mining, farming and gathering. Imagine if they'd refuse to haul medicine or food to their patients !

Quote from: _Rainbow on December 01, 2018, 06:41:23 PMSetting the output of a particular production bench to a specified storage space would be good.

Your suggestions with storage space are already implemented. You can specify where to drop products, and at which range to look for materials. I've configured my smelting and stone-cutting to "do forever", but in a limited range so that when I want something cut, I can order chunks to be hauled which will get done mostly by animals, so that whoever's assigned to crafting can avoid wasting time. If you were talking about choosing where to drop products for a whole bench, then sure, but if you've managed your colony correctly you shouldn't create new crafting orders that often and when you do clicking that "where to drop" button isn't too much of a hassle imo.

Quote from: _Rainbow on December 01, 2018, 06:41:23 PMLetting pawns automatically sort deteriorating items by item health. (or making a machine or mech do it)

Sorting items is possible, kind of. You can make several storage areas with different restrictions and priorities. For example if you're dumping your clothes in a big area but want clothes you've just crafted and which should be worn by colonists to be closer to a wall, you can make two different areas, one which will accept all clothes at a low priority, and another one which only accepts 100-100, untainted clothes at a higher priority. It doesn't solve everything, for example you can't restrict storage down to which material an item is made of, but I'd say it's in a good state.

Quote from: _Rainbow on December 01, 2018, 06:41:23 PMGraves are marked as part of the home area, but what if you want to make a graveyard far from your buildings so pawns don't look at it?
   (They will still clean it and put out fires in that area, reducing their mood)

Graves are only in the home area if you want them to be. You can manage your home area and even disable automatic expansion (I always do). One problem with cleaning that you touched on is that everything in the home area gets cleaned, but you also need your home area to be on or around stuff so that people fight fires there. I don't want my storage area to be cleaned because it really doesn't matter, but if I don't set it as home area and a fire starts there, I'll have to add it until the fire is out and then remove it again. Same thing for power conduits far away from the base linking to geothermal generators. We really need a specific "cleaning area", or "firefighting area", one or the other or both.

Quote from: _Rainbow on December 01, 2018, 06:41:23 PMElectrical shorts happen randomly without taking into consideration the builder's skill level

Yeah it's pretty stupid. The first time this event happened, I checked to see if conduits were "awful" quality or something, but no. It just absolutely has to happen. I don't think it's going away, though. Having quality levels on power conduits would create another problem entirely : quality level is random. Even a colonist with 20 building skill will eventually make a "normal" conduit. Then you'd have to click on each power conduit one by one to spot those which are poor quality, even two clicks for those below walls or furniture ! Maybe only if awful conduits did that, but you don't always start with a skilled builder, so the "click each conduit" problem remains. It seems you've had a lot of problems with this event. I didn't, because I never built batteries. I just used geothermal generators which always supply a constant stream of electricity, so no need for batteries. That way, the event only caused fire and not explosions.

As for your other suggestions for disease and eclipses, I think this simply is not what the game's made for. Calculating planet, moon and sun sizes and rotations is way too much work just to make one event realistic. And then the results would have to be skewed anyway since a normal planet would never have 5 eclipses at the same exact spot in 4 years. Same for disease - and you don't really see insects or know how many of them there are. There's more chance of disease in swamps and tropical forests but it still needs to happen in other biomes or the game'd get boring faster.

I'm not sure whether I had malaria, but it doesn't sound that much worse from other diseases like the plague (which I've had). Just have medicine, a good doctor and let them rest. If you want them to get better sooner, use glitterworld medicine, hospital beds, sterile tiles and all that. You could also just use the disease preventing drug (forgot the name) every 5 days. As a last resort, there's always the very rare and overpowered resurrection serum or healing serum.

Quote from: _Rainbow on December 01, 2018, 06:41:23 PMColonists cannot provide food to animals when they are starving without that animal needing rescue.

Colonists will never feed animals unless they're training them. I found this weird too at first, but it's not too much of a problem if you manage your storage areas correctly. Make some kibble for your animals and if you can't make it, feed them meals or raw food. I also feed them bandits :D

Quote from: _Rainbow on December 01, 2018, 06:41:23 PMColonists don't keep their skills at max level even if they are repeatedly trained in that skill again and again.

This is controversial. Some people think skill decay shouldn't be in the game, some don't. I don't. Without it, colonists would reach 20 way too fast and you'd have super-colonists. This is just a way to make the game harder and I'm okay with it. There's a mod for it though I don't remember the name.

Quote from: _Rainbow on December 01, 2018, 06:41:23 PMThe 'story generator' seems to be more of an event generator instead:

I completely agree. My interested was piqued when I read that this game was a "story generator". But really it's not, in my opinion at least, or else every single procedural generation game ever could be dubbed as such. It's just a survival game with building, crafting, strategy and gestion elements. It's a story generator for people with enough imagination, but for me it's a challenging strategy/survival game.

I also agree that a lot of stuff seems randomly mixed together, but that's just the nature of procedural games. Maybe it could be done better. It doesn't bother me too much at least, that's something that I've accepted is just part of the game. It seems like Rimworld's universe is really crazy, so it makes sense to me. Take a look at this https://rimworldgame.com/backstory

Quote from: _Rainbow on December 01, 2018, 06:41:23 PMPawns that barely met each other can instantly be rivals or hate each other. (seems a bit hyper-realistic).

I agree this is weird. I don't take it as them actually being "rivals", more as an indicator that they don't like each other. You have to admit that there's a good chance somebody "staggeringly ugly" is going to take more shit than the average person, even in our society. It's just a hard truth. But there should also be some people with specific traits that make them care less about appearances. Seems weird that two ugly colonists would dislike each other, you'd figure they'd at least find some common grounds and be able to relate empathically. Maybe something that increases relations between two persons that have the same traits ?

As for vehicles, why not but seems really hard to implement. Stealth just really doesn't seem like it'd fit in Rimworld, and also way too hard to implement.

asanbr

Quote-- Adding fuses to help mitigate the electrical short event would be good, since these events can cripple advanced and late game colonies without warning.

The solution to electrical shorts is to have spare batteris that are not installed. When the short happens, install those batteries and you're back online immediately.

I've also seen people split up their electrical network into 2 or 3 disconnected parts which have separate power plants and sets of batteries, so that if one short circuit happens, it never shuts down the whole base.

5thHorseman

Quote from: asanbr on December 02, 2018, 06:01:21 PM
The solution to electrical shorts is to have spare batteris that are not installed. When the short happens, install those batteries and you're back online immediately.

I like to have two banks of 2-3 batteries, each behind a switch. Ideally both would be full and their switches off. When there's a zzzt, just toggle a switch on. Then remember to toggle it off when the batteries are full. If you forget and get another zzzt, then at least you had the other bank of batteries still disconnected.
Toolboxifier - Soil Clarifier
I never got how pawns in the game could have such insanely bad reactions to such mundane things.
Then I came to the forums.