Social activities on a new level?

[Somz]

I've failed to find a suggestion such as this (though I didn't exactly commit a thorough search), in case there is, just say the word.

So we have our occasional visitors eating our food and dropping our FPS.
But social skill (aside from giving happiness/modifying prices) is pretty much useless as of yet.

It'd be good in my opinion to give this skill a probably more valuable use, an alternative recruiting option, such as talking to the visitors, persuading them to join you without having to bleed on everything.
This would also open up a lot more options, such as the (already suggested) "visitor" beds for visitors (instant use of persuasion), dropping relations as consequences, raid for the said recruit events,
sleepovers (+relation, already suggested), etcetera, etcetera...

Yes, I realize there's a priority order and this wouldn't exactly be on the first place but still.

What do you think?

[theapolaustic1]

I want to see a lot more done with the social skill in future updates. FFS, the game doesn't even have difficulty levels (even though it does), they're "storytellers". What kinda story doesn't have dialogue beyond "Had a social chat x3"? Make it so that in combat, the guy with the best social skill starts barking out orders and people get a bonus (to mood, to shooting/melee, to both, who cares) based on proximity and how good his skill is. Have high-social characters who don't have prisoners to play "count the lights" with seek out low morale characters and give them a pick-me-up. Maybe even make people get annoyed from interactions with low-social characters, or for those characters to go out of their way to avoid high traffic areas.

Give us bonds between colonists. I'm not asking for Simsworld here, I don't need to sit down and start a family and try to get twins. But hasn't it always struck you as a bit odd that the guy whose wife you shot a week ago can be trusted with a gun now that the warden's taken the time to really sit down and explain everything? Give us friendships, rivalries, "battle brothers", maybe even the rare romantic fling; all those royal beds look really lonely to me with only one colonist sleeping in them.  Two pirates captured from the same faction both end up in your colony and were buddies back at the pirate base, suddenly both of them are in much better spirits because there's someone around that they know (and doesn't have a bit of a grudge left over from that whole "shot at me" thing). An outlander village attacks you after you arrested a visitor and converted her, and when faced with her former friends down the sights, she has a psychotic breakdown. A vatgrown soldier can't handle the stress after a long fight and starts firing on his own men, until his wife comes in to calm him down.

(Hell, make marriage a bona fide random event on that note, I'm sure the normalcy of such a thing would give most colonists a morale boost that would fit such a thing.)

Another nice thing to have in regard to the social skill would be for the table "gather point" thing to be used more interestingly. I really want colonists to end up with more free time as things progress, right now they feel more like employees or prisoners than colonists; they never pick up a book or hang out in front of the cave entrance sharing a smoke, I'm pretty sure no one on any of the rimworlds has ever heard of a "ball" or "playing catch". It'd be nice to watch my gardeners take a break from being bent over the weeds to just sit on the ground to the side and have a chat with each other, or for a pair of haulers working on nearby stockpiles to take longer routes so that they can continue their conversation.

The cheapest thing I can think of to quickly improve the social skill, though: Make the mood description random. "Had a social chat x3" could just as easily be "heard a funny joke" or "agreed weather is terrible" or "told embarrassing high school story", have them continue to stack and have the same effect, just whichever one is most recent is the displayed message. Not really any new assets, just some things for it to flip through, but at least then it'd be a bit of variety instead of just "they talked".

[Somz]

I'm not asking for Simsworld here...

Actually what you ask for IS Simsworld. ^^ Though I guess it'd be fun seeing it, these are closer to miscellaneous, wouldn't affect the game-play much.

[theapolaustic1]

I'm not asking for Simsworld here...

Actually what you ask for IS Simsworld. ^^ Though I guess it'd be fun seeing it, these are closer to miscellaneous, wouldn't affect the game-play much.

No, what I'm asking for is a system for relations between individual colonists rather than whole factions.

Unless the Sims 4 added in "increasing the performance of your fellow troops in battle by shouting encouragement", I'll admit to not having played 4. So maybe I'm wrong.

But last time I checked, friendships between people is a pretty normal and regular result of continued socialization.

Also not sure how that wouldn't effect gameplay much, on that note. You think that it wouldn't change how you played the game to factor in the previous alliances of your colonists when you're setting up a defense? "Well, this guy's a pirate from the same faction attacking us, might want to stick him further back so that he doesn't have the debuff from corpses and from fighting his friends... But he's also my best shot, damn." Or is the lack of gameplay change in the idea of being able to end psychotic breaks through socialization/relations?

Seriously how did you see the sims or "miscellaneous" in anything but the very last paragraph of that post.

[Somz]

I'm not asking for Simsworld here...

Actually what you ask for IS Simsworld. ^^ Though I guess it'd be fun seeing it, these are closer to miscellaneous, wouldn't affect the game-play much.

No, what I'm asking for is a system for relations between individual colonists rather than whole factions.

Unless the Sims 4 added in "increasing the performance of your fellow troops in battle by shouting encouragement", I'll admit to not having played 4. So maybe I'm wrong.

But last time I checked, friendships between people is a pretty normal and regular result of continued socialization.

Also not sure how that wouldn't effect gameplay much, on that note. You think that it wouldn't change how you played the game to factor in the previous alliances of your colonists when you're setting up a defense? "Well, this guy's a pirate from the same faction attacking us, might want to stick him further back so that he doesn't have the debuff from corpses and from fighting his friends... But he's also my best shot, damn." Or is the lack of gameplay change in the idea of being able to end psychotic breaks through socialization/relations?

Seriously how did you see the sims or "miscellaneous" in anything but the very last paragraph of that post.

Oh are you serious?...
Sorry I might be mistaken but the last time I checked, which was today by the way, this game was about building stuff, surviving, building more stuff, getting more colonists and eventually leaving/getting wiped out.
Marriage, friendships between people and
"increasing the performance of your fellow troops in battle by shouting encouragement" are,
considering the game-play, miscellaneous.

"Well, this guy's a pirate from the same faction attacking us, might want to stick him further back so that he doesn't have the debuff from corpses and from fighting his friends..." and I care because it isn't like there are 250-300 of them enemies and only 4-8 of us, let him fall back and it'll be alright! No, he'll f****** stand where I want him to stand and shoot at our enemies and have a mental breakdown if it comes to it, at least he'll be still useful as a target dummy.
And when the ridiculously large army of attackers decide on leaving, THEN I'll care about the mental state of my colonists.
Survival, not "encouraging words" or "ex-friends dying hurt my feelings"...
Besides, "Ate lavish meal" "Had social interactions x3" "Spacious interior" "Pleasant environment"
there are plenty of "buffs" balancing out this "ex-friends dying hurt my feelings" "debuff".
But again, HOW you will survive is what it's about, and having more firepower (recruiting) is a better start than "marriage", that's for sure.
Especially since bonus happiness doesn't give more damage (and why would it when you're fighting for your life?).
What you're offering is "sims - rimworld" basically, with marriage and bonds between colonists a sophisticated social interactions (AKA Sims), you want break-ups too? And children? Pizza delivery?

I get what you want, but it would change the game-play drastically,
it wouldn't be the same game anymore.

[welcomeHub]

I'm not asking for Simsworld here...

Actually what you ask for IS Simsworld. ^^ Though I guess it'd be fun seeing it, these are closer to miscellaneous, wouldn't affect the game-play much.

No, what I'm asking for is a system for relations between individual colonists rather than whole factions.

Unless the Sims 4 added in "increasing the performance of your fellow troops in battle by shouting encouragement", I'll admit to not having played 4. So maybe I'm wrong.

But last time I checked, friendships between people is a pretty normal and regular result of continued socialization.

Also not sure how that wouldn't effect gameplay much, on that note. You think that it wouldn't change how you played the game to factor in the previous alliances of your colonists when you're setting up a defense? "Well, this guy's a pirate from the same faction attacking us, might want to stick him further back so that he doesn't have the debuff from corpses and from fighting his friends... But he's also my best shot, damn." Or is the lack of gameplay change in the idea of being able to end psychotic breaks through socialization/relations?

Seriously how did you see the sims or "miscellaneous" in anything but the very last paragraph of that post.

Oh are you serious?...
Sorry I might be mistaken but the last time I checked, which was today by the way, this game was about building stuff, surviving, building more stuff, getting more colonists and eventually leaving/getting wiped out.
Marriage, friendships between people and
"increasing the performance of your fellow troops in battle by shouting encouragement" are,
considering the game-play, miscellaneous.

"Well, this guy's a pirate from the same faction attacking us, might want to stick him further back so that he doesn't have the debuff from corpses and from fighting his friends..." and I care because it isn't like there are 250-300 of them enemies and only 4-8 of us, let him fall back and it'll be alright! No, he'll f****** stand where I want him to stand and shoot at our enemies and have a mental breakdown if it comes to it, at least he'll be still useful as a target dummy.
And when the ridiculously large army of attackers decide on leaving, THEN I'll care about the mental state of my colonists.
Survival, not "encouraging words" or "ex-friends dying hurt my feelings"...
Besides, "Ate lavish meal" "Had social interactions x3" "Spacious interior" "Pleasant environment"
there are plenty of "buffs" balancing out this "ex-friends dying hurt my feelings" "debuff".
But again, HOW you will survive is what it's about, and having more firepower (recruiting) is a better start than "marriage", that's for sure.
Especially since bonus happiness doesn't give more damage (and why would it when you're fighting for your life?).
What you're offering is "sims - rimworld" basically, with marriage and bonds between colonists a sophisticated social interactions (AKA Sims), you want break-ups too? And children? Pizza delivery?

I get what you want, but it would change the game-play drastically,
it wouldn't be the same game anymore.

I can't totally agree with you.

The main topic of the game is to survive. social relation, characteristics, friendship even partnership should have significant influence to survive attempts.

You said survive is about the fire power, it is just too superficial. Good fire power is dependent on good cooperation and trusts. Having many newly purchased slaves/bandits will in fact make you into great risk.

Maybe some people hate to think this game as sims, but phoebe friendly is literally the sims version of rimworld.

[theapolaustic1]

People'd rather see this turn into "Dwarf Fortress, but Space" than its own game.

And yeah, the nature of humans is to be social creatures in survival situations, we're a tribal species.

Not really sure what else Cyst has in mind given the topic was supposed to be about the social skill, unless he was just trying to make a point that he feels it's unnecessary.

[Somz]

People'd rather see this turn into "Dwarf Fortress, but Space" than its own game.

And yeah, the nature of humans is to be social creatures in survival situations, we're a tribal species.

Not really sure what else Cyst has in mind given the topic was supposed to be about the social skill, unless he was just trying to make a point that he feels it's unnecessary.

Never played Dwarf Fortress, I'm not sure if you were thinking about me or my conversation partner when saying it.
So again, it would be better if you could use it to 'persuade' people- visitors and incapped allies are what I had in mind -to join you, using social skill, with proper consequences of course.
Removing it never occurred to me.