Agents of the enemy!

Started by UrbanBourbon, August 12, 2014, 02:39:13 PM

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What is your opinion of the 'enemy agent' event?

Never seen it before.
13 (37.1%)
It's acceptable or better.
4 (11.4%)
I don't like it or worse than that.
6 (17.1%)
I like the concept but it needs adjustment.
12 (34.3%)

Total Members Voted: 35

UrbanBourbon

I seriously despise this event.


Randy: "Well, there goes your chef, man. Oh boy, I bet you're going to miss the fine meals. And why? For absolutely no good f***ing reason. I mean, it's in the BaseIncidents.xml file, so there's always a chance for it triggering, but there's no deeper rationale behind it. Get it? No reason, no purpose, entirely random. Do you like it? Are you not entertained? That's universe for ya. Isn't chaos... liberating? Now, hold on! Chill, man, chill! You could still catch the guy and beat him. I promise! Oh, uhh, or, you know, the other way around - beat and then ca-- ANYWAY, totally up to you. I'm not gonna tell you what to do. Sheesh, are your knuckles always so white when you squeeze the mouse? I never noticed that before."


The second time it happened was enough for me. Edited it out of BaseIncidents. You?

HatesYourFace

#1
Like the concept, needs adjustment.

Being punished for no reason is rarely fun. This event would make more sense if it tended to happen to recently recruited prisoners who were former members of the tribe they are defecting to. This may prompt you to keep your newest additions under close watch, and even possibly restrict their access to weapons. Having it happen to a guy you've had for ages for no apparent reason is pretty much grounds for a "reload most recent auto save" imo.

Also, either he A. Gets away because he tends to have a head start and you don't want to shoot him and kill him so you're trying to catch up to him and melee him, good luck with that... or the more common B. It happens in the main yard area and your turrets immediately turn and waste him before you can even react.

Perhaps we could get an option to take away a colonists keys? Then at least the doors wouldn't conveniently open for him and let him out.

This event at very least should be precluded by some warning signs from the colonist in question so you at least have some chance of preempting his escape with an arrest.
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Shinzy

#2
I've seen it happen maybe three, four? times two of which happened in the same game
re recruited the agent errytime

My only problem with it is that they just pops up a sign with "Shoot me, I'm an enemy agent!" and tries to make a run for it

instead of doing something mischievous like triggering minor drop pod assault from the faction and then the agent would set your spaceship on fire and then try to make a run for it

right now it's more like out of the blue mental breakdown rampage
I still like the event

Edit: And after reading the above post I'm sure glad they didn't decide
to be enemy agents while standing in my turret pit of death

brinxter

I had one of my starting 3 pawns defect to the same faction 3 times, the last time he did so while in the middle of a group from another colony, who where hostile to him, there was no coming back from that one :)

Rahjital

I think this event would not be so bad if you could simply outright arrest the agent. It happened to me several times and when I tried to melee him, he always died, never got incapped. After that I just gave up and forcefully incapacitated them with the dev tools because Cassandra apparently loved killing off my most important colonists this way.

Quote from: HatesYourFace on August 12, 2014, 02:46:56 PM
Being punished for no reason is rarely fun.

Rimworld is currently kind of based on this. There's this agent event, power surge, insanity waves, mechanoids landing in the center of your base, etc.

muffins

It would be nice if enemy agents, while undetected, would try to sabotage the colony. Place hidden bombs maybe, or attack the power system or turrets during a raid, tring to recruit other members, or pick a good spot for a drop-pod raid etc.

It would be like having a Vampire in your settlement in Dwarf Fortress. Bad things happen and people are mysteriously found dead, and you have to hunt for clues as to who the vampire is.

BetaSpectre

I would like it if this only affected OUTSIDERS IE: SLAVES/ENSLAVED
I had ROBOTS turn into "agents"

Also instead of trying to escape these guys should do something like plant a bug that reduces power output unless destroyed/removed.
░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░─╤▌██ |
░░░░░░░░─╤▂▃▃▄▄▄███████▄▃|
▂█▃▃▅▅███/█████\█[<BSS>█\███▅▅▅▃▂
◥████████████████████████████████◤
                           TO WAR WE GO

HatesYourFace

Quote from: Rahjital on August 12, 2014, 03:39:09 PM
Quote from: HatesYourFace on August 12, 2014, 02:46:56 PM
Being punished for no reason is rarely fun.

Rimworld is currently kind of based on this. There's this agent event, power surge, insanity waves, mechanoids landing in the center of your base, etc.

The difference is most of those events have answers and solutions. (Power Surge is random but at least it's not usually that threatening.) When a colonist defects in this event as others have pointed it it's extremely difficult to re capture them alive, which sucks. If he dies in a Mechanoid drop pod raid...well, that's more my fault for designing my base that way, or not having a plan for repelling such an attack. There is really no plan or solution to the Defector or Power Surge events, which isn't that fun imo. If something bad happens to me in a video game it should be as a result of my own actions or inactions, or failing that there should at least be ways to defend against or solve the problem. (Because I do like random events, they are part of any proper rogue-like.)
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Tynan

Tynan Sylvester - @TynanSylvester - Tynan's Blog

tommonius

In fairness I like the idea of this event, I just think it needs some tweaking. Perhaps have it so only colonists that were captured may choose to try and go back to there original group perhaps when said group attacks your colony.

It would seem weird if your starter colonists or slaves who have no where to go and you rescued them just walk off to a group that hates you and has been trying to kill you all.

Would tweaking the event to effect only captured colonists be to hard to put into practice?

REMworlder

The event could be really neat if it had some depth added to it, like maybe if the agent wouldn't actually shoot (keep missing) anyone of his native tribe or vice-versa.

Dwarf fortress' approach to vampires could be similar. You end up with a nearly immortal dwarf immigrant that never sleeps or eats and occasionally sucks the life out of other dwarves.

http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/v0.34:Vampire

HatesYourFace

Quote from: REMworlder on August 12, 2014, 06:10:48 PM
The event could be really neat if it had some depth added to it, like maybe if the agent wouldn't actually shoot (keep missing) anyone of his native tribe or vice-versa.

Dwarf fortress' approach to vampires could be similar. You end up with a nearly immortal dwarf immigrant that never sleeps or eats and occasionally sucks the life out of other dwarves.

http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/v0.34:Vampire

That's the kind of thing I was hoping to see added, Some indication he's going to turn traitor, acting odd, maybe up at night when no one else is, wandering around the base instead of working. Or maybe just make his morale low for a few days with a "Thinking of defecting" Debuff. That way maybe we could notice his unusually low morale, check his mood and say "Ah hah! I better jail this guy or improve his mood big time!" (Improving his mood significantly should keep him from defecting, providing a way to "deal" with the event.)

But, I understand if there are more pressing matters atm, and for now maybe its best just to shelve this event until it can be re-worked?
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StorymasterQ

"Thinking of defecting" should be guarded very, very defensively, because if a single letter 'a' is inserted there, it would change the meaning to something very, very different.
I like how this game can result in quotes that would be quite unnerving when said in public, out of context. - Myself

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HatesYourFace

Quote from: StorymasterQ on August 12, 2014, 09:14:18 PM
"Thinking of defecting" should be guarded very, very defensively, because if a single letter 'a' is inserted there, it would change the meaning to something very, very different.

Lol...Speaking of, why no bathrooms or plumbing in RimWorld? We can't even build an outhouse for cripes sakes! Lol.
If you have any 2 of the following 3 things: Time, Interest, or Ability; Head on over to the RimWorld wiki and help improve/update it! http://rimworldwiki.com

Damien Hart

The concept is fine, but when you capture a raider, spend six months developing them, and then they arbitrarily turn is really irritating.

Perhaps if there were a time limit, say 14 days after recruitment, it wouldn't be such a blow. They should also sabotage electronic devices, so they explode after an indeterminate amount of time. This would be the shifty behaviour the player might notice before the event - a cook fiddling with the stove looks normal, but when he's fiddling with the comms console, you're probably going to get a little suspicious.