Losing in a game like this should be fun. "Caravan Lost" is not.

[17x492]

I know what to expect in RimWorld. No matter how much work I put into my colony, it can be destroyed or my pawns killed at any point. This is part of the fun and the thrill of the game. Importantly, we get to watch our colony fall apart as pawns die or are kidnapped before our eyes. Emotionally, this is critical for allowing us to have closure. The story is complete, and we saw how it all happened.

That is, unless you lose via a "Caravan Lost" event.

I'm actually fairly "new" to RimWorld. I've played it here and there over the years, but sparsely enough that this is the first time its ever happened to me.

I didn't technically "lose", but I lost my best and main colonist. He went out alone on a rescue mission to rescuse a friend who was downed. After arriving, he saw the friend unable to walk. He tried to tend to the friend, but was ambushed by a single mech enemy. The mech had a slight combat advantage, but he beat it. After, he was pretty injured (just bruises, no blood). He tended to himself. Note the friend is still lying there needing to be rescused. But the pain and other factors were pushing me into the "major break" zone. So I decided to immediately sleep, cloudwatch, and then eat before anything else because the biggest risk for everyone at that point was a mental break, and the friend on the ground was not in immediate danger with his injuries.

While I was sleeping though, something unexpected happened. A giant bug cacoon came up from the ground, and it came up literally right where the friend was lying there, still unable to move. I approached quickly to try to move the friend away before the bug came up, but I was too late. The bug came up and immediatly started to come towards me. This was an even more unfair fight. I was sure I was going to die, as all I had was a bow with an accuracy of around 30% and I knew I couldn't win in a melee fight against the bug.

But a miracle happened, and I got two arrows into the bug before it got to me. First one cracked through the shell, and second one pierced the brain instantly killing it.

At this point my hero guy was close to an extreme break and still ruised up from the first fight, but otherwise healthy. I allowed him to eat so as to ward of a potential mental break. He ate some cooked food that was stored on the donkey. And... got food poisoning (from incompetent cook).

So physically, I'm not in any life threatening danger. There are no enemies on the map (because I defeated them all) and no life threatening injuries on either my main pawn or on the friend who still cannot move. We are in a temporate biome, nobody is starving or bleeding or disased. Just badly bruised, with food sickness and very high stress.

At this point I was expecting I would likely have a mental break, but I was releived that it looked like they would still survive since there were no actual threats.

It is at this point that suddenly, with absolutely no warning or explaination or context, I get the "Caravan Lost" message and I am forced back to my settlement. Both the 2 pawns and the donkey were gone... just gone. Absolutely no explaination. Did the main pawn pass out due to a combination of his injuries and the food sickness? Was there a mental break? Or was it something else?

This was totally immersion breaking, and not fun. In the context of the game world, my guy had just heroically survived 2 actual threats. He tended to all of his wounds, and was well-fed. If he were at "home" in my main settlement, he could safely have his mental break or pass out. The food poisoning would quickly go away, and the wounds would heal, and he would be back on his feet within a day or so.

One could say that perhaps being a lone pawn in a caravan and having a mental break or temporarily passing out is so "dangerous" that it is logical to assume that they would all die. Based on what I have read, this seems to be the explanation people give for this scenario.

However, that doesn't cut it. If every single time that a colonist was in a "dangerous" situation the game just automatically yanked them from existance with no explaination, visualization, or anything, we would not have a game. By that logic, why not just end the game instantly as soon as it starts? I mean, it is possible to start a new game where technically your colonist is in a worse situation than the one my colonist was in from the very beginning. The game can be so dangerous for the first day in some scenarios. So why not just automatically end the game since it is that dangerous?

My rant really just comes down to one concrete suggestion: If RimWorld needs a mechanic to "lose a caravan" when everyone in that caravan is unable to be controlled, at the very least simulate it as opposed to hardcoding a immersion-breaking event where everyone just vanishes into thin air. Maybe simulate it by making a new ambush happen in wherever the colony is or something. I'm sure we could think of tons of more fun, satisfying, immersive alternatives to that "Colony Lost" popup.

[larvar]

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[Yttakin]

I just save-scum. Not even ashamed. Losing 20 hours of progress because I made a dumb mistake or RNG just hates me isn't fun.