Suggestion and Discussion Megathread

[Blackbird]

I suggest an in-game option to increase or decrease the difficulty of the selected AI storyteller, including the option of choosing a new storyteller.  This would help players who like the direction the story is going but want it to be easier/harder or just want to turn it on random for a bit. 

Also, the more options the better!  If you want to bury them in an "Advanced" screen, that's fine, too, but, for simplicity's sake, create an in-game screen for it instead of editing an option in a text file, saving it, and reloading the game. 

Finally, make mod support an early priority!  It will only help your game!

[Spike]

A distillery would be good for several reasons - medical uses, booze, and with the #3 update on Kickstarter, making your own Molotov's.

I like the idea of lots of options (both good and bad) like ZebioLizard2 mentioned up-thread.  However, I think the level of detail could be a good difficulty setting - Easy mode might have no effect from that kind of thing, with higher difficulties having more effect.

[Zeiph]

To solve the problem of the learning curve, maybe you could add some kind of a tutorial storyteller that has much less random and also gives advices to the player.

But I am also interested in hilarious extreme events when the player does something wrong, like for exemple risk of self-ignition if going out during sunflares...

[AspenShadow]

I want to see negative effects for everything.

Power lines not properly cared for or insulated? Major shock to walk across, touch, fire.

Walls not fixed? Entrances to be broken into, structural collapse, allows pests through holes.

Water not properly cleaned? Breeding ground for insects, sickness amongst the colonists, dysentery.

Weapons not cared for? Jamming, misfiring, potential explosion.

Too hot and covered in oils? Self Immolation.

Food stocks not properly cared for? Illness, Death, attracts things that enjoy rotting meat.

I'd like this idea to be part of a hardcore module, but I can't stand the idea of negatives to everything. Part of the fun of the game is that a neutral event just happens and depending upon random chance the outcome can be good or bad. While it's hard to imagine how a plague could help the colony, it's possible that your people that survived have developed a stronger immune system and won't get sick as often.

[SpaceEatingTrex]

One of the strengths of RimWorld is its relatively good interface, especially when compared to games like Dwarf Fortress. I think User-Friendliness is a very good design goal to have. The easier the interface is to use, the easier new players will pick it up and the wider the game will spread.

With that in mind, I was watching Das24680's Let's Play and noticed at character creation he didn't know what some of the traits meant, and when trading for commodities he couldn't find out what the commodities were until after he traded for them! Fortunately, in the later case there were tooltips when you moused over the commodities' icons in game. I think those tooltips should be present on the trading screen, and tooltips for the traits in character creation (similar to the backstory). That way players won't have to jump through the hoop of looking up this information on the wiki or elsewhere.

[Zeiph]

Keep in mind that the game is not even in alpha version. I hope by the end of the developement more detailed tooltip will be available.

[Hypolite]

The traits system is not finalized. Most of them don't have impact on the game yet, but they are to be handled the same way than backstories are : with tooltips explaining the effect of each.

[noego]

One idea that might be interesting might be planetary exploration. Think UFO: enemy unknown's geoscape. Find that base from where the pesky raiders are coming from and take care of it. Find additional resources. That kind of thing.

Probably way beyond the scope of the game, but thought I'd throw it out there anyway.

[SpaceEatingTrex]

The traits system is not finalized. Most of them don't have impact on the game yet, but they are to be handled the same way than backstories are : with tooltips explaining the effect of each.

Keep in mind that the game is not even in alpha version. I hope by the end of the developement more detailed tooltip will be available.

Thanks for the responses you guys! I understand the game is still pre-Alpha, but I thought it couldn't hurt to explicitly mention future elements to make the game more user-friendly, even if they're already being planned.

Something I've heard is planned but not implemented yet are keyboard shortcuts. Are there planned shortcuts for selecting colonists? For example, if most games involve 10 or fewer colonists the numeric keys could be used to automatically select each colonist in sequence. For testers who are already playing the pre-Alpha, does that seem like something you would use?

[Zeiph]

That leads to another question: are the current shortcuts rebindable? As I am using a French keyboard (azerty instead of qwerty), the wasd for scrolling is not what I would call practical...

[Hypolite]

Not yet. The volume just made its debut in the options menu, which held only the resolution until then. Keyboard mapping is probably a future improvement of that menu, but it will have to wait

[British]

That leads to another question: are the current shortcuts rebindable? As I am using a French keyboard (azerty instead of qwerty), the wasd for scrolling is not what I would call practical...

AutoHotKey does wonder on that matter.

Just add this in your script and reload it:

Code Select Expand


#IfWinActive, RimWorld
{
    z::w
    q::a
}

You can add more of course, and the "RimWorld" is the actual name appearing on the game's window (when you alt-tab, for instance).

[Dejix]

Speaking of shortcuts I would really love to have some hot-keys for the Architect menu. For me it can remove the need to visually search for items in the menu and make it faster to access.

I also think that having more designations for areas would be cool too. That way you can assign an area as a room or whatever with a specific purpose without having to enclose it with walls.

[Hypolite]

Right-click will open the architect menu if nothing else is selected. If something is selected, a left click and a right click will open the menu

[salt1219]

custom keybindings