Suggestion and Discussion Megathread

[Darthaidan]

Vehicles: Manned/unmanned armed/unarmed and armoured/unarmoured, maybe a drill tank that can move through rock, destroying it in the process.

I have used the double grab & drag a few times for smaller quantities like 200-400, BUT when I want to sell 2000-2500 food to a combat or industrial supplier to clean them out of all their stock, it STILL takes about 3 minutes to get to the approx area of quantity ( and in the games where this is an issue I usually have a food stockpile for 20,000 or MORE food)

Good point, typing in the exact amount you want would be easier and faster to get a more precise quantity.

In the name of your vehicle idea that drill tank could also run through walls and sand bags. I think this would make raiders slightly more awesome.

[thebadman]

I think "Pneumatic Picks" research currently is pointless for its research points cost, it only make miners destroy mineral in 2 hits less(from 13 to 11), perhaps it should give 20% speed bonus instead of damage or rock walls HP should be nerfed/picks dmg boosted?

[Plasmatic]

Almost in line with what Palandus suggested

Furniture:
-> Power Saving Lights = These lights only activate when a colonist is near it. This causes them to consume less energy overall compared to other lights.

I'd like to see smarter lights, or colonist that turn lights off when they leave rooms..
Say your base is run entirely by batteries and solar panels, would the colonist not be wary about power drain? making sure to turn lights off to conserve energy and all that..

Another suggestion is research,
-> HQ batteries, they store more, and fail less (aka, don't go kaboom as often)
-> HQ walls, better, stronger, safer, sockets are triple checked so they don't go kaboom as often..
-> Lite walls, walls that drain 30 power per 5 wall segments, but have light sources on them (say they light 3 tiles, where the 3rd is dim)
-> Automated Fire suppression systems, great for the battery rooms, but they it might be a bit much..

[henrytm82]

This post is much longer than it needs to be, but I believe in being thorough about my problem descriptions, and I like to provide solid justification for in-depth changes What I'm proposing is a pretty tall order with some significant work involved, but when your game is so heavily based on combat, I think it's necessary. You can look at a lot of games for inspiration (you mentioned JA2 - you might also take a look at Fallout: Tactics).


I'd like to see some basic scaling added to the damage system. Currently, it seems like a weapon has a damage stat (like, say, a pistol does 10 damage per successful hit), and no matter what the person using that weapon is aiming at, it does that amount of damage every time it hits.

This is problematic from both a gameplay and realism/immersion standpoint. The example I'll use is Raiders VS Turrets. Now, I don't know if it's intentional or if it's even going to stay this way, but the current art direction makes auto-turrets look HUGE; like, compared to the colonists, a turret is the size of a small sedan. Which is fine, until you encounter one or two Raiders armed with pistols.

Here's a very common scenario I ran across in my game - on one side of the map is a common spot for the game to spawn in Raiders. This spot sort of funnels the Raiders toward one exposed side of my compound where they immediately make a beeline to the walls and the door there. Using their AI to my advantage, I set up two turrets on either side of the door, surrounded by double-walls of sandbags. I removed almost all of the rock rubble from the area, except for a few that were well within the turrets' range, inviting the Raiders to take cover in carefully-chosen spots which provided my turrets otherwise unobstructed views at the Raiders. Sometimes I would set blasting charges near these spots, but that becomes a decision about how close to the rocks do I set the charges? Too close and I'll destroy the rocks, too far away and I won't kill the Raider. Also, the charges cost resources, and they're a one-use item which may not outright kill the Raider, so they may be a complete waste, and if they destroy the rocks, they cause me problems and...well, you can see why I'd prefer to let the turrets deal with Raiders whenever possible, right?

So here's the problem - more than once, a single Raider with a pistol kills both turrets, and the resulting explosion takes out the door they're supposed to be guarding, causes a short in the wall conduit and possibly destroys other things within the compound, starts fires, injures colonists...all from a single guy with a pea-shooter. Wait, what? A single guy marches across what should be a killing field, destroys two car-sized machine gun turrets, blows a hole in a metal wall and causes untold damage and destruction...with a pistol? In this scenario, the rocks behind which the Raiders would take cover were a good 10-15 tiles away from the turrets, which means these Raiders with pistols are engaging my turrets from as far as 18 tiles away. Assuming a single tile is roughly 2 meters squared, these guys, while under withering machine gun fire, are destroying my turrets from nearly 40 meters away with a pistol, and often take little to no damage themselves while doing it. From a realism and immersion standpoint, I'm not buying it. From a gameplay standpoint, I'm frustrated.

There needs to be some basic scaling to damage, based on weapon type, distance to target and, most importantly, what the target is. Simply put, a single guy with a handgun should not be capable of killing my gigantic metal machine gun turret from such a long distance before my turret can turn him into Swiss cheese...especially two turrets.

So, finally on to my solution!

• Base damage from small-arms weapons like pistols, shotguns and rifles needs to be variable. I.e., Pistols do 1-10 base damage. Shotguns do 5-15 base damage. Lee-Enfield Rifles do 10-20 base damage. Etc.
• Base damage to the target needs to be affected by other variables.
  
  
  
  • What is the target made of? Is it a squishy meat-sack person? Is it a big solid metal turret? Is it a metal wall? Is it an easily-punctured sandbag? Is it a fragile solar generator? Is it a volatile battery? Stronger materials/more solid construction = less damage taken.
  • How far away is the shooter from the target? Longer distance = less damage taken and a better chance to strike cover rather than the target (in the case of pistols and shotguns).
  • Is the shooter actually skilled with weapons? Just because he's a Raider doesn't mean he's a good shot - farming oafs shouldn't be as deadly as, say, an assassin.
• Weapons need more realistic effective ranges, with both accuracy and damage affected by how far away the shooter is to their target. Pistols in real life have a max effective range of between 30-50 meters, and that's pushing it, and very subjective based on barrel length (accuracy), caliber (accuracy/range) and shooter ability (accuracy/range). The stopping power (damage) of rounds at those ranges drastically decreases as well; I've actually seen 9mm bullets bounce right off of plywood targets (landing on the tarp I had laid out in the grass) and seen plastic targets on handgun ranges actually "catch" bullets rather than the bullets passing through them like they're supposed to. Small-caliber handguns are NOT powerful - certainly not enough to cause significant damage to something like a giant metal machine gun turret from 40 meters away. Shotguns scale even worse, unless significant modifications are made like adding longer barrels, chokes and using high-grain slugs, and even then you're pretty limited - a slug is just a giant, heavy ball of metal, and doesn't travel very far before losing most of its energy.

If I were scaling the above scenario, pistols wouldn't do more than 1-2 damage per successful hit to the turret from those ranges, and shotguns probably wouldn't do more than 5. If they want to engage me from that far away, they need to be packing more than pea-shooters

[henrytm82]

Another thing I'd like to see in the long-term is variable planet types. Who says your ship has to dump you onto a nice habitable planet with lots of food?

Possible settings:



• A snow planet where seeking shelter from the elements is an absolute priority, and exploration is dangerous until you research cold-weather gear. Finding a geothermal vent - underground, obviously - would feel like you struck gold! Maintaining solar equipment becomes a high priority, and while there aren't any lightning storms, meteor showers might be just as damaging! Fire obviously isn't as big of a problem in a place like this, but food is! That research into hydroponics is looking better all the time here!
  


• A planet with high volcanic and tectonic activity. Geothermal vents are plentiful, but building into a mountain is far more dangerous than any group of raiders, since a sudden tremor might cause the roof to collapse on you. Building outside is the safer option, but still poses risks, unless you research earthquake-proofing. Tremors aren't your only concern, either; rock formations larger than 9x9 tiles are possible magma vents which might rarely fire flaming projectiles in random directions, igniting vegetation and possibly setting fire to your colony, making research into advanced firefighting (or maybe an automatic fire-retardant system...not sprinklers, since it'd fry all your conduits/lamps/batteries/etc, but maybe like a CO2 system which would keep your place from burning down, but cause damage to any colonists trapped in the room which has now been deprived of oxygen).
  


• A planet with a toxic atmosphere. Again, seeking immediate shelter is an absolute priority (though, maybe you land here with basic space suits on which will let you breathe for a few days). In this case, you'll need to build oxygen scrubbers to keep your colony in clean air (maybe offer research to cut the energy usage in half), and planning the layout of your colony becomes an important detail - you need to create "airlock" rooms to keep the bad air out, and you may want to double-up on exterior walls since raider attacks come with a whole new danger (flooding your base with toxic air!). This is an extremely hostile environment, and while fire isn't a big problem (no oxygen for it to burn), there are still lightning strikes and meteor showers that can cause significant damage to anything outside (maybe this helps make the case for some lightning rods!). Geothermal vents are scattered around, but they are dangerous to claim and difficult to maintain, unless you build your base around them - the catch is that you'll only find them out in the open. This planet has very little activity going on underground, and while the surrounding hillsides are rich in useful ore, they offer little in the way of potential power supplies. On this planet, you'll find tons of ore, which will make building your base easier, and lead to great profits with traders, but you'll have to work for it, because until you seal up the opening you made in that hill and install an air scrubber to keep your mine breathable, you're working under some pretty dangerous conditions.
  


A system with multiple planet types might also open up an option for exploring and inhabiting multiple worlds. Perhaps you were eventually able to construct a new ship after you colonized the original Crashville, and sent a small group off to discover a new place. Thing is, the ship is pretty much a one-way trip (limited fuel to make room for more supplies, maybe?), so those guys are basically in the same boat you were in at the beginning of your game, and now you can manage multiple colonies on multiple worlds (you'd need to develop a new "galaxy map" interface for this to switch between them) and you could get updates on random events happening on one world while you're busy building on another.

Players who can't handle that level of management can stick with one or two colonies, and players who think they have what it takes to populate the galaxy can try to build as many colonies as they can handle. You could even set up trading links between the colonies by researching and building small, automated ships that shuttle between the colonies; that colony with endless supplies of ore will do a lot of good to the other colonies, and that colony on the lush world with tons of food will benefit the ice and toxic worlds, etc.

This could add a great deal of depth to the game

[LordMunchkin]

Suggestions (Update 4) 
-New Faction
--Nomads
---replaces travelers
---neutral
---will collect unclaimed resources on the map and deposit them on a pack animal
---can trade
---will punitively raid colony if attacked
-New Research
---Shock Collars
----can keep slaves
--Rehab
---increases recruit chance for captured raiders
--Neurostimulators
---beatings do less damage
--Addictive Additives
---eating nutrient paste increases happiness.
---not eating nutrient paste decreases happiness.
--AA Targeting
---each turret built outside has a chance to damage or destroy a raider ship
---if the ship is damaged, a number of raiders will be wounded or dead on arrival
---if the ship is destroyed, debris will land somewhere on the map
-New Events
--Survivor
---a fellow survivor from the crash finds and joins your colony
---this event has a high chance for the first month and slowly decreases after
--VIP
---someone very important lands in an escape pod
---if arrested, they can be sold for a high price to slavers. There is a chance their friends will raid you to rescue them.
--Slavers
---slavers appear on the map
---if they spot a colonist, they will try to arrest that person. They will then flee with their captive.
-New Mechanics
--Missile Beacon
---you can buy a missile beacon from merchants
---activating the beacon will cause a satellite in orbit to launch a missile towards its location.
--Slaves
---when you capture someone instead of trying to recruit them you can enslave them
---slaves can be immediately put to work
---they’re incapable of fighting or social work
---there is a small chance they will remove their shock collar and try to escape
--New Jobs
---Guard
----patrols home area
----attacks hostiles in home area
----arrests neutrals in home area
----having someone on guard increases happiness
---Hunting
----hunts animals
----killing animals gives a certain amount of food based on the animal
--Better Gun Scaling
--the pistol is the base (assuming 9mm)
---Uzi, 1.2xDamage, 1.5xAccuracy, 1.1xRange, 3.33xRate of fire
---Shotgun (assuming pump action, 12G, buckshot), 4.5xDamage, 1.5xAccuracy, 0.25xRange, 0.66xRate of fire
---M16, 2.1xDamage, 2.5xAccuracy, 3.1xRange, 4.33xRate of Fire
---Enfield, 3xDamage, 2.5xAccuracy, 6.9xRange, 0.33xRate of Fire
---M24, 3xDamage, 4.5xAccuracy (assuming scope), 6.25xRange, 0.33xRate of Fire
---range>accuracy
--Prioritized Hauling Improvement
---there should be a way to select a whole group of things to be prioritized
--Raider Improvement
---Tribute
----the colonist can pay tribute to make them leave for half of what they have. The payment price will increase the more times tribute is paid.
---Greed
----raiders target stockpiles. Instead of burning them, they take resources from them. Once a raider has all resources he or she can carry, they flee.
---Cowardice
----raiders flee more often. Every time they lose someone they have a chance to flee. Each person on their side already dead increases the chance.
---Planning
----change it so a higher percentage of raids happen during solar flares or eclipses.
----raiders should attack from multiple directions with multiple landing zones.
----if the raiders took lots of causalities the last time they raided, they will delay raiding for some time.
--Better Turrets
---turrets should not explode. They should have higher HP because they’re unliving and made of metal. Assuming a .50 BMG, a turret should have 9x the damage of a pistol, 2.5x the accuracy, 3.33x the rate of fire, 11.25x the range.

[Asulf]

If you're suggesting random damage, I would highly suggest using two random numbers instead of just one and then add them together. 1-10 is too random, 1-5+1-5 gets a more even, but still random number and even gets a classic statistical curve (meaning 5 dmg is probable, 10 dmg improbable).

As for research, I would suggest things like researching:
*body armor, that gets harder to research and increasingly costly.
*movement detectors that you can add to lamps (having them turned off when nobody is there or when nobody is moving in the room after a couple of seconds) and turrets.
*vechicles to drive around in and that can carry stuff, maybe even have some weaponry on them (yes, that means raiders as well can come driving).
*Some sort of research to be able to carry more than one item.
*Flashlights that have to be recharged in a rack (costing energy), when colonists don't like being in the dark?
*Motion detectors/ sensor turrets/ radar station for the map if fog of war is a possibility?
*Incinerator for burning unwanted corpses.
*Perhaps even a learning center where colonists can up eachothers' skills at a slow pace. The downside is colonists in class rooms won't do any actual work.
*Shooting range to practice shooting?
*Medic bay with various instruments/ devices. Healing in a bed should be less effective.

The Suggestion to be able to have the base on green/ red alert, where the colonists run to their specified gun racks and specified positions with a sounding alarm is great, maybe even let all the lamps blink with red light. Kind of like in Evil Genius for those who played it. I also look forward to having a kitchen with a cook, artists that can get the enviroment more pleasing with objects/ decorating things.

[Hansel]

"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."


Just what I was about to say. Would be a "game changer".   pardon the pun, if it is one...

[Untrustedlife]

hansel, please combine your..quin-tupple-post

[Johnny Masters]

So, this post hasn't been posted in a long time but i haven't found a substitute for it yet, and most of the below aren't really cheap for the cheap thread.

Well, I've been putting together these for a while but never published, now since a6 i picked it up again. Some stuff changed and the suggestions in this forum are getting to ridiculous amounts, so forgive for the inevitable obsolete suggestion that didn't pass my search-fu. I also kept some popular ones for endorsement.

==General suggestions==
- Character loadouts / Templates
Usually my colonists wear no armor or weapons on their daily abouts, for story, efficiency and safety reasons.
Then theres a raid and (besides the usual freeze from all those stacked pathfinding) i rush my guys to the armory. This is story fun, except the part where i have to spend 20 minutes microing vests, guns and helmets for a dozen colonists. Making a save loadout button would save a lot of time and be really fun, specially with the much requested alert mode, click it and see your guys running untold to the armory to buckle up!
With extra slots you could even have loadouts for certain types of jobs, or to quickly go back to your civil attire.

- Armor penalties for jobs
This one is a good complement for the above. Sure, there's a speed bonus, but certainly there should be more of an  incentive to stop your colony from having power armored lily farmers everywhere,  if not an incentive to have a sensible one. Make it a job efficiency penalty or a heavier speed penalty.

- Slots. hauling slots
its nothing new the slot thing, but to further help with reducing stormtrooper-town, would be having your hauling tasks requiring an empty slot.

- Mix Health and Thoughts & Character and Gear tabs.
Really, there's no need to have 4 different tabs. You can easily stream it to 2, plus its a pain to constantly switch from one to another.

- Show all equipped items
Synergizes with  the above. Why not simply showing all equipped gear in the bottom of the screen? Drop the cloth, but show hand, body and head.

- Revolver. Because sci fi western NEEDS revolvers instead of quickly obsolete pistols.

- Right-clicking corpses gives single objects strips or strip all. So no more bazzilion clothes on the ground.

- Show traits at overview
Less tab keeping is always more fun. I also read a suggestion about adding the interests to the overview. That'd be great.

- Force action (eating)
probably already suggested but really, mental break downs because the character can't seem to priorize feeding itself? Nah ah.

- Force task (half a day doing the same task)
Very useful to priorize a task without having to check the nerve wrecking overview, again. The guy will simply do a task you just ordered  and won't wander off again and again because he can't seem how important it is to haul that metal, or finish that wall section before incoming raiders. Perhaps 0.5 day is a reasonbly amount of overriding set normal behavior.

- Walls (and powered doors) shouldn't be able to be destroyed by punches. / armor rating
They really don't. Would work wonders with a penetration and armor rating system, and better defense for powered armors (32% is a joke right?) or armos in general. This could ditch the % system for simple numbers, which i guess is better to compute both for man and machine.

Stuff would have hit points and hardness/defense rating, weapons would have damage and penetration rating, you could have weapons with huge damage but low penetration or low damage and high penetration or stuff in-between, so a gun with 4-10 damage (here i am hoping random damage will be implemented) and 2 P would ignore 2 points of hardness from something before reducing damage.  (10 dmg , 2 ap -  10 AR = 2 final dmg.  50dmg 0 AP  -  50 AR = 0 dmg, 1 dmg, 50AP - 50 AR = 1 dmg). Surely, you would have a different rating for each type of damage, as it already is.
...
Of course this would make killbox even more cheap, so you'd have to make new ways for enemies to overcome walls. Rocket launcher is a popular one, but if everything goes right and Ty listen to us, there will be a tool/auxilary slot which some raider could have equipped something like a climbing tool. Once inside they could open up the doors for the others to let them in.

Heck, you could even get a battering ram. Imagine the sad story of stench, the slumworld pyro that would charge - molotov in hand - the ram before it gets too close to your walls. Alas he is mowed down. Jon, the huntsman, was giving sniper support, but they were  too many, he tried to rescue stench, but Ross, his sniper companion wouldn't let him "lets go man, lets go! he's dead" ."but, stench! its stench man, he's our friend" "you are my friend too! you gotta live, live for stench, live for sara!" "damn, damn those raiders!". Damn those raiders indeed Jon. R.I.P. stench. Erm, but i digress.
(disclaimer: actual stench death was far inglorious, but jon and ross were indeed sniper buddies. Ross died of blood loss after getting his leg torn off.in what was supposed to be an easy clean up job. Jon was by his side, but he couldn't rescue him, there were too many, he died on his arms on the way to the medbay. Jon escaped 4 days later with Lynx, and guilt uppon his shoulders, plus (minus?) a few missing limbs. In loving memory of Stench, Ross, Sara and Hawk, thanks for your time).

anyhoo...
- Nerf killboxes
And when i say "nerf" i mean making other diverse strategies more viable (more is better). Sure, everyone loves a killbox, the last defense against the mad horde, very cinematic indeed. And by all means, lets keep the killbox.. against tribals, zombies, etc.  But smart enemies shouldn't just charge in to death.
See killboxing isn't a problem, the game is too good to be one, but it's definitely a "thing", borderline troublesome, the be all end all defense strategy. It makes for some ugly designing and reeks of cheapness too. It also doesn't make sense sometimes (like assumingly intelligent foes) running up the hill to get mowed down when they can just hop a wall.
My idea is reducing the numbers of  enemies to balance it out and to make them more diverse in their tactics, while allowing you to do the same.

- Should be able to stay ontop of sandbags or debris
Related to the above, its just a cheap mechanic to exploit for killboxes. It also doesn't make sense, if i ever walk over a sandbag or a bunch of rock i wouldn't involuntarily slide forwards. If anything, make the character lose the cover bonus, since he's standing on top of something. As a player i feel obliged to fall for such tricks because of the ridiculous amounts of raiders you get.

- Stack clothes like other resources
Its just that a lot of things should be stackable, clothes is one, for those that like to role play closets. Would be less of a minor thing if clothes would degrade after a while. But I'm not sure it should be a thing. I guess it's been already suggested, but yeah endorsement.

- Suppression
Already been suggested, keeping it for endorsesakement. Suppression would make for longer drawn out fights instead of the gib-fest we have (nothing against gib fest, but longer shootouts are also cool). Getting shot at would reduce speed, give a small cover bonus and increase weapon cooldown.

- Exploding dead sentries? c'mon!
Really, who designed those turrets? Michael bay?? those things have a larger  explosion AoE than a mortar shell. Lets just catapult sentries (or whichever explosion device is inside those things) and throw them at raiders. Job done.

- Working / Chill slider
Just a colony wide (if not personal) slider that lets you decide how much time the colonist spends working or chilling. You would need a chill mechanic for that, but then again why wouldn't you want it? its a sim game, there's nothing more simmish or humane than humans chilling out. It would give new meanings and new tools for colony morale managment / story imagining. it would give fun.

- Colonists approach each other to talk.
Works great with the above. On their down time when idling, colonists could approach each other to chat up, giving that lively feeling we all want in the narrative. 

-Less limb loss. 0 hp incapacitations
While these details are really, really cool, i felt it they were too much common to make sense, specially getting your leg or arms cut with bows or rocks. Losing all hp in a limb shouldnt be automatic limb loss, you could only have a really long time to recover from it. In the same manner, losing torso all hp could mean bedridden for a month. losing all head hp could mean comatose-bedridden for an even longer time. Sure, if its a gun shot death would be much more prevalent, but against punches and rocks comatose would be less unlikely.

- Emergency power
Because everybody loves emergency power

- Meetings / leader elections
I guess leaders must've been suggested a couple of times, but you know what else comes with leaders in survival themes? the meetings. Nothing rings as "survival" as the group getting together around a table at the mess hall and discussing things, maybe electing a new leader, deciding the future, etcetera etcetera. I don't know. Make it a zone, make it a task, make it an event, but meetings would be cool, just as when everyone meets for a lunch.

-Making Kevlar "stage" less instant
Right now by the time you start getting your hands on kevlar its just seconds before you get power armor, and kevlars are cool.
Since  in this game you have just a few people, you're usually power armor-clad pretty early. There's also too few drawbacks to power armor to use different armor.
I'd just make power armor VERY rare, use some kind of fuel (or an inbuilt stored eletricity that would need to be recharged from time to time/charge station) BUT much better defense ratings.
Kevlars would need a boost aswell. You have the bread and butter (you have hit locations and its easy to increase damage reduction), no reason not to do it.
Synergizes with penetration and linear armor rating. A kevlar would give a high defense to torso, being pretty good against pistols and shotguns (low penetration) but not against a sniper rifle. This also make using different guns a more tactical decision, instead of ignoring "lower tier" equipment.

- Colony Re-settling
Sometimes its just better to pack up and leave. It would be specially awesome on an ironman game, instead of getting total party killed, you get on a side corridor, get on the back room and escape through the long corridor that leads to the other side of the mountain. You lose the colony but you don't lose the man. Its also a nice excuse to start a new game without actually starting one.
It would also be awesome with some kind of hard nature mode where food is scarce and resources are spread thin, but i guess you'd need some kind of transport (like a cart to move at least some resources with you). Probably been suggested, but yeah, there it is again.

- coffee / adrenaline / drugs
repeating for endorsment

- multiple layers (underground, double stories)
repeating for endorsement. But no infinite or various levels. Just an underground and a top story. C'mon, you know you want that guard tower with the lone sniper picking people off, ignoring ground cover. Yeah, i know you do. (also outskirt outposts!)

- Longer time cycle
Its a minor thing, but i just feel the cycles in games like this or sims, or whatever are too fast. 20 seconds for an hour? 1 hour to finish a meal? 5 hours to cross a 5 building colony? Its not game-breaking, but its those little details that start to eat you away after you realisz they exist. I dunno, you already have 3 speed levels, there's no bad side to make the days longer since it only means you add maybe a few seconds to your fast forward.

- Balance skill growth
some skills improve better than others, growing and construction seems specially prone to this, you get to max level very fast while doctoring, cooking and melee are way slower.

-fog of war
repeating for endorsement. I mean, imagine this with no warnings for raider attacks. You have to keep sentries going out for patrols. You discover a raider camp near you. how long will they stay there until they attack? should you go back or send a hunting party? what if you get ambushed? what if you ambush them. Would make the "patrol" suggestion more meaning. You could even:

- patrol safety buff
Give a small morale buff to your guys based on how many people you have patrolling

- security cams
For the fog of war. They would give you line of sight in exhange of power consumption. Perhaps there would be a task to watch the comms under a Patrol task. You could have a type of beacon/alarm building that lasts for a while on its own and rings when detecting some kind of motion/armed motion.

- Bacta tank / vat chambs
Since we have cryo chambers we could have bacta tanks, right? Vat chambers for regrowing parts, as endgame substitute to prosthetics.

- Psionics
C'mon, we've all watched Akira. There's already psionics in the game (in an amusingly randomly bizarre way).
An easy way to implement:
Make it a trait "Psionic" (duh), make a researchable or rare "drop" equipment, the psionic amplificator, not unlikely the one in X-Com apoc. Equip the psionic-only weapon. Explode enemies  from afar. Have fun.

- specialization trait
There could be another kind of trait called specialization. Specialization would give just that, something specific under a skill that a colonist knows how to do really well (double efficiency or something like that). Be it building stone walls, repairing sentries, shooting with sniper rifles, etc. That way when Bob the white crag Sniper comes, you know he's really a sniper, not some generic random shooting skilled raider equipped with a sniper rifle (he's really a sniper).

- stored items in roofed walled in areas last longer
Storage equipment is no new suggestion,  but if the game can check for a walled room it could double or reduce the rate at which food gets spoiled. Or perhaps a "cooler" floor type, or walls.

- Blights are not map wide
crop blights shouldn't be map wide. Maybe walled/roofed greenhouses won't be affected while outoodors ones are.

- More common but less severe mental breakdowns.
Also diverse ones, like staying in one place, refusing to work for a while, lock up in its room. Not just stupid stuff like hitting your friends or trying to leave your own safe haven in an hostile world.

- Mechs! nuff said
mechs, mechs for work, mechs for combat, mechs

- Eletrictiy priority
like security > medbay > doors > lamps...

- Sandworms for desert maps. I mean, of course right?

- Arrows pass over walls
Repeating for endorsement.
Alsoo rocks, spears... Another good bit to change the usual killbox operation.

- Hauler bot
Really, hauling gets painful after a while, specially with mining operations.
I guess there could be all kinds of specialized bots, but its also been suggested to death. I mainly want hauler bots anyway.

- Plant pots shouldn't need to be replanted. Watering can easily be abstracted

- If not vehicles, at least semi-automatic ferry mine carts. I mean, if minecraft has it, why not rimworld, right? Perhaps an end-game floor type that transports people faster, like personal people tubes

- Happiness/morale affects work and/or combat efficiency
Perhaps a low morale would make you shoot less often with less accuracy, or perhaps work a little slower or walk a little less determined. Conversely, if you fine, things should be a little easier.

- Take prisoner for a walk
The way the prisioning works makes cabin fever - or every other debuff - useless compared to infinite warden chat, but i guess it could be nice (or if the system change) if you could make a prisioner go for a walk with the warden, maybe set a courtyard with a door that can be opened by prisoners.

- Better morale system (at least for prisoners)
The way i'd do it, debuffs would cap the max amount of morale you could get, so even if you get x30 friendly chats , you would only reach so far, and have such and such recruit chance, as long as you have other penalties.

- Wall mounted sentry
There's a wall and there's a sentry. The catch is that since its mounted to a wall, you can still pass under it, or build stuff under it. It would be a weaker, cheaper version, good to defend homes when overwhelmed.

== Map types ==
-Ruined city crawling with robots
You drop in what used to be the ruins of a city that had some matrix/skynet/cylon problem. You have a lot of half finished buildings, a lot of hi-tech and provisions to scavenge, but you'd get a higher chance to encounter mech patrols. This would need to have a rudimentary "stealth" system, where enemy doesn't know exactly where you are (and you them) and toons don't automatically shoot things. So you would get the belly fear of running from home to home while the robots crawl the streets.

-Giant trees
The trees are giant, you actually "mine" inside trees instead of mountains. Would be more awesome with Z-levels tho.

-Pitchblack
Probably been suggested, but a map with pitchblack nights and scorching days (monsters by night, sun damage by day). Or just different night/day cicles

-Zone threats:
Your zone might suffer from a single source of threat (raiders, tribals monsters, robots), or perhaps just have it set to a higher occurrence rate. Good for themed sessions.


== More traits ==
Friendly:  Bonus chat buff to other colonists
Annoying:  Penalty chat debuff to other colonists
Fast metabolism: gets hungry faster, heals faster
Large: big and burly, has extra hit points. Move slower
Thin: slender body for fewer hit points and faster movement
Leader: bonus job efficiency for nearby allies and/or halves penalties for things like corpses or killings.
Sex-Appeal: bonus chat for opposed sex, half for same sex.
Insomniac: Sleep less, but is less efficient
Feral: Can't use tech equipments or weapons but is extra good at melee
Sleepwalker: a "for fun" trait. character will do random things (like moving or carrying stuff) while  sleeping.
Strongback:  should more slots be implemented, this one gives an extra slot, or hauls more resources at once.
Scary:  Emits a fear "aura" that can demoralizes enemies
Stubborn: from time to time it ignores your commands

[Johnny Masters]

*replying the rest of my post that didn't fit*

==Game modes ==
- Random drop. Including dead or wounded survivors, that is no chargen. Random starting kit.

Lone badass survivor - A single survivor with excelent skills must survive on his on. It would work wonders with other types of game modes such as invading raiders camps, stealing parts for a spaceship...

-Military Defense - A military detachment makes a forced drop to a rimworld planet. You have a lot of experienced soldiers (5-10) a few techs and lots of resources and weapons. The idea is to quickstart a fortress from scratch and defend against a few waves of: raiders, monsters, raging animals, zombies, tribals,skynet robots, zombie raiders, zombie monsters, zombie robots, zombie tribals, aliens, zombie aliens... 

You get some downtime to heal, rebuild, expand or craft while you wait for you rescue. If it should ever come.

Alternatively, you may have a setup phase where you instabuild stuff within a certain timeframe, with a set of resources or resource points.

-Abandoned outpost
You drop in near what seems to be an abandoned outpost, full with quarters, medbays, walls and sentries. But of course there are corpses everywhere! Soon you are welcomed by the obvious horde wave. It could be just a fiery start or a map thing, such as constant threat below.

-Constant low threats
As it is, you get a random attack every few days, with increasing might, followed by a few days of relative peace. A nice change of pace would be having constant threats, such as feral animals or skirmishing raiders, so you'd have to keep constant patrols or defended outposts, getting more mileage out of your soldiers and keeping the adrenaline up (for those that love a gunfight).

-Sensible colony demographics -
Should be harder or rarer to recruit people from enemy factions. New colonists should mostly come from random events (escape pods or friendly imigration). This can be better
used to keep colony numbers from getting too high and the implausability that most of your guys are fending off the guys they used to belong to. Similarly, there could be a larger pool of survivors from the start and it just gets tougher as you lose them. 

Events:
- Invade / rescue missions
endorsement

-Distress beacon
A pod drops and signals help. Getting near could reveal a survivor or raiders dropping in or sprout from the ground.

-Escort - An allied or neutral band is passing through, but they need assistance! You must get out of your meticulously cheap killbox to save your allies. Get favor or resources in exchange.

-Motel
A passing band asks for a place to stay for the night. They could pay or reveal to be hostile once inside.

-The Mist
Just like the movie. Instead of pitch black nights there could be a mist-like phenomena. Obviously there are monsters in the mist. Closed buildings would be safe, but how long could you be holed up?
You'd probably need an event to counter dwarfers tho

Ticket outta town: a random trade ship offers passage for a lot of dough (a lot). That would be an alternative to space ship escape.

Raider extortion : a raider group lands and demands payment for not attacking you. You can pay with money, resources or slaves. You can use the time given to build the required amount or to prepare a pre emp. Probably suggested but there you go again.

Virus: Somehow you got a virus or bug in your power/digital system. Doors open and shut without command, lights flicker, sentries shoot without command, consoles don't answer, etc.

The missing tail: Surviving members of the crash joins up. You get a hefty happiness buff for a while and new crew.

Abduction
Colonist abducted. returned a few days later changed

Allied colony migration
Might lose a few members, gain a few others. Probably just gain.

Toxic Cloud
Could be anything actually (sandstorm, eletricstorm, fog, meteor showers...) but i know it's been suggested to death