Slavery and Population Growth

[Nasikabatrachus]

Slavery, as it currently exists in RimWorld, is a bit troublesome. Although the game ostensibly takes place in a survival situation, the mechanics mean that the player will soon be taking on the role of a plantation owner by judging the capabilities of enslaved bodies and buying or selling accordingly. I've even seen some people say they trade off colonists for ones with better characteristics.

Aside from the whole "This Is Problematic" angle, slavery's implementation is thematically inconsistent and could do with some rethinking.

• What if, instead of purchasing slaves to grow the colony's population and increase production, we purchased wreck survivors? That is, the slave ships (or, why not pirate ships?) that come by could have captured survivors of the wrecked ship, who would be more naturally inclined to join up with the colony. Some of the other wreck survivors could be spouses, family members, or colleagues of the original three, giving a psychological and story-based incentive to find them, collect them, and ultimately escape with them.
• Nearby towns and tribes might also have captured some survivors, and might be willing to part with their "guests" for a price in some commodity (higher if they're hostile, but every community needs resources, right?).

In addition to changing the central mechanic of population growth from "slavery" to "rescue," there are also thematically consistent changes that could be made to slavery as it stands to make it less abstract and bloodless.

• After a slave enters the colony, they often assume a status effectively equal to the wreck survivors; everyone gets along and forgets that anyone was enslaved. But what if a slave wanted freedom? What if they were associated with a faction, and that faction knew you were buying their people as slaves? The contradictions between slave and master would add a completely new dimension to this mechanic.
• Purchased slaves often wind up outnumbering wreck survivors or "POWs" who join the colony. But there's no real mechanism of control. What if slaves wore explosive collars or had implanted mental control devices? It would be more plausible, and require more thought and choice on the part of the player, if slaves had to be coerced and could be manumitted.
• Mechanisms of controlling people often have downsides. A slave with an explosive collar or a brain chip probably wouldn't have access to their full capacities as a person, in terms of intellect or affect.

I've been thinking about this for a while, so I hope these thoughts are of some use.

[Mathenaut]

Perhaps it's just me, but usually my issue with slaves and prisoners is that I end up having too many to take care of, and the slave trader ships are inconveniently infrequent.  Especially given the the market for them.

[keylocke]

i think i'd want to throw in relationships + vat grown babies (they come out of the vat fully grown in about 3 months) and then trained in the neurotrainer for another month before being "useable" (it's like trying to grow devilstrand. ie : solar flare hazards and such.).

it's a gamble. which could sometimes give you raging psychopath rampage as soon as they step out of vat. similar ideas had been discussed before. but now that we have an "aging" system, might as well throw this idea again into the open, as an alternative to slavery

[Nasikabatrachus]

i think i'd want to throw in relationships + vat grown babies (they come out of the vat fully grown in about 3 months) and then trained in the neurotrainer for another month before being "useable" (it's like trying to grow devilstrand. ie : solar flare hazards and such.).

it's a gamble. which could sometimes give you raging psychopath rampage as soon as they step out of vat. similar ideas had been discussed before. but now that we have an "aging" system, might as well throw this idea again into the open, as an alternative to slavery

Seems like it's a little too "off" for RimWorld's setting, although I really like the idea of occasionally coming across Transcendent-level tech that duplicates colonists or something, as well as colonist relationships.

[tommonius]

I really like the idea of potential cloning or vat grown colonists as they could be created to maturity as opposed to having a bunch of under-aged colonists who would realistically have no traits and no skills and would have to start from scratch and probably would spend the first few years of their lives unable to actively do anything useful.

Putting a corpse of a dead favoured colonist into a discovered cloning machine to get him back would be neat, there is always one colonist with great stats for a certain job (that everyone else sucks at) who ends up dying leaving your colony in a pinch.

it could be balanced by having said machines only being able to be used every so often, a vat grown machine could be researchable but takes a fair few months to make a colonist.

heck I guess if Rimworld went down the relationship makes babies route then there could be a research tab to make children grow faster via some kind of growth enhancer which would make children less of a drain on your recources waiting for them to be useful.

[Barley]

I always figured you were freeing purchased slaves given the fact that nobody watches them, and you can give them a gun the minute they make landfall. But we're in alpha and this is clearly another aspect of the game that remains to be fleshed out.

[Varnhagen]

As long as there are no politics and quarrels of some kind implemented, I always assumed, that our colonists are part of an anarcho-utopian commune. So Slaves are purchased and among equals as long as they are pulling their weight.
Proper Slavery with all it's implications might be interesting to look at, but in the grand picture of human history, slavery was a inefficient and unstable economic model.
As for other means of recruitment: I'm all for it. Citizens might be dropped off, willing to join a colony and start over. We basically would pay their fare then. Others might be on the run, and some kind of special raid might be triggered.

As for vatgrown colonists: I'm opposed to it, as it doesn't fit the theme of the game. A special transcendend-tech event every couple of games might work for me, but a regular research option (very high tech), wouldn't work for the frontier setting of Rimworld.

[keylocke]

Seems like it's a little too "off" for RimWorld's setting, although I really like the idea of occasionally coming across Transcendent-level tech that duplicates colonists or something, as well as colonist relationships.

vat grown colonists aren't "off" Rimworld's settings. iirc some of the colonist origins are "vat grown".
but the lore didn't seem to elaborate the actual vat-growing process.

ie :

* does it involve nanotech manipulation of organic matter or is it purely organic?
* how long is the aging process? hours, days, weeks, months, years?
* what are the resources needed in vat-growing people (energy, raw resources, tech, etc)?
* are vat-grown babies 100% successful or does the process fail sometimes?
* etc..

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the reason why i think it's intriguing, is that this option allows romantic relationships between people and allows them to create a "productive" and fully grown offspring in a matter of in-game months.

of course, there's still the storyteller pop-cap to deal with.. so when population hits the max limit, then perhaps any vat-grown babies will have 0% chance to get success?

i just thought it's a neat alternative to slavery or immigration. since "bloodlines" and "relationships" makes the colony seem more cohesive.

[tommonius]

I think the concern is:

A) balance, spamming colonists for example which could be balanced by a long growth time, large power requirements and regular maintenance and an ingame cap so if there are to many vatgrown/ resurrected cloned colonists then the machine could break or power down.

B) immersion, sure they exist in lore but how likely would it be for a struggling colony with wooden buildings, bows and arrows and melee weapons to also have a super high tech vat growing colonist machine. It could be a hidden event to be discovered in game justified as lost technology of an advanced civilization or perhaps a late game crashed item event that needs repairing which could of came from the ship we was on and it just fell from orbit and is used to help bulk out late game numbers when the attacks are becoming there most fierce

C) usefulness, if we get random stat characters from it they could suck and generally not be very useful which would be a problem especially as more colonists usually means less chance to get other colonists like trying to convert say a really good miner you found, I know at least I have had a 95% conversion chance and the guy refused repeatedly.

in the flip side being able to say pick the stats of a colonist to min max them to be say a max miner and shooter or doctor/warden or whatever else the colony really needs would be great

but these superior colonists would mean people crashed in pods, people brought as slaves, people captured as prisoners and converted, people who walk up and join your colony would all be redundant as they would never be as good as a vat frown colonist.

So sorry about long post, I like the idea but even I am wondering how to strike a balance with the rest of the game.

[JimmyAgnt007]

Tynan has stated he didnt like immortality in the form of bionic brains and such, so a vat grown clone of people who die might not make it in.  though id really love to make a Frankenstein monster from several dead people.

but spawning brand new vat grown people, very resource intensive, maybe needing an AI control part to operate the vat, would be fun. 

slaves ive always seen as freed on purchased.  everyone else is just convinced the colony is a wonderful place to live.  but it can all do with fleshing out.  i like the idea of captured raiders with bomb collars forced to work.  maybe limited to mining, cleaning, hauling, plantwork and such.  but not medical, construction (maybe they can sabotage) and such.  but of course they always got a foul mood.  so more likely to suffer a mental break and... loose their head

Children are something id love to see.  colonists meet, fall in love or just hook up, and a baby is born.  growth is accelerated of course to avoid 14 years of uselessness.  the kids run around watching others work, maybe get trainers or even a classroom with a 'teach kids' bill, and end up with the skills they observed. 

[skullywag]

I would like raiders to remember their original faction and when that faction attacks they might decide to join back uo with them, this would be dependant on how happy they have been in your hands or something.

In regards to slaves im also in the mindset of "freeing" them. I woukd however like bands of roaming raiders "transporting" slaves that we can literally free by going out and intercepting them. Would make ambushing a lot more prevailant.

[JimmyAgnt007]

like the current visitors who pass through, only hostile passing through.  i like it! 

once you free them, they can just hang about the colony or leave.  on that note, like those who crash in pods.  they shouldnt need to be 'captured' to be inducted into the colony.  they should be able to hang out, and you can directly recruit them.

[tommonius]

Great ideas on the thread, I am liking them. I was thinking about the friendly factions we can talk to on the com's, we pay them money as a gift and they can come to help us in a fight but what about other options when they like us enough such as renting colonists from them and pay them either upfront or a small amount of wages periodically.

Or if the other towns like us enough perhaps a few colonists will be more likely to come and join us so instead of just name and what profession they are comes to join us we get a "xxx from XXXXX town wishes to make a new life at your colony."

and perhaps a tick or deny box on whether we actually want them.

[skullywag]

A the topic of the friendly colonies, I want to trade seeds with them and traders, It erks me we have all the seeds upfront for everyplant ever, but I dont want to get into the mess that is minecraft seeds and having plants drop them it just ends up in a mess, do it like banished, get the seed (costs a lot) you can now work that plant. Kind of off topic but meh...