How to make children work in game

[Grey_Mako]

Howdy,

(First Post!)

I've posted a much simplified version of this over on reddit to mixed response.

Essentially, its a workable way of bringing children and procreation into the game without breaking it.

Check out the flow chart at the bottom of the post:

Potential Issues and my response:

I) Whats the point? (Game enrichment perspective)
R) Adds a new layer of RPG to it, also adds new challenges, and alternative means to the same ends (population growth). Also adds the prospect of family trees, which I think would be cool.

I) Children would take to long to grow up, would make it pointless
R) I think at the start of the game you'd try to avoid having them, until you'd researched the maturity vat to speed up their growth

I) Children would upset the balance of the game, too many colonists breaks it
R) Whether a colonist gets pregnant of not is dependent on a number of conditions, not least that the Story Teller thinks it would work (same logic for deciding when a slave trader swings by). Also pregnancies can fail (sad times)

I) Children (potentially) dying is unethical
R) And genocide, harvesting organs, slavery isn't?

I) Pregnancy takes 270+ days, by time a baby was born, the game would be over
R) 270 days IRL sure, but in real life potatoes and berries don't grow in a few days either - the game day/night cycle is out of sink with the passage of time. I believe that in game pregnancy would be closer to 10-15 days

Tell me what you think

[Klitri]

Fantastic, I love it! Only thing is, I'd change the permanent mood drop to maybe 15 ingame days or so. Otherwise, I'm supportive of this idea, it's organized and it could work.

[Simulacrum]

Seems kind of redundant to me, unless other forms of recruitment were added their own severe disadvantages.

You can either spend lots of resources and 2+ years of in-game time to grow an emotional cripple with no skills, that even risks killing the mother (or the other way around if the mother dies or is injured), or you can pick whichever guy you like from one of the many battlefields that occur naturally anyway and recruit them, often getting yourself an amazing guy with useful traits of your choosing. Or you can harvest some cotton and buy a slave... hmm...

Anyway. Maybe if you could design the kid, or it had some other major advantage that would make it preferable to other forms of recruitment, but as-is it doesn't look worth it, and the vat growing is really awkward.

[keylocke]

half skills/traits of mother + half skills/traits of father

"conception" is about just splicing some genes.
then the "child" will get squeezed out of vat at age 15(?)
and prepped for neurotrainers.

no more need for preggo stage.
since "sex" can just be recreational, if opting for vat conception.
the important part is the skills/traits imparted by the parents.

[Geokinesis]

You'd have to add a -40 mood Malus that last for years to the partner if they die in childbirth

Also if you do go the vat route you can have same sex couples having children. 

[pollgg12]

This is odd but i like it plus the lowest age is 15 so it would work

[Thunder Rahja]

Games typically last 50-100 days (try Cassandra at Challenging and keep the first colonists that are rolled for you), which is too short for any meaningful impact. Pregnancies take 270+ days. Adding a system for children would probably be a waste.

[Grey_Mako]

Games typically last 50-100 days (try Cassandra at Challenging and keep the first colonists that are rolled for you), which is too short for any meaningful impact. Pregnancies take 270+ days. Adding a system for children would probably be a waste.

Thunder1, not trying to be funny but you read the key bit about the aging VAT didn't you?

Or is your concern more focused on the length of the pregnancy?

If so, I do not believe one game light and dark cycle equates to one actual day. I could be wrong, but if I am, we need to find out what the species of potato and berries they grow in game are - they could solve world hunger in a week!

Jokes aside, I believe that the pregnancy period would not equate to 270 cycles of light and dark in the game, probably closer to 10.

You'd have to add a -40 mood Malus that last for years to the partner if they die in childbirth

Also if you do go the vat route you can have same sex couples having children. 

Hey Geo, the flow diagram has a bit in it for negative and positive mood modifiers as a result of a birth/still birth.

Although the Vat I had in mind was for rapid aging rather than creation of children. I dunno, but it seems a bit cheap to me (in game) to just push a button and build a child, I'd much rather go through the process of earning one.

C-Sectio. Just get the baby out of the mother with an operation. This will need a skilled doctor. And a natural birth doesn't have to be only succesfull with a doctor.

C-Sectio: Experienced doctor to perform save operation.
Natural Birth: Will be saver with doctor, but NOT needed. Bigger chance the mother or child will die.

Like the idea of C sections as an alternative to natural birth, could work well as a method of birth with a greater chance of mother surviving, but requires a highly skilled doctor.

[Dragoon]

This chart and these ideas are Great! Nice to see a suggestion where people don't go all it's a rim-world not a sim-world.

[Damien Hart]

If so, I do not believe one game light and dark cycle equates to one actual day. I could be wrong, but if I am, we need to find out what the species of potato and berries they grow in game are - they could solve world hunger in a week!

Jokes aside, I believe that the pregnancy period would not equate to 270 cycles of light and dark in the game, probably closer to 10.

Colonists age once per year; unless they somehow slow the aging process simply by being on the planet, then its cycles have to be the same as Earth's.

I would assume that the plants are genetically engineered to have a faster growth rate and a shorter lifespan, they are something like 2,500 years into the future after all.

The main issue I have with reproducing colonists is that a natural pregnancy doesn't fit within the time frame of a normal game, and vat growing is far too high-tech for a handful of crash survivors. Even producing solar panels from scratch is a bit iffy, but with wind power coming, we'll see how that pans out. We're meant to be managing a colony of crash survivors, trying to survive with whatever they can build from scratch, not a colony at the peak of technological advancement.

[keylocke]

they can try buying vats and neurotrainers from traders? (rare and expensive)

-----

edit :

now that you mention it.. maybe we should also buy solar panel parts and steam generator parts + researching the relevant tech before actually being able to construct solar panels and steam gens.

the problem with this is that we need to at least have a way to cook without electricity. maybe one of  campfire mods or something.

---

anyways, i think the process should be..

research machine tech -> manufacture/buy machines parts -> build machine

i think that's how construction of complicated structures should work. (i also like the idea of the modular turrets and all those other neat mods.)

[bechtoldn]

Interesting idea for the game, i wouldn't mind seeing it put into creation. 

[Grey_Mako]

I would assume that the plants are genetically engineered to have a faster growth rate and a shorter lifespan, they are something like 2,500 years into the future after all.

........

The main issue I have with reproducing colonists is that a natural pregnancy doesn't fit within the time frame of a normal game.........

Hang on one cotton pickin' second...

If you accept that the plants have been genetically modified to gestate and grow faster, why is it difficult for you to image that the humans could also have been similarly modified?

[Darkfirephoenix]

they can try buying vats and neurotrainers from traders? (rare and expensive)

-----

edit :

now that you mention it.. maybe we should also buy solar panel parts and steam generator parts + researching the relevant tech before actually being able to construct solar panels and steam gens.

the problem with this is that we need to at least have a way to cook without electricity. maybe one of  campfire mods or something.

---

anyways, i think the process should be..

research machine tech -> manufacture/buy machines parts -> build machine

i think that's how construction of complicated structures should work. (i also like the idea of the modular turrets and all those other neat mods.)

Buying mid/high-tech from traders? TechtreeMinami already does that, you should take a look if you haven't already.

About the growth speed of humans: They are "normal" humans and take the "normal" amount of time to age. Maybe later we will get "modified" humans with a higher aging factor (good: They mature faster, bad: they die earlier).
So I think the carrytime should be 9 months till birth and the maturing time should be also normal, UNLESS you give growth hormones.
About "speed maturing"/genetical creating children: It should take a good amount of materials, energy/power and research. (creating a human from scratch would take some kind of "bio-material" and a good amount of it, making the "bio-material" should take raw materials and mainly TIME. Speeding up growth would need some "growth" research and "learning/teaching" research [you don't want a person with the body of an adult and only the mind of a infant, or?] and ofc some growth materials [growth medicine or such])

[NoImageAvailable]

I would assume that the plants are genetically engineered to have a faster growth rate and a shorter lifespan, they are something like 2,500 years into the future after all.

........

The main issue I have with reproducing colonists is that a natural pregnancy doesn't fit within the time frame of a normal game.........

Hang on one cotton pickin' second...

If you accept that the plants have been genetically modified to gestate and grow faster, why is it difficult for you to image that the humans could also have been similarly modified?

It took you an entire month to come up with that revelation?

Regarding children as others have said before, it just wouldn't fit into the time frame of the game and your counter-arguments seem pretty weak. The silly plant growth time is more of an argument against such short growth times (in fact, Tynan has been hinting that we might see a more realistic system at some point in the near future to go with the upcoming seasons) and the growth vat seems like nothing but a cumbersome hack. IMO there could very well be romantic relationships once colonist relationships are implemented but children simply don't fit into the scale of the game as it is right now.