Colony types and local humanoids

[Antares [UK]]

Dear co-colonists,

I have recently seen a play-through of the RimWorld and I must say that this game looks like the most perfect game of the space genre. I was so inspired by this wonderful work that I have created a list of diverse ideas that I would be excited to see adapted. The list is quite long, but as Mark Twain stated in his letter to a friend back in 1890s, "I am sorry for writing such a long letter, I have not had time to write a shorter one"

Hope that at least some of the ideas below will inspire the Ludeon team.

__________________________________________________________

List of ideas:

- More rooms/buildings/facilities:
> Different types of laboratories (to examine local humanoids, flora and fauna).
> Infirmary, maternity, surgeon rooms and morgue.
> Restaurants, bars, canteen & kitchen.
> Bathroom facilities.
> Biospheres (gardens - yield and oxygen).
> Nuclear & anti-matter energy generators.
> Various defence mines (stun or lethal with varying impact area).
> Rails and mine-carts for both, mines and base-to-base transportation.
> En-suite hotel-like rooms to accommodate important colony guests (admirals, diplomats and polititians that may wish to meet the colony leader to form a some of agreement for mutual benefits in nice or dirty way).
> Assembly lines and hangars for: space, ground, underground and sea travel; all of which will be particularly useful when colonising large-scale planets filled with local hostile humanoids, rebel camps from your homeland and pirate bases).

- Water supply:
> In deserts - water wells; in arctic - melting platforms; in tundra - wells, rain collectors and water atmosphere absorbers.
> Use water to support bathroom, refectory facilities and biospheres.

- Ability to capture (enslave / adapt & educate) local humanoids.

- Add a cloaking generator to disguise from local humanoids and pirates with less advanced technologies.

- Receive missions, which will the allow colony to specialise in one of the following areas (each to have certain  pros and cons):
> Science - your colony becomes a vital part of the universe researches. Main duties of your personnel will involve study of natural sciences, colonial economic optimisation, studies of colonial (and xeno-) psychology and sociology.
> Military - your colony becomes one of the imperial outpost. Your men should be ready to out-stand rebel and pirate attacks; face armies of local humanoids and protect VIPs who require a political asylum.
> Industrial - your colony will specialise in extracting natural resources in new ways and producing the most powerful weaponry, reliable construction materials and spacecraft parts, all of which may eventually anger the local humanoids (if ones are present) and result in increased pirate raids.
> Tourism - your colony will generate more cash than any other, but you will require plenty of bedrooms, bars and entertainment (Zoos from local fauna, SPA, rehabs (infirmary) biospheres with exotic plants (which were grown in laboratories or collected nearby), cloaked view points to observe local humanoids and animals). The main policy of such colony is ensure safety, smile and keep the base clean. Remember, visitors do not need to see or even know if some pesky rebel was killed in the desert nearby.
> Medical tourism - your colony will be known for being the best place to make a plastic surgery, go through a rehab or make a deep inhale of the local CO2 atmosphere. Some VIPs may want to visit the colony to change their appearance as part of the political asylum and they will need heavy protection during the stay.

- Local humanoids:
> Present / not present.
> Difficulty: Tribes or low-intelligence / Medieval state / Analogue of the 21st century.
> Hostile (will die to protect their fatherland) / Neutral (will attack only if you start abducting them or collecting too many natural resources / Friendly (will close a blind eye no matter what).
> Diplomacy (willingness to negotiate, cooperate and form (more or less) mutually beneficial agreements and policies).
> Several types/races of humanoids (1-2 random race options per planet terrain type; each race with their unique abilities).

[RADIOACTIVEham]

Those are some really good ideas!

[starlight]

Those are some really good ideas!

Tynan: Looks reflectively at the horizon and gestures while lost in thought contemplating the years of development............

But I do think these are some good ideas.

[Robitski]

I do not like the 'missions' because I think the point of RimWorld is that your colony is far from civilization and that you're on your own. The trading ships are the only reach from the civilized parts of the galaxy. Surely if your colony became an outpost or a hotel you'd just become a major town and no longer isolated and fighting for survival.

However, I think bars/pubs are a good idea, generates cash and increases passing travelers. If they're close enough to the colony they'll come to the bar and may want to join the colony. But tourism/civilization wise, I think that's the limit, really :|

Just remember this isn't a city builder.

[Antares [UK]]

Hi, I know what you mean and mandatory "Star Trek Online" like missions would be highly annoying. I should have made a clear proposition of all these missions being optional and several missions to be available at once. If ignored, new optional mission bundles would appear 10-30 minutes later.

Like, you can ignore them if you want to play a sandbox or accept them if you lack of imagination Just brainstorming.

[Sky_walker]

> Difficulty:  Analogue of the 21st century.

These would murder everyone.
- Nukes
- Bombs from air
- Shells from artillery
- CT-teams

[Wopian]

Is a farming colony included in the 'industrial' colony or not?

[Galileus]

Just remember this isn't a city builder.

This so much. This ain't no Civ4 and should not be even if it could be. Underlying theme of RimWorld is survival and inhospitality, many of mentioned ideas would completely change this theme and thus mess it up. People loving current state of affairs would quit mid-game, because hotel-managers of few kinds are a-plenty (for this genre at least!). People wanting a space holet simulation would never ever come due to pain of the first part of the game.

Also, jumping from solar panels and geothermal generators to nuclear power seems... extreme. Not to mention anti-mater. I wouldn't mind some sci-fi in my sci-fi, but having the scope of the game in mind it would be wise to suggest something that seems reasonably "for personal use".

All-in-all these ideas are well suited for grand-scheme games and civ-likes, but not for RimWorld.

[cidjikai]

And again I can't agree less with you Galileus (nothing personal ok  )

While this is not a civ-like or a city builder, there is indeed an important building part. As far as I'm concerned, I really enjoy the storytelling concept but if the game is going to limit itself with the "we're some lost souls on a remote rock building some kind of dreadful bunker and waiting to be eventually overwhelmed by increasingly bigger waves of dumb raiders" concept, then its potential will be drastically limited. Being able to build a sophisticated colony should be possible in the late game. I can't imagine some more epic story than one involving a prosperous colony finally getting blasted by a massive military operation from a local warlord just after a massive solar flare destroyed most of its defense devices. We all have our own idea of what would be a great story for a colony and toward which goal we want to push our refugees. I think RimWorld's most valuable asset would be to offer the player a very wide range of possible development for each new game, and a richer colony management would contribute to that.

[Galileus]

Richer management? Hell yeah, I'm all for that. Three guys crashed on a rock of nothing becoming a research centre dealing with the problems of whole universe, imperial outpost or tourism centre? Nope.

Don't get me wrong - I do agree with you. Prospering colony, open wars with local warlords, all is fine and nice in my book. But OP's ideas of our colony being some kind of best-in-sector industrial planet? This is simply wrong by standards set up by the setting. This setting being frontier colonization of rim worlds, as seen for example in Firefly. Idea of a single, unsupported colony outgrowing all else simply goes against all of that. In inspirations, there were mentions of grim and brutal settings - and so a fairytale is simply off-putting, especially compared to what we see by now. Moreover, we already have established this game will cover only a small colony of few dozens of people most - there is no place in it for anything even close to "sector's centre for [...]". This would require a rewrite of whole part of the game, or would look simply ridiculous.

I mean, there is even talking about going to other planets there, other than your "homeland" and conquering them. This is not this game, and we've established that already.

That being said, I definitely do not have nothing against a prospering colony. Mine for minerals for local trading company on a very beneficial contract? Great! Join an existing alliance of rednecks for protection and better future? Wonderful! Gain enough respect in the region to actually start getting new colonists that actually WANT to be there? All in favour! Receive admirals of whole fleets of starships to negotiate big-guys politics with them? Nope. Not that game.

[Antares [UK]]

I was thinking more of large on-shore "Deep Space 9" type colonies rather than a "Martian Hotel Giant" or "Kepler-22 Farmville"

[cidjikai]

I totally agree with you on this point, RimWorld is not about building the next Trantorian Empire and live to tell about it ^^

[Galileus]

I was thinking more of large on-shore "Deep Space 9" type colonies rather than a "Martian Hotel Giant" or "Kepler-22 Farmville"

Crewed optimally by 2.000 crewmen with capacity to house 7.000 - and that is highly trained personnel of specialists; armed enough to fight a small fleet of battleships; major trade, cultural, historical and military centre... exactly what I was talking about.

Also, on that note - please, please, please no magical wormhole prophet fairies in my sci-fi!

[NephilimNexus]

May I direct everyone's attention to "StarTopia" and then make the following suggestion: Steal Everything.   

[Robitski]

And don't pet the damn meumaus! :3