Make the Prisoners Work! (Slaves.) Make Some Babies! (Breeding.)

[DaveP]

I was at first against the baby idea because of the normal human maturation timescale, but then the accelerated version was mentioned, and yes, could be interesting.  Also, suddenly incapacitating one of your colonists for this purpose is great - but as opposed to a disease, there are more potential choices at the end.

Hell, you could even go to extremely dark territory by making a 'terminate pregnancy' option in the medical bills, with the appropriate enormous mood loss by the expectant mother and father.

Or, give psychopath colonists a mood -boost- from children getting killed by rabid squirrels?

And for all those referencing explosive slave collars...I hope you're drawing said reference from Fallout and not Star Wars.

[thatguy1023]

if the pregnancy thing is implemented i would think that you could assign the child to a colonist the learn the skills the s/he is using like hunting increases gun skill, mining and crafting does the obvious etc etc and if they eat human meat they get used to it along with seeing a prisoner getting executed by the warden

[TrashMan]

Babeis cna work with some creative thinking.

Genetic modification for all human spacers (fast growth), change of time scale (1 day = 1 week), etc, etc...

[Sartain]

Babeis cna work with some creative thinking.

Genetic modification for all human spacers (fast growth), change of time scale (1 day = 1 week), etc, etc...

Or, as has already been suggested, have them grow at a normal pace but with the option to build stuff (or have it as a medical procedure) that enhance their growth speed.

[ImNatalie]

And for all those referencing explosive slave collars...I hope you're drawing said reference from Fallout and not Star Wars.

Both are awesome. Don't even hate on Star Wars.

[Ieatkebabs]

The breeding could work is the women had been implanted with speeding up growth device due to a population decline on earth and this could speed up child growth to 1 week = a year and give a use to teachers to teach them skills. But there could still be legit babies at 1 month is a year. And the legit ones will end up with better skills due to longer in a school whereas the genetically enhanced ones would grow quicker (growth spurt ends at 18) they will not have the developed skills the others have. This device however could have an increased chance of miscarriage and bad traits while legit has less chance of miscarriage and has a small chance of bad and good traits

[ImNatalie]

Well I don't know if it has to be so advanced and complicated...

[200Down]

Procreation on a random level completely controlled by the story teller. Bahaha, Randy Random would really come into his own then eh. Or how about an event that pops up saying something about two of your colonists falling in Wuv. Would you like to allow conception between the newly found wuvvvers Mr. weirdo that wants kids in a combat game? Options baby... OPTIONS.

But on a serious note I do think procreation is a nice idea but we'll have to see what kind of relationship system we get first. Then we'll have some foundation to base this on 

[Eliijahh]

I don't understand why babies should only be seen as a "bonus"? You are way too gamey people!!

Dude+woman= (after a while) 1 baby.

Then the fact that after a few years you can use it to help you carry boulders around, well, that's another thing.
Having babies you have to take care of is actually a really good idea. It makes a relationship system much more meaningful and it gives the player another thing he has to take care of............................... if he wants to. (sell babies to cannibals to make them friendly?)

[200Down]

The more you call it "having babies" the more I think it's twisted as hell to want to babysit a kid in this game... would have an entire graveyard full of 2-year-olds just because of hunting accidents 

Few days later threads are full of DUDE!! The babies need a BUFF man wtf!?!?

[Johnny Masters]

The more you call it "having babies" the more I think it's twisted as hell to want to babysit a kid in this game... would have an entire graveyard full of 2-year-olds just because of hunting accidents 

Few days later threads are full of DUDE!! The babies need a BUFF man wtf!?!?

Don't we all want more variation on challenges instead of more raiders?   

[OpposingForces]

tynan has mentioned in the past adding relationships and i think kids. but how would one go about  dealing with said children? my guess would be some sort of accelerated growth such as gene mod therapy to accelerate growth, or some nursery object that spits out young adults.

[Vexare]

Babies can work, but at at an accelerated growth rate. Easily explained by genetic tampering all humans who went to space get.
At 7x growth rate it would take them 2 years to reach 14 years of age. You can fiddle with the numbers. Ideally, you'd have a curved growth rate (extreemly fast in the begining then slowing down to normal until it reaches 20 years)
so in 1 year a child grows 10 years
in the next year it grows 5
In the next it grows 3
from then on it's normal.
Alternatively, a growing vat that you can research. You can have babies without it, but growth will be slow.

This!

It seems like the immediate knee-jerk response I see to these types of threads in reading many is: "omg yuck I don't want the sims!" but I think that's a bit of an over-exaggeration and not very creative or helpful. Why does reproduction have to be a complicated thing with relationships and such? Leave most of that out and just have two of the colonists with the right traits or skills reproduce via the "Vat Grown" methods already mentioned in much of the backstory for some colonists.

Definitely should be a speeded up process. Time is already halved by the fact months are only 14 days long so why do we need to follow traditional 'earth' cycles for gestation? This is the far far future so humans don't need to be limited by a 40 week gestation period! Nor do they really need to take 18 years to grow up. It begs to point out the fact that we've got very young colonists as choices who are already full blown surgeons and leaders. While that doesn't seem 'realistic' to many - what if those kids were geniuses who were genetically engineered that way and reached 'adulthood' at 5 years or something highly accelerated? It could happen!

It also doesn't need messy complicated relationship interactions like The Sims. Villagers in Minecraft make babies if you have enough doors ... seems pretty simple to me - LOL!

Hate to break it to you guys, but this game *is* a human simulator game too, not just a mindless RTS where you have 'squads' you move around on a map with no personalities or needs / desires. Sid Meier's Civilization series and dozens of others spanning back to Age of Empires etc. have that sort of gameplay if all you're looking for is a lot of combat simulation for your colony.

If this game were just another clone of one of those, I wouldn't be playing it. Been there done that enough. I want character depth and storytelling and RimWorld fits that goal very well.

Did you play Banished? It had a very simple reproduction system. Couples moved into houses as you built them and had kids. Kids went to school or became laborers - pretty simple. They grew up fast - obviously the time scale of that game is far faster than Rimworld and a lot more simplistic but you get the idea. It can happen.

I would like to see players consider the possibility of reproduction for RimWorld with an open mind and not immediately have a negative "sims" reaction. There's so much more potential then that.

Now that says absolutely nothing for the coding nightmare I'm sure it produces for Tynan to actually make a reproduction system work but hey, I'm still onboard with it.

As for slavery (which I have less opinion of) I'm all for it if that's the playstyle you want your colony to have. Some colonies might degrade into hive-mind military bases with slave drone workers and that's kinda cool too especially when you have colonist slaves who are pretty dumb, haha.

[200Down]

That may work. Now just need some way to limit movement easier with zones like DF had or something. Or they just follow the parent so you only have to control one during fights. Baby leashes... that's the ticket. lmfao I can see the twisted mods already.

[Szymanski]

I actually like this idea a lot! I'm in love with the dark, realistic side of the game, and I think that implementing these features would amp up the atmosphere!