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[TynanSylvester]

It's actually not that hard to simulate atmosphere. It's much harder to make colonists act intelligently with regard to atmospheric dangers and restrictions. In this case, as with many others (e.g. fire), it's much easier to simulate the phenomenon than it is to simulate the minds of people dealing with the phenomenon. Making a game like this is really a challenge in AI more than anything.

It's also tough to get players to handle all the cases where they can't do something they want to do because something isn't sealed. People used to not notice that a wall was missing and get frustrated a lot. It turned out to be a really obstructive kind of system that took a lot of fiddling to play around and didn't have a great payoff story-wise. So I removed it. As I say, I may bring it back for a hardcore mode. The code and graphics are all still in there.

[Elfeater]

This game looks sexy. Fact.

[Farce]

Oh man, atmospheric systems would be pretty rad too.  Maybe something like having to put on biohazard or EVA suits to deal with, like, radioactive stuff (maybe like a generator or something?), or to fixing holes in your walls or whatever.  Maybe armor?  Does what you have right now support clothing sorta stuff like that, or is it just weapons implemented?

I guess speaking of environmental hazards like that, I've sorta wanted a game that had mornings be super-deadly and hot.  Having to flee underground during the days, and whatnot.

**EDIT**
Plans for vehicles, and/or power armor stuff like the Power Loader from Aliens?

[Robosaur]

man, you're sure you're not going to do multiple Z levels?

[Elephant Parade]

This looks quite interesting.

[Astral]

Genetic engineering may take some limited form of terraforming, if the game ends up going that far down a tech tree. Why terraform with your limited team, when you can end up making mindless animals that churn out oxygen at an increased rate, or spread seed pods of grass, or break down certain elements in the rock to better simulate soil?

It would be a very slow, painstaking process to even get to the point of making these specialized organisms, let alone produce them en masse, but it could provide a slightly more comfortable area for your colonists to dwell. Limiting their usage by the type of creatures you may find native to the planet could also limit its usefulness, so planets with hostile atmosphere may end up having underground lifeforms more suited for digging, rather than any plant life capable of terraforming the planet.

Succession games, where you advance a planet far enough to be self sustaining and manage to send out colonists of your own, may allow you to retain this knowledge and build upon it with the resources of a new planet and life of a different set of organisms to play with.

[My Name is Immaterial]

Whats the business model? Are you planning on selling it, or supporting it through donations?

[TynanSylvester]

Oh man, atmospheric systems would be pretty rad too.  Maybe something like having to put on biohazard or EVA suits to deal with, like, radioactive stuff (maybe like a generator or something?), or to fixing holes in your walls or whatever.  Maybe armor?  Does what you have right now support clothing sorta stuff like that, or is it just weapons implemented?

I guess speaking of environmental hazards like that, I've sorta wanted a game that had mornings be super-deadly and hot.  Having to flee underground during the days, and whatnot.

**EDIT**
Plans for vehicles, and/or power armor stuff like the Power Loader from Aliens?

As I say, I like the idea of atmospheric dangers, but it's an AI nightmare and tough for newbies.

No vehicles any time soon. It's just an AI nightmare, and weird on a tile-based map.

man, you're sure you're not going to do multiple Z levels?

It would require some pretty deep overhauling. So maybe some day, but not within the next year. I want to do it, but there are a lot of things ahead of that in the queue.

I think DF was like 5 years into development before they went 3D.

Astral's post

The possibilities with a gene-modding system are pretty broad. It's exciting to think about.

I love how on this forum a "slow, painstaking process" is all the rage. Gotta love DF! I'd get my ass handed to me if I said that in a design meeting at a AAA studio. Thank god for indie.

I'm interested in the idea of succession, too, but that would be an extension of the currently-planned "escape the planet by building a ship" endgame.

Business model

I'll probably be crowdfunding it and then selling it.

[ScriptWolf]

I really love your idea for the game and everything your doing.

The only thing which really gets me is it just looks like you have copy and pasted prison architects art, I really hope you do decide to put more of your own style into it and change it.

Anyway looking forward to it you can never have to many management games.

[10ebbor10]

I love how on this forum a "slow, painstaking process" is all the rage. Gotta love DF! I'd get my ass handed to me if I said that in a design meeting at a AAA studio. Thank god for indie.

I dunno. I though slow, painstaking process that can be skipped for X dollars was all the rage these days.

Anyway. PTW.

[Chaoswizkid]

On the opposite side of the Succession coin, in which you "abandon" the base and then come back to it later, you might be able to include that by having the survivors escape the planet and then relaying tales about what they did and having another group who suffered damage to their ship go down to the same site after hearing about it. Or something like that.

[motorbitch]

or maby, have the poorly crafted craft crash yet again, so i can start a new game on a different planet with my old vets.

[AVE]

PTW. Another DF-like is always good.

[CognitiveDissonance]

Maybe I missed this discussion, but here's what I'm wondering. What's the "winning condition/extended play" thinking for this game? The problem with DF has always been that once things are going well, there isn't much to do. This will be FINALLY alleviated with the next patch, whenever that will come. Any thinking on this front for RimWorld? Will you be able to "return home", or establish new outposts, or leave for a new planet or establish a civilization or anything like this?

Hmm, reread previous post and saw this:

I'm interested in the idea of succession, too, but that would be an extension of the currently-planned "escape the planet by building a ship" endgame.

Any chance you could expand on this? Is this a "Roll the credits! Congrats, now back to main menu" or, as asked, do you get to crash again and start over?

[TynanSylvester]

I really love your idea for the game and everything your doing.

The only thing which really gets me is it just looks like you have copy and pasted prison architects art, I really hope you do decide to put more of your own style into it and change it.

Anyway looking forward to it you can never have to many management games.

As I say, that's really a symptom of my own lack of time and skill at art. I'm hoping to Kickstart enough money to get a real artist to actually develop an original style. I do want it to look a bit more unique, definitely.

I dunno. I though slow, painstaking process that can be skipped for X dollars was all the rage these days.

Awesome idea! I should just give it away and have people pay to make it fun. It's like it's free... to play. Yeah. I'll call it free to play!

succession stuff

I really like the idea of escaping the planet and potentially just crashing on another one. I must say, it could be a really depressing ending to the game. On the other hand, stories start out best when you already know the characters.

The problem with DF has always been that once things are going well, there isn't much to do.

I'm approaching this problem from two angles.

First, the AI storyteller. The Storyteller will watch what's happening in the game and toss in whatever combination of incidents have to happen to keep it interesting. So if you somehow end up with some hyper-defended mega-fort, we might just see a solar flare to shut down your defenses, a plague, a crop blight, combined with a couple strong raids. Anything to keep the story from stagnating. And this is done adaptively, so you don't get rolled over if you're a newbie or already on the ropes.

Ideally the storyteller will knock you down and up but usually not kill you. Losing itself isn't fun - what's fun is the paroxysms of drama that come beforehand. What if you could have those but not quite lose most of the time?

The second element is the endgame, which is that you build a ship and escape the planet. This means collecting lots of tough-to-get resources by trading, theft, construction, research, etc and assembling them into the ship.

I really want to do some drama at the end of the game where not all the colonists can go, or really bad things start happening just as you approach the finish line. Again, this is all storyteller-driven. Because that's how real stories work best - great challenge near the climactic finish line. No reason we can't generate that adaptively in a simulation.

Thanks for the questions and support everyone! It really does help after so long working alone to see that someone sees some potential in this.