rimworld had psychology mod

[lost]

so rimworld that special mod which increased social interactions complexity unheard of in colony sims. it made individual colonists pop up with their tendencies, likes/dislikes, relationships. so what's the plan for this game?


to what degree of social complexity should we expect?

[Blorf]

I had not seen the RimWorld psychology mod, but just watched a BarKy video from 2017 as well as a few more recent Reddit posts, so I think I have a handle on it now. The last time that I actually played RimWorld and made a colony was right before brewing was added, so it has been a while, and I am sure there have been a ton of advancements since then that I am unaware of.

The Psychology mod is very detailed. More detailed than I would personally like to play with. I think it is good for role playing "if" you decide to delve into the psychology tab, which does have value to some players. But I would take a more middle approach. I want to make sure that the values themselves actually change the gameplay, so there need to be fewer levers but each one has much more meaning to actual gameplay.

So here is what there is currently:
Everyone has a Social number, this boils down to how much of an introvert or extrovert they are. It is seen in the social attribute as a number from 0.5-1.5 I believe is the range. High social people need a lot of social interaction to be happy, and too much social interaction drains low social people (this currently leads to alone time state) I think that this is a more manageable chunk to wrap ones mind around then 30ish sub components of personality. But that is just me. I don't really care if someone is a Rational, Caring, Thoughtful, Extrovert for example. Because under the hood Rational is just mapping to a table of conversation labels that have +/- to the other personality aspects. They aren't "really" rational, and it isn't changing the behaviors of units themselves. It is just well presented data with a fancy label. I do however handle these personality pairings in a different way related to gameplay... Again this is just me, and it does help for role playing which is great, but as a coder, knowing that is it just well presented table data takes the magic out of the equation for me somewhat.

So how I deal with those 30+ sub components of personality. I currently use the task likes and dislikes themselves because they are gameplay related and movable. So two people who both like Farming, or who both ARE farmers and have high skills in farming will tend to get along, as they have something in common. Alternatively, if you want to make a match, assign those two farmers to work together on Farming. That is combined with the Social number to figure out how good of a fit they are. Introverts tend to do better with introverts for example.

There is not currently a relationships tab, but it may come in the future if it is needed. These thoughts are currently under the hood, and I meed to decide how to present them. I have considered a sort of history tab for each Clanfolk as well.

Soon I will be adding quirks that also will play into relationships. So if two Clanfolk have similar quirks, they will also get along perhaps. Like yes two fire bugs would likely do better together because FIRE GOOD.

The other issue here is that we for at least the beginning are just dealing with a Family and not random strangers thrown together, so the whole romance thing is not a factor for a good while. It being medieval times, romance is also not a huge factor in pairings. I expect it to be more of a tool to be used to reinforce relationships between Clans, though the neighbor clan system is new and that is not yet something they do. Currently any pairings come from Workers hired from neighbor Clans. If they are treated right for a long period of time, and there is a possible partner, they may pair up. This system is still in its infancy though. It is a method to keep the Clan going for more generations though and serves that purpose well.

Another important note is that I cannot battle the force of RimWorld's 1000+ mods all alone. So where a modder can decide yes they want to focus on something like the psychology mod for probably years, I cannot. I have a whole game to consider and it always needs to be handled such that what is the greatest improvement to the game vs the time taken to implement a system.

Right now, one of my main goals is to make Modding very user friendly for Clanfolk. This would mean that if someone were so inclined, they could make a mod similar to psychology for Clanfolk. I think modding will be a great thing for Clanfolk, and it is a really high priority. I have written all the systems to be heavily data driven to support this. Code injection is still an unknown for me though and I will have to see how I can facilitate that.

So my big tasks right now:
1. Getting a startup scenario editor for before you build your world. So you pick the Clanfolk and the environment and probably items they come with. Also some environmental sliders. So imagine the scenario of 1 grandpa, and 10 babies, GO.

2. Getting the traits and quirks system up and running and connected to game systems. This relates to this post the most. This would include work on mental breaks for extended low mood which is currently missing. Workers Travelers and Traders will just leave, but family will need another outlet for critically low mood. Right now xp and work speed suffer greatly, but there needs to be something more visual too.

3. Get a base line workshop connected modding system in place. At first this will likely be art, items and crafting objects based, but I will be looking at code injection methods as time goes on.

Longer post than I meant to have. But hopefully you get a good idea of where my head is at on the topic.

[lost]

awesome thanks!