Why do we have to escape?

[Inkidu]

Spoilers ahead I guess, not sure. Read at your own peril.

Okay, so from what I've gathered about this game. The goal is to build a cryonic sleeper ship and escape. To that I ask why?

From what I've read Rimworld runs on the fairly hard premise that FTL is not a thing in travel or communications. Colonies are naturally established haphazardly and given a great degree if not full autonomy. So escaping seems silly especially as the game seems to be shooting for a multi-generational kind of play with marriages and children.

Now maybe this means adding in an option to not be crashing survivors but have a more expedition-style Dwarf Fortress deal.

I don't think the end goal should be escape though. Why couldn't you create a city on your planet and then get the ability to send an expedition out to another chunk of biome and starting all over again, and creating a whole habitable planet that may or may not be beholden to an extraterrestrial govenrment? I'm not asking for this immediately, but I think the end goal definitely needs a looking at. I just don't think it fits lore.

Unless everything I read was wrong. I was going by TV Tropes and they could be out of date. Even though, just some ideas for consideration.

[DG Dobrev]

Nobody forces you to escape. Escaping is just the final goal. You can build for fun, make a nice looking colony and leave it at that.

Technically, what you want is doable. Using the same generated world, select 3 of the names of your colonists, add them to the names for the game to search and start a new city. It gives the illusion of using former colonists to start a new settlement.

We should not forget hat this game has been made by a single passionate person :)

[Inkidu]

Originally posted by DG Dobrev:

Nobody forces you to escape. Escaping is just the final goal. You can build for fun, make a nice looking colony and leave it at that.

Technically, what you want is doable. Using the same generated world, select 3 of the names of your colonists, add them to the names for the game to search and start a new city. It gives the illusion of using former colonists to start a new settlement.

We should not forget hat this game has been made by a single passionate person :)

And he should get a pass why? Either he's biting off more than he can chew or he can handle it. If you point out the illusion, it breaks the illusion, and I still think escape needs to be looked at because right now it's an excuse goal.

[herr_dechse]

Originally posted by Inkidu:

Originally posted by DG Dobrev:

Nobody forces you to escape. Escaping is just the final goal. You can build for fun, make a nice looking colony and leave it at that.

Technically, what you want is doable. Using the same generated world, select 3 of the names of your colonists, add them to the names for the game to search and start a new city. It gives the illusion of using former colonists to start a new settlement.

We should not forget hat this game has been made by a single passionate person :)

And he should get a pass why? Either he's biting off more than he can chew or he can handle it.

This means the development hours of this game are limited and should be spend on more important stuff.
Be glad the game even has a defined ending.Thats not exactly a staple in these games.

[DG Dobrev]

Originally posted by Inkidu:

Originally posted by DG Dobrev:

Nobody forces you to escape. Escaping is just the final goal. You can build for fun, make a nice looking colony and leave it at that.

Technically, what you want is doable. Using the same generated world, select 3 of the names of your colonists, add them to the names for the game to search and start a new city. It gives the illusion of using former colonists to start a new settlement.

We should not forget hat this game has been made by a single passionate person :)

And he should get a pass why? Either he's biting off more than he can chew or he can handle it. If you point out the illusion, it breaks the illusion, and I still think escape needs to be looked at because right now it's an excuse goal.

Salty for some reason? We are looking at a really solid game even in its alpha, easily comparable to Prison Architect in their alpha state, as I am sure it will do just as well as that one. Having dumped over 200 hours in this game, I really don't see the problem with multiple defined goals, mainly because you are given a sandbox-type of game in which you are free to devise your own goals. For example, I challenged myself to build the biggest possible base. Then to keep as few colonists as possible and try to survive as long as possible as the enemy raids got bigger and bigger. Or one time I decided to build an Enterprise-shaped base instead of the predefined ship (very much the same way Blitzkriegsler does it in his current youtube series, but not on that massive of a scale), and so on and so forth.

Watch some youtube videos. If you dislike what you see, just don't buy it. Easy as that.

[The Guy]

Escaping does not have to be your goal. I feel the game wil give you story based on how much you want, Example: Mid-way through my first real colony i didn't want to go to space but one of my first 3 settlers was on the brink of death so i depositied him into a cryo-sleep casket and made it my goal to get him to civilization and his survival, So i made a space ship just for him to get medical help in space. I think all colonys are a miniature story and should be followed as such, so if you wish for them to escape or live there it is ultimately your choice

[DG Dobrev]

Let us not forget that the game has 3 modes - the basebuilding mode where attacks are easy to deal with and you are free to commit more time and effort to making a cool looking base; the normal mode where you need to eventually leave or succumb to the attacks that will grow stronger and stronger; and Randy Random, where you never know what's going to happen.

As such, the game is far from devoid of options.

[Havan_IronOak]

Personally I agree that there ought to be other end-game victory conditions as well.

Sid Meiers had the right idea in the later version of Civilization where a number of different victory conditions could be elected.

I personally started that game with all the victory conditions allowed and then eliminated them as I got more skilled. It may the replayability all that much better.

[QuinZ33]

Originally posted by Havan_IronOak:

Personally I agree that there ought to be other end-game victory conditions as well.

I would imagine these will be in before the final release. This is still alpha, after all.

[Inkidu]

Originally posted by jack21222:

Originally posted by Havan_IronOak:

Personally I agree that there ought to be other end-game victory conditions as well.

I would imagine these will be in before the final release. This is still alpha, after all.

Yeah, but it as an alpha where fans are already saying,"You can do anything you want!"

True that should always be taken with a grain of salt, because I get the gut feeling from what I've seen that the timing is off, and every one of the AI storytellers (save the random one of course) follow a not only predictable pattern, but a fixed one.

Not trash-talking the game, just making observations. Like if escape is the ultimate goal, wouldn't it be easier to htich-hike on a passing ship?

[DG Dobrev]

You should be aware that "storyteller" is a loose concept in rimword. There is no real storyteller per se, but simply a pattern in which various events will or will not occur. It is as simple as that. It is entirely up to you how to play the game - leave, not leave, build a cool-looking base, see how long you can survive, and so on. Nobody is holding your hand.

[Inkidu]

Not what I meant with my comment about the story teller. It doesn't seem very smart or adaptive from what I've seen.

A lot of LPers go for Cass Classic, and I noticed it tends to go Mad animal, first rade, cargo pod, or crash debris, second raid it seems very predictable, but I imagine it'll get worked on the more things you can actually do.

[Palandus]

The mad animal and raid are hard coded into the game and thus always occur. After that, the story teller essentially takes over.

You have to escape because as your colony increases in size and wealth, it becomes harder to impossible to defend your colony from raiders. Thus in order to "win" you have to escape. Yes the escape option does appear to be tacked on, but the alternative is being killed, rap3d, and then skinned (preferably in that order; :p if you get the reference).

[DG Dobrev]

Originally posted by Inkidu:

Not what I meant with my comment about the story teller. It doesn't seem very smart or adaptive from what I've seen.

A lot of LPers go for Cass Classic, and I noticed it tends to go Mad animal, first rade, cargo pod, or crash debris, second raid it seems very predictable, but I imagine it'll get worked on the more things you can actually do.

That is true, you can predict what is going to happen, but that in no way makes it easy to deal with. Many of the LPers (like Blitz, Quill, EE, etc.) have even more hours in the game like than I do and they still get surprised by some events. You can be sure it is going to happen to you too.

[Inkidu]

Well there's surprised like, "Well I haven't seen that before, neat!"

And there's "Holy crap! Oh God Why!" Lke some poor bastard unleashing ancient horrors because the building right next to his landing site would have made quick indoor storage.


They're not the same thing. Being surprised by bad luck is no the same thing as being surprised by what the game has to ffer in terms of content.

[Palandus]

Sometimes though bad luck can turn into wondrous great luck, due to content. Such as when you get overwhelmed by a huge raid and just as you think you are doomed hiding behind doors, a man hunter pack of wargs appears and almost entirely kills off the raiders leaving the stragglers that your colonists can fight off. Most of the time that doesn't happen but it did happen once for me. The only time I was grateful for man hunters...