[DEVBLOG#139] Vanilla Factions Expanded - Ancients (Patreon)

Hello everyone and welcome to a somewhat lengthy development blog about our new, up and coming Faction mod.

I have divided this development blog into three sections, each outlining a separate element of the game.

Overview

Ancient Structures

Faction

Please note:

Information you can see below can be inaccurate as the most is still in development. Things can change or be removed at any point without notice, and Vanilla Expanded is not responsible for an unhealthy amount of hype that can occur and be extinguished at the moment's notice.

OVERVIEW

Uncover the ancient technology used long ago in a war almost no one remembers anymore. Collect remnants of the ancient tech to assemble a workshop made to inject your pawns with a mysterious strain of super nanites, granting them powers of super-humans with a risk of severe brain damage. Explore new ancient locations, including freshly unlocked ancient vaults, potentially guarded by super-soldiers who believe the war is still ongoing, awaiting every day for new commands for HQ that no longer exists.

This mod will expand on the ancient ruins in Ideology DLC, adding new ancient structures, clutter, debris and much, much more. Alternatively, start a new scenario as these very supersoldiers guarding an ancient vault. Decide if you want to wake your fellow soldiers up despite the food shortage, or let them sleep in the cryptosleep caskets until the colony is prepared to take them in.

What goals do we try to achieve?

1. Add a number of quests that allow players to collect the necessary tech to build up their lab.
2. Give players a chance to create supersoldiers, using a vast range of powers and weaknesses.
3. Create an interesting gameplay loop that mixes risk and reward for an interesting and unique experience.
4. Add a number of events related to the ancients.
5. Create new ancient items that are absolutely uncraftable, but also oddly reliable (never suffer breakdowns).

ANCIENT STRUCTURES

Ancient vaults and outposts are filled with ancient tech that can’t be produced in any other way. This tech survived hundreds if not thousands of years in immaculate condition, collecting dust in old vaults, waiting to be obtained by colonists brave enough to tackle the automatic defenses and the super soldiers. This technology is known for it’s very low power usage, allowing it to run on minimal energy input for a long duration. Such tech can be uninstalled and brought back with you, and has a number of special effects:

Solar Power Up

The internal dynamo was developed by the Ancients to counter interference due to electronic warfare. Not only will they be unaffected by solar flares, but the presence of unusual foreign electromagnetic fields powers the dynamo, supercharging the device and giving any hostiles a nasty surprise attempting to press their advantage.

During Solar Flare, Ancient devices do not drain power, and instead operate on double efficiency.

Old Reliable

Reducing the amount of materials needed due to the increasing scarcity caused by years of conflict, devices were manufactured in such a way that fail safes and safety features were no longer necessary. Grizzled soldiers shared their experiences with jury rigging to engineers who used this knowledge to manufacture devices reduced to their most simplistic design. These were then distributed in the form of standard templates which could be constructed with the available materials contained within Vaults.

Ancient devices never break down.

Ancient Solar Generator

An interesting version of a Solar Panel, this generator gathers power from Solar Flares. They are often used in the Vaults to support the internal generators in the rare occurrences of solar storms.

Produces a large amount of energy during Solar Flare. Produces a small amount of energy during daytime.

Ancient Chemfuel Generator

A large generator that accepts chemfuel and generates a reliable stream of energy. Is incredibly efficient.

Produces a decent amount of energy, but needs chemfuel to operate.

Ancient Geothermal Plant

A large structure covering a geothermal vent. Often used in deep mountain vaults to provide the whole structure with power. It’s also capable of regulating the temperature inside the room, and can act as a heater or a freezer. This technology is often used as a central heating and cooling system in vaults.

Produces a large amount of energy. Can act as a heater or a freezer.

There is many more structures in Ancient category that you can find in the vaults, but I will cover them in a separate devblog. This is not even 10% of them!

NEW FACTION

Ancient Supersoldiers

A new faction, similar to ancients in vanilla game. They are hidden, and they have no bases, but any pawn found in vaults belongs to this faction. Their pawns have random super powers and weaknesses.

They will not raid you, ever, as Ancient supersoldiers rely on safety of their vaults. They never leave them, and consider anything outside to be hostile. Their bases are not visible on the map either and can only be found through special quests. After all, if everyone knew where the vaults are, they'd be long gone. In fact, even individual vaults don't know where the other vaults are located. Safety measures, you know.

When you attack a sealed vault, you won't encounter an army of them. Their pawns wield powerful abilities, which can include phasing through walls, marksman-like aim making them never miss their shots, or even mutation on-demand into huge wargs or slow but incredibly armored tortoises.

When you pop a seal on the vault, you will be greeted with automatic defenses (covered in a later devblog too) and a handful of pawns with superpowers. Once you dispose of them, there is a chance more of them will be asleep in cryptosleep sarcophagi - in which case you can capture them and take them with you.

However, since this mod requires Ideology DLC, Ancient supersoldiers have a new specific meme that is guaranteed to spawn as part of their ideology. This meme will never appear on any other randomly generated ideologies, for rightful reasons.

Isolationist

“Trust is a resource in low supply, as everyone we meet is the enemy.”

Impact: 3

This meme adds 2 new precepts and both of them are active.

Recruiting: Forbidden

“We do not need anyone’s help, and will not accept any outsiders into our ranks.”

With Isolationist, recruiting any pawns is disabled. Instead of an option to recruit, there is an option to extract information, which is essentially torture that can yield a new quest location info.

Being Recruited: Forbidden

“We are a proud nation and will not join anyone, as it brings us great shame.”

With Isolationist, being recruited is disabled. The Prisoner Recruitment chance is always 0%. If you capture an Ancient, he will not join you until you convert him.

Why is this important?

In a new starting scenario you will play as the Ancients. You will be forced to have an Isolationist perk, which means if you capture any tribals, outlanders or pirates, you won't be able to recruit them.

The only way to recruit colonists then is to travel to other vaults. Those pawns will then automatically join you.

That's it for this development blog. Next up I will cover new Ancient structures that you can find in the vaults, and in the future we will talk about setting up your own gene-tailoring lab using the junk you find!

Let me know what you think, and as always, thanks for reading!