[DEVBLOG#151] Vanilla Outposts Expanded first look (Patreon)

Hey there folks!

Now that I'm back from holidays (just in time, huh? Terrible earth quake exactly in the town where I stayed at), it is time for a new development blog talking about a mod we haven't covered here before.

Vanilla Outposts Expanded is a first mod coming out right after we release Ancients and Asari & The Reapers. Vanilla Outposts Expanded is an incredibly Lite version of mods like Saakra’s Empire. Players will be able to form a caravan and travel to a location on the world map, where they can set up different kinds of outposts. Each of these location will yield different bonuses depending on the types of pawns as well as their skills.

This mod is NOT meant to replace the Empire mod, and if you want an indepth country-building simulator, Empire is still the mod to go.

Outposts are more like 'Caravans that provide resources' instead of complex settlement simulations. You send a caravan into the world, turn it into an outpost and you will receive the benefits. You CANNOT view the outpost map - gameplay-wise, it exists only as a world map object that provides you with resources.

The only time you can see how the outpost looks like on an actual ingame location map is when the outpost gets raided and you need to defend it with the pawns you sent.

Outposts provide food and shelter for themselves, so once you set up an Outpost, you don't need to supply it with anything anymore. You can literally forget about it.

At any time, you can re-form the caravan, thus abandoning the Outpost.

GOALS

1. Allow players to dispose of unwanted colonists by setting up ‘sub-colonies’ of many different types.
2. Give players a way to passively gain resources simply by devoting pawns to outposts.

There is 15 types of different outposts planned as part of this mod. The five we will be discussing here now are also present in Vanilla Factions Expanded - Classical. This means that if you don't have Vanilla Outposts Expanded, you will still have these five outposts if you have Classical faction mod loaded. They work in the same way.

Logging Outpost is a perfect way of supplying your colony with wood. Amount of pawns you send into it directly dictates how much wood will arrive on your local map border every 15 days.

Mining Outpost works a little bit differently. It calculates the total Mining skill all outpost pawns have, and unlocks different yield options you can pick based on that number. The amount of resources you receive depends on the type of resource, as Market Value is part of the calculations.

Farming Outpost allows you to receive a somewhat steady supply of potatoes and corn every 15 days. The total Plant skill of all outpost members dictates the amount of food you receive. A single pawns with 10 Plant skill will supply you with 200 potatoes and 50 Corn every 15 days.

Hunting Outpost calculates the Total shooting skill of the outpost members, and gives you meat and leather based on that. The type of meat and leather depends on the biome - but generally it comes from the most commonly spawning animal in that area.

Trading outpost is a passive way of generating silver based on how silver-tongued your pawns are. Total social skill of outpost members gets directly translated into the amount of silver you will be receiving every 15 days. One pawn with 10 Social skill will deposit 300 silver every 15 days.

That's it for now. The remaining 10 outposts will be covered in future development blogs!

I will try to answer any questions you might have!