[DEVBLOG#168] Three days of Pirates - Day One (Patreon)

Hey folks, what is up!

As you probably noticed a few days ago when I released a roadmap, that a new mod popped up on it! Vanilla Factions Expanded - Pirates.

This mod is quite a spontaneous mod that I came up with, but those are the best kind! It's somewhat smaller than other faction mods (due to there not being enough time to develop it - as Faction mods take 6 months to make and this one will be done next month). It's release is on the same day as our Kickstarter launch - that's right, to those who haven't heard, Roolo, Smash Phil and I are developing our own rogue-like survival video game!

Whilst the game itself is about actual sea-faring pirates, the mod won't touch those, as there aren't any boats in the game. Instead, Vanilla Factions Expanded - Pirates will focus on expanding the pirates that already exist in the game - the SPACE PIRATES!

Over the next three days I will be showing you everything there is in the VFE-Pirates, and also doing a deep-dive into certain mechanics. I will also have a huge announcement on the third day which may or may not have something to do with our game.

Lets start then, am I right?

Day One:

Vanilla Factions Expanded - Pirates builds on the existence of the vanilla pirates faction, and expands the pirate organisations in RimWorld with two new, unique pirate factions that will appear in your world alongside the default pirates. This mod doesn't change how the default pirate faction works - it only adds new things, and doesn't change any vanilla things.

JUNKERS

A loose confederation of pirate gangs who've agreed to mostly fight outsiders instead of fighting each other.

Pirates don't sow, they don't build, and they rarely trade. Driven by a blood-and-honor culture that values personal strength and ruthlessness, they enrich themselves by raiding and robbing their more productive neighbors.

Junkers utilise warcasket technology and seal themselves in metal tombs in which they raid, steal, plunder and inevitably die. They rarely use melee weapons and prefer to keep at distance to the enemy to fully utilise the powerful warcasket weaponry.

Faction leader name: Khan

Junkers use a unique Khanate culture that has their names be derived from Hungarian names. They will often have interesting titles. Ádám The Black, Nandor The Relentless and so on.

Lets take a look at what kinds of PawnKinds they have! (To those not into modding jargon, what kind of pawns they have that they can raid with)

Scrapper (65 Combat Power)
Copy of Pirate Gunner, but wears plate armor.

Footsoldier (150 Combat Power)
A pirate wearing a warcasket. Allowed warcasket tags are: Warcasket. Allowed weapons are: Autorifle.

Veteran (200 Combat Power)
A pirate wearing a warcasket. Can have some cool implants. Allowed warcasket tags are: Warcasket, Marine Warcasket, Recon Warcasket. Allowed weapons are: Autorifle, Uranium Slug Rifle, Slugthrower, Combat Knife.

Heavy Weapons Platform (280 Combat Power)
A pirate wearing a warcasket. Can have some cool implants. Allowed warcasket tags are: Warcasket Cataphract. Allowed weapons are: Warcasket Minigun, Warcasket Grenade launcher.

Hussar (300 Combat Power)
A pirate wearing a warcasket. Can have some cool implants. Allowed warcasket tags are: Warcasket Aerial, Warcasket Shock. Allowed weapons are: Warcasket Combat Knife, Warcasket Broadsword.

Pyro (300 Combat Power)
A pirate wearing a warcasket. Can have some cool implants. Allowed warcasket tags are: Warcasket Hazard. Allowed weapons are: Warcasket Heavy Flamer.

Artillery (300 Combat Power)
A pirate wearing a warcasket. Can have some cool implants. Allowed warcasket tags are: Warcasket Barrage. Allowed weapons are: Warcasket Minigun, Warcasket Grenade launcher.

MERCENARIES

A paramilitary organisation sanctioned and governed by political figures and megacorporations.

Mercenaries don't sow, they don't build, and they rarely trade. Driven by a blood-and-honor culture that values personal strength and ruthlessness, they enrich themselves by raiding and robbing their more productive neighbors.

Mercenaries utilise spacer-tech weapons and armors to eliminate the targets of their corporate overlords. Unlike other pirate factions, mercenaries can be communicated with and befriended, but they rarely have much to offer in regards to trade and research.

Faction leader name: General

Mercenaries are not permanently hostile and can be befriended! They do not, however, have peaceful traders.

Lets take a look at their PawnKinds!

Please note: All apparel of Mercenaries is colored using their faction color.

Private (90 Combat Power)
Copy of Mercenary Gunner really.

Corporal (150 Combat Power)
A pirate that wears Recon armor and Recon helmet. Can carry Assault rifle, Autopistol, Bolt-action rifle, Chain shotgun, EMP launcher, Heavy SMG, Incendiary launcher, LMG, Machine pistol, Pump shotgun, Revolver.

Sergeant (160 Combat Power)
A pirate that wears Marine armor and Marine helmet. Can carry Charge rifle, Sniper Rifle, Assault Rifle, Chain shotgun.

Sergeant Major (160 Combat Power)
A pirate that wears Marine armor and Marine helmet. Can have some cool implants. Can carry Charge rifle, Charge lance.

Lieutenant (200 Combat Power)
A pirate that wears Privateer armor and Marine helmet. Can have some cool implants. Can carry Charge rifle, Charge lance.

Captain (220 Combat Power)
Essentially a copy of Pirate Elite Mercenary, but can carry Charge rifle, Charge lance, Doomsday rocket launcher, Minigun, Triple rocket launcher.

Major (300 Combat Power)
A pirate wearing a warcasket. Can have some cool implants. Allowed warcasket tags are: Warcasket, Marine Warcasket, Recon Warcasket, Cataphract Warcasket. Allowed weapons are: Autorifle, Uranium Slug Rifle, Slugthrower, Combat Knife.

General (350 Combat Power)
A pirate wearing a warcasket. Can have some cool implants. Allowed warcasket tags are: Any warcasket. Allowed weapons are: Any warcasket weapon.

So, yeah these are the two new pirate factions. They will provide quite an interesting challenge I'm sure.

Lets take a look at some of the other cool stuff added with this mod, particularly, the directional cannons!

DIRECTIONAL CANNONS

This mod adds a few new cannon types spread across vanilla research projects. The gimmick of these cannons is that they have a limited angle at which they can fire. This means that the cannon can’t rotate more than a certain angle, which in turn means you need to position them carefully and make sure they are rotated correctly.

They should be reasonably more powerful because of that, as limited angle is a big drawback, especially when it comes to strategy on the battlefield.

CANNON

Description: A portable medieval cannon mounted on a 180 degree swivel that launches roughly-rounded balls of steel at a considerable range. The accuracy is rather lacking, but it is a vast improvement compared to catapults while also having a considerably faster fire rate.
Research Required: Smithing
Resource cost: 30 Wood, 120 steel
Range: 50.9 tiles
Warmup: 4s
Cooldown: 7s
Burst: 1
Damage: Bomb
Explosion radius: 2.9
Angle: 180 degrees ahead

A medieval tech cannon. Needs to be manned. Is reloaded using 5 steel after every shot.

FIELD GUN

Description: A manned gun that launches all kinds of shells. A variation of the mortar with all the benefits and drawbacks, however it has a 90 degree cone of direct-fire in exchange for having an effective firing rate that is twice as fast.
Research Required: Mortars
Resource cost: 75 Metallic stuff, 100 steel, 4 component
Range: 500 tiles
Warmup: 4s
Cooldown: 12s
Burst: 1
Damage: Depends what shell is loaded
Explosion radius: Depends what shell is loaded
Angle: 90 degrees ahead

Essentially a mortar that requires line of sight. Can be loaded using any shells. Can't be built by sieging factions.

Now, according to my development doc, next up we should discuss what Warcaskets really are, but I'm gonna be a pesky tease and leave it until tomorrow. Instead, lets check out if the rumors are true, and if you can indeed hire pirates to do work for you in this mod!

HIRING PIRATES

This mod adds a similar system to what we have planned for Turians and Gangs. You can select a new option on the Comms Console called ‘Hire Pirates’. Player then gets to see a special, custom made UI with several options for each of the pirate factions in the game.

Players can purchase the support of the pirates - for example to aid in the raid, or even hire mercenaries for a longer time - for example to defend the base or escort caravans.

Pirates that join the player this way can be fully controlled by the player, and in some cases will do work around the colony. They cannot be stripped of their gear and they cannot have their weapons removed. After the contract ends, these pawns will be taken from under player control and will leave the map.

This is an extremely useful mechanic as players who perhaps don’t have good defenses built yet can simply call a small regiment of pirates to defend them.

This UI also allows players to specify the duration of the contract, as well as the amount of pawns received. Each day of the contract, as well as each additional pawn, adds a multiplier to the base price, using following formula:

Due to this formula, the longer you hire a group, the cheaper it gets, and the more diverse your group is, the less you have to pay. It's of a similar vein to those payday loans, a single day contract of a bunch of heavy hitters will set you back a pretty penny, while a longer contract of more diverse firepower will cost (per day) far less.

Furthermore, if you have a contract ongoing, you cannot request another contract until the current one ends.

What pawns can be hired?

Only select PawnKindDefs can be requested using the ‘Hire Pirate’ function. Each of these pawnKindDefs has a predefined cost that is used to calculate the final value of the contract.

Following pawns are present in the UI and can be hired:

Drifter Combat points: 35

Pirate Gunner Combat points: 65

Mercenary Gunner Combat points: 90

Footsoldier Combat points: 150

Veteran Combat points: 200

Heavy Weapons Platform Combat points: 280

Private Combat points: 90

Sergeant Combat points: 160

Lieutenant Combat points: 200

Price increases for 1 year with each death.

Every time a pirate you hire dies, the price of every future contract with any pirate group raises by 5% per dead pirate. It’s called ‘Risky assignment bonus’. It goes away after 1 full year, but can stack infinitely. This means that if you hire 20 pawns and they all die, from now on you will have to pay 100% extra for every hire for one full year.

RUM AND RUMSUITS

A pirate mod wouldn’t be a pirate mod without adding rum. But rum is made out of sugarcanes, which doesn't exist in Rimworld. It would also be very boring. Too realistic for space pirates, if you ask me.

Instead, rum is the most vile and wicked alcohol we ever came up with.

In order to produce rum, player needs to first research Sweat fermentation research project.

This in turn will allow players to craft rumsuits on the drug lab workbench.

RUMSUIT

A large, bulky suit that allows the wearer to passively produce Rum once every 10 days. However, it is not very pleasant to wear as it feels like wearing damp, humid clothes from excessive sweating.\n\nThe suit includes a high-efficiency filter, heat-exchange filaments and salt precipitators. Urine and feces are processed in thigh pads and throughout the design are tubes that link to different catchpockets. Reprocessed bodily fluids are distilled into an alcoholic derivative of nutrient paste which can be drained when all the pockets are filled.\n\nRemoving the suit causes the accumulated liquid to evaporate, and it takes a long time to put on and properly adjust to the wearer. Due to the design, it can only be worn with an undersuit and the lack of head covering, while reducing efficiency, is purposefully done so it can be worn with head protection.

Research required: Sweat Fermentation
Workbench: Drug Lab
Resources required: 50 chemfuel, 30 steel.
Ticks to make: 10.000 ticks
Effects: Takes a long time to wear and take off. Pawn wearing it gets the Sweaty mood debuff. Every 10 days of wearing it produces 10 bottles of Rum. Taking it off resets the timer. It should slow the pawn down by 0.8 c/s. It has no protection. It covers Torso, Neck, Left Shoulder, Left Arm, Right Shoulder, Right Arm, Left Leg, Right Leg. It uses the Middle and Outer layer.

RUM

A highly alcoholic beverage made from the recycled bodily fluids of those wearing rumsuits.

An ingenious way of not only improving morale but also allowing crew to operate longer without needing to resupply for food or dispose of human waste. Rum is very thick to drink - much like a protein shake - and the alcohol helps mask the otherwise unpleasant taste from repurposed nutrient paste dispenser technology.

Obtained from: Wearing the Rumsuit
Market value: 6
Mass: 0.3
Nutrition: 0.6

Rum is not only a highly alcoholic beverage that can cause alcoholism, but due to the way it’s made it also provides a high amount of nutrition. One could imagine pirates wearing rumsuits, creating rum from their sweat that also has a little bit of crunch from unknown sources. Yum.

NEW ARMOR

There is a new power armor piece added with this mod.

PRIVATEER ARMOR

A variant of marine armor with an integrated grappling hook on the shoulder. The armor is slightly less protective than standard marine armor. The launcher does not require ammunition, but time needs to be reserved between shots to wind it up again.

Privateers usually specialize in getting in and out of dangerous situations easily. Grappling hook connects to walls and solid rock and allows the users to quickly move to the desired location.

Privateer armor comes with a new targettable ability called Grappling Hook. After it is used, a Grappling Hook ability is replaced with ‘Reload Grappling Hook’ ability. It provides a little less protection than Marine armor and unlocks using the same technology.

Grappling Hook

This ability allows the user to target any wall within 20 cell radius. It then shoots a ‘rope’ (use the same code as roping animals) between the user and the wall. After a 0.1s delay, the user quickly travels through the air to that location. It requires line of sight. After use, Grappling Hook gizmo is replaced with ‘Reload Grappling Hook’ gizmo.

Reload Grappling Hook

Clicking this button will make your pawn stand in place and perform a 5 second action of reloading the grappling hook. After 5 seconds pass (there should be a progress bar on the pawn), the Reload Grappling Hook ability changes into Grappling Hook again.

Alright. That's enough for today, if you read this far you're either insane or just a big fan. Either way, thanks!

Let me know in the comments what you think, and stay tuned same time (or different) tomorrow to see the Day Two of our crazy adventure!