[DEVBLOG#227] Androids - a brand new, robotic race! (Patreon)

Hey folks, I welcome you all to a big, big post. Well, it is kind of big when it comes to content in it, but the primary 'bigness' of it comes from a big decision.

You lot probably remember Vanilla Factions Expanded - Ultratech, a mod we're working on. This mod was meant to introduce Hunters - a megacorporation that runs a resort for rich people, allowing them to kill defenseless people all over the planet for sport. It was also meant to introduce Androids, a brand new, hidden race that you can interact with, and even make your own!

Long time ago, these two were meant to be separate mods. Vanilla Factions Expanded - Hunters and Vanilla Factions Expanded - Androids. I have, at some point, decided to merge them into Vanilla Factions Expanded - Ultratech, as I wasn't sure each of these two mods had enough content to really warrant making them separate.

As the development of both of these mods continued, the content grew. It grew to the point where I actually started considering splitting them again. Especially now, with Biotech DLC out, having androids as a separate Race mod (not a faction mod) really made a point that I just couldn't ignore.

The most valid points that encourage me to split them are these:

• Androids is something everyone might want in their game. Hunters, not so much. If the mods are merged into one, this is not a choice the player can make.
• Androids is a perfect opportunity to expand our Vanilla Races Expanded suite. You guys loved our Saurids and Phytokins, as they added new, completely unique xenotypes. Androids could be another one!
• The name of Vanilla Factions Expanded - Ultratech doesn't really say 'this mod has androids'. Some people are looking specifically for androids on the Steam Workshop. They would not know Ultratech has them.
• Hunters have enough content in the mod even without Androids. The more content in a single mod, the harder it is to maintain it.

A decision was made. Ultratech is going to be split into VFE-Ultratech and VRE-Android.

Now that we have this out of the way, I bet you'd like to hear how the Android mod will work. I won't go too much into details just yet - but over the next few days, I will be dropping more and more of it.

Before you throw a fit that we dropped Deserters or something, please read these few reassuring points:

• Deserters is being developed by different programmers and it's well underway.
• VFE-Ultratech is about 50% done already too.
• Vanilla Races Expanded - Androids is about 85% completed already. It won't be long before it's released. And it's really, really fun.

NEW PAWN TYPE - ANDROID

Androids are a brand new pawn type - a standalone copy of a xenotype. This means that we will have pawns that are Androids and are NOT xenotypes. Android cannot be a waster, a highmate or a baseliner. Android is an Android, an entirely separate type of xenotype, so to say.

Similar to how xenotypes have endogenes and xenogenes, Androids have subroutines and hardware.

• Hardware - Hardware is a special gene that cannot be removed from the Android. Hardware are set, solid genes that dictate how the Android behaves and how Android looks. They dictate neutroamine blood, they dictate their needs etc. Hardware cannot be extracted from the Androids. When creating Androids, players can change some of the hardware (specify how the Android looks), but after that is done, it cannot be changed anymore.
• Subroutines - Subroutines are genes that dictate what the pawn can do. Subroutines can be added and removed from Androids via special devices.

Similar to how xenotypes have Complexity, Metabolism and Archites, Androids have Complexity and Efficiency.

Complexity dictates how long it takes to construct such Android. Each Hardware and Subroutine in an Android adds complexity.

Efficiency dictates how much power will an Android drain. Harmful subroutines will increase their efficiency, meaning they will consume less power. Meanwhile helpful subroutines reduce Efficiency, making the android drain more power. A baseline android with no subroutines has Efficiency of 0 (100% power drain), and subroutines can bring it as low as -20 (600% power drain (+25% per -1 efficiency)) or up to 5 (50% power drain (-10% per +1 efficiency)). The game prevents you from giving pawns less than -20 efficiency; it doesn't stop you from exceeding 5, but hunger rate will not go below 50%.

Hardware and Subroutines use unique gene background, similar to how endogenes, xenogenes and archite genes have unique gene backgrounds.

DEFAULT VALUES

Androids, by default, without any subroutines, have following values:

• 100% Global work speed
• All skills at 0, but capable.
• Androids have 100 Neutroamine in them.

HARDWARE

Below is the list of ‘Hardware genes’ that we will be adding. I will cover each individual hardware gene indepth in later devblogs.

• Memory Processing
• Power
• Joy Disabled
• Beauty Disabled
• Comfort Disabled
• Outdoors Disabled
• Drug Desire Disabled
• Room Size Disabled
• Pain Disabled
• Synthetic Body
• Neutro Circulation
• Synthetic Immunity
• Component Freezing
• Component Overheating
• Cold Tolerant
• Heat Tolerant
• No Skill Gain
• Uninspired
• Psychically Deaf
• Mental Breaks Disabled
• Psychology Disabled
• as well as any cosmetic genes.

SUBROUTINES

Below is the list of ‘Subroutine genes’ that we will be adding. This list is still growing. I will cover those indepth later.

• Combat Incapability
• Solar Flare Vulnerability
• EMP Vulnerability
• Slow RAM
• Fast RAM
• Low Power Mode
• Incapable of <Skill>
• Basic <Skill>
• Intermediate <Skill>
• Advanced <Skill>
• Expert <Skill>

TENDING AND OPERATIONS

Androids are not tended by doctors, and tending androids or doing operations on androids is not a medical task, but a crafting task, part of the crafting job category.

This means that if there is an Android on a neutrocasket, waiting for surgery, a crafter will prioritize doing that.

This means that if there is an android bleeding out on a neutrocasket, a crafter will prioritize tending to an android.

OTHER

Drugs

Androids can take drugs, but they do not obtain any hediffs from any drugs.

Ideologies

No changes.

Traits

Androids have no traits.

Backstories

Player-built Androids only have a childhood backstory of ‘Colony Android’, explained in backstories section. Randomly encountered androids can have any of the android-specific backstories.

MENTAL BREAKS

Androids have a very specific selection of mental breaks. They cannot get ‘human’ mental breaks. All Android mental breaks have specific triggers and they never happen randomly. This way, player can predict when a mental break will happen.

Reformatting

This is a silent mental break which does not display a letter. Android will stand in place, not move, and regenerate Memory Space stat. It should take about 10 seconds to regenerate the entire 100% of Memory Space.

Solar Flared

This is a silent mental break which does not display a letter. When Solar Flare happens, all androids will stay in place. Their needs become frozen. They cannot move or do absolutely anything for the entire duration of the solar flare. They display the electricity bolt icon, just like solar flared electronic devices with no power. Androids that do NOT have Solar Flare Vulnerability subroutine are not affected.

Electromagnetic Shock

When an android gets hit with an EMP of any kind, they enter this state. They become downed and unable to move for the duration calculated using the following formula:

EMP Damage taken * 100 = duration in ticks

Furthermore, EMP damage turns into normal bodypart damage, and gets distributed across random body parts.

For example:

RK800, an android of New Colony is hit with an explosion that deals 30 EMP damage. It gets downed for 30,000 ticks, and 30 damage gets dealt to random body parts: 5 to Left Optical Unit, 3 to Right Audio processor etc etc.

Androids that do NOT have EMP Vulnerability subroutine are not affected.

PERMANENT INJURY CHANCE

All Android body parts have a 100% permanent injury chance. This means that whatever damage is dealt to that body part remains on that body part even if the bleeding stopped. So, over time, after gunfights and other situations, body parts might become so damaged that they will be in need of replacing.

NEUTRO LOSS

A reduction in the normal neutroamine volume. Minor neutro loss has relatively mild effects, but when neutro loss becomes severe, all subsystems become badly impaired and the android loses the ability to move. Extreme neutro loss will never lead to death.

\nNeutro loss does not naturally recover over time. An android needs to be inserted into a neutrocasket and filled with neutroamine again.

Neutro loss is a new hediff for Androids only that replaces Blood loss completely.

Neutro loss happens when an android loses neutroamine due to open wounds.

Overall, it has the exact same effects as Blood loss - each severity level affects Consciousness stat.

Android can never die due to lack of neutroamine. They simply get their consciousness reduced to near 0, and they are no longer able to stay conscious. If they lose all of their neutroamine, they need to be filled with neutroamine again in the Neutrocasket.

Androids have the capacity to have 100 Neutroamine in their blood stream. 1 Neutroamine missing is 1% neutroloss.

FREEZING

Dangerously low core android temperature. Unless re-warmed, freezing will get worse and can result in critical biocomponent damage. Recovery is quick once the android is re-warmed. Avoid freezing by equipping warm clothes on your android in cold environments.

Freezing is exactly the same as hypothermia and has exactly the same severities and effects, but progresses twice as fast.

When an Android is freezing, the warning on the right side of the screen should display:

Android freezing

Whilst normal hypothermia leads to frostbite, androids freezing leads to Freeze damage, explained below.

Freeze damage

Freeze damage is a new system that deals small amounts of damage to random biocomponents of an android if an android is suffering from Freezing.

This mechanic only kicks in if severity of Freezing hediff is at least 0.35 (serious).

Every few hundred ticks, a random biocomponent takes 1 damage. Since android biocomponents have permanentInjuryChance of 100%, this means that an android which suffered freezing will need some parts replaced.

OVERHEATING

A generalized disruption to android functioning caused by excessive exposure to heat and sun. The android memory becomes scrambled, leading to faster drain of memory space. Recovery is quick once in a cool area, but if heat exposure continues, android will continue to lose memory space which can result in frequent reformatting.

Heatstroke does not exist for Androids. Instead, when they are in the area that’s too hot for them, they will suffer from overheating. Overheating, however, is not nearly as scary as heatstroke, and will never result in death of the android.

Overheating has 4 severity states:

• Initial
  • minSeverity: 0.04
  • MemorySpaceDrainMultiplies: x1.2
• Minor
  • minSeverity: 0.20
  • MemorySpaceDrainMultiplies: x2.0
• Serious
  • minSeverity: 0.35
  • MemorySpaceDrainMultiplies: x4.0
• Extreme
  • minSeverity: 0.62
  • MemorySpaceDrainMultiplies: x10.0

This means that an overheating Android can go into a constant loop of Reformatting mental state, where essentially player loses control over them.

Overheating does not result in any damage directly, but a reformatting android might get set on fire and burn.

ACCESSING ANDROID EDITOR

Players are able to access an Android editor via the Create characters panel. Similar to how a button exists to enter a xenotype editor, players can now access android editor, which features ONLY android-related genes and cosmetic genes.

Upon clicking Android editor, following window should open up:

Just like standard xenotype editor, players can customize which subroutines their android has. Please remember: Hardware cannot be unselected. It’s required on the pawn.

NEW RESEARCH PROJECT

A new research project is a part of this mod.

ANDROIDTECH

The advanced technology needed to create and control ultra-tier androids - a complete replacement of organic colonists, capable of all the same tasks and activities without the drawbacks usually associated with humans.

Research Project required: High Mechtech
Tech level: Ultra

NEW BUILDINGS

Several new buildings for neutroamine chain are added in this mod. These are used both for Android making as well as Sleeve making in VFE-Ultratech.

I will cover all those structures in a future devblog, but this is the basic list:

• Neutro pipes
• Neutro tank
• Neutro tap
• Neutro drain
• Subcore polyanalyzer
• Android part workbench
• Android creation station
• Neutrocasket
• Android stand
• Android behaviorist station

Alright, so to sum it up, over the next few days I will release development blog posts that will:

• Explain all the upcoming hardware and subroutines
• Cover what new structures we're adding and how they work
• Cover creating of an Android
• Cover Awakening mechanic, in which an Android becomes sentient.
• Cover Androids in hiding, and how any of your colonists may secretely be a synth.

Let me know what you think!