Generations

[Ghost00216]

the thought here is that you can have characters have children and have said children grow up. I'm not talking massive family trees just something as simple as a surname that is passed down to the child and maybe a generation number.

what I'm thinking of would require four life states:
-child: would last a couple of day/night cycles then become a teen.
-teen: this is the state where the character stays until you hit the advance generations button, preferably hidden in the options menu to avoid accidental button mashing.
-adult: the state all characters are in right now.
-Elder: adults become elders when the button is hit. They gain a bonus on training those younger than them and can still act as a normal character but at a minor penalty. Elders die when a generation advances thereby making the button have its negative side as well.

What I'm thinking is that 2 characters have a child, with the child inheriting the surname of the male by default. They could also gain a 10% bonus on learning their parents best skills when they become adults. The children and teens couldn't gain skills but could be used as basic laborers.

The adults would act exactly as they do now, but now you can breed specialists. Maybe a stacking bonus on skills up to a cap for each generation. I like the Idea of breeding Spartans.

Having adults age into elders gives the generations button weight. Your uber swordsman wont be quiet so good anymore, but instead he could train your new men better, and yell at them to get off his lawn. On the flip side the rookie you just recruited, would be just a useless old man working your fields. Having your elders die is another weight to add to the button.

I know this is a lot and could potentially be a pain to code. i can see a couple ways of doing it, but I don't know what language Chris is coding in and I'm just an amateur.

[Tolwrath]

Mostly like. Although this is quite similar to the marriage and reproduction feature request. I like the idea of having little catgirl children running around, and eventually growing up to fight in your faction. Unfortunately, time passage in the game is somewhat slow. It might work if time was sped up so that each "day" was actually a week or a month. I also have to say I would be totally saddened by the death of my useful, experienced, trained, familiar (and no doubt attractive) parent characters.

I'm a little confused though. You mentioned a button a few times, but didn't really describe it. Is it that when you press it, everyone in the faction ages and produces a random number of offspring if married and adult?

[RebD]

I'm a little confused though. You mentioned a button a few times, but didn't really describe it. Is it that when you press it, everyone in the faction ages and produces a random number of offspring if married and adult?

From what I gathered there is only one automatic stage of growth, from child to teen. There is no penalty to this happening, it just happens after a few days. The character is stuck in the 'teen' stage untill the player decides they want that character to become a fully fledged adult and they press a button and it happens. The downside is, when the player does this, not only do all their teens becomes adults but all their adults also become elders and all their elders die.

It's not a terrible Idea, but it seems a little bit too the sims and not much like an RTS. Also, from what I understand, Kenshi is going to be a very violent game that doesn't seek to restrict the player and usually child murder is a frowned upon game mechanic that I doubt Chris would want to be the poster developer for. But most of all, I'm having a hard to wrapping my head around how this would be able to be applied to the NPFs.

[Tolwrath]

One can assume NPC's are handled through massive scripting of whoever's nearby, assuming that character doesn't have a living spouse. Either that, or it wouldn't affect NPC's. Also: adults are able to produce more than one child in their lifetime. If you limit it to one, then your faction will begin to half-life down.

[Ghost00216]

From what I gathered there is only one automatic stage of growth, from child to teen. There is no penalty to this happening, it just happens after a few days. The character is stuck in the 'teen' stage untill the player decides they want that character to become a fully fledged adult and they press a button and it happens. The downside is, when the player does this, not only do all their teens becomes adults but all their adults also become elders and all their elders die.

You got it.

I'm a little confused though. You mentioned a button a few times, but didn't really describe it. Is it that when you press it, everyone in the faction ages and produces a random number of offspring if married and adult?

I'm not talking marriages or anything like that. In my opinion that's too much to track for each character. What I'm talking about is just a surname and a minor bonus that is inherited from a parent. Wither they play has to make the characters have children or it just happens over time doesn't matter too me.

As for the killing of children i can see that as a problem.

[Tolwrath]

As for the killing of children i can see that as a problem.

Oh that's easy. Instead of killing them, you knock them out and put them into slavery. Gets them out of tbe way, and prevents child death.

[Hellhound1]

I don't get what's wrong with killing (virtual) children. They're not real. Or at least let it be moddable like skyrim. Or an option somewhere.

Nobody complained about killing children in bioshock...

As for the rest of the generations idea, i like it. There should be a small, random percentage of an old person dieing each day, that slowly increases as the days go by. Like really really small, starting at like 0.01% and then growing by a random number. The more days the old person has survived, then the higher the percentage grows. Then when they die, you get a notification that they've passed away from old age.

[Scotterius]

The problem is not only with killing children. It is killing pregnant women, actually. Society just isnt ready for that one. Now if babies come magically from eggs, or stork fueled airborne delivery...problem solved, at least in part.

I dont like an age button, I am not a great fan of your characters growing old (like in Sid Myers 'Pirates!'). Crops grow though, so it is not hard to imagine these magically summoned children growing. I can imagine a few people who would make child solider farms. Still, the idea of mating just doesn't appeal to me.

[RebD]

I don't get what's wrong with killing (virtual) children. They're not real.

I know that and killing children in a video game wouldn't even bother me in the slightest. From a moral perspective, although there would be things i'd be uncomfortable with, I don't think there is anything that can be done in a video game that is truely wrong.

That's not my concern, my concern is that society loves to blame video games for its problems and I just don't think Chris would want to make Kenshi the center of that discussion (although the publicity might be good). Considering the still recent tradgedy of the sandyhook shooting spree, one could only imagine the fallout if someone in the media got wind of being able to kill children in Kenshi.

Instead of calling it a RTSRPG sandbox, it would be called a "child murder simulator" and there would be uproar. Of course Chris could just make it impossible to attack children, but that would deviate from his vision of a game that doesn't seek to restrict the players actions.

[Ghost00216]

The problem is not only with killing children. It is killing pregnant women, actually. Society just isnt ready for that one. Now if babies come magically from eggs, or stork fueled airborne delivery...problem solved, at least in part.

I dont like an age button, I am not a great fan of your characters growing old (like in Sid Myers 'Pirates!'). Crops grow though, so it is not hard to imagine these magically summoned children growing. I can imagine a few people who would make child solider farms. Still, the idea of mating just doesn't appeal to me.

I envision a very quick childhood, with the children just appearing near the parents. Babies are annoying needy things. And the button itself would be totally optional. Don't hit the button no one ages and the game continues as normal.

To solve the child killing issue, maybe just have them get knocked out if they are attacked, and by default run screaming for the hills at the first sight of combat.

There should be a small, random percentage of an old person dieing each day, that slowly increases as the days go by. Like really really small, starting at like 0.01% and then growing by a random number. The more days the old person has survived, then the higher the percentage grows. Then when they die, you get a notification that they've passed away from old age.

I'm not a fan of this, it would take the weight away from the button. If my old dude is just gonna die on me anyway, why even make him old?

The concept, in my mind at least is to have this as an option within the game that the player doesn't ever have to touch if they don't want to. Having it implemented would have NPC children and such roaming around which would add diversity to the game. To me Kenshi is a game of choices and this would just be another choice.

[iSuck345]

I don't get what's wrong with killing (virtual) children. They're not real. Or at least let it be moddable like skyrim. Or an option somewhere.

Nobody complained about killing children in bioshock...

As for the rest of the generations idea, i like it. There should be a small, random percentage of an old person dieing each day, that slowly increases as the days go by. Like really really small, starting at like 0.01% and then growing by a random number. The more days the old person has survived, then the higher the percentage grows. Then when they die, you get a notification that they've passed away from old age.

Nobody complained because everybody was crazy and more worried about their own survival, and if you are talking about thoose "special" children, they were considered freaks.

Alright it's a virtual world. That means that I can be riding a dragon and raping without having a penalty to my reputation, but hey, it's just a virtual game!
What I am saying is that even thought it's just a game, killing children in the real world is frowned upon, and since that is quite close to the real world, killing children in there is frowned upon too.


Also I don't really like this thing of generations or aging, because I don't like loosing my hard work, I'd rather just hire mercenaries, gather enough money and materials, start a town, recruit some people and have a town guard and choose the lifestyle of my people and to what they should dedicate themselves to instead of simply micromanaging them into constantly hitting a dummy and eachother with wooden sticks.

[Hellhound1]

Nobody complained because everybody was crazy and more worried about their own survival, and if you are talking about thoose "special" children, they were considered freaks.

I know it's off topic BUT regardless, its still a virtual representation of a child, and it could be killed. They're both not real children and they both have never existed.

Also, are you saying it's ok to stab children because they're considered "freaky"...?
I know that's not what you're actually saying, but i don't think you can pick and choose between games and scenarios. Either it's ok to kill a virtual, non existant child, or it's not.


(This should really be a new topic if it isn't already, would make an interesting debate.)

Edit: @iSuck please don't think it's a personal attack or anything, im just interested in peoples view points

[Marilous]

Making children captureable without having to down them is an easy work around for the child killing thing, as for pregnant women you could give them a non combatant status similar to the children where they are captureable without being downed.

The idea of this seems to be having the ability to churn out your own army with the people in your camp already basically which is cool but as a game with an rts facet having your best guys get old would be crippling.

Slightly off topic but someone brought it up, as to the skyrim mod where you can kill kids I just wanna say screw those kids, I coulda gone with a politer children mod but I'll take the one that lets me blast the kid in the face who just asked if I was here to lick his father's boots.

[iSuck345]

Nobody complained because everybody was crazy and more worried about their own survival, and if you are talking about thoose "special" children, they were considered freaks.

I know it's off topic BUT regardless, its still a virtual representation of a child, and it could be killed. They're both not real children and they both have never existed.

Also, are you saying it's ok to stab children because they're considered "freaky"...?
I know that's not what you're actually saying, but i don't think you can pick and choose between games and scenarios. Either it's ok to kill a virtual, non existant child, or it's not.


(This should really be a new topic if it isn't already, would make an interesting debate.)

Edit: @iSuck please don't think it's a personal attack or anything, im just interested in peoples view points

ok I'm a little lost here: are you talking about the reaction real people have of killing virtual children, or are you talking about virtual people reacting to you killing virtual children?