Battle Standards, Drafting, Lethality, and Hostility

[christian2142]

This post is dedicated to the discussion of battle standards (or things similar to battle standards), the ability to 'draft' your people, the execution of 'lethal' combat, and the ability to toggle your faction status with other factions.

Let's start with battle standards. Battle standards are typically flags or emblems which represent your military/faction/nation/etc., worn (typically) on the back of a standard-bearer or wielded as an object. Standards can be regal, simple, or even provocative and intimidating. In any case, they have a psychological effect (sometimes positive, sometimes negative) on all parties involved in a battle.

I don't necessarily want battle standards which are there simply for aesthetics. I don't want battle standards solely to buff nearby soldiers with extra toughness, or attack speed. I want them for a different purpose: buffing 'taunt' characters.

Worn on the backpack slots, we could have standards meant to provoke certain factions or races. For example: a standard where the heads of Holy Nation paladins are impaled on pikes, meant to pull in additional aggro from (you guessed it) Holy Nation soldiers and their allies (all from the backpack slot, with negative combat modifiers to balance it due to how bulky or unwieldy these things might be to wear). Sometimes a person being on taunt isn't enough to pull in the aggro you were hoping for, so why not make it something you can strengthen at the cost of their ability to fight?

Another thing I mentioned was drafting. Drafting is featured in another Indie game called Rimworld, and is basically a mechanic that transitions your colonists between 'work-mode' and 'fight-mode'. When a character is drafted, they immediately pull out their weapon and ignore their everyday duties, shifting from automatic to manual and giving you, the player, full control over their movement and actions.

One of my biggest pet peeves in Kenshi is (since we lack formations) having to pause the game and individually move each player to where I want them to be, and to stay there in wait for the enemy to get closer so they can attack from specific directions or positions. This is made difficult, however, because your people (if they're assigned to a permanent job) will return to their designated workplace after reaching the destination you told them to go to. I simply want a 'draft' status (like taunt, passive, etc.) or toggle-able button that forces that unit to ignore their jobs, or enter full-on manual control mode.

Lethality is something simple. It won't take me two paragraphs to explain. When I say 'lethality' I really mean either an option (when holding right click over an NPC) to execute NPCs when they're downed, or a passive status (like passive, taunt, etc.) that forces characters to execute hostile NPCs they kill (perhaps by inflicting 100+ damage to the head, chest, etc.) after downing them.

Hostility is my final suggestion. It's a simple one as well. Essentially, I want the option to modify my faction's status with other factions. For example: telling them to attack members of the Wild Animals faction on sight, instead of waiting for wild animals to attack someone first. Nothing really essential, since the game already does a good job at characters responding and converging on threats as they occur, but would still be a step in the direction of fleshing out faction functionality.

[swillo]

Let's start with battle standards.

I like the idea, it has been suggested here before, but I like the buff to the taunt. I think that is a new one.

Another thing I mentioned was drafting.

If we get the "Guard" command option this would be less needed. I think being able to tell them to guard a spot is more useful. Especially if we could clear it and other perm jobs on all selected characters at once.

Lethality is something simple.

This has been mentioned many times and the devs have repeatedly said if you get to do it then the npcs get to do it. So every time you get knocked out the bandits will just kill you. Therefore it has been flagged as "not gonna happen".

Hostility is my final suggestion.

This would be easy to do on the factions screen. Just put a button next to the factions and when you click it you are perm set to -100 toward them. Easy way to declare war on anyone. However there would be no button to set you back. Once you declare war you will stay at war. However if you unprovoked attack a faction enough times you will be in the same boat.

However this could be done for the major factions using the Diplomat mods that are out there.
If you have the diplomats they can change your status with factions for some coin.