[Kenshi 2] Exploitation 'Trips' of an Area
Posted: Tue Jan 19, 2021 8:17 am
First paragraph is my little attempt to make Devs not hate these suggestions. Then the second paragraph jumps into the gist of the idea. Third Paragraph and onwards goes into detail.
So dev's don't hate it.
Instead of something that will be a nightmare for the devs to code, I wanted to suggest something simple that hopefully achieves a few things.
1. Devs don't pull hair out reading it thinking of the 100,000 lines of code that could be required (aka they might want to build it)
2. Players think it's a fair and balanced (aka not OP as hell, not cheesy suggestion) and something they could see using
3. It's something that the game modders could take and use for other purposes (future expansion ideas)
With that said, the idea of Exploitations 'Trips' a short summary.
An Exploitations 'Trip' is where a group of people, another nation, a faction or the players go to an area they don't control and exploit it heavily using not environmentally friendly methods to get extra resources quickly at the expense of the land. Think Hydro mining in the American West when California was first settled. Entire hills were washed away to get a little gold, or ores and the landscape was ruined for a long time.
Fleshing out the idea
Exploitations 'Trips' (the name needs work tbh) would have the player go to an area that they do NOT control in anyway, and are not friendly with in any fashion. They'd setup get things ready for a few days, which most likely won't draw attention unless it's right on a town/cities doorstep. And then they'd begin to Exploit the area with no regard for the owners. The area of effect would spread as the player or NPCs begin, the land would start to get scorched and muddy. Trees in the area would be cut down to feed machinery or smelters, land would be put through sifting equipment and chemicals meant to leach ore out of rocks and soil would poison the land.
A convenient tie in for Kenshi's current state of the environment.
These factors can explain why after authority collapsed in the old world the current lands of Kenshi 1 are full of Acid rain, mutant creatures and dangerous hazards. With no central authorities to keep people from doing so, the strong venture into the lands of the weak and pollute them heavily for short term gains. After all, 'Who cares, those are my enemies lands. It doesn't matter if they are destroyed/polluted.'
Explaining it Historically.
Player characters will need a decent band of people to pull this off, a group of at the very least 15 would be ideal. When they go into an enemy area, lets take Cannibal Plains for instance. In Kenshi 2 it could be a very dense forested area with tons of Iron, Copper, Coal, Oil and Wood resources. With the lab and armory in the zone there can be a light empire presence but they mostly stick to their own areas and while there are very small villages and even a town or two, the area is mostly able to be exploited by the players.
BUT, every exploitation ruins more of the land and pollutes heavily. Resulting in the residents streams, rivers and wells being choked with chemicals (which eventually mutate them to for the present day cannibals. The lush plant life is burned for fuel, dies off or mutates into the scrub brush we see in Kenshi 1. The resources nodes after being exploited a few times are no longer rich, but depleted heavily if not entirely. The entire zone becomes a wasteland of sorts and the residents are to weak to fight the players, and proto Holy Nation Trips off that exploit their lands as well.
How it can be used to NOT be OP
Like the above example, the mid game or late 'early game' is the time to do this, when the player hasn't really established a 'permeant' base but is looking to make larger advancements. A little bit of research would be needed to figure out the right chemicals, burning/smelting techniques, as well as sifting and hydro mining. Having enough characters to guard as well as work the land would be crucial. And the longer they stick around they will of course get more resources, but they will have a higher chance to be discovered and attacked. The land itself suffers HEAVILY from anything during this time.
Characters assigned various roles will go about their business and a visible 'taint' of the land will occur, large fires will be built and ore stacked on top to primitively 'smelt' the ore out of the rocks. Tons of local vegetation will be used in the fires and the more ores are claimed from the local nodes in this fashion will scorch the land for in game months or years. The player can heavily gain from this, but it will directly lower the quality of the nodes nearby that are under such conditions. And while the raw resources gained in this method are useful, they are not sellable in the traditional sense. The ores will be covered in chemicals and have the be worked into a more pure/clean state to be sellable. This should take a longer period of time then is useful. However the players themselves can work the ores into actual items they can use, weapons, armor, tools and items are fine. This prevents players from going a zone, 'exploiting it' and dumping tons and tons of ores on the local markets for tons of Cats and avoiding the economy and grind all together. Since smithing and plate beating takes time players can use them for themselves, with the added drawback that player controlled characters working with the contaminated ores could also take damage or have other longer term effects (poisons are bad to work with in close proximity, who knew?)
NPC factions using this as a means to cause conflict.
Again returning to the holy Nation example, they could have been sending Exploitation missions into the Cannibal Plains area during this time. They couldn't take it over because of the sheer number of people, but they could sure do some surgical attacks on certain nodes as the villages didn't all work together unless one of the villages was being occupied (short term thinking reigns). The holy nation uses these attacks to enrich themselves, and their army grows. Attacks on their missions eventually turn them back, but always with entire caravans full of resources for their efforts. The holy nation by extension is universally hated, but they have the means to make tremendous amounts of weapons, armor and tools, further reinforcing themselves into the middle of the map. The player character will be able to support, hinder or ignore these missions. The more they ignore them however means eventually over a few in game years the world state will change for the holy nation and even their weakest soldiers will have better weapons and armor. As well as their workers/citizens having more tools to increase their mining, farming and work. An interesting mechanic that could be as general as 10 successful exploit missions mean the faction increases by 5% equipment to as complex as the devs want to be.
Like anything in the game, it's a trade off. Besides ruining the zone and forever tanking the players faction rep with whoever lives there, surrounding zones will take a dim view of this. After all, the water table is a shared resource and the player just dumped tons of chemicals with no regard for anyone else. The player might also have to deal with mutations, long term disabilities in his characters and recurring sicknesses. Factions allied to the faction being hit by these exploitation trips would also consider with a high chance sending Mercs, Raiders, the precursors to bandits and bounty hunters against the player for this depending how often it was done. One major draw back should be producing or procuring the chemicals to be able to get the highest yields. Diluted sulfuric acid is used IRL to pull copper out of rocks, since the player is 'rushing' they can use higher centration's, this stuff isn't easy to go down to the local merchant and buy. So producing it themselves, or finding a faction/merchant/enemy-of-my-enemy that can produce it can be a task all by itself.
What it ISN'T meant to do
This isn't', in any way, meant to short circuit mining and gathering of resources. It's meant to be a mid game mechanic that will allow a decent resource gathering while destroying the players relations with at least a few factions and permanently lower an area for future collection purposes. Also, it's not meant to be the only way to get resources middle game, just an additional tool that, as far as I know, no other game allows currently.
This can be tweaked heavily by the devs, even to the point where it can be partially implemented or even a toggle when the game world is generated to avoid using all together. But it would be a great way to explain why the current zones of Kenshi are littered with Wreckage, pollutants, why acid rain is so heavy and where all the other resource nodes went (wood, oil, coal, etc. etc.)
Personal message.
I hope these ideas are helping in some small way, I can't code and will never be a person to make game. But hopefully giving these ideas over freely will not be taken as anything other than a sincere desire to help in some fashion. Thank you.
So dev's don't hate it.
Instead of something that will be a nightmare for the devs to code, I wanted to suggest something simple that hopefully achieves a few things.
1. Devs don't pull hair out reading it thinking of the 100,000 lines of code that could be required (aka they might want to build it)
2. Players think it's a fair and balanced (aka not OP as hell, not cheesy suggestion) and something they could see using
3. It's something that the game modders could take and use for other purposes (future expansion ideas)
With that said, the idea of Exploitations 'Trips' a short summary.
An Exploitations 'Trip' is where a group of people, another nation, a faction or the players go to an area they don't control and exploit it heavily using not environmentally friendly methods to get extra resources quickly at the expense of the land. Think Hydro mining in the American West when California was first settled. Entire hills were washed away to get a little gold, or ores and the landscape was ruined for a long time.
Fleshing out the idea
Exploitations 'Trips' (the name needs work tbh) would have the player go to an area that they do NOT control in anyway, and are not friendly with in any fashion. They'd setup get things ready for a few days, which most likely won't draw attention unless it's right on a town/cities doorstep. And then they'd begin to Exploit the area with no regard for the owners. The area of effect would spread as the player or NPCs begin, the land would start to get scorched and muddy. Trees in the area would be cut down to feed machinery or smelters, land would be put through sifting equipment and chemicals meant to leach ore out of rocks and soil would poison the land.
A convenient tie in for Kenshi's current state of the environment.
These factors can explain why after authority collapsed in the old world the current lands of Kenshi 1 are full of Acid rain, mutant creatures and dangerous hazards. With no central authorities to keep people from doing so, the strong venture into the lands of the weak and pollute them heavily for short term gains. After all, 'Who cares, those are my enemies lands. It doesn't matter if they are destroyed/polluted.'
Explaining it Historically.
Player characters will need a decent band of people to pull this off, a group of at the very least 15 would be ideal. When they go into an enemy area, lets take Cannibal Plains for instance. In Kenshi 2 it could be a very dense forested area with tons of Iron, Copper, Coal, Oil and Wood resources. With the lab and armory in the zone there can be a light empire presence but they mostly stick to their own areas and while there are very small villages and even a town or two, the area is mostly able to be exploited by the players.
BUT, every exploitation ruins more of the land and pollutes heavily. Resulting in the residents streams, rivers and wells being choked with chemicals (which eventually mutate them to for the present day cannibals. The lush plant life is burned for fuel, dies off or mutates into the scrub brush we see in Kenshi 1. The resources nodes after being exploited a few times are no longer rich, but depleted heavily if not entirely. The entire zone becomes a wasteland of sorts and the residents are to weak to fight the players, and proto Holy Nation Trips off that exploit their lands as well.
How it can be used to NOT be OP
Like the above example, the mid game or late 'early game' is the time to do this, when the player hasn't really established a 'permeant' base but is looking to make larger advancements. A little bit of research would be needed to figure out the right chemicals, burning/smelting techniques, as well as sifting and hydro mining. Having enough characters to guard as well as work the land would be crucial. And the longer they stick around they will of course get more resources, but they will have a higher chance to be discovered and attacked. The land itself suffers HEAVILY from anything during this time.
Characters assigned various roles will go about their business and a visible 'taint' of the land will occur, large fires will be built and ore stacked on top to primitively 'smelt' the ore out of the rocks. Tons of local vegetation will be used in the fires and the more ores are claimed from the local nodes in this fashion will scorch the land for in game months or years. The player can heavily gain from this, but it will directly lower the quality of the nodes nearby that are under such conditions. And while the raw resources gained in this method are useful, they are not sellable in the traditional sense. The ores will be covered in chemicals and have the be worked into a more pure/clean state to be sellable. This should take a longer period of time then is useful. However the players themselves can work the ores into actual items they can use, weapons, armor, tools and items are fine. This prevents players from going a zone, 'exploiting it' and dumping tons and tons of ores on the local markets for tons of Cats and avoiding the economy and grind all together. Since smithing and plate beating takes time players can use them for themselves, with the added drawback that player controlled characters working with the contaminated ores could also take damage or have other longer term effects (poisons are bad to work with in close proximity, who knew?)
NPC factions using this as a means to cause conflict.
Again returning to the holy Nation example, they could have been sending Exploitation missions into the Cannibal Plains area during this time. They couldn't take it over because of the sheer number of people, but they could sure do some surgical attacks on certain nodes as the villages didn't all work together unless one of the villages was being occupied (short term thinking reigns). The holy nation uses these attacks to enrich themselves, and their army grows. Attacks on their missions eventually turn them back, but always with entire caravans full of resources for their efforts. The holy nation by extension is universally hated, but they have the means to make tremendous amounts of weapons, armor and tools, further reinforcing themselves into the middle of the map. The player character will be able to support, hinder or ignore these missions. The more they ignore them however means eventually over a few in game years the world state will change for the holy nation and even their weakest soldiers will have better weapons and armor. As well as their workers/citizens having more tools to increase their mining, farming and work. An interesting mechanic that could be as general as 10 successful exploit missions mean the faction increases by 5% equipment to as complex as the devs want to be.
Like anything in the game, it's a trade off. Besides ruining the zone and forever tanking the players faction rep with whoever lives there, surrounding zones will take a dim view of this. After all, the water table is a shared resource and the player just dumped tons of chemicals with no regard for anyone else. The player might also have to deal with mutations, long term disabilities in his characters and recurring sicknesses. Factions allied to the faction being hit by these exploitation trips would also consider with a high chance sending Mercs, Raiders, the precursors to bandits and bounty hunters against the player for this depending how often it was done. One major draw back should be producing or procuring the chemicals to be able to get the highest yields. Diluted sulfuric acid is used IRL to pull copper out of rocks, since the player is 'rushing' they can use higher centration's, this stuff isn't easy to go down to the local merchant and buy. So producing it themselves, or finding a faction/merchant/enemy-of-my-enemy that can produce it can be a task all by itself.
What it ISN'T meant to do
This isn't', in any way, meant to short circuit mining and gathering of resources. It's meant to be a mid game mechanic that will allow a decent resource gathering while destroying the players relations with at least a few factions and permanently lower an area for future collection purposes. Also, it's not meant to be the only way to get resources middle game, just an additional tool that, as far as I know, no other game allows currently.
This can be tweaked heavily by the devs, even to the point where it can be partially implemented or even a toggle when the game world is generated to avoid using all together. But it would be a great way to explain why the current zones of Kenshi are littered with Wreckage, pollutants, why acid rain is so heavy and where all the other resource nodes went (wood, oil, coal, etc. etc.)
Personal message.
I hope these ideas are helping in some small way, I can't code and will never be a person to make game. But hopefully giving these ideas over freely will not be taken as anything other than a sincere desire to help in some fashion. Thank you.