Possible enemies?

[kozimoto]

I feel like there should be more into a combat system or enemies you encounter in the wasteland bandits maybe even competing settlements.

[Ostpogge]

That would be great, to be honest Atomic Society looks a bit like "Banished", just with another setting but thats not a bad thing. Banished was missing a crucial part...and that is combat, there are no enemies or hostlie villages to defeat and Atmoc Society is the perfect game for hostilities between settlements or even mutants and similar threats.

Best Regards
Ostpogge

[tomas4098]

It would be awesome to see a faction system in the game. What I mean is there will be rival societies and radier gangs around the wasteland that are either apart of or are their own faction that you could fight against for territory and resources. And you could make your settlement a faction that you could build a barracks and train soilders for, also it would be good to be able to set up seperate towns instead of one huge city and you could choose one of these towns as your factions capital.

This would be awesome as it would be amazing to make your own army and declare war on a neighbouring town and either ransack it or take over it.

[Lankhor]

The main reason I bought this game and supported it is the lack of combat. I also own Banished for the same reason. Not everyone wants to be "fighting" to protect their creations all the time. If I wanted a game that involved combat, I would have bought one.
Having said that, I understand that I will probably be in the minority here, so if the devs decide to add it, then maybe it could be added as an option in the initial game set-up.

[ScottFarRoad]

No immediate plans to add combat to the game. Combat in these kind of games can feel pretty tacked on unless done well and would distract from the true challenge in your own - which is managing a large population of damaged and dangerous (and occasionally even kind!) people. They'll be plenty of threats and violence, but it will be happening in the walls of your town. They'll be factions, but they'll be political factions. 

A lot of games focus on external threats. We're focusing on internal, human threats. Murder is the only the tip of the iceberg. 

But I appreciate there's a lot more to add into the game and that might not be clear yet. Hopefully the next version or so will make it clearer the social and ethical challenges are where the true battle lies in Atomic Society. Until now we've really had to focus on the city-building aspects but as we move on and look forward to a point beyond pre-alpha, we can really start expanding the social issues.

We want to get the core of it right first which is the social drama. 

[kozimoto]

And I have no anticipation of foreign enemies being a major thing in the game soon still alot other game mechanics and important material to cover before hand. A political system would defiantly be an awesome feature to see. Having a civil war within the settlement to maintain power or maybe even gain it back? But I love the concept of this game, really cool.

Real question though that I came up with is so lets say you choose a political party at start of game or as the settlement grows you decide. Now what happens if say you get voted or even forced out would that end the game or could you potential fight to regain your party in power?

[ScottFarRoad]

One thing we won't ever have is a game over screen.

You might create a miserable town where everybody hates you. But you'll live with it.

[dataforged]

I think this game could easily add a "combat" system - basically something that keeps you needing security and helping the larger world without the need for the player to actively fight in RTS mode

of course remote locations could also be made so this system would be reduced if not almost unimportant for those who wouldn't want to deal with it - and adding more layers to those who did - maybe a 0-4 slider - 0 being off and 4 being wasteland nightmare meaning lots of security troops and death - trade caravans would need more troops so goods would cost more - could really add allot to the depth of the game without a full rts system

so basically your defense posts would train / arm soldiers who would roam outside the map and you get messages they fended off raiders 12 raiders were killed X loot was found and 2 citizens were killed

without the defense you get a note saying - your base was raided as you slept 5 people are missing and X amount of resources are missing

this would allow players to feel part of a greater apocalyptic world setting without the need for real time combat (and could of course be disabled at game start)

also adds several more layers of game play as you could even hire mercenary's maybe buddy to a nearby militant town of heroes who you help out with food / ammo maybe even a outpost for them to use when in the area - maybe a nearby town you trade with is wiped out by raiders and the survivors come to your town seeing you as friends hoping you will let them in do you have the space the food/water? can you survive or do you turn them away knowing they will die out there without resources maybe you take in some - really adds that hard hitting feeling of gut shot at the games role play aspect

and of course best part is for the devs its far less resource intensive then a full RTS system with pathing and the likes walls / turrets ect ect wouldn't be needed

that said however I do think there should be some dangers on the map - like animals that harass scavengers - even if I just got a message your scavengers were going over a nearby gas station and mutants attacked 3 of them died but the mutants were driven off - or just the message your scouts walked into the wasteland and never returned

I think this would add to the flavor of the game without pulling from the main core concept of a builder over a RTS - but at same time giving allot of ground for it to not just be wasteland banished but its own separate title that people would use as a reference

[ScottFarRoad]

We have our own ideas for combat but I won't talk about it yet because 1) It's a long time away from getting worked on, if at all and 2) I'd love to hear people's thoughts on this topic over time. Liking some of the ideas in this thread so far.

[dataforged]

well often ideas are best not to set into stone - (bit of a story but its on point) I sat down for a mod to add a game start with a bit of more immersion feel ended up making 6 mods then merging them into one giant mod for a complete new faction with its own back story and technology and look - even who they hated and why they hated them with stories from dead camps they found

kept reading people asking me to add things - made a mouse trap (wasteland chicken) so people could get some meat easily then they asked me for a rat farm which didn't really seem to make allot of sense ended up making a mushroom farm as tier 2 from the ideas completely different then my original concept

so yeah I understand having 1 idea then seeing 5 others then creating a brand new idea better then all of them combined heh

[ykcir30]

I would love for combat, but it has to be done right, and not invasive to those who don't want it. As an option to toggle when starting, or during a playthrough. With a possibility of frequency and all. Factions would be a great thing, Either settling on map, or off map(Like in RimWorld). For those who like other Post Apoc settings, if modding was added, we could see things like from Fallout, or Metro and so on. Well that atleast is my view. If they add in a combat system, I am sure they would do a good job at it.

[pendragon]

I would be okay with combat as long as the most it was is defending from raiders and the like. Right now it feels very much like Banished in an apocalyptic setting (which is not a bad thing as I love Banished too) but I would love to see buildings have upgrades. E.g. Scavenger Hut, since they have to go long distances on the map, maybe have some kind of pack animal to carry more while walking the same pace or maybe a bicycle that gets them there faster but only holds the normal amount. With the plethora of dead bodies having an upgrade to the crematory that turns bodies into fertilizer which increases crop growing for 1 cycle. With the lack of space being able to make the buildings more efficient rather than just plopping down more would give the late game the same enjoyment as the early game. That's some things I would like to see in my first few hours playing. Great game so far and I am loving it.

[ScottFarRoad]

Jul 27, 2017 22:23:41 GMT pendragon said:

I would be okay with combat as long as the most it was is defending from raiders and the like. Right now it feels very much like Banished in an apocalyptic setting (which is not a bad thing as I love Banished too) but I would love to see buildings have upgrades. E.g. Scavenger Hut, since they have to go long distances on the map, maybe have some kind of pack animal to carry more while walking the same pace or maybe a bicycle that gets them there faster but only holds the normal amount. With the plethora of dead bodies having an upgrade to the crematory that turns bodies into fertilizer which increases crop growing for 1 cycle. With the lack of space being able to make the buildings more efficient rather than just plopping down more would give the late game the same enjoyment as the early game. That's some things I would like to see in my first few hours playing. Great game so far and I am loving it.

Thanks for the suggestions. Glad you're enjoying the game so far even at this early stage. Using corpses for fertiliser is a pretty cool idea, as is making buildings more efficient!

Our major focus now is expanding it so that hour 5 and 10 of playing your town feels just as much as fun and challenging as the beginning. That's what the next 2 versions will endeavour to do. 

Version 0.0.7 (which is coming very soon) adds a few things to help with that: maintenance as a never-ending building issue, the chemist (which is a building which interacts with 2 others and so requires planning), and above all several new social issues to handle over time so you want to keep playing to see how murky or moral your society will be.

But that's only the start. There's still some massive missing holes in the game at the moment we need to fill, such as breeding. When you have to grow your population through sex as well as migration it's going to open a whole new can of problems. And Approval Rating is going to be much, much more important in version 0.0.8 (more on that later). We've also mentioned that providing electricity is going to be a concern.

As for raiders and combat, we'll have more to share about them later (sorry, have to be vague for now!)