[DEVBLOG#249] Vanilla Factions Expanded - Tribal dive in

Hello everyone and welcome to a brand new development blog. This time, we will be focusing on our up and coming Vanilla Factions Expanded - Tribal mod, and what you can expect from it!

Below you can see the brief description of what the mod will offer.

Venture into the heart of primitive survival with Vanilla Factions Expanded - Tribals. Starting as unsophisticated wild men with nothing but fire at your disposal, face the harsh reality of the wilderness as you strive to form a new tribe. Experience the crucial tribal gatherings that unlock a pathway from basic doctoring to crafting simplistic weapons, all the way to unlocking the essence of culture, ideology, and beyond.

As you painstakingly progress through tech levels, cornerstone points become your vessel to choosing an ethos for your faction, granting notable enhancements to your people’s capabilities. The added challenge of survival makes every technological advancement feel like a monumental achievement.

This mod introduces new weapons, such as stakes and throwspikes, alongside communal structures like large fires and sitting spots, enriching both your early and endgame experience. Your journey from mere survival to ultratech advancements unfolds a narrative filled with trials, unity, and the essence of civilization.

Generally, when we were designing the mod, I had a few points I wanted to tick off:

• Ensure the mod offers some content for the Tribal stage of the game, while remembering that Classical also serves as a sort of Tribal faction expansion.
• While Classical introduces late neolithic technologies, have Tribals mod focus on early neolithic theme.
• Introduce a way to advance through tech eras, as well as some permanent bonuses for those that choose to advance through tech eras.
• Introduce a way to start the game with less than nothing, and have the player work to unlock even the most basic things, such as hunting and farming.
• The mod should be small so that we may release it in time for Mr Samuel's new Generations series.

This in turn lead to some very interesting mod design. I started off by working on the Wild men start.

NEW GATHERING

Summary: A group of wild people trying to form a tribe. A classic Vanilla Factions Expanded - Tribal experience.

Description: Your small group has discovered fire, a stepping stone towards forming a tribe. Fire offers warmth, safety, and a chance to develop further. Yet, dangers abound in the wild, unknown world around you. You will have to learn how to perform basic tasks - from hunting and sowing, to doctoring and research. Work your way towards forming a tribe that can stand the test of time.

\n\nWarning: You start without the ability to do basic tasks, such as sowing, doctoring and hunting - it is extremely difficult and anything can end your run.

Player starts standing in the middle of the map.

Following items are scattered in the middle of the map

• 220 Wood

You pick 3 people from 5.

All pawns are Wild men.

This new starting scenario meant you start at the Animal tech level. RimWorld has following tech levels hardcoded:

Animal - Neolithic - Medieval - Industrial - Spacer - Ultra - Archotech.

Normally, when you start as a new tribe, you start at Neolithic tech level. We've made it so when you start as New Gathering, you start at Animal tech level.

Obviously that meant we need to design some new tech projects that you unlock in the Animal stage of the game. Before you ask: If you start as any other starting scenario, those will be automatically unlocked. They only need to be researched when you start as Wild men.

Lets take a look at what research we're adding.

Research Projects

This mod involves quite a number of new research projects for the Wild Men starting scenario. These research projects, however, are always fully researched for every starting scenario except the Wild Men starting scenario.

This means that if a player chooses to play Crashlanded, or any other modded scenario, below research projects will always be fully researched to begin with.

FIRE

Unlock the capability to utilize and manage fire for various purposes. Unlocks firefighting job.

• Research cost: 50
• Tech level: Animal
• Research Tab: Basics
• Required research: N/A
• Bench required: N/A
• Unlocking this research project:
  • Enables Firefighting job
  • Enables construction of Campfire
  • Enables construction of Large Fire
  • Enables construction of Torch lamp, Darktorch, Fungus darktorch

AGRICULTURE

Learn to grow various staple crops. Unlocks growing job.

• Research cost: 50
• Tech level: Animal
• Research Tab: Basics
• Required research: Fire
• Bench required: N/A
• Unlocking this research project:
  • Enables Grow job
  • Enables Growing zone gizmo
  • Enables growing: Rice plant, Potato plant, Corn plant, Cotton plant, Haygrass, Strawberry plant, Toxipotato plant
  • Enables construction of Plant pot
  • If Vanilla Plants Expanded is found:
    • Enables Tilled Soil gizmo
  • If Vanilla Plants Expanded - Mushrooms is found:
    • Enables Mushroom growing zone gizmo

CULTIVATION

Expand crop variety with more specific, difficult to grow plants, such as smokeleaf or psychoid plant.

• Research cost: 50
• Tech level: Animal
• Research Tab: Basics
• Required research: Agriculture
• Bench required: N/A
• Unlocking this research project:
  • Enables growing: Hop plant, Smokeleaf plant, Psychoid plant, Nutrifungus mushroom, Fibercorn, Tinctoria
  • If Vanilla Plants Expanded - More Plants is found:
    • Enables Water growing zone gizmo
    • Enables Sand growing zone gizmo
  • If Vanilla Furniture Expanded - Farming is found:
    • Unlocks construction of: VFE_PlanterBox, VFE_PlanterBox_Tilable

MEDICINE

Introduce basic medical care and herbal treatment methods. Unlocks doctoring and patient jobs.

• Research cost: 50
• Tech level: Animal
• Research Tab: Basics
• Required research: Cultivation
• Bench required: N/A
• Unlocking this research project:
  • Enables Doctoring job
  • Enables Patient job
  • Enables Healroot as a growable crop

ANIMAL HANDLING

Acquire the knowledge to manage, tame, and accommodate animals. Unlocks handing job, as well as animal taming and slaughtering.

• Research cost: 50
• Tech level: Animal
• Research Tab: Basics
• Required research: Fire
• Bench required: N/A
• Unlocking this research project:
  • Enables Handling job
  • Enables construction of Fence, Fence gate, Animal flap
  • Enables construction of Animal sleeping box, Animal bed
  • Enables construction of Pen marker, Egg box
  • Enables Tame gizmo
  • Enables Slaughter gizmo
  • If Vanilla Fishing Expanded is found:
    • Enables Fishing job
    • Enables Fishing zone gizmo.

MINING

Develop methods to extract resources from the earth using force. Unlocks mining job.

• Research cost: 50
• Tech level: Animal
• Research Tab: Basics
• Required research: Fire
• Bench required: N/A
• Unlocking this research project:
  • Enables Mine job
  • Enables Mine gizmo
  • Enables Smooth surface gizmo

CONSTRUCTION

Learn the absolute basic techniques of building and structural design. Unlocks the ability to build walls and roofs.

• Research cost: 50
• Tech level: Animal
• Research Tab: Basics
• Required research: Mining
• Bench required: N/A
• Unlocking this research project:
  • Enables Deconstruct gizmo
  • Allows Build Roof area gizmo
  • Unlocks construction of Wall, Door, Column, Bridge
  • Allows Remove bridge gizmo
  • Allows Remove floor gizmo
  • Unlocks construction of Wood floor, Flagstone floor, Strawmatting
  • Unlocks construction of Barricade, Sandbags
  • Unlocks construction of Fueled Stove
  • If VFE - Settlers is found:
    • Unlocks construction of: DoorSaloon, Post,
  • If Vanilla Furniture Expanded - Architect is found:
    • Unlocks construction of: VFEArch_SingleDoor, VFEArch_SingleDoor_Flipped, VFEArch_AnimalGate, VFEArch_BridgeSteel, VFEArch_LogWall, VFEArch_PicketFence, VFEArch_LowFence, VFEArch_HedgeWalll, VFEArch_FineWall, VFEArch_FineWoodenFloor, VFEArch_Grass, VFEArch_LawnPlot, VFEArch_WoodenParquetBase, CobblestoneBase
  • If Vanilla Furniture Expanded - Security is found:
    • Unlocks construction of: VFES_CavalrySpikes

FURNITURE

Introduce basic furniture crafting for improved living conditions.

• Research cost: 50
• Tech level: Animal
• Research Tab: Basics
• Required research: Construction
• Bench required: N/A
• Unlocking this research project:
  • Enables construction of Crib, Bedroll, Double bedroll, Table (1x2), Table (2x2), Table (2x4), Table (3x3), Stool
  • Enables construction of Hoopstone ring, Game of Ur board
  • If Vanilla Furniture Expanded is found:
    • Unlocks construction of Bed_StoneSlab, Seat_Cushion

TRIBALWEAR

Learn to craft traditional tribal attire for various purposes.

• Research cost: 50
• Tech level: Animal
• Research Tab: Basics
• Required research: Fire
• Bench required: N/A
• Unlocking this research project:
  • Allows crafting Tribalwear
  • Allows crafting Kid Tribalwear
  • Allows crafting Veil
  • Allows crafting Tribal headdress
  • Allows crafting war mask
  • Allows crafting light tribalwear
  • Allows crafting heavy tribalwear
  • Allows crafting war tribalwear

HUNTING

Establish methods for effective hunting and resource processing. Unlocks hunting job and allows you to craft throwspikes.

• Research cost: 50
• Tech level: Animal
• Research Tab: Basics
• Required research: Fire
• Bench required: N/A
• Unlocking this research project:
  • Enables Hunt gizmo
  • Enables Hunt job
  • Allows crafting Throwspikes
  • Allows construction of Animal trap
  • Enables construction of Spike trap
  • Enables construction of Butcher spot
  • Enables construction of Butcher table

WEAPONS

Introduce basic weaponry for defense against enemies.

• Research cost: 50
• Tech level: Animal
• Research Tab: Basics
• Required research: Hunting
• Bench required: N/A
• Unlocking this research project:
  • Allows crafting Club
  • Allows crafting Knife
  • Allows crafting Stake

BOW

Unlock the ability to craft the staple of ranged combat - a short bow.

• Research cost: 50
• Tech level: Animal
• Research Tab: Basics
• Required research: Weapon
• Bench required: N/A
• Unlocking this research project:
  • Allows crafting Short bow
  • If Vanilla Factions Expanded - Medieval is found:
    • Unlocks construction of VFEM_ArcheryTarget

CULTURE

Unlock the ability to conduct research, as well as develop ideological thoughts. Unlocks intellectual job.

• Research cost: 50
• Tech level: Animal
• Research Tab: Basics
• Required research: Medicine, Tribalwear, Furniture, Animal handling, Bow
• Bench required: N/A
• Unlocking this research project:
  • Allows construction of Simple research bench.
  • Enables intellectual job
  • If Ideology DLC is present: Unlocks the ideology the player has selected and all the thoughts and constructions related to it. Until this research project is done, Ideology system does not affect the player in any way.
  • Unlocks construction of Art bench

That's right. These research projects unlock specific job types. This does quite literally mean that if your caveman gets scratched and doesn't have Doctoring researched, they will be unable to tend themselves. This makes the game much, much harder, but fear now, the gathering stage of the game has a focus on getting a lot of new wild men joining your tribe.

But how do you do research, you ask?

If the players decide to start their game as a pre-neolithic tribe of wild men, they will immediately encounter a big issue: inability to do research due to the lack of a research table.

In fact, the simple research bench is among the last unlocks in the Animal tech level tree.

Instead, Wild men tribes conduct the research a little bit differently.

TRIBAL GATHERING

Tribal gathering is a new type of ritual that is accessible not just to Animal tribes, but also to standard Neolithic Tribes. This means that the gizmo to start this ritual should be inaccessible to colonies of Medieval tech level and above.

Tribal gathering is a special ritual in which all the colonists meet around the gathering spot (tables are gathering spots, but we also want to include campfire in the mix. We also changed Party spot to be a Gathering spot) to try and develop technology. The amount of research points gained this way is quite negligible in tribal era of the game, however it is essential in the Animal tech level period.

Factors

There is a few factors that have a chance of increasing the strength of a tribal gathering.

• Participant count (10): +25%
• Started at campfire: +10%
• Total intellectual skill (100): +100%

Rewards

There is a variety of different rewards depending on the quality of the tribal gathering. They are listed out below.

• Research progress
  • Each participant will generate [X] research points that will be allocated to random available research projects.
  • Upon completion of the tribal gathering, an amount of research points is being generated for each of the participants, and then allocated into available research projects at random.
  • The amount of research points generated depends on the quality of the tribal gathering.
    • 5% Ineffective - 2 Research points per participant
    • 25% Uninspiring - 4 Research points per participant
    • 60% Encouraging - 8 Research points per participant
    • 10% Inspiring - 12 Research points per participant
• Wild man joins
  • A wild man wanders in and decides to join your colony.
  • A wild man wanders in and immediately joins the colony.
  • 25% chance to occur on Encouraging, 50% chance to occur on Inspiring. Only one additional reward can be selected other than the Research progress.
• Farm animals wander in
  • A group of farm animals will be attracted and join the colony.
  • A group of tamed farm animals will join from the map edge.
  • 10% chance to occur on Uninspiring, 25% chance to occur on Encouraging, 50% chance to occur on Inspiring. Only one additional reward can be selected other than the Research progress.

This way your early game research will be focused fully on getting as many wild men as you can, and then bringing them all to tribal gatherings to try and figure out new technologies.

That's it for this development blog. Next time we will focus on all the new content this mod adds. It's not massive content-wise, but it adds some really cool early game stuff.