Quests and missions

[pether]

I love ONI, but in my oppinion it lacks goals and challenges other than the ones players give to themselves. This is an idea how to change this. In addition, dupes are so cute I'd like to have our emotional bonds sprout and grow as the game progresses. And last, but not least - the game have great potential for serious events (germ outbtreak, stress reactions, etc) that - at least in my games - are so rare that they never impact my games.

This idea seems like a great candidate for a DLC: There is ton of work, both from coding perspective, desiging the content and preparing artworks for it. However, it doesn't seem to be a feature that must be available for everyone or their game would be ruined or unbalanced, so it doesn't need to be free pack like the one with automation, that included basic sensors and gate art update  aimed for new players. On top of that, I'd gladly pay for this kind of expansion for my colony to make my game more immersive and fun-driven. Therefore - go DLC!

General Idea

Once in a while, at random, dupes will have some requests for the player. If the player finishes the quest in given time limit, he is rewarded, and the duplicant who gave us the quest is very happy (triggering overjoyed reaction). If the player ignores the quest or fails due to time limit, bad things happen and the duplicant is so angry that stress reaction is triggered. In addition, as the quest progresses, unusual scenarios can appear. Some quests finish early, some upon completion will trigger next quest of the chain, creating quest story that is developed with time. Each duplicant can request many things during the game, but there should be some limit (3? or somehow related to number of dupes in colony?) of currently opened quests.

Possible quests and scenarios

Here are some ideas what possible quests could look like. At any point of time, quest difficulty should be adjusted to the current game progress - player will not be requested to import stuff from space at the point when he struggles to make some refined metal, nor outhauses will be requested in the lategame. The idea is to help new players decide what is important to do right now if they had no clue what to do next. Each duplicant has specified quests that he can give, somehow related to his personality, interests and lore - for exaple Bhani will give us mostly automation quests. As the game progresses, dupes can start liking or disliking each other and this can be represented by quests as well.

• Go, dig and explore marked part of the map, currently in the black fog of... war? 
• Build specified room in a way he includes marked point of the map inside
• Hoard X of specified resource
• Plant and grow X plants of specified type
• I want to share my barracks with Liam, he is so cool!
• Have you noticed? Meep is doing nothing all day! Give him extra work schedule!
• Our floor is one big mess, we must clean it!
• I want a painting above my bed!
• This critter looks so cute, lets tame it!
• We must research this thing!
• Let's dring some soda!
• I want my bedroom was 6 tiles high, not 4! 
• I'm cold, make my room warmer.
• We need someone with doctoring skill in our colony!
• Can we check what happens if <other duplicant> got Slimelung?
• This sporechild looks pretty, lets plant it close to this spot
• This generator should be automated!
• Isildup! Throw The Ring into the volcano!
• Those shinebugs got angry with no reason, we must exterminate them!
• Execute order 66 - kill all Pips
• I saw MooMoos in the telescope, we MUST have one!

The list can grow and grow and grow, I don't want to spam the ideas here, but you get the idea

Possible scripted events

As the quests progress, some scripted situation can take place that normally would never occur or only in rare cases. Those should appear at random, so when quest X happens, player never know if the random event possible for this quest will appear. Bad events should be paired with good ones so the players who know all of them would take the risk of the quest to have chance for possible great surprise. Appearance of one such event should result in decreased chance it will repeat in the future, but the chances are never 0. Also, bad events can occur as a punishment for failing to do the quest without decreasing repeatition chance in the future. Some examples:

• Oh no, the earthquake trapped our dig team and now they lay unconscious! Hurry and dig them out!
• Hey, we found this strange artifact when we were digging here
• No! Bad Pip! No! Stop it! Dont hurt me! 
• Oh look at her! This Pip is a proud mother and there are her children!
• Hey! This mushrum I just ate... Why I see it dancing...?
• Guys? What happened to all our food? Who ate it? Meeep???
• I found morb in all of this mess! Told you we must clean!
• While researching this thing I realized we made a terrible calculation mistake some time ago. Now we must research both things again.
• Eureca! I have an idea for this great contraption, look, I researched two things at once!
• Why there is slimelung everywhere...? We were so carefull...
• I DON'T KNOW WHY THE MEDICINE ISN'T WORKING! Quick, we are loosing him!
• How the reactor could explode? Not overheat, explode! This is impossible!
• 3.6 R... Not great, not terrible.
• Told you automation is great! Now this generator will work twice as efficient for some time

Unique traits and visual

As a result of the quest, duplicants can get some unique traits or visual modifications for some time or the rest of the game. The point of this is to entangle specific duplicants with the story that was created with the quests so far. When you will look at Meep the Pipslayer at cycle 1000 you should smile and think "Oh this scar... I remember how you got it, Meep. That one was close, wasn't it?". The traits are unique and can't be shared with others. In addition, they are something that define duplicants, so each can have only one unique trait. Most of the traits come along with some graphic representation of it - changed appearance, outfit, animation, critter following dupes everywhere like Pikachu. Those traits should be reward for long quests compeltion or punishment for failing. The list of possibilities should be really really long, so each game offered something new. Few possibilities:

• Broken arm/leg - decreased speed of building things/running
• Blinded by Shinebug - require light to work
• Morbfobia - will run away from Morbs
• Ugly Scar - great decor penalty around
• Piptamer - bonusses from grooming Pips and singing to their eggs last 2 times longer
• Best friend with Meep - morale bonus for spending time around Meep
• Best pilot in the Galaxy - rocket flight time greatly reduced
• Entangled with Portal - allows to reroll portal printables once every time new ones are available
• Gold digger - small chance to dig out artifacts or refined metals
• Stinky - emits polluted oxygen
• Hates tickles - walking on carpet annoys this duplicant
• BBQ master - BBQ prepared by this duplicant is soooo gooood

Summary / TLDR

So there we are, thanks for reading my ideas. The quests should guide new players to do things required for colony survival, force experienced players to do something differently than they do usual, introduce challenges and goals, help player to know, befriend and grow bonds with his duplicants and in the end result in unique story crafted every game. The idea should increase fun from ONI even more for players focused on this part of the game and provide great opportunities who players who minmax their games for the most efficient results.

Hope you like it!

(I was sure I posted it in Suggestions and Feedback - it would be better place for this thread. If someone can move it or tell me how to do it - I would be gratefull)