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[Teaser] Our plans for Gravships Expanded (Patreon)

Published:
2025-07-27 20:30:52
Imported:
2026-09
Tags:

Content

Take these with a huge grain of salt as the plans are constantly evolving, things get moved around, they get moved to later chapters and other things get moved to earlier chapters etc.

This is general overview of our scope. Of course Chapter 2 and 3 are still in very early conceptualization stages and will be filled with about as much content as chapter 1 is planned to be.

Files

Comments

Computica

This is a massive undertaking. If you all only implement a quarter of these I wouldn't be mad at all.

Mr Smith

YES PLEASE bless us with such a Mod <3

Sam Serrano

Wow O_O Love it! I've been obsessively playing with Odyssey (and VE!). Any news on the update of VE: Security?

Oskar Potocki

Not being worked on yet. Been swamped with bug reports after the release of Odyssey DLC, and only recently we’ve started getting the hang of them.

Sam Serrano

Totally understand! Loving all the work and effort and kickass you all do <3

Zachary Fewins

Can’t wait to build a whole fleet, and have a stationary hub.

Ed

Save our Ship team has done it, I don't see Oskar's team couldn't

Computica

That took years to do and probably something Ludeon should of done to begin with.

seppi 141

This will be so great its like sos2 but more vanila style

Zachary Fewins

What’s the goal on a release schedule for this? I know it’s impossible to give anything exact, but what’s would you be hoping for?

Zachary Fewins

With there being a vanilla system in place now I can see a lot of this being much easier to accomplish than when SOS did it. Ship combat will still probably be hard to implement nicely though.

Computica

You can't get a release schedule on this

Zachary Fewins

I know. That’s why I was asking what the hope was for this.

Oskar Potocki

I hope to have a playable beta within 2 months. Of chapter 1, that is.

Zachary Fewins

Awesome. Thanks for all your hard work.

Paton Yecla

It will be so cool to see how all this interacts with VFE empire and deserters! I know that would be low priority but facing empire orbital locations, bases and gravships, or making assasination missions in space would be incredible! Isnt the stellar in orbit? Maybe another way to end the deserters run attacking his orbital palace? Empire and deserter orbital tech and psycasts offers so many opportunities as well!

WizardOfZinks

I really hope they add some interactions with the empire and deserters. Just attacking the big empire ship would be amazing.

astatine

How compatible will this be with SoS2? I loved running VFE and SoS2 in 1.5, will this still be possible?

Mocho

This is easily my most hyped mod(s) of all time. Do you know if Astrofuel will be more efficient than chemfuel? I didn't really like having to constantly cut down entire forests to refuel my gravship. Since it's synthesised from chemfuel, I guess you'll still have to do that, but if it's more efficient then at least you'd have to do it less. Or maybe there could be refueling stations in orbit ... Speaking of orbital locations, are there plans to add more variety to them? I've heard some ideas for anomaly-themed stations like a fleshbeast infected derelict station. I guess they could even be added in a Vanilla Quests Expanded mod?

Chance713

Have the SOS2 discord announced how they are moving forward with the mod?

Mocho

bruh

Mea K

Sure looks like it's going to be incredible! Can those new compact/improved structures be used on the surface as well?

Rock

This should be fun! Only thing I can think of that I dislike for the gravship is the addition of another fuel type with its own pipework. I personally feel the vanilla expanded+alpha family of mods already have sooo many pipe networks atm.

KaneLives

This is the best thing Ive ever read

Deggial

Overall, this looks great! I have three questions/remarks: 1. Gravtech research process while ship is traveling What does this mean? It certainly doesn't mean while it's *actually* travelling (i.e. moving. This is just such a tiny fraction of the time.) After all, you will add empty space destinations, which probably count as 'travel'. But does this just mean 'not being on the planetary surface', or does being docked to an asteroid or space station also disable this research? 2. Thruster rebalance Just make sure the number of thrusters stays within reasonable bounds, please. Actually, I am quite satisfied with the current maximum number of addable thrusters. Having the entire heck of the Gravship stuffed with repulsion systems would look quite silly in my opinion. 3. Gravship upgrades can be researched. I will refrain from judging this one. It all depends on the actual implementation, I suppose. Sure, it can be annoying to rely on RNG to obtain all the different components if they are limited to quest rewards and/or lucky finds when visiting RNG-based locations. However, I would be very, *very* careful not to remove the need for these events entirely, otherwise you will also remove a huge incentive for questing. (Something 'Odyssey' is especially praised for.) Personally, I didn't acquire most of the upgrades in my first run. But I feel it is more of a motivation to start a second run immediately than a source of frustration. The upgrades are not all essential for completing runs, and where they are, they seem to be offered quite frequently in one way or another.

VioletNepheli

this looks really good man! Gravships/Orbital Stations are still some of the most fun i've ever had in rimworld so i cant wait!

Félix Dubois

This looks pretty great overall, except for the new fuel type, the buildable grav-engines (unless they require a unique thingy that you have to quest for ), and the grav-research bench. Not a fan of adding alternative resources that already exist just for the sake of it. I would much rather have astrofuel be something that convert VERY efficiently to chemfuel so you can carry that around for very little space and convert it on the go as you need it.

Oskar Potocki

From what I read, SoS2 is not looking to integrate with this DLC. Instead, they will keep systems relatively separate. Which goes against our VE philosophy, thus I am not too worried about compatibility there.

Oskar Potocki

See, to me it didn't make sense that you power your huge moving space-ship sized base with the same substance that you use to run your chemfuel generator or make chemshine with. That's why we're adding it as a special fuel type you refine simply from chemfuel.

Oskar Potocki

1. Distance travelled will translate to research points. The ship isn't actually simulated when travelling, so I didn't mean your research bloke would stand there doing actual research. This system will exist to encourage further travel too. You will NEED to fly the gravship to research new gravship unlocks. In a way, it's no different to how you need to travel to quest locations to get certain gravship upgrades as quest rewards. I'm just giving players more control over what they get (they get to choose the research project). 2. When I saw the biggest, map-spanning ships travel using only 4 small thrusters I realized this needs to change. I want gravships to look more like ships, and we fully know that space is extremely important due to limits. Our biggest change is that thrusters will now add a multiplier to the maximum size of the substructure you can have. The more thrusters you have, the bigger your ship will be able to be. It makes sense. More thrust power - more weight carried. 3. This ties in to number 1. While they will be buildable by the player and not tied to RNG quest rewards, player will still need to travel to research them. Of course they will still appear as quest rewards so the option is there to obtain them that way if you so wish.

Oskar Potocki

They can only be constructed on substructure, but if you land your gravship on a map on the surface, you can use them!

Atreyu

The problem with a research system like that is that it inevitably devolves into: Fly to a random location at max travel distance; Press speed 3; Wait for the cooldown notification; Repeat until research unlocks; The quests expanded style mission structure that odyssey already kind of emulates encourages you to travel, and it uses actual player interaction to unlock the research.

Martin Gizela

Hey Oscar, can I have some suggestions? I was thinking about a cool concept for a space station structure that can be found, some kind of force projector that will create a habitable sphere where you can grow trees and have some nature in space.

Deggial

Thank you for the detailed response, Oskar! Ad 1 and 3: An interesting concept! I hadn't even considered this possibility. It might work well. However, Atreyu's concern is not without merit. There is a danger that it will result in 'grinding for mileage'. On the other hand, this would be entirely under the player's control. Nobody is *forcing* us to play this way. Have you considered locking them behind tech prints? These could still only be obtained by completing quests. Once decrypted (and researched), however, the related technology will always be buildable. Ad 2: Huge ships with tiny thrusters are indeed hilarious (and no, I won't associate). I certainly didn't demean myself with such folly, always matching thrusters to the size of my ship. Doesn't this affect maximum reach as well, which I tried to maximise? In any case, a direct correlation between thrusters and supported weight seems a reasonable approach.

Oskar Potocki

Sounds really cool! Can you suggest what would be needed to keep it operational?

Oskar Potocki

@Atreyu I think if we look at it like that, we’re approaching the subject wrong. Sure, it’s possible to cheese it and reduce it to a grind, but what is building killboxes if not the same thing? We don’t really advertise our mods to people who just want to min max and grind like that. Rimworld is a set of tools and it’s the player who decides what they want to do to have fun. If a player wants to grind the research like that, they may as well dev-unlock it and then proceed to things that give them fun.

Atreyu

I think you're comparing opposites in this case. Research exists to unlock gameplay progression that you want to engage with as a player. On the other hand most killbox designs exist to avoid engaging with actual combat gameplay. My main point is that traveling to any arbitrary tile on the map isn't as compelling gameplay as going to the next arc site, then exploring/fighting through the location to unlock the next tier of arc reactor. At best a distance traveled based research feels like you progress for free automatically given enough time, or at worst it becomes a chore when you're ready to progress to the next tier but you haven't traveled far enough yet.

Oskar Potocki

The mod will be balanced so that travelling to all the various quest sites will be sufficient. Please don’t assume I want to add some endless travel grind.

Atreyu

Look maybe there's more nuance to what you're planning, but what you've described sounds like just unlocking research for free given enough time. And it goes against your stated goal of encouraging flying the gravship more when you say that the gravship travel we're already doing will be sufficient. At any rate I'll wait and see what the mechanic looks like when you release it. Thanks Oskar

Frank Cotton

How about it would require.mass9ve amounts of energy, and when you lose energy it becomes hard vacuum?

Frank Cotton

Hey I have two ideas for this mod. The first one would be being able to travel to different planets. By the time someone has amassed a star destroyer of a ship, it is likely that they would have either exterminated the local population on the planet or pacified everyone. I think it would be really cool way of keeping the game fresh with an endgame vehicle. My second idea is remote mining stations. You can plop it down on an asteroid, walk away, and come back in an hour or two for a trickle of resources. If it would be possible, you could integrate it with rimfactory to have an autonomous late game manufacturing facility.

Oskar Potocki

I don't understand one thing. Base game research process can already be described as 'unlocking research for free given enough time'. Your colonist sits down at the research bench and slowly progresses a project, which then unlocks new structures for you. In Gravships Expanded, the gravship related research will be done through travel. In a way, it's a very similar loop, except it's not your colonist per se doing the research, but the gravship as a whole. In fact, it will cost more than just time: It will cost resources too, since you need fuel to travel. Gravships enter cooldown after they land which also means you will need to make sure you're alive on the surface long enough to launch again. So in a way, Gravship research is very similar to normal research, but in other ways, it's more expensive, as it doesn't just cost the colonist and time. When I say that the travel you already do will be sufficient, what I mean is: You will already be travelling to quest sites etc. This means that you will automatically research gravship projects as you do it. Of course if someone wants to min-max and just zoom from one end of the planet to another, they can. Will it be fun for them? No. Will it be an intended way to do gravship research? No. But as I said before, people cheese the game in a variety of ways and I can't control that, because if I do, I encroach on their 'story generation'.

Atreyu

You're not wrong, you could think of it that way if you build one research bench and forget about it. But you can also spend resources developing infrastructure like sterile research rooms, adding linkables like the filing cabinets and research counters from VE furniture modules; you can give pawns bionics that boost their overall work speed or their research speed directly; and you can build more benches and commit more pawn labour to scale the speed at which you research. You have a level of interaction/control over your progress as a player that I'm not seeing from what you've described as a fairly passive system.

Deggial

This is actually a pretty neat idea, and it's probably something you've already planned anyway: In order to benefit from the travel distance in the first place, a 'flight log computer' or something similar could be introduced. It could be a small 1x2 station that automatically collects all the flight data per distance flown, and maybe one or two accessories to enhance the raw data collected. Whether or not a dedicated researcher (including bionics) is needed or could enhance the process further remains to be seen.

Oskar Potocki

@Atreyu I never said you don't have influence over the gravship research! The quality of the launch ritual, the intellectual skill of your researcher, the distance flown, all of these dictate how much research you'll actually do. The better the gravship, the more research points you will get!

Martin Gizela

Hey Oscar, so I was thinking about it like this. It can work like a giant vacbarire projector. Because of the difficulty in maintaining that big vac field, it will have leaks, so my suggestion is it can consume like 8000 W and will need a steady supply of new resources, oxygen. In a scenario of shutting down power or oxygen, it will start to shrink because the internal computer is trying to maintain field integrity.

Ivan Popov

Hey, not sure what your ideas are about ship roles, but here are some suggestions: - Captain - has a special captain's console (maybe even captain's throne for Royalty integration) and improves the effectiveness of all other ship roles. Works during launch and also during battles. Effectiveness should be based on the pawn's social skill. - Grav Engine Operator - uses the drive itself or a special console for added effectiveness. Improves launch outcomes and manoeuvrability during battle. Potentially also decreases fuel consumption. Should be based on the pawn's crafting skill. - Scanner Operator - uses a special console to improve accuracy during battles and increases the chances of finding special locations/triggering beneficial events in space. May also warn you about incoming enemy ships. It would be cool if ship scanners were also a separate external ship building (similar to thrusters) that would be necessary for the scanner operator to function. Should be based on the pawn's intellectual skill. All those roles shouldn't be strictly necessary to make smaller ships with light crews viable, but should help bigger ships shine and maybe be somewhat more accessible in terms of fuel efficiency. Also, if that's not a thing yet, I think that the size of a gravship should decrease the quality of the launch ritual to represent that it is more difficult to pilot larger vessels. New roles would be able to offset that, though.

Deggial

Spock raises his eyebrow and remarks: "Having a science officer is logical!" They will increase the data gathered while travelling and boost the expected yields of those special locations identified by the scanner operator. (I'm running with you here, Ivan. Perhaps they'll offer a choice between two possible events if this is technically feasible in the game.) A science console will be necessary for them to provide their services.

Brother Guan

Is it possible to make it so that, when both Vanilla Factions Expanded - Insectoids 2 and Odyssey are installed, the larva replaces swarmling spawning and gains the cocoon ability?

Oskar Potocki

No plans for this yet. Maybe later, once we know what effect it will have on the game.

али иброгимов

Excellent, except for the new fuel type. Also I hope that there will also be some... how to say it... "useful"(?) features. A lot of things here look like a means of captivating difficulty and complexity. Oxygen pipes, maintenance, overheating, research - all this is cool in theory (and I hope in practice), but without "advantages" it's a bit off-putting. However, these are just concepts, so we'll see. Also, any ideas for the purpose of the player to build a station? For example, to build their own weather control devices or power beams? P.s. One day we'll see the release of Megacorp and I'll finally be able to build my own research/cruise liner, full of ultra-tech furniture and buildings...

Oskar Potocki

It's important to remember that while we are indeed also adding 'advantages', the gravships as they are are insanely overpowered - you unlock them with electricity more or less, lol. We want to make gravships stronger, and allow you to make bigger gravships, and we're adding a lot of interesting gravship-related technologies to make living on the gravship much better, at the costs of complexity of the gravship system.

Lu Na

Will there also be a new vehicle module for shuttles? Landing ramps for space stations or gravships? Docking systems, so you can move from your gravship to the station without losing oxygen?

Luna K

Looks awesome! I was a little disappointed with the lack of ship combat with the DLC (still my favorite one) and was hoping it'd have something like SoS2. Will chapter 2 take inspiration from that mod or perhaps work with that team? I always love to see what Vanilla Expanded can do with each major update/DLC. Easily the best mod creators of not only Rimworld, but I'd say any game I've played.

Spoder

Ship battles is what this DLC is missing. When it comes to ship-to-ship/ship-to-station combat I have a few ideas: Ideas for weapons: Kinetic - Ballistic/charge based guns, basically big turrets you point at the enemy and hope they hit. Uses ammo like motors Missiles - Self explanatory, chance to hit based upon the enemy's maneuverability. They deal a lot of damage but vulnerable to point defense turrets. Beam - Odyssey introduced the mech beam weapons as craftable and usable gear, the mechhive even has decorative anti-ship beam cannons. Guaranteed chance to hit but generates ALOT of heat and eats power. Point Defense - Defensive stop gaps than actual weapons. Can intercept enemy missiles and pods, bit like the ancient turrets from VFE Ancients. Orbital bombardment is a must. Maybe it could be similar to dumping toxic waste on a faction, bombarding a spacer faction causes one of their gravships to intercept, try to board with pods or attack you with planet-side weapons. Misc ideas: Boarding pods - Specialized drop pods designed to breach the hull of a ship, reinforced with armor and a stricter guidance system means they'll be more expensive. Could still try using regular pods but hope the enemy doesn't have point defense. ECM/Cyber warfare - Electronic counter measures, ways for intellect pawns to hack enemy ship and station systems? Remotely hack doors and other hackables? Mess with enemy missiles? Fightercraft - Pipedream. Potential VVE submod. Various different small scale spacecraft pawns can fly, bombers, fighters, gunships, etc. Particularly vulnerable to point defense.

Justin & Lyssa

Super excited to see VEGS grow and develop! The plan sounds incredibly awesome with a great emphasis on making it feel like "progression." In the core Odyssey I'm surprised at how "fast" you can knock out ALL the research for the gravship. It's like 4 researches for the whole technology (compared to the amount of research to unlock the anomaly content). I hope the gameplay mechanics of space battles in Part 2 can help fix my biggest pet peeve of Odyssey--there is no incentive to design a gravship that actually looks like a ship. It seems the optimal design is either just a flying rectangle or a hap-hazard "build-as-you-grow" design rather than trying to make it look like a ship with a cockpit, reactor core, wings, etc. For example, I'm thinking of top down images of Star Trek TNG style ships... the silhouette of a Klingon Bird of Prey versus a Federation ship--both are very unique and "ship-like". Anyway, love VE mods and I'm excited to see where you and your team's creativity takes us!

Oscar

So excited man

8BitBoar

Ello! I’m looking forward to this a lot. Kinda feels like the missing other half of the gravship. Good luck! I also have a question that has bled through from watching y’all release Quest mods, and the like. Does VEF have anything in regards to creating quests? I do see the implementation of quest chains.

ClayTeeth

Sounds great, looking forward to seeing more. Would strapping engines to a small asteroid to use it as an improvised gravship be beyond the scope of this mod? I think I can guess but I have to ask.

burner pyro

Cant wait to see these plans in action! Do yall intend on adding any support between Odyssey and yalls' Empire n Deserter mods?

Bryan Flaherty

Any chance The Goliath can be made capable of space flight? My deserters need to reign down some justice and launching from an asteroid base sounds awesome.

Bryan Flaherty

The Flying Fortress drop pod from Vehicles Expanded Tier 3

Oskar Potocki

Oh of course! Is it not already space flight capable?

Bryan Flaherty

Unfortunately not. I see an attribute that says space faring and that says no and I get a message when I try to launch it to or from an asteroid that it is not capable of space travel.