WillTroll

Correct, which is probably my only real gripe about the DLC.

The best solution to something like this is to lay all the framework and mechanics out in 1.1, and then have Royalty be just content that expands on those mechanics in place - which isn't what appears to be the case (unless I'm wrong completely).

That way mods that build off of those mechanics won't force users to buy into a dlc they may have no interest in. Instead, they'll have all the mechanics in the free 1.1 update. The only royalty-requiring mods would be the stuff that builds off of the royalty content (such as empire faction, new items/structures, etc).

---

The problem with WOTC was just that it created essentially two separate instances of the game. It caused some features that aren't content related (like that screenshot/poser thing) to be unavailable for those without the DLC, despite not reflecting on the content of that dlc.

It also caused modders to make two versions of their mods for each version of XCOM2 regardless if it really impacted any of the content from WOTC or not. Simply adding new gear choices required modders to have a vanilla version and a WOTC version.

---

But ultimately this is the only real gripe I have with the rimworld dlc and one can happily live with it regardless.

> The best solution to something like this is to lay all the framework and mechanics out in 1.1, and then have Royalty be just content that expands on those mechanics in place

Tried to do that where possible to be honest. E.g. the quests system. We had janky hacked-in quests before (e.g. trade request). But quests were the heart of Royalty content. So we built this super flexible, expandable quest gen system and implemented a bunch of Royalty content into it.

But of course it wouldn't make sense for the old quests to be separate from that, so we refactored them into it too (with some crazy back compatibility code to translate existing quests from 1.0 to the new system on game load).

Ultimately the quest system just became a part of 1.1, and Royalty includes a bunch of content for it.

WillTroll

That's what I realized thinking back on it, cause in the 1.1 pre-release testing there was the new quests system and I noticed some of the older quests popping up there (with some new non-empire related quests too, right?) It's also the biocoded weapons, which fit the biolink weapons of the empire stuff.

The part that I worry is royalty-required would be like the psylink stuff. Was that stuff dropped into 1.1 or would modders looking to expand on that (i.e add new abilities) require a royalty dlc pre-req?

The psycasts are based on an 'abilities' system, but it's pretty general. Psycasting itself, with psychic entropy and psychic amplifier etc is part of Royalty but adding abilities to pawns in vanilla is fine by me for sure.

Ultimately I'll have to make some judgment calls going forward; I'm kind of hoping nobody tries to push the line here. We'll have to find our way forward in dialogue.