That’s really tough, there are a bunch of huge features that might not happen outside of magical intervention. Probably the hordes system and associated subsystems like fire spread and NPCs roaming around scavenging things. The thing about a proper hordes system is it essentially makes the active area of the game bigger, so now you have to worry about things in earshot and things that you previously interacted with instead of just things you’re looking at in the moment.

An abstracted patrol system that creates a sense of dynamism outside the reality bubble. For example when a migo scout tower is spawned a series of paths around the tower would be generated (not visible necessarily to the player). A group of migos would patrol this path, importantly they wouldn’t just be a random spawn, the game would keep track of a value for where the migos are on the patrol route (again in an EXTREMELY abstracted sense of a single value for how far along the path the patrol is in terms of time, not actually somehow pathing each migo outside of the reality bubble) and if the player happens to cross the patrol path when the migos are calculated to be at that point of their route then the game would spawn in a migo patrol. The migo patrol would be headed towards a series of waypoints that lead out of the reality bubble in the direction of the patrol route.

If the migos spot the player or another creature while in the reality bubble, they would break off patrol and attack. One of the monsters would be designated the “captain” of the patrol and once the captain drops out of the reality bubble from the player running away a timer counts down (say an 15 minutes) at which point the patrol route resumes.

To keep calculation simple, disturbances to the schedule of the patrol routes wouldn’t even have to be tracked permanently, they could just be reset after the “disturbed” patrol completes its next patrol cycle. Patrol routes progress also wouldn’t have to be stored and tracked permanently for every instance of a migo scout tower (or other monster patrols), they could just be forgotten once the player is a certain distance away on the overmap and began again once the player enters the region again.

The reason I want this is because I love the idea of creeping up to the edge of a field and seeing it is clear at the moment, but knowing that I have seen migo patrols go by in the past. I could then lie and wait until I saw migos pass by and then continue after they passed knowing I was safe to cross or chance it and cross sooner if time was of the essence. I want open spaces to feel vulnerable to enemies stumbling upon me by accident (in a way I can’t easily outrun) just because they were passing by but I don’t want it to feel unpredictably random. I love the idea of having to sneak across a busy, dangerous patrol route.

Further down the line a skill of tracking could be added where the player can perceive the well trodden path of a patrol route and perhaps how long ago creatures passed by on that route.

When I have suggested this before people always freak out about how silly it is to try to extend the distance of the reality bubble, but this isn’t really doing that, it is more like just keeping track of a single “patrol route progress” variable for each path, and only paths in the same region on the overmap. No other information would have to be calculated outside the reality bubble.

Coherent overmap interconnectivity (especially by roads, isn’t America supposed to be super convenient to traverse by car??)

a completely freeform faction camp system, with the ability to go “i want a building here, of this size and shape, made out of these materials” paired with the ability to declare “this building needs to be a housing/workshop/storage area, fit for these purposes”, ultimately resulting in “my faction camp ‘missions’ are completely derived from the actual constructed amenities currently in service, rather than pure abstractions that have buildings as a side effect”

Rotating vehicle joints. I want slinky busses. Also, when can I finally attach cargo trailers to cargo trucks :(

Proper caching of the contents’ volume and weight in the pocket. Many of our systems are not designed to process items in quantity, which means when there are a lot of items ( lets say 4000 or so ) in a pocket, the game can be stuttering when doing certain activities ( opening insert menu, wielding item, etc ). However pockets are often interacted with from high above the call stack thanks to item_location :P. So tracking the contents change is very hard.

For me, it would probably be a community building mode. KorGgenT and I have discussed this one at length but it’s a pretty sizeable project… in my imagined mode, you’d be able to “take over” as one of the survivors in your community, but could also provide DF-style orders to be followed by everyone. The game itself would be pretty similar but focused into a single camp location, where you’d send survivors out to bring back supplies (and possibly be able to optionally join their scout missions as one of them and see what they experience, a bit like rimworld)

Besides the easy answers of actually good NPCs and rebuilding the game to be multi-thread?

I’d like to see a system that despawns loot from an area over time if the hostile mob count nearby is low, to simulate it being scavenged out. Easy targets like rural houses and roadside gas stations would get cleared out a couple months into the Cataclysm. An infested town might still have good stuff 6 months in, but if you clear the monsters out, fill up a duffle bag, and move on, maybe if you come back a month or so later you’ll find not much left.

For an apocalypse, I feel like too much of the world is intact, at least until you come along.

Procedural New England mapgen where all the geographical features are in the right places and cities the right sizes, but the details differ every time to keep things interesting. If you’re familiar with how UnReal World does it, essentially the same idea.

Proper mapmaking tool