[DEVBLOG#296] Gravship types

Hey everyone! We’re back with another developer diary for Vanilla Gravship Expanded, and this time it’s all about gravships. As I said before, we’ve been planning a big overhaul to make gravships more interesting. With RimWorld’s Odyssey DLC providing the framework for buildable ships, we wanted to push things further - adding three distinct gravship types and reworking how launches work. The goal is to give a stronger sense of progression and let you decide how central your gravship is to your playthrough.

Three Gravship Classes

In the new system, gravships are divided into three classes. This tiered approach means you can start small and upgrade over time, or stick with whatever size fits your strategy. Each class comes with unique strengths and launch mechanics, so you can also decide how big a role the gravship will play in your colony’s story. Here’s an overview of each gravship type and how they handle launch rituals differently:

• Gravjumper: The Gravjumper is a small, nimble ship – perfect for quick hops around the planet. It’s the earliest gravship you can get, giving you a taste of flight without a massive investment. Launching a Gravjumper prioritizes piloting skill above all. A great pilot (and a capable co-pilot) will give you the biggest boost to a successful takeoff, while extra crew members only contribute a tiny bonus (in fact, there’s a cap on the crew benefit). In short, it’s a lean, efficient shuttle that doesn’t require a full team – ideal if you want a gravship as a handy utility rather than the center of your colony.

• Gravship: This is the mid-sized, classic gravship (essentially the one you’re familiar with from Odyssey). It offers a balanced approach. In the launch ritual, all roles matter equally – a skilled pilot is essential, but having a co-pilot, a gravtech researcher, and a gravship engineer on board each adds an equal share of benefit. A larger crew beyond your core specialists also helps improve launch success, and investing in more (or bigger) thrusters will further boost your odds. In other words, the standard gravship rewards a well-rounded team: every crew role and ship upgrade contributes to a smoother launch. This makes it a solid, all-purpose vessel if you want the gravship to be important (but not all-consuming) in your playthrough.

• Gravhulk: The Gravhulk is a colossal late-game gravship – a flying fortress capable of carrying an entire base or “megacolony” into the skies. This behemoth represents the pinnacle of gravtech, and it absolutely thrives on a full crew. Every additional crewmember you assign provides a significant boost to the launch ritual’s success chance, so you’ll want a big, dedicated team running this ship. This giant only benefits from heavy-duty propulsion: small thrusters provide no launch bonus at all for a Gravhulk, meaning you’ll need to install large (or giant) engines to get any benefit. The Gravhulk’s launch sequence is truly an “all hands on deck” affair – it demands the best equipment and a crew to match.

Alongside the new gravship classes, we’re introducing specialized launch consoles to match their unique needs. These aren’t just cosmetic - each console is tuned for its ship class and reflects the different crew requirements. You NEED the specific piloting apparatus for the gravship class that you use.

• Gravjumper Cockpit Console – A streamlined, compact interface focused almost entirely on piloting. It’s built for speed and agility, with the co-pilot seat as a secondary role. It doesn’t have the extensive controls for engineering or research — perfect for the quick in-and-out hops Gravjumpers excel at.

• Gravship Pilot Console – The familiar all-purpose launch console, wired into the gravship’s systems for a balanced launch ritual. It supports pilot, co-pilot, gravtech researcher, and engineer equally, making it the centerpiece of a well-rounded crew.

• Gravhulk Pilot Bridge – A massive multi-station control hub designed for full-crew coordination. Here, every role matters, and the layout is optimized for simultaneous input from multiple crew members. While it looks imposing, its true power comes from being staffed to the brim with trained specialists. Even better if you build every specialist their own station, but we will discuss that a bit later!

Each console ties directly into that gravship’s launch mechanics, so picking the right ship means committing to the right control system and the crew to operate it.

Deeper Gravship Gameplay and Strategy

By introducing these gravship classes and tailored launch mechanics, we’re adding a new layer of strategy to gravship gameplay. First, there’s a clear progression: you might start with a humble Gravjumper for scouting or travel, then work your way up to a standard Gravship, and eventually unlock the Gravhulk when you’re ready to take your entire colony into space. Each step feels meaningful, and you can judge for yourself when (or if) it’s worth advancing to the next tier.

Secondly, these changes let you choose how central the gravship is in your story. If you prefer your gravship to be just a convenient transport tool, you can stick with a Gravjumper and keep most of your focus on the ground colony. If you want the gravship to become your mobile home base, you can pour resources into building a Gravhulk and staffing it with a full crew. The launch ritual differences reinforce this choice: a Gravjumper is quick and easy with one or two pilots, whereas a Gravhulk asks you to assemble a whole crew and invest in major upgrades - but rewards you with a truly formidable flying base once it’s up and running.

Finally, the reworked launch rituals make crew roles and ship design more engaging. You’ll find yourself planning who will take on the roles of pilot, co-pilot, researcher, and engineer, and how to get the most out of them depending on your ship. Maybe you’ll train an ace pilot to maximize your Gravjumper’s effectiveness, or maybe you’ll spend time recruiting and preparing a large crew to get that Gravhulk off the ground. You’ll also think about your ship layout and systems: do you add extra thrusters, or focus on crew facilities? These decisions can change from one playthrough to the next, giving gravship-focused colonies a lot more replay value and depth.

Launch Mishaps and Boons – Risk and Reward for Every Landing

One of the most underdeveloped parts of the Odyssey DLC gravship system was what happened after the launch. Sure, you could land, but whether the launch ritual went well or poorly didn’t have much long-term impact beyond a binary success/failure check.
With Vanilla Gravships Expanded, we’ve completely reworked this into a dynamic mishap/boon system.

Every gravship launch ritual now has two parallel outcomes:

• Mishaps – negative events that trigger after a poor-quality landing ritual, representing the hazards and stresses of interstellar flight.

• Boons – positive events that trigger after a high-quality landing ritual, representing those perfect moments where everything aligns in your favor.

Mishap and boon chances scale with launch quality, using smooth probability curves.

• At low quality, mishaps are common and boons are impossible.

• At mid-quality, mishaps drop sharply in probability while boons start to creep in.

• At high quality, mishaps are rare and boons become a real possibility.

This means that every launch now has a little extra tension - a reason to care about crew skill, ship condition, and ritual setup. It is possible to get both a mishap and a boon in the same launch!

NEW Mishaps

(Equal chance for each mishap when triggered)
0% Quality → 100% chance
50% Quality → 30% chance
100% Quality → 2% chance

• Oxygen Leak – A small breach vents an oxygen tank’s contents and disables it until repaired.

• Vac Barrier Flicker – A power fluctuation knocks out one vac barrier, depressurizing a section of the ship.

• Gravdata Corruption – A sudden electromagnetic spike erases all gravdata from the trip.

• Astrofuel Pipe Rupture – A damaged pipe sprays astrofuel, sparking into a local astrofire.

• Off-Course Touchdown – A last-second gravitic shift forces landing at a different spot on the same map.

• Unwanted Attention – Raiders detect the landing heat signature and attack immediately.

• Vermin Infestation – Manhunting rats emerge from vents across the gravship.

• Critical Heat Spike – The grav engine’s heat output doubles after a malfunction.

• Grav Turbulence – A gravitic vibration accelerates maintenance loss on 25% of ship structures.

Boons

(Equal chance for each boon when triggered)
0% Quality → 0% chance
50% Quality → 3% chance
100% Quality → 30% chance

• Landmark Spotted – Crew spots a nearby landmark worth exploring.

• Rich Deposit Detected – Sensors detect a rare ore deposit three times normal size.

• Caravan Encounter – A passing caravan visits immediately after landing to trade.

• Perfect Trajectory – Flight path precision saves 25% of the trip’s astrofuel.

• Gravframe Harmony – Zero maintenance loss from this launch.

• Asteroid Discovery – Sensors find a resource-rich asteroid nearby.

• Crew Euphoria – Perfect launch leaves all crew with a lasting +5 mood buff.

I won't end this devblog without some teaser, so here you go: