Will colonists ever look different/more detailed in the future?

[Sartain]

You could rename your colonist to more helpful names though
Farmer1 farmer2 miner construct etc etc

The game is in Alpha - this is the time we should be asking "Is this the right way to do this" and not the time to be looking for workarounds.

In my opinion - we're asking the wrong question here. The right questions are "Why is it advantageous for everyone to weak power armor?"  and "Why does my farmer look like a space marine?"

Clothes mask the character sprites, and at this point serve two purposes - armor values and temperature protection  -  as such there is a 'best fit' solution - that needs to change. A farmer wearing power armor needs to be a crappy farmer - there needs to be tradeoffs to wearing different garb - the farmer is safer in his power armor, but he keeps stepping on plants and breaking his tools.

I think there's a -10% global work speed debuff on Power Armor actually, which is nowhere near enough. Power Armor should probably excluded most tasks being done, other than killing stuff or talking to people.

[A_Soft_Machine_Man]

Doesn't the name attached to the pawn make it clear who is who?

I actually did have an instance where I had two identical pawns (especially hilarious as one was male and one was female, heh) but I just gave them different clothes and changed their nicknames, and that solved that.

[Eleazar]

...Clothes mask the character sprites, and at this point serve two purposes - armor values and temperature protection  -  as such there is a 'best fit' solution - that needs to change. A farmer wearing power armor needs to be a crappy farmer - there needs to be tradeoffs to wearing different garb - the farmer is safer in his power armor, but he keeps stepping on plants and breaking his tools.

Maybe, but there need to be other new systems in place to keep that from being a pain. Until your colony is pretty big and running smoothly, most of your pawns will have multiple jobs, and quite possibly defend the base when under a big attack.  If you need to constantly change their gear so they can do whatever job well that will make the game less fun.

[elStrages]

You could rename your colonist to more helpful names though
Farmer1 farmer2 miner construct etc etc

The game is in Alpha - this is the time we should be asking "Is this the right way to do this" and not the time to be looking for workarounds.

In my opinion - we're asking the wrong question here. The right questions are "Why is it advantageous for everyone to weak power armor?"  and "Why does my farmer look like a space marine?"

Clothes mask the character sprites, and at this point serve two purposes - armor values and temperature protection  -  as such there is a 'best fit' solution - that needs to change. A farmer wearing power armor needs to be a crappy farmer - there needs to be tradeoffs to wearing different garb - the farmer is safer in his power armor, but he keeps stepping on plants and breaking his tools.

I think there's a -10% global work speed debuff on Power Armor actually, which is nowhere near enough. Power Armor should probably excluded most tasks being done, other than killing stuff or talking to people.

I would have said the opposite isn't the point of power armour that it enhances the human body, I may be wrong. I would have thought it would have made tasks easier.

[DaPieGuy]

...Clothes mask the character sprites, and at this point serve two purposes - armor values and temperature protection  -  as such there is a 'best fit' solution - that needs to change. A farmer wearing power armor needs to be a crappy farmer - there needs to be tradeoffs to wearing different garb - the farmer is safer in his power armor, but he keeps stepping on plants and breaking his tools.

Maybe, but there need to be other new systems in place to keep that from being a pain. Until your colony is pretty big and running smoothly, most of your pawns will have multiple jobs, and quite possibly defend the base when under a big attack.  If you need to constantly change their gear so they can do whatever job well that will make the game less fun.

You make a good point. Many colonists do different jobs and not all should be suited in power armour because they can withstand a raid imo. Colonists for mainly combat should have power armour and the rest different clothes with distinguishing features.

Even then with more parts to a pawn different clothes could be added such as gloves, boots or helmets which could help you tell them from each other. Maybe later with more features and roles it would be better like this.

[milon]

This is clearly an issue that everyone cares about.  The first post today (in the EST timezone) was on page 1, and now we're on page 3 halfway through the day.  (And 2 replies were posted while I was typing this!)  I don't think I've seen another thread grow this fast before.

With that said, I'm in the same boat as many others.  I get attached to my colonists, and I like that.  My colonies don't get that big - my biggest one had 13-15 max, and I felt like I really only "knew" 6 or 8 of them.  The rest seemed kind of generic or bland.

I'm not sure if they really were bland, or if it was just that they joined the colony when I needed full-time haulers or gardeners (so I didn't interact with them very much).  Also, it was in an arctic biome, which means parka, toque, & tribal wear for everyone, so everyone looked the same.

I would also love to see more ways of making pawns visually unique, and maybe having more ways of interacting with them (but not to the point of babying or micromanaging).  I really don't like the idea of adding symbols (etc) to names just to differentiate them - that turns a unique colonist into a mere function.

I think what I really want is a way to see and interact with them as a unique "person".  I really like the idea of clothing/armor that buffs certain "jobs" and debuffs others.  What about equipable "tools" that do the same thing?  A farmer could equip a hoe or a seed pouch instead of a firearm (or in addition to).  A miner could equip a pick, etc.  That, I think, would go a long way to making colonists less generic.

[CrazyTalk]

...Clothes mask the character sprites, and at this point serve two purposes - armor values and temperature protection  -  as such there is a 'best fit' solution - that needs to change. A farmer wearing power armor needs to be a crappy farmer - there needs to be tradeoffs to wearing different garb - the farmer is safer in his power armor, but he keeps stepping on plants and breaking his tools.

Maybe, but there need to be other new systems in place to keep that from being a pain. Until your colony is pretty big and running smoothly, most of your pawns will have multiple jobs, and quite possibly defend the base when under a big attack.  If you need to constantly change their gear so they can do whatever job well that will make the game less fun.

Then take the switching away - making the changing in and out of power armor take some time - or make it a bionics thing.

I just don't see "everyone puts on their power armor for each assault" as a good thing - it takes away player choice, there's no decision to be made, etc. Putting large downsides to wearing power armor would make the Assassin/Bloodlust/etc type characters much more useful - they'd be full time military - with high end weaponry/armor, while the colonists that have day jobs are more like militia - drop the shovel and pick up a rifle.

[litlbear]

i wish there was facial hair

[Mikhail Reign]

Just building off what others have said, I think part of a solution to this would be:
Alternative things for colonists to carry, which would be MORE useful then a weapon (tools)
More clothes with different yet equal reasons to wear (eg .staw hat noticeably improves farming yet obviously low armour vs helmet improved armour but colonists get hot wearing it)
A way to rally troops automatically with X load out.
Ownership of equipment lockers
Less, but more intricate raids

This way there would reasons to have a large percentage of a mid-large sized colony population not wearing combat clothing or possibly even carrying a weapon while also maintaing a standing army.  The colony would be more productive while also adding a lot of much needed 'flavor'. Using a auto equip would also mean the player would be encouraged to equip colonists with varied load outa knowing that in the event of a 'all hands on deck', there wouldn't be a mountain of clicking to change everyone into and out of combat gear. A tab somewhere to select a 'work' and a 'combat' load out (even researchable - a PA system calls everyone to duty?). With this, and equipment locker owner ship, once selecting the gear on this tab (from list of owned equip>similar to trade menu) the pawn would then automatically retrieve his/her gear from the stockpile, equip the current load out and store the other in his locker.

Most small incidents could be microed the same as normal - the best fighter enlisted and sent out, while the rest of the colony works, while a large surprised raid would send the army to the front lines while everyone else scrambles to get their gear.

[Enjoyment]

Just two coins from some crazy squirrel...
You guys saying right things... and have some reasonable arguiments, but... Do you think, that Rimworld really suffers from topic-name issue. Is the external look of your pawn so emergent thing, that Ty should fix it immediatly?.. And should it be fixed at all?..
We all love the Aparello mod and all other, that brings us Right tools for a job, but, as for me, I don't really think that it is a main direction for Rimworld to go. I'm waiting for deeper colony survival simulation, not a look of that simulation.
Just a thoughts, don't want to offend anyone's opinion.

[Noobshock]

I think there's a -10% global work speed debuff on Power Armor actually, which is nowhere near enough. Power Armor should probably excluded most tasks being done, other than killing stuff or talking to people.

Just for the record here because this is a balance concern I'm jumping on uninvited, but 10% is really not enough to justify taking off power armor except for say artists. Maybe as the game grows it will become that way, but right now there are only very few jobs where that 10% penalty is going to make you want to switch gear. Once I get enough power armor and if the temperature reqs are satisfied, it's always on, the penalty is very soft.

[Noobshock]

You guys saying right things... and have some reasonable arguiments, but... Do you think, that Rimworld really suffers from topic-name issue. Is the external look of your pawn so emergent thing, that Ty should fix it immediatly?..

Clearly no. I wouldn't say, and I don't think many people here would claim it's an "emergent thing that needs to be fixed immediately". This is more of a background discussion and people hoping Tynan could make changes - even small ones - sometime in the future.

I'm gonna go check out that mod now.

[Noobshock]

In my opinion - we're asking the wrong question here. The right questions are "Why is it advantageous for everyone to weak power armor?"  and "Why does my farmer look like a space marine?"

Clothes mask the character sprites, and at this point serve two purposes - armor values and temperature protection  -  as such there is a 'best fit' solution - that needs to change. A farmer wearing power armor needs to be a crappy farmer - there needs to be tradeoffs to wearing different garb - the farmer is safer in his power armor, but he keeps stepping on plants and breaking his tools.

Good point. "Best fit" could be by design though, but if it's not and there are plans to spice things up in the future, then the discussion about pawn appearance being too similar becomes a moot point.

[akiceabear]

I think what I really want is a way to see and interact with them as a unique "person".  I really like the idea of clothing/armor that buffs certain "jobs" and debuffs others.  What about equipable "tools" that do the same thing?  A farmer could equip a hoe or a seed pouch instead of a firearm (or in addition to).  A miner could equip a pick, etc.  That, I think, would go a long way to making colonists less generic.

+1 I like the idea of most clothing having a specific skill buff, and some a clear debuff (e.g. button up shirt - good for social, bad for manual labor). Power armor could increase strength, shooting and melee but reduce dexterity - impact crafting, cooking, etc.

To reduce the repetitiveness of switching gear prior to battle, perhaps add a button or right-click menu for colonists that is "Battle loadout" - the colonist goes to their assigned wardrobe/rack and switches their civilian clothing/tools for the last worn battle gear/weapons.

Besides those points, the "cheapest" solution to the visual problem is to add a new class of garb that is wholly superficial - e.g. facial hair, accessories - which could be selected at any time simply for the player to differentiate pawns. Unfortunately if the garb has attributes I fear that most will still be drawn to min-maxing rather than story-telling.

[mrofa]

I would only add some facial hair