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

[Mikhail Reign]

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

Kinda, but quiet frankly, most of the colonist end up wearing the exact same thing and looking exactly the same that it becomes difficult to attach information to the name.

Instead of being "This is Jeff, the bitching cool cyborg with power armour and a Sniper rifle, and this is Billy the farmer with farmers hat, overalls and shovel" it becomes "This is Joe, and he is wearing power armour and has a LMG (because everyone one is) and he does..... uh... just a sec... *check stats* farming, he's a farmer. And this guy right next to him, Leroy, also wearing power armour and toting a LMG, is.. *checks stats* a hauler. And Ralph, who looks like the last two guys, also with a LMG is *checks stats* a cook".

Anyway my point is that the very small amount of differences between colonists, is so minor that it becomes hard to attach information to the name unless they are a pawn I created and I know the name - everyone else is pretty much 'minions' until I check what they do.

[elStrages]

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

[electrichobo]

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

Kinda, but quiet frankly, most of the colonist end up wearing the exact same thing and looking exactly the same that it becomes difficult to attach information to the name.

Instead of being "This is Jeff, the bitching cool cyborg with power armour and a Sniper rifle, and this is Billy the farmer with farmers hat, overalls and shovel" it becomes "This is Joe, and he is wearing power armour and has a LMG (because everyone one is) and he does..... uh... just a sec... *check stats* farming, he's a farmer. And this guy right next to him, Leroy, also wearing power armour and toting a LMG, is.. *checks stats* a hauler. And Ralph, who looks like the last two guys, also with a LMG is *checks stats* a cook".

Anyway my point is that the very small amount of differences between colonists, is so minor that it becomes hard to attach information to the name unless they are a pawn I created and I know the name - everyone else is pretty much 'minions' until I check what they do.

You can rename pawns. Attach an abbreviation, a letter/number combo to your colonists which you can identify them faster with. I add an F to my farmers for example. At some point i used numbers to indicate effectiveness but it became a chore. With 20+ colonists it's nice to see who are cannon fodder at a glance by finding everyone tagged with CF on the screen...

[elStrages]

We litterally replied with the same thing as me lol

[Eleazar]

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

Plenty of people, possibly most people, are better at remembering faces or visual information and not so good at remembering lots of new names. And besides the name is only visible when you click on them.

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

You could but for me that would kill the feel that this is some kind of story, and reduce it to some kind of optimization puzzle.  In other words that would hurt the best part of Rimworld.

[Mythrell]

The graphics are deliberately abstracted. This helps story generation because it allows your brain to create the images instead of trying to make the game do it. Your brain can imagine much better than any software system.

Honestly, I never thought that there could be any particular reason to do it this way, I rather thought it was done out of convenience and to go with the art style you want to.

In any case, I would love to see a way to make every pawn visually unique in some way, as I for one am so absent minded that if I have more than 5 colonists I don't remember their names. Unless it's a special to me somehow (like exceptional doctor). So I'm in the same boat with Mikhail here.

I'm sure modding can create more variants of these, the spiked head guys for example are perfect example as long as you don't give them head gear. And I guess the gear they wear can go long ways too.

For visual side, I don't mind current pawn graphics.  They actually look very pretty. <3

[elStrages]

From a modding point of view. The pawns are the hardest to mod graphically as they don't have a set piece of code to change. They draw from the system it self. If there was a default image code line for human pawns bodies and heads I would happily make more faces and bodies tbh

[Mythrell]

One mod solution could be simply color coding each colonists apparel so that for example Jack wears always pink, Mike has red clothes and Bill has transparent because he's weird etc..

Just something what came into my mind suddenly and I had to blurt it out quickly

[elStrages]

Well you can kind of do that already. Apparel colour is dictated by the material it is made out of. But across all armours might be useful. Tynan would have to add a colour change GUI and a new class for pawns to do so.

[Eleazar]

Here's my "cheapest suggestion" on the subject of pawn visual uniqueness:  remove all stats from the hats and helmets.  In other words makes them purely aesthetic.

That way we can leave the hair visible if it makes the pawn distinctive, or we can add some sort of hat or helmet to make them unique or to identify their role.

Its hard to resist going for any slight increase in survivability that's available in the current hats and helmets.

[Sartain]

Here's my "cheapest suggestion" on the subject of pawn visual uniqueness:  remove all stats from the hats and helmets.  In other words makes them purely aesthetic.

That way we can leave the hair visible if it makes the pawn distinctive, or we can add some sort of hat or helmet to make them unique or to identify their role.

Its hard to resist going for any slight increase in survivability that's available in the current hats and helmets.

That's actually not a bad idea. On one hand, I like "complexity" of having both helmets and armor with stat effects but it's true, everyone becomes Power Armor guys pretty quickly. With purely aesthetic headwear, at least there'd be a reason to wear that snazzy cowboy hat over Power Armor helmet.

[Enjoyment]

Have some thoughts...
First one. About all-pawns-wear-power-armors. Even PAs different in colors, so by the time, you could have a blue one for your medic, green for farmers and black for S.W.A.T guys. And all other clothes with different colors could help you to determinate your specipic pawn.
Second. About names. Maybe, naming like "Farmer1", "Farmer2" etc isn't a brilliant idea, but you could try more natyral nicknames. Such as Seed, Driad, Peon for farmers, Mop for Cleaner, Brick and Hammer for builders and so on...
And the last. General. Maybe it's just my case, but I really don't have any problems with pawn identification, so I think current graphics is purely as good as it can be for Rimworld.

[Noobshock]

I agree that pawns could use a wee bit more immediately visible differences.

Yes the name makes it clear but it's still kind of awkward when, tending to wear a lot of the same gear, adapted to the same climate/conditions etc, most of your colonists look the same bar body shape. Now that I think about it it's easier to tell Dwarves apart immediately on most DF tilesets. And it seems to me you're precisely trying to bring a DF-like experience to a larger audience by making your game reasonably more readable, amongst other things. Personally I think even the names don't really cut it when your guys all look the same in parkas/power armor/helmets. Yes you get attached to the names and you know who your colonists are, but it's a little sad that the name is really the only solid way to tell them apart in those circumstances regardless.

That being said, I don't think anyone who understands what you're going for would have an issue with abstraction and simplicity per se.

Maybe there's no great way to go about it and it's indeed a waste of energy from a development perspective. Whatever happens happens.

[Eleazar]

I've created a texture mod to make the point that more individual appearances for pawns would enhance the game.  It varies the eyes.

https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=9505

[CrazyTalk]

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.