My new recruit and best shooter got a dementia from moderate (40%) toxic fallout buildup. I'm not really sure what does it mean in practice.
Loss of consciousness makes a pawn unable to act and move. But if a pawn has weakened consciousness, like 60%, does it have any immediate effect ? Or does it just make it easier to lose consciousness from alcohol and so on ?
Manipulation no doubt affects manual skills like crafting time. What about shooting a gun ?
What body systems are involved in shooting a gun ? Consciousness ? Manipulation ? Eyesight ? To what degree ? Can a pawn with poor eyesight be good melee fighter with no downsides ?
iirc Consciousness affect everything, including working speed, move speed, accuracy etc. Manipulation and eyesight both affect accuracy and working speed,
In other word, that colonist is doomed.
And so is everyone else. When the toxic fallout ended, another evil ship fell. As I was chipping away at defenders (scyther, 4 big ones) with a single sniper rifle, 14 wargs arrived. They ran past my turrets, incapacitated everyone, and instantly killed the best medic who managed to run to the killbox. Visitors came and didn't help anyone.
There are some problem with consciouness. So Movement ability is determined partly by consciousness while movement speed is by Movement and consciousness so if you lose consciousness, Move speed is double penalized and it make your guy walk very slowly.
The other is Immunity gain also depend on consciousness which make no sense we know irl people fall unconsious to heal - like a low power mode. So a sick guy will have lower consciousness and hence slower Immunity gain and will stay sick for longer.
You can click the "i" on a colonist to see a bunch of stats, and clicking on each stat lets you see what determines what the number for the stat is.
You should heed Cimanyd's post. That info window you can open on every colonist breaks down every skill and their own exact calculations.
Consciousness is the most important stat to everything universally. Manipulation is really the second most important overall to many different things, although sight is just as important on a few skills (like medicine).
Also, a colonist's current total overall mood has a direct effect on their global work speed, speeding them up or slowing them down at EVERYTHING. :)