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I use stone block making as the least important job for everyone.

I have a material yard which stores both chunks AND blocks, with 6-8 cutting tables. When people run out of more important work, they make plenty of stone blocks as a group. Usually they have plenty of chunks close by since whatever hauling is done during everyday life includes these and they slowly fill the yard before people have so little to do that they move on to make blocks.

Basically I get huge waves of stone blocks very fast because of the minimal distance between chuncks and tables and everyone working on them at once (until something more important comes up).

This type of manufacturing meets the colony's demands, however this is not a good system if you need the blocks ASAP for defense or something.

But it serves absolutely no purpose and adds nothing?

How about some fire protected secondary and tertiary rec rooms with drugs and doors locked by player (until crisis hits)?

Always have several of...everything, locked away, in case of emergencies. The base's functionality needs to be hard to break, it needs to be able to function on some level, even if 50% gets destroyed.

I suppose we have to use our imagination with the definitions.

Like (for all practical purposes) what does "crushed" mean - some people think it's as if someone's heart was squished under a boot, other people might think it's some kind of chest injury that affects the heart in some way.

Lots of definitions there language-wise, in Rimworld it depends on the weapon used though (I think).

OP's colony did not have any medicine.

Especially the kind used to treat mental health problems.

CR indeed had shrapnel and it was DEADLY!

It was so effective that I could almost see PFC Hudson from Aliens touching a mortar tube in some weird, ambiguous way with a gleam in his eye, saying "Check it out! Colonist-targeted high explosive fragmentation mortar. VWAP! Fry half a tribal raid with this puppy".

While I did like it, it was also too effective for the price it had - launching a barrage from 10 mortar tubes would absolutely slaughter any kind of stationary attack force, making it quite OP.

Perhaps keep the mortars as they are but have a pretty strong negative mood for them exploding nearby.
"-20 : Under mortar fire"
[...]
This would then give mortars a purpose, to demoralise/scare the enemy

I agree with this one. Remember the strong psychological effects people got from being under artillery fire in WW1...

I also agree on this.

Also, as difficult as it may sound, I'd like to see smaller area with blast damage that outright kills enemies and a large area where it *may* be possible to get hit by shrapnel. Modeling each piece of flying shrapnel would be hard so I guess there could be a code-based instant secondary explosion with 10-50 % chance to get hit by sharpnel, depending on the distance of the first explosion.

Rather than being a weapon that either does nothing (misses) or makes hamburger meat out of raiders (direct hit), I'd like to see it as something that wounds, demoralizes and slows down the enemy before pawns engage them - especially if it is going to stay as inaccurate as it is.

TLDR: more small wounds, less hamburger meat.

Ever seen "Aliens"?

They find Ripley in a ship a lot later after the events of "Alien" happened - 57 years to be exact.

That Burke guy then tells him how much time has passed and that her kid, who was 10 years old when Ripley went to "work", has already passed away of old age.

That's what happens in Rimworld too with cryptosleep gaskets.

Penoxycyline: "Prevents infection: Malaria, Sleeping Sickness, Plauge."

Take Every Five Days.

I've had my colonists take this drug for 231 days, and now four of them have the Plauge.

What gives?

-----------------------------
They were under the affects of the drug when they contracted plauge.

It does not PREVENT sickness (despite saying so in description), but makes immunity start from 60% which guarantees survival.

I do not know if this intentional. The desription should at least be fixed.

Some parts of Rimworld need to stay risky to keep that survival feeling in the game, I think the idea of danger that you can't avoid is one of them.

Some things about combat everyone already knows:

- Don't send crafting etc. specialists in combat because of risk of injury.
- Send the "average" guys instead and train them by making them hunt and force-shoot things.
- Make helmets and body armor.
- Use cover and environment.
- Use firepower in a smart way and without thinking of costs - mortar them until they attack, fire miniguns at groups, use accurate fire against important point targets like raiders with launchers etc.
- Even use rocket launchers as a last resort against overwhelming groups...or as a first strike if they stay put in a tightly packed group.
- If possible, gather fire against smaller groups near the edge of the enemy area and eliminate a part of the attacking force this way. Repeat if possible until they attack.
- Always retreat when you face a tough situation, fighting is easier from better positions and against less enemies.
- Cover retreat with shield guys who stay behind for a short time to act as targets, retreat them too when the other guys are in better positions.
- Make killboxes and traps (this is probably the safest option).

The life of average guy is hard and probably consists of permanent injuries. Therefore you should think of "average" as "not 100% effective because of injuries but useful to the colony".

Things that affect surgery itself:
- Doctoring
- Doctor's own injuries
- Doctor's mental state
- Medicine quality
- Light level

Things that affect infections:
- Room cleanliness
- Time of treatment (heal later -> infection more likely)
- Amount of injuries (they get treated one at a time --> waiting time)

I was also in corporate land for a while, where I met far more sociopaths than in clinical work.

This fact is sad and scary at the same time.

Blah blah blah.

I'm a mechanical engineer, things don't work this way in real life, they should have a machine shop which is a lot larger than a 1x3 table, there's no heat treatment facility or a HUGE blast furnace for melting metals from ore, they need to rename "smith" to "design engineer" etc. etc., oh god!

...it's a game, get over it.

You don't even need that, just one guy who acts as bait for enemies with long aiming time. Just before he gets fired at, he ducks behind a pillar and breaks LoS and hops out again, effectively blocking the enemies shooting. Your pawns won't get shoot at because they're further away, making your bait-guy the better target. Breaking LoS also works with already shooting enemies (for weapons with burst only). Modified hunter-killer-system?

This.

I give the best shield to whoever can not shoot/melee because of personality traits and send them to the front, behind best cover available, as far away from mechanoids as possible (to lower their accuracy).

What happens is that all the mechanoids target that person because he or she is the closest one to them - mechanoid automatic weapons won't hit a single person and because there's no group of people around him, the huge volume of fire doesn't matter (they tend to hit people AROUND the target because of the forced miss system of auto weapons).

Incendiary cannons can hurt but they are not always very effective. Mostly they just make the target person run around for a while.

Charge lances can be a problem but ALL sniper fire is concentrated on them first because they die more easily. After that the ones with inferno cannons get it.

Edit: like next comment says, having several shield guys will improve survival if one gets wounded and needs to evacuate.

This opens up victory conditions to stuff like I suggested a long time ago :>
The last surviving remnants of the tribe savaged by the mechanids winning by destroying the planetary mechanid hive in a super complex assault scenario

I'd love to see this in several parts, for example:

1) Set up your own colony after barely escaping.
2) Make friends with other tribes.
3) Give them things in return for taking part in assaulting the mechanoid hive OR force them to.
4) Final assault with as many tribes as you want helping you with a giant human wave assault on mechanoid primary hive.

This way you could use social skills (make friends), economic power (bribe and equip them), combat performance (heavy weapon squad + human wave) and equipment - basically everything - to work towards a goal that you can not handle alone. All kinds of characters would be useful! Lots of relationships and memories to be made!