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Finally it's here! I've been suggesting a Deadman's-esque debuff for looted weapons since several months in the RSG discord to revert the horrible nerf to colony weapon industry. 70% is still kinda low for the amount of work a weapon needs but this is definitely a step in the right direction.

Now I'll have to come up with a new mod idea to annoy Xeo with.

The Inferno Centipede is both the most dangerous enemy you could ever face in the game... And also the most pathetic one, too. Your observation about them is correct; they basically have a ~52% chance to hit their target no matter what, due to the huge size of the AoE explosion compared to the forced miss radius. It's disgustingly overpowering, it basically ignores all non-wall cover and doesn't simply damages but disables and weakens the target by making them run out from cover and unable to fight back while they are burning.

So why are they also the most pathetic ones? Easy answer: they are the only enemy type that gets hard-countered by technology. One single firefoam popper, manually activated to spread the foam all around the defense line and it's over. A pawn, standing on a tile that has some foam on it, literally can't be set on fire. Sure the Cannon will deal its base damage of 10 or so but that's it. It has a long, long cooldown; without the burning effect the Inferno Cannon's DPS and utility gets thrown right out of the window.

Your base should still be fine; after all, if you're not building with stone you're doing it wrong. Now go and rush firefoam tech.

Day 10

Xue will be hunting anything that moves and isn't a predator. A few hares are still around, better than nothing. Isamu is scavenging some steel to build up the pod launcher but also has other things to do. The beaver problem at Hatmakington seems to be solved, 5 of the 7 bastards have moved off-map due to the cold.

The wolves are dangerously hungry at Nick's Regret, I'll restrict the colonists to the home zone until the predators find a hare or something. Two huskies joined the party at Hatmakington; Isamu could train them.

Day 11

The transport pod is finally operational at Hatmakington. Maddened hare event at Nick's Regret; breakfast comes to us today! A megasloth has entered the map later this day. Killing it would solve the food crisis. It's slower than a human so kiting is an option. I've assembled the hunting party and set out to acquire meat.



After the megasloth dropped to the ground the colonists kept hitting the poor thing until it was dead. Don't mind the eclipse.

Day 12

Nick's Regret just received a psychic soothe for all females. Considering both colonists who currently don't have a +70 mood due to a recent marrage are female, this is nice, even though Helene is psychically deaf. But even with a -14 mood debuff of being urgently hungry, she's still above the break threshold. Managing mood is easy when you can just get a +10 from maxed joy.

One poor button-down shirt complete. Xue starts cutting limestone, Helene hunts food and the other two mine steel and components. I want a NPD up as soon as possible, hopefully Randy won't troll us with yet another raid.

Day 13

Hatmakington is full of carnvores outside. Only one beaver remains, he won't do much damage before he gets eaten by one of the wolves. I'm not gonna grow hay like the ones before me, it's stupid to do so when you can just keep pulling paste meals for the animals. Hay's nutrition yield is no match for the NPD's meals, it's just better to grow rice or corn and keep pulling meals. But we do have enough food now thanks to the arctic fox rush so I'm growing healroots and cotton instead.

A small herd of caribous have entered Nick's Regret. After winter the meat will start to spoil so I'm not going to rush the hunt. Only a few more days to get everything built now. NPD up and running. Next is making a proper fridge.

Day 14

Isamu needs a new shirt. Plenty of wool and he can craft so this shouldn't be a big deal. Ryo and Lubby start the day with some lovin' to improve the mood. Training of the new dogs at Hatmakington is almost complete. With the NPD operational and the megasloth sitting in the stockpile ready for butchering I lift the strict food policy; we don't need it anymore.

A meteorite fell down to the north-east of Nick's Revenge, consisting of 14 silver ore tiles. Should be useful for setting up a proper hospital area later on.

Just before I'd get my colonists to haul the megasloth corpse to safe storage, an arctic wolf tries to eat it. Xue gets a brand new eye scar (these occur way too frequently, what the hell, Tynan, literally unplayable ) and the colony scores a wolf corpse for even more meat.

Yet another bunch of huskies joined Hatmakington. That colony has 8 huskies now, enough to properly serve as meatshields. They eat a bit too much, though. Oh well, they double as emergency meatbags.

Day 15

A wild husky has entered Nick's Regret. This is the time for Helene to shine with her high animal handling skill. A combat animal is exactly what we need, now that Xue is also useless for combat.

Libby got inspired for art. Too bad her missing parts and scars make her completely useless for pretty much everything that takes long to complete. She'll be the janitor of the colony, hauling and cleaning with the occasional mining and last touch on buildings with quality.

Butchered the megasloth, 360 meat acquired. That translates to 60 paste meals or 15 days' worth of food. With the freezer built up, this should last for yet another season and we still have an arctic wolf corpse in there to cover for the husky.

A manhunting pack of 6 squirrels have entered Nick's Regret. Really, Randy? Guess he doesn't like the relative success of the second colony so far. The squirrels got taken care of but Ryo caught the flu. Should self-tend since he is the best doctor. Isamu starts making a new pair of pants for himself too; nobody likes tattered clothing, especially players when there is only one colonist around; avoiding any possible mood breaks at all costs is one of the highest priority tasks in taht situation. His button-down shirt turned out to be of poor quality; quite a lucky roll, considering his crafting is only level 3.

Unfortunately the squirrel bullshit dragged on long enough for the husky to simply leave the map. No war dogs for Nick's Regret.

Day 16

I'll let the sun rise before I end my reign. Almost no wealth loss at Hatmakington and with the war dogs there isn't much of a need to decrease it anymore. Second colony should be able to carry on and possibly start indoors farming as well.





Summary:

Started with:

• One colony.
• Three war dogs.
• Three muffalos, one elk, one caribou and an arctic wolf.
• A caravan with three colonsist and one prisoner, all of them severely malnourished.
• Four total colonists.

Total gains:

• Five huskies.
• One colonist.
• Some raider loot, mostly useless but the wool parka was nice.

Total losses:

• One muffalo, refused to obey the animal zone and starved to death.
• One prisoner; plague victim.
• A few hundred wood and a small pile of leather.
• Several hours of my life.

Ended with:

• Two colonies, both with enough food to last through the next season.
• Seven war dogs and one more waiting for training.
• Two muffalos, one elk, one caribou and an arctic wolf.
• Five total colonists and a one-way one-time ticket from Hatmakington to Nick's Regret in case of an emergency. Could even send a plasteel turret with the pod.

Notes for the next player:

• Ryo caught the flu. Shouldn't be a big deal but do check his status a few times a day. He should self-tend, he's the best doctor, even after the self-tend penalties.
• Ryo and Libby will soon forget about the whole marriage thing and will lose their +70 mood buff. Ryo is the most useful one, despite being incapable of combat so keep an eye on their mood and relationship. I've already assigned their bonded huskies back to them so that's one less thing for you to worry about.
• Libby's shooting accuracy is equal to level zero, Xue's shooting accuracy is equal to level one. Thank Randy for the eye scars and lost fingers. Helene has the best potential which sucks, since she has no passion for any combat skills. Get animals or turrets ASAP and reinforce the outer walls.
• Hatmakington is seriously low on steel. I had to break down some of the inner walls just to get enough to build the transport pod. Don't go outside during the day, too many wolves. On the bright side, all beavers got eaten already.
• I left some plans for the second colony for you. Don't build up the geothermal generator just yet; build a dining room below the NPD first and find a new place for the workshop. Build the wall around the wind turbine sooner than later, we don't want raiders damaging important structures.

So, my turn again.

As soon as I load the save I'm greeted by a disaster. Colony is down to one guy, three idiots are 20 days' worth of travel away in a caravan with a prisoner and no food, and it's winter with -26 °C outside. On top of that the grazing animals of the colony are starving because they can't find anything to eat and alphabeavers are present on the map.

Time for damage control.

Day 1

First, the colony. Kicking out the dogs from the freezer, last thing I need is them eating my raw food. Isamu is carrying a starving unconscious muffalo; drop the poor sod, you're hungry, dude! And boy is it good timing for that, he can pull some paste meals for the animals this way. Nice and efficient, and the ones still standing can go for the dropped meals themselves. A caribou is also knocked out so he'll have to deal with those two first before I can do anything with the beavers.

Next, the caravan. There is no way in hell these guys will survive without settling a new colony; which isn't a bad thing, actually. The original colony was very isolated and this new one will be right next to a road. A nice -29 °C outside but at least still a boreal forest. Building a small shack shouldn't be a big deal.



After building a very small shack for the prisoner, the colony members can start building a small base on top of the nearby geyser. That should grant free heating for now and later can be used for power. Some healroots have also been harvested for some basic medicine, especially since the prisoner got two new frostbites before this all was set up.

The colony's elk also dropped due to starvation. Isamu is doing his job, hauling them inside and shoving paste in their faces. The snow makes hauling a slow process; the beavers will do some damage but we're not reliant on wood that much anymore.

Of course, not even half a day after the second colony is founded and I get a bad event. Most of the hares have turned manhunter. Good; could've been worse, hares aren't strong and they are uncommon enough to not have many on the map. Bad; I got better things to do and my dinner was supposed to be ibex meat; already hit a few and they are bleeding to death at a steady pace. This is how you avoid manhunter revenge. Anyway, 4 hares got shot to death. Ryo tanked all the damage; since he's incapable of violence, this was the best he could do.

Libby has level 18 construction. She failed building the butcher table three times in a row because she lost her left pinky and left eye in the past and apparently that tanks the success chance this much. Literally unplayable.

One of the muffalos have died of starvation. Couldn't care less. The stupid animal got assigned to the zone with the food, she didn't go there. She decided she wants to become food instead. I have a bunch of other animals anyway and the original colony is extremely isolated so it's not like I want to form a trading caravan any time soon.

Day 2

Some travelers and a thrumbo passing by at Hatmakington. Five beavers are tirelessly decimating the tree population there. Ryo got infected by one of the hares. Classic Randy. We do have some herbal medicine, hopefully that'll be enough. That and 24/7 bedrest for Ryo until he gets better. He is our only competent grower. The new map also got 8 alphabeavers now, thanks Randy, I really needed that.

Rest of the day is mostly uneventful; butchering hares and ibexes, cooking meat. Isamu got ambushed next to the base by a wolf, dogs help out and everything goes smoothly. The prisoner went berserk at the same time but I don' care, I let the idiot break down the door to feel the nice breeze of -19 °C and maybe even hunt us an animal or two. Not even a good pawn, I won't miss her if she dies.



She chose an elk as her opponent which didn't end well for her. She was down on the ground after just one hit.

Day 3

Isamu is a night owl which presents a nice opportunity to get rid of the damn beavers at Hatmakington. All dogs are assigned to him, even the ones bonded to Ryo and Libby; those two got a +50 mood boost since they got married not too long ago, they can deal with the reassignment. How they know what happens in the other colony without any sort of communications device shall forever be a mystery.

Seems like two beavers have disappeared. Apparently some of them are leaving the map. Temperature isn't that low, though, and there are still trees around... Oh well. Killed one that wandered too close to the base and another one that didn't want to leave. No more beavers at Hatmakington!

Meanwhile Ryo is doing just fine. Recovery should be smooth.



Giggles caught the plague. This refugee is just a pain to deal with, I swear. Got one more herbal medicine and could probably salvage a few more from the wild healroots so she has a chance. Not much but better than nothing. Ryo has developed immunity so the bed gets assigned to the prisoner.

Built a separate room for Xue. The other two have massive mood boosts, they don't need it.

Day 4

The turret in the northern bunker of Hatmakington got uninstalled at 54% health; can't repair uninstalled so Isamu has to place it and the repair it. He'll have to install a third turret into the southern bunker as well.

So let's talk about the problems of Hatmakington. We have one guy with mediocre shooting skill defending a colony with over 57000 total value. If I don't find a way to bleed vaue somehow, chances are the old colony won't stand much of a chance against the next raid. Turrets are nice but aren't completely reliable.

Isamu has failed constructing the turret. Well, that's one way to bleed value. I kinda forgot about micromanaging the treatment of our prisoner, probably because I don't really care; she spent the whole night without a treatment. This means she'll die. Oh well, more emergency meat.



Let's not forget who came up with the bright idea of saving that useless refugee. The colony never forgets, the colony never forgives.

Eradicating the beaver problem in Nick's Regret... Five out of eight downed when the revenge happens. Only one beaver turned manhunter so I just had Libby circle around Xue along with the beaver. Beavers are slower than humans and Libby is a terrible shot anyway with her missing pinky and eye. Sooner than later, all beavers drop dead.



An escape pod violently crashes down at Nick's Regret. It contains a not-so-great colonist-wannabe. At least she's decent at growing. Sanguine counters too smart's downside but that still makes her really bad at learning anything she doesn't have passion for. Animals skill will come in handy, we'll need the extra meatshields. Pathetic combat capabilities but Giggles isn't much better either. Has no gear whatsoever so a simple rescue should convince her to join the colony.

Isamu finally finished the third turret.

Day 5

The southern bunker now has a turret and one of the muffalos was sheared. Upgrading one of the wooden inner walls to sandstone now. Helene has joined the colony since she wouldn't survive outside in this weather.

Giggles died, as expected; five percent difference is close but not close enough. I've stripped her before she died so at least Helene has some clothes now. Xue started working on a goathide duster; not enough leather for a parka so this'll have to do. Helene is quite useless but will serve us well as meatshield if a raid shows up.

The new colonist got her own room now. Xue got inspired to work fast, perfect for speeding up the production of that duster. A ship chunk fell down and was swiftly deconstructed.

Hatmakington is under attack. A mechanoid raiding party consisting of... Well, just one scyther, has arrived in a drop-pod east-southeast from the base.



Had to uninstall and reinstall the turret once because the scyther engaged it from too far away but it seems to do its job just fine now. Animals were penned nearby in case I need some backup. The scyther was terminated without losses; repairs will soon be carried out.

Day 6

Xue needs a new pair of pants so I sent Libby out to hunt. She has a pathetic 28% hit chance against a hare at point-blank range, completely useless. At least she can mine fine and can finish constructions for a good quality roll chance.

Another muffalo was sheared at Hatmakington. If only I had drop-pods to send it to Nick's Regret... Oh wait, I can. Just have to build the structures, make some chemfuel and launch a pod. Could get rid of some of the stuff I don't need in Hatmakington but do need in Nick's Revenge, solving the wealth problem and supplying the new colony at the same time.

Duster turned out to be poor. Still better than nothing; Helene won't be freezing outside anymore. A new pair of pants is produced soon after, turns out to be good. Xue is no longer inspired. Libby and Ryo got their own rooms as well. Construction of a refinery has begun at Hatmakington.

Day 7

How to produce chemfuel efficiently? Easy; you can use nutrient paste meals in the recipe! That's 24 veggies instead of the "usual" 70. Now we got the fuel but lack the launching mechanism and the pod; Hatmakington is low on steel.

A pack of 11 manhunting arctic foxes have appeared at the south-eastern corner of Hatmakington. I'll let them surround the colony, breaking up the pack into smaller groups. A large herd of ibexes appear on the northern side right before the foxes reach the edge of the colony.

I decided the colony could use the extra textile and have eradicated the fox horde with some minor injuries, especially for the dogs, although Isamu also managed to faceplant one of the foxes and received a brand new eye scar.



Meanwhile two raiders are trying their luck at Nick's Regret because apparently Randy is on a crazy rampage of bad events these days.



Ryo is far off picking up some herbal meds so we can't rely on him, raiders would get in range first. Libby's shooting skill is less than a half percent better than Helene's (who has a brand ZERO shooting skill, by the way); the only reason I'd rather keep Libby away from melee is because Helene is even more useless.

Not bad as a meatshield so far.



A second after that and she drops to the ground, figures. Libby becomes the new punching bag but unfortunately doesn't prove good enough; she's down after just a few attacks and loses yet another finger, making her even more useless. Xue falls back a bit to kite the last attacker and quickly kills her.

Both raiders are dead. I gained a molotov, a deadman's armor vest and a deadman's wool parka. The rest are trash. Libby's new finger loss doesn't change much, to be honest; with her missing eye she was useless already. Bruise wounds only, which means I won't have to waste medicine; as long as it doesn't bleed it can't get infected.

Day 8

A pair of visitors pass by at Nick's Regret. Hatmakington gets visited by yet another bunch of beavers, this is getting really annoying now. I won't deal with them, not with all combat-capable animals being wounded.

Food is running low at the new colony. The beavers lasted us this far, it'll be time to hunt tomorrow. Proper clothing is still a problem, two new shirts shall be made.



Oh thank you, Randy. Yes, losing all my colonists will certainly solve my food problems! I've got four colonists, one is incapable of violence and two of them are worthless in combat and injured. I've started mining some steel to build up some defenses, possibly turrets but I don't have anything built yet because I hoped Randy wouldn't be a jerk and send a new raid just one day after the previous one.

There is no way I can pull this off. Fortunately, that doesn't necessarily mean everyone will die either. I'll form a caravan, quickly grab all the essentials and get the hell out with everyone. The pirates will burn down the whole dump, possibly steal things that didn't get destroyed in the fire and get out. That's when I'll either go back or just move to a new tile, depending on what remains. There isn't much reason to stay at all; the only animals still remaining are two arctic wolves, quite dangerous to hunt with this joke of a crew.

A final view of the small base before we pack up...



Day 9

The pirates had their fun and moved along. I've decided to stay, I might be able to salvage this. Well then, time for damage control again.



The good:

• I saved all the medicine, components and some leather too.
• The unfinished button-down shirt didn't get damaged.

The bad:

• Half the base's structure is gone. Shouldn't be a hard thing to rebuild, though.
• I have enough food to last the colony only 2 days, maybe 4 if I'm really strict with the rations.
• Still stuck on a map with almost no food. At least the three graves are still intact, holding some... Reserves.

The ugly:

• Helene got some minor frostbites; temperature is extremely cold this day.
• The whole place is a mess, Libby will be on cleaning duty today.

And we also got a flashstorm just a bit north from the base. Give me another raid, Randy, and I might as well leave this dump behind forever.

Since Randy clearly hates this colony, obviously Helene's frostbite gets infected. She would be useless in this situation anyway so having her in bed doesn't change much. I'm enforcing a very strict food policy, only letting them eat when they start starving.

The base got mostly rebuilt before sunset.

So priorities are a workaround. Maybe mining is more important than that duster, but I don't care - I want both done by both colonists!

Then set one colonist's priority for tailoring higher and the other one's mining priority higher. The beauty of the priority system is you can set different values for different colonists.

1. Are animals useful in combat? Do you use them? If so, why?  If not, why not?

Animals are always a lot less useful than colonists. Enemies hitting them instead of my colonists is always better so if for nothing else, they're always useful as meatshields. Even a bonded animal's death is not that big of a deal when I can easily get a free permanent +10 mood buff just for keeping the joy bar on maximum.

I use them when I play on a map that allows them to graze. Otherwise upkeep costs would make combat-only animals simply not worth it to employ in numbers sufficient to stand up against late-game raids as meatshields. Their actual combat power is fine, although the ranged weapons' melee buff in B18 didn't help making them more useful.

Keeping animals for combat only is not a good idea when you can't let them graze. The only thing they can do outisde of combat is hauling. The problem with that is the most hauling generated by a colony (that is not hauling loot after a fight) comes from harvesting. But currently you can't let most animals haul plants because they eat it. They prefer it over kibble for whatever reason and make you bleed nutrients/medicine/textiles/drugs, first one being quite important on maps where you can't let them graze. There are only three animals for hauling plants that don't make me bleed resources: timber wolves, arctic wolves and wargs. All three are a pain in the backside to tame and train, at that point the warg is simply not worth it because it eats more by default and on top of that it can't eat processed food so its nutrient consumption automatically jumps to double on top of that (and then I didn't even mention the fact they only eat meat). Wargs need a taming buff, drop their wildness to 0% please, otherwise there's simply not enough reward for the investment. The meat-only niche should be more than enough, why make them so damn hard to tame/train as well? Wolves are fine but I would never use them on maps I can let boars graze, at least not for combat. Maybe a few to help haul plants but definitely not for combat when I can have boars grazing and dying for me instead.

Which leads me to the next point. A few animals tend to die in every encounter because they don't use cover and attack by rushing into melee. Most of the time half or more of the casualties will be via friendly fire. This means you need an animal that reproduces and grows up fast but also moves fast since their primary objective is to draw attention and lock enemies in melee, not to actually kill them. Smaller animals are better because ranged opponents get a severe accuracy penalty against them.

Boars are just perfect. Two times easier to tame than wolves, smaller than wolves, fast enough, reproduces twice as fast as wolves. Can't haul plants due to reasons stated above but at least can haul loot after a battle. Funny enough, better at melee DPS than wolves too.

Using animals with larger than standard body size in combat is futility. They get hit all the time, are usually not faster to compensate for it and breed too slow. Since they get hit more, they'll lose more limbs and other parts (which can't be replaced without a mod) and since they breed too slow you can't just replace them as easily as boars. I can raise a 30-unit boar army in half an in-game year. I need several years to raise a 10-unit bear platoon.

2. Are there annoying/weird points about animals in combat?

Friendly fire usually taking more animals down than raiders, for once. Humans being able to outrun a bear, for twice. Other than that, no distinctively annoying or weird interations.

3. How are you using animals in combat?

• Raids: let enemy advance, then release. Shoot with colonists, not worrying much about friendly fire killing animals; more meat for dinner. Potentially walk up to 2-3 tile range and shoot point-blank if enemies are all locked in melee or distracted. Sometimes release only a few to bait out rockets if I don't have a psychic lance for it at the moment. After that, proceed as usual.
• Infestations: my own anti-bug zerg rush. Lets colonists fight nearest bugs with guns at point-blank range.
• Crashed ships: letting the animals completely surround the ship, then aggroing the mechs and releasing the animals is an extremely effective strategy.
• Sieges: almost like crashed ships, I just can't advance as close as for those before releasing them.
• Manhunters: manhunters will not gang up on them but they will. Very effective strategy when the manhunter horde isn't 80 elephants or other bullshit number.

For all the above, I need around 30 animals (read: boars) to make it effective enough. But once I've reached that threshold they become the new "I WIN" button. The problem is they don't work in small numbers and are too good at large numbers. Just like a zerg rush. Worse yet, it's impossible to balance them, they'll always be either trash or great.

Scythers always use their blades in melee because of an XML tag. But Centipedes don't have this tag for their head (which was always used for melee up until B18 and was extremely effective). As a result, Centipedes' melee DPS has decreased by roughly 20% because they use their weapons' melee ability instead of their headbutt move most of the time.

On the other hand, Centipedes having a weakness other than just EMP and rockets might not necessarily be a bad thing.

don't forget the situation where both killer and resurrector are the same person!

"It was just a prank, bro!"

Current burned wood/carpet floors give a massive 41% speed decrease which stacks with other non-floor speed debuffs like climbing sandbags/stone chunks, moving through doors or moving through items. This means it's only a matter of time before people realize they have a new best option for flooring their killboxes.

Solution: remove the speed debuff, make sure these floors retain their non-burned variants' speed modifiers. The player is already penalized enough with losing all materials and having to remove the burned floors unless they want to enjoy the -5 beauty per tile. If that penalty is deemed low, give them -10 beauty per tile or increase the time it takes to remove them; at least that can't be exploited.

Priorities?? That is a mitigation for a bad setup in which a colonist with NO work does nothing and a colonist with work does busy work. It's not my goal to separate their work; if there is mining I am happy to have both mine.

Priorities are there for you to set the importance of certain jobs, not whether they should or shouldn't do it. Honestly, the manual priority option should be enabled by default to teach new players how to properly play the game and avoid threads like this. Please enable manual priorities on the work tab and be enlightened as now you can tell them what to do first instead of just telling them what they should do and what they shouldn't.

Idle colonists' first job needs to be taking the first job they can do when it becomes available.

I'd rather have that set by proximity. The least thing I want is wait for my idle colonist to walk through half the map for a a job; by the time he arrives someone else would've already finished his job.

[this is exactly my point]

You said at the beginning that "If an investment takes a decade in-game to finally start showing any real benefits then it's pretty much useless."
This is a completely arbitrary statement of opinion. How much time someone is willing to invest into raising children is, like I said completely subjective.

You seem to ignore something rather important here.

...the average lifespan of a player-made colony is easily less than 10 years.

We've already concluded implementing such a system properly would be quite hard. But is it really worth it for the devs when 90% of the playerbase would never truly use it? Certain features being cut from games because it would be too much work for too little benefit for the average player is a very common practice in the gaming industry. It's simply an investment of time; devs could be working on something that could be used by the vast majority of the playerbase instead of catering to a minority.

Besides, this isn't going to be implemented anyway. Devs have already stated "no new game mechanics after B18". Yes, it would be nice to see children implemented but the game wasn't designed around decades-old colonies in the first place. Thre is a reason the end-game involves getting off-planet with a ship.

Sure, a kid won't be as good at doing anything as an adult, but with proper teaching, they can learn, and they would do so much faster than adults. A child under 12 would be rather unskilled, but would also have a very malleable skillset, which would allow you to train them to become exceptionally good at certain skills in the years to come. Yeah, an 8-year-old child won't be able to smith a sword or assemble machinery, like in your example, but spend a few years teaching the kid how to do those things and they'll be better at doing it than anyone else in the colony.

I fail to see you proving me wrong because this is exactly my point. If I can pick between having a child colonist and be forced to watch as the little brat does nothing for 6 years, or just get an adult who can work from the very moment he is part of the colony, then guess which one will I take. The inherent problem of children is that there is not enough reward at the end of the extremely long investment it takes to raise one. They eat, get sick and thus waste my medicine, run around making extra work for the cleaners and do nothing productive in return for at least 6 years after birth. After that it would be fine to have them clean and help growing/harvesting with a work speed debuff but nothing else. Not even hauling because a 6 years old child can hardly haul a 25 kg stone chunk around. So after another 6 years or so, they can finaly do what everyone else has been able to do from the very beginning. Even if they get 10 levels and burning passion in every skill with no incapabilities and no bad traits, it's still not worth the time and resource investment because after 12 years you're either already building the ship because raids start scaling hard enough that you're worried about a colony wipe (remember, the game was meant to end with you fleeing the planet, this is why very late-game raids are overwhelming and generally require an exploit a.k.a. killbox to manage) or get wiped eventually after a few years anyway.

But even if we ignore all these problems, devs have told us they won't add a new system like this.

Also, you said "devs have stated no completely new game mechanics will be added after B18"
Could I get a source for this? I was not aware that the devs made such a statement.

Source. Fourth paragraph, first sentence.

Children would not be 'useless', as you claim, and rather I have come to the conclusion that the source of the controversy around this issue is whether or not people are willing to invest the huge amount of time in raising children in order to reap the benefits.

Thing is, these walk hand-in-hand. If an investment takes a decade in-game to finally start showing any real benefits then it's pretty much useless. This, alone, is why I keep saying children would be useless. It would be totally nonsensical for them to do the vast majority of tasks the adults do until they grow up (or at least grow past a certain age). Combat would totally be off limits until the age of 12 at the very least; a powerful rifle's kickback would break children's elbows and a 12 years old has no realistic chance to use a longsword against an adult armed with a similar weapon effectively. At that point it's basically like being stuck with very weak pacifist pawns, except children shouldn't be able to do complex tasks like smithing a proper blade, assembling a rifle from scrap metal or tailoring a duster that can withstand several point-blank frag explosions before becoming completely unusable (yes, dusters are that strong in the game). But I've stated this one already and so far noone managed to come up with any counter-arguments against it.

I would argue that one of the greatest strengths of adding children to the game is that you can essentially tailor their skills as they grow up. You could mold their entire childhood with proper teaching and training to have whatever skills you want them to have. No need to rely on luck to get a new colonist that might vaguely have the right skills you want: if you want a really good doctor, for example, just have one of the kids grow up as the doctor's apprentice. It might take a few years, but eventually the kid will get really good at medicine and even surpass the doctor you originally had. So with this in mind, I reject the notion that children would just be "dead weight". Children learn very quickly, and this would give them a worthwhile advantage in obtaining valuable skills.

Really the only argument against children that I find somewhat convincing is that it takes too long. I don't think children are useless, but I can understand why someone wouldn't want to spend 12+ in-game years nurturing one. This is, however, completely a matter of subjective opinion.
Beyond that, children would be very useful, provided you are willing to invest the time and effort into raising them.

This is true. Both the potential to make them learn skills and possibly have passions/incapabilities based on that and the fact it takes too damn long.

But keep a few things in mind. First, the average lifespan of a player-made colony is easily less than 10 years. This means the benefits this would bring wouldn't be seen by many players at all. Second, the fact that making such a new and complex system is not going to happen because devs have stated no completely new game mechanics will be added after B18. Maybe, just maybe an after-release patch but I wouldn't bet on it. And third, children entering the map. They shouldn't be part of a raid (no way a 110 years old child can properly handle a sword or a rifle), so the only way for them to appear other than birth is as wanderers/drop-pod refugees/slaves. Wanderers stop appearing after you get a few colonists. Same for drop-pod refugees and slavers stop selling slaves after you have more than a handful of colonists for balance reasons too so good luck with that. A change for this could be justified if children remained mostly useless until they grew up. But considering these children weren't part of the colony from the very beginning, the game would have to add a special partial system for them as well so you have some influence but not as much as you have for children born in the colony. And then we have potential exploits with people harvesting newborn infant organs and selling them so they'd have to add new "child-sized" organs with decreased value (since increasing the mood penalty won't work; players can just make a secondary one-man colony with a psychopath doctor to cheat the system entirely even in the current version of the game, or just do it the normal way; current mood system is not hard at all: +10 from joy which is basically a free buff, +5 from comfort due to chairs on work station interaction tiles, bonuses for nice dining/rec/bedrooms; it's too easy to keep the mood high, this is why devs had to hit organ values directly in the past already).

This would be a very complex thing to add and balance. Better leave it in mod territory and leave the balance issues to the mod author.

[You didn't tell us how you'd change it at all, this is why you're not suggesting but complaining. Please write a suggestion about how you think this could be solved/changed in a meaningful manner that doesn't break combat.]

I'm still waiting for your actual suggestion to fix this since outright removing the speed penalty will also deny the player the ability to chase down fleeing enemies. And that change won't happen, you can bet on that.

The slowdown effect is already less than one second after a hit. Best case scenario for you is decreasing it by 25% or so, any more and melee chasing becomes pretty much impossible for the player because maps are too small. I don't think it'd be good for the game to always have the option to walk into melee range, hit your enemy a few times, then walk out of melee range and stay uncatchable. You can already do that if you wanted to, that's what bionics and combat drugs are for.

Fleeing is not as bad as you think it is. You could add a dodge bonus if you really wanted to but then you just buffed ranged vs melee because the game can't detect whether you have a gun or a knife in your hand right now because these entities don't have specific tags for melee and ranged that could tell the game so. If you just add the weapons' def names you screw over every weapon mod ever. So you need to add a new tag for every weapon, then write code for that one situation when a pawn is fleeing while still in combat. And then you still have no code to actually make the game detect when you're really fleeing, otherwise every melee attack will give the opponent a dodge buff (the slowdown doesn't discriminate, you are still slowed when you just stand and fight, you just don't see it exactly because you don't move). Solving this problem is a lot harder than you think and will not happen because the game will soon be officially released; there is no time to implement such an elaborate system for one thing when the current system isn't broken in the first place.

There, I even wrote a valid suggestion for it myself and told you why that won't work. Happy now?

Oh, by the way. You were complaining about not being able to escape from scarabs in the OP. First of all, when you're being attacked by more than one enemy don't expect to get away. At that point they outnumber you and they deserve to be able to lock you down just like players deserve to lock an enemy down when they gang up on them. Second, megascarabs are faster than humans in the game so you were doomed anyway. How did you get into such a situation anyway? Animal insanity event? Megascarabs rarely appear alone outside of deserts and even then they are docile unless they are part of a hive on the map (and at that point scarabs are the least of your problem).

I don't expect to be able to flee from faster opponents without taking damage, I expect that fleeing isn't a 90% chance to die, because usually after you get hit once, your movement speed is rammed into the floor.

You get slowed down for less than a second. Meanwhile the enemy is now on cooldown, unable to move at all. You get to gain distance from that enemy while they are standing and looking dumb, waiting for their cooldown. You want the slowdown removed? Fine. But the moment that happens, melee cooldown will not stop the attacking pawn's movement either because that's how fair play works. Expect fast animals to be even more deadly and raiders with swords and spears chasing you down even faster. You are fleeing because you got hit and the enemy didn't get hit as much; your pain is higher already and pain decreases consciousness which in turn decreases movespeed. With melee cooldown not stopping pawns, they will mercilessly chase you down, constantly standing in your face and attacking as soon as their cooldown is off. If anything, that would make melee chasing more effective and your fleeing decision even worse. At that point you'd have to micromanage counter-attacks, adding insane amounts of tedium if you're trying to retreat more than one pawn, while basically fighting like you normally would but also moving in a direction. While this might sound like a fair trade-off first, keep in mind that the current fleeing mechanism easily decreases enemy DPS by 50% or even more after the initial disengage while not gimping movespeed as much; a spearman needs about 3 seconds to close the distance you gain with the current mechanic (tested in-game with an already wounded target and a healthy melee fighter, feel free to test it yourself), while the spear itself has a 2.3 second cooldown. This means the spearman automaticaly loses one hit because it can't attack you immediately after the cooldown is off, then spends 3 seconds chasing you (at that point he could've launched his third attack) and then finally hitting you a second time, when he'd be through some of of his third attack's cooldown normally. Basically his cooldown chages from 2.3 to 5.3 which means he just lost over half his DPS. Is that still too bad for you? Do the math before you complain.

My actual suggestion was, make fleeing less of a bad decision

Your OP is nothing more than complaining about the movespeed slowdown. You didn't tell us how you'd change it at all, this is why you're not suggesting but complaining. Please write a suggestion about how you think this could be solved/changed in a meaningful manner that doesn't break combat.

I believe I read somewhere that Tynan said the game is supposed (read: balanced around) to be one centered around the operation of a single colony, and the multiple colony option is set to 1 for this very reason.

This is true. Besides, multiple colonies break the game in certain ways anyway. Like keeping one colony artificially low on colonists to generate more drop-pod refugee and wanderer joins events (because colonist softcaps are local, not global), or the one-man psychopath organ harvester colony next door to cheat the mood system. Alternatively combine those two and you don't even need prisoners for organs anymore. Even if the second colony is of proper size, colony wealth is also local. You can get raided and just drop-pod in additional soldiers to completely break raid balance.