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Number one thing I can recommend for fixing load orders is to use RimPy. Your load order makes me think you already are using it, but if you aren't, USE IT. It is a desktop app that takes a lot of the guess work out of which mods to sort where. It isn't perfect as it first asks mod authors to flag dependencies and conflicts and if it gets past that the RimPy community has to find the error to make a rule for it. So if it is a little known mod you might still have problems, but RimPy should knockout a vast some of them.

How often do you remember to use your Word of Inspiration? I know I forget it for long periods. What I am looking for is a mod that could be set to have pawns with psycasts (or leader/specialist/moral guide abilities) to use them automatically.

     Solar pinhole - Place a spot that doesn't block placement (similar to "Barely Restricted Spots" by Owlchemist) for Pinhole light and available casters would fill it and refresh it if the duration is low. Exactly like refueling a torch.

     Waterskip - If the psycaster is firefighting they will check an area around them for clusters of (configurable) burning tiles.

     Word of Trust - If a prisoner is set for recruit / reduce resistance and has (configurable) resistance remaining. Highest first would make sense.

     Word of Serenity - When a pawn has a (configurable) tier of mental break.

     Word of Inspiration - Each psycaster can have a set target(s) and if they are already inspired or unavailable there could be a setting to cast on nearest, random, or hold.

     Animal Calm - Hostile animal within (configurable) tiles.

     Immunity Drive / Preach Health - Pawn has (configurable) deficit of of immunity. Worst deficit first. Configurable for Colonist, neutral, and/or prisoner.

     Counsel - Attempt if pawn has > -X mood thought that will persist >Y days. Longest duration / highest malus / lowest mood  first options.

     Convert - Prisoner set to convert with lowest certainty that this won't drastically overshoot.

At first I worried that a pawn would spend their time looping between meditating for focus and dumping it on big casts, but when I look at the list the only one that might do that is Word of Inspiration. Even then it would be the player configuring the pawn to do that and maybe letting their "incapable of almost anything" pawn be free to camp out at the anima tree between pilgrimages to the crafting room to drop Word of Inspiration is exactly what they want.

I think the most important part of this is the ability to configure these rules in mod options and then set each pawn to if they are going to automate that psycast. I am thinking it could have a green check mark or red 'X' much like 'fire at will.' This kind of mod won't be much help if you cant stop important pawns from meditating all day.

And maybe as one last configurable option, separate the cooldowns for leaders / moral guides. Perhaps a system of cooling slower if more than one is on cooldown or just a simple A is X days while B is Y days with complete separation.

This seems like it might be a big undertaking from my point of view, but there really is nothing like it on the workshop from what I could find.

Just make sure to load it AFTER Common Sense... and I will always read the mod page from now on.

Cherry Picker mod by Owlchemist.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2633276599

The lower damage the shots, the more likely it is to deflect off the armor, so if you shoot 20 bullets at 5HP each, none of them will do any damage if the enemy has decent armor.  If you shoot 5 bullets at 20 HP each, they are more likely to lose body parts if they have little armor.

That isn't how armor works. Armor doesn't care how big the bullet is, it simply has a chance to reduce the damage to half or to zero based on the relevant protection vs attackers armor pen.

I did a bunch of testing and came to the conclusion that sharp damage guns (didn't try melee but should be the same) cause 1.25% pain / damage up to the max HP of the part and removes pain from any "down the line" parts if the super part is destroyed. Like you said, 38% pain for a severed shoulder even if fingers or the hand was damage before the shoulder was destroyed. Also, super parts take equal damage from sharp attacks that hit internal parts (bones, kidney, lung, ect.) This makes internal shots worth double pain if the internal isn't destroyed.

I wasn't looking in particular to kill or down, but both. I think I have come to the conclusion that downing through pain is likely the fastest way to kill, as a pawn that has taken that much pain from bleed causing guns isn't getting back up without help.

My most recent test I found that 8 damage (10.0% pain) is better then 15 damage as destroying both lungs or kidneys is actually pretty rare. With 8 damage you don't get 1 shot brain or heart kills, but a 8 damage shot to a brain still downs them. Also if you completely shoot out an organ it is worth no pain where a damaged one is worth normal pain. This way if you can land eight, 8 damage shots you down the pawn unless you double to quad tap the same parts. 8 also means you don't waste any damage hitting finger/toes. And remember, internal shots count for double, so you could drop a pawn with 4 shots.

With burn damage weapons from mods, 1 damage = 1.875% pain. I haven't put a lot into burn weapons yet, but 4 x11, 8 x6, 9 x5, and 11 x4 would seem like good breakpoints for all the same reasons as 8 is good for sharp.

I am familiar with this material. It focuses mostly on DPS and specific guns vs various tiers of armor. However I am looking at something a little more focused. To be fair I was rather tired when I wrote the original post and might not have gotten my point across very clearly.

If we imagine a variety of guns that all have perfect accuracy, the same DPS, and the same AP (Armor Penetration) but different per bullet damage; Do any of the guns kill/down pawns faster on average? I started with 15 damage because legendary minigun users seems rack up kills faster then others (John Francis' pawn 'Karl Wallace' showed that pretty clearly in his recent combat tile run. And yes I know Karl was a Trigger-happy Shooting Specialist. We will get to how aim-time/CD effects killrate after we figure out optimal bullet damage.) The reason I figured 15 was doing better is because lungs, kidneys, and heart are all 15hp. So if we say that RNG was going to direct your bullets in following order: Left lung, Right Leg, Right Lung, Left Arm, Left 2nd toe. With the 15 damage gun (not necessarily a minigun) would kill with the 3rd bullet, by which time a gun that does the same DPS but with 10 damage bullets would land 5 shots (rounding in its favor.) The 15 damage gun has the kill because both lungs are gone where the 10 damage gun would only have maimed and maybe not downed (I am not clear on how much pain is generated from damage and if where the damage is affects pain.) Obviously rearranging the order of part hit can shift which gun kills faster, but I am looking for the average.

So then I decided to collect all the reasons I could think of a pawn would die or down. (I don't think it is complete)

Die: Consciousness=0, Breathing=0, Blood Filtration=0, Blood Pumping=0, Blood Loss(100%), Death on Down from Pain(80%*1*), other Vital Part Destroyed (Head, Neck, Torso), or Lethal Damage(?150?)

Down: Consciousness(<30%), Movement(<15%), Pain(80%*1*), EMP'ed Bionic Brain

*1* Pain Shock Threshold can be modified by Wimp, Veil, and War Mask. For this math lets just assume 80% for now.

Disable: Manipulation=0, EMP'ed bionic stomach.

So this makes the relevant parts: Brain (10), Liver (20), Heart (15), Both Kidneys (15 each), Both Lungs (15 each), Neck (25), Head (25), Torso(40), Spine(25), and Leg(30/25/25/25 Each*2*)

*2* To disable a leg any of: Leg(30) or Femur(25) or Tibia(25) or Foot(25). Results in the entire leg being 'disabled' (-50% moving.) Following shots can still hit other parts of the leg, unless the Leg(30) was destroyed.

So with this info does that mean that guns doing 15, 20, 25, 30, and 40 damage (unmitigated) shots end up killing / downing pawns faster when DPS is the same? If so, how big of an impact is this?

So info I am looking for: Are there any combat reasons for death / down that I missed? How does doing internal part damage (and over-damage) relate to the damage of the overall part? How does damage (Sharp, blunt, and burn) translate to pain? Does pain from damage to a finger remain if the arm is later shot off?

I was looking at mods for my next run when I came to weapon mods to add some variety for the weapon pool. But then I asked myself if any of the weapons are even a weapon I would want to use. Which got me thinking about if there is particular damage numbers that might be better for killing or downing enemies. To determine that however, I would need to know the mechanics of what kills and downs.

The wiki has a fairly in-depth explanation on how the game selects which part of the pawn gets hit, but I wasn't clear on how "internal" damage effects the "external" part. Like if a Lung gets hit for 16, does the torso also take 0, 15 or 16 damage every time / sometimes?

How much damage and which wounds kill / down a pawn?

Then which damage sizes and damage types would be most effective if damage is some times halved or if it isnt halved at all?