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This happened in A8, but is still happening in A9 with a fresh install.

If a colonist sits on a seat next to a table one on one of the corners, he'll often (but not always) put his meal on the floor next to the table rather than on the table, then get the "Ate off floor" debuff when there was no need for it.

For instance:

WWWW
WTTS
WTTs
WSs*
W

Where T is table and S is stool (W is a wall). Colonists sitting on the small 's' stools will often eat off the floor from the asterisk, instead of the table next to them. It doesn't happen to those on the capital S stools, they always eat on the table.

Just seems silly that there's a table right there, but they choose not to eat off it.

This happens no matter which orientation the stool is placed in.

We've all been there, right? Super-awesome Shooting guy gets owned by a wild boar because it closed to melee range before he could kill it?

Dunno about you, but if I was Mr Srs Hunter, I'd probably take a knife or something with me?

I'm not sure if the game recognises weapon sizes (if so, can just limit the 'sidearm' to the smallest category, if not maybe limit it by the base damage it does or something?) but it seems that a system like this would work well:

If a pawn has more than x Shooting (lets go with 10), he can carry a small melee weapon with him.
If a pawn has more than x Melee, he can carry a small ranged weapon with him.

Brawler, etc would still work normally (so if a guy with good melee is given a pistol as a sidearm, he'll still be unhappy).

That way when a boar sneaks up on my sniper his chances of survival without help will be more than about 1 in 10 as it seems at the moment. Just lost two good men (two!) to one boar this way. It was, to be fair, an insane boar. But they were both wearing armoured vests.

It seems currently that if you're caught in melee without a melee weapon, you might as well be trying to headbutt the boar to death.

It strikes me as a little odd that 'Crafting' currently covers:
Tailoring
Smelting (smelting slag)
Stoneworking (chunks>block)
Blacksmithing (making items)

Plus probably other stuff I've forgotten.

I wouldn't expect *every* crafting job to have a separate skill, that'd be silly and would make some skills useless in some situations (tailoring in a hot climate, for example. Other than to make money), but it does seem odd to me that the current category is so broad.

Perhaps splitting it into two would be better.
- Unskilled Crafting (anything that involves taking a raw material and turning it into something used in construction. Smelting, stonecutting, etc, or anything which would qualify as 'unskilled labour' like smoothing floors (unless that's already under Construction instead of Crafting, which would make sense).

- Skilled Crafting (anything that involves turning materials into an end product; tailoring, smithing, etc).

That way it would make more 'logical sense'. You couldn't get better at making weapons by cutting a billion stones and then making one sword. Plus you could have a dumb labourer who goes around cutting the stones, and a skilled labourer doing the actual crafting, without the skilled labourer wasting his time stonecutting just because he happened to get out of bed first that day.

It just feels like the skilled crafting jobs are too different (in terms of how important they are and what type of colonist would be good at them) from smashing stones to bits to be considered the same thing.

Perceived problem: It's too fiddly to have to instruct colonists to take off clothing when they get too hot/put it back on when too cold.

Proposed solution: A Wardrobe furniture item, which acts as a container for apparel and is owned by colonists individually (like beds).

Colonists can store clothes that they've previously worn in the wardrobe. When it gets too hot for a prolonged period (ie, more than just a few ticks), they take clothing off (prioritised by items that make the most difference to heat tolerance) and store them in their wardrobe. When they get too cold, they automatically go and put on any clothes stored in their own wardrobe that would help them. This way you'd still be able to control what a colonist wears, but they could manage what specific items to wear at certain times by themselves.


Along similar lines it'd be good for balance if colonists got unhappy if they had to sleep in their clothes. It would put a bigger incentive on using heaters and keeping living accommodation warm, for one thing. Yeah, if it's too cold then by all means sleep in your parka, don't want you freezing to death. But the colonists should get annoyed at having to do that. I would, if I had to sleep in a coat because the heating was broken!