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[Colony Mottos!]

 Real talk, I love mountains. With the new tunneler perk, I'm a bit upset that I can't exactly get it onto every colonist. Additionally, it is not uncommon that I see fellow players who want colonists that are fall psychopathic, or wish their colonists weren't such assholes to each other. So, I think a solution is in order.

Colony Mottos!

Firstly, I do not see all traits as being equal in this instance. Beyond the fact that it'd probably be a tad over-powered, I'm not sure if you could get "thick skin, dense flesh, and durable bones" (Tough trait, which I still dislike) by social osmosis, Super Immune, Quick Sleeper, and Too Smart are under this "born with it" banner too. I also don't think that the spectrum traits (Hard Worker/Lazy, Careful Shooter/Trigger Happy, Pretty/Ugly) would be appropriate either, partly for the same reason as the previous group of traits, partly because they're meant to be in a ying-yang with their negative counterparts that no one would want.

Now, how/when we get them can be debated. Personally, I think there are two (two and a half?) good ways to possibly spread an ideal among your whole colony.

Establish it early: After a certain population, you are asked to come-up with a name for your faction, and for your home base. The thing is, you could've gotten lucky; you could've had a perfect hand of luck and rolled three cannibals. So, you name your colony "The Bloody Murderdaggers", or something similar. If you proceed to get nothing but kind, violent-incapable pawns after that, it's a bit of a misnomer. Having the ability to choose a motto alongside your names could mean great things thematically, too. Even if you land in the same biome in the same scenario over two runs, starting with a dedicated colony-wide trait could change the structure and goals of a colony a lot (starting Nudist could free up a lot of crop space that would've been occupied by cotton).

Totems or Monuments: More RNG based, but you could say that you're getting a strong reward for it. Purchased from exotic traders or found in ancient dangers, you could get totems dedicated to a trait (potentially even as a result of legendary/masterwork sculptures?). The Totem of Knowledge could be tied to Quick Learner, or the Totem of The Mother could spread the Kind trait.

For the sake of logic and balance, I think that gaining traits should not be immediate. It'd probably take a while to convince someone that eating human flesh really isn't that morally dubious. The 'expensive' solution would be a resistance to the trait in the same way that prisoners are resistant to being recruited. After enough time socializing and making friends with the other colonists, they'd pick it up to fit in. Otherwise, maybe just developing after the week would be fine, so there's still a bit of a struggle to not have a normal pawn go crazy from "Butchered Humanlike" thoughts (or dealing with ascetic bedrooms, and some other repercussions of traits I'm not realizing right now).

To reiterate on what I mentioned earlier, this could do a lot with a little. There's so much room for these neat, themed colonies that just isn't being used. Masochistic cults, Cyborg villages, A group of monks (ascetics) who would prefer to put resources into research and technology over comfort,  and a lot more. It's a feature that's been requested for a while, and could really bring light to different playstyles than the same make-a-bunker-with-smokeleaf-and-killboxes-purge-the-pyros that we essentially have to play with, because nothing else is optimum.

As a final note: This isn't too hard to imagine. If we humans have such a varied history of peer pressure and cults that have succeeded despite sounding completely batshit or inadvisable, it's not impossible for a whole colony to have a motto like this.

[TL;DR: Melee pawns are currently held back by the fact that to survive the trip to an enemy, they need to be decked-out in heavy, slow armor, and are often injured upon arrival to the point where they lack the punch they had when they started. Gear that supports avoiding incoming ranged attacks could allow melee pawns to be more effective, and to have a better utility as chase-down units.]

TL;DR: Melee pawns are currently held back by the fact that to survive the trip to an enemy, they need to be decked-out in heavy, slow armor, and are often injured upon arrival to the point where they lack the punch they had when they started. Gear that supports avoiding incoming ranged attacks could allow melee pawns to be more effective, and to have a better utility as chase-down units.

I mean, it's all in the title really. I'm kinda good at titles like that.

We currently have a lot of armor and clothing to choose from. The large majority of it is focused on either temperature management or defense. As far as armor goes, the whole thing focuses on boosting your bullet-taking ability while dropping your speed. Well, I think it's time to properly change that with some stuff to actually better help close the distance and stay alive once you get to your target.

I assume it's safe to say that we've all probably shot at some variation of Muffalo/Boomalope/Elephant, in addition to Rats/turtles/hares, right? How'd that go? The big guys took a lot more bullets to kill than the little ones, plain and simple . . . mostly. Due to the size of their bodies, the little creatures were able to avoid shots far better than a walking meat-fortress. Safe to say, it would be neat if we had the same option when it came to our pawns: sacrificing direct damage absorption while giving them the ability to outright avoid some of it. At this point, however, we can be fairly certain that a pawn with a slim build won't be any different than a "round" pawn, so that leaves us with apparel.

We've got apparel that affects psychic sensitivity, social impact, work speed, and pain tolerance. We can play around stat-affecting gear a bit before we hit the level of Legendary Ring of The Thrumbo +6 to Melee, so why not play around with dodging a bit?

I personally really like the nimble trait, which gives you a +15% chance to dodge melee, which is actually a pretty good bonus, but that's just in melee. I've never cared much for it, but I know that all the melee fans out there aren't concerned with clashing swords: It's getting to the rifleman in the first place. Melee dodge chance is nice and all, but it doesn't help you from the 99% of the time in combat spent running.

Sweatpants and a tribal sort of "bracelet/tunic/headdress of the Cobra" (leg space already occupied by tribal wear) could fill this void. Sweatpants are nice and loose, sporty, and allow plenty of movement without being overdoing looseness like a skirt might. They don't weigh a lot and aren't exactly super tough, so they wouldn't encroach on flack pant's territory while filling their own niche. Meanwhile, tribals are probably the group that would benefit the most from something that's cheap, doesn't protect a lot, and is low tech. Some kind of garment made from the usual textiles, and potentially some beads to place it above the rest of the clothing (though headdresses, and war veils/masks don't need anything special). Maybe even have them boost speed a little bit, that way it can even be useful for pawns with low combat skills who are usually just hauling things or bringing pawns back from a firefight, where heavy armor would just make their tasks take longer.

After that, we would have some apparel that would allow our bruisers to get to ranged pawns faster, which would probably lower the amounts of shots they're taking. Assuming they took a couple hits anyways, more dodging ability would keep them from getting laid-out because they took a gun's stock to the temple the moment they got in close (which would also mean that if we finally gave pawns the ability to have something like a knife or mace as a sidearm, melee builds wouldn't have an even worse deal). Finally, keeping survivability without sacrificing speed would mean that melee pawns wouldn't sacrifice their movement for chasing down fleeing pawns.

Overall? I could see dodging solving a lot of problems that we currently have with melee builds. . . or I'm completely overlooking key issues or mechanics that already exist that I just never played with.

[shiny = value]

 The tribes have a definite place in Rimworld. I personally really like the idea of the cultural and technological clash, and I know that many other players enjoy the occasional tribal playthrough. However, I think we can all agree that there's not much that really gives the impression that you're playing as a tribe, rather than people who just don't have power yet. Implementation of elements such as the ikwa, and headdress/masks are going in the right direction, but it's still missing something.

Beads could add that cultural element that tribes are missing. Now, it's not just stereotyping I'm going off of here. The tribes in Rimworld don't really have too much of specific background that they reference, so it's safe to say that they can borrow elements from various indigenous groups.

With that in mind, tribes have a neat place in the world when it comes to currency: they didn't use metal or coins, often due to issues with forging the metal in the first place. Even groups that had access to such techniques - such as those native to South America - forged gold into symbols of status or art rather than currency and tools. Silver may make plenty of sense for Outlanders and Pirates who could figure that shiny = value, and would rather use valuable steel and components for food preservation or weapons rather than paper money printers. Beads, meanwhile, have remained a center of trade, art, and culture even in places that have been colonized, or at least introduced to the first world. It's safe to say that tribes of the Rim might find some importance in them as well.

Traditionally, beads are made of bone, coral, horn, ivory, seeds, shells, stones and pearls. We currently have access to three of those: Horn (Thrumbos), ivory (Elephants), and stones, the rest are featured in mods or we could just hope for future updates. However, it's not difficult to imagine the antlers/horns of creatures such as cows, deer, rhinos, jackalope Tynan plz, and ibex rams potentially getting the attention that only our largest creatures have attained. Perhaps some sort of overhaul is in order. That aside, I would figure that beads could be made from those available materials at generic crafting spots in small quantities, and in bulk at a stonecutting table. Logically, I'd expect a quantity of beads roughly equivalent to the value in silver of the bricks you didn't make by instead converting a stone chunk to beads, and a similar conversion for the stabby-face-bits. After that, just get a pile of beads, possibly a higher quantity than silver but with a lower value per bead than silver, but that would likely just overly complicate things.

First thing's first: Why use beads for trade? Well, for one, tribes historically aren't very mountainous. It's just harder to farm, build, and traverse them. Additionally, they often lacked the ability to smelt the metal in any reliable or very efficient way, meaning that silver wouldn't be too common. Beads, however, would be. Native Americans had buffalo, deer, elk, moose, and a great deal of other large game with horns and antlers (and bones but we don't have those yet). Similiarly, everything that you could actually chase down and wasn't actively trying to kill you in Africa tended to have horns (and lots of thick bones c'mon Tynan). It'd make a fair bit of sense. Also, I just looked up the mass of silver so that I could argue that you could carry more beads because they'd be lighter. Silver has a mass of 0.007. A berry has a mass of 0.05. One berry weighs over seven times as much as a chunk of silver what the hell they'd free-up trading by giving you a way to make passive money (converting horns and stones to a currency without needing to have a trader around, and if you're having a hard time with low-speech pawns or traders buying what you're selling), in addition to weighing less than silver does (assuming there was a logical change to metal: silver weighs a bit more than steel, though gold weighs almost twice as much as steel for the same density in the real world). Finally, it could free-up silver for those who might prefer to use it for weapons, sterile tiles, and furniture/structures. Meanwhile, you could totally use beads for say, adding some more flavor to tribal clothing than just the tribal wear if you really want an additional use for them.

Also, I just liked the flavor in the currency of Fallout New Vegas, where there are two major warring factions trying to establish their currency in the area. Just kinda makes sense.

P.S. Again, we should have horns and antlers dropping off of more creatures than two. I want a hunting lodge with a buncha trophies on it. It would also help with plains tribals making beads, under the assumption beads are seriously considered.

Sources:
The Importance of Beads and Beadwork in African Culture
When did the Indians start making glass beads?
How did Plains Indians get glass beads?
Trade beads

P.P.S. I would also welcome glass (love this guy) beads, but I feel like ivory is enough requests from me for one day.

 I've been writing suggestions for a while and dipped my toe into a bit of fiction for the universe, and I was wondering if there was a term for Rimworld natives or those that live on it. For example, I'm an Earthling-American, specifically a Washingtonian with lots of Polish/German blood. . . you dig? It's a dumb little detail, but it's just one of those things that's getting to me, like seeing some a table set in a show or game where there's food in a bowl and no utensils, or trying to figure out where the asshole is on some of the weirder critters in the world or fiction.

I got nothing good when it comes to trying to find my own term. Rimman, Rimworldian, Rimmish, Rimling, they all sound like creatures from some 50's movie. I currently just default to "-of the Rim".

 There is a tree. We need wood. We chop down that tree and get wood that we can instantly use for wooden floors, weapons, fuel, and furniture. No varnishing or de-barking.

There is some steel ore. We need steel. We mine it, and we instantly get useable steel without the need for special processing, smelting it out of stone, or shaping it into ingots. We can now use it for everything from vitals monitors, to guns, to furniture (again).

Alright, so that's how this game works. We don't need to refine the things we harvest.

There is some stone in the shape of a wall. We need stone walls. So we mine the stone, hope for a chunk, bring it to a stonecutting table, cut said stone chunk, and then it's good to use. Otherwise, it's just glorified rubble.

You see a muffalo. You need food. You hunt the muffalo, haul its body to a freezer, butcher that body, and then collect a bunch of it's bits (potentially more if you want a higher tier of meal) and then cook a meal, rather than just, say, a steak.

Anyways, my point is that the game's a bit inconsistent in this regard. Rather than having to refine all of your materials (similar to Rise of Ruins, which I rather like, though it is on a larger scale as far as workforces go), or having them all readily available, it's a mix of the two. This just seems a bit odd. Personally, I rather like consistency, and would prefer if there were a bit more of a rhyme or reason to how materials could be used. Say what you want about it, but Minecraft's got a good head on it's shoulder in that regard. See a tree? Chop some wood, and logs are good for sturdy structures, making charcoal, and can be processed into planks. Planks are a plentiful and cheap source of building materials, in addition to being part of making tools, furniture, and some structures (like boats, stairs, pressure plates). They can be further refined into sticks for arrows, tool handles, ladders, etc. Point being: Being able to use logs for everything doesn't make too much sense in Rimworld, especially when steel needs less work to use than the stone it's encased in.

What are your guy's opinions on this? The reason this isn't in suggestions is that I don't really have a better idea than what we have. Our current method of stone or meat needing so many more steps than most other resources seems arbitrary, everything just dropping resources when harvested seems silly, and we lack the pure manpower or automation required to handle so much processing dedicated to only a few products. Any ideas on how to improve the process or alter it in some way will probably be ignored for the most part because the devs have better things to do and I'm not one of them are appreciated.

[TL;DR: Tough doesn't fit with the rest of the traits, and makes no sense in the context of human beings. It should be changed to an increase in pain tolerance, so that pawns take the same damage, but can at least stay in a fight longer or walk their dismembered, bleeding-out almost-carcass to a hospital bed.]

 TL;DR: Tough doesn't fit with the rest of the traits, and makes no sense in the context of human beings. It should be changed to an increase in pain tolerance, so that pawns take the same damage, but can at least stay in a fight longer or walk their dismembered, bleeding-out almost-carcass to a hospital bed.

I mean, the title says it all, really.

The tough trait just doesn't seem to fit within the game, at least for me.

Think about it compared to other perks, right? There are two kinds of traits: Trade-offs and parallels (wiki calls them general and spectrum, I don't like those terms). Trade-off perks have a good boost to one factor but balance something else, these are your night owls, brawlers, masochists, and too-smarts of the colony. Parallels can be really good, but are balanced by the fact that some other sucker can get its evil twin (and vice-versa). These would be your industrial/slothful, sanguine/depressive, and beautiful/staggeringly ugly traits.

Now, let's see. We have this one trait, "wimp". It lowers your pain threshold. There's no positive quality about it, so it must have a counter (pyromaniac and body purists not benefitting from having natural body parts notwithstanding). You could argue that it could be masochist, in the same way that teetotaler could be seen as the counter to the chemical _______ traits. However, if you were to go for a proper parallel, I'd argue that tough should fit that bill, but it needs to be changed first (for those strawmen saying "how many counters can you give to wimp?", other traits such as teetotaler are countered by two other traits, brawler is countered by careful shooter and trigger happy, and creepy breathing is essentially another ugly).

Our pawns are humans. The traits are all things you've probably seen in people. Maybe not personally, maybe only in TV or secondhand from friends or family, but you've seen them before. We know a real hard-working friend, who in-game might have an extra 20% work speed. Maybe you wanted to add your girlfriend into the game - before realizing that she was likely to die horribly - and thought "pretty" would be befitting of her. Now, who do you know could reliably take 60% less damage from everything? For clarification, that means, completely naked, they can take:

• A sniper rifle round to the heart
• Four assault rifle shots to the spine
• A charge rifle round to the brain
• A revolver round to each eye
• Two recurve bow arrows to the lung

- and be survive, walk it off in half a week. One week if you need to do a transplant or drug dosage. For most pawns, these would either mean instant death or crippling. A tough pawn? Problems minimal. A dose of luci could fix anything that scarred or got too broken, in addition to making them a weapon of war. Does that sound human anymore? Yeah, people like Phineas Gage survived a spike through the face, but they sure weren't the same afterward.

Rather, an increase in pain tolerance should be the way to go. That's perfectly human. Marines training with half their body weight in gear weighing them down in hot sun, a warehouse worker who carries heavy boxes despite that back injury that still hurts like hell, women who can function just fine after years of monthly internal torture sessions, these people exist: People who are used to dealing with pain, or just experience less than others. Think about how many times a pawn has collapsed not from a loss of legs, missing the majority of their blood, not sleep deprivation, but pain? I've had pawns who've had to be repeatedly hospitalized because they got torn to pieces in a fight, and they might have well have collapsed from a stuffy nose sickness that added +1% pain while on the way to lunch. How about the number of times that a pawn's been downed, picked up by a pirate and carried off, just to feel better, stand up, get punched once, and then get carried-off again. One extra shot could've saved them. Call it a conflict of interest, but there are alternatives to traits that can make a pawn seem more than human. Otherwise, an increased pain tolerance would be incredibly useful without having a borderline superhuman.

[Alignment]

Alignment	Lawful	Neutral	Chaotic
Good	Lawful Good	Neutral Good	Chaotic Good
Neutral	Lawful Neutral	True Neutral	Chaotic Neutral
Evil	Lawful Evil	Neutral Evil	Chaotic Evil

Y'know. This kinda thing. I just had an argument with a bunch of friends about how  this would look for superheroes, and thought it'd be neat for the various things in Rimworld. For example:

Animals	Lawful	Neutral	Chaotic
Good	Thrumbo	Muffalo	Chicken
Neutral	Cow	Pig	Boomalope
Evil	Timber Wolf	Alphabeaver	Manhunter Yorkies

Technically, they'd all be neutral from a roleplaying point of view, but it's the way you encounter them in the game that altered my feelings about them. The black hole of frames that is an out-of-control chicken population, the fact that no amount of turrets can seem to defend against a bunch of tiny yellow (and adorable) targets, etc.

Maybe an overly dumb or nerdy idea, but I feel like there's a lot of strong opinions that this forum can agree on.

If you want the setup I used in my tables, I believe quoting this will show the setup, then you can just paste the new stuff over what I have. Ctrl-F helps.

[The Terraria.]

 One room is a laboratory, and another is a workshop. You know this, because one has a research bench in it, and the other has a machining bench in it. The walls didn't help, because they're made from the same material, either due to the fact that you're on a flat map and only have access to wood, or because you're on a large hills or mountainous map and there's no reason to not have the maximum durability and minimum flammability you could. Same deal with the floors. You could differ things with art, but you can't pick what design you get, making things tough. You could designate one room a flower, but there are only two flowers and picking one or the other's pretty arbitrary. How is this solved? I propose two suggestions.

• The Terraria. As the developers had to balance two dimensions with it's being a building game, a lot of focus was put into keeping things distinct. This took two forms, one being decorations, and the other being backgrounds. These rarely had a purpose, but it was easy to tell what a room was just by looking. This meant that you had a lot of variety in rooms, just look at the difference between this and this. It can mean the word! That being said, I'm aware that Rimworld's only got one wall to work with. Despite that, there's plenty of room for decoration. A wallpaper could feasibly be applied to granite walls to maintain their integrity while styling things up a little. Wood paneling could add some proverbial warmth to an otherwise cold stone bedroom. Marble tile would make a bathroom (in the top thirty highest-rated mods of all time on Steam, it's safe to speculate that bathrooms aren't uncommon on the Rim) feel distinct from marble slabs on a hospital, rather than the flat design we'd be stuck with if we wanted similar motifs in vanilla. There are other things to enjoy, however. Catacombs could bring life to walls in tombs, and lava lamps could make for groovy rec rooms.


• The Dungeon Keeper. This oldie has a bit more similar of a design theory to Rimworld,  sharing a slightly angled top-down view. On another note, both have dedicated rooms, though only you make a box and place things inside it. Whereas Rimworld has laboratories, bedrooms, and farms, Dungeon Keeper has libraries, barracks, and hatcheries. The neat thing is that they're just ordinary boxes until you designate them as otherwise (not unlike making zones or stockpiles in Rimworld). Then, they acquire predetermined designs to more reflect their role. Now, this wouldn't meld too well with what Rimworld does, though it could still work well enough. While you couldn't just throw a bunch of pillars or bookshelves in the middle of a room, the walls are still fair game. You could have a blank room, but the placing of a stove in their could add pots and pans hanging from the walls, for example. Additionally interesting would be updating the appearance of some items depending on the room they're in. For example, the lamps you'd find in a rec room, prison, and hospital all look fairly different from the standing lamp we've got (though you could certaintly argue about player choice, and whether or not it would be wiset to clutter the architecture menu with so many variations of lamp).

So, what do you guys think? Why is this a terrible suggestion? Let me know!

P.S. Credit to RIMkea for being able to add so much personality to various rooms without the ability to do much to walls. It spices things up in a real nice way. It deserves a bit more attention than it has (page 4 of most popular mods on Steam, what a shame!).

 For those who aren't familiar with a not-overly popular children's game from six years ago.

What I'm proposing, essentially, is a tool for making simple mods, similar to the creation of objects and creatures in Scribblenauts. It's really not too much more complicated than moving around shapes and setting-up some "if this, then that" processes.

I've always wanted to go and make some simple mods for the game, though simply lack the coding knowledge to do so (I tried, trust me). That being said, the system that Scribblenauts came-up with is one I'd love to see in Rimworld somehow someway.

How would it work? I could see the various parts of Rimworld split into various categories ( Weapon - Ranged, animals, plants, stone types, etc ) with various ways to modify them. For example, let's say you select "Weapon - Ranged."  Then, you could set the range, damage, velocity, cooldown, etc. After that, maybe you could export an image from another program or even an in-game one to apply to the item and it's projectiles.

This would, of course, take a lot to work to make. However, I could see it doing a lot for the community. Having to look through lines upon lines of code to try to make your own weapon can be real prohibitive to people who lack the time or just the right tick in the brain. Credit to the people who worked to make them with all of their interesting and original ideas, but a system like this could give anybody who understands cause and effect the ability to make their very own Rimsenal, Vegetable Garden, and Cosmic Horrors (again, credit where it's due, but these are essentially really neat guns, armor, plants, and animals)!

y tho

 I have a bunch of pawns who were too busy picking berries to not starve to death and fighting off wolves to dedicate time to screwing around with the science behind making colored lights or making televisions.
Understandable that they don't research too quick-like.

They club a Glitterworld scientist in the side of the head and recruit him, and provide him with the same research facilities that you could expect from an industrial colony.
He has a severely gimped research speed.
What.

I understand that the current method is far easier to code than scrolling through dozens and dozens of backstories and tagging each one, but still. It's ridiculous.

[Rimatomics]

 First of all, credit to Sir Kitteh for mentioning this off-hand and inspiring me to write this post.

I love Rimworld. It's great. However, Tynan has made some note-worthy remarks about it.

Firstly:

Five years. I figure five years is a decent enough place. Five years are enough for $30. Five years are enough to call a game finished.

And secondly:

The "Beta" designation means that we're on the final stretch before the 1.0 release, and that there won't be major content additions like whole new game systems. Of course we will almost certainly add more content, before the 1.0 release or after.

So, what I get from that is (and anybody feel free to prove me wrong) that it's no longer economically viable, nor sustainable to put more time into the game at it's current price. It's just not justifiable. That being said, what if we could justify it?
The previous DLCs (Name in The Game, Backstory, Pirate King) were all certainly nice donations that helped fund development more than anything, but they weren't very. . . substantive. It was understood that purchasing them wasn't going to change the game - adding text and numbers being as simple as it is - in any major way, though that was the point. DLC for an incomplete or early access game doesn't have the best track-record. That being said, Rimworld's not going to be incomplete for much longer. 1.0's around the corner, and with it, less major game-changing additions (I assume).

If I've interpreted Tynan correctly, 1.0 means

• A slowing in development, as it'll be complete.
• No "major content additions".

However, I still get the feeling that Tynan would still work on it if there was more incentive to do so, he even mentions that he enjoys working on it in the first link provided. This leads me to believe that if there was a demand for DLC to add additional content to the game. Of course, justifying yet more time put into it would require more money, so people can eat and future projects can be funded.

So, what do you think that you and the general public would pay for, and what would it be? I'm not talking about random "suggestions"-worthy stuff here, like quality-of-life additions or "this one really cool idea for a gun/animal/armor." Perhaps it's my own definition, but I'd wager that the DLC would need to be capable of changing how you play with or interact with the game.  For example: there are the various works of Dubwise. Rimatomics adds a whole new level of technology and tools to the game, with their own processes to maintain and use all of them. Focusing on them can change how a colony looks and functiones, though you could still ignore it entirely if you so chose. Hygiene can be boiled down as adding a few more meters. It's endgame doesn't do more but add a shower and a toilet to the list of other essential things your pawn needs to exist, like eat and sleep. It's getting there that's interesting. Laying plumbing networks, building water towers and sewage treatment stations, it's all very interesting. Ignoring those processes mean a disease-ridden and broken colony, but managing them doesn't change the game too drastically. MarsX is a whole other beast, however. It builds on Rimworld like Long War did for XCOM. Interestingly enough, they all fit in with the base game perfectly. Playing with them all feel like another layer of depth in an already interesting game, and I could at least see myself paying to play with them and have the rough edges sanded off.

 A white dwarf is an interesting celestial body. The long and short of it is: A medium star (like our sun) will disperse it's energy until it's about the size of Earth. This small size means that, to have liquid water, you'd have to be almost twice as close to a White Dwarf as you would be to a medium star. As a consequence, it tidally locks the planet. This means, one side is getting all of the sunlight, one side is getting  none and is left in the cold, though there is a (potentially) habitable strip between these two extremes. This could be a pretty interesting scenario.

This isn't even adding a new system or anything overly complex, all we'd need is an adjustment to the planet generator. For one, it'd sure help exploration. Want to cross from a desert to a pole? Now you don't have to cross a planet to do so. Think you aren't getting enough interactions with other factions? Every settlement getting sandwiched between immolation and glaciation would certainly put an interesting spin on things. You might not have much reason to destroy a pirate base on a normal planet (six day trip that needs to be funded, fed, and taken care of, and that's not considering the return trip), but having enemies only a handful of tiles away might pose a more constant threat similar to insect hives.

 Just finished watching the Rage 2 trailer, and I loved the pieced-together mechs in it. . . plus mutants, lore, other vehicles, and neat weapons. I'd think it would be a neat enemy - as others have agreed since, like, ever - to see and fight. That being said, what is the ideal crossover for you? There are already some popular ideas, like whatever Jecrell has ever worked on, and some other smaller things, like the Argonian and the TiberiumRim mods.

Want extra credit? How would it fit into Rimworld's existing world and lore? Y'know, like Argonians being humans genetically adapted to living in swamps.



In General Discussion instead of suggestions as I must accept that we aren't getting RimCom 2: Terror from the Deep.

[Give animals traits.]

 I'm a big fan of the animals in the game. When I can, I try to make livestock a big point of my colony. It's especially interesting when you consider the various uses of the types of animals, such as chickens for their meat and eggs, muffalos for wool and milk, and boomalopes for chemfuel. However, I can't help but feel that they're missing missing something. . . animal traits!

As it is, animal husbandry is pretty lacking in the game. Want ranged weapons? You've got to work from smithing, to blowback operation, gas operation, precision rifling, and finally: Charge weapons. That's a lot of depth for arms manufacturers. Want animals?

• Tame a male animal.
• Tame a female of the same species.
• Await babies

Done. There's no research for caring for them, there's no way to breed them into different breeds (the domesticated-for-food pig is an entirely different beast to warthogs, for example), there's no way to make crossbreeds (Beefalos for example, were the result of hoping that the beefy front of a buffalo and beefy back of a cow would make one wonderful beef-tank), and the only reason you'd go to tame one critter over another was because they were close to their age expectancy or picked up too many injuries in the wild.

How would I fix this?

Give animals traits. I don't mean copy-paste things like pyromaniac and brawler to the "animal traits" folder or whatever, they've got some intesting things you could go off of.

• Skittish: Actively flee from people, requiring a minimal animals skill to approach (like how some structures require a certain construction skill to build).
• Big-boned. Naturally produce more meat when butchered than other animals. More health and less speed too, potentially.
• Stubborn. Refuses to be trained. Can still be butchered,
  bred, and confined to zones.
• Juicy. Naturally produce more milk/chemfuel, similar products for future animals (like if we ever had the ability to "milk" snake venom.
• Sterile. Can't produce offspring (their use is on a time limit).
• Thick coat. Produce more wool than other animals, vulnerable to heat.
• Beast of burden. Higher than average carry weight for hauling and caravans.

Now, we have a reason to go and buy a chicken even though we may already have thirty of the things. Get a couple of decent animals, and it becomes worth sacrificing the fertile soil you'd ordinarily devote to smokeleaf or devilstrand for some haygrass. You could single-handedly corner the chemfuel market, keep all of your pawns well-dressed for the winter with an abundance of woolen clothing, or just worry a lot less about food. As it is now, we don't really have a reason to keep this guys rather than the cotton or potatoes that we don't have to feed and care for.

Subspecies. Currently, we have canines. Even though wargs are underwhelming and there's not too noticeable a difference from dogs and wolves (both outmatched by boars) and Yorkies don't have a built-in hunting mechanic (they were bred to hunt burrowing pests and small predators, such as rats, badgers, and foxes), it's the right idea. Simply put, more of these kinds of variety would be a joy to see. Say we have a wolf, right? What if we had a research tree devoted to turning those guys into agile, easy to feed exterminators, or some loyal hounds who love to haul? Overall, more sidegrades or reasons to care which animal you got?

[Inspirations.]

 Everybody who's played tribal had lots of fun right up until they tried to study electricity, which is not a fun experience. As they have a rather low research speed, they're frequently frowned upon, as research has a massive impact on your colony. This is where I have a suggestion.

Inspirations.

Why do, say, guns take so long to research? Put yourself in their moccasins. You're used to a springy piece of wood and a tight string, the idea to utilize dark powder in a metal tube with a trigger and hammer mechanism is pretty far-off, they've never experienced it before. They can't just figure out what they don't understand.

- but what if they get a gun?

Pirate invades with an odd weapon that dispensed impossibly fast and tiny metal death. Pistol, survival rifle, shotgun, doesn't matter: They have somewhere to start from. They now know of these things, and can start with something more than a vague idea.

Essentially, an inspiration is a burst or multiplier on a specific research given to tribals upon the discovery of this advanced tech. They buy some proper medicine (the blue stuff) off of a merchant? Either +50% research speed on the "medicine production" project, or  a big boost in points towards that project.

Additionally, this would give the tribal players more of a reason to start - not caravans - but scouting expeditions. Send a scout out to a nearby settlement or town. They've got turrets, solar panels, possibly ponchos. Now, the essentials aren't such a pain, and you made a use for the long-lasting pemmican you start-off with.



A perfect idea this is not, though I believe it's at least some interesting way to help with the dreadful tribal research that isn't the "books or blueprints" I've seen recommended in other threads.

[Soldiermorphs]

 I really like the idea of Xenohumans in Rimworld. Some of the first mods I installed were the Cactacae, Apini, Leeani, and Crystalloid mods, which undoubtedly set in place my necessity for them even after several updates. The small bits of culture snuck into backstories, design, unique researches, and even small details like comfortable temperature added so much more depth than "get the greedy guy the nice bedroom" and "we have a valuable pawn who's a pyromaniac; start replacing the wooden floors". That being said, I will now highlight all of the confirmed Xenohumans that we know of in the canon as it currently is.

The best definition we have of Rimworld's brand of xenohumans is provided by the Ordo Historia in the Cryptosleep Revival Briefing (think of it to the closest thing we have to an Encyclopedia Rimtanica at this point in time). It is described in the section "The biology of humanity" as such:

Ordo Historia records list thousands of reported contacts with alien life. However, in every case that has been thoroughly investigated, Ordo inquierers have discovered that the alien was, in fact, simply another branch of humanity.

Beyond the technological diversity of our species, there is also a broad biological diversity. Some populations have evolved under the selection pressures of pre-industrial life or on a world of great heat or cold, or high or low gravity, or even worlds bathed in the toxic residue of hyper-destructive wars. Though almost all such xenohumans (as they are called) are recognizably descended from the original Earth stock, their morphology is highly variable. Some are giants; other are tiny or squat. Some are dark; others pale as snow. Some are hairy like animals; others perfectly smooth. Diets, dispositions, and chemical and radiological tolerances vary significantly.

More alien are those xenohumans that carry genetic traits that were engineered instead of evolved. Across the long history and thousands of cultures of humanity, people have applied a dizzying array of modifications to themselves. Some were created to adapt people to a specific environment. Others were made to create better soldiers, pilots, or generals. Some were engineered to satisfy a bizarre fashion trend in a society where bioengineering is available to anyone with money. Such modifications are rarely seen in their original form by anyone besides the culture that created them. However, they live on in their descendants long after their originating culture was erased by planetary catastrophes.

For example, records tell of an entire world repopulated by the descendants of a small group of bio-engineered soldiers; the only survivors of a planetary nuclear war. Everyone on this world carried an obsessive sense of duty, minimal sexual impulses, and little sense of creativity. This culture became dominated by a conservative pan-planetary religion with little interest in technology. It lasted eleven centuries in this state until it was invaded by a stellar neighbor (who wisely avoided ground combat in favor of orbital bombardment).

This gives us a couple things to go off of. Firstly, there are two types of xeno: Evolved and Engineered. Secondly, it is possible for a population of humans to progress far enough from another population that the resulting changes to their bodies are enough to be seen as alien, rather than human. Thirdly: All xenos are based on a human form, meaning our "aliens" are probably closer to "painted humans" (Klingon, Twi'lek, Asari) than not (Gorn, Hutt, Krogan).

Beyond that, we have only a handful of those thousands of xenohumans known to us, which I have divided into two groups: The explicits (plainly explained and understood) and the speculatives (we only have bits and pieces of them).



Let's start with the Explicits.

Soldiermorphs
Engineered humans similar to the Spartans of Halo. They're military pawns intended to listen to orders, execute them with brutal efficiency, and eventually be replaced with the latest model. Additionally, they are composed of two classes: The Grunts and the Commanders, with commanders differing in their superior intelligence and calculating skills.

Soldier variants carrying any of a large number of traits that various militaries have seen fit to bestow upon their people. Typically, they have large muscles and perfect eyesight. Some have minimized metabolisms made to digest a single kind of long-lasting nutrient solution, to make army logistics easier. Their lifespans are short - usually between ten and thirty years - and they grow up very fast. But the most significant differences are psychological. Engineered grunt soldiers are obedient, sense pain only in a distant way, obsessed with learning about weapons and war, and carry a strong need to be part of something larger than themselves. They are deliberately lacking in abstract intelligence and creativity. Engineered commanders are highly analytical, fascinated with military history, utterly cold under pressure, and masters at spatial visualization.

Gravity "Elves"/Dwarves
An evolved group of xenos, their physiology is based upon their home planet. "Elves" (not called elves, I just like that term) are products of weak gravity. This is reflected in their relative twigginess compared to humans. G-Dwarves, on the other hand, are stockier and smaller than humans, thanks to originating from higher-gravity planets.

Gravity variations create new body structures. People from low-g adapted populations are lighter, taller, and weaker than those from weightier environments. The most extreme examples are the gravity dwarfs, 3-foot-tall xenohumans from worlds of over 2g of gravity. Their short and stocky shape lets them live and work in comfortably in such oppressive g-pulls. They even have a noted preference for short and underground dwellings. It's unresolved whether this preference is cultural or genetic in origin.

Designer Mates
Engineered at birth to the eventual owner's tastes. Their main distinguishing features are odd colors and an ingrained submissiveness similar to the soldiermorphs. Unlike soldiermorphs - or any other xeno, for that matter - have almost no useful skills or talents. Maybe it would be worth feeding them and keeping them safe to sell them off later?

Some worlds engineer their idea of perfect mates for the rich and powerful. Such specimens are created with bodies to match the fashions of their homeworlds and the tastes of their owners. They tend to be obsessively submissive and devoted, totally without jealousy or self-regard, artistically inclined and endlessly cheerful. Such traits do not last long in an unrestricted evolutionary environment because they are so easy to exploit, but engineered mates are sometimes kept in cryptosleep long after their creation, to be traded into a post-catastrophe market that can no longer create them. The main contact most of us will ever have with such specimens is through their descendants, who, while they have most of the traits of the original in only a very diluted form, still occasionally express Mendelian traits like impossible eye shades, streaks of multicolored hair, or artistic patterns on the skin.

Now, for the speculatives.

Fashion Genes
Engineered. What you'd probably find in a low budget Sci-Fi B-movie. Essentially: "Let's put what we could find in the makeup room after the latest star wars finished production on somebody and call them non-human." Could essentially just be the humans we have, except with purple skin or a taller "thin" body type.

Fashion-driven genetic modifications are often applied during later life instead of prenatally, and are most often cosmetic and skin-deep. Variations in hair and skin color are common. More exotic modification add shining crests, color-changing skin and eyes, reshaped or elongated bodies, and colored nails, feathers, or fur.

Atmospheric Adaptants.
Those native to Africa are naturally a tad better at living there (darker skin for constant sun exposure, longer eyelashes for dust and sand in the air, taller bodies to better distribute heat) than others (Caucasians are far more prone to skin cancer and sunburn, brighter eyes more sensitive to light, more compact bodies hold heat too well). Similarly, xenohumans adapted to fit their environment, but in fare more extreme cases than more sunshine. We might expect those in the extreme deserts to have leathery skin and a more reptilian physiology to deal with the intense heat, for example.

Aquatic-adapted strains who can withstand breathing very high gas pressures and even survive days of immersion by exchanging oxygen through the skin (no true permanently-aquatic fish people have ever been confirmed).

Speculatives found in Backstories

Raiders
The vaguest of the xenos, there's not really any detail on them. We can assume, however, that they were either tough or influential enough to justify the use of Special Forces. Whether it's one "breed" of xeno, or an organization akin to Halo's Covenant, we don't know.
Source: Special Forces backstory.

Give me a reason to kill - a good reason! NAME was a soldier and a skilled one - so skilled that he entered the special forces to battle militants and xenohuman raiders. He never imagined himself a lone hero, but he played his part in the group well.

Abductors
Once again: vague . . . but now we at least know these guys have a goal of some sort. The abductors - I assume - are into abducting and experimenting humans to better understand their genetic structure, but can be assumed to not be physically strong (a growing human being capable of dealing with and escaping multiple of them). This leads one to believe that they are either so far removed from humans they forgot what it was to be one, or simply see them as "other". Perhaps similar to the Roswell Grey (abduction, experimentation, physically weak while mentally superior, observers). Could also just be Gravity Elves, who are essentially weaker than humans in every degree other than reaching for things off the top shelf. This would explain why they were overpowered by a human who's anywhere between adolescent to a young adult. They'd probably be real interested in finding a way to make themselves human-strong.

Source: Abductee backstory

NAME was abducted by xenohumans when he/she was still a baby. They experimented on him/her to understand his/her genetic structure. As he/she grew up, NAME grew a little bit too big and strong for his/her captors and eventually escaped.

Gnomes.
Whether they're the garden, fantasy, or some other variety, they are - apparently - a kind of human.
Source: G-Nome Sculptor backstory

NAME was engineered in a lab as part of the G-nome Project. He/She was implanted at birth with encyclopedic knowledge of all aspects of xenobiology.
The G-nome scientists nicknamed him/her Gizmo and occupied him/her with sculpting. He/She developed a love of sculpting gnomes and gnome accessories.

Hillbillies.
Furred and adapted to colder environments. Seemingly violent, whether it is due to their specific psychology or lack of cohesion with humankind is unknown. May very well just be fuzzier humans. Can be assumed as capable of operating banjos and partaking in alcohol that humans could.
Source: Hillbilly Prodigy backstory.

Born on a cold hillbilly planet inhabited mainly by furred xenohumans, NAME grew up to the sound of bar fights and shootouts. Though his/her childhood was spent playing the banjo and working as a mechanic, his/her abnormal intelligence made him want something more; he/she entered medical school at age twenty.

Now, brief Q & A.
Q: Do you honestly expect any of these to make it into the game?
A: No, probably not. Tynan's already got to deal with not breaking what he has, in addition to other long-requested additions such as vehicles, new forms of power generation , and pawn behavior that's probably going to provide far more flavor to the game than a pawn with some slightly tweaked stats and a fresh coat of paint. Plus, the modders can already do some impressive things with races. Modifying the game itself to something that plays completely different? That's more Tynan's thing.

Q: What did you procrastinate on to write this?
A: My English paper due in three and a half hours. I'm pretty passionate about my xenos.

Q: Why should we care about these filthy xenos?
A: Variety is the spice of life. Currently, the biggest gameplay changes we get in colonies are due to traits and the tile you spawned in. The issue is that all colonies start to look the same after a certain amount of time. Desert, tundra, temperate forest, hell, even modded biomes like caves and nuclear wastelands! Every colony has a patch of renewable energies that is always one or all of the three we currently have, there's a big fridge, some hydroponics because you can't trust nature to be reliable and fast, heating and cooling - either due to climate fluctuations or to balance each other out. Meanwhile, some of the best xeno mods out there make you change how you play in major ways, or they atleast give you a viable alternative. I take this moment to praise the Apini and the Crystalloid mods mentioned above, and really need more attention.

The Apini -if you didn't click the above link like some kind of savage- are, well, bee people. They're sweet and peaceful. They don't like mountains, which us players do. "Well then, how do you make them viable? No stone, no steel, what're we supposed to do?" Beeswax! They take wood and some sort of organic material (haygrass, smokeleaf, etc) and turn it into a usable material for construction and weapon crafting. Eventually, this leads to honey production, a highly valuable commodity that sells for a lot, and makes your colonists -bee or otherwise- real happy. Their backstories are naturally inclined to reflect this less turtley, more social/growing based community. Sure, you'll lack defenses, but the ability to make such a large volume of silver and beeswax walls combined with an inclination to animal husbandry can supplement this.

The Crystalloids are special in that they can force you out of your usual habits of playing. How? They've got pretty neat brains, in that they've got a "psionic node". This means that their consciousness is ramped-up a fair amount (making them faster at pretty much everything), though they're far more sensitive to psychic events and pain. Your super-worker could be crippled like a human with the wimp perk. Plus, they've got a special relationship with crystals. There are special psionic hotspots around the map that can produce free, infinite energy, just not a lot of it (similar to geothermal vents). These areas also boost the capabilities of Crystalloids. This generally promoted sprawling bases that took more advantage of the map than the mountain-covered edges or the absolute center.

Neither of these quick summaries, of course, fully encapsulate how much I love the xenohuman mods I've played with or my affinity for the general idea of them. Regardless, they exist in the canon (as I've well layed-out) and have been observed in community content to add a lot to the game that terrain and traits really can't without either going extreme. We don't even need anything too crazy or game-changing, either. A human with brighter hair or more bluish skin than normal could be seen as trivially easy to implement, a gravity dwarf would be a matter of a few new textures and messing with existing numbers (we don't even need more backstories, it's almost certain that a civilization settled on a planet with stronger gravity). If decidng what kind of features you wanted to add to xenohumans was too much, then CHJees's Androids mod does a great job at making a new type of pawn without stretching the realms of believability or imagination.

In summary?
Aliens are cool. I hope you all agree, or were at least enlighted to some information you didn't previously know.

[Shooting]

 Simple, really. I can understand somebody being totally inept with, say, Shooting. If a fair amount of pawns are some collection of farmer, office drone, or have some other similar "safe" backstory, I can understand 0 shooting skill. Similarly, a gigantic chunk of people in first-world countries have difficulty growing a houseplant, so I could understand people who come from planets completely coated in either glistening skyscrapers or concrete having difficulty with the concept.

Y'know what I can't understand?

The number of pawns I've had with between "Barely heard of it" (0) and "Beginner" (2) levels in either Social or Research skills. Do you mean to tell me that

• Cave Tenders, who literally have nothing else in their caves other than fungi and the people they care for
• An escaped convict who - as the lack a melee bonus - probably relied on kissing-up to guards and fellow inmates to survive
• Gatherers, who could be entirely responsible for their tribe's survival
• Message carriers, who needed to be able to break the bad news directly to nobility
• Geologists, who are specifically mentioned as working with other people
• Many, many more . . .

. . . are all capable of being totally socially inept? What about the fact that

• Aromatherapists, who use specific plants for specific uses
• Hunters, who are specifically mentioned as "learn[ing] to track and trap any animal in the most dangerous of places, and had deep knowledge of many ingenious methods of taking down specific large animals"
• Space bartenders, who "used his knowledge of herbs in order to craft his own strange concoctions for his customers"
• Wandering healers, who are mentioned as studying back when they were just "healers"
• Colony settlers, who actually volunteered to get planted on a Rimworld
• And many, many more. . . again . . .

. . . can all lack any problem solving, or are incredibly bad at researching (almost half the speed as a "capable amateur")?

I'm not implying that Tynan takes a week out of development to decide exactly how charismatic a deep space minor would be, or precisely how many years of space-college a sculptor attended to learn about art theory, and give them arbitrary scores for each and every backstory that doesn't already have a value. I just think that the average human - with our social tendencies and thoughtful brains evolved over thousands of years - should be a bit better at being, well, not a rock with a face drawn on it.

[Deus Ex: Mankind Divided]

 Currently, I'm using a system called Family Sharing on Steam, to share games with a buddy. This is pretty neat, but I do have a couple limitations. Namely: I can't give Rimworld a positive review, I can't rate mods, and I can't play it if he's playing anything from his library. . . and he's gotten into MMOs. . . so, yeah.

As I don't currently have too many funds to spend on it full-stop, I propose a trade of any of these games that I've acquired the keys to.

• Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
• GOD EATER 2 Rage Burst
• Holy Potatoes! We're in Space?!
• Lara Croft GO
• Laser League
• Last Day of June
• Lost Castle
• Mafia III (and Sign of the Times DLC)
• Outlast 2
• Overgrowth
• Subterrain

Want a $30:$30 trade? That's cool, I'll do it. Want $90 in games? That's cool too, I don't really care too much for them. I'm willing to trade any and everything for Rimworld (though, I'd appreciate not doing that, in the case a friend or someone else wants one of them down the line). Interested in a trade? This is how I'd prefer to do it.

• Friend me on Steam. Thousands of hours of gameplay, over thirty friends, and five years of service, this isn't some scam account.
• Shoot me a message with what you would like to trade for.
• Send me the Steam Key for Rimworld first. I understand this might be a tough thing to do, considering you've probably just paid around $30 for a game (or have a key sitting around) and you're taking it on faith, but it's at least fairly obvious I'm not about to scam anybody from the devotion I've put into this forum account and my Steam account. If you need proof, the most recent comment on my page is someone I traded keys with.
• After I have confirmed the Rimworld key works, and it's confirmed into my library, I'll send over the games you asked for!
• We're done! I am now happy with my Rimworld, and you get all the games you requested!

I hope you guys will consider my offer (and Admins/Moderators, if this is breaking a rule and you want to take it down, please let me know beforehand, so I can copy-paste it somewhere else before it's lost).

[Warfare Affinity]

 There are a couple classes of research out there, when you thinks about it, which makes researchers skilled in all of them a bit odd. As anybody who's attended school can attest to, it's a real "jack of all trades, master of none" scenario when you try to balance about six periods of different classes, and not fail any of them. Meanwhile, in Rimworld, making colored lights are technically rocket science, as a far as your researcher is concerned, as they study lights just like a biologist would study weaponsmithing. I suggest a change to this.

First of all, as this affects the rest of my suggestion, the "classes" of research.

• Agriculture. Food production and terrain management, it's all about cultivating the things around you to let nature put more effort into supporting you. Notable inclusions are: Moisture pumps, Devilstrand, Pemmican, and Brewing.
• Warfare. Offense, defense, you need it all to survive. Notable inclusions are: Precision Rifling, Mortars, Long Blades, and Power Armor.
• Technology. You can't stay in the stone age forever, or at least, you shouldn't. Notable inclusions are: Electricity, Multi-Analyzer, and Ship Tech.
• Processing. You're only going to get as much from the Rim as you put into it. Notable inclusions are: Refining, Complex Apparel, and Electric Smithies.

There are, of course, exceptions to these rules, and some things won't be either-or. Take growing lamps, for example. It's certainly technology, as it's based off of electricity. That's pretty complex. At the same time, it's a specialized light intended to aid plant growth, which is absolutely agricultural. However, it's certaintly closer to what would be a pure technology research (such as electricity or a multi-analyzer) than it is to what would be considered pure agriculture (devilstrand). This leads to my idea of a four-part split, kind of like making mixed drinks or some food. The example of sunlamps - which are basically standard lamps with an agricultural leaning - would be three parts technology and one part agriculture (3:1). Meanwhile, things like hydroponics - which have no use out of agriculture but are still advanced far beyond standard methods of farming - would likely be a 2:2 split.

How is this used? Well, researchers could have affinities, or there could be hardware that helps along the projects.

The affinities are just various traits, similar to green thumb and brawler. Here's an example.

Warfare Affinity: Topics concerning Warfare always came easy to ________, though they studied it at the sacrifice of ignoring other fields of study.
+5% research speed per Warfare value, -5% research speed for other values. +10 mood while researching depending on whether or not they're studying warfare. +2/3/4 permanent Intellectual skill.

Smithing ●●●/● = +15% increase.

Rough, yeah, but I'm open to suggestions. Why would we have these? They're so situational! Note that (most) pawns aren't one-trick ponies, they've got a lot of other things to bring to the table. The issue is: most people have a designated researcher. If they're falling behind in some skills, they're damned to the laboratory until the end of time. This way, swapping researchers out is encouraged, so everybody gets to participate in more aspects of the colony, and can build relationships with other pawns they otherwise wouldn't, reserved to one room for most of the day. If it sounds like too much work, you could potentially get a pretty major boost to your research overall to compensate.

Finally, to either add to the traits or to serve in place of them: Hardware modules. Like furniture, you could them from traders, and they appear to be boxes with one of the research class's colors and work like more specific multi-analyzers sized to be 1x1, with a capacity to fit two. Get a technology module? Plug it in the side, and get a similar effect to a pawn with Technology Affinity, improving a dedicated research, but slowing others. Why use this? If you want to make a dedicated rush for Precision Rifling, you have to research not only that, but also Gunsmithing, Blowback Operation, and Gas Operation, which would be undeniably Warfare orientated.

So, what do you guys think about my suggestion that's probably never going to get remotely close to implemented and is probably just closer to me messing around with the "Change Color" feature?