Ability to have babies

[Granitecosmos]

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.

[grrizo]

Ah, this brings me back to the old days of playing Black & White...
I had positioned shortcuts at my sacrificial altar and the daycare, so I could more quickly transport the babies. 16000 faith for a toddler was really effective.

Mmmm... when your first Crèche just makes it easier for your Wolf to fling children into the pit so you can throw more fireballs at Lethys...

OMG, so great memories. Sacrificing childs and pregnant women just to destroy that bastard's temple.

Talking about the subject, I don't think that it will be implemented neither. Probably in some kind of DLC/expansion it could be added, but not in other way.
I just hope that the modders could have a more paved road to implement it by themselves in the meantime, because I think it would be interesting. Contrary to what is generally thought, colonies can sustain in large periods of time if you're playing in Rough or less. Of course, it depends of the in-game events too.

[Third_Of_Five]

But I've stated this one already and so far noone managed to come up with any counter-arguments against it.

Not only is this not true, as I literally just provided my own counter argument, but you seem to have in fact proven 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.

As for the rest of your argument, I've already stated before why I think this is wrong. 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.

[Granitecosmos]

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.

[Third_Of_Five]

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.

*sigh* Honestly I don't really care enough about this argument to keep spending time on it. I see your point now, granted, but you seem to keep coming back to this implicit claim that there is an objectively correct way to play the game, which I disagree with. Some people want to play far into the late game, building up a massive settlement that lasts decades. Others will just play the game normally, like you said, and max out the tech tree after 12 years or so in order to build the ship and leave the planet. How long the player wants to play the game is up to them, and subsequently how much time they are willing to invest in raising a child in their colony is also their choice. You may not think it's worth the investment, but there is no objective basis for that claim.

Anyway I've rambled on enough. This just isn't worth my time anymore, and I will concede that you do have a very good point of pointing out the devs' statement regarding adding new game mechanics, which I was not aware of, making this whole argument pointless anyway. So if it brings closure; you win.

I still disagree with you on a few things, but these disagreements are entirely a matter of opinion so there's no point in continuing.

[Foefaller]

The problem with generational colonies is that the pace of the game isn't really set up for it. The passage of time is simply too slow to feasibly make children that grow up to be adults an interesting mechanic (or at least, a mechanic that would have much of a payoff). IMO the years go by much faster to make childbirth a meaningful way to grow your colony.

That being said, I'm not quite of the opinion that there is zero point to having anyone below the age of 18. While it's probably a post-launch project, I can see a lot of things you could do with that. Having a child might be a source of joy for the non-pychopathic parents, or at least another thing that might change mood. You could find children in pirate bases you raided, lost in the wilds after their town was destroyed by something, and maybe have it be a quest to re-unite them with their family, or have the colony adopt them to raise as their own. You can avoid most of the moral and PR backlash by doing things like making them impossible to harvest or butcher, always have pirates and the like attempt to capture rather than kill them, and have them "run away" with Houdini-like ease when their life-or-death needs aren't met. Most would accept that I would think, and you can leave the repugnant stuff for mods.

[JimmyAgnt007]

Really?  This again?  Can someone re-sticky my Frequent Suggestions Thread?

[patoka]

You know what the most annoying part of Lost, Breaking Bad, and The Walking Dead are? The frickin' babies. No babies plz. Drop pods make pawns sterile, dontcha know? There's some sort of a pollen floating around on the planet that makes conception impossible as well. True facts.  Babies are lame. Down with babies in video games. Don't need 'em, don't want 'em neither. If you want a negative byproduct of lovin' how about STDs instead? Seems much more thematic to Rimworld. Burning pee > babies. Did I mention no babies? No babies.

I'm confused, is this satire?

even if it was, i completely agree with the statements made. no babies please. i have played video games for decades now and none have implemented children as a part of the game that i couldnt live without. each and every child could have been replaced by an adult until now, no problem. maybe a little person, in some cases. no need for them to be actual babies.
all this said, i believe i have quite some arguments FOR having children in the game which have either never been posted before, or just not in this thread and others i have read on this topic.

1) tell me the longest ongoing, most recognizable and on the surface child friendly looking tv show. i assume everyone just stood up and said "that would be the simpsons, mr. patoka, sir" and i would congratulate you on your excellent answer. the simpsons - where child abuse (most prominently a dad choking his own son so hard that his head swells up repeatedly and it used as a dank meme) is made family friendly.
say what you want, that the days have changed or that sjw's are too stronk nowadays or that 'murica is the most important market and they have lotsa wusses among them. the simpsons is a flagship of american entertainment and social values. if homer simpson can strangle his child in prime time so can we do whatever we like with children in rimworld (just to be safe, rimworld is at least rated pg 13, right?)

2) now that that ridiculous moral issue is out of the way (in 2018 AND on the internet, discussing moral issues of this kind...who would've thought?) we can go to the interesting stuff: who said children had to be the same in rimworld as they are in real life on planet earth? adults get the same age related diseases after much less time in rimworld as people get in real life (because of shorter rimyears), so why not expand on this and make them grow up even faster? we could even cheat with their age and make them "adult" (i think in rimworld 15 year olds are already controlable and 18 is considered adult, right?) before they spent that many years in your colony? heck you could even hide their age and after let's say 4 in game years give them age 15 and done, you can use that pawn. 3 years later it will get an adult backstory and noone cares if you didnt actually sit there for 18 in game years. besides, pregnancy is also long, annoying and kind of useless. just make it take a quadrum or so. elephants arent pregnant for two whole years either like in real life, right?

3) already forgot about vatgrown soldiers? sure, if you dont wanna screw with time, i get it, no need to make point 2 reality. but vatgrown humans are completely made up and therefore the time to form a baby and for it to grow up are completely up to tynan (and us, i guess). just gotta add a new researchable thing called "evolution vat", a building called evolution vat, some basic functions and babies. research it, build it, send a male and a female pawn there (only sex matters. no matter what gender or sexual orientation or what relationship status, even granny and grandchild are POSSIBLE. if it is any good for pawn thoughts is a different thing), let them spend some time with the evolution vat, (maybe send a third person who is a doctor), send everyone on their ways, wait for a quadrum or something and boom you have a vatgrown child of your own and those bad boys are canon. only question is if evolution vats should be implemented as actually buildable and usable objects. like with most things in the suggestions topic i'd guess no. which is ok since i dont actually want them implemented. just wanted to show you some options.

4) and last option is not being able to "make" babies yourself. you just get them through events and stuff, everything that has been already talked about before. babies never have ages that you find this way. at some point thex just turn adult and claim to be 15/18 or whatever. no need for childbirth, pregnancy, incest, everything is nice and simple. and if the foster parents get rekt, any other random couple can take them in

also, kids wouldnt be useless worms. asia shows us day for day that children indeed can tailor. how else would you guys buy your cheap clothes in h&m and all the other shops? it's because kids are able to do good worm fast and get paid little even by third world standards. harsh, but true. and you dont see people going to the barricades over this anymore. it is an ugly but accepted reality. kids can work under the harshest of circumstances. no wonder they were and still are used in unregulated mines in africa and asia as cheap workers. might not be strong enough to use a pick axe efficiently, but surely they can carry and light a little candle and then walk away (actually is dynamite). they can easily work the fields and can definitely play and teach animals to do stuff. children are approximately as smart as the smartest animals out there so they can learn from eachother aswell. like hauling stuff. attacking people with teeth and claws/fists. feeding animals should also be easy as pie, just as taming them. ok, they cant research for shit, but they can easily craft. like how hard can it be to roll a blunt? if kids can make footballs, they can also make joints end of story. kids CAN do art. most people dont see it as art, but so do i not see their works as art i guess i dont count, but there have been child prodigies in recorded history like beethoven and mozart, so the argument of children producing art still stands. next one on my list is construction. while i havent found any specific data or have anything in memory, i am sure children have worked on construction sites and still do in some places. heck, even in the first world it is widely accepted to send 16 year olds to work there. it isnt far fetched that considerably younger children could also do a good job there, not unlike other child labourers. ok most children suck at cooking, but would it be too much to ask of a child to cook a simple meal every now and then when its comrades produce t shirts? especially when it comes to pressing a button on a nutrient paste machine, even two year olds should grasp that no matter what. teens could definitely cook better though, even lavish meals. smithing could be some trouble, but it shouldnt be too hard for them to swing a lighter hammer and make nails and smaller stuff. smithing longswords and maces would be definitely too hard for anybody else than a teenager. and no matter how tough females and how emancipated we are, i highly doubt even one in a thousand women could become blacksmiths in real life, but since rimworld is more progressive in that regard and even lets sick fat old women produce weapons no problem, even if the quality is a bit questionable, the end result will always be functional. i honestly dont think it would be too mucb of a stretch that even kids can smith. social. easy. everybody likes kids. but kids are naive. if you go trade with a kid you'll get worse prices. kids wont make for good prison guards either because they essentially cant do any useful melee. but for recruiting prisoners their cuteness could be a plus. also, if you're a prisoner and a group of people wants to recruit you for their causes, if there was a healthy and happy child wandering about among them, wouldnt that kind of show how good and safe of a place that is? i'd much rather join a group of strangers in a long term survival situation like this if they have a child. then, medicine. you might think this is the one point aside from research, where kids are useless, right? indians taught us that this is wrong. look it up if you dont believe me. many regions of india are so poor that they only have child docs and they dont care about child labour laws either, so perfect combo for overworked and undereducated docs in a hospital. all kidding aside, kids can be docs good enough for many things. especially since there are so many health illiterates, kid docs can help a lot, even if they probably cant pull off a cancer removal surgery or lung harvest, yet. i let the most burning of all questions for last. it also happens to be the possibly darkest of them all. can children shoot and therefore fight? yes they can. i myself have shot a weak pistol as a 6 year old and guns arent even legal in my home country for civilian use. (dont ask how i did it, i dont wanna get my teachers into trouble) anyway. i can shoot a pistol and i never did it before or since. it is a simple task. i even shot an aim reasonably well at a distance. now let's go to current day africa. or 2012. kony 2012. remember? the guy that kidnapped children to work in his army? give a child a fully automatic assault rifle and it suddenly has the same possible damage output as an adult. probably cant aim for shit, but that is beside the point. the child can shoot, it has been prooved enough times already on the internet aswell as in rl.

will a child do all its tasks like a level 20 adult? no. will they do it at a reasonable rate to be worthwhile? definitely. worth to feed? yes. worth to save up a bed? quite so. worth to wait for it to be born and grown up enough to do some jobs

sorry about the wall of text, wife is awaiting