Colonist scumming or take what you get?

[jimoc]

When I start a new game I always tend to reroll my colonists so they have either Jogger, Industrious, Fast Walker and Hard Worker or Psychically Deaf and all jobs avalable to them and under the age of 30.
Does everyone do this or do people normally play with the 3 they get and to hell with the consequences?

The one time I was tempted to do this my first colonist was a 67 year old Industrious, Highly Neurotic Political Assassin who couldn't do any jobs except kill!

[Sartain]

I re-roll them a bit until I have something that looks acceptable but I'm not too fussy about age or traits, just mostly trying to avoid any particularly annoying banned jobs.

[Goo Poni]

I just use the Prepare Carefully mod. The constant rerolling is not for me. I'm already rolling them over and over and over for a particular trait or two so why not just give the colonists the traits and be done with it?

[skullywag]

Agree i dont even move to the next alpha until EdB updates PC and his UI.

[RickyMartini]

A part of the game is randomness anyway, you can help that by reshuffling. I understand that sometimes you want to start up with the perfect colonists but who would want to destroy the games spirit by just cheating like that?

And yeah I do that often, sometimes for over a minute until I have at least one psychopath. 

[Vexare]

I've done it both ways and it can be fun with 'random' rolled characters or really irritating if all three are stinkers.

Sometimes the 'stories' (if you're more into the RPG aspect) you get with the somewhat negative characters can really make the game interesting though. Like I tried starting with a noble. Of course they won't do diddly other than fight / hunt so I made the story as being told from one of the other's point-of-view and of course it's full of complaints of how lazy and snobby the noble is and won't help them out. That was a test run, however, using EdB's Scenario mod and the crashed ship option where you can save more than 3 to start with. I think that test run had about 6 (that's tough to start out with btw) and everyone worked hard except the noble who just stood around until there was something to shoot at haha.

But anyways, I encourage people to do a 'random' roll (don't look at whatever the game picks for you) because it can sometimes end up being a lot more fun than if you cherry-picked the perfect ones.

[Cryonist]

I mostly reroll till i get decent ones. I avoid the bad traits mainly since they can ruin my colony early .

[Bitharne]

I re-roll to avoid really bad stuff...no real goal to get hard workers/fast walkers/etc, just don't want dudes who refuse to work or will break the second they don't get a lavish meal and perfect-shiny surroundings.

[TheNewTeddy]

I usually do the following:

No prohibitions (IE can't haul)
No very bad traits (depressed, or heat tolerant in a tundra)
Under 40

The first ones I find that qualify are my team.


This is partly due to the fact I am new and suck. Otherwise I'd be much less restrictive, and likely simply make sure no two colonists are restricted on the same one thing.



With Prepare Carefully I'm more liable to turn one colonist into myself, and take the others as they come.

[muffins]

I roll and roll for colonists that can do everything, plus good growers, miners and cooks. Any good traits are a bonus.

[Listy]

First time round I ran with the randoms I was given. Since then I've tended to re-roll to get moderately competent people. I don't really care about the age though.

A couple of colonies ago I tried going without re-rolling. But at the moment there's far to many bad traits flying about. The colony collapsed in under 6 months with most of the people suffering mental brakes and naffing off.

[REMworlder]

It can be fun playing with randoms, but certain combos (eg, 3 nobles) aren't fun. I'll usually roll a few times until I get a combination I find interesting, like lord, artist, grower.

That said, if I see an abrasive colonist I almost always re-roll.

[BoogieMan]

I don't really care for random colonists, I find it more fun to try specific types and combos. So long as you don't overdo it and stick to some guidelines so you don't make OP colonists it works out nicely.

[ManWithNoName]

I try and stick to the colonists im given but in one my games this was a bad because one colonists just stood around like a lemon in the cold and i had to recruit them to make them walk inside to the shelter, they couldn't do anything till i got research up and growing which was quite abit away. Of cause i just restarted because this was in an ice sheet inviroment need all hands on deck.

Will agree though some traits like depressive, pessimist and too smart can be annoying with "mental break imminent!" every two seconds, or with them not being able to do anything other than melee or shooting.

Just to add i thought this topic was on about visiting factions stealing mey gear out of stock piles lol

[christhekiller]

I usually use Prepare carefully.

Otherwise I reroll until I find colonists with certain specialties and no mood penalties like too smart or cynical