Kesa

[Dr. Z]

I'm currently finishing my last Alpha 8 colony, and this colony definitely learned me the value of a good support colonist which can't fight. Let me tell you why.

I really don't remember how Kesa joined us, but she was the first (and only) new character to join my initial three colonists. She was a coma child and became a glitterworld empath which mean she's not able to do anything violent. Originally I just recruited her to do hauling and cleaning jobs and planned to sell her into slavery once my colonists could handle the situatuion better and we might have found someone usefull.

But in the very first fight she proved her true value for the colony. I think it was tribals which incapacitated all my three fighters after taking down the first line of turrets. If she would've been part of the fight we would've been probably dead, but because she had to stay back, she was able to carry all three colonists under turret cover back into the main building and heal them up, because she's also a passable doctor. With her in the back we managed to recover (except for all my fighters now having a peg leg) and survived what seemed like dozends of raids and sieges till now (I have a AI core and a ton of gold in my stockpile, as I said, I'm finishing the colony).

Another time I send my at this point only availible fighter to the sandbags (1.12 c/s movement speed) just to recognize that I didn't gave him his gun back after his latest hospital visit. So I created a critical weapons stockpile next to him and ordered Kesa to bring him a weapon from the armory to hold the line once again.

A few fights ago (it's the only possible calculation of times i've got left) one of my guys even got kidnapped, but we managed to stay alive till today with uncountable rescues from Kesa (but also some unbelievable sniper shots and a scyther-melee-kill!).

In future colonys I will always aim to have at least one supporter who is forced to stay out of the fight. Maybe even as a starting colonist with sprinter, but I'm not sure about that. I imagine this also as a use for the personell shields in Alpha 9 and am exited to see how they work.

[Vexare]

I was playing a lot of 'take what you get' random rolled characters while learning the game and I have to say there's definitely value in non-violent / non-fighting characters who stay behind and end up being "field medics" as your Kesa was. It's a valuable tactic. Good story!

I think too often the ability to roll 'perfect' characters detracts from the sometimes unrealized usefulness of those we originally thought were not going to work out. Because I rolled a lot of characters I originally hated and then ended up liking, I've now changed my playstyle for Alpha 9 and will be rolling three almost useless (other than medical, shooting and social skills) characters who are actually excaped convicts in one way or another and will be forming their own pirate slave-trading operation on my chosen RimWorld. Opens up a whole new philosophy of playstyle for me where we capture most of our 'workers' and utilize heavy trait / skill ranking in order to decide who goes to the front-lines of battle and who stays behind to support the defense and life of the colony.

Careful stat / skill boosting doesn't always lead to the balance we thought it did in this game. Sometimes you need dumb labor and standby help. Cheers to all the Kesa's of RimWorld!

[cultist]

Empaths are becoming one of my favorite character types. They pretty much always have a decent medicine, growing, art of crafting skill, jobs which can easily fill up most of a colonist's time. And because they don't fight, you don't risk losing your social monkey which can be devastating in the early game. Empath-doctors are probably one of the most useful non-violent colonists.