Less severe "incapable"

[mumblemumble]

I find that the "incapable"  thing is a bit much,  and most people don't bother with colonists who have any,  at least for the first 3. Not to mention the joke video of 3 nobles, who barely made a home,  only because a random dude showed (who they arrested once he was done).

This gets me thinking. What if, instead of them literally unable,  there was just so massive downsides ,  its not worth it?

Incapable of violence? Make them shaking and ineffective in combat, with giant mood debuff for hurting, or especially killing.

Hauling? Half the speed, mood debuff, can't carry as much,perhaps stops halfway through.

Construction? Prone to breaking what they build, or wasting material.

Social? Besides being unable to warden (this i get)  perhaps have them fuck up on trader orders,  ordering the wrong stuff


Medicine? Cause huge pain on any medical procedure, mood debuff patient.

These are just ideas,  but it would be funny to see an assassin sew up another colonist with no anesthetic  , and having the colonist in question scared for a month since he was almost butchered by a calous doc

[SaintD]

Yeah the 'incapable' thing needs retooling, along with a lot of the colonist attributes system. Being 'incapable' of doing something should be a rare quirk requiring highly extreme events or as a result of serious health problems. A medieval lord shouldn't be incapable of hauling and other menial tasks if he is not a physical cripple. He should receive a negative mood for doing it to represent his disgust with having to do such a job.

The problem is that the approach to colonist backgrounds is all wrong. Many are far, far too specific, as opposed to being archetypes. There's a childhood/adulthood pair that provide good examples of a backstory done right, and a backstory done badly. 'Medieval lordling' is a good backstory, as it provides a broad and non-specific description of the basic conditions of their childhood and the effects it would have:

"[Character] was a minor noble in an old kingdom on a medieval world. He/She grew up in a manor made of stone, served by bowing lowerclassmen. Such a life teaches no technical skills and instills a lifelong aversion to manual labor - but [Character] learned early the ways of social manipulation."

The actual result is a -1 to the manual labour skills like construction, and a +4 to social skills. There is no 'incapable' here, just a logical lack of knowledge or inclination towards lower class trade skills. A medieval lordling has realistic strengths and weaknesses applied to them because of their childhood, but they're not rendered incapable of learning new things and growing or changing as a person.

The 'medieval lord' backstory, however, is bad:

"[Character] was a lord on a preindustrial planet. He/She went to parties, managed the underlings, and even learned some swordplay.
His/Her soft hands did not hold a work tool during that entire time. He/She considers manual labor to be beneath him/her."

This comes with a hard incapability to do any labour, and there are two resultant problems with this. The first is the immediate problem that this colonist is basically worthless. The way the game is set up makes us more acutely aware of and more concerned what with a colonist CAN'T do as opposed to what they CAN do. I don't care that this guy can fight and do research....maybe, if I'm lucky. I care that he's a worthless idiot who can't haul or clean between raids, and worse, his ability to fight doesn't tend to even outstrip the abilities of others. He's just an organ donor or slave commodity.

This isn't how we should be feeling about our colonists. We shouldn't have to be so much more concerned about the almost arbitrary list of things they will never, ever do no matter what, than we are about what they're good at.

The second problem is stories. Rimworld openly advertises itself as being about stories. The game is controlled by a storyteller, and our colonists have all this backstory detail in order to create somewhat distinct and unique people who we'll care about (narratively, at least). I don't agree at all with a lot of the backstories we have because they're far to specific and defined, as opposed to being broad archetypes. Every single medieval lord in the game is a stuck up prick who will never, ever do any form of labour. That backstory doesn't facilitate storytelling, it restricts it. A medieval lord in this game can never 'make good' on himself. He can't learn to build, or knuckle down in this bad situation and drag the wood with the rest of the peasants....at least until they have enough low class scum to do it themselves, anyway. He is, and always will be, the exact same medieval lord in every single game.

As another example, the heavy reliance upon 'incapable' even starts stepping on itself....the 'scout' childhood disables doing research. They're incapable. And yet, I've lost count of the amount of research based adulthoods like 'navy scientist' that we attached to the 'scout' childhood, and thus are strangely incapable of performing their own adulthood.

What needs to happen is that childhood and adult backgrounds need to be ground down into archetypes that don't, in themselves, tell specific stories about the colonist (and thus force the use of 'incapable' to service their own very specific story), because that destroys all potential for our own stories within the game.

More examples? 'Coma child'. The number of people who spent their childhood in a coma in Rimworld makes Warhammer 40,000 look like a better place to live. How about little constraining details? Like 'Abandoned child' perhaps? A quick witted, funny child who had wealthy genetic parents, wandered off into an ore warehouse, and was forgotten about after the parents decided to just clone a replacement. That's incredibly specific and I can see this same person over and over again. I'm tellin' ya, 40k is looking less dystopian by the second....at least they don't have abandoned ore warehouses filled to the brim with abandoned clone babies (they instead give them a Kreig uniform and send them to war). Ok, we'll step back from dystopian madness. Amateur botanist. "Instead of learning to cook the food he grew, he just grew more and more", and cooking is disabled. That's every single amateur botanist in the game.

These backgrounds are frequently written like they're for a singular, specific character without remembering that they will be applied to dozens, maybe hundreds, of people. They remove all storytelling potential because they care more about trying to tell their own very specific little story, and thus making colonists 'incapable'. Even otherwise good stuff gets ruined by adding little 'details'....like the Deep Space Miner. It's doing great until, oh, there we go, now every single deep space miner in the entire universe of Rimworld is pretty good in a bar fight. Why? Because +2 melee, that's why.

And this is all putting aside stuff that doesn't even make sense and throws you out of any vague pretense of storytelling because they're so 'gamey'. Like the Youth Soldier. Hauling is disabled. Why? Blatant game balancing. The description mentions that the character explicitly excelled physically, and learnt the value of hard work! But they can't haul! Dear God, hauling is practically all most of the military DOES!

[Toggle]

Don't forget, some of the backstories are made by people who paid extra, so they can't be re-balanced as it was the persons wishes. It's why some things might be strange like that, such as the 'test subject', the adult backstory disables medicine, but it gives like a +3(or something) to medicine.

[FMJ Penguin]

Don't forget, some of the backstories are made by people who paid extra, so they can't be re-balanced as it was the persons wishes. It's why some things might be strange like that, such as the 'test subject', the adult backstory disables medicine, but it gives like a +3(or something) to medicine.

Def didn't know anything about that part. Would be nice to have a bit more work put into it though. Some things just don't makes any sense at all let alone the age of colonists don't fit ither. Feels like a placeholder right now and far too randomized. Doesn't bother me at all that there are crazy backstories but it does when they just get thrown together and completely clash with traits, talents, other backstories, ages, etc....

I sure hope it's just a placeholder script for the time being and not the end result.... kinda blows having to random mash untel you find a few pawns who don't look like they lived 3 seperate lives by age 20.

[akiceabear]

SaintD nailed it - strongly agree with his views on this. I think there is scope to retool the paid-for backstory attributes without pissing off backers - its a stats adjustment, not to the story itself. Maybe paid-for backstories could be unique versions of more common archetypes.

[SaintD]

Don't forget, some of the backstories are made by people who paid extra, so they can't be re-balanced as it was the persons wishes. It's why some things might be strange like that, such as the 'test subject', the adult backstory disables medicine, but it gives like a +3(or something) to medicine.

And those people need their addition thrown back at them for editing. There's already a giant list of terms and conditions for writing those backstories, and the game is in alpha. They knew what they were getting into.

When it gets down to it, their attitude should be that they believe in the project and that's why they paid money for it, not that they wanted to make a transparent, unimaginative attempt to shoehorn Chell into the game, and if they can't they'll take their ball and go home.

[Toggle]

Yeah... people are being touchy about that. They paid extra which helps fund rimworld another day by not letting Tynan die, so I think their backstories are fine. You can't go back and redo them after someone pays for them to be a specific way.

[JesterHell]

there was another thread that tried to address this this topic, here my quote from it.

That sounds very good but I'm not sure how you can make the AI realise it was the noble man's fault, who knows the turret wouldn't have saved the person that died?

I was thinking of a 'force enable' action which would give the noble man a strong debuf to his mood. Over time, and I'm talking about like half a rim year this debuf would dissapear. In stages like:
1. I can't believe I have to do such insulting tasks! (Mood -10)
2. I hate the jobs I have to do but I guess I have no choice. (Mood -5)
3. Although I prefer my old life, I should make the best of what I have now. (No more mood debuf)

Along with that I think there should be a new soft mental break down, melancholy. It wouldn't result in the person leaving the colony but it would make him a lot less productive, he will eat less, be more prone to illnes, make longer walks outside the colony and want more private time. It could go both ways from here on out, or he gets happier again or he goes into full depression with suicidal thoughts and more.

I think that incapable jobs should be treated like you suggested where you can enable them for a mood penalty but that the value of the mood penalty is dependent on the situation of your colony, What I mean by this is that the number of colonist should effect how they feel about doing the job, an example being.

1. with 7 or less colonists - "I guess if I want to survive I'll have to do everything I can" no penalty
2. with 14 or less colonists - "I know its about survival but surly someone else could do this?" -5 penalty
3. with 21 or less colonists  - "I can't believe I have to do such a demeaning task!" -10 penalty
4. with 22 or more colonists - "NO! get someone else to do it!" becomes incapable and refuses to do it anymore.

I think this way if you get a incapable colonist early in the game they can still be useful to the colony but they remain "incapable" in that they never stop disliking those job, even if they do the job for 10 years they still hate it they just accept that it has to be done... at least until theirs someone else to do it.

[Boston]

I, personally, find it completely asinine that there are characters whose backstories prevent them from doing any work at all.

Like:

"Listen, I know we just literally fell out of the sky, and we are all hungry, cold, tired and scared, and we need to all band together to survive this strange death-world, but........
...there is no way I am going to be carrying those packages of meals. It just isn't going to happen. My noble upbringing prevents me from doing things in my best interest, so long as it is distasteful. And "peasant work"? Distasteful! What.... what do you mean I can't have any of the food if I don't help? Don't you know who I am?!"

Seriously, I facepalm whenever I read a backstory that prevents someone from cleaning or hauling. I can see preventing fighting/hunting (pacifist), researching (uneducated), or even cooking, but literally anybody can sweep a broom or carry something.

A nice "real world" example of "incapable" activities: Jamestown. The first settlers were all nobility and "gentlemen", and as such, they didn't want to get their hands dirty. The overwhelming majority of them starved to death. When new settlers (more of the same nobility and gentlemen, funnily enough), everyone buckled down to build proper shelter, a defensive wall, and get some food growing.

Your fussy principles about class and status soon disappear when you are hungry and cold.

[FMJ Penguin]

Game just doesn't have room for freeloaders anymore. With everything that's been added, those three starters pawn can't be useless anymore. Mods just compound that problem by giving your lil dudes even more to do in a day. So yeah, I think it may just be a case of stricter management required so it makes those pawns that just "can't" seem even more detrimental then they did 3+ alpha's ago. Hell, at one time I didn't even care what my starting pawn makeup was cuzz it honestly didn't much matter unless I had literally zero haulers haha. Not even sure what point I was tryin to make with all this yammering on now....... don't think I had one hahahaha. So how about that weather? 

[JesterHell]

I think  this picture illustrates most player opinions on this issue. 

[MultiDavid]

I think  this picture illustrates most player opinions on this issue. 

Indeed, not only that, i believe some people could always change, and stop becoming incapable of doing a certain thing.

[Wex]

My idea is: we have this pawns. They have something that needs to be done. They won't like, but there's no other option.
Won't they eat even raw human meat if they need to?
What about hauling some timber?!? It's too extreme for you?
This makes no sense.