The mood penality for selling prisoners

[WickedGoddess]

I really feel like the only people who should feel bad when you sell a prisoner is the warden/wardens who care for them. It is sort of like a bonded animal in a way. The trainer feeds and talks to and forms a bond with the animal. Only the wardens deal with the prisoners like they are people, feeding and talking to them. Some of my colonists never even enter the prison, why do they care about these people?

[Vaporisor]

Think of it like back in the 1800s.  People thought that slavery was wrong and risked imprisonment and death even to help slaves escape to the north.  It is a moralistic point of view that even if you did not know the person, the concept of being part of something immoral affects them.  It is the same thing with butchered humanlike and why even eating human nutrient paste makes a bad mood.  Even if you didn't put the meat there, people talk and you know it is in there....

[este788]

yeah but most of the time the people in your prison are people that tryed to kill you and destroy your colony so i mean , why would the colonists feel bad about selling them as a slave ?

[Vaporisor]

yeah but most of the time the people in your prison are people that tryed to kill you and destroy your colony so i mean , why would the colonists feel bad about selling them as a slave ?

Why did they make the call to capture and heal them up in the first place?  Was it to reform them or sell them?  It is part of the story.  They come to kill you and you have a personal choice of leaving them to die or locking them up.  The choice to sell them instead of executing or releasing is one of the bigger.  They come to kill, so you execute after and get a small mood penalty vs slavery which is a bigger choice? 

Theoretically, you could play the game as a massive prison.  having some mega structure in core made up of individual prisoner rooms with security turrets etc.  Putting ourselves in the colonists shoes.  Yeah, they came to kill and kidnap your people, but are you the same?  No.  If they die from their wounds as you treat your own or lack the facilities, so be it.  But the mood hit is the classic don't become the monster in my perspective.

It would be nice to have some differentiation in the level of punishment maybe?  Pirates attacking vs some townsfolk you pissed off or arrested?

[SuperCaffeineDude]

+1

Reform translates to "you work for me now", which really seems no better than slavery.

I think honestly and inversely Vaporisor, most colonists would be unhappy about releasing prisoners, most societies IRL would grumble at the release of any murderer or terrorist, and would be even less happy to adopt them into their communities.

Aside from the humanists, in my opinion, the majority of colonists should be more than happy to sell prisoners that have wronged them, it's got to be the player (the leader) who says no despite the financial and emotional pressure to punish the badguys.

But yeah absolutely if there was some record of crimes that would be amazing... like; killed molly the sheep, shot George the Blacksmith, broke a solar-panel, we hate him.

(Imagine if instead of a lethal injection we had a hangman's rope that people gather round for a small mood change, i.e. witnessed justice/injustice, that's got to be like a 1000 space-western points. )

Perhaps the repercussions could, rather than being your colonists mood, be poorer relations with you're nicer neighbors, resulting in less trade and assistance and less cowardly attacks AKA: You'll never take me alive. With a record for mercy resulting in voluntary surrender, good relations, and a nice warm feeling.

[Zombra]

When I wonder about the appropriateness of anything in this game, I think back to Firefly, which Tynan often cites as a major setting inspiration.

-----

Reynolds: Pardon me, Kaylee, Shepherd; didn't mean to interrupt.  Picked up some rations - here.

Kaylee: Well!  Captain!  This is the good stuff!  Guess the mission turned out shiny?

Shepherd Book: It's satisfying to see your hard work earn a just reward, Captain.

Reynolds: Mission went south, but ... we met a trader on the way back.  We don't need to worry none about that Fed spy tried to infiltrate us no more.

Kaylee: The spy?  But Captain, we had him locked up, no fight left in him.  You put him onto the planet?

Shepherd Book: Was that wise, Captain?  Even out here, he may be able to inform the Federation of our whereabouts.

Reynolds: Sold him to the trader as a rape slave.  As I say, he won't be botherin' us no more.  Got us a full fuel tank and even a few of those strawberries you like, Kaylee.

Kaylee: ...

Shepherd Book: ...

-----

Yes, unless your colonists are Psychopaths, slave trading should be demoralizing throughout the colony.

[keylocke]

hahaha. nice quote from firefly. 

but i'm 50/50 on this.

i would agree that selling downed spacers you captured from crashed space pods as having a mood penalty (since they did nothing wrong against you). i would also understand about getting mood penalty from selling tribals. (since releasing them has the benefit of turning their faction friendly)

however when it comes to prisoners from the raider faction, i'd agree with reynolds : "sell em to a trader as rape slaves". hahaha.

the raider faction will be forever hostile. and each raider themselves would be forever hostile to you until you recruit them or you kill them.

however, peg-legging and denturing captured raiders before releasing them seems to be a funny alternative enough, so i don't really have much complains about it. haha.

[Vaporisor]

Well, I am quite liking the direction this talk is going.  Much of it could be brought into the social aspect of things vs just mood.

Here is one, if you agress a faction, you get a big faction hit.  If raiders come at you, automatic -50 social to every raider as part of attack and decreases more the more that raider does during the attack?

So that takes time to go away. 

If somebody survives and you just release them, you get a -10 mood say for releasing prisoner reflective of the social standing that goes down over time.  If you recruit them, the colonists get a -mood, but it comes in terms of interacting with the former criminals.  As such, might need to ensure a day/night or labour camps, etc. 

Keep them locked in prison and talked to, it reflects the higher ground possibilities.  You keep them locked up until the social penalties go down.  So if you do release, nobody is concerned, time served.  If you recruit then, people it is similar to forgiveness.

I wonder if it is possible to have the attributes relate like that.  It maintains the attitude that organ harvesting, execution, slave trading as being something for "less civilized" but at the same time would reflect the bitterness that would exist from somebody who just came to kill you and steal everything you have.

The concept that locking up until they join you is slavery is also a valid concept.  Hrm... that one is more tricky.  I guess that is best reflected in that it is communal living normally so everybody shares the same, works the same and all make use of same resources.  You can, and I have, separate by areas so you have your "slaves" who do all the fighting and live in shacks while a few have luxies mansion, but how do you set that in game mechanics to identify treating pawns as slaves?

[Harold3456]

+1

Reform translates to "you work for me now", which really seems no better than slavery.

I disagree. Because reform is you convincing the prisoner, it's a free will recruitment. The prisoner could simply refuse and stay a prisoner, and be no worse off for it. I personally release prisoners whom I don't think I can recruit/ don't want to recruit, because there's no mood penalty and this doesn't negatively affect me in any way. You could argue that they're choosing between recruitment and certain death, but that's you inferring an ultimatum into the story (i.e., imagining that your warden is threatening the prisoner). From a pure gameplay perspective recruitment, execution and release are all individual entities.

yeah but most of the time the people in your prison are people that tryed to kill you and destroy your colony so i mean , why would the colonists feel bad about selling them as a slave ?

I think an ideal solution would be to impose some kind of "colony morality", which the colonists use as a benchmark. If you're playing your colony morally, then your prisoners will be shocked and repulsed by out of character acts of brutality (execution, slavery, cannibalism), but if you play immorally long enough, then the colonists no longer react negatively to it (but maybe other colonies treat you differently).

In real life, this could be attributed to people being numbed to the atrocities. Before I first bought Rimworld, I had assumed I had the freedom to turn my colony into a bunch of slavers if I'd wanted to (hey, it's good income!) but the mood debuff prevents that from being a viable way to play.

tl;dr - make a global colony morality - a moral thermostat of sorts. If it gets turned beneath the "slavery is bad" threshold, then selling slaves no longer affects mood. However, make it so friendly factions have minimum morality thresholds that they will ally to. Pilot's Hamlet won't deal with slavers, for example, but maybe the allied tribespeople would.

[Vaporisor]

The concept of traits changing and developing is one I would like as well, but that is topic for another thread me thinks.  The concept would be similar to needs charts but hidden from player view.  Starting traits are biased, but constant exposure to certain conditions such as cannibalism or just vegetables causes person to trend towards other traits potentially canceling or developing new ones.

[SuperCaffeineDude]

I suppose  I said that more for shock Harold3456, but given capturing a spacer to convince them to join is not amoral, and the primary means of gaining manpower attained through violence, it might make a lot more sense. (Perhaps if recruitment was a 1 chance thing decided once you hit release it might feel like they had a say in the matter.)

Absolutely it would be good to have a moral bar that kind of sets peoples moral standards, though I am of the belief that your colonists are in a bad enough situation that maybe that shouldn't be necessary, though it would be ideal.

So as Vaporisor suggests; simply start the pirates on negative social footing, that maybe gets worse as they do harm, and tie how effected each colonist is by what you do to their relationship.

So selling or killing someone whilst they are on this bad footing is just easier, but as you spend time with these prisoners it gets harder.

And perhaps if you release them too soon colonists feel like you've let them off the hook. Meanwhile the weeping widow might feel a lot better if you hung the bastard, and would be outraged to see him join the colony.

But I'm going to level with you all, I just want to sell Jerry the Murdering Pirate and All-round Horrible Guy off for those strawberries Kaylee likes, and not be judged by colonists who slay hundreds and murder each other because they feel cramped and hungry (as they lack strawberries).

[Vaporisor]

But I'm going to level with you all, I just want to sell Jerry the Murdering Pirate and All-round Horrible Guy off for those strawberries Kaylee likes, and not be judged by colonists who slay hundreds and murder each other because they feel cramped and hungry (as they lack strawberries).

Aaah, the joys of roleplay....  In my one RP journal thread, I just had that situation come up.  Colony led by psychopaths.  Four raiders in the prison.  Sell them all off.  I know others will get mad, but damn it, they came in with rocket launchers!!!  So one colonist snaps while most of the rest are off fighting mechanoids invading.  So my top melee person wielding a superior plasteel spear goes out and severely injures two colonists before getting taken down.  So I arrest to get her in a cell.  Then goes on a rampage in the cell and attacks the drunk that wandered in.  So I get the guy whose foot she took off, to grab her spear and stop her rampage.... oops, my number 1 melee and smithy is now dead :3

All cause they were upset I sold of the guys who came in trying to kill everybody with heavy explosives.

[Jorlem]

You know, I think a ransom mechanic would be a good middle ground for this.  Instead of selling the prisoners to slavers, you sell them back to their home.  The price could be set to only be half of what you'd get for selling them as slaves, but you'd avoid the mood penalty.  You also wouldn't get the faction opinion boost you'd get if you just released them.

[Zombra]

Ransoming prisoners back to their factions is a very cool idea.

[Vaporisor]

Agreed.  Get on the comms, and "ransom back" would be fun, but it would need to be more than just "free money"  Maybe prisoner exchanges would be cool.  A chance they might have prisoner you can get and try to recruit instead or another faction to release for goodwill.  Perhaps instead of silver, some sort of non aggression pact.  Days in exchange for a temporary non violent faction standing meaning the pirates might wander through.  It also means that you just got hit hard, and will send back their wounded in exchange for a bit of a reprieve from the AI.