Mental Breaks Seriously?

[Phienyx]

I understand the point behind the general idea of mental status and needing to maintain certain things to balance this.  However, I only know maybe one or two people who are as mentally delicate as the "colonists" in this game.  The biggest load of BS is the viewing of corpses that causes colonists to have mental breaks.  Seriously, viewing dead bodies does not cause mental distress.  (Before someone assumes...yes, I have viewed my share of dead bodies before the morgue and before the funeral home has had the chance to beautify them).

I just think that our colonists should be a little more mentally sound than they are.  Sometimes I think they just border on excessively pathetic and weak minded.

[devin25486]

I understand the point behind the general idea of mental status and needing to maintain certain things to balance this.  However, I only know maybe one or two people who are as mentally delicate as the "colonists" in this game.  The biggest load of BS is the viewing of corpses that causes colonists to have mental breaks.  Seriously, viewing dead bodies does not cause mental distress.  (Before someone assumes...yes, I have viewed my share of dead bodies before the morgue and before the funeral home has had the chance to beautify them).

I just think that our colonists should be a little more mentally sound than they are.  Sometimes I think they just border on excessively pathetic and weak minded.

Dude... I totaly agree w/ you. I think the colonist should be a bit more willed. Like seriously, you send a miner to mine and complains about the darkness (WTF???) I mean they survived a shipwreck for christ sakes XD.

But taking a step back, I do realize this is still in alpha and is the second month it's been out officaly, and I don't fault tyan for that... He's pretty much the only person coding and designing art... so he has alot on his plate.

Stating that, I do think that the colonist will get stronger and have a more in depth psychology once the game progresses. This will definetly get fixed and here is the rim world change log... (Start to read on March 2 Because anything before this has been alpha 1 and previous) https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_rCdGYp3nbSUXFG4Ky96RZW1cJGt9g_6ANZZPOHyNsg/pub

[Phienyx]

I in no way intended to belittle the developer.  Just saying that the colonists should be a little more resilient mentally.  I just don't think with so much going on, that their mental state needs to be so micro managed.  I'm getting tired of chasing all of my hyper sensitive colonists down after a major battle because they all saw the same 10 corpses and freaked out.

[Monkfish]

Check the March 12th entry in the link Devin posted, it states "Mental break probability is much lower". You'll see these changes in Alpha 3.

[ShadowTani]

He also changed it for A3 so that darkness won't have an immediate effect on the mood.

Though if you can't handle ruling your colony with happiness, rule it with fear instead, you won't have loyalty issues anytime soon then.

Personally I think loyalty shouldn't be too easy to maintain for people you literally kidnapped etc. but should be easy for your initial colonists and colonists you rescue. Remember mental breaks have more to do with loyalty than psychology in RimWorld.

[Jotun]

The corpse thing I'd say makes sense, the colonists aren't people who are naturally suited to their situation. Generally nowadays, lots of people don't see corpses, unless you want to go looking for them by being a police officer or doctor or something.

So it makes sense that your colonists who aren't very happy being on the colony already, might not be entirely OK with stepping out and seeing bullet-riddled corpses laying around the place with viscera and blood splattered all over the walls.

Whether you are OK with corpses is up to you, but a lot of the colonists are people who have spent most of their lives doing completely non-corpse-related things. Living in a hole in the rock buried behind a wall of bodies might make them a bit unhappy.

[Phienyx]

Some of the colonists are those who aren't used to seeing dead bodies.  Some of the (if you read their stories) would be quite used to it.   However, seeing a dead body might be a little unsettling for some, it would not cause a mental break unless you are particularly feeble minded.

[StorymasterQ]

Also, after a while, anything would lost its punch. So perhaps, a long-term colonist had seen (and personally killed) a thousand raiders, they wouldn't care about corpses anymore. Consequently, loyalty management by fear would lose its grip sooner or later.

[ShadowTani]

However, seeing a dead body might be a little unsettling for some, it would not cause a mental break unless you are particularly feeble minded.

As I pointed out, mental breaks are not necessarily a psychological thing, it's really more of a loyalty thing. They get unhappy and fed up with the colony. Think of mental breaks as a mode they go into where they start questioning the situation and thinking of getting out of there instead of them actually having a moment where they start to drool. Either way, games are often an exaggeration of reality, and that's fine I think.

[Merry76]

A Morgue is basically a cooling storage that doesnt allow a body to decompose. Most Morgue corpses are also "cleaned" and did not die in gunfire/grenades or trampled to death by a muffalo. We go through great lenghts to make people look like they are just sleeping when we bury them.

Take a look at some pictures from syria hospitals (with people who are quite mauled) and imagine them lying around for a few days in the sun/rain.

That will be unsettling enough for most people - to the degree that anyone not being unsettled by it must have a perk that signifies this ("cold blooded killer", or "emotionless"). Of course the game currently treats all corpses the same.

But the only way you get a mental breakdown nowadays is seriously mistreating your colonists before they observe the corpse - not feeding them, letting them sleep outside in the rain and letting them work in really claustrophobic conditions. If you mistreat someone like that and then show them a corpse, expect them to snap (entirely reasonable for me).

[Vas]

I just want to state, I don't like that people are whining about mental breaks.  It's already too easy.

Seeing dead bodies would cause someone to have a mental break, it's very rare that a normal person sees a dead body.  I was extremely depressed and stressed out seeing my dog die.  I pet her an hour before she died, and put her back outside and went back out and she was just dead.  Turns out someone poisoned my dog to get back at me or something.  Either way, I was stressed.  I couldn't even look at my previous dog when he had to be put down.  Some people just can't handle it.
Now if you walk outside after waking up from your bed on a rock hard floor covered with dirt with a rock soft pillow and stitched together leaves as a blanket, to find that that solar panel you spent 9 hours on yesterday is now on fire, there are fires killing your crops, and there are a pile of 13 dead bodies with holes all over and bleeding everywhere, after having barely survived a crash from a dieing ship and your life pod smashes into the planet and all...  I think you might just have a mental break.

Some things I can understand need changing.  Example, assassins need to be immune to seeing dead bodies or killing.  No more being upset over any type of dead body or attacks.  Miners need to be more immune to darkness, maybe a new status that says "long term darkness" and it starts stacking every game hour till they break.

Anyway, as it stands, it's real easy avoiding mental breaks.  You just need to figure out what you should be doing at the start of each map   Pause and plan out your bases.

[Monkfish]

Recent patch notes state that the "in darkness" debuff only comes into effect after the colonist hasn't seen light for a few hours, although I agree that certain character traits should have a resistance to certain things that would otherwise negatively effect a colonist without those traits.

[ShadowTani]

I just want to state, I don't like that people are whining about mental breaks.  It's already too easy.

I honestly feel the same way. xD It would been nice seeing the mental break ratio get tied to the story tellers, so that Randy will roll the dice for a mental break more often than the others - the once every six game hours seems too generous a ratio to me (the current ratio is once every hour).

[UrbanBourbon]

I don't think the problem is colonists being pansy-asses. The problem is that they don't have enough ways to lift their spirits on their own. But that's just the nature of the game, since it's still under active development. On the other hand, if someone's close to a mental break, arrest that colonist. A few private chats with the warden/therapist can do miracles to morale.

Tips for maintaining positive morale and loyalty:

- KEEP PLACES CLEAN. Goddamnit this annoys me so much in gameplay videos. Get one designated cleaner who cleans all day long. Especially keep the places clean WHERE YOUR COLONISTS SPEND THEIR TIME. Dining halls, traffic routes, workplaces. Bedrooms aren't important because the dirty environment penalty doesn't affect when the colonist is asleep. If, on the other hand, you insist having all your guys on cleaning duty, GIVE THEM TIME TO CLEAN. Don't forget to designate the home zone.
- DO ONE TASK AT A TIME. The danger with assigning a ton of jobs is that sooner or later something bad happens and that will disrupt your plans. Also, your colony will remain dirty because no one has time to clean up, and filth will chew the morale.
- LIGHTING. The light radius of a cheap standing lamp is 6 tiles. So put them WHERE YOUR COLONISTS SPEND THEIR TIME. Dining halls, traffic routes, workplaces. Ignore lighting in bedrooms, it doesn't matter.
- USE THE MEAT, LUKE. Break out the muffalo meat when morale is in jeopardy. When everything is normal, make them eat simple meals. If raiders land, switch immediately to fine meals for a day or two.
- REPLACE FLOOR. Rough rock is the worst. It's the ugliest. Smooth it out. DO IT. Start churning out some stone blocks and place that wonderful stone tile WHERE YOUR COLONISTS SPEND THEIR TIME. Try not to put it on farmable soil if you can.
- REMOVE HUMAN CORPSES. Especially from places WHERE YOUR COLONISTS SPEND THEIR TIME and from traffic routes. An 8-tile radius is a healthy distance to a corpse.
- THE BIG BEDROOM. Dig out an 8x12 room and put 10 beds in it. Sure, you get a slight penalty from the shared bedroom but on the other hand you get the bonus from the spacious interior. Grand total of -3, boohoo. But at least you don't have to worry about individual bedrooms which take serious effort to build.  WHERE YOUR CO-- Ahem. Sorry.


And finally, the mother of all high morale:

- GET A PEOPLE PERSON. Start your colony with a colonist whose Social skill is through the roof. That's your warden. That's the guy who will talk your captives into joining your colony, helping it grow bigger and faster and stronger and girthier. That's the guy who cheers up everyone else. Call that guy Jesus Christ or Barack Obama or Mao Tse Tung or Hatshepsut or Stephen Colbert or whatever or whoever you look up to. Call that guy Dad or Mom or Woody Harrelsson or Matthew McF*ckthespelling. Call him that prof you admired with a slack jaw and wide open eyes in high school or college. Your colony is a cult and that guy is the leader. Keep him safe.

[Architect]

Stuff

I feel like I just got lectured by Dr Who XD