Force "0" instead of incapability.

[chacotaco84]

I was thinking of some balances the other day.

I for one use the "everyone cleans and hauls" mod, as I found it annoying to have to handle the micromanagement of pawns who are incapable of cleaning and hauling.  I felt to make them worthwhile you had to have them 24 hour laboring on meals or sculptures or some such in order to at least make a silver profit out of it.

The worse "cannot do" I find is doctoring.  I've had a bad raid before with all my colonists down except for two.

One was my primary doctor who only had a 50% bleed rate from a gunshot wound.  The other was my pawn who cannot doctor.

Of course the pain my doctor had ended up making him go berserk, which caused a chain of events that ended my colony as he then wasn't able to save the rest of my wounded colonists

TLDR though I find these things annoying I also don't like the thought of just magically disabling them and taking away an aspect of the game that adds depth/difficulty.  I think a good compromise instead of having people completely incapable of doing things is to "force 0".  I.E., instead of being totally unable to doctor, their skill is 0 and they absolutely are unable to ever raise it.  Then, if they DO perform that skill, they get a small debuff (like "did a job I hate -4").

For something like hauling/cleaning which has no skill XP, it could be something like they do each task 50% slower and get the debuff when they do it.

I think this would be the best compromise between what I think vanilla Rimworld is trying to make player's do (strategically think for which colonists should do what work) and what I find to be annoyingly constraining in game (a colony of two, someone is extremely hurt but I can't doctor so oh well guess they will bleed to death).

My 2 cents.

[Thyme]

You can hardly force a former model to ruin her nails with hauling stone chunks. I think the system is just right, skill levels tell you what each pawn should do/not do and the unable-to adds further depth to it. People unable of hauling bug me most, but look at rl: Highborns won't ever do physical work except beating that pirate up.

[mumblemumble]

I think it should be something along the lines of -25% efficiency in given task, and a small mood debuff while doing it...

So, you CAN, but its extremely not ideal.

[Lightzy]

Agree with the OP in light of the upcoming Caravan update.

It's come to a state where each pawn has to be able to take care of themselves on the most basic level.
Even out of the geniuses on this forum, 100% of you can probably hit a wall with a pickaxe repeatedly or carry a few pieces of wood a few meters, and possibly even use a broom without putting an eye out.

When it was a colony it was fine, but with caravans and so on, becoming more "wild west" etc..


I think the most elegant solution is to simply give a pawn who's 'incapable' of something a permanent mood penalty so long as he's assigned to a job he doesn't like (and of course, have the penalty linger for a while as stress).

Actually with a more complex mood system like I suggested previously (https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=26322.msg266262#msg266262) this could factor into "longterm" stress.

[skullywag]

With scaling raids based on wealth and amount of pawns. I just dont accept useless pawns. I can simply wait and grow when a useful pawn appears. No point upping the raid strength when youve just taken a guy who cant shoot. Thats how i roll anyway.

[Kain21]

Perhaps there should be a "breaking point" where the colonists realize they have to do these jobs

[paragonid]

I agree. It's quite annoying and doesn't really give much up to my gameplay that a guy doesn't want to haul that shiv back to my base.

There's nothing realistic or fun in pawns refusing to do basic work or something to keep themselves and colony alive. Look, our only colony doctor is bleeding and I could apply some patches, but meh, let him die who cares anyway.

Low work quality, mood debuff are ways to go.

[Alenerel]

I like the idea. In fact I raise the bet. Keep the disabled status and add the "0" idea. The 0 could be applied to everything, and would decrease their work speed, quality result to the worst (crafting) and walking speed (hauling, cleaning and bringing things to craft/doctoring/etc).

Then the disabled status would still be applied to artistic, research and animals.

Another idea compatible with the above is that if you have less than 1 people available (not downed/dead) that can do a job, the one who cant can be forced to do it. Like forcing to treat wounds or to cook.

[mumblemumble]

Exactly, leave someone CAPABLE of something, even if its stressful, and they are very ineffective.

This way a noble wont be SOL if theres no builders, but you still WANT a builder.

[Alpha393]

As a lazy smart person irl, I can confirm that unless you're missing one or more limbs, you can totally carry stuff around, use a broom, etc. and not spontaneously hemorrhage to death.