Broken mood system still hasn't been fixed in A16.

[Shurp]

It also could be easy to implement.  Just do two things:

1) Automatically improve relationships between people with high social skill and everyone else.  People with good social skills know how to manipulate people to like them, and benefit more from good relations than poor ones.

2) Create a network effect with people with social skills.  If A has good social skills, and B likes A, and C likes A, then A should be able to encourage B & C to get along.  Basically do a "2-step" relationship test modified by the social skill of the intermediary.

Then you don't have to introduce any special "counselling" activity.  Just by being there and talking to people those with good social skills can help the colony get along.  Eventually everyone likes everyone.

(Note that this includes the "butterfly" effect; Tony keeps getting rebuffed by Mia, but Jane wants them to get along and chitchats with both of them and "pollinates" the relationship, and before you know it Tony and Mia are in the sack together.)

[Spdskatr]

If only people not of the "Kind" trait could make others feel happy as well.

I'm really hoping that some kind of tranquilizer guns will be added into the game...Those will be soo helpful in this kind of situations. But then again, people aren't supposed to be going on killing sprees in the first place. Only psychopaths should have a chance to do that. That way you can either reject pawns with the psychopath trait when they want to join your colony or simply never give them melee weapons.

For the record, extreme breaks in real life would be suicide, but Tynan probably doesn't want to put that in. Just like the old "Traitor" special event. It actually sucks for the player.

Actually, I think extreme breaks are completely fine right now. You wouldn't want colonists just randomly dropping off due to bad mood without any way to stop it. At least with berserking, you can wall up the doors to a room.

Also would the "New Colony Optimism" thought be the colonists' survival instincts in action? Or the "Very Low Expectations" thought? A person's survival instincts turn off once they are exposed to the same environment for a long time, no matter how dangerous.

If you have trouble dealing with berserkers and it's because the person's relative died, just incapacitate them via peg leg removal, or restrict them to a psychiatric ward(with non-flammable walls).

No, when you have no shelter, little to no food and are surrounded by hostile animals, your survival instincts kick in and you'll do anything to survive. That should be their top priority, not their fricking feelings. It just goes to show how fragile Rimworld colonists are. They are basically just a bunch of green-hair liberal college kids who constantly accuse people of offending them and demand "safe spaces".

OUCH! I pricked my finger on all that edge you've got going. Keep the viewpoints to yourself there friend.

Wow you didn't even lock the topic... Is it because there's too much discussion? Sorry

[vampiresoap]

It also could be easy to implement.  Just do two things:

1) Automatically improve relationships between people with high social skill and everyone else.  People with good social skills know how to manipulate people to like them, and benefit more from good relations than poor ones.

2) Create a network effect with people with social skills.  If A has good social skills, and B likes A, and C likes A, then A should be able to encourage B & C to get along.  Basically do a "2-step" relationship test modified by the social skill of the intermediary.

Then you don't have to introduce any special "counselling" activity.  Just by being there and talking to people those with good social skills can help the colony get along.  Eventually everyone likes everyone.

(Note that this includes the "butterfly" effect; Tony keeps getting rebuffed by Mia, but Jane wants them to get along and chitchats with both of them and "pollinates" the relationship, and before you know it Tony and Mia are in the sack together.)

I really like this idea!! The counselor idea is pretty good too, which is, funny enough, implemented in Dead State. There's this flight attendant girl who's good at literally nothing...but when you make her a counselor and she'll just give everybody at the base a nice morale boost. That's really what we need in Rimworld.

[Headshotkill]

But the very social person A, although he's a good talker and people like him, maybe he doesn't like them back.

Kinda like me, back in highshool, I was a good talker and everyone like being around me, but I honestly hated the out of control decadence some people conducted.

[Zombra]

No, when you have no shelter, little to no food and are surrounded by hostile animals, your survival instincts kick in and you'll do anything to survive.

And what if one of the guys you're stuck with is an asshole who ate all the food and laughed in your face?  You're starving, pissed off, freezing, and terrified all at the same time.  You'll just smile and say, "Excuse me, please don't do that again, my good man"?  I don't think so.

[Zhentar]

Indeed, beating the shit out of that asshole who thinks he's too good to haul is a subset of "anything".

[DirectorBright]

The mood system is broken, but not in the way you've said.

The big problem with the mood system right now IMO is that the numbers for buffs and debuffs are all over the place, especially debuffs. But the system just falls to pieces when Starvation occurs.

Starvation (Trivial) is -22. Its described as feeling fuzzy and unfocused. Thats a ludicrous number when you compare it to certain other debuffs. It jumps to -29 at moderate.

Being in crippling pain where a colonist is literally screaming "KILL ME NOW" is -20, Killing someone by harvesting their organs is a -6 (On top of a -7 for them dying). Losing your child is -25, so is losing a spouse.

But hold on, Very Comfortable is a +6, and people routinely get that by sleeping in a poor quality wooden bed! Even a normal bed can trip the extremely comfortable +8 bonus.

So tearing some dudes heart out is sad (-13), but having a pretty okay bed (+8) and steak for dinner (+5) makes it all better?

Starvation is the big one though, because when people get starvation debuff, they usually break extremely quickly. -22 is HUGE early game, and what happens when a colonist breaks? Oh. They don't eat. Well thats fantastic.

I literally had a colonist do "sad wander" from not getting any food, then wander around outside in a snow storm while new food was brought in until they starved to death while there was food in the fridge.

I had another berserk due to lack of food While he was eating his food, then die of starvation because berserking people won't eat.

[vampiresoap]

The mood system is broken, but not in the way you've said.

The big problem with the mood system right now IMO is that the numbers for buffs and debuffs are all over the place, especially debuffs. But the system just falls to pieces when Starvation occurs.

Starvation (Trivial) is -22. Its described as feeling fuzzy and unfocused. Thats a ludicrous number when you compare it to certain other debuffs. It jumps to -29 at moderate.

Being in crippling pain where a colonist is literally screaming "KILL ME NOW" is -20, Killing someone by harvesting their organs is a -6 (On top of a -7 for them dying). Losing your child is -25, so is losing a spouse.

But hold on, Very Comfortable is a +6, and people routinely get that by sleeping in a poor quality wooden bed! Even a normal bed can trip the extremely comfortable +8 bonus.

So tearing some dudes heart out is sad (-13), but having a pretty okay bed (+8) and steak for dinner (+5) makes it all better?

Starvation is the big one though, because when people get starvation debuff, they usually break extremely quickly. -22 is HUGE early game, and what happens when a colonist breaks? Oh. They don't eat. Well thats fantastic.

I literally had a colonist do "sad wander" from not getting any food, then wander around outside in a snow storm while new food was brought in until they starved to death while there was food in the fridge.

I had another berserk due to lack of food While he was eating his food, then die of starvation because berserking people won't eat.

This just made my night =D

[XeoNovaDan]

The mood system is broken, but not in the way you've said.

The big problem with the mood system right now IMO is that the numbers for buffs and debuffs are all over the place, especially debuffs. But the system just falls to pieces when Starvation occurs.

Starvation (Trivial) is -22. Its described as feeling fuzzy and unfocused. Thats a ludicrous number when you compare it to certain other debuffs. It jumps to -29 at moderate.

Being in crippling pain where a colonist is literally screaming "KILL ME NOW" is -20, Killing someone by harvesting their organs is a -6 (On top of a -7 for them dying). Losing your child is -25, so is losing a spouse.

But hold on, Very Comfortable is a +6, and people routinely get that by sleeping in a poor quality wooden bed! Even a normal bed can trip the extremely comfortable +8 bonus.

So tearing some dudes heart out is sad (-13), but having a pretty okay bed (+8) and steak for dinner (+5) makes it all better?

Starvation is the big one though, because when people get starvation debuff, they usually break extremely quickly. -22 is HUGE early game, and what happens when a colonist breaks? Oh. They don't eat. Well thats fantastic.

I literally had a colonist do "sad wander" from not getting any food, then wander around outside in a snow storm while new food was brought in until they starved to death while there was food in the fridge.

I had another berserk due to lack of food While he was eating his food, then die of starvation because berserking people won't eat.

Yeah, I hate it when that happens. I've literally had colonists to break for being hungry, while they're eating!

I've yet to have something as extreme as actual death happening, but it's still somewhat ridiculous (in a comical way) that one has a mental breakdown for not eating while they're eating their human meat delicious meal.

[paragonid]

I'm pretty sure people react differently to the events, which gives or not gives certain thoughts and concrete numbers.
Let's call current reaction model "a pussy".
Now there should be more different reaction models for different colonists and then we could even stand some "pussies" around.

[Anomaly]

I'm pretty sure people react differently to the events, which gives or not gives certain thoughts and concrete numbers.
Let's call current reaction model "a pussy".
Now there should be more different reaction models for different colonists and then we could even stand some "pussies" around.

Our colonists, at least those we start, with come from an environment where they would have been pampered by the greatest high tech conveniences. All of them would be what we would consider "pussies".

What would be very cool to see is our colonists gradually becoming stronger or desensitized to the hardships they face.   Modifiers like stoic, combat veteran, desensitized to death, etc...

[Zombra]

Yeah.  It's OK for starving colonists to break, but they should continue to check for food availability and change their "break type" to "pig out" when they sense some.

[Limdood]

No, when you have no shelter, little to no food and are surrounded by hostile animals, your survival instincts kick in and you'll do anything to survive. That should be their top priority, not their fricking feelings.

Who leads?  No really.  Who leads?  Who gets to make the plans and start telling everyone else what to do and how to do it?

In the movies its all so clear cut...there's always a super charismatic, knowledgeable dude and everyone bows to his will.

In real life (or this simulation) though?  I'm pretty sure most everyone thinks that they are smart, are capable, could survive a tough situation...

If that's the case, who leads?  Person A, B, and C all land on the planet, and all 3 of them think they know how shit should get done.  I don't know about you, but were I stranded in a survival situation, the very FIRST thing that would likely start a fist (or worse) fight with me would probably be someone I thought of as less capable trying to take charge and make the plans.  And it wouldn't even take until the second day, or even the second hour. 

Survival instincts aren't cooperation instincts.  They're the exact opposite.  Its in the quote: "YOU'LL do anything to survive" - screw the other guys.

I absolutely disagree with your assertation that extreme stress and life/death survival situations would make everyone cooperate BETTER, most especially if there were no risk of outside repurcussions after the fact (no law would try you for crimes committed during the incident).  For proof of that second point look no further than the behavior of people shielded by the anonymity of the internet.

[Bozobub]

I'd actually disagree with either of your assertions .  You simply cannot predict how you, much less anyone else, will react in extremis, until/unless it happens.

I've had some...hairy...somewhat analogous situations (chaotic, potential free-for-all, dangerous) in my life, and from what I've seen, people usually tend to band together, esepcially if they have some kind of common background (say, crashed spaceship? ) and if no "alphas" (of any sex, mind you) step forward, the group(s) damn well "volunteer" some poor bastard(s) to do the job.

This type of organization is probably how civilization started in the 1st place, you know; and that seeking of the "pack" (no, NOT "herd", make that mistake at your peril) is a primal instinct for us.  And  if only a small minority object to a given "alpha"/leader, the pack simply ejects the minority.

Will this always happen?  Of course not, it's just a tendency, you know.  But I think it would, more often than not.  Most people are smart enough to know that there's safety in numbers, after all; it's not an aphorism for nothing.  Yes, in many direct ways survival instincts ARE cooperation instincts, throughout our history as a species.

I don't think your point re: crimes and the internet really applies here, either, because we're talking about situations involving immediate personal danger and stress.

[vampiresoap]

Limdood: Nobody's gonna start arguing who should be in charge when there's a fucking hole in the boat and water's leaking in. Everyone would just start peddling like crazy towards the only island on the horizon. You vastly underestimate what people are capable of. Everybody (maybe even you) is a survivalist when push comes to shove. It's the result of millions of years of evolution.