"Incapable of" should become "incompetent"

[Polder]

Rimworld is about survival. A survivor would never refuse to harvest crops or butcher an animal if they were hungry, or refuse to bandage their friend that is bleeding out, allow their home to burn down, etc. Yet a large proportion of people in Rimworld will do exactly that because they are incapable of doing the required task, no matter the circumstances. It makes no sense, as they are survivors after all, and it results in a large number of colonists that are of questionable value, which again doesn't make sense because in a survival game I should be happy about every man and woman joining my colony.

So I propose that "incapable of" becomes "incompetent". The person is willing but hopelessly incompetent, and should only assigned to the relevant task when absolutely necessary.

[SaintD]

Many of us have railed on this ridiculousness before, but at this point it's obvious that it won't be changed. People paid to ruin our experience with their minefield of random, illogical incapabilities.

Your best hope is that eventually modders will manage to break into the currently untouchable parts of Rimworld the backgrounds hide in that will allow a complete overhaul of them.

Your idea is good, and has been suggested in various similar forms many times already. Lots of people would agree. Someone having a big malus to learning a job because they are disgusted by/scared of/culturally unprepared for it is perfectly reasonable. The current 'incapable' system means that someone will literally refuse to save their own life because they don't like a job. A midworld chef (all of them, every single one) is such a lazy, self absorbed sack of **** that they will literally live in a pile of gore, viscera, and bodily excretions because they feel that cleaning is beneath them. And then have a mental break because of their horrific surroundings.

[Anomaly]

Nah, keep the threads coming. Someone may finally pay attention - a modder if not the dev.

The game ignores that hardship can grow character as well as skills. I think I would be a bit more invested in characters who got over their pride or mental blocks to become more capable survivors.

As is, chefs and sheriffs get to go fight the mechanoids - with knives.

[BlackSmokeDMax]

https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=19897.0

[schizmo]

Many people feel incredibly frustrated by pawns who are straight up incapable of performing tasks because on some level it always feels unrealistic. While I don't mind it for some things (violence, caring, etc) I do agree that it can, at times, feel more troublesome than interesting, and it is almost always a detriment. You are essentially being given a crippled pawn.

But it also makes the game somewhat interesting so I would not want it to go away. My suggestion instead would be to tie incapabilities exclusively to traits or backstories (since they usually give a bonus elsewhere) OR associate incapabilities with trade offs in other skills, providing a larger bonus to whatever skillsets are the "opposite" of the incapability, perhaps a workspeed bonus so that things like "dumb labor" can still be viable if "skilled labor" is an incapability.

Or something similar. Basically I would like pawns with handicaps in one area to excel in another so they don't feel limited.

[Rimrue]

I couldn't find the thread that was discussing this, so I'm starting a new one. If the mods know which thread it belongs in, please merge it. Thanks!

I tend to agree with the suggestion that instead of pawns being incapable they should take a negative mood hit like brawlers do instead. -30 or even -50 should be enough that players would only want to force them to do things when absolutely necessary. Add a -5 skill level and they'd be pretty much as useless as before--just players would have a chance to save their colonies when "useless" is the last man standing. Lol

Would make for some interesting stories too. "After back to back raids and a dry thunderstorm only Bob, who was emotionally scarred as a youth and refuses to firefight or doctor, is left standing. After overcoming his fears and beating out the encroaching fire, he sets to work bandaging his friends. Despite nearly passing out at the sight of blood several time he overcomes all odds and the colony is saved . . . Or he snaps, goes berzerk, and the colony perishes anyway." Lol

Moderator's edit (Calahan) - I've merged this with an existing suggestion on changes to "incapable". Your suggestion was of a slightly different nature, but still well inside the "suggested changes to incapable" ballpark.

[Perq]

Incapable of hauling is the most annoying of all. These could be severe penalties instead of straight out incapabilities:
- Originally non-haulers get 50% less hauling capacity. So instead of 75 (at full health) they can only haul 37 (37,5 rounded down).
- Incapable of cleaning take 300-500% more time to clean
- Incapable of sowing plants take 300-500% more time to sow and have a great chance to fail gathering plants (in addition to their skill being innately low)
- Incapable of cooking get 30% flat chance to poison a meal
- Incapable of violence get a severe mood penalty when holding a weapon (say, around -20) and 30% less accuracy (so that they are still somewhat useful when things get dire). This includes getting their hands/arms replaced with weapon-like prosthetic.
- Incapable of building get 30% flat chance to fail building and far greater chance to create poor quality goods

And so on. :-V

I would mark such skills with separate icons, similar to Passion system, along with a short description how it affects the skill itself.
I would also add even harsher penalty to learning of that skill, say 25% of original exp (none passion has 33%).

In other words, you'd never want such pawns to work using these skills. But, when the situation is bad enough, you'd have an option to do something, even if it would most likely end up failing.
In other words: You'd avoid situations in which you have a single pawn who refuses to bandage his dying college... :V It probably won't help anyways, but at least you tried. Or he tried. :@

[Rimrue]

Thanks, Calahan. This wasn't the thread I was reading before, but I it will do.

However, I realized my suggestion would involve revamping the traits system to make it work, so perhaps it may be too difficult to achieve. But I do think it would make for more interesting stories than the current system.

[AngleWyrm]

I propose that "incapable of" becomes "incompetent". The person is willing but hopelessly incompetent, and should only assigned to the relevant task when absolutely necessary.

These two conditions, incapable and incompetent are properties of the backstories. A backstory can be written to have a skill buff/nerf and/or it can be written to forbid a work type. I agree that a large portion of the population are forbidden from various work rather than receiving a nerf to a skill.

There are some stories where it makes sense that person would never do a particular thing. A brain-damaged test subject from a failed military experiment might never be capable of intellectual work, but have a good start on melee skills. But there are also stories where a nerf to starting skill would make more sense. Maybe a palace official is unaccustomed to manual labor, but having arrived in a crash must now participate in their own survival. So they get a nerf to dumb labor, but can grow into their new environment.

I'd like to see passion bonuses become part of the backstories, so that innate talent for a field of endeavor can be written into their story.

[Perq]

While it does make sense that some things may be absolutely out of the question for some pawns (saaay extreme trauma after big fire, therefore unable to put out fires), it is incredibly annoying gameplay wise. Honestly, it should only apply to skills that aren't vital to survival (say art, crafting, animal handling and so on).
To back this up there is a thing that most humans have (unless mentally ill which is, sadly, possible on the Rim) called survival instinct and I doubt 3/4 of people who come crashing down from a crushed space liner are mentally ill and lack such instinct.

[vampiresoap]

I seriously can't think of a realistic reason why a pawn would refuse to simply pick up stuff that's already lying on the ground and taking it back to base other than "I'm just a f**king asshole".

[wimpb]

Being incapable of violence or higher intellectual tasks is fine and can make part of a great story. Being completely 100% incapable of menial tasks is somewhat obnoxious and a detriment to good stories in my opinion. I would accept it somewhat if the pawn would refuse to do it until the situation was critical, but the current system is too inflexible.

I think what could be needed is a system where pawns can change mentally over time. Say you get a former noble who has a big penalty to cleaning and hauling and always prioritizes it last - essentially they'll always slack off and avoid it. But over time through random chance or through game events they come to accept it. Sometimes I wonder if whether the outcome of a mental break always has to be negative as well. Maybe a character who had a traumatized past and is incapable of violence could have a mental break during a raid and pick up a gun and start killing pirates (and maybe friendlies too).

Or other weird things, like a pawn who is mentally damaged taking a hit to the head and suddenly becoming a genius savant Or a pawn who keeps doing a certain task coming to like it more and become more passionate about it, or on the flip side resent having to do the same thing over and over again and growing to hate it.

[AngleWyrm]

Or a pawn who keeps doing a certain task coming to like it more and become more passionate about it, or on the flip side resent having to do the same thing over and over again and growing to hate it.

Exploratory behavior vs Consistent behavior, the spectrum of liberal to conservative. Some are designed to recognize value in successful patterns, others are designed to compare and validate norms against the current environment. Both are necessary for successful existence in a dynamic world.