Tired of useless colonists

[BoogieMan]

I'm keep seeing so many pyromaniacs. How can it possibly be that common? From game to game, I always end up with several. Bad luck I guess, but seems fairly consistent.

What makes me despise them more, is how they'll just go on random fire starting sprees even if they're kept in a good mood. At least the other bad social traits are more manageable if you're well set up to provide good happiness.

A close second is anyone who can't clean or haul.

[b0rsuk]

They should have a chance to watch a campfire instead, or go watch forest fire.

[Hans Lemurson]

They should have a chance to watch a campfire instead, or go watch forest fire.

Watching things burn should be a joy activity like stargazing or passionate labor.

[b0rsuk]

It is. Colonists go to "relax socially" at a campfire. So to make pyromaniacs stand out, they could just go and build a few campfires using your wood, even if it's forbidden.

[FalconBR]

I think pyromaniacs should watch Forest fires and bem happy for a long time.

Also, I tried a quick scan at all note random character and looks like 70% até useless, 20% acceptable, 9% good, 1% really good!
I think they should change the random generator to give people more good perks and useful skills, look like most backstories have more negative then positive points!
A 2-1 ratio of good to bad perks would be welcome and more presets characters with good traits is a must have! Looks like everyone that funded the game looks more to his negative points that the positive!

[b0rsuk]

Maybe Pyromaniacs should have a 'need' for fire, similar to drug addicts ? There would be 2 tresholds, one below which they might have a soft break and another where they have a hard pyromaniac break. The point of this is that it would enable other things that affect pyromaniacs, like watching campfires or forest fires would make them satisfied for some time.

[b0rsuk]

My all melee colony just got another wanderer. Regina, 80 years old, frail. She's not totally useless - 12 research+passion, 10 crafting+burning, kind, psychopath, depressive. But here's the thing: I checked her Research Speed stat and due to her manipulation handicap she actually researches slower than Tail, who's just 6 research!

Now I'm wondering about crafting. Obviously she can't craft as fast as MJ. But do Manipulation, Sight and similar stats have effect on manufactured item quality ? That would be a saving grace of disabled colonists with high skill levels. Maybe she can craft slower, but output better items ?

I also wonder about psychopath and kibble. She can butcher human corpses, but is it worth it ? She can't cook. Will it be more efficient than just dropping corpses in my barn like I've been doing lately ?

[Hans Lemurson]

Maybe Pyromaniacs should have a 'need' for fire, similar to drug addicts ? There would be 2 tresholds, one below which they might have a soft break and another where they have a hard pyromaniac break. The point of this is that it would enable other things that affect pyromaniacs, like watching campfires or forest fires would make them satisfied for some time.

"Mental Break!  Mcleod has gone on a fire-starting spree.   Last straw: Lack of fire."

[Thyme]

Not sure what you mean with kibble. You'll get a 25% nutrition bonus compared to the ingredients. However, butchering a corpse into meat can give you less nutrition than the corpse has "raw". Do the math with your cooks butchery efficiency. It will pay off if you have abundant vegans though.

[Shurp]

Here we go again.  Accepted a refugee chased by pirates.  He's a pyromaniac.  Let him die.

Next one I accepted because she's someone's mother.  *she* is a pyromaniac too. 

What percent of Rimworld's inhabitants are pyromaniacs?  This is ridiculous.  Do I have to create a mod to get rid of these insane traits?

----- edit ----

Turns out she wasn't totally useless.  I had her stand around waiting for the tribals to attack.  30+ showed up.  Three died from collateral damage while they tried to kill her

Unfortunately... 5 charge rifles cannot do enough damage to stop 30+ raiders.  Hmmm.  I need a plan B...

...which the raiders provided.  They attacked my mortars.  And my pile of artillery shells parked right next to them...

*screen shakes*

And suddenly they're all fleeing.  I'm saved!!!

I guess mining my base with IEDs is the only way to defeat the hordes!

[AngleWyrm]

Chemical fascination/interest are death sentences waiting to happen, or at LEAST an extreme cost waiting to happen due to inevitable addiction and organ damage.
...
Pyromaniac is completely intolerable.

Yep, I never take either of those. There's a mod designed to address the issue, called Nerve Stapling by Thirite.

Unfortunately the costs of using it is a liability.

[Greep]

Your issue here is just that you're playing in a biome that forces you to be selective and you're playing on a difficulty where you can't afford to be selective. 

I've been playing on randy extreme on a tropical biome for instance and I haven't run into this issue at all.  If they're worthless skillwise, they can cut stone or haul the ever-growing gigantic crops or tame alpacas, or any number of other things.  Occasionally,  I'll get a wanderer/chased by pirates whos is... uh.. special, and they get to be my unguarded caravan runner.  After playing a while on these settings I've find my selection criteria to be pretty forgiving:

A) recruit difficulty <97%
B) Mood traits > -15 (no volatiles, no jealous neurotics, no depressive too smarts. etc), caveat: only in year one, afterwards joywire :3
C) No pyros.  They clearly need some work.
D) Can do SOMETHING.  brawler sheriffs with low animal/artistic get the boot e.g.
E) Not a dinosaur (frail + bad back + dementia)

I haven't seen an issue with chemical fascination, for some reason I've yet to get a fatal overdose.

Now with this, I end up accepting like 80%+ of potentials, and I've accepted some pretty gnarly ones like a granny with cataracts in both eyes.  She can't see, but she can cut granite!

Now, playing on an ice sheet, that'd be different, I can see that 80%+ becoming like... 50/50.  Since they have to at least be able to not be a drag in the early game.

Secondly, your emphasis on skills and not traits means I think you're underestimating just how quickly low skilled pawns become worthwhile, particularly in skills where they don't produce things of "quality" (growing/mining for instance).  0 skill passionless mining becomes 3 mining in like 2 days, essentially nearly quadrupling their mining speed.  4 mining is the base 100% mining speed I think?  That's not too bad!  Growing is a bit annoying since you can't have your 0 growers harvesting crops, but on a tropics this is easy since they can get growing by chopping wood.

I would recommend just playing on a slightly more forgiving biome like tundra or desert or something easier like me if you're playing on "extreme".  Sure some people can win extreme ice sheet as a solo start, but then some people win jackpots, doesn't mean playing the lottery is fun or smart

[Shurp]

I'm presently playing on boreal forest.  That's pretty forgiving.

The trouble is defending my base.  A colonist with a shooting skill of 0 can't hit the broad side of a barn.  Putting a charge rifle in his hands will add more tribals to the 30+ horde storming my walls than he can kill.  All I demand is a skill of 2 or higher so he can hit something.

If I accept colonists who can't shoot, then I am forced to spam turrets for defense, and if I'm spamming turrets for defense why bother accepting more colonists anyway?  5 colonists and 20 turrets can splatter anything that comes at them.

My only alternative is to micromanage skill zero shooters to the shooting range for endless hours of training...

You're right that I can be more lenient on the mining/growing since they'll pick up skill *eventually*.  But shooting skill is more difficult to come by and more essential.

[b0rsuk]

Shurp, terrible fighters who are still capable of violence are mortar operators. You can also give them miniguns.

[Greep]

Well, usually I start out with spamming turrets, but my colonists work on massing wealth to buy fallback plans like doomsdays, triple rockets and psychic lances.  Mostly explosives for tribals and mechanoids that attack at bad times, lances for particularly well equipped individual pirates and snipers during a siege.  In the very beginning if you run into sappers/too many tribals/bunch of melees with plasteel, you can always just walk away from your fort and they'll just steal some crap as you pick them off while they're kicking doors down.  But later on that's less viable. 

That's when the crummy colonists come into play, as pretty much any colonist will be able to generate wealth in some way to buy some kickass arms.

I suppose if you want to go completely turretless, like not even a single plasteel turret for enemies to absorb hits on, then yeah I'd be super picky.  But as I play on randy, that doesn't feel like it'd work to me since you can get 3 raids and a siege in one week plus mechanites and the flu.  Sheer exhaustion will end up resulting in just the worst berserk meltdown.

That being said, you can always "train" with shooting by attacking mountain walls with a pistol.  I used to do that until I got bored out of my mind lol.