Tired of useless colonists

[Shurp]

Yes, exactly, training a skill 0 shooter up to skill 3 is tedious and boring...

And yes, I was trying turretless play.  As long as I'm only getting attacked by a dozen or so I can manage, but the 30+ hordes are more than I can shoot.

And now I have a perfect example of just how wrong this is.  A pirate merchant showed up with three colonists on offer:

a) Ren, Vatgrown Soldier / Medieval Minstrel.  Incapable of skilled labor, caring, social, hauling.  Despite shooting of 7, this is a *no*.

b) Alpha, Medieval slave / Taxonomist.  Incapable of violent.  Again, *no*.

c) Boss, Militant child / Lost marine.  Despite being incapable of dumb labor and mining, and also being a Teetotaler, I'm willing to take a chance because he has shooting of 15 and some other nice skills.

So in short, 1 out of 3 colonists is actually usable.  This skills/traits business is awful.  (Although I'm amazed none of them are pyromaniacs)

[Hans Lemurson]

I think part of the difficulty is that more colonists = bigger raids, so every colonist who cannot fight is a liability. 
3 Super-Soldiers will kick ass. 
3 Super Soldiers guarding 10 pacifists will get murdered.

[Greep]

Yeah, there's even a mod I saw on steam that's directly for addressing this, combat readiness mod or something around those lines.  Basically factors in your colonist combat abilities into raid size.  So might be worth looking into for your turretless games.  I don't think it'd make sense in the base game since I think the game currently assumes some form of defenses.

Personally, I would like to see a black market where you could request specific items at a markup.  This would allow you to invest all your colony into combat neurotrainers.

Better yet, mini trainers would be the perfect solution to this and a lot of problems.  High abundance  (gauranteed a few for each skill in exotic trader/caravan) low cost trainers that set your ability rather than increase it. 

E.g. shooting minitrainer: cost 800, sets shooting to 4.

Actually I like a black market better xD

In any case, I think the best option would just be to lower the difficulty to intense, and leave extreme to those cowardly turret users :3  Or perhaps bribing/releasing prisoners for tribals if they specifically are your problem, although I'd imagine useless pawns don't fair much better when highly outnumbered by pirates.

Also tbh colonist value for raid size is probably a bit too high.  Not increasing wealth deliberately is bad, but deliberately not recruiting the majority of recruits kind of goes against the idea of rimworld and running with what you get.

[b0rsuk]

Raid size depends on number of colonists ? Then put him on the first line as a (shielded) decoy. If you're getting casualties, let it be that guy!

[Shurp]

Yeah, then he dies and everyone else gets a mood hit.  Hmmm.  Well at least I can get rid of a useless colonist that way. 

Maybe I should turn him into a suicide bomber.  He runs into a large enclosure with several artillery shells spread about, waits for all the tribesmen to chase him in, then sets them off with a grenade.  *boom*

Hey, wait a sec, if he has a shield there's a chance he'd survive, right?

[MajorMonotone]

Hey, wait a sec, if he has a shield there's a chance he'd survive, right?

Possibly, depends on the quality of the shield I suppose.

Personally I like to use the Imperial Guard/ Soviet approach. If a raid happens, EVERYONE has a role to play;
- Everyone who can shoot picks up a rifle, expendable colonists are sent to the front and important ones are kept back.
- The melee users are either proficiently skilled in melee and augmented or are part of the "mob" who cannot shoot and are a fallback crew to defend the main entrance should the enemy break through.
- Non violent are kept as rescuers/repairmen/firefighters.
- Anyone else who cannot do dumb labour/firefight and repair are used either as meat shields or as spare body parts.

This way, no one is TRULY useless.

[Britnoth]

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

If you stop turning down above average colonists you might have enough people to defend the base.

1% of pawns are useless. The rest is up to you.


Hell, lets take a look at what you consider a "useless" colonist:

13 Social, 8 Medicine, 4 Construction, and 7 Research. Passions in all, incapable of.. art and cleaning. So he can still haul.

This is a top 10% colonist right there. The 3 critical skills are Medicine, Social, and Shooting. In that order.
He is excellent at the first two, and while has zero shooting he at least is not a brawler or pacifist, so can still hold a gun and gain a few easy levels in shooting. Once anyone becomes lvl 5 or 6 shooting they are more than capable of hitting targets at short range. In the mean time just give him an SMG or shotgun. He is even a good researcher! Which is an excellent secondary task when he isnt recruiting a prisoner. He can even be your primary constructor if you do not yet have one, or of that person is needed to mine or grow.

Prosthophile and volatile are tricky to deal with early on, but if you do get him a bionic (which is hardly wasted on a doctor) they will cancel out. Slowpoke is a non issue when he will spend 90% of his time indoors.

Next:

8 Social, 11 Medicine, 4 Cooking, incapable of violent.

Cannot fight, but has 2 of the 3 key skills in spades. Can also cook well enough if you have no one better. Hauling and stone cutting are also perfectly viable jobs when you have no prisoners. Top tier character even without being able to fight.

Next:

12 Social, 5 Cooking, 5 Construction, 9 Art, 12 Research. "She's *almost* useless." You say.

High social again.. can cook if needed, art is high enough to be a viable option, and is a top tier researcher which is important if you are playing to get to space quickly, or can let a researcher with other skills do that while they take over. Social + Researcher is an excellent combo. Again, what is wrong with this colonist? At 2 shooting they can at least hold a gun?



Colonist count is an extremely minor increase to raid sizes. Vast majority of the raid is from your colony wealth once you reach the midgame. Anyone that can hold a gun is a net positive to defend the colony. Even a pacifist is useful if you have a personal shield for them to tank shots with.

If you play without turrets, you need to change your mindset from 'I want a perfect colony with fair haired golden children' to 'my motley crew makes the dirty dozen look respectable' 

1.  Animal hunting colonist lacking notification is inconsistent with the game mechanics as a whole.  I recommend ruthlessly savescumming that until it gets fixed.  There is no self-consistent logic to not-notify on predator hunting colonist that would wind up avoiding support for not-notifying on sieges, raids, infestations, or mech ships.  The reason we get notifications for raids is the same reason the predator hunting colonist notification needs a look.

Search function is your friend, friend.

[Greep]

Well, in the first year, which is usually the make or break of a fort, pawns play the greatest role in raid size by a landslide, even if you get loot from thrumbos and psychic ships.  So accepting 99% isn't really an option if you're going for a no security buildings defense.  Which is why I personally don't do that heh.

[Britnoth]

Well, in the first year, which is usually the make or break of a fort, pawns play the greatest role in raid size by a landslide, even if you get loot from thrumbos and psychic ships.  So accepting 99% isn't really an option if you're going for a no security buildings defense.  Which is why I personally don't do that heh.

Please stop spreading misinformation.

[Greep]

That reply is so... informative.

I'm using this:

https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=20912.msg246117#msg246117

Which would mean colonists are a colossal factor in raid size early game.

Keep in mind, more colonists -> more necessary wealth.  If you're at 5 colonists, you'll need half the crops, half the gear, half the clothing, half the medicine, etc. than 10 colonists.  So more non-combatants definitely is a big sink if they aren't producing wealth that helps you fight.

[Britnoth]

That is an excellent post describing how the current raid sizes are defined.

I suggest you read it.

Right at the start, when your wealth is almost nothing, then yes, colonists are important.

But the first 5 raids get a size penalty to help new players out. Once you are past that, you should have a significant level of wealth.

Let us say it is mid game and your colony is worth at least 100,000. Probably more.

3600 silver more from a new colonist is ~3% more.

above 1k raid size, raid points are halved, above 2k, halved again.

so that 3% is at least going to be reduced to just 1.5% increase, or possibly 0.75% increase if the raids are large enough.

If you have 8 colonists, going to 9 colonists is 12.5% more people to do work, and defend the colony. Versus raid sizes increased by 1.5%.

Colonist count quickly becomes meaningless past the first season or so.

[Shurp]

Hmmm, you have a point there.  It's when I hit the 50k to 150k point that I start running into raid size problems.  A 2~4k colonist isn't going to step that up by much.  In which case it really could be worthwhile to hand him a charge rifle and let him spray ammo around uselessly (occasionally winging bystanders) until he gains experience. 

Probably more worthwhile to hand him a minigun though   OK, back to the drawing board!

Question: if you have a dozen colonists, how do you set up a killbox that isn't 30 squares wide?  I don't want my pawns standing next to each other catching missed shots by the enemies, but if I spread them out there doesn't seem to be enough room.

[Brutetal]

This is my usual setup;



I set there a dump stockpile which is configured to store some stone chunks.
In between you can see the arranged deadfall traps, all made of steel. A good 50% of raiders will be killed solely by them.
If they survive this corridor, there are 10 turrets waiting to stop them before they get into the base itself. And inside the base, I can line up my colonists. On the two sides right behind the last two turrets, two guys with miniguns, and behind the sandbags everyone else.
Until now, no raid came into the base. Biggest tribal raid until now was somewhere above 40+ peeps.
Oh, and my wealth is somewhere above 400k I think? Have to look it up though.

[Greep]

Well, for a pure fire fight shurp, I make a cone of fire that's greater than 45 degrees (2 or 3 horizontal, one vertical, e.g.).  Can get a nice fire zone for about 20 colonists which is more than usually you get with cassandra anyways.

[Shurp]

Yeah, I guess I have to go a bit more angular than usual.  Typically I apply an inverted cone (my colonists at the pointy end) so that sappers going through the wall are still easily plinked.  Reversing that... might be a challenge, but I'll give it a swing!