Slave Labor

[BetaSpectre]

There is no reason to not recruit a prisoner who isn't harvested.
There will never come a time when it's better to leave a prisoner as a prisoner.

They start riots, escape, take the same food.

Unless prisoners can be set to only eat certain meals without extra micro or eat less might as well recruit. Now there comes a time when you pick and choose, but too many prisoners still has the riot issue where they degrade in performance when reclaimed.

However, allowing slave labor will mean keeping slaves will cost the colony less than free rent and board. So it's an improvement if they don't try to escape. If I'm out of a cell I would try if I'm told to haul miles away from base though.

[AngleWyrm]

Unless prisoners can be set to only eat certain meals without extra micro or eat less might as well recruit.

Last game I set up a nutrient dispenser that had hoppers on the outside of the jail and the feeder on the inside. Haulers could deliver various vegetation to the hoppers without entering the compound.

Nutrient paste meals have advantages over meals prepared by a cook. The first is that meals prepared by a cook always have a chance of causing food poisoning, whereas nutrient paste meals never cause food poisoning. A second advantage is that it is extremely efficient on food reserves. It only consumes 6 ingredients to produce a meal with 0.9 nutrition, whereas fine meal or pemmican use 10 ingredients to provide the same amount.

[SpaceDorf]

One possible way I could think of would be putting Workbenches and Ressources into the prison.

Setup Bills and bored or pursuaded prisoners could work on them.
There could be a fourth option on the prisoners Tab .. force to work .. and the warden then talks the prisoners into working which would work like training animals.

Every time a Prisoner is convinced, he will work one day at a workbench.
Maybe even restricted to prisoners passions.

[Ruisuki]

The whole concept seems a lot of work for something which will be barely noticable in gameplay...I mean what, you get colonists who cant fight, but also don't need joy? Seems a silly idea.

Doubt it would be worth the time to code, nor very enjoyable, unless colonists themselves were radically redone.

Maybe have the warden increase their social while overseeing the prisoner work. A more reliable way to level wardening/social skill. Gives an incentive to keep prisoners and makes them different from colonists. Though colonists with bleeding hearts should probably have a problem with slavery

[AngleWyrm]

There could be a fourth option on the prisoners Tab .. force to work .. and the warden then talks the prisoners into working which would work like training animals.

Every time a Prisoner is convinced, he will work one day at a workbench.
Maybe even restricted to prisoners passions.

There could be levels of training that indicate how many times a prisoner has been convinced, with the second level being two days long, the third being three days long, up to the seventh that is seven days long. Prison conditioning.

[Ruisuki]

Ohhhh i like those ideas as well. I really think somebody should consider something like this, it sounds promising.
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Also theres plenty of reason to keep prisoners, aside from slavery as suggested here. To level up your social skill, or better yet your medicine via installing peg legs and whatnot. Hopper and NPD is for feeding ease of use.

[Wishmaster]

Prisoners could at least perform some basic tasks: cleaning up and firefighting their own barracks / cell (they really want to burn or live in filth) or maybe heal some on their mates under condition (medical still sufficient, relation...).

[SpaceDorf]

Then operating on their fellow inmates should also have an effect on the prisoners.

[Nexusphere]

I came here to reccomend this very thing.

It seems that work speed penalty, plus restricting to dumb labor tasks provide the difference between colonists and prisoners.

[Ruisuki]

Yeah when you think about how you may have a colony full of primadonnas who wont haul slaves would actually be really useful for that as well. Though the chance of a prisoner listening should depend on traits(compatible with psychology mod) and the skill of warden. If the speech check fails he wont listen maybe try to break out after enough fails. I think tying this idea along with anglewyrms where prisoner conditioning is done incrementally in tiers(1/7) and then having a failed one decrease progress(0/7). If it becomes negative the consequence is it increases AI aggression/desperation to escape. Or maybe a separate tier tracker for negative speech check failures which result in escape attempts after having enough of them (7/7). Time in jail could increase ro decrease difficulty of success depeneding on rationale. This could be a good additional way to level up social, the worst skill to level. Mood debuff for entire colony for keeping slaves though. Also faction relation penalty for who you imprisoned. Maybe they attempt a siege to retake colonist? Opens up door for events to be created from this as well.

[RemingtonRyder]

You can already use prisoners as pack mules if you assign them to a caravan. They're a bit slow-moving but in a pinch (before you have pack animals, for example) they will do.

[makkenhoff]

I'm of the mind that given balance (risk vs reward) this is an idea that could stick in the back of the player's mind 'well, I could maybe force them to work for me, just for a little bit'. If you add tool requirements (ie: prisoner gets a mining pick, which can then be used as an improvised lethal melee weapon) it could certainly create emergent behaviors of "secret" prisoner tunneling.

[Rasec]

Slavery: Creates a option that forces a prisoner to work, causing negative mood effect on every one involved and making the relationship with the faction way worst.

    Characteristics
           # The prisoners needs to be under supervision of a Settler while work (maybe 1 Settler for each 3 or 4 Prisoners).
           # Generates a big amount of bad mood for the Prisoner and a little for the Settler.
           # Higher chance of attempt of escape while working.
           # The Relations with the Faction that the Prisoner belong gets worst.
           # Raids and sieges of the Faction of the Prisoner belong becomes more frequent.

    Possible Features

           # Ball and Chain: It slows the prisoner or anyone that you puts in.
               * Negative Mood Effect
               * Prisoners can cut off their on foot to escape faster

           # Pillory: Prevents the prisoner to attack or work
               * Negative Mood Effect
               * Can be used to make a Example, explain on the feature below

           # Punishment/Example: when a Prisoner attempt to escape and fail, your treatment to him (food, medical care, clothes, quality of the prison cell) alter the chance of further attempts, plus the option of directly punishing him (violence, execution or sending him possible solitary or the Pillory)

           # Without Fighting Back: Chance of a Prisoner that is trying to escape to not fight back when reached, in order to not get hurt or not highly punished.

           # Prison Doors: slow and ugly, but way more strong.

           # Wall Hole Prison Escape: possibility of a prisoner try escape by making a hole in the wall (it's slower than normal mining).

           # Different Types of Execution: some ways give less negative mood effect, and others more cruel ways put fear in other prisoners, making less likely to them to attempt to escape.

           # Possibility of using drugs on Prisoners.

           # Other Factions have prisoners too when you take a colony, you can take their Prisoners/Slaves and choose to release them or take them as your prisoners, if you release them have a chance to come to your colony, when fail, they comeback to their faction and you gain points of good relationship which their faction, if you take them as your prisoners, you gain just a little bad relationship whit their faction.

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[mumblemumble]

problem is with slaves is distinguishing them from colonists in ways which isn't weird, unbalances, or 1 sided.

its also been suggested a million times. Doubt it will happen anytime soon.

[Calahan]

@ Rasec - I've merged your new "Slavery" thread with the most recent topic about this subject. As mumblemumble says (and echoed many times before) this subject has been discussed many times and it doesn't need yet another separate thread for it.

Also, can you please use the search function before creating a new thread to check if the subject you are looking to discuss / suggest already exists or not. Thank you (edit - the advanced search functions allow you to limit searches to a particular sub forum. Meaning you can search just the suggestions forum for "slave" or "slavery" without getting forum wide results. This makes it easier to see if your suggestion has been made before).