Good skill/trait combos

[Syrchalis]

Some are very picky when it comes to starting colonists and colonists that join, others will make due with anyone. Whatever type of player you are, you still like to see certain combination of traits and/or skills.

An extreme example is this trait combo:
Iron-willed
Very Neurotic
Industrious

4% better break threshold, 175% global work speed. If that's your constructor/crafter, GG. But no matter what he is good at, that will be a top-notch colonist.

Some combos are more specific and those are the ones I'm more interested in.

For example - someone who is good at growing, medicine and cooking. This colonist will stay inside the base at all times, because his skills allow it. A bad combination would be animals/shooting with medicine/cooking. They want to hunt/tame but need to stay at the base to cook or tend to people regularly, resulting in conflicting priorities. They often will wander across half the map to hunt/tame and then return half-way because someone needs their flu shot or a hamburger.

Shooting/Melee/Animals is another good combo because that guy can go hunt/tame and do reasonably well in a melee fight with the animals. Also animals/brawler for the same reason - doesn't make a good hunter though.

I like my constructor/crafter to be separate, even though they don't really hurt each other like above example. It simply is annoying that you have to choose between crafting the clothing/weapon your colony needs and building whatever needs building right now (especially if no one else can do it since quality is relevant).

I like a high research score on whoever is doing things that aren't always in need to be done - e.g. a doctor/crafter could research reasonably well even if research is not higher priority than his main jobs.

What combination of traits and skills do you like? Personally and objectively?

[b0rsuk]

You work with what you're given. But my dream combination would be:

Industrious
Optimist
Masochist (or Bloodlust, but Masochist helps when you're wounded or sick, and Bloodlust mostly lets that pawn haul corpses after a raid. Something the newly wed will happily do).

Optimist  vs Iron-willed: optimist has largely the same effect, except when high on mood your colonist works and walks faster.

[XeoNovaDan]

In Alpha 15, I had somebody who was very neurotic and industrious, but careful shooter instead of iron-willed - she was also 74 years old but that clearly didn't show in her. Her name was Epsilon, and she was one of the lead cooks.

I quite like Pessimist/Depressive and Teetotaller personally because they make for an interesting challenge to keep happy (especially depressive). Greedy or Jealous makes that even more interesting for the early game. Careful shooter with anything as Careful Shooter is pretty OP as it stands.

[Granitecosmos]

The winner combe for me is:

• Industrious
• Jogger
• Sanguine

No matter what, the pawn is destined to be better than the others in whatever task it is performing. Could drop Sanguine lategame for some combat trait, though.

[Greep]

Jogger
Careful Shooter
Iron-willed

Best warrior ever.

[Syrchalis]

Why are you all mentioning optimist? Sanguine is the same but stronger.

The reason I prefer Iron-willed is because it is stronger when it comes to preventing breaks.

[XeoNovaDan]

Mood changing traits and threshold traits are interesting for sure

Iron-willed vs Sanguine: Iron-willed (or even steadfast if no other traits that affect threshold) minimises mental breaking, but sanguine is a higher mood which affects global work speed past a certain threshold

[Granitecosmos]

Why are you all mentioning optimist? Sanguine is the same but stronger.

The reason I prefer Iron-willed is because it is stronger when it comes to preventing breaks.

I haven't seen Sanguine in such a long time I forgot it existed. Yeah, I meant Sanguine. My bad. Gonna edit my reply too.

Iron-willed vs Sanguine: Iron-willed (or even steadfast if no other traits that affect threshold) minimises mental breaking, but sanguine is a higher mood which affects global work speed past a certain threshold

I'd take Sanguine over Iron-willed any day. Former gives a better boost overall.

[Syrchalis]

What about skill combinations? What kind of skills do you like to see together? I already wrote a few examples what I personally like together (stuff that is done outside the base, stuff that is done inside the base).

[Greep]

My favorite isn't a skill combo so much as a background combo.  There's this one set of backgrounds that basically covers every miscellaneous task you want.  Social, medicine, research, crafting.  Some researcher or whatever.

[Hans Lemurson]

Neurotic
Nudist
Pyromaniac

"It was getting chilly in there, and electricity and me just don't get along..."

[Greep]

Slipped my mind, but the obvious:

Constructor/grower.  Unless you prep the area with a grower, a con20/grow0 is going to spend way more time building than a con7/grow7 just because of all the tree chopping.

[Syrchalis]

My favorite isn't a skill combo so much as a background combo.  There's this one set of backgrounds that basically covers every miscellaneous task you want.  Social, medicine, research, crafting.  Some researcher or whatever.

Exiled researcher?
Shooting +2
Medicine +4
Artistic +2
Crafting +3
Research +8
(no downsides)

[Greep]

Yeah that one is pretty ridiculous, especially with a good child background.

[Syrchalis]

There is some more of these. Addiction Council is one of them, gives nearly the same but social instead of research. Low-wage worker, as bad as it sounds is actually one of the best backstories. Combat engineer is also pretty good. All the tribal backstories are good, because they have no downsides. There is a few that are really good but disable one or two not-so-important things (social, cooking etc.).