Need some exact figures for a point-based character creation system.

[Sola]

While "Prepare Carefully" mod is exceptionally useful for cutting some of the randomness out of pawn generation, it kinda takes some of the fun out of the game to make perfect pawns with perfet stats and traits.  Sure, there's a "use points" option, but it does not take traits into account, and improperly values other things.

What I'm interested in is making an excel spreadsheet that allows for the generation of a pawn from scratch using a points system.

-Is there a way to find out how much time a pawn has spent moving in a day?  (More specifically, how much time is spent walking/working/resting)
-Is there a list that shows exactly how much each body function (consciousness/sight/manipulation etc) have on each action taken by a pawn?

...I had a ton more to add here, but as soon as I leave work, it all left my brain. :p

[hoffmale]

-Is there a way to find out how much time a pawn has spent moving in a day?  (More specifically, how much time is spent walking/working/resting)

Well, one could write a mod that records these kinds of stats as needed. But for a rough guess you could take a look at the detailed character sheet (category: Records), tracking the differences over some days.

-Is there a list that shows exactly how much each body function (consciousness/sight/manipulation etc) have on each action taken by a pawn?

None that I know of (the wiki might have some information, but I don't think its complete). Could of course be measured with dev mode, detailed character sheet (Stats) and calculating differences... I think those proportions should be mostly linear anyways (like: 0%-100% manipulation maps to a 70%-130% construction speed factor, multiplied with all other influencing factors, or something along those lines).

PS: Now you actually got me interested in this as well... time to polish my excel skills and getting used to "Prepare carefully"...

[AngleWyrm]

-Is there a way to find out how much time a pawn has spent moving in a day?  (More specifically, how much time is spent walking/working/resting) "I"nfo button, records tab gives a bunch of details about how much a colonist has done over the span of their existence. Another source of information on the structure of pawns is to look inside Mods/Core/Defs for references to pawns.

[Sian]

-Is there a list that shows exactly how much each body function (consciousness/sight/manipulation etc) have on each action taken by a pawn?

Information ('I' on the Pawn sidebar that pops up when you select a pawn), and scroll down in the stats window, and press on the jobs in question

[Jarwy]

You could also roleplay it, and not make superpawns, but only useful realistic ones. You have the power.

[Limdood]

I don't see this being very plausible.  Obviously you'd need progressive costs per skill, with higher levels costing more.  Even then though, hyperspecialization or skill weighting and subjective value will throw any attempt at quantifying skill worth out the window.

If you weight skills equally, then you deal with hyperspecialization, everyone reducing melee to 0 (along with any other skill they don't want on that particular pawn) just to squeeze out a few more points of a certain valued skill.  This guy is a crafter who will sit at a table?  lets give him some ear and nose and leg scars so we can get some more points!  This guy will just cook in the kitchen?  0 in all skills except cooking (its a full time job) except cooking as high as it'll go and maybe a couple points in shooting.

If you weight the skills according to their worth, then you deal with the community having vastly different ideas of the worth of individual skills.  Just look at the threads "weighting" the skills from the time before A17.....tons of different ideas on each skill.  which would undermine the system, because so, so many people would just write it off as a subjective system created by one (group).

Then you have the issues of age, which has its own subjective risk/reward (young are a lot healthier, better immune systems, and less likely to develop frail or bad back on their birthday, while older get way more skills and passions, but deal with health issues) which people value differently.  Incapabilities due to backstories present similar issues.

[hoffmale]

My measurements on body function influence on colonist work:

Statistic	Sight factor	Manipulation factor	Notes
Animal gather speed	(0.5 + 0.5 x Sight%)	Manipulation%
Animal gather yield	(0.8 + 0.2 x Sight%)	(0.7 + 0.3 x Manipulation%)
Brewing speed	(0.7 + 0.3 x Sight%)	Manipulation%
Butchery efficiency	(0.6 + 0.4 x Sight%)	(0.1 + 0.9 x Manipulation%)	Final value capped at 100% (upper bound)
Butchery speed	(0.6 + 0.4 x Sight%)	Manipulation%
Construct success chance	(0.7 + 0.3 x Sight%)	(0.7 + 0.3 x Manipulation%)	Value capped at 100% (upper bound), factors apply after cap
Construction speed	(0.8 + 0.2 x Sight%)	Manipulation%
Cooking speed	(0.7 + 0.3 x Sight%)	Manipulation%
Drug production speed	(0.4 + 0.6 x Sight%)	Manipulation%
Food poison chance	1	1
Mechanoid disassembly efficiency	(0.6 + 0.4 x Sight%)	(0.1 +0.9 x Manipulation%)	Final value capped at 100% (upper bound)
Mechanoid disassembly speed	(0.6 + 0.4 x Sight%)	Manipulation%
Mechanoid operation success	(0.6 + 0.4 x Sight%)	Manipulation%	I assume final value is capped at 100% (upper bound)
Medical operation speed	(0.3 + 0.7 x Sight%)	Manipulation%
Medical surgery success chance	(0.6 + 0.4 x Sight%)	Manipulation%	I assume final value is capped at 100% (upper bound)
Medical tend quality	N/A	N/A	Non-linear
Medical tend speed	(0.2 + 0.8 x Sight%)	Manipulation%
Mining speed	(0.5 + 0.5 x Sight%)	Manipulation%
Mining yield	(0.8 + 0.2 x Sight%)	(0.7 + 0.3 x Manipulation%)	Final value capped at 100% (upper bound)
Plant harvest yield	(0.8 + 0.2 x Sight%)	(0.7 + 0.3 x Manipulation%)	Value capped at 100% (upper bound), factors apply after cap
Plant work speed	(0.7 + 0.3 x Sight%)	Manipulation%
Repair success chance	(0.8 + 0.2 x Sight%)	(0.7 + 0.3 x Manipulation%)	Value capped at 100% (upper bound), factors apply after cap
Research speed	(0.5 + 0.5 x Sight%)	(0.5 + 0.5 x Manipulation%)
Sculpting speed	(0.75 + 0.25 x Sight%)	Manipulation%
Smelting speed	(0.7 + 0.3 x Sight%)	Manipulation%
Smithing speed	(0.4 + 0.6 x Sight%)	Manipulation%
Smoothing speed	(0.7 + 0.3 x Sight%)	Manipulation%
Stonecutting speed	(0.7 + 0.3 x Sight%)	Manipulation%
Tailoring speed	(0.4 + 0.6 x Sight%)	Manipulation%

Note that consciousness doesn't influence any of those statistics directly, however it does affect Manipulation.

Measurements were taken on 5 colonists, each a 18 year old punk. Skills were set at 5 different levels (0, 5, 10, 15 and 20), and measurements of statistics were taken under these circumstances: completely health, no eyes, no arms, anesthetic, no right eye + no right arm (for verification).

Usage:
Final value = Start value x Sight factor x Manipulation factor

Example: Construction success chance, 100% Start value, 90% Manipulation, 70% Sight
Final value = 100% x (0.7 + 0.3 x 0.7) x (0.7 + 0.3 x 0.9) = 100% x 0.91 x 0.97 = 88.27%



@Limdood: The point of a point-buy system (pardon the pun) is that you have to pay for what you get.

If you want to specialize a colonist so he can only cook, fine. He'll be doing great when he can cook, but be useless during raids, or the first few days where you don't have much of a food supply.

That is a trade-off that can be balanced around, and it limits the creation of super pawns.

I for one can't play with prepare carefully - my pawns inadvertently end up too strong, because I always try to optimize my pawns and lack the self control to balance them appropriately. But with a point-buy system (or something similar) I don't get freebies anymore: If I want a specialized cook, I can still have it, but I will have to pay for it (in form of other skills/traits/background/...). Now I have a pawn with inbuilt weaknesses that I have to play around. That is what makes this game fun (to me, at least) - and I wouldn't have to reroll pawns for ages until I get an acceptable cook.

[Limdood]

prepare carefully does have a point buy system (its on the top right of the character creation i think).  Any other point buy system would have the same issues.  That cook would be amazing in raids.  Any pawn point allotment would EASILY be able to get a level 10+ shooter and 10+ cook, both with burning passions and good traits.  Now you have an amazing hunter AND cook....great when you have food and when you don't.

An 8+ grower/animals/shooter would be just as easy...and this is assuming a frankly MINISCULE amount of points.  The problem with a point buy system is that it encourages "min/maxing" or tanking certain skills to minimums in favor of other specific skills, then focusing on those skills at every conceivable opportunity.  In games where point buy is heavily used, such as Dungeons & Dragons, its still a problem, but is tempered by the fact that often, a character will need to perform a wide variety of tasks.  This isn't the case in Rimworld, where pawns are often restricted to VERY few tasks, so they gain xp in those tasks and don't "steal" xp from other pawns in other tasks.  Further, the ability to set up 3 or 5 pawns all at once in a point buy system, as opposed to just one, means its hella easy to overlap weak/strong. 

Consider this setup for a tribe:
Shooting 12, Cooking 12, medical 5
- hunter, cook, doctor
Social 12, Shooting 6, construction 10, pretty
- warden, builder
Growing 8, Animal 8, Shooting 6, Medical 5
- farmer, animal tamer, doctor
Crafting 12, research 6, shooting 4, Medical 6
- crafter, researcher, doctor
Mining 8, Melee 4, growing 6, research 5, Brawler, Jogger
- farmer, miner, hauler, backup researcher

With hardly any points at all, I basically just made a Rimworld dream team.  Every skill (except art) is covered, with some key skills doubled up.  Any individual pawn that you'd ever recruit has probably what...an 85% chance to have more points than any one of these?  Yet still this setup would feel like super optimized colony (each individual pawn fits perfectly in).

[Bozobub]

Since this would be a mod, I don't see the problem at all.  If you want something like Prepare Carefully but a little different, here ya go.  If you prefer random pawns (like I do), then simply don't use this mod.

Every once in a while, I think this would be a fun "side-game", where I don't really count the results but it's not quite cheating either ^^' .

[Limdood]

Since this would be a mod, I don't see the problem at all.  If you want something like Prepare Carefully but a little different, here ya go.  If you prefer random pawns (like I do), then simply don't use this mod.

Every once in a while, I think this would be a fun "side-game", where I don't really count the results but it's not quite cheating either ^^' .

I saw no mention in the original post that this would be a mod.  If it was implied, it was not implied very clearly.  I reread the first post to double check and still didn't see anything about it being a mod (though this doesn't mean much, if i read something once, i tend to read it the same way, with the same mistakes, on subsequent read-thrus)

[hoffmale]

Since this would be a mod, I don't see the problem at all.  If you want something like Prepare Carefully but a little different, here ya go.  If you prefer random pawns (like I do), then simply don't use this mod.

Every once in a while, I think this would be a fun "side-game", where I don't really count the results but it's not quite cheating either ^^' .

I saw no mention in the original post that this would be a mod.  If it was implied, it was not implied very clearly.  I reread the first post to double check and still didn't see anything about it being a mod (though this doesn't mean much, if i read something once, i tend to read it the same way, with the same mistakes, on subsequent read-thrus)

Well, to quote:

What I'm interested in is making an excel spreadsheet that allows for the generation of a pawn from scratch using a points system.

It's (at least currently) not even about creating a mod, more like basic research to get the basic concept nailed down.

[kenmtraveller]

This problem comes up in roleplaying games -- if you move from 'rolling' stats to a point based system you end up with minmaxing that creates characters that don't seem real.

I played with prepare carefully, and I noticed that it was really easy to get points by getting rid of skills that I didn't think my pawn would need - -- for example, that 4 score in Art with no passion.  That person is never going to be making art.
I doubt I would use a mod like this because I think well-rounded colonists end up being more interesting in the long run.

Since some pawns are way better than others, what I would like, however, is if each pawn was assigned a point value and if I ended up with crappy pawns I could use the extra points to buy more starting gear.  I liked this feature of Prepare Carefully when I used it with the Hardcore SK Mod pack.

[Limdood]

True, but for a mod, you can use gradual tweaking and trial and error.  From a mod standpoint, i have no issues with this at all (the problems with the point buy still stand, but i certainly don't need to use it).  However, if this becomes a model for a suggestion to add into the vanilla game, then i feel the problems with the system (in my opinion) become very important, and this is the first, and perhaps most important opportunity I'd have to express my concerns.

It FEELS like it is angling towards an objective, fact-based, one-size-fits-all quanitifcation of all aspects of pawn creation.  That FEELS like a prelude to a suggestion for vanilla functionality, or at least a set of data that will be used as future reference for comparisons of various aspects of pawn creation, in what is largely a subjective value system.  If it is, I feel my 2 cents are perfectly justified and legitimate.  If it is merely extremely in-depth research for potential mod data, then my hat is off to the OP for the scientific and pioneer mindset, though I still feel that any attempt to compare aspects of character creation directly (like using a common currency of "points" for all aspects) is flawed, though it could yield interesting conclusions.

[Bozobub]

True, but for a mod, you can use gradual tweaking and trial and error.  From a mod standpoint, i have no issues with this at all (the problems with the point buy still stand, but i certainly don't need to use it).  However, if this becomes a model for a suggestion to add into the vanilla game, then i feel the problems with the system (in my opinion) become very important, and this is the first, and perhaps most important opportunity I'd have to express my concerns.

It FEELS like it is angling towards an objective, fact-based, one-size-fits-all quanitifcation of all aspects of pawn creation.  That FEELS like a prelude to a suggestion for vanilla functionality, or at least a set of data that will be used as future reference for comparisons of various aspects of pawn creation, in what is largely a subjective value system.  If it is, I feel my 2 cents are perfectly justified and legitimate.  If it is merely extremely in-depth research for potential mod data, then my hat is off to the OP for the scientific and pioneer mindset, though I still feel that any attempt to compare aspects of character creation directly (like using a common currency of "points" for all aspects) is flawed, though it could yield interesting conclusions.

I agree.  I think the current extra scenario flexibility already allows pretty damn strong starts and much, if not all of the joy in RimWorld for me comes from the caprice of RNGeebus.  But I also can see the interest in setting up runs with very specific but not "broken" stats, including "gimp runs" (say, you're all light-gravity types with very low strength, but high intelligence).  This is perfect as mod territory.

[kenmtraveller]

Speaking of starts, do you guys think Rimworld should quit letting you decide the landing point?  Now that the globe has so many more features (villages, roads, rivers, etc)  the start location has way more influence on the difficulty of the game.  What if one could only select starting biome?