Being Picky

[dreamzinc]

I've been having an epiphany lately. I am not sure whether or not to be very selective when recruiting my colonists and capturing raiders based on traits. I have been discarding most prisoners who have attributes like incapable of; "Intellectual","Dumb Labor","social" and so on. Should I be less picky and just recruit any colonist that is healthy or is being very selective a good thing?

[JimJammer89]

Personally, I usually recruit based on the stats of the pawn, not if they are incapable of doing a certain task such as social or researching, since I usually only need one colonist for each of those. However, if you accept too many pyromaniacs, incapable of dumb labor, pacifists, etcetera, then you'll be screwed.

In summary, don't turn down a really good colonist because they can't clean, even though you already have several janitor colonists.

[dreamzinc]

This seems logical thank you for the response . It's so weird that I am this anal about my colonists.

[JimJammer89]

You're welcome, and it isn't THAT weird, in fact, it's probably better to have that trait than to be sloppy with colonists. Untold thousands have been lost to players not looking and pondering on character sheets.

[khearn]

It all depends on your needs. If you have a great researcher already and really need a crafter, then you don't really care if that downed raider with 9++ crafting can't do intellectual. You don't want him doing that anyways.
Similarly, if you need a researcher and find someone with good intellectual, it doesn't matter if he can't do dumb labor. He's going to spend 100% of his time in front of a research bench, so he won't have time to haul and clean.

But if you really need to get stuff hauled and your home is a total mess because nobody has time to clean, then picking up someone who won't do dumb labor might not be the best idea.

Then there are the traits that have effects other than skills, especially in certain combos. Do you really want someone who is abrasive and bloodthirsty, and will be causing social fights right and left? Or how about that neurotic pessimist? Sure, he'll work quick, but you'll be constantly struggling to keep him mentally intact. These sorts of bad combos aren't worth it, even if you need the skills they have.

[kenmtraveller]

For non-raiders, I take everyone who isn't a cannibal.  Yeah, not optimal, but I like the challenge.
For raiders, they have to be seriously awesome and I have to have very few colonists.

[dreamzinc]

It all depends on your needs. If you have a great researcher already and really need a crafter, then you don't really care if that downed raider with 9++ crafting can't do intellectual. You don't want him doing that anyways.
Similarly, if you need a researcher and find someone with good intellectual, it doesn't matter if he can't do dumb labor. He's going to spend 100% of his time in front of a research bench, so he won't have time to haul and clean.

But if you really need to get stuff hauled and your home is a total mess because nobody has time to clean, then picking up someone who won't do dumb labor might not be the best idea.

Then there are the traits that have effects other than skills, especially in certain combos. Do you really want someone who is abrasive and bloodthirsty, and will be causing social fights right and left? Or how about that neurotic pessimist? Sure, he'll work quick, but you'll be constantly struggling to keep him mentally intact. These sorts of bad combos aren't worth it, even if you need the skills they have.

Thanks for the advice. I just feel like I have every type of worker I need for my colony and I'm not quite sure if I should keep grabbing colonists or not.

[khearn]

If they don't fulfill any needs, you might not want the extra mouths to feed. But someone who can haul and/or clean and who is good with a gun is always nice to have around.

It's hard to have too many crafters or constructors, although I guess it's possible. Having a second cook becomes neccessary once you have a certain number of people.

And someone with intellectual skills who is a night owl is a great find, so you can keep your research bench going night and day. You can do that without the night owl trait, but they'll be happier if they have it.

Then there is the role playing aspect. I hate to turn away anyone who is a relative of one of my pawns, even if they're pretty worthless. I've even recruited a couple that I knew whould be problems due to bad traits. But what can ya do? They're family.

[ProjectXa3]

I generally filter against the "no firefighting" or "incapable of [just about god damn everything]" types of ones, and the psych cases. With exceptions, of course-- in my colony from the previous generation, my first random join was an Ascetic Glitterworld Researcher who did fuck-all for my colony but research, but she kept housing costs down, she allowed us to more or less max out the tech tree within three years, and she was nocturnal too, so she didn't start many fights either. Good ol broad, she was.

I mean, I'm recruiting a "chemical fixation" chap right now, but he's mostly because of my eight colonists about three are half-decent shots right now, plus my colony isn't exactly awash in drugs for him to drown himself in either.

[The Nickman]

I tend to choose my prisoners based on my existing pool of pawns.  If I have too many incapable of dumb labor or violence, I won't pick any more, but you can usually carry a few of each, it's just about sharing the work properly.  Even one or two pyros is manageable enough, when they flip out you just draft someone and follow them around, it's never for that long.

Biggest problem I had was with a tribal colony a few months ago, I had so many pawns not capable of violence (like 50% of them), and everytime there was a raid I'd lose someone who could fight and my non-violence pawns would never die because they weren't fighting!  I eventually ended up with a colony of like four or five pawns and none of them could fight, and then a mech raid happened...

[TheMeInTeam]

Being too picky or accepting are both bad.

If you have researchers, incapable of intellectual is irrelevant for example.  Such a pawn can still be very useful if good at crafting, cooking, growing, constructing, social, or violence.

The two I'm least likely to allow into my colonies are those incapable of dumb labor and violence.  They need some strong redeeming qualities to overcome those.

A pawn that is at least "interested" can become quite good in that category, passionate is a luxury.  While you don't want too many, pawns with weak stats but otherwise can do any task are solid options as cleaner/haulers, and can usually be handed a decent quality club if you don't have grenades or miniguns yet.

[tyriaelsoban]

Personally, anyone character who wont do dumb labor is already a deal breaker for me... theyve gotta have some pretty fucking spectacular scores somewhere else for me to change my mind, like 12 or more medical skill etc

[grrizo]

At some point, probably its useful discard colonists/recruitments. This point is when you have a young colony with few pawns. But when you already have a somewhat "strong" colony, its just pointless.

One of my biggest and strongest colonies that I had was a den full of... everything.

[TheMeInTeam]

Personally, anyone character who wont do dumb labor is already a deal breaker for me... theyve gotta have some pretty fucking spectacular scores somewhere else for me to change my mind, like 12 or more medical skill etc

It's enough if you can assign them useful work such that they don't idle.  Incapable of dumb labor but "interested" in art (7 skill) and research (4 skill) is something I'd keep for example, because I could night-shift research this pawn even if I have another already, and once that's through I can just make them generate wealth + room impressiveness spamming statues.

Even 1 flame is enough where if you leave the pawn on the task long-term they get pretty high skill after a couple seasons.  A random interested by crappy level 3 crafter can be shoved onto a tailoring bench w/o power making dusters and a few seasons later you have an extra person who can make high-quality equipment.  If this person is capable of violent they can also spray miniguns or throw grenades just fine.

Pawns that wind up idling despite every effort to make them productive often find their way into prisons, though they seem to be pretty good at escaping these open door facilities for some reason.

[iceteazz]

 _ In " easy " biome it's fine to recruit as many as you can because you got enough foods to feed them all. In harsh biome or hard story mode, you will want to be picky in recruitment, because elite pawns not only lower raid size in early game, which means you got better change to survive, but also you need less foods to feed people, spend more time and resources to build defensive system and equip your soldiers.

_ I personally always only recruit elite pawns only, who must have certain shooting / melee skills, capable of at least 2 main jobs with passion, no bad traits, healthy and of course can do anything. And i especially welcome cannibalism, psychopath ( psycopath cook is the best ), iron-will or sanguine who will stand strong whatever situation, hardwork is also welcome but no really needed, greenthumb is ok if there is passion in growing, doctors are always good too, and pyromaniac is good material for a chair.