Cannibalism Addiction

[Pokk720]

Cannibalism has the potential to be a very interesting part of this game. However, because of the way the cannibal trait works, having a single cannibal in your colony is almost a non-factor. Unless all or most of my colonists were cannibals, I would not consider putting human meat on the menu since the negative thoughts it brings are generally not worth it.

I don't suggest that the negative thoughts be toned down (I like that the colonists get upset about butchering and eating humans). I think that cannibalism should be an addiction rather than a trait. Human meat should be highly addictive and when eaten, pawns receive the negative thoughts but may also become cannibals (addicted to human meat).

In this way, if your colony fell on hard times, you could resort to eating human meat at the cost that your colonists would receive a hit to their mood and some of them would potentially become cannibals. Cannibals would then receive strong positive thoughts from eating human meat instead and have to cannibalize every so often or else they go through withdrawals just like any other addiction. It would then also be possible to cure cannibalism by starving them of human meat. Likewise you could create a colony full of cannibals without having to play under special rules forcing everyone to have the trait.

I think this is a much more interactive way to handle cannibalism in the game. It allows the player to choose, or be forced to choose, whether or not they want their colony to be a cannibalistic cult. If one of your starting colonists spawns in with the addiction, you will have to make the tough choice to allow the cannibal to feed his unholy hunger in order to keep him sane while his fellow colonists watch in horror, or starve him and temporarily lose a valuable worker in hopes that one day he will fit into a moral society.

[BetaSpectre]

+1

IRL it doesn't really happen though there are tribes who love it

[Gohihioh]

Usually it's more of a cultural thing than survival. In most cases it's about acquiring strenght of people we eat.
People really have to be push to edges to resolve to canibalism. Moral consciousness in many cases will overpower even will of life, resulting in someone's death rather than them eating their own kind.

I don't like the idea of cannibalism being an addiction, but I would love to see a way to convert people into canibalism if we want to have that kind of colony(I don't like the mechanic proposed but I like the idea).

[Limdood]

If you want all cannibals, simply modify the scenario to give [all pawns] the trait [cannibal] with a [100%] chance....now all your colonists and anyone who enters the map will be a cannibal.

I dislike pretty much any proposal that says "if i do this thing that there is a punishment for (mood) a WHOLE BUNCH, then the punishment should go away!" - its a game, the punishment exists for gameplay reasons.  If anything, repeating punished actions should increase the punishment.