Pawn v Pawn combat

[FrodoOf9Fingers]

TL:DR More creative ways to make PvP better. My personal favorite suggestion is giving pawns increased social impact for being a war hero or getting hurt trying to protect the colony.

I haven't played in the last week due to computer failures, but I know awhile ago it was mentioned that pawn v pawn (pvp) combat was less ideal than the various traps you can use, and that it led to tower defense type of game play (although pvp was forced on you from time to time).

Reasons why we avoid pvp (especially with other alternatives):
1. Large loss potential: Pawns represent lots of investment. A couple turrets and traps are not worth the person who spent a few days building them, and a few days mining the resources to make them. Additionally, rearranging work to fill the gap is tedious.
2. Large chance of loss: Pawns in combat are often hurt. Often. Death not as much as the enemy, except when you are generally losing.
3. Effort: It takes effort to control pvp. Letting enemies run into a trap room is ez pz.
4. Social / Mood: Combat always leads to sad pawns (bloodthirsty, pain loving freaks aside). Or scarred pawns that everyone avoids.

There are other reasons, although I think they are lesser:
5. PvP takes pawns: A pawn can't be fighting and growing at the same time. Especially true if you are waiting for the enemy to come to you and they are "preparing".
6. Depending on pawns is super risky: While traps, kill boxes, and turrets have their environmental vulnerabilities, pawns have much higher downtime, from being sick, mentally broken, or across the map.

Each of these reasons can be mitigated, some thoughts on that.

1.
    a. Making pawns be able to adapt to other skills easier would help this (with large consequences to balances in other parts of the game). I think this could be accomplished by adding tiers to how passion affects skill leveling. For levels 1-5 (Significant Familiarity), make it so that every pawn gains skill points at least at the rate of minor passion. This makes losing the only pawn with -any- passion in construction not be the worst thing ever.
    b. Another option is to directly lesson the effect of death. While depression is certainly a real thing, death often helps people understand mortality better, and helps them strive to become more than what they are. Perhaps a trait for pawns that gives them a bonus when someone they are friends with dies (keep the sad, but give them a "walking with greater purpose" bonus or something). Mid combat effects could happen too, such as entering a rage or increasing heroism. Maybe pawns treat each other better as they realize what loss is like (the opposite could certainly happen!)
    c. Putting on a funeral to give a minor catharsis via social interaction would be good.

2.
    a. Armor is the defacto standard to reducing the risk of losing a pawn. However, armor seems... difficult. It would be optimal to have armor stored near the kill box (but we're buffing PvP to avoid enforcing a kill box). Otherwise your wearing it and wearing it out. Making armor equipping less of a pain would go a long way to making PvP better.
    b. I'm not sure if this is already in the game, but giving your pawns a slightly higher chance of survival when wounded would help. This could be seen as having a higher chance to survive with your friends nearby than when being treated by an enemy doctor.
    c. I personally don't think that reducing the chance of death/injury directly would be good, but it's still an option.
3.
    a. Defensive Positions is a great helper mod, something like that would be great. Though it's already in place as a mod, so yeah.
    b. Reiterating the "make armor easier" bit here. A new object that is assignable like a bed that holds armor would be great. Then, when pawns are recruited, have a pre-pended (though override able) command to go to the armor stand and equip the stuff.
4.
    a. In game heroic acts. We have art pieces named after heroes, but we could also add social impact given to warriors. Say, someone is hurt: other pawns in the colony could gain "respect" for that person. Or a pawn kills more than 1 enemy pawn and is hailed as a war hero. Should offset scars.

5. Theres no helping this >.>
6. If PvP becomes more viable, the solution to this may be to nerf the other modes of defense (best through increased AI).