Rework the 'Wanderer Joins' event

[Ashe]

I'm sure quite a few of you out there can relate to the annoyance of someone deciding that they can just force themselves into your colony, causing a -3 thought on all pawns for banishing them when they are 9/10 times completely useless and not worth increasing raid difficulty for. It's not a particularly large penalty to deal with, but annoying all the same. I'm aware that you can disable the event in the scenario editor, which I have done, but it still seems odd and unrealistic to have your entire colony get upset over the banishment of someone who forced themselves into the colony. It is my suggestion that the event be reworked into 'Wanderer Offers To Join', being similar to the 'Refugee Chased' event, minus the part of them being chased, where you are given the opportunity to let them join or refuse them.

[Skryabin]

Yes! Very good thought. I would also preffer it to be this way.

[Limdood]

I dunno....it's kinda like the dude shows up and has nowhere else to go, so dammit, he's staying...you can try to kick him out, but I can certainly see pawns feeling that's kinda heartless and having a bit of guilt.

That being said, it feels like if that's the case, then crashed escape pods (and a small slice of other, similar events) should have the same penalty.

Keeping in mind two things:  even though your particular playstyle and strategy might prefer or count on having a subpar amount of pawns, this is 1) meant to be a story game.  The events are intended to create a story, in addition to, or in some cases, possibly instead of (which i may not agree with, but it has ALWAYS been the stated intention of the game) being an efficient, streamlined colony sim.  And 2) in order to achieve #1, the (artificially) intelligent storyteller is programmed to weigh events a certain way in order to push colonies towards a specific acceptable range of colonists. 

In other words, to create an engaging story, the storyteller WILL give events that push more colonists on the colony, as, from a story perspective, this makes for a more compelling story....whether the new colonist is a grizzled veteran worth any 3 other existing colonists, or is a worthless kook barely worth the food he eats each day, or whether he DOES end up banished, creating the believable, if frustrating sense of guilt for the current colonists.  Certainly more compelling than "another random nobody called wanting to join today.  We gave him an extensive aptitude test and rejected him based on his elevated opportunity cost."

TBH, I play it like a colony sim that I want to streamline, maximize productivity and minimize cost, and squeeze the most out of every cog in the machine as well...but while the game is called a colony sim, it is also described, right on the front page of Rimworldgame.com with "RimWorld is not designed as a competitive strategy game, but as a story generator." - so I kinda have to accept that it's going to happen whether I like it, or want it, or not.

Now, after all of that, the player does have the agency to play the game they want to play, and you've said so as well, the game is designed with amazing customizability and we have the easily accessible option to disable events we don't want, and if it bugs you, you CAN disable the event as you've said.  You can even force repeat refugee or crashed pod events to keep the game throwing pawns at you while giving you the option.




As a last resort, if all that is just too much...you always have the option to capture the wanderer as a prisoner the pawn and then "accidentally" leave the door open...all the way to the edge of the map.  Wanderer leaves the faction, no mood penalty.

[Kirby23590]

When the Wanderer Joins, if you banish him or her early...

The Banish debuff should be lower or shouldn't exist since you told him that hey, ummm sorry, this isn't the colony for you telling him to find another place or just go to the nearest outlander settlement or tribe and live there instead.

If he had some traits like the pyromaniac or the some other bad traits.



I kinda prefer a message saying that a wanderer is wanting to join and it's saying that you will you let him in or not, instead... Along with telling you the traits that he has and the skills that he has and is good at...

[LWM]

Heh.  Given how difficult it is for people to set boundaries in their personal lives, I can easily see people feeling guilty if some poor loser doesn't have anywhere to go and gets tossed to the curb.

If I rewrite the event, it'd go like this:  wanderer walks in, visits with colonists, window pops up saying they want to join.  If they join, some people are unhappy b/c they don't like them.  If they don't join, even more are unhappy because hey, they don't stand a chance out there alone.  Maybe a few fights get started.  Get the game off to a great start!  ^.^

--LWM