The way chemical interest/fascination work now invalidate policies

[darkwarrior1002]

First, I'd like to start out simply by reiterating how these work just so we're all on the same page. Pawns with these traits suffer 'chemical want' and 'chemical starvation' when they don't take drugs for too long. When they take drugs, they are granted the 'chemical comfort' and 'chemical satisfaction' buffs.

As it is now, these pawns will take whatever drug they can access on the map, regardless of whether or not they've achieved chemical satisfaction. This includes drugs that are forbidden as well as drugs not assigned to them in their policy. This is already unreasonable enough on its face since it mechanically invalidates the mood debuffs they get anytime past the early game, since raiders often come carrying drugs on them, but whatever. The bigger issue is that these pawns will binge even if you have policies set up for them to consume drugs. That is, whatever policies you assign to these pawns will STACK with their uncontrolled consumption. For example:

Say you have a pawn with 'chemical fascination'. you just stated a new game and after no drugs for about 5 days they're suffering from 'chemical starvation'. Randy, in his infinite benevolence, sends you a drop pod with 20 units of bear. naturally, this pawns will drink themselves into a downed state and after a day or two achieve 'chemical satisfaction'. So, having dealt with this stupidity, you think to yourself to set this pawn on a schedule to drink a beer once every 2 days. That should be alright enough since it will maintain their 'chemical satisfaction' while keeping their productivity reasonable. HOWEVER, this pawn will obey the policy IN ADDITION to what you cannot control. That is, the pawn will drink 1 beer every 2 days AND consume as much as their trait dictates. So, in reality, this pawn is drinking anywhere between 3 - 5 beers every 2 days.

Not only does this invalidate the purpose of policies, it invalidates the purpose of the associated mood buffs and debuffs. Essentially, the buffs become utterly redundant and worthless since drugs already apply a hefty mood buff and the debuffs become an irrelevant mechanic you basically never see outside the very early game since that's really the only time you won't ever have drugs. Either limit these pawns to only consume uncontrollably if they don't have one of the associated mood buffs or have them obey drug policies. Making any drug policy assigned to them a simple add-on to their existing consumption is an asinine approach.

Pawns starve and suffer a hefty mood debuff if the food available isn't within their allowed policy. There's no reason pawns with 'chemical interest' and 'chemical fascination' shouldn't behave similarly. All this does is make players treat them the same way they did before the initial rebalance when they were prone to killing themselves.

[cultist]

As it is now, these pawns will take whatever drug they can access on the map, regardless of whether or not they've achieved chemical satisfaction. This includes drugs that are forbidden as well as drugs not assigned to them in their policy.

I've never seen this happen.

Pawns on a mental break will ignore various schedules and restrictions, but this is the same for every pawn. My "chemical need" pawns obey any schedule I give them as long as they remain under my control. They're not happy about it, but they don't go on drug rampages unless they're actively having a mental break. By the way, you can also stop this by making the drugs inaccessible (use walls, doors won't work). You can also destroy unwanted drugs using a campfire.

Mod conflict maybe?

[RicRider]

Maybe mod conflict for me don't know about original poster. My culprit was the Hospitality mod with its default 'GuestDrugPolicy'. The pawn you just recruited needs to be reassigned otherwise they'll just snack on any drug they can find.

If it's not a mod conflict then I guess you'll have to start burning drugs instead of storing them for sale. But generally though I let my pawns do what they want. If they are a druggie and they OD well that's life, goodbye. For this reason I often don't recruit pawns with these traits because they end up not being very reliable when you actually need them.

[Eichkater]

Well, as a real person with something you could called "chemical fascination" I have to admit that the current system is painfully close to reality. Binging on ANYTHING at home during a mental breakdown is just the way it goes. Therefore YOU need to micromanage and ban those "dangerous drugs" from your colony. There is a "burn drugs" bill in campfire, crematory etc.

[Covered in Weasels]

Well, as a real person with something you could called "chemical fascination" I have to admit that the current system is painfully close to reality. Binging on ANYTHING at home during a mental breakdown is just the way it goes. Therefore YOU need to micromanage and ban those "dangerous drugs" from your colony. There is a "burn drugs" bill in campfire, crematory etc.

That makes sense, and I thought that's what the current system was designed to emulate. If you have a pawn who craves new chemical experiences like an alphabeaver craves trees, they will not be satisfied with a beer every two days. The current system isn't frustrating to me because it makes sense, though I imagine others might not share my view.

[avancouw]

As it is now, these pawns will take whatever drug they can access on the map, regardless of whether or not they've achieved chemical satisfaction. This includes drugs that are forbidden as well as drugs not assigned to them in their policy.

I've never seen this happen.

Pawns on a mental break will ignore various schedules and restrictions, but this is the same for every pawn. My "chemical need" pawns obey any schedule I give them as long as they remain under my control. They're not happy about it, but they don't go on drug rampages unless they're actively having a mental break. By the way, you can also stop this by making the drugs inaccessible (use walls, doors won't work). You can also destroy unwanted drugs using a campfire.

Mod conflict maybe?

My fascination pawns will obey their policy until they get a chemical need, then they'll break policy to address it. Note: to test this just put a chemical fascination pawn on "no drugs" and watch what happens.

So what I do is allow some fairly harmless drugs for recreation (beer, ambrosia, psychite) and restrict things I don't want them using (hard drugs & yuck, smokeleaf).

This works the way I want it to. They leave the bad drugs alone.

My mod list is pretty basic:
Harmony, Hugslib
Common Sense
Color Coded Mood Bar
Old Flake Texture
Simple Sidearms
RimHUD
Prepare Carefully
Trading Control