Colonists dying from our own traps: what's the point?

[asanbr]

I know it has been discussed before and I know there are mods to disable it.

But just trying to understand: what's the point, from a game design/user challenge/enjoyment perspective, of this?

Traps would be really useful if this could not happen. They are still useful but it just adds a lot of micromanagement, which I've mostly done with forbidden zones, to avoid people stepping in the traps. Then we get two new issues. We need to micromanage and change the zones every time we reload traps and loot the stuff from dead raiders. And also, when colonists go on a Daze or Mental wander , they will ignore zones and locked doors and still walk into traps and die.

I just don't see the point. It doesn't add upp with the rest of the game where most things can be automated and done in a way to avoid micromanaging everything.

It reminds me a bit of the earlier game where you didn't get a warning when a wild grizzly hunted one of your colonists. Suddenly someone would just die and there was nothing to be done about it. That could still be prevented though by scanning for animals and killing them pre-emptively, so even that was not as bad as this trap problem.


Edit: some earlier discussions

https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=22237.15

https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=13775.15

https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=42490.0

[Alenerel]

I agree. Either traps should give a decent chance to kill your own pawn so its a meaningful mechanic or it should be removed. But having that 1% there, just waiting to unfairly screw someone just because doesnt make sense.

[Canute]

These 1% is like when you stumble at open road because there is a little rock or your shoelace was open.
When that happen at the trap area....
Mosttimes my animals hit the traps much more then my pawns. And mosttimes my front entrance is full of traps.
Overall i don't have any problems with it.

[Jibbles]

Honestly I think small quirks like these are just bugs claimed as intended design. Maybe it's just another thing that can be easily changed at a later time so  they can build up those patch notes.

A pawn builds a trap in the wide open on flat ground immediately walks into trap & sets it off not even a second later.  I've had it happened more than once.  Nothing to gain or learn, more to lose when it comes to things like players patience/immersion along with lack of security options.  There's no solid excuse for it. Players would simply identify it as a bug in any other game.

[dragonkiller93]

I don't understand why it exists design wise, you put the trap there, why are you stepping into it. It seems about as random as having a 1% chance every second to have a heart attack and instantly die, or to have a 1% chance of a weapon malfunction and you shoot yourself in the head.

[SeminarCaviar]

These 1% is like when you stumble at open road because there is a little rock or your shoelace was open.
When that happen at the trap area....
Mosttimes my animals hit the traps much more then my pawns. And mosttimes my front entrance is full of traps.
Overall i don't have any problems with it.

I agree. There are some parts of it that doesn't really matter to me.

[AileTheAlien]

I don't consider it buggy behavior - it works as an abstraction of how the traps work, with regards to your colonists, enemies, and animals without needing a more complex simulation. Enemies don't know where your traps are, at least until later raids, which implies these are hidden well enough to fools humans, not just animals. I wouldn't expect any colonist to memorize every single trap that's been built unless they were a dedicated trapper, and the game doesn't have any mechanic like that. Spacing out my traps, zig-zagging the path, and building side-doors lets my pawns walk more or less freely, but still catches pirates more often than not.

It's similar to friendly-fire - my pawns and turrets can shoot each other, and there's a setting to lower or disable the chance. (Last time I checked.) The simplest thing would be to have a difficulty setting for colonists hitting their own traps.