Flexible Morals

[Zombull]

Colonist morals need to be more flexible and evolve over the course of a game based on events. Someone might not start out as bloodthirsty, but seeing a friend die at the hands of rebels might trigger it. If the player forces the colonists into cannibalism, some colonists should develop the cannibal trait after some initial negative reaction which others will grow increasingly more uncomfortable and either attack his cannibalistic comrades or attempt to leave the colony.

There could perhaps be a hidden attribute that indicates a colonists opinion regarding certain subjects. Say a scale of 0 to 100. 0 means the colonist has a mental break and 100 means the colonist fully accepts the activity and gains the related perk. Each colonist has their own backstory-dictated starting position on that scale. Two other variables control how witnessing or participating in the activity modifies the colonist's opinion.

cannibalOpinion = 15 --His current feelings toward cannibalism
cannibalWitnessedReaction = -1 --How much his feelings change each time cannibalism is witnessed
cannibalParticipationReaction = -5 --How much his feelings change each time he participates in cannibalism (cooking or eating)

Now other game events can modify these variables. For instance, cannibalism while nearly starving should shift the reactions in favor of cannibalism. Cannibalism of fellow colonists while other food is in plenty, might shift it negatively.

Other tender subjects such as prosthetics, bionics, death, murder, torture and bloodlust (even rape if the dev wants to go there) could work similarly.

There could even be an overall moral fortitude attribute that dampens the effects of game events but which can itself be affected by game events, but the same might be done by simply having a colonist start at 0 tolerance for each of the controversial activities; one murder and the colonist freaks out.

[Argon]

Both ingenious and realistic, but hard to implement.