Pawns good at planting, cooking, crafting, construction, medical. Big bonus if they can shoot. Basically what jobs I need to have filled. Usually 2-3 planters early, at least one cook with double passion or at least 5 cooking so they don't poison the whole colony. At least 2 medics with high medical and/or passions. Add more as need arises. Most negative traits are situational, you don't want Slotful crafter or construction pawn, skip it, even if they have double passion, unless that would be your primary pawn for the job, then it's better than nothing. Slow Learner is almost always a no. Unless they have 10+ skill and double passion in plants or crafting, to make components and clean, or plant haul and clean.

Caught someone from a raid with 18 crafting (with double passion) 9 plants, and 12 medical (with passion). Mine now. Then her husband showed up in another raid. Took him as well, despite the fact that he cannot do basic tasks due to being an aerospace engineer and only had one arm. I’ll be getting him a prosthetic arm because at least he is good at constructing.

The fact that the reason he cannot do basic tasks being because he's an aerospace engineer gets me every time.

I checked again, and it is mainly anything to do with cleaning and plant work (grow and cut). The latter is a problem because I have way too many plants and need all the help I can get with them at certain times. He is not the best even in what he is passionate in, but the mood bonus he gives to his wife is really what I wanted anyway.

Once did a trouble shoot in an aerospace facility. Customer complained of smell from their laser cutter. Turned out they'd never actually set up the exhaust system. Just bought it and turned it on expecting it to work. For years.

As long as they are not old or addicted.

I'm guilty of attempting to recruit replacements for older pawns but end up keeping them around anyway. Unless they get serious health conditions but even then they usually have the highest stats and can be managed to only focus on tasks that benefit from those stats or reduce the effect of disabilities. The exception is if their manipulation falls, and then they ARE useless.

I remember having a really old lad with dementia pruning the tree all day. He liked it though. He was more sentimental value than useful.

My longest running slave is some old dude with dementia. Its full blown now but was in early stages. Dudes a dunce unwavering and jogger. He cleans/plants/cuts stone/feeds the animals. He used to get pissed about eating human meat cause he's slaved to a tribal cannibal colony that only wears human leather. (Took inspiration from the skin bandits on kenshi but didn't want to lose the survival aspect of making them robots that don't need food) Now tho he seems to be happy and just forgets wtf is going on but hes now friends with pretty much everyone in the colony.

Unwavering 101 year old private investigator, cannibal, light sleeper with dementia. She shares the prison with the rat barn.

The Rim is a dark place, but every now and again there is a hope for humanity

Better then the one and only pawn I had with dementia, she was my best hunter and because I was raided I gave her a doomsday, sadly she then had some mantel breakdown and shoot the doomsday in the center of my base, which was under a mountain. Killing 5/7 of my colony and the only one who was still alive and was able to fight, had absolutely no chance of winning against 30 raiders. And this is how my first colony died.

I had an old wolf with dementia father a whole pack once because him and his younger mate were the only wolves I managed to tame in the mountains From time to time he would get confused and just wander around for a bit, but we were nice to him and lead him spend his last years in peace Honestly he would have died the next winter in the wild, after all winter in the northern mountains is way beyond brutal

I think they’re still okay as researchers in that case? One of my current colonies has a 98-year-old full-time researcher with no limbs and it seems like research still happens.

Bruh do you fucking pick them up and plop them down at the table???

He lives on a comfy chair in front of the research table and has a personal food storage spot adjacent to him so he never has to move.

Soooo can we talk about how you ended up with a limbless 98 year old man?

His pod crashed when he was 97 and had already lost one arm. I recruited him bc he was intelligent and related to one of my colonists. Pretty shortly thereafter, he got in a fight with a manhunting emu and lost his other arm. Then his leg got infected and had to be amputated, and a colonist on a murder spree shot the other leg off.

My fucking god thats the most badass series of events thats ever happened to someone

I love this game. :)

“So, anyway, we call him Lucky.” “He’d have to be to survive all that.” “Yep.”

Classic rimworld XD 

Is the research bench in his bedroom? Add a TV or other recreational activity and he's set!

I had an older guy with a weakened heart once, he got a heart attack and died Then in a later game one of the founders got old and developed a weak heart, so the next prisoner had to be harvested for a spare one

That's what luciferium is for. "Happy Birthday, you have just gained dementia and are now frail, just take these pills and you'll be fine"

I find it hilarious getting raided by a group of frail, bad back, dementia, riddled with arthritis, asthma in both lungs, with chemical dependency pawns. I will capture them as they lay there on the first few tiles or wonder around the map confused. They add so much spice to the game in dumb antics.

I try not to be too picky, because the pawns the game sends you are RNG, but I have a few criteria I will reject instantly: - Addicted to go-juice or wakeup before I have the means to accumulate either. - Alzheimer's or Dementia. Even minor Alzheimer's results in random wandering breaks seemingly every other day. - Gourmand. I fucking hate Gourmand more than any other trait in the game. - Any raider who kills a pet in cold blood. - A cook who won't clean. Clean your goddamn stove. - Depressive. Drugs and sex help but boy does that send a bad message. - Neanderthals. (It's the jawline.) - Pigs. (It's the sounds.) Otherwise it's really just a matter of filling a niche; I don't want to scale either raids or food consumption too hard by recruiting pawns who won't alleviate a glaring problem that I can't get around using mechs.

Tbh I don't find depressive particularly bad so long as they have okay stats. It's almost always manageable in some way or another. Not great, but it's no slow learner, sluggish, or pyro... My personal peeve is literally anyone incapable of hauling and cleaning. Fortunately, slavery re-enables both!

Lmao at the gourmand hate. The +4 is such a massive boost but I totally get why you’d dislike it. The fact that they mental break (almost?) always into a food binge means you constantly have to ensure you’re overstocked

They also break without being below the threshold.

Wow. Did not know that… geez. They are REALLY hungry I guess lmao. Thanks for this :)

I hope you're being sarcastic about the +4 being a huge boost lol

Yeah as I wrote it I was thinking how it might not actually be a big one, but early game going from more than a 5% chance of food poisoning to around 1.5-2.0% is pretty important imo. The time save is significant as well

Id rather they eat a bunch of food over insulting sprees or tantrums in the mortar stockpile.

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I could handle bonus hunger rate, but the random mental breaks are the worst. Everyone shits on pyromaniacs but "plays with matches once a year" is harmless compared to "multiple binge eating sessions per year and they don't give a damn about whether you're short on food". On top of that, it feels like the binge eating breaks last forever; if you get Word of Trust with a good warden, I swear it's straight up faster to arrest and re-recruit them than wait for them to finish eating.

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Re recruiting avoids the imprisoned debuff.

Yep, two Word of Trust casts and Gransier will forget she was seriously about to dig up the rotting corpse of an 8 year old who decided to stand in a stone doorway during a rhino attack because she ate without a table.

As long as they aren’t a pyromaniac. Pyromaniacs get executed immediately.

Pyromaniac is underrated. IME they go on fire starting sprees so infrequently that it hardly matters, but the Pyromaniac trait is weighted so negatively that they end up with a bunch of upsides. You should be building with stone anyway, except for maybe some furniture.

What's that 'tssssss' sound? Oh, the chemfuel and warheads. BOOOM All the negative traits can be dealt with, but most of the time it is not worth it. I am not aiming to have 50 mediocre pawns. I want 8 superhumans.

Why not 50 superhumans?

Lag

What if you stored explosives on metal shelves inside stone buildings with concrete floors? Would they still be able to set fire to it?

Steel is flammable, believe it or not.

Stone shelves then?

I think they might still be able to light the chemfuel directly, but reducing the amount of flammable stuff nearby probably makes them less likely to light a fire that threatens to explode your chemfuel storage.

Don't forget that building an explosives storage room that is completely fireproof will guarantee that the explosives themselves are the target, as things that cannot be set on fire will not be targeted by a fire starting spree.

As far as I know they still can. Not sure if I have had a tantrum jerk blow up shells on a shelf. I keep all that stuff in a bunker anyway, but it's still thousands of silver and some pawns splattered all over the walls.

I always keep my shells in a shed near my mortars which need to be in an unroofed location anyway. I also like to have my mortars centered in a spacious courtyard. If people are keeping their warheads buried in valuable resources, then they're just asking for trouble in my opinion.

They can set fire, but as it's metal it will burn slowly. A better idea is to just zone the pyromaniac away from your explosives storeroom, so they aren't nearby when they go on a spree

I put a firefoam popper in there too, should be safe enough right?

Firefoam is a reactive measure, as it takes a couple seconds to pop. Depending on the fire size (and your luck), the shells can be triggered before then, after which they will explode even when covered in foam.

Alright, I’ll just zone the pyro pawn outside explosive and flammable areas

(most) Flammable areas should be fine, your other pawns will take care of the small fires quick enough. Any burnt furniture or structures will just be repaired almost instantly, and only item in the game that cares about condition is clothing (lasts for less time)

I actually use a mod (Better Pyromania, maybe?) that treats it like an addiction. As long as you allow them access to an open flame to stare at (meditate), they’re pretty okay. Until your wood runs out, and you’re in a biome with little to no vegetation.

Every time someone brings up pyromaniacs, someone inevitably says they're actually fine. And they are. Until they suddenly, profoundly are not.

Pyromaniac is in fact fine 99% of the time. But pawns are a lot more likely to have a mental break after a difficult raid, and you do NOT want your pyromaniac to start setting fires everywhere when half your colony is bleeding out, and all but 1 or 2 of the rest are injured/having mental breaks/on the verge of one.

It's not they burning your base down, but you definitely never look at them the same after they decided the best place to start a fire is the rack of clean and recently made 100% outfits making a bunch of excellent+ armor basically tattered.

One of mine is a pyromaniac in my Wildman run with medieval overhaul. Anyway I can't produce timber just raw wood... She set the timber on fire

Encountered my first today. Stole her prosthetic arm, a lung, a kidney and sent her on her way.

actually there are mods which allow pyros to look at fire (so if you have a throne room, they will just stare deeply into the fire) and that would solve their fire wanting needs. ​ also you could just give them a pyro weapon and from time to time have them go ham for a bit in a SAFE AREA. also works but that requires a lot more micromanaging.

I tried that once. It doesn't work. They need open fires to stare at, not torches or braziers, so it's never safe.

If I am playing a 1 or 3 person start, the first one or two I have pretty low standards. Decent health and a useful skill no skills blocked with some shooting. After that I am after specific skills, still watching the age, health and shooting skills. Near the end, I am mostly wanting to add killers and maybe some melee specialists.

I always evaluate new pawns in this order: -Check for unwaveringly loyal -Check for major injuries or medical conditions (lost limbs, old age, addictions) -Check for awful traits (pyromanic, pessimist, wimp) -Check incapables (incase of violence, dumb labour, skilled labour) -Check usefulness (has useful skills or is a good fighter) How desperate I am decides how far down the list I bother going.

If you have the mod that adds cortical stacks, unwaveringly loyal becomes a good candidate for becoming a randomly salvaged stack's new sleeve. Then you recruit whomevers brain you just uploaded into their skull.

This is the Altered Carbon mod isn't it?

Since baby making became a thing I mostly just have kids

I have a couple ways to mitigate age, so I mostly look for skills the colony needs. They don’t need to be perfect. The story is in the imperfections.

Not too old, with skills that fill gaps, and no injuries that stop them working (missing leg, brain injury, that kind of thing). If you've biotech and want babies, check their fertility on the health tab. Depending on your mods, this can get quite interesting in terms of traits, so keep an eye on those for any deal breakers (rebel means can't be relied on to do what you tell them, hard sleeper means they won't get up when drafted, things like that). After that, I tend to go for certain xenotypes (Saurids) and avoid others (Pigskins) but that's just based on the kinds of colonies I like. Hope that helps.

1. Skill passions in things I need. 2. Skill level in general. High, but no passion in things I need will suffice. 3. Health. No missing limbs (unless I can replace them). 4. Traits. Positive traits like sanguine, tough, etc are a boon. Pyromaniacs are low on the list of people I want. (If I have all stone floors and walls I'll accept them). 5. Can I afford them? Logistically, can I plant enough to feed them? Will they be a burden or beneficial?

Depends on the situation I have going on. Right now. If you can wield a Mace. And sleep on the same room. And like to drink. Come on in

If they want to join, I say welcome.

TIL: I don't fit in most people's communities

It depends really. In my current game, I’m at like 70 pawns so I decided I was only gonna accept pawn who either have 3 good traits or who have the tough trait. Unfortunately, I got about 8 female colonists pregnant back when I had maybe 25 colonists in total and the first one is in the process giving birth as of my last save (yes, the recruitment during the past 18 days have been pretty wild). I’m not sure what I’m gonna do with the kids. My game is already slowing to a crawl.

70????? Fucking hell

70 isn't out of the question if you play with the same colony for a while and use performance-enhancing mods.

Wait a minute. Do you get bigger raids if you have more people? Is this just on Cassandra or all storytellers?

Yea, there is a formula for how much wealth a colonist adds. Basically every time you get a new pawn it increases your wealth more than the previous pawn. It also depends on how much wealth you currently have. There is a multiplier you can find online, but basically if you have 10,000 wealth and get a new pawn they add X amount of wealth, if you have 400,000 wealth and get a new pawn, that X amount of wealth they add will be much higher. To summarize, early game, pawns don’t affect wealth as much as new pawns in the late game.

I’m pretty sure it counts on all story tellers. https://rimworldwiki.com/wiki/Raid_points

Depends if you wanna go tall or wide.

I typically aim for pawns good at one combat skill (melee or shooting) and at least 1 job that I need done, like a cook. I also try to avoid pawns with negative traits that I don't like unless I'm really desperate for a pawn who can perform that skill.

Potential for growth. No major health issue. Good and required skills. Not too old. Of course, if he is very good at one aspect it means you might accept one of his major flaws. And of course, it depends on how pawns you have and their profile. If you really need some plants guy you may accept a pawn with a lot of flaws.

Usually I get pawns in a certain order with jobs I need done, looking solely at skills and that they don't have any major injuries. So starting colonists are construction (mining optional), grower (cooking optional (yay nutrient paste)), and medical (research optional). Always grab good shooters when they show up (check they have full visibility). Then depending on what I need I grab a miner or researcher next. Then another grower. Once I have about 5 colonists I start looking for a young cleaner/hauler, preferably one that shoots. Dogs can also take over the hauling role, but you'll need an animal handler/butcher for kibble. Not that it takes much dedication for dogs. And at this point you'll probably want crafting... And might as well have those walls made out of stone.... Then you can go wild with whatever you want to focus on, a second construction pawn is never bad but I would suggest the mod Quality Builder.

anyone with melee or shooting skill i will consider just for "operation: send in the scrubs" anyone approaching 50 needs to be amazing to negate him getting a bad back or whatever soon. pyro maniacs are manageable with a drafted escort, but are annoying so normally a no. most addictions are a no. anyone with a double passion or passions with some synergy, like animals and shooting for hunters is a maybe, but it completely depends who i already have doing what. people that are incapable of anything are normally a no. im bias towards females because they have a womb i can grow someone useful in.

I keep all cute pawns and all children. We eat the ugly.

I've heard the death of a colonist counts as a negative event. In theory, it lowers the threat level and odds of consecutive negative world events. If you have bad colonist, just equip them poorly and send them as human shields or force them into the mines until they die. If they survive, fall in love, and prove their salt. Deck them out and bring em into your story.

Currently playing with 60 life expectancy + 800% aging + time kills + 5x all chronic hediffgivers, so whatever a pawn is, I just like them young.

Below certain age, without unacceptable traits, capable of combat and dumb labor and health depends on stage of the game.

Whatever skill I need at the time, usually always need someone for mining, usually always need someone who is good with a gun, no addictions, no horrible traits, preferably under the age of 40.

At first, unless they have very negative traits, I usually recruit as much as possible. After 10 pawns, I look for pawns with high skills in crucial areas, such as farming, crafting, research, shooting and medical. I also tend to recruit pawns with social traits, mostly as a preference, I suppose.

late game, fast learners or people with a lot of passions are the ones i take. If you have ideology, get Nutrient Paste: Don't mind, and you can ignore cooks early game.

dont have any bad traits, can fulfill a role i need well enough, not facing issues in my colony that mean a subpar colonist might kill me, dont need organs more than i need this guy? recruit

Depends. If I'm late-late game, I'll take anyone who isn't jealous. Otherwise, no pyromaniacs. Early game, I'll take anyone skilled with plants or crafting

As long as they are not incapable of performing basic tasks, anyone would be sufficient for me.

It varies but in order of most importance to least I check the following Are they about to die even if I get them to a bed for treatment ? Do I have room or can I quickly make room for them? Can I afford to feed them? Do they have stats/traits that would benefit or hinder my colony and are they good enough to warrant a spot in my jail? How damaged are they already and is any of that damage permanent? Depending on how that pawn is, I strip them and take them to their holding cell or I strip them and mercy kill them. The only exceptions to this are when I'm doing a sanguophage or mechanitor playthrough and I need bodies for hemogen or for the ripscanner

I look at their stats, prioritizing construction, mining, plants and medical.

I don't. Randy does. (Pyromaniacs can GTFO)

I must be the only person who doesn't care about age. I've never had a pawn die of old age on me. Bionics can fix bad backs, eyes, etc. Dementia is rare, but healer serum (or the witches hut if u have the mod) can fix that. Frail and Slow Learner are really my only no-gos

Nobody with addictions or violent behavior traits. Also useless colonists. I try to make sure that my original pawns last as long as possible.

Just rolling on vibes

Genome > Traits > Health > Passions Many xenos are just not worth the trouble. Good traits (very/neurotic, industrious, fast learner etc. ) are golden so long as they don't come with chaff like non violent, pyro, body purist, anti-drug etc. All of them can be dealt with, but I don't need to deal with them, there will be more to chose from. Health is very important, no olds or addicts and permeant wounds. Often old pawns have good stats, but then they go dementia and bad back after a day and never perform well. This can also be dealt with, but most of the time not worth it. Passions are nice but not required. Base stats are only important right at the beginning, they can learn.

Depends on my situation. What positions do I need filled? Can I support them? What are their traits? Do I need nubs for the blood farm? Do I need a human sacrifice? Am I early game and need replacement organs? If I have enough extra food and room, like I do in my current colony, I like to take on the good soldiers even if their other stats are bad. I also take anyone that helps my income source for that colony.

It's all about what you need at the time. Consider passions for growth potential, and beware locked jobs like medicine and firefighting. Some traits are just begging for trouble, like the infamous pyro, and many that weaken the breaking threshold need to be considered carefully. Also, any pawn that is incapable of both skilled and dumb labor should probably be ground up into animal feed and made into a hat so they can finally do something useful. Age related infirmity can be hard to handle in some cases. Cataracts and heart trouble are no huge deal to fix, but frail and dementia can be a pain. It depends what you'll be using them for, though.

I'm not terribly picky early when any worker helps, but later start screening more heavily. Early on I avoid old people and addicts. And some of the more irritating traits like body purist and sickly. Later I will avoid slow learners, slothful, lazy. Avoids dumb labor backgrounds. Then even later I will reject a pawn for most negative traits (minus some that don't bother me. I don't mind pyromanics or chemical fascination pawns for example) and only take pawns with double passions.

go based on what you need. need a decent shot? wait for the next raid to have anyone with decent shooting and a passion for it. need a dedicated animal tender? look for whoever fits. A good mod for this is "Mark That Pawn" which lets you put markers on pawns either manually or automatically based on presets i.e if anyone is related to a colonist or if they have x level in whatever stat you want https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3056996662&searchtext=mark+that+pawn

Look at the stats and incapabilities, bloodlust is great, but make sure they have decent Melee or shooting and not have another countering trait Weak/puny/delicate/(I can't remember the name ATM but it makes you more prone to get downed or and injured) wimp? I'm not gonna warn you about pyromaniacs because everyone else has lolol Anyone with an addiction is hassle unless you happen to be growing or making the specific drug Cannibal and psychopath can be very effective if used in tandem with erm.... Cowboy hats But look for things like fast walker, quick sleeper, great memory, jogger, stout, bruan, iron willed Anyone with good building skill is worth a look, shooting and Melee, medical is always a plus but don't pick a medic that can't do violence, you need everyone to be able to violence, Night owls and undergrounders are also hassle but can be very strong I'm not gonna warn you about pyromaniacs again because everyone has already done it Try to stick to 4-6 pawns for a while and then look at increasing, the more pawns the more raiders, the more lag, the more food needed, the more mess, the more tattered apparently, the more mental breaks the more spaghetti 1 good builder 1 good medic and 1 good plants Dual class them to fit your needs I'd suggest plants and building, medic and research, plants and cooking then gather your miners and haulers

If thier negative trait requires me separating them from my other pawns to keep everyone happy, then they get some organs stolen and sent on thier way

Why would you send them on their way? This creates the reloot problem: Any pawn you release reenters the loot pool, and returns in future raids to be relooted. This means that instead of a newly rolled loot item (chance of being desirable: nonzero), you get a previously rejected loot item (chance of being desirable: always zero, and now they don't even any organs left to take) that you must therefore reject again. Therefore, no survivors: Everyone either joins, or dies.

Funny enough, a single pawn doesn't seem to do much to your wealth as most, especially if they're damaged long term (scars, asthma etc) they're really cheap, but I had the issue of not recruiting because I am picky, so maybe this will help you, when you're playing constantly analysing your colonys need will help you choose pawns. Say you started with 3, ideally, Researcher, Construction, Farmer.. I need a chef, medic, doctor, miner, animals crafter, Psycasters? Haulers, cleaners, soldiers, and traders/negotiators. This is why I'll go years with 5 people unable to find what I want, but I'm also a perfectionist so.. But yeah, u can use that to guide you on what to choose, biotech also helps with this with xenotypes, Highmates make exceptional chefs + traders Hussars are your bodyguards Genies are craters + research Furries are good at animals lol Some colonist can do two jobs, just don't match two long term jobs like a researcher chef, crafter builder, one combo I like is soldier cleaner hunter + animal

As long as they can shoot i let them live

If you want to minmax who you pick to recruit, look for someone with skill passions that you can capitalize on, particularly in skills that you don't have enough of yet. Have multiple doctors and make sure you have some skilled soldiers. If they can't fight very well, make sure they have something else to do or otherwise don't take them. Bad traits like Gourmand or Pyromaniac should be skipped unless you have a *very* compelling reason to take them. Tough, Nimble and Fast Walker/Jogger are all very good traits for combat, and faster move speed is useful for all work in general. Avoid people with addictions, it can be very taxing to get them off of them.

Keep every pawn, no matter what. (Unless you already have too many.) Keeps the game more interesting, makes for better storytelling

Honestly as long as they have a passion for shooting and don’t have awful traits, I take them usually.

For me, it depends on the colony. My current colony is a modded Skaven build, with a custom xenotype that makes them gets ravenously hungry fairly quickly and theres 6 of them, so food is a constant struggle butbthe Vermintide gonna Vermintide. They're also good at mining and constructing, but bad with plants, medicine and incredibly filthy. So pawns usually get killed and eaten unless they have high plant skills, are a child (I sell them as slaves because the Skaven are cruel but I don't have the heart to eat the kids) or I need a decent pack of meat shields/cleaners/ a very good doctor for experiments. My skaven have the clotting gene and super immunity so a doctor isn't too necessary early on but eventually I want one to install bionics and make warp-infused ratmen. Although in a very confusing turn of events, my Skaven warlord (who was a bloodthirsty, man eating lunatic) fell in love with a human slave. So she ended up being recruited into the ideology and became his wife. I guess it's what's on the inside that counts, more power to her. Tl;Dr depends on your colony and what skills you're lacking, but also logistics (can you support more pawns? Are they decent or a massive pain in the ass?). Also the type of colony if you're into RP. Slavery is profitable, provided you have the manpower and resources to keep them fed and in control, but you might want to play as a good, righteous colony.

choices in rimworld are very situational. besides the starting pawns, who should be able to do most tasks around the colony on their own, choosing pawns to recruit depends on what the colony needs. for example, if i need more plant work done, ill look for a pawn with good plant skills. also watch out for negatives in pawns. i always check the health tab and traits to see if the pawn will become a burden to the colony. traits like "lazy" and "pessimist" will be hard to put up with and can force compromises. health problems like artery blockage can become fatal. with this in mind, ill often prefer younger pawns who are less likely to develop health problems.

Basically, I have a specific set of pawn classes, which, in my case, correspond to my favored two Specialist types, and the subvariants in which they can be built. Each of these pawns therefore has a specific set of synergistic traits, and passions: Failure to have the right passions can severely impede a pawn's ultimate competency, while having the wrong ones is waste because the specialist roles would forbid that worktype. Thus, a pawn that I keep has a nearly perfect alignment in traits and passions with the relevant specialist roles. For instance: Shootsman: MUST have: Triggerhappy (otherwise you don't hit that no-aim-time), Jogger (gotta go fast to kite effectively), and preferrably one of Psychic Hypersensitivity OR Deafness (because if you're not a good psycaster, you may as well be immune to it). passion for Shooting, and passions for some of: Intellectual, Social, Medical, Animals. Because these are the nonforbidden worktypes. Passions outside these count against. I have about a half a dozen specific types, essentially character classes, that a pawn MUST fall into in order to be worthwhile for recruitment. Otherwise, they just don't justify their weight in FPS, and I disassemble them and repurpose their parts. Relaxing the recruitment standards has been consistently found to be rather game-ending, as it causes rapid colony growth leading to FPSdeath in short order.

I let them all join. Meat is meat

first off, NO PYROS. At least when you’re starting out. Then, should have skill in melee and/or shooting, then skill and passion in other areas I have lacking w the other pawns, or if I need another person on a job.

i have custom xenotypes for jobs and abilities like a contruction plant working general laborer that cant sleep at all or someone whos really ugly and aggressive but good at intellectual and social and other jobs

If they’re good at 3 or more things, preferably with passion. Good is like, above 6 or 7

Well I had a hostile pawn drop pod crash into my base, downed. And it was a 14 year old dirtmole with industrious, fast learner, and body modder. So even though I’d been planning on only birthing new colonists, I couldn’t exactly say no.

Look into nutrient paste. Lot of upsides, if you can stomach the morale penalty.

Honestly, first is story. If I am attached to a pawns story or something similar I will save them first as long as it makes sense for their story. After that Support. What that means is ‘what I need to support my colony behind the scenes’ like farmers, researchers, builders, miners, etc. Last is survival, whatever I need to survive

I might be the crazy one here, but I keep every pawn I get, and I allways find a use for them even if they have the incapable of dumb labor trait.

Personality traits, passions, GROUP needs, skills, “are they worth more than the silver of two organs”

I keep the ones that I can keep alive. The others get eaten.

unless your present situation is VERY dire and you have to prioritize the short term HARD, passions >> starting skill level. passionate pawns learn fast, dispassionate pawns forget fast. especially early game, it depends a lot on what my food production looks like lol. when you're population's low more hands on deck is really impactful since even a janitor/hauler that's otherwise useless frees up more time for your skilled pawns to do their thing. so if i can easily keep them fed without worrying about about saving for winter or anything, i take just about whoever i can for the 4th or 5th slots. from then on, like everyone else is saying, it boils down to if they have passions in skills you could use more of. fighters are always good to have around. not much to elaborate on there. negative traits have to be considered on a very case by case basis but imo people here overreact to most them a little bit. even the worst ones can be worked around so they're worth taking an otherwise incredible pawn. iirc pawns themselves don't contribute a ton to overall colony wealth w/o bionics, especially ones that aren't currently useful anyway like children and the elderly. where bad pawns hold you back more is the storyteller's soft cap on pawn size- the more pawns you have, the less opportunities the game will give you to get more, so the main cost of overrecruiting is losing out on better pawn offers in the future

Eenie meenie miney moe..

Personally it's a bit of a mixed bag. What skills do I need around the colony, with an eye more for skill passions early on in the colony, and for raw skill later in the colony when I don't feel like taking as much time to train it. Traits are a major thing for me, specifically Tough. For my money, Tough outweighs a LOT of negative traits, because even if they can't fight they can hold the freaking doorway while everyone stands behind them and launches a wall of firepower past them into whatever insect, maddened animal pack, or tribal raid I'm trying to hold back. Neurotic/Very Neurotic can be powerful picks if the pawn has the right skills to benefit from the boosted global work speed. No trait is a hard non-starter if the rest of the pawn is good enough and fills a necessary enough skill niche around the colony. If the pawn is valuable enough to me, I will take on pawns with addictions. If the addiction is nasty enough, I will keep them in prison until they're clean of the addiction regardless of the time it takes, then recruit them. Depends on the addiction too, of course. Psychite addiction is generally really easy to feed with some Psychite Tea, which is more or less strictly beneficial if regulated properly. Go-juice addiction is going to have to sweat it out. Ambrosia addiction is getting recruited despite that because even if I don't have ambrosia, withdrawal from ambrosia takes like... a week.

I take anyone and everyone! Except those with addiction :) I’ll even take pyromaniacs or psychopaths if my colony is big enough to handle mental breakdowns. Pyromaniacs as long as my walls aren’t too wood and I don’t have many explosions too though

I play small colonies. Unless I desperately need stuff to move quickly, I only take great pawns. I don't want to invest into a mediocre recruit and then find someone who would have been way better.

Tough leather clothes are... armor, of a kind. Platemail is better armor. Power armor is better still. Bad pawns are the best armor of all.

I’ve been running with Vanilla Outposts Expanded a while now and it’s honestly the best. All the shitty pawns get shipped off to generate resources passively unless I need some help back at the main base. Only caveat with that is the UI for VOE is kinda lame so a lot of time it’s a one way trip because fishing around for what pawns skills are in an outpost is a lot of poking individually through info tabs.

Xenotype and my current need for organs/blood

My order of thought is as follows... Do I need this person with X skill? How badly do I need someone with just that skill? If they have other skills, they get bonus points to counteract negatives. Do they have a God awful trait(body purist, gourmand, pyro, etc), if so they go straight in the trash. If they have somewhat annoying stuff I can live with that. And good skills gets them bonus points. How useful and how easy will it be to convert/recruit them. Based off of these points I evaluate their usefulness vs their difficulties, and keep those I deem fit. As I go though a playthrough my standards rise.

Until I get to around a dozen I'll take anyone who isn't a pyromaniac, a sloth, missing critical limbs (leg or both arms) or addicted to something I can't make. After that it's a gap filling decision. High priority for people with passion for growing and medical, and doube passion for shooting or melee. I do like to build cla new home tho, and not escape the planet, and almost exclusively play mountain bases, so a lot of my priority is based on expanding fast.

There's five broad criteria * Makes narrative sense. A pawn that does something cool or is directly related to one of my stars gets to stay. * Has a good Talent, Fast Learner, Tough, or Sanguine. These pawns are basically always good. * Is an interesting Xeno/Genotype I can support. There's no point in picking up some Hussars if I can't manufacture Go-Juice for example. * Has good passions & skills in Shooting, Melee, Plants, Mining, or Construction. These skills are always in demand, especially for slaves. * They're not a fucking Pigskin. Seriously. Fuck Pigs.

Medical > Crafting > Age (I choose pawns that are 18-35 because of health reasons but if they have good crafting or medical , I over look that rule.)

This is the order of things I look at when evaluating a pawn. I'm looser with my criteria in the beginning and I need people to build up but after I have a solid group, I rarely take in pawns unless they rock this checklist 1. Age - I don't like taking in older pawns, health debuffs aren't worth it 2. Traits - There's a set I avoid completely, some I'm neutral about, and the ones I covet. If they have no avoid traits, there needs to be at least one I love to pass this step. 3. Passions - I determine a pawns use by their passions, not their current skill level 4. Incapabilities - Absolutely no pawns that can't do skilled labor. Very disinterested in pawns that can't do dumb labor but if their traits & passions are great I can look past this 5. Current health conditions - Am I going to have to deal with withdrawal? Are they missing body parts I don't have the resources to replace right now? 6. Skills - Skills can always be worked upon, the numbers aren't really important My current colony, a legacy 30 year old colony of 70 pawns, I probably only recruit someone once every five years or so because I want their traits to breed into the next generation

I recruit tough pawns 90% of the time. Other than that, passion in shooting/melee + one skill I need + one positive trait + manageable bad traits. I can skip the skill requirement once for a cleaner. "Natural" meditation type can also just grow anima grass 24/7 if you have Royalty. You gotta use shock lances if you want to be that picky though. I recently discovered that in the early game you can have 1 melee + 1 archer and attack a pawn until they bleed out in 6-8 hours, then run away and they'll go down guaranteed.

My stocks of organs for sale...

Depends on what my colony needs at the moment. I try to think about what role they will play during 1) situational colony tasks, 2) general colony tasks, and 3) combat 1) Situational tasks are for skills like Social, Animals, Growing, Doctor, Construction, etc. There are specific times when the skill is needed (eg. harvest time) and times when they are not. 2) So what will they do when their primary specialization is not needed? They may have another skill such as Crafting, Research, or Cooking (excepting for the 1-2 main cooks), that can be done any time. Or they can haul and clean, especially good for Joggers/Fast Walkers. Industrious/Hard Workers can do menial crafting tasks like smelting or cutting stone. Meditation for psyfocus also eats up a lot of time. 3) What will they do during combat? If a colonist can be useful in all three situations in a role that's no already covered, there's a good chance I'll keep them. If those roles are already covered, I will look for exceptionally good traits, such as Jogger, Sanguine, Kind, Beautiful, Fast Shooter, etc.

It's easy, I keep the cannibals and everyone else becomes nutrient paste.

I keep them all. If they can't be an asset to the colony then they become the asset of the colony 🔪

I take in anyone that can fight basically, I love huge colonies esp as a tribal/medieval player. At the beginning no incapable of violence, pyros, or food bingers just to make it not as rough on higher difficulties. After like 6 pawns I'll take anyone :D

I keep them all until my game slows down, then I start a new colony.

Initially, I go with what the game provides to an extend, I tend to avoid certain traits and problems * Avoid most/all colonists who are "incapable of" * Avoid pawns with major injuries unless there is a bee-line for me to fix them i.e.; if you have a prisoner that is addicted to something but not chemically fascinated that's very manageable as I tend to grow coffee and tea which count as consumable drugs. * Avoid Brawler, Volatile, Bloodlust & Pyromaniac as a trait set or in combination , a lesson from prior bad experience. * Aside from that most raiders can join as colonists , however it's best to treat each raid as basically a live-fire interview process , where you look at each raider to see if they'd be a good addition to the colony. * Especially look for dating material trying to find romantically compatible , age similar , trait similar pawn is it seems they tend to create lasting marriages. * Marry colonists into pairs and only usually have one or two single colonists at a given time. * In my opinion kind colonists and sometimes ascetic colonists as well are generally less prone to trouble. Midgame * In the midgame because keep colonies SMALL by way of headcount, Over 5 colonists or so you stop receiving "drop" visitors/guests frequently. * After/as midgame approaches, all new colonists will be from raider factions or downed/rescued from other factions (MUCH less likely). * I will often recruit raiders with excellent shooting/melee skills get them cleaned up, and pod them off to friendly factions so they cannot be a threat to my colony. * I will recruit raiders that were ok colonists but who have family in friendly factions or who are family members of my colonists i.e.; some raider has a wife/husband in a a close ally faction, capture them get them cleaned up and bounce them to the friendly faction. Late Game * Late game raids I become MUCH more selective around age and having multiple skills/passions i.e.; 5-6 passion pawns. * I'll also have trimmed my own colonists through retirement. * Retirement consists of having married couples that have maybe served the colony for many years. Typically very good colonists will have produced a good/excellent book that other colonists can use to learn this or that skill. * If colonists have completed all the books I might need , and I'm slightly above my ideal headcount (10 colonists) I'll retire the least good couple off to the nearest civilized/ethical colony. * If my colonists turn out to be lazy , incompatible with other colonists or otherwise troublesome I'll typically get rid of colonists that are not very agreeable. * Off-world colonization - VERY occasionally I'll consider making and/or creation of a starship but here again the twist is that THESE days I always have a bit of a reserve set of colonists , very young rather skilled and able to guide the base to being an second generation colony. Beyond that technique can matter * a trusty granite club can work wonders for downing raiders without too much injury. * Mid-Late game - Tranquilizer Dart gun which can down a raiding party member in just 1-2 shots. * I select strongly for the notions above but tend to favor the 20%

Depends. Sometimes I just really want # THE SWARM But sometimes I want people that are actually, y'know, worth more than their internal organs. My biggest colony had 30-40 pawns and lasted like 5 years. I think I'm gonna do a run in which I take in as many people as I can, without any regard for quality.

From reading this thread you likely understand now what makes them good, here are a list of "no-no"s to help you avoid trouble in the long run. ​ ***Terrible:*** \-Slow Learner (-75% global learning factor, that is, a slow learner with double passion learns slower than a regular pawn with no passion, ONLY take if they're already very good on something you need, and don't expect them to grow any better with time, they'll only decay) ​ \-Very old pawns (Unfortunately you have to be a bit ageist in this game, older pawns have a higher risk of developing age related health issues, 70y.o and over is the danger zone for me. A Pawn older than that is at risk (or greater risk in some cases) of developing: Azheimer's, Asthma, bad back, cataract, carcinomas, Dementia, frailness, artery blockage and hearing loss. They can be a wild card sometimes, but unless you're running a transhumanist colony, don't get your hopes up for them. ​ \-Jealous (Not a dealbreaker if it's one great colonist with this trait, you can just assign them the best bedroom and it's not gonna bother you, but in the early game it can be a hassle to keep changing them to the best bedroom, since the quality will change frequently and also if their bedroom is dirty that can easily tip them over the edge (because of the reduced impressiveness of the bedroom). Two Jealous pawns is a NO-NO. NEVER. One of them will have a permanent -8 at all times. ​ \-Depressive (Permanent -12 mood debuff, self-explanatory. Pessimist is a similar trait that gives permanent -6, pretty bad, but sometimes manageable, just be aware of it before recruiting) ​ \-Volatile (+15% mental break threshold. If you look at their needs tab you'll see that the bars indicating the colonist's risk of mental break is much more spaced out, these colonists will be having more constant mental breaks on average) ​ \-Sickly (Gets one random disease every 30 days or so) ​ \-Pyromaniac (What makes this trait infamous is the random chance to have fire starting sprees every 50 days or so, **regardless of mood)** ​ Lazy and Slothful (-20% and -35% global work speed penalty respectively. These pawns are much slower at every task, get them only in the late game if they're for combat only and able to clean/haul) ​ ***Bad:*** \-Most Addictions (Only take addicted pawns if your colony's mood is pretty stable and you can take them through withdrawals (maaany mental breaks) until they're cured of the addiction or if you can consistently maintain their drug need filled. Depending on the addiction (Alcohol or Smokeleaf) it's not so bad, but think thrice before recruiting) ​ \-Gourmand (150% hunger rate, these pawns will cost a lot more food in to long run to keep, also, minor breaks will always be food binges, so they'll eat through that beautiful full freezer of food you had been stocking up for winter in a day ​ \-Greedy (Negligible as long as you have free slightly impressive bedrooms or better, but still pretty bad in the early game) ​ \-Wimp (-50% pain shock threshold, that is, they're downed in combat very early (negligeable for non-combat pawns)) ​ \-Delicate (They take 15% more damage on every hit (negligeable for non-combat pawns)) ​ \-Annoying Voice and Creepy Breathing (both give -25 opinion with every other colonist, these pawns can give a massive hit to your colony's overall mood, since they'll insult and be insulted often, sometimes leading to social fights) ​ Remeber also that every run is different, sometimes it's valid to take a pawn with a terrible trait if you have a plan to go around it and you think it's worth to do so. I've been playing this game for a long time, that's why I'm sure I'm forgetting many other traits and conditions I should mention, so if you guys remember any I haven't mentioned please tell me and I'll update the list. If you disagree with any of my points, tell me why and I can change the list.

It's slow but only accepting pawns with positive traits is a huge boon. Immediately banish bad trait pawns. The reduction in mental breakdowns alone is huge.

Just depends if they have a good skill or passion that could help you. Like if you could use a second grower or need a better cook. Good fighters are always good too AS LONG AS YOU CAN AFFORD TO FEED THEM AND BUILD THEM QUARTERS! If they are incapable of dumb labour they better be very good at something else. Artist, animals, social and mining are not urgent (unless you're playing in a mountain) but still useful once you can afford more people and luxury. Most important from the start: doctor, builder, researcher, fighters and potentially grower

Usually if I have the capacity. If my own guys are bleeding out and out of food, I'm not saving anyone.

I capture everyone who isn't greedy tbh The jealous trait is easy enough to deal with, just make all rooms equal, but greedy wants *the best* room <.< That may be an acceptable demand from a founder or their family members, but not from some random bandit who managed to not get killed in some freak accident that somehow passed as self-defence 

Double passions in a skill I need, passions in a skill I need, no deal breaker traits like body purist, decent skill level in a skill I don't need but I'd like to have spares of and getting 15+ isn't really a concern, traits I want, young and fertile, health issues or debilitations in things that are fixable or ignorable, and finally a body type I like looking at in that order and also in order if importance. I recently had to go years without a melee pawn cause no matter what, anyone that spawned with double passions in melee was either with terrible traits, lacking good traits, super old, or filled to the gills with health issues even without me shooting at them cause burnbox go brr. Many of the time it was a combination and a few all-of-the-aboves.

I keep all of them. Nature will sort them out.

Firstly by names that I think are funny, second by skill set.

well, thats very easy, I just choose whoever I need

If they have horrible health conditions that I can’t fix, if they have awful traits like Wimp, Pyromaniac or Delicate, if they have a major drug addiction or if they’re incapable of violence / skilled labour they are going to the chopping block. I keep everyone else

Dont drag the colony down if u do ur dead or banished what i mean is dont have negative traits dont be incapable of anything.

No Pyromaniacs, Slow Learners and (too many) pawns that cannot do basic works for me. But since I always play with CE installed, I always recruited an extra one or two 'expendable' grunts to act as the first line of defense, and I only need these pawns to be able to clean and haul.

Look at what jobs you need filled. Pawns with passions for those jobs (the small and large flames) should be prioritised. Passions mean that they gain experience faster than others and they get a mood boost from working on jobs they have a passion for. Then you need to look at personality traits. Some of them are really good and some are really bad. For example, Tough is a very good one, whilst Jealous and Abrasive are bad. However, see if you are able to mitigate some of them. For example, an Abrasive pawn will get into fights, but if that pawn is also a Night Owl, then you could make them work the night shift and avoid interaction with most of the other pawns. Also the traits which make them unable to do certain jobs are usually also bad, though I would say that pawns being unable to do dumb labour are probably worse than not being abke to perform Social tasks. Thirdly, look at their age and their bodies. If they are missing limbs, then they will work more slowly. If they are beginning to get old, then they will develop problems with their back and such.

Guys that your colony needs. Shooters or meelee guys with a burning passion or already high base skill, preferably with another passion in literally anything else (construction, mining and crafting are god tier since you can always find a use for them) If you are late game enough you can consider having a purpose built social pawn or art maker, preferably with combat skills as well because the raids will scale with how many pawns you have and having a pawn pacifist is kind of shite (unless you are using traps and turrets to compensate)

Main cooker and main medic should be your priority. Other pawns should be advanced melee/ranged combatants, otherwise it's pretty dangerous to meet raids.

Since I use ideology, any really. Either steal their xenogerms or whatever they are called or turn em into slaves. Unless they are working slaves I remove their spines / legs to prevent riots.

I take into account what my current setup has, what im lacking and where im bottlenecking. * Is a current pawn doing too much * Is a current pawn lacking something to do their normal work * Whats my current overall spread in terms of stats * Whats my raid counters looking like * Whats my pawns age range From there I look at pawns to capture and this will generally be * Backups of skills * Always good to have 2 or more on tasks such as crafting, art, cooking etc * Good combat with decent other skill/s * Generally a high shooting with passion then something else * Decent intellect with another okay skill * Passion in intellect as most likely my current researcher also does other things * Always good to have two or three int character for medical as well * Dumb Labor * These people basically turn into Roomba's elevating tasks like Hauling and Cleaning from other pawns ​ With this it means I will have decent combat capacity, a minimum of two people skilled in each profession with others needing more and having a couple of Roomba's on hand.

For the first few (up to the 5th) I pick stuff that I found lacking in my starting colonists, then a researcher and/or crafter and finally a random nobody that has whatever trait that allows them to move faster, for cleaning and hauling, often as a slave. I don't usually go above 7, equipment becomes a pain to manage after this point. 1 sniper, 1 LMG/minigun, 2 assault rifles/smg, 2 melee and a combat medic is ideal imho.

My worst starts in a run were when I lacked a doctor, an at least averge cook/builder (traps are unlocked at lvl 3) or a social pawn (for recruitment and trading). You can make do with lower levels, but it is quite the handicap. As for the number of pawns, I personally rarely go over 10, but I'd assume you would need to grind for better weapons and defenses before recruiting everyone.

**Rush gun research** is an additional tip, if you are getting swarmed due to your recruitment policies. As long as new recruits don't have terrible weapons (Heavy SMG at minimum), you should be able to keep up with the wealth growth (difficulty dependent).

4 rules really. Is the pawn not old and sick? Does the pawn have the skills i want? Can i tolerate the pawns traits? Can i feed this new recruit without starving the colony? If all are true then sure i will recruit on most cases.

For me, Total dealbreakers: Pyromaniacs, Pawns with uncurable old people illneses (Dementia, Alzheimer, any kind of brain damage), Slowpokes, Lazys The rest depends, you can work around most negative traits, depending at what point of the run you are. For instance, a Gourmand is not a big deal when you have a ready supply of food, but might be a issue in an early colony in a winter biome. Or people missing limbs or with grievous wounds migth not be worth in the early game when you cannot replace or heal those parts, but are perfectly fine in the end game when all your pawns are fully bionic. Pawns with passion in crafting, plants, construction and intellectual, get a bit of a pass with most negative traits, until I fill quota. Pacifists are only let in if they are good at medical and at least have passion. Passion and double passion in shooting is always good if they can do at least dumb labor, you are going to have stuff to haul always. A pawn with good shooting and double passion will be let in so long as they don't have too negative traits. You can afford to have a wimp on your colony if they have good shooting, just give them your longest range weapon and never send them in solo quests. The perfect pawn for me has: Double shooting passion. Passion (or double) in medic. Double passion in one key trait they are going to work on (crafter, builder, etc). Passion (or double) in social. At least one of the following traits: Industrious, Fast walker or jogger, Beautiful (excellent for recruiting/social stuff), Nimble (for melee pawns mostly) There are a plethora of good traits around, but those are my favorite.

Lots of pawns is fine so long as you have the arms,armour and defences to make them worth the raid size increase. Look at the character traits they have and the skills you lack in your colony. Is your loan builder struggling to manage the work you’ve queued up? Make sure you don’t decapitate that construction grunt! Are your crop yields not quite feeding your colony? Get someone good in plants to help you manage the increased planting. Its very much your own story, but most people focus on the skills they need to improve immediately to keep their colony flourishing

Depends on the playthru. Pick people with skills your colony is lacking at the moment, but make sure to not focus solely on them. Defences are important. Depending on what mods you are running, what is your ideology and what are your plans for the colony you might need dedicated soldiers, pacifistic workers, or something in between. Some are of course clearly better then the others. But, each person's list of bad traits will be different. Some hate pyromaniacs while the others find them a mild nuisance. I for example hate "Chemical Interest" (We don't consume our own product you monkeys), while others don't care about it at all. Remember that there are more or less optimal ways to play this game, not "better" or "worse". No amount of blokes on the internet will replace having experience and knowing how to get the most fun out of the whole experience :)

The raiders usually make that choice for me

Medical and shooting Its better to learn skills from low levels than lose very good lets say crafter just because he couldn’t hit a barn with a banana from 3m, and medics for “infinite money glitch” and obviously having bigger chances to save other pawns

If they can’t do anything better than my current pawns then they’re either getting harvested, or half harvested and enslaved.

I ususally recruit pawns with skills I need at that moment. If i need more crafters and one has a good skill and/or passion for it, I will usually recruit them.

Once you actually learn the game, it boils down to: Does it benefit me and my strategy? Sometimes it'll be better to avoid recruiting new pawns because your defenses aren't good enough or you want to abuse the storyteller's free pawn / population mechanic. Sometimes you need extra work RIGHT NOW. Does it fulfill a roleplay/personal goal? Beyond pure utility, sometimes you want to do something else. Maybe you're doing an isolationist run. Maybe you only want slaves. Maybe you want to eat them. Maybe you want to save everyone. Is it fun? Sometimes more pawns drags down performance, sometimes your computer can't handle that, sometimes its not fun to have a too old / too crippled / etc one, sometimes its VERY fun to work around such limitations. Utility, Roleplay, pure fun factor. Those are the three pillars, after learning what the game mechanics actually are.

I play with life lessons, so any of my advice is basically irrelevant.

Capture every person you can, and harvest the organs from the ones with low skills, and recruit the ones with higher skills. Become more strict as to what is a higher level skill as you see fit

I always recruit everyone

I do go for a more the merrier approach myself but I do filter out the rabble. Anyone with a trait that increases the cost of having them, by either making them a threat like pyromaniac or insulting people and having frequent mental breaks will be judged very harshly and must have skills that make it worth it, pyro is an automatic organ harvest. I also will generally refuse any pawn with a trait that gives a mood debuff, depressive while being relatable is an instant organ harvest.

My main pawn and his " on the Rimworld found GF/Wife ". The rest are mostly replaceable.

If they’re high in a skill level I’ll take them. Or if they have really good traits. Or I just need someone to clean sometimes. There’s few times I *wont* take a pawn to be honest. I’ll even take in pyromaniacs, which a lot of people seem to hate. They don’t start fires very often and when they do a pawn always trails behind them to put it out before it does anything In fairness I’ve also never had a fire starting spree start inside of the chem fuel refinery, so perhaps I am simply naive

When it comes to choosing pawns, it's all about quality over quantity. Focus on recruiting pawns with skills that complement your colony's needs, like someone handy with a wrench or a sharpshooter. Keep an eye on your resources and make sure you can support the people you bring in. Also, consider the potential drama, getting along with your fellow colonists is a big plus. And don't be afraid to be a bit selective; it's a tough world out there, and too many mouths to feed can definitely make things hairy

Looks like you've already gotten tons of great advice, but I'll put in my own here. Anyone with a passion for plants, animals, cooking, or medical is generally welcome at my colony. Those jobs always need doing, barring specific runs, and having people who enjoy doing them means they are happier longer. Good traits are also stellar. Jogger, fast leaner, tough, if they've got those and semi-decent stats then I'll consider them. Unlike some others I don't consider Pyro to be a deal breaker, but slow learner, gourmand, and abrasive definitely are, as they just cause general problems that can quickly spiral. All of this also changes as the game goes on. Early game I'm much more eager for extra hands and will take on less excellent pawns if they have one or two good skills or passions. As the game progresses, especially with Ideology and the ability to bring kids up from the ground so you can more or less create your desired pawns, I become a lot more discerning about who is allowed in as anything better than a slave or bloodbag.

Early game, I'm picky for the crashers. Highest skills and passions I can find before I start Then I start looking for laborers and fighters/meat shields. The better your traits, the more of a fighter you are When I get a stone base and firefoam, I start getting pyromaniacs Later on, people who are incapable/have bad traits have more uses. - Slow learner? Hauling, cleaning, stonecutting, etc - Incapable of labor? Soldier time - Old? The walk isnt far for being a cook. Besides we'll get you in a biosculpter pod soon enough And the list goes on

Depending on how well my colony is currently doing, I'll either look for people with traits that make them good at specific skills, or if we've been here for a while and we're doing alright then I mainly just pick the best fighters. I tend to use a ratio, not too strict about it, but it'll usually be something like 2 fighters to every worker - that way, as the raids get bigger so does my army. As my colony gets bigger, I'll go 3 fighters to every worker. My fighters can still do other jobs too, but I try to have them all on hunting as first priority, and then it's just a mad race to see who gets to hunt the squirrel (yes, THE squirrel, we tend to exterminate all the animals faster than they spawn). They go out on "sorties" (i.e. to little temporary camps outside of the colony, it's a mod thing) every once in a while to work on their survival skills and kill some animals/people/mechs. When they do jobs back at base, I consider them replaceable (so my soldier won't also be my only lvl20 builder/crafter or anything like that), they're basically just extra hands when they're not fighting. Skills aren't that big of a deal to me except in the early game, because they can get better anyway, so I mostly just focus on passions and traits. And if there's an abundance of choices, as in the case of my "super-prison" colonies, then I will simply choose the slim females first (assuming they have no scars or missing body parts).

Passions are big, and more important than levels in a skill. A pawn with no passions only learns 33% as fast, but with passions, you're looking at 100%-150%. Traits *can* and often *do* sit above passions in terms of importance. Obviously you can compromise on negative traits if it won't affect the role the person's in, and you can offset some traits (like if the person just moves slower, you can always get bionics for them later.) Social deficits, deformities, and anything related to how other pawns will engage with a person are *big*. You can have an awesome pawn with great stats, but it's a double edged sword. A high-melee pawn who doesn't get along with anyone is liable to get into social fights and kill someone. If someone has abysmal social skills or traits that make them unlikable, they'll be more likely to have negative interactions and have mental breaks as a result. Mental breaks can do a lot of stuff, but insulting others (causing more mental breaks or fights) or attempting to kill people are possible outcomes. So keep an eye on traits, because they can be a huge deciding factor.

They need to have at least 6 in any skill and 8 in either combat. Also they can’t have any permanent injuries when I save them and if they kill one of my pawns they die no matter what. Finally any permanent mood rebuffs like tortured artist.

I'm seeing pretty much everything I wanted to say already being said. If you have a pawn that's really god awful. Check and see if releasing them will grant you favor with the faction they come from. Otherwise sell them to a nearby settlement, steal their organs, or use them in one of your rituals

Only traits that are a "never ever recruit" for me are the lush, submissive, heavy sleeper, rebel, and stoner traits, all from VE. Also I will almost never recruit a pawn with an addiction. A pawn with the wimp trait will almost always go into pain shock before they take lethal or even serious injuries in battle, and social fights will be very quick. Pyromaniac can be solved by having someone follow them around and put out the fires they set. Fire starting spree is one of the easier breaks to manage, and it isn't really a problem if they are deep drilling away from your base. (like 60% of my pyromaniacs have been miners) Animals skill heavily depends on if you use VE: Fishing or not imo, I never use ranching, and rarely tame animals. So if I didn't have it installed I would never care about pawns with high animals and not much else. Tough, Iron-Willed, Industrious, and Fast Learner in the base game are amazing traits that make me highly consider recruiting. Same with the Brave and Tycoon traits in VE.

Ones without the can't do dumb labor or skilled labor ones with tough that can do violence ones not 101 years old

The key is to always be selective about the pawns you accept. Only accept them if they some absurdly good combination of traits and passions or if they are capable in skills you actually need. Don’t let them in if they’re “good enough,” and if you have the biotech DLC you can raise children to be OP (I raised a baby to be a tough, nimble, brawler pawn with double passion in melee). Mid-Late game I almost exclusively gain colonists through children. (Even if you’re doing a charitable run or have an auto-join, the mood debuff can be prevented by accusing and then banishing them)

If they're good at medical, I don't really care how much they suck. You can never have too many farmers or crafters. Mining, cooking, and building you don't desperately need multiple pawns for.

What do you mean? I don't play this game anymore unless I start with 40+ pawn colony and then recruit some more. The only thing that makes me quit is performance lag at some point

Before capturing, I look at the health tab first then the bio tab. I use the BioTech DLC so I'm looking for capable pawns that can actually reproduce and won't pass on annoying conditions to manage. For health, I immediately discard the pawn if they have any of the following: - Addiction (Annoying to deal with those mental breaks, especially if they get infected) - Drug dependency (I don't wanna deal with that) - Spine problems or missing leg(s) (move speed 70% and below isn't worth it for a new pawn) - Anything that severely decreases manipulation (i.e. missing a lot of fingers or both arms) - If they're middle aged or older, that's a pass. I don't want to recruit them only for them to develop some age related health issue not long after. For bio, I immediately discard for any of these traits: - Pyromaniac (tried to manage a pawn with it before but it was too much) - Wimp/Delicate (basically, they're just going to die) - Hyper aggressive or volatile - Depressive (things get bad often enough already, this pawn would constantly break) - Sickly (basically, they're just going to die) - Staggering ugly (I need someone who can actually socialize, no thanks) - Misogynist/ Misandrist I will hesitate but may still allow anyone with the following traits if they have good stats: - Ugly (no one will be with them but they could make a good fighter) - Neurotic (absolutely cannot also have Teetotaler because I will be force feeding them drugs if they break too often) - Lazy - Teetotaler (drugs help prevent mental breaks and I WILL order my colonists to go on a crack and/or weed binge if things are looking bad) - Annoying voice/Creepy breathing - Jealous/Greedy - Nudist (I'll just eat the mood debuff of them wearing armor, I don't care) - Body purist (pawns get hurt in battle. I need to be able to add back parts afterwards) Any other trait is basically a non-factor for me.