RimWorld Traits Guide & Traits Tier List [2024, 1.5+]

[@AdamVsEverything]

EDIT: 1.5 did not add new traits or change existing - this guide is still applicable for 1.5! Yes the 'Creepjoiners' can have new traits like 'Perfect Memory' but those are events and not accessible for the player to roll without mods/dev mode. REMEMBER - These are more CATEGORIZED than RANKED. I thought that was relatively clear with all the 'It Depends' :P More RimWorld Guides: kzbin.info/aero/PLQWnHloPSfq4ajFkTBA8vZk2R43NaQeKO Discord: discord.gg/CaSDVp3 Timestamps 0:00 - Intro 0:15 - What is this Guide? 0:39 - You're Wrong! 1:26 - Tough 2:00 - God Pawns 2:44 - The Big 6 Tier 2:47 - Sanguine & Iron Willed 3:48 - Industrious 4:30 - Fast Learner 5:51 - Jogger 6:54 - Quick Sleeper 8:00 - All Positive Tier 8:17 - Hard Worker, Fast Walker, Steadfast, Optimist 8:29 - Super Immune 8:43 - Great Memory 9:28 - Nimble, Kind, Masochist 9:47 - Mostly Positive Tier 10:06 - Brawler 10:20 - Ascetic 11:05 - Body Modder 11:28 - Tortured Artist 12:35 - Trigger Happy vs Careful Shooter 13:45 - Very Neurotic, Neurotic, Too Smart 15:06 - It Depends Tier 15:17 - Night Owl & Undergrounder 15:49 - Nudist 16:18 - Psychic Sensitivity etc 16:50 - Recluse (Biotech) 17:18 - Chemical Interest & Fascination 20:52 - War Crimes Tier 20:54 - Psychopath, Bloodlust, Cannibal 21:33 - Gamified Traits 22:07 - Social Tier 22:12 - Social Issues Explained 23:41 - Social Impact 24:11 - Social Chart 24:29 - Rebuff Traits 24:54 - Negative Tier 25:10 - Greedy & Jealous 25:49 - Teetotaler 26:05 - Wimp 26:26 - Gourmand & Pyromaniac 27:23 - Slowpoke 27:40 - Body Purist 27:55 - Pessimist & Nervous 28:10 - Big Negative Tier 28:13 - Delicate (Biotech) 28:42 - Depressive & Volatile 29:05 - Lazy & Slothful 29:30 - Sickly 30:09 - Slow Learner 31:05 - It Depends

[@Star-ny3fm]

A sanguine iron willed pawn,she didnt have a single breakdown in 3 ingame years Edit:just checked the save file,she also has fast learner o_o

[@Truemmerphantom]

Fast Learner, Too Smart, Sanguine. Even without any passions she had, like, 66% learning power. Double Passions were at 375%. Absolute overkill, but damn, it felt like she hit the max learning cap within one or two hours ^_^

[@tigereyeinc.718]

Not necessary a god at everything, but definitely a god at mining, rolled a dirtmole with industrious, extremely volatile, iron-willed, and a 20 in mining.

[@reallygoogle5481]

Natural meditation focus, Ironwilled, tough, nimble. Double passion melee. Single passion research and mining. Became a rank 6 psycaster and a sanguphage from baseliner. got full bionic's, then archotech arms. Legendary Persona zueshammer, rolled kind thoughts' and kill focused. Found a stock of luciferium at one point, so they got the best drug addiction too.

[@Dayz3O6]

please do a video on these creepy joiners, the risk reward and their abilities are cool.

[@acksOldPeople]

I've got a delicate colonist that has taken damage twice in total. The first was a single swipe from a boar that ripped her arm off, and the second was a slap from a monkey that ripped an eye out.

[@DHuangy1]

To be fair, in real life, we are all delicate and would likely go down if we lost an arm and eye, let alone the emotional damage.

[@solarraccoon1261]

@@DHuangy1 Rimworld pawns are just built different 💪

[@kirbyis4ever]

@@solarraccoon1261 Rimworld pawns are nuts. They can take rifle shots to the chest and keep fighting

[@bleeem]

​@@kirbyis4ever and they can go on a rampage if they dont have a table or if thu are sleeping in a ugly room

[@SaltyNard]

@@bleeem You didn't place a table close enough to your freezer for pathfinding? Time for Lena to kill Bill and her own bonded husky before destroying the freezer's cooler along with that 1 shelf that had custom settings.

[@con3879]

I love how Tough is so universally good that it deserves it's own rank.

[@r3dp9]

Yeah. The amount of work you put into a top tier pawn (bionics, psycasts, xenogerms) outweighs nearly any trait. Nothing is worse than having all that work vanish due to an unlucky headshot.

[@ovrsurge4689]

@@r3dp9 I've had that happen before. I didn't know lancers could one shot any pawn regardless of armor at the time so I would risk pawns much more often.

[@iller3]

Really highlights why Evasion based "defense" has always been a feast or famine **crapshoot** since the very beginning of dice roll based gaming whether it was on an old Commodore, Atari, or Table Top (IoW: Nimble needs a REWORK!!)

[@Zanockthael]

One tribal start playthrough, 6 years in, my tough starting pawn was the only survivng one of the original 5. Then he took a head shot that took him down to 30% hp scarring on the brain. A few weeks in the biosculpting pod and he was back as good as new. Tough is so very good.

[@SmokeHunter714]

​@@ovrsurge4689wait they can one shot through marine helmet? Aw shit if it's true than I am scared

[@ladaleenglish6756]

not once did i ever think to seperate colonist with bad socials they just beat the crap out of each other until they have cathartic fights and then there best buds lol

[@cookies23z]

damn, having the whole list up 1 second in, that is very nice for people who just want a quick glance also, just off a 2 second glance, I feel like slow learner could have been its own tier at the bottom like tough is its own at the top

[@dodojesus4529]

Yeah, slow learner just wipes any potential a pawn has

[@bookle5829]

10:24 update for 1.5, ascetic no longer has a mood debuff for eating without a table.

[@ManaPotionArtisan]

Personally don't mind some of the bottom traits, as long as there is some use for them. Like wimp+neurotic can be my dedicated researcher, and slow learner+nudist is a free meat shield or cannibal food. The ones I can't stand are pyromaniacs and "resource eaters" (gourmand and the two drug traits) irregardless of whatever high-tier trait they might also have. One pyro I had burned an entire forest and half my base while in the middle of being raided. The resource-eaters are self explanatory.

[@torymiddlebrooks]

Deeply appreciate that you are so detailed with your videos. I am at 2500 hours in this game and this has been very helpful still.

[@kylewelch552]

11:25 Keep in mind, with Biotech, Mechanitor’s mechlink counts as a body modification, and will please body modders. I am unsure about the further implants, but it certainly counts for the first check. The importance here is that a mechlink is self-installed, so you can do a solo transhumanist more easily.

[@salemprompthous3820]

All the additions to the mechlink are self-installed aswell, but pretty sure only the mechlink gives a body modder the mood bonus, as this trait should be dependant on having someone else performing surgeries

[@michaelrichards5340]

I blve having genes counts too, not sure, I feel like I've seen that though

[@mYnAME-ww9iv]

I don't know, I haven't tested it, but a freaking *peg leg* also gives a mood bonus? I remember going transhumanist and remember how one of the pawns had a peg leg, which automatically gave a mood bonus, instead of the usual debuff. Does it work in all the cases, or does it work with body modder trait I don't know.

[@Adam-rs4en]

Adam, thank you so much for breaking down the game in such detail without being... abrasive or annoyingly voiced. So many youtubers have such an insufferable speaking cadence or attitude that I literally can't watch them because it pains me too much. You're just a normal guy that's putting together a LOT of helpful and detailed content. It shouldn't be as hard as it seems to be but you're on the top of my list. THANKS!

[@salemprompthous3820]

For explanations and guides, Adam is one of my favorites aswell. Francis John is another. Getting lots of well thought out and explained info from both, and a lot of laughs 😁

[@cantsleep7760]

pretty sure i know who youre talking about here.

[@alexclarke6924]

True. It's like most Rimworld guides on KZbin are made for 9 year olds.

[@varlunmulland3992]

Late comment but I was thinking this about this guy. So many KZbinrs (and people in general) get on my nerves because they say like or um too much, or they have an annoying sense of humor, etc etc. This guy has a script, or he figures out what he wants to say before he says it, then he says it, without any useless filler or stuttering. It's such a breath of fresh air.

[@jaysonp9426]

That's the main reason I started listening to him. He doesn't have an over the top annoying voice

[@hideshisface1886]

One more thing on industrious - it is absolutely amazing for crafters as well. Sure, if you have a production specialist, this stacks with bonuses from it... And considering that some of the more complex armours and weapons have pretty hefty workload attached to them - this is a wonderful time-saver. Although, one must remember one thing - learning many of the skills is corelated to how much time a pawn spends doing the task - so faster work is not always beneficial in terms of pawns learning, ironically. Ascetic is a double edged sword in my opinion - it is convenient early on, but preference for shoddy accomodations and food also means no mood buffs from better quality stuff you will eventually have. Body modder to me is basically a free mood buff - unless you are running a body-purist colony that shuns bionics - eventually your pawns are guaranteed to lose body parts... So why not have something extra from it? Trigger-happy vs careful shooter - in the end it boils down to one simple fact - disadvantages from trigger-happy are very small for a combat pawn and these pawns are going to reach high levels of shooting where accuracy penalty won't matter any longer. Penalty from careful shooter is pretty much permanent. Careful shooter has niche use on sniper rifles - if you need to snipe the annoying mortar or something like that - careful shooter WILL be more reliable... But here comes trigger-happy again - deficiencies of trigger happy can be further mitigated by bionics, gunlink, and shooting specialist AND masterwork/legendary weapons. Nudist - this is a meme trait, basically. BUT it can be hilarious - with armourskin gland, tough pawns - you basically get a colony of perpetually happy walking tanks. But temperatures become a problem. Psychic sensitivity is a double edged sword - because psychic drones can become pretty devastating. Psychic heat is manageable for the most part, and not every power really benefits from psychic sensitivity increase.

[@zacharynelson2856]

Careful shooter + shooting specialists has a very nice niche. The active ability can help a lot, but it really minimizes the penalties and makes those long range shots very reliable and come out frequently enough to matter. I've had a pair of shooting specialists sniper's and they often did work on raids. Changed my mind on careful shooter. I would consider careful shooter negative for combat focused pawn, it's actually nice on decent skill but no passion pawns as auxiliary units since you can ensure they hit reasonably frequently with no invest. I usually like the bolt action/assault rifle for them. Trigger happy pawns tend to outshine careful shooters 9 times out of 10, and usually I'd prefer a no-trait combat focused pawn over a careful shooter.

[@SaltyNard]

I noticed the learning thing, I thought exp gain was tied to Work Amount, which it wasn't, it's tied to time spent working. It means that global work speed bonuses aren't as powerful as I thought, but it's still infinitely better than not having the bonus. The only downside being that their lower level starting skills will take longer to level up, requiring more grinding to level specific things up to the point where you can make what you want, such as Construction. Their already-learned skills will be fine, but the rest are going to be a slog, sorta, more resource intensive for nothing but skill learning.

[@hideshisface1886]

@@SaltyNard Very true, but this informal xp penalty due to working too fast is only important for pawns who do very sporadic work outside of their own field, or if their field itself is a sporadic work in its own right. And if pawns start from very low level. And most of the skills are in constant use, so that is hardly an issue. OR if you get a pawn who is a slow learner and industrious. That being said - even with pawns like this - getting them to level 10 with selected skill should hardly be a problem - and 10 is generally a level when stuff gets reliable and/or decently fast. The only exception is if you seek highest quality weapons, armour, carpentry or art - this rules such pawn out for a pretty long time. There is one thing kind of untouched here - that is tribal playthroughs - and specifically research. It gets glacial eventually, so any pawn with learning speed assigned to research is worth its weight in gold, to offset the penalty in any way possible.

[@denaytan7746]

IMO, Body Modder is a serious top-tier trait. I often play in such a way that results in me having colonies with dozens of people in them on max sized maps, and in that environment it becomes rare for relationships to start between colonists. Often, relationships only start if by pure coincidence two people in roughly the same age range happen to have the same job within the colony, or their jobs take them to the same room so frequently that positive relationship memories can accumulate faster than they dissipate. Body Modder mitigates this issue because of the simple fact that body modders gain an opinion bonus for colonists with modded bodies. Biotech allowing us to manually tell pawns to romance one another does mitigate this issue a bit, but opinion is still an important factor. Not to mention that the aesthetic improvement parts provide both the beauty opinion bonus and the body modder opinion bonus at the same time, which actually makes them worth using in my eyes outside of social pawns who lose their noses in combat.

[@philip6861]

I want to say thank you for showing your end result at the beginning of your video. That is very helpful to get the most important information quickly.

[@craigblum5385]

One of the best Rim World guides I have ever seen. Loved your Anima Tree guide too

[@animaeversor5046]

While I had a good understanding of these, seeing all the breakdowns and comparisons was insightful. It probably depends but I might have learnt a thing or two. Nice work!

[@ojuelegba1]

Even better if you have biotech, when the new update drops you can have the fast learner trait and put the fast learner gene in someone and they will stack, same with jogger. The opposites also apply, slowpoke, slow learner etc

[@Alister222222]

An amazing, intelligent breakdown of the different traits. It could have been 'this is S tier, this is B tier!', and totally missed all the nuance and strategy. I have nearly 2000 hours in the game, and I still learned something from this video!

[@phrozehniv5663]

Love your guide and tier content! Keep it up. Love your long form stuff, but the new edited content is awesome as well. We just need more of em! Really like the new direction of your channel!

[@AstrumG2V]

The Tortured Artist explanation is the funniest and most Rimworld-y thing I've come across thusfar XD

[@starburst98]

Tortured artist + too smart = level 20 crafter that can double fist legendaries since they are always breaking and learn fast.

[@kerrymoore1961]

If asked whether I'll watch one of Adam's guides, the answer is, "It depends--has he put a new one out? Then yes, of course."

[@everinghall8622]

For me personally, industrius/samguine are the best traits. Industrious saves you time on work, which saves you mood. Sanguine buffe your mood, which means you van work longer hours and are less likely to have a mental break at the worst possible time in combat, these traits will save you more pawns than tough, which only really comes into play when you slip up and let a pawn take hits the shouldnt be taking. Btw industrious makes medical faster, truly a must for combat medics, when you need to gtfo you can have your industrious doctor patch up wounded in the field and use painstop so they can march themselves to safety, which saves you a pawns manpower in carrying them. Industrious is just so, so good.

[@varlunmulland3992]

Hey Adam. So many KZbinrs (and people in general) get on my nerves because they say like or um too much, or they have an annoying sense of humor, etc etc. But you have a script, or you figure out what you want to say before you say it, then say it, without any useless filler or stuttering. It's such a breath of fresh air. So thanks for having good speech skills!

[@SC2Beat]

Hey AvE! Hoping you are well and just to let you know that your killbox doesn't work...JUST KIDDING DONT BAN ME! What I wanted to say was I went into this vid thinking I'd know everything, I have a 819 hours in RW. Sure enough though, you nailed down a few things I didn't know and it wasn't new stuff either. Thanks man, I know you see this as your job but your different runs and guides have led to hundreds of hours of fun times (not just in RW). Wish I could support more fully but I can at least keep watching and whatnot. I am excited every time you come out with something new or discuss new vid ideas and really appreciate the overall skill and tone you present here. can't wait to see what's next! Take care =) PS that "it depends" counter should really read "understand subtle (not-so-) differences between your game and mine"

[@salemprompthous3820]

819 hours? I've got 4200+ hours, and still learned something. Especially about the changes made to old-school traits. Completely missed those in patch notes.

[@MyFirstYoutubeHandle]

Another excellent video from Adam. If you don’t know, now you know.

[@MICKEYrenraw]

I've seen so many guides for Rimworld and there's always a bunch of stuff the YTer misses or even out right gets wrong, but as always Adam is the no1 source for Rimworld info :) the only thing i would add is, Body Purist isn't as bad as it used to be because in Ideology you can use the Bioscultper to heal scars and re-grow missing appendages like ears and fingers. I know you already know, but you missed it :D

[@joeg8304]

So you're saying...it depends? 🤣

[@katanah3195]

So, in classic "RimWorld Logic" fashion, probably the least worst time to take on a body purist, is a transhumanist ideology run. That said I do like how transhumanism in Rimworld since Ideology portrays kinda "both sides" of transhumanism, in that they like both sci-fi level regeneration and the cybernetics and implants, so such a colony's story of a body purist member might be something like "Oh yeah, Sarah over there eats up way more food than the rest of us for fueling her biosculpter, and she ends up in there way more often, but she also doesn't want bionic body parts, well that's more for the rest of us. Me, I once got a couple fingers tore off on purpose to get a shiny new bionic arm, (I swear, it seems like body modders and ideological transhumanists do this) so I don't understand her, but eh, she does her work, doesn't cause social problems, doesn't start fires, so we don't really mind."

[@michaelrichards5340]

​@@katanah3195except she low key hates everyone with a bionic part, for each sick disgusting inhumane change they make lmao

[@mayrimbas]

Great video, Adam!! I am constantly in awe of how much you know and understand about the game

[@seijurohikko6382]

This guide is just AWESOME. I can't express how good and well made this guide is, especially the voice over. It was clear, good talking rate, understandable, funny... Everything! Wait... Adam... it was everything... was that all a part of the plan? xD Anyway, i usually don't drop likes but this guide is so well done that it would be criminal not to leave one...

[@nicholassheavils209]

A tier list that starts at the top. Awesome

[@anson7671]

„One of my Most favourite pawns was a industrious very neurotic dual drill Arms miner- he could basically walk through Mountains.“ 😂😂😂 That Quote somehow summarizes Rimworld to me.

[@joshuabell6069]

This guide is awesome! answered questions I didnt realize I had lol.

[@Novacification]

Great guide! I rarely play on really high difficulties but learning just how good some traits are and getting suggestions on how negative traits can be turned into a positive was very informative.

[@leinis80]

Is this a good, high quality, professional yet funny guide? Well... it depends - NOT! :) Good stuff Adam!

[@Obscure_TM]

fantastic guide here, 1.5k hours and still a few things i didnt know or think about. well explained and clear. (a.wanderer)

[@blazethunderwind3666]

Woul love to see You do a pawns childhood and adulthood background rankings 👊🏻👑

[@axelle0144]

this is actually an amazing listen to as a rimworld fanatic. thank you

[@rpvarela]

another thing to notice is that only recreational drugs count for teetotaler. they can still take the antibiotic or luciferium without issues, which is nice.

[@SaltyRocksPew]

I'm sure you know this but it's amazing you didn't mention it, a trigger happy pawn combined with the shooting specialist role from ideology shoots instantly.

[@salemprompthous3820]

Which is amazing when they're loaded with a sniper rifle, or a minigun 😁

[@LordBadkid]

I love your guide videos! I hope you do more guide stuff!

[@The-Secret-Dragon]

this could not be a more timely video considering we can get double-stacked traits with the new update!

[@percinatto]

Awesome video. Looking forward for the genes guide

[@MortalSmurph]

Genes are being overhauled right now by the developers. Lots of changes within the last 24 hours. We're putting lots of Biotech stuff on hold because it is being changed.

[@gregc1617]

I've had gourmands run out and open a door during a raid. Mech raid killed some passing visitors so the gourmand *had* to run out to eat the pemmican.

[@salemprompthous3820]

This is why Tynan calls this game a "Story Generator" 🤣 hillarious

[@p_tassa]

Another banger. The pmusic of Rimworld guides. Thx AvE!

[@winterzee]

Any ideas on how to schedule a quick sleeping nightowl? I've basically resorted to ensuring they only work on stuff they have passion for because they somehow are always awake during the day. Thanks for the video, I appreciated the nuanced discussion and the numbers.

[@MrRokkit]

*Fast Learner:* I think an underrated aspect of it is that it allows you to assign pawns to non-passion jobs. And Fast Learner + Too Smart is almost like a wildcard. I use them to fill gaps early game, like no medic or crafter.

[@One_E]

Thx for all of the Time Stamps

[@jacksonholder2987]

As bad as some of these bottom tier traits are, I enjoy having pawns with negative traits. I'm not huge on creating a min-max-ey colony (you won't catch me playing on blood and dust, either). I enjoy the challenge and consequences of sub-optimal pawns and choices.

[@sublimed13]

great vid. funny counter but i wish it didn't have a sound alert because it was so distracting I'd have to rewatch segments, but hey that's good for the analytics. i love your guides!

[@SuperMichael996]

7:02 I did the math and got confused why it's only a 12.5% increase in the awake time. Then I realized that trait just reduces the time asleep, which is already pretty small compared to awake time (1/3 or what?), so taking that as a percentage boost of the awake time that's larger is obviously gonna return a small percent. Still, that 12.5% more awake time is 2 hours per day. But yeah, I'd say there are better traits than it. I gotta mention I presumed sleep takes by default 8 hours in my calculations, so they might be a bit off... or not. Ironically, if there are fewer sleep hours the increase percent to the awake time is even lower because you start with more awake hours and have few sleep hours to "cut" from.

[@MortalSmurph]

Unfortunately, the math is quite a bit more complicated than that. The schedules all need to be averaged for a 24 hour day. A standard healthy person in a Normal bed will not sleep 8 hours a day on average. There's a ton of complicated math on the wiki. If you go to the "Rest" page on the Rimworld wiki way WAY more math than you could ever want now exists on the topic. We can now calculate it out to the exact game tick.

[@josephsalaba8290]

Today I realized Perfectionist isn't a vanilla trait

[@ker7967]

Does Recluse work per base or overall? They might make amazing 2nd colony pawns if you're trying to recruit more people/mine.

[@Mzkyti]

I soo needed this guide! Thank you!

[@Airidescent]

Commenting just for the YT algorithm~ Keep up the good work, sire~

[@GhostofJamesMadison]

My favorite way to play is to start with one pawn altered using character editor to be a true god among gods, literally perfect, but you give him backgrounds so he cant do anything accept hunt and cook or plant and cut. You give him a couple archotect genes, tough, fast runner, all of them mele, shooting, social,+8 genes -all other genesThen you try to get morepawn and start a god king playthrough. I love this style of start i have done it like 3 times now. Sometime you starve before things can pop off and its a true tragedy but when it hits you quickly become stellarc lol so fun

[@samsonthemanson]

Tough, brawler, bloodlust. When I see this pawn boss music starts playing.

[@salemprompthous3820]

Just have to hope it's not a Hussar or Yttakin coming at you with 30 others having the 50% bonus to melee damage. That also plays the boss music for me, while I silently hum the Benny Hill track, trying to pack up and leave 🤣

[@MrMpakobec]

In my runs I always very carefully consider pawns with slow learner trait. If they have 0 in crafting and construction I will try to recruit them. They are really awesome for wealth management. Excellent shelves and tables do nothing but bloat your wealth - you really want awful ones. Awful clothes are almost always superior to higher quality clothes. They lose 20% insulation properties and 50% in cost compare to normal quality clothes. If set of normal clothes is overkill for insulation on current map (which it almost always is) then awful clothes is a good choice. Worse stats in sharp and blunt protection of awful clothes does not matter because for the most materials even excellent quality clothes offer basically no protection. Slow learner trait help to not level skill as long as possible and thus retain high chance of producing awful things.

[@syncity6517]

That's a great take and something I will consider in the future. However, it's important to remember that clothing contributes to protection. While this doesn't matter for cloth, good leathers and devilstrand can provide insane defense bonuses to pawns on top of armour at high qualities.

[@syncity6517]

Just got home, can add more information. As far as using slow learning construction pawns for building shelves and similar, you can just have a pawn with no passion in construction and who never does construction jobs go finish it. You'll likely end up with plenty pawns with 0 to 4 construction, meaning you'll have plenty of pawns to build these small buildings. If you are still worried about construction experience gain, you can micromanage it down to a couple work points left and have another pawn finish it. As for clothing, you underestimate high quality clothing. While you are still on the cloth and low tier leather tiers of clothing, yes having lower quality clothes is likely better than the higher quality to reduce raid points. However, once you move to better materials, the quality of clothing matters significantly more. For example, losing a portion of the 10.8% sharp protection on a normal cloth duster won't hurt you. However, even a normal Devilstrand duster has 42% sharp protection AND covers a LOT of body parts AND can be combined with flak. An excellent is 54.6%, masterwork is 60.9%. These are huge numbers, especially against low armour penetration enemies like tribals. Thrumbofur takes this a step higher, with normal, excellent and masterwork providing 62.4, 81.1 and 90.5% respectively. Hell, even rhino fur provides close to the same protection as Devilstrand. With the way armour stacks when multilayering, this can go a long way from turning one shots or major bleeds into simple bruises, and I've launched many ships in only flak+duster. This doesn't even include the added protection of a button-down shirt or similar, which also layers. In the early game, you likely can just get away with a cheaper material like cloth, or having some non-crafting pawns around to craft early game clothing. As mid and late game begins, improving your armour rating in ways that don't negatively impact your pawn (like the movespeed penalty and ugliness of skin glands and marine and cataphract armour) can be vitally important to reduce raid damage. If you don't intend in a run to generate a clothing material that has decent or great armour protection rating, then the slow learner strat might be fine. However, I definitely question why you wouldn't want to increase armour protection rating, considering raids are the greatest threat to a colonies' survival, and on most maps the barrier to entry to great clothing options is minimal or none.

[@MrMpakobec]

@@syncity6517 That's my playstyle - I am staying on low expectations as long as possible - in my last run I got to moderate just before starting ship construction with 9 pawns in the colony. For protection I used only flack vests (with less than 50% hit points) - they are cost effective for the protection they offer. Sure masterwork thrumbofur duster is great but it cost per damage reduction to vital organs is pretty bad imo, especially if your killbox allow you to kill tribals fast. Its all about reducing number of drop pod raiders/mechs or breachers with explosives in the late game. And in the early game is important melee tribals don't get to your position after depleting traps, so its beneficial to reduce their numbers as much as possible before raid starts. You are right about construction - you don't need to have slow learner but its nice to have him if you want to redo all the furniture in the colony at once.

[@salemprompthous3820]

And, completing construction tasks (building walls, shelves, beds etc.) with a pawn with less than 8 construction skill gets that pesky "botched" chance. Still a nice way of keeping the wealth down for crafting clothing and vests.

[@dt.radical]

The depessive, tough, burning passion level 18 crafter is *literally* one of my colonists, plus they research when they're not crafting too.

[@syncity6517]

Love the video :) was very interesting and informative. Hopefully not too many haters today. I guess it depends on how many of them are stuck home on a Sunday

[@jackmcfetridge]

Got a baby who was a tough nervous wimp, still not sure if he’s worth using, never got any passions for some reason

[@AZSprocket]

Could you do a guide on Ideology and the different memes/precepts? Especially with how 1.4 cross DLC stuff is going to buff some memes or at least make them more viable (ie mechanitors now pair well with Raider, xenogenes pair well with Transhumanism, etc)

[@Silverhand404]

Well, the video is 1 year old by the time of this comment, but I still want to add that the movement speed that jogger gives also adds to the dodge chance of a pawn.

[@pendantblade6361]

There are two tiers: Tough and everything else.

[@salemprompthous3820]

Tough is a really tough one. Tough masochist with a knack for hitting stuff on the head, or just cut those heads clean off with a sword, always gets hired in my playthroughs. That particular trait combo is quite rare in general, but ever since Biotech, I've seen that combo on several Yttakin raiders (aprox. 1 raider every 3 to 4 raids in a test run, disabling every faction, and replacing them with extra yttakin pirate factions) My only issue with the Yttakin, is their "Naked Speed", really. Give them a helmet and a flak vest, and they'll need a jump pack to catch up with any healthy pawn you'd want to capture (if the shock lances aren't readily available, ofc). So far, I've only managed to find Shadecone/Cowboy Hat + Sash to give any protection, while keeping their bonus to speed. And for wimps, they're excellent slaves. One fist to their head, and they'll be obedient for a week (gotta love those Genies 😁) But, as Adam says; "It all depends" 😅

[@duckdictator6531]

My favorite pawn from my first colony that went to space was a too smart, fast-learner night owl. She pretty much only did research, though.

[@ДмитроНечай-с9о]

Cheers from Ukraine! Thanks for a great guide!

[@Tamizushi]

Slowpoke has a niche positive use. It disables go frenzy inspiration. Combine this with either brawler or incapable of violence, and with less than lvl 3 social, handling and medical (possibly with the help of genetics) then your pawns will only be able to get the creativity and work drive inspirations, both of which are amazing for production specialists. Essentially, take a generic pawn with only the slowpoke trait and no passion, give them the production specialist role, add the incapable of violence, awful medical, awful social and great crafting genes, and now you have an amazing crafter at the cost of word of inspiration casts..

[@derekanderson6708]

excellent breakdown

[@notdavid6893]

Very surprised by pyromaniac's placement; especially if you have chemfuel stored somewhere.

[@mynoc1113]

Thank you for yet another Awesome vid Adam

[@kaoslobster3742]

Really appreciate the nuance!

[@TheKrueger246]

Whenever picking pawns, remember kids, it depends.

[@WS-le4dv]

Maybe some of these traits are good because they wind up on enemy pawns. I know that's not how you evaluate them in this video, but I sure as hell appreciate it when some dude carrying a multirocket launcher winds up with slowpoke and doesn't ever make it to the fight.

[@donthiebautable]

One good thing about teetotaler (iirc) is that they never go on drug binges, which makes them good for colonies in which selling hard drugs is a staple of the economy.

[@SirDistic]

Sanguine+Iron-Willed is the greatest traits. You will never have a mental break if you take care of them.

[@Amercent]

I don't know what happened with the 1.4 update but my colony is now a mess because everyone keeps cheating and having some lovin' in other peoples beds.... I have constant social debuffs and so on ruined proposals and social fights. Only way to stop this is to take double beds away....

[@deplorabledegenerate2630]

The closest to black and white for me is pyro, and I still have taken two due to otherwise really good stats that mitigated it a little over the course of my time playing. One ended up killing herself by darting into the chemfuel storage shack but the other didn't really cause too many problems.

[@reidm2624]

your content is fire my man

[@Frbreadwarrior]

I have so many mods installed my game isn't even Rimworld anymore these guides do nothing for me. I'll still watch them all.

[@jm7781]

I realy like "too smart"… the upside is great and the downside is not a problem in most cases.

[@chromaticsky3956]

One time I got a starter pawn that was industrious, very neurotic AND iron-willed. So nearly double speed worker with no mental break penalty.

[@kanuos]

Couldn't agree more about Tough. Once you realize how good it is, you can never go back to non-Tough starting colonists. Obviously, it depends on the scenario though.

[@RTanna89]

Night owl is actually pretty neat. Just set them to research and only research, you have a night shift to keep it rolling at all times.

[@Elrohof]

Slow Learner isn't as bad as one would initially think! It takes all considerations out of the pawn - you have a new Cleaner, Hauler and unskilled crafter! I always struggle with having enough haulers and cleaners, and extra hands to cut stone chunks into blocks is always nice. Since Slow Learners aren't at all good for anything else, they're perfect candidates for all of these roles!

[@redunicorngaming]

I used to hate nudist, but actually it's not that bad. I'll take an otherwise good pawn who is a nudist. I won't let them run around naked, though. But I since the worst thing is a permanent -3 to mood (for wearing constraining clothes), that's kind of acceptable to me.

[@salemprompthous3820]

That -3 isn't as bad as a Lancer hitting center mass, or headshot, on a naked pawn

[@redunicorngaming]

@@salemprompthous3820 Exactly. I just put them in armor and ignore their whining 😅

[@Puritan1985]

For a few days after Biotech launched depressive was not too bad of you could aquire a highmate and extract Sanguine. But they will change all genes to work like psy sensitivity, as an additional bonus/males instead of forced trait. Also the bonus for *very happy* is not quite strong enough to fully negate depressive so *shrug*

[@emaraldragon2000]

yay new guide and its a tier list woot woot

[@MOISECRIMI]

love those videos!

[@xFlazz]

Is tortured artist still bugged with catatonic breakdown? It's on the wiki that it doesn't work, and in my past experience that has been true, but I'm not sure if they fixed it.

[@Wilhammer]

One point about Slow Learner: they're just fine for non-skill tasks like cleaning and hauling. I'd rather not start with one, but as colony size increases slow learners find a niche

[@TheReaperAwaits1337]

God of Rimknowledge coming to bless us with his wisdom…

[@GhostStyle007]

I like to know the traits and their powers. But I restrict myself from using the "randomize" button. It adds a replayability variable, better immersion and it lets you test all the game's content.

[@sinister666999]

All of this is great information but really it depends on how you play the game.

[@nickpatrick7021]

This list went out the window faster than a fart in the wind during the Sanguophage run

[@balkan495]

I recently made a pacifist xenotype with depressive, but with big buffs to plants and construction.

[@balkan495]

Probably would be a somewhat good pawn with industrious

[@rainiedash9225]

My beautiful pawn with two exhusbands, four lovers, a fiancée, and all (overall) positive thoughts towards them is flexing on us all 😅

[@michaelsutherland5848]

Is this a good guide? It depends.

[@sdfPZXC]

very great tip and ranking ❤

[@SashaFYI]

I once had a Jogger on Luciferium with two Archotech legs. She was faster than my moped.

[@Br3ttM]

Industrious with no good skills means a stone block cutter. Undergrounder depends on their job. I hate it on planters, but anyone who is always inside, like a full time cook, means they won't get a negative thought for "trapped indoors". Unfortunately, tribals frequently have undergrounder+planter, which is terrible without hydroponics or DLC.

[@v417227]

Even with the it depends and situational disclaimer good luck with the comments section on this guide