Traits, what to avoid and best picks : Rimworld Tutorial Nuggets

So I know you are supposed to do a tier list but that feels a bit cheesy. So instead I just go though the lot pointing out the ones I like the least. In reality you care about a pawn more for their passions than their traits in the majority of instances.

Really bad :
Slow learner
Wimp
Sickly
Pyromaniac
Gourmand

Bad :
Depressive
Pessimist
Volatile
Nervous
Jealous
Body purist
Brawler
Lazy
Slothful

Mildly bad :
Teetotaler
Too smart
Nudist
Careful shooter

Don't really care but with exceptions
Abrasive
Annoying voice
Creepy breathing
Misandrist
Misogynist
Ugly
Staggeringly ugly
Asexual
Gay
Slowpoke

Don't really care :
Bisexual
Night owl
Undergrounder
Psychopath
Nimble
Great memory
Kind
Super-immune

Situational :
Tortured artist
Ascetic
Cannibal
Neurotic
Very neurotic
Psychically hypersensitive
Psychically sensitive
Psychically dull
Psychically deaf

Acceptable by mid game :
Chemical fascination
Chemical interest
Greedy

Mildly positive :
Beautiful
Pretty
Trigger-happy
Masochist
Body modder
Bloodlust

Good :
Sanguine
Optimist
Iron-willed
Steadfast
Industrious
Hard worker
Quick sleeper
Fast walker
Jogger
Fast learner
Tough

[RK-qgko]

You forgot in the bloodlust - they don't care about clothes taken from corpses (for example, T - marine armor at the beginning of the game) =)

[redunicorngaming]

I agree with most things except for beautiful. I had whole colonies on mental breaks because other pawns kept hitting on the beautiful ones and were rebuffed constantly. Means they get a „rebuffed by…“ debuff and that stacks, and the beautiful pawn gets a „had to rebuff…“ which also stacks. So yeah … I try to avoid them if I can 😅

[MTerrence]

Re: drug addictions just happening. I've found that putting your colonists on a social drug schedule synthesizes very, very badly with biosculptor pods if you aren't careful.

The scheduler works on in-game time, but addiction chance works on pawn chemical tolerance. If you have a pawn take a drug and then hop in a biosculptor pod (for age reversal or anything else, really), his tolerance won't go down - it'll be frozen as it was.

Then, when his cycle comes to an end, the still-tolerant pawn hops out of the pod, checks the clock, sees that it's Guinness time, and immediately gets himself addicted. Serious problem.

[RandomNumbersify]

Staggeringly ugly used to decrease their wealth, not sure if it still does, but that made it a top tier trait for me. A full crew of mutants reduced my raid substantially. Plus if someone died, everyone got a mood boost because everyone hated each other. Social fights were annoying, but it made a 500 threat a ton easier.

[Dragonlord]

I'd put masochist over Brawler; Your Tough, Nimble, designated doorstop is REALLY into it.

[theglassishalf]

In defense of sickly: At least in 1.3, having 1 pawn with sickly acts as a "disease beacon." That is, you will get far fewer colony-wide disease events. When the AI rolls disease, 3 out of 4 times, ONLY your sickly pawn will get sick, saving the rest of your colony. I first heard this from streamer Adam Vs Everything, and my own experience seems to confirm it.

[JohnSmith-eudt]

Someone else pointed out how FJ calls everything something slightly different. I can't help but find it charming. "Marksmanship Command" instead of "Marksman Command". "Quick Shooter" instead of "Trigger Happy". "Low shield pop" instead of "Low shield pack". I love it.

[kllrnohj]

Take your careful shooters & make them shooting specialists. They end up with a net of 75% aiming time (so 25% faster than a regular pawn) and with absurd accuracy, perfect for being a sniper which benefits tremendously from that extra bit of accuracy due to it being per-tile. So a 99% accuracy shooter has a 72.5% of hitting a target 32 tiles away, whereas 98% accuracy shooter has just a 52.4% chance of hitting that same shot.

It's a fantastic trait to have on a couple of pawns!

[chaosstripe]

27:45 slight corrction, corpse rot stink is with 1.4, not the Biotech DLC. This means that you will have it in base game

[ichifish]

Something to consider with positive traits like tough, iron-willed, and steadfast with ideology is that they significantly increase the conversion time. If those traits are coupled with the meme that also increases the difficulty it can be almost impossible to convert them.

[ichifish]

Undergrounder is a really situational. On a crafter or researcher it's great. On a builder, planter, handler, caravanner/raider, or even a late-game miner (who needs to walk across the map or operate deep drills), it can be really hard to deal with.

[syncity]

If I'm not mistaken, the reason you'll occasionally have addictions from supposedly safe chemical consumption is due to Body Size. This affects how long a single hit of a drug affects a pawn. It's why a rabbit will be hammered after a drink or 2 but a thrumbo will go through 10 beers and be fine. Pawns have varying body sizes. Pawns with smaller body sizes might need every 2 days instead of every day.

[colinkurtz]

Nice list. I would have pointed out that the "conceited" traits, Greedy, Jealous, and Abrasive would be deal-breakers on any pawns you plan on giving royal titles to, since they will refuse to do basically any work once they get titles.

[markjenkins]

The upside to having a highly skilled pawn with the wimp trait is that they'll often drop long before they get life threatening injuries!
But that's a lot of micromanaging and lacking combat reliability that comes along with it.

[ilyazzar]

to be honest I like that you named those pawns as bad, very bad, mild care.
I grew tired of those tier lists." THIS IS S TIER, AND THIS IS F TIER". F**k that. I prefer that much more

[jomojas]

I had a sickly who was my main medic and also a masochist, got fiberious mechanites several times and loved it❤

[antarath]

Shout out to kind for giving pretty decent mood bonuses to other pawns and never getting insult sprees
Insult sprees are imo the worst mental break because they almost always cause even more to follow

[johnfoushee]

I always appreciate your tutorial nuggets. Thank you for breaking down traits, it's interesting to understand the calculus of when to care and not care about a trait. This helps me run my colony better :D

[Notllamalord]

You always gotta pick the one named “throg” who physically can’t do anything but fight

[henkdevries]

I love your videos Francis, even though I don't watch the playthrough ones fully, I do watch your tutorial nuggets and they are the best!