Mood and Mental Breaks Overhaul

Rework mood so instead of having a chance for the pawn to randomly be useless and do stupid stuff, they just do stuff slower. For example, they move slower or work slower if their mood is low. The worse their mood gets, the less motivated the pawn is to work or move (exclude the movement penalty when drafted, since combat would realistically bring a sense of urgency for the pawn to move properly). Maybe have special penalties depending on the activity where it makes sense (such as pawns that do social work not being as effective, the low mood affecting their charisma to talk to prisoners or get good trade deals). Only have mental breaks when mood is very low, or when receiving a big enough mood debuff (such as -20, maybe -15 idk, similar to how Dubs Break Mod only has extreme breaks at -20 mood).

The movement penalty should be minor, but work penalty should be the main penalty. Use the same thresholds from a pawns' mental break minor, major and extreme points to apply penalties. Minor could be -15% global work speed and -5% walk speed, major could be -30% work and -10% walk, extreme could be -45% work and -15% walk. Doesn't have to be that, maybe you have a better idea of what values to use to balance it.

Some traits have their own breaks, like pyromaniac or gourmand. Have those breaks still happen, but not during events on the active map of the pawn. Also, prevent any breaks or penalties for the first 3 days when reaching a location, even at extreme mood. After 3 days it's fair for the pawn to get pissed off that you weren't able to set up a basic base.

Possibly rework most soft mental breaks into other things (such as needs), so a gourmand pawn just wants to eat more often, or maybe wants lavish or other nice foods once in a while. A chemical interest pawn wants some kind of drug every now and then. If those needs are not met, they get a mood penalty.

Or instead of general work and speed penalties at low mood, rework soft mood breaks into penalties in the health tab, so instead of a pawn getting confused, he now works and moves slower for a day. A gourmand decays his food need much faster for a day. A chemical interest pawn works slower and moves slower for a while if he has no drugs in his system.

Instead of having work speed modified, it could be a consciousness modifier, since that affects everything, if you want even stuff such as aiming weapons to be affected. Though that can cause problems with other health modifiers that lower consciousness too low, leading to death. If using consciousness, it could me made so it won't lower consciousness if it's already too low.

I hate getting random mood breaks when raiding a city, and my soldier just takes off confused in the middle of a firefight, only to get killed. I also don't like how Rimworld handles mood breaks, sure life is tough sometimes and you need to relieve, but most people just push through hard times but just do stuff slower due to a lack of motivation. People don't just randomly walk around confused at work because they feel like crap that day, or stop working and just walk around swearing at people.

If it's configurable, you could include some variation of all these suggestion plus your own, so people can mix and match these suggestions as preferred, with maybe some default presets (chill, vanilla, harsh).

Originally posted by DanT2127:

Mood and Mental Breaks Overhaul

I was heads-down finishing my new mod, Impactful Skills Mod & DLC support sorry for the delay.

Quick brief of your idea, I like it but... — did I get it right?

• Replace random, disruptive mood breaks with predictable slowdowns: mainly Global Work Speed, with a small Move Speed hit.
  
• No movement penalty while drafted (combat urgency).
  
• Allow breaks only at very low mood or after a big single debuff (e.g., –20).
  
• Apply penalties at the vanilla Minor/Major/Extreme thresholds (e.g., ~–15/–30/–45% work; –5/–10/–15% walk).
  
• Trait-specific breaks (Pyro, Gourmand, etc.) stay, but not during events on the pawn’s current map.
  
• 3-day grace period on new maps: no penalties/breaks even at extreme mood.
  
• Option to rework “soft” breaks into either Needs (e.g., Gourmand wants better/more meals; Chemical Interest wants periodic drugs) or short Hediffs (temporary work/move slowdowns, faster hunger, etc.).
  
• Fully configurable with presets like Chill, Vanilla, and Harsh.

Quick questions about it

• Do those example numbers feel right, or would you tweak them?
  
• Would you prefer Needs-based, Hediff-based, or both via toggles?

My approach
I plan to reuse the same framework as my latest mod—full, in-depth settings with presets (see my mod page). For implementation, I’m leaning toward converting most “mental breaks” into configurable debuffs (as I did there). Another option is to represent them as health effects (Hediffs), but my current preference is to turn them into general custom effects that:

• appear on the info card with an icon in the portrait (as vanilla) and short label.
  
• include a clear description in alerts.
  
• add a dedicated “Mental Break” section on the info card so the effect is easy to find.

For a visual reference, check the “Impactful Skills” screenshot titled “Debrief”—that’s the presentation I have in mind for mental-break descriptions.

Yeah, you got it all right! Those are all just a few ideas that came to my head, some while writing the others, thats why my post was so long and kinda chaotic. I don't need all those ideas to be implemented, as long as the mod implements some of those ideas in some fashion, removing the randomness of mood breaks with something more predictable and controllable. I'm fine managing lower work speed, higher hunger and other effects, I don't like colonists randomly walking with no purpose for hours.

I haven't thought too deeply about the numbers, I just came up with something that would feel punishing to give an incentive to players to keep high mood and not just avoid mood breaks for free. Maybe there can even be some benefit from really high mood, to give a reason to max the mood bar too.

I think some hediff modifier would suit better, extra need bars would probably lag the game, i know some mods that add needs (such as dubs mod for thirst, bladder and hygiene, as well as rjw with the need it adds) lag the game. It's probably easier to check at a glance the health tab to see current effects. The need bars could be a permanent need for specific traits, I know a mod overhauls pyromaniac to always have a fire need, so instead of random fire breaks, you can start controlled fires to fill the need and prevent breaks.

But yeah the approach sounds good, especially if it's as configurable as your other mods, if you have better ideas how to implement such a mod do those, I don't know how to mod so I have no idea what difficulties there are and what is easier to make, plus it's your mod so you don't have to listen to me. Thanks a lot for considering this idea, random mood breaks is something I always hated, especially how some are just stupidly unrealistic, and can even happen in high pressure moments such as raiding an enemy settlement. In general I hate randomness, such as random crafting or building quality, I always use a mod that makes quality static at certain skill levels, I'd rather have predictability than rng.

Originally posted by DanT2127:

Yeah, you got it all right! Those are all just a few ideas that came to my head, some while writing the others, thats why my post was so long and kinda chaotic. I don't need all those ideas to be implemented, as long as the mod implements some of those ideas in some fashion, removing the randomness of mood breaks with something more predictable and controllable. I'm fine managing lower work speed, higher hunger and other effects, I don't like colonists randomly walking with no purpose for hours.

I haven't thought too deeply about the numbers, I just came up with something that would feel punishing to give an incentive to players to keep high mood and not just avoid mood breaks for free. Maybe there can even be some benefit from really high mood, to give a reason to max the mood bar too.

I think some hediff modifier would suit better, extra need bars would probably lag the game, i know some mods that add needs (such as dubs mod for thirst, bladder and hygiene, as well as rjw with the need it adds) lag the game. It's probably easier to check at a glance the health tab to see current effects. The need bars could be a permanent need for specific traits, I know a mod overhauls pyromaniac to always have a fire need, so instead of random fire breaks, you can start controlled fires to fill the need and prevent breaks.

But yeah the approach sounds good, especially if it's as configurable as your other mods, if you have better ideas how to implement such a mod do those, I don't know how to mod so I have no idea what difficulties there are and what is easier to make, plus it's your mod so you don't have to listen to me. Thanks a lot for considering this idea, random mood breaks is something I always hated, especially how some are just stupidly unrealistic, and can even happen in high pressure moments such as raiding an enemy settlement. In general I hate randomness, such as random crafting or building quality, I always use a mod that makes quality static at certain skill levels, I'd rather have predictability than rng.

No worries — I’ve split your idea into two major mods:

• Adrenal Override: Danger Sense! — covers all ideas related to mental break suppression during raids.
  
• Mood & Mental Breaks: Realistic Overhaul — I’m still developing this; it includes broader changes to moods and mental breaks.

for a long time i've been looking for a mod that instructs pawns to stay on the opposite side of an enclosed wall away from danger while undrafted. that is to say, if there's a raider outside the base they'll consider the exterior blocked off and vice versa.

if you felt so inclined, you could expand this to cover things like insect hives, wastepack cocoons and mech clusters -- and most importantly, the vacuum of space.

i would be very grateful; this has been haunting me for ages.

(my other suggestions probably wouldve been to do with the concepts behind adrenal override and mood & mental breaks overhaul. needless to say you're doing wonderful work )

Originally posted by squidd:

for a long time i've been looking for a mod that instructs pawns to stay on the opposite side of an enclosed wall away from danger while undrafted. that is to say, if there's a raider outside the base they'll consider the exterior blocked off and vice versa.

if you felt so inclined, you could expand this to cover things like insect hives, wastepack cocoons and mech clusters -- and most importantly, the vacuum of space.

i would be very grateful; this has been haunting me for ages.

(my other suggestions probably wouldve been to do with the concepts behind adrenal override and mood & mental breaks overhaul. needless to say you're doing wonderful work :er_heart:)

OMG You are absolutely right! that thing is fairly annoying,
I think I can do that, sounds easy enough to do. (I hope I'm not talking too soon)
Love the Idea, i'll add it to the trello!

oh -- another idea thats been kicking around for a while is a slight overhaul to the gene assembler. all genes are immediately available with the appropriate research, but the production of xenogerms costs materials scaling with the met-efficiency and complexity of the genes. the working idea i had for the cost was (c + m)² neutroamine, where 'c' is the cumulative complexity and 'm' is the cumulative absolute values of each gene's metabolic efficiency.

the gameplay impact is that small, early-game genemods are very cheap and accessible, costing 4-16 neutroamine (up to 96 silver). more comprehensive genemods require a stronger economy, costing as much as 200-600 neutroamine (up to 3600 silver). this would also give players a new motivation for wealth accretion (or even particular industrial focus with the right mods)

in vanilla biotech there are only two real methods of acquiring the genes you want; finding people who already possess them (often impossible with modded genes), or waiting for orbital traders. it can take a really long time if you're picky, and i haven't really found an alternative i like.

if i were making this myself i'd probably make it a separate device from the gene assembler for best compatibility.


forgive me for indulging myself, i expect nothing. i just love sharing ideas.

Originally posted by squidd:

oh -- another idea thats been kicking around for a while is a slight overhaul to the gene assembler. all genes are immediately available with the appropriate research, but the production of xenogerms costs materials scaling with the met-efficiency and complexity of the genes. the working idea i had for the cost was (c + m)² neutroamine, where 'c' is the cumulative complexity and 'm' is the cumulative absolute values of each gene's metabolic efficiency.

the gameplay impact is that small, early-game genemods are very cheap and accessible, costing 4-16 neutroamine (up to 96 silver). more comprehensive genemods require a stronger economy, costing as much as 200-600 neutroamine (up to 3600 silver). this would also give players a new motivation for wealth accretion (or even particular industrial focus with the right mods)

in vanilla biotech there are only two real methods of acquiring the genes you want; finding people who already possess them (often impossible with modded genes), or waiting for orbital traders. it can take a really long time if you're picky, and i haven't really found an alternative i like.

if i were making this myself i'd probably make it a separate device from the gene assembler for best compatibility.


forgive me for indulging myself, i expect nothing. i just love sharing ideas.

I might need some help about it, I have biotech and I'm actually planning to release a quality update as well but honestly... I have no idea of how the gene-system works LOL.
So I'm kinda lost and I don't know what to expect in those scenarios you know?

help that i can provide, or something more technical? i'm not much of a coder myself. feel free to add me if you want to communicate more directly about it.