Typical Tuesday Suggestions Thread - Children on the Rim

It's late but if it's okay to report still : they are things I thought it's weird that they don't exist in game. Disclaimer: I'm not playing game in English, so some terms may not be canon. Please interpret it in context. Needless to say, the idea of a child sitting in a cradle until they are three, makes too little sense, even considering the convenience. They will start moving at the age of one, and can run almost anywhere by the age of two. And because we can't predict where they will go, they can go anywhere dangerous or too far, which will confuse caregivers very much. A one-year-old infant will essentially move in the same way as a wild animal wandering at a very slow speed. They're basically like an animal. If base is open, they can go too far, like an unguided animal, and then disappear. I think this way is more logical. If you think about children one to three years old, yes. I think the way children from 5 to 10 work in this game has been moderately well implemented, but you can also add other ideas. Because childhood is not only a time to learn skills, but also a time to learn morality and law. In the form of a pop-up event that occurs on the right side of the screen, very simple and basic questions about children's philosophy are continuously asked, and residents respond appropriately (social skills may be involved, but I think it's okay if it's just up to the player's choice), and you can imagine how it stacks up in a stack and affects character formation. Assuming that you've only guided your child in a frustrating or supportive direction for an event on a particular topic, there's a brawler trait on one extreme and a kind trait on the other. Or you can think of repetitive events where nothing happens when you're biased toward one extreme, but you get a particular trait on the other. On a slightly different note, I believe there should be a lot of interactions between adults and children. For example, when a guardian is killed or seriously injured in an attack, the mood of the child is reduced. While it has been implemented to some extent in the game ("I'm happy because my parents are happy"), it doesn't seem to have properly embodied the feelings of permanent loss. It is also worth considering maintaining the ability to still assign caregivers when the child is over 3 in this context. Applying the "Bond" system to your child is also worth considering. When a child was assigned for different caregiver after the age of 3, the last caregiver's mood would decrease, as it did when the different owner is assign to the pawn's bonded pet. This can be the case with the child. Some traits may also cause mood loss when designated as a guardian of the child. Speaking of age 10 and beyond, because they're literally in their teenages, it's finally time to add some adolescent events. You might want to deepen some moral anguish events, but you might want to add some more characteristic ones. Things like teen unprovoked moodlet reductions (of course, they must have thought-but the game doens't care about pawn's thoughts, ostensibly unprovoked) and frequent occurrences of psychosis. You could also add to that doubling social squabbles. There might be a temporary drop in relationship scores with certain pawns that last for days. You'd normally assume it would happen with a pawn about the same age, but of course they'd be able to fight adults or children as well. You might want to consider events like a guardian pawn, or a rare pop-up event involving a random pawn, to improve the relationship between the two pawn. The other half might be a pop-up message that appears in the upper left that says, "A and B have amicably resolved the rift arising from a social altercation a few days ago." And there could be something more. It's cliché, but sometimes we need cliché. So one of those events that happens after the age of three... you might want to consider adding "first love" to it. Now that I've thought about it, this could happen in adulthood. But in adulthood, you'll have to adjust the odds. Your children's first love could be their peers, but it could also be a resident, or even a visitor, a very heinous crime (though it should be adjusted). If their first love is underage, there's a chance it will happen, and there's a chance they'll be refused confession. If their first love is another adult, there can be situations in which the target adult gently calms the child's feelings down, or there can be times when they can't do it so(maybe the adult could refuse them gently, but, as the children, they're yet immature). And if their first love is someone who's in hostile faction, then... it could be complicated. They could end up with a lovesick after the raid, and the odds are that a settler is attracted to another faction. Well, if there was another kid of their age that they can fall in love (they could be in neutral faction, but can be hostile faction, both), wouldn't adding a "escape of love" event be a great deal to consider? These are mostly clueless ideas because they're technically hard to implement. Finally, I'd like to consider the idea of "coming-of-age ceremony." It's hard to realize the dramatic difference between children and adults because Rimworld usually treats them as adults collectively when they reach the age of 13. But being an adult is definitely a special experience. You can foreshadow this a few days ago with the phrase "It's time for the event" just like a normal ball event. There are so many different kinds of coming-of-age ceremonies, so we'll be able to choose between them. Some coming-of-age ceremonies are simply parties where a guardian celebrates reaching adulthood by giving a child a gift. Some coming-of-age ceremonies are very rough to prove who does their share. Some coming-of-age ceremonies have to go through certain procedures, if not particularly rough. Also, to implement this well, it's worth considering introducing a system that can arbitrarily adjust the age of the coming-of-age ceremony. I think this would be especially compatible with the Ideology system. Adjusting the timing of adulthood in vanilla game environment can affect the system a lot, so it's worth considering the option of turning the feature on only when it's accompanied by an Ideology DLC. Alternatively, it could be done technically with the children as adults from age 13, and the coming-of-age ceremony is set after. These are just a few ideas. I hope they can be used as a reference to development. I'm looking forward to it.

ELYNAIH

Not sure if it's too late to leave a comment. But the details I would like to see added are : 1. a scheduled class time. Children learn fastest when multiple kids are listening together. 2. an adult can only teach one skill that he is best at, which means we need more than one teacher 3. children will play together, not alone. They bond, have crushes on each other, have more mood gain when they are together, and worry about their friends when they are far away 4. Scout days. Parents can take their children on outings and get a bonus to learning speed and mood 5. When children reach the age of 8 or 13, organize a unique birthday party for them and make a cake to celebrate their growth 6. Children have more interaction with their parents as they grow up. They actively seek comfort from their parents when they are on the verge of a meltdown; there is a greater mood boost when there is a loved one nearby, and a greater mood detractor when a loved one is injured or ill

Zita2046

I think that some traits gained in early childhood could be temporary, maybe as a baby become a kid one childhood trait manifest, here are some traits that come to my mind : - Gifted in X* = Gain one childhood passion level on X*, a +1 to the skill level and forgetting limit, unlock the skill one life stage earlier if capped by age. *(X for : Insert a skill) - Bully = He/She feels pleasure or security in harassing other kids, he/she sigh or insult kids far more often. - Oblivious = He/She doesn't seems to pay close attention to the emotional state of others, he/she doesn't benefit from a gestalt meme, doesn't gain or loose mood by interacting with others and his reputation in the colony, he/she can't engage in a love relationship with other kids, as he/she don't take notice the sentiments or message behind a romancing attempt Regarding relationships, I think it would be cool for a child to have a mood penality for being an orphan or having bad relations with it's parents. I also absolutely hates the fact that no interactions were made with the kids regarding adoption. No ritual, no random event, it's (Imo) abhorrent. So i would defidently like that to be part of VE Childhood, it could happen by a few ways, some that come to my mind could be simply that the kid has high opinion with an adult and as that interact socially the kid or the parent could propose to the kid to become his family (Then a blue letter spawns in the left corner of the game so the player can accept or refuse an adoption, with a negative impact on opinion to the one being rejected). If this become a feature, please add a way to relate to the fact that this is an adoption and not a biological child. I took notice that the kids, even those of the same family, don't spend time together, with the exception of class, it happened to me to see a kid observe work of a colonist teaching to another kid. Kids should diffidently play cat and mouse, hide and seek (i understand that this one could be quite difficult to code), skydreaming together, exchange rumors on the other colonists or factions, make some roleplay (like one being a knight, one a dragon and a prince(ss) needing rescuing, just make them in circle and socializing with each other). This could create meaningful relationship which become special as they age up. Becoming childhood friend when the kid become "adult" (13), giving a +5 or +10 opinion. Kids can't have romantic relationship, i understand the choice made by Ludeon, but i still think kids could have a lovestory with another kid with a 3 years age difference hardcap. They could have a special activity where they hold hands and socialize. As an additional idea, i simply don't like the fact that in rimworld you become "adult" at the age of 13. Please have them be named Teenager. I tried to keep things simple and possible to code within the game boundaries.

foufoumonster .

Teenagers! It's kind of odd that they practically become an adult right after being a child

Norma Bird

I love this comment. I would like to keep choosing the kids' traits, however that could be from a list which is not randomised but coming from their actual experiences instead. I praise all your other points, this is gold.

Davide Celli

I don't want a Mrs doibtfire situation where the tribe arch nemesis sneaks into the base.

John Anderson

I'm not sure what would elevate that beyond being able to hire a mercenary nanny or train a dog to watch the kids

John Anderson

It's a tough question. I do like kids in rimworld but because the game has such a low population count I usually find them to be more annoying then useful. I don't know about other people but with a 10 person colony I can't have my farmer head out for a year messing with a baby.

John Anderson

Would be nice to have an ability for colonists to adopt a child who has no family relationships otherwise

Bonelake

I'd add another vote to the Recreation/Learning division that's come up a few times - The fact that Learning gives you the dual benefits of growth moments and mood improvements makes me feel that there's not a real choice there, learning is simply optimal. Giving colony children a good life should be expensive to the colony. If possible it would be good if working actively detracts from their recreation need, so keeping their rec need up requires minimising the work they do. Also, control over and a more coherent system to schooling would be amazing. I'd particularly like it if, instead of picking passions yourself at each growth moment, children got a random spread of hidden passions - And you discover these by teaching them different skills. Yeah, you could put all the kids in shooting lessons every day to create the best soldiers, which will get you a pawn with 10 shooting by 13, but you'll never know that Jimmy had a burning passion for medicine, and Sarah was a natural at mellee. Having some aspect of teacher quality would be nice too - Old Auntie Gertrude with her bad back and chronic stomach problems isn't able to do planting much any more, but because she has high social and intellectual skills she is able to train new planters like nobody's business.

Sathreyn

Hmm i don’t really like the vanilla system when we choose passion or trait with a choices window so maybe i want to see a VEeducation/influence mod to replace that (the mechanic of watching other working is good if we don’t want to set up a school but the window with choice i’m not sure) also i think trait will be choose automaticly with what the kid experience in his life or what is around him(lot of tech, or maybe lot animal, or lot of fighting… maybe he can have bad trait if he is too often traumatized) with a part of randomness and his parents trait (like kid taking exemple of parents) or his teacher trait (if he is often at school) globally i want a realistic automatised system to grow child personnality.

Lems ldc

I really want a baby sling / backpack. I could imagine something that maybe slows down a pawns move speed, but would allow a pawn to continue carrying the baby while they work or travel. This just makes so much sense to me for tribal playthroughs, especially nomadic ones.

Rhaenys

Maybe a mood buff for family meals if you eat with another family pawn?

ZamazaCallista

Kids meals that boost learning rate. Maybe adults with some traits don't like them?

ZamazaCallista

I was honestly kind of surprised that wasn’t already a thing.

ZamazaCallista

At least there is (as far as I know) no "I slept in a barrack" mood deduction when children share a room with their parents. I therefore often put a bed in the parents' bedroom for the youngsters and at least pretend that there is a family life. But of course it's just that: a pretense. So yes, some interaction between parents and children *after* infancy would be nice.

Deggial

One thing I dislike is that after they become a child and start walking they're pretty much independent from they're parents. I would like it if parents would still play with them similar to when they're babies, maybe play ball or something? some kind of interactions would be nice.

dalr753

Brilliant

Brad Richling

Learning/growth moments My biggest complaint is that setting a child to 24hrs of recreation and then ignoring them is the most reliable way to get the best growth moments. Children, like colonists manage their time well and every learning activity is as valuable as the others in regards to growth moments. But I think most real children, given 24 hrs of recreation a day, would choose to spend most of that time in front of the TV and end up worse than kids who attended school. So I would like to see kids have a recreation need that is affected by floordrawing, nature running, etc, and still have a learning need from attending class, tutoring, and work watching. Not sure how these two needs would factor into growth moments, but you could just get rid of growth moments if they are in the way of a system. With regards to class, I dislike that it's only one student per teacher. I don't mind one-on-one tutoring as an available learning method, but would like to see groups of children attending class at once with only one teacher. I think it would be cool to be able to set up apprenticeships for older children to help them specialize better. I don't know how that might work mechanically. Maybe have a learning tab down with "assign" and "schedule" where you can assign students/apprentices their teachers/masters. Misc. Thoughts/suggestions Kids never really interact with each other. I love following the drama that is the ever changing best friend from VSE for each of the children, but I would like play dates, group nature running, hide and seek, or other activities. Growth vat children are almost always worse than a random raider you could recruit. So vats are only really useful for skipping the infant stage or the 13-18 stage. Young kids could gain more passions but have low xp gain, while older kids gain fewer passions but level skills faster. This allows early promising kids to be placed into apprenticeships, sacrificing new passions for higher skill at adulthood. Kids can only learn skills that are available to them, so a specialized researcher child hits adulthood with 0 intellectual while a specialized crafter can easily hit 20 crafting before 13 by making corsets from age 7. "Child labor disapproved" precept increases learning rate, meaning children will hit 100 learning faster. Kids at 100 learning will do work, much like colonists assigned to recreation but with full recreation. So "Child labor disapproved" results in children working more often, but still hitting max growth tier. Something like Zylleon "Childhood backstories" where colonists are not just assigned "colony child" as their backstory at adulthood but rather a pre-made one based on actual events they experienced. I wouldn't mind being able to pick from the list of valid ones for each child at the last growth moment. Vehicles expanded schoolbus or a field trip/reason to have children ever leave the colony

Jacob

Traits being something you pick is kinda weird, i had always expected them to be based off of their experience, passions too, should be affected by what they read or are taught, Mainly a child will always be a product of their environment, so their environment though decide their growth moments, not us

The Dragonborn

This is everything i was thinking except the classroom rituals, i was thinking a new job type learn/teach for children and adults respectively

The Dragonborn

To return to my earlier thoughts about regular school attendance: For the children, a newly introduced time category "learning" (EDIT: or actually "school", to make clear it doesn't cover other learning activities) would be crucial for them to attend school. Perhaps it would make sense for them to build up their need for recreation more quickly when attending school, so that it would not be beneficial to let them cram for more than 6 hours without any recovery time. As far as teachers are concerned, there is already the job category "childcare", which - as far as I know - is only relevant for infant care. Why not define "childcare" a bit more broadly and use the upcoming mod to also cover teaching in schools? Teachers would then teach the subjects in which they themselves have the highest values - possibly *modified* by their 'social' (and to a lesser extent 'intellectual') skills. (Using only those pawns with particularly high social skills as teachers would limit the available choices too much).

Deggial

I love the idea of the Coming of Age ritual, such rites exist in a vast array of cultures around the world!

Jason Ruth

I would really like to see the ability to edit the growth rate of children, so If I want them it age at 1:1 speed I can do that. In addition I hope for either similar (or better) functionality to the Toddlers Mod or Compatibility with it, as well as Compatibility with mods such as Enhanced Vat Learning and Childhood Backstories, if it doesn't have similar functionality in and of itself.

Jason Ruth

I'd love to see some traits possibly arise from how they are raised. maybe an undergrounder childhood makes them possibly inclined to see the outside far more or something similar. I'd just generally like it to have more of impact on them as an adult since it can sometimes feel like they never change

Sean Lenin

I think a system for trauma and neglect would help make it feel more alive as well as disincentivize child soldiers/workers. Another growth stage maybe for newborn to toddler as well as their teenage years so that you can't just chunk them into a growth vat could be cool. Maybe make them socially stunted from being in a growth vat in infancy, causing them to scale learning slower throughout child development? Also maybe a debuff for teens who were vat grown being more prone to social fights or something bc they didn't have personal or social development. More in depth schooling could be cool but I don't have any ideas for filling that out. It could also be neat for a kid to have a goal during a growth period like 10-13 where they want to have a pet or something, and if they fulfill that it boosts learning? I feel like that might have too much overlap with aspirations expanded though.

Adam

Integration with mechanoids to have a "Nanny bot" would be nice to do feeding and whatnot.

ZamazaCallista

Having an actual education system that you can have the children use routinely compared to the current system where they just wander around aimlessly. I always was frustrated with building a schoolroom to see it seldom used. The other thing also is perhaps assigning them a apprenticeship program where they will seek out and follow people from specific jobs since they gain skills in those areas. I think Tynan does a decent job with his system, but it lacks nuance and the depth to be able to decide on what areas I want to develop my children in. Like others have said you just let them do whatever they want to do which is fine, but I as the player would like the choice to say I want them do activity x to gain y. Maybe even a childhood aspiration system to interface with the other mod.

Kenny Rodgers

So in my current playthrough, almost everyone died defending against a raid except a 7 year old kid. What I thought would be good is for the kid to have a sense of responsibility depending on the situation he’s in. If there is a lively colony with many adults to do jobs the kid can feel free to be a kid and learn, but if they’re alone or with other children then they get maybe a negative mood buff that they have to step up but it also makes them work faster or something.

Eli

+1 to "Grown together" (similar to "Crushed together") and more interactions between kids. In my current colony there was an attempt to grab a beer together by a 5yo and 3yo, even with no drugs policy (Social Interactions mod?). That would have been a cool 'rebellion' for kids or teenagers, to ignore some restrictions and attempt to sneak away for adventures or smoke some smokeleaf.

yarilla

+1 to play objects!! Maybe toy kitchen furniture for learning cooking, ant colony for learning animals, telephone for leaning social, etc. If it's too difficult to implement, perhaps make an interactive toy box with random skill learning.

yarilla

If you all only made more vanila & VE clothes child compatible I would be happy.

Computica

Somebody else mentioned a ritual for learning. I'm hugely in favor of that.

Eleeyah

This could be combined with some form of therapy-related childcare activity, to assuage phobias before they stick around and become a problem.

Eleeyah

One minor thing, actually: If a mother can breastfeed, you can't have her feed babyfood to the baby. That option just disappears/is replaced entirely with breastfeeding. But...I already have that baby food over there, it's gonna spoil soon, and actually, dear mommy, *you barely have any food in you already, don't friggin kill yourself over this, would you?*

Eleeyah

Honestly, I generally like how children work in the base game. A few ideas: 1, integrate them with Vanilla Skills expanded so they can also get critical and natural skills, 2, have a repeatable, automatic ritual for lessons so you can have an actual, working classroom, 3, make the three different stages behave slightly differently (e.g. toddlers prefer following, youngsters like nature running and skydreaming, and teens like radio and reading), and 4, improve growth vats so they are more useful thatn mere toddler stage accelerators

Jack Coles

How about bioferrite melee? I know you just did a weapon mod already themed on the hellcat weapons but I find it tragic that melee pawns didn't get some freaky new flame weapons or something of the sort.

Sentry

I would like an actual education time seperate from recreation in the schedule menu. I would also like some option that allows your pawns to focus on some specific skill, like you can click a button to focus on the pawns melee skills, or you can switch it to intelligence or shooting or whatever. During the education schedule time your pawn teaches the child about the chosen subject. It would also be neat if you train combat skills that your child would have combat traits to pick or if you were to do cooking you would have a trait like gourmet. To tie in with anomaly if you have a base with an activated monolith you could get one of the creep joiner traits potentially. To tie in with biotech it would be cool to be able to take a new xenotype and make it into an actual new species if both parents have the same xenotype. It might also be cool for children of royals to recieve "royal training" which gets them a small amount of honor.

John

Birthday parties at growth moments!

Kirbington

I'm thinking the Sims childhood, but in a Fallout kind of universe. Kids throwing tantrums, adolescents rebelling, birthday parties, kids bullying other kids, kids being disciplined, childhood trauma, toddler being influenced by anomaly, accidentally setting a corner of the base on fire, etc. Maybe some need sliders such as attention and discipline would be helpful. Too much discipline and happiness would suffer. This could also play into growth moments as well. The better-balanced the child, the better the opportunities. At the moment, it's pretty much a set and forget. Other than strapping a dust buster to their back, they are often forgotten. As a parent, I remember waking up to my 3-year-old squeezing an entire tube of diaper ointment into a 45-gallon aquarium. It would be slightly entertaining to find out that my unattended Rimworld child switched off the power to my colony freezer and not notice it until food begins to spoil.

David LeBlanc

A simplified version of teaching from the Life Lessons mod (assigning a teacher and students, choosing what to teach, choosing specific time for lessons).

Ivan Popov

Also, royal inheritance taking/not taking (ideological precept) into account out-of-wedlock children.

Ivan Popov

That’s Empire related, but I would love to see the children (and probably spouses) of royals having higher expectations. And maybe getting some minor titles as well (without psycasting abilities or with somehow limited psycasting abilities).

Ivan Popov

The Sims Generations is probably a good source of some mechanics for kids. Something that I think would be nice is an event where kids spontaneously become a best friend with another child.

TwoPenny

I agree with Deggial

Davide Celli

I don't know if this qualifies for this mod, but I feel like the current genetics / gene inheritance system is kind of busted. I know there are other mods that do this right now, but maybe make gene inheritance more realistic. If two parents have the same genes, the child should inherit them. Maybe there would even be a system to make xenogenes be naturalized into endogenes? Other than that maybe a papoose like we got in the artwork so we can carry the babies around (and stop moving them to not safe 'safe' areas). And I'd love to see more child themed recreation items and furniture. And please more child clothing. The current selection is pitiful.

Alissa DeWitt

I would add 2 major things to the system but other than that I believe it's pretty well-done 1. Lesson "rituals: (ideology style) that allow you to hold a manual lesson in the school (blackboard, desks, and bookshelves as objects that increase the quality), and provide a flat growth tier increase to the children attending, and skill xp based on the social skill of the teacher pawn. Maybe this can even teach skills to adults? 2. A choice of a child's psycast focus type (so tribal children can use the anima tree, ect)

Nicklovin0571

More child phases, and more meaningful phases! One mod add's the 'toddler' phase, I believe between 1 and 3 years old where the baby learns to walk and can eventually go and feed itself (although it takes time). We could also think of specific learning % based on phases, relating to the increased neuroplasticity over early years childhood. That's a fantastic mod. Otherwise: - Better/more defined teaching experience with more than one child being able to learn, or the teacher stands up next to the board and teaches the whole class. - More interactions with other children and parents! An absolute must... - Really important one - we need child armour! Back in 1.3, the child mod could fit all adult clothes on children and it worked perfectly. I don't see why this isn't still the case. Regardless, I want to get my young'uns out in the combat zone, getting experience! Otherwise they really are as worthless as pets until they can put on some armour. - Something really cool to fit with ideology would be a sort of 'coming of age' ritual; where the tribe can meet and celebrate the child growing older - perhaps even bestow armour or a weapon to them. - More play objects for kids, ones that equally teach them (thinking toy guns teaching ranged)

Teebo

That's the stuff I'm talking about!!! Make them little individuals! Make their childhood shape their future!

Carolin

A problematic message ... both socially and genetically.

Deggial

I thought about it a bit more and something stuck put to me: Everybody is happy to be a parent. Maybe I'm forgetting a trait, but you can't tell me that every pawn is ecstatic to have a child. How about traits like Dislikes Children, Reluctant Parent, Hates Family Life. These could affect relationships, disable child care or maybe even lower the chance of conceiving. And then, there could be opposite traits: Loves Children (not that way), Wants a Big Family (maybe a new Aspiration for VAE?), Mother Hen, Girl Dad, Boy Mom, etc.... Just some fun slice of life! And another thing (Jesus this post is getting long, sorry): We're just talking about childhood, but what about older kids? Puberty, mood swings, phases (a kid has an edgy phase and gets a temporary debuff in social, maybe they are a new kind of "mental breaks"). (Special mental breaks for children? Trauma, like someone else already mentioned?)

Carolin

Don't worry, there's a mod for that! 😉 (and it's a staple in my mod list)

Carolin

Take it from a fellow warcrimer degenerate who suggested a... torture expansion on one of these threads: one of the best ways to build player attachment to their pawns is for them to get hurt by the player's mistakes. Raising kids to be well-adjusted valuable colonists should be harder and failing to do so should break your heart.

JohnnySlick

I've always been big on the feeling of formed family and interconnectivity in the colony, but children mostly only form relationships with whoever you assign to watch over them. I want more spontaneity. I think children should socialize with each other way more, forming friendships and breaking apart more often than adults, with a bonus beyond best friend if two children could keep that friendship strong through growing to adulthood. A proper mentor system too would be invaluable for low-technology colonies, where children informed by their backstories and interests learn skills outside of a vat or a classroom and again form relationships with pawns that aren't their babysitters. Cute children work clothes like an apprentice's blacksmith apron or a mini labcoat? Yes please.

JohnnySlick

Lord Snarky

I loved the idea of trauma in dwarf fortress. A child seeing some crazy event and now they fear the sight of blood or it sickens them. Maybe they even like it. So it feels important to look after the little guys. I always wished rimworld had the same thing.

Lennaert van der Houven

i’ve found that you can kinda just forget about them until they’re 13, just give them 24 hours of anything and then you’re done it’s also silly that undergrounder kids want to go nature running

Scyobi Empire

There is a big lack of interaction between adults and children in my opinion. A couple of classes, a bit of work watching once in a while, and until they are 3 there is basically no reason to not put them in the vat so they can age quicker. That should really be changed, because a child should not be merely a moodlet and a once-in-a-while-interaction. - Maybe some people could be predisposed to be parents or caretaker (maybe via genes for a more child-oriented version of the Highmates, or via traits)? For example, you could have wet nurses (people who lactate constantly, and can allow babies to be breastfed even when the real mom is away). Some people could also find it enjoyable to play and interact with children, making teaching the youth a form of recreation for your colonists. - Parents and teacher could hug or cuddle the children to tell them that they are proud of them, motivating the children to learn better and to grow. - Seeing a colonist interact positively with children could give an opinion boost (and maybe a chance for romance down the line?). - Kids could have their favorite teacher and try to interact with them more (or maybe it is the teacher that could have her favorite student?). - Some children could bully or get bullied, growing up to be rival. Like Carolin also suggest, maybe having pets or friends could have an impact? - I do not know if that already exist, but maybe an ideologion related to children? Maybe a tenet about lovin' only for procreation? - Putting their baby in a growing vat could also be a scary experience for the parents, who could be greatly stressed about any possible malfunction. - maybe some life experience could cause the child to gain traits/passion or have more chance of gaining them? Like a kid found the beer stash, try it, and gain the "chemical fascination" trait (or on the contrary blackout, find it a horrible experience and vow to never touch it again, gaining the "teetotaler" trait). Or their mom get sick and the kid decide to get passionnate for medical. Sorry for the long read lol. Thank you.

Michou

Aspiration-like mechanics could be really a nice idea. "Insulted during the party", "attacked by a dog", "my father made a terrible leader speech", "was on fire", "cought plague", "mom had a flake binge"... Damn, I need to talk to the terapist now)

Mx Prbms

Currently my aproach to childen is literaly setting them to 24h recreation and forgetting about them till they grow up. They might aswell be pets at that point. It would be nice if you could make them have proper sceduals like "school " assignments or idiology based impacts similar to the harsh monastary schools that have been present through europe

Blackfield

I think, on the whole, Tynan has done a good job with his approach to children. Raising children is neither too complicated nor too ‘hands on’ - but challenging enough to justify the advantages that do exist (a slight tendency towards OP-ness is undeniable). Personally, I limit my little ones' freedom of movement by assigning them a safe area, completely prohibiting them from taking drugs and otherwise allowing them 24 hours of “free time”. That's about it. I usually build a small school with one or two desks because they are only used sporadically. The kids learn most by watching others anyway. Of course, this means that they remain useless eaters for a long time - which, as mentioned above, also justifies the great advantages of having your own children. So what else would I like to see? Under no circumstances should it (in my opinion) add a large ‘administrative overhead’. Perhaps the children could orientate their learning focus more towards their picked passions? As Talal Al-Meshri writes, a bit more child interaction would be nice. Crowds of children running around would be a great sight. (As for the toy boxes, I think they are only relevant for babies? OK, that could be changed - after all, children still play with toys too. Maybe different ones, though.) A more organised use of the school might be a good idea (an additional ‘learning’ phase in the timetable resulting in one pawn doing the teaching for multiple youngsters, instead of individual lessons?). However, assigning dedicated teachers and specific topic schedules probably crosses the line into micromanagement.

Deggial

It'll be nice if ideology could have some kind of effect in the kids education, maybe some new ways of learning idk. Thanks for the hard work!

Javier Azpiri

Both very good ideas 👍🏼

Balmarian

"Grown together" memory would be cool. "Bullied me in the kindergarten" memmory would be much less cool, but add the feeling that things matter

Mx Prbms

The fact that kids always grow capable of everything and the traits we select are pure random (and the fact we can choose "no trait" on a growth moment) is leaving this part of the game a bit plain and OP at the same time. You can manually give a kid some kind of individuality via picking bad traits on a growth moment, but if you don't - they just grow as a boring "good for everything"pawn. This is offset a bit by the amount of time you have to invest in them, of course, but that's all. Invest this time and get a perfect all-around human. Not sure however how hard it would be to design some triggers making things that happen during the childhood forge the person individuality. P.s. Guys above have mentioned aspiration like mechanics. Which sounds cool(not sure how applicable on the technical level). Just for the "childhood aspirations" not to always have -(mental threshold)%, but the specific aspirations define the traits and maybe a backstory(and therefore a meditation foci).

Mx Prbms

This is actually one your mods I'm most excited about! So I've got some thoughts, I hope it's not to much! 😅 -Child furniture. I was really disappointed in the lack of it in Biotech, especially if you consider all the tech stages. There's only one crib? A toy box? Not even some special linkables? Or stuff that helps them learn? No cool spacer hologram ai teacher or tribal abacus? Sad. -The growth score system is basic and a bit boring, to be honest. There's no real player agency to it, you basically just let them do what they want and just have to check that they don't get eaten by angry insects while playing on the wild. Maybe there could be something like in Vanilla Aspirations Expanded. Big, impactful growth moments that you actively have to work towards. I'm also thinking of the sims 4 toddler milestones. -Children specific diseases that could impact them in adulthood. -More. Clothes. For. Children. Pleeease. -Family and other relationships impacting their growth. Like getting a penalty on social if they grow up without friends, or having a pet boost their animal skill later on. -Just.... consequences. I want their childhood to actually matter and shape them into the adults they will become. Not just choose some random traits once they "level up". So yeah. That's just from the top of my head. I think you can see that I try to make Rimworld Sims with warcrimes. But I love playing with pawns I actually get attached to, and I think this mod will greatly improve the amount of heartbreak I'll have when some of them inevitably die. Sorry of some things sound weird, english is not my first language. Thanks!

Carolin

1: There's not enough ways to control your children's learning in terms of items. There's desks and blackboards, but they will only teach your children (literally) random skills, and the next step up from that is child labour. As a child in school, we had access to classrooms to learn knowledge, a school garden to teach gardening, lessons in sports, martial arts, even archery, etc. I think learning materials/furniture/curriculum aimed at teaching children specific skills while also contributing positively to growth points would be a great way to guide their development in a way that benefits the colony. 2: Some way for children to gain passions outside of growth points would be great, as spawned pawns can come with a dozen passion points, but your children will max out at 9 in absolutely perfect conditions. Something along the lines of, child gained X amount of experience in (work type) in X amount of time, and with some RNG, was rewarded with a passion point. 3: Children in Rimworld really do seem to just be happy... being children. As long as they aren't literally being shot at, keeping kids happy isn't very hard - which we know isn't true at all in reality. Rimworld only comes with some basic enrichment for babies, and once they hit childhood they're content to just draw on the floor for the next 10 biological years. If children were a little needier, but enrichment options for them were more varied, it'd make raising your colony's kids more like... you know, raising kids. Being more of a challenge, keeping your children happy should also ambiently contribute to their growth points, as there's currently no interplay between your child's mental needs and their learning, which we know is heavily interlinked in reality. Tl;dr, raising your children should have a lot more to do with Effort in > success out, as opposed to just boot-camping your eternally blissful kids

Thomas Pyke

More forms of recreation for children like playgrounds would be nice

Eduardo Dias

Something that has bugged me for some time is how rigid the whole prosses feels, like everything happens and three points when they hit their age up moments. I don't know how difficult or even if it would be possible to implement but I would love to see certain events or something similar give children, inspirations, and/or traumas like a serious raid happens and everyone ends up injured could spur the child to learn medicine (Giving a passion outside the growth moments), and with the same raid example another child could have been too close to the action and it traumatised them to never pick up a weapon. I could see events like crop sprouts giving planting and harvesting passions, berserk animals traumatising a child to never go near an animal again. The other big gripe I have is while the generalist teaching is probably for balance reasons but I would still like to be able to have focused teaching maybe fulfilling the learning at a slower rate in exchange for the focus

SNake575

It'd be awesome if you could tell the teachers on a kid-by-kid basis what to teach the little buggers. I am also annoyed that my "Too Smart" child had, like, a 12 in intellectual and only got a single passion in it, at the last growth moment. So maybe it is possible to teach the game to look at learned skills/skill levels before suggesting passions. In any case, great work you guys are doing!

Peter Dolin

I noticed a lack of interplay between children (such as children playing together or nature walking together). Also I suggest making toys / toy boxes useful as I think they have no role now

Balmarian