Overview
An in-depth guide to your initial characters in each scenario, as well as some tips for later characters.
Health
When rolling your colonists these are two big areas you need to check.
Health can vary greatly, from perfectly healthy, to basic Cryosleep Sickness, to things like Dementia and Blindness. Now obviously you want to roll people who are in too bad shape. While you are at it check their biological age, the older they are the more likely their health is to decline in-game. Cryosleep Sickness is a nuisance in the early game but leaves fairly quickly.
Scars are the most frequent health issue, and while not exactly worth rolling away on their own they can stack negatively with other things. They cause a Pain mood debuff, raise their overall pain (making it easier for them to go into shock) and lower base health on those parts. They are a good thing however if paired with the Masochist trait.
Incapabilities and Traits
Incapabilities mean the most in the early game.
The three big things you look out for are Dumb Labor, Firefighting and Violence, you can’t have more than one person incapable of these. Aside from these you really just need to make sure incapabilities aren’t stacked too heavily on one character, and SOMEONE in your colony is capable of everything. Except Art. Art is a luxury. Think to yourself, ‘Can I keep this person busy?’
Traits are one of the heaviest factors in whether you will reroll them or not.
-Positive Traits: Something you will be happy to see on anyone, even if it may not be amazing.
Jogger/Fast Walker: More movement speed is never going to be a bad thing. Even if is on your researcher cooped up all day he will get mroe done by wasting less time walking too and fro.
Inustrious/Hard Worker: They will do their jobs faster.
Optimist/Sanguine: Permanent mood buff means they are a lot less likely to break
Iron Willed/Steadfast: They don’t break as easily. Good to find on Combat prone people.
Beautiful/Pretty: People like them, which helps their Social and lessens negative social effects.
Psychically Dull/Deaf: While these can sometimes be a hamper (They won’t be affected by a Soother) these are almost always going to be a good thing when a psychic event hits.
Careful Shot/Trigger Happy: This guides who gets what weapons. Careful Shots get Rifles, Trigger Happys get pistols, ARs, etc. Someone Trigger Happy wearing Power Armor with a Minigun is a one man army.
Green Thumb: On someone with a passion or inclination for growing this is amazing. Otherwize it doesn’t hurt.
Masochist: Likes pain without being perturbed by not being in pain. If they get a scar they might as well be an Optimist, helps their mood if you ever have to beat them down.
Ascetic: They want to live in poverty and that is easy to achieve. Just keep that in mind when you have to shuffle people around.
Cannibal: No downsides, aside from if you use it it freaks out the rest of your colonists. If you wan’t to use it it requires someone with the ability to cook and Bloodlust/Psychopath/Cannibal to cut the people without stacking a penalty.
-Neutral Traits: Good or bad in certain situations
Brawler: I classified this as neutral since Melee is kind of crap. Aside from beating up Berserkers, and maybe assassinating raiders with the proper layout, its not that good since it gives a hefty mood debuff if they pick up a range weapon.
Too Smart/Neurotic/Very Neurotic: Increases their productivity at the cost of being more likely to break. A good thing on its own, but it might be worth rerolling if they are prone to other issues, or if they go into combat.
Bloodlust: Doesn’t care about hurting people in combat, or on the butcher table. It does however cause him to start more fights. So give and take.
Nudist: A terrible fate in a Cold climate. Generally a good thing in every other scenario since its a mood buff. PS Armor doesn’t count as clothes 😉
Psychopath: Good on a soldier or cook. Won’t be helped by talking.
Jealous/Greedy: Bad in the early game, good in the late game. Give them the appropriate room and they get a mood buff, otherwise its a debuff.
Night Owl: Sad in the day (Hours 10 to 18) Happy at night (Hours 23-6) and no debuff elsewhere. You can change their schedule but they will disturb the others sleep. This can be handled with proper base layouts, and based on their jobs. All a Night Owl Researcher needs is a path to the food supply and the bench in their room, Gardeners etc.
Hot/Cold Tolerant/Lover: Kind of a nuisance, but if you opt for a Cold or Hot biome can be helpful.
Prosthophile: Slight mood debuff for most of the game, but once you get him a bionic piece he will get a mood buff. Save up for one based on his proficiencies, an Eye for a shooter an Arm for a melee fighter and a Leg for a worker.
Gay: Gay is a relatively rare trait that only really stacks with itself. Person will get the Rebuffed debuff a lot so this is almost in the next field…
-Slightly Bad Traits: Not capable of being a pro, but not bad enough to reroll on sight.
Prosthophobe: No benefit from not being full human? Peg legs and Prosthetics don’t make this trait proc but in the long run this is a slight negative
Chemical Fascination/Interest: Basically disables Brewing while you have them.
Ugly: A noticable like debuff, not bad but not great
Dislikes Men/Women: Depending on the number of men/women in your start this may be worth rerolling.
Slowpoke: How bad this is depends on what the person will be doing. Not that bad on a researcher, artist, miner or craftsman, but on a hauler or fighter it can really cost you a lot of time
Lazy/Slothful: Slows down work. Not terrible on a combat based character or janitor.
Abrasive: Lowers the mood of your whole colony, unless he is incapable of social (citation?)
Annoying Voice/Creepy Breathing: You can only have ONE low opinion trait. ONE! If this stacks with a Dislike Men/Women s/he will be in trouble…
Pessimist/Nervous: If you have ANY other mood debuffs these aren’t really acceptable
Psychically Hyper/Sensitive: Like the other psychic traits, can potentially be good, but generally won’t be
-Terrible Traits: Not acceptable, reroll on sight in most situations.
Starggeringly ugly: Will get in a lot of fights because of how much people dislike him.
Depressive/Volatile: Very prone to break, not worth the trouble.
Pyromaniac: If the person is incapable of violence and REALLY good you can overlook this, you will just have to knock him out every now and then. Otherwise this is generally not worth the risk.
Skills and Passions
Skills affect how well people can do specific jobs. Their passions affect how fast they learn to do their jobs. Certain skills favor Passion over their Innate skill, while some need to be at a high enough skill to even allow certain functions. You want your skills with a reasonable spread, again, ‘Can I keep everyone busy?’
In order of importance:
-Shooting- Base of 8-9 OR Passion, as many as you can. The one skill that you can never have enough of. My motto is ‘If you can use a gun and do Dumb Labor there is a place for you here!’ Conscripts for the army you will need to fight off other armies. If they have a passion make sure they are set to hunt to train their aim against (mostly) harmless wildlife.
-Medical- Base of 6 or higher. You will want two eventually but one will do for the start. Passion doesn’t mean as much since you can’t train it that well, but a high base is needed for operations and diseases. If he is a shooter he should get the Rifle so he is less likely to get hit
-Growing- 6+ with Passion, 9 with no passion, one or more. Anyone with a passion can also be used to grow lesser crops
-Cooking- 5+ with a Passion, One. Level 6 is what it takes to make Fine Meals and thats really the only Cooking level that matters (10 makes Lavish but thats just to placate people who are in a poor mood)
-Research- Burning Passion, one. You will want one researcher that will probably be dedicated. A Researcher/Grower is one of the best combos since Growing isn’t a big time commitment.
-Construction- High base and passion, at least 2 capable. You want someone to be good at it to craft BEDS. Better beds are a huge boon.
-Social- Passion or high base, at least one. Faster to recruit, better trade costs. The higher Passions should be set to Warden to train, while high bases should be sent to trade.
-Crafting- One with 5+ and Passion. Mostly used to make clothes.
-Animal- One or more, with Passion, base depends on what you want to tame and where you are. If it isn’t on this list it either isn’t Tameable (chickens don’t appear in the wild, they either don’t exist, or are yours) or aren’t worth taming. You don’t want to tame everything that moves because then you have to feed it. But you do want to tame SOME things to farm and keep safe during a Fallout.
3- Muffalo, Alpaca, Turkey, Boar
6- Wolves, Wargs, Big cats, Turtles, Elephants, Bears, Cassowary,
8- Rhino, Emu, Ostritch
9- Thrumbo, Megatherium,
-Mining- Passion is best but not that important, really this is just butter on any colonist. More important on mountain maps.
-Melee- High base, Optional. Mostly backup fighters or assassins, or to harmlessly KO people who snap. Not very important.
-Art- A luxury, but not important. Passionis better than base.
Synergies-
Shoot and Animal- A wolf to hunt with, in case they aggro their prey. Just make sure you micro them so they don’t shoot their own pets. Draft them and have them melee attack while the pet tanks.
Garden and Research- Gardening doesn’t occur often so you can get a lot of research in the meantime, and save the other two for construction and such
Medical and Melee- A doctor that can fight is not ideal, because you are putting him on the front lines. Make him your backup while the others take their attention with a firefight. A club can also come in handy if someone they are treating snaps.
Story specifics
For a Wealthy Explorer Craft, Construct, Medical and Grow are the most important. Turrets take care of your early visitors until you get the people you need. Also they have to be capable of everything but Arts and Crafts, and maybe Animals.
For a Tribal run you may want TWO people with a passion for research, since it takes 2-3 times as long and there is a LOT more of it you ned to do. And you want at least two growers and hunters each.