Pawns Choose Research
Eliminates the need (and ability) to micromanage research by having pawns select it for you. Each pawn now selects and tracks their own research project based on their skill passions, disabled skills, and traits.
All available research projects are assigned a category (some obvious, some make sense in my head) and thrown into a grab bag of goodies. When starting a research job, each pawn will grab a project from the bag. If it matches their preference, they’ll keep it and start working. If they don’t like it, they’ll throw it back in and grab another. Pawns get one re-grab for every four points of intellect skill, so pawns with higher intellect are more likely to stick to their research preferences. If they fail to find a favored research, they will try twice more but will become less picky, accepting any research that isn’t disfavored.
Pawns will not pick a new research project until their current one is completed. You can see what they are researching by selecting the research tab, but you cannot change or cancel it. There’s also a log message when loading that will show you each pawn’s current research. If you have multiple pawns researching at the same time, progress on each research will increase but only one of the projects will be highlighted in the research tab. Progress is still tracked using the vanilla system, so if multiple pawns are working on the same research, they will contribute together.
The image charts show how traits affect preferences for various research categories. Some of it is obvious, others make sense in my head. For example, lazy and slothful pawns won’t bother doing their own work, so they prefer to piggyback on projects started by others, while fast learners and pawns with great memory prefer to challenge themselves by tackling new projects. Industrious and hardworking pawns like projects that create blueprints for something to build, but dislike that space-age tech that gives away good-paying jobs to computers and robots.
In addition to the above charts, pawns also favor projects that match skills for which they have a passion and avoid projects for disabled skills.
Pawns will randomly select mod-added research if the appropriate prerequisites have been met. Unfortunately, with some exceptions, a patch is needed to assign a research category. Again, pawns will still be able to research the new projects, but they will neither favor nor disfavor most custom research.
Except for research project assignment, this mod leaves the vanilla research system intact. Thus, it should be compatible with most other research mods. It’s not compatible with Random Research. It’s probably compatible with ResearchPal and ResearchTree, but it’s also probably pointless to use them together.
Research from the following is integrated:
ReGrowth – Cold Bog Expansion
ReGrowth – Boreal Expansion
Replimat
RimCuisine 2 Core
RimCuisine 2 – Bottling and Booze (Continued)
Vanilla Apparel Expanded
Vanilla Cooking Expanded
Vanilla Factions Expanded – Medieval
Vanilla Plants Expanded – Succulents
Vanilla Weapons Expanded
VGP Vegetable Garden
VGP Garden Drinks UF
Special thanks to Uuuggg, whose random research mod inspired this one. This mod applies Uuugg’s method for random selection with criteria for approving the choice and a system to track the choice by pawn.
