how do slaves work?

[Nuggs]

Sorry if i keep asking what may be considered dumb questions here in the forums. i dont have all that many hours in rimworld. and have only done a few failed runs. so i havent yet experienced a lot of things.

but im curious how slaves work. i recall slave traders coming through one of my past settlements. and you could buy the slaves from them and free them. In my current run i have a few useless pawns that i imprissoned from raids on my colony. One lady one of my pawns shot off her leg but shes really good with animals and the other guy got riddled with bullets so hes constantly in pain. And i dont really want to just keep them as prisoners in my prison cells taking up space, but i also dont feel like giving raiders a place of residency as a citezen in my colony. and i also dont want to set them free for various reasons.

So i had the thought of that maybe i can turn them into slaves for my colony. where the lady would tend my animals and the guy who got riddled with bullets would be the cook, since he has good cooking skills. But im not sure how i can make people slaves, if its even possible in the vanilla version.

I looked up videos on youtube but they all say their games are modded so im not sure if having slaves yourself is only availible through a mod or not. And if it is a feature in the base game id be curious to know how to do so.

Thanks in advance :D

[Monoxide]

Having slaves 'work' for you requires mods.

In vanilla, slaves are good for upping your social and medical skills. You can also sell them for profit, or keep them around as organ storage.

If you are good with food quantities, keeping slaves isnt much of an issue. They can try to break out, though. You can help reduce this by keeping them happy. Its useful to keep them, but not quite "do my work for me" useful.

The mod is called slave labor, I think. I dont use it.

[[1ST M.I.] VitaminMaxer187]

If you don't want them to escape, cut their legs off

[Rosario]

You can also release them to improve relations and turn other factions neutral. Unless they're from the -100 faction, they'll always hate you. Without mods your options are what I just said, recruit, or sell to slavers. Selling people will give your colonists mood debuffs for a time, but can get you good money, maybe even enough to buy and free another slave. Biggest drawback there besides the mood debuff is you will have to take care of them until a slaver comes, it will help your wardening skill go up if you have them chat when feeding them. Recruiting might be idea for you. In the case of the one legged woman good with animals, prosthetics become available later, and honestly you'll probably be making a lot of them before winning a game, I think in the surgery tab you could always make a peg leg with a single wood and some medicine, and the guy riddled with bullets, those wounds should heal without too much scarring, so he could be useful as well. And another option I remembered (been a while since I played) you CAN harvest their organs as well, like how I mentioned you'll almost certainly need to make prosthetics later, you'll also likely need to transplant some organs if you want pawns to live, and organs last forever as long as they aren't stored outside, so it could be good to get them over time. Warning though, each harvested organ has a fairly large mood debuff to the colony, especially if a prisoner dies. If I recall it may also anger the prisoner's faction, which who cares if it's the -100 faction anyway? I find it best to start with a lung and kidney, then take something more vital. As morbid as it is, it does help in the long run, and boosts medical experience.

[flu007]

I'm thinking, if the lady can take care of your animals, and the other guy can cook, then maybe they're not so useless and deserve to be full members of your colony.

It's the rim, everyone's just trying to survive best way they can and loyalties change. Don't hold it against them that they attacked you. Your enemy today can save your colony tomorrow.

(I'm a big colony kinda guy though, and a pawn would have to be seriously bad for me to reject them. It happens, but not very often. Flawed colonists add spice to the game.)