Child Growth

[ButlerJames]

Hi guys Tim here.
I have a question about the learning progress of children in Rimworld. There are certain stages of child growth and some possible options for me to choose between passsions, skills, etc.
My little boy Justin is 12 years old and in growth tier 4. He stayed at my colony when he was like 9-10. Do i get to choose on of these options above every growth tier or just once if he hits puberty hard and evolves to an adult?
May your colony not die to a horde of squirrels.
Have a wondeful day and thanks for your tips
Tim :)

[Astasia]

You get to pick traits/passions when they reach age 7, 10 and 13, the options available are based on the growth tier they reached during those age groups. Once Justin reaches 13 you will get a message letting you know it's time to pick their final set of traits/passions.

[Limdood]

If you get a child later than 6 years old (so when they're ALREADY at least 7), you will not get "credit" for previous growth tiers (the game usually offsets this by giving older children some random skills or traits at least).

You get a growth moment at the start of age 7, 10, and 13 (3 in total).

Depending on your growth tier, you could get as few as "here's the trait you get" and as good as "here's 6 traits, pick 1, and here's 6 skills, pick 3 to increase your passion level by 1).

Growth level is kinda tricky. It slowly accumulates over time based on how full the child's "learning" bar is. A child will seek out learning at around 88%-ish or lower on the learning bar, provided one of the types of learning they want to do is available (shown by icons over their learning bar on the needs screen...if they only want to do radiotalking and lesson taking, but you have no comms console or desks, the kid won't do learning).

assuming you are mindful of having all the learning types available, and keep the kid's schedule unintrusive (so you're not forcing them to work over learning), and you have the child for the FULL amount of time (3 to 7, 7, to 10, and 10 to 13), you will likely BARELY get to the highest growth tier, maybe a day or two before aging up (children age up 4x faster than adults by default...so 1 quadrum = 1 child year...you can change this in the settings from 1x to 6x speed, and the growth level gain rate changes to match)

Growth tiers are HEAVILY weighted to be more beneficial at the end than early on....tier 1 gives 1 trait from 2 options, tier 2 gives 1 trait for 3 options, tier 3 gives 1 trait for 4 options. You don't even get a passion choice until tier 4 (there are 8 total, and tier 8 is a good 200% better than, say, tier 6, for skill passions).

This means that recruiting kids is far, far worse on their development than having your own. Even recruiting a 3, 7, or 10 year old, if its not in the very first couple days of them hitting 3, 7, or 10, you're almost certainly not going to hit the top growth tier (since all recruited children start at growth tier 0, even if they're already 6 years and 3 quadrums old and only have a couple days til they hit 7)

[ButlerJames]

thanks guys <3

[marcusaddamsson]

BTW, you're gonna laugh out loud when he turns into an adult (well, I did). *poof*

I was gonna add... I've actually abducted a few kids over last several runs. While you likely won't get them to max learning that first cycle you get them, I've found kids with skills/bonuses already and done well with them. Obviously the *best* way is to have them in-house... but infants are a serious pain the ass (unsurprisingly). Children can be useful for cleaning and hauling while learning.

[Limdood]

notably, growth vats are cheap to research (does require a hi tech bench though), relatively cheap to build and use, can be turned off when not in use...

And there are no downsides to putting a newborn into growth vat straight outta the mother. Mom pops out a baby, someone else picks up baby and sticks it in the vat, 9 days later you have a 3 year old (I think I remember the game saying growth vats are a 20x aging speed).

You get a pause notification when they hit 3, so just click the vat -> cancel vatgrowth and a 3 year old pops right out ready to go.

[marcusaddamsson]

Heh. Never considered that... I've only really read about 'em, and then it's almost always a conversation about growing kid soldiers/suiciders or similar.

[ButlerJames]

Also nice ones. Form being born to learning all day. That's what i want to hear. xD