What is mothball?

[Zanklev™]

I keep seeing this term thrown around and included as part of mods in the title but I've never heard of it before, could someone please explain what mothballing is?

[Astasia]

In terms of game mechanics, world pawns that are protected become "mothballed" some duration after they leave the map, this means they are stored in the save still but aren't really actively doing anything in memory/sim.

IRL the term originally refers to using "mothballs" to store clothing for a long duration, the "mothball" is a small white ball with a sort of chemical smell that keeps moths from eating the clothes. This has been adapted to be a term used for storing anything long term without interacting with it. Basically something tucked away safely for a long time has been mothballed.

[hardy_conrad]

You just mean like the dictionary definition of the word? To scrap or cancel basically, no longer use a thing. Say an obsolete model of airplane, if it's no longer viable you stick it in a junkyard and call it mothballed. Not sure how it would apply to the game however but anything is possible with mods.

[Zanklev™]

Originally posted by Astasia:

In terms of game mechanics, world pawns that are protected become "mothballed" some duration after they leave the map, this means they are stored in the save still but aren't really actively doing anything in memory/sim.

IRL the term originally refers to using "mothballs" to store clothing for a long duration, the "mothball" is a small white ball with a sort of chemical smell that keeps moths from eating the clothes. This has been adapted to be a term used for storing anything long term without interacting with it. Basically something tucked away safely for a long time has been mothballed.

Ya in terms of the game, I know what mothballs are IRL I just wasn't sure of the game mechanic because I saw some mods refer to "Better handled mothballed" or something like that and I had no idea what that was.

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by hardy_conrad:

You just mean like the dictionary definition of the word? To scrap or cancel basically, no longer use a thing. Say an obsolete model of airplane, if it's no longer viable you stick it in a junkyard and call it mothballed.

No, that's not what mothballing is. Mothballed stuff is kept in a decent enough environment that you might be able to bring it back into service in the future. Scrapping is entirely different.

[Minty Fresh]

I believe the term "mothball" refers to monorchism in a male moth.

However, "mothballing" involves something more intimate, usually (but not limited to) a male and a female moth who are open to a bit of "experimentation".

[Zanklev™]

Originally posted by Minty Fresh:

I believe the term "mothball" refers to monorchism in a male moth.

However, "mothballing" involves something more intimate, usually (but not limited to) a male and a female moth who are open to a bit of "experimentation".

I meant in terms of Rimworld, something to do with inactive pawns

[hardy_conrad]

I knew someone would be pedantic, heh (not trying to be mean). Well words have formal and colloquial definitions is all I'd say. So long as the original poster has their question answered it's all good.

[XelNigma]

Looping back to what Astasia has said. It's referring to the pawns that have left the map.
Example: trader arrives and in that caravan is the sister to one of your pawns. This was her generation/creation, as prier to this your pawn had so sister in the social tab.
From now on that pawn will be held in reserve and potentially be used later.
She might show up in a quest, maybe in another trade caravan and so on.

This happens for every pawn, friend or foe, that leaves the map alive.

I feel like reccuring pawns happened way more back in the day, I use to capture bandits and give them peglegs and send them home just for ol'pegleg to return on a following raid. I feel like that doesn't happen any more. Granted iv stopped doing that too so...

[The Yeen Queen]

Originally posted by hardy_conrad:

You just mean like the dictionary definition of the word? To scrap or cancel basically, no longer use a thing. Say an obsolete model of airplane, if it's no longer viable you stick it in a junkyard and call it mothballed. Not sure how it would apply to the game however but anything is possible with mods.

Not so much scrapped as stuck into long term storage with potential to be used later. "Scrapped" means it's being "thrown away" never to be used again.

Edit:

Originally posted by hardy_conrad:

I knew someone would be pedantic, heh

Dude, that's not being pedantic. Your definition was literally completely wrong. That's like saying if someone corrects you for calling a poodle a St. Bernard is "being pedantic".

[Astasia]

Originally posted by XelNigma:

This happens for every pawn, friend or foe, that leaves the map alive.

I feel like reccuring pawns happened way more back in the day, I use to capture bandits and give them peglegs and send them home just for ol'pegleg to return on a following raid. I feel like that doesn't happen any more. Granted iv stopped doing that too so...

Most pawns that leave the map these days are actually just deleted, that's why you don't see as many repeat visitors. The game does a better job of preventing save bloat now and only keeps track of a certain number of world pawns at a time, generally pawns that have some relationship with your colonists it tries to "protect" and these are the ones that get mothballed when off-map, up to a limit. Things like refugees that have left, pawns you didn't select as colonists at game start, family/partners of colonists, colonists that have been captured/banished/lost, faction leaders, these are the types of pawns that usually get protected and mothballed. Early game there will be more "random" pawns added to the mix as mothballed world pawns, since you haven't played long enough to generate that many pawns with meaningful connections and it just fills in whatever it can to get that initial pool started, but those random pawns start getting culled later and replaced with more "important" ones.

Sometimes this "culling" is a bit aggressive and might even delete family members, causing family links to break, so if you see a pawn show up as a sibling and notice a short time later they are not a sibling, it's because the game had generated a parent for them to make the link and then decided to cull that parent from the world pawn list for whatever reason, removing the sibling link. I'd love a slider in the option so we can adjust the world pawn limit ourselves, I'm not too concerned about having 1000 pawns in my save, but for now (at least without mods adding a lot of protections) you are unlikely to have more than like 200 mothballed world pawns even after a decade of playing.

So ya the meme of adding peglegs to raiders and getting them addicted to luciferium before releasing them, hasn't actually been worth it for a while. Most of them just get deleted shortly after stepping off the map.

[Minty Fresh]

Originally posted by Astasia:

Originally posted by XelNigma:

This happens for every pawn, friend or foe, that leaves the map alive.

I feel like reccuring pawns happened way more back in the day, I use to capture bandits and give them peglegs and send them home just for ol'pegleg to return on a following raid. I feel like that doesn't happen any more. Granted iv stopped doing that too so...

Most pawns that leave the map these days are actually just deleted, that's why you don't see as many repeat visitors. The game does a better job of preventing save bloat now and only keeps track of a certain number of world pawns at a time, generally pawns that have some relationship with your colonists it tries to "protect" and these are the ones that get mothballed when off-map, up to a limit. Things like refugees that have left, pawns you didn't select as colonists at game start, family/partners of colonists, colonists that have been captured/banished/lost, faction leaders, these are the types of pawns that usually get protected and mothballed. Early game there will be more "random" pawns added to the mix as mothballed world pawns, since you haven't played long enough to generate that many pawns with meaningful connections and it just fills in whatever it can to get that initial pool started, but those random pawns start getting culled later and replaced with more "important" ones.

Sometimes this "culling" is a bit aggressive and might even delete family members, causing family links to break, so if you see a pawn show up as a sibling and notice a short time later they are not a sibling, it's because the game had generated a parent for them to make the link and then decided to cull that parent from the world pawn list for whatever reason, removing the sibling link. I'd love a slider in the option so we can adjust the world pawn limit ourselves, I'm not too concerned about having 1000 pawns in my save, but for now (at least without mods adding a lot of protections) you are unlikely to have more than like 200 mothballed world pawns even after a decade of playing.

So ya the meme of adding peglegs to raiders and getting them addicted to luciferium before releasing them, hasn't actually been worth it for a while. Most of them just get deleted shortly after stepping off the map.

I've been meaning to ask this for a while.

I've got lots of hours in Rimworld, being one of my favourite games. 6000 hours according to Steam.

In real life, and possible on the Internet too, I am of average intelligence (at least I tell myself that). However when Astasia post something I always seem to learn something new about the game, and their explanations are just so informative.

How can they know so much about Rimworld?

So here is the question.

Astasia, are you Tynan in real life?