Why it is hard for colonists to make a friendship

[Aziz]

I have been playing Rimworld for a while and I have noticed that it is rare to see my colonists have a strong relationship with each other. Maybe the number of colonists in the last 20 years in the game was more than 60 colonists.
And it is rare to see them as friends, maybe from 20 colonists only 3 are friends and the others are almost don't care about each other or as a rivals 😑
3 of my colonists lived with each other for 10 years and their relationship is on " 2 "

- Is there any way to fix this problem?

[Corvax]

The more time they spend together, the better. Two people working close to each other talk when working, stuff like that.

[Kittenpox]

Originally posted by Corvax:

The more time they spend together, the better. Two people working close to each other talk when working, stuff like that.

The exception to this is if there's already bad blood between them, in which case separate them until they're chill and them try putting them together afterwards.

If you're looking to get everyone together, group recreation activities might help.

[GeneralVeers]

Additionally, each pawn (I'm theorizing based on observation here) seems to have a set of individual relationship modifiers (only visible when dev mode is enabled) towards every other pawn they meet. Some pawns get bonuses when interacting with each other, others will automatically dislike each other. I can't find any way to change these modifiers, and they don't appear to be stored anywhere in the save files. Apparently the game uses some kind of Magic Formula to figure out the modifiers--possibly by running two pawns' names through a hash function to see if they get a bonus or a penalty towards each other.

[Cat®]

General reminder pawns are vain and like people who are nice to look at. If your ears fell off you'll have a hard time making friends.

[Aurian]

I've found that in the early game when I only have one or two big buildings for everyone, they make friends much more easily because I'm not constantly sending them halfway across the map and their workshops are close together. Later on, it helps to have a nice big dining room / rec room and assign about 4 hours of fixed recreation time to everyone - at the same time, of course. Also, make a big workshop room where the most commonly used workshops are all really close together.

[Bosh]

In my experience having a variety of recreation helps as well. When I only had minimal recreation activities while I was building up my base there were social fights every other day, but when it was all finished everyone stopped fighting and became friends.

[Xeno42]

al it really does is make them fight each other sometimes and then if one of them dies they get mood boosts because their rival died

[GeneralVeers]

Originally posted by Bosh:

When I only had minimal recreation activities while I was building up my base there were social fights every other day

You'd think they would be happy to have a local UFC league.............

[ichifish]

Originally posted by Aziz:

I have been playing Rimworld for a while and I have noticed that it is rare to see my colonists have a strong relationship with each other. Maybe the number of colonists in the last 20 years in the game was more than 60 colonists.
And it is rare to see them as friends, maybe from 20 colonists only 3 are friends and the others are almost don't care about each other or as a rivals 😑
3 of my colonists lived with each other for 10 years and their relationship is on " 2 "

- Is there any way to fix this problem?

It's not always a good idea to force friendships between non-couple pawns if you have "high turnover" and the pawns aren't social fighting too much, as they'll suffer a mood penalty on the death of their friends. That said:

For couples or pawns you want to couple up it's important to give them an opportunity to spend time together. The same works for friendships.

As mentioned above, pawns have a hidden compatibility score that will cause their relationships to strengthen or deteriorate.

General techniques:
Put them together:
Pawns in the same workspaces will chat, so having them work together builds strong relationships. This can also break relationships. For example, if you have two researchers and one of them is married to a grower but spends all day chatting and deep talking with the other researcher, you might have a breakup on your hands. I recruit slowly and cautiously with this in mind. In my current run my researcher, Hammond, is staggeringly ugly and I waited years until I found a kind woman (improbably named Aquagirl) with a passion in intellectual. Now they're the happiest couple in colony as they chat all day while researching (I think they have a high compatibility rating as well). Hammond is also volatile and was in a permanent bad mood because constantly hit on another pawn, but he's happy as a clam now.

Separate them:
Once a relationship sours it's better to separate them because they'll keep fighting. I had a couple break up after one of them got disfigured and tried to get them back together while they were still angry with each other. The relationship bottomed out at -87 / -45! I kept them separate for about 30 days until the -50 "broke up with me" debuff wore, then word-of-loved them and set them to working together. Now they're engaged.

Recruiting:
Your recruiter will form a good relationship with the prisoners through their chats, so if possible have specific pawns doing the recruiting. The +20 "recruited me" bonus is permanent AFAIK, so I usually choose which pawn to recruit with if I have a choice and turn the others off wardening. In the case above with the researcher I only had female pawns doing the recruiting.

Jobs:
The easiest couples to keep together are those that spend the day working together.

Rec:
As mentioned above scheduling rec time together can help (or hurt) relationships.

Trait compatibility:
Ascetic and kind pawns don't get a penalty toward ugly/disfigured pawns or a bonus toward beautiful/pretty, so keep this in mind when thinking about relationships. Some traits like bloodlust make pawns more likely to social fight and others, like abrasive, make them more likely to insult, so plan accordingly.

Schedules:
Aside from the "in the dark" temporary moodlet there's no penalty to having pawns sleep during the day (or sleep four separate times, for that matter), so if you have a night owl/regular couple change the regular pawn's schedule. This also works for keeping abrasive pawns from bothering others.

Specific techniques:
Rescuing:
Being rescued gives a +15 relationship bonus toward the rescuer, so if possible think about which pawn rescues a downed pawn.

Zoning:
You can zone pawns into an area when you want them to construct, deconstruct, mine, grow, clean, etc. They'll chat while they work (for better or worse). You won't get a huge bonus unless you do it often, but it's worth doing when the opportunity presents itself.

Word of Love:
If you're playing Royalty "word of love" is a powerful cast for starting/maintaining relationships. It only lasts about 15 days, but if you combine that with the other techniques you can keep even shaky relationships strong. Also works in platonic relationships.

Physical augmentation:
Aesthetic noses and aesthetic shapers can help out, especially with disfigured pawns, but keep in mind that the bonus is universal, so you can inadvertently encourage affairs. The love enhancer can really help to keep relationships strong and moods high.



"

[fatburner]

give them beauty if you can. some mods like "jewelry" increase pawn beauty. they will make relationships fast

[di eshor ribly]

Psychopaths are also a quirky bunch. When interacting with other pawns, the non-psycho will gain affection for said psycho. The psychopath won't gain affection points. They don't get benefits from socially interacting. A few exceptions are Rescuing them (a bonus for everyone), familial relations (a flat bonus for being related) or the rare case where a spawned psychopath starts with a spouse (got lovin' bonuses and spouse bonus). It's not uncommon to check the psycho's relations tab and see their viewpoint of other pawns to be around 0.