Torturing the tortured

[Schadenfreude]

Hi there,

I was thinking of ways to optimize the efficiency of Tortured Artists, I've got a pretty lucky one atm, easy to incur mood penalties on, but he runs risk of serious mental breaks - ran wild on me once.

After an operation one pawn went confused, then it hit me "What if I keep my Artist happy, admister anesthetics to the Tortured Artist, so that his mood doesn't drop during incapacitation. Then, when he wakes up, hope for him to become confused, for an easy and safe way to fish for Creative Inspirations, without having to micromanage his mood?!"

I don't find any mention to the regard which mental breaks actually let the TA become inspired by (from experience Running Wild won't have that effect).

Can you actually farm inspirations through confusion like that, or does this need to be mood related?

Cheers

[Jaggid Edje]

Confusion is so rare after anesthesia though, I don't think it'd be a particularly reliable thing to try for even if it did work. I've done about 40 surgeries in my game over the past day of play and only had a pawn get confused twice.

Just mho, you're better off getting a psycaster the word of inspiration power and just using it on the pawn(s) you want inspired....it's way more reliable.

[Schadenfreude]

Originally posted by Jaggid Edje:

Confusion is so rare after anesthesia though, I don't think it'd be a particularly reliable thing to try for even if it did work. I've done about 40 surgeries in my game over the past day of play and only had a pawn get confused twice.

Just mho, you're better off getting a psycaster the word of inspiration power and just using it on the pawn(s) you want inspired....it's way more reliable.

I've played for 900h on the colony and only found 1 Inspiration Psycast, which's psycaster died.

Maybe I'm biased, because I have constant surgeries going, but I find confusion happening semi-regularly, I'm assuming this is down to difficulty, I'm playing on Blood & Sand.

[Schadenfreude]

Also, I'm looking for ways to optimize TAs, not ways to induce Inspired Creativities.

[Jaggid Edje]

Unless you are far from the empire city, just visit them regularly with trade caravans. I've seen that psycast a half dozen times in my current game for sale.

Mind you, I'm only 0.4 days of travel from the nearest empire city, so I tend to swing by to trade any time I go on a caravan anywhere else.

[Astasia]

Confused wandering from things like anesthetic, Alzheimer's and dementia isn't a "mental break." It's a "mental state" similar to social fighting.

As for which mental breaks cause the inspiration, it might be all of them, or just the ones that cause catharsis, I'm not sure. But there's only a 50% chance for a mental break to give them an inspiration, so you'd have to see a certain break a bunch of times to rule it out as a trigger. It's not a trait I usually accept, and when I do I tend to just try to keep them happy anyway.

[gimmethegepgun]

Encase them (naked) in a room (under mountain) with a nutrient paste dispenser, their favorite workbench, and whatever materials are needed for them, and nothing else. They'll go crazy from a lack of recreation, being stuck underground, eating lousy food, with terrible surroundings, and no table, and their ability to inflict damage with tantrums will be limited, while berserk and insulting spree won't cause any harm. Dig them out every now and then to give them more crafting materials and then seal them in once more.

[Schadenfreude]

Originally posted by Jaggid Edje:

Unless you are far from the empire city, just visit them regularly with trade caravans. I've seen that psycast a half dozen times in my current game for sale.

Mind you, I'm only 0.4 days of travel from the nearest empire city, so I tend to swing by to trade any time I go on a caravan anywhere else.

Cravaning to other cities is no option for me, I'm too far away and surrounded by mountains, everything is too far for pod launching even. Too much of a hassle.

[Schadenfreude]

Originally posted by Astasia:

Confused wandering from things like anesthetic, Alzheimer's and dementia isn't a "mental break." It's a "mental state" similar to social fighting.

As for which mental breaks cause the inspiration, it might be all of them, or just the ones that cause catharsis, I'm not sure. But there's only a 50% chance for a mental break to give them an inspiration, so you'd have to see a certain break a bunch of times to rule it out as a trigger. It's not a trait I usually accept, and when I do I tend to just try to keep them happy anyway.

I'm convinced it's the best mid-late game perk, where caring about mood is obsolete, aside from caravaning (but why bring a crafting "slave" on a road trip?)

It might be even better than having to deal with Human-Primacy for the Crafter Specialist.

[Schadenfreude]

Originally posted by gimmethegepgun:

Encase them (naked) in a room (under mountain) with a nutrient paste dispenser, their favorite workbench, and whatever materials are needed for them, and nothing else. They'll go crazy from a lack of recreation, being stuck underground, eating lousy food, with terrible surroundings, and no table, and their ability to inflict damage with tantrums will be limited, while berserk and insulting spree won't cause any harm. Dig them out every now and then to give them more crafting materials and then seal them in once more.

Sounds like a pain, I'd rather just force them to a workbench, insults don't matter at the stage where you farm for legendaries, reconstructing some power conduits for a steel a pop is no reason for all that prep work.

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by Schadenfreude:

Originally posted by gimmethegepgun:

Encase them (naked) in a room (under mountain) with a nutrient paste dispenser, their favorite workbench, and whatever materials are needed for them, and nothing else. They'll go crazy from a lack of recreation, being stuck underground, eating lousy food, with terrible surroundings, and no table, and their ability to inflict damage with tantrums will be limited, while berserk and insulting spree won't cause any harm. Dig them out every now and then to give them more crafting materials and then seal them in once more.

Sounds like a pain, I'd rather just force them to a workbench, insults don't matter at the stage where you farm for legendaries, reconstructing some power conduits for a steel a pop is no reason for all that prep work.

How is this a lot of prep work? It's just an NPD, a workbench, and a stockpile. Made as spartan and terrible as possible to maximize the awfulness of the experience.

[Kittenpox]

Originally posted by gimmethegepgun:

Originally posted by Schadenfreude:

Sounds like a pain, I'd rather just force them to a workbench, insults don't matter at the stage where you farm for legendaries, reconstructing some power conduits for a steel a pop is no reason for all that prep work.

How is this a lot of prep work? It's just an NPD, a workbench, and a stockpile. Made as spartan and terrible as possible to maximize the awfulness of the experience.

Agreed that putting them in an enclosed room with a Nutrient Paste Dispenser, workbench, research table, etc. is a solid way to maximise productivity for a Tortured Artist. (the Research table is there if supplies run out, so they have another useful task to do.)

If you build the place with wooden floors (or other flammable tiles such as straw or carpet) and use Molotovs to set the floor alight, that'll give a -6 to Beauty for those tiles. If you remove a singular tile (wherever they're most likely to walk through) to reveal dirt underneath, and disable the Cleaning job for that pawn, the dirt that gets tracked around the room will provide a further -15 Beauty value.

For further mood reduction, if you have the Ideology expansion then a https://rimworldwiki.com/wiki/Torture_crown will help for any non-Masochists if your colony's ideoligion does not have Pain:Idealised.
For Masochists, we can instead use https://rimworldwiki.com/wiki/Painstopper to remove any related mood buffs.
Though the whole mood thing can be more easily figured out by looking at the various entries on https://rimworldwiki.com/wiki/Mood , rather than being written out here.

Originally posted by Schadenfreude:

Also, I'm looking for ways to optimize TAs, not ways to induce Inspired Creativities.

Admittedly, I'm not precisely sure what you mean by this. The two effects of having the Tortured Artist trait is that they get a permanent -8 to their mood, and after a mental break they have a 50% chance to get the Inspired Creativity inspiration.
So if you *don't* want to induce Inspired Creativity, then the other way to optimise them is to give them a +8 mood bonus from having a Wonderful bedroom / the 'Inebriated' moodlet from drinking Beer, to counteract the negatives and bring them up to the same level as everyone else. :-s

[Schadenfreude]

Originally posted by gimmethegepgun:

Originally posted by Schadenfreude:

Sounds like a pain, I'd rather just force them to a workbench, insults don't matter at the stage where you farm for legendaries, reconstructing some power conduits for a steel a pop is no reason for all that prep work.

How is this a lot of prep work? It's just an NPD, a workbench, and a stockpile. Made as spartan and terrible as possible to maximize the awfulness of the experience.

It's about logistics and micromanagement. I'm currently scrambling for space to build additional workbenches, remoddeling rooms to squeeze every inch of space out of my set-up. I don't even use nutrient dispensers, because it's additional bloated space. Having to destroy walls and rebuild them and send pawns to refill the stock is just that "a pain".

Having the TA go constantly in and out of mental states is wasted time on new Crative Inspirations, I want them to have a period of awfulness and a time of comfort, and I do this technically with 2 command. Force work at the workbench (to exhaustion) and rescheduling 24/7 of work for 24/7 "anything".

Way less of a hassle, unless you let the TA go to 10-0% mood, gotta watch out there, so you don't have them "run wild", which again, is regulated by the schedule.

[Kittenpox]

Originally posted by Schadenfreude:

Having the TA go constantly in and out of mental states is wasted time on new Crative Inspirations, I want them to have a period of awfulness and a time of comfort, and I do this technically with 2 command. Force work at the workbench (to exhaustion) and rescheduling 24/7 of work for 24/7 "anything".

Ah, yep. That makes more sense.
For that, I figure the +40 "Catharsis" mood buff covers that well enough. That one lasts for 3 days, and stacks up to 5 times at a 0.75 multiplier, so repeated mental breaks balance out.
Plus if the TA can't get a single thing made in 3 days when they have no distractions, it means I have other problems.

[Schadenfreude]

Originally posted by Kittenpox:

Admittedly, I'm not precisely sure what you mean by this. The two effects of having the Tortured Artist trait is that they get a permanent -8 to their mood, and after a mental break they have a 50% chance to get the Inspired Creativity inspiration.
So if you *don't* want to induce Inspired Creativity, then the other way to optimise them is to give them a +8 mood bonus from having a Wonderful bedroom / the 'Inebriated' moodlet from drinking Beer, to counteract the negatives and bring them up to the same level as everyone else. :-s

The inspiration is a 50/50, you either get it or not, I don't seek new ways to induce Inspired Creativity, because the Psycast to "fish" for them was recommended as an alternative, but I specifically wanna learn ways to optimize for TAs to have mental breaks.

Specifically, as I said, for when the Psycast is unavailable. You can easily get a TA, it's harder to get the Psycast.

[Schadenfreude]

Originally posted by Kittenpox:

Originally posted by Schadenfreude:

Having the TA go constantly in and out of mental states is wasted time on new Crative Inspirations, I want them to have a period of awfulness and a time of comfort, and I do this technically with 2 command. Force work at the workbench (to exhaustion) and rescheduling 24/7 of work for 24/7 "anything".

Ah, yep. That makes more sense.
For that, I figure the +40 "Catharsis" mood buff covers that well enough. That one lasts for 3 days, and stacks up to 5 times at a 0.75 multiplier, so repeated mental breaks balance out.
Plus if the TA can't get a single thing made in 3 days when they have no distractions, it means I have other problems.

It's not about "worrying the work doesn't get done before the inspiration ends", but prolonging the time it takes to make the thing means it takes longer before the next inspriation can take place, so let's say your pawn goes into a mental break before finishing the work, then that's basically 1 additional mental break "wasted" that you don't potentially can win a 50/50 on for a new inspiration. So I specifically don't want them to go into mental break when they have an inspiration.