What's the reasoning behind "disallowing" a colonist's dropped weapon?

[Merder]

When a colonist is downed in combat, they drop their weapon and it gets marked as disallowed. I'm just trying to wrap my head around the logic of making it work that way. It seems like it would be better to leave it as allowed so another colonist would pick it up and put it in storage.

[The Blind One]

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

As so many things in rimworld, this is the answer.

[HunterSilver]

Battlefields are dangerous and minimizing non-combatants entering the battlefield is generally good. It's the same reason why everything dropped during fights is disallowed. This way haulers won't rush into the middle of fire fights trying to pick things up.

After the fight you can just right click the allow button and 'Allow All' so everything gets cleaned up.

[The Blind One]

Originally posted by HunterSilver:

Battlefields are dangerous and minimizing non-combatants entering the battlefield is generally good. It's the same reason why everything dropped during fights is disallowed. This way haulers won't rush into the middle of fire fights trying to pick things up.

After the fight you can just right click the allow button and 'Allow All' so everything gets cleaned up.

That is a good explanation and probably the reason they did it like that lol

[Radiosity]

Same reason all items outside the home area are disallowed, like food dropped by wild men/women. As HunterSilver said, it's to stop your haulers going out and getting themselves killed by accident. There are already many and varied ways to have your pawns expire, so this is a concession to keeping them alive when they do everything they can to jump into the jaws of oblivion :)

[Merder]

Originally posted by HunterSilver:

Battlefields are dangerous and minimizing non-combatants entering the battlefield is generally good. It's the same reason why everything dropped during fights is disallowed. This way haulers won't rush into the middle of fire fights trying to pick things up.

After the fight you can just right click the allow button and 'Allow All' so everything gets cleaned up.

That's a decent explanation. I have hauling set pretty low on the priorities list so I didn't even consider them jumping into the middle of a battle to fetch the weapons.

[Aranador]

So another non-combat pawn or animal doesnt immediately rush over into combat and swipe the weapon to put in a pile, preventing A) that pawn from getting into a battle they shouldn't, and B) the downed pawn from not knowing where the heck their weapon has gone.

[Kiana]

Originally posted by HunterSilver:

Battlefields are dangerous and minimizing non-combatants entering the battlefield is generally good. It's the same reason why everything dropped during fights is disallowed. This way haulers won't rush into the middle of fire fights trying to pick things up.

After the fight you can just right click the allow button and 'Allow All' so everything gets cleaned up.

I've had many a haul dorf get turned into pincushions during goblin christmas. (Or worse, running out to pick up some elf's wooden sword. Was that toy worth your life, Urist?!) The tedium of re-allowing and re-equipping weapons after a battle is well worth the benefit, in my opinion. Less tedious than setting up allowed zones and ordering everybody into / allow out of safe areas at every alert pop-up...

Especially since I like to make my colonies rather large. Not bustling cities, but still a population in the dozens. There's always somebody that goes unnoticed in the shuffle until they suddenly need a new eye or arm.

[Radiosity]

Incidentally, Simple Sidearms has a handy feature where pawns will automatically go and re-equip a weapon they've dropped.

[whatamidoing]

Originally posted by Radiosity:

Incidentally, Simple Sidearms has a handy feature where pawns will automatically go and re-equip a weapon they've dropped.

Or you can have them never drop them in the first place, and whatever other inventory-on-downed-or-death mechanics you might want to fiddle with
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1778821244

All the talk of people going out into battlefields to try to claim dropped items brings Boatmurdered to mind.

[The Blind One]

its super annoying when you have to pick up your weapons the whole time.

Non uno Pinata is definitely a goated mod.

[Chibi Life]

One of the mods I refuse to do without reequips weapons that have been dropped. Way too easy to not even notice then the next raid comes and half your colonists are bare handed and you have no time to go find and grab them. I get the decision behind it but instead of straight "forbidding" them they should have had colonists go pick them up automatically once the danger is gone and they aren't dying from battle injuries

[Radiosity]

Found that mod recently, yeah, it's a godsend. I still use simple sidearms for the other functionality (rifle + tool for working or whatever), but the never drop items mod is just too good.

Also, hearing the name Boatmurdered brings back memories. One of the best let's plays, right up there with the Terrible Secret of Animal Crossing :D

[Merder]

Originally posted by Radiosity:

Incidentally, Simple Sidearms has a handy feature where pawns will automatically go and re-equip a weapon they've dropped.

I have Simple Sidearms installed and I did notice that they will pick up the same type of weapon they dropped but (it seems like) not necessarily the same exact one. For example, if they had an assault rifle they will pick up any assault rifle, not just the specific one they dropped. I might be incorrect here but the one time I was watching a pawn closely that's what seemed to happen. I had also already done my usual little dance of manually allowing the dropped weapon and prioritizing another pawn to put it in storage. I'm waiting for another combat opportunity to watch things a little more closely.

[Radiosity]

Yeah, the pawn remembers that they had a weapon of a particular type equipped, and will try and re-equip it when dropped. Works fine mostly, but if you've got multiple pawns with the same weapon and one in particular has a masterwork they're meant to have rather than a basic version, it can result in them equipping the wrong one if someone else also dropped theirs.

[Astasia]

The dangerous hauling thing is a separate mechanic. Items dropped outside the homezone are forbidden so pawns don't wander off outside and try to haul something dangerous. If a colonist goes down in the middle of combat in your killbox though, they are going to spill their meals and medicine/drugs out that wont be forbidden, they will be a downed colonist that other pawns might attempt to rescue, they will be creating blood in base which cleaners might try to clean, but their weapon will always be forbidden. It's not to prevent haulers from going into danger to haul it, it's because the game wants you to be consciously aware of weapon drops and take a manual action if any for them.

It's to prevent you from like accidentally selling/smelting weapons you were using, or equipping them on a different colonist forgetting it belonged to somebody else, once something gets hauled to the storage room you tend to lose track of it unless you have actively told a pawn to do it and watched where it went (or have very specific and well filtered storage areas). It's also to some extent because most enemy weapon drops are typically worthless and you might just want to leave them on the ground. There's little reason to haul in an awful short bow, steel knife, or stone club early-mid game for example, you can just let them deteriorate where they dropped assuming your killbox is unroofed. The other stuff enemies drop you typically want to move, either because it's worth it (drugs, meals, meds, etc.), or because it's worth cleaning it up (corpses).