RimWorld Traits Guide and Tier List

Not sure which traits you should have on your pawns, or which traits your Biotech babies should get? This traits guide should give you everything you need to know to choose the best trait in every situation. This is longer than my normal RimWorld guide content but is a massive topic. I’ve included a ton of timestamps so you can jump around as needed.

Huge thanks to MortalSmurph on my Discord, as this is a joint guide we’ve made.

Link to make your own 1.4 Traits Tier List: https://tiermaker.com/create/rimworld-traits-14-15408267

[Video Transcript – Rough Draft may contain typos – will add the images when/if I get time!]

INTRO

Hey everyone, Adam here with another RimWorld guide .. and tier list of sorts. We actually made most of this guide before Biotech was announced but decided to put it on the back burner for a bit to see if the new DLC changed or added anything.

So in this guide I’ve roughly tiered, ranked or categorized the traits but don’t focus too much on my personal ranks.  The answer on traits, just like most topics in Rimworld, really is “It depends”. Sometimes you’ll  find pawns with the top tier traits and due to their passions or health conditions they’re just NOT worth keeping.  Sometimes you will find pawns with the traits at the very bottom and you may still want to keep them for one reason or another.

So much of the ranking is “it depends” so if you say “I would have this trait over that one instead of what Adam has” then, I’d probably agree with you in your situation.  Different situations call for different things and maybe you play differently than I do and want different things than I do, and that’s fine. Just know this is coming more from a min-max, high-difficulty settings mindset.

Today, I’m just trying to give a practical summary that’s useful and easy to understand for most traits.  For some traits I’ll be providing information and numbers that you probably haven’t seen before. For other traits, I will be skipping over lots of quirks. Yes, some info is missing. I’ve done my personal best to give you what I think is most relevant in a reasonable amount of time. If I had included every tiny detail this guide would be hours and hours long.

Traits have become even more important with 1.4 and the Biotech DLC with the inclusion of raising children and gene editing. There are a couple new traits as well and I’ve got the numbers on those, too.

TOUGH

We’re going to be starting off with my personal favorite and number one trait – Tough.  The only way Tough isn’t the #1 trait is if you never take damage in combat. Tough is in its own category and should be the first trait you look for in a colonist.  Tough reduces damage by half, which is absolutely crazy. One of the things I hate the most is when one of my amazing pawns gets one-shot by some tribal archer. Tough basically prevents most one-shot opportunities in the game.

GOD PAWNS

Sometimes people ask me what I mean by ‘God Pawns’. For me it is generally a pawn that has 2-3 of the top tier traits and no other downsides. These 6 traits, and tough, are the main ones I think about when I call someone a “God Pawn”.  There’s no firm definition of a “God Pawn” and a “God Pawn” comes with a lot of “it depends”.  These are NOT the only traits I think of when I think about “God pawns”.  The godliest of god pawns are tailored for a specific task.  For example, a Melee god pawn might want Tough, Nimble Brawler with a burning Passion for melee.  The Passions can be as important as the traits.  MAYBE ADD PIC HERE

BIG 6

I consider mood a big deal and Sanguine and Iron Willed are huge boons to mood management.  If you care more about preventing mental breaks, then you’d prefer Iron Will.  If you care more about Inspirations then you’d prefer Sanguine. These become even more important later in the game when a pawn’s expectations increase. When playing with Ideology and appointing a leader or moral guide, these can sometimes be even more crucial.

Speaking of Inspirations, Here’s the numbers.  Mood needs to be quite high to reliably get Inspirations.  At 50 Mood, when Inspirations first become possible, a colonist would only get about 1 inspiration every 3 and ½ years.  

There’s tons of nuances and “it depends” on Traits.  There’s even more nuances for these two: Sanguine and Iron Will.  I can’t go over all the details for everything so I’m just going to try and keep things practical: If you care about mood, these two are amazing.

If I had to rank the Traits, after Tough would be Industrious and Fast Learner.  Industrious would get the #2 spot if I was choosing starting colonists.  Industrious colonists simply get more work done.  Very roughly, as a rule of thumb, in terms of Work Speed alone: 

Skill Level: MAYBE INCLUDE PIC It isn’t all that enlightening

5 Industrious = 7 Normal

10 Industrious = 14 Normal

Industrious only affects work speed.  Jobs that are most beneficial to Industrious are any jobs that can be done in place, or anytime you want jobs done quickly: Research, smoothing a large area, building lots of walls, planting trees or large fields of crops, and similar.  

If you want a high skill level, you want Fast Learner.

Fast Learner is ideal for jobs where the skill level is important: Medicine, Social, Shooting, Melee, making high quality Art, Furniture or Clothes.  The Fast Learner bonus is gigantic.

Just Check out this chart.  A Fast Learner with 1 Passion gains more experience than a regular colonist with 2 Passions.  Let’s say you start the game with a Level 5 Medical doctor who has 1 Flame passion Medicine.  Let’s say that Doctor reached Level 10.  We’ll ignore skill decay in this example.

Where would they be if they had a double passion?  About 11 ½.

Fast Learner and one passion?  12.

Fast Learner and double passion? 14 and a ¼.  

Industrious may be what I want to get an amazing start, but Fast Learner is what I want to reach the high skill levels.  

How good Industrious and Fast Learner are can depend on the colonists’ passions.  Industrious isn’t particularly good with only passions in things that aren’t affected by workspeed for example.  Industrious with Passions in Melee, Shooting, Animals, Social, and Medical?  Do I care how fast they shear sheep or tend wounds?  Not really.  Like I said, there’s a ton of “It Depends” on traits.

Let’s talk about Jogger, another of my favorites. Anytime spent walking is time wasted.  Jogger reduces the time walking which means Jogger increases the time spent working.  The Jogger productivity bonus is rather small; at just under 10%.  That only applies to the walking time between jobs.  

The real strength of Jogger is combat.  Jogger means you can kite some enemies that would otherwise run you down when you stop to fire.  Jogger means you can more quickly get in position.  Your melee joggers can more quickly melee lock enemies. Jogger means this colonist can escape from some dangers where other colonists would get caught and killed.

You may think: “I don’t need Jogger, I’ll just install a Bionic Leg”.  No, you’d rather have a Jogger with a Bionic Leg.  You can always use Bionics, Implants and Drugs to make a colonist better.  But those are improvements, NOT replacements for the bonuses or penalties of traits.  A regular colonist with a Bionic Leg will always be a step behind a Jogger with a Bionic Leg.

Quick Sleeper is the jack of all trades, master of none trait.  A Quick Sleeper colonist is awake about 10% more hours of the day.  That’s more hours for working and also means more hours gaining skill experience.  The Quick Sleeper rest bonus is larger than the bonus going from Normal -> Masterwork bed.  Quick Sleeper applies to virtually every type of worker, all the time because it simply means more hours to do anything they want.  It’s just a small 10% bonus, but hey, 10% is 10%

“I don’t really care about Quick Sleeper, I just put everyone in a Masterwork Bed”. This is similar to what we said about jogger and bionics, it’s not a one or the other sort of thing. You can put the Quick Sleeper in a Masterwork bed and get even more bonus.  That’s an improvement, not a replacement.  You want both the bed improvement and the irreplaceable trait.

Keep in mind that your Quick Sleepers usually need so little sleep they often can’t fit in a 24 hour standard schedule.  Check out my schedule guide where it explains that often you want to switch Quick Sleepers to the Biphasic schedule, or, if their mood is already great and you want more productivity: an All Anything schedule.

ALL POSITIVE

After Tough and the Big 6, I consider this big list of traits essentially “Pure Positive”.  They are all good to have virtually all the time but usually, not always, they have less positive impact than Tough and the Big 6.

Hard Worker, Fast Walker, Steadfast, and Optimist are simply weaker versions of some of the Big 6.  They are still great but they are simply smaller bonuses.

Super Immune is another great example of “it depends”.  Early game in a jungle, it can be god tier.  Late game, with amazing medicine, doctors and beds super immune is not a particularly big deal.  Still a positive but not super important.

Great Memory ONLY applies to skills over 10.  The further above 10, the faster the skill experience is lost.  If your colonist with Great Memory doesn’t have a skill over 10, Great Memory is doing nothing.

Here’s some numbers on Great Memory.  Essentially, what these numbers mean is that a Great Memory Colonist at level 16 Skill will save about 1 Level worth of experience every Rimworld year.  At level 14, Great Memory saves 1 skill level in a time that is a little over 2 years.  At level 18, 2 skill levels per year.  Great Memory is terrific at those high skill levels but isn’t really doing much in the low teens.  Great memory does absolutely nothing before level 10.

Nimble, Kind and Masochist essentially only have the potential to do good things.  These are all good to have, but relative to the traits like Tough and the Big 6, they usually aren’t as significant.

MOSTLY POSITIVE

These next traits come with both Positives and Negatives.  God Pawns can still potentially have some of these traits.  In fact, some God Pawns specifically WANT some of these traits.  But, situationally, there are potential downsides.  The downsides here can range from “mere technicalities” to “potentially problematic”.

For example, Brawler is amazing on melee colonists.  If you aren’t using any melee, having -20 mood for holding a ranged weapon is a big drawback.  Technically, a potential drawback.

Ascetic makes it easy to get +5 mood via an awful bedroom. Ascetic Royals don’t need a royal bedroom. Ascetic Pawns don’t mind eating raw food (but raw food can still cause food poisoning) and now in 1.4 Ascetics don’t mind eating Nutrient Paste. All of these means Ascetic is quite a strong trait, especially if you want to mitigate a bit of the noble requirements in the Royalty DLC.

However, Ascetics can’t get Fine or Lavish meal buffs and they cannot receive the very highest bedroom mood buffs from something like a “Wondrously Impressive bedrooms”.  Ascetics also can cause problems when in relations with non Ascetics. The drawbacks of Ascetics are rather small and niche relative to the positives.

Body Modder can potentially have some drawbacks in the early game.  You can install a Denture anytime on anyone and it has minimal consequences. You still need another colonist who is a doctor, some medicine, and a successful surgery.  A denture changes Body Modder from -4 to +4.  Later in the game, with Bionics, Body modder becomes terrific.

Tortured Artist comes with -8 mood but have a 50% chance of getting a crafting inspiration after a breakdown. This crafting inspiration will make it so the next item or furniture they make will be 2 tiers higher. This is one of the easiest ways to get legendary weapons and armor in the game, especially if you combine it with Ideology’s ‘production specialist’ role. 

You don’t even need to pair this up with a mood breaking trait like Gourmand or Pyromaniac.  Mentally break them in a short time period with virtually no consequences.  The trick is in the name: you literally Torture them.  Strip and wall a Tortured artist in a tiny cell in the dark.  Give them something to do so they gain XP while they are tortured.  They can’t harm anybody.  Just wait until they mentally break then fall over.  Then unwall them and you are good to go.  No worry about them harming themselves or others while mentally broken when they are literally walled in and can’t leave.

Trigger Happy verse Careful Shooter is complicated.  Very generally, careful shooter is more beneficial for overall damage for low skill shooter and/or when at very longer range.  Trigger Happy is generally better for high skill shooters and/or when at shorter range.  

Trigger Happy is also terrific for Grenade tossers.  And, with the Royalty DLC, Trigger happy DOES affect Psycasting time.  A Psycaster with Trigger happy WILL cast spells more quickly.

Time to fire is a big deal in some defensive setups.  A colonist who is a careful shooter is simply NOT going to fire often in some killbox or defensive setups.  By the time they aim their weapon your other colonists will have already done most of the work.  Trigger Happy, in contrast, shoots first.  MAYBE include clip.  Maybe not.

Personally, I vastly prefer Trigger Happy.  I usually specifically design my defensive setups where time to fire is very important. If you are doing a fair bit of firing from long range with not-so amazing shooters, or if the enemies don’t die instantly, then Careful Shooter can be a positive for you.

Fast Learner and Industrious are so good that Neurotic, Very Neurotic and Too Smart are still potentially amazing traits with a big “it depends” asterisk.  Colonists can have BOTH Fast Learner and Too Smart or both Industrious and Very Neurotic.  Those combos have the potential to be the godliest of God-Pawns. One of my favorite pawns ever was an industrious, very neurotic, dual frill-arm miner. He could basically walk through mountains. You can check him out in my ’20 year run’ here on YOuTUbe, though it is an older run, now. 

Numbers for Combo

Let’s look at some combo examples. Our Medic with a Burning Passion who would go from level 5 to level 11.6?  If they had Fast Learner AND Too Smart instead they’d be at a whopping level 16.  

However, Neurotic, Very Neurotic, and Too Smart come with significant mood drawbacks.  Preventing mental breaks, including minor breaks, is critical.  These traits make preventing minor breaks significantly more difficult.  In my schedule guide, we learned that, depending on walking distance, the Biphasic Schedule grants about +16 mood at the cost of 20% productivity.  Potentially, the steps taken to overcome the mood penalty of these traits may wipe out some of the increased productivity.  

Personally, I usually have extra mood above the minor break threshold in my colonies so I generally find these traits as overall positives.  These traits highly depend on your colony’s ability to handle mood. If you are having mood issues with your colony, definitely check out my scheduling guide as well as an upcoming mood guide.

GOOD/BAD – NEUTRALish

The previous traits were all mostly positive but the following traits are closer to 50-50 positive Negative.  So you can think of them as sort of “neutral” in most situations.

Night Owl and Undergrounder have clear benefits and drawbacks.  Keep in mind that the movement speed and work speed penalties of darkness still apply to these two traits.  Those penalties are 80% movement speed and 80% work speed.  That’s roughly the Lazy Trait and 4 copies of the Slowpoke Trait.  You do not want any colonist working in the dark, including Night Owl and Undergrounder. Of course this changes with ideology’s darkness meme and precept etc, but that is a rare exception.

Nudist is somewhat positive.  The negative to a Nudist wearing clothes is only -3.  Making a nudist wear clothes is not a big deal.  Essentially, think of Nudists as “get naked to prevent mental breaks”, just like in real life..?  

Psychically Sensitive and Hypersensitive are extremely powerful if you have the Royalty DLC and are getting Psycasters.  The main bonus is the increased total Psychic Heat level.  

If you don’t have the Royalty DLC or aren’t doing Psycasters then these four Psychic traits mostly only affect Psychic Drones and Soothes.  I consider preventing mental breaks critically important so, outside of Psycasters, I prefer Psychically Dull and Deaf Pawns with their ability to somewhat ignore Psychic Drones.  

Recluse is new and requires the Biotech DLC. Recluse gives a mood bonus for having 4 colonists or less.  From 5 to 10 colonists, there are no penalties nor bonuses. At 11 colonists or above, there are mood penalties. Here’s the exact chart for colonist count and mood penalties for the Recluse trait. Colonist count on the left and recluse on the right.

For the Recluse trait: Children count as colonists. Prisoners count. Temporary colonists like guests and quest lodgers also count, Unfortunately.

Recluse is pretty clear when it is situational good or bad.

CHEM

Chemical Fascination and Interest do not give random mood breakdowns.  In old versions of the game these two would cause random “drug binge mental breaks” like a Gourmand Food Binging or a Pyro Fire Starting.  It has been changed.

I’m going to explain exactly how these traits works mechanically and from here on out I’m just going to call them both “Chems”

Chems have two separate and independent parts.  First, Chems have a mood bonus or penalty for taking or not taking drugs.  Fascination will have bigger potential bonuses and bigger potential penalties. Their “Chemical Need” is what the mood changes are based on. 

Separately, both traits will always have the possibility of consuming drugs for recreation or for addiction. Essentially, these marks at “Take for Addiction” and “Take for Recreation” are ALWAYS checked for Chems.

The Chems’ chemical need bar does not matter for this random taking of drugs. The Chem’s overall mood does not matter. How recently they have taken drugs does not matter.  All that matters is “when this colonist does recreation, drugs are a potential option” and “If the colonist is addicted to a drug, they will try to take the drug at 10% of that specific drug.”

A few things to keep in mind:

Chems will respect zones.  Chems will respect forbidden items.  Chems will choose a drug for recreation from their inventory if possible. Luciferium and Penoxycyline are not recreational drugs.  Chem will only do recreation according to their schedule (I do not mean their drug schedule). Here is info from my schedule video. Note that only Anything or Recreation allow Recreation. Recreation scheduled will do recreation anytime the Recreation meter is below 95%. Anything only allows recreation when the meter is below 35%.  

Comically, if you schedule your Chem to all sleep they will never do Recreation and thus never take a drug for recreation. The only exception is if your colonist idles.  An idling colonist will do Recreation at 95% just like if they were currently scheduled to do recreation.  Be extremely careful of scheduling lots of recreation or letting Chems idle because, if you do, they will take lots of drugs.  

You have several reasonable options to manage your CHEM pawns:

A – Limit Recreation scheduled.  On Anything, recreation only happens at 35% or less.  Here’s a Biphasic with no recreation Scheduled.

B – Have the colonist hold fairly safe drugs, like beer or tea.  Or several such drugs like Beer, tea and Ambrosia.

C – With Royalty DLC, you can use Meditation to gain Recreation.

Which one you should do in your situation is very much “it depends” and I have thought all of those options were “reasonable” at times. Combining multiple of these plans together can be very effective as well.  

If your Chem is an addict your options are arresting them, forbidding all drugs of that type, zoning them away from all drugs of that type, accepting their addiction and living with it, or cutting their legs off until they get over it and thus earn leg privileges once again.  

There is no singular best way to handle Chems.  But now you know the mechanics and can make the appropriate choices for you.

You may want to make some more general pics or clips for this.

WAR CRIMES

Psychopath, Cannibal and Bloodlust open up the potential for committing War Crimes and other heinous acts, not that we needed more of an excuse anyway but.  I’m assuming most War Crime aficionados already know the details so I am going to only touch on these briefly.  

Bloodlust and Cannibal both get mood bonuses for wearing Human Leather clothing.  Bloodlust pawns can wear Tainted clothes without penalty.  Cannibal has no downsides for the individual pawn and could definitely belong in one of the higher categories of positive traits. Their only downside overall is dealing with the rest of the colony if they are not cannibals themselves.  Psycho and Bloodlust also have notable negative social aspects which I’ll get to in just a moment.

SOCIAL TRAITS SUMMARY and RANT

Before I get into social traits I need to rant for a moment: 

Some things in Rimworld are very game-ified and unrealistic.  For example, no need for water, infinite ammunition, and no third dimension.  Similarly, some of these traits work unrealistically.  

I am solely going to be talking about these traits from a Rimworld mechanics perspective. Social Interactions and Relations in Rimworld are simultaneously incredibly complex and comically simplified.  I am going to do my best to simplify their already simplified and unrealistic nature.  I’m just trying to keep it practical. Many details will be overlooked on purpose so this guide isn’t EVEN LONGER.  So anyway, here’s the crash course on Social Interactions in Rimworld:

The executive summary is that we care about 3 main potential social issues: Insults, Rebuffs and Social Fights.  Insults and Rebuffs cause negative mood which can cause mental breaks which can cause death or other problems.  Insults can also cause Social fights which also can result in death. Just check out my first episode of The Igor Run for a demonstration there…  Our simplest and most effective tool is to isolate the “problem causers” via scheduling.   

Anytime two colonists are within 6 tiles they have a chance to “Socially Interact”.  The main interactions are these 4 but other possibilities include romance attempts, and with Ideology conversion attempts.  

The best way to think of Social thoughts is to consider them to have momentum. For example, with Deep Talk, Colonists “See eye to eye” and each gets positive social thoughts of the other.  That increases the chances of future Deep Talks and more positive thoughts of each other in the future.  Insults decrease the social thought from receiver to insulter.  Insults aren’t directly responded to with insults, but they do cause negative mood and can cause Social fights.  

Social thoughts from interactions decay and reset over time.  When social relations between colonists get bad, we offset schedules, let it reset, and potentially try again.  Some people, like a male misogynist and a female misandrist, are probably going to hate each other no matter what you do. So as the Offspring said, you’ve got to keep them separated.

Many of these Social Traits, and other Traits, start with some “Social Momentum”.  Here’s a chart.  I’ve probably forgotten a few traits but I think I got most of them and you get the idea over all.  The top 6 traits all have the social effect on themself.  The difference between Annoying Voice and Creepy Breathing is a little market value.  

Disfigurement is potential -15 Social thought that appears when a colonist is missing a facial part such as an eye, ear, nose or jaw.  Replacing the part, even with a cheap option, can remove the disfigurement.  

The next 7 traits all have starting social thoughts towards others.

Ugly, Staggering Ugly, Pretty, Beautiful, Gay, Bisexual and Asexual all have potential to cause more Rebuffs than a standard colonist.  That can potentially make any of these a “problem causer”.  Even though Beautiful pawns start with a +40 Social thought from others, they can still be problem causers because so many others hit on them which causes Rebuffs.

Social Impact affects the strength of Insults and Deep Chats.  Colonists with higher Social Impact will more easily gain friends or enemies.  When looking for Social Specialists ensure they like other people.  An Abrasive or Psychopath Social Specialist can be problematic because Abrasive is 4 times more likely to toss insults and a Psychopath will never gain those beneficial Deep Talks nor chitchats.  

Social Impact and Hearing have no effect on the receiving end of any of these interactions.  You can cut the ears off a Bloodlust pawn and the Bloodlust pawn will still be able to hear Insults.  If you cut the ears off an Abrasive pawn, their insults will still cause the same negative mood thought, but the social relationship impact will be reduced because Hearing is an aspect of Social Impact.  

A Kind pawn will never insult or slight others but a Kind Pawn can still get into a Social Fight if they receive an Insult from someone else.

NEGATIVE

These traits are almost essentially pure negatives but that does NOT mean a pawn with them is instantly considered a sacrifice rather than a new member.  All of these traits can be managed.  You may find some easier to manage than others, though, depending on your playstyle etc.

Greedy/Jealous at worst are a minus 8.  Greedy can be handled with a simple wooden room and a good wooden sculpture.  This is just a simple example: you can make a bigger room with nicer materials.

Jealous doesn’t matter if everyone is in a Barracks and I love using a Barracks as they are so strong with my playstyle.  One Jealous colonist isn’t too difficult to satisfy but two or more can be problematic because trying to make bedrooms exactly equal gets problematic with inevitable temporary specks of dirt.  At worst, Jealous is a -8.

Teetotaler removes the option for drug use.  If you don’t use drugs that isn’t a big deal.  Removing an option is a pure negative, though.  A colonist would always be potentially better without this trait.

Wimp can be frustratingly annoying with gut worms, mechanites, diseases and Food Poisoning.  Their falling over in combat isn’t always a bad thing, though.  Sometimes they lay down well before they take mortal wounds which can keep them alive. You might have also seen me utilize a wimp pawn in some of my runs to game the adaption factor.  

Gourmand and Pyro: Break on average every 50 days regardless of mood. Yes, even at maxed mood you’ll still have your Pyro setting things on fire occasionally.  Gourmand can replace other minor breaks.  Pyro other extreme breaks.  However, these breaks mean you can’t control the colonist AND the colonist will break zones.  That can be potentially death.  You may consider these breaks manageable but they are uncontrollable, random mental breaks.  Simply not having these traits would definitely be better. I will give a quick note that 1.4 and Biotech did give additional options to Pyros for mood buffs. This is of course nice, but, again, it won’t stop their actual fiery breakdowns. 

Body Purist is another pure negative.  The negative may be manageable if you don’t use artificial parts and don’t lose body parts. Of course in RimWorld fingers and toes are apparently made of butter and come off very easily. 

Slowpoke is yet another pure negative trait but this one is fairly manageable.  Slowpoke is ever so slightly worse than a missing toe. Later, with bionics, they will still be a little slower than a normal bionic-legged pawn, but it definitely isn’t a huge deal at that stage.

Pessimist and Nervous – Pure mood penalties.  You may be able to overcome these mood penalties and not consider them disqualifying. If you have an amazing double-passion crafter with pessimist, for example, it’ll be relatively easy and worth keeping them happy.

TERRIBLE

Delicate is new and requires the Biotech DLC.  Delicate is an anti-Tough trait but fortunately isn’t as potent.  A delicate pawn receives 15% more damage. That can lead to a lot more lost toes, fingers, unfortunate deaths, and terrifying social fights. There is no upside to having a Delicate colonist. Avoiding dangerous combat and social fights is very important for keeping Delicate pawns alive and whole.

Depressive and Volatile are big mood penalties and they are generally disqualifying traits.  Potentially, these two are not disqualifying if combined with other significant positive traits or if you have mood very under control. Again, don’t banish your level 18 burning passion crafter just because they are Depressive…probably.

Lazy and Slothful are usually disqualifying traits.  Potentially, these may not be crushingly awful on things where workspeed isn’t important to you.  Combat Pawns that focus on Melee or shooting, and skills like Social don’t particularly care about work speed. With Ideology, you may have several shooting specialists. Lazy is going to matter very little to them.

Sickly once altered disease cooldown.  It no longer does.  On average, a Sickly pawn will get an extra disease of their own every 30 days.  There are steps you can take to manage a Sickly pawn but you could do all those same steps on a non-Sickly pawn.  Sickly with Luciferium, Penoxycyline, Bionics, etc. goes from “bad” to “manageable”.  A normal pawn with all that stuff goes from “Normal” to “Good.”  All other things being equal you’d virtually always prefer a non-sickly pawn but perhaps you find a Sickly Pawn with amazing and important skills and traits.

Slow Learner:  Fast Learner is possibly the #2 Trait, maybe #3.  Slow Learner is worse than Fast Learner is good … if that makes sense.  A Slow Learner with a burning passion is essentially the same as a regular colonist with No Passion.  Whatever non-passionate skill levels you see on a slow learner – they will never go up.  It’s not Slow Learner: it’s not learner.  

Even with Slow Learner being down at the bottom of the worst possible traits, situationally I’d still take one.  In my All Quest Challenge Run I took a Slow Learner with 10 Skill in Social and the Sanguine Trait.  That makes a solid Leader or Moral Guide.  

BIOTECH

For the Biotech DLC: Here’s a chart of Xenotypes and their forced traits.

Their forced traits override conflicting traits.  For example, if a Neanderthal has Fast Learner that gets suppressed and does not function due to the Slow Learner gene. 

There are other genes that can add or suppress traits. I can’t list them all here. I’ll be breaking down genes in a later guide video when I better understand how they all work and have also given the developers time to put out hotfixes and such. I’d hate to make a guide and everything change the next week.

CONCLUSION

And I think that does it. Just remember that the answer to which trait is better or worse than the other is ‘it depends’. There are so many factors in a game of RimWorld that it is hardly ever a black and white conclusion. I hope this guide and tier list has helped illuminate exactly how some traits work, though, so you can determine for your own situation whether a potential colonist is good or bad.

If you enjoyed this Rimworld Traits guide and tier listed or it helped you at all please consider subscribing to the channel, liking the video, leaving a comment down below, and sharing it with others. If you’d like to reference a written version of this guide be sure to head over to my website at adamvseverything.com/guides.

And, as always, thanks for watching!