Wasters

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Wasters are a xenotype perfectly suited for post-apocalyptic pollution worlds. Their adaptation comes with several drawbacks, and their aggression and ugliness makes it hard for them to coexist with other xenotypes.

Lore

Wasters are gaunt-faced, grey-skinned, aggressive, immune to toxic pollution, almost impervious to disease, and can ingest as much psychite and wake-up drugs as they wish with no ill effects. Their toxin-adapted metabolism means they must consume some form of psychite to survive - usually flake or yayo.
Originally engineered to prevent resettlement of post-apocalyptic deathworlds, wasters are living area-denial weapons. Waster pirates armed with toxic weapons are the bane of many frontier peoples, both on the rimworlds and in the depths of the urbworld hyperstructures.
The faction of waster pirates are a diverse collection of violent xenohumans. They are mostly wasters, with a smattering of hussars, neanderthals, dirtmoles, genies, yttakins, and pigskins. They have little interest in building, or farming, preferring to take their sustenance from others using violence. Their technology level depends mostly on who they've managed to steal from recently. Mostly they carry gunpowder weapons, though some prefer to stab victims at close range. They’ll always be a threat.
- In Game Description

Occurrence

The table below describes the chance for a given pawn from each faction being a waster. Note that this value does not account for chances in xenotype chance from ideoligionContent added by the Ideology DLC or from pawn kind, it only shows the base value before those factors.

Faction Chance
GentleTribe.png Gentle tribe 0%
FierceTribe.png Fierce tribe 0%
SavageTribe.png Savage tribe 0%
CannibalTribe.png Cannibal tribeContent added by the Ideology DLC 0%
NudistTribe.png Nudist tribeContent added by the Ideology DLC 0%
FierceNeanderthalTribe.png Fierce neanderthal tribe 0%
SavageImpidTribe.png Savage impid tribe 0%
Civil outlander.png Civil outlander union 0%
Rough outlander.png Rough outlander union 0%
RoughPigUnion.png Rough pig union 0%
Pirate.png Pirate gang 2.5%
CannibalPirate.png Cannibal pirate gangContent added by the Ideology DLC 2.5%
YttakinPirates.png Yttakin pirates 0%
WasterPirates.png Waster pirates 72.5%
Empire map marker.png Shattered empire Content added by the Royalty DLC 0%

Summary

Wasters can thrive in polluted areas but sacrifice talents in other areas to do so. They are genetically dependent on psychite, with major consequences if their need is not met: they will start feeling mood effects after 5 days without it, will fall into a coma after 30 days without, and will die after 60 days of deprivation. Wasters are very noticeable, with gasmask-like gaunt gray faces.

Genes

Wasters have a gene complexity of 13Complexity complexity. With a 0Metabolic efficiency metabolic efficiency, they have a hunger rate of ×100%.

All wasters have these germline genes:

Assorted:

Super immunity
Super immunity
Total antitoxic lungs
Total antitoxic lungs
Aggressive
Aggressive
Unattractive
Unattractive
Pollution stimulus
Pollution stimulus
Psychite dependency
Psychite dependency
Wake-up impervious
Wake-up impervious
Super immunity Total antitoxic lungs Aggressive Unattractive Pollution stimulus Psychite dependency Wake-up impervious

Cosmetic:

Gaunt head
Gaunt head
Gray hair
Gray hair
Slate gray skin
Slate gray skin
Gaunt head Gray hair Slate gray skin

Skills:

Poor cooking
Poor cooking
Poor artistic
Poor artistic
Awful animals
Awful animals
Poor cooking Poor artistic Awful animals

Origins

Many wasters found homes in the Waster pirate bands of the Rim. If you have this band of pirates enabled you will be attacked by wasters sooner or later. There is also a slight chance for them to show up with other pirate gangs, or with scattered groups as parts of quests.

Analysis

Besides their immunity to toxicity and need for psychite, wasters are relatively plain. They don't get along with others, due to the combination of Unattractive and Aggressive. They thrive in polluted environments, and decent outside of one. Wake-up is useful when you need to get stuff done, now.

Psychite dependency is easily manageable, and can even be a positive, as covered below. For the gene extractor, it's well worth to take Psychite Dependency for +4 metabolic efficiency and its own positives. Other noteworthy genes to extract are the negative Cooking / Animals / Artistic genes, which are free metabolic efficiency for colonists who don't use those skills.

Psychite

A waster's psychite dependency is very affordable. Even in Losing is Fun, just 10 psychoid plants as flake are enough to sustain a waster for an entire year, without deficiency. In a year-round growing season, this is a field of 3 psychoid plants. If you have a grower with the required Plants 6 skill and the Psychite refining research, this is trivial. In exchange, you can (almost) freely ingest yayo, flake, and wake-up. (See "Health effects with drug genes")

  • Flake Flake is the cheapest way to handle the dependency. Compared to psychite tea, flake restores more rest, reduces Sleep Fall Rate significantly more, and gives a much higher mood for the same amount of leaves. You can take flake once every 2.7 days without a net tolerance increase. While tea can be taken every 2 days, this is not sufficient to overcome the flake's statistical advantages even when scheduling flake every for every 3 days.
  • Yayo Yayo consumes twice as many leaves per dose, but is superior as a drug. Yayo shares the same +35 mood and x50% pain reduction as flake, but increases Moving too. In addition, yayo takes only 23% as much time to consume, and each dose lasts as long as 2 doses of flake. This makes yayo effective as an ersatz combat drug
For casual use, yayo can be taken as often as flake while also providing more recreation, more rest, doubled duration high, and the Moving buff. If leaf production is not a limiting factor, then yayo makes for more efficient workers as well as combatants.

And, if necessary, you can take yayo, flake, and psychite tea at the same time for +82 mood.

If you have other colonists with the chemical interest or chemical fascination traits, you should keep them away from any hard drugs produced. To counter these traits, set an allowed area to exclude areas where drugs are produced or stored. With a gene extractor and assembler, you can give chemically interested pawns psychite dependency yourself, allowing them to indulge in chemical need all they want.

Health effects with drug genes

Psychite dependency and wake-up impervious prevent addiction and any sort of overdose upon taking the drug. There are some health effects they do not protect from.

  • Too high of a psychite tolerance can cause chemical damage to the kidneys. However, an adult can take up to 11 doses of flake/yayo in a row without reaching this tolerance threshold. If a pawn takes a drug every 5 days, they shouldn't ever have chemical damage, even with a few emergency doses every once in a while. Plus, kidneys can be replaced.
  • Wake-up has a rare chance to cause a heart attack during the high. A prosthetic heart or bionic heart prevents this entirely.

Basically, if a colonist is only taking psychite every 5 days, then health concerns are minimal.