What do people think about having an "unconscious" state added to each colonist's health pool, whereby they would collapse as they do now, but they wouldn't be dead. Death will still occur if additional shots deplete the rest of their health, but they lose aggro if other targets are around. If all friendlies are defeated, then enemies would finish the unconscious people off (or maybe take some as slaves!). If the friendlies win, then unconscious people would be transported by stretcher to the barber's office. Or, if that's a lot of work for the Devs, then they could just get up with 1 health. We already have the animation for carrying bodies so I'm hoping that could just be reused for the stretcher. The primary intent is to keep from losing someone in fairly easy fights. Possibly if they don't get attention within a full 24 hour game day, then they die anyway. There are various ways it could be done.
I'd not say the unconscious state should always be triggered. But depending on their traits and what inflicted the final wound, having a chance of being knocked unconscious instead of immediate death would be handy given the derpiness of combat AI and inability to really do anything about it other than watch as colonists run after one person to get shot to death by another and other daftness. Only problem is the game has absolutely no real concept of hospitals, medical or other forms of healing outside of the barber who just patches up wounds whilst the victim sits in a chair..... there would be nothing in place that could be incorporated for dealing with the concept of unconscious colonists unless they were to just lie wherever they passed out until eventually getting back up and skipping off as if nothing happened. And that would be really sloppy and kill the mechanic IMO.
I can see that leading to a lot of aggravation as you sit there watching colonists do dances, slap each other and what not whilst you mutter "Heal that f'ing solider guys! FFS!" repeatedly watching the bleed out timer count down. lol It would definitely be an improvement for me personally and would be all for that idea, but only having a passive influence over colonists in a game does come with some unfortunate limitations that mean certain ideas could very well just breed more aggravation for the player than it does improve the experience. It's why I think Rimworld set itself up pretty well by having two different states, the 'passive influence' state but then being able to also select a colonist and a object and issue a "Set high priority order" for them to do something exact providing that colonist has the training to do so and is assigned for that type of job.... but something like that probably would have felt out of place in Clockwork Empires originally even if it likely would be slightly more appropriate now that certain elements for colonist simulation have been downplayed from initially suggested and micromanagement of colonist behaviour has become more prominent a player responsibility.
Actually colonists are very good at breaking all other jobs to go bury corpses. In this case, your barber can do it, AND this time the bleeding-out person isn't moving which helps a lot. Something like: drag colonist to barber shop administer sulphur tonic from a "dispensory" (think booze vat) and then after that the individual will "self-medicate" with sulphur tonic (say 1 bottle = 1 heart of HP)
We must be playing different games then. As frequently my colonists will leave anything other than fellow colonists bodies found smack in the middle of town for days. Barber is hit and miss if they'll be about to tend someone walking in, caught up in a conversation, deciding it's tea time or for whatever other reasons. And in situations where there's a meaningful timer in place either one of those botching up could pose annoying to the player because it's presenting an action to perform of 'Save the colonist' but then leaving them entirely powerless to do anything to have it happen other than tinker with secondary aspects and hope some combination of settings will force the desired decision to be made by a colonist. One option would be to make the timer long so you have a day or more to have colonists recover the downed individual but doing so would pretty much make the whole bleed out aspect meaningless and just some empty gesture component though... "Here's a possible negative outcome, but don't worry we've set it up so it'll never happen unless you force it to happen". At that point you might as well drop the bleed out component completely and just have unconscious colonists remain alive throughout unless actively killed by a hostile, and have the negative aspect come purely from a drop in colony efficiency. Then unconscious colonists can just get handled whenever they feel like getting around to it.
I wouldn't like having to have someone administer it, but I had considered allowing colonists to carry one on them at all times.
My thought was that the barber would be altered to be able to treat such unconscious people on the ground, as long as they are placed in the barber shop. Conscious people would still need the chairs. Alternatively, the barber shop could be changed to use cots for this purpose. These cots would not allow colonists to sleep on them and would not reduce quality. The floor method is probably a lot easier to implement, while the cots would be more realistic.
Well nothing like being a battlefield medic running out into the gunfire with a single sulphur tonic.
Maybe Overseers should be more difficult to kill, with a complex health system (blood loss and unconsciousness) while regular laborers die more easily because they are disposable? I understand wanting to keep this game properly challenging, but when I faced an obelisk as a new player, proud of my 4 man garrison that's ready to take on anything, I felt cheated more than challenged when it exploded killing 7 colonists and destroying all food in my stockpile. I didn't have a way to order them away when the next one attacked, they all started punching them and dying even more, like lemmings... The worst part however was having to revisit all crews, find new overseers for jobs because half of the workshops were abandoned now.
I have to agree with Puzzlemaker. A proper fear-n-run when facing supernatural enemies should solve most of it (depending on trait of course). Plus, I also like that they are all expendable. Sometimes, most times, you should only be able to watch when they do stupid things, or brave things, or out of love (depending on trait of course).
Have them be taken to the barracks and have cots in the barracks be reserved for an actual purpose rather than just another bed.
