You Do You: set your colony free

This mod takes control of the work tab and automatically assigns priorities based on a variety of factors.

You Do You is both inspired by, and completely contradicts, the popular Work Tab mod by Fluffy. When using this mod, you turn over the colony's work prioritization to the whims of the colonists, allowing them to decide what jobs they'd like to do all on their own.

But have no fear! The colonists are not specifically trying to make your life difficult. In fact, they are trying their best to keep themselves happy and ensure that all the jobs get done.

PLEASE NOTE This mod is in a beta release. It is quite likely that it will behave oddly in places or simply not work. I have never seen it corrupt a saved game, but I wouldn't rule it out entirely. The mod is disabled by default and can always be turned off if it starts acting up.

Does You Do You work with other mods?

I wouldn't try running Work Tab at the same time as this mod. It should work fine, in theory, but just... why would you?

Other than that, it should play pretty well with other mods. It should even partially support work types added by other mods.

How do I start You Do You?

To start the mod, simple click "Auto assign" in the work tab.

What does You Do You do?

While the mod is active, it will control all work priorities for all of your colonists. You can still manually queue work, but only if the work type hasn't been disabled for that colonist.

How does You Do You choose the priorities?

For the most part, the priorities are chosen based on colonist traits, needs, skills, health, etc.

Here are a few of insights into how the colonists decide what to do:

• Colonists want to do things they are good at doing
• Colonists don't want to do things they are bad at doing
• Colonists want to pursue their passions if they are in a good mood
• Colonists want to tidy up if their environment isn't very pretty
• Colonists want to rest if their health is low
• Colonists will only do some jobs if they are bored

The colonists should always elect at least one pawn to do every job (unless no one can do it).

Do the You Do You priorities actually work?

Whether or not the priorities work for you depends a lot on your gameplay style. These priorities are based on the system I use in almost every colony I play and so have seen over 700 hours of development. I don't play at high difficulties. I prefer watching the story unfold and seeing how colonists develop on their own.

I know this mod won't work for everyone. It's not intended to. Give it a go and let me know what you think.

Who is You Do You for?

This mod was mostly created for me. I always set up the priorities using the same set of rules, so I figured I may as well automate it and see how well it worked.

Now that the mod is finished and I've used it for a while in my own games, I figured it was time to share it.

• People really new to the game might find it nice to just automate the priorities for a while so they can get used to the other game mechanics.
• More hardcore players might enjoy the challenge of having to manage even more unruly colonists.
• Streamers might enjoy having a mod that brings even more story to RimWorld.

Do you have any tips for playing with You Do You active?

I'm still getting used to it myself. Right now, I will tell you that the colonists seem to clean... like, a lot! Especially at the beginning. But they start to calm down as their skills in other things improve and the base starts getting more beauty.

With that in mind, I think it might be good to focus more on art and beauty items. If you can't keep beauty up, the colonists just get frustrated and try to clean to compensate.

I would also say it's not usually a good idea to keep lots of stuff to do queued up all over the base. If you give colonists too many things to do, they will just do their favorite things all the time. Pawns with a burning passion for research are a blessing and a curse, as this ends up being about all the they ever want to do!

Are there any configuration options?

I have put a few settings in the mod options. They modify a few simple game mechanics that I thought might be annoying to some players.

Can you update the mode so that colonists do X more often and do Y less often?

I will potentially update the logic if it makes sense for the character story. I will probably not update the logic just to suit the way you want to play the game. This mod is fundamentally not designed to make the game easier to play.

For example, I'm considering adding prioritization logic based on age. Maybe older colonists prefer research, cleaning, planting, and art; while younger colonists prefer hunting, hauling, mining, and construction? Not sure yet.

Will you be adding more to You Do You?

I hope so! I really like working on it, but finding good logic that works across the board from colony start to colony death is pretty tricky. Always open to suggestions.

One thing on my mind has been doing some new mental breaks that leverage the ability to lock out work types. Like imagine a fire-starting spree where the entire colony refused to put out any fires! I don't know, fun things like that.