Well in my opinion there should be a definite downside to using tools, that balances out its usefulness, that for sure, otherwise it will be just flat stat bonuses, which you just buy with resources you use for crafting tools. And thats as you already said - boring.

Third option seems really damn nice as well as hardest to impement code-wise. I can see having a logging camp with several equipment racks with saws and axes for example and if colonists could automatically go there and pick an axe before going to chop wood without player's intervention, that would be seriously amazing. I don't know c# unfortunately, but I can already tell implementing a behaviour module for colonist's AI, that makes them auto-check if there's a tool available for current job they are taking and making them go and pick it up, then return it when they are done - that won't be easy... And compatibility will suffer as well if I am not wrong.

One more way is to add debuffs to tools themselves. For example Sidearms mod severely lowers pawn's carrying capacity, when it has both primary and secondary weapon. So having a heavy tool in your inventory could lower carrying capacity, make them tired faster, increase hunger rate and etc. Basically a different downside to each tool. As smartphone for example lowers global work speed severely. It was a really good way to make the tool well rounded.

One thing, that doesn't really have anything to do with tool stats - the sprites. What I suggest is adding a soft small black outline around sprites for added visibility on any kind of background. Like 1-1.5 pixel wide outline. Its just my own opinion of course, as I have crappy eyesight, but I think, that'll definitely be good for mod's overall aesthetics.

I haven't worked extensively with Rimworld modding and have yet to do code modifications, but I'm familiar with game development in general. I feel that the last option would not be overly difficult - I would take a look at construction and reimplement the task giver in a similar fashion. Basically, whatever task you are assigned looks first within a radius of the pawn/worksite for a suitable tool, and then diverts the pawn to the location first to equip it much like how construction will look for suitable materials. The biggest issue would be how to handle replacing the tools, and restoring original equipment (if it should be handled at all... instead of weapons being treated the same way with weapon stations located at points of the base). Compatibility could be troublesome depending, but Harmony sounds like it has solutions in place for this.

And yes, if I did end up implementing basic stat buff always-equipped tools, I would either nerf the bonuses, or give penalties to having tools equipped that would offset their bonuses. I feel like penalties would cause the exact same sort of micro we have now though - people would be constantly equipping/unequipping to avoid penalties to affected actions.

For example, if a pickaxe lowers movement speed drastically, players would equip the pickaxe to mine, and de-equip it for combat. That's the same micro we have now, for different reasons. Penalties to hunger or rest or joy are an option, but averaged over a given period all those do is make the tool a non-bonus - if the additional time spent resting is equivalent to the time saved mining, your net gain is 0 and tools are pointless. If the net gain is positive, the penalty was pointless except to create more notable spikes in the work cycle - work would be shorter and more productive and resting/eating/playing would be more frequent

"A Simple Side Arms modification that swaps secondary slots based on what you are working on" - I'd be perfectly ok with this, even if it included a nerf. Trade-offs are always important when it comes to buffs.

"Setting the tools to be their own apparel slot, thus allowing completely free use" - I'd like this more than the previous suggestion, even if it also included a nerf. As an aside, I've been wondering if Tyran was ever going to consider the concept of "inventory" where pawns could carry various other items that would either offer passive bonuses or require them to swap whatever is in their hand (and put the swapped item in their inventory where it would be unusable). I mean, I know it's kind of there since I've seen pawns carrying multiple things (like food, for example), but I wonder if he's going to set it up to allow other things, too. I can understand completely if he's not interested in that, since it really simplifies a lot of things and eliminates lots of other issues entirely (do you implement encumbrance, for example, or do you just say "You can only carry X items, regardless of their weight.") or do you go down the road of calculating sizes. It's a layer of granularity that tends to be a pain in the butt and I'm not sure if he sees it as being beneficial enough to put up with the pain of trying to balance it.

"A new work handler that activates prior to other jobs, directing pawns to grab the tool most suited to their work before going out and working" - This would be my preference. I love this idea. I think the trade off of, "I'm going to work now, time to put down the weapon" would be fair enough to not need a nerf.

My two cents.

Also, apologies if it sounded like I was overly negative about the mod in general. I do love the idea and I miss the "Right Tool for the Job" mod that stopped being updated a while back. Granted, that only had three tools (with three tiers). Maybe that could be something you'd consider? Some sort of concept that your 41 tools (or more, if you ever added them) were in tiers or collections that the user could go into the settings and say, "I want the Base Set and the Intermediate Set, but that's all." and then only those two groups of tools were "turned on". Personally, that would be a welcome option because it would eliminate the tools from the Bill Menu that I didn't want to bother with (ever) making.

By the way, I'm also a huge fan of some of the clothing options that other mods have added like Mining Helmets and chef's coats. Maybe that would be something you'd consider exploring? Make some of the tools into actual clothing items? That way they'd maintain their usefulness as a tool and eliminate the "Oh crap, I'm cutting down trees and here comes a mad hedgehog! I gotta run get mah gunnn!" situation

Same here - If I sounded like a grumpy ass - my apologies, it wasn't meant to be so. And yeah, I see the problem with just assigning debuffs. I'd much prefer the way with workgiver modification as well, I just don't really know how hard it'll be to properly add. I guess adding a check for tools would be manageable (there could be still performance related problems, as with several colonists checking for tools at once... depending on area they check it could cause lags and hiccups), but with placing tools back it'll be harder... Maybe making use of reservation mechanics, that doesn't allow items to be used by other pawns? So that weapon that was placed instead of a tool on a rack becomes reserved until a pawn comes and exchanges it back for a tool?

And also this:
Whats really too bad is that tool's quality doesn't really affect the stat bonuses it gives. A legendary quality axe should be much better at chopping than crappy one, you made with a stick, stone and couple ropes. I wish we could have stat offsets depend on item quality...

Just maybe you could implement it somehow? That would be damn awesome to have.

There are sort of tiered tools already - the tools creatable at the machine table are pure improvements over previous forgeable tools. For example, the jackhammer obsoletes the trowel and the pickaxe as it is superior at mining and floor smoothing. There are eight such tools that obsolete approximately thirteen other tools. There's also the Toolkit which is just really good (too good probably).

There are some tools that exist with choices or trade-offs (such as backpack vs. duffel bag vs. walking cane which are all directed at hauling in different ways).

There are also some tools that are specifically bad. It's usually important to offer 'bad choices' especially hen the player may get stuck with them. Those include screwdriver, crowbar, etc. In addition there are a few 'edge choices' that are normally useless but in specific edge case become useful, such as fans, blankets, and flowers.


I spread out the bills such that no table has too many - The forge table gets by far the most but luckily it had the fewest bills to begin with. It also adds some bills to some generally useless tables (looking at you component bench). This may need further tweaking, and I'm certainly considering cutting more tools in the near future.

Could you specifically tell me which tables you are having issues with too many bills at?

As for clothing mods, I'm a fan of FashionRIMsta myself. I definetly find the clothing options get a big overloaded - if I find myself enjoying Rimworld modding that is on my list of things I'd like to give a go at (along with additional event mods, extreme biomes, and a few other odds and ends)


Regarding quality affecting the usefulness of the tool, I would love to add that as well but there is currently no support for it. It's on the wishlist, but gotta settle on the direction I'm aiming for first.

Yeah, thought so... If it was so easy someone would do that already. Well, good to know anyway. My vote's for third option with a new work handler code. Sounds too damn nice to be true actually)

"Could you specifically tell me which tables you are having issues with too many bills at?"

Wasn't really your tools in general. Was just more of a "man, there are a lot of options to scan through" comment. Especially when the generated lists aren't sorted in any way I can tell. Trying to find the right crop to plant right now is a chore, for example. Ditto for weapons once several things get researched.

My thoughts...


Haveing pawns be able to switch between tools is a fantastic idea. I'm not sure what is possible but..
Haveing equipment benches, where pawns go to switch to the correct tool would be a nice idea. Have it to where pawns dont grab tools off fo the ground, and haulers would be needed to take the tools to the benches.
Haveing an equipment set such as the cloting sets where you can assign a colonist to a crafting set where it picks up one of the allowed tools, and then reassigning them as needed, for example to a combat set where they pick up a gun.

Tools should be used by hand, and thus should be carryed in the equipment slot not added as an accessory. However, Violent incapible pawns should be able to pick up tools. And pawns with tools should be able to carry a sidearm or small melee weapon that they will prefrence when fighting.
No using a jackhammer and packing around an assult rifle, but when a pawn with a back pack goes out to tame some bears they would be crazy to not carry someting to defend them selves incase the bears attack.


Equiped tools should NOT have a drawback. IRL if im holding a tool, im not going to mess something up or be horrid at it ( unless its something super big and heavy like a jackhammer, but not a screwdriver or knife )
When it comes to balance:
1. Research - Not haveing instant access to every tool, and haveing to put time into researching them ( and choosing what is more important to research )
2. Required crafting skills to make- Espically since quality dosent matter, a pawn with a low skill can make a screwdriver, but it should take a very skilled pawn to make a jackhammer.
3. Forced materals- its fine to make an axe out of a mix of wood, and stone, metal or jade. But there is no way that you can make a jackhammer or laptop out of wood.

If kits are not included ( I think they should be) then some of the items need to be removed. spoon, fork and crowbar for example will never be used and have no place in the game if they are not part of a kit.

I have just over 750 hours on this game, and have used many many mods. usually I like it and keep using it, or dislike it and stop using it. This is the first mod that I really like, but think needs to be heavly changed. Enough so that I stayed up all night messing with it and even killed a save doing so.

This mod has great potental and im sure will be added to many players MUST HAVE list, and I am happy to try and help it in that direction.

Recently more mode are offfering options, where players can eaither change settings from the main menue before the they enter a game, or some settings while in game. You may be able to setup something like this, so players can choose before going into a game, stat or cost multiplayers, to let people tweek balance to fit there games. This would be huge since players use a huge variety of mods. tools would be huge for a tribal game, but wouldnt be nearly as important for a player using the glittertech mod.

+1 for tiers of tools locked behind a research project, from inefficient neolithic tools to advanced glitterworld tech near miraculous in efficiency. Most mods lock their content behind research and I find that rather nice to have.
+1 crafting skill requirement and also defined material costs for tools. Self-explanatory.
-1 for no drawbacks to tools - try to run around with a jackhammer for whole day, won't you get more tired and hungry, than if you didn't have to drag that thing around with you? Somehow I think you'll curse it after couple hours.

And also I've never seen an engineer, electrician or plumber actually holding their tools in their hands all the time. They either have a toolkit they bring with them, or they have a toolbelt, from which different tools are hanging. So I'd say tools can be added as an accessory without any logical inconsistencies. If there will be a storage rack, from which they can auto-grab the right tool, place their weapon for a time, go do their thing and then go back and return the tool, while taking back the weapon - then I don't have any problems with colonists keeping tools in the equipment slot. If it can't be coded this way - I am absolutely against them replacing weapons. It will create a micromanagement abomination. As it mostly does now.

@madman666 I agree that some tools need drawbacks. A jackhammer should slow you down, and be a bit heavy. Other tools tho, such as a skinning knife shouldnt make you 50% worse at butchering. A skinning knife would be much better for butchering than no tool at all.

While I agree with many things and appreciate support for previous suggestions above, a few notes.

Jackhammers cannot currently be made of wood, nor can laptops. All items should be already be sanely stuffified.

Never has the goal of either this mod or Rimworld itself been strict adherence to reality. I am not interested in making tools perfectly adhere to how they work in life, I am interested in making them into good game mechanics. Jackhammers don't need to be super heavy anymore than a person carrying a 75 stack of wood takes as much effort as one carrying a desert wrap. I am not concerned about adding tools as an accessory because real life people can put things on their belts, because real life people also can have belts and bags and could easily carry six different guns on straps.

Again - I am not interested in what is perfectly realistic. I am interested in what makes a fun and balanced addition to the game that gives players meaningful choices to make within the equipment and storage systems. Things relate to reality only to be coherent with the setting, to support the immersion, and to drive intuitive decisions from pre-existing information. Symbolic representation of intent is sufficient, details can be modified to fit the design.

So yes, I have one knife that is kind of good at cooking and meat and leather. And one that is great at getting meat and bad at leather and one that is bad at leather and great at meat. This gives players a nice, meaningful decision - Do I want a lot meat right now, a lot leather right now, or does it not matter as long as I get a little more than normal of both? These optimization decisions are at the core of Rimworld play.

When it comes to the Knife, I tested the skinning knife with a pawn that had 100% in butchering skills, so they would get exactly what is expected from an animal. When using no tool, they got what was listed in the animals inverntory, when they used the skinning knife they got less resrouces across the board, some times less than half as much leather. I do not beleive the +leather modifyer works at all. I only tested this one item tho.. something to look into.