114 lines
6.5 KiB
Markdown
114 lines
6.5 KiB
Markdown
# Joining a gang
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*How Gangs decides who runs with a crew — and why a well-run colony keeps almost everyone out.*
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Membership is not random, and it is not a mood event. A pawn joins a gang only when their **disposition
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and their circumstances line up at once** — the same Nature × Nurture propensity that drives every
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other behaviour in the Institution suite. This page covers the exact test, why the bar is set where it
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is, and how you keep pawns on the right side of it.
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## The rule
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A pawn joins when their **Nature multiplied by their Nurture reaches 0.9 or higher**. Only humanlike
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pawns are ever eligible — animals and mechs never join.
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Beyond that it is one line of arithmetic: multiply the pawn's **Nature** by their **Nurture** and
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compare to **0.9**. There is no dice roll here. The same pawn in the same situation always gives the
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same answer — join, or don't. (That makes membership different from one-off acts like a piss spree,
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which *do* roll the dice each time. Gang membership is a standing condition, so it uses the raw product
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with no randomness.)
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### The two halves
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Both terms come from **Institution: Core** — see Core's own documentation for the full tables — but you
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need the shape of them to understand the bar:
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- **Nature** (`0` to `1`) is *who the pawn is*: a base of `0.05`, plus trait weights, floored at `0`
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and capped at `1`. Psychopath `+0.45`, Bloodlust `+0.35`, Kleptomaniac `+0.40`, Greedy `+0.25`,
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Abrasive `+0.15`; and it goes **down** for Kind `−0.30` or Ascetic `−0.15`. This is fixed at pawn
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creation and barely moves.
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- **Nurture** (a multiplier, roughly `0.4` at the floor, `1.0` at baseline) is *the situation you put
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them in*: a floored mood multiplies it up hard (roughly `×2.5` under 0.20 mood, `×1.6` under 0.35),
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being held while miserable adds more (`×1.4`), a hardened record (negative reform) raises it, and —
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critically — **deterrence pulls it down** (toward about `0.7` in a high-deterrence colony; a neutral,
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baseline order sits at `1.0`). This is the half you control.
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## Why the bar is high
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`0.9` is a deliberately steep threshold. In the design's own words:
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> A high bar, on purpose: gangs are a symptom of a badly-run colony, not furniture. A healthy Rimworld
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> — content pawns, an orderly colony — grows few gangs, if any.
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Because the two terms are **multiplied**, both have to be substantial for the product to clear `0.9`.
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A nasty pawn in a happy, policed colony has a low nurture and stays out. A saintly pawn in a hellhole
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has a near-zero nature and stays out. You only get a gang when a genuinely disposed pawn is *also*
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neglected or unpoliced — foul streak **and** bad situation, together.
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That is the design speaking through the arithmetic: a gang is never bad luck. It is feedback.
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## Worked examples
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All numbers below use Core's documented factors; the intermediate nurture figures are rounded to show
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the shape of the decision.
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| Pawn | Nature | Situation → Nurture | Product | Joins? |
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|---|---|---|---|---|
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| **Kind colonist**, ordinary life | `0.05 − 0.30`, floored at `0.00` | content, `≈ 1.0` | `0.00` | **No** — nature floors it |
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| **Greedy prisoner**, content, policed | `0.30` | fed & high deterrence, `≈ 0.7` | `≈ 0.21` | **No** |
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| **Greedy prisoner**, starved & neglected | `0.30` | mood floored + held, `≈ 3.5` | `≈ 1.05` | **Yes** |
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| ...same pawn, but you raise deterrence | `0.30` | `× ≈ 0.7` → `≈ 2.45` | `≈ 0.74` | **No** — deterrence tipped them out |
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| **Psychopath + Bloodlust**, mood floored | `≈ 0.85` | mood floored + held, `≈ 3.5` | `≈ 2.9` | **Yes** — nothing short of reform pulls this back |
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The middle rows are the whole game of it. The **same greedy prisoner** joins or abstains purely on how
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you run the wing. The Kind colonist and the near-maxed psychopath are the fixed poles: one essentially
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cannot join, the other essentially always will if you neglect them. Everyone in between is a policy
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choice.
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## It works for every pawn, everywhere
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There is no "prisoners only" special case: any pawn — colonist, prisoner, slave — can run with a crew,
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wherever they are.
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Membership pays no attention to a pawn's secured status. A disposed **free colonist** can run with a
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crew on the outside; a **prisoner** can run with theirs on the inside; a **slave** likewise. This is
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what lets a gang span the wall — an outside member and an inside member of the same crew (see
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[Networks and Smuggling](Networks-and-Smuggling.md)). Being held raises nurture (misery), but it is not
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a requirement.
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## The cadence: every 5000 ticks
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Gang membership is re-evaluated on a fixed interval — every **5000 ticks**, which is about **2 in-game
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hours** (a RimWorld day is 60,000 ticks), or roughly **80 seconds** of real time at normal (1×) speed.
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On each pass, the game:
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1. Gathers everyone on the map who currently meets the Nature × Nurture ≥ 0.9 join bar.
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2. Pairs up unaffiliated members who **share a room and a bond** into gangs (see
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[Affiliations and Segregation](Affiliations-and-Segregation.md)).
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3. Runs one round of network resupply inside each gang (see
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[Networks and Smuggling](Networks-and-Smuggling.md)).
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Because the join bar is re-checked from scratch every pass, membership is *live*: a pawn whose situation
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improves until the product drops back under `0.9` simply stops being eligible to form new bonds. The
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bar is not a one-time gate at recruitment — it is a standing condition the colony is continuously graded
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against.
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## How to keep pawns out
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You do not fight the gang system. You lower nurture, which lowers the product, which drops pawns below
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`0.9`:
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- **Feed them and give them recreation.** Mood is the biggest nurture multiplier by far. A wing above
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0.35 mood loses the `×2.5`/`×1.6` spikes entirely.
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- **Keep deterrence high** (Institution: Justice). Deterrence scales nurture down toward `0.7`; a
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well-policed colony is *arithmetically* less gang-prone. This is the row in the table above where the
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same greedy prisoner flips from *joins* to *abstains*.
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- **Reform, don't just punish.** A hardened record (negative reform) *raises* nurture; discipline that
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actually reforms (positive reform) lowers it. Harsh punishment that prisonizes a pawn makes the
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gang problem worse, not better.
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- **Accept the two poles.** A near-maxed psychopath will run with someone the moment you slip; a Kind
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pawn essentially never will. Spend your attention on the middle.
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---
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*Part of the **Institution** suite — Core · Contraband · Justice · Gangs (this). Each mod stands alone; together they are one system.*
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