Glasma's Refugee Expectations

Background

Refugees escaping slavery or fleeing a destroyed settlement probably should not arrive at a wealthy colony expecting the same luxuries as permanent colonists. I found myself turning these quests down in the late game when playing a "morally good" colony because I couldn't risk another vegan ideology losing their mind because all I could spare were simple meals made from meat, or refugees having normal breakdowns because my colony had reached sky-high expectations while they arrived with things like itchy scars and ratty clothes. I wanted a reason to accept these quests rather than being forced to turn them down in my moral colonies while using the refugees only for organ harvesting in my evil colonies. It also never made much sense to me that desperate refugees would be so picky. RimWorld already gives slaves much lower expectations, so I used that system as inspiration and created a refugee version that bridges the gap. I appreciate any feedback, and please report any bugs you encounter. I hope you enjoy it!

Overview

Refugee Expectations gives pawns from the vanilla (added by the Royalty DLC) "Refugees Seek Shelter" quest their own wealth-scaled expectation thought while they remain temporary quest lodgers. The values follow RimWorld's vanilla slave-expectation progression, but are 6 mood lower at each tier: Destitute refugee expectations: +40 Poor refugee expectations: +34 Meager refugee expectations: +28 Refugee expectations: +22 The mod uses RimWorld's existing expectation tiers rather than defining its own wealth thresholds. Refugees automatically return to normal expectations when they are no longer temporary quest lodgers. Performance-focused by design: no periodic pawn scans, no ticking component, and no long-lived gratitude memories. Requires Harmony.

Disclaimer

I used ChatGPT to assist me with the C# coding for this mod, as C# and RimWorld's Harmony-based modding are beyond my current skillset. My own coding experience is primarily XML, JSON, and text-based PLC languages such as CTC's Quickstep. I tested the following cases: -Adding the mod to an existing save. -Checking performance with Dubs Performance Analyzer. I found no measurable TPS difference with the mod enabled or disabled. -Failing the refugee quest and turning the group hostile. The surviving refugees continued using the refugee expectation system, but RimWorld recalculated their expectation tier for their new situation; in my test this changed from "Refugee expectations: +22" to "Destitute refugee expectations: +40." -Recruiting refugees through both normal gameplay and Dev Mode/Character Editor edge cases. Once recruited, they lost the refugee expectation thought and immediately returned to normal colonist expectations.

Special Thanks

Tynan Sylvester — for creating RimWorld and for the many years I have enjoyed playing it. The Vanilla Expanded team — for the enormous collection of mods that have become an essential part of how I play RimWorld. Marnador — for creating the RimWorld-style font used in many of screenshots and preview images for other mods. (I may update this one at some point)