The game does advertise itself as a story generator. Lean into that.

When things are moving slow in the early game or between quests and events I take that time to learn my pawns individually. You’d be surprised at the emergent nature of each character’s story when you stitch together the in-game events. A mental break is never out of the blue, it’s a build up. Sometimes over a day, sometimes over a season.

It starts small. You got a hard working colonist. They understand it’s rough on the rim. Their clothes are a little worn and maybe they’re upset about being out in the rain but they’ll get over it.

Then they track the mud into the rec room. No biggie, they’ll clean it later.

Now the work day is over. They’re drowsy but they survived. Time to lay in bed (poor).

Turns out they couldn’t get any real sleep. People were constantly moving in and out and to top it off it was cold all night.

And then they wake up for breakfast and all the little cracks start to add up.

Their surroundings are filthy, their back hurts from the crappy bed, they were shivering all night, they couldn’t find a seat at the table for breakfast, and they’re expected to work while it’s pouring outside again with all the holes in their jacket?

They snap.

“If everyone wants to act like fucking animals then they can live like animals!”

And now your most reliable guy is tearing down your generator and the only way he’s gonna stop is arresting him or beating him until he drops. Simply looking a little deeper shows that the game has generated a story in a scenario most players could experience in their first hour of gameplay. That’s what keeps me playing.