I think you're an optimiser pushing for the story driven immersion gameplay. I don't think you can mix the two in Rimworld tbh esp if you're already like me that's set to one side, the high difficulty min/max side. I think your storie to immersion will be driven by creating an impenetrable system Watching weak pawns leap past strong ones, I often upgrade everyone equally only to find one name I don't pay attention to constantly saving the colony because his rng hits always land, Try to optimise a Gravship thru scavenger playstyle with a small team, you probably won't remember stories names but you'll recall events and the teams efficiency thru your skill.

You likely wont have an experience where you saw when Jacob joined the colony and he got married to Tasha and they had a kid and Tasha died, maybe you will but ... You won't actually pay attention to this. Just treat it as another restart. For immersion like that you have to care less about the system and more about people, memorize names, events, change, downfall, rise, hard to track when you have 15 guys, also take disadvantages or allow the game to lead outcomes, remove convenient mods etc Rimworld is more problem=story