Menus

From the OverView menu you can set the tasks you want your colonists to perform, some colonists will not be to access all skills. For example nobles can only access research and firefighting whilst a settler can access all skills.

It is possible to get your base working very efficiently by managing who does what job, hover only the skills square to see a score out of 15. This will help you decide who you want doing each task. Using the wrong people will slow down your base. It's a good idea to study your colonists skills and apply them to what they excel at.

In standard mode, colonists will either perform a task or not, with tasks being ranked of greater importance the further left on the grid they are. In manual mode, each colonist's tasks can be prioritized from 0 (blank) to 4. 1 is the highest priority, 4 is the lowest, and blank tasks will not be performed. Properly utilizing manual mode can make sure everyone always has something to do, and avoid idle colonists.

Factions

Tribes

Tribes are people that have very low technology such as bows and spears. They have probably been on the planet for a long time. People from these factions are usually very hard to recruit (difficulty 80+) and always wear tribal clothing, which is equivalent in stats to a standard shirt. Tribe names seem to often have words that look to be derived from Spanish, such as 'miñoca', 'legua', and the like. They may not seem strong because of their low tech but make up for it with skill and numbers. And by numbers I really mean NUMBERS. These guys are formidable allies and foes alike. They may not do the same as pirates but they aren't insignificant.

Outlanders

Outlanders are the same as pirates in equipment and tech, but not in behavior. Outlanders are usually not hostile but can be provoked into hostility. They're overall the sort of standard guys in the factions. They use similar equipment and tactics as normal pirates but usually don't have really high level stuff like pulse rifles or snipers. Be nice to them and you'll be rewarded, but make them hostile and you basically have another pirate group, except that Outlanders can actually be negotiated with.

Pirates

Ah, pirates. Been in the game the whole time. These guys sport regular and occasionally high level gear. It's pretty much impossible to negotiate with. If you've played the game you know all too well how they act. They raid you all the time and will sometimes even drop from orbit right on top of you. They kidnap incapacitated colonists if you leave them out there. Essentially, these guys are the bad guys.

Mechanoids

Mechanoids is a faction of robots, they can be formidable enemies and come in two varieties. The heavier ones (someone insert their name please) which come equipped with a minigun that can deal a great ammount of damage to your colony and the lighter Scythe version, these guys are basically the mechanoid snipers. They have a great range and can attack your turrets whitout danger. Once killed, they drop metal and leave a mechanoid corpse which can be melted down for even more metal. When mechanoids attack they can easily destroy your colony if there's enough of them. With a good variety of them I have seen them go in with the lighter troops first to range out my defences then move in with the heavier troops to annihalate the rest of the colony. These will destroy your colony unless you proceed cautiously. Note that mechanoids will spawn to defend crashed AI ships.