question about spawning drifters/recruits/skeletons

[Pophet]

so by now im fairly experienced in the game.
i "finshed" my first full playthrough.
full 30 members gang, all 60+, huge base, killed the holy nation, bugmaster cat-lon, visited every spot on the map, etc.

now i wanna start a new game with JUST skeletons in my party.
and i have an important question about that.
so, i know there are 3 "unique skeletons" that are ALWAYS availbale.
and for what i could find via google and youtube, is people saying that random skeletons recruits can not spawn.
but i can personaly say that this is not correct, because i had 2 "no named" drifter skeletons in my party that spawned in bars.
but except for these 2 and the 3 named once, i never found one again.
so my question is, how does recruit/drifter spawn work exactly?
is it just a random chance that a spawning drifter will be a skeleton, but with a lower % chance?
and what if every drifter has spawnd in the world, can i just recruit random drifters and dismiss them so that another drifter spawns in the world somewhere?
and does that drifter has a chance to be a skeleton?

please dont guess or assume, because that is where im already at :)
would love to hear facts about it.

THANK YOU ALL

PS: im not using ANY mod and i refuse playing with any mods in the future.
i love playing games vanilla as they are ment to be.

[ReD2222]

The chance is pretty low, but skeleton recruits can spawn. Just checked the original game's files and there are at least 2 spawns labeled "Swamp" that have skeletons in their lists. (And 10-15 percent no less)

[Pophet]

Originally posted by ReD2222 Rare quality user:

The chance is pretty low, but skeleton recruits can spawn. Just checked the original game's files and there are at least 2 spawns labeled "Swamp" that have skeletons in their lists. (And 10-15 percent no less)

ok, but how does spawning/respawning work in generel?
do they just get replaced overtime if you dont hire the available recruits?
and if so, how many days does it take for a bar to "refresh" avaiable recruits?
does recruiting, followed by dismissing someone you dont want, help respawning a new guy?
or is there nothing like a respawn whatsoever and its just the spawns you get on creating a new world and thats it?

[ReD2222]

All recruits are spawned with a new game, and only replaced/restored with an import, so you might just import and try your luck.

[ReD2222]

On a side note - you can get only default skeletons this way. P4 and Screamers are not available without modding. For the Log-head you can get Agnu :) (The best mecha-girl)

[Pophet]

just importing over and over feels like cheating.
i always thought that drifters you dont recruit get replaced at some point.

i guess a mod free vanilla skeleton only run doesnt seems so fun then.
would be really annoying when you realize after 20 hours, that your game has like only 1 random skeleton spawn or maybe even non at all.
i mean it does matter if you have 4+0 skeletons or 4+3. (4 beeing guaranteed)

thx for your answers

[Khan Boyzitbig of Mercia]

Generic recruits can be skeletons or P4 skeletons but very rare. Importing after adding a new "town" will change the seed used to generate random recruits plus any already recruited uniques will be replaced by generics.

Increasing squad sizes can also result in more drifters for recruitment, if their squad hasn't already spawned.

[lizardmang]

If you use the Nobodies start, you can start with 5 skeletons, putting you at 8 guaranteed. And based on what I've seen myself and heard from others, you'll generally find at least one generic skeleton recruit in the swamp. I've seen one in Shark every time I've been there.

Edit: I forgot about the Freedom Seekers start, which would let you start with up to 6 skeletons.

[Pophet]

Originally posted by Khan Boyzitbig of Mercia:

Generic recruits can be skeletons or P4 skeletons but very rare. Importing after adding a new "town" will change the seed used to generate random recruits plus any already recruited uniques will be replaced by generics.

Increasing squad sizes can also result in more drifters for recruitment, if their squad hasn't already spawned.

as i stated to someone else before, importing a game feels like cheating to me.
where is the challenge in a skeleton only run, if you import 30 of them into your game? :) :) :)

[ReD2222]

Originally posted by Pophet:

Originally posted by Khan Boyzitbig of Mercia:

Generic recruits can be skeletons or P4 skeletons but very rare. Importing after adding a new "town" will change the seed used to generate random recruits plus any already recruited uniques will be replaced by generics.

Increasing squad sizes can also result in more drifters for recruitment, if their squad hasn't already spawned.

as i stated to someone else before, importing a game feels like cheating to me.
where is the challenge in a skeleton only run, if you import 30 of them into your game? :) :) :)

As someone else have read this - they can tell it's the only way to "All skeleton run" sadly... (if you want more of them than 4-6 total) :D
Or... Welcome to the modded club, buddy! :D

[PulisMatulis]

Select Freedom Seekers start so that you could have 6 skeletons just like lizardmang said. Recruit the 3 unique skeletons and the 2 random skeletons that spawns in the bars. Train them in stealth and assasination. Go to the mountainous paths near Rebirth and around Armour King shop. There are skeletons that patrols on those paths. Knock them out and pick them up. Make sure none of them seen you. Bring them to the Slaver shop. Do not sell them to Slaver. Drop them on the floor so that the Slaver will enslave them. Buy them for 20,000 cats each after they have been enslaved. Walk them out of the Slaver town. There is a chance that they would join your party/Faction.

I have done this with one of my playthrough. My faction consist of 28 members. All skeletons except for Beep, Ray, Green, Esper and Silvershade.

Hope this helps.

[Khan Boyzitbig of Mercia]

There is also the option for a human to recruit the lone HN skeletons around Rebirth/Wend, doesn't always trigger but is the only other way to get additional skeletons without doing the slaver exploit or importing or using mods. IIRC they can also spawn as wandering drifters so if you have a settlement that meets the normal requirements for drifters to want to join you you can get the odd skeleton that way.

[PulisMatulis]

To be honest with you OP. Having too many skeletons in your party is overpowered. I have done another playthrough using the Freedom seekers start with Burn, Agnu, Sadneil and the 2 skeletons that spawns in the bars. Once they reached 40+ stats (MA / MD / Weapon skiill) they could pretty much devastate most wandering npc groups out there except the ones in the Ashlands.

Right now I'm doing a playrhrough with just Burn, Agnu, Sadneil and Beep. The 2 skeletons and Beep still managed to rescue Agnu from the tower without using stealth and assasination.

So if you want a bit of a challenging playthrough, you might want to reconsider.

Good luck

[Red Bat]

You tend to average at only like 1-2 random skeleton recruits per game. I think there's one that's guaranteed or near guaranteed in the Swamp. You can also get 1 skeleton rarely from a random dialog in the mountain north of the Holy Nation. I don't think that event repeats so you might only be able to get one that way.

You can start with 6, get 3 more, find 1-3 more generic ones. Considering Skeletons tend to level absurdly fast for a variety of reasons, you should be able to have enough to do everything pretty easily and only have to worry about very rare one-shot KO's due to lucky Sniperbot or turret shots to the head.

Every other way to get Skeletons is pretty much an exploit. You never find them as random slave recruits, but you can "get them enslaved" if you want. There's only like, 1-2 randomly spawnable type of Skeleton NPCs who have low enough stats to be recruitable that way though. Otherwise you have to import, and even that is a pain due to how few recruitable skeletons spawn each game.

When people say Skeletons are weak, they are referring to characters with maxed out stats and masterwork equipment in every slot so that the fact Skeletons can't wear head armor actually kind of matters. Otherwise Skeletons pretty much trivialize the entire game, which is why you recruit so few of them. Immunity to every weather effect, inability to be eaten alive, fast healing, non-existent bleed out KO chance, no hunger meter and therefore no malnutrition penalty, as well as heavy weapons skill boost. You can go from a Freedom Seekers all Skeleton start, to being able to beat a Holy Nation patrol in only like 2 hours of play.

[Kushetta]

I found 4or5 of them in "skelly City", angu, sadneil and burn. i have found a few in the south east area of the map "more so by ashlands" those towns/cities have a few of em kicking around. i didnt get all them but i think i found a total of 10 in the base game "thats not even looking just seeing em"