Settlement expeditions in 2025 - Yea or Nay?

[Mozzy]

^^ Titled because found plenty of threads here and google searches from settlements launch to ~2023. Then for some reason, seems to drop off a cliff with virtually no mentions from early 2024 onward.

The consensus from launch -> ~2023 was settlement expeditions = worthless because all it die was get citizens killed, reduce population that takes the longest to recover from, etc.

Started new settlement with recent save restart and got it up to A class, no more building options being given. For past (16) settlement decision choices, it's always been a citizen expedition. Which I've denied.

But the game/settlement now seems stuck in this loop. It's not exaggeration, I've counted on notepad and (16) straight choices are all locked/looped to expedition only (no visitors offering new productivity, happiness, etc options - no spend debt for happiness festivals, etc.

Basically, it seems game in current Worlds 2 in 2025 state is stuck on this choice only. I recall doing ~3 expeditions while still constructing buildings and don't recall any citizens dying. But now that it is only choice left, anyone know in 2025 if settlements are still 'bad' or 'bugged' in sense citizen expeditions are no upside, only possible downside? aka death for exploring citizens?

[Mr. Bufferlow]

I have had mixed results with allowing the settlers to do expeditions. Not sure if it is 50/50 but it is definitely not one side one way or the other. The main problem is raising your citizen population is one of the most convoluted and RNG based situations. So losing even a few settlers may not see any replacement growth for extremely long periods.

That is why a lot of players just say no to those requests. The whole settlement mini-game is just complete random and there is really no strategy involved. It would be nice if there were some touch stones, like with the frigate missions that would at least give you a better than average chance of improving the settlement over time- versus just hoping the RNG goes your way more often than not.

[Mozzy]

Ok, so tested what seems to be this 'stuck' condition and it looks like that's just what it is. I denied (16) citizen expedition requests, then said ok to see if doing it would open up the regular visitors.

And it did. Sent the expedition out, thankfully no one died, and soon as they came back - I now got one of the regular or 'good' choices -> a settlement festival to raise happiness, and next visitor/guest sited with timer count down.

So it seems after some point, if denying an expedition, it just stays stuck on that choice until you do one, or keep saying no. But if never accept that choice, it seems impossible to move onto next 'visit' on the rotation of choices.

[cogvos]

A bit of an odd one that, especially that it is exactly 16, given this game's love for that number.

As to whether we will see more meaningful use for settlements - no idea. HG generally use expeditions to show some new feature. eg the new abandoned mode, or the gas giants in the current (Feb 2025) titan expedition. Its thought that there will be 3 worlds updates and we have not had an update that adds those sqiud things from the cursed expd.

A lot of things feel like place holders in this game and some have been expanded on; the npc quests for example, so maybe HG will revisit settlements?

[Batabii • Suikoden I&II HD]

I've seen people say there's a chance you can lose settlers so they didn't want to take the risk. The last time I did it I got like 500 nanites which isn't that much and then I just didn't do it again

[Mozzy]

Originally posted by Batabii • M&L: Brothership:

I've seen people say there's a chance you can lose settlers so they didn't want to take the risk. The last time I did it I got like 500 nanites which isn't that much and then I just didn't do it again

That's my new problem. Would love to just reject expeditions indefinitely. But it seems the other visit types don't cycle to next one unless the citizen expedition is taken. It auto loops forever until I take it. Then will get the preferred visitor guest, festival events, etc

[SoCaliber]

your english makes my head hurt =(

[Batabii • Suikoden I&II HD]

Originally posted by Mozzy:

Originally posted by Batabii • M&L: Brothership:

I've seen people say there's a chance you can lose settlers so they didn't want to take the risk. The last time I did it I got like 500 nanites which isn't that much and then I just didn't do it again

That's my new problem. Would love to just reject expeditions indefinitely. But it seems the other visit types don't cycle to next one unless the citizen expedition is taken. It auto loops forever until I take it. Then will get the preferred visitor guest, festival events, etc

I'll try again, but that hasnt been my experience.

[Mozzy]

Originally posted by Batabii • M&L: Brothership:

Originally posted by Mozzy:

That's my new problem. Would love to just reject expeditions indefinitely. But it seems the other visit types don't cycle to next one unless the citizen expedition is taken. It auto loops forever until I take it. Then will get the preferred visitor guest, festival events, etc

I'll try again, but that hasnt been my experience.

Just to clarify - while still getting new buildings to construct, if I rejected an expedition, I still got a new settlement task.

But now that all buildings are done, when an expedition is offered - all rejections loop to another expedition offer. Only taking one does it allow other settlement tasks to pop up (visiting guest, festivals, replace one trait with better one, etc)

[Batabii • Suikoden I&II HD]

Originally posted by Mozzy:

But now that all buildings are done, when an expedition is offered - all rejections loop to another expedition offer. Only taking one does it allow other settlement tasks to pop up (visiting guest, festivals, replace one trait with better one, etc)

Yeah I maxed out my buildings a long time ago. Then again, I don't remember if I turned down expeditions on both save files, or just the normal difficulty one.

[Mozzy]

So I've been jotting down in my steam notes overlay and so far the ratio is 1:5 for citizen deaths on settlement expeditions.

Maybe my game is bugged, but as stated previously - am locked in permanent expedition as only settlement choice loop until I say yes. If rejected, will never get another and better choice (e.g. visitor, new tech choice for more happiness/production, festival, etc)

After I say yes, do the expedition, get some nanites or other low value reward, then will get ~3-4 non-expedition choices, until locked into perma-expeditions only choice again.

Round 1 - did (5) expeditions total with other choices in between these mandatory expeditions. On 1st-4th, nanites and no deaths. On 5th, two citizens died. It will take literally several IRL weeks to repopulate these two deaths (playing several hours every day, this is about what my random new settler to +pop events are)

Round 2 - (4) expeditions, two more citizens died on 4th expedition

So purely anecdotal, in no way stats reliable for anyone else, but my personal XP so far is ~1:4 to 1:5 expeditions = tragic loss of settlers. And I'm forced to do them as there is no way to get other visitor types w/out doing the mandatory expedition once every 3-5 other settlement events.

Long winded way to say I've resorted to using NMS save editor to restore my lost settler deaths.

[Batabii • Suikoden I&II HD]

Okay I rejected an expedition and the next event was a settlement visitor so it doesn't just repeat Expedition over and over if you don't pick it.

[digidee]

Is it normal that there is no result given after settler expeditions?
I've allowed three so far, and there was no trace of them left once their time was up. No notice or pop-up of any kind.

During the last one, I paid attention to the clock running down for the last seconds in the bottom-right notification. Once it arrived at zero, it was just replaced with the mission hint about the anomaly.

[Batabii • Suikoden I&II HD]

Originally posted by digidee:

Is it normal that there is no result given after settler expeditions?
I've allowed three so far, and there was no trace of them left once their time was up. No notice or pop-up of any kind.

During the last one, I paid attention to the clock running down for the last seconds in the bottom-right notification. Once it arrived at zero, it was just replaced with the mission hint about the anomaly.

The last time I completed a settlement Expedition it popped up a notice saying I got 500 something nanites

[Mozzy]

Originally posted by digidee:

Is it normal that there is no result given after settler expeditions?
I've allowed three so far, and there was no trace of them left once their time was up. No notice or pop-up of any kind.

During the last one, I paid attention to the clock running down for the last seconds in the bottom-right notification. Once it arrived at zero, it was just replaced with the mission hint about the anomaly.

There is a very brief, very easily missed popup notification saying something like '450 nanites earned' (unless the bad event happens which always = settler death, with same brief popup)

However, this popup isn't like the treasure notification we get with fleet expeditions -> obvious, even obnoxious, completely locks up your screen UI until you click through the notification, then pause, then finally control returned back to fleet command room.

The settler expedition update is a plain text, very small, lower corner of screen brief flash. And if you have other updates or notice showing, like current quest, or the annoying reminders to use a chart of some type, etc -> the settler expedition notification can basically be buried. If you just saved, or just logged in, you can reload game to try to catch the brief notification and see what I'm talking about.

[John Truck]

I always reject expeditions after initially allowing three, all of which led to significant population loss. But that (even after Worlds 2) doesn't stop the endless requests for days off or the stream of visitors, so either you were colossally unlucky or your game was glitched somehow.