Views on populations. High. Low?

[Silky Rough]

I've racked up just over 200 hours on this and have been adding QoL mods as I go to remove some of the task tedium. I've been increasing the difficulty, having fun, working towards an "end game" that will work.

But one thing I can't seem to do is settle to a population that makes the game less of a "press fast forward to get the work done with minimum pawns" as opposed to "growth is everything".

With too little population the game seems to take too long, with too many the colony seems unstable, always a step away from disaster.

So I'm curious what your ideal mix is. Not looking for "you're wrong, I'm right" answers, looking for why you do what you do.

[Preechr]

Play several scenarios. Starting with just one pawn without the all the goodies form the Rich Explorer scenario, I really get more into what's going on, even though it takes more time. You have to think more and everything has more weight to it. Sure, your colony takes more time to grow, but to me its just a different kind of fun. I start games sometimes with tons of very good colonists and get the base up and fully functional in no time. That's also fun.

You can try settling multiple tiles where you have to manage several colonies at once, or just never permanently settle anywhere and roam the map.

Short answer, I don't have an ideal limit for anything. If your goal is to build the perfect base, once you accomplish that one time, you'll have to find some other goal for your next game anyway. The game really comes alive when you use your imagination to really get into it and build your own scenarios.

[LIMP BISQUICK]

Originally posted by Silky Rough:

With too little population the game seems to take too long, with too many the colony seems unstable, always a step away from disaster.

When you say unstable, are referring to the games performance? or are you talking about colony spiraling from bad situations?

Also, how many pawns do you define for low-high population?

[Silky Rough]

Originally posted by Jibbles:

Originally posted by Silky Rough:

With too little population the game seems to take too long, with too many the colony seems unstable, always a step away from disaster.

When you say unstable, are referring to the games performance? or are you talking about colony spiraling from bad situations?

Also, what do you consider low-high population?

Unstable as in "a step away from disaster".

Low 3, High 20.

And to clarify, I'm not looking for advice on how to play, I'm curious how you play and why.

[flu007]

I think it mostly depends on personal preference, what you want out of your playthrough, the rules and limitations you set for yourself, etc. And then you try to make that work.

As for myself, I tend to end up with quite a few people. I'm on my third long playthrough, and the first two I ended with 30+ colonists, this current one, one of the goals is to keep growing the base to test its limits, and I'm at 50+ colonists at the moment.

I'm playing on Builder, though, and I'm not aiming for some "escape the planet" end goal or something else finite. I mostly enjoy the colony management part of the game, watching the colonists, guiding them along, sure get attacked from time to time or attack an outpost form time to time, but all in service of growing and evolving the colony. I like a large, active hub of activity with dozens of colonists doing their thing while I focus on tackling one small (or big) problem after another.

That's the game for me. And "end game" is whenever it feels like the right time to stop.

Everyone plays differently though. Everyone's ideal number of colonists will be different, and might change from playthrough to playthough. And none of them will be wrong.


The game does have some soft caps on number of colonists, though, which depends on the storyteller. (the exact numbers are out there somewhere.)
After a certain number, the game makes it harder for you to catch prisoners alive, apparently by killing them faster rather than downing them, and I think also by just sending you more mech raids than human raids. (That seems to be the case in my current game, at least.)

But it's still possible to down raiders and recruit new colonists, and there are mods that can make it easier as well.

I dunno if it's useful to go deeper into playing with large-ish colonies like that, because if this is similar to your playstyle, then figuring all that stuff out yourself is a big part of it. But I'll say this: at some point keeping all the colonists busy doing whatever becomes a big chunk of the player's task list. I think we crossed that point when the number of colonists was somewhere in the low 40s. For future playthroughs, I think 40ish will be my upper limit.

[LIMP BISQUICK]

I'm curious how others like to play too. Before I begin, this is just my opinion. And just about every game I like to keep all my pawns alive & happy while being loose with restrictions, such as drugs and stuff. I take what I get other than pawns incapable of violence, other than that I try to give an organic feel to it.

I like to play in ice sheets if I want max population of like 6. It's rare for me to play since the game does drag out. I don't have much fun playing in other biomes with so little.

9-13 was kind of a sweet spot for me. Things pick up at a good pace and brings more life to the game.. I'm still interested to keep track with of all my pawns and all the tiny problems that trouble them.

20 - The game kind of backslides.. Like, I lose interest in some of them.. We get things done super quick. I'm good at managing pawn moods so they're mostly fine. Any problems that come up are pretty much prepared for and if not, it won't take long to fix.

Before 1.0 I could run things a bit smoother. Things chug even at 8 pawns so yeah.. but...

35+ pawns was fun other than dealing with late game performance. Here, it's kinda of hard to keep everyone alive & happy in raids & everything that pops up. There's usually a group of pawn I like to keep track of since they stood out. And should I slip up and we end in disaster such as a destroyed base; then there's a challenge to heal everyone, build things back up, feed everyone. I enjoyed those moments the most.

Mostly I like to design bases, terraform to pass the time. Make paths and find ways to make colonists walk those paths. Played around with many scenarios, storytellers and mods to keep things interesting.

[Silky Rough]

@flu007 - 40 is interesting. I got out to about 25 and it just seemed I was losing control of everything. Food didn't seem to be going right, they were always fighting each other.... you know, just a really unsettled colony that wasn't fun to keep building on.

Seeing others go higher suggests I might simply not have enough hours/experience but I'm also guessing the variability of any given game mostly dictates the "sustainable" population here rather than any failure on my part.

Thanks for the lengthy reply. Food for thought.

[Snow]

I've been starting with 6 - 22 pawns.

Using prepare carefully mod:

One of my favorite starts is with 22 pawns, 11 couples. All of them with maxed skills, and armed with assault rifles+marine armor. And i try to set up a drug empire :D. This does make the game easier, but it can still become overwhelming if you build your wealth up enough lol.

My other start is 6 pawns, 3 couples. All with crap skills and very little starting supplies, to try and make it more challenging.

Having couples is huge for me, need less bedrooms and the pawns are happier.

[Silky Rough]

@Jibbles and @DocVenture - Interesting reading. Different approaches, same game.

I might not be as befuddled playing this as I think. Appreciate your efforts :)

[flu007]

Originally posted by Silky Rough:

@flu007 - 40 is interesting. I got out to about 25 and it just seemed I was losing control of everything. Food didn't seem to be going right, they were always fighting each other.... you know, just a really unsettled colony that wasn't fun to keep building on.

Seeing others go higher suggests I might simply not have enough hours/experience but I'm also guessing the variability of any given game mostly dictates the "sustainable" population here rather than any failure on my part.

Thanks for the lengthy reply. Food for thought.

I thought of this while writing the earlier post but forgot to add it:

An important aspect to mention about my current game, is that through the use of some mods I made my life a bit easier, especially with regards to food (and also in a biome where plants grow all year round.)

Even with 50+ colonists, keeping food production going smoothly and keeping everyone happy is no problem. It's mostly that at this stage of the game, there just isn't enough work to do to keep everyone busy full time. And I'm not mentally at the point yet where I can just ignore a "7 colonists idle" notification for a while rather than pause for a moment and think up some things to do which will keep them busy again for a few minutes. (When you're tagging berries in the far corner of the map so your pawns have something to do, it's probably time for a different approach, heheh.)


Anyway, just wanted to add that I purposefully made my starting conditions a bit easier in some aspects to accommodate a large population. Though I think the "don't grow too fast" principle applies in any case.

Also, you mentioned your colonists always fighting each other... To some extent that's normal, some personalities just clash. But it does remind me how much easier it is keep a colony running smoothly if you have a handle on boosting their mood wherever possible/affordable. That, too, is a gradual process of course, but working towards nice bedrooms, dining rooms, rec rooms etc, among other things, to keep their mood bar nicely in the green, is very important to give them more of a buffer before flipping out when something does eventually go wrong.
(Unlikes previous playthroughs, I've been fancying the place up a bit this time, and the positive effect is substantial.)

[corisai]

Originally posted by Silky Rough:

With too little population the game seems to take too long, with too many the colony seems unstable, always a step away from disaster.

So I'm curious what your ideal mix is. Not looking for "you're wrong, I'm right" answers, looking for why you do what you do.

It isn't helpful, because max population mostly depend on your PC and prefered settings (plus amount of lags that you're tolerating). Some players are able to play with max X pawns, some with max Y pawns.

[Silky Rough]

Originally posted by corisai:

Originally posted by Silky Rough:

With too little population the game seems to take too long, with too many the colony seems unstable, always a step away from disaster.

So I'm curious what your ideal mix is. Not looking for "you're wrong, I'm right" answers, looking for why you do what you do.

It isn't helpful, because max population mostly depend on your PC and prefered settings (plus amount of lags that you're tolerating). Some players are able to play with max X pawns, some with max Y pawns.

I'm aware there's no applicable measure insofar as technical limits (as is the case with all software/games) but I didn't ask for max either.

In this I expect any "max" to be player decided.

[RoboSauce]

I like about 8-10 pawns, more than 12 it starts to get hard to keep them busy. I'm probably on the end of a bell curve though.

[agznai]

Originally posted by Silky Rough:

I've racked up just over 200 hours on this and have been adding QoL mods as I go to remove some of the task tedium. I've been increasing the difficulty, having fun, working towards an "end game" that will work.

But one thing I can't seem to do is settle to a population that makes the game less of a "press fast forward to get the work done with minimum pawns" as opposed to "growth is everything".

With too little population the game seems to take too long, with too many the colony seems unstable, always a step away from disaster.

So I'm curious what your ideal mix is. Not looking for "you're wrong, I'm right" answers, looking for why you do what you do.

try the 50 pawn chalenge, hell a fun with the right mods+knowledge

[8faiNt ı♣ı]

populated colonies arent unstable though are you taking precautions? you cant just have 1 green house and expect 20 pawn to survive you know

[Marva]

When he says "unstable", I think it has more to do with the fact that colonists die more easily when they're numerous than when they're few. Additionally, there are more ways for your base to fail (due to animals/disasters), and as your colony's wealth increases, the animals surrounding it become more numerous, more dangerous, and more hostile.

Started a game in the desert. Used drills to discover gems, and cut them to sell them to people who came through. Made a boatload of money, and each pawn was able to afford both a workshop and a separate bedroom. Libraries, theaters, bathrooms, and stables for the community. Selling oil brought in extra, and my building materials contributed greatly to my colony's wealth.

I ended up with extremely powerful dragons and cheetah-like mythical creatures gathering around the walls to kill each other. They'd attack my colonists whenever they went out. Thankfully, those colonists had already built up excellent walls by then. after a while, I got tired of it and chose to reset.