10 days to recruit prisoner?

[cool skill]

Noob here. Is it normal to take this long? Do I have to reduce resistance first?

Caught prisoner on day 6. Didn't join until day 16. Put her in prison room I built. First sim there. Treated injuries with no problem. Had recruit option on prisoner as soon as I caught her. Her resistance and difficulty/remaining were quite low.

Had my highest social sim doing wardening. I think he started about lvl 6 (2-star), and in the 10 bloody days of recruiting, leveled up to 9. Had him automatic work priority to warden before everything else to the right of the work priority list. So he was doing it everyday. And cleaned it daily since it kept getting dirty.

https://i.imgur.com/mwYaVIX.png

(There has been a second prisoner since day 14. Which I kidnapped since he's Starbuck's father who tried to leave in the middle of the night when he recovered enough from treatment in the 'bad hospital'. There is no bloody hospital since we had to immediately convert Starbuck's room to treat him. And she initially had to sleep in a barely constructed room. She has her room back now, and the new room became a temporary infirmary.)

[Monoxide]

I dont see an actual question here.

Are you asking "Is 10 days to recruit normal?" - If so, it can be. A lot of factors play into recruitment. Skill, resistance, cell quality, general mood, and probably some other things I am missing. Being caught on the 6th day and also claiming to be new, I cant imagine you have a fancy cell or high quality food/clothes/beds.

Still though, I am unsure what you are asking as "There has been a second prisoner since day 14?" isnt really a question.

[Bokonon]

Originally posted by Monoxide:

and probably some other things I am missing.

Like plenty of RNG :)

[Faflis]

From my experience that's short. A good pawn can take full year in game or more

[Slice of Thanatoast]

As you get more experienced with Rimworld you'll discover that 10 days isn't very long at all, prisoners typically take a long time to recruit especially if you can't make them happy.

[DreamFree]

lol

[Astasia]

Originally posted by sourcecode:

Do I have to reduce resistance first?

Yes, but it's automatic. If you select recruit your colonist will first reduce resistance then attempt to recruit once resistance is 0. If you select just reduce resistance, then your colonist will reduce it to 0 then stop talking to the prisoner at all. That option only exists as an attempt to allow skill training on prisoners you don't want, as your colonist gains social exp while reducing resistance.

The largest factor for recruitment time is the prisoner recruitment difficulty which is listed on their prisoner panel, depending on the type of prisoner and the stage of the game that can be anywhere from like 30% to 99%. At 30-50% 10 days is pretty slow, you probably don't have a good prison and/or social pawn, or just had really bad luck. At 99% expect it to take up to a year or more to recruit without inspirations, even with optimal prisoner care, but again it's very RNG.

[ꌗꉣ꒒ꂦ꓄]

In addition to above, mood plays a huge part of bringing down resistance. Pawns in large amounts of pain, in tiny cells, half freezing, will take much longer to recruit than ones that have access to their own food (even if just a paste dispenser), and access to some sort of recreation.

Tiny 2x2 room with a sleeping spot, a pawn with 50.0 resistance could take one or two seasons to finally break, and there's the higher possibility that they could suffer mental breaks or attempt breakouts, which often -sets back- progress made a bit. The guy's maybe losing 0.8 per chat with the warden ('low mood').

Large 10x10 room, with paste dispenser, dining facilities, maybe a TV... now the guy's losing 2.2 per chat with the warden (around the highest I've seen at 20 with extra traits like Pretty, etc).

[sparrowbird611]

Absolutely possible, especially if you use mods that add factions or races. It's taken me almost a year to recruit a few people.

[Aldehydra]

Yes. "Normal" ranges from anywhere between one day and one year depending on the prisoner, the recruiter's skill, how nice the prison is, and whether anyone the prisoner liked died during the fight. If you killed their rivals and let their friends get away, they're much more likely to join you.

Also note that 9 social skill isn't very high. It goes all the way up to 20.