Story Teller Question.

[MythN7]

Cassandra vs Phobe.
I keep bouncing between these 2 in my currrent 200 hours, and im honestly not seeing much of a diff between them on the surface.

Now that I am playing on med.

Which one is better / more friendly for someone that likes small pawn colonys, like less than 10 by the end game. And likes to spend several game years just getting up to machineing technology.

[The Pistol Experience]

Pheobe is the most "gentle", she gives the largest breaks of any storyteller, other than that she is like Cassandra.

[Gamefever]

Try out Randy, I think its more forgiving than people make it out to be.

[Jirki88]

Originally posted by Gamefever:

Try out Randy, I think its more forgiving than people make it out to be.

Until you're not lucky. Then he's about as forgiving as a ravenously hungry Hannibal Lecter with rabies.

[MythN7]

For me, it was the wording in the story teller saying Cassandra keeps getting harder on a curve.
But it says Pheobe can hit hard on high diff, but other than that it doesnt say much about it getting harder and harder and harder.

For me, the one thing I find on Cassandra, unless its on both, not sure.
But i am finding unless I am trying to always have a guy doing research non stop, I end up getting overwhelmed taking my time from lack of things like turrets or heavy armor / weapons.

And also not sure if its from one of the story tellers, but I have also seen a trend i think where If i rush the technology well before I have the means to actually use it from lack of mats or silver, I start to get hit with really nasty raids or events to.

I know i like to spend the first full year min just making out a nice 4 bedroom 1 prison, 1 med room and a kitchen / freezer area all nicely layed out with flooring and walls around my garden before I even think of researching past batterys and solar / watermill. watermill is better if you have a hex for that otherwise its solar.

Then when i do start research, i tend to gun straight for advanced research desk before anything else, then the scanner thing for that desk. So that it makes the rest of the research go quicker.

[Spagootnoodels]

The raid nastiness is determined by difficulty, population, wealth, previous threats, arrival time, and time since colonist was downed or killed, which include many factors but I don't think research is one of them. Maybe you just start researching advanced stuff conveniently after the 4th raid or so, which is also when actual proper raids start appearing.

In my honest opinion after 400 hours, Randy is objectively the better choice over Cassandra or Phoebe (never used Phoebe, she sounds tediously dull). Cassandra is always sending beavers after my trees followed by months of absolute nothingness and boredom, while Randy doesn't give a damn and will do whatever the hell he wants whether that means a couple of free shipments of 9 cloth tuques or a raid of exactly 69 Mercenary Snipers followed by another raid of complete anarchy minutes later thinking that that would be an appropriate set of events.

Additionally, Randy's raid budget is always multiplied by 0.5x-1.5x, meaning you could get much calmer or harsher raids than with other Tellers. He may also skip the usual threat cycle other Tellers have, which may lead to a raid after a raid. It's beautiful, really.

[Gamefever]

Well honestly I think Cassandra is probably the hardest story teller.
Maybe thats just cause I started on Cass, but those raids were crazy pretty quick.
With RR, can get some nice calm periods...But sure I've had 3 raids back to back with him.

[Bryan=0101]

Honestly I go with randy ALL the time. He's everything and nothing, that's how every/random it gets.

Nicest, person ever.
*event*
here's some wooden legs,
me: I'll guess i can sell them, sure why not, jimmy go fetch
and also ruthless
*meteorite*
Jimmy was crushed

I don't know if meteorite can crush someone that was just an example of how quickly randy can turn keeps you guessing.

[Sugar Show]

With Randy
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1899300040

With Cassandra
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1852818095

Not mention those black aliens dudes are 1 acid shot = 1 down pawn

[Lurlex]

Phoebe bores me to tears, honestly. She can leave WAY TOO LONG in between events, to the point you're starved for much-needed extra colonists (you can only really get these from events and quests), or resources. On the other hand, Randy's events can sometimes come so quickly and fast on top of each other that they're humanly impossible to deal with. Or he can drown you in endless drop pods of kibble for ten quadrums.

Cassandra is who I keep coming back to over and over again for stable gameplay.

It's kind of a meme in the community that Randy is the only "true" storyteller, and community discussion returns to Randy over and over again ... but truth be told, he's friggin' psycho. I'd be very interested to see actual percentages of the active player base that HONESTLY use him to exclusivity. Self-reported numbers seem unrealistic to me on this matter, haha.

[mattpage84]

Originally posted by MythN7:

I know i like to spend the first full year min just making out a nice 4 bedroom 1 prison, 1 med room and a kitchen / freezer area all nicely layed out with flooring and walls around my garden before I even think of researching past batterys and solar / watermill. watermill is better if you have a hex for that otherwise its solar.

I think this may be some of your issue, especially if you're doing all this with only the 3 starting colonists and default starting weapons. Adding these structures and cosmetic touches adds value to the colony, which increases difficulty with raids. At least that's how it used to work in vanilla I believe.

[Bryan=0101]

Originally posted by Sugar Show:

With Randy
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1899300040

With Cassandra
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1852818095

Not mention those black aliens dudes are 1 acid shot = 1 down pawn

Brother get the flamer, the heavy flamer.

[Astasia]

The base scaling of all three storytellers is identical. The difference is the frequency of events they send at you. Casandra and Phoebe are mostly the same except Casandra sends ~1-2 raids every 10.6 days, while Phoebe sends one raid every 16 days, averages. The raids they send at any given point will be the same size, which in a sense makes Phoebe more difficult if you are learning the game because you are getting less loot from the raids and less indication of the scaling as time passes. If you understand how the scaling works though and how to defend yourself without relying on weapon drops, Phoebe will be a bit more relaxing. In the end you need the same defenses and preparations, but you don't have to interact with the raids as often.

With Randy his average raid frequency falls somewhere between the other two, about 1 raid every 10 days. However Casandra and Phoebe have limiters in place to prevent multiple raids back to back or at once, Randy does not. Randy also has a further 0.5 to 1.5 multiplier to raid scaling, it uses the same base raid strength as the other two storytellers but multiplies it by that amount. His other events are also more RNG, so you will get caravans and such less predictably.

What this means is you could get one raid every ~2 weeks from Randy at 0.5 strength each, making him very boring for a while, then suddenly he could hit your with 3 raids at 1.5 strength in the same day. Randy is very much a gamble.

[Bouncer]

A gamble you'll win more often than not, I'd say. Phoebe and cass always have a schedule to their raids. Randy does not. It's entirely possible and not at all uncommon that he'll just sleep for a year with his head resting on the ''send drop pod' button, wake up briefly to send a 0.5 raid, then fall asleep again for an entire year.

Frankly the vast majority of the time Randy is less challenging than cass and more boring than phoebe.

[Morkonan]

Originally posted by MythN7:

Cassandra vs Phobe.
I keep bouncing between these 2 in my currrent 200 hours, and im honestly not seeing much of a diff between them on the surface.

Now that I am playing on med.

Which one is better / more friendly for someone that likes small pawn colonys, like less than 10 by the end game. And likes to spend several game years just getting up to machineing technology.

Just to reference: https://rimworldwiki.com/wiki/AI_Storytellers

(Though, IIRC, there were/are some changes to population max variables, now. )

Both Phoebe and Cass will continue to ramp up the difficulty. Phoebe is probably best for a "slower" progression as there's more time between significant Raid events. But, if one is relying on captured weapons, that may not be as advantageous as one might think. (ie: Longer time interval, more accumulated, more pawns possibly gained from other events, no weapon crafting means no weapons unless bought, etc.)

Between Phoebe and Cass I wouldn't worry too much up through mid game. Late game, Phoebe might be a bit more lenient, giving you some more time.

[8faiNt ı♣ı]

Originally posted by Gamefever:

Try out Randy, I think its more forgiving than people make it out to be.

untill he hits you while you are at your most vulnarable moment