Quests completely lying about raid frequency - a bug or a feature?

[fabula_rasa]

So, I've been playing quite a lot since the update and in my experience all those quests that say that "you will be raided / have mech cluster drop on you roughly every 18 hours" just blatantly lie. It's never 18 hours between raids / clusters.
Personally, I tried three such quests and each time it was more like 6 hours between events, maximum 10. Not even close to 18. It didn't matter whether the quest had 1, 2 or 3 stars. It didn't matter if it was early in the life of colony or late. And I was making sure to check the source of event stated on the message, so I am sure those raids/clusters were connected to the quests in question.
The last such quest I took had me raided literally back to back, with me not even being able to drag away the bodies of the second raid (that dropped on top of me) before the third raid started. That last one taught me one thing - never to take those quest that tell you they will do something to you every 18 hours again :).
I play on Cassandra rough. But I saw somebody on reddit reporting the same experience on Cassandra merciless. In his case, "roughly every 18 hours" ment he was raided 4 times within 23 hours. It's been a while since university math but I'm quite sure that 6 is not indeed the same as 18 ;).

I am not here to complain that this makes the quests insanely hard (although, it of course does - especially when it's mech clusters dropping on you for five days every 6 hours or so. It's impossible to handle with such frequency, in my opinion). I am trying to figure out why this time estimate is so off. Why even give the estimate if it's so inaccurate? Some quests don't give any time estimate between raids / attacks / clusters. Why not just keep to that rather than give time estimate that has no informative value?

In any case, is that a bug? Or is it a feature? Like, those sneaky nobles / tribes think to themselves "Yes, let's make those guys take care of those hunted dromedaries of ours, we will tell the they will only be raided every 18 hours. Imagine the surprise on the faces of those suckers. Muahahahaha". Anybody else having this experience?

[Evil Overlord]

I play on Cassandra medium (because I'm a dirty casual) and haven't been experiencing anything quite that bad. 18 hour raids usually come for me at or near 18 hours, the weirdest one was one that waited 23 hours until the chickens shuttle arrived then sent double raids at me.

[fabula_rasa]

Originally posted by Evil Overlord:

I play on Cassandra medium (because I'm a dirty casual) and haven't been experiencing anything quite that bad. 18 hour raids usually come for me at or near 18 hours, the weirdest one was one that waited 23 hours until the chickens shuttle arrived then sent double raids at me.

Hmmmm, maybe it is difficulty related than. Maybe the messages were written for medium difficulty (as it is, well, in the middle ;)) but the actual timing differs between difficulties and the devs just forgot to take that into account in their quest messages.

[Cormac]

i had 3 raids attack me back on back, i didn't look at the time itself, but it feled more like 10 hours than 18... but after that, i didn't get a single raid for around 40-48 hours, one last attack and thats it for a 5 day quest, maybe there is some randomness involed
(the second of the fast raids was way smaller than the other two, around 1/3 i would say)

[fabula_rasa]

Originally posted by Cormac:

i had 3 raids attack me back on back, i didn't look at the time itself, but it feled more like 10 hours than 18... but after that, i didn't get a single raid for around 40-48 hours, one last attack and thats it for a 5 day quest, maybe there is some randomness involed
(the second of the fast raids was way smaller than the other two, around 1/3 i would say)

Yeah, there indeed seems to be some randomness. But in that case, the quest description does not reflect the reality of the quest at all. As an adventurer, I am against that ;). But seriously, if this is indeed all intended behaviour, then I believe they should just remove the "18 hours" part and keep the description to "you shall be raided / have mechs dropped on you" - like other quests do.

[The Nut Champ]

i thought so too, but i realized that it says "roughly" which means it would be earlier than 18 hours or later than 18 hours.

basically its an estimation and whether they pop up early or later would be random.

[fabula_rasa]

Yeah, it does say "roughly". And there are indeed - as the saying goes - small lies, big lies and statistics. But "roughly 18" should have a variance of like 16-20, that is "roughly 18". Not 6-48. That is not even close to "roughly 18' :). The variance is just too big, does not fit within a margin of error of "roughly".
If I make a date with a guy and say we should meet roughly at 6 pm, but I will appear at 11 pm, I can guarantee that he will not consider that this is indeed "roughly 6 pm" ;).

[The Nut Champ]

roughly by rimworld standards lol

though i think its based on difficulty
cassandra rough kept chunking me raids every 9 hours instead of 18

[fabula_rasa]

Originally posted by Ree:

roughly by rimworld standards

That made me laugh :)

Originally posted by Ree:

though i think its based on difficulty
cassandra rough kept chunking me raids every 9 hours instead of 18

That's exactly what Cas rough does to me as well. So it does seem that the actual time is difficulty-based but the quest message does not change (and was written for medium difficulty setting - judging by the fact that Evil Overlord is indeed being raided every 18 hours). Mystery solved!

[pheanox]

Were all the raids tied to the quest, out of curiosity? Because you can get normal storyteller raids while you have your scheduled raids also.

[The Nut Champ]

on mine yeah, they were since they were sent by the same faction and it had the link quest.

also yeah it reaaally reaaaly sucks having this quest and a cluster drops on the map

[Swordmouse]

I accepted one of these quests on Rough Randy and was getting 2-3 mechanoid clusters a day. For 5 days.

Sun blockers, psychic pulses, temperature droppers everywhere, every cluster with mortar shields, drop pod beacons, and arrays of turrets. After clearing 3-4 it was all I could do to hold the constant assembled mechs at bay while I licked my wounds. The quest failed when one prisoner killed the other, which is probably the only thing that saved me.

Beware these quests on higher difficulties - I'll be sure to be packing massive firepower and defenses the next time I accept this quest/variant.

[fabula_rasa]

Originally posted by pheanox:

Were all the raids tied to the quest, out of curiosity? Because you can get normal storyteller raids while you have your scheduled raids also.

Yeah, I know. All were tied to quests indeed. I even mentioned that in my original post :)

[fabula_rasa]

Originally posted by Swordmouse:

I accepted one of these quests on Rough Randy and was getting 2-3 mechanoid clusters a day. For 5 days.

Sun blockers, psychic pulses, temperature droppers everywhere, every cluster with mortar shields, drop pod beacons, and arrays of turrets. After clearing 3-4 it was all I could do to hold the constant assembled mechs at bay while I licked my wounds. The quest failed when one prisoner killed the other, which is probably the only thing that saved me.

Beware these quests on higher difficulties - I'll be sure to be packing massive firepower and defenses the next time I accept this quest/variant.

That was exactly how my husband's colony was wiped out. He accepted such a quest ("you will have mech clusters drop on you roughly every 18 hours" for 5 days) on Cassandra Rough and he was getting a cluster like every 9 hours or so. The clusters were literally dropping on top of one another and merging (he played on mountain map, so little free space). The record cluster was merged from three clusters that just merrily dropped on top of one another. A summoned help of janissaries even decided that it's a good idea to not fight the cluster they are close to but go smash another cluster nearby, which was still sleeping at the time.

By the end it was just a bloodbath.

I think that this quests (with mechanoid clusters specifically, raids are a different story) on higher difficulties are near impossible. You have to get extremely lucky with cluster combinations so you are able to take them down in good time as not to be overrun by assemblers. And even if you get lucky, I think it's just too much too often. Your colonists have no time to sleep, recover, or just anything really but smash mechs.

[billy]

I havent tried this quest yet but if what people are reporting here is representative of the quest , it does sound like its spawning more than it should.

sounds like an easy tweak if Tynan agrees its over the top the way it is now.

[HunterSilver]

I have abandoned doing these quests on anything above Cassandra Rough because you absolutely get 2-3 raids a day just from these quests in addition to normal raids and the attrition is too heavy. Even taking small bruise injuries means you'll quickly be overwhelmed.

If you don't have a psyker capable of using Berserk and Invisibility, tons of turrets, or a huge stable of expendable war animals these are virtually impossible. Especially since mech turrets out range sniper rifles by 1 tile and have 96% base accuracy.

If this is the intended difficulty for them, I can appreciate that but I wish they would make that more clear in their descriptions because getting back to back to back raids for 5 days straight catches you completely off guard when you're expecting a little over 1 a day.