Why would you not take the deserter?

[Païtiti]

What is the deserter quest?

When playing with the royality DLC (as everyone should) the first or second quests that you get is an imperial deserter who offers to join your colony. He offers his service as well as the location of an imperial outpost holding 2 psylink neuroformers. Upon acceptance you automaticially are at war with the empire (-100 relationship), the deserter joins and a raid consisting of 1 or 2 imperial soldiers appears hunting the deserter.

When the quest pops up I usually take it. I dont see any downside to taking him in. Firstly, the pawn comes with good equipement and probably a much better gun than you have atm. Furthermore he gives you 2 links for a bit of investement as you need to travel to the outpost. As the deserter quest usually appears after you've save the baron from the manhunter you have already an imperial rank which you DONT lose being hostile with the empire.
Secondly, the raid that appears offers the possibility to yet recruit another pawn or at least take decent equipement of the persuer as you can down him and take his stuff. (It s tricky as it appears that their chance to die is really high but if you are patient and lucky you can down him by bleeding him out).

But that's not all. Being at war with the empire is actually pretty meaningless. In my last 5 or so games they did not attack once before I could remedy relations and even if they did the raid is calculated as for any other faction so they might only attack with 1 or 2 guys. They still give you quests for good rewards and by doing only 2 or 3 you will be on their good side again.
So it gives you 2 neurolinkformers, 1 recruit, 1 set of good gear and the potential for another recruit and set of gear.

The only downside I see is the progression in terms of royality. If you want to go for the royality ending this will ofc be slower as you might already be knight or something if not taking the quest. BUT on the other hand is a quick progression really that good in view of the royality requirements etc?

I feel that this questline should have much more impact on your colony. I see why you still get quests from a rp point of view as the empire consists internally of different people and maybe factions that dont care about your deserter. But on the other hand there is really no downside for taking him and the benefits are just great at this stage of the game. So why not always take him?

[pauloandrade224]

In vannila Sure i get it.

Personally tho i have combat extended if i take that quest and they come in with full recon armor and good guns then im probably fooked cause i cant damage them but they can damage me! In 1 or 2 hits im dead af .

Also being at wwaar with a faction that caan have the best gear in the gaame just sounds like a big no no to me

[Jaggid Edje]

I generally play tribal start with slow research, there's no way I want to go to war with the Empire and all their high tech weaponry early in the game....that's just crazy. Short bows and tribal wear against what they bring sounds like suicide.

[Païtiti]

Originally posted by Jaggid Edje:

I generally play tribal start with slow research, there's no way I want to go to war with the Empire and all their high tech weaponry early in the game....that's just crazy. Short bows and tribal wear against what they bring sounds like suicide.

But they dont really attack thou. And if they do this one dude cannot do much. It's early game so they simply cannot attack with heavy armor, persona weapons etc. because raidpoints are much too low.

The war does not have to go on for long as your opinion rises automaticially, you are back to neutral after 2-3 quests and you can always just gift them stuff that you dont use anyways.

[Jaggid Edje]

Originally posted by 123:

The war does not have to go on for long as your opinion rises automaticially, you are back to neutral after 2-3 quests and you can always just gift them stuff that you dont use anyways.

What difficulty are we talking about? Or are you saying no matter what difficulty you play on they are total pushovers that early in the game? I can accept that the way raid scaling works, even on high difficulties it happens so early that it's not really harder.

[Païtiti]

Originally posted by Jaggid Edje:

Originally posted by 123:

The war does not have to go on for long as your opinion rises automaticially, you are back to neutral after 2-3 quests and you can always just gift them stuff that you dont use anyways.

What difficulty are we talking about? Or are you saying no matter what difficulty you play on they are total pushovers that early in the game? I can accept that the way raid scaling works, even on high difficulties it happens so early that it's not really harder.

Always hardest or second hardest difficulty. And yes, that's what I'm saying. I see how they are suppose to be the big bad empire you have to appease BUT in none of my games where I took in the deserter my colony was in any danger. Especially because you can still take their quest it is easy to become friendly again.

When royality came out I never took the deserter because I wanted to try the royality ending etc. But after a while I tried it and nowadays I always take it because the benefit heavily outweighs the risk imo. In my current game the dude arrived with a battlerifle, full flak etc. and was chased by another dude, same equipement. In a crazy showdown my new dude was able to take the other one down, strip him and take his stuff. Unfortunately I couldt imprison him because they spawned in a mountainpocket with insects between my colony and them. So eventually he got up and left the map. Under other circumstances that would have been a prisoner.

So then I got 2 dudes, full flak, automatic weapons and the quest for the 2 neuroformers which I can give to either tribals I converted or to my mainpawn. So, then you have potentially 3 pawns with psypower without having to care about a throneroom at all until you decide to make peace and continue in the royality story.

Plus what I forgot to mention in the inital post is that the empire outpost that you need to raid is also a treasurechest because they usually (last 3 times at least as I remember) there was not only the 2 psyformers there but also a persona weapon. I think it is hardcoded to spawn but not sure. So, what more do you want at this stage of the game? That's like 12-15k worth of stuff for dealing with 1 imperial in the raid and another 1 or 2 at the outpost.

[Jaggid Edje]

Wow, I was planning on taking that route on my next playthrough anyway, just be different, but was a bit nervous about it.
Now I'm looking forward to it. LOL

[jacobellinger]

for me i just hate having to travel. it's a lot of micromanagement and planning. got to make bedrolls, take food, risk having your base attacked while away, deal with the after effects of traveling as moods are always crappy after. it's worth the work but i'm lazy.

[glass zebra]

Originally posted by 123:

Originally posted by Jaggid Edje:

I generally play tribal start with slow research, there's no way I want to go to war with the Empire and all their high tech weaponry early in the game....that's just crazy. Short bows and tribal wear against what they bring sounds like suicide.

But they dont really attack thou. And if they do this one dude cannot do much. It's early game so they simply cannot attack with heavy armor, persona weapons etc. because raidpoints are much too low.

In my latest losing is fun game I had a 6 people imperial raid a few days after I accepted the deserter against my tribals. They had stuff like monoswords with shieldbelts and charge rifles. 3 of them got downed so now I have a monsword, several full flak armours, a shield belt and a charge rifle since like the 2nd season after starting.
Point is though that 6 people with equipment like that which dissolve all of their stuff on death means that you just have rather hard enemies with little reward if you are not lucky. In Ideology they also come with a useless ideology that is hard to convert away and often also brings bigotry mood debuffs.
I still always accept the mission because 3 neuroformers so early on is just so powerful. The camp you raid also often has stuff like a persona weapon or eltex gear in it on top of the static reward. There is still risk involved in this. That you can't fully interact with the empire at the start only matters if you start the game with heavy slave trading, since you will likely not get much gold at the start to get up to dame/knight to be able to trade with them anyway. The times I do not accept the mission it's for rp reasons, though since Ideology the new person you get can be very rather detrimental or at least not as useful as other people.

Another funny thing is: if you enter the camp map and become neutral before you attack, you can take all their stuff and disassemble their whole camp without them caring. The map usually has a big throne room with fine cloth carpet in it which is like several hundred cloth for you super early into the game too.

[ROE]

For tribals this a win scenario.

You can repair you rep with the empire later on too, or at least you used to be able to.

[glass zebra]

Originally posted by ROE:

For tribals this a win scenario.

You can repair you rep with the empire later on too, or at least you used to be able to.

Yeah reparing rep is way too easy in this game and has no semi-permanent consequences.. You just hunt a few animals and bring over the meat before it rots - which you can't store anyway. Then the empire likes you again. And you can betray them once more for another 2 neuroformers on your next ceremony.. I was really hoping when they hinted that "what you do in the game will now have influence on how people like you" for 1.3 or ideology, that stuff like this will stop being just so efficient or at least have consequences that you can't reduce to half a day in duration if you plan for it.

[VoiD]

Yeah, I was reluctant at first but soon I've discovered it's actually the easiest path.

Also, if you are doing the usual human leather hat farm, or the usual meth lab can (and should, always) be visiting nearby cities from time to time to sell your junk instead of letting it collect wealth in your storage for ages, and nearly every city will have at least one psy shock lance.

Once the empire attacks you use this bad boy on the guy with the best gear and you'll usually come out of the raid with a set of 2~6 power armors, charge lances, charge rifles, plasma swords, possibly good recruits and some bionics.

Basically it's a shortcut into late game, and it's MUCH safer than doing those crazy empire quests that create additional raids (on top of the ones the story teller will throw at you) of greater difficulty for lesser rewards.

[Big Dog]

Yea for a while I never did it but now I do it quite often.

[Astasia]

Originally posted by 123:

But they dont really attack thou.

They are just as likely to attack as any other hostile faction when a raid rolls. If you play with a lot of hostile factions that dilute the pool then maybe you can get away with almost never being attacked by them.

Originally posted by 123:

It's early game so they simply cannot attack with heavy armor, persona weapons etc. because raidpoints are much too low.

Raid points determine the units you get and how many, not what equipment they have. The lowest tier empire unit is the Trooper which comes with full flak, an advanced industrial gun, chance for bionics, and decent shooting skill, with a gear budget of 5000-8000 silver, for only 65 raid points. A naked tribal dude is 40 raid points. Champions, Grenadiers, and Jannisaries are all 100 points and have a mix of marine armor, recon armor and plate armor, these guys can have charge rifles and monoswords and such.

On higher difficulties a single raid from these guys can absolutely roll over your colony unless you go hardcore on defenses and traps right away in preparation. Getting 6-8 tribals is absolutely trivial compared to 4-5 empire units attacking you.

Originally posted by 123:

The war does not have to go on for long as your opinion rises automaticially, you are back to neutral after 2-3 quests and you can always just gift them stuff that you dont use anyways.

Opinion rises automatically by like 0.2 per day, so it will take years if you relying on that to get back out of hostile. Rep rewards are based on quest budget and early quests you will need like 5+ to make peace with the empire. That's 5 quests you are picking rep and not a better reward like honor. Do those same quests for honor and you will get more psychic levels than accepting the neuroformers from the deserter, and you don't even have to caravan out. There is 0 reason to accept the deserter unless you are planning to go to war with the empire and are ready for a tough game.

Edit: I don't remember what the bonus rep is for being below baseline in regards to early questing, could be 3-4 instead of 5+ quests, but even doing 2 quests will get you enough honor for a couple psylink levels. There's no advantage.

[Lyrin]

Yeah I mean wrecking your rep intentionally for 2 neuroformers... repeatedly... seems incredibly inefficient. Especially if you're playing on tribal start... you can very easily farm up psylink anyway.

Like, sure you can waste a bunch of time and resources fixing your rep (repeatedly) or you could turn that wealth and labor into something of actual value, like plasteel, adv compoonents, bionics, good weapons/armor, etc. etc.

Also, just a side note but I don't think deserter is even 100% guaranteed to be offered. Not sure if this is/was perhaps a bug but I've definitely had games where one or both of deserter or noble being chased by a single animal didn't get offered.

[Jaggid Edje]

Originally posted by Scooty Puff Sr.:

Also, just a side note but I don't think deserter is even 100% guaranteed to be offered. Not sure if this is/was perhaps a bug but I've definitely had games where one or both of deserter or noble being chased by a single animal didn't get offered.

Pretty sure it's supposed to be 100%; if you didn't get it offered did you maybe disable it or have a mod that overrides it?
It's the path to one of the 3 ways to get access to Psy powers and they have intentionally made it so that you get access to all 3 ways and can pick which one(s) you prefer.