Can I rescue my kidnaped colonist?

[Aziz]

Hello
Usually, I don't care about rescuing my colonists when get kidnapped, but this time is different 😡
I just had the worst raid ever, so many attackers with strong weapons, so they killed or kidnapped almost everyone except 2 people 😥
The map turned into a war zone with bodies and blood everywhere!

-One of the best characters I had got kidnapped, and I'm not sure if I raid the enemy settlement, will I find her there?

-If yes, some enemies have more than one base, how do I know which one?

- If I wait one year, will she still be there?

Sorry for the many questions, I got traumatized by the crazy attack 😣

[HLRaven]

yeah you might get a ransom call

[Astasia]

You will not find them by going out and attacking randomly, they are not being held anywhere they are just existing temporarily as a nebulous "world pawn." You might get a ransom event which will allow you to get them back, but this is not a sure thing. Anyone that is taken off your map you should generally consider dead, you might get lucky by getting the ransom event or seeing them show up later with another faction but don't count on it.

[Reno Story]

If a colonist gets kidnapped or goes MIA, one of several things could happen:

You might get a ransom event, where you can pay silver to have a colonist returned to you (an often hefty fee at that).

You may get a rescue quest which just so happens to involve a pawn you lost, giving you the chance to, well, rescue them (Although don't expect this to happen anytime soon. I once had colony founder get kidnapped in the first year, and I didn't see him again until about 7-8 years later).

They might end up getting sold into slavery, and you get the option to buy their freedom (I had this happen with a pod crash survivor who managed to save themselves and wander off the map, only to end up seeing them again as a slave in a slaver caravan. Was quite amusing to say the least)

Or, and this is the worse case scenario, they join another faction. And considering that most factions in the game are hostile to you, the chances of them becoming an enemy is quite possible.

[Hoki]

Originally posted by Aziz:

-One of the best characters I had got kidnapped, and I'm not sure if I raid the enemy settlement, will I find her there?

-If yes, some enemies have more than one base, how do I know which one?

- If I wait one year, will she still be there?

as already mentioned all pawns that were ever created in a run (pawns do not carry over between saves) are saved and can be met again randomly when you encounter the faction they are affiliated with at that moment.
captives are kinda the odd ones here because they wont show up if you decide to raid an outpost or base unless they are triggered by quests beforehand.

instead they can as just said trigger a quest that makes you encounter them on a map (they either manage to make a call from the colony or are on the run), can be bought from the kidnappers directly via ransom or are changed into slaves if too much time passes.

such quests usually state something akin to 'do it now or the pawn is lost' but this simply meas that they wont get another chance to trigger such quests.

[Astasia]

So it's worth noting that any pawn that becomes a "world pawn" has a fairly high chance of being culled rather than used again. The game does not keep track of every pawn ever generated forever, that would get pretty extreme on your save file pretty quickly. After it leaves your map it is remembered for X amount of time, there's is a random chance it will be used on your map again within that time, if it's not there is a cleanup that removes them. For just generic unrelated NPCs this usually removes all references to them as if they had never existed. For colonists or pawns with relations to your colonists they are typically kept alive a bit longer then killed off instead, and will eventually just be marked as dead in your pawn's social tab.

[Reno Story]

Originally posted by Astasia:

So it's worth noting that any pawn that becomes a "world pawn" has a fairly high chance of being culled rather than used again. The game does not keep track of every pawn ever generated forever, that would get pretty extreme on your save file pretty quickly. After it leaves your map it is remembered for X amount of time, there's is a random chance it will be used on your map again within that time, if it's not there is a cleanup that removes them. For just generic unrelated NPCs this usually removes all references to them as if they had never existed. For colonists or pawns with relations to your colonists they are typically kept alive a bit longer then killed off instead, and will eventually just be marked as dead in your pawn's social tab.

I had a colonist who was gone for 8 years. He was a founder of a colony, and got kidnapped while watching camp, only to get an event that allowed me to break him out of jail later.

Is that normal, or just luck?

[Astasia]

Luck. I'm pretty sure how the game deals with flagged world pawns (any pawn connected to the colony) is every X amount of time a roll is made and one of a number of things can happen including triggering an event related to them or having them die. Going 8 years means a lot of rolls end up on "do nothing." This is mostly an educated guess based on how other game systems work, the background systems that handle this sort of thing are "hardcoded" and it's not something I've attempted to decompile and look up.

What I can say is I've never actually gotten a ransom or rescue mission, I've only had a few colonists kidnapped and they were killed a while later in every case. That is probably bad luck in my case, but I think it's safe to say the chance of "execution" is fairly high.

[seewhathappens]

yeah to make things simple for you... maybe someday you will get a call from the enemy faction again saying "we have your colonist give us X and we will give them back" besides that. nope.

[ichifish]

Originally posted by Aziz:

Hello
Usually, I don't care about rescuing my colonists when get kidnapped, but this time is different 😡
I just had the worst raid ever, so many attackers with strong weapons, so they killed or kidnapped almost everyone except 2 people 😥
The map turned into a war zone with bodies and blood everywhere!

-One of the best characters I had got kidnapped, and I'm not sure if I raid the enemy settlement, will I find her there?

-If yes, some enemies have more than one base, how do I know which one?

- If I wait one year, will she still be there?

Sorry for the many questions, I got traumatized by the crazy attack 😣

I’ve waited for my kidnapped colonist “Aziz” to be ransomed for four years, and finally here you are! I hope you’re still wearing that masterwork thrumbofur duster!

[Burki from Turki]

Chances are;

you get a ransom call. (Kinda easy if you got what they want.)

you refind them in a settlement of the same faction, actually being one of their soldiers now. Now you get to feel how is it to recruit people. (Dramatic and actually cool but hard l o l, they dont instantly rejoin to my knowledge)

[Dr@g0n]

whats the mod that lets you call factions to see or buy back your pawns was it ever updated? theres the one that lets you call lovers from other factions, family members and invite them to live with you but I don't know if that or prisioner ransom(current one i can think of active) does that though id be interested cause thats a reload for me if i cant get my main back

[IzBad]

Alternatively if you don't get a quest that lets you get the kidnapped pawn back, you can also go into Dev Mode, and spawn them back from the World Pawn list. You may have to recruit them or etc, pending on their status as a world pawn.