Tend I've noticed regarding new colonists

[DTD_Hiro]

Longtime RW player here. I am relatively familiar with how the game is supposed to throw new colonist opportunities at you.

But what I have noticed over a few hundred games is that I get a maybe one or two new colonists early game, then a long long drought of nothing for literally 3-5 game years. Then, once I've basically fully trained, and max geared out my colonists, have defenses handled, most of the research done and just about to wrap up for whatever winning condition I'm going for, I will get 3-5 new colonists within the last game year, effectively useless pawns.

Are other players seeing this and does anyone have any advice on how to get this to a more steady stream throughout a game? (Specific mods included)

[Archotype #FixTF2]

The game tries to keep your colonist count at a set level, and when you are far below that the game purposely sends lots of colonists at you to try and get your population up.

This may not be the answer you wanted, but if you go into the custom difficulty settings, you can turn down or completely remove the ability of raiders to die instead of being downed. This can do wonders in allowing for lots of new recruits.

[Ivarukฅ(^•ᴥ•^)ฅﾉ彡]

I've greatly enjoyed my use of Rimdeed as a system for working with pawns. No matter my profile i will do silly things to gather/collect people, picking up techniques from here my collection skills only level up. (and maybe way too many reloaded saves)

Like I've learned when you have beggars show up, you can give them what they're asking for, then you can scoop at least one person up from their group as they're leaving the map. (and totally spend too long trying to scoop someone who's unwaveringly loyal, couldn't imagine who's done that) and yes the game says you betrayed them, but your people have the charity bonus active, and no betrayal mood penalty.

Last group that came in was child beggars so i scooped a 10 year old Hussar, and a 4 year old with no traits or passions yet so we can raise them right. just ignore the fact we did end up stabbing the 4 year old yttakin with a spear so they could fall down, but will end up with a great education.

[Steelfleece]

Seconded on the dropping the chance for raiders to die instantly. Also, try to use weapons that won't destroy a torso in one hit if you want to capture someone alive. Personally, I usually play a custom difficulty based off Strive to Survive (scaria rot chance and turret reload costs dropped to 20%, instant deaths dropped to 0% - sometimes I drop scaria rot to 0% if I'm feeling really scavy), and if anything I get too many potential colonists and wind up releasing them after using them as practice for social pawns.

Expanding on Archotype's post, when your population is very low, you tend to see more transport pod crashes, wanderers joining and slave trader caravans. Those tend to dry up around 8 population if I recall. (If playing a cannibal cult, keeping population low will get you free food more often. Not that I'd ever suggest that.) Beyond that, Ideology rituals, raiders, and if you have plenty of time but want healthy, top-notch colonists, raising kids from Biotech, are all ways to get more colonists without mods.

[Astasia]

If you are below like 8 or so colonists the game throws "free" colonists at you fairly frequently to try to get you up to a sort of "minimum" population. After around 11 colonists these start to slow down dramatically. Without DLC you are primarily meant to be capturing downed enemies after the early game. With DLC you can get a fairly steady supply from rituals, arresting or accept refugees, arresting beggars, or making your own.

[Veylox]

I mean this can't really work as a statistic considering there's no criteria for what constitutes the "last year". The game can't know to give you colonists during it since it can't tell when it even is.

So really this sounds like a case of cognitive bias, although I do agree that past the first few months the game tends to go dead silent on joining events

[Steelfleece]

Originally posted by Veylox:

I mean this can't really work as a statistic considering there's no criteria for what constitutes the "last year". The game can't know to give you colonists during it since it can't tell when it even is.

So really this sounds like a case of cognitive bias, although I do agree that past the first few months the game tends to go dead silent on joining events

It's not so much time as population. Try running a solo game. Assuming you don't get overrun, if you can stay solo for a while (and disable 'wanderer join' in the scenario), the slave traders and transport pod crashes are endless. You will start to be concerned with just how many of the spacecraft traveling through the system are slave traders compared to other ships.

[Similar]

Originally posted by Steelfleece:

It's not so much time as population. Try running a solo game. Assuming you don't get overrun, if you can stay solo for a while (and disable 'wanderer join' in the scenario), the slave traders and transport pod crashes are endless. You will start to be concerned with just how many of the spacecraft traveling through the system are slave traders compared to other ships.

And with how badly pods must be made to crash so often. Sometimes it's just raining people.
I do get some pauses with my solo colonists, but they're not long.

[Steelfleece]

Originally posted by Similar:

Originally posted by Steelfleece:

It's not so much time as population. Try running a solo game. Assuming you don't get overrun, if you can stay solo for a while (and disable 'wanderer join' in the scenario), the slave traders and transport pod crashes are endless. You will start to be concerned with just how many of the spacecraft traveling through the system are slave traders compared to other ships.

And with how badly pods must be made to crash so often. Sometimes it's just raining people.
I do get some pauses with my solo colonists, but they're not long.

Obligatory The Weather Girls song moment.

I've considered a solo cannibal run. Constant free delivery, don't even have to pay gratuity. Just need a mod that reskins transport pods into those Chinese takeout boxes.

[DTD_Hiro]

Thanks all!
I do have, but try to not use Rimdeed as it "feels a little cheaty" but whatever, you could make that argument for any mod i suppose.
I was just trying to figure out why I get nearly half my colonists way later on. I'm only talking about events that give you a colonist directly. X joins, wildman/woman, quests that reward a new colonist etc.

I know the Storyteller wants you to have about 8. Take my current game, I'm in year 6 from a standard Crashlanded, blood & dust Cassandra. I started with 3. Captured the first raider, got a drop pod and then got a kid through a quest. So I'm at 6 within the first year. The next one wasn't until year 5 when I got 3 more. I wasn't at threshold and yet Cassandra wouldn't give up any more.

Yes, I could have captured more or used a ritual to get more (i typically don't play with ideologies unless I'm doing a tribal start) but since I didn't, the game should be tossing the odd event at me now and then.

I will definitely play around with custom difficulties, thanks again for that suggestion.

Thank you all. Have fun and stay safe out there on the Rim.