Late game trader frequency

[Darzai]

Do the trader visits actually become less frequent like it seems to me or am I imagining things?
I always run into the same thing. At the start I get bombarded with traders. They have all the stuff I want, but I have nothing of value to trade.
But when I finally have something to trade and want plasteel etc, they stop visiting it seems?

How does this work?

[Ishivas]

RNG is RNG. Confirmation is bias. You can always become allies with a faction and request a trade caravan from them or go out on a caravan yourself.

[mikeandanneva]

Late game? Build a comms console.

[Darzai]

Originally posted by Ishivas:

RNG is RNG. Confirmation is bias. You can always become allies with a faction and request a trade caravan from them or go out on a caravan yourself.

I was suspecting that. Also, I realized that I play less often on triple speed during late game. Probably because I am mostly done with building by then. Which obviously makes it seem like it takes longer.

[Astasia]

To answer the question, no traders overall do not become any less frequent over time. For Casandra and Phoebe the trader arrival incidents, caravan and orbital, are on their own isolated schedules that remain fixed for the entire duration of the game. Caravans for example are scheduled to happen about 5 times per year every year with a minimum spacing of 6 days. That 5 per year is still subjected to some amount of RNG, but I can't tell you the variance or chance of getting say 6 or 4 in a year instead, but it's not something influenced by colony or game stats. Randy does not have a schedule here, traders are thrown into his RNG pool with a weight, but he is more likely overall to send a trader than a raid, and his pool of RNG doesn't change over the course of the game.

There is a factor that can change caravan arrivals during the game though, that is map temperature. If you get like a climate change incident that shifts temperatures for some duration of the year outside of the "safe" range, then caravans can not show up during those times. Safe temp range for caravans is -40C to 45C, for all unmodded factions.

Pirate/slave traders are removed from the pool above around 7 pop, this doesn't affect the overall frequency of traders, but I feel I should mention it since it is the one thing about traders that does change during the game.

[Ivarukฅ(^•ᴥ•^)ฅﾉ彡]

Originally posted by Astasia:

Pirate/slave traders are removed from the pool above around 7 pop, this doesn't affect the overall frequency of traders, but I feel I should mention it since it is the one thing about traders that does change during the game.

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ I'm glad to have that answer. was literally going to ask how the slave traders worked. I had them show up like One time on a totally vanilla run when I first started playing, and then I never saw them again. Seems like a silly choice to limit them like that when so many Ideologies involve slaves. Sure the tribute collectors come around but you won't get silver for them taking your Unwaveringly Loyal people

[Astasia]

Ya I guess the intention was to make slave trading less passive. To be a profitable slave trader now requires making your own slave caravans and traveling to faction bases to sell your "goods."

[Vermillion Cardinal]

I'd say it's easy to be a profitable slave trader by going to a faction base directly to trade slaves when the alternative option doesn't exist because Tynan disabled it after the early game.

Honestly don't see why it has to be that way though, given that caravans don't necessarily come frequently, slave caravans aren't guaranteed to be the one chosen to appear when they do, you don't get that slightly better price adjustment trading from home, and you still have to pay the upkeep for keeping many slaves penned (and manage prison break risks, unless you're callous enough to do the ol' leg removal thing) until sale (which, if you fail to roll the right caravan several times, could mean whole quadrums of waiting). Slavers should have a choice of selling to inbound slave caravans or going out there themselves.

That said, if anyone doesn't care for that and also wants more regular caravans, this mod should help:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2876541977

[Astasia]

The strat that emerged before the change was to build a room full of cryptosleep caskets and store slaves in there until a slave trader showed up. The total value of a casket is similar value to selling 1-2 slaves, so after one or two cycles you were net positive going forward with no prisoner food/time upkeep or risk. You could just build up dozens of prisoners and then bulk unload to a trader when one showed up. Before the change you could also request slave caravans with the comms console like you can with the other caravans, so if you were unlucky for a while and your product was overflowing you could get a caravan or two on demand to clean out.

[Ivarukฅ(^•ᴥ•^)ฅﾉ彡]

Originally posted by Astasia:

The strat that emerged before the change was to build a room full of cryptosleep caskets and store slaves in there until a slave trader showed up. The total value of a casket is similar value to selling 1-2 slaves, so after one or two cycles you were net positive going forward with no prisoner food/time upkeep or risk. You could just build up dozens of prisoners and then bulk unload to a trader when one showed up. Before the change you could also request slave caravans with the comms console like you can with the other caravans, so if you were unlucky for a while and your product was overflowing you could get a caravan or two on demand to clean out.

kinda neat, some rimworld history. i like that idea of the caskets, might use that on a future Raider file. my current one has like 65 people, and a solid prison for holding people for tributes lol