What does "you have gained a friend" actually do?

[Yukeh]

Hello, i picked this game up yesterday and i'm enjoying it enough. I see this "you have gained a friend" message showing up now and then, but i can't actually see any statistic for this, nor any actual gameplay effects from it. Does it have any impact on gameplay at all, or is it just a "you did something nice for people, good on you!" message?

[Gary]

Hi, the Friends and Enemies feature works in the following ways:

- It creates a character in the world that has a chance of appearing in future events
- A certain amount of time has to pass before they can appear, for example you couldn't make an enemy and the next event the same enemy turns up for revenge.
- When a friend or enemy re-appears, a message at the bottom will describe the context. For example, if you picked up a stranded survivor and made a friend, it'll reference that event.
- Most of the time, encountering a friend or enemy will mean the debt is paid and they won't appear again. Some events, particularly with enemies that attack you and you successfully flee before combat occurs will mean they're still out there and can appear in future
- Generally speaking, encountering a friend will give you some positive bonus, while encountering an enemy will mean they'll try to attack you
- In Lifeboat and Stranded modes, friends and enemies can appear, so the more enemies you have could affect how long it takes to be rescued

On the whole, making lots of friends involves decisions that may make things tougher in the immediate-term, but you should be building up this greater chance of good things happening later. The opposite is true of making enemies.

[Yukeh]

Oh, amazing! Thank you so much for the elaborate reply! And i don't know how to feel about starting to hope i can experience some lifeboat events lol, my primary concern is always ensuring the safety of my crew and ship!

Back to the seas to go searching for these events! Thank you again!