So i've been playing my same colony for about 10-12 total hours, and i'm still stuck at 4 colonists. While some have like 6 or 8.
I dont know how to have prisoner cells, or how to make them, nor do I know how often Wanderer's join.
The only way I really know of atm, is slavers.
Sorry, yea, Im new.
sometimes you get enemies knocked unconscious! you can then drag them in the cell and they'll have "Prisoner" tab on them
you can then chat them up till they're happy and then attempt to 'recruit'
I find easiest to knock people down with single shot weapons, the burst ones always decide to have 300% accuracy boost per bullet when something gets downed and kill them
You can also try to arrest and brainwash recruit visitors or people passing by, though this will make their faction angry.
Personally I prefer burst weapons for knocking out people. Each bullet is less powerful so there's less chance you'll remove their head outright with an (un)lucky shot.
To be able to capture prisoners, make a room with a couple of beds in. Once you have done so, click on one of the beds and you should see a couple of options at the bottom of the screen. One of them says 'Set for Prisoners'. Choose that and the room is automatically set as a cell. Once that is done you will be able to capture any enemies who are wounded.
You can also arrest colonists.
The basics: You need a bed in a closed off room (door separating room from main area). Click on bed and set it from Colonist to Prisoner - it turns yellow/brown.
Find an unconscious enemy, or arrest random passers-by (Draft colonist, right click target, arrest).
Make sure at least one colonist is set to "Warden" duty.
Click on prisoner and go to "Prisoner" tab in menu. Select what you want to do with/to him - ignore, medical attention, chit chat, recruit. Warden will then try to recruit prisoner if you select it in the menu.
It will takes, days, weeks, months to recruit some prisoners based on your Warden's skill and the prisoner's difficulty rating.