I don't think I understand the purpose of visitors to my base. I can't really interact with them, and arresting them is a quick ticket to war. I feel that once in a while one of them should see the awesomeness of my group and decide to renounce their allegiance and join me. Or at the least I should have the opportunity to bribe them without cutting all ties with another faction. If I am missing something major please let me know, but otherwise, thoughts?
They will fight factions that they are not friendly with for what that's worth. I don't think you can reliably use that though.
They will also sit right in the crossfire, ruining your relationship with their faction, if you shoot them.
If they ever implement saloons, bars or hotels that would be awesome.
At least then those faction visitors will be more inclined to stay out of the crossfire.
Right now their only use has been to get massacred by a giant wave of pirates because only 3 of them visited but they decided to run right at the pirates when they left.
Remember this game is still in early Alpha, so many features won't be there. And there may even just be simple placeholders for something bigger. So you may eventually be able to interact, just not atm
The weirdness is 2 visitors with handguns charging 30+ raiders, full equipped.
Self conservation instinct, anyone?
The factions where added back in Alpha 2 I think, and left relatively unchanged since then, so right now you can only pump them with silver through the comms console and call them for help, or go to war with them. They also occasionally send help when you're under attack, even when they don't like you enough so that you could call for help yourself, but usually to late. It's also nice to have a group around when a tribal attack hits, to weaken the enemys enough so you can pick of the rest or even make them flee. Since enemys are able to flee individually, this has become really pleasant, but this really is all you can interact with them at the moment.