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From the journal of Aurelius, farmer, craftsman, and warrior.

This land hates us.

No, that's not quite right. The land is just land - beautiful and complex in its infinite wonders, but also cold and apathetic to us men and women who are trying to survive here. Within two days of our ill-fated landing, the Deep Ones came. Faster than a bounding cougar and tougher than a grown grizzly bear, they they tore poor Aaron's arm off. When at last we had riddled them with bullets, we found their meat inedible. Madness-inducing. What sort of world hosts creatures such as this, that we may not even obtain the slightest modicum of nourishment from their passing?

Other humans would occasionally come to plunder our settlement, but we saw in their eyes not the greed of opportunistic looters nor the bloodlust of savages. No, we saw a deep fear, a real fear, a fear of that which pursued them - if not on this plane, then the dreamscapes which should have been their only solace. Some we managed to shake back to reality, but most died speaking gibberish and madness. Hopeless.

Something must be in the air, some chemical or or toxin or bacteria. Juliet should know better - as a glitterworld physicist with twenty years as a naval engineer prior, she is a veritable font of knowledge. Should. But she can make nothing of this planet's gravity - a gravity so strange that even cutting stones into rectangular blocks requires days of conjecture and hypothesis to execute. Know, oh reader, that I esteem greatly Juliet's intellect, for she is a woman of great education and worldly in ways I can scarcely comprehend. But the laws of physics do not work as they should here. Even now, two years after our landing, we've barely managed to establish geothermal power. Geothermal, when Juliet used to develop fusion reactors!

This land is wrong, and I fear for our survival. Two years in, and thrice as many graves. Aaron is dead already, and Juliet is in poor health - an eye gone, a hand torn off, and parasites within her muscles sapping her strength. I fear we may never leave this accursed world. I fear the Deep Ones, the Mi-Go, the Star Vampires. I fear that one day, the Dark Goat of the Woods may herself come to the walls of our colony and wonder why her Young have not returned to her.

I fear.

-Infections have an 85% of happening without a sterile room.
-If a doctor doesn't have high medical skill, treating a patient with flu/malaria/plague/muscle parasites will spread the disease to him as well.
-Full recovery from wounds takes several days to several months. Gunshots require months of consistent physical therapy (hours long, of course, and can only be given by a very skilled doctor) to recover even a fraction of original functionality.
-Anyone who has ever lost a limb will experience phantom pain. Prosthetics/bionics have a chance to increase the pain. Each year there is a minuscule chance for the pain to go away, but it's really minuscule.
-Colonists with creepy breathing, annoying voice, psychopath, or staggering ugly traits have a chance to become rapists.
-Psychopaths may go on murder sprees for no goddamn reason.
-Cannibals may go on face-eating sprees for no goddamn reason.
-Mechanoids have 4-6x increased health to better illustrate the difference between man and machine, as well as the sheer futility of your resistance.
-Colonists with persistently low mood can commit suicide. Depressive colonists have a 50% chance to immediately hang themselves if they ever reach "major break risk."
-When raiders capture a colonist and you ransom him/her back, that colonist will be missing eyes, ears, a nose, a jaw, a kidney, and a lung. Their legs will be replaced with peg legs and their arms with steel arms. It's no less than what you do to them, after all.

I apologize for the grimdarkness of these terrible suggestions.

Raids expend a handful to dozens of people; that's potentially dozens of laborers, hunters, craftsmen, walking food sources, etc. risked by hostile factions in each attempt to raid your colony. In the early stages it makes sense for opportunistic factions to send small parties to kidnap people for ransom or seize your technology, but it makes a lot less sense for tribesmen to send over a hundred able-bodied men and women to assault a plasteel fortress with bows and spears. So my suggestion is this: give other factions an interest stat and a fear stat (or whatever names would fit better).

Interest is the stat of "why this faction wants to attack you". Let's say it's only been a season and your initial three have set up some wooden buildings and some solar generators, with little in the way of defenses. The place looks bad, feels bad, and has almost no wealth. Hostile tribes would be interested in your electricity, but pirates and outlander towns would likely see nothing worth taking. Meanwhile, an industrial-level compound would definitely attract the attention of all factions, and a spacer-tech settlement would generate high interest. Basically, higher-tech level factions will be more likely to raid you as you progress. They will also potentially send different types of raids (more on that later).

Fear is "why this faction isn't going to". A hard-fought battle with lots of damaged property resulting in the raiders fleeing will slightly raise the faction's fear of messing with you. A successful raid and the passage of time both lower this. Low fear means the faction will raid more often; higher fear means they might even actively try to make peace with you. If fifty tribesmen arrive at the outskirts of a heavily-fortified colony and get torn to pieces by artillery, traps, turrets, and high-tech weaponry and only a single traumatized survivor returns with tales of horror, the village's reaction really shouldn't be "let's send a hundred next season!"

Next up is reasons for raiding. Right now, all the raids more or less focus on killing your colonists and damaging your property. There isn't even a part in the event text saying why a faction is attacking; mechanoids and tribals have the same goals. I suggest that each time a raid/siege happens, it also tells you why. Depending on the faction's fear/interest and your wealth and any recent interactions you've had with them, you'll get a different raid type. Some reasons could include:

-Looting. Happens at low interest. A few raiders have ranged weapons, but nobody is armored; the armed ones will try to pin your defensive forces (taking care to steer clear of turrets) while the looters spread out and attempt to break or climb your walls to steal the first valuable item they see. It could be your precious stock of luciferium, your legendary assault hammer, or the grand sculpture you have outside. The looters are not armed, but have a higher chance of having fast walker/jogger to facilitate the looting process.

-Slaving. Happens at low-medium interest. This is the standard raid where the enemy storms your colony and will leave after downing a few people to take as hostages/slaves.

-Steal materials. Happens at medium interest and medium-high fear. The raiders are primarily concerned with dismantling your fancy walls, your geothermal generators, and your unattended mortars. They take a very spread-out approach, wear personal shields, and wield melee weapons. Pack muffalos or other large beasts of burden will be stationed a bit further back for the raiders to deposit their ill-gotten gains. Once everyone is burdened down with materials, the raiders will attempt to flee. They do NOT want a fight of any sort; any raider with aggro will run for cover, attempt to kite, and generally distract your colonists from dealing with the many other raiders.

-Overrun/Total War/Long Siege. Happens at high interest, low fear, probably only on higher difficulties too. A special raid type where initially a few guys will arrive hauling steel, components, etc. They set up a semi-permanent settlement at the edge of the map - beds, power, sandbags, mortars, and turrets. Every day more raiders arrive carrying with them more food and materials. Some raiders do nothing but maintain the place; the rest will attempt to wear down your colony. Between constant shelling, raiding parties thrice a day, and scattered looters, your colonists will struggle to find time to even eat, let alone sleep or work. However, they'll all retreat if they take too many losses in a single day. Should only happen to large, wealthy colonies.

-Extermination. A special raid type that happens if you especially piss off a faction. This could be requesting a trade caravan just to mug it, or killing a faction's leader, or some other event; either way, it should involve a conscious decision of "fuck these guys" by the player to trigger. Enemies spread out into several small squads with the singular goal of killing ALL your colonists. They will attack generators left unprotected and dismantle steel cabling to deny your base power. Sapper squadrons will make your defensive perimeter porous as a sponge. Lone snipers in each squad will punish you for trying to approach. They will even execute downed colonists if given the chance and will fight to the last man if it means taking down another of your filthy colonists with them. This should be a challenge that the player invites onto him/herself. Even mechanoids aren't this merciless (currently).

Those are all the ideas I have currently. Feel free to share other ideas for raid types.