How rare are slavers supposed to be?

lt_halle · November 10, 2013, 06:55:57 PM

This is just a semi-random question. I'm on day 110 or so. I have enough hydroponics capacity to feed 25 colonists indefinitely. I have tens of thousands of credits. The only problem? I have about 10 colonists. I've been waiting for slavers to pass by so I can buy more workers, but in my entire, 8+ hour game, only one slaver ship has ever passed by and it was a few days into the colony before I had resources to buy anyone.

Is it normal for slave ships to be this rare? I get ships once every few days but they're always industrial traders of combat suppliers.

ShadowDragon8685 · November 10, 2013, 06:59:02 PM

Tynan programmed the game to stop letting you recruit folks after you start to get above ten colonists. So no slavers.

To work around this, imprison like, five of your colonists or so. Make everybody else warden so they'll be constantly ready to rejoin if you should need them.

lt_halle · November 10, 2013, 07:14:07 PM

I read something about that, but I only reached 10 colonists about 10 IG days ago. So from about day 10 to day 100 there were 0 slaver ships at all.

Altosk · November 10, 2013, 07:36:13 PM

Ive just been changing the story teller from whatever im playing to Random every 60 days or so. The raider count doesnt change by much but slave ships and random people walking around the map starts back up. Then every 45 days or so everything seems to stop and ill change it again.

Morrigi · November 11, 2013, 04:04:07 PM

Why is this, anyway? It's a bit immersion-breaking IMO.

ShadowDragon8685 · November 11, 2013, 04:07:25 PM

Quote from: Morrigi on November 11, 2013, 04:04:07 PM
Why is this, anyway? It's a bit immersion-breaking IMO.

Because Ty doesn't want it to be a high-population game, which is a little silly in a game which is so explicitly inspired by Dwarf Fortress.

lt_halle · November 11, 2013, 04:31:49 PM

Yeah I don't get it either. High population is one thing, but it would be neat to have like 20-30 colonists. That's a tiny fort in DF, but you'd have to have amazing luck to get there in this game.

Also, is it a hard limit or a soft limit? I actually have 12 colonists on my newest base right now because after I bought my way up to 10 from a slave trader, I incapacitated two more in a later raid and captured them.

Bobthefarmer1 · November 11, 2013, 05:54:47 PM

Quote from: lt_halle on November 11, 2013, 04:31:49 PM
Yeah I don't get it either. High population is one thing, but it would be neat to have like 20-30 colonists. That's a tiny fort in DF, but you'd have to have amazing luck to get there in this game.

Also, is it a hard limit or a soft limit? I actually have 12 colonists on my newest base right now because after I bought my way up to 10 from a slave trader, I incapacitated two more in a later raid and captured them.

No, I have 17 on mine using Cassandra.

Lechai · November 11, 2013, 08:42:23 PM

im on randy and have between 40-50 colonists and still growing

Going to see how many i can get before it crashes my PC

lt_halle · November 11, 2013, 11:33:28 PM

Quote from: Lechai on November 11, 2013, 08:42:23 PM
im on randy and have between 40-50 colonists and still growing

Going to see how many i can get before it crashes my PC

I tried playing on Randy to get a buttload of colonists since I have a really powerful PC, but unfortunately I gave up after I had a day 2 eclipse (no food for you, colonists!), then got back from the brink of starvation only to be raided by a group of six raiders right after, who I just barely held off with a sandbag trap. By that I mean I set up sandbags for the raiders to cower behind and then lobbed frags at them till they were dead. After the herd of muffalo went insane right next to my base and another herd stomped in to eat all my crops while I had a total of 9 stockpiled food I decided enough was enough.

I'll probably go back some day and try again though.

Morrigi · November 12, 2013, 10:27:25 PM

Quote from: ShadowDragon8685 on November 11, 2013, 04:07:25 PM
Quote from: Morrigi on November 11, 2013, 04:04:07 PM
Why is this, anyway? It's a bit immersion-breaking IMO.

Because Ty doesn't want it to be a high-population game, which is a little silly in a game which is so explicitly inspired by Dwarf Fortress.

Indeed. Generally speaking, hard caps for arbitrary reasons tend to detract from the gameplay experience. Even with Dwarf Fortress, the population cap is editable and most players can't even reach the default and get higher than 10 fps.

Nasikabatrachus · November 12, 2013, 11:06:11 PM

I've got 30+ colonists on my Randy Random game. Higher numbers on Randy seems to be common. One important source of colonists for that game is raiders. Rather than actually fight the raiders, because their numbers are usually overwhelming, I simply wall off the colony at a chokepoint leading into the mountain (it's more exciting than it sounds, since doing so requires a certain amount of management with a lot of colonists, and thus has the potential to go wrong). After the raiders have finished setting fire to everything outside and bashing their heads against free-standing walls, they're often starving, so 1-2 per large raid will have a mental break, allowing me to snap them up. I suspect the same method would work on the Cassandra modes, but I haven't tried.

As for the wisdom of having mechanisms to keep the size of colonies down, I think it's a good idea, although I would rather have it be optional at a certain level. Though the game is strongly influenced by DF, it's still not the same thing, so I don't see the problem there.

Stickle · November 12, 2013, 11:24:09 PM

As the game stands now, I think the difficulty of obtaining new colonists is too high (and it also feels very artificial - it just feels weird to see 3 slave traders in as many days near the start of the game, and never see a single one after you have 10 colonists).

But in the future, when there is more to do besides just building a bigger base for more people, then I think some of the focus might be shifted to other things. Right now, I definitely wish getting new people didn't get so much harder with time, but in the future it might make more sense from a gameplay persepective.

Nasikabatrachus · November 12, 2013, 11:58:21 PM

Quote from: Stickle on November 12, 2013, 11:24:09 PM
As the game stands now, I think the difficulty of obtaining new colonists is too high (and it also feels very artificial - it just feels weird to see 3 slave traders in as many days near the start of the game, and never see a single one after you have 10 colonists).

But in the future, when there is more to do besides just building a bigger base for more people, then I think some of the focus might be shifted to other things. Right now, I definitely wish getting new people didn't get so much harder with time, but in the future it might make more sense from a gameplay persepective.

The artificiality of the limiting mechanisms is the only thing that annoys me. I'd like it to be more difficult to get a new colonist because the current colonists don't approve of slavery, or don't want to welcome a raider into their midst, etc., rather than for the well to simply run dry.

Ric · November 13, 2013, 05:30:27 AM

yeh, having no more than 10-15 is definitely a limitation. Hopefully this will expand in the future.

As has been said above me, it's the only limitation of the game that frustrates me. Around 30 would be much better imo. Especially for the size of the maps. It would be way too sparse for a dozen only colonists

Although I have managed to get up to 25 in my current "Normal Cassandra" with some Melee micro to get prisoners. It feels like a good number just now. Capable of handling most jobs quite quickly & offering plenty of fire support during raids.