Getting (not getting, and losing) more colonists!

[LittleGreenStone]

It is my opinion that recruitment system (and management) needs some refining, sooner than later.
I have been shaking my head for a while now, so I've decided to collect my thoughts and come up with a (bunch of) suggestions.

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First, we all had these "wanderer decided to join you so suck it up" kind of events, adding cripples to colonies since too long.
I've just had an abrasive, pessimist wanderer of 50something age join my soon-to-be Shangri-La, with weakened manipulation and moving, at the beginning of a game (2 weeks in, tops). Slept outside, disturbed sleep, pessimist, in constant pain, naked, didn't take 2 days to break and attack my other colonists.
...Not sure what I expected.

Removing this feature isn't what I'm talking about, but maybe the choice to actually let them join or not would be great... Sure, one could always make such newcomers attack muffalos, boomrats or other, presumably dangerous animals on the other side of the map, make them charge raiders naked, accidentally drop some roof on them, or just asking another pawn for an afternoon murder, but a more simple and clean solution would be great: Yes or no.

Still, why would a wanderer just decide to join? And especially at the very beginning?
Maybe my colonists are psychopath cannibals preying on wanderers, and they just come ready and willing...?

Instead of that, wanderers could move around alone/in groups and visit your colony (much like other factions' visitors), then, or after they (/he/she) left, one could come back and *ask* to be allowed to join the colony, if they fancy it so much.
That could happen based on the colony's wealth increase in a set period of time, based on the total beauty-rating of the colony, or just randomly after X ticks, because who would want to join a colony consisting of 3 sleeping spots and an outside stockpile?

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Escape pod! Free colonist! IF YOU WANT IT! Perfect. Or is it?
The option to rescue such escapees is great. You treat them and they leave without a word...? Preposterous!
Of course, one could always imprison them but why would you, if you had any other ways to convince them to join your cause?
If I happened to crash on a nowhere planet and a group of nice people would treat my wounds, offer me a badass gun and a fluffy bed, maybe I would like the idea of joining them more than if they shacked and imprisoned me. A small feature that wouldn't change the gameplay much, but the atmosphere of it, based on players' will.

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Visitors! Visitors come, sometimes to aid you, but more often just to chill in your freezer, eat at your table, and sleep between doors to ensure your colony is getting enough fresh air, even if it's -30�C outside.
Sometimes they are wounded and require help, which you can provide!
(I rarely bother with it, does it increase their goodwill at all?)
Then they leave. Outrageous behaviour, they have no shame.

So, arresting one (possibly more, never tried), and making that faction your enemy is an option.
The possibility of convincing them to join, with less goodwill damage would be great (already suggested, I know),
and how about the possibility of them deciding *asking* to join you because, well, you just saved their lives?

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Raiders! Raiders come and burn your crops and eat your colonists!
Repel them and they'll come back, again and again. Good, wouldn't be very interesting any other way.
But that's all they do. Come, attack, get killed/try to flee.
Occasionally a raider (be it a heavily wounded one or even a healthy one) could just surrender, as a different kind of "wanderer has joined you" event. Okay, maybe not, but another kind of "potential colonist" event.
Of course, a raider on the other side of the map surrendering wouldn't make a lot of sense, it could happen in case the raider is inside the "home zone", or within X tiles of a colonist.

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These, and likely other people's suggestions give a good variety on how-to-get-more-colonists.
Possibly it could be balanced out, or alternatively, people could lose potential colonists too (among other things).
Losing a pawn who was part of the colony for a long time was annoying (I'm looking at you, ex spy/traitor event),
but it is my opinion that losing, or to be more precise, the chance of losing only a potential colonist, namely a prisoner, wouldn't be that much of a party pooper.

For one, prisoners could try to escape when colonists sleep, unlocking the prison's door (/and removing the shackles), without a big, flashy warning they could just stroll out casually (already suggested, but I felt I should add it anyway, for the context).

Escapees (from escape pods), wanderers and visitors could outright refuse to join, whatever, or after a few days they could decide to try their luck elsewhere,

wanderers could also turn out to be thieves, taking food or other item(s) from the colony,

and raiders surrendered could be a deceit, busting themselves (and possibly others) out,
and/or trying to attack colonists in their sleep.

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That's all, please do share your thoughts on the matter.

Thank you for reading, have a nice day.


E: Tried to remove grammatical and spelling mistakes.

[GamerGuy]

Yeah I do think we need more ways to get colonists

[Adamiks]

Nice stone, nice. I like talking stones and their ideas!

[milon]

I really like the optional-join idea.  Much better than arrest-anger-calm-recruit than we currently have.  Here's my add-on to that:
Every human pawn should have some kind of (hidden?) I-want-to-join threshold.  The higher the related values are, the more likely that pawn will ask to join the colony (but should still be a fairly rare event).  What related values?  I'm glad you asked!  For wanderers/spacers, it could be medicine.  For tribals, it could be food.  Wealth for raiders.  Social chats for neighbors.  Free beds.  A spaceship that's (nearly) complete.  You get the idea.

[LittleGreenStone]

Nice stone, nice. I like talking stones and their ideas!

I can't talk, just roll around on the keyboard enthusiastically. ^^

I really like the optional-join idea.  Much better than arrest-anger-calm-recruit than we currently have.  Here's my add-on to that:
Every human pawn should have some kind of (hidden?) I-want-to-join threshold.  The higher the related values are, the more likely that pawn will ask to join the colony (but should still be a fairly rare event).  What related values?  I'm glad you asked!  For wanderers/spacers, it could be medicine.  For tribals, it could be food.  Wealth for raiders.  Social chats for neighbors.  Free beds.  A spaceship that's (nearly) complete.  You get the idea.

That's taking it to a new level! Sounds like fun, but I'm not even sure my ideas have an optimal work/gain ratio, this would be... Even more. Still, that sounds good, giving different "factions" different interests, and so, different I-want-to-join thresholds based on the "wealth" (food, medicine, stuff you mentioned) of individual colonies!

[Kegereneku]

I think we are basically trying to define a "Guest Class" pawn.

So far I'm wondering if we are not missing the link in this table.

	[Not-staying]	[Staying]
Friendly	Friendly	Colonist
Neutral	Visitor	<GUEST>
Enemy	Hostile	Prisoner

Of course the class can be made more complicated depending if you rescued a lone wanderer or invited a faction.
But from here the main problem would be to define "conditions" above and bellow which a guest want to leave or join definitely.

[SSS]

I'm glad I decided to read this thread. These are some really cool ideas!

Can I +1 all of it...? Improving pawn interactions would be worthy of a whole alpha release imo.