Impossible to recruit "chief"?

[The Man with No Name]

I have a prisoner I've been trying to recruit for years with no success. She has 99% recruitment difficulty and my recruiting efforts have not gone above 1.7% chance of success.

Even with this low success rate, I feel that with the number of recruitment attempts I've made I should have succeeded by now.

She was captured from a tribal raid and her character type is described as "chief". Is was wondering whether there is some block that makes it impossible to recruit chiefs, despite what the recruitment percentage odds say?

[ArguedPiano]

Probability is a strange thing. You could have a 50% chance of success and still fail 100 attempts in a row. Unlikely but not impossible.
I do not believe there is a  'block'. Just bad RNG.

A 99 difficulty isn't worth it Imo. I usually cap it at 90, or 95 if I have lots of food and few prisoners.

[dkmoo]

I recruited a 99% yeaterday having never gotten above 0.55% in terms of success rate. Succeeded after about 8 months?

Just the luck of the draw.

[The Man with No Name]

After several hundred recruitment attempts, maybe I should quit while I'm only a few hundred fine meals behind then. 

[ArguedPiano]

If they have good stats you could keep trying then sell to the next pirate merchant that comes by. At least get some value out of em.

[dkmoo]

If they have good stats you could keep trying then sell to the next pirate merchant that comes by. At least get some value out of em.

Or sell, then buy them back. The Pirate merchants must have some more effective methods of convincing them so that they become perfectly obedient pawns that willingly join ur colony. =P

[Ukas]

I recruited a 99% yeaterday having never gotten above 0.55% in terms of success rate. Succeeded after about 8 months?

Just the luck of the draw.

Likely, longest 99% I can remember took 16 months with two very highly skilled recruiters working days and nights. One was in for much longer, but got killed during escape attempt. Then one 99er joined just after some days. Mostly I just sell 99ers, but if they have high aim and crafting skills etc. I sometimes make an exception.

[khearn]

If nothing else, a 99er gives your warden lots of exercise for their social skill. Some players are happy to capture them just to use as a "training dummy".

[AngleWyrm]

I have a prisoner I've been trying to recruit for years with no success. She has 99% recruitment difficulty and my recruiting efforts have not gone above 1.7% chance of success.

Even with this low success rate, I feel that with the number of recruitment attempts I've made I should have succeeded by now.

There is a way to calculate the floor instead of the average with probabilities, that answers the question of how many attempts should get me at least one success.

The short version

set confidence = 95%
set successChance = 1.7%

numberOfTries = log(1 - confidence) / log(1 - successChance)

= log(1 - 0.95) / log(1 - 0.017)
= 174 tries

[faltonico]

If you already invested so much time, you would do best to just keep waiting, they will be recruited ...eventually.
The best pawns i have recruited were 99ers, it just takes a very long time.

BUT, If you are not using a mod to prevent massive skill loss, you would better off getting rid of them.

[milon]

I've done it in vanilla, but it's often not worth it IMO. But if you've got there food & manpower available, there's no harm in trying.

[The Man with No Name]

I gave up and my warden let her slip into the night. I have recruited 99%-ers before, even after just a few attempts, but this lady was not for turning.

[AngleWyrm]

The price is 174 tries It is then up to you to decide if that's a good use of 174 of your tries. Or you could decide on a price and then see what that gets you. How many tries do you wish to pay and what percentage of recruitment does that come to? The science of balance is to find the places where what you want and what you are willing to pay coincide.

[about 30 midgets]

When I get those kind of types, I assign several colonists to warden that pawn and then forget about them- but that's the luxury of living in a temp forest, I get lots of excess food due to animals. It's like wrapping a surprise present for myself.

If I get more than I have room for, I harvest them for parts.
Unless they have good stats.

[Shurp]

Keep in mind that you're assuming a truly random number generator -- which Rimworld certainly doesn't have.  Endless failures can be easily explained by a weak RNG, which is pretty common for extreme events.

Does anyone actually know what RNG Rimworld uses?