Do prisoners count towards "ideal colonist amount", and RandyRandom amount?

[stigma]

Hey all,

There is apparently a "ideal amount of colonists" number in each AI that bsically makes sure to offer you opportunities for new recruits if you are below that number (incapacitaed raiders, wanderers, slave ships ect.) but deny those same things if you are maxed. I read somewhere that this was 7 from kassandra classic and something like 14 for phoebe friendly.

I want to know - do prisoners count towards this number, yes, no, or partially in some way? It seems that if I have a lot of my total population in prison then I still sometimes get more people, although perhaps not as frequently? Getting 10-11 people on kassandra seems not too hard to do this way.

I know that doing this is a bit min/maxy but that's how I like to play the game, so I hope you can forgive me for trying to "abuse" the AI

I also want to know, what's this number for Randy Random currently?

EDIT: Also, is there some fairly easy way to mod this number? I think that it might be pretty fun to play a game on hard or random (which is hard in its own ways) but with a less restrictive amount of colonists - as manpower is very often a big limiting factor.

-Stigma

[Sliverine]

After about 30 odd cycles on Cassandra, my ideal colonist amount seems to have tapered off at 11 colonists. I can't seem to get anymore despite expanding my base and building more stuff in general (i was hoping that asset count would somehow affect the colonist count but it doesn't seem to work that way).

Generally, despite saving and replaying raids involving an abnormally large group of raiders (16+) multiple times, I cannot seem to obtain any prisoners even though I make the express effort to engage them in melee. Seems to me the population cap has been reached for me.

It does seem that prisoners are considered 'colonists' in all aspects. When the AI decides that you may obtain another colonist, the chance of getting a prisoner or a slave ship or a escape pod or a wanderer will be extremely high. Most of the time in the later part of the game, prisoners tend to be the main source of additional colonists and any deaths that you may experience will result in either slave ships, escape pods or wanderers.

[Tynan]

The population target system is getting revamped to be a bit less consistent and straightforward. Less of a hard cap.

But yes, prisoners count, but for less.

Melee has no effect on incap chance.

[Sliverine]

The population target system is getting revamped to be a bit less consistent and straightforward. Less of a hard cap.

But yes, prisoners count, but for less.

Melee has no effect on incap chance.

Yea from extensive trials, I have indeed come to the same conclusion that melee has inconsequential effect on incap chance. Glad to know that it does infact have no effect on incap chances...saves me the trouble of engaging them in melee.

Having less of a hard cap would be great. I have reached a stage in the game whereupon I am basically just fast forwarding my way through the game for the raids, in the hope of getting that one additional colonist. I have had no deaths for a long time now and just as a measure of how long I have been playing the same scenario for, my growers have almost 60 skill in growing and my builders are nearly at 30. Its all a big waiting game for me now and I'm honestly considering starting a new randy random game just so I can get some kicks   

[Tynan]

I highly recommend not playing a game this long. Really, the (pre-alpha!) game isn't yet designed to last past about 3-4 hours; this super-high-level craziness is far beyond anything we're even trying to support at this point.

[Sliverine]

So far so good tho, it seems that the scaling is still pretty good even into the high levels and nothing has broken yet, it seems. However, I must add that it takes pretty much forever to get any social and shooting skills, despite regular social chats in the communal dining hall and over 50 raids with the same group of 11 colonists. On the other hand, growing is more or less the easiest skill to level, especially with a large room full of hydroponics benches. The food production is crazy too and I'm now sitting on over 180k food, so much so that I'm actually selling food to farming vessels to get cash.

Perhaps, you could lessen the XP gain for hydroponics farming because the plants seriously grow too fast in brightly lit conditions (by the time my growers finish harvesting the last bench, the first would have fully matured) and at the same time, increase the XP gain for gunshot hits/kills/assists and for social events such as social chats or communications with space faring vessels. Melee XP also needs a buff imo as it takes forever to gain melee xp (about as slowly as shooting, except worse since you never ever get to melee after the 3rd raid or so with all the guns you'd be getting).

Also, not sure if its an intended feature but one does not need sun lamps to grow hydroponics plants. You just need the surroundings to be brightly lit. Rather then use a 800W sunlamp, one can achieve twice the effect by using just 2 normal 150W lamps, which provide for much greater coverage then a single sunlamp can possibly have. I believe sunlamps need a good buff, especially to the lighting radius and intensity. For 800W, it had better be a whole lot brighter than 2 normal lamps.

[nnescio]

So far so good tho, it seems that the scaling is still pretty good even into the high levels and nothing has broken yet, it seems. However, I must add that it takes pretty much forever to get any social and shooting skills, despite regular social chats in the communal dining hall and over 50 raids with the same group of 11 colonists.

I train my colonists' shooting skill by having them use animals for target practice from maximum range and switching targets before they actually die. Pistols are the best training weapons since they have the fastest firing rate and gives the colonist 20 shooting XP per shot (or slightly less if they miss by too much of a distance). Technically the automatic weapons will fire more bullets per second, but they still give the same amount of XP per burst instead of per bullet fired, so the pistol still ends up on top.

Works well for training the colonists' shooting skill from 3 to 6. Any more than that and it takes too long due to the increased amount of XP needed, and the animals die too fast due to the increased accuracy.

Using walls as target practice can also work and gives the construction crew something to practice on, but that requires you to issue a new force-fire command for each shot fired. Generally not worth the trouble, and construction can be trained by building power conduits all over the place (which can be sold for their original price as the sale value is rounded up) or setting an isolated group of walls on fire and have colonists constantly repair them.

This does give me an idea for a suggestion though. Maybe the finished game could include shooting ranges and sparring options like in DF?

[Sliverine]

Indeed as nnescio has mentioned, levelling the shooting above 10 is going to take quite abit of time and generally involves doing things like shooting animals and walls, which i doubt would be fun if done for a prolonged period of time (especially given the amt of time it actually takes). A shooting/sparring range would be an ideal way of solving this issue while adding to game content.

Of course, being able to train colonists this way could be extremely game breaking in a long game with loads of training (which could see people reaching absurd levels of shooting skill) or when used early on. Therefore, making such an option available only after research and putting a cap on the maximum level that you can actually train your skills to (after which only actual combat will garner XP) could be viable solutions to these expected problems. All these are merely suggestions - other solutions do exist, its purely up to the community and the developer to work out which is best.

[nnescio]

Noticed something else. I was treating my colonists for PTSD (read: seeing too many corpses) by checking them in a comfy mental health ward (read: prison) and having the therapist (read: warden) attend to them. My warden was gaining social skill xp at a tremendous rate, at about +55 xp each time he chats with an inmate. The inmates gain about 3~5 xp each time instead. I haven't done much testing, so maybe the warden would get less xp depending on circumstances, but this seems like a great way to train the social skill.

Currently my warden has about 17 social skill (from an initial 7) and gives >100 happiness bonuses to any inmates he chats with (when the "chatting with Warden" moodlet maxes out at x40). Helps keep the colony really happy.

My second warden is the therapist for my first one, and he has a social skill of 7 (from an initial 3).