Is refugee chase event imbalanced in difficulty?

[asanbr]

I always accept refugee chase in the first moments of the game since Cassandra, and mostly Randy, will always basically give 1 "free" colonist in exchange for killing 1 melee pirate or tribal with a low quality weapon, who also often becomes a colonist himself.

I also always refuse any such event from 1 month or so into the game because it seems to me that the raids generated are out of balance. They include more people and better equipped than a normal raid, and are simply too dangerous and not worth the risk.

Has anyone else thought about this? I haven't looked into the files or anything. It has just become part of how I play, from experience, but I thought that something might be off here in the event config.

[Snafu_RW]

Every colonist & construction you add to your base adds to your base value (some things add more; some less). Colonist health increases their value

Raid sizes scale with base value, so the more valuable your base the larger the raid

Umm.. not much more to be said, I think: you can discover the various nuances by yourself given this basic understanding

[Ghasty]

I feel the same as you OP, espcailly on higher difficulties. If I don't have a killbox with at least 6 turrets that refugee gotta take a trip to the school of hard shots.

[Jeimss]

It also seems to me that the raid coming from chased refugee are to strong compare to the normal raid. Early in my last game, the raiders were only equip with some shoddy equipment, pistols, survival rifle and sometime a shotgun.

A chased refugee event appeared and the raiders are better equiped (assault rifle, triple rockets, power armor) and with 2 to 3 more raiders than a regular party.

Before A17, I always said yes to a refugee early in my games, but now, I say no, because, I often lose a expericed colonist for saving the new one.

[pdxsean]

Pretty sure it's in the game that raids for refugees are 150% the size of a normal raid. That is the intention, balancing out the fact that you get a free colonist - you have to face a greater challenge. That is to say, it is a feature not a bug.

[b0rsuk]

Yes, chasing raids are stronger than normal. What's worse, you need to be able to handle TWO raids within short timespan. Raids are normally spread out in time, but refugee raid ignores all normal grace periods. Watch out if you didn't have a normal raid in a while.

[ColonistGirl]

Some of the groups of enemies chasing refugess can be pretty hilariously large. In one game I set up the planet as being absolutely crawling with cannibal tribes (had the scenario start every NPC with a 100% chance for Cannibal trait), and have it pop up a refugee every quadrum or so. As we got larger, the pursuits started turning into something out of a movie.

The last one was this poor naked girl fleeing for her life being chased by literally like 60 tribals. Luckily our colony at that point was very well-defended, with a killbox-from-hell set up on the coast, which forced enemies to slog through water as well as over rocks, slowing them down immensely). The heroic colonists were positioned behind a fire-wall and sandbags, and just tore the tribals apart with their charge rifles.

Ended up capturing about 10 tribals, and selling most of them off as slaves. One ended up joining us.

[PatrykSzczescie]

Yes, chasing raids are stronger than normal. What's worse, you need to be able to handle TWO raids within short timespan. Raids are normally spread out in time, but refugee raid ignores all normal grace periods. Watch out if you didn't have a normal raid in a while.

Even if you have Phoebe as the storyteller?

[SpaceDorf]

I love the refugee chase, because it gives me a lot of possible recruits early on, which are all better than the one sucky refugee you get.

[faltonico]

Imbalanced because the chances of getting someone useful are close to none, not worth it risking your pawns for that. And later in the game they all drop on top of you.
As per usual, a mod to see if it worth the chase is available, you can see then if you want to risk it.

[Sola]

Definitely imbalanced due to the raid-timing aspect alone.  If you get hit too hard, there's a chance you could have a second raid immediately after, while you're in no condition to deal with it.

[Yoshida Keiji]

I just quit my latest game as it was the third in a row where my 9th Colonist (a refugee) became the third Incapable of Violence to the point that all my games are now getting me 3 IoV out of 9 with only 2 shooters out of the remaining six...

I have decided not to accept anymore refugees if already having 2 IoV... or maybe 1... I swear in A16 I used to have better luck with RNG. Tired of having to fend off raids with only 2 shooters.

But mainly, I think we need to check which Faction is chasing said refugee, if Tribal or Pirate. I'm not risking pirate raids in Lost Tribe games...until I get turrets maybe...

[TheMeInTeam]

I accept them unless I'm in really bad straits.  I can always imprison a bad refugee and let them "escape", and the raids bring value with them. 

As long as you have a choke tribal raid types are the easiest to handle out of the possibilities, killbox or not.

[BioFringe]

Obviously subjective so I'll throw in my 1-cent worth of anecdotal opinion on the matter...Yes!

These "raids" are part of the reason that I declared myself the Ultimate DM of all of my RimWorld games. I'm no longer afraid nor ashamed to pop that Dev Mode on and balance the scales...after all, I'm a Libra so that's what we do.

I find it funny that there would be 15+ fully equipped men chasing a fully naked male through the world. This has been my experience more often than not. So to the idea that this is balanced because you're getting a "free" colonist I say...Blah! Most of the time that "free" colonist is an idiot that I'd prefer to not have. To me, the balance comes from the fact that I have no idea what this person will be like before accepting them into the colony.

I ran an Accept All colony that started with 1 male colonist and ended up with 11 females joining and 8 of them were pacifists. Sounds like bliss unless you're in the Rim. How are we supposed to fend off a raid of 15+ fully equipped pawns chasing 1 person when all we have are 4 people that can fight? The game doesn't consider these circumstances to my satisfaction so I take over and a few adjustments later the colony has a fair fight on their hands.

TL;DR The game will kill you regardless of fairness and these types of raids are just one example of the lengths that the AI will go to in order to achieve that goal. Don't like it? Use Dev Mode.

[Swat_Raptor]

I sometimes accept these chases but really never as a source of recruitment, I either say yes because of a few reasons

1: the chased is a relative and I don't want the mood debuff.
2: I really want a tough raid, usually out of boredom because I haven't been attacked for some time.
3: I want their stuff

Really whenever I say yes anymore I arrest the Survivor leave them in the jail cell near map edge and leave the door open.

I wish there was a way to give Temporary refuge to the chased, they stick around for a for a while then leave.