Difficulty of Lost Tribe VS Rich Explorer

[dragonalumni]

Short and to the point, I highly disagree that Lost Tribe [described as difficult] is harder than Rich Explorer [described as EXTRA difficult] in the in-game description.

Starting a game with 5 naked people and a tech penalty that never goes away and will make you suffer and scream when you are trying to research space-ships. You will spend the entire game just needing to produce food and essentials for that 1 guy to research while you try to find off sniper rifles and robots with just short bows.

vs

One guy who starts with a charge rifle and can make a couple of turrets immediately. (That one guy should be rolled so that he/she is not prohibited from any activity at least and have a decent shooting skill) but basically besides that anything will do.

Well it's just my feeling, I'm curious as always if others agree with me.

[Albion]

The difficulty is regarding the start I guess. It's way easier to get your colony running if you start with 5 dudes that have different specialties compared to one guy who needs to be decent at a lot of things.

I usually struggled more with the one dude over 5 different guys. Also: if one of your tribesmen dies it's bad but not horrible. If your sole explorer gets shot... Game over.

Regarding the research: I hope you are aware that you can build multiple research benches so multiple pawns can research on the same thing. It'll still take way longer than if you start with industrial level but it is faster than just waiting for that one guy to finish.

[dragonalumni]

The difficulty is regarding the start I guess.

Although that might be true, like you said you have 5 guys you can kill off before you're dead and 5 workers to make stuff, I think it's still debatable because for a novice player you have to manage food and everything else 5 times as much. Still it might be more even if you just mean "the start" but long-term I don't think there is any such comparison.

[Albion]

Well long term you are moderately fucked as a tribe since you research way slower (which can be mitigated by multiple research tables) but at least during the early game the increase in numbers is quite beneficial and somewhat offsets the drawback of having less advanced research/guns.
5 guys are also quicker to set up food production and housing. Yes you'll need more of everything since you got more people to take care of but the increase in (more highly) skilled labour force will help you with that.
As a new player you might not utilise this fully but neither will you do it with a rich explorer or the default start.

In conclusion I think the rich explorer is a bitch to start with but once you got a few additional colonists the drawbacks go away and you're left with a very good gun during early-mid game.
The tribes are an okay start and although they have less advanced weapons they make it up in numbers/meatshields. However the decreased research speed is a bitch and will never go away.
The default start is basically the compromise/average between the two.
It's difficult to label one of them "more difficult" than the other one (except the default start) but I wouldn't recommend the rich explorer to a new player but might suggest it the tribal one.
I personally would choose the rich explorer though since it's more satisfying if you manage to survive early game and you don't have the drawback of slow research.

One last thing: there are mods like the AI uplift assistant that I created due to a request which increase research speed. https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=37543

[Canute]

With 5 people tribal, you have a great selection of pawn. Basicly you can have for nearly each category an own pawn.
You can afford to have a researcher from the beginning, same for a crafter,builder,grower and cook.
This enhance the start for the most biome's but made it difficulter on extreme if you don't find any food.

But as Rich explorer you won't be alone very long. Mosttimes the storyteller throw in a chased refuge,wanderer join or rescue pod.
And your rich explorer should have passable social skill to recruit more.

Ofcourse you can made it all difficulter and play complety with random pawn's :-)

[b0rsuk]

The Rich Explorer is the only one I haven't played yet, but I think it should be easier than the Lost Tribe. The research gap... oh, man!

Technically, the research penalty does go away eventually - once you research everything, hee hee hee! What doesn't get away is your faction affiliation. A tribe will remain a tribe, and Crash Landed/Rich Explorer are affiliated with "spacers".

There are far fewer tribal pawns with disabilities (won't do job X) than civilized pawns. Paradoxically, because tribals got such condescending treatment and only have several basic character backgrounds, they're good "worker ants". Basically tribal backgrounds were thought out as an enemy faction, so they had to be able. They're much less fussy and you can assign them to any jobs. I also don't think they come with addictions - do they? I mean the new recruits.

On the other hand, I think the (soft) population cap is the same for The Lost Tribe and the Rich Explorer. I mean the game is more likely to throw recruits your way when your colony is smaller. Additionally, the number of survivors in ancient cryosleep caskets seems to depend on your colony size. Early on, you can fairly easily snatch a couple of people from a vault, some of them in power armor and/or with bionics. If you open one as a bigger colony, they're mostly dead. The bottom line: Rich Explorer "colony" should grow much faster initially.

One trick I have only pulled off with The Lost Tribe is harvesting Devilstrand before the first winter in Temperate zone. You need two decent researchers, like level 5-6 and assign them to research on day 1. You also need a grower with skill about 8. Level 10 is overkill, because he won't be able to plant devilstrand in the first few days anyway, and will be trained by planting other crops you'll need (like healroot, healroot, food, cotton). I harvested 340ish, you might get more because I got an early Cold Snap. Naturally you need to harvest prematurely at around 75%.

[TheMeInTeam]

In terms of opening, it's nonsense to say rich explorer is harder than tribal, at least on high difficulties.  Charge rifle, turret tech, and starting with tons of food all greatly reduce the initial work outlay just to survive, and the game throws recruits fast when your numbers are really small.

I've done 1 man tribal starts with no resources often enough, [most recently on permanent winter tundra randy/extreme as part of a reddit challenge](https://i.imgur.com/OpDEx68.jpg).  The limitation of a 1 man start is not as significant as the immediate food crunch and poor defensive options for tribes, assuming you have decent micro.  Delayed access to electricity also complicates positions like this significantly...rich explorer can immediately set up indoor growing on any biome with soil in contrast.

Ironically, it's in the mid-late game that the differences between factions smooth out.  Despite the 4x tech cost, once you have two high level researchers going in shifts you'll have deep drills by late 5502 or early 5503, and even without much focus beyond that all techs by 5505 as tribal.  The bottleneck then becomes RNG access to uranium and AI persona cores...all factions will long since have access to weapon manufacturing, tons of wealth, and lots of pawns by late 5503.

As far as biomes go, tribal on ice sheet and sea ice is nearly impossible RNG w/o doing mechanic abuse or cannibalism.  Not so for rich explorer.

Basically, the game alleges rich explorer is harder, and at least for experienced players the game is wrong.

[Toast]

There are far fewer tribal pawns with disabilities (won't do job X) than civilized pawns. Paradoxically, because tribals got such condescending treatment and only have several basic character backgrounds, they're good "worker ants". Basically tribal backgrounds were thought out as an enemy faction, so they had to be able. They're much less fussy and you can assign them to any jobs. I also don't think they come with addictions - do they? I mean the new recruits.

They can, yeah. I see them with smokeleaf and ambrosia addictions sometimes--but they don't seem to come with the drug-lab-required drug addictions, like go-juice.

The best part about tribal pawns is indeed that almost none of them refuse to pick up a pile of stuff and move it somewhere else. Starting with 5 strong and willing workers is a very nice aspect of Tribal scenario.

I've played all 3 scenarios multiples times and I think that whether Tribal or Rich Explorer is "more difficult" is ultimately going to vary wildly depending on personal playstyle, biome, and other factors, such that declaring one or the other to be Most Difficultest is never going to satisfy all experienced players. The game already does what it needs to do, which is to warn the novice that both of them are harder than average.

[sick puppy]

There are far fewer tribal pawns with disabilities (won't do job X) than civilized pawns. Paradoxically, because tribals got such condescending treatment and only have several basic character backgrounds, they're good "worker ants". Basically tribal backgrounds were thought out as an enemy faction, so they had to be able. They're much less fussy and you can assign them to any jobs. I also don't think they come with addictions - do they? I mean the new recruits.

They can, yeah. I see them with smokeleaf and ambrosia addictions sometimes--but they don't seem to come with the drug-lab-required drug addictions, like go-juice.

The best part about tribal pawns is indeed that almost none of them refuse to pick up a pile of stuff and move it somewhere else. Starting with 5 strong and willing workers is a very nice aspect of Tribal scenario.

I've played all 3 scenarios multiples times and I think that whether Tribal or Rich Explorer is "more difficult" is ultimately going to vary wildly depending on personal playstyle, biome, and other factors, such that declaring one or the other to be Most Difficultest is never going to satisfy all experienced players. The game already does what it needs to do, which is to warn the novice that both of them are harder than average.

indeed. my first tribal start was with a doctor with three scars and an alcohol addiction. needless to say, he was out of action for what felt like ages. additionally, one of my tribals was incapable of violence. at least i could use all the bows that i started off with...and no, i wont randomize my pawns to get the best possible outcome.

i always start off with what i get. and that time i got a chemically interested asthmatic pawn, a chemically interested sole survivor (pacifist), a loner that is incapable of social, a chemically fascinated game fanatic/tool mechanic that is incapable of animals, artistic and plantwork and lastly the triple scarred alcoholic.

fitting to the other points from before, the idea about ancient cryptosleep caskets is wrong. they get generated at map start and eventhough i started off with 5 pawns, i only had a single pawn inside. he also survived and joined me later on.

i have tried out all three vanilla starts and have to say that crashlanded is by far the easiest, rich explorer second. tribal start is definitely the most difficult and frustrating and everything.
why is rich explorer second for me? since you start off with 4 pawns less than the tribals, the possibility of wanderers and refugees joining you and is exceptionally high, so the extremely low possibility of your rich explorer getting lethally sick gets mitigated additionally by that new recruit. so essentially, the biggest draw ack very quickly gets offset by all three story tellers, even randy.
you get an excellent weapon to defend yourself with as a rich explorer, not so as a tribe. there, you have to use numbers to win, kite and maybe even tank some hts and heal later on. but you dont start off with armor for tanking. all in all, battles are easier with the rich explorer.
rich explorers get a great amount of food and other starting resources, tribals dont. tribals are in much more trouble on resource scarce maps, especially since they have so many more mouthes to feed.
the argument of having more hands to help you in the first minutes might be true to a degree, but even in temperatures around absolute zero you have enough time to build yourself a hut with the rich explorer, so unless you want to build a big house, say, for your tribals to live and work in for an extended amount of time, you dont really have a downside there as an experienced player.
lastly, tech. rich explorers can quickly build sentry guns. tribals cant even make proper clothes. mid to long term this just doesnt get better either because of tribal research. the few additional pawns dont help in the slightest either, because instead of an early boost in manpower for research all you can do with them is getting food and live to see tomorrow

but yeah, as said before me, in the end, you have to figure it out for yourself. and granted, without randomizing rich explorers, you will get many failed colonies, but once you survived that initial difficulty due to your rich explorer's potential disabilities, there is just nothing to stop him.

[cultist]

There' more to it than that, though. Tribes have extra problems with cold maps, as you need a lot of food from the start and you're completely dependent on hunting or growing your own. The rich explorer quickly picks up extra pawns, as the chance of these events triggering is affected by colony size. It's not just a matter of how the scenario is designed, but how the game progresses that's the issue. Starting with lots of pawns with low research capability means you will be facing larger, technologically superior raids for most of the game. There's also the fact that tribals lean towards melee rather than shooting, which is a handicap in itself.

[b0rsuk]

Cultist is spot on. I can add that while a determined player *can* harvest devilstrand before first winter, proper armor requires at the very least "complex clothing" for devilstrand, or "machining" for kevlar vest and helmets. I haven't tried war masks yet. But in the last version I played vest + helmet are crucial to reducing fatalities. They protect neck, brain, torso, heart, liver etc. Those are potential kill shots, and you can replace almost everything else.

Early on, melee often works better against ranged enemies because you can tie them. Your shortbows won't go far against an (usually awful or shoddy) assault rifle, which might show up in a second or third raid!

Higher tech colonies (crashlanded, rich explorer) don't really get any advantage in war beast department. Unfortunately there's little you can do past stockpiling herbal medicine to make beasts better. You will need lots and LOTS of herbal meds for that strategy, I'm thinking 100-200 in year 2 for animals alone at least. But it will help you last until armor or even swarm early mechanoids (like from an ancient danger room - should handle everything except inferno centipede). War animals are specially good for tribals incapable of violence or crippled in some ways. To minimize psychological trauma, only train designated war beasts in Obedience and Release. More time spent is not worth it and increases the chance of animal bond. That's good for pets and haulers, not cannon fodder you may want to slaughter if it loses 2 paws.

[Romi]

Lost Tribe is my fav. scenario to start.