Storyteller and target popularion

[Pangaea]

Sorry (?) for all the threads, but new questions keep popping up. From what I understand each storyteller has a target population; Cassandra is 12 I think. Currently I have 14 pawns, and 5 prisoners. All 5 are half-decent, so I hope to recruit them. However, do you know what happens if we were to end up with so many people, well above the "target" for the storyteller? Will my pawns die to the tiniest of hits from now on?

[tsmt1001]

You stop getting random events which let you get a pawn, like refugee being chased or wanderer joins. I found that the only limitation on the number of pawns is your hardware. When you have a lot of things moving on the map, your processor can't keep up and the game starts to lag. I had a colony with well over 100 colonists at one point, and when I had a raid, there were nearly 300 pawns on the map, and the game came to a screeching halt. I usually take that sort of thing as a sign that it's time to start a new colony.

[Limdood]

first of all, there is a target population and then a "soft cap" - the target population for cassandra, as you said (and if i remember right) is like 4-12, but there is a new cap, a bit higher, after which the new pawn events REALLY start cutting off.

Randy has the highest soft cap of normal storytellers.

Population limit secretly affects the odds of getting pawn events, things like escape pods, wanderer joins, refugees, and slavers actually having slaves.  It also somewhat effects the difficulty and resistance when you capture a prisoner, and seriously affects the chance of an enemy pawn dying when downed by damage (note, they won't go down from hits that wouldn't normally down them, but when they are downed (from damage), they'll be IMMENSELY likely to die even if no body parts are destroyed or the overall damage suggests they shouldn't be dead)

[Pangaea]

It also somewhat effects the difficulty and resistance when you capture a prisoner, and seriously affects the chance of an enemy pawn dying when downed by damage (note, they won't go down from hits that wouldn't normally down them, but when they are downed (from damage), they'll be IMMENSELY likely to die even if no body parts are destroyed or the overall damage suggests they shouldn't be dead)

This is what really surprised me with the recent captures. Just about nobody have survived for eons due to what you write. However, I carried out a base destruction quest, and 3 of them survived. Another time half the crew was gone to mine some steel (long range scanner), and a 30-person horde attacked our remaining 8 guys. 4 more raiders survived (although I let two useless ones bleed out) -- including a chap who took an autocannon shell to the gut and survived to tell the tale.

So either I was extremely lucky in these events, or it looks like the game only considers the people in the actual base/map rather than everybody in the full colony.

It's so much more fun to fight human, partly because it's more of a fair fight, and partly because you can capture prisoners and possibly recruit them.

[Shurp]

I'm pretty sure it's just the people on the map.  Which is why setting up a second colony expands your recruiting opportunities.