Is 100 citizens actually the cap or do I need some of the big wigs from the homeland to unlock a higher count? I noticed too that the only ways to get new colonists is from the homeland or defecting bandits. Do any other factions gift you with colonists?
It is currently the cap, yes. We originally set it there before we had expectations that people would get very far, but now that the game is much more stable and there's a lot more to do, we'll see what happens with it.
I recall some time ago a explanation that the cap was partially to do with the threshold point for the player to be able to still stay on top of tracking colonists to stand a chance of avoiding the consequences of what a handful of individual 'problem colonists' could throw at a colony, as at the time the significance of colonists of middle class or above was going to be pretty important and a disgruntled colonist high up in the hierarchy could trigger serious problems. However I don't think with the shift in game design and the marginalisation of colonists this really applies any more. I can't even remember the last time I gave a damn about any single colonist or even cared about their traits or personal emotional state outside of "xxx workshop isn't all that productive. Is the overseer happy enough?". And if they're not happy enough, just whack down more rugs and place more beds and their emotional state will average out positively again. Heck I can honestly say I don't even recall the specifics on any colonist living in a colony whilst I'm actively playing other than by their work skill proficiency, so "That's the guy handy for the carpentry. That's the one good for cooking. That's the one handy to keep unassigned to be a naturalist later".... That's all colonists feel like now. Generic people shaped drones to grade on where they're most efficiently applied as part of the heavy industrial micro-management game I'm playing. All the other information seems to be fluff thrown in that has no bearing to the game, and the significance of a individual colonist doesn't even register.... when there's a lull in my production micro-management duties I might just scroll through and read traits or recent memories just to pass the time, but that's all such things seem to be now. A distraction to read through when there's little else going on. So might as well just raise the cap now if performance isn't greatly impacted. Because the importance of staying on top of individual colonists seems to be part of some design for the game that never ended up being achieved, and things went in another direction instead to put the colonist simulation and significance of it aside in favour of a heavily focused colonial economy simulator.
I hit 84 colonists and what I really reeeeally needed was some more Overseers to run, say, the pub; but none turned up. The game kept offering me lower-class workers and I kept rejecting them, because with only 16 free bunks in the colony, I needed people who could run a workshop more than more labour. I'm not sure how the immigration system works, basically.
I'm holding out hope that the traits will all still be implemented and have an impact. With that, along with personal property, desire fulfillment, a good reason for the upper class, and cults (for the love of Cog can we please get cults back already), I can see myself getting interested in following individuals again. For now though, you're absolutely right - they are drones.
I believe the first overseer immigration event each colony receives covers it, but what causes overseer immigration is your colony economic output reaching certain thresholds. Whilst worker immigration is a fixed timed interval event. So the more resource you gather, and most importantly goods you make in the workshops the more frequently you will trigger overseer immigration. Not ever bothered with them, but I believe it's still the case where high-class colonists arrive purely based on the number of high class dwellings you build in your colony.
Maybe different modes can be implanted in the future? One where it's just you raising enough resources to fight off waves of enemies and the inevitable rise of the communists or cultists.. One with less colonists but heavier on the micromanagement with the needs of each different colonist matter for events, and where there is never enough food! And one in the middle with 100 colonists max. I'm sure yall have a code to make all those little traits dormant like you did to the cults etc,
It's getting bumped to 150 in the next experimental. As a caveat, and also because the embark screen is freakin' huge right now, the embark map will be halved in size.
It's funny how after a while the big deal is making a lot of beds and food, if you're trying for really high populations. What's odder perhaps is that you have colonists working to feed and shelter colonists which gets you... well, a ton of colonists, I guess.
I had one game where the success cycle caught up with me and I had starving colonists. Was suddenly running out of room and food. So yes, a whole slew of folks were busy making food, building beds, and making bricabrac to build things like clothes lines. Fun problem to have I guess.
Here's question I just thought of. If there is a new cap on colonists at 150, do we get more overseers too?
