Trying to set up a team of good scavengers from "random" captures is proving difficult (while also trying to keep other functions manned). Is it possible to guarantee a significant flow of merchandise every day, so you can use manufacturing more often? I have 8 scavangers all with the scavenger trait, survival skills vary and some other traits like nerd or techie. Apart from end-of-day scavenging, I'm getting what I can by scavenging with my main combat squad (because I'm also trying to be ambushed to hunt down and sell more slaves while also possibly getting a bit more merchandise). Should I, instead, equip and train a secondary squad of my 4 scavengers with best fighting skills, and only scavenge with them? With what I'm gathering, certainly less than 100 merchandise per day and a lot of scrap metal and other crap I'm already sitting on too much of. Can't produce more than a batch of 50 rifles, say, every 2 to 3 weeks. Or keep the sweat shop running and forget about it (runs out of merchandise faster than I can refill it). Not necessarily anything wrong, it's just that manufacturing doesn't seem to be the fast cash farming method people say it is. Maybe it was nerfed? Should I be looking into gunpowder and making ammo instead of rifles? I did the math for weapons, and standard rifles (non-automatic) seem to have the best return per materials and production units combined, but didn't include ammo in my spreadsheet.
Another question, if I eliminate a faction (say, the red river pirates) to stop their impact on my investments, do they have a chance of returning if control is very low, or are they gone for good? Since high level enemies seem to be the quickest cash cow available, I'm reluctant to do away with them completely