u/Matteuz77_

It took 46 hours, an insane amount of bad luck and 1838 days since my first win in the game lol.

I picked up the game again at the start of 2024 and had other huge breaks in between but i'm finally done, i feel so relieved man.

Maybe i missed the right posts but i looked for a while on tips for the achievement and found almost nothing.

Soo...i'm doing one myself with almost 10h of fresh practice for this achievement.
(Yeah i'm pretty unlucky)

Disclaimer: Most of the technical stuff i'm about to say are from Google AI, i'm not a genius and i don't have 3k hours on the game.

Btw idk how the AI knows that much it's actually kinda creepy but whatever.
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Questions (and answers) i had that maybe you also have:

-How to have a family member kidnapped?

There are a few things you can do to have the bandits kidnap a family member:

-You can get followed in an expeditions or hope that with enough successful expeditions the bandits set up camp near you, those 2 will eventually trigger the "Payback time" event which lets you attack the bandits in order to get rid of them.
(You know it's the right event if you can attack them with only the axe or gun, also there's a giant scribble of a stickman with a knife on the page of the diary)

You don't want to attack them if that event triggers, you want to wait until eventually they attack you.

If they attack you there's a chance of them kidnapping one of your family members if you don't use anything to defend yourself, and by experiece i can say that they don't only kidnap children, i lost a run because i had only 1 adult and they took it, so to be safe you need 2 adults.

The right bandits attack is the one that you can defend yourself with the harmonica-lock-axe-gun.
(btw on this attack they don't explicitly say that the "bandits" are attacking you, but it's definitely them if you have the options i said and if you have already triggered the payback time event)

Every other attack from "bad guys", "thugs" or whatever is not the right one except for one special prompt which is REALLY rare, (i got it once in 10h) in this prompt it specifically says the "Bandits" raided your bunker and before that the prompts starts with saying something like "We thought we could have a peaceful day..." and at the end it says the "Bandits" raided your bunker.

If that happens i'm pretty sure that's a 100% chance of them kidnapping someone if you don't defend, they kidnapped someone when this happened to me and everyone else i saw that had that rare prompt.

Last things: you can only trigger the "Payback Time" event if you have gone to enough expeditions (you need 3-4+) AND you need to have a gun to trigger the event.

(Also the "Payback Time" event can still trigger even if the gun is broken)

Remember that you can't trigger the event in early game, you need to play for 30+ days and you need to have gone to enough successful expeditions, eventually if you keep making noise with the radio and say yes to prompts that make family members go outside, for ex. "to steal from their arch nemesis", they should arrive. (it's all up to RNG tho)

-Can't a family member get kidnapped in a expedition too?

Yes it can, BUT it's really complicated and imo it's just more difficult and way more RNG dependant than doing it normally.
You can always ask the AI if you want to try it this way, or you can just gamble and send an extra family member outside when bandits are around.
If you get someone kidnapped while outside you still need to trigger the "Payback Time" event.

-I triggered the "Payback Time event", now what?

If you triggered the event and you don't have any family member kidnapped yet you have to survive fake raider attacks with the lock/spray/harmonica until the true raiders appear with these 4 options to defend: Harmonica-lock-axe-gun.
Just don't use anything and pray they kidnap someone.

If they kidnap someone you will need to wait for another "Payback time" event and this time use the gun or axe to save your family member.

-I got the Payback time event to rescue a kidnapped family member but it failed, why?

Yeah...i'm sorry you just got unlucky, it's not a 100% chance to rescue the family member from the bandits, you can fail and if you do the whole run is chopped and you have to reset.
You better pray to RNGesus for a one shot. (It also failed for me on my 1st try)

-Does it make a difference if i send out a kid vs an adult in an expedition?

Not really you just need successful axpeditions for the event but kids are better in expeditions and they are better to use in early game if you have a mask, adults are better in end game because they will defend them selves if you give them a weapon and are just generally less likely to die if they are in good condition for end game.

-Is there a way to maximize my chances and not waste time?

Yeah, imo i had a decent tactic by the end of my experience:
I would send timmy out day 3, (with a mask or suitcase+mask+map and cards/other for sanity if i had them. Only mask is good too) after he comes back i'd let mary jane go out.

After the kids have both gone out and returned i would let one die, especially if they're sick or gamble a risk free successful expedition with them. (you don't need 4 alive in the bunker it's just a waste of resources)

After the kid's expeditions i would only send the adults out and if you have 3 alive (2 adults-1 kid) you can send adults safely in expeditions because not only they could trigger the "Payback Time" event but you're guaranteed to not lose the game even if the raiders kidnap an adult because you have the other in the expedition.

(If you're lucky you can even get the 100% chance of safe expedition with the event of offering someone a water)

Then if the bandits kidnap someone it's just about defending youself from other bandits attack and praying you get the payback and save your family member.
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That's all from me, i think i said everything you would need for the achievement but if you have any questions lmk, or ask the Google AI too, the clanker knows suspiciously too much...

I wish you all good luck with the achievement, also if there are any bad grammar errors i'm sorry, i tried my best but english is not my first language :).