The game is great and has great potential, it is just way too buggy and the decay feature has to be enhanced. Seriously, I watched parts of my base literally disappear right in front of me yesterday and I had just checked the decay rate with a hammer a couple days before (said I still had 168 days).
I don’t have time to rebuild bases every 2-3 months, nor do I have time to level up a new thrall because a Rhino boss knocked him so far in the ground he never came back (not dead, just gone).
Hope the team can fix this. Love the game, just not enough time to deal with its bugs.
^
This.
Or you can use ghost mode in the admin panel to go through the floor and get them back, if you know exactly where the thrall fell. Then press on place and guard, get out of the ground and set them to guard once out. Or I imagine that still works after the followers I patch. This way you can keep all the gear.
If you are playing on an official server this information was wrong.
The max decay timer is about 7 days (?) + 1 day in abandoned state, as far as I know.