As the title said, I bit off more than I could chew with 2 colonists and 4 mercenaries attacking a pirate base(didn't help that 3 out of 4 mercs arrived with sniper rifles), lost the caravan, then got a quest to rescue one of the captured mercenaries. First thing they did when they could walk was start removing their no longer locked armor. Also the comms console says "hire mercs", not "check contract".
Is this working as intended? Honestly I'm pretty ok with them joining, even from a story perspective since the mercenary company didn't come rescue them. Also, only one of the mercenaries died during the fight, so for risk price purposes, assuming all 3 downed mercs were captured, and at least 1 was rescued, how many "dead" mercs are being held against me?