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The cosmic superstrings had lain dormant for over a century, untouched by those few
worlds able to sense the threads that laced the stars.  Those intelligent enough to
construct a superstring demodulator might hear...

CASE BEGINS: Experiment T87423

The civilization on planet L-374-R-tau-III has entered the final stages of a bloody
civil war.  The diaspora of escapees from that world is projected to include less
than 0.1% of the population over the next two years, before the technical ability
to construct spacefaring craft is lost.  Unrepairable ecological damage exists
on this world due to biological warfare and nuclear fallout products, as a result
of the war.  The remaining 1.7 billion inhabitants are projected to survive
less than four generations before ecological collapse ensues and renders the
world uninhabitable for the near future.

Survivor pod '-tau-III-9, a hastily constructed craft of cryptosleep pod bays and
minimal guidance computer, was tracked to world L-375-A-aelph-IV, a planet with
high eccentricity in the middle of an ice age.  72 escapees from the survivor pod
were scattered across the northern hemisphere of '-aelph-IV, where the winter average
temperature plunges below -100C, according to hyperspectral survey. 

Escapee group '-III-9-A of three members apparently landed at 80.28o N, 44.0o E.  A
windrider reconnaissance probe was dispatched, arriving approximately 0.97 orbit
after the landing of the escapee group: no survivors found.

A small shelter with accomodations for five was discovered, along with a primitive
hydroponics array overrun with growth and spoiled, un-harvested rice.  Power was
measured at 99.5% utilization, suggesting a bare minimum existence.  750 meters from
the structure our probe discovered partly buried in the snow, five corpses and the
remains of two mechanoid scythers scattered about the wreck of a mechanoid dropship.
We conclude that the residents were forced to sally from their hovel to attack
the dropship before they were driven insane by the dropship's psychic drone,
only to themselves succomb to wounds and the bitter cold of the region.

Given the apparent lack of success in uplifting primitive peoples towards higher
culture in this region of space, we judge it of little merit to continue expending
limited reconnaissance resources to this end.  We suggest that monitoring of
L-374-R-tau-III be terminated due to the lack of positive experimentation results
from this source.

CASE T87423 CLOSED

(Game mode: Cassandra Classic Extreme
Duration of colony: 2 seasons, 4 days
Max colonists: 5
Arrival temperature: -60C
Lowest recorded temperature: -124C
Colony value at end: 23281
Play time: 0d 3h 53m)

What Work Priority are Parties at?  It seems to be lower than Firefighting but higher than Flicking?  I wasn't able to find a way to abort a Party in progress to get colonists to go back to their usual priority order to handle threats; the pawns just drift back into Wandering when manually directing them, until the party was 'over'.

Spaceborne traders have never made much sense to me.  For example, you can sell your prisoners into slavery or buy a slave from a trader, but can't buy passage to escape?  All things considered, selling yourself into slavery may be a better alternative to some than being trampled to death by 75 manhunting ewes.  Perhaps every passing ship is really controlled by a greedy evil AI that wants humans to suffer but is willing gouge you on silver.

Local trade makes somewhat more sense, though perhaps you can only trade with a Faction if you have positive standing and representatives are on the map, given the distances involved and (apparently?) low density of population.

Might be interesting to model the Factions more thoroughly like a 4X game.  That way -99 Hostile Factions won't incessantly throw armies at you in spite of every prior attack being slaughtered (literally) for dog food with their skin made into La-Z-Boy lounge chairs & dusters.   From the outside player colonies look like homebody Reavers.

I pick randoms, then wait until landing to decide whether the colony is hopeless.  I guess around 10% (I haven't really measured it) are really too bad to have a chance given that I tend to play in hostile biomes (Ice Sheet, etc), though sometimes I play it through regardless.  In my experience the starting skills of the first 3 become steadily less important as the game progresses since there'll be often be losses and the later additions can make up for deficiencies, as long as you survive.  Adversity is part of the adventure.

Probably the one that was the most laughably awful was 2 young nobles and an aged crone with Bad Back, Frail, Cataracts, and Dementia.

I usually put a table and stool or two in Medical so patients can get drive-by chat positive mood; this tends to overcome, in the long run, the Disturbed Sleep debuff.

The Old Folks Home

I saw that this run was going to be a tough one.  All of my colonists were 50-70 year olds and had Bad Back, Frail, or both.  My first add was 90 year old pilot with dementia and cateracts in both eyes and could still walk, but couldn't Haul.

The pilot did all the hunting in the temperate biome mostly through sheer luck: his odds of getting a pistol hit were about 1% even with 7 Shooting (he started at 0) and point-blank range.  No one starved.  The first two raids were tribal, driven off without casualty, though everyone ended up wounded; they were lucky no one got infected.  I had a tight little base just large enough that the slow walkers could complete their work loops before needing rest.  I was rather proud of it.

The next raid was a pirate siege.

Taking the survival rifle, the pilot was the only one able to make trek all the way across the map before dark.  Unable to hit the broadside of a barn he was promptly headshotted and bled to death as incendiary and HE mortar shells erased the colony in a few shots, since you can't effectively fight fire when all your colonists can only hobble. 

There wasn't anything left to loot after the fire.


The Labrador

Sometimes the pathing artifacts do things that unexpectedly resemble emotional behavior. 

The colony was well established, now numbering 5 souls including the original labrador retriever.  I'd established panic-zone boundaries for animals in the event of attacks.  Outside the perimeter during a mechanoid ground attack, the labrador got stuck against the outer wall looping back and forth as the last Scyther homed in on it; the colonists were hopelessly out of position, just having taken down the rest of the group of Scythers and Centipedes around the kill box.  It was painful and tragic watching the cold precision of the mechanoid's charge lance tracking the poor animal as the dog ran to and fro in apparent panic, the mech homing in to kill with a single point-blank headshot.

The Scyther was destroyed about 2 seconds later.

Group of four successfully fight off two inferno-centipedes (no sniper rifles), only to all die of raging infection from their terrible burns.

Struggling during a medium psychic drone, this group of 5 colonists are incinerated in a battery fire when they all break at the same time.  The whole base burns out completely, leaving nothing but an empty shell.

The lady navy doctor, the old scientist, the surly barman, and the wanderer:

Ekeing out a fragile existence on the ice sheet, they narrowly avoid cannibalism.  The old scientist dies early from an arrow to the knee (literally).  When barman is laid low by infection, the base is attacked by sapper pirates; the wanderer breaks, leaving the doctor to defend outnumbered four to one.  The doctor drives them off, but the wanderer is incinerated in an fire when sapper grenades immolate the hydroponics bay.

It's -60C outside.  Herself wounded, the doctor nearly freezes to death repairing the walls, rewiring the remaining batteries, repairing the heaters, clearing out some of the slag, and dragging the barman's delirious body into the cave left by the raging fire.  The first thing the barman does when he wakes is to go berserk, chasing the doctor out into the freezing waste and nearly beats her to death.  After his rage clears, the barman goes to recover her broken from only to collapse from exhaustion and die just short of the cave.

I had to quit playing for a few days after that one.