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Hydroponics take up a lot of time? They are by far the fastest growing method in Rimworld!

Very nice colony, though! Just be careful not to let the raiders set fire to your battery house in bottom left, or you'll see some pretty fireworks.

Reminds me of what happened when I was playing yesterday. Was removing a little cliff area and part of the roof collapsed on a colonist. She was mostly fine, except her eye was crushed... by the falling roof. Just her eye. Nothing else.

I had a large rock land next to my feet and was cut straight under the eye by a flying shard it released. Granted, it was a cut wound and my eye survived without getting scarred, but it's definitely a possibility in the real world as well.

Just an FYI, I have a pretty detailed article on the wiki about this over here: http://rimworldwiki.com/wiki/Human

It's all that Bodies.xml goodness put into an easier-to-read format.

Excellent resource! People who don't want to dig in the game files should definitely have a look at that. There's a few things that should be corrected, though, such as the version numbers (we are at 0.6.532 now )

No need to rush. According to the schedule, you have time until the 5th of September!

I decided to read TheApolaustic1's story before my turn and I have to say it helped a lot. I also wrote while still playing, usually letting two or three days pass before writing a block of text, sometimes less when a raid came. It definitely made it easier, though, sometimes there is so much happening it's easy to forget when it's not written down all at once.

Also, don't be afraid of making it too long. I decided to leave away some of the less interesting parts in order to make it shorter, and only after I posted it I found out I only had it half as long as TheApolaustic...

The skull has 0.12 coverage, less than a single eye. I guess this is to make one-shot kills rarer, but it clearly shows that the coverage value is taking into account more than only the exposed area. Eyes could have such a large coverage because they are the place where people would try to aim, whereas ears might be bigger but nobody would intentionally try to shoot one's ear off in the middle of a firefight.

And yeah, Tynan did say it's only the base currently and that it will get balanced once it is done. Tailoring the gameplay for Alpha 6 and then having to redo it completely for A7 would waste a lot of time.

They do prefer it, though the chance is 60% for trade beacons and 40% for dropping near one of your colonists (or at least it was this way in Alpha 5, though I don't think it will is different in Alpha 6)

[24th of February]

24th of February: While searching through the possesions of one of the dead raiders, I have found this diary and a set of ornamented pens, antique but unused. It appears The Bears of Death have raided a museum sometime in the past... Who knows if that barbarian could write at all! It would be a great loss if this treasure was not saved from him.

On a second look, there are some blood stains on the paper. I'll ask Boozer on how to get them off, maybe I can bribe him with some of the potato vodka I wanted to use as disinfectant.


29th of February: This is too much. How many times do I have to tell that dumb farm boy that my name is NOT 'Doc'? I am Rahjital de Fusilier, thirdborn of the Duke of Savarrah! I will not stand being called 'Doc' like I was some pitiful servant!

Action needs to be taken. That butcher seems to trust me, so perhaps if I can convince him to hand me his PDA for a while, I could make some changes here and there...


1st of March: It worked, I can't believe it worked! McLovin just handed me his PDA today while mumbling something about hoping I'll make a better mayor. If only I knew it would be so easy as to make the computer warn him of megalomania, I would have done it a long time ago!

Oh, the PDA has an 'Overhead Visualisation' function and can even print images! Let's see how the colony looks from above:



Oh god. This looks so much worse from a birds eye view. It seems McLovin was clever enough build a wall in the south and plan another in the northwest, but left us open in the direction we are the most vulnerable from, east! Well, I cannot blame him. Not everyone has the luck reside in a castle in their childhood, I suppose he is better fit to tending to agricultural products than to devising grand defensive structures.

What I cannot forgive him is how little crops he has sown. A peasant who does not farm? Blasphemous! Now that the colony has a rational and wise ruler, this is going to change.

Wait a minute, what is that over there? Why is there a rifle lying abandoned in a pile of rocks when we all have meager pistols? This is giving me a headache. I need to sleep on it...

* * *

Okay, let's look at things with a clear head. Now, let's see what do people do here. Who's the hunter, who's the miner, and who's the farmer here? Wait, what do you mean, "Everyone does everything"? Do you mean nobody knows what their craft is? We can't build a prosperous keep if work isn't divided! Good gracious, my rule there is going to be harder than I thought... Here's your new work schedule, people:



If Boozer is right, we also have literally a ton of metal lying around but barely a sack of potatoes in our stockpile. Time to expand our fields and send the farm boy over there to tend to the crops, as his social status would have it.


2nd of March: Boozer has been crying out for a new kitchen since I became the new ruler. Like a true benevolent king, I went there to take a look and see what the fuss was about:



Oh god, he was right, he was so right. The place is so filthy I was afraid to go there! McLovin and Lawson don't seem to mind, but Boozer puts a generous dose of alcohol in every meal. He says it's "to kill the bacteria" but I am not sure how much can I trust him on that.

I was shocked when I found out nobody here knew how to make stone bricks. That was a great problem, so I sat at the research bench, made myself some tiny bricks and built a model castle out of them. That was fun! But I think I've got it now. I told McLovin to build a stonecutting table, but he said there's not enough wood. I asked "What do you mean, there's plenty of wooden tables, chairs and doors." and he answered that there's no wood left for building.

Sigh, peasants... I told Lawson to chop down some cacti for him, hopefully he'll believe me when I tell him it's lichen-covered oak wood.


5th of March: Ring the bells, it's an ambush! Everyone to arms, the Bears of Death want to avenge their dead comrades! ...wait a moment, what's happening over there, why are there so many explosions and why are they shooting at each other? Is that an iguana?



Well, I suppose when they are occupied with setting the desert on fire, we can still improve our defenses. Get up, McLovin, it's time to finish that wall.

Or perhaps not, they are already here! But that silly farm boy didn't connect one of the turrets! I tell Boozer and Lawson to take positions and myself, like every great and wise leader, take a well protected place that is still on the frontlines. Move it, peasant, the turret is not going to power itself!



McLovin managed to plug in the turret just in time, and the infernal machine began spewing fire, fortunately at the raiders. The Bears were evidently surprised, but one of them tried to flank us. You can't outsmart Rahjital de Fusilier, fools, my ancestor Katen the Sinister won the great Battle of Riverford! I sent Lawson to deal with the threat. McLovin managed to kill one of them, me another and Boozer incapacitated third, leaving three more to deal with. I sent McLovin forward to attack the enemy in melee, which proved to be a brilliant move worthy of my name. When the pirates saw the angry butcher charging at them they lost all their will to fight and decided to run for it. Bad idea - they ran right in front of me and Boozer and we managed to incapacitate one raider each. Unfortunately, the last one ran away, but there must always be somebody to spread the story, I suppose.

A quick check shows that the only serious wound is the farm boy's shot off toe. Nothing important, it's not like he needs toes for growing crops...


6th of March: An ambush! To arms, to arms!



I was just tending to Lawson's wounds when they came, so naturally I dragged her out of the bed and dropped her in the doorway to take potshots at the raiders. I yelled at McLovin to weld some spare metal to the damaged turret and told Boozer to flank them. It worked surpisingly well, two of the three pirates immediately fled in panic and the third I shot in the back when the farm boy grabbed his attention.

This cannot be a coincidence. Two raids, both coming at almost the same time, both aimed at the unfinished part of our defenses! We must have a traitor in our midst. Boozer? He's dependant on the supply of alcohol I make. McLovin? He's a peasant. The raiders are still unconscious... Lawson! It appears that I have underestimated her. Well well, dear Lawson, you might have managed to fool that silly butcher, but you could not escape my attention! I'll keep an eye on you.


9th of March: It seems the second week of this month is much less eventful than the first. Apart from a mad iguana (what is it with the local wildlife throwing itself suicidally at the nearest humans?) there weren't any hostile situations so far and nobody has tried to backstab me yet. I think that's a good sign, people are starting to accept me as their beloved ruler.

Except the captured raiders, not a single of them wants to become my serf. I don't understand that, I am such an exemplary ruler and they still refuse to serve me!


10th of March: Ha, I knew they would understand! Prisoner Lu has decided to live under my rule and I am sure the rest will follow soon.


13th of March: Alice is mine! She didn't want to hear about it at first, but when I told her she can be the head of my personal guard and will be allowed to loot anything she wants, she mellowed out and almost hugged me. I still tremble only thinking about it! I think I'll have her take Lawson's rifle, hopefully that will send the appropriate signal.


1st of April: Damn that Burns! Whenever I try to make him come to our side, he always almost cracks, almost agrees... but then he remembers something and says no. Always, every single time! I suspect it's Lawson's plotting that makes it so. To prevent it, I confined her to the stonecutting workshop and told my guard Alice to keep an eye on her at all times:



In other news, it's been suspiciously quiet. I believe that is because of Lawson's plans as well, by now she must realise I suspect her, so she wants to let my guard down. What she doesn't realize is that every day, we get closer and closer to finishing the defensive wall in the east. Just a few more days and all her plans will be in vain!


3rd of April: This must be a gesture of goodwill from the heavens themselves! A military trader has come to our colony:



We exchanged half a dozen pistols and a belt of EMP grenades for the sniper rifles. Naturally I gave one of the rifles to Alice, but everyone said Lawson should get the second. Awful choice, but if I want to appear as a good and benevolent leader, what else can I do? They could accuse me of not wanting the best for the keep and start a revolution! I suppose I will have to be extra careful about that pirate spy from now on.


5th of April: The defensive wall is finished! Too late, Lawson! Your evil machinations were too slow, we are impervious to any of your attacks! And we don't even need any of that silly butcher's infernal fire-spitting machines! Speaking of him, it seems he's more of a builder than a farmer, actually. Not that it's a bad thing, skilled architects are always in need when building a kindgom.


8th of April: Burns the prisoner finally broke. He denied Lawson was helping him almost to the end, but when I put the muzzle of my rifle to his forehead and began yelling and acting crazy, he almost began crying and told me everything - how Lawson gave him secret Morse code messages by the rhythm of her stone-cutting chisel and her mining pick, how she told him to murder me with his restraint chains to get rid of the great leader and make the colony plunge into chaos... everything I thought she did, Burns confirmed. Unfortunately, I still need more evidence to arrest her!

At least the granary is done now and the mess hall will follow soon:




9th of April: Boozer found out a way to make alcohol on his own! I bet Lawson did that to rid me of my most stalwart ally. Alice is growing impatient and disloyal since there have been no raids to loot ever since she joined us... Is there really nobody who I can trust? McLovin maybe... but he is still a peasant at heart. No, I am all alone in this.

Nothing is happening otherwise, apart from plenty of strangers visiting the colony. I wonder if that is her doing too?


13th of April: I can see her following me. Even though I told her to go mine for metal far away from the colony, she always finds an excuse to go and be near me, like 'I am hungry' or 'I need to haul the metal I mined to the stockpile'. Absolute nonsense that is, of course, but I cannot prove it! I started going away from the colony and hunt. "Hunting is a highborn's way of easing the soul," papa always said, but I don't think it's working here. Hunting megascarabs just isn't the same, and the iguanas have such beautiful eyes... And I can't run from Lawson like this anyway. No! I can't let her take the keep from me like this! That's why is she doing this all, to strip me of my rule! Just wait, Lawson. I won't make it so easy for you!


14th of April: A slave trader is passing by, but we have no way to pay them - unless we give them Lawson! Unfortunately, I don't see a way to do that without others noticing...

Nothing else is happening. Why are there no more raids? Why is nothing happening? The suspense is slowly destroying me...


15th of April: Maybe I was too quick in my judgement. I saw a group of tribesmen nearby on one of my hunts, and it looks like they want to assault the keep! That must be Lawson finally acting, sensing how much influence she has over me. Nevertheless, I have got my own brilliant plan! There is a group of visitors inside the keep. If we erect wooden barricades at the entrances and say it's a defensive measure against the tribals, they won't be able to leave until we unblock the gates, at which point they will run straight into the tribals!

McLovins quickly built the walls as per my order and just in time, too! The enemies began running at us mere seconds after he put up the last barricade, and the visitors decided to leave at roughly the same time. Once the barbarians were sufficiently close, I told the butcher to remove the barricade and he did so. The visitors quickly poured into the way of the raiders and... nothing happened?



There was a minor detail that eluded me, which is that the Struggle's Ridge town is not hostile to the Black Yak Barra tribe. The two merely slipped by each other... Unfortunately, I was so confident the plan would work I did not order people to arms. Fortunately, Boozer and Alice were close and responded immediately when I called. Unfortunately, Lawson heard the call too. The hellish machines McLovin constructed drawn the tribals' attention well, though they didn't last long and then the fight turned into a stalemate.

Until Andy came, that is. A group of visitors from Burg-at-the-Forest loitered outside the keep, keeping themseles busy until the fighting ended, but Andy was not one to wait.



He dodged Combarro's arrow and ran at him to deliver a punt that pushed the tribesman straight into the way of Lawson's sniper rifle (I can only imagine her furious face when that happened!) He peeked in and got punched by Crica. He retreated at a rather relaxed pace, for which he was rewarded by an arrow cut from Crica's bow, but that did not prompt him to go faster at all.

The distraction was a great opportunity for us, though, and I made sure to use it. Thanks to my superior tactical skill (characteristic of every highborn) the enemies began panicking and fled... straight into the warm embrace of Burg-at-the-Forest's guns:



Unfortunately, the outlanders are not quite outlandish at marksmanship and only one of the running tribals was killed and another wounded, but if it weren't for Andy, who knows who of us could have been wounded or even killed by the tribal savages. Andy is a hero; if he stays a few days, I will promote him to knighthood.


1st of May: This is it. She won. I have been thinking about it the entire day, but only now it began making sense to me. The visitors from Struggle's Ridge, me walling them in and releasing them at the raiders... she planned it all, she had predicted every single step I have taken! I fought valiantly, but she won a long time ago. I was fighting a lost battle. For now, Andy and his Burg-at-the-Forest gang have saved us from a nasty lesson, but if I remain in charge, much worse incidents are bound to happen. Tommorow, I will find somebody... no, tommorow might already be too late, it might be midnight but I know Lawson is still plotting! I need to find somebody, anybody, right now. Somebody to lead the colony instead of me. Losing such a great and wise leader is a small thing in comparsion to what Lawson could do to us... I need to hand them this diary, so that they know what happened and why. But to whom? Who of this ragtag party of serfs is trustworthy enough?


Notes to the next ruler: Due to my great and selfless effort, we now have a full-fledged stone wall protecting us from the north-east, complete with a gate. Please, do not blame me for the terrible conditions of our living quarters - the construction of the wall took a large amount of both time and resources, and after that, our food production had to be sanitized to protect us from possible disease epidemics. There should be enough of all kind of materials and enough space in the walled area to begin any project you wish; and although there's barely a sack of potatoes left for eating, an entire field of potatoes ready for harvest is at your disposal. I would be greatly indebted to you if you could entrust me with royal quarters worthy of my contributions to the keep.

The password to the command PDA is as follows: https://db.tt/JKZ8W5ws

Until you familiarize yourself with the ovearhead view function of the computer, you might want to use this map of the keep:



But whatever you do, beware of Lawson. Don't let her read your mind like she did to me, else we are all lost...

Swap mechanically, or just swap in terms of fluff?

I'd say avoid swapping mechanically, but if you just clarify in some parenthesis what's going on in terms of the story, I don't think anyone will get too torn up over a mismatch with the screenshots

I'm not really sure what you mean here. Swapping the backstories will have no effect on gameplay because pawn skills are set firmly, the only thing that will change is the childhood of the characters... so it's pretty much just fluff?

Yes, hunting accidents do happen, but not because people go "Huh, Jim just stepped in my way. I guess I should try to shoot anyway, maybe it will fly through him and hit the target!" *Jim has been shot to death*

I think removing friendly fire from hunting colonists would be an acceptable solution as well.

I think he meant using cryptosleep pods on their own to hide them from enemy attacks. It can't be used this way anymore because ships can't be built in mountains anymore.

This is a known issue. You can put a No-Roof zone over it to get rid of the shadow.

Permission to switch Doc's and Boozer's childhood backstory? I've been playing the game writing the story as it went, and only now, 5 Rimworld days before my turn ends, I have noticed that I mixed it up... Oooops. Unfortunately, I've based the roleplaying very heavily on that, to the point where I'll have to delete the entire post and start from scratch if it's not allowed.

I suppose it would have been a better idea to disable building engines (and only engines) under roofs.

Because colonists don't pay attention. There are hunting accidents IRL as well, people shooting at each other because this and that.
If you (/we/whatever, I'll stick with *you* because why not) select a megascarab or a muffalo right where your other pawns are moving around, you ought to damage (kill) them, you're asking for it. Sure, hunting could have a more...refined way of doing its job, OR you could just, you know, select targets to hunt somewhere that isn't the middle of your base? 
It pretty much worked out for me so far, not once did my hunter with a minigun hit anything except for its prey. 

I'm not that bloody stupid, you know I learned to draft colonists when hunting animals too close to the base. Unfortunately, animals like to wander, especially on deserts where there's little to eat, so they can wander towards something in the desert you want hauled away, and then you get the message that one of your colonists was shot to death. It doesn't help that the colonists go as far away from the animal as possible and try to shoot it even when it's lying on the ground incapacitated. I never have more than one person hunting, by the way, and they always have pistols so that they train their skills quickly and the distance in which a colonist can walk into the middle of the shot isn't so great.

Disable Unfair Incidents - random events such as Enemy Agents, Power Surge or Psychic Drone are disabled.

Fixing the hunting issue by removing friendly fire is like preventing air disaster by banning commercial airliners. Yes, hunters would no longer kill their teammates, but an essential mechanic in combat would be gone. Using it to your advantage makes beating much larger raids possible with fewer casualties, which is especially important in the new version.

Alpha 6 made the hunting issue a lot worse, so I agree something should be done quickly. Hunters took just a few hitpoints from the passing pawns in A5, but now they can instakill them just because they didn't want to wait with shooting that one megascarab.