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I know a good portion of us backed at the Pirate King tier, but running a forum search brings back old threads and nothing presently relevant. The game has definitely expanded in scope from what I had ever imagined it (A whole planet, whoa! Caravans? whoa!). But what of the Pirate King stuff? Maybe I haven't played enough of the game but I'd love to hear from a source (or Tynan) about the state of it, and maybe how much of a doof I am for asking this question when there's likely an answer somewhere. 

The function in options to search for specific colonists/backgrounds seems to be broken (or the one I'm looking for doesn't exist in the present build). I filled the fields with the name and I spent five minutes just clicking 'random' in the colonist selection area. Several of the same names scrolled past several times, but not the one I was searching for. Is the search function just not working presently, or did we lose some colonists in the transition to versions?
(Hunting for Victoria Louene)

Like any good colony, Eternal Rain began with a rapid, screaming descent in a capsule surrounded by flaming wreckage. Over the course of several days, the trio of unlikely unified survivors, the chef, the scientist, and the entrepreneur, banded together to build a new home. Crops were sowed, walls were built, and after nearly two weeks, the trio has endured two raider attacks (with prisoners intact), as well as a never-ending deluge of rain.

And something unexpected has happened. Through rapid construction of walls and roofs, a local creature ended up trapped inside of the chef's room. Instead of summarily executing the rodent, the boomrat remained largely ignored. Hiroto, the chef, despite lacking any particular skills regarding animal care, at least knows what someone or something looks like when its hungry. That and his bedposts were getting chewed up.

A basket of carrots was dropped into a corner of the room, and immediately the little stowaway ate his fill and promptly fell asleep. It would seem that Eternal Rail has gained a fourth colonist. Completely by accident. (And also pets are somewhat unsupported in the game mechanics for the moment. And animals can't open doors.) Hopefully little 'Bombchu' will refrain from going berserk and trying to explode the colony.

(Using most of the Big Bang Modpack)

So we can butcher and devour our dead now, but why not turn the bodies of dead raiders into something beneficial? A friend of mine had the idea after we were discussing base design and I said I'd rather fight it out in the open of the colony because blood makes the taters grow (as opposed to a walled base.) So what if we could turn corpses into fertilizer to make crops grow faster/better or something?

Any ideas on how this could be done/implemented? I'm pretty sure plant growth stats are still difficult to access if at all currently, but maybe there could be a new type of farm object that accelerates growth (like hydroponic tables do) but you need a certain amount of the 'corpse powder' resource generated by grinding up bodies to build it? Like metal or stone for walls, etc.

So this reminds me of a tactic I used in the pre-alpha, but I set up 'light traps' outside of my base. Because illumination helps with targeting accuracy. So instead of putting lights in my bunkers where my colonists would be shooting from, I ran wiring out into the wastes and put up lightbulbs so raiders trying to shoot my guys would be all lit up and ripe for shooting gallery funtimes.

I don't know if it's possible to mod in items that illuminate just yet (or temporary lifespan items) but I would like to see a mod that focuses on 'extra' lighting. Maybe tiny internal battery solar lamps that you can place for decorative purposes (like on walkways but they only last like 2 hours into the night, like real solar lights in the garden do) or throw 'em in the wasteland as shinies for targeting raiders.

Or a throwable grenade-type item that instead of going boom, lights up a radius. You could have a colonist that's 'armed' with them hurl flares at raiders to shine some light on the problem. While we're at it, projected lights? Spotlights that shine a cone in a direction? There's gotta be someone out there tinkering with this!

I couldn't figure out if this had a home on the bug forum or here since it's a creative rewards questoin, but when you check 'PlantWork' for work disables, why does the colonist in question still attempt to Grow things?

I was pretty overjoyed to see my pirate queen in the game but was baffled when she started planting potatoes. Does the PlantWork disable ONLY affect cutting? If so, there's no Growing box to disable along with it if you want to make the person not deal with plant stuff at all. If it's under one of the bigger blanket items it may have needed a better explanation.

...not that I can't just disable it manually in-game but... I feel like I missed something slightly important!

[Victoria 'Mechanist' Louene]

This is /sort/ of a placeholder post that I can edit and bounce ideas around with thoughts for my PK(PQ?) contribution. I'm a bit of a writer and I have a small stable of 'favorite' characters. I cut Cecily and Sanah from the idea roster and added Vicky. I'd like some help getting it nice and concise for the limitations.

Victoria 'Mechanist' Louene
Vicky is a newer character of mine... more or less a steampunk mad scientist. Her full name is Victoria Trafalgar Louene. There's a play on words there. TNT is 'Trinitro Toluene' and her name, well. Vicky T. Louene. Anyway.

The backstory I have in mind for her is that she grew up on a world that was just hitting their industrial revolution. Steam power is king, clockwork and airships and all sorts of mechanical things. An excavation for more resources unearthed ancient ruins from a past, highly advanced civilization. Vicky herself was somewhat of a street urchin, stealing and begging and tinkering with machines. Word of the archaeology find made it to her ears and she stole aboard a ship to the site.

She snuck in, as street rats are good at that, and poked at things she probably ought not have poked at. She was filled with ancient wisdom, and her mind broke from the shock of it. Genius level intellect but fragmented and kind of insane. She triggered a doomsday clock, cobbled together a spaceship and reached for the stars. At the turn of the century, her world was obliterated without her on it. The guilt of the act weighs about as heavily on her mind as getting a buy one get one free sandwich deal and only eating half of the 'free' on. So not much.

As a self-proclaimed 'Empress of the Stellar Gnomes' she travels from world to world, looking for more hypertech to steal while constantly cobbling together devices for the... better of herself and the followers she's gathered.

All I've hashed out currently is that she'd probably be unable to do Social-related tasks entirely (so penalties are moot) while scoffing at unskilled labor. Bonuses to research and crafting for sure. Shooting and hand-to-hand also. ...pity she can't have a lightning gun.

Thanks for looking this over.

[So in the Guidelines post:]

So in the Guidelines post:

The wiki has a list of backstories that are in the game right now. I wrote all of them; they were just starting content to get the system going. They're good examples of the kinds of things that work well.

This has me wonder if we're able to submit new ideas for backstories using those as an example? Or if it comes down to making Mercenary/Pirate Royalty characters, we use our own suggestions for stat adjustments that make them more personal?

In regards to my idea, I was going to suggest (in tandem with my post on that thread about 'decorative additions') a backstory called

Designer Child (Childhood)
'[Character] was genetically engineered for a variety of reasons instead of naturally conceived. Though such children often excel at more cerebral tasks, they falter when it comes to physical labor and their 'artificial' nature can be a social stigma to many.'

Construction: -2
Growing: -2
Research: +2
Mining: -2
Shooting: N/A
Hand To Hand: N/A
Social: -3
Cooking: +2
Medicine: +1
Artistic: +2
Crafting: +1

Spaceborn (Childhood) (Inspired by Void Born from Dark Heresy)
'[Character] was born on a longflight deep space vessel on a trip to a distant world. Every pair of hands was valuable so [character] was taught how to maintain ship components and help out where they could from an early age. They are somewhat more frail physically, however.

Construction: +1
Growing: -3
Research: N/A
Mining: -3
Shooting: N/A
Hand To Hand: N/A
Social: N/A
Cooking: +1
Medicine: +1
Artistic: N/A
Crafting: +2

Running in 1600x900 windowed. Dumping area buttons in current build are... off kilter. Same button overlap applies to graves.

...on the border world of New Yakstabia. The names of the colonists have been changed to protect their identities.

The initial landing was a rough one. The only survivors of the GSB Escape (pronounced ess-kah-pay) was a doctor and a laborer on the way to a different colony and the ship's security officer. The scrap recovered from falling pieces of the ship was formed into crude walls and fortifications that eventually grew into a small compound against a large mountain. Though not quite 'Vault' material, the small fort thrived for a time. The Commissar (known as Ghostmunchies, and subsequently the town's true founder) fended off the first attack by a desperate individual who had also shipwrecked.

The laborer, Shadowless Wanderer, was assigned the old pistol. Its former owner had no need for it any longer. The doctor, who shall be known as Bookmark Bamboo, tended to the wounds incurred by the fighting. For a time, Shadowless and Bookmark took turns 'shepherding' lost souls into the colony's fold.

In time, the compound flourished. Fortifications were solidified, and contact with the outside world was re-established. These brave colonists now had a home, and began trading with passing vessels, selling 'acquired' weaponry and liberating slaves from slave vessels with their considerable capital. Several concerted efforts by offworld raiders have since ravaged the camp's outer defenses. Though at times up to a dozen individuals (and more) had assaulted the base, only two casualties have been buried.

Unfortunately, these two casualties were two of the founding members of the colony, both Ghost and Shadowless having perished bravely in defense of the gates. This picture is the state of the compound before the assault that claimed the life of Shadowless. It's a very self-contained trade complex. No less than 15 raiders assaulted from the north, and four of the turrets were lost as well as our dear Shadowless.

The second picture down is the current state of the base.





Setting up staggered pillars not only looks nice, but gives convenient cover. With a little work, you can put a roof over it too (like you can see in the front gate portion.) The upper defenses need to be restored, but consolidating them into a more compact setup like the south side might be a superior plan. Currently seven colonists live in Ghost Town, selling 'reclaimed' armaments for scrap metal, selling their abundance of food to passing ships that need it, and enduring constant aggression from raiders and the raw elements. 68 days in and Ghost Town manages to thrive despite the blood-soaked sands.

The full album is here with commentary and descriptions.

http://imgur.com/a/Ag7O8#0

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