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So, I haven't tried this, but if I, say, built walls around a visiting trade delegation while they were asleep, waited for them to need rescue due to starvation, and then rescued them, would I get a bunch of positive points for "rescuing" them, and maybe a recruit or two? Or would they be angry at me? Anybody try this?

The new chief's name is "Alligator Barra." He is unknown to us, but with a name like that, I fear our hopes for peaceful relations may remain only hopes.

-Anna

Spring the 8th, 5508:

Dear Diary,

Mountains suck.

They're beautiful, really, and the temperatures have been better, but to walk all day, turn around, and see the mountaintop where you camped the night before... it's disheartening.

We think we will be through the mountains soon, and thereafter our pace should pick up tremendously. We brought out the planetary survey maps last night, and held a vote - our destination for this winters' settlement is... the base of a mountain range. I was not pleased, but I was overruled.

Unfortunately, I could not fault the logic - building our shelter into the side of a mountain makes it much easier to defend. But I am not looking forward to going rock climbing every time I need to use a toilet.

I'm also not looking forward to the risks of encountering insectoids, burrowing through the bedrock. We were lucky in Progreso, to only deal with that particular danger a few times. But Vlad mentioned they are more active in this region - apparently they dislike warmer climates.

I fear this may a mistake; I certainly cannot survive without the group, but the group may have chosen the method of its demise last night.

-Anna

Spring the 11th, 5508:

Dear Diary,

We reached the Tundra; it is a beautiful but deadly environment. We won't be stopping here, but the open, flat land has made travel much easier. I think our spirits are up, overall - making good time has that effect on travellers.

-Anna

Spring the 12th, 5508:

Dear Diary,

We were ambushed by some mad elephants today. Our usualy strategy of forming a firing line worked - only one of the beasts came within melee range, and it didn't manage to actually harm anyone before it was dispatched as well.

In the calm afterwards, we actually took the time to butcher them and bring the meat with us. However, shortly before we left, and with all of our gear packed up, Marie decided she didn't like her pants anymore... which made the next several hours a bit... awkward. She did manage to get something out of stores when we stopped for the night, however.

Sometimes I feel like I'm the only person around here with a sense of shame.

-Anna

Spring the 14th, 5508:

Dear Diary,

When we woke up this morning and broke camp, we found that Manabu, the oldest Alpaca, had died in the night. Probably of a heart attack.

The alpacas are a valuable part of our group - we wear clothes made of their wool, they bring us joy when they nuzzle us, in their innocence... despite our many faults, to them, we are sort of benevolent gods, and their love for us makes us better. It's the way of pets, I suppose.

More sad, I think, is that I feel more for his death than I do for the hundreds of other humans whom we have killed (and, in our darkest hours, done worse to) in our quest to survive on this world.

I hope that the AI is there. I hope it takes us away... to a Glitterworld or Industrialworld where there is warmth and comfort. But I don't think I deserve it. Vlad thinks I do, though. The fool doesn't know how terrible I am. What I've done. What we all did, before he joined us.

But I love Vlad with all my heart, and sometimes I think he loves me even more than that, if that's even possible. Maybe that will be enough. Redemption through love? Haha! Like some stupid romance novel.

-Anna

Summer the 1st, 5508:

Dear Diary,

We made it! We arrived at our new "summer home" in the early evening, and begun setting up camp, and digging our redoubt. There is not much in the way of animal life around, and most of what little open land is here, is wetlands. This will likely make farming difficult.

Hopefully there is enough left of the growing season that we can restock our supplies for the winter, otherwise we may... suffer.

-Anna

Summer the 13th, 5508:

Dear Diary,

It has been quite some time since I wrote. This summer has been very, very busy - we have gotten one crop of potatos, despite the blight, and will likely get one more before the end of the growing season. And our winter quarters are coming along nicely, although there have been some issues with water in the caves. They should at least stay fairly warm in the winter, and we have our underground growing chambers up and running.

We've already had one encounter with the insectoids, as I feared, and another with pirates - we met and took pity on a horrendously ugly young man named Upgrade who was being chased, and the... umm... well.

Bentley, Ox, and the rest of our bionically enhanced melee warriors laid an ambush on the path from where Upgrade had come. The pirates' deaths were almost immediate - only one of them got a shot off, which actually hit members of a passing trade convoy instead.

Unfortunately, we do not yet have a method of disposal for bodies, so as I write this, the bodies are still... there... mostly. Power Claws are ugly weapons.

Bentley started setting fires again today. It wouldn't be so bad - one of us just follows him around putting them out - except we are low on bricks, so much of the material shoring up our cave roofs is wood, and therefore highly flammable. I think there's something wrong with his AI chip, personally, but I haven't been about to figure out what. I am tempted to remove it, but that would only leave him a shattered husk. And to think; Bentley wanted it so badly - to feel nothing, to think with the speed of a computer in combat... I can't imagine what it's like.

After his children died, he says, he wanted nothing to do with human emotion. But I fear I'm damned for giving him what he wanted.

-Anna

Fall the 2nd, 5508:

Dear Diary,

I just want to state, once again, for the record, that Upgrade is one ugly son of a duck.

I mean, just... damn. Wow.

That probably shouldn't matter to me so much - I mean, one, I'm married, and two, he pitches in and works his kiester off along with the rest of us. But he's still... just... SO UGLY. Oh my god, I hate him, and so does everybody else.

A spacecraft crashed in the marsh to the north of our base; we had to destroy it before the psychic emenations caused us problems, of course. That's how it usually works on this planet - damned if you do, damned if you don't. Fortunately there was only one Scyther and a single Centipede onboard.

Perhaps even more importantly, the Scyther was killed in combat, so we couldn't remove its claws to make more bionic power claws. And since we have no more of them, I can't be asked to... yeah. Thank goodness for small favors, I suppose.

Ox and Coty were a bit banged up - attacking a Centipede with your bare hands will do that, whether your hands are bionic power claws or not. Half the hits were friendly fire - we really need to work on that. But their armor did its job; they'll be fine. As I was tending to their wounds in the medbay, they were beeping back and forth in that computer communication they use. I think they were insulting me.

There was a frost last night - we cut and harvested the rest of the potato plants; even those that were only half-grown. We don't have nearly the food surplus going into winter that we did last year, but with the plots we have under grow-lamps in the cave, it should be enough.

-Anna

Fall the 6th, 5508:

Dear Diary,

A pack of wargs attacked us today. Fortunately we drove them off and our refrigerator is better stocked for their efforts. It is cold now - thirteen below. We mostly all have parkas, and have been working outside to mine plasteel and recover old components. Ox's powered armor finally gave out, and it may take us some time to construct a replacement - we have the knowledge, but not yet all the requisite materials.

-Anna

Fall the 6th, 5508:

Dear Diary,

I nearly died today. Vlad saved me.

An alert went out concerning a pack of Alphabeavers. We received instructions to hunt them down, since without wood for fuel, our position would be grave. They scattered as we shot at them, but two of them turned on me and began to attack. Crow was injured too. It seemed they scattered all over the map, and command had trouble keeping track of them. Vlad carried me back to camp after killing the Alphabeavers that had attacked me.

Fortunately, my injuries were not permanent. Upgrade - that ugly bastard - patched me up, and I should be alright in a day or two.

-Anna

Fall the 7th, 5508:

Dear Diary,

If there is a loving god, it seems to have decided that our group should survive this winter. Meat fell out of the sky today, not far from our camp.

My own fate, however, seems less certain. The wounds I sustained from the Alphabeaver became infected. It will be a race between the infection and my immune system, and we have no penoxycycline to give me an advantage. Pain is moderate, it's sometimes hard to think straight, to keep a thought in my head.

Time will tell. I do not fear death, though - too many have preceded me.

-Anna

[why]

So, it's apparently the case that you cannot re-enter or re-settle an abandoned base.

This seems intentional, so... not a bug. But it raises the question, IMO, why can't you re-enter or re-settle your abandoned bases?

Had two (heavily armed) pawns and a muffalo in a caravan, carrying mostly food. (Something like 200 simple meals.)

The muffalo got killed by pirates. When it died, all the simple meals simply disappeared. Pawns starved to death.

Why weren't the pawns able/willing to pick up the stuff they could carry off the Muffalo? Or give me the "caravan can't move" alert and let me choose what to discard...