It's not about winning or losing

[Ender]

I Buried all my troops alive when I timed a blasting charge incorrectly, I was retreating to my final fallback line inside of a mountain with raiders in hot pursuit, I started the charges (and they would of survived if they had not done this) but then my soldiers decided to turn around and start firing at their pursuers which resulted in the blasting charge killing a quarter of them and the roof killing the rest.

ooohhhh that's brutal.....

[Liquidsonic]

My front line had been breached (I was early on in the game) and most of the colonists were severely wounded so I sent them back to the cave and left two colonists to hold off the raiders. They did for awhile, but one was downed and I had the other try to rescue him, but then he was downed. I was quite screwed at that moment because my main two fighters were downed so I just sent the other colonists to throw themselves at the raiders. It was an awesome battle, imagining the two guys die right beside each other and the other just doing whatever they can to fight the overwhelming raiders. Plus at that time there was fire everywhere.

[kin]

Raiders landed really close to my north wall one day and I had to quickly rouse everyone up and send them off to the firepits to hold them off. I set off the det charges in front of the raiders and hoped my guys would get into position before them.

At the time we had a real Florence Nightingale in the camp who had pretty much singlehandedly recuited and doctored every one after her and two fellow survivors landed 124 days ago, she was like a mother to everyone.

She died with two others in a grenade attack I hadn't seen coming, and the worse thing was she wasn't even supposed to be in that pit at that moment, I had sent her off to get a better gun from the racks, but at the last minute decided we needed every man on deck and put her on the line.

My guys massacred the raiders from that attack and put the bodies in gibet cages. Beth and the others were buried behind the north wall they died defending.

But the camp never felt the same after Beth died and they started to come apart and drift away till raiders and madness eventually took the rest

[Coenmcj]

My guys massacred the raiders from that attack and put the bodies in gibet cages. Beth and the others were buried behind the north wall they died defending.

But the camp never felt the same after Beth died and they started to come apart and drift away till raiders and madness eventually took the rest

This is what Tynan is getting at with the story atmosphere I think, How you get to know a handful of characters really well, their traits, their little bits of personality and whatnot then when it all starts to conclude, they all die before your eyes makes it rather interesting when it all plays out in the end. Just that tiny little part that just doesn't feel the same afterwards makes it quite an awesome combination.

I Buried all my troops alive when I timed a blasting charge incorrectly, I was retreating to my final fallback line inside of a mountain with raiders in hot pursuit, I started the charges (and they would of survived if they had not done this) but then my soldiers decided to turn around and start firing at their pursuers which resulted in the blasting charge killing a quarter of them and the roof killing the rest.

ooohhhh that's brutal.....

Yeah, it was painful to watch; watching them stop, turn and aim to fire while the blasting charges all around them are ignited and flaring in their final moments.

If only they hadn't turned back... If only they hadn't fired... if only I timed that blast charge just a bit better... They were just gone in the blink of an eye. 

[pey]

Randy Random is the best thing ever.

I had an amazing start, two geothermal generators buried a few layers into the side of a massive mountain, lots of beneficial events (So-and-So is joining the colony just because, tons of metal and food raining down around my compound...), and there was a serious metal vein running through the map. I had six colonists, enough food to feed twenty more, and I had made a killing selling metal and food off to passing space ships. We had repelled about four raids and the occasional mad muffalo. Things were going really well.

Then the boomrats came.

First, it was one, quickly spotted and eliminated safely at range by Darkeye, my political assassin.

Then, there were two or three, also dealt with safely. Fires were extinguished without any damage, their corpses were far away enough that I didn't even bother cleaning them up.

But one day, the air was different. None of the colonists could figure out what was different, just that it was. Darkeye was roaming the courtyard the colony had built in their times of peace when he heard the rumble of too many little creatures moving too purposefully. He called for back up. Seven colonists, all armed with high powered firearms, lined up behind sandbags and prepared to defend against the swarm.

The 'rats made melee contact and Pan, the de facto leader of the colony, gave the order to fall back. With the boomrats hot on their trail, everyone made their way into the cave complex. Everyone but Darkeye, who thought he could sneak off one more shot before retreating. A boomrat had gotten into the foxhole next to him without him noticing and went straight for the neck.

The rest of the colonists made it past the inner defenses and hunkered down to defend against the still massive wave of vermin. A few well timed mines had lessened their numbers, but they were still closing. A fire had started burning out of control on the north side of the cave, and to the south was a mere three rooms: a large storage, the comms center, and the armory. Pan chose to brave the fires and find cover deeper in, while others tried leading off some 'rats into the south wing.

The two who went south were immediately killed when a 'rat got too close before its death knell took the group.

Pan, along with the remaining two colonists, took cover in the hydroponics room, where they made their stand against the last five boomrats (the last five on the map, I might add...). One colonist with her, named Faust or something like that, was a terrible shot. So bad, that he struck Pan twice from behind while firing at the 'rats as they broke through the door, incapacitating her. Faust was quickly brought down in melee, as his brawling was equally terrible. The last standing colonist tried grabbing Pan and running before a 'rat took a bite at the downed leader, ending her.

I wish I could remember the name of the survivor, it would make the tale so much more personal. I was so infuriated by the loss of my entire colony that names meant nothing and surviving with just one would have been a win.

Unfortunately, after the last boomrat was put to death, that lone survivor succumbed to fire while trying to save the cave he called home.

[Tynan]

Some of these are just awesome.

Sorry to hear Faust was such a terrible shot, pey

I think I'm going to make it a goal to add some "back from the brink" functionality to recover nearly-lost colonists with only one or two souls left alive. It'd be great if these stories could go on.

[Littica]

Did this whole Two Vat grown Female Soldiers and a Male Scientist thing.

The RP premis was the two Soldiers were blank slates that new nothing but fighting and the Scientist was just a research assistant who had to take charge or they were all dead.

I planned to role play it using the traits to make up a story as I went along, for one the scientist ended up being Selfless and one of the Soldiers ended up being  a Nymphomaniac while the other was a sexual deviant.

It wa set up perfectly for a bad sitcom... anyway, i got to about my 3rd eclipse before a rampant boomrat crippled him forcing the girls to wait for him wake up or to slowly starve and die.

On the of chance he would gain enough health to get up before he starved i had them build a Paste dispenser in his room

Naturally that was when we get a 22 man raider party arrives... I guess naming the colony Forlorn Hope was not the best of ideas, on Randy Random thats just asking for the sky to fall...

[Untrustedlife]

Neat little story

[Xakyrie]

I wish I had a grandiose story to tell, but alas, I got crushed by the elements.

Things were going well, I had captured 2 raiders from 2 raiding parties, as well as 3 passerbys, I decided to build my 4th farming zone, and just before harvest, a blight hits.

I was like, 'Okay, I think I'll manage, but I should really start stockpiling more food'. 

Before that replanted harvest finishes, I had an eclipse.  Plants do not grow in an eclipse.  They need to be brightly lit.  It wasn't even a day before I realized that this eclipse could kill me.  I didn't know when it would end.  I rushed a research bench and focused Hydroponics ASAP.

The eclipse passes, to my relief, as I gather the minerals I need for my hydroponics area, when another blight hits right when I harvest 18 potatoes worth from it.

I'm in the 'Oh Sh*t' category now.

I build that hydroponics room like a madman.  I had to let my prisoners starve to ration what little food I had if any for my colonists.  I had extra batteries and Solar Panels on the ready for the next eclipse!  I was gonna make it!

Solar flare.

between the starving conditions, the hydroponics not growing, the slow growth of the outside farms, and the now raw food finally tipping the scale, I had people leaving and getting arrested left and right until there were none.

In hindsight, I suppose I should have executed a starving/dying prisoner, and maybe even build small little gazebos of light next to my outdoor farms.  But from now on, I take a researcher as my first 3, and I research hydroponics ASAP.  They work rather nicely outdoors.