Sea Ice Community Challenge

[Sola]

Even in the end game, scythers are the single most painful enemy you will fight.  EMP grenades will be your best friend.

[Jovus]

Even in the end game, scythers are the single most painful enemy you will fight.  EMP grenades will be your best friend.

You seem like a good person to ask.

About when should I be looking to pick up my second colonist?

[Zhentar]

Day 1. Colonists that both have the skills enabled to be useful and don't have traits that make them a massive liability are not particularly common; don't let an opportunity pass you by. Around day 30, my standards drop to 'anyone who can do medicine and isn't a pyro'.

[FreyaMaluk]

So I'm thinking of giving this another try... but... I'm concerned about the trade situation.  Steel is the critical resource.  My previous try ended because it got too cold to harvest drop pods before I was able to build my stove to cook frozen meat bags.  But I didn't bother with a trade console; instead I went straight to smelting.

How hard is it to get a bulk goods trader to give you enough steel to set up a stove and second heater before winter hits?  Once I have those I'm sure Engie can survive on cooked human meat until spring rolls around...

same here.. this is an interesting challenge, but you have to rely A LOT on luck. That's where I don't like it that much. You need to be lucky enough that your raiders have nice gear, not the typical cotton parkas and also lucky enough that a ship decides to drop by. Also lucky enough that you can get someone useful and not the typical pyro, trigger happy, brawler.
I've tried this a couple of times, but my cargo drops where completely useless and no traders to be seen. I had 260 unit of hops. Come on Cassandra! I'm was dying and you sent me that!
So far, I've made it until day 35. I was hopping for some trade, but I couldn't wait any longer. I had to deconstruct my comms and build a smelter, and then the sythers took me and my base to my grave (I had no sniper rifle either).

[Sola]

Even in the end game, scythers are the single most painful enemy you will fight.  EMP grenades will be your best friend.

You seem like a good person to ask.

About when should I be looking to pick up my second colonist?

Always.  Every colonist is a potential new recruit.  If you get great traits, keep it.  If it's anything less than "Really really close", let him die.  The more colonists you have, the less likely you'll get another colonist event.
-Able to grow, doctor, shoot, haul, and cook.  Unable to do any of these, you'll probably want to skip.  As your colony grows, you're going to have to do a lot of growing, hauling, and cooking.  Making Engie waste her time cooking when she could be researching is not optimal.
-Mental break traits, such as sanguine, optimistic, iron willed, and steadfast.
-Psychopath is a huge plus.  One guy that can cut up 9001 bodies with only a -5 mood penalty to the rest of your colony is the way to go.  The leather will be good trade bait, and the human sausages are good food in a pinch.
-Affinity for shooting is a huge plus.  When you're using a squad of snipers, you'll get the daily 4000 exp in shooting easily when kiting centipedes on interested learners.
-Skip anyone that can't fight fires.  Zzzt! is a real pain when most of the map is "walk speed = 24%".
-Skip chemical interest/chemical fascination.  it's bad on other maps, and suicide here.

Ideally, you'll want to see a bulk goods trader before you pick up your second colonist (hydroponics to sustain them, their mental break thresholds are less forgiving than Engie's), but the longer you go without a backup doctor, the more you risk dying to an infected pinky toe.

[LordMunchkin]

There's a funny mod called Mind Altering Device. It randomly generates new traits for your colonists. The side effect is that there's a chance they'll get brain damage. Always fun to use on new recruits (especially wanderers)! 

[Zhentar]

I would only put doctor, shooting, and either crafting or hauling on my 100% must have list for my second pawn. Growing is easily skippable; tending two or three rice hydroponics bays doesn't take much time. Missing hauling sucks, but they'll fetch steel slag while working the smelter and slag is well over half of the early game hauling so it's close enough. Cooking is a nice to have, but it doesn't use up nearly as much of Engie's time as hauling steel slag or bleeding to death do, so it's not worth passing up an otherwise acceptable pawn over.

Also note that Bloodlust is as good or better than Psychopath (can also butcher humans with no penalty, and also gets mood boosts during/after battles from witnessing deaths). And cannibal is better than both because they get a huge mood boost from eating the resulting human meat.

[CrazyEyes]

Here are the next 30ish days of my little adventure, split into two posts because apparently I hit the character limit.

I also started writing the entries from Engie's perspective, which I enjoy a lot more since I get to give the pawns some personality.

Enjoy!

Day 26 - Meals Remaining: 0

A small pirate raid arrives.  Three strong, armed with melee weapons and personal shields, only one of whom was told that the base they were raiding was located in temperatures low enough to freeze a thrumbo. I never even see them approach my base.

Day 29 - Meals Remaining: 6 (human)

The lest three days have been mercifully uneventful, allowing us to research Hydroponics more or less uninterrupted.  But today some cargo pods arrived, bringing us a supply of elk meat and a load of slag!  This will help everyone get over their nerves about the cannabalism for now.  Hopefully by the time we're resorting to that again, we'll have some vegetables to make the meal a bit more pallatable.  Engie and Red drop everything to get the meat hauled back and cooked.

While they're doing that, another wanderer happens by our bustling little community.  Even with her parka Kallisti is about ninety degrees undredressed for the climate.  Let's see if she makes it to the base in time to help with any of the hauling.

She immediately takes off her parka in anticipation of swapping it out for a better one at my base and begins carrying it halfway across the map.  Engie and Red place their bets.  At least Khallisti was carrying some survival meals.


JOURNAL ENTRIES FROM THIS POINT FORWARD ARE WRITTEN FROM ENGIE'S PERSPECTIVE


Day 30 - Meals Remaining: 14, 6 (human)

I spent the day cooking the elk meat into some simple meals.  It's not fancy, but it's a welcome change from cannabalism.  A couple more days of that and we probably would have lost it, thanks to the dismal conditions around here.  Red is doing her best to haul in all the corpses we've left on the ice until now, as most of them still have useful gear that can be sold or broken down.  Plus she doesn't seem to be bothered by all the death and decay.  It's a little disturbing but right now I'm just glad I don't have to look at any more corpses.

Day 31 - Meals Remaining: 12, 6 (human)

Uhh, I think I blacked out for a few hours there.  Red says she went out to get another body to bury and when she came back she found my research notes strwn around our shelter and I was stomping around outside waving my arms and shouting obsceneties at our wind turbine.  She cleaned up as best she could and even finished a few of my equations.  I feel a little bad about that - she must have been afraid to go outside.  I'll have to make it up to her somehow.  Hopefully I can do that with the gift of fresh food.  Her work actually solved the last couple of problems I was trying to work out with the hydroponics station, and I think we're ready to build one once we get the steel together!

Day 32 - Meals Remaining: 9, 6 (human)

Today we got a call from a wanderer on our shortwave station who wants to help us out.  I'm honestly not sure where all these people are coming from.  When we asked, she said her name was Amy and that she was good with plants.  I should have turned her away.  I shoud have told her that it was too hard here, that she'd never make it.  But I was selfish.  I thought another helper would be nice around here.  So I told her we'd work together.

She wasn't dressed for the ice.  Even walking as fast as she was, she didn't make it close enough to the shelter to put on anything warmer before collapsing.  I tried to bring her inside and treat her frostbite, but our single heater isn't enough to raise the temperature to survivable levels in the cold of winter.  Amy is dead.

It's strange.  All the people that have come and go before her... all the frozen raids, escape pod survivors and refugees... she's the first one I feel truly bad about.  I think I'm done writing for now.

Day 33 - Meals Remaining: 5, 6 (human)

I was outside smelting slag, trying to keep my mind off things, when I saw a group of tribespeople brandishing weapons approaching on the ice.  There were only six, and they dodn't look too warmly dressed, so I didn't think much of it - but as they were getting closer, we got another call on the shortwave.  Hakuja, a healer, was being chased by tribespeople and begged for our protection.

...damnit.  I don't want to invite more people to their deaths, and two raids at once might actually be the end of us.  But I can't doom her to capture and whatever punishment those neanderthals will devise for her.  I just can't.  I wake Red and tell her to grab a weapon.  Here we go.

Well, we made it.  It wasn't easy, though.  Even with the cold both groups made it up to the shelter, and we had to fall back to take shots from afar as the temperature did its work.  The group chasing Hakuja was nearly a dozen strong, and she ended up taking an arrow to the kidney before enough of the attackers were killed or frozen to force a retreat.  i take her inside to get patched up right away.  I'm not losing another one.

Not long after I get her patched up, we hear the farmilar thump-thump-thump of cargo pods landing nearby.  They contained smokeleaf joints, of all things.  Well... I'm not usually an advocate for drug use, but things are hard enough out here as it is.  At least this will keep everyone in a good mood for a while, though maybe they should be saved for when we run out of food again...

Day 35 - meals Remaining: 3, 6 (human)

Hakuja made a full recovery and, it turns out, is a rather good cook!  She cooked the last of our elk meat into some simple meals for us.  I've decided to restrict use of the smokeleaf for when things get really bad.  I'd rather ration them out as damage control than smoke them all up and be happy for a couple days when we're already doing alright.

Oh, hell.  Red just came running and says a bunch of tribespeople showed up and are preparing to raid us.  What do these people want from us?  We're barely scraping by as it is!  Well, we'd better get ready to defend ourselves, Red says several of them are dressed warmly enough to live through the night.  It turns out not to matter.  Enough of them freeze in the first couple of hours that they decide to cut their losses and retreat.

Day 36 - Meals Remaining: 6 (human)

Wow, that food went faster than I thought.  I guess we do have three people to worry about feeding now.  I opted to crack open one of the human meat meals instead of starving, and immediately all the bad memories came rushing back.  Well, this is what the smokeleaf is for right?  I lit up, and the joint made me feel all euphoric and giggly.  For a few minutes it was like being young again.  Then I felt the familiar pangs of hunger, even though I'd just eaten.  I forgot how hungry this stuff can make you.  That could be a problem...

Some cargo pods landed, and we all had our hopes up for a moment, but it turned out to be just chemfuel.  Pretty useless, all things considered.  At least the slag will provide us with more precious steel.

Day 39 - Meals Remaining: 3 (human)

An escape pod crashed nearby.  It feels callous, but there's no way we'll be able to rescue them before the hypothermia is irreversible.  Sorry Lindberg.

We're burning (ha) through our smokeleaf pretty quickly trying to counter the mood penalties from all the cannabalism.  We have the steel to make a hydroponics bench, but it's still too cold in the shelter to grow any plants.  We're going to have to tear down the research bench to make more room for heaters in here.  We can worry about research once our food situation is under control.

Day 40 - Meals Remaining: 2 (human)

What luck!  A few chunks of my ruined spacecraft have landed nearby.  They must have taken some time to de-orbit, but I'm glad they did.  We can salvage these for more steel and even some components.  We'll use the extra supplies to build another wind turbine - one isn't going to cut it if we need three heaters, a sun lamp and a hydroponics basin powered at all times.

A few hours later an escape pod de-orbits and crashes hard nearby.  Once again, there's nothing we can do for Dorian in these temperatures.  It makes me thankful that I wasn't injured when my escape pod landed, or I could just have easily frozen to death here.  I barely survived as it was.  If some of the ship's storage hadn't landed nearby... I'd rather not think about it.

Day 42 - Meals Remaining: 8 (human)

Good news on the horizon!  More cargo pods have crashed nearby containing... rhino meat?  Well, I've never tried it, but I'd give just about anything to stop having to eat dead raiders at this point.  I grab Red (Hakuja won't do any hauling - annoying, but she's a good enough doctor that I don't mind dealing with it) and we bring as much meat as we can carry back to the shelter.

Day 44 - Meals Remaining: 10, 6 (human)

A raid arrived this morning.  More tribespeople.  Hakuja seemed a bit taken aback when Red and I started jokingly wagering how far they would make it.  I suppose it is a bit dark, but apparently she had another reason.  She said she wanted them to get close because she had never gotten to watch a person freeze to death before.

I wonder if I'm going to be the same when I get out of here.  Maybe I'll try to be a little less indifferent about the fate of the people that wind up here.

Hakuja ended up taking her bow and hiking out to "scout out" the raiding party.  She came back with a wicked smile on her face and news that they were all frozen or gone.  It makes me a little nervous to think that this person is the most accomplished doctor we have out here.  I didn't have too much time to dwell on it, though, as the shortwave crackled to life with a distress call from Caxigo Saio.  She was fleeing from tribespeople and needed protection.  I told her we'd do what we could, even though I worry about the drain on our resources.  Hakuja just smiled.

Saio arrives chased by no fewer than sixteen tribespeople.  That's enough to make me nervous, even with the cold protecting us.  I shake Red awake and we both head outdoors to defend ourselves.  Red doesn't seem too perturbed, and I don't think I've ever seen Hakuja happier.  I'm not sure if I'm more freaked out by the thought of a bunch of tribals kidnapping me or my own people.

None of us were hurt in the raid, but I did get a bit carried away shooting in the dark and I acidentally broke our second wind turbine.  Whoops.  That's going to be expensive to fix.

Silver lining, another soothing psychic wave sweeps throug the region, giving me and presumably every other woman in a thousand miles a warm, pleasant tingle in the back of our minds.  even so, Saio spends her first night in the shelter softly weeping to herself.  In the morning I ask what's wrong, and she tearfully replies that her son and daughter were recently killed.  I'm crushed.  I don't really know what to say.  She's absorbing herslef in her work for now, obsessively keeping every square inch of our shelter as clean as possible.  Still, it's only a matter of time before the reality sinks in.  I'll let the others know to keep an eye on her in case she tries hurting herself.  Poor woman....

Day 45 - Meals Remining - 9, 6 (human)

Hakuja and Red have come down with the flu, which is dangerous in these conditions but not as immediately fatal as it might have been when I was alone.  I order them both to stay in bed and rest as much as possible.  Of course, we still have only one real bed.  I'll have to keep an eye on them and make sure Hakuja doesn't get too sick from lying on the ground.

Another escape pod crashlands nearby, carrying another doomed survivor.  This one doesn't even have a shirt on.  He'll be dead in minutes, I tell myself.  It still feels bad to let someone just die out there but there's nothing I can do to save these people.

Day 46 - Meals Remaining - 4 (human)

My earlier comment about temperatures cold enough to freeze a thrumbo proves apt, as today one of the rare creatures wandered into sight of our shelter.  I don't know how the poor thing made it this far, but it seems unlikely it will survive much longer.  Thinking about the loss of such a peaceful and majestic creature makes me sad, but the pragmatist in me is thinking about how much meat the creature can provide.  That could be enough food to keep the four of us going for over a week.

The beast actually wandered right into my stockpile before collapsing from the cold.  It's sad... I can't help but shake the feeling that it came here on purpose, sacrificing itself so that we could live.  I almost can't bring myself to butcher it, but I have no choice - we are once again out of options.  If I make it off this icy rock, I'm going to go work on one of those preservation planets where they create entire ecosystems for animals to thrive in.  They say there are entire herds of thrumbo there wandering the plains.  It sounds beautiful.

[CrazyEyes]

Day 48 - meals Remaining - 6, 4 (human)

The shortwave crackled to life again this morning.  I thought it was going to be another ditress call, but it turned out to be much more benign than that.  A nearby wanderer had heard about our colony and wanted to offer his services.  I was ready to turn him down when he mentioned he was Saio's brother.

Well... crap.  I don't want to turn away Saio's family, especially after what she's been through already.  But we really, really, really can't afford to have too many people right now.  I haven't even set up the hydroponics basin yet!  In the end I decide to accept.  Maybe having her brother around will cheer Saio up a bit.  We can't take in any more people after this though - there is literally no more space in the shelter.

The sound of arriving cargo pods cheers me up a bit, until I go see what arrived.  Wake-up?  Ugh.  We don't need that crap, we have enough problems as it is.  I decide to just not tell anyone about it and let it rot on the ice.  I'll haul the slag back, though.  More steel is always helpful.

Day 49 - Meals Remaining: 4 (human)

A distant engine of hatred is stirring, and all the women in the shelter can feel it.  It's like needles in my throughts.  Hard to write.  Hope it goes away soon.

A fight broke out.  Saio and her brother both snapped and started hitting me.  Red and Hakuja had to pull them off me, but I think they got a bit carried away and now everyone is injured and in pain.  Mostly bruises, but things are hard enough without us all fighting each other.

More cargo pods arrive, bringing hops.  I don't know the first thing about brewing, but maybe they'll be useful someday soon.  As soon as everyone can walk again we'll start hauing them.

Another cargo pod crashes minutes later.  Must test theroy about magnetism.  This one has a bit of gold in it, enough that when the time comes we can build a proper reseach station.  That's our ticket off this rock.  If we can figure out how to cobble together a ship we've got a shot at making it home.

Day 50 - Meals remaining: 1, 4 (human)

Toxic fallout.  I've read about this.  The rimworlds are full of ancient structures, obliterated again and again by civilizations in a constant state of war and self-destruction.  Sometimes the deteriorating structures can explode or catch fire, and if they happen to contain toxic chemichals poisonus ash gets swept into the sky and carried hundreds or even thousands of miles across the globe before raining down on some unfortunate area.  Today that unfortunate area is us.  I tell everyone to stay under roofs and
indoors as much as possible.  Maybe we can focus on getting hydroponics built without everyone running all over the place hauling everything.

Day 51 - Meals Remaining: 2, 4 (human)

Well, we cooked the last of our thrumbo meat today.  Tomorrow it's back to corpses.  Trying not to think about it.  To make matters worse, we got a call from a wanderer claiming to be Saito and Leonid's mother.  I just... can't.  We can't.  I'm sorry.  I'm so sorry.  It's just impossible.  There's no room left.  We need every scrap of material left to grow food.  There are too many people as it is.  I turn her down without telling the siblings.  I can't bring myself to.  Later, Saito asks me why I've been sulking around all day.  I lie and tell her I'm worried about the food situation.  It makes me feel like garbage.  I take solace only in the fact that we finally got a hydroponics basin built and powered and are beginning to grow some rice to eat.  It can't grow fast enough.

Day 53 - Meals Remaining: 5 (human)

A solar flare killed our rice.  Now we have to start over.

Day 54 - Meals Remaining: 10 (human)

I had to turn away another wanderer today.  At least Schmidt wasn't related to anyone here.  The fallout hasn't gone away, though.  I hope he has some kind of shelter, or he's going to die out there.  I can't think too much about it.  Our smokeleaf supply is running low and there's no end to the cannabalism in sight.  We really need more steel - if we can get a comm station up and running maybe we can entice some passing ships into a bit of trade.  All these clothes we took off the raiders have got to be worth something, right?

Some cargo pods full of hay crashed nearby.  That would be great if we had any animals, but humans can't digest hay.  The slag will be useful, anyway.  I decide to risk a bit of exposure to the fallout in order to get some hauling done.

Day 55 - Meals Remaining: 7 (human)

We had our first harvest today!  It wasn't much, but Saio cooked us up some fine meals with it and the human meat we're still being forced to eat.  It's not ideal, but it will help stretch what little food we have.  Plus, with the rice in there it's easier to pretend you're eating some pork, or a nice steak.

Day 56 - Meals Remaining: 6 (human)

More cargo pods arrived, these carrying Flake.  It would certainly take the edge off, but this stuff is horribly addictive.  I'm leaving it on the ice.

More cargo pods?  Uncanny.  These are carrying nutrient paste meals, though.  They taste like dirt and have the texture of snot, but they're not made of people and that's good enough for me!

Day 57 - Meals Remaining: 9 (human)

More cargo pods, more hay.  Did a farming ship crash?  Regardless, there was a decent amount of slag in the wreck.  If this damn fallout would ever clear up we could all go and get it, but as it is I don't want to risk anyone being outside longer than they need to.

I can't believe it!  It's Otto!  My husband is alive!  He called on the shortwave just a moment ago.  Of course we're going to take him in, we'll think of a way to make space.  I dont' know how... we'll think of something.  It's been so hard without my Otto, I can't believe he's actually coming here!  I know he won't judge me too harshly for the things I've done to survive.  With him here we could have a real shot at this!

What... oh no.  Oh no oh no oh no oh no what happened to his clothes?!  I'm coming Otto, I'm not letting you freeze out there!  Not you!

I ran out to meet him, and it's a good thing I did because he very nearly froze.  Poor Otto... we got him inside in time and he's warming up now.  We'll get him some suitable clothes soon.

Hakuja just walked in laughing.  I asked what was so funny and she said a cluster of cargo pods had landed nearby carrying a shipment of wooden feet.  Nothing else, just a shipment of eight wooden prosthetic feet.  More slag though, if we ever get the chance to collect it all we should be able to afford a comms console right away.

Saio picked yet another fight with us in the middle of the night.  I know she lost her children, but this doesn't seem like healthy grieving to me.  You know, her sleeping spot is right next to mine, and Otto needs a place to stay...

Day 59 - Meals Remaining: 0

The others are having a hard time getting along with Otto.  I admit he's hard to like, but they just don't see him like I do.  Sure, some people think his voice is annoying... and the fact that he won't haul anything doesn't help (out of 6 people here, only Red and I will carry anything... it's so hard to get things done, but we manage).  And sure, we had to force him to put on warmer clothes so that he wouldn't try and play horseshoes naked in the snow.  And when I told him about the Flake he ran off to take some and wound up spending the next day and a half binging on it.  But he's my husband.  I can't help that I love him.  We'll make it work.

((Author's note:  Boy did I make a mistake.  Otto is the worst fucking thing to happen to my colony since Wolle.  No... I think worse.  Wolle at least saved Engie's life.  Otto has ZERO useful skills, won't haul or clean, and I wasn't making up the thing about not wearing any clothes.  Most colonists automatically wear the warmest thing possible on this map, but Otto really was content to keep playing horseshoes wearing nothing but pants.  He wasn't joy-deprived or anything, and he's not a nudist, he just didn't want to wear clothes.  I had to keep drafting him and sending him inside to warm up, then force him to wear the warmest clothes I could find in my stockpile. Right after that he had a mental break and decided to go on a psychite binge.  He took one dose of Flake and was instantly addicted.  He then proceeded to spend all day wandering around the ice and continually going back for more hits of Flake. 

And the worst part is, him being around isn't even giving Engie a mood buff!  Engie is a hard worker and he's lazy, which is a -5 to their relationship, and then his annoying voice brings it down another -25, fully countering the +30 from being married.  Then he went and ate some raw human meat before I could cook it, giving Engie another -5.  So instead of a useful worker who can keep Engie in a good mood like I thought, I've got a no-skill drug addict who I don't have room for and who can't help with even the most basic of tasks.  I'm thinking of sending him and the siblings off to form a second colony next door, then abandoning it. I think that lets you get rid of a relative or loved one without a mood penalty. 

Siao hasn't been very helpful either, the -40 from losing both children (which she arrived on the map with; I had nothing to do with that) won't go away for another season and in the meantime she is having extreme mental breaks at least once a day.  The constant berserk rages mean my pawns are constantly fighting and getting bruises and cracks everywhere, putting them in pain and causing further mood debuffs which, combined with the cannibalism, will start an unbreakable downward spiral if I don't do something.  I can't kill her off without upsetting her brother, who isn't too useful either.  I'd euthanize both of them, but I've been writing Engie as a more sympathetic person than I am in this circumstance.  Plus, that doesn't solve the Otto problem.  It's the best thing for everyone if I just send them off.))

Some cargo pods landed narby, carring over 200 alphabeaver meat!  I might have turned my nose up at such exotic meat before landing here, but now I'm desperate for anything that isn't a cooked person.  This is definitely going to help calm everyone's nerves.

Day 60 - Meals Remaining: 2

I can't believe what I'm reading.  It took me so long just to make this entry, I've been shaking and crying all morning.  But I have to keep a record of what happened.

Otto is gone.

He must have left in the night.  I found a note by my bed in the morning, explaining how he knew about a colony nearby that could provide us with resources, maybe even take us in.  He took Saio and her brother with him, maybe hoping for some kind of protection if they got ambushed.  I wish they'd talked to me about it.  Trying to cross this ice would be suicide.  It's too cold, we don't have enough food to make it a significant distance, and even if we did we can't carry our entire shelter with us.  Everything we have is right here, so it's here or nothing.  I wish they'd stuck with me.  We could have done this together.

Or maybe they just lost faith in me.

I don't want to write anymore.

[taha]

I'd like to thank OP for the idea. Was great fun (yes, I "won" a couple of times, but that's not the point).

I used to play only on Ice Sheet in the past at ~ -90C maps. Never thought I could add cold snap / volcanic winter / eclipse as permanent map conditions. That opens a whole range of possibilities - at least for me. Actual conditions are still too "humane" in my opinion (eg you can use silver to build bed and extra layer walls in order to mitigate the lack of construction materials)

I tried to alter conditions using scenario editor, but I am unable to add permanent cold snap as a map condition. Fallout, volcanic winter, eclipse - yes. But not cold snap.

Any suggestions?
Thank you.

[DeathWeasel]

I'd like to thank OP for the idea. Was great fun (yes, I "won" a couple of times, but that's not the point).

I used to play only on Ice Sheet in the past at ~ -90C maps. Never thought I could add cold snap / volcanic winter / eclipse as permanent map conditions. That opens a whole range of possibilities - at least for me. Actual conditions are still too "humane" in my opinion (eg you can use silver to build bed and extra layer walls in order to mitigate the lack of construction materials)

I tried to alter conditions using scenario editor, but I am unable to add permanent cold snap as a map condition. Fallout, volcanic winter, eclipse - yes. But not cold snap.

Any suggestions?
Thank you.

You need to add the "Create incident" part, select cold snap, and set the repeat interval to 0 which should make the incident permanent, if I remember correctly.

[Limdood]

To the person doing longform journal entries, and anyone else interested, You can drastically extend your food life with this:

1. Forbid all food
1a. forbid all freshly carved human meat and any just hauled food
1b. forbid the stack of food after you have Engie grab a meal

2. Let Engie's food bar run to 1% (0.4% if the food is inside, next to her, 1.3% if she has to walk out the airlock first) then use the right click to force her to grab a meal (then reforbid the stack).

This works because even though a meal only fills 90% of her hunger bar, the bar decreases at half speed below 20% and 1/4th speed below 10%....so you basically get an extra 50% of a food bar or more, than letting engie control her own eating.

Try to avoid actually getting to starving, since malnutrition moves your hunger bar a lot faster.

Also, use meals as long as possible...not raw food.  meals are 10 food for 90% hunger, raw food is 18 food for 90% hunger.

Using this, it is possible (my playthru #3) to last about a year right as you run out of the packaged meals (counting an extra ~9-15 from raiders and wanderers)


Obviously this gets much more obnoxiously micromanagy with another colonist, so best used before getting buddies.

[CrazyEyes]

Thanks, that will be useful if (when) I get into a situation where I'm running low on food again.  As it is, I have three colonists now so the micromanaging would be a bit of a chore, and I still have about two dozen corpses buried outside ready to be dug up and eaten.  If something horrible happens and I end up starting over it'll be useful for keeping Engie from starving right away, though. 

[Limdood]

Try #4:
Got frostbite due to a failed construct on a wall not facing the wood...alt-f4'd out to eliminate the attempt and do it again rather than sit in bed for my whole first day.

Try #5:
Strong start, no FTCs, did some snow clearing to make nearby hauling faster.  Unfortunately, Engie crafted a shoddy silver bed, so i'll be losing plenty of sleep compared to the good bed i had on my second playthru.

Day 5: only 5 meals used so far.  A cadaver wearing a cloth parka and tuque joins.  Engie thinks that if people INSIST on coming here to die, it should be named.  Faction group: Forsaken, Colony name: Arse End of the World.

Day 6: raider comes in, smashes the outer door (i kept repairing it, and hit him a couple times)...he moved to the battery and set it on fire, i came out and unloaded charge rifle shots, he got in a whack though.  disabled him, got his megasloth wool tuque, 57%, so no more tattered debuff.

Day 10....still no more events...had a thrumbo come by, but got out before it died.  Getting bored.

Day 12, HOLY CRAP!
Got a wait, then attack raid, then 5 in-game minutes later got a chased wanderer...66 year old sausages and leather basically...with the raid that follows, then 30 in game minutes after that, got a wanderer...this is all during a solar flare thats 10 hours in and i'm up to minor hypothermia...and its not over...fingers crossed!

Wanderer was shot by sniper pirate AS he entered the map...he was aiming at the refugee and retargeted to the wanderer...literally made it a SINGLE tile into the map and had his head shot off...

raiders approach, refugee keels over most of the way to my base, but the raiders are too close for me to drag back or strip.  Raiders pull the body away as i come out to try....and i put a notch into my available luck as a sniper shot misses a no-cover Engie.

Net result, 2 raiders die, they fail to get the body off the map.  Unfortunately, no new clothes, no sniper rifle, and i need to make a dangerous trek to the very edge of the map to retrieve the wanderer...make it back JUST before frostbite could hit.

Also get a drop pod of muffalo WOOL...will be great...when i get a tailor bench.

Bodies carved, leather is finally plentiful enough for an armchair at the research bench.  no more awful bedroom.

Day 14:
Got the "travel to ship to win" location.  New plan forming.  Seriously considering hauling all that muffalo wool, waiting until human butchering penalty is gone, deconstruct some stuff, make a hand tailoring bench and get a muffalo parka, then set off for the ship...

Bedtime now...will decide tomorrow.

[xrumblingcdsx]

My favorite challenge so far has been tribals on an ice sheet. I've never attempted a sea ice biome yet, mainly because I'm still on my first game of the new alpha. Trying to exterminate all the bases on MY planet. So has anyone tried the crash landing scenario? Doesn't seem like tribals would even be possible.