Sea Ice Community Challenge

Started by Rhadamant, December 29, 2016, 04:33:13 PM

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Quasarrgames

Am i the only one finding this challenge unnecessarily hard?

Attempt 7, everything was going right, got an exotic then bulk goods trader, had a smelter's table, and a greenhouse that was in the process of making food.
Then two raiders show up with a molotov while Engie's partner is going berzerk, and the fire burns the whole base down. Darn!
Okay, i know this is basically the hardest thing in the game, but still, if it's been done by many people already, it's gotta be less hard than i'm finding it.

Also, how do you keep a steady supply of power? Two solar panels, three wind turbines, and a battery, and i couldn't go a three-day stretch without running out of power. Thinking back, turning off the smelter would have helped, but still.
On the right path, but the wrong medication.

I like how there's a thing that displays how long you've logged in to the forums. It shows just how many hours you've spent here, never to get back...

taha

@ Quasarrgames

The point of it is to be hard. See the name: "challenge". :) No, is not that hard, it just need constant micromanagement and planning. (Right now, the "start with as little as possible" in a "as unfriendly as possible biome" become starting point for most player made scenarios.)

Unfortunately your biggest enemy early-game becomes your best ally end-game (cold). Because of that, most of end-game raids will be mech based (their minimal temperature is -1000 C I think). You will drown in plasteel -> colony value will rise -> more mech raids -> more plasteel , etc.

I have NO idea why you need that many power sources. For a huge room (as in 13x13) you need 4, (max 5) heaters and 1 sun lamp. Add an electric stove, comm and beacon and 2 hydroponics / person. 2 wind turbines and 2 solar panels are more than enough.

Link sun lamp to panels to save power during night. (-1600)
Heaters, comm & 'ponics -> battery -> turbines (175 x 4 + 70 x 4 +200)
Stove and beacon turn on as needed.

Double layered walls are a must, or your heating will drain all your electricity.

Those things are bare minimum for survival.

CrazyEyes

Sorry for the long silence, I came down with a high fever and wasn't really able to focus on my writing.  I did just play through a big chunk, and here's what happened:

Day 196

Well, we survived our attack on the ship, but we lost both turrets and we got pretty banged up.  But the worst was yet to come.  Just as we were dragging our battery back to camp to lick our wounds, a group of mechanoids arrived and started heading towards our base from the north.  We didn't even have time to staunch our bleeding wounds.  Those scythers were closing in fast and we had no choice but to limp over to the sandbags and get ready for a fight.

And it was a hell of a fight.  We only had one turret built at that position and it went down pretty quickly, nearly killing Wobber in the resulting explosion.  Probably the only thing that saved our lives was that it took us long enough to get there that the mechanoids were fairly close, and Cyber was able to hit most of them with his EMP grenades.  Still, we were all on death's door by the end of that fight.  It was a chaotic couple of hours in the hospital after that, with everyone who wasn't in immediate danger perfomring triage on those who were.  Wobber and Hakuja both nearly bled out, but we just managed to save them.

Even so, Wobber had his ear shot off, and both he and Cyber have a shattered bone in one of their legs.  There's nothing we can do for them right now, but if I can get a proper workshop set up maybe I can buold them some suitable replacements.

There's so much blood in the hospital right now it's making me sick just to be around it.  None of us are in any condition to clean, though.  We'll have to do it later, as well as investigate those cargo pods we heard crashing nearby.

Day 202

Most of us have recovered from our ordeal - at least well enough to move around and get some work done - and while I was going to check on the cargo pods I saw a large group of tribals massing on the horizon.  Just what we need.  That corn will have to wait, it's time to get everyone back on the line for another round.

We emerged victorious, though we have another round of cuts and bruises to show for it.  It could have been much worse, but by focusing our fire on the melee attackers before they got close enough to engage us hand-to-hand we were able to put enough rounds downrange that the tribals' morale broke and they ran.  Poor Wobber had a bone in his arm shattered by a lucky shot from a pila, though.

I'm not... super proud of what we did next.  One of the tribals survived... and Cyber needed a lung.  So we dragged the prisoner inside and Hakuja stopped his bleeding long enough to open him up and take one of his lungs.  Then she dragged him outside to freeze.

It was the right thing to do.  Wasn't it?  Why should we value the lives of the prople who come to kill us over one of our own?  But no matter how much I tell myself that, I can't help but feel like this place is making me into a monster.  I need to get out of here.  I need to get off this planet.

I broke down crying that night for the first time since I lost my hand.  Norman was there and he just held me.  I think he understands.  I'm so glad I have him with me.

Day 209

I've been pretty focused on my work the last few days, and it's finally paid off.  We have a new building!  A proper building, too, not some ramshackle hut i cobbled together in a few hours so I wouldn't freeze.  This new building is going to be our dining room, kitchen, and food storage area.  It's a bit cramped, but we can't afford to be wasteful with our resources just yet.

Hmm... it's like someone out in space can hear this, because some cargo pods of steel landed nearby just as I was writing that.  Hours later, some pods of milk shoed up as well.  I can't help but brace myself for the hammer to drop.  It feels like whenever things go our way for a bit, that's when we get slammed the worst.  Eyes open for killer robots, everyone.

Day 212

See?  A group of pirates arived today.  They're massing just out of range of our guns to "plan" their attack.  That's good for us, since it means they may freeze to death and retreat without a fight.

Day 213

As expected, enough of the pirates freeze that they see the error of their ways and leave to take up new careers in criminal justice.

Well, probably not, but you never know, right?  Anyway, we got some more melee weapons to melt down out of the deal.

Day 216

Norman didn't tell me he had a sister, but today she showed up on the ice asking if we could take her in.  Of course I accepted - Norman and I are married now, which means realy, she's my sister too.

But it all goes wrong.  She shows up without any clothes on, and despite Norman running out to meet her on the ice she's dead from the cold before he even has the chance to pick her up.

This time it's my turn to hold Norman while he cries.  We'll dig a grave and bury her seperately from all the raiders.  It's not much, but it's all we can do out here.

Day 221

Another massive group of tribals showed up.  I've given up counting how many are in each raid.  Where could they all be coming from?  Some of the die off from the cold, but not enough that they don't still attack us.  thankfully, they are distracted by our turrets and we're able to force a retreat without taking any damage.  I think I'm going to build more turrets for each defensive line - they seem to be incredibly useful.

Day 227

Another psychic ship crashed nearby.  We'll have to deal with it soon.

First, though, something incredible happened - Norman's mother Sara showed up.  She must be devestated by the loss of her daughter, and nearly dies herself trying to get to us.  We manage to get her into the warmth, though, and she's going to pull through.  I'm happy for Norman - having his mother around might help take the edge off the loss of his sister.  I hope they can keep each other's spirits up.

Day 230

Everything is in place.  We hauled over a battery, set up turrets, and built defenses to hide behind.  Sara even insisted on helping, and being a lousy shot we gave her the EMP grenades.

Alright.  Let's do this.  We can do this.

Well, we made it through.  The turrets were once again invaluable in absorbing enemy fire, though this is a really expensive way to fight.  Sara took an incindiary launcher round and got burned up a bit, but I carried her back to the hospital and it doesn't look like there's going to be too much lasting damage.  I think the next order of business needs to be to get a workshop up ASAP so I can start building more cost-effective ways of dealing with those crashed ships.

Day 233

A wander named Fish came by asking to join.  We warned him about the incredibly harsh conditions, but he said that was exactly what he was looking for.  Strange, but whatever.  Welcome to the colony, Fish!

I started drawing up plans to build a bedroom for him and he asks me to keep it simple if possible.  ...yeah, no problem.

Day 234

More mechanoids arrived today.  Fish says he's a pretty good shot, so we give him a salvaged minigun to use against the machines.  We haven't had time to install new turrets so it's strictly us against them.  Nothing to do but dig in and wait.

The five scythers arrive first and we open fire.  It seems like it's going well until the last one gets a lucky shot off and severs Fish's right arm entirely.  Hakuja grabs him and drags him into the hospital while Norman heads out with our best rifle to begin the long, arduous task of kiting the two centipedes.

While he was doing that, a pirate merchant showed up and bought a great deal of our raider clothing and tribal weapons.  They happened to be selling a prosthetic arm, so we went ahead and bought one for Fish.  We picked up some penoxycyline, overpriced medicine and components in return.  I also bought a bunch of smokeleaf joints, since our own supply couldn't keep up with the extra people.  Even with all that we managed to make back 500 or so silver - not bad at all.

We made it through the attack, but it was pretty rough.  Norman was too exhausted to keep kiting the centipedes forever, and when he tried to make it back to rest they got inside our base.  We all got shot up and burned in the subsequent fight.  We're alive, though, and that's what matters.

Day 236

More money fell from the sky today, but I'm a little too preoccupied to celebrate.  All the burns people suffered are starting to get infected.  We don't have the cleanest hospital in the world so it's going to take a lot of dedicated care for everyone to start feeling better.  Good thing we bought that medicine.

Day 240

Another bulk goods trader came in range of our comms today!  We had to give up most of our leather stockpiles, but we got another thousand steel and wood and like 1400 slate blocks for our trouble.  It didn't cost us too much of our silver in the end, either.  These supplies should probably go towards building us a workshop.

Day 243

Wobber and Sara pulled Norman and I aside today and told us that they were starting a relationship.  Norman seemed a bit uncomfortable, but I'm happy for them.  If they can find the same peace and joy together that Norman and I have, then I support them 100%.

As if on cue, a distant crash and an evil pulse in our minds signalled the arrival of yet another psychic ship part.  I won't have time to make a proper workshop before thid thing drives us all over the edge, so we'll have to make do with turrets and walls.  We all start dragging the necessary supplies across the ice to the crashed ship, steeling ourselves for one more fight to the death with those metal monsters.

If there are no more entries after this, you can probably guess how it went.
Before you talk to me, I should warn you: I am kind of strange.

jmababa

Not so hard with fishing mod only thing hard is if you start as tribe no wood even ice sheet is harder than sea ice

taha

Quote from: jmababa on February 04, 2017, 02:33:45 AM
Not so hard with fishing mod only thing hard is if you start as tribe no wood even ice sheet is harder than sea ice

You, again? Dude, as tribe you get tribal wear. Cold insulation on tribal wear is crap, and in SICC outside starting temperature is -65.

Fishing mod? What's the point of using mods in a challenge?

Ice Sheet harder than Sea Ice? Honestly you are either a troll or drunk.
On Ice Sheet you have stone clumps all over the place, also patches of rocks that can be mined. On Sea Ice there is only ice. Nothing useful there. On Ice Sheet there are usually a couple of hares or polar bears, wolves or even muffalos. On Sea Ice you can consider yourself lucky if you find a hare or get a "rare thrumbo" event. (at temps lower than -75C)

CrazyEyes

Quote from: jmababa on February 04, 2017, 02:33:45 AM
Not so hard with fishing mod only thing hard is if you start as tribe no wood even ice sheet is harder than sea ice

No offense, but playing with a mod that lets you secure an easy food source isn't really in the spirit of the challenge.  I'd encourage you to disable your mods and then see how easy you think it is.  ;D
Before you talk to me, I should warn you: I am kind of strange.

Sola

I'm relatively sure that this person has either "not tried this challenge" or "abuses dev mode".  In either case, this challenge isn't so hard with the "I can't die mod" either.
Two tiers of construction jobs.  One for expensive/quality items, and one for walls/floors/etc.

https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=28669.0

CrazyEyes

Day 251

We made it through attacking the ship without sustaining any major injuries, even though Fish was off wandering around all sad instead of helping us.  I'm uppset he wasn't there to defend the colony when we needed him, but I can't judge him too harshly.  I think he's dealing with some sort of addiction - Hakuja says the symptoms look like go-juice.  Poor guy.

Our turrets protected us well during that fight, but unfortunately we got a bit too overzealous with their placement.  We had five this time, which I thought would be enough to keep us from getting hit at all.  I was... mostly right, but we put them a bit too close together.  When the first one blew up, the explosion went right down the line and took them all out.  That was an expensive mistake, but the steel we got back from the ship part should pay for it.  Hopefully by the time the next one of these things falls we'll be more prepared.

Day 253

Just as we were getting patched up from the mechanoid fight, another large group of tribals arrived to try and kill us.  Where are they all coming from?  I wasn't under the impression there was enough food out here to sustain that many people.  They must have captured an advanced hydroponics facility or something.

The fight... does not go well.  They swarm us, and no matter how many we kill another just seems to take their place.  Before we know it we're fighting hand-to-hand, and most of us go down.  Sara wasn't going to let that be the end of us, though.  She grabbed a salvaged triple rocket launcher out of the stockpile, clumsily aimed it downrange and fired.  She managed to take out a large chunk of the tribals in quick sucession, and the arrival of thunder on the battlefield must have been enough to break their spirit.  They turned and ran.

Sara did her best to drag us all into the hospital and get us patched up, but there's only so much one person can do, and Fish bled out from his wounds before any of us could save him.

I'm PISSED.  I know we can't save everyone, but we should at least be able to keep our own people from dying, right?  Norman, bless him, does his best to console me while I dig a grave for Fish.  The funeral will be minimal.  It's what he would have wanted.

As we bury him, a wave of darkness slowly engulfs the sky.  Little flecks of ash fall on our heads.  This isn't toxic fallout though - a supervolcano somewhere must have erupted, and now the stratosphere is being engulfed in a cloud of thick ash.  It'll block out the sunlight and make it even colder around here.  Great.  Maybe the next group of raiders will actually freeze solid standing up.  That'd be something to see.

Day 262

We're still sort of reeling from the ship part and tribal raid combo, but we're slowly getting back on our feet.  Wobber and Sara are even getting married!  The thought of Wobber becoming his father-in-law is weirding Norman out a bit, and I'm having great fun teasing him about it incessantly.

Also, a single cargo pod landed just on the edge of our vision carrying mortar shells.  I don't have a workshop set up to produce these yet, so this will be invaluable the next time a ship part shows up.  The idea is, we surround the ship part with buries shells then shoot it at extreme range to coax the mechanoids out.  They trigger the shells, and the whole thing goes boom.  Expensive, sure, but not as expensive as building fortifications and turrets every time, and certainly safer.

Day 267

All remians quiet, and we're using the time to get a workshop up and running.  This will make the production of goods more efficent (read: possible) and give us a chance to work on more advanced projects.

Also, an exotic goods trader and a textiles trader showed up on the same day.  We use the opportunity to sell off all our looted clothes and trade it in for a supply of components, medicine, gold, plasteel and about 1000 more muffalo wool.  Not long until we can get an assembly line going and make our own clothes.

Day 274

Just as we were finihing the workshop's granite outer walls a poison ship crashed RIGHT outside it, nearly crushing me.  It frightems me that these ship parts might be getting more... accurate, for lack of a better word, but at least we have a way of dealing with it without a fight now.  Hakuja and I haul over the mortar shells and start digging.  I'm not sure how many will be enough so we just surround the damn thing.  Can't be too safe.

Worked like a charm.  I pegged the ship with a sniper rifle, and when the mechanoids came out the IED traps cooked off and then exploded just as planned.  The ship was instantly obliterated, along with all the scythers, and the centipedes were incapacitated by the blast.  We can still salvage most of the ship, too, putting the steel it was made from towards a new set of traps for the next ship part to darken our door.

For the first time in months I'm beginning to feel like things are going well.  I barely even notice the canabalism anymore.

Day 281

The worlshop is done, and while it has lots of room for expansion right now it contains a machining table so we can build much-needed weapons and armor, as well as disassemble dead mechanoids to recover supplies.  We've also moved our electric smelter in here - it's hard to melt slag in sub-arctic temperatures.  There's also a tailoring area so we can start making our own clothes out of all the wool we've invested in over the years.

We have lots of room to add a high-tech research area, a larger machining bench for making components, and an area i've set aside to dedicate to production of various prosthetics.  Practically everyone around here has a shattered bone or missing digits at this point and the ability to make our own replacements would help a lot.

In slightly worse news, we ran out of smokeleaf some time ago and everyone around here is really suffering from the withdrawl.  Life SUCKS without that stuff to take the edge off.  So now all the old problems are still there, and we have the added problem of physiological torment.  It's going to be a rough couple of weeks, but we can make it.  Despite everything that's happened, I still believe in us.

Day 284

Another group of tribespeople.  I'm not too worried, though, since these apparently need time to "prepare" and it's -121C out.  As expected, they're frozen or gone within hours.  Back to work.

Day 295

ANOTHER group of tribespeople.  This group isn't waiting around, so we grab our guns and head for the front line.  A couple hours and some bruises and cuts later the tribals have retreated and we have a fresh load of corpses to haul.

Oh... oh, poor Hakuja.  She didn't say anything during the fight, but one of the arrows must have caught her at just the right spot in the wrist because her whole right hand got shot off.  I bandage it for her as best I can, promising her we'll get her a replacement soon.  Got to get those prosthetics workbenches built soon...

Day 299

Wobber and Sara exchanged their vows today.  We used the dining room for the ceremony, since it was relatively warm in there and people would have chairs to sit on.  Norman made a big speech giving Wobber his blessing and saying how happy he was for them.  I nearly cried.  I'm glad he got over his awkwardness about this whole thing.  Everyone out here deserves a shot at happiness. All we have out here is each other - it's important to hold on.

Day 300

A wanderer by the name of Py offered to join our colony today.  She's not particularly great at anything, but she isn't useless at anything either and we can always use more haulers around here.  I welcome her to the colony.  She'll probably have a bit of a hard time adjusting, but we'll give her all the time she needs.

Day 331

It's hard to believe nearly two whole seasons have passed without incident.  It's been a wonderful opportunity to get some real work done.  For one thing, everyone is much happier to be wearing brand new clothes that don't have bullet holes and didn't come from a corpse.  Plus this muffalo wool keeps us so warm we could probably survive even if the sun went out.

((Author's Note: No they couldn't.  I was having trouble wrapping my head around just how cold -145C is, so I looked it up.  -145C is about 125 Kelvin.  To put that in perspective, room temperature, about 21C, is something like 290 Kelvin.  0 Kelvin is, of course, absolute zero.  So on the scale between "comfortable room temperature" and "utterly devoid of all energy and heat", we're more than halfway there.

The coldest temperature ever recorded on Earth was -93.2C in Antarctica in 1983.  This ice sheet gets fifty degrees colder than that.  During winter on Mars, the poles can get to be around -125C.  We've still got that beat by a solid twenty degrees.  The idea that you could survive such temperatures thanks to a wool parka and hat is preposterous.  We have cold weather gear (not counting spacesuits and the like) meant to keep you alive in temperatures like -30C, but those setups always involve several layers of insulating and waterproof gear with as much coverage as possible. Wool IS a good insulator, but it's not THAT good. :P))


Most importantly, though, we have a new high-tech research bench with an attached multi-analayzer for advanced computing.  I've spent the better part of the last two seasons burying myself in researching how glitterworlds manufacture their bionics.  Thanks to the processing power of this station and some insights gained from studying my own power claw at length, I think I've worked out a solution.  I drafted up plans for a workstation that should be capable of manufacturing such parts and began making a list of everyone's injuries to determine who most needs replacement limbs.  The list is as follows:

Myself:  My power claw is an adaquete replacement for my left hand, but my right hand has been missing my thumb and index finger ever since those first harrowing few days on the ice.  I shudder to think about what things were like back then, but it also makes me all the more proud of how far we've come.  Anyway, a bionic replacement for my right hand would really help me get back up to full working speed.

Hakuja:  Needs a replacement right hand as well, obviously.  She is also missing her left index finger and left big toe, but I can't justify spending the resources just for that.

Cyber:  Poor guy.  He has a shattered left humerous, necessitating we replace his entire arm at the shoulder if he wants to regain full manipulation.  One of his eyes is  scarred from an inferno cannon, and if it's not too expensive we should do what we can to restore his vision.  He also has a shattered rib I can't do anything about right now, and is missing his right lung from some attack from years ago.  Bionics can't solve that problem either.  He's also missing a toe on each foot thanks to frostbite, but again, that's not enough of a problem to justify spending the resources.

Norman:  He's getting by well enough with his wooden foot replacement but he could really benefit from an upgrade.  Other than that he's the picture of health.  Don't worry sweetie, we'll have you walking better than ever in no time.

Wobber: Missing an ear, but that's not a priority.  He has some pretty bad asthma - guy just would not lay off the smokeleaf, no matter how much I warned him.  But I can't fix that without a replacement set of lungs.  What I can fix are his shattered bones.  He's got a shattered left radius, necessitating a new arm, and a shattered left tibia, so he'll need a new leg as well.  Once those are in place he can go back to pulling his weight around here.

Sara:  Speaking of pulling weight, Sara threw out her back a couple of weeks ago.  She blamed it on her advancing age, but I say it's nothing science can't fix.  A spine transplant seems a little more advanced than just replacing a limb, but I've thouroughly researched and reviewed the technique and I'm willing to try it if she is.

Py:  Py has no injuries whatsoever.  Fortunate for her, but I have this nagging feeling that it's just a matter of time.

So all told we're going to need two hands, two arms, an eye, a foot, a leg, and a spine.  ...and, if we can get our hands on enough prisoners, three lungs.  I don't much like the thought of that, but right now I'd give a lot just to see everyone looking more like their old selves again.
Before you talk to me, I should warn you: I am kind of strange.

Shurp

Oxygen freezes at -219'C, you're two thirds of the way there! 

(Carbon dioxide froze long ago at -79'.  Nitrogen freezes at -210.  So you'll have pure oxygen to breathe for a short while as the atmosphere collapses into snow around you)
If you give an annoying colonist a parka before banishing him to the ice sheet you'll only get a -3 penalty instead of -5.

And don't forget that the pirates chasing a refugee are often better recruits than the refugee is.

CrazyEyes

It wouldn't collapse into snow - it would have become liquid thirty degrees ago, at -183C.  That's less than forty degrees away from the low winter temperatures... I wonder if it'd be possible to cool a 1x1 room to that temparature on this map with four coolers.  Nitrogen turns to liquid at -196C, which isn't much farther.  We could potentially have a room so cold there would be no air inside, just liquid nitrogen and oxygen with hunks of frozen CO2. :P
Before you talk to me, I should warn you: I am kind of strange.

Zhentar

Cooling a room 40C below ambient is no harder on the ice sheet than it is in temperate forest (i.e. not particularly difficult).

In the real world, you wouldn't end up with a room with no air in it, just less. The phase depends on both the atmospheric pressure and the vapor pressure; for example even though -197C is below the boiling point of nitrogen at 1atm, you wouldn't have any nitrogen condensation because the vapor pressure would be about .85atm; it would evaporate near instantly in our .78atm nitrogen atmosphere. A few degrees colder and it will start condensing, but as the air starts condensing the air pressure would drop, lowering the boiling point, limiting further condensation.

hoffmale

Actually, you can use coolers to get down to -270 °C (that's 3 K!). Basically everything but hydrogen and maybe helium should be solid at those temperatures unless it has so low pressure to be nearly a vacuum (funnily enough, a scyther spawned in there didn't seem to care much about it).

[attachment deleted by admin due to age]

Thyme

You can go well below 0K with quantum cooler mod. Cringey!
I'm from Austria. If I offend you, it's usually inadvertently.
Snowmen army, Chemfuel Generator, Electric Stonecutting, Smelting Tweak

CrazyEyes

My busy school schedule means I can only really update this on the weekends, so sorry about the waiting.  The end is in sight, though!  I'm well into the shipbuilding research and now I just need to amass enough materials to build the damn thing before I'm overrun by mechanoids.  They're the only real threat out here on the ice.

Interestingly, I might not be able to fully stop the cannabalism before the ship is built.  I have a hydroponics setup now but it sucks up a lot of power, even with a Time of Day switch managing the sun lamp for me.  I'm trying to scale up, but windmills take up a lot of space and every one I build is resources I could be putting into the ship.

Hopefully I'll get to a point where I can at least provide a steady supply of simple rice meals - not having a constant -13 mood debuff from cooked cannabalism would be very helpful.

Day 334

I've lost count of how many thrumbos have died out here on the ice.  I don't know why they would keep coming here.  Aren't they supposed to be wise?  I appreciate having fresh meat out here but we're not in danger of starving, exactly, so what's going on?  ...could it be they're just stupid?

Day 335

A small group of pirates tried to attack the colony today.  Maybe they were tracking the thrumbos?  In any case, while they got close enough to threaten us, a couple of casualties combined with the cold caused them to flee before any of us were hurt.  Time to start looting the bodies.  Hakuja got to wach a couple of them die, too, so she'll be in a better mood the next couple of days.

Day 340

I feel like we've finally collected enough knowledge to start researching the shipbuilding process.  This could be our ticket off this frozen rock once and for all.  It can't come fast enough.

Also, a bunch of cargo pods full of slate blocks crashed nearby.  More building material is always helpful!

Day 343

A textiles trader came by today, so we offloaded all our looted clothes and bought more wool.  It's amazing how cluttered with garbage our stockpiles can get.  We have so much more room for things now.  We even made a couple thousand silver for our trouble.  If living here wasn't so brutal this would actually be a decent way to make a living.

Day 345

This happens too often to be a coincidence.  Py's sister radioed us today, begging us to protect her from a pirate raid.  I'm not about to turn down someone's family so we agree to help.  Euterpe crashed down in an escape pod with a squad of pirates right behind her.  We scattered to defensive positions and prepared for a fight.  However, the pirates weren't interested in us - once they saw the wealth of our stockpiles, they decided to forget about Euterpe, grab what they could and run.  Fortunately we managed to gun down enough of them that they dropped what they'd grabbed and broke into a full retreat.

Euterpe is slow on her feet thanks to a knee injury in her childhood, and as a result we can't use her for hauling or cleaning since she's have to be on her feet too often.  That's fine, though, since she'll be able to take over researching while I focus on more important work.

Day 346

Another pirate raid, this time from the west.  They must have been following up on their allies in the drop pods.  They don't fare any better than the last guys.

Day 348

A tribal raid?  We certainly are popular these days.  Maybe this is the universe making up for those two seasons of peace and quiet.  In any case, it's freezing and they're preparing so I doubt we'll even have to switch on the turrets.

Day 371

A wanderer named Cella offered to join us today.  She's good with plants, and we're finally, FIANLLY ready to expand our hydroponics setup, so she'll be a welcome addition to the colony.  She seems oddly pleased with the harsh conditions.

((Author's Note: It was at this point that I noticed that Euterpe was gone.  I had no idea where she went, but checking Py's Needs tab revealed that she had a debuff because of a dead sister, none other than Euterpe.  I have no clue what happened. O_o ))

Day 373

A pirate merchant stopped by today.  They didn't have much of anything we need, but they did take the last of our looted clothes off our hands and we got nearly 3000 silver out of the deal.  What we really need is more bulk goods traders so we can buy the materials we'll need to build a ship.

Day 375

Py died today.  She must have snapped or something because she ran into the hospital and started pulling people out of bed and trying to fight them.  We couldn't risk her permanently crippling our wounded people so we tried to subdue her, but... well, it went wrong.  Norman swung his rifle at her to try and subdue her, but she moved wrong and it ended up crushing her neck.  It's not Norman's fault, though, it's mine.  I could have handled that better.  I should have made sure we were taking better care of her so this wouldn't have happened in the first place.  It's all my fault.

Day 378

We finally have a proper hydroponics room built and our first real crop growing.  It's just rice, nothing fancy, but anything is better than cooked human at this point.

Day 379

A group of pirates arrive nearby and start to prepare their attack.  We start to prepare to haul a lot of bodies.

We've got bigger problems, though.  Our power grid isn't robust enough to support the hydroponics setup we built, and the crops keep dying off when the power cuts out.  I might have gotten a bit too eager to stop the cannabalism.  We'll have to cut back on the production for a while.

Day 405

We finally managed to harvest some rice today.  It's not enough food to stop with the cannabalism entirely, but we're getting there.  That's a relief, because we're actually beginning to run out of corpses.  I'd really hate to have to go back to counting meals - I'm going to order the construction of more windmills.

Day 407

Another group of pirates shpwed up.  We thought they were starting to prepare, like the others, but it actually looks more like they're making camp.  Don't they know how cold it is?  They'll be dead before the sun comes up.  On the bright side, we'll be able to take their supplies.

Day 411

I suppose I shouldn't have worried about the corpse situation.  It seems like people always manage to make their way here to die.  Today a bunch more tribals showed up trying to kill us.  Haven't they figured out that this doesn't work?  Granted, we actually have things worth taking now, but no assault of this colony has ever succeeded, and throwing numbers at the problem doesn't help beat the cold.

Well... some of hem got close, and were only wounded in the battle.  I don't like it, but this is our chance to get some working lungs for Wobber and Cyber.  We have three prisoners, so we won't need to kill anyone, and we'll use our best medicine to make sure nothing goes wrong.  I'm even willing to let them go afterwards.  I know this place has made us do grim things in order to survive, but we're not savages.

One of them bled out anyway.  Damnit.  Well... two lungs is better than none, I suppose.

Day 424

I haven't updated this in a while because things have been pretty nonstop.  We got two mechanoid raids nearly on top of each other.  We lived, barely, but the resulting injuries had us reeling for quite a while.  As if that weren't enough, a bunch of us got infections from our wounds.  It took well over a week before we were ready to start working again, and by then we'd run out of meals and I had to carefully micromanage people so they wouldn't try and eat raw human meat.  You'd think they'd prefer to cook it, but I guess if there isn't a meal available right away they think they have no other recourse.

Eventually we did pull out of the downward spiral, and the resources from dismantling the mechanoids should come in very useful.  It's a bit off to think that the ship that will save our lives could very well be crafted exclusively from the husks of the machines that were trying to kill us, but it's far from the most outlandish thing to happen to us around here.

I've decided to forego the production of advanced replacements for people's limbs so that we can conserve our resources to make a ship.  Basic prosthetics will have to do, except where it comes to hands or eyes - manipulation and sight is too important to skimp on.  Nobody wants a blind doctor with one hand performing surgery.  This means the end is in sight for us, though.  We just have to keep researching, get one or two more trade ships to come by and not give up.

((Author's Note:  The most outlandish thing would have to be the sheer amount of family members the game tries to add to my colony.  I've gotten wanderer requests from BOTH of Cella's parents - I turned them down because of bad traits, and a couple days after each they BOTH radioed AGAIN, this time being chased by pirates.  I was pleased to learn that, while declining that particular request to join results in the death of the refugee, it doesn't give a debuff to my colonist for the death of a family member.  That means I don't have to deal with any more pirate drop pod raids just because someone's sherrif brother called me up trying to join.  Still, it's a bit silly.  Once you have a handful of colonists, especially if they come from a variety of factions, it feels like every third event involves someone's relative.))
Before you talk to me, I should warn you: I am kind of strange.

Zhentar

Quote from: CrazyEyes on February 10, 2017, 04:44:15 PM
((Author's Note:  The most outlandish thing would have to be the sheer amount of family members the game tries to add to my colony.  I've gotten wanderer requests from BOTH of Cella's parents - I turned them down because of bad traits, and a couple days after each they BOTH radioed AGAIN, this time being chased by pirates.  I was pleased to learn that, while declining that particular request to join results in the death of the refugee, it doesn't give a debuff to my colonist for the death of a family member.  That means I don't have to deal with any more pirate drop pod raids just because someone's sherrif brother called me up trying to join.  Still, it's a bit silly.  Once you have a handful of colonists, especially if they come from a variety of factions, it feels like every third event involves someone's relative.))

That's a Hospitality feature; whenever the refugee event fires it tries to pick a relative if it can.

I'm surprised you're still having food/power/material problems so far into the game. Past year two or three in my last game I was finding myself with more resources than I knew what to do with.