Bleakbane plays Rimworld Part B (6-9) · 3:40pm Sep 28th, 2021
Part Six
Day Seventy-Eight.
There weren't any pressing tasks (and they were still plenty close enough to get to that nearby loot site soon enough), so Stab started out on planning her throne room.
She elected to have a jade door for this one.
Falcon was breaking...
And Falcon was back on the team, finally!
As night drew in, a couple of Higobum Covenant raiders showed up.
Maybe not the best thing to do when there were so many folk around, dudes.
((And the game decided to be weird with RNG, despite Stab and co being MASSIVELY better shots - seriously, the enemy was, like 2 shooting, both of them - and in cover the enemy magically kept hitting everyone and killed Seal, causing the other go into murder-frenzy. Yeah, no, game. Reload.))
That's better. One dead, one prisoner.
Stab elected to try moving the east traps further away from the base and more towards when the enemies seemed to come from most.
This Esdo actually had some potential. He was a pyromaniac, but nevermind. He perhaps was recruit, rather than organ, material. Conversion followed by recruitment seemed to be the best idea, it worked with Falcon!
In the morning, Stab had just got up when a Mad Squirrel attacked.
Some days...
Oh, wow, the squirrel got nailed by one of the spike traps by the turbines. Neat!
Uh oh. Trobo, Seal, Falcon and Navarro had all gotten sick from gut worms. Dammit, just when Stab needed a load of them to go harvest more healroot. Heck, she needed to quickly make a couple more beds!
Oh good. A solar flare.
((RNG seems to be throwing a tantrum today.))
And great, this would take them some days to recover from too, since they could only be treated every couple of days.
Seal snapped and started binging on food.
In the meantime, Stab had everyone free rushing around to gather tons of healroot, since they were starting to run low on medicine. (Of course, with the fricking solar flare, no research could be done today...)
Wait... They could GROW Healroot? Dangit, Stab wished she'd noticed that earlier. New growing area, Sawbones, jump to it!
Dan was put back on cleaning, just in case anyone was sick.
Fortunately, the flare ended at about eight in the evening.
The day's frantic healing work had about doubled the medical supply, at least in getting more healroot.
Day Seventy-Nine.
At least SOMETHING was going well...
Excellent, now a psychic drone was affecting the male colonists and making them peeved. Wonderful. And now the dry thunderstorm has started another fire. And second one to the east, though Stab was able to stamp that out easily too. A larger third fire was also burning to the west, so Stab and dusk started cutting down trees for a potential firebreak, though it seemed the fire was spreading away from them, at least.
Binko was up at last, so that was another thing.
Storage was getting full, but Stab remembered they had some implants - a mind-reader for Sawbones (better negotiation and trade!) and a sensitizer for Stab herself.
Another potential source for lightcaller information. Stab was annoyed, since she really wanted to go do dome stuff outside the base, but stuff kept interfering!
Storage was becoming a problem. Stab elected to move the barricade further east and make a new, slightly large one from sandstone, and then use the space where the old barricade was to make a new storeroom building.
That damn fire was still burning out west.
Unholy fracking crap, like EVERYWHERE was on fire!
Day Eighty.
And now there was a heatwave. Pause to build passive coolers...
Stab could NOT catch a break.
The fires were getting out of hand. Time to put them out via judicious use of expanding the home area, and while they still had some extra manpower (since their guests would be leaving soon).
At three o'clock, finally some rain came down.
Oof, as the wood storage was built, despite the pouring rain, it was 43ºC outside...
Day Eighty-One
Wood storage done! Stab was finally replacing the main storage wood walls with limestone and paving the floor.
Falcon had had a style change and was rocking her pigtails.
Time the refugees to move on.
They had at least provided some extra labour, and Malikova had done quite a bit of research for them while Stab and Dusk did important jobs, so it was pretty good.
And, with all the construction work completed, it seemed a good place to leave it for this time.
Part Seven.
Day Eighty-One continued.
Stab elected that tomorrow, she'd take Dusk and Sam out to that loot stash (no-one else because Navarro and Falcon had gut worms, Sawbones was really needed there, Trocur was slow and Dan was a really poor shot).
In the meantime, while she did a bit of research on geothermal power, Stab also sp0ent some time researching freezers and bedrooms and oh her lichemaster, was her freezer very very inefficient! That could use a good look at - and the bedrooms to. She could probably get around all the heating/cooling worries by, y'know, having actual vents...
Stab started by deciding they should turn the used greenhouse into a new - SQUARE freezer. The current freezer would be essentially dismantled and turned into a corridor/airlock and the botchery and kitchen would be eventually moved. This would all have to be phased, but the first job was thickening the walls.
Day Eighty-Two
Departure would have to be delayed a bit, since Sawbones needed to make a ton of kibble for the animals and have some spare enough to actually take with them.
The heatwave was over, so Stab had all the passive coolers dismantled for the moment.
Stab decided that frack it, they'd leave tomorrow.
Day Eighty=Three and Eighty-Four in fact passed, with Stab electing to (almost) finish work on the new freezer so that it could start to be filled why they were out - this would reduce the time things would be exposed during the final bit of the work.
On the late evening of day eighty-four, the caravan finally set out, just as summer turned to autumn.
Day Eighty-Five
And Esdo now joined the colony!
While Stab was away, Sawbones laid out phase two of freezer revamp.
Stab, Dusk and Sam arrived at the treasure vault, ready to tackle the man-eating monkeys!
They were dealt with quickly, and there appeared no other threats. Time to quickly grab what they could and head back! Well, apparently after a nap. Stab didn't head out right away, since she wanted to gather a load of healroot while they were there. So... Overnighting then, apparently.
By the end of the day, Esdo had starting mining more (now desperately needed) iron and cured Navarro of her gut worms.
They were about out of medicine, though, so as soon as the caravan was back, that was an urgent job.
Day Eighty-Six.
While Stab and co tried to grab some healroot, a cargo pod containing a load of raw fungus crashed near Voidsteel base. Yay?
Stab and co finished taking what they could loaded up the masterwork bed, revolver, monkey corpses and eight chunks of stale and headed out.
The bad news was, a pair of raiders from the Bialei Kinship showed up, while their best fighters were away.
Naturally, from a direction where they were not traps...
Rather than wait around (while Esdo was off miles away mining), Sawbones elected to deal with the problem early.
They killed one, and the other legged it before he could be splortched.
Day Eighty-Seven.
Stab arrived first thing in the morning, and unloading and freezer work continued.
For some reason, at this point, everyone started wanting things. Navarro and Trocur wanted things for their religious doofer, and several of the colonist were sully they didn't have a neural supercharger (which they couldn't have, because it wasn't researched yet).
To compound the problems, instead of Stag and Sawbones' bed being moved (so it could be replaced by the new, better one) it got dismantled instead.
Day Eighty-Eight.
And then, first thing in the morning, a pack of five rabid squirrels attacked.
Still, they went down without too much difficulty.
Everyone was magically become more demanding for no apparent reason all of a sudden.
((I presume I must have hit some secret threshold where everyone sudden demands stuff. That's just annoying.))
Stab had a light ball and loudspeaker installed in the barracks so at least they could have a party now (there was an oncoming celebration soon.)
((Okay pauses EVERYTHING will someone please install that FRACKING BED.
Okay, it absolutely cannot be installed. Apparently it won't be installed because of ideology, because apparently it is a slab bed. That wasn't fracking obvious, that's REALLY annoying, since that was the whole reason I went and did that quest and it's USELESS.))
Stab built herself and Sawbones a new steel double-bed.
Navarro wanted a "stone shape" to be "dignified." After a lot of what-the-helling, it was determining that a "stone shape" was a sculpture. Falcon got on that. The other requirements were just a minimum 5x5 room with no beds and workspots in it, so the nascent throne room would do for now.
Day Eighty-Eight.
Research. Stab clearly needed to hit this hard. First they need this neural supercharger, then they really needed to be able to make medicine.
At least the freezer was finally finished, and they could start emptying the main one entirely.
The butchery was moved along, and a new porch was going to be added - by Dusk, since Stab needed to research, research, research!
The stone shape was installed in the "throne room." Trocur's demands were more tedious - four columns and a "platform of Kali." Again, throne room, and made of would.
Dusk noted that the spikecore floor tile under the throne room door had not been built. She figured it was another ideological thing, and it was cancelled and replaced with a steel tile instead.
The Higobum Covenant offered some good will for Stab to build them a monument. As their relations were at -92 and a natural goodwill of -180 (!), Stab really didn't give a flying frack.
Now there was a Mad Alpaca attack.
"DAMMIT, I'M TRYING TO RESEARCH!" Stab yelled.
True to form today, Dusk accidently clocked the hapless Dan in the jaw and thus it managed to kick Stab a couple of times before they killed it.
And then Dusk had to frantically rebuild the pen, because she'd started to put a gate in and then realised they'd completely run out of wood...
Day Eighty-Nine.
Stab and Dawn recovered.
Stab decided this really wasn’t going fast enough,, and order a second hi-tech research bench built. She ALSO had a couple of steel chairs built, because apparently, they'd all been standing up to work this WHOLE time at all the workspots when they could have built chairs!
She finished researching geothermal power and started immediately on the neural supercharger. As soon as she'd built her chair.
But first, though, she and Dusk would build the geothermal generator!
She didn't quite get there before wearing herself out, so abandoned it for another day.
Day Ninety.
Stab's eltex skullcap was wearing out, which was really annoying. She decided to make herself a silver slicecap instead (as, at SOME point, she needed to make herself leader all official-like.)
((And the festival just, like, doesn't work.
Night before, says I can't start it for another 4 hours.
So, that's not happening. It's not just me, either, I see other people reporting the problem. Can't do owt about it, then, movin' on an' temp-saving the before/after files to see if I can report it via discord or something.))
Trocur would apparently have to build her own platform of Kali.
Meanwhile, the barracks was re-juggled a bit to place the table slightly closer to the new freezer in the hope that they might actually use it more...
Day Ninety-One.
Stab finally put a machining table in the workroom as well, and the electric tools were now permanently powered on.
She also added (finally) a communications and orbital trading beacon to the room where the butcher table once was.
But first - double research!
Day Ninety-Two.
The kitchen was started to be relocated.
The neural supercharger work was completed! Time to build stuff again!
Hmm. ten days of foggy rain weather for getting an unknown colonist.
Stab considered it - it would have likely required a second geothermal plant which was further out; the only nearer spot, was within the radius of that one anima tree Stab kept forgetting to do something with. Stab would have had to cover both generators with a limestone wall (bar a limestone access door) to proof them against raiders, too.
((I tried it, but wow. the colonist, Le was REALLY bad. Nothing higher than a 4 skill - no plants skill, the one thing I actually was short of more people for, plus psychopath and the crowning Nope - slothful.))
The new tech room was now up and running!
So while they researched, Stab finally started considering the bedrooms. Now she knew they'd didn't have to be so big, she figured that three by four would be enough, with a three-wide corridor (for maximum travel speed) for access and a one-wide space between to put in heaters and coolers attached to the rooms by vents.
Day Ninety-Three.
Drug production was done! Now to research medicine production!
The rest of the day was researching and trying figure out why the apparel burning was so difficult to get done.
((Seriously, one neural supercharger was not going to help much? The things were enormous and power-hungry, the hell was this such a ludicrous demand?))
Day Ninety-Four.
Medicine production was done! Stab thought hard about what next, and elected for gunsmithing (as it was quite short, and she felt she ought to start looking at some damn turrets).
But next - drug lab (and a heater) in the hospital.
A fracking great lump of jade crashed down!
Aaaand arse. Making medicine requires neutroamine, which they couldn't produce. Motherfracker.
Whelp. Might as well start on the new dormitory, then. And build some fracking chairs for the workstations...
Actually, they had about twenty-five neutroamine, Stab thought they only had, like four. That was pretty good, actually!
Stab was interrupted by a warg attacking and killing one of the alpaca babies. Stab decided that IT should be dinner!
Day Ninety-Five.
Building, and re-structuring the hospital to put shelves in to store stuff and medicine to make it easier to store - and take some of the load out of the freezers!
Oh, finally trade ship! Purple Partridge Securities. Time for trading at last!
Oops, Dusk, move the trade beacon into the warehouse!
Okay, sadly, the traders didn’t have a lot Stab wanted - except maybe a fleshshaping tech print, and they couldn't afford that. She settled for selling statues for money.
With some frantic late-night construction work and moving the trade beacon to the armoury (a second would be built in the main store in the morning) they also managed to sell off all the spare weapons for good measure.
Day Ninety-Six.
With the shelves, Stab's turn around on medicine was MUCH better!
Uh-oh! Another Red Raiders attack, this time in comparative force!
Dusk got the worst of it too, of course...
Good job they made all the medicine right?
As they day drew to a close, and Stab was starting to look at building the dorms, it is time to leave them for another day.
Part Eight.
Day Ninety-Seven continued.
Early in the morning, the Black Empire wanted to test some atmospheric weapons, which would place rainy thunderstorms around the base for eight days. Among the possible rewards was a techprof subpersona core, which would allow Stab to research something instantly (e.g. Fabrication...?) After some consideration, Stab elect that, okay, THIS time, she'd go for it.
Still, plus side, the pods with the rewards landed immediately. Downside, without any gold or more plasteel, Stab couldn't build the multi-analyser to be able to research it yet.
Sawbones was complaining the kitchen was VERY cold, so Stab added a heater in there.
Okay, so despite the rain, lightning hit the laid out power cable and set it on fire. Annoying. Still, the rain meant both that and the fire that started right next to the graveyard didn't get very far. Poor Dusk had staggered out of bed to put them out, too.
Another couple of fires started the other side of the base outside. Yeah, okay, Stab thought, this was going to be more of an issue than she'd thought...
The boys were affected by another low-level psychic drone. Never a moment's peace...
Stab started work on the dorms. One room at a time, she thought, since Dusk was down.
First, though, a little more gun research...
Esdo was set to mining that big block of plasteel that had crashed ages ago. Just a bit, though, since it was really grim weather, of course. A single block was 50 plasteel, enough for the multi-analyser by itself, let alone the twenty or so they'd already got. Now they just needed some gold...
Slowly, the old freezer was being emptied into the new one.
Day Ninety-Eight.
By morning, Dusk was finally healed.
As Stab and Dusk started on the construction - and the ventilation/heating duct that would run through the suite, a group of beggars approached, begging for 17 herbal medicine.
Well, they were growing it now and then had plenty to spare, so Stab figured, what the hey. (She'd also see if any of the beggers were worth.. recruiting...)
Oh dear. A trio of red raiders. Dangit, that reminded Stab she needed to put a wall around the geothermal generator (with an access door, of course...) The buggers were milling around for a while, so Stab elected to deal with them when the attack began.
Better dig some more graves, too... (Sure, Stab could incinerate the bodies or building a crematorium or something, but like, not having bodies to hand was such a not-Aotrs thing to do!
Malikova had sent Stab a Masterwork Plasmasword, grateful for hosting them for a few days. Nice! Dan would have it, since he wasn't a great shot, but had a quite good melee skill.
Navarro went to give the beggars their medicine.
The raider started their attack! This time, though, the west-side fortification were ready!
NICE shot Dan! First swing, and a straight decapitation.
Ooh, the raiders had some EMP grenades. Neat. And a smoke launcher.
Day Ninety-Nine.
In the early hours of the morning, a lightning strike destroyed part of the pen fence, setting it on fire so fast it burned almost instantly. so Stab had to rush about and fix it right away.
The good news was the freeze was finally empty, and the area given over as a secondary storage room for the moment. Stab was going to put a vent in over the wall from the kitchen, now that the cooler could be dismantled.
A Gauranien pod had sprouted. This could be used to plant a tree which then maybe could get dryads for the colony.
Now the vent room was done, time to put in an over-the-wall cooler and a heater to stabilise the room temperatures.
Esdo was sent to mine some more compacted machinery for components that Stab had stopped.
Sawbones and Navarro got into a social fight over religion. That did it, they were going to use the conversion ritual on Navarro as soon as that ended! (And the idiots healed...)
Generator walled in. That should reduce the chances of raider picking on it.
First dorm room. Steel double bed, wooden end table. The heater was set to 21ºC and the cooler to 22ºC so they didn't fight each other and use excessive power.
Given the small size of the room. Stab wasn't happy yet, so she elected to put down hex tile floor.
Day One Hundred.
Winter had come.
With the flooring, this was enough to make the room decent quality (and half-way to the next level). Good start.
Stab didn't assign it yet - she was going to give it to Navarro, but not until she'd been converted.
She and Dusk spent the next bit of the day doing maintenance.
Day One Hundred and One.
A Lenere tribe caravan was approaching. Good-o!
Gunsmithing was complete - next was blowback operation, so they could finally research some gun turrets!
Superb! The tribe had a load of gold, and Neutroamine (Stab cleaned them out of both) and even better, they were happy to buy all those nice organs and random drugs! So they even came out with a profit!
Next job, multi-analyser!
Well, that would be AFTER the conversion ritual.
Masterfully done! Navarro had been successfully converted. Who knew, eventually, they might be able to work on Trocur...!
Stab decided that now, she really did have to take up the role of ethical leader.
Navarro, meanwhile, got transferred to her new room, and stab authorised the construction on the next one.
With the multi-analyser built, Stab could now use the techprof to instantly research Fabrication!
Yay! Except for the part where they needed advanced components to build one!
Whelp. Sounded like it was time for another shopping trip. But Sawbones would need to make a load of kibble first...
Day One Hundred and Two.
Falcon was dispatched off to go shopping.
The remainder of the day included just slowly working on the next room, which was assigned to Sam.
They were out of components. Oh dear...
Day One Hundred and Three.
Dusk got a new steel double bed, and she and Stab started flooring with hex floors.
Day One Hundred and Four.
There was a nearby steel mining camp for the Bialei Kinship. That might be worth raiding, once falcon got back.
Another hare self-trained. Stabbunny was cute, but really didn't help the colony, so this one went straight to slaughter.
Sam decided to throw a party!
Interrupted by the occasional fire, of course...
As Stab and Dusk worked, Stab realised she could put a door in the secondary storage room (the old freezer) and hopefully let them all not have to run about so much in and out to the pens.
A wild boar self-trained. To the slaughter house!
The Lenore tribe wanted another chap to come and stay, this time for six days. They offered a couple of advanced components, so Stab couldn't refuse.
Ooh, especially as he'd actually do work!
Day One Hundred and Five.
Finally, the weather change was starting to dissipate.
Dusk's room was finished! Stab decided that it might not hurt to make a quartet of bedrolls, so that when they went out, they'd have something to sleep on. (Four seemed a good number to start!)
With a finally dry day, there were no pressing jobs. Dusk and Esdo did some research, and Stab added a vent either side of the lab (to her bedroom and the hospital) to warm it up.
Blowback operations were begun and research on gun turrets started! With three researchers, a warm room and two benches plus the analyser, this happened so fast Stab started on gas operation (to get to auto turrets!)
Esdo was sent off to do some more, mining, however.
Day One Hundred and Six.
The next problem was fabrication bench were frickin' massive, so a new workshop would be required to actually put one in...
That was done soon enough.
Sawbones was getting board. They didn't have much else to entertain with, so Stab decided to build a poker table in the sort-of-rec room.
Falcon reached Meadowell and bought fifteen components and two advance components (enough to make fabrication bench with a little spare) and sold off some of the weapons and that masterwork bed they couldn't use, and then started back.
A royal tribute collector from the Black Empire was coming. They would accept gold or prisoners as tribute. Stab considered a for a moment and decided she could spare a little (very little!) gold for them. She had Sawbones give them 8 (of the 28 they had left).
While they were essentially not doing anything big, Stab finally replaced the last couple of torches with lamps.
Just before she headed to bed, Stab finished researching gas operations, and began on autocannon turrets.
Day One Hundred and Seven.
A combat trader arrived. Sawbones had a nosey, but they didn't have anything Stab needed (not that Falcon hadn’t taken all the silver anyway...!)
Between the two groups, Voidsteel base had never been so busy...!
By tea-time, Stab and Dusk had researched autocannon turrets. Autodoors would be the next one.
Falcon, the silly girl, ate the wrong sort of berries and gave herself food poisoning. Ooh. And she was still nearly two days out.
Stab spotted a pair of male donkeys sleeping outside the base. She decided to see if they could be tamed. It required expanding the growing area in the pen a bit - the barn too - but really, some extra beasts of burden just seemed like a good idea!
Day One Hundred and Eight
Falcon was not very well at all...
While the waited, Esdo continued to mine, building up large amounts of steel.
Autodoors were researched. Stab elected to start on tree planting.
By mid-afternoon, Falcon was recovering, poor lass.
Second donkey trained, and a third to go. (The donkeys were all male. Stab considered this good, since it meant not having to worry about breeding them or slaughtering them.)
Sammy, an addiction councillor from Southeastern Alia came to visit the base. Luckily, no-one was addicted to anything.
(And Stab, noting Sammy's slothfulness, elected against, for example, arresting and converting her...)
She did, however, have four components on her and was willing to buy some of the spare clothes the colony had produced (as they replaced stuff with cold-weather clothing from the newer members).
Day One Hundred and Nine
Some wandering sheep joined the colony, apparently being domesticated but abandoned or something and looking for humans. Okay...?
Pen was going to need to be bigger...
The trio of donkeys were trained, so now Hauler, Stomper and Bulk were ready to make life a lot easier hauling stuff around.
Stab figured to heck with it, as this point, she'd try and get a couple of guinea pigs tamed as well, and have a breeding stock for their fur too. Naturally, now she was looking, there was only one around...
Another goody cache was reported by the Southeastern Alia... Something else to deal with at some point.
Ah. guinea pigs also couldn't be put in the pens.
An exotic goods trader ship was nearby. Dangit, Falcon, hurry up!
Speaking of Falcon, her caravan had run out of food. Lucky she was only 0.1 days away, wasn't it?
Lots of nice stuff on the trader, though it was still well beyond the price of the colony (even if Falcon hurried up back with all the silver).
Falcon's spirits were understandably low.
With the silver, Sawbones took another look. They could afford the tech print for poison synthesis, but that seemed a bit pointless. Skin-hardening would have been nice... But that was both miles away and more than they could afford.
After a frantic transfer of the orbital trade module to the new storage (and a third one order to be built), Sawbones bought four more Glitterworld medicine and two psytrainers (for Stab), Solar Pinhole and Focus. She'd only got chunk skip, a power so useless she'd never used it...!
She was apparently not high enough level or something to use Focus, but frack it, they'd bought it, she'd learn it anyway.
No time like the present to see what Solar Pinhole actually DID, right? (Stab meant, she knew what it said, but you gotta try it out...)
Just before midnight, a quartet of raiders from the Dorbo Confederacy showed up.
Day One Hundred and Ten
Frantically, Stab and Dusk created some southern fortifications. Stab had done some research and discovered walls interspersed with sandbags made for good defences.
So a line of sandstone walls and pigskin sandbags (as they had a very ready supply of pigskin!) was erected.
That seemed to work!
One survived, one Finch. She was almost worth recruiting... But not quite. So she'd be saved for organ harvesting.
The fabrication bench was completed! Now they could make components!
Oops, Sawbones fluffed the surgery on the kidney. Nevermind...
The shuttle arrived for their guest, Gabela.
Dan, once again proving he had no clue, got into a social fight with STAB of all people.
And, worse of all, Dan, being the guy with the melee skill, did a lot of damage, frack damn it.
Stab, gurgling, authorised the use of glitterworld medicine.
Dan, however was not going to be allowed it. (And another incident like that and cleaning be damned, he'd be on the surgery table.)
Day One Hundred and Eleven
Wow, Finch had some kind of resistance to surgery, so far they'd fluffed it several times... In the end, they got both lungs, but that was more or less all they could!
While Stab was down, she authorised the construction (or at least the start) or a second geothermal plant.
This also set back Stab's plans to go on rids and such for a little bit.
And Trocur started a social fight with Falcon. FRACK. DAMMIT.
So that's nearly 50% of the colonist down due to fighting. Ace. Nobody else better get injured because they'd run out of beds.
Day One Hundred and Twelve
A very quiet day passed, with half of the colony in the hospital.
Dusk gamely did what she could on the new plant, putting the walls up - but without someone (i.e. Stab) making the components, that was as far as she could go.
Day One Hundred and Thirteen
Apparently someone was enjoying the snow, at least...
Stab was finally back up, and set to making components. Well, medicine first, since they'd just used quite a bit of it.
A cargo pod bearing Neutroamine and scrap metal crashed, more or less at the same time another visitor wandered through.
Day One Hundred and Fourteen
Roused out of bed at one in the morning, Sawbones did a deal with this trader, selling the lungs, a sandstone statue Falcon had made and some spare weapons to by a reinforced barrel - this Stab thought would enable them to make mortars at some point down the line.
A mated pair of wild thrumbos entered the area. Stab wondered if maybe they could train them...?
Wow. Maybe not. Sam, priority directed to try, with nearly 16 animals, had but a 1.6% chance.
Stab still wasn't confident about hunting them, though - especially since they basically still hadn't improved some of the weapons they'd landed with!
Oooh. Gold mining site, owned by a neutral faction! That sounded like a nice juicy target!
Dusk did a bit of remodelling in the fabrication workshop, moving the door along a space, which allowed them to put in a tool cabinet without blocking anything.
Stab made just enough components to build the geothermal generator. That was good, because they were having some drain on the batteries. At some point, Stab wanted to build a full-on battery room, but they needed more components for that, like a lot more...
Meanwhile, they had some spare silver, so it was FINALLY time to sterile tile the kitchen.
Day One Hundred and Fifteen
Spring!
Stab worked into the early morning, but finally completed the generator.
Fantastic. Trocur was going deaf. Well, maybe that would mean she wouldn't hear all the flack she was getting...
Emmina Legua, of the Dorbo Confederation wanted to hold some peace talks. Sure, Stab would get to that, just as soon as they'd dealt with the other stuff around they needed to...
Actually, that seemed like a good time. Stab organised a group with herself, Navarro, Esdo and Sam, with all five donkeys and Darkhoof. They'd hit the loot point first, then maybe the gold mine and maybe even the steel mine if they could.
In the meantime, Dusk would put some more flooring down, having finished tree sowing research. (Cocoa would be next on the list, because chocolate.)
The gauranien tree would be placed here. (Stab might have been able to plant it earlier, but she sort of expected it might need tree planting technology, but it might not have done...)
A five by five plot was also set aside for oaks.
As they headed out, Sam went into a go frenzy. Nice!
At the loot site, the quartet were ambushed!
((Okay, I had to go back, since when I left it didn't pick up the bedrolls. And then decided to be annoying with the fighting RNG. So, a couple of reloads later, I got back to where I was...))
The ambush went very well, with the poor fool not even dying. In fact, she seemed like a worthy capture. The downside was slow learner, but with industrious AND she had some construction skills. If they could save her...?
((After some CONSIDERABLE effort trying to find out why Stab just would NOT install the bedroll in a convenient room to make a prison so they could stop the girl bleeding to death (Navarro had to stand in the open door to get her to do it), finally, they captured and were able to look at treating her.))
Day One Hundred and Sixteen
Stab and co set out, taking only the skullcap they'd come for, aside from their prisoner. (They were saving the weight for later.)
A dry thunderstorm hit Voidsteel Base, because of course it did.
By six o'clock, Stab and co had reached the gold mining site. There was little there apart from two (easily dispatched this time) goons and the gold, so they saddled up again and moved off for the steel mining site.
Day One Hundred and Seventeen
Dusk started on the next rooms, first the walls and then the floors.
Stab and co reached the mining site.
Charming place, lots of gibbets...
ANOTHER one not killed. She was also passable, quite good if not for the misandrist thing. This base was a bit neater too, so they only had to cut a tree down to rebuild the door and there was a ready-made prison.
At that, Stab grabbed the steel, the beds and a load of marble chunks to their maximum load, and they caravan started back to base. The peace conference would wait.
(Also, Stab had been zinged during the fight, though only mildly, so she would be glad to get back to base.)
Day One Hundred and Eighteen.
Mad squirrel attack!
It gave Sawbones a savage bite.
Stab had healed on the road, which was good.
A trio of raiders from the Higobum Covenant arrived. If Stab was lucky, she'd get back just in time... But it seemed unlikely.
Oscura, the second prisoner, had got infected on her torso wound. Well, they were nearly home...
Nope, the raiders were going to attack before Stab arrived. Darn.
Stabbunny bravely attacked!
And got away with it.
Meanwhile, to be annoying, this guy was attacking the freezer. (Good job it was an over-the-wall cooler, else he'd have broken into the freezer...) The n he started shooting at the tortoise.
Oh, and while this was going on, a idex doe tamed itself. Lovely...
While, the idiot who broke the cooler was ALSO carrying four components, which would be just enough to fix it!
There was one survivor, too. Annoyingly, a misogynist, but otherwise with good construction and crafting skills. If he survived his bleed-out, maybe he could be converted too. Thought perhaps he might only be a temporary member, Sawbones could envision he'd be a problem, but maybe the could squeeze some usefulness out of him before the harvested his organs...
Stabbunny was the only injury, at least.
It was going to be touch and go with David Bishop. They'd stopped the bleeding, but his blood loss was critical.
The caravan arrived back.
((And then apparently, you have to re-arrest prisoners or they just walk off, since Macy just vanished. And of course the reload was from before that fight. Still, all it meant was the enemy were killed faster, Stabbunny wasn't hurt, and David Bishop was killed outright this time. But I'd take the existing prisoners over him anyway.))
Stab blinked. She was sure reality had glitched again. but nevermind, both prisoners were now secured, and awaiting conversion.
Day One Hundred and Nineteen.
Some bulk traders arrived. Sawbones bought a few herbal medicine, but sold a jade statue Falcon had made and a load of pigskin, cleaning the traders out of silver.
The day was spent catching up, unloading, body disposal, converting - and in Stab's case, component manufacturing.
Falcon's room was the next to be finished.
Day One Hundred and Twenty.
A cargo pod crashed, but it only really brought drugs, which no-one was going to use. Ah well, they would be sold to the next hapless trader who happened by...
A quartet of manhunting boom rats had entered the area.
Oh. They're called "boom rats" because THEY EXPLODE. Crap.
This ended with Stab, Dan (who killed a couple) and Sam getting quite banged-up.
Dusk ended up coming off construction duty just to clean up.
As day the drew to a close, another dry thunderstorm started...
And there we shall leave it for today.
Part Nine.
Day One Hundred and Twenty-One.
Despite a couple of fires extinguished by Trocur and a recovered Dan, the dry thunderstorm gave way to rain within a few hours.
It was an otherwise uneventful day, while Stab recovered.
Day One Hundred and Twenty-Two
First conversion!
Oscura shortly followed. Just recruitment now!
Another lone trader pass by. Sawbones bought five components, and offloaded some drugs.
Dusk and Esdo finished researching cocoa; the next project would be tube television (so maybe Sawbones would stop moaning he was bored...) A new five by five growing area was added for cocoa plants.
Stab was frantically making components, since she was the only one with enough crafting to do it. (Trocur was so close, but not there yet.)
A SOOTHING psychic drone! That made a change! Especially nice given the female-bias of the colony. (Which again, I point out is entirely unintentional on my part...)
Day One Hundred and Twenty-Three
Stab had Dusk start on what was going to be a battery room - the walls, at least, had to go in first so that the autoturret Stab planned was properly located.
A neutral farming site appeared nearby. Stab didn't think it sounded like being especially worth attacking.
By the end of the day, Dusk had mostly got the battery room built.
Day One Hundred and Twenty-Four
The battery building was completed. Stab started doing some research on the best way to use them and realised that... Their defences SUCKED.
Stab gave the matter some consideration. Their location was dreadfully exposed. The lake, which Stab though might be an anchor point for defence was surrounded by mud, wouldn't hold a decent wall.
The first obvious thing to do was to put a wall in between the geothermal plants. It would require a LOT of limestone, but it would hopefully discourage enemies from attacking that way and at least a little close towards where Stab had fortifications.
Stab planned a second wall for dealing with later. The turrets much to Stab's distress were not going to help them until they'd got some better places to put them.
Stab also decided that the fabrication bay needed to be expanded.
Lastly, she authorised the transfer of the two batteries in the chess/poker room to the new battery room, with the intention of having something like a proper rec room at last.
Another big lump of jade crashed down east of the base.
Day One Hundred and Twenty-Four
The psychic soothing ended. Aw. Stab was enjoying that.
An exotic trader arrived. There was some nice stuff, but Sawbones didn't really have anything to sell (and Stab didn't just want to burn silver at this point). They bought four more glitterworld medicine (the supply seemed to have been used up...) and called it quits for the moment. Falcon was too busy helping out shift stuff to be crafting statues, but maybe once the prisoners were recruited, they'd be able to crank some out.
Stab created a dump zone from limestone and sandstone chunks near the wall and then had pretty much all the chunks she could see in the south-west area of the map tagged to haul, with the idea of getting them behind the walls, at least. She deliberately cancelled a spot in the wall to get through until the job was done.
Day One Hundred and Twenty-Five
Work continued apace. Esdo, unfortunately, being repeated rebuffed by Stab and Dusk snapped and went on an eating binge. Annoying, but they at least had plentiful food...
A cargo pod dropped some penoxycyline down. Another thing to be hauled in...!
Day One Hundred and Twenty-Six
Falcon was now the most social of the group, surpassing Sawbones. So she was doing all the recruiting. Funny how things turn out, innit?
Obscure's resistance had collapsed. One more round...!
Appa Troeur of the Black Empire wanted Stab to build a monument. Stab was decidedly unimpressed with the rewards - especially for the size of the thing and the amount of resources they'd need to burn. She'd pass, thanks...
More drop zone for the chunks were added to the perimeter inside the walls, to speed their gathering.
Late at night a raid from the Higobum Covenant appeared.
NATURALLY, because they attacked immediately and Stab was working on the walls, they shot her as she ran to the fortifications.
((Because the game hates Stab, because she's like, the only one who can do half the stuff.))
That didn't go well. Dan had to be rescued, Esdo got shot and they only got three of the enemy. Proof positive the defences needed to be shored up (and the area around their fortification cleared.)
The enemy even got a grenade or two which destroyed some of the barricade.
Day One Hundred and Twenty-Seven
The one prisoner was stabilised. Oscura was convinced to join the colony!
She was really badly clothed - so that would be Trocur's first job (Stab's t-shirt also needed replacing at the same time).
Lane Preston, the new prisoner. Sure, he was great at talking, but otherwise... A druggy, scarred and with foot cancer.
Yeah, organ harvest material.
Oscura was a night owl, so Stab had her shift her schedule. While she was at it, Stab decided to give up that one hour's meditation slot she had. It had always seemed a huge waste of time, so she'd skip it and see what happened.
Oscura was set to prioritise on construction then research before anything else. She wasn't great at construction, but she had a passion for it (and double-passion for research and a fair skill of 8).
Also, that eltax skull cap they'd gotten ages ago that Stab didn't wear because she had to have a slicecap? Apparently Oscura was having it. Though to be fair, it was better than the tatty rag she'd got on and it took her off a major break risk. She grabbed the bolt-action rifle as well. (At SOME point, Stab needed to make, like, more guns...)
Next job was also to have the area in front of the fortifications CLEARED of chunks and trees!
The outer wall was completed, at least (bar the gap which needed to be filled in once the chunks were all inside.
Esdo was soon back on his feet.
Stab, fed--up with being shot and stuff, decided that, once she was healed, she would make herself a bear-skin shirt. She considered hyperweave, but figured she'd see how the bearskin worked first.
Come to think of it, the eltex vest she was wearing was also pretty useless, since she never really used her psychic powers (and hadn't ranked higher enough noble-wise). Next research, it was time to start making armour.
Trocur was kept busy for a bit, since it seemed like a few of the colonist wanted shirts. Heck, it wasn't like they didn't have TONS of camelhide to make it from, so Trocur tailored away.
Even WITH patient priority to 2, Dan STILL kept trying to get out of bed and clean.
Day One Hundred and Twenty-Eight
Stab was finally up and sorting herself out. The doctors were trying repeatedly to get Lane's last organ out, but nothing was happening.
Day One Hundred and Twenty-Nine
Heatwave. Time to turn all the heaters off. And put down more passive coolers. And restrict everyone to the Pet Zone which Stab had established (as the home zone was getting too large) to minimise everyone going outside.
FINALLY they got the third organ out of Lane, the little git. How much of the herbal medicine had they used...?!
Little got done, with them all being inside, though Stab at least got back on the components, while Dusk and Oscura researched - Oscura finishing tube television just before midnight and immediately starting on plate armour.
Day One Hundred and Thirty
Summer began.
No-one seemed to use the poker table (probably because Stab had never gotten around to making any chairs for it), so it was moved to the guest barracks out of the way.
Once that was gone, and building a passive cooler in a different spot, the rec-room was pretty much covered by the telly nice and efficiently.
The advantage of Trocur doing all that tailoring was that it pushed her crafting up to eight, so she could finally make components, too!
Hmm. You need chairs to watch the telly. Logical. Stab did some research and realised she'd be much more comfortable doing that in and armchair. So if she made a couple of armchairs for the research lab, the dining chairs could be moved around.
Some combat traders arrived. Finally, Stab could get rid of some more junk. Though not until they were right outside the base, though, Sawbones wasn't going out in that heat...
Plate armour researched! Straight on to flak armour!
Sawbones sold off the organs and the spare weapons, and bought in 11 medicine (as they were a bit low of herbal medicine to make more and with being confined to the pet zone, no-one could forage and the growing spot plants weren't ready for harvest).
By tea-time, Dan had finally gotten out of bed, healed.
A sheep's wool armchair for the fabrication bench too!
As those chairs used a lot of wool, Stab elected to make pigskin armchairs for the other workstations in the workshop.
Day One Hundred and Thirty-One
Early in the morning (not surprising, given the heatwave in the day) a group of visitor from Southeastern Alia came to look over the colony.
Macy's significant resistance had finally crumbled. Soon she would join them! (And then, with all those folk, they MIGHT just try converting Trocur again!
This seemed to Oscura like a good time for a party! Especially since the heatwave was now over!
And Macy finally cracked and joined the team!
Stab knew that she would have to find a way to more properly cool her room. She modified her nominal plans to leave a gap for a chimney next to the hospital, where she could put and over-the-wall-cooler.
Dusk's room would be a lot more difficult, so Dusk might just have to deal with passive coolers.
As the day wore on - Dusk had to demolish one of the wall she put up to get rid of the roof - a desperate trade pursued by 7 alphabeavers requested Stab's help.
Sure, Stab figured they could deal with that!
Day One Hundred and Thirty-Two
Flack armour research was complete. Right, Stab figured, time to research prosthesis and then on to actually be able to become cyborgs! Oh, well, actually, they probably ought to research hospital beds too, at some point.
Stab was starting to think they needed to move the research lab so they could expand the hospital, but that would have to be a mid-term goal. She really ought, she felt, to get on with the bedrooms soon.
The nominal plan for another corridor and the lab just off it.
Well, the dryads had spawned. Stab hadn't had anyone linked to it because of the sheer time it required and they didn't have anyone with a decent enough planting skill free. Since their found hunter and after hunter, but not a single fracker with a green thumb...
But in the meantime, four flak jackets were ordered in!
Stab also elected to do a better job of managing the areas. She set up a new "base zone" which would do for heatwave issues, and re0defined the pet zone to exclude the hospital, lab and the bedrooms, which would hopefully keep the cleaner and undisturbed.
Here they came, naturally from the north where there were least defences. Everyone one to battle stations (except Macy who currently was only armed with EMP grenades...)
Dan got badly bitten again (really, they HAD to get him some armour!)
Still, it got Stab a psylink neuroformer to boost her psy level to 2, so that wasn't too bad. Ooh, it also got her Word of Joy power Neat!
Esdo suddenly decided he needed to go on a fire-starting spree for no apparent reason. (No mental break or nuthin'.) Very less neat!
So instead of having a useful day, Stab ended up chasing him around putting his fires out. And Dan had got an infection from the alphabeaver bite to boot. It wasn't her day, it seemed...
((Oh, cool, when drafted, Stab still automatically stamps out fires! Neat!))
Day One Hundred and Thirty-Three
Prosthesis researched - hospital beds next!
Time to start work on the new lab.
GET BACK IN BED, DAN!
Darn it, another psychic drone that affected females negatively again...
With four girls on the job (or at least in rotating threes), the work went much faster.
Day One Hundred and Thirty-Four
Almost done!
Of course, the annoying thing was the research benches not being moveable, but there you were.
What it meant was that with a new multianalyser being built as well, the second research bench stalled out because they ran out of components. Nevermind. While Stab was working on that one, the hospital was expanded.
Now the coming problem was they were running low on iron and they seemed to have mined everything out.
More crazy people pursued by animals. But this one might join them...?
Well, they could handle four wolves, right?
Oh dear. Shows up completely starkers. A druggie (that probably explains the former). He has a low plants skill but some passion for it. *sigh* Well, Stab guessed he could help with the plants and clean with Dan...
Day One Hundred and Thirty-Five
Oh hey, the wolves were actually coming from a useful angle! Huzzah! Man... Er, actually perhaps more accurately in the case, woman the defences...!
And Esdo just started burning things again. Why has he suddenly started doing this after ages where he didn't? So now Macy has to follow him around while the rest are fighting. Great.
Oh, don't anyone SHOOT THE ANIMALS THEN.
((So net result, Stab, Dusk AND Navarro hurt (the former pair downed), while I had to frack about with Esdo. Yeah, if this pyro thing happens again, he's organ-harvested, it's just fracking tedious.
Yeah, game NO.
I don't care if I have to go back to the morning of the previous day, I'm not having that crap AGAIN.))
Day One Hundred and Thirty-Four (redux).
Cancel the new multianalyser, it used too many components.
Okay this time, Dan gets the third flak jacket...
The quest that came in the night was to send away a colonist to the Black Empire for eight days. Nope!
Day One Hundred and Thirty-Five
Dan was sent to smash an ancient warspider wreck (he'd actually been doing that the last time) in the hopes of finding some scrap.
Stab finished the last flak jacket, and finding it was excellent quality, exchanged it for the normal one Trocur had made earlier.
Dusk, a hauling priority Macy and Esdo worked on getting all those chunks moved.
((Another reason why I wasn't prepared to have Stab and Dusk down for days on end AGAIN.))
Stab also churned out a load of medicine (since AGAIN, she was the only one that could).
And at the end of that day, we'll call it there.
