After another update which presumably fixed the broken shit, we're back. Even better, Drurk got most of her abilities back. She doesn't have Shadow (which I may not use, the mood penalty was ginormous) or Blink, but she has Summon, Teleport, and Magic Missile from the word go. Last time she only had Missile to start, I think? Doesn't matter, BACK IN THE GAME.
We're gonna need steel to make the nutrient paste dispenser. Luckily, we have some to mine nearby.
Also as requested, we're making it a rainy thunderstorm in exchange for the Psychic Shock Lance (I believe it was three votes for the lance, versus two for the shirt and one for honor). I must say I'm proud of you autists, I handed you a golden opportunity to make Kevin the conceited, do-nothing "noble" he wishes he was, and you declined it. This will not make him any more useful than he currently is.
The good news is, we get the reward immediately.
Since the Shock Lance will assist in the collection of captures, we prepare for the future by making a couple holding cells, and using Alpaca Wool for bedrolls. Knew that shit would come in handy someday. I've also taken the advice of putting a growing zone on a nearby field of Agave and Peach Trees and disabled sowing, to see if my pawns will in fact auto harvest the forageable fruits. (Editor's note: They do!)
Unfortunately I didn't realize how fuck mclargehuge the Nutrient Paste Dispenser was, so I need to massively expand the freezer as that's about the only place I can really stick it. Which means another cooler. Fuck...
Meanwhile, Kevin goes out to hunt a hippo. What will happen?
If you guessed "Hippopotamus Revenge while Kevin is too far from back up", ding ding ding.
Hippos are slow, so Kevin is able to run back and get support from Drurk. However, they're so TOUGH, that a full blast of Magic Missile from Drurk only slows it down some more and makes it kite-able. Kevin takes a bruise to his leg for his efforts, but that's all, and we have a full hippo corpse to butcher. During all this, Jen finishes researching tabletop games, and I set the next project to Smithing, as we'll need it to make prosthetics. Which allows us to make hydraulic vaginas.
SOUNDS OF INCREDIBLY LOUD VOMITING
And just when I got done with that loss of lunch, I spy Penny and Drurk deciding to have a 69...in the rain...next to the steel mine. Because I can't think of any more romantic places. Can you?
To take my mind off things, we're offered a chance to build a monument for rewards. One of them is Glitterworld Medicine, which I happily accept. We can make it all out of limestone too, which is very handy indeed.
The Dispenser is finally made, and I make a couple hoppers that get set to only have 72 items in them thanks to a mod I have letting me take full control of storage options. The Dispenser takes 6 of most normal food items to make 1 Nutrient Paste meal. I set everyone but Penny to "OnlyPaste", a food restriction that makes them eat only the green slurry. As we are transhumanist, there is no penalty for this.
It's worth noting that even the Arid Shrublands get cold in winter. Not painfully so, it gets down to 3 Celsius, so plants won't die, but you may want a sweater. Dress for 40 Freedom Temperature Units if you're American.
Heartless decide to attack us again. Luckily, only Shadows, no Darkside this time around. Shadows, on their own, are slow, weak, and die easily. It goes as well as you'd expect.
A Transport Pod Crash! Someone named Kasvin is here. He's a good doctor, and has some mining skill, which is a skill we're lacking...but, I have other plans for him. He had a shitload of drugs on him too. Jen is dispatched to heal his wounds, and also...
To administer mechanite slurry, and see what happens when we make them drink a cocktail of genetic mutagen. From what I can gather, the condition of changing starts at 100%, ticks down, and grants random mutations. The first one Kasvin got was hard nails on his left foot, granting him 1% of sharp armor and a -10% to moving. He also gets bristly, feathery quills next. We'll check up on him every so often.
Jen figures out Smithing as well, and immediately gets to work on Machining. We're getting closer to making the Tranch real.
Oh, did I mention this before?
Ideology introduced the idea of Relics, artifacts with special significance. I decided to make the Tranch's one and only known relic "The Dilator", a golden two handed club. We will get random quests that will assist us in locating this lost relic. Very well timed, just as we started to get closer to hydraulic vaginas. God that's not even fun to say out loud.
Kasvin update. Appears to be mostly slime and claw related. Damn, it wasn't kidding about random mutations. It quickly becomes impossible to follow his mutations, as he picks up things like a duck egglayer, a pair of avian eyes (he has four, two turn avian, I didn't realize he was a Batarian from Mass Effect before I administered), wing tips, bigger arms, a gas vacuole for buoyancy in his kidney, fuck man. This is a fucking war crime I'm committing.
He even laid a "mutagenic egg". Apparently, eating it causes Avian mutations unless we cook it.
But fuck that, we have a quest. A shuttle from the Empire is crashing, and they offered to send us a miner if we save the shuttle commander (Apos on this image). We also get the scrap from the shuttle once we get him on the new shuttle they're sending. We're going to get a tribal attack, but Apos's companion, Acominata, has a FUCKING ROCKET LAUNCHER. Add Drurk in with his magic, and I think we're good.
We get four goblins (Also, Kasvin is having a crisis of faith as his body changes, ignore that). They all have melee weapons, and quickly move away from our Ranch to gear up to attack the crashed Empire citizens. Can't have that, so Drurk is sent out to begin racial cleansing. Her first Magic Missile grants a level up, which resets her cooldown. A second Magic Missile kills another goblin and sends the rest running in a panic.
However, that was NOT the tribespeople raid I was waiting for. The crashed survivors don't attack on their own, but they do defend themselves. And when a guy with a monosword meets guys with sharpened bone and sticks...
Again, as well as you'd expect. Also, Acominata is a MONK, which means that when one of the tribals tries to get up and walk away, she instantly launches herself, in full power armor, and smashes his face in. Imagine Bruce Lee in T-51 Armor flying across the dojo to kick your fucking teeth in.
The crew leaves, and we get Dumbo. Who, if being a good miner wasn't enough, he's also a kick ass Enchanter. Which means he can buff himself, buff allies, and polymorph allies and enemies.
Randy sends two sets of cargo pods. One contains some clothing (not great but, can be sold) and a pod of Green Tea. Reward for Charity? Does he just like confusing us? Who knows with Randy.
Oh, this is why.
We have 5 refugees who want to stay at TUR for 9 days. Well, I am building a structure that's intended to be a temple, but it can play host to them. Plus, they do tend to send some really good shit later on. And five extra field hands can't hurt.
A lot of them have Animals passion, which helps with Fishing. In response, I plunk down some more fishing spots on the river, so they can help us by getting lots of food for us.
One of them, Benart, is the very model of a Scientist Salarian, and helps us out with research. Neat. He likes us, and offers to join us. Welcome aboard! Aliens in our midst now...
Our mage/priest, Drurk, was feeling horny, and decided to break. She's now on a Smokeleaf binge. Well, she was at major. There's worse fates. Like being struck by lightning, which actually happened (but was resolved so fast I couldn't get a shot of it).
As part of testing our newly researched prosthetics, we make a hydraulic penis and attach it to Drurk. As she's a body modder, I thought she'd like it. Nope. -20 for the attachment, and still frustrated for body modding. Let's uh, change that. That's 25 steel and two components I'm not getting back, but I give her a Bionic Leg in the character editor. Call it a "thanks for letting me experiment" bonus. I may need to add more to this if I want this to work, and the -20 mood penalty is not going away so, fuck.
I'll figure it out later. This update's taken three hours and I want to stop playing for a while. I have stuff to do. We end, for now, on Dec. 14th. Next time, who knows, but we've already made it a year...that 5 year goal is looking good.
