Five Game Challenge Day 16: Starting a RimWorld Colony

Don’t worry — I can in fact count. I know Day 15 is missing. But that’s because I actually did miss it unfortunately. Went to sleep pretty early yesterday as I wasn’t feeling particularly well. Just hayfever kicking my butt I think but was feeling pretty crusty and it carried over today. Which let me tell you, added to a day of no power (planned maintenance in the area) doesn’t make for a great deal of fun. Did, I suppose, enforce some actual rest time though I guess.

Anywho, I may look at making Day 15’s post up at a later time. Then ya’ll really will wonder if I lost the ability to count. Hehe.

Anywho, rather than spend another post discussing how many things there are making me want to play almost anything not on my list — I took a new tack this evening when power came back and kicked off a new RimWorld colony. … Poor buggers!

I kept the game’s story-teller AI on a rather moderate setting. Pheobe Chillax (who spreads events out a little more timewise) on the ‘Adventure Story’ difficulty, which as I understand it is basically the ‘normal’ difficulty setting.

I also went with a bog-standard space-colonist start, using mostly randomised skills/characters. I did use Prepare Carefully to bring any colonists who didn’t have at least 5 in mining up to that point though. I also brought along a second pet (in this case, a Corgi was selected as my starter pet, so I went with another of those) in the hopes they would breed. But… Well; we’ll get to that later.

But who would’ve thought a mountainous tropical forest would have so much dangerous wildlife anyway?? *cough*

There is more to the map, a little more north and south of what I can fit on screen here. The southern end opens up a little wider.

I’m eyeing up the ruins on the eastern mountain face at this point, looking to claim them as my own and delve into the mountain itself.

The tiger over to the west of the ruins? *sigh* Relevant to our story a little later. Actually, the panther further to the north, too.

Shortly after repairing the walls and filling the gaps with wooden walls, I set to work pulling down the random remaining walls left inside the protected area. It occurs to me now that the marble blocks salvaged there could’ve been used to carry on the marble walls of the perimeter too but ah well.

I also have a small stockpile zone in the corner there. It’s not sheltered so the things in it are still deteriorating but at least they’re behind the relative safety of my walls. I’ll still need to setup some cover for shooting from outside, but that’s a job for a bit later. We need to get things moving inside!

Of course, there is a downside to mining out a place to live rather than building one.

It’s very slow. Day 1 ended as above, with barely a corner carved out of our new mountain home. I’ve also marked all the tiling outside to be removed as I need the area for crops which isn’t going to help the speed of things any.

I eventually knock a few rows off the mining order, shortening the initial barracks / mess hall size. But it’s still a couple of days before we get around to constructing beds and stop expecting people to sleep on the (rough) stone floor.

I actually thought this colony might be an early fail and restart for a moment. I ran out of food *very* quickly. The survival rations just didn’t seem to carry me for as long as they normally would.

At first I thought it was the additional pet, or perhaps the fact they were dogs. I later discovered that given the terrain of this map, my initial supplies dropped down from space with me were spread out across the map. I had noticed that already for a few things — the silver and steel for example were a lot further from my drop than I was used to seeing.

What I hadn’t appreciated though was that there was perhaps half my survival rations sitting on a beach. By the time I discovered them, a good portion of them had been eaten by hungry wildlife.

And now things were dire.

You might be able to see, through what is missing, in the following screenshot:

Yep. None. Also: There is a raid on. But it’s the first one of the game — so it’s just a single rather optimistic fellow with a melee weapon charging a gun-line.

I’m far more worried about the lack of food than I am the presence of the raider.

You might also notice that the kitchen area is unfinished, as the butcher’s table still isn’t constructed. Nor is the freezer area to the side of it quite ready to go.

But it’s all so close!

Close enough that no-one starved… to death… Nor did we have to resort to cannabalism. In fact, that Camba guy didn’t even die. We knocked him on his ass, gave him a stern word, then sent him on his way.

And you know what?

As it turns out, with an area as wild as this one — I don’t even have to hunt and kill food for myself that often. Things are killing each other all *over* the place. If I scan the map every day or so, I can find still fresh carcasses to haul back to base to freeze and use for later.

It’s still a risky run, I mean.. Sometimes it does entail snatching the food from aligators, tigers, or other things that might not be quite as done with the food as things seem to suggest.

In any case, more of this story later methinks. Including the fate of the two (poor, poor) Corgi. ;)