|
That last shot really shows how much of Old Winterhome had been burned out and cleared away. But they seem to have things well in hand now. I’m certain Winterhome is going to make it!
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2023 06:13
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 20, 2024 15:28 |
|
|
The Survivor's Tale: Fourth Session Hello again, sir. I'm doing all right, all things considered. Thank you. Now, last time I think I'd just told you about when the temperature hit fifty below for the first time - what I didn't mention was that at the same time, we'd finally cleared out all of the old ruins and wreckage.  It gave us room to rebuild, even better than before, that was the thought.  We had a third scout team active, now, but all that was left to explore was the mountain pass the third dreadnought had come through.  Sir, a group of amputees is here to see you. They want to help in the Cookhouse. "We don't want to sit on our arses all day, content with just being kept alive. We can't do hard work anymore, but if we fashion some simple prostheses out of wood, we can help in the Cookhouse and earn our keep." Now, we'd never had the benefit of studying those Tesla-made prosthetics you have here, so at first we outfitted our amputees with wood - peg-legs and such. It wasn't long before we'd got them replaced with metal ones, though.  Nobody lived in tents any more. Spirits were high for the first time in what felt like months.    It looks like a forest, however unlikely that may sound. All the trees are dead, some of them cracked from the sudden frost that must have come in the middle of the Arctic summer. There's a fair amount of usable Wood we can take with us to Winterhome. You ever seen one of them frozen forests, sir? Cold comes down so suddenly, some of the trees don't even have time to drop their leaves. Made it real easy for our scouts to just knock 'em down and drag the lumber back to the city whole.  Someone has left a note at the Care House. It reads: "Thank you. With all the work we have to do, it's so hard for families to properly care for an invalid. Places like this make life a little easier for us all." You know, looking back, I think it was the care house that showed everyone a promise of what the city could be now that we were all in charge of it.  Winterhome has recovered under your able management. Your people will now follow you through thick and thin, convinced that you are the right leader for these trying and troubled times. Now we must find out what's wrong with the Generator. First we need to research and build the Repair Station so we can examine the Generator. We hadn't forgotten about the faulty Generator, of course. Hard to do when the thing showers you in sparks every ten seconds, but at least it still kept us warm.    Sir, we can now research a new technology that will allow us to build the Repair Station and investigate the Generator. The repair station itself was a pretty simple idea, essentially an engineering station built right onto the side of the Generator itself.    A large snow mound. It looks like a mass grave. It's a mass grave, probably of the people who died when the third dreadnought's steam boiler exploded. We opened the mass grave to count the bodies. It was a difficult and gruesome task, as many of them were torn to shreds by the explosion. We have heartbreaking news - after adding the bodies found here to those from the Last Camp, it seems that everyone who was travelling in the third dreadnought has died. Several steam cores were left here as gravestones. We decides that the living need them more. Though we always knew it was probably the case, we were finally able to account for every body from that defective dreadnought. It was cold, taking their grave markers, but not as cold as we would've been without 'em! Heh.    Nothing too fancy went into making the repair station, basically just some scaffolding, a platform, then four walls and a roof. It didn't need much fancy steam piping or anything, being right up next to the generator as it was.    A huge trailer buried in the snow. A trailer that the third dreadnought was hauling. This is one of the enormous cargo trailers designed to be hauled by the dreadnoughts. They carried all kinds of goods, from construction materials, to Coal and Food Rations, to scout sledges and Steam Cores. The trailer is balanced precariously on the edge of a deep ravine. It was abandoned when the ice bridge cracked under its weight. We could take the supplies that can be safely reached or risk entering the trailer to carry out more. Frostland held one final secret for us - and the deadliest. Our scouts, bless 'em, risked their lives to strip that trailer clean.  We managed to carry out plenty of supplies before the trailer fell into the ravine with a thunderous clatter. They succeeded, though two members of the group were badly injured by debris when the thing finally fell. The rest dressed their wounds as best they could and hurried back to the city, though ultimately the poor souls weren't able to get proper treatment in time.    The chief engineer of the team investigating the cause of the Generator malfunction takes you aside. He is visibly concerned. "I was thinking about the last of the dreadnoughts that brought us here - the only one we haven't taken apart yet. At first it seemed we'd have to dismantle it to fix the Generator... but now I think we may need it intact after all. Just in case, you know, we have to leave the city." We were able to get sixty of our best minds crawling all over the Generator to fix it, but within just an hour or two of the inspection starting I saw the chief engineer pulling the captain aside, pale as pale can be.  We were pulling our scouts back at this point, satisfied with our survey of the surrounding lands. Those two scouts I told you about died almost as soon as they made it back to warmth.  Our engineers have finished inspecting the Generator. It has a catastrophic flaw! It will keep breaking down, and each malfunction will cause the stress within the Generator to start rising. We'll be able to patch it up using the Repair Station, but these fixes will not last for long. The Generator will eventually break down permanently and then explode from the rising stress. Winterhome is doomed. The engineers worked all night, trying to find a solution, but in the end they all came to the same conclusion. The Generator was defective, just like the third dreadnought, and would explode just like its engine did - but worse. Have you been down to see the ruins yourself, sir? No? Get the scouts who found it to draw you a picture, then, see for yourself how big that explosion did end up being. Did all at once what the fires weren't able to finish after a whole night of burning.   Of course, with so many people on the inspection crew, word spread around Winterhome immediately. All of the morale that we'd so carefully rebuilt crumbled in an instant.    Sir, the chief engineer says there's still hope. We didn't dismantle the last of our Dreadnoughts. If we repair it, we can leave Winterhome and find another place to live. Yet people are doubtful. "Where would we go? It's nothing but a frozen wasteland as far as the eye can see!" Our only option is to evacuate as many people as possible using the Dreadnought we didn't fully dismantle. We first have to build an Evacuation Centre. Then we have to send engineers to refit the Dreadnought. We'll need Steel and Steam Cores to convert decks into cabins for people on board, and Food Rations to feed them through the journey. I hate him and love him for what he did, sir. The captain, I mean. Far as I'm concerned, he earned the title right then - stepped up to the crowd and baldly lied to our faces that he knew a place for us to evacuate to. Of course he didn't - New London wasn't even so much as a tent yet - but we believed there was hope for us, and so we persevered.   The first step was building what was essentially a train station, a lot like what they're working on over at Outpost Six. No tracks, of course, but same idea - we'd pack as much as we could onto this big vehicle and send it back and forth from the dreadnought once a day.   The evacuation of so many people will take time, so we need to keep the Generator running for as long as possible. Fortunately, our engineers have several ideas about how to raise the efficiency of the Repair Station. At the same time, the engineers were coming up with as many ideas as they could to keep the Generator un-exploded. Those good people are in Valhalla and Fólkvangr now. The most worthy as our human race has ever had to offer.     Sir, the Evacuation Centre is operational! We can now send engineers to the Dreadnought. Once there, they will be able to start restoring it to serviceable condition using the resources we send them. We got the transport running in no time at all, though we didn't yet have enough engineers to spare at home to fully staff the repair team all at once. Instead we sent who we could spare - two. We would need twenty-three more, and had come up with some plans to make that work, but decided to spend who we could right away rather than wait with the transport idle.  The first part of the plan was to finally outfit the people maimed in the fires with proper prosthetics, like I said before.  Sir, since you've recalled the engineers from the Weather Station, the weather forecast will no longer be available. We have to be prepared for sudden weather changes. The other part was to recall the scientists from the weather station. It meant we no longer had any way to forecast temperature dips, but twenty more engineers was more than enough to compensate for that. We all knew which way the mercury was going to be heading, anyway.  Every body working on the dreadnought was one body that wasn't working in the city, so we implemented a foreman system to make sure everyone was working together as efficiently as possible.  As we sent the rest of the repair team out, it seemed a good time to take a vote on the direction we'd be taking our city from then on out. And on that note, I think it's a good time to stop for the day. Until next time, sir. What were the next three laws selected to stave off the Fall of Winterhome?
|
|
#
?
Oct 4, 2023 00:39
|
|
|
Oof. It only gets worse from here. Great writing as always.
|
|
#
?
Oct 4, 2023 05:34
|
|
|
Fall of winterhome is a dunker on you.
|
|
#
?
Oct 4, 2023 20:53
|
|
|
Seems like the question is when the Captain died. Did he stay with the generator or what?
|
|
#
?
Oct 5, 2023 00:17
|
|
|
The Survivor's Tale: Fifth Session Well, with things being the way they were, we all knew we were going to have to tighten our belts and put our noses to the grindstone. Giving up nearly all our leisure time was just what we had to do if we were going to make it out of there before the Generator blew.  The gatherers and cooks were the first to be put on extended shift, but we tried to rotate people in and out of those jobs as much as we could early on.  The amputees being able to go to work again meant we could have more hands feeding the same amount of mouths. We were beginning to have a healthy surplus of food, with the understanding that the entire hoard would eventually be moved to the dreadnought.   In order to keep morale up and keep us on track, we replaced our watchtowers with guard stations. Healthy mix of motivation and fear, you know all about that, eh captain? Er, sorry.    Sir, the first of the crew have just reached the Dreadnought. They can now start refitting it. The people we evacuate will need cabins and Food Rations. If we don't make sure they have them, they'll die during the journey. The more people we send, the more they'll need. You have to balance this to ensure a successful evacuation. To convert the first deck into cabins, we'll need 300 Steel and 1 Steam Core. To feed the people currently on the Dreadnought, we'll need at least 250 Food Rations. While we were preparing Winterhome for evacuation, the Dreadnought team was doing the same on their end. Once the rest of the engineers arrived, we sent a bunch of the food and materials they needed to get started, though that would turn out to be just the tip of the iceberg.   We've refitted the Dreadnought to provide basic accommodation and supplies. Now we have to send enough Coal to start it. Then it will be ready to launch when you give the order. However, there are still a number of people left in the city. To evacuate more, we need to prepare the cabins and provisions for them, otherwise our journey will end badly. How you proceed with the evacuation is up to you. Five thousand kilos of coal to get the thing moving anywhere, and enough food and shelter for five hundred people. That was our goal.  Remember how I said the iron mine would be important? This is when we started having them send us regular steel shipments.  An engineer takes you aside. He lays before you a map of the area around Winterhome. "I know you lied to us. There are no known settlements nearby. I've kept this to myself, haven't even told my wife... so far." In exchange for his silence, he demands to be sent to the Dreadnought with his family. That night, I saw one of the engineers from the Generator repair team take the captain aside. Both of them walked away scowling, and the engineer left for the dreadnought with his whole family the next day. I didn't have time to think about it too deeply at the time, given...   Sir, the Generator just quit suddenly! To make matters worse, its stress is rising - the main return valve must've failed. People are terrified that the Generator will explode! Our engineers are already working on a temporary fix. The Repair Station was adequately staffed, so the repairs will be finished reasonably quickly. The Generator just stopped working just after midnight, and started... shuddering, instead.   The Generator is operational again and you can turn it on safely. However, the next breakdown will be more difficult to repair. If you keep engineers employed at the Repair Station, they will monitor the Generator. When it breaks down again, they will repair it faster. It took a whole team of engineers working for the rest of the night under the watchful eye of a foreman, but they got it running again before sunrise. Some people woke up the next morning having never noticed that the heat was running out. When I saw their faces as they headed home, though, I knew that it wasn't going to be a permanent solution.   Sir, a doctor who tended to our children during the journey north is here to talk to you about their evacuation. "The youngest ones should be evacuated to the Dreadnought immediately - the conditions here will only get worse and we can't take risks with their health." The experience shook us all up once the implications set in the next morning. Right away we began to make plans to evacuate the children first.  Sir, we have some bad news concerning the Dreadnought: the space aboard is limited. We can and should build additional cabins, but we won't be able to save everyone in Winterhome. The rumours about limited space are already circulating in the city. People are tense and anxious... Somebody put two and two together, though, and realized that if our city was made up of all the people who'd come in on two dreadnoughts and we were only evacuating on one... even crammed in like sardines, we were never going to be able to fit everyone on board.    You kept your promise and sent the engineer and his family to the Dreadnought. Your lie is safe... for now. The children were sent out first still, along with twenty-five hundred kilos of coal, and that engineer I told you about earlier with his wife. I hadn't put it together just yet, but I knew something was fishy there.  Didn't have time to ponder too deeply, because our next job was dismantling a whole section of the city. Fifty people had just left Winterhome, you see, so suddenly we had fifty beds extra - and we needed the materials more than we needed empty houses collecting rust and dust.  You sent 50 children to the Dreadnought. The next shipment we sent was all kids again, along with a more varied assortment of steel, food and coal.  Which meant more dismantling.   Sir, my only son was sent to the Dreadnought. Could I go in the next transport to join him? His mother died in the great fire when it took our house. He has no one but me and I'm afraid he won't survive alone. One of the workers on my site got a queer look in his eye, left the job site to have a chat with the captain, and came back with a new spring in his step. When he told us that he had just booked his passage away on the next train, it was all me and the boys could do not to knock the stuffing out of the git. We, er, didn't, sir, but the bastard probably felt relieved being away from us on that next bloody train.  Anyway... not all of the materials we recovered from tearing down empty houses was going straight to the dreadnought. We still had to build up our stockpiles at home, so we had some massive warehouses put up, almost as big as some of the ones we've got here in New London!  Sir, we've found stowaways in the Evacuation Centre! Some people are so afraid that they're unwilling to wait for their turn and want to make for the Dreadnought on their own by stealing supplies or hiding in the transports. If we let this escalate, we won't be able to carry out the evacuation in an orderly fashion! Will and Marty got it into their heads to try and escape on the next shipment too, but they got found out and from then on there were guards posted by the evac centre.  One of the downsides of having recalled the weather team was that every time the temperature dropped again we were caught flat-footed. It dropped to sixty below for the first time the next day, and we had to scramble to get the hothouses heated properly before we lost the crop.  We had our troubles, sir, but things were still just rosy compared to what was still coming. That's a story for another time, though. What were the next three laws selected to stave off the Fall of Winterhome?
|
|
#
?
Oct 7, 2023 05:44
|
|
|
It’s in scenarios like these that you can definitely see the This War of Mine DNA in this game. Gut punch after gut punch.
|
|
#
?
Oct 7, 2023 06:16
|
|
|
BassMug posted:It’s in scenarios like these that you can definitely see the This War of Mine DNA in this game. Gut punch after gut punch. It makes me really hopeful that The Alters (their new game) will also deliver those kinds of moments.
|
|
#
?
Oct 7, 2023 06:25
|
|
|
The Survivor's Tale: Sixth Session Hey, phonographer, you still awake? Wait, don't write that- stop writing- hey! Alright, sorry sir, won't happen again. Only got a little more in me for tonight anyhow.    We were all going about things with a sort of grim efficiency, knowing any wasted moment or resource could mean somebody's life. That's why when the medics started cutting open our frozen stiffs for organs, there was a little surprise, but the most common response was a resolute nod. It's easy to keep a stiff upper lip, as the Americans say, when it's frozen in place.  You kept your promise and sent the father to join his child. Another nice and orderly supply shipment was sent out to the Dreadnought. Our last such.  Sir, a group of engineers is here. They want to talk to you... in private. "We figured out why you sent our friend and his family to the Dreadnought. You lied about the other city. We kept your secret to give you a chance to come clean, but if you don't tell the people the truth, we will." You know, I think if it had been just one more day, I would've figured it out on my own? But the brains worked it out first and forced the captain to tell all of us anyway.    "Don't trust that cheat!" shouts someone by the stockpiles. "The other city is a lie! We have to save ourselves!" Since your deception has come to light, people no longer trust that you will evacuate them. A large group has stolen 37 Food Rations and 84 Wood to equip themselves. If we don't stop them, they'll leave Winterhome and go to the Dreadnought on their own. The secret was out. Nowhere to go. I have to say this about the new Captain, he wasn't the kind of man to order others to be hurt, when it would just end up in death and fire.  So the guards just let ninety people walk - yes, walk - out on us.   Sir, a large group of angry people wants to leave the city and go to the Dreadnought on their own! They feel cheated, because you gave priority to some people getting on the evacuation transports. "No more playing God!" shouts a worker, shaking his grease-stained fist. "You won't get to judge who'll be saved and who'll die any more!" An hour later, another seventy had packed their things and followed the first group out. Just like that, what felt like half our workforce had vanished. Those of us who stayed behind simply got to work tearing down the houses, and figuring out which vacated jobs needed to be filled and which could be left empty.  Though we'd been evacuating the children as fast as possible, some of the oldest were still around. They had to go back to work, but we made sure they got the nice safe jobs.   Sir, the Generator has broken down again, and its stress is rising! People are gripped by fear - their worst nightmare seems to be coming true. The damage is worse than before and the repairs will take more time. Our engineers are working on a temporary fix. The Repair Station was adequately staffed, so they will be done in a reasonable time. Of course the Generator had to crap out right then too. It was much worse this time, both because the damage was only getting worse and we were down to so few engineers left on site. It took over twelve hours to get the thing back up and running.  Sir, people are talking openly about overthrowing you. Bereft of hope, they see no future for our city and they blame you for that. What should we do? There was a half-hearted attempt at establishing a new leader again, but as soon as the guards showed up everybody quietly went home with their tails between their legs. From what I saw they looked defeated even before that, though.   Sir, a family with children is going to the Evacuation Centre to leave for the Dreadnought on their own. "Father, I'm scared! I don't want to leave!" cry the kids. "Hush, dear, and be brave! We'll be safe if we get to the Dreadnought before all the cabins are full." Another family struck out on their own in the aftermath. Decided to take their chances that Frostland would be more merciful than the Generator.  I think everybody was individually weighing if it was better to die of heat or cold at that point. I sure was.   Sir, we've filled the Dreadnought with Coal. From now on we can start it when you give the order. We can raise its capacity by converting decks to cabins, and send more people and Food Rations. But people are getting more anxious by the day - some may try to get to the Dreadnought without permission. This might endanger the evacuation - if we don't have enough cabins and food for everyone, we'll suffer from illness and starvation during our journey. You must decide when to launch the Dreadnought to safely evacuate those on board. The one bit of good news we got around that time didn't really feel like it, to be honest with you. The Dreadnought could technically launch at any point, but we knew now that it had nowhere to go. It felt more like the threat of the others leaving without us to go nowhere was hanging over our heads, now.  Sir, a drunken man is having a meltdown in front of the Cookhouse. He's screaming that people are ill, cold, homeless and scared, but instead of help they get booze with their meals. The number of guards had been reduced down to almost nought, with them mostly being reassigned to the mines or food duties. There weren't even enough to respond to one drunk making a scene on the streets before he found his own way back to his bed.  Sir, there's too little food in the hold of the Dreadnought to feed the people already aboard. If we set out like this, some of us might starve during the journey. If there was a single silver lining to be found in half the city up and leaving, it was that there were suddenly a lot less mouths to feed but the same amount of feed being made. It didn't take too long to get the ship fully stocked with provisions.    The Generator repairs are complete - you can turn it on safely. Unfortunately, its performance has fallen, so all our heat zones will be 10% smaller. The next breakdown will be more difficult to repair and will have more severe consequences. After twelve hours of work, the Generator and our city had gone as cold as can be, and when they finally got the thing running again we found it wasn't working quite right any more. Never would work right again.  The few remaining guards - part-timers, at this point - did what they could to give us all a sense of security. It might have helped, a little, for some. Looking back I figure the captain was doing his best to make things seem normal again just before introducing another new... well, a radical law.    The frozen organs of the dead weren't all that could help us. Grim efficiency, remember? I said that before. A sacrifice of ground-up bones to Freyr ensures a good harvest, and there was only one source of bones left to us.   It seemed unthinkable in the past, but this is a new world and we have to adapt. The bodies of our dead can now be utilised to help us survive, so we've started keeping a tally of how many we have. Almost ninety bodies we had. Human remains, now fertiliser. They kept us fed indirectly, then.  The thought of eating food grown out of our own dead put some of us off. We never told the folks at the Dreadnought where the extra provisions were coming from. I suppose getting used to... that sort of thing, sort of... eased the... I... Never mind.  Sir, our people are worn out. Some of them have been working on extended shifts for days on end. Their effort is taking its toll and they're becoming restless. They deserve a break. Well. Anyway. In exchange, we got a bloody holiday. Ha! Three days of eight hour shifts, that was our holiday.   Sir, with the mood in the city so low, people are desperate to flee for the Dreadnought before it's full. Some of them have raided the stockpiles, stealing 22 Food Rations and 170 Wood to equip themselves for the journey. Should we stop them from leaving? That gave another wave of runaways the time to get their things packed and ready to leave us. Thirty-five able-bodied cowards.    Sir, a serious fault has shut down the Generator and caused the stress to start rising again! The mood among our people is verging on panic. Many talk openly about leaving their posts and making for the Dreadnought. The damage will be even harder to fix. The Repair Station was understaffed, so the repairs will take some time even if we employ enough engineers. Maybe we were the fools staying behind, though, in the end. The Generator, well, you know what happened next. Practically everyone in the city who could tell a hammer from a spanner was put to work on it, and that ended up being... about twenty-two, in the end, if I remember right. Even with some new specialized tools the workshops had come out with, it would be nearly a day before the heat would come back on.   There were less than half of us left in Winterhome, and almost none of us engineers. We did what we could, but those of us who were left didn't have any hope left for ourselves or the escapees, or enough spirit left to fight. I took up drawing in the snow; it was the only thing still keeping me going. Until next time, sir. Good night. What were the next three laws selected to stave off the Fall of Winterhome? Remalle fucked around with this message at 07:18 on Oct 9, 2023 |
|
#
?
Oct 9, 2023 07:14
|
|
|
Duelling law. Everyone's going to die anyway, might as well let them choose how.
|
|
#
?
Oct 9, 2023 07:29
|
|
|
This seems like a rather unforgiving scenario. Are the generator failure events on a fixed timer or is it variable based on how much you use it or how quickly you patch it up when you do?
|
|
#
?
Oct 9, 2023 13:50
|
|
|
You mean when do the events that shut down the generator happen? They're on a fixed timer and always happen on the same day and time. (This also means that, if you know when they're going to happen - or save often - you can fill up the repair station with engineers right before they trigger, so the repairs are as quick as possible.)
|
|
#
?
Oct 9, 2023 16:57
|
|
|
The journal we find in the first scenario mentions the Winterhome people were eating their own dead, which I suppose is true, indirectly.
|
|
#
?
Oct 9, 2023 21:17
|
|
|
The Survivor's Tale: Last Session Hello again, sir. No, that's quite alright. There's not much left to say about Winterhome, to be honest. I need to be sober for this last part.  The Captain decided legalizing duels would help our morale - giving us the chance to decide our own fates, I guess. Maybe it helped a little, in the end, I don't know. I don't remember any duels ever actually happening.  The Generator repairs are complete - you can turn it on safely. Unfortunately, its performance is drastically reduced. All our heat zones will be colder by 1 level and smaller by a further 10%. The next breakdown will be more difficult to repair and will have more severe consequences. We could all plainly tell the Generator was done for, even when the heat finally came back on. All we could do was keep working and hope to make it to the Dreadnought.  You gave your people time to rest, maintaining normal working hours. People feel ready to work hard again. After our three day "holiday," almost everyone was put right back on extended shifts.    Sir, the morale among our people is so low that a desperate mob has stormed the Evacuation Centre! They looted 11 Food Rations, 123 Wood and 4 Steel and are leaving the city to flee for the Dreadnought. The situation is getting out of control! It didn't go over well. Some of us had used the extra time off to weigh the odds of waiting for a spot on the Dreadnought versus staying behind, you see. We all knew space was running out.  Sir, people are talking openly about overthrowing you. Bereft of hope, they see no future for our city and they blame you for that. What should we do? There was no manpower left to keep the guard towers running, so they'd been disassembled for steel. When another protest broke out against the Captain, all he had left to protect him were words.     The Propaganda Centre can now keep track of people's attitudes and influence them. You restored the hope in our people's hearts. So he used those words and turned us against each other. Promised that we'd be given space on the ship as long as we worked hard for it, even if we had to toss out someone who'd boarded it illegally. drat us, drat me, we were worn out enough to fall for it.   Sir, we had to shut down the Generator due rising stress again. It was a close call, as the core is severely damaged. The news has caused panic among our people, but with great effort we've managed to re-establish order - at least for now. There was no one in the Repair Station, so the damage is all the more severe and will take even more time to patch up, even if we employ all our engineers. That night was the last time we had warmth. From then on, the Generator was only building heat and pressure on the inside, and there was nothing anyone could do to stop it. We only had three engineers left on site - the greatest bloody heroes I've ever seen, sir. They gave us every second they could wrestle out of that thing to escape.   Some of our people didn't wake up today. They simply froze to death while sleeping outside in the bitter cold with the Generator turned off. We tore nearly the entire city down for materials. It still wasn't enough. That night... a lot of us died.  Sir, the Generator still hasn't been fixed and the stress keeps rising. People are terrified, they came to beg you to speed up the repairs. Me and a couple of the others who were still around went to see the Captain. Pled and bargained with him to fix the Generator. He didn't say anything to us, just gave us a funny sort of look - the last time I ever saw of him, he was headed to the repair station to give the last few engineers a hand.   "You cheated us! There's no space left on the Dreadnought!" A crowd of people has gathered. Some are angry, some resigned, all are in despair. Now that the Dreadnought is full, they refuse to work. "Why should we work?! It won't do us any good anyway!" Some want to leave Winterhome and try their luck in Frostland. Others plan to stay in the city and face the end with dignity. We knew the propaganda was a lie, that there was no city, no room on the Dreadnought, no fix for the Generator, no hope for any of us.  So I took a group of the last few remaining children and some of the adults and we left. For the hot spring cave, where you found us. Most of us.  Five hundred souls had made it to that ship. Fully fueled, fully stocked, but we never did manage to send enough steel to build enough cabin space. There was enough for four hundred at best, at my best guess. I hope they worked out a way to make it work. I hope they found somewhere to go.  The Generator is going to blow! We have to evacuate immediately! We can delay the explosion by about a day using an emergency pressure release, but the people who activate it will die. I tried not to look back, or let anyone else. There was nothing left for us in Winterhome. We couldn't think about what - who - we'd left behind, or we'd never make it far enough away in time. By my best guess, there were about sixty people we left behind, sir. The sick, the starving - we couldn't save them all.     I could feel the explosion from... I don't remember how far away we'd gotten. A few hours head start, and it still knocked a bunch of us on our arses.  First we saw a column of fire and smoke rise on the horizon. When a rumbling thunder shook the ground under our feet, we knew: the Generator was gone, and with it every single poor soul left in Winterhome. It was too late to help them. Though our hearts were heavy with the guilt of surviving at the expense of so many others, we rode the Dreadnought into the white void, gathering what was left of our society and leaving our home behind. We did not look back. We already knew the fate of Winterhome... I just wish I knew what happened to the ship, sir. I wish I knew if it was all worth it.
|
|
#
?
Oct 11, 2023 01:55
|
|
|
 The Generator has failed We had to flee  Even with limited space We saved so many  What else could we do...  Propaganda Bodies used as fertiliser Amputations  We let the panic spread Many ran away in chaos  We set out ill prepared With too little shelter on board  Scores died of cold and illness At least some are alive...  We pray someone buries The few left in Winterhome.  And now we know. Hundreds died, but hundreds more made it out. Did they ever make it to safety or did they wander the wastes aimlessly until their fuel ran out and everyone froze to death? We never find out - all we know is that a few escaped on their own and were eventually picked up by New London. So, fun fact - Frostpunk didn't launch with an Endless mode, only receiving one several months after launch. The maps are mostly based on the ones from the various scenarios, with a couple fun extras, but the one I'm going to be showing off next is actually one added in the game's first expansion, The Rifts. After that we'll get to the final two scenarios, also from expansions. See you then!
|
|
#
?
Oct 11, 2023 01:56
|
|
|
I love the ambiguity of how you wrote this captain. Since we never go behind his eyes, we can only see him through the citizens, and his actions. Especially both times he spoke to the engineers.
|
|
#
?
Oct 11, 2023 06:37
|
|
|
This game rocks. Loving the LP so far. The first time I played the commoners vs nobles scenario, I let my firebrand socialism get the better of me and made all the nobles stay out in the cold. Especially Craven. gently caress Craven.
|
|
#
?
Oct 11, 2023 07:39
|
|
|
Almost sad we aren't doing the one scenario expansion next. Almost.
|
|
#
?
Oct 11, 2023 08:34
|
|
|
It was interesting seeing a situation where there was no way to win and it was solely a question of how badly you lost.
|
|
#
?
Oct 11, 2023 08:42
|
|
|
BassMug posted:I love the ambiguity of how you wrote this captain. Since we never go behind his eyes, we can only see him through the citizens, and his actions. Especially both times he spoke to the engineers. Yes. We get a strong picture of a guy not really equal to the task and just trying to muddle through in a "gently caress it, give it a shot" way, which turns into a wry "Why not? It's all hosed anyway" fatalism. It's very cool.
|
|
#
?
Oct 11, 2023 11:59
|
|
|
I'd say it's fairly likely that Winterhome's Dreadnaught will be addressed in the sequel. Whether as some city you interact with that was founded by them, or as wreckage you discover and explore. They don't have to, of course, but it seems like such a waste not to.
|
|
#
?
Oct 11, 2023 16:24
|
|
|
I assumed they were doomed, considering they didn't make it to New London before the death storm.
|
|
#
?
Oct 11, 2023 16:43
|
|
|
Thanks for the feedback and encouragement as always! I like the ambiguity of the Resolute's fate and I hope it stays a mystery. We did what we could and sacrificed everything for them just for a chance, and we'll never get to know if that gamble paid off.
|
|
#
?
Oct 11, 2023 17:59
|
|
|
Quixzlizx posted:I assumed they were doomed, considering they didn't make it to New London before the death storm. A functioning Dreadnaught filled up with Coal might have been one of the few things that could withstand those temperatures. As long as the outer hull was intact, the passengers could have retreated as deep as they could inside and sealed the hatches to help make an air gap.
|
|
#
?
Oct 11, 2023 22:30
|
|
|
Lovely writing here!
|
|
#
?
Oct 11, 2023 23:40
|
|
|
Remalle posted:Thanks for the feedback and encouragement as always! I like the ambiguity of the Resolute's fate and I hope it stays a mystery. We did what we could and sacrificed everything for them just for a chance, and we'll never get to know if that gamble paid off. He turned death into a fighting chance to live. As good captains always do.
|
|
#
?
Oct 12, 2023 00:36
|
|
|
AtomikKrab posted:A functioning Dreadnaught filled up with Coal might have been one of the few things that could withstand those temperatures. As long as the outer hull was intact, the passengers could have retreated as deep as they could inside and sealed the hatches to help make an air gap. Yeah, but you have seen how fast we use coal in just a fixed settlement. Without fresh supplies after Winterholme exploded, having enough fuel is a BIG issue
|
|
#
?
Oct 14, 2023 02:21
|
|
|
Endless Mode: Part One And now for something completely different. Here's the game's Endless Mode, which as I mentioned at the end of the previous scenario was released a few months after the game launched. Each subsequent expansion has also added a few fun things to Endless Mode; the very first expansion, The Rifts, adds the map that we'll be checking out.    Endurance: For survivalists Scarce resources, bitter cold and frequent blizzards. Every day will be a struggle. The Builders: For pioneers No heating, no support, harsh weather incoming. Build the Generator and try to survive. Serenity: For constructors Plenty of resources, mild weather, and short blizzards. Build the city how you see fit. At first the only options were Endurance and Serenity, with The Builders being added in The Last Autumn expansion. After the nightmare that was The Fall of Winterhome, I'm in need of some Serenity.        Hanging Rock A hanging rock protects the location of Generator 157 from the prevailing winds, while a gently sloping entrance grants easy access to Frostland. Based on the Winterhome map. Snowdrifts Before Generator 014 was finally put to use, snow and ice partially filled the area around it, limiting the available space. Based on the Refugees map. Frozen Grove The place for Generator 614 was chosen because of its sheltered nature, which turns out to be less of a blessing for the city planner. Based on The Arks map. Crags Generator 049 was built in an alternate location, after rugged terrain and worsening weather made reaching the primary site impossible. The same rock formations that impeded the advance will now make city planning very difficult. Canyon Generator 358 was built in a large crevasse sheltering it from bitter winds, but the area available for construction is limited. The city has to be planned around steam hubs, not just the central heat zone. Flats This Generator is surrounded by a very large flat area suitable for expansion, with supplies scattered all over the place. The distance to the resources might be a problem. Crater A location typical for the later stages of planning and construction. The site for the Generator was chosen carefully to provide a relatively large open area around it with conveniently placed resources. That last one is basically the New London map, meaning each of the base scenarios has an Endless counterpart, along with a few more interesting options as well. I like the Crags and Canyon maps a lot.   Rifts: Generator 266 was built on a rocky shelf near the former seashore. To grow the city, a way to cross the network of rifts will be needed. Here's the star of the hour, though. I turned down all the settings to the easiest, partly due to Winterhome fatigue and partly just to get through this faster. There's something specific I'm aiming to show you. I also turned on Random Hazards but turned off Settlements, which we'll cover in more depth during the very last scenario.    So starting the game gives us our overview of our playing area, which takes place on a bunch of small "islands" of raised land divided by the titular rifts. We also get to name our city in Endless mode, but the first suggestion was terrible, so I hit randomize a few times, getting (in order): New Camelot, North Wolverhampton, Cairngorm, New Birmingham, Wintervale, Winterhaven, and Winterbourne. Yes, three Winter names in a row. Finally, I got:  Hell yeah.   Respectable amount of starting resources and people. Notably, five steam cores! A New Home and Endless are the only modes that give you an unlimited supply of steam cores. We also start with the first tier of resource buildings already unlocked, and have all the same laws as normal available. No votes for laws, this time; I have something else in mind.    Sir! We have built our first bridge. Thanks to this construction, we will be able to reach distant resources. Expanding our city onto neighbouring areas will be necessary to survive. If you were wondering how we get our city from one island to the next, here's your answer! Bridges are completely unique to the Rifts map. These beauties are resource expensive and take a long time to build, we'll eventually need to build a lot of them, and we will love them all the same. They can't be torn down once constructed, by the way.  Endless also gives us a new Public tab in our buildings list. None of these have any particularly function beyond being kinda neat. I'll probably build one of each.   The shore is strewn with huge boulders, creating a maze of sheltered passages. A small rickety hut looms in the distance. We can't see any signs of life. Endless has its own set of Frostland locations (the other two points are just featureless landmarks). These will refresh every so often, so your scouts will always have something to do.    A small shack, poorly put together from broken up crates. There's nobody here, but we might find some supplies. We searched the place, finding a decent amount of resources and a row of graves behind the shack. A large uprooted tree looms on the horizon. No story, just flavour.  Here's the situation in Chillville after a few days. Everyone's housed, research is going, most of the starting resource piles have been collected, sawmills are clearing space around our starting island. Over on the second island, a single gathering post is collecting five piles at once, and a cemetary has been built. And we have enough resources to build our first bridge! Rather than voting on laws this time, I think I'll have y'all decide the direction in which we're going to build the city - completely literally.       There are six potential bridges we can build right now. Choose wisely. Option 1: Three resource piles and a spot to build a wall drill. Not much space, has a bridge spot for a further island. Option 2: Four scattered resource piles and wood for a sawmill. A very large space. Option 3: Wood for a sawmill. Extremely limited space, bridge spot to a further island. Option 4: Three resource piles, sawmill spot, two further islands can be connected with bridges. On the smaller side of medium. Option 5: Steelworks slot and nothing else. Small space, leads to a further island. Option 6: Four resource piles. Fairly large space. Two bridges. Where will our next bridge be placed to expand the city? Remalle fucked around with this message at 23:54 on Oct 14, 2023 |
|
#
?
Oct 14, 2023 02:47
|
|
|
Option 2! This is a nice change of pace.
|
|
#
?
Oct 14, 2023 04:52
|
|
|
Option 5 That coal could set us up for a while as far as fuel goes. Wait, how do we get more people? I doubt there's gonna be any refugee groups heading our way.
|
|
#
?
Oct 14, 2023 21:36
|
|
|
Option 4 Resources and more options!
|
|
#
?
Oct 14, 2023 22:27
|
|
|
Option 4:
|
|
#
?
Oct 14, 2023 22:41
|
|
|
Option 1 has a wall drill spot though, that's nice.
|
|
#
?
Oct 14, 2023 22:57
|
|
|
The choice is obvious to anyone with even the slightest capacity for rational thought! *rolls a die* Zone 1 is the future.
|
|
#
?
Oct 14, 2023 23:03
|
|
|
Mechanical Ape posted:The choice is obvious to anyone with even the slightest capacity for rational thought! Don't listen to him! Option 3 is our only hope! Veloxyll fucked around with this message at 03:52 on Oct 15, 2023 |
|
#
?
Oct 15, 2023 03:44
|
|
|
stryth posted:Option 5 I'll give you a hint, it involves beds.  There's also the chance of finding stranded groups out in the wastes, but don't count on it.I vote for Option 6, since having your resources clumped together like that is optimal. You can just plop down a few heaters and a storage shed in that area and that's your settlement's industrial sector right there.
|
|
#
?
Oct 15, 2023 11:33
|
|
|
It's currently a tie between 1 and 4, so unless any last second votes come in, I'm gonna flip a coin. e: Option 1 it is! Remalle fucked around with this message at 02:32 on Oct 16, 2023 |
|
#
?
Oct 16, 2023 02:27
|
|
|
Endless Mode: Part Two Through the combined power of Voters Like You and random.org, Option 1 is our winner!   Bridges look like streets when you're placing them, but then they're built like regular buildings.   It looks like the cold has killed the roots and the wind did the rest. The tree is quite big; it must have been beautiful when it was green. What a sad sight. Now we can only chop it to pieces and take the wood. 45 wood from a single tree! I actually have no idea if that's a lot. I could check with the output of a sawmill and compare the number of trees in its radius, but nah.   The bridges actually update their model over time to show their progress. It's a nice touch.   With it complete, a wall drill and gathering post can be placed!   We found traces of human presence in the twisty passages between the boulders. They don't seem recent. We found several frozen bodies in sleeping bags around the remains of a fire. These people had plenty of fuel and food, but the cold got them anyway. drat, they really died in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.  Meanwhile, we're upgrading everyone's digs. Will this come back to bite me in a couple minutes? Yes!   We can see a ship crushed by ice some distance from the shore. A large pit can be seen from afar. It can be a good landmark until it gets filled with snow. Scouts be scouting.  Remember how I said the bunkhouse thing was about to bite me? We just extracted the last steel pile left on the map, and have no access to an iron mine. The only way to get more steel to build another bridge to reach more steel is by scouting.      The hulk is covered in ice and snow. We'll look for a way inside; there might be something worth taking there. This ship used to be part of the Royal Navy. Her armaments were removed, presumably to make room for supplies. There's still plenty of coal left, and some steel to be salvaged. There are several tents hidden from view in the pit. Who could've built a camp here? It turns out that this camp was some sort of research outpost. It is now completely abandoned. We'll take what we can and move on. A large supply trailer, stuck in the ice. Fortunately, Frostland is generous today. This is almost enough steel already.  Side note: I love how the wall drill is just kind of precariously hanging off the ledge, here.    Plenty of various equipment lies scattered around the trailer, probably taken out in an attempt to free it after the ice has collapsed under it. This gear must have belonged to prospectors or explorers who came here before us. Some of it was twisted and crushed by the moving ice, but we found many usable things. A dozen or so large stones set in a circle. We can see movement between them. This is enough steel, but before the scouts head back with it, they find Stonehenge! It looks like it's inhabited.  There were steam cores here on the new island, by the way! We've seen steam core deposits before, in the Refugees scenario. They take forever to extract.   Captain, the lookouts at the Beacon have sighted a storm shelter full of people! A sturdy storm shelter. It can be seen from far away. The team heading to Stonehenge is redirected to this storm shelter, which is much closer. The other team will investigate the other survivors. For the poster wondering how we increase our population in this mode, here's your answer!   The entrance to the storm shelter is open. Some people are busying themselves with preparations before sealing it for the duration of the storm. The small community living in this storm shelter is well prepared to withstand the cold for a long time. Nevertheless, some of these people are willing to move to our city. 119 people more than doubles our population!  The city gets a bit of a facelift to accommodate.   When they arrive, there's not really enough jobs for everyone to do, so they get put on collection duty while the weather's still decent. I'll get a coal thumper or two up soonish.  Before all the rebuilding can be done, though, I realize we have enough wood and steel for a new bridge!  In addition to the five choices that weren't picked last time, we also now have access to a new further island, which is going to replace the old option 1. Keep in mind that our current bottleneck is steel, but easy access to coal won't last forever either. Option 1: Fairly small area with lots of wood for a sawmill and access to a further island. Option 2: Four scattered resource piles (steel x3 and steam cores) and wood for a sawmill. A very large space. Option 3: Wood for a sawmill. Extremely limited space, bridge spot to a further island. Option 4: Three resource piles (wood, steel x2), sawmill spot, two further islands can be connected with bridges. On the smaller side of medium. Option 5: Steelworks slot and nothing else. Small space, leads to a further island. Option 6: Four resource piles (coal x4). Fairly large space. Two bridges. Where will our next bridge be placed to expand the city?
|
|
#
?
Oct 16, 2023 05:50
|
|
|
Voted 5 and in the game.
|
|
#
?
Oct 16, 2023 06:04
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 20, 2024 15:28 |
|
|
Option 5 Steel piles are all well and good, but making your own is better in the long run!
|
|
#
?
Oct 16, 2023 06:20
|
|