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 We roam the still, cold world. No horizon in sight.  The rulers-of-old. Stripped of pride and glory.   It feels as yesterday, we were turning the wheels of progress.  Until the frost... stopped it all.  Suddenly. Without a warning.  When tides had changed... they changed for all of us...  ...no matter wealth or class.   We have lost our world to snow and with it, our last traces...  ...of humanity.    We bid farewell to plenty. And for those who remained, came the time to adapt.  We decided to leave our homes and head north.  We roamed for weeks... Maybe months...  Leaving behind all the things we once believed had made us.  It was hope...  ...that pushed us forward.  Slowly. Step by step.  We knew the cost of our journey.  And we've paid the price.  A hundred times.  Finally... the time has come.   To build the last city on earth.  Our introductory video finishes with a lingering shot on the Generator from above as it roars to life. Welcome to Frostpunk, a game from 11 Bit Studios about climate change, societal collapse, and the choices we must make to survive and rebuild. It is a game of managing resources and building a city to preserve, and perhaps one day rebuild, civilization. There are several scenarios to play (four, plus two from DLC, as well as an unlockable Endless mode) and in this LP I hope to eventually bring you through each of them. The first is called A New Home, which essentially functions as our main story.  We fled from London and crossed the sea to reach the frozen north. On the way our convoy was hit by a blizzard and scattered. A handful of us managed to reach the site of this Generator, only to find it frozen solid and abandoned. Why is no one here? Did any of our people survive the blizzard? Are there any others out there? Whatever we do, we should expect the worst now that the world as know it has crumbled. It is 1887, and the world is freezing. Nobody is entirely sure why, but the evidence is undeniable. Even our most advanced steam computational engines, descendants of the Difference Engine built by Charles Babbage over six decades ago, are unable to account for the magnitude of the global cooling, nor its unnatural speed. The Great Frost started in the summer of 1886, and the decimation of crops and strange weather phenomena caused massive societal upheaval all over the world. As London was deemed a lost cause, the British Empire commissioned a number of coal-powered steam Generators to be built in the resource-rich north, with the idea that half the residents of the Isles would be evacuated north, and the rest to the colonies in the southern hemisphere. Unfortunately, contact was lost with the colonies and all who went south, swallowed by a great ice storm. We are, as far as we know, the only expedition to have made it to our Generator site. It falls on us to ensure the survival of the human race.  We need to get the Generator working. It provides heat and power to other buildings. Without it we'll freeze to death. Stockpile some Coal and start the Generator.  And with that, we are taken to the game proper. We can see that at the bottom left of the screen we have our first quest, Fight the Cold, which is to stockpile 200 units of Coal and turn the Generator on (in either order). The Generator lies at the literal and figurative heart of our city, pumping steam through pipes wherever we need it to keep things running and warm. At the top of the screen we can see our current resources, or lack thereof; from left to right we can see that we have no Coal, 30 Wood, 10 Steel and 1 Steam Core stockpiled, as well as 100 Raw Food and no prepared Food Rations. We can also see from the top banner that it is currently 8:02 on Day 1, it is -20 degrees Celsius, and we are expecting the temperature to drop by another two levels to -40C on Day 4. In the center of the screen is the Generator itself, with piles of coal, wood and steel scattered about in all directions. Attached to the Generator is the shed housing our Stockpiles, a free building that you start every game with and that you cannot move or destroy. All buildings will be attached to the generator like this one, building in concentric circles outward. You can't really see it from this screenshot, but we are located at the bottom of a circular crater, somewhat protected from the elements on all sides, and there are some frozen trees around the circumference. We've got some work to do.  Clicking on the temperature shows the temperature overlay, from which we can see that this entire area is currently considered chilly. Those orange dots are our people, who are currently huddled around the inactive Generator; once we turn that on, it will raise the heat level to liveable in a small radius around it. The colder people get, the more likely they are to fall ill. Speaking of people, let's take a look at them.  At the bottom right of the screen we can see that everyone in the city is currently unemployed, but this will change as soon as I start setting them to gathering the resources scattered all about. There are currently fifty unskilled Workers and fifteen Engineers awaiting work orders, as well as fifteen Children who cannot work. At the bottom center of the screen, we can see the bright red alert that all 80 citizens are also currently unhoused.  Here we can see the names of some of our citizens. I'm not going to be going out of my way to show off every single one of them because frankly, the game doesn't do a good job at making you care about the individual members of your society except as another pair of working hands. Maybe that's intentional, getting you to see them as numbers instead of people; I'm not quite sure.  All this information is available if you want it, though. We could also rename this kid; if anyone wants anybody named after them, feel free to ask, though I probably won't follow your individual story beyond noting if you live or die. At the bottom of the screen we can see our Discontent and Hope gauges, which we want to keep low and high respectively; if people do start dropping, it's going to be hard to keep those meters from filling up or emptying, which will trigger a game over not long after. We will need to keep in mind our residents' psychological needs in addition to their physical ones.  To the left of the Discontent/Hope meters is the button that opens our Building menu. This will fill out over time; right now our only option under "People" is these tents, which cost ten wood to build and provide +10 degrees worth of heat and shelter for ten residents.  If people spend too much time out in the cold they will fall ill, at which point they will need to spend time in a medical post to recover. In extreme cases they will become gravely ill, or even require amputations due to frostbite; our current facilities are not properly equipped to care for people in these states.   We currently have a hundred units of raw food stored. People won't eat raw food until they start starving, and while it will satisfy their hunger, they will have a good chance of getting sick from it. Cookhouses turn two units of raw food into four edible food rations, while the hunter's hut lets us bring in fifteen raw foodstuffs every night.   Under the "Resources" tab we can see the first building that we don't have the materials to build right away, the resource depot. Fortunately we won't need to build those for a while yet, as we have far more than enough capacity for the meager supplies we've brought with us. The gathering post will allow workers to collect all resources in a small radius at once, rather than picking through piles one at a time; this will go a long way towards hitting those stockpile caps.  Finally, the workshop. We are not going to survive the changing climate without a ton of research. I will keep in mind the thread's suggestions if you all have any thoughts as to which direction to take our research, but I will largely be making those decisions on my own. Let's look at the Economy menu next.       As you can see, these are the detailed breakdowns for each resource, as well as our medical and housing information. I won't spend too much time boring you with these screens. Finally, let's take a look at the Laws screen.   The Book of Laws currently has only one domain, Adaptation. Currently we can choose to sign one of ten laws, eight of which are mutually exclusive with another, and most of which lead to more options later on. Signing any of these will prevent us from choosing another for 18 hours, though later laws may have cooldown periods that are double or triple that. And when I say "us," I mean us - the laws we sign are going to define who we are as a people. Once signed, a law can never be revoked. Although I am the Captain of our expedition and responsible for everybody's immediate survival, we have an unprecedented chance to break away from the mistakes of the Old World. Our new civilization will be democratically shaped by everybody in this thread, every update ending with a vote. Here are the available options:  Emergency Shift will allow us to force a job site to work for 24 hours straight, with a cooldown of two days and a discontent penalty. Signing it will also immediately raise discontent. This leads to the Extended Shift law.   Child Labour - Safe Jobs will allow us to put our children to work in certain areas, such as gathering and cooking, and will lower hope if we sign it. This leads to Child Labour - All Jobs, and is mutually exclusive with Child Shelters, which will raise our hope if we build somewhere for our children to stay during the work day. This one leads to Medic Apprentices/Engineer Apprentices.   Cemetary and Corpse Disposal provide two different ways of disposing of dead bodies. The former will raise hope, but proper burials take time; this leads to Ceremonial Funerals. The latter lowers hope and raises discontent, but we won't have to take the time for a burial; it leads to Organic Fertiliser.   Radical Treatment and Sustain Life concern our treatment of those who fall gravely ill, beyond the capacity of our medical posts to treat. Radical Treatment allows medical posts to treat them with a chance of leaving them as amputees who cannot work. With Sustain Life our medics will not attempt to treat the gravely ill, leaving them to take up sickbeds. Both options raise discontent, and both lead to Care House and Extra Rations for the Ill/Overcrowding.   The next two both let us stretch our raw food further - Soup turns two raw food into five rations, while Food Additives turns two into six but has a chance of leaving the consumer ill. Both options will lower hope and raise discontent, and neither leads to any further choices.  Finally we can allow a Fighting Arena to be built, which will reduce discontent for everybody living within a certain radius of the pit every night. This unlocks Duelling Law and Public House. And with that, I leave it up to you, the people: What will be the first Law we enact to ensure our survival and define our future?
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May 2, 2023 05:45
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| # ¿ May 10, 2024 14:16 |
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Book of Laws  Adaptation The first set of Laws that is available in almost every scenario, representing the changes a society needs to make to survive in new and hostile conditions. The Emergency Shift line extends the hours of the working day, either by forcing a temporary 24-hour shift or by instituting a more permanent (but reversible) 14-hour shift at a given workplace. These technologies are invaluable in the early game when labour and resources are both in short supply. The Child Shelters and Child Labour lines are mutually exclusive. If you decide to put your children to work you will end up with far more working hands, but putting them in shelters eventually allows them to apprentice at workshops or medical facilities. The Cemetary and Corpse Disposal choices both deal with the disposal of our dead. Burying dead bodies precludes... other uses for them. The Radical Treatment and Sustain Life laws don't lead to different branches like the other mutually exclusive choices, but instead down a tree of healthcare-related laws which includes several other binary choices like this. The Soup and Food Additives laws are a mutually exclusive choice on how to stretch raw food further, which does not initially lead to any further options. The Fighting Arena tree leads to several options which lower discontent with bread and circuses.   Order One of the two mutually exclusive Purpose Law sets. These represent the changes a society must make to keep its people productive, motivated, and disciplined. Signing Pledge of Loyalty and Forceful Persuasion unlocks New Order, which will permanently replace the Hope bar with Obedience. By the time you've done this it's already too late - you will have already crossed the line. Faith Coming soon? Technology Tree  Heating These technologies pertain to keeping your populace warm and are largely upgrades to the Generator itself. The Generator Power Upgrade line, along with Heaters and Overdrive, are the main way to keep ahead of the ever-dropping temperature. Steam Hubs are a superior option in every way for extending the Generator's influence compared to Generator Range Upgrade.  Exploration & Industry These technologies are related to the Beacon, scouts, and outposts, as well as automatons and prosthetics. Get as many scouts and outpost teams as possible out as early as you can. Later in the game, as automatons take over most of your workplaces, the Automaton Integration line will ensure that they are far superior to human workers.  Resources These technologies, of course, pertain to resource gathering and management. Faster Gathering is a good early tech to grab when you're still collecting resource piles. After that there are multiple ways to continue your coal and wood incomes, but only one way to increase steel production. Coal Mines and Wall Drills are superior to Coal Thumpers and Sawmills, but require steam cores; if you can get your hands on those, go for the former (though there's no reason you can't do both at once).  Food, Health & Shelter These technologies relate to keeping people fed, healthy, and housed. There are also a few upgrades to the insulation of various buildings. You'll need to continually upgrade your Hunter's Huts over the course of the game in order to meet the needs of your growing population. You'll also need to upgrade their housing as temperatures drop, and healthcare will help if you keep them cold for too long. Everything here is eventually essential. Relic Archives Coming soon? Remalle fucked around with this message at 00:39 on Jun 13, 2023 |
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May 2, 2023 05:50
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So far the polls are showing: Emergency Shift 5 (I'm counting Szarrukin's vote for Extended Shifts here, as we haven't unlocked that one yet) Child Shelters 4 Child Labor 2 Arena 1 Still time to make a push! I'm going to let voting continue for another day. And as Szarrukin said, the music in this game does, in fact, slap - have a listen to the main theme, composed by Piotr Musiał. Remalle fucked around with this message at 03:42 on May 3, 2023 |
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May 2, 2023 23:33
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With the vote split on the child labour issue I'm gonna call the vote here for Emergency Shift. Next one should be interesting!
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May 4, 2023 00:18
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Captain's Log, Day One We have arrived, 80 in number, to this Generator Site which is to be our new home. For lack of any other name some of the wags took to calling this place "The Pit" on account of its shape and the grim mood which has already settled over our snow-blighted settlement. To head off listlessness and ensure we will have enough materials to build this city, I assigned every single person over the age of 13 to collecting the resources which the work crews who prepared this site for us left scattered all ovee.    Even the skilled and educated were made to chip in as manual labourers. Work crews of fifteen were assigned to each pile, leaving five stragglers, who were assigned to another wood pile on the other side of the Pit. Wood is more valuable than gold right now; we do not even have anywhere to sleep yet.   A vote was held as soon as we arrived and it was decided that although we will keep regular working hours from 0800 to 1800, a shift can be extended to 24 hours in emergency situations. This caused a small amount of discontent and grumbling from those who see this as no different from the conditions they endured in the factories of London.   The children amused themselves for a time watching the adults make trails through the snow en route to their assigned work places.   In just a scarce few hours we collected enough wood to ensure everybody would have a tent to sleep in this first night. The actual construction will not begin until after working hours; I considered reassigning some of the gatherers to construction immediately, but ultimately decided the continued collection effort is more important.  To that end we institute our first emergency shift. The workers here will gather wood through the night, a reality which caused as much discontent as the law did when it was initially signed.  At 1700 I give the order to start the Generator. According to the engineers it will take nearly an hour to reach full heat, at which point regular working hours will have ended. With any luck, the Generator will continue to give us heat for as long as it takes for this blasted weather to rise back above -20.   It doesn't take long for us to feel the beast warming up. The engineers assure me that given time and examination of its complex workings they can coax even more power and range out of it.  At 1800 all but those working the emergency shift are recalled. As there is not yet anywhere for anybody to lay their head this is not an end to the working day, but merely the beginning of a construction effort which will likely last through the night.  The resources we collected over the day are enough that I can also order the construction of a cookhouse and several gathering posts, which will ensure we have something to eat tomorrow and greatly speed up our collection efforts. Each of these will be connected to our central plaza, the area surrounding the Generator itself, by a road which will convey foot traffic and steam alike.  A few of the tents are complete. I order the workers to focus on housing first tonight - every one of us will have a roof over our head tonight!  Enough wood is gathered that a somewhat larger medical tent can be built. Though nobody has fallen ill yet, with the conditions we have been out working in all day it is only a matter of time.   Sure enough, young Nicholas Leventhorpe checks in complaining of a sore throat and runny nose not long after it is built. Up to five engineers can be assigned to medical duty - not long after Nicholas another patient checks in, so we may need all five of them sooner rather than later!   In happier news the tents have all been pitched, and the builders complete the cookhouse and a gathering post not too long after. Rather than assigning fifteen people to a single pile, we can now have ten people gathering from multiple piles at once! Though our stomachs are growling tonight, many are going to sleep tonight with a smile on their face, looking forward to the meals that will be cooked first thing in the morning.  Things are progressing apace. I have just been informed that we are ready to sign another law. We have all the same options as before, with one addition now that we have signed Emergency Shift:  Extended Shift will allow us to set the working hours at any workplace to fourteen hours, from 0600 to 2000. Signing this will of course raise discontent even more, to say nothing of actually doing it. What will our second Law be?
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May 4, 2023 07:09
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So far polls are showing: Child Shelters 7 Safe Child Labour 3 Soup 3 Fighting Arenas 2 Leaving it open one more day, though it looks pretty locked in already!
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May 5, 2023 04:38
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Captain's Log, Day Two With the most pressing concerns of survival addressed, we have had a chance to define where we want to go from here as a people.  The overwhelming majority of the vote was to keep the children away from the sort of dangerous labour many of them saw in London's factories. Though one day we may have them apprentice under our skilled engineers, for now I have been given three days to construct a shelter for them.  Not everybody is fully convinced, but hope has risen that our future will be brighter for this.  With that future still in mind, I order the construction of a workshop. Here, our brightest minds will work tirelessly to ensure not only our survival, but the survival of all of humanity.  This took up almost all of the wood that had been gathered overnight. The workers enjoy a well-earned rest, though morning comes all too quickly for all of us.   Spirits are as high as can be expected, given the circumstances. Not too long after the official start of the work day, the workshop is up and running. I am given a list of all the technologies our engineers can research right away, divided into the categories of Heating, Exploration & Industry, Resources, and Food, Health & Shelter. They are also able to conceptualize future areas of study, though we will need more advanced machines to develop those.    We can extend and improve our heating infrastructure with Steam Hubs and Heaters. A steam hub provides another zone of heat, similar to the generator and identical in heating level, around it. A heater, on the other hand, can be activated inside any building and will raise its heat by another level beyond what it may have already received from a nearby generator or steam hub.   In order to facilitate any sort of exploration at all we need a Beacon. The lands beyond our Pit - somebody, I don't remember who, dubbed them the Frostlands, a name which has stuck - are trackless and featureless, and we have no means of long-distance communication with a scout team that will be constantly on the move. Furthermore, because of the recessed geometry of our home, we can't even see what's happening right next door to us without making the strenuous climb back up top. The Beacon will remedy all of these issues at once.      Faster Gathering will help us get all of our scattered resources organized as soon as possible. Once they have been taken care of we will have to look into new ways of collecting coal, wood and steel.   We could also improve the output of our hunters from 15 units of raw food per day, to 20. As we can then turn those into double the amount of edible rations, this is an effective improvement of ten extra mouths fed daily. I order the team to begin looking into ways to streamline and optimize our gathering, as Fast Gathering will be more effective the sooner it is instituted.   The Generator hums with reassuring warmth, but we shouldn't take it for granted. If the Generator goes down, the city dies. Be mindful of Coal reserves. Now, food - there'll be no city if we starve to death. Secure a way to provide Raw Food and build a Cookhouse to prepare meals. We have a good amount of coal stockpiled, with several piles about the Pit that we haven't even begun to touch yet. Now that we are no longer in danger of freezing to death, we need to replace the raw food, which has already been mostly converted to rations.   Sir, a woman came forward after we built the Workshop. She said that her husband and daughter didn't reach the city with the main group, but she's sure they're still out there. She wants to join the first scout team we'll send out. She urges you to hurry. I am reminded that the members of our expedition consist not only of the eighty safe here in the city, but also those who stayed behind with our dreadnought. Further incentive to make sure we have more than enough food to go around!  To that end, I order a hunter's hut to be built the moment enough wood has been gathered.  Not too long after work began on it, the engineers laid out their plan for how we can maximize the efficiency of our gathering. This will go a long way to making sure we never run out of coal, and always have enough wood on hand to build what we need. I order the researchers to look into a Beacon next.  Once the hunter's hut is complete, I assign a team of fifteen to gather food every night. Working primarily with traps and snares, the hunters will be out from 1800 to 0600 every night, bringing home their catch in the morning for the cooks to work on during the day. The animals that have survived out in the Frostlands are hardy and tough, and so will we need to be.   With basic resources secured for now, we can try to rescue the people we left behind. Build a Beacon, scout Frostland and save as many survivors from our expedition as possible. You'll need a workshop to design plans for more advanced buildings. Now that we are sure we will have food, it is time to start working towards bringing the lost members of our expedition home. The designs can not be completed fast enough, so I order a second workshop to be built.  Before the research or the workshop are complete, however, I get the news that it is already time for another vote. Although I haven't yet built the child shelter, the law is signed, and therefore we have two new options for the voters tonight:   Medic Apprentices and Engineer Apprentices will give children who are already in a shelter the opportunity to assist and learn from the engineers who are employed in the medical or research fields, respectively. The extra set of hands helping out will increase either the efficiency in whichever area we choose, but we can only choose one. If we do pick either of these laws, it will take 36 hours before we can sign another. What will be the third law of our new home?
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May 6, 2023 06:07
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my dad posted:Also, secondary unrelated mechanics (spoilered to not be backseating, not because it's plot related. I figured people playing along at home might be interested): 1) Hunter's huts don't need to be heated. The idea is that your hunters are out there in the cold hunting most of the time, so you can just stick it out in the boonies and leave more room for things that actually need heating. 2) You don't need to keep the generator on during the day until it gets cold enough that you need to heat up workplaces. The heat in homes only matters once the workday is over. You can also get a lot of 'free' heat by overdriving your generator from ~10pm to 6am every night
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May 6, 2023 18:02
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Currently 5-4 for Engineering Apprentices. I'll give it another twelve or so hours, if anybody wants to try to push for Soup.
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May 7, 2023 08:10
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Captain's Log, Day Three Although it was by a narrower margin than usual, the majority of our people voted to put our children through engineering apprenticeship.  Once the shelter is built, they will assist in the workshops, which is sure to benefit not only our research efficiency but also our future. Perhaps the next generation will be able to figure out the cause of this sudden change to our climate, and even fix it.  Many people wanted to sign a law that would extend our food supplies instead, but nobody is complaining that our children will now be helping out in a healthy and safe manner.  The second workshop is finished. In a stroke of genius the engineers designed an extension to connect them together, letting them function as a single large workplace rather than two separate ones! Any future workshops we add can continue to be connected together in this modular fashion.  The work day begins not too long after the workshop is ready to go. Spirits are fairly high, in a grimly resolute sort of way.  The doubling of our research power means the plans for the Beacon are finalized quickly. As our food income is still somewhat precarious I order better gear for the hunters to be designed.   We have enough construction materials that we are able to draft the construction of both the Beacon and our child shelter right away. As the Beacon will not be manned it can be placed further away from the Generator, while the shelter will be close to the workshops so as to let the new lab assistants easily go back and forth.  With equipment adapted for the snow our hunters will be able to bring back more food every night. I am reminded that the temperature is forecasted to drop tomorrow, and so I make steam hubs our next priority. After that we will need to look into ways to access resources that aren't in conveniently accessible piles for us to pick up off the ground.   The Child Shelter is ready and the children are safe inside. People can work without worrying that something will happen to their kids. We're no longer lost and blind! From now on our people will be able to survey the icy barrens that surround us: Frostland. With both the shelter and the Beacon finally ready, hope has risen among the populace tonight.    A lookout platform, lighthouse, and signal tower all in one, the Beacon is held aloft by an enormous canvas balloon inflated by hot air pumped in from the Generator. It is a welcome sight for snow-weary eyes, a symbol that we are not huddled in a Pit to await our death, but that we are going to endure here.    Numerous tents. We can see people moving about. They must be the lost members of our expedition. This peculiar building must be the Arctic Observatory the Royal Society built to investigate the eternal winter. There's smoke over it. We finally have our first view of Frostland. The icy plains are not as featureless and empty as we had feared - we can see that not only have the separated members of our expedition survived and set up camp as they await rescue, but there are signs of other human life not too far away from us!  In order to assemble a scouting party we will need a lot of wood for sleds and gear. I order another emergency shift at the gathering post, so we can get an expedition underway as soon as possible. There is grumbling among the team who is losing their night's rest, but they understand the need.   People cheer as the giant observation balloon soars above the city. This is a real feat, everyone feels proud of the work they've done to make it happen. Volunteers have lined up, eager to go looking for our lost people in Frostland. The woman who came forward earlier is among them. At least volunteers are in no short supply. Almost everybody stayed up to watch the launch, and spirits are as high as I have seen them since before we departed London!  A bit before 0500, I am roused from my slumber with the bad news.  One of our people died suddenly during an Emergency Shift. We don't know what happened, but it's likely it was a heart attack. John Aynesworth, one of the workers on the 24 hour shift, suddenly collapsed and could not be roused. A soft-spoken and hard-working man, he was well-regarded by all who knew him, though he often preferred to keep to himself. He leaves behind no family, nobody to collect his body. Now we are seventy-nine.  Alhough it pains me to give the order, we do not yet have enough wood stockpiled, and after giving the team some time to compose themselves I wake another worker to replace Aynesworth. We must make sacrifices to survive.  One of our people has just died. Sickness, accidents and deadly cold will keep claiming lives in this harsh world. We need a way to dispose of the body. The body is being kept out of sight for now, but we have no means for proper disposal. The longer we go without a place for the dead, the more likely it is that the living will become sick from the vapours of decomposition.  We have ensured his sacrifice was not for nothing. We are able to equip our first scouting party, and they set out to rescue our lost expedition members before dawn.  The news spreads rapidly through the camp the following morning. We are no stranger to death by now, but it is sobering to have had our first loss at our new home.  As if in response to the sudden tragedy, the temperature plummets to -40. Everywhere is chilly now but the cookhouse is hit particularly hard, and our cooks will not be able to get any raw food prepared until it is warmer in there. The weather is predicted to rise slightly in a couple of days, but the steam hub will be installed before then.  For the first time our children are headed to the shelter, and from there, to the workshops. Another day begins, and with it, it is time for another vote. As the latest law did not lead to any more options, these are the available options:  What will our next law be? Remalle fucked around with this message at 17:37 on May 11, 2023 |
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May 8, 2023 00:44
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Captain's Log, Day Four With the death of John Aynesworth fresh on everybody's minds, it was a near-unanimous decision to build a resting place for our dead.   There is a strong sentiment around the camp that this was the right thing to do.  I order the construction of another hunter's hut, next to the first. As with the workshops, the two buildings will be connected together.  The bitter cold is impacting the people working outside of the generator's range worst, so the announcement that we can now extend that range through steam hubs is very welcome. We are running through wood as soon as it's being gathered, and we will soon exhaust the piles, so I get the researchers looking into a way to harvest the frozen trees all over the place next. Speaking of the cold - the mercury in our thermometers has actually frozen solid!  This hub is placed in such a way that it will keep our children warm and bring the cookhouse back to functionality, while also giving warmth to the tents we will need to put up once our scouts bring back the rest of our people. The workshops run quite warm already and don't need the extra boost as badly, though the engineers tell me that they appreciate it all the same.  We just wanted to thank you. Back in London, it was only the wealthy that didn't have to send their kids to work. In this new world you're creating we can see things'll be different. A so far quiet day is brightened by this anonymous note a parent dropped off at the shelter...  ...and by the news that our scouting party has reached our wayward siblings.   We enter the camp, appearing out of the driving snow. A choir of excited voices welcomes us: "Thank God you found us! We had been wandering for days until we couldn't go on any longer. Soon we'd begin to starve." Children and adults surround us, packed and ready to go. The scouts signal us that they have the rest of our people with them and are guiding them safely home. Four children, ten engineers and twenty-two workers will arrive in a few short hours.  We will need four more tents, though we don't have quite enough wood to designate them all at once. Annoyingly, the researchers don't manage to finalize the plans for our new sawmill, despite working a couple hours overtime.  This gathering post has run its course after that last marathon shift. I order it dismantled, which returns most but not all of the resources we originally used to build it. The wood is repurposed into another tent.   Not long after, our people return. We are reunited at last, 115 of us in total.   It's heartwarming to see families reunited after so many hardships. But shouldn't there be other settlements nearby? The first expeditions left London long ago. They ought to be well established by now. They'll surely help us find our footing. Our people found a trail leading into the wilderness. We should follow it. We must find other people and ask them for help to secure our survival. Amidst the jubilant reunions, one question in particular catches my ear - "What about the others?" In their wanderings our lost sheep apparently found evidence of other human activity. We know Site 157 was located not too far away from us, and was dispatched from London far earlier, so if they found any success at all we need to make locating our sister city a priority.   A bulky cylindrical construction stands on a small hill. The Union Jack flies over it, but there's no sign of movement. Several wrecked vehicles. No signs of life. They are probably our machines. Let's hope so. We had to leave a number of supplies in them after the crash. Our people gave the scouts two new locations of interest - a sturdy shelter that shows no signs of life, and also our original crash site. The scouts are sent back out into Frostland to salvage our broken dreadnought.   With all of the building and dismantling and other work there was to do today, the cemetery fell on the backburner - as soon as the gathering post is dismantled, I order the cemetery established on the same spot. It doesn't take much time to complete, and we will bury Mr. Aynesworth as soon as possible. At this time I note that between the cold working conditions of the past day and the poor health of our new arrivals, the number of sick is starting to be beyond our current capacity. Once there is enough wood for another medical post, our new engineers will be put on it right away.  With the cemetery promise fulfilled, it is time to take another vote, with one new option:  Ceremonial Funerals is a step beyond the simple burials we are currently performing, and will reduce the hopelessness caused by deaths even further. If we sign this, it will take 36 hours to sign another law, and it does not lead to any further choices. What will our next law be? Remalle fucked around with this message at 17:38 on May 11, 2023 |
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May 8, 2023 22:04
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Philippe posted:Also thank you for transcribing the text. I'm reading mostly on mobile, and it's hard to read.
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May 9, 2023 04:12
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Philippe posted:As it is right now is perfect, thanks. Time permitting, I'm aiming to get a post up later tonight. Polls are currently showing: Fighting Arena 4 Soup 3 Sustain Life 1 Radical Treatment 1
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May 9, 2023 19:32
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Captain's Log, Day Five To the disappointment of the perennial soup contingent, a law to establish a fighting arena has been enacted.  People have already started wagering small personal items and morsels of food in anticipation of the inaugural bout.  I am concerned about the number of injured we already have, though. A single medical post is no longer sufficient to meet the needs of our growing list of cases. Although we don't currently have the wood for a second tent, that issue will soon be solved...  ...by the arrival of the plans for our sawmill, placed on my desk first thing in the morning. One of the engineers explains that the reason they couldn't finish up the design last night was a rogue uncrossed "t" - I'm not entirely sure whether she's joking.  Spirits are certainly high enough that jocularity isn't outside the realm of reason. Reuniting with our lost members has lead to the brightest morning in recent memory!  As soon as we have enough wood collected the first sawmill is placed. We need to consider the placement on these buildings carefully; too far away from the trees will mean they will need to be relocated more often, but too close and we risk damaging some of the wood.  Once the sawmill is online we do not have to wait long until we can afford to build another medical post. Scarce minutes after I have approved that construction, we get the report from our scouts that they have reached the site where our convoy was destroyed by the last storm.   There are plenty of priceless supplies in the wrecks of our expedition. Searching among the crates scattered in the snow behind the wrecks, we found the bodies. They're tangled together in a single frozen mass, as if these people were trying to find at least a bit of warmth just before they died. We can do nothing for them, not even bury them. There is a good amount of salvageable raw food and wood amidst the wreckage. More disquieting are the remains of those from our expedition who stayed behind - or were left. Instead of bringing the supplies directly home I send the scouts on to the next point of interest, the shelter where our wandering sheep say they found somebody else's trail.    Our new fighting pit is complete, reducing the discontent of the people living near it. Though this one is a little far from the bulk of our residences, future ones will be built alongside new residences when we extend construction to the other side of the generator.  The morning after the first fight sees everybody in high spirits, some because of bets won, and most because the weather conditions have improved a bit.  At a balmy -30 degrees, this steam hub is no longer required to keep our new medical post active, and so it is turned off for the time being to save coal.  Our gathering posts have all finished gathering their assigned resource piles and are being dismantled. The wood is being repurposed into a third medical post.   The shelter is comfortable and well equipped with emergency supplies. There's a notice posted by the heavy round door: "To all scientists: If you use any supplies, remember to notify the quartermaster upon your return to the city." This means there's another city out there! A signpost by the trail points in two directions: "London: 1934 miles, home: 27 miles." The scouts have confirmed that there is another city out there, right about exactly where we estimated Site 157 to be. At least one other expedition was successful!  The trail goes over an elegant steel bridge that crosses a huge ravine. The bridge is remarkably snow free. Although the scouts are laden with many valuable supplies it is imperative that we establish contact with the other city. They head down the trail, heading toward a bridge that serves as the only visible landmark. Even from far away they can clearly see it is both beautiful and pristine, signs that not only are people using and taking care of it regularly, but they have time and resources to spend on making it nice.  Dismantling the gathering posts gave us enough wood that the researchers were able to begin setting up drawing boards, necessary for more advanced research. When I asked why they need so much wood, they told me that bigger drawing boards will let them draw bigger buildings. Is this more scientist humour?  Once we have enough lumber milled we will set up another hunter's hut to give the former gatherers something to do, but before that, it is time for another vote. The latest law gave us access to two new ones:   Duelling Law will reduce discontent even further by legalizing duels. Unlike our current fights, these will sometimes be to the death. This leads to no further options and will delay the next law by 45 hours. Public House is one that I've heard support for ever since day one. Once built and staffed our people will be less discontented and more hopeful overall. We could also sign Moonshine and House of Pleasure afterwards, even sooner with its short 18 hour cooldown. What will our next law be? Remalle fucked around with this message at 17:40 on May 11, 2023 |
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May 10, 2023 05:54
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Captain's Log, Day Six Well, there was no need to take a count - the moment polls opened you could probably hear the people chanting "Pubs, pubs, pubs!" all the way back in London.   We will... carefully consider the name of our establishment.  To ensure we will have enough wood for a new hunter's hut and the public house, as well as continued research, we have the lumberjacks working through the night. We will keep a careful eye on them and ensure that they do not overexert themselves. As long as we take appropriate precautions, the tragedy of Mr. Aynesworth will not repeat itself.  There are currently 115 people in our city. With each hunter's hut bringing back 20 units of raw food per day, which are in turn cooked into 40 rations, three huts ensures we will be feeding every mouth every night and have a few meals left over.     I've never seen the lads put any building up so fast. I haven't seen a single grain of wheat in over half a year but somehow we put together enough plant matter to make a proper stiff drink. It tastes like foraged vegetation sitting in meltwater, but what can you do?   A brass plaque on the bridge tower reads: "Built by the people of Winterhome in AD 1887." The bridge is kept completely snow free by a working automaton! We stopped at the edge of a deep, wide ravine, marvelling at the steel bridge spanning it. Even more so at the huge automaton sweeping snow from the roadway. It would be possible to send the machine back to our city or disassemble it for resources. Our scouts report that the people of "Winterhome" have an entire automaton dedicated solely to keeping this bridge clear of snow! One of the engineers, an expert on automata and self-proclaimed "rogue AI goddess," informs me that an automaton is capable of outputting the labour of an entire team of people and will not stop for food, sleep or disease. Even better, all of the building designs that we have can be easily adapted to allow an automaton to work them.  We reprogrammed the automaton and sent it on its way. As it disappeared in the distance, walking steadily towards our city, the first wisps of snow started to settle on the bridge. Having such a sophisticated machine dedicated to sweeping snow off a bridge is such an extravagant allocation of resources that I feel the people of Winterhome will not begrudge us it. If they complain, well, we can always just put it back. Eventually.   A tall building with some peculiar devices on the roof. It's most likely a weather station set up by scientists from Winterhome. Several vehicles and tents. We can see people moving between them and smoke rising from a campfire. The trail continues to a weather station that we believe to have been set up by Winterhome. However, we can also see a convoy much like our own, with people moving around the stopped vehicles. The scouts are sent to make sure that these people are not stuck and in need of rescue like our own were.  Finding the Bridge to Winterhome proved that we're on the right track, but raised questions. Why was the bridge deserted? Why wasn't the automaton under the care of an engineer? There are logical explanations to it all, but... people are growing anxious. It is a trifle strange that we haven't actually seen anyone from Winterhome on the trail yet. Perhaps the people from the convoy are an expedition dispatched from there, and can shed some light on the situation. I think being cooped up in this Pit is starting to wear on our nerves a bit, so I order more potatoes thrown in the still.   The potato spirits have raised ours. In the morning many of the workers head to their job sites with a renewed vigour, save the ones who are nursing the consequences of last night's revels. Winterhome awaits us, but first, a vote, with additional options:   House of Pleasure will allow us to... expand the staff of our new public house. This will lower discontent, at the cost of hope. Moonshine will expand our pub's production so every meal will include a drink, lowering discontent. If we were to start making soup we could pour the liquour directly in it, preventing some of the discontent caused by that law. Either of these options would cost us 36 hours and neither lead to any further choices. It is once again time to vote. Remalle fucked around with this message at 17:41 on May 11, 2023 |
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May 11, 2023 05:42
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biosterous posted:moonshine leading to booze soup
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May 11, 2023 17:41
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Captain's Log, Days Seven and Eight In a repeat performance of yesterday's vote for pubs, today's vote legalized moonshine with near-unanimous support.   Honestly, I don't even know why we bothered counting votes. Winterhome won't have any trouble finding us with all of the noise we've been making.  At least somebody is still taking their work seriously... I think. Though we can now look into bigger and more advanced designs, I actually have the engineers begin developing a way to start mining iron and refining steel, which we had the capability to research before.   This is a convoy carrying workers that got lost in a blizzard. They are weak and have no provisions. We should listen to their story and escort them to our city. The workers who were riding in this convoy told us there [sic] were heading for the city of Winterhome. "We were supposed to follow the signal from the beacon, but we couldn't pick it up," they say. "We tried to follow a search pattern to find it, but we ran out of fuel." This was not a convoy sent out from Winterhome as we had initially assumed, but one that had gotten lost trying to reach it. The people are too weak to make it back to our city on their own so the scouts escort them back - we will send the team back out on the trail as soon as they return.  Tents are set up in anticipation of their arrival.    We now have a plant in which we can mine iron and then immediately refine it into steel. There is a large iron deposit at the edge of the crater that we have not been able to tap as yet - it is large enough that we could build two steelworks on it, if we could afford the resource and manpower costs. We start with one to get our steel income restarted, and have the researchers begin working on plans for coal mining.  The new residences are completed well in advance of the arrival of the new residents. These tents require steam hubs to stay comfortably warm, as all the space next to the generator has already been taken up.  Early the next morning, the scouts return with forty-five people and a trove of resources in tow. Of special note is the steam core they discovered, joining the singular steam core we've had lying around since we got here - I will have more to say on these in a moment, but suffice it to say that they are of more worth than gold these days. The scouts are sent back out to continue following the trail to Winterhome.  There are nineteen engineers among the new arrivals. I order our current workshop space tripled.    Just like the steelworks, these coal mines require an exposed surface vein to begin extraction. Fortunately there is a large anthracite deposit just waiting to be exploited! I order two mines built upon it immediately.  We have just used our first Steam Core. Steam Cores are a necessary component in advanced technology. We can't manufacture Steam Cores in the city, so let's hope that our scouts find them during their expeditions. At the heart of both of those buildings lies a steam core - in fact, the only two we have. These can be thought of as Generators in miniature, providing enough energy to power particularly heavy machinery. We do not have the capacity to manufacture these ourselves and likely won't for a long, long time if ever, but given that we were already able to find one out in the Frostlands it seems we may be able to salvage them. I order the engineers to work out a method to enable the Beacon to support a second scout team.  They research and development team is now triple the size, and their workshops take up a considerable quarter of the city now. It is quite fascinating to watch the coils glowing with electricity and the chimneys spewing colourful flames! We will need to wrangle the rest of our children into another shelter to get our scientists working even more efficiently.  As this steam hub will only be servicing the coal mines, we limit its operational hours to working hours so that we don't waste coal.   The automaton has arrived! It is an absolute sight to behold; I had heard of such mechanical marvels often enough back home, but to see one in person is an experience one couldn't possibly imagine until doing so. It seems few among our number had ever seen one either. The beast is the size of a house, yet takes surprisingly delicate steps. It bears a brass relief on its side that reads "The Green Bostoner." What a curious name for a curious creature!  Our first automaton is operational! This will help our economy greatly. Automatons can replace entire manual labour crews. They work around the clock, with short breaks to refuel at the Generator. We can research upgrades to raise their efficiency and capability. An automaton is capable of doing the work of many humans at once, at 60% efficiency moment to moment but continually active around the clock.  At the moment our concern is our coal supply. There are two remaining coal piles that we had not yet built a gathering post to collect; instead, we can now set the Green Bostoner to work on the first of them immediately. As engrossed as all of us are in watching it work, we nearly miss that it is time for another vote! Since the latest one unlocked no new options, these are our options:  As an addendum, here are all of the new research options we have available with our new development tier:            What will our next law be? Remalle fucked around with this message at 05:21 on May 14, 2023 |
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May 13, 2023 07:07
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To be clear, I'm not opening techs up for voting, as that would be absolute hell for both myself and all of you; I just added them so you could all see what they are! (I'm happy for there to be discussion on what direction we should go in/criticism of my subpar choices, though.) Also, we already got coal mines.
Remalle fucked around with this message at 09:00 on May 13, 2023 |
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May 13, 2023 08:53
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painedforever posted:So...
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May 14, 2023 02:00
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Captain's Log, Day Nine We have had a steady flow of patients in and out of our medical posts. Though we have not been completely overwhelmed yet, with the temperature due to fall again tomorrow it is an imminent concern. With that in mind, we sign a law that will allow our medical staff to perform more... radical treatments, for particularly severe ailments.   The medics aren't entirely happy about the prospect, but they know we must do all that can be done in our circumstances.  The second child shelter is built, as well as another hunter's hut, which will be unstaffed for the moment but available for when we need it.  At the same time that our wood and coal incomes are picking up, our need for steel is beginning to outstrip our supply. With that in mind I order the steelworks to work an emergency shift.  A man assigned to an emergency shift has refused to work. He said that he's already worn out and he doesn't want to end up dead like one of his friends. One of the steelworkers was a friend of the late John Aylesworth, and is refusing to work under the same conditions that claimed his friend's life. We give him the day off and find another worker to fill his spot.   Advances in our signalling techniques make it possible to support two scout teams at once. We immediately outfit a new party and send them out towards the point of interest we had observed several days ago.  With the upcoming temperature drop in mind, I commission a design for a more permanent residence than the tents we've been relying on. It doesn't take too long to get the blueprints, and next I get the workshops looking into a way to boost the power of the generator itself.  We can build bunkhouses from scratch, but we also have the option to upgrade any of our existing tents, reusing most of the wood for a more efficient build. However, we'd still need to supply all of the steel cost, and we don't have the steel to convert more than one tent right now. Before we can gather enough straws to decide who gets their quarters upgraded first, though, it's already time for another vote!    There are three new options to pick from today: Extra Rations for the Ill and Overcrowding will both help if we start getting overwhelmed with patients, while Care House will give us a more permanent home for the worst off. The first two options are mutually exclusive, and lead to Triage, while the last leads to Prosthetics; all three have a cooldown period of 36 hours. What will our next law be?
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May 14, 2023 05:45
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painedforever posted:Are these the only options, or can we go down one of the other trees?
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May 15, 2023 01:48
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Captain's Log, Days Nine (cont.) and Ten The people of our city are, on the whole, compassionate and forward-thinking. Rather than resort to overcrowding we have elected to give our sick more food, even as it continues to be a concern. The rest of us will pull harder to make sure nobody is left behind.   Of course there are grumbles but we all know it's the right thing to do.  Though it was not on the ballot, there were voices calling to expand our steel production as well, and I agree. I order a second steelworks built, which will maximize our ability to exploit this exposed iron vein.  Our people are becoming less and less committed to their work. Perhaps we should at least give them extra rations while they're sweating blood on emergency shifts? With the direction we are going socially it just makes sense. Our hardest workers deserve no less.   Something's amiss at the observatory. Snow covers the precious instruments, and the dome is open, letting out a thing column of smoke. Someone's inside. Instead of astronomers, we are met by some of our lost people. They explain that they came here for help, but found everybody dead. The astronomers continued their observations until they starved. What was so important for them? They wrote it up in their diaries: the loss of sunlight can't be explained solely by the fouling of the atmosphere by the southern volcanoes. The sun is dimming! Remarkably, 35 members of our expedition were found still alive at the observatory! The scout team is bringing them back to us with all haste. The original scientists there who were studying the global temperature drop have been dead for weeks, but they left behind disturbing data. Until now, many of us had attributed the change in our climate to an eruption of a super-volcano in the East Indies; it appears that is not the sole cause, as the records show a continuous dimming of the sun itself over time. If the trend continues... our efforts here will ultimately be for nought.  This news is accompanied by another drop in the temperature, back down to -40. Our spirits remain high, however.   There's nobody in the weather station, but everything still seems to be operational. We could try to find out what the scientists from Winterhome were working on. We found scientists' notes. They predict that the great cold is going to get much worse. What's more troubling is that the observations ended abruptly months ago. There's also not a can of spam, not even a crumb of bread left in the pantry. It's obvious they've moved out for good. We can see the city of Winterhome from the roof of the weather station. The other team get back on the trail to Winterhome, but find that this weather station has been abandoned. The findings here corroborate what the second team found at the observatory. Winterhome is in sight, but first:  We can see a couple of buildings and a tall winding tower. There's a sliver of smoke rising from it. The scouts take a slight detour to this coal mine. There are signs of life there.  The recent reports from the Weather Station has got people talking. They're frightened that such an important facility was apparently abandoned. Some are starting to wonder whether the evacuation from London was a good idea. A few are lamenting openly: I knew we shouldn't have come! At least London had real houses, not tents and wooden shacks! Part of the reason for the detour is that with each step the scouts take further along the trail, things look grimmer. Though I have not spoken my thoughts and fears aloud, the signs we have seen so far have been troubling. Why have we not yet seen anybody from Winterhome? We need a victory.  At least we have more of our people safe and sound, people that we had thought lost forever. These reunions are always good for morale.  There's a dark cave entrance visible on the hillside. We think we saw a faint wisp of smoke coming from it, but it's gone now. Two of the scouts claim to have seen smoke rising from this gloomy cave while they were escorting the people back. With no other leads, the team is sent back out in that direction.  As we had enough steel stored up when we got the news that the scouts were bringing our people home, we were able to set up bunkhouses for their arrival rather than the familiar tents. They're not pretty, but they've got four solid walls and a roof. There are actually more skilled labourers present now than we can properly employ, so some of the newly arrived engineers are put to work in the mines for now.  The engineers figured out how to get a bit more heat out of the generator. Unfortunately...  It takes so much coal to do so that we would only be able to run the generator for seven hours. I reset the steam level to 1, but it is comforting to know we have the option for when conditions get even worse.  We've learned some treatment plans that work well for the most common ailments we've seen so far. Hopefully this will help with ensuring we don't need to use extra rations that we can't afford.  Though there are some things we can still design with our current facilities, we will need even more precision in our designs for the future. The workshops are working on upgrading their drawing boards to enable those more advanced designs.   The Coal Mine is automated. Its engine is pressurised, but the mining has stopped. The snow around it is untrodden and an eerie silence hangs in the air. This coal mine was in operation until very recently. The machinery isn't running now, but there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with it. Perhaps the mine simply extracted its quota or filled the loading bay. We could retrieve plenty of raw materials if we took the machinery apart. The smoke we saw was from the machines running themselves. There is nobody here. The scouts take the stored coal but leave the machinery intact - I have a feeling we may need this mine intact for the future.  There can be no doubt - it's a city much like ours. We can see the top of the Generator, but it's switched off, perhaps for maintenance. Detour completed, there's nowhere left to go now but Winterhome. Our scouts will reach the site in less than a day.   Meanwhile, we put some steel to work upgrading a couple of our tents. This left their residents temporarily homeless, but they weren't complaining.  It's time for another vote. Our last selection unlocked one new option:  Triage will allow us to prioritize the lives of those of our ill most likely to survive. By focusing on the healthiest and ignoring the sickest, we can heal half of the patients much faster at the cost of sentencing a quarter of them to death. This option will, of course, lower hope and raise discontent; it leads to no further choices, and it would be 45 hours before we could make another decision. What will our next law be?
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May 15, 2023 07:09
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Boat Stuck posted:Is there a list of all currently available law choices?  House of Pleasure, Duelling Law, Extended Shift, Soup/Food Additives, Ceremonial Funerals, Triage, and Care House. I'll be adding all of these as well as techs to the OP as they become available, for the people who wanted to see my thoughts on them. Update on previous page, btw Remalle fucked around with this message at 07:51 on May 15, 2023 |
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May 15, 2023 07:49
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Yeah the rationale for moving north is that there's enough coal up there to run the generators. There's nowhere on the planet that isn't freezing, even towards the equator, and according to the backstory the tropical places were hardest hit by the initial ice storms, which crept up from the south. Also Britain did send evacuees south, they just got swallowed up by the aforementioned ice storms. A lot of backstory elements are filled in by the relics you can find only in Endless mode, so I'll definitely be showing all of them off at some point.
Remalle fucked around with this message at 01:08 on May 16, 2023 |
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May 16, 2023 01:05
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Captain's Log, Day Eleven Continuing in the trend of taking care of our most vulnerable, the people have voted to institute a care house for our worst off.   They won't take up room in our medical posts, and won't consume as many resources, for as long as it takes to make a full recovery.  This cave is or was inhabited. There are a number of footprints leading to its entrance. We should check if there's still someone alive up there. Scout team two has found more survivors. As they approach, however...  We can hear terrified shrieks coming from a cave uphill. When we come closer, several polar bears turn towards us, blocking the entrance. There are people trapped inside, and those beasts are picking them off one by one and feasting on them! Polar bears! We cannot let them have their way with these people. There are children there! The scouts will have to drive the bears off with what they have on hand; we never expected them to have to get into such a serious scrap!   When our scouts attacked the bears, the people in the cave joined them and together they drove the beasts away. Then they all set out towards our city. The cave is a grisly scene. Bloody chunks of flesh and bones are strewn everywhere. The carcasses have been torn into unrecognisable shreds. It's impossible to tell human and animal remains apart. Though the bears will likely be back to feast on the remaining... remains, our scouts managed to successfully drive them off long enough to rescue 34 people. Three cheers for our brave scouts!  The number of ill is beginning to outpace our capacity again, so we give our patients extra rations to encourage faster healing.  The care house is placed. Hopefully we won't need it too soon!  With all of the advances we've been making lately, and the direction towards which our society is progressing with each law, hope is at an all-time high this morning.  We can now work on more advanced designs, or refine some of our existing ones further. I will go over the newly available options at another time. With the new tools our engineers get to work improving our steelworks.  We'll need all the steel we can get if we want our incoming refugees and our tent-dwellers all in bunkhouses.  Our steelworks can now be upgraded with steam power to extract and refine iron even faster. I order the sawmill design to be similarly improved.  With all of these people and the automaton running around, we actually have some people sitting around idle with nothing to do! I will have to get another sawmill or two set up soon so they can start earning their keep. Before I can do that, though, the news comes in from scout team one.   We climbed up to the edge of the city. We stood there speechless, staring at the scene of devastation. It's a city of the dead. Most of the buildings are destroyed and the Generator has exploded. The streets of the ruined city are littered with scores of dead bodies. The city chronicle describes the shortage of food and citizens' increasing despair, the following squabbles, riots and descent into anarchy, fights for dwindling resources and the eventual starvation... The last entry: "God forgive us, we're eating our dead. There's no hope." Our worst fears have been realized.  The news has shocked everyone in the city. There were supposed to be many settlements and construction crews here, people living normal lives in homes heated by Generators... But we're alone. Winterhome has fallen.    "They're all dead?! How will we survive here without any help? We have to go back to London! There's no hope for us here in this frozen desert!" People start to gather as the news of the fate of Winterhome spreads through the city. Some of them want to drop everything and flee to London. Panic is starting to set in. I must give them purpose.  People are shaken, racked by fear and doubt. They've lost hope in our chances of survival. Desperation could quickly push them to commit reckless acts. You have to unite them behind a vision of the future. Decide now what will give them purpose and restore hope, or else our city will descend into the chaos that consumed Winterhome. Will our future be secured through Order and Discipline?  Or will it be saved through Faith and Spiritual Strength?
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May 16, 2023 06:48
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Captain's Log, Day Twelve It is clear what must be done to avoid succumbing to the same fate as Winterhome. I must demonstrate strong leadership for the good of our society. There must be Order.    There will be a new chapter added to our Book of Laws: Purpose. The first and only law available in it is Neighbourhood Watch, which will let us erect watchtowers to ensure that peace is kept.  We can see distant glimmers of sun reflected on the surface of water. Unfrozen water here points to the presence of freshwater springs. Scout unit one was about to return home when they spotted what they believe to be liquid water not too far away. This is intriguing - hot springs could be quite a boon for us. The team takes a slight detour to check it out.  Several big tents. No signs of life. A flag flies over them - the American flag! Even from this distance we couldn't mistake the Stars and Stripes. Stranger still, a lookout on the Beacon spotted this American camp about a day away from us. Though it appears abandoned now, we can't help but wonder what in the world they were doing out here! Scout unit two is dispatched to investigate.  Sir, you've convinced the majority, but hope is low. A group of our people are still so scared that they want to flee the city for London in 15 days. They've come to try to change your mind. "You say order will save us? Nonsense! What, are we going to orderly decide who to eat first when we start to starve?! If we don't try to reach London, we'll end up like Winterhome!" Watching the scout team depart seems to have given some of our number an idea. Though most are pleased to see order return to our civilization, a few troublemakers have gotten it into their heads to abandon the city and return to London.   Your people are divided. Some of them are so scared that they plan to leave the city for London in 15 days. They'll try to convince others to join them, preying on their discontent. Fear may lead people to desperate acts. Maintain peace, give people hope and manage their discontent to guide the city safely through the looming social crisis. Calling themselves the "Londoners," this new faction numbers only 19 as yet but will have no trouble convincing more to join them given our current hope level.  Building the care house is the first step in rebuilding our shattered hope.   Several pools are kept from freezing by a hot spring deep underground. Patches of hardy lichens cling to the bare rock at their edges. It looks like a good place for a hideout. Near the freshwater springs we met some refugees from Winterhome. They are a sorry sight, and seem to be completely unmoved by the fate of their city. Asked what kept them from starving, they look away, then mumble something about eating lichens. At the hot springs the scouts make a grim first contact with the people of Winterhome. As far as we can tell, these seven children and twenty-two adults are the only survivors left from there. The scouts are bringing them to our city but they report that their new friends have been tight-lipped on the subject of the fate of their city. Perhaps some day in the future they will open up enough to share with us the story of the Fall of Winterhome.  Sir, the people who want to leave for London have successfully urged their friends and neighbours to join them. People are more easily persuaded, because they have little hope in our ultimate survival. The Londoners have been recruiting overnight, and by the morning eight desperate citizens have joined their number.  There is now a dangerous division among our people.  I had ordered two new sawmills built overnight, and in the morning the researchers had given me their plans to increase the efficiency of those mills. Hopefully this will alleviate our wood shortage for the time being.  Not long after, these plans cross my desk - the ruins of Winterhome and its coal mine are vast untapped troves of resources that our scouts would not be able to make a dent in with just their sleds. We will now be able to establish more permanent outposts at those sites which would send us regular shipments of wood and/or coal. The scientists are now working on a new design for the scout sleds which will allow the teams to cover ground much faster.  I must raise the people's hope. These watchtowers are strategically placed to watch for any trouble or brewing unrest.   There's not a living soul in the camp. We found about a dozen emaciated bodies. Surprisingly, most of them were amputees fitted with prostheses. The American camp was well supplied with everything except food. Searching the tents we found more victims of hunger. Most of them have badly worn but sophisticated artificial limbs bearing a company symbol: "Tesla Manufacturing." We can only bury them and take their equipment. A fresh mystery awaited us at the American camp, where the scouts discovered the starved bodies of a number of people outfitted with these "Tesla Manufacturing" prosthetics. There are no records to shed a light on exactly what happened here, but:  We can see two rows of small wooden huts, but no smoke or other signs of life. All in all it looks like a well-kept, but temporary settlement. There is another settlement not too far out, which looks abandoned as well. There were clearly other people out here in Frostland besides those of the Pit and Winterhome, though it looks as though we were too late to save these ones.   Slowly, step by weary step, our hope is returning. Before too long, morning comes, and with it, the time for another vote. We have two new options available for Purpose:   Morning Gathering will raise our hope when signed, and then continue to raise hope every day after that. This law takes 18 hours to cool down, and leads to the Foreman law. Alternatively, we could upgrade our watchtowers into Guard Stations, which will not only lower discontent and raise hope to those living near them, but also give us the ability to disperse violent demonstrations. After 36 hours this leads to Patrol, Propaganda Center, and Prison.  Of course, we also still have our Adaptation options available as well: House of Pleasure, Duelling Law, Extended Shift, Ceremonial Funerals, and Triage. As of today, I am also giving every voter a new option to exercise in the polls: You may now give a None of the Above response if you feel that none of our available options represent our ideals. In the case of a None vote, I will wait a number of days before calling another poll, to see if the mood has changed. How will we vote to maintain Order? Remalle fucked around with this message at 06:27 on May 17, 2023 |
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May 17, 2023 06:24
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Captain's Log, Day Thirteen To ensure that all citizens are kept on the same page about our goals and stay true to our ideals, mandatory morning gatherings will now be held at the beginning of every work day.   The meetings will continue until morale improves!   We see the impact almost immediately, as the number of Londoners has increased by only four overnight compared to nine yesterday.  Tensions continue to rise between the Londoners and everybody else, however.  Meanwhile, our scientists have figured out which parts of our scouts' sleds can be removed to shed weight, and what can be reconfigured immediately in the field, to increase the speed at which they traverse Frostland.  Scout team one returns with twenty-nine people, three steam cores, and several heaping mounds of coal in tow. This actually puts us over capacity for coal, and production in the mines briefly pauses as we try to get the stockpiles organized.   A tall snow cliff. There's a hole in it, and it's inhabited - we can see a lone figure bustling about. A small grove of several dozen trees. Even with the lightened sleds, it will still take over two days for the team to reach the snow cliff where we can see a lone survivor. They head for the frozen grove first, as it's more or less on the way.   The settlements seems to have been abandoned. It consists of several tidy wooden shacks that are now completely empty. An upright boulder stands at its centre. The centre of the settlement is marked with an upright boulder. On its roughly planed face someone chiseled the following: "May God forgive the genius who sacrificed human lives in the name of progress, for we can't. Exiles of Tesla City." We won't touch the monument, but we decide to dismantle the huts for wood. It appears the bodies we found were attached to a place called Tesla City. Are we the only city left in this blasted wasteland that has not already collapsed?   A small village on the shore of the frozen sea. A reflection is visible there. Could it be open water? A sizeable settlement surrounded by a low wall made of stone, ice, and snow. No movement, no smoke. There are enough abandoned settlements out here that we have to resort to a coin flip to decide which to explore first! Nobody can find a coin, though, so we send the scouts off to the walled colony on the advice of a tossed lump of coal.  We have five hunter's huts operating now, each of which once employed fifteen people each. By improving our tactics out in the field they now only require ten people apiece, meaning we now have twenty-five workers available to work a day shift again. Because our daily coal income is actually slightly negative, I get the engineers looking into a way to improve our generator's efficiency next.  Our first sawmill has finally cut down all of the wood in its vicinity, which frees up another ten workers. I order a third coal mine built, as well as another sawmill and workshop - when we have the resources available I hope to get an outpost depot or two set up as well.   Numerous snow shelters expertly built from blocks of hard-packed snow huddle around cold, burned-out campfires. A deathly silence hangs over the colony. Some of exiles [sic] are still alive, just barely. We could try to bring them to our city, although they might die on the way. One of the dying held a diary to his chest. We read the last entry: "Exiled from Tesla City, with food and fuel running out, we sent the strongest among us to search for help. They're out last hope." We're afraid this refers to those poor Yankees we buried. A full sixty are still alive here, who must be the exiles from the last site the team explored. If ours is truly the only city left, we will bring as many souls as we can in from the cold.  We pulled the dying exiles from their snow houses and prepared them for the journey to our city. Some of them stirred from their deathlike slumber to bless their absent friends for bringing help. We couldn't tell them the truth. Not yet. What in the world happened at Tesla City? Why were these people exiled into the ice and wind? Once the scouts return with the survivors, we must try to find this place and find out what happened.  After upgrading this steelworks with steam power, I order it to work an emergency shift. The workers are compensated with five extra rations.  When the refugees arrive, we will number over three hundred. Before they get here, we must take another vote. We have a new option available after the last one implemented:  Foreman will let us increase the efficiency of a single workplace by 40% for 24 hours. This costs ten rations, extra motivation for the workers. This will have no effect on hope or discontent, nor does it lead to any further laws; it will take 18 hours to sign another law afterward. We still have all of our other options in Purpose and Adaptation available, as well as the None of the Above option. How will we vote to maintain Order?
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May 18, 2023 06:32
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NewMars posted:Guard Stations. House of Pleasure, Duelling Law, Extended Shift, Ceremonial Funerals, and Triage are still available.
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May 18, 2023 16:29
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Captain's Log, Days Fourteen and Fifteen After the smashing success of the watchtower project, it has been decided that they will be upgraded into guard stations.   Yes, the key to a well-ordered society is a firm hand to keep it in line!   The stations are built directly over our old obsolete watchtowers, and keep the exact same staff. Quite efficient!  The upgraded guard posts keep us safe twenty-four hours of the day. More will soon join them.  Between the Generator now requiring less fuel to maintain its heat level and the third coal mine we opened, our coal income will soon be enough to completely fill our stockpiles. We will need some more storage space soon, but first:  Six more bunkhouses and a child shelter are authorized in anticipation of the incoming immigrants.  Though we are currently doing fine for coal, the researchers hand me the designs for a coal thumper. We have no more room for surface coal mines, so these coal thumpers will allow us to force coal up to the surface from far underground, though it will require a good number more labourers to efficiently gather and sort it all.  Speaking of which, here come the Tesla City survivors. We house them and put them straight to work.  The scout team also brought with them enough wood and steel that we are able to designate a whole new quarter for storage. Each of these depots will be designated for a specific resource.  We will not be able to rely on easily accessible surface wood forever. The scientists have devised a novel method of wood extraction:  You see, the walls that surround our city are not solid rock cliff faces. They are in actuality a mix of ice and heavily packed snow, which has accumulated over what used to be a vast forest surrounding us in all directions. With these wall drills, we will be able to reach the trees inside the walls, ensuring a supply of lumber that will last for a long, long time. Our food production is becoming an issue, and a few of the researchers have pulled me aside to assure me they have something quite interesting in mind to address it.  As predicted, our coal income has exceeded our ability to store it. This resource depot is designated for coal storage, and extends our capacity by 900 units! The others will increase our wood, steel, raw food and food rations capacities by 300 units apiece.  The new residential quarter for our new citizens is complete. They now live safe from the cold and the discord of the outside world, under the protection of our Generator and our Guards.  Captain, someone has defaced the walls with predictions of doom for our city. This is troubling. People already fear we'll share Winterhome's fate, and scared minds are swayed by even the smallest nudges. The Londoners' work. The Guards remove the vandalism right away, not in time to prevent a small loss of hope, but preventing a larger loss should the words have stayed up.  Their number has jumped by six, after rising by four last night, and we expect that number to keep increasing. These agitators comprise over a tenth of our population already, and are growing every day!   Some trees in this grove bear deep cuts in the shape of a cross. We found some bones scattered around them... Poking around the trees marked with crosses, we found shallow graves under each of them. The dead bodies lack most of the bigger muscles, and some bones bear signs of a cutting tool. The corpses have been obviously stripped of edible parts. Now we know what kept the survivors by the Freshwater Springs from starving. We'll leave graves intact but we can cut trees for wood. Now we know why the Winterhome survivors were so cagey about their experiences. We cannot blame them for doing what they had to survive, but I found myself unable to meet their eyes during a meeting we had not long after the discovery. After gathering some wood the scouts are sent onward to the snow cliff, their original destination before the detour.  The temperature has fallen to -40 again, and this time it seems like it will stay that way for a while.  As we near completion of our project to upgrade every remaining tent in the city to a bunkhouse, I get the notice that it is time to take another vote. There are three new options added to the ballot this time:    Patrol will allow the Guards to take a more active hand in ensuring peace in our streets. Each patrol they go on will increase hope and decrease discontent by a bit. This will take 36 hours and leads to no further choices. With a Propaganda Centre we could ensure that our people are not led astray by Londoner rhetoric or other misinformation circulating the streets. It would raise hope passively as well as having the ability to distribute bulletins with raise hope even further. This law would take 45 hours and leads to the Agitator and Pledge of Loyalty laws. Finally, a Prison gives us a place to isolate known troublemakers from our good citizens and eventually re-integrate them into society. This leads to Forceful persuasion and also has a 45 hour cooldown. How will we vote to maintain Order?
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May 19, 2023 07:41
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Philippe posted:I'd also like to know what our automaton is doing.
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May 19, 2023 08:04
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ChaosDragon posted:So how is our food situation? And how are we hunting food? It's not looking great right now - people were starting to go hungry last night as the rations ran out, and we're not currently making enough in a day to replenish, but I'm hoping to fix that with the next hunting upgrade and an outpost. As for what they're hunting out there, we did see that polar bears are thriving right now, and there's presumably other arctic fauna that have migrated south. They're trapped using snares and such, but there's also an implication that they've got firearms that the player just never gets to see. Won't be getting an update out tonight or probably tomorrow either, so here are the current poll results: Propaganda Centre 5 Patrol 5 Soup 3 Prison 1 Ceremonial Funerals 1
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May 19, 2023 22:42
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Captain's Log, Day Fifteen, cont. It was a closer vote than we've seen for quite some time, but a late push by the perennial soup contingent finally got their agenda passed.   Once they see how thin we're stretching the rations now, I wonder how even the staunchest soup supporters will feel about our food quality. At least we can have the cooks warm us up a bit by adding a splash of the sauce.  It will take a lot of steel to get our huts upgraded, but these new hangars will let our hunters bring back much more food per night - thirty units, compared to the twenty we are currently getting.   Having the kitchens switch to producing soup has got our daily food production to nearly break even. Even just one hunter's hangar will get us in the black again, so I make sure it will be done before nightfall.  Heaters will let us warm buildings individually from the inside, getting them warmer than if we rely on the ambient heat from the Generator alone. The forecast says we will be staying at a manageable -40 for the next few days, so we won't need to activate these right away; they were mostly picked this time because every other option would have taken valuable steel to develop. Although our coal production is currently positive, I have the scientists looking into ways to optimise our coal mining operations. Though we do have the ability to increase the Generator's heat output, doing so would currently run through our coal reserves in under a day; being able to mine coal more efficiently will help us extend that time should we need the extra heat.  Since our tents are nearly all dismantled, the canvas we have left over can be repurposed into a dirigible. From the air the hunters will have a far easier time of tracking and bringing down their quarries.  As I was watching the airship take off for its first hunt, I was notified that scout team one had reached their destination.   The hole in the snow cliff leads to a small chamber. Someone lives here, but the lonely human figure we saw from afar has disappeared. It might be the sole survivor of Winterhome. The man we've seen from afar was nowhere to be found. Searching his burrow, we found a diary of a scientist who fled Winterhome. After the starving city fell into chaos, its leader, an Army captain, appointed himself an absolute ruler. He tried to impose order using force. Plenty of people, disgruntled, deserted the city and most of the others rebelled against him. Our friends from Winterhome still have not filled us in on the whole story of the collapse of their city. This diary patches some holes, but it does raise questions as well. It seems that their Captain went too far in his attempts to keep Order in his city, and the people fought back against his tyranny. This seems an invaluable precautionary tale to us, practically a divine revelation. We must keep the fate of Winterhome in mind as we try to keep Order among our own people, lest we be doomed to repeat history.  We can see a faint wisp of smoke coming from a patch of deep shadow at the base of a small hill. It must be the entrance to a cave - an inhabited cave. It seems the scouts were a step or two behind the author of the journal, who seems to have moved on to shelter at this shrouded cave.  As I've alluded to in previous log entries, we need to get an outpost depot set up to start collecting resources from outside the city. We can support up to two outposts, and the first should be ready to set out by the end of the night if all goes according to plan.    This cave is a hideout for some children who were evacuated from Winterhome. There are no adult survivors here. We should talk to the kids and take them to our city. We talked to the children in the hideout. They said that one night their teachers and some hunters took them out from Winterhome on a "secret adventure." Teachers told them they're going to stay here for a while. When the food ran low, their guardians went back to get more and didn't return. It seems these kids were evacuated in time, before things in their city got really ugly. We formed the children into an orderly column and set off towards the city. They walk quietly and resolutely, like little adults, the youngest clutching their toys tightly. This is going to be a long journey. Please have enough warm beds prepared for their arrival. The cave we thought might be the new shelter of the journal author instead turned out to be housing nearly forty children! The scouts did not even bother to wait for authorization from the Beacon before they began escorting the orphans back here to safety. The poor brave children must have been surviving out here for weeks before we found them.   A hot spring keeps a tiny patch of sea from freezing here. The Americans used this opportunity to set up a fishing village. It's deserted now. This fishing village used to supply Tesla City with food. Searching it, we found a letter: "Mike, don't return to the city. Tesla is a madman. He cast out all the amputees, all the sick. Jerry's parents and old Beth are among them. There will be blood, that's for sure, and soon." The village was left in order. We could send a team here to start fishing. At the same time our first scout team was persuading the children to come back to the city with them, the second team was exploring the abandoned fishing village. It appears Tesla City, too, has gone too far in its efforts to keep its society going. The ill and injured were exiled - perhaps to have fewer mouths to feed, perhaps to ensure the survival of the fittest - and perished at the American camp we first stumbled upon.  A large settlement. Numerous buildings are dimly visible through the shining dome of electrical discharge that is projected over the town. From here the scouts can see Tesla City itself. Unlike the steam Generators the British expeditions prepared, it appears that Tesla is doing something with electricity to run his city. We need to go there and save whoever we can from the eugenicist madman's tyranny.  Sir, a group of drunk men were disturbing the peace, pushing each other, screaming obscenities, and harassing women in the street. Our guards intervened and restrained the drunks before anyone was hurt. It seems someone put a little too much liquor was in the soup mix today! Since there's no jail set up the drunkards were sat out in the snow until they sobered up. The hope of our people is of paramount importance, and beating these men would not have done anybody's morale any good.  The Londoners have defaced more walls, urging everybody to join them and abandon the city. Some graffiti even mocks your leadership, branding you an unfit leader incapable of doing what it takes to save our people. While the Guards were dealing with the drunk men, though, some of the Londoners were busy on the other end of the city. More of the same old message, but this time they insulted me directly! The messages are removed post-haste, before these vile deceptions might spread any further than they already have.  Captain, members of the Neighbourhood Watch who were removing the Londoners' slogans have been assaulted! We should do something to protect our people. In a bold move, the Londoners have attacked some of our Guards directly! The rest are mobilized to ensure no more Londoners remain on the street tonight. We must demonstrate strength, for the sake of our friends and enemies alike.   Though our loyal citizens are happy to see peace being enforced on the streets, even more people have joined the Londoners' cause! The divide in our society is an ever-widening chasm.  We will expand our Guards' reach with another tower and more recruits, but first, we must take a vote. There are no new Laws available after the last one was signed, so these are our options:    Foreman, Propaganda Centre, Prison and Patrol are available from Purpose. Adaptation offers House of Pleasure, Duelling Law, Extended Shift, Triage, Prosthetics and Ceremonial Funerals. As always, we can also vote for None of the Above if it is felt necessary. How will we vote to maintain Order?
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May 22, 2023 00:45
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my dad posted:Mechanics spoiler regarding the very near future: It's generally a very good idea to return the exploration party with the steam cores before exploring Tesla City.
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May 22, 2023 05:56
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Captain's Log, Days Sixteen and Seventeen With all the nonsense and misinformation being spread these days, the people feel it is important that we firmly establish the real facts in everybody's minds. The Londoners have picked the battlefield of hearts and minds, and so far we have not had the proper arms to combat them.   If I'm going to keep this city together I have to fight the lies and libel of the Londoners with my truth. We all need to be on the same page if we're going to survive here, and now I can determine exactly what is written on that page.  Once the... information centre is built, we will finally be able to fight back against the Londoners on the information front. The Guards must continue to defend their own front - they will keep an eye out for further physical escalations.   The city is modern and meticulously built. A tall tower emits a constant barrier of lightning, deflecting the incoming snow. But nobody comes out to greet us. "Able minds and bodies will prevail over the cold", reads the slogan over the entrance to Tesla City. A central tall tower shines with the blue glow of electric discharges, which form a protective dome over the town. But something went wrong here: there are charred bodies lying in the streets and the stench of burned flesh taints the air. We saw a lightning streak from the tower, hitting a building and leaving a gash in its roof. The scouts report they were amazed as they approached Tesla City, marvelling at the ingenious electrical system which keeps the snow from falling over the city. As they got closer, though, they realized with horror that everybody who was still inside was fried by that same lightning field. What on Earth were you thinking, Tesla? Against their better judgment, our brave scouts risked their lives going inside Tesla City to turn off the damned machine...  We've seen a thing or two in our lives, but nothing has ever frightened us as much as this blasted lightning. Until we figured out how to switch it off, that is. Now we'll be able to establish an Outpost here. ...and miraculously, they succeeded! The scouts report the site is a trove of steam hubs, rich enough that they risked dodging the lightning blasts to ensure we could get into it.  Along the shore of the frozen bay, we can see the outline of an enormous ship. A wide lane of broken ice leads to it from the west. The scout team is eager to leave the smouldering graveyard and set out for this ship, doubtless the very one which bore the Americans here.   An outpost team (designated unit three) is assembled, ten people who will set up camp at Tesla City and work to extract steam cores. If all goes well, they should be able to send daily shipments once they're established.  Our coal mining operations are now more efficient, though still not enough to run the Generator at the higher heat level indefinitely.  With a source of steam cores that should last us the forseeable future secured, I have the research time begin looking into some older proposed designs that I'd passed over precisely because they required a steam core. The hothouse will allow us to grow food at home; it will be good to finally get some variety in our diet! I could do without eating yet another bloody serving of arctic fox soup for a good while.   A huge ship has been dismantled here. Only its massive keel plates remain under the ice. Railroad tracks lead south. We found a piece of hull plate bolted to a boulder. It's engraved with the following inscription: "In the year 1886 the American expedition aboard Hephaestus landed here in search of a haven from the global glaciation. May God preserve the souls of our fellow countrymen who perished on the way aboard our sister ship Prometheus." As expected, this is the ship that bore the Americans here - at least, the one that made it. This one has been mostly picked clean already, but the scouts take what they can.   An oddly shaped building with various antennas and instruments. It looks like some kind of research facility. A wide lane of crushed ice extends along the shore as far as the eye can see, obviously left by the American dreadnought. There is a research station the scouts could investigate, but I have them head south, following the ice corridor.    The education centre and our new hothouse are placed. They are among the largest buildings we have designed so far, and need to be placed a little bit further out from the city centre to fit.   Outpost team three has arrived at Tesla City and begins the process of dismantling the wreckage for usable steam cores.    We're following the wide corridor of crushed ice that the American dreadnought, the USS Hephaestus, left in its wake. We marvel at the thick slabs of ice that have been crushed and swept aside by the American dreadnought Hephaestus. Soon we might be able to learn how it managed to accomplish such feats - we can see a huge silhouette in the distance, which might be its sister ship Prometheus. The silhouette of a huge ship. It's most likely the wreckage of the USS Prometheus, the other American dreadnought. There are no signs of life. My hunch turns out to be correct. The Prometheus broke down near enough to the Hephaestus that our scouts can reach it on foot. Hopefully this one will be more intact than its sister.    The information centre is built and staffed with our best writers. A bulletin is distributed right away, highlighting my strong leadership and the low odds of survival outside of our city. If this is to be a recurring publication, it will need a name - perhaps we could name it after the arctic foxes which are thriving so well in this climate!    Not long after the opening of the news centre, one of the staff was struck by inspiration, and soon these flags bearing our newly designed emblem are unfurled over every symbol of Order in the city.  The new hothouse is also completed. This will give us a steady income of food over the course of the day, supplementing the big delivery we get every morning from the nightly hunt.   Sir, people are no longer concerned by the Londoners' slogans. Some have started to bring hot soup to the guards patrolling the streets. "We just couldn't bear watching them walking the streets in this cold. The slogans? The deranged scrawl of cowards, nothing more." For the first time, the Londoners have failed to persuade anyone to abandon our city and flee to London. People are recovering from their shock at the news of Winterhome and starting to hope for the future. The results of our inaugural bulletin are a massive success. Our loyal citizens are more dedicated than ever to this city, and the Londoners are no longer gaining any ground with their uncontested rhetoric.  While everything else was happening, our builders were also hard at work preparing enough housing and shelters for the children of Winterhome. As a bonus, the last of our old original tents has also finally been upgraded into a warmer and more permanent structure.  A second outpost depot is authorized. The placement of this one ruins some lumber, but now that we have the wall drills that will not be a concern.  The second of our steam core-reliant designs is finished. We will finally be able to build automatons of our own!   Most of the machinery aboard the USS Prometheus has been dismantled and taken away. The massive steam hammer used to split the thickest ice lies broken by the ship's bow. The dreadnought is stripped of useful machinery, but its hulk contains enough steel to justify establishing an outpost here. On the bridge we found a log with Tesla's last orders: "Transfer all supplies and able-bodied survivors aboard Hephaestus. Take the amputees only if you have prostheses to make them useful." The scouts have found Prometheus, still intact enough that I have already decided our fourth team will be sent here to salvage its steel. These American dreadnoughts are far larger than the one we took up here from London, though they operate on similar principles.  A few hours away, yet another wrecked vehicle is visible. Scout team two goes to investigate; meanwhile, unit one is on a two-day trip to the research station that two skipped earlier.  Another massive building, the factory is placed near the steel mines to share the steam hub that is already there.  Outpost team four is outfitted and sent out to start salvaging the Prometheus as soon as possible.   Here is the last of the steam core-dependant building designs. The infirmary is larger, warmer, and better equipped than the medical tents we've been relying on for so long. It is placed next to our care house, which has fortunately not seen any use yet. Hopefully the infirmary will keep it that way. Our new resource depots are already full to capacity with wood and coal, so I get the researchers looking into a way to get more use out of them.    We found the wreck of some sort of vehicle. We can salvage some parts from it. Whilst disassembling the wreck to salvage what we could from it, we found a hidden cache of supplies. A rusty shack. Nothing more can be seen from this distance. The scouts continue to collect resources and scout ever further away. The day they return home will be a bounteous day indeed!  The infirmary is complete, and some patients who were resting in our medical posts are moved to the more comfortable and efficient infirmary right away.  The factory is also complete. We can now built automatons, though we are limited as ever by our steel supply; outpost team four will solve that issue shortly. We could also build prosthetics here based on the Tesla Manufacturing designs, if we sign the appropriate law.   The shack is falling apart, but its contents still have some value to us. Searching the shack, we found plenty of valuable supplies. Scout team two could probably build their own city with all the resources they've gathered, at this point!   This place is the only thing standing out in the endless white desert. We can see some kind of facility, perhaps a sawmill. It looks abandoned. Though I am initially fascinated by the concept of a stone ship, the scouts quickly clarify that it is nothing more than a convenient landmark. They are sent to investigate the abandoned sawmill instead.  The patients at the infirmary are given extra rations to encourage their speedy recovery, and with that, it is finally time for another vote. The last law opened up two new options for us:   Agitator will let us build loudspeakers to broadcast message of encouragement to people working near them, raising their efficiency. This has no effect on hope or discontent, nor does it lead to any further choices, but will delay the next vote by 63 hours. We could also draft a Pledge of Loyalty. This will permanently raise our hope, and gives us the ability to encourage Londoners to renounce their false ideology and pass on information about their comrades to us. This choice does not lead to anything on its own, unless we institute Forceful Persuasion (after Prison) as well. How will we vote to maintain Order? Remalle fucked around with this message at 18:23 on May 23, 2023 |
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May 23, 2023 07:20
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my dad posted:I have literally never seen both Tesla City and the bears producing the same result, in either one of my own or other people's playthroughs. I wonder if it was changed by a patch at some point. quote:I'd honestly vote to veto the pledge of loyalty if that were an option.
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May 23, 2023 08:08
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biosterous posted:there what? it just ends there, oops
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May 23, 2023 18:23
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Captain's Log, Day Eighteen It has been decided that appointing trusted overseers will raise the efficiency of our workplaces, and they can simultaneously keep an ear out for seditious whispers among the workers.   Our new foremen will be selected carefully from each work site and be paid with extra food rations should we have need of their service.   Sir, one of our people has committed suicide. In his spare time, he wrote poems about loss, suffering, and the death of hope. Our Propaganda Centre waged a campaign against him to protect our people from his influence. Now people might blame us for his suicide. Unless... we make it look like he drank himself to death. Robert Crugg, a coal miner and mediocre poet, was found dead overnight, not long after reading the critical response to his output that we put in our inaugural news bulletin. We cannot risk a loss of faith in the Centre so soon after its institution, so the official line is that he drank himself to death - a tragic, but not unforeseen end, for those who knew him. I toss his writings into the Generator myself, while the city is still asleep. A poetic end for such a libelous body of work.  Another sunrise, and again the Londoners saw no new membership overnight. Though he was never officially one of them, Mr. Crugg's writings undoubtedly influenced many to join their ranks.   Indeed it is a sawmill. It hasn't been used in a very long time. Everything is covered in ice. There was probably an outpost here years ago. Now there's nothing left of it but this frozen sawmill. We are not hurting for lumber, but this wood is doing nobody else any good. The scouts take it and head to check out the landmark they saw earlier, the stone ship.  Our resource capacity is increased again, and the wood workers get back to their collecting now that there is once again room to store their harvest.  I have a foreman appointed in both of the steelworks, one to manage a team of human workers, and the other to keep an eye on the automaton. I still hope to start building our own automata soon, but today's project will be upgrading more of our hunter's huts into hangars.  Helping the steelworkers will be outpost team four, who expect to be able to send us a hundred units of steel per diem!   The researchers needed quite a bit of wood and steel but they've once again upgraded their workshops. With the aid of these calculators we can look into even more advanced designs than before. First up will be a steam-powered upgrade for our coal mines.   An explored waypoint for our scouts. Our search hasn't uncovered anything of value, but we may be able to reach some more promising locations from here. There was nothing of interesting to be found at the landmark, nor did the scouts spot any further points of potential interest from atop it. They finally begin the return trip home with their massive haul.  As I watch the new airships being built and launched one by one, I am informed it is already time for another vote. We have no new options on the ballot, only these familiar ones:    Agitator, Pledge of Loyalty, Prison and Patrol are available for Purpose, while House of Pleasure, Duelling Law, Extended Shift, Triage, Prosthetics and Ceremonial Funerals are available under Adaptation. We also have our None of the Above choice as always. How will we vote to maintain Order?
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May 24, 2023 07:51
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Captain's Log, Day Nineteen With the demise of Mr. Crugg still weighing on many peoples' minds, a law is signed allowing a memorial gathering to take place at night.   Cynical comments from the Franklin brothers notwithstanding, a proper send-off for each of our dead will help with our morale should we lose more lives.  Not long after, a service for Robert Crugg is held at the cemetary as his body is laid to rest, led by his brother Bernard.  Someone has stolen 67 Food rations from the stockpiles. People are saying it was the Londoners gathering supplies for their journey. It seems this ridiculous idea of leaving for London is gaining traction. Not long after I have the writers at the Centre publish an in memoriam for Mr. Crugg to remind others not to follow in his lead, I get the news that the Londoners stole a sizeable cache of food. Guards are sent out to find the culprits and retrieve the supplies, but are unsuccessful.  A loyal citizen has reported that he saw a group of young people vandalising the Propaganda Centre. They wrote "WAKE UP, PEOPLE!!" in big letters on the outer wall. What should we do? Immediately after that, there is another act of vandalism, the largest defacement yet. I must demonstrate that I am capable of mercy and compassion as well as strength. Though we have a good idea who did it, we simply remove the writing and do not pursue the matter further.   Sir, several of the people who wanted to flee to London have decided to trust you and stay! They say that your recent decisions convinced them there is hope for us here yet. My decision to act clemently has paid off. Three of the young people who we know to be behind the writing on the wall turned up to my office today, sheepishly informing me that they have seen reason and decided to stay with us after all.  It's been an eventful night, but peace has been kept.   The door of the research station has been bashed in. There are signs of fighting inside - broken furniture, damaged scientific instruments, and spatters of blood. Inside the ransacked station we found Tesla's audio diary. A voice speaks: "... all the observed changes, like Sun's dimming, volcanic ash could not have caused such cooling. But what if the huge quake of 1887 in Patagonia was an asteroid strike...?" There's shouting, crashes and then silence. Numerous tracks lead from the door towards the mountains. Scout team one has reached the research station that two had passed over. Inside they discovered what appears to be the final recorded words of Nikola himself, who was apparently as baffled by the changing weather as our scientists have been on this side of the pond.  There's a dark opening at the base of a hill, probably an entrance to a cave. We can see some smoke coming out of it. There are tracks leading up in this direction. They could be the other scientists who were stationed here, or other survivors of Tesla City.  We can use our steam cores to upgrade our coal mines in the same way as we did with the steel mines. This will be a massive boost to our coal production.   We climbed up to the cave. A low stone wall stands across its entrance. Behind it we can see several men. As we approach the cave, its inhabitants pull out rifles and take positions behind the wall barring the entrance. They are in a bad shape, weak from malnourishment and illness. There is a group of Americans with guns holed up in the cave leading away from the research station. The scouts are advised to approach cautiously and attempt to reason with them - they can't have enough in the way of supplies to last long out here.  Seeing that we have no ill intentions, the Americans told us how they "dealt justice" to the inventor after expelling him from his city. We buried Tesla's battered body in the cave and are heading home with these poor wretches in tow. After establishing that we were not from Tesla City the Americans became a lot more friendly, sharing how they dealt with their eugenicist leader, and agreeing to come along with us to join our growing city.  I'd been waiting to commission our first home-built automaton until the redesign plans were complete! While still expensive, this goes a long way towards making them easily mass produced. I have the factory engineers start work on the automaton not long after.  Sir, a group of people found inspiration in their work under the guidance of a foreman and have decided to try organising their workplace on their own. Their spirit and motivation are exemplary today. While it is good to see them working hard on their own, the whole point of appointing a foreman was to ensure the workers don't organize on their own! What will we see next, collective action? Unionization!?  Another temperature drop is due in only a couple of days, so I have the researchers working on better insulation for some of our more vulnerable buildings. The cookhouse requires a minimum temperature to function at all, so it is the first to receive the upgraded insulation.  Scout unit two has finally returned to the city after their marathon tour, sleds loaded dangerously high with resources of all kinds. Wood and steel shortages will no longer be an issue for a very long time! Some of the new materials are put towards housing for our incoming migrants, upgrades to all of our coal mines and remaining hunter's huts, and a couple new workshops - and we still have plenty of resources left over afterwards.  This place is the only thing standing out in the endless white desert. After a well-deserved stint at the pub the scouts are sent out once more, to investigate this landmark the other team spotted. It is not promising on its own, but is another landmark we could potentially spot more areas from, like the stone ship.  With our coal mines all upgraded, I can finally set the Generator to steam level 2 permanently! The new design is so effective that we are running a bigger coal surplus now than when we were on steam level 1 with the unupgraded models.   Somewhat at a loss as to what to do with the incoming workers, I order a coal thumper built. Unlike the coal mine this building only extracts resources, not collect them; therefore, a couple of gathering posts will also be built and staffed. This entire setup will require thirty workers but will theoretically bring in about as much coal as one of the new steam coal mines; more importantly, it doesn't require an exposed coal vein, it'll bring its own to the surface.  Captain, the Londoners are stealing again. They've taken 89 Food Rations from the stockpiles. People are angry that the Londoners are putting their crazy idea before the needs of the city. With all of the running about and construction going on, another trove of rations was stolen right out from under our noses. The Guards are dispatched again...  Our guards did a good job! They got the goods back, but more importantly they caught one of the thieves. Now we can put an end to the thievery. What should we do with the thief? Much as I would like to toss this thief in prison, we have not elected to legalize it yet! We have come this far by relying on democracy to guide us forward, and I will continue to leave it up to the people to decide what his fate will be.   The number of Londoners is falling by quite a lot, now. Many of those who joined have reconsidered their positions and their likelihood of survival out in Frostland, and all but the most fanatical are renouncing their ties each night. Slowly, our community is healing.   Our coal thumper is ready to go, and the city stands ready to bring in as many people as are still alive out there in the cold. First, though, it is time for another vote. How will we vote to maintain Order?
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May 25, 2023 04:46
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Captain's Log, Days Twenty and Twenty-One With the recent uptick in crime it has been determined that we must give our Guards greater power and jurisdiction to proactively execute their duties.   The Guards will now patrol every day, ensuring their presence is felt. We will stop these criminals before they can even act.  In addition to their expanded duties, their numbers will be bolstered with the setup of another guard post.  We perform our first sweep of the streets, and good people's spirits are raised knowing that our loyal Guards are keeping the peace. I imagine criminals must be feeling quite deterred by this show of strength.  When the temperature plummets, we will see another wave of illness. We need to ensure that our places of healing are warm enough to keep our medics and patients healthy.   Our very first home-built automaton is operational! In keeping with the naming scheme started by the old Green Bostoner, this one is named the Yellow Cornishman. I don't really understand it.  Another set of resource depots are under construction, but we'll need a longer-term solution sooner than later.  Sir, a child came to the Guard Station and gave the guardsmen a stuffed toy dog, telling them that they should take it with them when they walk the streets at night. It seems people appreciate those who work hard to protect law and order in our city. The people stand behind our patrolmen, our only line of defense against agents of chaos and disorder! The Guards will do their jobs even better knowing they have the support of the people they serve. I miss dogs.  Scout team one returns home with a few supplies and thirty-five Tesla City survivors in tow. They are put to work manning the coal thumper, its associated gathering posts, and our fourth guard tower. As they don't have any other points of interest to survey, they are sent out on the heels of team two, in case that group discovers multiple points of interest at once.  If the hothouses get too cold, they won't be able to grow food. This will help when the temperature drops tomorrow.  Another automaton is built, this one named after the ancestry of its lead engineer. We continue to produce automata for the rest of the day, assigning each to one of the mines as they are completed.  I grew impatient with the half-finished research the science team left behind at the end of the night, and ordered this workshop to continue their work for the next 24 hours. A foreman is appointed to ensure their cooperation.  Captain, the Londoners are stealing again. They've taken 105 Food Rations from the stockpiles. People are angry that the Londoners are putting their crazy ideas before the needs of the city. A third theft, the largest so far! It seems our patrols weren't enough to prevent this one, and the Guards are sent out to recover what was taken.  One of our guardsmen was beaten to death whilst chasing the Londoners. We caught one of the thieves, but he's not the murderer. What should we do with him? Murder! Infamy! The Londoners have finally gone too far, and beaten Guardsman Luther Bewley to death halfway down Timber Street. As we do not yet have a Prison, nor can we legally send a man to his death for a crime he is not directly responsible for, I am reluctantly forced to let the man go.   This incident has shaken up the Loyalists and the Londoners alike. Nearly a third of the Londoners' remaining number abandoned them in disgust overnight, including the young thief we caught earlier. Maybe this incident will demonstrate to even the most hardline secessionists what awaits them out there.  As its name indicates, this is a far larger warehouse that will provide far more storage for all of our resources.  The trend of dwindling Londoner numbers is promising. We are nearly united once more, but...  The temperature fell. Twenty more degrees. We only expect this to last for two days, but this is unbearable.  With frost-nipped fingers I manage to engage the Generator's emergency overdrive switch. This warms things up to a more tolerable level, but we will need to keep a very close eye on the Generator's stress level.  Our brave workers extend our storage quarter with five large resource depots. These will ensure we have space to store everything for a good long while.   It took a decent chunk of resources to get these difference engines built but we can afford it. This will allow even more advanced designs to be dreamed up in the workshops.  Sir, our guards report that a man is giving an impassioned speech to a small crowd, accusing you of scheming to enslave us all. "Our captain is trying to keep you content, ignorant, and under control! Remember the New Poor Law? The workhouses? That's how we live now! We're supposed to work and be quiet! But it's not too late." These lies are ridiculous and unfounded. I have no intention of keeping the people content and ignorant! He will stir a bit of discontent but can cause no real damage with his words any more. The Centre issues another news bulletin, letting the people know about the latest developments and what to think of them.  If we're here for the long haul and it's going to keep hitting these ridiculous temperatures, we'll need more comfortable accommadations than the bunk houses. I hold off on ordering any upgrades right away, though; the engineers already believe they can further refine this design to require less wood and steel. Speaking of steel, I have the researchers looking into another upgrade for our now fully automated steel mines, since the warehouses took up most of our stockpile.  Another patrol is underway before nightfall, aiming to ensure that no more rabblerousers, thieves or murderers lurk among us. If they happen to catch the one who beat Mr. Bewley to death, well... I'm sure the Guards will be more than happy to see that justice is served.  It is time for another vote. Our options are Agitator, Pledge of Loyalty, Prison, House of Pleasure, Duelling Law, Extended Shift, Triage, and Prosthetics, or None of the Above. How will we vote to maintain Order?
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May 26, 2023 07:37
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