Roll up for the great community colony experiement!

I am now available to take turns in the usual order of play (I also gave Revision 41c a good going-over, but switching back to the Stable branch is easy.)

 

@Streaky Haddock asplody saves would be a bad thing unfortunately. On the plus side with r41b we still get to choose an overseer / nco and have stockpiles of unlimited size. Think of the power man!

@Alephred Cool, welcome back!

In other good news I am returning to the land of the living at a steady rate so I'm resuming my position in the player list as well.

 

Day 25

Back here? To THIS CESSPIT? AGAIN!? Well at least I can get cocum powder in cheaper supply here.
Now let's see...



Oh ffffffffff. Actually. On second glance it doesn't seem that bad. A lot of these jobs are taken up by Butcher orders that will never, ever, ever actually happen; as well as maintainance jobs like production, mine in shaft and till farms.

So first I'm going to check the buildings and commodities to see what needs b-



"EMPIRE TAX"

I KNOW YOU AREN'T TAXMEN I AM WRITING THIS IN MY LEDGER

"YEAH WELL ARE YOU GOING TO STOP US? WITH YOUR BOOK? LITTLE MAN?"

THE PEOPLE WON'T STAND FOR THIS. THEY'LL GET SICK OF IT.



YEAH! SEE THEY ALREADY WANT YOU GONE!

"MR. HADDOCK WE HAVE A COMPLAINT."

Wait. What?

"WE ARE SICK AND TIRED OF THESE BANDITS PILLAGING US, WE WANT A CHANGE OF TERMS IMMEDIATELY."

I AGREE! I AGREE! But. Wait let me look through the forms. No. NO! My only options are to ignore them, or fine the colonists! I WANT THE BANDITS DEAD TOO.

Fuck it. I fine them. I don't actually get anything FROM fining them, but they "appreciate the thought".

At any rate, I begin clearing the broken butchering jobs off the job list. I added more labourers to construction jobs to finish them quickly. I also begin producing iron plates, copper pipes and copper plates so we can get the still in the brewery built. The Mines are already up and ready. I check the jobs list and see an unassigned 'Construct Building' job. I open it up and see 'Gather Materials, Gather Materials, Build Module'. That must be the still job, then. I set another work crew to 'construction only' so they get assigned to complete it.

Hang on. They aren't getting assigned to the job. Maybe if I delete and replace the still...

No they aren't building it. THEY AREN'T BUILDING IT!!! THEY AREN'T-

Day 26

SNFFFFFFFFFFF. SNFFFFF SNFFFFF.
Right, well I've ordered the construction of a chemist shop to produce sulphur tonic to curb madness in the colony. I'm noticing a lack of sleep is crippling some of our colonists. I've noticed beds in bizarre places such as Kitchens and Ceramics Workshops. I suspect this is the work of Junior Bureaucrat Alphered. IT's a reasonable stopgap measure certainly but it's an unsightly practice.
I plan to begin work on a second, larger lower class bunk to the one that exists already to properly house the unwashed.
I dislike these fancy shaped buildings my more aesthetically focused colleagues design. They are space inefficient, and prone to roof leakages and breakages.



The Fraternal Order of the Unterzee has been established between Genevieve Pirate led by Agammemnon Chainson. That night I dreamt of a submerged London, haunted by bats and surrounded by a sparkling yet sunless sea.

The next day I sped up construction of the Chemist's workshop, assigned it an Overseer and immediately began production of Sulphur Tonic. It doesn't clear the mind like Beer or Whiskey, and it doesn't offer pleasure like food or a Vicar's confession but it is a wonderful cleanser for the mind's humours.



I realise that the Textile Farms have been nearly ready to harvest ever since I arrived, but we only have 4 bushels in storage. The Textile Workshop is also assigned and has a job to produce 4 cotton weaves but is not acting.
I increased labourer supply to the overseer working on the farm in question, and increased the amount of work benches in the textile workshop. I wonder if this'll have an effect.

I notice the Labourers looked aged. Tired. Weary. Yes, it's time to construct that Bunkhouse.

Day 27



COG DAMNIT. IT WAS 14x14. THERE SHOULDN'T BE A GAP THERE. IT SHOULDN'T- oh. 7x7 works because it's an odd number. I wish I could add in modules AS I design the blueprint.
I also hear the chitinous scribblings of Beetles but I'm not too concerned about that. I presume those gunshots are my military taking care of them now.



Oh. Well, I never liked her anyway. Creepy little toad. Always buttering me up, begging for approval yet when the protest arrived I saw her in the crowd trying to look invisible. Well, at least she took a Novyrussian down with her, so I suppose she was good for something.

SNFFFFFF. SNFFFFF. RIGHT. NOW I'M ENERGISED. MORE COCUM PLEASE.

Day 28

The Mines are complete. The Brewer's still is INCOMPLETE. They've only put a stack of bricks toward it even though I can see we have a plate of copper and iron, and two iron pipes.

Screw it.

I order the deconstruction of two stone ovens in the Kitchen. I increase iron pipe and iron plate production, so I can build new iron ovens.
I increase cabbage production at the Kitchen and Beer Production at the Brewery.
I plan to consume all the wheat we produce with beer production. Someone has a standing order for cabbages at 20, but the Culinary Team are wandering around and sweeping up and the cabbages and pumpkins are just stacking up and up and up to the point where the stockpile is full.
I order the production of Lingonberry Jam, and I order the Kitchen Team to cook as many cabbage stews as they can. It might be time to rotate those farm plots from food production to bamboo/opium production soon because the stockpi;es will literally overflow. Only one crop rotation though, then it's back to food. Huge food stockpiles can dwindle rapidly.

I recieve a favour from the empire, so I spend it on a surveillance airship.



What.
I scrabble around through my COG-O-MATRON.
HEY MR. AIRSHIP WE AREN'T SEEING SQU- okay they're gone.

Day 29

I'm off. I'm DONE. NEVER CALL ME AGAIN. THIS IS SOMEONE ELSE'S PROBLEM NOW. ENJOY YOUR BANDITS AND YOUR CULTISTS AND YOUR FFFFFFFFFFUCKING CABBAGES.

Note to my Successor

The Still still (hurhur) is not being completed.
I have disassembled two stone ovens. Please replace them with Iron ovens ASAP.
I recommend rotating the crops. Maybe to producing Flax. Maybe NOT Opium as we cannot produce Whiskey.
I feel that the extra Flax crop near the workshop is superfluous and should be removed. The Food plots should be rotated to producing Flax one rotation, but that's just me.

The Mines are complete, but two of them are unassigned.

I have constructed a large bunkhouse for the Lower Classes. See it's completed ASAP and then construct a Chapel. We have a decent amount of Gold and Iron, and no Upper Class colonists to worry about. So go ahead and make it fancy.

The Bandits still take from us.

Note to the Devs

Airship flyovers sometimes don't trigger. I've experienced this multiple times before, but since it's such a small thing I always, always forget to include it.
Why are there only two options to ignore and fine the colonists when there are protests? I should be allowed to change my mind!
Player Ordered Butchery is never carried out.

 

Happy to finally see a cult form. I had a hunch it would be Agammemnon Chainson, which is why he's chief scientist. Long live the Fraternal Order of Unterzee!

 

Looks like I'm up next, I'll get on it shortly.

 

My graphics card is a radeon sapphire dual-x r9 270x

 

This colony is developing some serious industrial ability right now. We could probably do anything we wanted with it now.

 

It should already be attached

 

Day 29, 30, 31
RL time elapsed (including note-taking): one hour

I hear the colony I helped found is now a bustling manufacturing town with a population nearing seventy souls. I have been cordially invited back to visit as Honorary Administrator. "It'll be a breeze," they tell me, "purely ceremonial. The place runs itself now."

Day 29

My first impressions are pleasant - the town has grown so much it is nearly un-recognisable. Every where I look there are factories and workshops and new construction. Feeing nostalgic, I look for the original three buildings, the kitchen, lower class house, and carpentry workshop. On my way there, I have to dodge several jars full of beer. It seems food storage is overflowing, and newly-produced beer is just being stacked up on the ground outside the brewery.

That's not how you store beer.​

Why are the food stores so full? To be sure, there are large quantities of food, both raw and cooked. But a worrying amount of space is also occupied by pallets of glass panes and copper ingots, specifically, even though there would seem to be plenty of space in other storage. I also notice the colony has a large amount of pumpkin, but it is untouched, so I make inquiries at the kitchen.

Looking at the colony paperwork, I find that many of the workshop have received one-time orders for large amounts of goods. I believe standing orders for smaller quantities would be more efficient, so I spend most of my first day back changing the orders at every workshop. In particular, the kitchen had an order to produce fifty cabbage stew and nothing else; I have asked them to cook beetle steak, lingonberry preserves, pumpkin stew, and black fungus preserves also.

I can finally revisit my old buildings, now the centre of town. They are largely as they were, but the bunkhouse now sports a religious shrine and a bottle of beer:



It seems beer has become a priority here. The quartermaster reports over 140 bottles of the stuff in storage. As I look at the administration more closely, I see that assembly of the brewery's still and the laboratory's macroscope have been stalled for a considerable time; this reveals a crippling shortage of copper parts - we have the facilities and the raw materials, so order the appropriate parts - construction should be complete in a day or two.

I am slightly puzzled by the organisation of the work crews - literally every one is prohibited from every job type except their own workshop. This puts a serious crimp on things like hauling and farming, so I spend the rest of the day re-ordering the work crews, as well.

We have received a letter from the Home Office congratulating the colony for reaching a population of 70 souls. A commemorative bucket of cogs accompanies the letter, in a crate. The crate crushes my pumpkin field. It also crushes Fidelia Steamburn, who is tending the pumpkins.

Night falls, and every single morsel of cooked food is immediately consumed, and twenty beers are drunken. The situation may be less sustainable than I first imagined.

Day 30

I let the colony get on with business as usual - there is a considerable backlog in the job list. In particular, I've noticed the construction on the large new lower class house is going very slowly indeed. Workers aren't receiving the stone they need, even though there seems to be plenty in stock. On the other hand, the metalworks produces the copper components I ordered yesterday, and both the still and the macroscope are complete and ready for use. I have ordered up some of the colony's first whiskey. Our head scientist, on the other hand, has been sleeping nearly the entire day. Well, I have an Idol of Quaggaroth and an Obeliskian Seal for him to inspect when he wakes up.

I don't understand why the kitchen isn't cooking anything. We have a large amount of various raw foods, and standing orders for a variety of food products, but the kitchen overseer is only sweeping up around the facility, and the other cooks are otherwise idle. Still no stone to the new house, construction there seems to have stalled.

Day 31

Another wave of immigrants has arrived. The 'usual amount' seems to be 5 souls (4 labourers and a capitalist today). Head Scientist Agamemnon Chainson has finally awoken - these lax academics will be the death of me. At least he is eager to inspect the mysterious archaeological findings with his shiny new instruments in his shiny new lab.



His results are .. less than encouraging. Twice he has carefully examined the Idol, and twice he has now reported that 'He felt the thoughts of the Omnipotent Idiot-Constructor'. Prof. Chainson is probably irrecoverably insane, and walks with a hunched, feral posture and an odd gleam in his eye. Apparently his extra-curricular activities involve some kind of community theatre group worryingly named 'The Fraternal Order of the Unterzee'. Still, he's our only academic, and he has tenure.

The brewery has begun producing whiskey. I'm going to name this batch 'Olde Overcoate', because it tastes like turpentine. Still, now we can produce laudanum, once we grow some opium. As we have plentiful stacks of flax straw in the stores, I'm replanting the flax field to grow opium.

I've noticed bandits periodically jogging casually in to town to relieve our colony of supplies - when I ask our military why this is allowed, they merely shrug and look helpless.

The kitchen work stoppage has entered its second day, and colonist stomachs are beginning to rumble. Many will resort to eating their dinner uncooked if this situation persists.



So ends my tour of the colonies. I return to the home country, leaving New Antipodia in no doubt capable hands. I'm saying this in advance: If anything weird happens, it's not my fault. Everything was fine when I left it.

Colonists to watch: Agamemnon Chainson - insane scientist, doomed, cult leader

Projects to watch: the new Lower Class House still isn't receiving Stone Block for some reason, and the Kitchen isn't cooking any food.

I spend almost all of my time with this colony doing administrative and organisational stuff, which is probably to be expected. Aside from supply chain issues, the situation with the Bandits continues to be an annoyance, but thing are generally working as intended. With the exception of the food crisis on the night of the third day.

 

OK, looks like its Mrclint's turn at the helm
Very interested to see how the cult develops

 

I produced copper parts LAST TIME! But they wouldn't put them into the still! DAMN YOU ALPHERED D:

 

Been at work, and now I really must sleep. So someone else can take my turn if you do it in under 8 hours, otherwise I take the charge tomorrow.

 

All yours when you get the chance! Just try not to let the entire colony starve to death now that there's a kitchen bug. No pressure.

 

I was thinking about just scrapping the kitchen altogether and making a new one. That usually clears up workshop bugs for me in other playthroughs.
We may lose a couple people to starvation during the switch, but I figure it'd be worth it in the long run.