I was left around 10 ponies with 4 foals. Despite being short on ponypower, by at least one slave I played on. I made a squad of 2 Unicorns with machetes, riot shields and security barding worn over clothes (albeit the horseshoes didn't fit, so may I can give them socks later). Despite poor quality equipment (my weapon / armoursmith died), they totally PWNed those feral dogs, thinning out packs of them without much trouble.
Traders from my home civilisation finally showed up. They made it to the depot without trouble and with one meal made of feral dog meat and about 2 screens of trash, I managed to buy some supplies, including food and a protectorpony.
I chained the protectorpony on a salvaged steel chain by the entrance and about in the middle of my temporary camp outside. It shoots in short bursts at anything trying to harass my ponies. To date it only managed to kill one bloatsprite, but about a dozen times a pack of feral dogs was going towards my camp, got pew-pewed and reconsidered after getting some internal organs bruised. There is now a ring of blood around my camp. A few Bloatsprites still managed to rush my food stockpile and steal some things, but most of them was kept at bay. I recently also discovered that I can train the protectorpony for war, but I have no idea if it did anything.
I apparently have a turret too, so I'll chain it for even more covering fire
I also got a second anvil from the caravan (consider adding this to advice in first post) and could finally build gunsmith's forge. I made some pistols and will soon get ammo for them. Unfortunately my stash of lignite from embark run out, and I have to make charcoal. Luckilly I took some Saltpeter on embark too.
It turned out, my Tanner's workshop was actually a Leatherworker. Facepalm at all the lost feral dog leather.
I can make pellets out of all that feral dog bone. I wonder if this is sustainable, that is if shooting the dogs with dog bone pellets will kill enough of them to replace the pellets. If so, it would be a great training for my militia.
In late spring I got about 20 migrants and after sorting them out should be able to pursue more ambitious projects and get some ranged military. Now I may have too many ponies food and drink-wise, but I'll think of something. I'll have to look into farming carrots, beetroots or radishes. I think they get multiplied by the kitchen and some of them are brewable. If not, I can always hunt for more dogs and build a roof over my brook to prevent it from freezing.
One of the new migrants, an Armoursmith, got into a strange mood shortly after arriving. He made a riot shield out of iron and a piece of salvage. After loosing my weapon / armoursmith I lucked out and got an instant legendary. Too bad, I run out of fuel.
I should get a dining room and move more industries underground soon and with all those migrants I may even dare to touch hospitals again. All is well.
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After looking at some of of the raws, a few things are clearer.
I recommend embarking with bituminous coal / lignite and saltpeper and 2 anvils, if feasible. There is no need to bring any ore on embark; scrap metal from salvage can be efficiently made into bronze and brass. I would prefer it if toolboxes were simply required to build some workshops, not be parts of reactions. Now they need to either be brought from stockpile / another workshop or just sit at my workshop. It is a minor annoyance.
Scrap metal is an ore of: iron (30%), copper (30%), tin (30%), aluminium (15%) and zinc (10%). Unless one wants to "Luck out" on iron or aluminium, it is much more efficient to "Make bronze from ore" and "Make brass from ore". That way you get 4 bars per ore or 8 per reaction. Bronze is good enough for weapons, barding and bullets (with brass for casing), at least for starters or mass production. Apart from getting scrap metal from salvage, I found a few small clusters of it in the ground.
I have some plasteel plates. They have value 150 and PWN steel. I'm guessing that starmetal is even better. I've also seen something about woven nanotubes in the RAWs. Anyway, what are the plates for? Robot parts? Or just smelting?
Pitchforks and knives are weapons, but not very good ones. They should do fine as weapon trap fillers, though. Smelting them is a waste of fuel.
I more or less figured out the gunpowder weapons.
Gunpowder is made at the Rock Grinder, preferably from Saltpetre. Otherwise you have to use 4 trees to get 4 gunpowder. Well, there are some "cremate" reactions, but they don't produce much.
1 coal + 3 potash + sack -> 4 gunpowder
1 coal + 1 saltpeter + sack -> 6 gunpowder
Ammo is made at Gunsmith's forge and
all reactions require fuel.
Small Ammo: 1x(metal +brass +gunpowder) -> 2x30 -> Revolver, Pistol, Little Macintosh.
Medium Ammo: 2x(metal +brass +gunpowder) -> 2x28 -> Hunting Rifle, Combat Rifle, Ripper Rifle, Chainsaw Rifle.
Large Ammo: 3x(metal +brass +gunpowder) -> 2x14 -> AMR, Minigun, Spitfire's Thunder.
Minigun misses from Large Ammo description in first post.Those numbers seem arbitrary. Why stacks of 30, 28 and 14 and not 25 and 5, like in DF?
There is an AP variant of all these calibres, but there doesn't seem to be any difference.
With making bronze and brass out of plentiful scrap, potash and coal are the limiting factors in gunpowder production.
There is a reaction to pack medium ammo into a crate, but why do this?
I haven't figured out any differences between pistols and revolvers, but I assume revolvers are better.
I haven't figured pellets and BB guns yet, with the exception of making bone pellets at craftpony's workshop.
A crate of BBs only has a hundred of them. It should be a thousand or more to make it more in-line with other ammo crates. Fountain building would have to create an aquifer tile to properly work, but that may not be even possible.
Stable citizens DO NOT START with BB rifles and pistols, they can just buy them on embark or make them quickly. The description in the first post is misleading. Well, unless you use the ambusher on embark trick. Cutie Marks should grant some natural skills, around 5 in main skill and 2 in similar / auxiliary skills would be good. In Cutie Pox, getting a cutie mark instantly granted some skill. Yes, this would be somewhat overpowered, but it makes sense. Plus raiders and other nasties can have CM's of their own. Is there any use for spent laser bolts?
What is it with all the crates from salvage? I get aluminium and steel empty crates. It would make more sense to have bins. I am thankful for aluminium wheelbarrows, though. I don't have to make them out of wood that way.
I haven't yet figured out, what would be non-foreign "Terminator armour" in this mod, that is how much stuff I can wear with security barding.
A coal crate has 9 coke. That is laughable. If it was 9 bituminous coal or lignite, it wouldn't be.
Consider adding a crop guide. What is just for dye, what is breweable, what is processed into large stacks of food?