STUFF
Savageheart's story reminds me of the beginning of Fallout 2. The player started at a serious disadvantage and combats were brutal. You start off as a tribal with a spear and no armour. I didn't like it.
I'm pretty sure someone told me that there can be multiple caravans from multiple civilisations trading at the depot at the same time, so it is untrue that there are only 4 spots.
I Fallout 1 there was a band of raiders called Khans. In Fallout 2 there was an old guy who said that the Vault Dweller has killed them and that he was the last one and survived by hiding. In FNV suddenly there are Great Khans. Yet another reason to consider those FPS Fallouts a blasphemy.
My stance on Buffalo is that I would like a semi-reliable source of exotic pets to add to the arsenal of Robronco. A war black radscorpion as a protector may be able to save a scavanger from some minor threat or at least buy her some time. Of course I'll try to capture and tame my own, but I just don't know how many lives it will costs.
The beastlords in Fallout: Tactics were indeed hostile, but that game isn't cannon.
My fort continues.
The two remaining caravan guards beat at the downed Ranger with their shields. Even through the power armour, they still manage to bruise and break bones. The two other Rangers just look over the inventory in the nearby barracks, probably assuming that their squaddie will handle it. Or maybe they just don't care, "out of sight, out of mind", as they say.
Suddenly out of nowhere an enraged black radscorpion descends the ramp leading outside and engages the caravan guards! Most of it's attacks hit the shields, but it manages to get some hits on with its piercers, wounding them. Their counter-attacks just glance off the carapace of that overgrown bug. One of the guards bites it in a leg and wounds it. In retaliation it wrecks the pony's eye. Once the guards are dead, the radscorpion goes outside and the wounded Ranger crawls towards her buddies. If we survive this, it gives me a very crazy and dangerous idea.
(( Seriously, WTF? It looked almost as if the Rangers and the scorpion were in league. ))
A wasteland pony, who somehow survived up to this point, discovers another slaver ambush. Needless to say, she's on her own.
The Rangers are leaving. The radscorpion came back underground, ignoring the last Ranger survivor, who tries to leave. The bug gets cut to pieces by barbed wire protecting the door. Serves him right for killing the caravan guards!
The wounded Ranger manages to escape. Two of his buddies are still outside, so I won't risk opening the door. Menawhile, the chaotic fight outside continues. Some of the slavers seem to still dish it out among themselves (there indeed are different factions), or chase the last surviving migrants outside, but the worst of it is over. If it wasn't for the last two rangers, we just might risk mopping the rest up.
The last remaining friendly ponies are herded inside the walls by the slavers. The Rangers do nothing about it. The last survivor climbs the wall, much like Pickaxe did, and is shot. Even the foals and the last surviving kitten weren't spared. The Ranger leader just waits and watches. He knows we have to leave at some point.
Burrow restrictions prevent the ponies from mining new tunnels. Since the door is locked, it should be safe to disable the "civilians stay inside", at the cost of tons of cancellation spam.
I was wrong, some of the migrants survived up to this point. While two groups of slavers chase them, a third one has climbed the wall and shoots. A tactics I was hoping to adopt.
One group of slavers walks right next to a Steel Ranger and is ignored. One of the surviving migrants, Rolling Apple is a very agile mare. She outruns the slavers and dodges their bullets, but gets thirsty and is eventually chased in a corner and forced to climb the wall. Only one of her pursuers has any ammo left, so they chase her on the wall. She is thirsty, hungry, hurt in her leg and pursued. This can't end well. A second ramp leading up this wall will be a must. She manages to push one of them off the wall, but he just stands up. If it wasn't for the two Rangers, I would kill open the gate and order security to kill these bastards.
The liaison finally gets a chance to talk to Fleur de Lis. Surprisingly, she gets a promotion.
Rolling Apple gets severely wounded, but she jumps off the wall and manages to find a hiding spot, where she passes out. She then runs around scared, while the slavers go towards the ramp to torment her further. She desperately needs a drink. Meanwhile the two Steel Rangers walk over the barbed wire trap, immune to it's effects and towards the entrance to the vault.
Rolling Apple makes it outside, unseen by slavers, but she is insane with misery at this point. Even if she were to receive help, her prospects are bleak. She just stands her, babbling to herself. She lost her family and is barely alive herself. She may even be willing for her nightmare to end, but when the slavers eventually find her, she runs nonetheless. She doesn't manage to run far.
Salt of the Earth celebrated his first birthday today.
It is raining outside. This should wash away some of the blood. The two Steel Ranger bastards still guard our door. Perhaps we should have a secret entrance with an airlock?
It turned out, there weren't any carpenters alive left. Arablest, Evening Prayer, Textbook and Hive were told to do it. Nerdie's Ghost demands proper burial. He will be commemorated wit a memorial slab. Many weren't properly commemorated, but Nerdie is the only ghost so far. Some other works assignments get adjusted as well.
The two Steel Rangers get through the outer layer of my vault door. A quick inspection of the troops reveals that most don't have ammo.
Nerdie gets commemorated.
Phew, I put new smelters and wood burners under the chimney. (( I know I don't need one, but I'm still building a chimney over the room with smelters and forges )) They tried to burn scrap for charcoal and do other unreasonable things, so I had to tell them to stop. (( Manager almost worked against me, but I caught it. I think they only wasted 1 salvage. ))
More immigrants arrive... straight into the group of slaver who killed Rolling Apple. Another mad chase begins. Some, however, manage to make it inside and begin working, as if nothing has happened. None of the nine arrivals are any good at anything useful, but two might make good soldiers. Meanwhile the Rangers are through the second layer of the door. The airlock to the caverns isn't ready yet.
Predictably, some of the invaders come back inside the camp and wreck havoc.
What little wood we have gets turned into charcoal, to make bronze, brass and bullets from scrap. Hopefully 4 stacks of 28 medium calibre bullets will be enough for some of the soldiers to restock.
After grinding through 30 rocks, the prospectors manage to find two gems. This isn't worth the time at this point, at least not without a small army of ponies with wheelbarrows.
The Steel Rangers eat through the last layer of our door, except for the big vault door (( A raised bridge. )), and apparently leave, content with the destruction they left in in their wake.
Some kind of ugly as hell monstrosity is detected in the lower cavern. As far as I know, it can't reach us and we have bigger worries.
The seemingly inexhaustible supply of dog tallow and internal organs got processed. The kitchens are cleared.
The medium ammo is scheduled for production, after smelting some scrap yielded lots of bronze and brass.
A wastelander caravan arrives, but we aren't ready to trade yet. They just mill around, far from the camp. The depot got wrecked by Steel Rangers and there is nothing for the traders here now.
The invaders finally leave and we can end the lockdown. There is much to rebuild. Six migrants survived up to this point. They look rather unhappy. Well, we did save them in the end, didn't we?
Headshots joins Apple Pie's squad. He gets a combat rifle despite the lack of skill. We don't have the time to play around with BB's now. Military Campaign joins the chainsaw squad and Bloody Pike joins the Ripper squad. The barracks are moved outside for quicker response. Bloody Pike is killed by a Radscorpion. Her body is found inside the camp, close to a gap in the wall. This is pretty odd. The scorpions kill Gypsum Casts too. Apparently the ponies are cleaning up too close to the monsters. I order the rifle squads to kill them. Headshots is the first to come, but he doesn't have any ammo! He gets killed. (( Damn, he had a CM of a rifle, those guys make glass cannons. )) Short Bursts and Apple Pie finish the second scorpion.
The merchants leave before a new depot is built. The camp and it's surroundings are cluttered with everything. There is so much work, that the important things barely get done. Despite this, the hole in the wall is fixed and traps are slowly installed at the entrance. A few cages with dead ponies in them were found. With every other crazy thing that goes on around here, this horribleness is dismissed as just another oddity. (( If the slaves in cages that slavers bring require food, these guys must have simply starved to death. ))
Some migrants arrive. Good, we need more ponies. There's eight of them total, with no foals. One of them is a pretty good jeweller. A few ponies get dizzy from exposure to a radiation cloud.
In relative peace, most of the gate gets finished. Then a Ranger Scour appears, but is chased away by a protectorpony. I check my soldiers to see who should get the Power Armour. Psalms... is blind, it turns out. Well, I guess that earns him a promotion to military commander, then. Trigger Happy is given the Power Armour, but... it is made of copper, and there are no boots. So he just gets a bronze P.A. helmet, combat armour and security boots. Another Ranger scout appears, but flees.
I look over my stocks of toys and tools.
I believe my problems with opening drinks and food stem from ponies carrying around bins with them. The "improved" hauling system is often too stupid for it's own good. I also discover that we indeed have an arcane terminal, so a gemcrafting station is built. I have 52 coiled wiring and they just keep coming... yeah, making the repair job use up 3 instead of 2 is a good idea. Hm... 16 useless aluminum platings. Is this supposed to be used for something? All robot upgrades use up
steel plating (which should also be makable in a forge, if it isn't now). Plasteel plate probably can be melted down into bars. My cmobat rifle schematics is in a stationary bin, but apparently too far from a gunsmith's forge to make a rifle. Same with flame-thrower schematics. It seems that the only way to make this mod work is to make the vault horizontally compact, but use many z-levels. Then the items will be visible. Alright, schematics will get a stockpile close to the forges. Ladles, bowls and pestles have no use, right? Three Stable-Tec processing matrices and one Robronco. Good, I need one more computer part to see about upgrading robots. A room with a pasture, Robronco workshop, stockpile for upgrade drinks that takes from that workshop and stockpiles for the stuff needed to make upgrades should do the trick. If it takes too long, I can always lock a pony in ther and wait for her to get thirsty.
By my estimate, about half the cleanup is completed. The population is 53 and Pesky Questions is fine.
Outside:
At this point it is easy to see that I plan to have 3 bridge-operated ways outside: one long for traders, one shorter, filled with traps, and finally a quick one. Most of the workshops got moved inside to temporary locations.
Underground:
Hospital level:
The cavern airlock.
It is pretty much ready, except for traps and an optional section for stockpiles and web collecting workshop.
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