Shorter segment.
Lapse:
I decided to ignore current objectives and focus on a more pressing project.
The relationships of the starting 7, the objective here is to give them time to socialize and marry and to give Lycaeon a partner.
I selected our trader, the unicorn mare Corai, our trader and the creator of Stopquest, the artifact armor rack as his future mate (only to later find out that the age difference prevents them from hooking up, one can only guess that Lycaeon doesn't like older mares being so young and all), she is practically the only unicorn mare who isn't married to some outsider back home or to one of our other workers.
I dubbed this project "Operation Marriage" (the alternative was Operation Bad Name) and set about designating a secluded living area connected to the meeting hall and our food stockpile in the soil layer, a channel connected to the map edge was also designated so that our 8 ponies could have access to well water without moving too far or overcomplicating the burrow.
Work on this was quick and the rooms were quickly dug out and beds placed, we were out of doors for a while however and our ponies had to live in their little caves with no doors, a significant downgrade from the equally ugly caves
with doors, but nopony minds, we are all friends aren't we? (literally however, the starting 7 are all best buds despite all the busywork)
While construction was underway a minotaur reaver showed up on the map.
He posed no current harm to us at the time, and I wasn't going to just go out and risk my militia on it, so I left it to roam around in the hopes of an ambush showing up to deal with it.
The rotten and suffering medical experiment, Maw, died of infection, or maybe it was from suffocation?
Anyways, he is dead and gone. I have no idea who he was but I'll remember him for a while.
Well not his last name, but I'll remember that Maw the... pony suffered greatly and contributed to the skills of our healthcare staff.
Puppies were born in our kennel, four of them.
Still going to let them inbreed for a while, might as well get a few breeding couples going for a steady supply of war dogs.
While we waited the Stable-Tec terminal was deconstructed and moved to the hospital, to the adjacent room.
While we didn't have time to smooth out and expand it right away we designated the area anyway, the ponies smoothing our rooms prioritized the lower and northernmost designations first like expected.
A Prismatic Smelter was built by our other smelters, it doesn't use fuel from what I've heard, so we initiated iron and scrap metal smelting and began to churn out our first bars.
A Paper Mill was also built, but for what purpose I do not know, it should come in handy eventually I guess.
I wanted to build a Sawmill as well, but we didn't have a serrated disc at the time, so that became our first metal forge assignment.
To speed things along in the metal industry all smiths were exempted from hauling and masonry duties.
Our 20 units of fuel are gone and I have no idea where they went seeing as our steel chests still haven't been smelted down like I asked.
I ordered crates to be opened at the supply depot, but we only have one available mechanic that is at least somewhat qualified for the job, and he felt like he had better things to do, like taking a break, eating, drinking, opening a single crate and then taking another break.
Opening crates is haaaard work, ain't it?
Our project was completed, all the rooms have been smoothed and the burrows have been set up to divide our 8 ponies from the rest of the stable.
It is at this point that I realize that Lycaeon and Corai wont be able to be together due to their age difference, I look around for a replacement, disappointed in losing such a good catch, but find none,
every single unicorn mare is married.Still, I figured that I might as well leave the two to it anyway, I know it wont work gameplay wise, but I'll try and figure something out, I could look into DFusion or some other tool and see if I can find an age altering command somewhere.
The starting 8, having nothing to do, begin to socialize and gather in their private meeting hall, P(ony)SI throws a party in celebration and everyone are happy.
I make a last minute change before leaving them to it and add extra beds to their partners bedrooms and assign both partners to the same room, no idea if this will have an impact on friendmaking (that is, if they even talk to each other while idling in their rooms or just stare blankly at the wall) but it's there nonetheless.
The liason goes melancholy, I can't believe Lycaeon ignored that poor sod long enough for him to contemplate life and grow depressed, even with the spare time he had now that he had no other duties other than flirting with Corai.
Corai must be pretty mesmerizing to look at if he absolutely refused to spare 5 minutes to finish the trade agreement, pretty funny too, all they had to do at that point was greet each other goodbye, everything had been arranged up til then, for the record, this is the same liason from the previous report.
Not long after this a pony has a strange mood and claims a craftspony shop, our only one, and demands two logs.
Whoever he/she was went and took two basic logs from our wood stockpile and created Goad Delight, an artifact alder specter, the most useless piece of crap I have ever seen aside from the oak ring I had half a year back.
Something really anoying happens after this, a migrant wave arrives, and the minotaur is still loose.
But not only that, a migrant wave arrives, next to the minotaur proper. Not even 20 tiles away.
I wasn't in the mood to come up with any miracle solutions, so I cheated, yeah, it's bad, really bad I know, but I'll deal with it later, I had other priorities right then.
I used DFliquids to place 9 obsidian walls around it, trapping the beast.
Got to remember to do something to compensate for this unthinkable and lowly cheat, be it sacrificing some ponies or kill myself ingame, I don't know.
Maybe if I can figure out a way to alter age, I could make myself really old so that I die prematurely?
We don't sort the migrants out, instead we begin work on the hospital expansion, we create beds, traction benches and more soap, nothing is placed yet as I haven't decided on design just yet, I could build smaller rooms to block off rot and miasma in case that happens again, or I could just go with the usual design.
After much "but" and "ifs" I kit out the barracks with the last of the furniture, no sleeping quarters just yet, but all four barracks have/are about to have armories and training rooms. The riflepony squad will soon have archery ranges to practice in and we should have plenty of scavenged pellets to use, if not, we could always craft more out of wood.
Lastly two unremarkable things happen, we slaughter our remaining bighorners (only males), which gives us extra surplus of meat, and our mechanic finally gets off his ass to open crates.
There is nothing else to report.
Oh yeah, wait, our first slaver caravan shows up, but the damn bridge was up, so they ditched their wagon.