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CYS Colony Simulator Part 7
on 7/14/2025 9:12:04 PM
Rimworld dropped a new DLC recently, titled Odyssey- it has a big emphasis on customizable interiors in spaceships and planetary exploration, which sounds amazing... even though I don't have the DLC, it does give me an idea for our next vehicle.
Onto the episode, though- today, we need to put a big focus on making three things- coffee, beer, and clothes. Our vote was also won by the option to form a caravan and travel out to the neighboring settlements for trade, so we'll be doing that as well. But seriously, we need to get that beer going, people are starting to freak out.
However, there is one final step before we can finally begin creating our beer- we're going to need fermenting barrels. It's no big deal, we'll just add a fermenting room onto the food area like so.
Such an add-on is a bit more inconvenient than I would have liked, since it's going to be very wood-intensive and our best tree-cutting colonists have their attention on other things at the moment, such as harvesting the coffee beans, and in Sent's case, cooking up simple meals.
And in Suranna's case, the thing that she's busy with at the moment would be, finally, making clothes! Putting her high-level Crafting to work, it's time to make all of our miserable rag-wearing Cystians happy once again. What you see on the roadmap is only about half of what's queued, in Rimworld my rule of thumb when doing a clothes overhaul is to make more than you think is necessary- yet I always seem to end up with not enough...
Production on clothes and the fermenting room begins, and things are looking promising. Sadly everyone is quite busy with their primary jobs and the cleaning gets neglected- research, farming, building, plant cutting... and one colonist in particular is acting so very strangely...
She quickly gets Liminal and Anthraxus to tag along with her in the Vengabus, and speeds away from the colony and in the direction of some random hunting camp allegedly filled with pemmican. As Mizal pulls up to the place, the enemies make themselves known.
But Mizal does not simply get out of the Vengabus and start shooting- no, this is about something more. She pulls the vehicle around the side of the building and gives chase- and then, as if spurred on by a hazy wish from a distant universe...
Poor guy, what a choice for your final words. In any case, that's those enemies taken care of. This is a very based tactic, but unfortunately it does cause some damage to the bus itself. Anthraxus stays behind to repair it for the trip back home, while Mizal and Liminal spread out across the tile to steal all the loot (there isn't much, this was really more about hitting people with the bus than anything)
There IS a room full of rhino corpses, but the bus can only haul one of them back home, sad.
Back home, not much has changed, really- the new room is being built, new clothes are being made, Cavus is researching mushrooms... but a few hours of usual colonist activities later, some interesting critters appear at the edge of the map, already pre-tamed and ready to join us. I've never seen these before, but they're allegedly a source of steel, so... no complaints! But we're beginning to look a little weird, name one civilization in history that ranched donkeys, stegosauruses, and ironhusk beetles. They all seem to get along fine at least, so we don't have to worry about making separate pens.
Honestly, it's not a bad selection of creatures at all. Donkeys reproduce pretty quickly and are a good source of meat, and they make good pack animals for caravans. The stegosauruses can basically carry as much as our bus, and their offspring will be very valuable if we can find a good buyer- the beetles of course have yet to prove themselves, it'll depend on how much steel they actually produce I suppose.
Anyway, look, our beer room is done! With Liminal taking over cooking duties for the time being, all that's left is for Sent to make a whole bunch of wort out of our many thousands of hops and fill those fermenting barrels, and we'll have ourselves a whole bunch of beer within the week!
Wonderful! Nothing could possibly ruin this.
Ah, uh oh. This is another one of those pincer-styled attacks, with our raiders approaching from both the east and the southwest. Our only saving grace is that the eastern assault is WAY less stacked than the southwestern one- only a single enemy, though she does carry a sniper rifle. Liminal and Ace are initially sent to handle her, but as it turns out, the visitors we're hosting at the moment in our new hotel are more than happy to throw down in defense of us.
Unfortunately, we aren't so lucky with the other group- the Tox Pack has gotten stronger since the last time we saw them, and all of them are armed with either sniper rifles or 'bone breakers.' The bone breakers, as I understand them, are sniper-like weapons that take a very long time to shoot, but they're capable of putting an opponent down from a very long range with a single shot. So that's not good.
The initial idea for our colony was to bait these enemies over to the food area, where we could hide around the corner and allow the turret located there to do some of the work- unfortunately, the range and power of their weapons quickly makes it clear that they would pick us all off if we dare to turn our backs and run- the only option is to stand our ground. We spray them with bullets, taking one life, but those weapons they're using are no joke- one shot puts Sherbet down, and another threatens to do the same to Suranna, their wounds threatening to bleed them dead within the half-day.
Sent is heavily disadvantaged in this battle, literally bringing a knife to a gun fight. He could probably use some real armor and a better weapon- he does swoop in and put Tos down before he has a chance to snipe any of our remaining colonists, but after that he's put on getting-Sherbet-and-Suranna-to-the-hospital duty.
Our reinforcements arrive, and the remaining three enemies go down to our superior numbers- but not before getting a shot in on Ace, Mizal, Liminal, AND Rex, leaving Anthraxus and Sent as our only two healthy colonists following this clash.
A room of the hotel is quickly converted into a temp-hospital, and Mizal, despite being injured herself, gets everyone patched up before seeking treatment of her own. With all our injuries and bleeding... yep, it's gonna be a rough couple of days... hopefully our guest next door doesn't mind the sound of us all gushing blood all over the floor and crying.
Once it's confirmed that nobody is going to die, though, Sent notices that all of our enemies from the battle are not dead, simply unable to stand up. Seeing what the Tox Pack has done to his fellow colonists, he decides that he'll go back and make one more contribution to the combat... let's just say, by the time he's done, all of those fancy snipers and whatnot belong to us.
But as you may recall, there WAS one other raider involved with that attack, the one we ourselves didn't end up needing to bother with. I scroll over to check on her, and wouldn't you know it, she still has a whole eight hours before she bleeds out! On top of that, a level 16 shooting skill... now, I know what you're thinking- "Sherbet, she's not even based on a real Cystian, that'd be a lame recruitment!" But trust me on this, I have an idea.
Anyway, it was quite the distraction, but ultimately that raid doesn't force our beer production to grind to a halt. With Sent being one of the few uninjured, he can get right back to work in the morning, and with that, the only thing standing between us and a pile of cold beers to beat the summer heat with, is time. Just a few days, and we'll truly enter our golden age!
Small little aside, but with more emphasis on production and less emphasis on cleaning, it quickly became evident how gross it was that our colonists kept tracking filth and trash into the kitchen every single day, every single time they wanted to get some food from the freezer- Ace got food poisoning, and with that, it was clear something had to change. The construction colonists install a quick fix, putting the kitchen BEHIND the freezer so no non-cooking colonists ever have a reason to enter, and busting down the wall and turning the original kitchen into a dining room expansion, coffee machine and all!
With about a hundred meals stockpiled, Liminal can comfortably shift from cooking duty over to coffee-making duty, and it's much faster than I thought it would be. Mizal and Suranna haul over thousands of coffee beans from the farmland to the north, and within the day we have well over two hundred coffees at our disposal.
Once our new recruit finally comes around on joining the colony, it is time to set in motion the Sherbet Plan- this involves finally traveling to the neighboring friendly settlements and trading some of our goods for money, as per the results of the previous vote. Step one of the plan is to form our caravan out of our top negotiator, Suranna, and our new recruit, Luxemburg. The latter will act as a bodyguard for this trip, and then, you'll see what we REALLY recruited her for.
Our first stop is the city called Brim Defence, a huge settlement of the Nerath Kingdom. The city is so huge and populated that Suranna and her bodyguard wander around in amazement for a few minutes, before collapsing and sleeping in the streets, EMBARRASSING us as a colony.
But hey, we didn't come here to take naps, we came here to take money! A trade is initiated, and it seems that they're interested in buying the 3000 cabbages that we stuffed into the Vengabus for this trip (don't worry we have more)! With each one going for nearly a dollar, that's 2500 silver in our pockets from the first stop alone! Our early vote for growing a massive surplus of food is paying off now.
The deal is struck, our relationship with the Nerath Kingdom improves, and we drive away 2500 silver richer. The second stop is at Nagglfar, property of the dark-elven colony known as the Reavers. Between our coffee and just about a quarter of our Luciferium, we stand to make about 4000 silver- but those of you who speak Rimworld trade table may note that Nagglfar is a bit less wealthy than the city of Brim Defence. To balance it out, we buy some high-quality items from them as well and lower the amount we sell to them. We do still sell them some Luciferium, because I enjoyed Mystic's grim suggestion of letting them get addicted to it, which forces them to buy more in the future, so we'll see if the selling price goes up in the future.
I must say, 3500 silver is a VERY good amount for our first trip, we're doing a very good job of amassing wealth. With heavy pockets, our caravan makes the trip home.
But as you'll notice, Suranna came back alone- what gives? Well, this is step two of the Sherbet Plan- of course I was never going to allow a non-Cystian to become a permanent fixture of the colony, but we CAN still put that amazing shooting skill to work. Luxemburg will be managing our very first outpost, a hunting outpost to be exact- this outpost will send our main base meat and leather every quadrum without us having to do anything. Outposts are an amazing way to expand the colony's reach without having to actually micromanage multiple bases, and it is of course a good usage of any recruits that we don't actually want to have around us.
There are all kinds of outposts we can set up- hunting camps, mining camps, prisons, restaurants, farms, embassies, schools, banks, trade outposts, factories, towns... very exciting! But for now, we really only have the means for the hunting one, thanks to Luxemburg's massive shooting skill.
Upon Suranna's return, it seems our first batch of beer is ready- note the twenty five bottles sitting in the freezer next to the heaps of raw meat. All of the colonists gather in the dining room, ready for the first drink- I don't know why Suranna is wearing that, but it's copyright infringement and she is only getting away with it because she made us very rich this episode.
Everyone grabs a beer, and...
It's good! Hopefully the introduction of this new social lubricant will serve to improve our colonists' moods in the long run. Coffee in the morning, beer at night- and of course, we'll rack up a pretty penny by producing both, too.
Our colonists did NOT suddenly want to perform surgery on each other or immediately start doing drunk shooting practice after that last picture was taken.
Anyway, our first episode without any major recruitments- but don't worry, I have a feeling our next colonist is going to be a good one.
Onto our vote for the episode!
Second Vehicle Vote
With our colony now focusing strongly on travel- carrying out raids, making trading trips, and hopefully adventuring even further out in the near future, it wouldn't be a bad idea to get ourselves another vehicle, especially since we can no longer all fit into the Vengabus. That being said, which vehicle do we want?
Option A: The RV. It comes with a 21x13 pocket-dimension-like interior space- basically an apartment on wheels, making it a REALLY cool option, especially for long-term trips and adventures. Fantastic cargo and customization capacity.
Option B: The Tango, an armored unit with six seats and a tough layer of armor, as well as a built-in turret. It's not as fast nor does it hold as much as the RV, but its offensive and defensive capabilities are far greater.
2025 Summer Reading Competition | Tracking Thread
on 7/14/2025 2:03:21 AM
I suspect it's because the challenge was for featured stories, not commended ones, if I'm reading the post correctly.
CYS Monthly Gazette - 9 July 2025
on 7/13/2025 9:54:18 PM
What happened to Ford and 3J?
on 7/13/2025 9:29:51 PM
I took a look and according to Avery's YouTube, she was starting a new job around the time of her last login. So chances are she's alive and just busy.
CYS Monthly Gazette - 9 July 2025
on 7/12/2025 6:37:48 AM
Another great edition of the gazette, maybe even the best ever (totally unbiased.) I am a grown adult and have just failed a word search. I blame the fact that I'm deep into the AMs over here, I should go to bed.
That being said, you'll be hearing from my lawyer about including that crack-smoking slander!
CYS Colony Simulator Part 6
on 7/12/2025 6:00:27 AM
It's that time again!
As per the results of the poll, this episode will focus heavily on the construction of a dedicated shop for tailoring new clothes, as well as a hotel so that we can host and bond with the neighbors that AREN'T trying to kill us. Additionally, we're going to have to learn how to brew, because we're growing hops and coffee beans this season! We'll be drunk and caffeinated.
Growing more stuff in addition to our food means we've got to clear some land, uprooting trees and bushes and cutting grass to make room for our plants. Thankfully, this is not a burden that Sent and Suranna will have to shoulder alone this year, as we've recruited a number of very capable colonists since those cold, rainy, starvation-filled nights that plagued us in the past.
With the planting group focused on that, it's largely Anthraxus, Cavus Rex, and Sherbet who tend to the blueprints of our two upcoming buildings. The stony piece of land just north of the apartment building seems perfect for a tailor, but there's just the problem of that giant heap of rock in the way. No worries, Anthraxus begins to work on digging through that rock right away, completely free of complaints.
But as he wraps his mining up, a realization is made- the colony is very low on steel, once again. You may think it's a bit soon for that to be a problem once again, and you'd be right- but steel goes into practically everything that makes our lives comfortable enough to be worth living! Every heater, every AC unit, every wind turbine, every vent, every piece of wiring and every light, they're all just the result of Sherbet jamming about thirty or so hunks of steel together and crossing his fingers. And all of those things really add up, especially when we're about to begin constructing two new buildings. That's why, fortunately, there is a solution right under our noses...
Those, right there, just across the river- that's two mining camps, hosted by small factions that consist of only a few people. We can pillage them without much consequence as far as I understand it, it won't have any bearing on our relationship with the larger groups... and, there's a good five hundred or so steel in it for us, between the two camps.
It's a bit hard to begin building without the steel, and we're pretty low on wood as well. For this reason, it's the construction crew of Sherbet, Anthraxus, and Cavus that load up in the Vengabus to steal the steel from these independents. That should give the planting crew a pretty good chunk of time to uproot more trees for us, so we can officially begin construction.
Don't ask me how the bus crossed the river, because I would not be able to tell you. Either way, it takes about half a day for us to reach the first mining camp- it's hosted on a cavernous tropical rainforest tile, so there's all kinds of rock formations, fruit trees (yippee!) and monkeys wandering around. It is a shame Sent didn't come along, or we could've had a chance to tame some of those gorillas you see if you zoom in around the bottom left and reeeally try to ignore how few pixels there are.
At the sound of our bus approaching their little wooden huts, the two people hosting this mining site come out with their tribal-level weapons, ready to defend it.
If you recall, Sherbet, Rex, and Anthraxus all have guns at this point. The thing about melee combatants in Rimworld is that you'll usually need some seriously good armor to make up for the fact that you can't deal any damage without closing the distance between yourself and an opponent- and even then, one solid hit can severely hinder your movement. And when you're a melee fighter AND outnumbered by gunners, especially with how naked these people are... yeah, ok, all this is a very lengthy to say we won the ensuing fight.
The loot was exactly what we expected it to be- a little over two-hundred pieces of steel. However, there was also a cruddy wooden computer sitting around one of the caverns. It's pretty beat up and, y'know, made of wood, but it'll be some good recreation for our colonists when we take it home and fix it up a little!
Speaking of the colony, a look back at our home base reveals that things are going very well in the planting process. All the trees and large bits of shrubbery have been successfully cleared, and they're finally starting to plant the coffee beans, all four of them. I bet Sentinel Penguin is crying tears of joy, no longer having to break his spine in two by jamming 700+ crops into the ground. Now he just has to do, like... 250 of them, or so.
Not everything is sunshine and rainbows back home, though. While the construction crew sets out for the second mining camp, an unfortunate alert appears regarding the home base- a boomalope has gone mad with rabies just next to the research office! If you're unaware, a boomalope is an herbivorous animal covered in yellow sacs. They were designed to produce fuel and chemicals, and unfortunately, they explode on death. Fortunately, we do have a turret active in its exact location. Unfortunately, it's right next to the office when the turret kills it.
The four on-site colonists rush over to put out the flames, but they're far to the north in the planting sector. By the time they arrive, the flames have spread significantly, spilling into the office space and eating at anything wooden they can find. Mizal and Liminal bravely rush in to try and save the research tables, but the temperature in the building has already skyrocketed to dangerous levels, putting both at risk of heat stroke. Sent is able to save them from this fate by ripping a chunk of the wall out to regulate the temperature inside.
Between the four of them, the fire was put out before it had a chance to spread too far- thank goodness, considering the entire building and almost everything in it was made out of wood. The aftermath isn't pretty, but we ought to consider ourselves lucky that it only got ONE of our research tables. We can just replace it with a brand new one, I'm sure Rex and Anthraxus won't even notice!
Speaking of Rex and Anthraxus, it's time to revisit the adventure of the construction crew- the second mining camp on our list seems to be a bit more advanced than the last, constructed out of brick, and there does seem to be at least an ATTEMPT at an electrical system. Our enemies this time are also more threatening, a pair of elves wielding bows. They don't seem to notice us at first, so we begin shooting down doors to look for the precious steel we're after.
When one of them does come over, Anthraxus is quick to put him in the dirt with just a few shots. This prompts the second one to flee the premises, but said second one was clearly a much better shooter than his friend, because he downs Anthraxus as revenge AND puts two arrows in Sherbet on his way out, causing green acidic blood to spew everywhere.
Just a small little bump in the road though! Rex makes it out of the encounter unscathed, and while he's no Doctor Mizal, he's able to close up the others' wounds and continue exploring, locating the nearly 300 pieces of steel that the elves had stashed away. A pair of (mostly) successful raids! The group limps back into the Vengabus and returns home, where a good amount of wood has been amassed and the fields are being filled with more and more young crops every day. The crew is in no shape to construct right away, though- it's nighttime anyway, so the colony gets their much-needed rest before the long day of work in the morning. Mostly.
The morning is gloomy and rainy, but the injured colonists feel well enough to walk around and engage in conversation, a fairly good sign going into the beginning of two construction projects.
By the time the work day begins, the blueprints for the two new buildings are laid out. The smaller building being the tailor, replacing that ugly heap of rock that Anthraxus cleared away before going on the road trip... it's close to the rest of the colony buildings, and will host several wardrobes, dressers, as well as just a huge stockpiling zone so our tailors can just throw what they make on the ground for the colonists to sort through. The much larger building is the hotel- I'm unsure of how big the groups visiting us can get, but I figure it better safe than sorry. Twenty-eight total beds, I suspect they'll rarely and maybe never all be in use, but we can tape off sections of it to use as hospital or temporary colonist bedrooms at our leisure anyway. It'll be nice enough that our neighbors will visit and totally want to be our friends, and leave us only the best of presents, I'm absolutely certain of it. Make sure you stick around until the end to see if I was right! (I wasn't)
I made the mistake of thinking that the first day of these new projects was going to go smoothly though, so the Rimworld gods decided to throw this wrench at us. No cabbages this year, I suppose- but fear not, we still have thousands of them stockpiled, and we're also planting rice and garlic this year as well, so we're not going to starve. I won't go back.
Sadly, getting rid of all those blighted plants eats up the rest of our colonists' work hours. They head back to enjoy some games before bed. If I had to guess, Liminal is probably winning, you can't teach that kind of poker face.
Night comes and goes, and another day begins. Progress on the tailor shop is going smoothly, for now it seems to be the construction workers' main priority over the hotel. There is the issue of it being packed with old rocks from the mining escapades of Anthraxus, but those can be cleared out later, it's fine.
After Liminal wins the trauma contest against Suranna, it's back to work. The day is productive- nearly all the season's crops have been planted, meaning the planting group is about to have a bit more time on their hands. And, what timing- one of our more friendly neighbors, the Reavers, have informed us of
pristine ruins near our base!
Pristine ruins are, at this point of the game, by far the best loot we're going to be able to get our hands on. While there isn't anyone technically defending the ruins from us, looting them is quite competitive- many of the surrounding factions will be sending in teams to pillage whatever remains of this site. Tox Pack and Anya's Outlaws will certainly be there, among other friends and foes. It's a dangerous trip, but the wealth we acquire from it could be huge... our bus also diminishes some of the danger.
This time, it's Sent, Suranna, Mizal, and Liminal's turn to load up in the Vengabus and go on a road trip while the rest of our colony stays behind to work. It's only fair.
The moment the bus arrives at the ruins after a short trip out, the carnage has already begun. The other factions are tearing each other apart for the opportunity to claim the ruins' prizes, and groups are already fleeing after losing too many people. The number of corpses is unlike anything our colonists have witnessed up to this point. They feel incredibly grateful that they aren't on foot, and can drive around in the Vengabus as the other crews destroy one another.
Wait a second... who is that right there, underneath that blood-gushing elven corpse??
As an undergrounder and master of household appliances, we have on our hands a turtle man with considerable construction and crafting skills. A member of Anya's Outlaws, he is our enemy, but this may be the first time we didn't actually beat the life out of a potential recruit ourselves, someone else did it for us before we arrived! So really, it's more like we'd be rescuing him than anything. He has some unique abilities, too, such as acid spit and the power to summon an elephant turtle, whatever that is.
While our colonists WERE outnumbered by just about every one of the ten or so groups that came to take whatever these ruins had to offer, there really isn't anyone who can stand up to us by the time the Vengabus finally stops moving. Most have already fled, are dead, or are too wounded to continue fighting. Mizal tends to Ace's many wounds, before the quartet picks off whoever is left in their path- then, it's looting time! Like I said, pristine ruins are REALLY good, so brace yourself for what you're about to see.
Suranna is the first to make a discovery. The meat sitting on the dirty ground, yes, but what's more profitable here is the forty-five Luciferium. A very powerful and interesting drug, but also one I usually avoid ever touching- the healing properties of it are amazing, but once it's in your system, you have to continue taking one of these red pills every week or so, and running out of them is a death sentence. Still, even if WE don't use them, it should be obvious why taking these pills with us could be wildly profitable... and if we keep a few for ourselves, we could punish our unsavory prisoners by forcing them to take Luciferium, waiting four days or so, and then releasing them into the wild.
That'd be funny.
Soon after, more discoveries are made. Sent discovers a room packed full of textiles, fuel, medicine, leathers, and even some giant heaps of raw jade. Liminal finds a concrete structure that contains over a hundred more Luciferium, more leather and textiles, and an abundance of stone bricks. Components, too!
Between all that leather and fabric, we'll have plenty of material for new clothing at the new tailor shop.
After quickly loading up the Vengabus as much as we can, it's time to make a hasty exit. It's best not to linger in places like this- we may have been the last group standing at the ruins, but that wouldn't have lasted very long, as massive raider groups were likely already on the way.
But to be honest, that was by FAR the best Cystian looting that the colony has had up to this point, we should be extremely proud of ourselves. If only we had some beer and coffee to celebrate with... soon, soon.
Ah, would you look at that- the tailor shop is all done by the time the group returns, it seems the construction colonists have been hard at work. It's a bit small, but it should fit plenty of clothing, more than we need for the time being. That's actually not the only good news, either, because the morning after her return, Suranna goes right to the fields and begins harvesting hops plants. The beer is just on the horizon, Cystians...
She also crosses paths with a jade dragon, briefly, during her harvests. It thankfully doesn't seem hostile- befriending such a beast would be extremely valuable to us, but alas, only the Velonir race is really capable of bonding with these majestic creatures.
As for Ace, well... Suranna has a pretty long day of harvesting ahead of her, so instead of her usual recruitment process, she just sort of sticks Ace in a room with eighty bulbs of smelly garlic and leaves him to contemplate. To her credit, he comes around pretty quickly to get out of that room (which now becomes his bedroom, the world is cruel).
Now that he's recruited, he finally puts some clothes on, too.
Now, with the tailor finished, the hotel becomes the colony's sole construction project. It's looking... not too bad. It's a very large building that contains a lot of wiring and furniture, so it's expected to take longer, of course. At least, this WOULD be fine if the project didn't drive Sherbet to SMOKE. Yeah, he found the stash of 19 smokeleaf joints that we took from the ruins (with the intent to sell them) and has officially ensured that I will never beat the crack-doing allegations, thanks Rimworld Sherbet.
Even though the hotel is far from finished, it doesn't stop our first guests from arriving. It's a father and son duo, and they seem quite happy with their room, even though there's not even a crumb of light or temperature control. Sent makes the ridiculous decision to play poker with the one who is LITERALLY named Lucky, he probably lost like ten whole bulbs of garlic on this little stunt.
But what's really important is that our guests have a good time- and they do! At least, they claim that they did. As a token of their appreciation for the free room and the poker game and whatnot, they leave... three uranium crystals on the bed? That's a bit of a hazard for the next guest, but I suppose it's not the worst thing they could have left.
But ultimately, this proves that the hotel is going to be a big hit. If guests can enjoy themselves in an unfinished, pitch dark hotel, they'll certainly enjoy themselves in one with working lights even more. And with just a few more days of work, that's exactly what we achieve (after building an extra windmill, these lights don't power themselves you know!)
Ignore Suranna recovering in the leftmost room, she got bitten by a bear or something, she'll walk it off.
With that, we have the hotel finished, the tailor finished, a few thousand hops harvested, and coffee beans on the way. We can comfortably start on clothes making and brewing, I'm certain our colonists are excited to change out of their hole-riddled apparel.
As for the vote...
Trade Vote
Our colony hasn't been visited by too many trade caravans, and the ones that have come by, well, they aren't willing to buy most of our goods. We could always wait for more, but if we really want to make money, we'll have to take action... or, we could just upgrade our systems and hope that brings in more traders. As our vault of valuables grows and grows, and with a stockpile of clothes, beer, coffee, and other goods on the way, we ought to start turning more of it into silver.
Option A: We should travel to neighboring settlements and cities to sell our stuff- we can view what they'll buy ahead of time and stock our caravans accordingly, and we won't have to rely on traders coming to us in order to turn a profit on our goods.
Option B: We should set up an orbital trade beacon and communications console so we can contact orbital traders, whenever they may come by the planet. We'll still have to wait for them to come to us, but these traders tend to have deep pockets.
CYS Colony Simulator Part 5
on 7/8/2025 5:31:07 PM
I'll close the vote here as I start to collect pictures for Part 6, thanks for the participation and look forward to the next installment :)
CYS Colony Simulator Part 5
on 7/7/2025 5:23:26 PM
Ogre would be so proud!
CYS Colony Simulator Part 5
on 7/7/2025 5:19:19 PM
Gambling with garlic cloves is deranged, this is the future Sent was after all along.
As for the Tox Pack, they do still have some pretty beefy factories near us, so it is fortunate that we didn't get raided while we were out, swift as we were.
CYS Colony Simulator Part 5
on 7/7/2025 5:08:16 AM
Welcome back to the CYS Colony- your votes have been heard, and the time has come for our very first raid!
After reviewing the suggested names for the Bang Bus, I was originally going to go with Cavus's suggestion since it did have the most 'votes' behind it, but as it turns out it's well above the character limit for vehicle names. The result is that we'll be naming our ride the Vengabus, but perhaps it'll always be the B.A.N.G Bus in spirit. In animal news, our stegosauruses are now officially Apex (male) and Bumpy (female).
This is the route that we'll be taking to attack a Tox Pack military base- unfortunately, we have no way of really knowing how many people are going to be there, so it may be best to send as much manpower as possible... fortunately, the Vengabus holds all six of us! But Sherbet will scrape together what steel and components we have left to upgrade the vehicle's engine, tires, and storage capacity, so we spend as little time away from home as possible AND we get to loot more!
The colony takes some time to get their bearings as Sherbet and Suranna work on the bus and give it a fresh coat of paint, so we can pull up on the Tox Pack in style. Shenanigans aplenty in the food area, as Anthraxus complains about the cold while STANDING IN THE FREEZER and Sent, out of the literal thousands of options for food in the aforementioned freezer, selects forty nuggets of rat meat to cook with. At least Cavus and Sherbet get a perfectly wholesome bonding moment of solidarity together to round out all the tomfoolery!
It takes every component that Anthraxus has managed to pry from the earth up to this point- upgrading the bus also proves to be not quite as steel intensive as building it was, so we manage to hold onto a good heap of our reserves we've built up, also from the mining efforts of Anthraxus. In any case, Sherbet is able to get the bus in top condition within the day, which leaves nothing left to do but load everybody up, grab some meals for the road, and set out to blow these pirates' military complex right off the globe! For some reason, having the stegosauruses in the caravan doesn't slow down how long the trip is going to take. I guess they're as fast as the bus, which is wild, but I'm certainly not going to be the one to complain. Each one can haul hundreds of pounds of loot back with them, after all!
The stegos get rounded up, and we figure out our seating arrangement. Sent is the driver because he's the most likely one to have gone Grand Theft Auto goblin mode at some point in his life, and Mizal gets shotgun because she saved the entire colony last episode, it only seems fair. Everyone piles into the bus, and we set off- Sentinel Penguin hits about thirty trees and rocks on the way out, but it doesn't seem to damage the bus, so good to know we aren't going to have to build a highway or anything to use these vehicles.
The trip isn't eventful, only about half a day in length if we're being generous, but it's the destination that matters in this instance. The so-called military base is about what I'd expect from a group as trashy as the Tox Pack- resources randomly piled up on the ground (those are boxes of raw tomatoes by the way), turrets that don't work, a windmill and a wiring system that gave up on trying to supply these devices with electricity long ago... let's hope that the loot inside of the buildings is better than THIS shameful display!
We pull up in the bus, expecting a showdown with these pirates that have been raiding our settlement... but we either came at a bad time, or the Tox Pack didn't have a lot of manpower to spare this place, because there's only a singular person here to defend it and no other defenses to speak of.
It's Liminal! Let's go ahead and take a look...
A most mystifying character we've crossed paths with here today, Liminal is a talented shooter that the Tox Pack has foolishly handed a hatchet to, abandoned here, and said 'good luck.' With good artistic, crafting, and cooking, Liminal is a valuable colonist, but it's no wonder that maintenance of this military base has been impossible with only a single person around! Poor Liminal. Take note of the fact that Liminal is equipped with uranium plate armor- compounding with Liminal's ferrous skin, we have quite a defensive powerhouse. I find it interesting how this Rimworld Liminal is responsible for throwing nukes at people, much like @Liminal actually does in real life, what a coincidence!
Liminal's weakness is bad hearing, and this immediately comes into play as the Vengabus pulls up right beside the base, and our colony spills out ready for a fight... to no reaction, at first. Once the bullet rain begins, of course, we're spotted.
It takes WAY longer to down Liminal than expected- tanking about three times more damage than an ordinary enemy would be able to against our quintet of gun and bowfire. Ultimately, though, Liminal is defeated before reaching us to attack with the hatchet, and Mizal is quick to administer medical aid so we can take Liminal PRISONER. I promise there are other ways to recruit people in this game.
A big amoeba wanders by as Miz saves Liminal's life, it's kind of cute so Sent attempts to tame it. Ultimately unsuccessful, which is a shame, but it's also not what we're here for.
Yes, because what we're REALLY here for is the LOOT! Everyone charges into a different building to start the thievery, and luckily, there's a whole lot to take!
It's a little hard to tell due to the eclipse and all the red Xs, so I'll break it down- there's an abundance of cloth, a huge heap of components, textiles, an elephant's tusk, some apparel, a pair of books, over a thousand pumpkins, piles of herbal medicine, wood, stone bricks, a slightly disappointing amount of steel, a few bags of human blood, and of course the tomatoes sitting on the ground outside. Naturally, we take just about everything worth taking. Exploring a few other beaten-down sheds around the map yields a more favorable amount of steel, and of course we can dismantle the Tox Pack's stoves and generators and whatnot for even more steel and components.
At this point in the raid I have become nervous, because the bus only has six seats, and we're going to be transporting seven people back. Could it be that we're going to have to leave our prisoner behind? Thankfully, no- it allows us to load Liminal and all of our colonists up, though Liminal doesn't get a seat on the bus... I'm not sure whether one of the stegosauruses carried Liminal back, or if this was like a tied-to-the-roof-of-the-bus situation.
All in all, I'd call that an extremely successful raid! But we shouldn't get used to them being so easy, the factories especially are said to be very well-guarded... but admittedly the description of the military base did also claim that there could be up to two dozen people defending it, so who knows? What matters is that we blew a Tox Pack base right off the map, and we'll hopefully do the same to many more in the future.
The trip home is smooth, aside from poor Liminal getting two separate infections, so the top of that bus must not be very sanitary. Ultimately no death comes of the infections, but this is what the medical tab looks like, so really not a good first day for our new potential recruit;
Nothing that Doctor Mizal can't fix, though. Aside from the hearing loss which isn't our fault.
Now that we're back home, the colonists fall back into their routines. Games are played, work is tended to, and friendships are strengthened. After all the battles we've been through recently, even the once crippling farmwork seems so relaxed, as Sent harvests his favorite crop with enthusiasm.
With this window of peace and calm we've been blessed with after the neverending cycle of injury that was Part 4, it's time to improve, to expand- specifically, we need a space dedicated to our vehicles and fuel production, as well as a space dedicated to the work of our research squad. And so, we'll be constructing a garage and an office just down the road, it's the first step to decluttering the house of the original trio! The second and final step would be to figure out a better storage system...
The next morning after the project begins, something rather peculiar happens. An anonymous benefactor seems to have sent a drop pod to our base containing... thirteen bowls of nice soup? It's impossible to actually identify what's in these, but the colonists don't seem to mind the level of suspiciousness at all, and actually greatly appreciate having a bit of variation in their diets, having been consuming largely simple meals all year. Perhaps we should look into soup-making ourselves?
Efforts to recruit Liminal by Suranna are, unsurprisingly, very smooth! There was of course the denial at first that any prisoner displays, but Liminal actually had the lowest resistance to recruitment of any prisoner so far, probably well aware of the fact that we're way better than those no-good abandoners in the smelly Tox Pack (no offense to all our wonderful former Tox Pack colonists, of course :))
Later that day, however, Liminal makes the decision to become a part of the Cystian Kingdom! That shooting skill is going to come in handy, not to mention the tankiness. We also get this wholesome moment right after, really cementing that this was the correct choice.
Our construction projects make substantial progress with each passing day. The winter cold brings a halt to pretty much all of our remaining crops, but there aren't many of them left by this point, that pile of garlic was our final haul for the year anyway. We've stocked up so much nutrition at this point that I can't really see anything making our colony food-insecure anytime soon, outside of maybe five consecutive day-long solar flares wiping out our power grid? But I don't know if that's possible, probably not. Hard to believe we were hours away from going mad with hunger just a few episodes ago, but now here we are- not only surviving, but thriving.
Hmm, Sherbet doesn't want people to have rights, confirmed?
Fortunately for him, something more problematic appears on the horizon- something disgusting. A dark, fleshy heap from a monstrous insectoid faction called the Black Hive has tunneled its way to the edge of our base to release a pair of ghoulish bugs to maul our colonists. These insects are genetically engineered to lay waste to mechanoid bastions, so despite the fact that it's visually just two little bugoids, this threat isn't one to ignore.
Everyone gathers outside the base to combat the approaching insects- the larger one falls victim to our wall of projectiles, but it's the small bug that proves to be the true threat between the duo. Despite lodging nearly a dozen shots into it, it still manages to worm its way forward enough to BITE Sentinel Penguin in the foot! Fortunately, he's able to knife it in retaliation, putting an end to the Black Hive's attempt at destroying us... but I fear the day that they try again with a more impressive group of creatures.
Oh, and see that little X-shaped blueprint below Sent? That's a turret that Sherbet hasn't gotten around to building. That sure would've been nice to have for this fight. There's actually about three of those set up around the base now that will be built with our haul of steel and components from the raid, they'll be an excellent aid when we're getting attacked by other factions... next time, anyway.
Sent returns to bed so his mauled foot can recover, and with that, it seems we've managed to survive another chapter of our colony's story! Actually, this is quite a big moment for the colony, as the winter season has now officially come to an end... meaning we've passed our one year anniversary. Yahoo! Our garage and research office are complete just on time for the occasion. The researchers of the colony even get their own rec room complete with a poker table, isn't that nice? Although... what are they betting, cabbages?
Some giant pandas wandered in at the last second, perhaps as a colony birthday present. They wouldn't really do anything if we tamed them, but they are an endangered species, which means if we breed them and release them so they can repopulate in the wild, other factions will notice and like us more as a result. Also, they're so cute and I love them. :)
With that, it's time for the voting- there will be two votes this time.
Vote 1: Year 2 Farming
We're officially in year two, and with winter behind us, it's a good time to start growing something new. Like I said earlier, we're very food secure even as we continue to acquire new mouths to feed, so we also have an opportunity to grow more non-food crops this year. We'll go ahead and grow whatever the top two voted upon options are, in addition to our food.
Option A: Coffee beans- we may get addicted to caffeine, but our productivity will probably go up. Coffee is also a luxury item that is not difficult to sell.
Option B: Devilstrand, a difficult to plant, yet rewarding mushroom that will provide us with deeply red fabric, both valuable and excellent to make clothes out of.
Option C: Hop plants. Because I want beer.
Option D: Tea grass, because tea is more classy than beer.
Option E: Smokeleaf, because I want to get high.
Vote 2: Construction
There are some buildings that'd be nice to have, but we're ultimately still a small colony- if we throw too many big construction projects at them at once, none of them will be finished for months. The top two results are what we'll prioritize in the next episode.
Option A: A dedicated storage area, death to clutter!
Option B: A hotel would allow us to host guests from other colonies and improve relationships.
Option C: We've only got one more bed to spare and could use more housing, another layer to the apartment complex couldn't hurt.
Option D: A tailor; our colonists' clothes are beginning to fall apart, making them unhappy. It's time for some new garments!
Option E: A forge to melt down the metal slag around the map, and produce new weaponry and armor.
