Phoebe can be mean

So, I'm playing on Phoebe Chillax, on Challenging. A nice easy game I thought, test out some base design ideas and mod combinations...

Among my colonists is Onion. She's Nervous, and a Prosthophile, and we're a way away from getting any prosthetics, so she's already running on a bit of a mood deficit. She's also the best miner, so she spends a lot of time in a cold, ugly environment. She's the reason I've gotten used to seeing the 'mild break risk' warning in this game.

Then she hooks up with one of the other colonists, right at the end of the first season. Brilliant, I think, that'll keep her mood up.

Then she gets dumped, less than two days later. Wow that -15 mood hit lasts a while. She snaps and daze-wanders, then snaps again a week later and hides in her room.

So less mining for her, more constructing, maybe a bit more joy time. Except that while I'm about to make these changes to her, I notice another, bigger problem. I'm running out of food.

See, I built my usual farm size for the initial three colonists. It's normally enough to absorb the starting fourth person, along with stacking up the fridge for winter. It's a pretty long grow time, a warmer area than my usual selection, so for once I hadn't bothered building a sunlamp-powered winter greenhouse.

Except that I'd gotten two joined wanderers in a row, and then an emergency chase rescue (with a nasty drop-in raid) and then what I thought was a bit of luck... two trade caravan members had a fight, one of them got beaten to the point he was on the ground, and I rescued him... and he decided to join me. I dunno if that's vanilla or Orion's Hospitality, but either way, he had some decent skillz, so I was pleased. All in less than a year. It's late fall now.

And the fridge is empty.

Well, crap. I have a dog too, and a tamed alpaca. Look at that cute alpaca, with it's wonderful wool, hoovering up the damned potatoes! No hydroponics researched yet. I start building a greenhouse, but I'm not optimistic about it being ready in time.

And then, alphabeavers! See normally I don't like hunting. Colonists get hurt, I have the cthulhu beasts mod so there's a nasty fight out there if the strange beast stops lurking, and I'm also a soft touch for animals. But Alphabeavers are different... they're unnatural, and they eat mah treez. Tasty meat and new dusters!

So, a hunting trip with my three shooting-capable people is assembled. One of these people is Onion. I don't predict a problem with this, because I'm a twit.

The three toil across to the other side of the map, apply some evolutionary tests to the alphabeavers... nope, still not evolved bullet-proof skin yet... and then everyone toils back.

Except that it's now dark. And snowing. And apparently I sent Onion out just before dinner.

She snaps. Reason... urgently hungry. Result... a goddamn FOOD BINGE.

So I'm treated to the sight of my cook desperately trying to make fine meals with all of the delicious meat, and Onion grabbing each one and shoveling it down her gullet before it's had time to cool on the fridge floor. I start making plans to arrest her, but it might turn violent... and she's by far my best constructioner and a good miner, and a good shot, and some of my mods make raids nasty, so... I really don't want to accidentally lose her.

So I'm dithering. It looks like there's enough meat, and the greenhouse is looking healthy, and I can scrape in some almost-ready crops that the cold hasn't killed, so I leave her for the moment. At least the catharsis will keep her out of my hair a bit longer.

Then, as the binge is coming to an end, my best grower decides to make a comment as he passes her. Probably something about all the food she's flinging about. She enrages, and beats the crap out of him (he's incapable of violence, so doesn't fight back).

So now he's in medbay wrapped in bandages, the insult-fight interrupted her mental break so catharsis didn't happen (bug?) so she's back to looking twitchy, the others keep screwing up the plant harvesting, and the fridge is still empty. Oh, and it's snowing again.

I wonder if strange Cthulhu meat is tasty?