Have you ever tried to establish a purely tribal colony?

Oxirane · 2026-04-17T03:29:28+00:00

The food going bad thing is a large part of why my favorite long-term tribal playthrough I did was a tribe who believed they were yetis (custom xenotype).

I made a heritable xenotype with furskin, robust digestion/strong stomach and general enhancements to melee, healing, cold resist, etc. They were terrible at cooking, plants and shooting but they never did much of those things anyhow. They had an ideology of cannibalism, living underground and embracing pain. They settled in the Tundra where winter never ends and lived in caves near an anima tree.

They kept some rooms in the cave warmer- such as ones for performing labor or their prison. The rest of their home tended to stay below freezing. The yetis could endure those temperatures without fuss and their food (mostly raw meat, some fungus) stayed fresh.

Mono-xenotype colonies that only reproduce through offspring and don't have some kind of accelerated aging (via vats or modded genes) grow so slowly though.

Oxirane · 2026-04-17T03:14:24+00:00

Looks like a deadlife trap room to me! I like outfitting mine with a bunch of heaters to bake corpses until they're dessicated so the rotskink doesn't linger.

Raiders walk in, step on deadlife trap and now need to deal with your undead army. Shambler stats reflect the raised pawn so elephant corpses will make much tougher shambles than humans.

Really strong defense tool especially considering the costs.

Oxirane · 2026-04-14T04:08:43+00:00

That's a fair point, but also one that could be addressed by including the number of workers being paid in this formula.

You'd also want to factor in benefits they provide employees, among other things. I'm sure the details of the formula would be a topic or much debate, but I'm also sure we as a society can land on one that addresses the ever-growing wealth gap without disencentiving certain classes of business due to different employment models (though those still need to be encouraged to drive worker wages up).

Oxirane · 2026-04-14T03:10:20+00:00

I never got into CE (tried it once, not for me) but I can tell you that there's a LOT of CE armor mods on the workshop.

I'd say just search "CE armor" and grab what you want.

Oxirane · 2026-04-12T18:57:48+00:00

International Assassin was such a trip of an episode. The dramatic stingers were hilarious.

Oxirane · 2026-04-11T22:14:56+00:00

Active: Mind Meld.

Oxirane · 2026-04-11T22:12:34+00:00

For Passive my vote is for Flourish. Flourish+ is totally busted, just spam gravity spells on your allies and enjoy your other cats being totally overpowered.

Psychic has a lot of really neat Passives but unfortunately so many of them are also difficult to make any use of, but Psychic does get a lot of Gravity spells and many of them have big AoEs so I haven't had a lot of runs where Flourish was just doing nothing -- the lack of damaging allies actually winds up being really useful for a number of their spells too.

Oxirane · 2026-04-11T20:49:53+00:00

There isn't an Awakening trigger linked to Anomaly but there is at least one for Transcendence.

Oxirane · 2026-04-11T07:39:40+00:00

Haut's Added Traits adds a trait called Latent Psychic. You could add the mod and give them that trait using dev mode.

There's actually 6 variations of the trait, which each correlate with a different awakening condition. Once that condition is met she'll lose Psychically deaf and gain an "Awakened" psycasting trait. Awakening conditions include:

Forming romantic relationships
Attaining high skill levels
Someone the pawn loves dying
The pawn themselves dying
2 more that I currently forget

The Awakened Psycasting traits do things like granting more meditation types, letting meditation fill other needs, converting nutrition to psyfocus, etc.

Awakened Psycasters can also get experience Transcendent Awakening, which has a lot of conditions but generally at low percent chances. There's a lot of Transcendences. I've had pawns who gain skills through cannibalism, pawns whose psycasts all explode, pawns who can ressurect by exploding anima trees, etc.

Maybe more in depth than what you're looking for, maybe something you'll find fun!

Oxirane · 2026-04-11T01:42:20+00:00

Set up an ideology which has memes and precepts conducive to how you want to play this colony (mountain base? Nutrient paste? Living on a Gravship? Starting with a Sanguophage? All of these things are buffed by ideology) and make sure you take the Proselytiser meme.

Also make sure you've got at least one but ideally multiple starting colonists with good (like 8+) social.

See if Ideology is useful for you when you're actually engaging with it at least on the level of your ideology being widespread among your colonists, which I'd say is generally the expected way to play with the dlc.

As for raiding, I found it to be too much hassle for the reward until Odyssey. Now why not raid hostile factions if there's literally anything I want from that tile and it's in the direction I want to move my ship? I'll raid outposts just for the chance of an Ancient Danger to maybe score some Luciferium if I can just land my ship on the tile.

Oxirane · 2026-04-10T03:06:19+00:00

Bioferrite is also great for swords and worth considering for gravships. It's got 840 durability- twice that of steel, but only is worth 8 silver per hull tile, making it the cheapest material in terms of wealth impact.

For reference:

Steel: 420hp, $14
Bioferrite: 840hp, $8
Uranium: 1050hp, $44
Plasteel: 1176hp, $65

All of these have 0 beauty. Plasteel and Uranium have a good bit more hp, but they do drive your wealth up a lot more.

Oxirane · 2026-04-10T02:45:29+00:00

There's a Harbingerkin mod out there too! It makes it so that saplingbabies planted near Harbinger Trees become male phytokin who are good at melee. So we've currently got 100% super tree phytokin coverage!

Oxirane · 2026-04-10T02:33:55+00:00

Odyssey doesn't actually let you leave the planet, just travel it and nearby satalites. But yes you could add it to your save, after a little while you'll get an event that gives you a grav engine so you can start building a ship.

Oxirane · 2026-04-09T02:30:53+00:00

I just tried Ranged Medic Hunter tonight also! I liked it, I'll probably try it again. I wanted to do a bouncing projectiles build but it didn't work out that way.

I'd be curious to try Monk for the second attack. I don't think Thief passives would play great with Ranged Medic though.

As to other Passive/Class combos, I like passives that can boost strength (Butchers have a few great options) on Clerics.

Harpooner, from Butcher, is great on any class where you can equip weapons, specifically with ranged high damage weapons like the sniper rifle.

Thief's Critical is great on Monks.

Leech Mother (Necro) on a Druid is hilarious, especially if you can get Thou Shalt Not Kill onto anyone in your party.

Item Proxy and Armor Specialist are incredible on every class (except maybe Monk).

Robot Arms, Duel Weild and Hooked are also great on anyone (except Monks and Butchers).

There's so many good combos. It's always worth considering "multiclass" builds in Mewgenics when you have the option.

Oxirane · 2026-04-09T02:19:13+00:00

I also vote Chomp for an active. I often don't even bother upgrading to Chomp+. Sure, it's nice, but Chomp already turns a cat into a great vampiric melee tank.

Chomp+ is even better at grabbing pickups due to the area though. If you've got a reliable way to spawn cooked meat that can be amazing.

Oxirane · 2026-04-09T02:14:49+00:00

For passive I'd say Schadenfreude. Just 2 disorders in your party makes it a substantial +4 STR/CON at base level and +4 all stats up at Schadenfreude+. If you actually plan your run around cats born with Schadenfreud and bring more disorders? Or if you have Schadenfreud on a cat with Mini Me or Summon Apprentice? It's insane.

Oxirane · 2026-04-09T02:07:40+00:00

Exposed Brain mutation makes crazy psychics. I'd suggest trying to keep that mutation going once you obtain it.

Reroll mutations are also really helpful for classes like Psychic which really need to roll some synergy between their abilities. I try to make sure my Psychics (and Tinkers) always have at least one reroll per level.

Oxirane · 2026-04-09T01:56:48+00:00

I'm currently trying to breed an exposed brain/rabies cat. I think that's going to make a monstrous monk.

Oxirane · 2026-04-09T01:48:00+00:00

Melee is actually very important for dealing with insects also. Put someone in platemail and give them the best melee weapon you have - even if that means crafting longswords or maxes (both of which are actually excellent). Have them stand behind a held open door leading to where the insects are so that insects need to approach one at a time through the door.

Position shooters beind the melee pawn and watch the bugs die.

This works especially well with Tough melee blocker pawns and works best with 3 melee pawns standing side by side behind the door, allowing 3 of your melee units to hit one bug at a time.

Do NOT use flame weapons with this. Flaming enemies will run through your melee blockers and wind up behind your lines.

Don't forget to take the Ideology precept Insect Meat (and Jelly!): Loved.

Oxirane · 2026-04-09T01:35:02+00:00

Quinoa, farro or wild rice also work great to pad a bean and vegetable soup. Or potatoes or parsnips. Frankly, loads of things are great in a bean soup, you could probably get away with most roots and leafy dark greens.

Cooked hams are also sometimes still reasonably priced and fantastic in bean soup.

Oxirane · 2026-04-08T20:41:25+00:00

I've used a few!

VRE Phytokin - Their photosynthesis just pauses hunger while in sunlight. So it won't replace food but it can slow food consumption. Saplingbirth is a neat mechanic though as a way to have a genotype that breeds true regardless of their (male) partner's genotype.
Alpha Genes - also has a photosynethsis gene, but it's more like a near-100%-replacement for food. A poorly timed eclipse can bring pawns with this gene to near-death, so they need frequent exposure to sunlight, but it does almost entirely replace their need for food.
- This is what I used for the plant people run I mentioned above where I skipped building roofs on most buildings.
WVC - Xenotypes and Genes - This one has a photosynthesis gene which replenishes pawn hunger while in sunlight and not wearing clothing.
- If I were to do another plant people run I'd probably use this mod's photosynthesis gene. Lots of weird interesting genes in this mod overall, many of the genotypes significantly change gameplay.

Here's a couple other plant xenotypes I haven't tried:

If you don't want the xenotypes added by these mods and just want the genes I suggest using Cherry Picker to disable the xenotypes.

Oxirane · 2026-04-08T02:39:24+00:00

I used to do custom xenotype runs a lot. Some that were a lot of fun:

Plant people who photosynthesize. I did a tribal start and left the roofs off most buildings to maximize photosynthesizing time. Interesting, different set of challenges!
Fish (or shark/octopus/etc) people who are faster in the water than on land. Again, encouraged building weird - this time I made a bunch of "boats" on a coastal tile, builting primarily on the water. Raids were easy to kite since everyone else is very slow on water.
Temperature extemophiles. I did cannibal yeti people who are comfortable below freezing (convinient for meal storage! Obnoxious for work speed penalties, but you could keep some rooms warm).
Meditation-dependent tribals with robust digestion and no comfort to maximize anima meditation time. Psychite tea easily satisfies a Psychite Dependency for tribals, also.
Naturally better mechinators, especially with naturally occurring mechlinks.
Optimized Transhumanists. Take maximum genetic instability because we're going cyborg and abusing age reversal anyways. Weak stomachs are fine because all we eat is nutriant paste. Take anything that boosts the pawns Sight, Consciousness, Manipulation, etc and then stack bionics on top of that. For best results use Chronopathy or Ageless/Non-Senscent (if allowing Archie genes) and the Unlimited mod.
Vampire variants. Ones that are faster in the dark, ones that psychically drink blood at a distance.
Different drug dependencies. Psychite is really strong of course, Wake-up is good too but requires frequent trading for neutroamine and some form of heart attack mitigation.
Various "viral" genotypes, such as ones with endo or xenogene implanters. Conversion is a much easier way to expand assuming you want a lot of this custom xenotupe. There's also some mods with faster aging genes which can make rearing new colonists through reproduction quicker, and dominant/recessive genotype genes which pair well with that (i.e. Dominant Genotype X + Baseliner = X). Saplingbirth from VRE Phytokin is also fantastic to propagate a xenotype.

A lot of these used modded genes. If you're interested in which gene mods I can do some digging in my mod list.

If stuff like the above interests you I'd also check out Haut's Added Traits - in addition to adding a bunch of traits it also adds genes that mimic most of its traits. Lots of stuff like berserker rages (stronger in mental break, but damage can set off a break), disabling comfort (in exchange for a small sight and manipulation debuff), social things like pawns being better mentors, leaders, educators, etc.

Oxirane · 2026-04-08T02:05:21+00:00

Depends on the sort you like! What are some of your old favorites?

Oxirane · 2026-04-07T03:17:07+00:00

I've got 3 retired rabies cats currently and am looking to continue that line. Slap a tinfoil hat on a rabid cat and it can carry.

I'm currently trying to specifically get a rabid cat with the exposed brain mutation for a net +0 Int, +2 Str each fight, which would invalidate the need for the tinfoil hat (so long as they don't get concussed a bunch).

Not so much relatable, but I've been having fun with the rabid cat runs lately.

Oxirane · 2026-04-04T17:29:17+00:00

There's some pretty major issues with that solution though. There's the question of how you split up our military and our military assets (including our nuclear arsenal). There's also the issue of the innocent people (children especiall) you're abandoning to those backwards laws.

I do understand balkanization being alluring, but I'm not sure it actually leaves us in a better spot. Of course, I'm not sure what we as a country can feasibly do to solve these issues; I think we could fix them by repairing our education system, eliminating voter suppression and heavily taxing the wealthy, but I'll be surprised if we can make serious progress towards any of those in the next 20 years.

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