Farming Post-Apocalyptic Dirt
Welcome back to the final installment on our faction lore series. Today we’ll be taking a look at the settler faction type. These guys build fixed settlements in the woods, farm and mine for resources and make up the bulk of the post-apocalyptic population. They’re also the default start for the player.
Throughout history, man’s survival has always been predicated on his ability to form communities. While some individuals might have all the skills needed to survive the post-apocalypse on their own, most people only have a partial skillset and have to rely on others to fill the gaps. Thus they band together to form civilized settlements where everyone contributes to the best of their individual abilities and common resources are shared.
They’re formed from people of all strata who fled the war-torn city centers and include all manner of specialists, from pre-collapse farmers over scientists to ex-military personnel. As such they are uniquely suited to utilize any resources they can find, both man-made and natural.
Being situated in the wilderness, far off from conflict zones, they’re relatively safe from the mechanoids roaming the city ruins, but this also restricts their access to things like scrap, pre-collapse medicine or quality firearms and armor. As a result, they trade crops and other raw materials to nearby scavenger camps and PDF outposts in exchange for pre-collapse goods. Some of the more successful settler communities have also been known to send out their own expeditions into abandoned industrial facilities to recover heavy machinery and restart production at home, though they’re hampered by the lack of heavy transports, electricity and raw materials.
Their lack of weaponry and stockpiles of food make them popular targets for raiders and the wildlife itself is a constant threat. During peacetime, the PDF and ongoing terraforming efforts have been keeping the local fauna in check, but with both of them gone, many of the more dangerous predators have begun re-encroaching on the terraformed zones.
When interacting with other settlements, players may choose to barter with them for resources or even create a steady trade partnership, with regular caravans moving between their and the player’s settlement, exchanging goods that the other can’t produce domestically. Or they might choose to plunder it for their resources, though such a cruel act would have a significant impact both on the player’s reputation with other factions and the morale of their own survivors.