First, an album of some of the new stuff!

Alright everyone, it's been a while since I last posted, but I'm still here and we've got a few new folks living in town. Unfortunately, I haven't seen them online in a bit, but there have been immigrants and a few events that have happened with the increased activity. Progress has been made!

As for events, first and most important is the current issues between Gensokyo and Syngrad. As a summary, LyRithePC has decided to attempt a revival of Kobostortzka, which was inactive for almost half a year and its territory confirmed Gensokyan land by several treaties in the meantime. In light of his earlier claim, diplomacy was attempted first but it seems he is bent on an independent state without compromise on his borders in any way. Whatever happens in Duskwood between Gens and Syngrad, though, it's out of chat range of Goodsprings and so will have little bearing on the average Goodspringer.

Nextly, aarkan13 and Sephiro69 purchased land in GS to build a large new cactus farm. It's visible in one of the screenshots, looming over the marketplace and making the town feel a bit more urban than before. The entrance to the spider spawner tunnels can now be found beneath it in the market tunnel. I'd like to automate that thing as New Detroit has theirs - that way we can get a supply of spidersilk wool going, resistant to Mustercull plagues.

Third event is a minor legal controversy that has been resolved. Bunnylad claimed jacobinaford had been harassing him, so I had jacob pearled. It then came to light that it may have been a joke accusation, so I tried to determine if that was true, but after a few days with no evidence it was legitimate I simply had jacob released. Still waiting for him to get back on whether he's moving in or not.

As for new immigrants, we've had a good burst of new residents. BarkingNapkin, bunnylad, 296577, jacobinaford potentially, and another guy whose name escapes me I think. Most active of these have been Napkin and 296577. With aarkan13 and Sephiro setting up shop in GS, I hope to see them around town too. Activity!

On the travel front, I've finished my redirect of the Carbon-MA Portal railway, which was supposed to run directly beneath Hourglass Station in the first place, so that we now have a direct connection both to Carbon and the Mount Augusta nether portal! The situation with Syngrad has unfortunately delayed my completion of the final connection to Jericho and the rest of Gensokyo, but we'll soon have that ready!

Economically I have come to a disturbing realization: ProgrammerDan is our economy. All our exports are bought by him. Regardless of how nice he is or your personal opinion, that is not a way to run a healthy city. And our sole export is acacia - which frankly doesn't have an amazing return for the effort put into gathering it. I've been considering how we could diversify our economic production, and been looking into Realistic Biomes to see what we can do. Netherwart is an obvious thing, and if anyone wants to help establish a wart farm that'd be awesome; cacti are also obvious, and I'm surprised that we never actually exported those. Spruce wood and melons are less obvious, but with greenhouses we could grow them both securely underground or indoors. In anticipation of this expansion, and also because the old MA market district was cleared out, I've moved the Goodsprings market stall to a new brick-and-mortar storefront in the Al-Ishaar Market District in MA (pictured in the album) that I cleverly dubbed "The Life of the Desert". I will also be looking to expand our trade to markets further afield in the PlusPlus and beyond.

And finally, I've cleared up the last of the WWW banners from the High Temple and placed the Goodsprings and Gensokyan flags on the minarets. I'll add a GS flag to the lower terminal in Hourglass too when I get the clay.

No raider attacks. No robberies. No griefing. The Arena is almost finished with a lava ring and JonathanFoster's repairs. The old griefing is basically gone and we can start expansion of the town. Long live Goodsprings!