Well of Souls Forums

I prefer to be prepared and trust to skill and competence.. but mostly thinking-ahead to handle difficulties that arise...

So I agree with you Dragoongfa...

Plus I like the fact that you choose to bring the chocolate!

Plan: Complicated Security with a headstart (105 points, 2 complications) - My Vote!

Plan Low Risk is invalid. You've got six live samples plus two genetic samples.

I didn't consider that you may want to double down on biological samples. If you really want, I can allow it, but it'll be another 36 points. The reasoning I'm using is that biological samples use specialised containers, since biology + vacuum = no biology, and while genetic samples are hardier and easier to store, they still need protection unless you like mutation or degraded samples.

To signify a double down on a particular option, note it with DD or bold it. I'll allow this for biological samples or extra passengers, though with extra passengers the double down will be calculated by 2d100 rather than 1d100+100, so you're completely on the luck of the dice there. Also you have to pay another 9 points to get it.

{Edit}

To clarify, if you go for extra passengers and double down on it, your population will be calculated as:

200 + 1d100 + 100 + 2d100

If you roll perfect crits, you can start with a population as large as 600, plus 250 marines if you go for that option and crit there too. If you flub the rolls, the minimum is 303 plus 81 Marines.

{//Edit}

Just to note a few things:

Cocoa beans take 4 years to grow from seed to seed bearing tree as I recall, so production of such will probably be late game (I'm thinking 1 month turns at this point). I'm willing to cut that down to 2 years though on the basis of genetic engineering, which should be fairly prevalent by Outsider's time. Consider all bio samples to be engineered to some degree to be better than what we have now.

The livestock option will probably be quails or something similar in size. They have advantages over other potential livestock options such as chickens that makes them quite good for a fledgling colonial society. I'm also open to suggestion there if anyone has good ideas.

Aldean Peppers are noted to be extraordinarily hot. In both the scoville sense and the trade good sense, at least as far as humans go.

In order to cultivate genetic samples, you'll need lab equipment. You can do this without lab equipment as a starter, but you'll need to build the lab equipment from scratch in that case, which will take up learning and stewardship turns you might spend elsewhere.

Raw materials will give you an initial boost in starting resources, allowing you to do more before you have to rely on what you can mine or harvest. There are other methods of gaining resources, such as cannibalising parts of the ship, but this may not be fully desirable.

All goods will be to some extent worth trading with others, providing you can find willing trade partners. Value isn't an absolute across alien cultures; what's useless for you may be incredibly rare or valuable for another. Or completely toxic.

If the Livestock includes cats and some dog breeds then they could also be an export possibility as pets. Cats and Dogs are excellent pest control animals, cats for bugs and rodents, dogs for bigger pests (like feral cats).

Plan Low Risk is invalid. You've got six live samples plus two genetic samples.

Sorry, I found the flaw in my math when reviewing the High Risk, but forgot to fix it for the Low Risk. I'll take care of that so it works again.

I largely like dragoongfa's choices, though with what was mentioned about trees we might want to scale back on the wood-only ones. Even with the double-speed growth provided by genetic engineering, an oak tree would only grow at a rate of 4 feet a year. It would likely be three years or more before we'd get any lumber out of them.

Cats and dogs would probably count as a medium livestock animal. In terms of weight, the average cat is about 7.9 - 9.9 pounds. Chickens will depend on breed, ranging from as little as 1.4 pounds (upper limit of small I'd say) to as high as 8.6. Quails are 3.4 ounces, or 0.2125 pounds. They are incredibly tiny and docile, and hence easy to transport. Most other animals would probably need specialist transport that wouldn't be catered to on a military transport.

Why are you carrying livestock at all? Um. Colony stuff. Yeah. >_>

Oh, and what exactly qualifies as a 'luxury good'? Things like textiles or other stuff might be fantastic for trade if we use them right.

The kind of stuff you'd expect to pay four or five digit sums to get in the colonies. Expensive artwork, antiques, specialty handcrafted goods, legal recreational drugs (tobacco, maybe marijuana depending on legalities), expensive jewelry, anything that can't be mass produced or replaced by cheap knockoffs.

Razor One wrote:The kind of stuff you'd expect to pay four or five digit sums to get in the colonies. Expensive artwork, antiques, specialty handcrafted goods, legal recreational drugs (tobacco, maybe marijuana depending on legalities), expensive jewelry, anything that can't be mass produced or replaced by cheap knockoffs.

Okay, thanks!

Sounds like they would be useful either for morale or as trade items, but I think the points we'd need to bring them would be better spent on more renewable options.

I propose plan Moon Very Long Shot and plan Luxurious Long Shot.

Let's bring everything! I'm not too concerned with complications because they will make for a more interesting story.

Very Long Shot:
The Population/Luxury tradeoff was hard, but the extra population will give us a nice start on population growth though. The Very Long Shot comes to a total of 138, just under the hypothetical threshold for 4 complications.

Well, I just came back here and tried to figure out what I missed. So allow me a question: What kind of ship are we going to get? Sounds like a transportship to me, but what kind exactly? A merchant, a deep exploration ship or a colony ship? Maybe we should decide that first and then what we should take aboard? If it was decided and i just didn't got it, feel free to ignore this post.

I'm kind of lazy and busy right now so i vote for whatever Dragonfang wanted.

[X] Plan: Complicated Security with a headstart v2

Suederwind wrote:Well, I just came back here and tried to figure out what I missed. So allow me a question: What kind of ship are we going to get? Sounds like a transportship to me, but what kind exactly? A merchant, a deep exploration ship or a colony ship? Maybe we should decide that first and then what we should take aboard? If it was decided and i just didn't got it, feel free to ignore this post.

You're getting the ECS-48 L'Amour, it's mentioned in the Insider:

Note: Long-range cargo vessel used to run supplies to distant outposts and to refuel extended-range Scout missions. (The class ship ECS-48 L'Amour was lost during jump transit in 2155.)

Note how it was lost in jump transit? That's you.

I recall Arioch mentioning that cargo transports of this type can indeed carry passengers with the right equipment, so that's all good.

If You're going to vote, please vote like so:

[X] Plan Amazing!

So that I can be sure you've cast a ballot. Saying "I'll vote for whoever" is harder to easily parse and can make for potential miscounts. Checking the box on the plan vote makes it completely unambiguous whether or not you're actually voting and who you're voting for.

[X] Complicated Security with a headstart

Surely this will make things interesting. and chocolate might come in handy

Hmm...

First of all thanks for the votes

Now, having thought about it, Algae could replace one of the genetic samples. They have diverse set of usage, which makes them valuable both for the colony and for trading, especially if they have some gene engineered advances when compared to ours.

There are two choices as far as I can see:

1st: Ditch the Oak trees for Algae. Oak is a hardy tree, a great source of hardwood and produces acorns. It is easy to create an Oak forest which would be the cornerstone of an implanted biosphere. The problem is if these benefits are really worth it. Wood is bound to be a luxury in that tech level, no much use in weapons, acorns are not a great source of nutrition and implanting a biosphere shouldn't be a priority.

2nd: Ditch the Berries for Algae. Berrie shrubs grow quick and would be an immediate source of fruits. Some variants are hardy to various climates. The problem is that the fruits wouldn't be great in number and that it doesn't have any other advantage other than immediately covering the need for fruit.

I initially thought that the Orange trees could also be used to make way. However some Orange tree variants are very hardy, in Greece we use a variant of Citrus trees in city streets because they can stand the pollution and remain with leaves through the year with not much watering.

Algae has a lot of potential uses, from biofuels to waste management, food production, and even plastics. The Algae you'll be carrying is a 'slush' variant used mainly for waste management, but has the necessary genes in an inactive state so it can be tweaked over to the other uses as the need arises. Tweaking it over to food should be fairly easy with a biolab, although you can probably do it with existing facilities at higher difficulty level, but the other uses are a bit harder to get right. That difficulty will mostly show up in the research rolls.

A varied diet in the form of a lot of Earth-native organics will have a good effect on morale. Theoretically you could feed your people on yeast and algae alone. The Nutrient Paste that your character lived off as a kid was essentially made from that stuff and you loved it, especially the blue nutrient paste. Your colonists just wouldn't like it very much for the most part and would riot the moment anything sweet came their way unless you were doing something absolutely amazing to keep them happy. It'll also give you a legup on trade, since anything that's earth native is effectively 100% unique to you.

Even sans Earth-native organics, you could also trade your way up to a varied diet. Alien foodstuffs that don't kill or poison you would be rather useful in such a scenario, but you need to have something to trade with from the outset. I think I've got a decent system to streamline and simplify trade so you're not operating fully off a barter system (the horror) but like all gameplay mechanics its slightly arbitrary.

Okay, heading to sleep now. Vote will remain open for another 17 hours or so, unless you want me to call the vote early of course.

dragoongfa wrote:Hmm...

First of all thanks for the votes

Now, having thought about it, Algae could replace one of the genetic samples. They have diverse set of usage, which makes them valuable both for the colony and for trading, especially if they have some gene engineered advances when compared to ours.

There are two choices as far as I can see:

1st: Ditch the Oak trees for Algae. Oak is a hardy tree, a great source of hardwood and produces acorns. It is easy to create an Oak forest which would be the cornerstone of an implanted biosphere. The problem is if these benefits are really worth it. Wood is bound to be a luxury in that tech level, no much use in weapons, acorns are not a great source of nutrition and implanting a biosphere shouldn't be a priority.

2nd: Ditch the Berries for Algae. Berrie shrubs grow quick and would be an immediate source of fruits. Some variants are hardy to various climates. The problem is that the fruits wouldn't be great in number and that it doesn't have any other advantage other than immediately covering the need for fruit.

I initially thought that the Orange trees could also be used to make way. However some Orange tree variants are very hardy, in Greece we use a variant of Citrus trees in city streets because they can stand the pollution and remain with leaves through the year with not much watering.

Not sure how much we'll have to worry about vitamins (medical supplies might cover that), but oranges and other citrus fruits have some very critical nutrients. It'd really suck if our colonists started dropping to scurvy. Plus they're tasty, which should keep people happy. I think leaving them in is a good idea.

As Razor mentioned, algae has a huge amount of utility, and it should be very fast to grow even from just a sample. Pull something to insert them and I'm on board with plan "Complicated Security with a headstart". Both oak trees and berries sound like good choices to lose. Berries grow fast and don't need a lot of tending, but oak will be a nice luxury good to trade with later on. Maybe keep the oak trees? We've got chocolate if people need a treat in the short term, and bees will give us honey.

EDIT:

Also got a chance to look over our ship. Good thing we took a non-martial path, because with nothing but 2 PD lasers we won't even be able to stand up to another human vessel, much less a Loroi or Umiak one.

I'm all for ditching the oak in favor of algae.

Indeed Algae are a great tool and could prove extremely useful in mid to late game, as well as an easily renewable food source in case of a catastrophe or the establishment of a secondary colony.

Oaks could be useful for luxury good trading as well as provide cheap housing materials in mid game if we need to quickly build more houses or basic facilities for some reason (see complication).

Berries on the other hand offer fruits and some basic trading with them... We have live Bees and Staples which should allow for the production of basic food and honey. Honey covers a lot of dietary needs and is a great luxury foodstuff, which means that it alone could cover Berries at the short run while chocolate will also be a good supplement in case of a morale hit.

Damn, I am going back and forth like a pendulum here.

EDIT: Damn, forgot paper production. Until we get some short of industrial base with the ability to replenish our tech then we will have to limit the use of computers to research and equipment handling and replace some paper pushing with actual paper.

As much as i like Berries Oak will probably be more useful.