Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Draxis]

There are about 150 crew members to be rotated through.

[10ebbor10]

I propose we have 15 crew unfrozen at all times, allowing us to have 3 5-man shifts. This should prevent unwanted aging and other troubles. If needed, we can wake up more people during maintenance.

[Aseaheru]

That makes sense.

As for numbers, as long as we have more than 100 sets of human genetic material we will be fine.

[10ebbor10]

Cloning doesn't work in this setting. Sure, we can try invitro fertilization.

[RulerOfNothing]

You do realise that we're also bringing ~40,000 people in the Ark cryopods? So I don't think genetic diversity will be too big an issue.

[Aseaheru]

Thats 100 humans Ebbor...
But fertilized eggs work as well.

[Nunzillor]

How frequent are the turns going to be for the time in travel?  The previous games never had a journey this long.  I think it's actually more than double the previous ones.

[Draxis]

They will be 5 years, but I plan to just roll them one after another until something requiring player input comes up and post them in big blocks.

[Aseaheru]

Allright. So, when are we ungrateful bastards getting an update?

[Draxis]

Allright. So, when are we ungrateful bastards getting an update?

Now!

Update 7: Launch!
April 2053. edge of the Solar system

With everything and everyone loaded and the reactors heated up and tested, the Outpost ship (named, at the last minute, Heart of Gold) is ready for launch. The scaffolds are cast away, and the engines brought to full power; the ship pulls away from Lunar Base and towards its destination with no problems - every system is working as demanded.  The ship's 15 crew are able to spend most of their time relaxing - though of course, they are too expert to allow it to get in the way of their duty.  As the ship passes through the outer limits of the Solar system, the crew reflects on what they have left behind, and what they are even now approaching.


What they are even now approaching is the second stage of the game - the Flight Stage!  The game proceeds in 5-year turns now - 11 of them will be needed before the ship reaches the destination system, assuming there are no delays.  Also, nothing much will happen in many of them - unless something goes critically wrong (maybe well...), or problems somehow build up to the point where player intervention is needed most will be simply 10 minutes of making a few rolls and writing up a summary of "Everything was pretty good, but a few pipes exploded and Crewman Jim fixed them."  As such, I will be running the 5-year turn in groups of three and grouping up the summaries of those three into a single post.

Of course, if player input is needed for any reason within these groups of turns, I will interrupt and post an Event update or series of them.  Input won't really be as structured in this phase as in the others, mostly consisting of event reactions and write-ins.  You can assume that the crew will generally act sensible and responsible on their own.


Update 7 Status: April 2053, Post-launch.

Starship: Heart of Gold, hybrid Ark-Outpost Ship
Total Size: 160 units
Structure mass: 105 units.

Installed components:

• 4 Ark Cryobays.  Size 10x4, mass 15x4.  -10x4 power.
• Closed-Loop Lifesupport and Hydroponics. Size 4, mass 3. -6 power. 1 crew.
• Damage Control & Machine Shop.  Size 4, mass 2.  -1 power.
• Large Cargo Bay.  Cost 4 RU. Size 43. Mass 2. Cargo Space Filled: 40/40
  • Organic sludge processor Cost 2 RU, Size 2, Mass 1.
  • Automated production line . Cost 20 RU, Size 4, Mass 7.
  • Prefabricated General Laboratory: 20 RU. Size 6. Mass 4. Electricity 3 MW.
  • Optronic Central Computer.  Cost 10 RU. Size 2. Mass 2.
  • Seed Bank. 2 RU, 4 mass, 3 size.
  • D&D vehicles. Cost 2RU, size 4, mass 4
  • Powered Exo-skeleton Constructor Units. Cost 2 RU, Size 2, Mass 2
  • Ore Processor. Cost 6 RU, Size 4, Mass 5.
  • 4x Advanced parts 3x4 RU. Size 1x4. Mass 1x4.
  • 3x Basic Parts 2.3 RU. Size 1x4. Mass 1x4.
  • Advanced Medical Supplies 2 RU, size 1. Mass 1.
  • 2x vac suits 1x2 RU, Size 1x2, Mass 1x2.
  • 2x Air tanks. 1x2 RU. Size 1x2. Mass 1x2.
• Medical Bay. Cost 3 RU. Size 2. Mass 1. -1 power.
• Recreational Commons. Cost 5 RU. Size 4. Mass 4 units. -1 power.
• Biodome. Size 20. Mass 2.
• MCF Fusion Reactor. Size 5x2. Mass 3x2. 75x2 to 37.5 power. Uses 1x2 to .5 Fuel/Yr.
• Smart Command Centre. Size 2. Mass 2. -3 power. 1 crew.
• 10 Small Fuel Tanks.  Size 2x10. Mass 3x10. Fuel 8x10
• 3 Improved Ion Drives.  Size 3x3. Mass 7x3. -6x3 power. Thrust 9x3.
• Focused Detection Array. Size 1. Mass 1. -2 power.
• 4x vac suits in hallways. 1x4 RU. Size 4/6. Mass 1x4

Expert Crew Bonus: +5 to all relevant rolls in the Flight phase, due to high levels of training and familiarity with the ship in the crew.
Masterful Engineering Bonus: Effects of having 40 vacuum suits in the crew spaces minimised - only minor mobility issues remain.
Rugged Construction: +5 to all rolls relevant to the ship being overengineered and tested further than usual.
Atmospheric Flight Capacity: While not graceful, the ship is capable of landing with relative precision and control for a multi-thousand-ton brick, on any planet with an atmosphere at least.

Total mass: 286 units.
Free space: 1 units.
Required power: 72 units.
Maximum power output: 150 units.
Total fuel: 80 units
Fuel remaining at destination: 27 units

Crew Lifesupport: 25
Required Crew: 2
Crew Awake: 15

Destination: Star A, distance 1.
Max. thrust: 27
Flight time remaining: 53 years (mass/thrust*distance*5 years)

Standing Orders:

• Keep 15 crew awake, rotated in shifts of 5 on duty at any time.
• Shut down as much as possible 1 month every 5 years for intensive maintainance, and swap out which reactor is being run then to maintain the other.

     [ ] _____________________________
     ...

If people have problems with the multi-turn updates, I can do them singly, but with such a long flight time I would prefer not to.

[10ebbor10]

Seems good. With 11 turns it's going to take a while before we get there.

On a side note, do we get additional actions if nothing goes wrong, or is it assumed that it just barely doesn't go wrong, and that our crew is doing important thingies.

Edit: On a side note 11 rolls. Assuming we need to roll under 40 to get a crisis, we have a 0.3% chance of not having a crisis;

[Draxis]

I won't just be rolling one die every turn; there will be several, and for something to go critically wrong will take a very low roll; however, even with good maintainance and construction minor damage will likely build up over the years to the point where something reaches critical levels, as rolls for the crew to make things significantly better without a dedicated effort will be harder than rolls for wear to take place.

You can do however many actions you want each turn, within reason - each turn is 5 to 15 years - because with such a large crew compared to the requirements there will be lots of free time left over for actions to be done.  However, the more time-consuming things are done the more the crew will become stressed out (mostly for standing orders, not usually one-off jobs,) which is obviously not helpful.

[10ebbor10]

We should be able to let them do some research without stressing them to much, I presume. The VR and optronic systems should be capable of designing, providing they don't draw to much CPU.

Anyway, first of the things we can let them do is to see if they can utilize systems to design stuff without compromising operational security; (Using the VR as a virtual design environment). After that, let's see if they can refine our MCF fusion systems, based on the research we already started.

[Draxis]

Doing that won't cause any stress problems, unless they spend enough time on it that it starts cutting heavily into their significant off-duty time.  Which it shouldn't.

[Aseaheru]

Well, lets do that then.