Print

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

[evilcherry]

You can't have ammonia and Sulphur Dioxide at the same time I think...

p.s. 1 PPM of SO2 or H2S is already bad enough to warrant a closed loop system. But we don't really have a choice here... unless we decide that we won't land at all and go to the high gravity planet.

[VoidSlayer]

Huh, I thought they were both Oxidizers.

I reserve the right to retcon for accuracy!

I'll fix it later, still toxic but maybe not that much SO2 and NH3

[evilcherry]

Huh, I thought they were both Oxidizers.

I reserve the right to retcon for accuracy!

I'll fix it later, still toxic but maybe not that much SO2 and NH3

Both can exist in gaseous form if its completely dry. If you have some water, you can safely assume a lot of ammonium sulphate and the more abundant chemical (technically the less abundant chemical do exist in long term, but you can expect a molar concentration of a few orders lower), so you would either go for a ammonia rich atmosphere, or a acidic atmosphere with a lot of sulphur oxides, sulphuric acid and sulphate salts.

Given you depict pretty active volcanism an acidic atmosphere is the way to go.

[VoidSlayer]

I made some changes if they are unclear just ask.

Okay, bad news is still toxic levels of sulfur compounds and possible acid rain/snow!

Bonus research for bringing that up.. Uh... good news is the atmosphere is generally much less corrosive then you would expect, thanks to most of the planet being effectively an arctic desert?  Possibly mitigated by the plant(?) life?

[tryrar]

Bob is still our best bet. Sure we'll need to filter out all the sulfates and plan for protecting against acid rain/snow, but it has free oxygen that we can simply filter out from the air, and the ice world means we simply just need to pump heat straight down and siphon up water for filtration. Plus, it's in a gravity and pressure range we can inhabit safely.

The Super Earth has punishing gravity that I'm not sure we can adapt to, and more worrying that 4.67 atmosphere pressure is probably too much for us to safely inhabit, even if we could breathe it. We'd likely pop like grapes without pressure suits, which leads to an interesting chicken-and-egg dilemma on setting up the pressure domes we have without stepping foot of the shuttle, which would require some sore of pressure dome to survive....

[evilcherry]

Just nitpicking, pH should be low on Bob's oceans.

[VoidSlayer]

I would like to start or restart one of these games.  I am up for continuing this one where it left off if anyone is interested.

Turn Summary

Jan 2076

Pre-Flight Phase:
Jan 2076 Destination Kaptyen's Star, Research vessel, support the Ark ship
Turn 1 - Jan 2076 - Mar 2076 Shuttle bay researched, ship expanded, Robotic factory added
Turn 2 April 2076 - June 2076 Fusion Fragment rocket designed, cryopods and command centers installed, experimental                                                          equipment found: DALES-Data Analysis and Learning Expert System and Micro Domes
Turn 3 July 2076 - Sept 2076 Aug 2076 Test engine explodes, bio dome, fusion fragment rocket and interstellar flight added
Turn 3  July 2076 - September 2076 Portable Fusion Reactor swindled
Turn 4 Oct 2076 - Dec 2076Shuttle, fuel and cargo added

Launch Phase - Dec 2076 Dock explodes, repairs made

Outpost Overview Final Interstellar research ship with a shuttle and expert computer

Flight Phase:
Flight turn 1-2 2077 - 2087 VR built, 4 injured and put in cryo
Turn 3 2087 - 2092 Heavy Bot Swarm Logic Researched, Graffiti, VR CAD started
Message from DNS Renewal, Ark Ship They are okay!
Turn 4 2092 - 2097 First DALES failure, Kaptyen system first look
Flight phase Turn 5 Final 2097- Dec 2099 Ship retrofit, VR CAD completed, Second DALES failure - offline

Kaptyen system details 60 turns (10 years) until Ark ship arrives, Kaptyen d II - 'Bob' - Icy Earth decided on, periods of low solar activity

Outpost Overview

Ship: DNS Settler

    Hull Design: Survey Vessel

    Travel time, 23 years 11 month

    Resources 205/205 RU
    Size 103/105
    Mass 170.5
    Power Use 14.5/15 MW
    Cargo 55/50 ( 10/10 20/20 10/10 10/10)
    Crew 6 awake
    Cryogenic Capacity 16 crew/3 Injured crew/1 criminal(?) crew/20 total
    Thrust 60
    Fuel .375/year or .75/year (2/20 stored) + 4 cargo

    Installed Modifications:
        Expanded superstructure x2
        Interstellar Flight Conversion

    Installed Modules:
        Focus Detection Array (Integrated; no mass/size, 2 MW)
        Modular Advanced Lab(integrated; no mass/size, 3 MW)
        Small Cargo bay (Integrated; no mass/size; cargo still has mass)
        Command Center (electronic central computer)
        Cryogenic pods Mk II (20 persons)
        Biodome /w hydroponics (10/50 life support)
        Fusion Fragment Thruster (60 thrust 15 MW)
        DALES - 3 space, 4 mass, 4 MW no cost (off line)
        Medium Cargo Bay
        Small Cargo Bay
        Medium Shuttle Bay
        Size 10 fuel tanks
        VR system (off line)
          -Entertainment Suite
          -CAD Prototyping system

   Cargo:
        Small Cargo Bay(10/10)

He-3 Fuel Tank. Cost 2 RU. Size 2 Mass 3 (including fuel). Holds 4 fuel.
2×Heavy Bot Mech - 8 RU, Size 3, Mass 3.
Advanced Parts 3 RU Mass 1
Basic Parts 2 RU Mass 1

Small Cargo Bay(10/10)

He-3 Inertial Fusion Generator kit     Size 2 Mass 4
Organic Sludge Compressor kit        Size 2 Mass 1
1* Food 0.5 RU, Size 1, Mass 3.       Size 1 Mass 3
Water. Cost 1, mass 2.                   Size 1 Mass 2
3*RTG. 1 RU. Size 1. Mass 1.          Size 3 Mass 3
Oxygen scrubbers & water recyclers. Size 1. Mass 3.

Medium Cargo Bay(20/20)

My First Factory kit                        Size 10 Mass 20
Medium and Huge Micro-dome         Size 3 Mass 12
3*Rocket fuel RU .5 Size 1 Mass 2
Heavy bot mech Cost 8 RU, Size 3, Mass 3
1×Basic Parts 2 RU Mass 1

Medium Shuttle (10/10)

Small and large Micro-dome Size 2 mass 8
Oxygen Extractor. Cost 5 RU. Size 2, Mass 4
Organic Sludge Compressor kit      Size 2 Mass 1
Exo-suit : Cost 2 RU, Size 3, Mass 2
Air. Cost 1, mass 1.

Hallways : [5/5]

3*Air tanks & vac suits. 1 RU, Size 1, Mass 1
Advanced Parts 3 RU Mass 1
Basic Parts 2 RU Mass 1

  Shuttles:
        Medium Cargo Shuttle

Research:
      Heavy Bot swarm logic : Two bots add +5, 3 add +10, 5 add +15, 8 add +20, bonus is to each individual Heavy Bot working on the task
      ARC Cryogenics research (+10 to cryogenics rolls)
     

[Aseaheru]

I think that this one mostly turned into a deadend. Would gladly join a new one tho.

[escaped lurker]

Would gladly join a new one tho.

+1
I'd also be game.


Though, with this one and the previous two quickly getting axed by / after the landing, it might be worth to look into the why.

Right.. this became way bigger then I intitially thought it would. Am I meddlesome again? I fear I might be. Eh, here's it anyways;

Spoiler: Dis/Regard at your own leisure (click to show/hide)

From what I remember, despite it being number-crunching and rather tedious, there always was quite the interest in the planning phase.
*O.K. After re-reading a bit - The interest was mostly by a small amount of "invested" people. About five of them, give or take.


I am pretty sure the overly number-crunchy beginning, is shying away a good deal of essentially interested people. The first thing they see, are about ~3-5 word pages worth of text, with a multitude of options so big, it already is painful already.

Heck, these posts even need a "Manual - What the ship needs" section, because it is not intuitive on first sight. Then follow ~1 or 2 weeks of discussion on how to arrange the resources and options.


While these options are kind of the core game here, how about delaying most of them to later turns? If the first few turns decide "Planet", "Ship" and "Propulsion", most of the "Crunchy Clutter" is done with. At least, don't put all of it into the first post, and scare the people away with it.
(Oh, and including a few more-or-less relevant pictures. Not like space pictures are hard to come by - and, let's face it; Readers LOVE Pictures!)

~

Thing might also be, that from "Deciding the Setup", which is done on the first couple of pages, there is a good deal of time until "The Landing".
Inbetween those two, while "IC" a lot is happening, everything goes somewhat accordingly to the plan laid out in the set-up on page ~4, with only minor changes, and multiple weeks towards the next set of "real decisions".

~

Actually, wait. Let me get back at the picture topic. Or rather "Presentation".
The Outpost GM's spent most likely a two-digit-number of hours compiling a work-able system & scenario... And then only use {b} and {hr} to present it. Point is, invest a few minutes in living up those posts, especially the starting one, and have at least double the players interested.

There are a good deal of interesting games on here, so looking at the first page might be all you get. First impressions and what-not.

TLDR; I suspect that the wall-of-text-bat-to-the-face at the start, the weeks-long tedious discussion thereafter, and... lackluster presentation, are shying away what could easily be 80% of the interested players

[10ebbor10]

Presentation is hard.

[escaped lurker]

Presentation is hard.

Is it? Well, I won't say it isn't - but to be honest, I always found it more tedious than anything else.

All I'm really saying, is that while we do this stuff for fun, our players have no real obligation nor drive to stay at our games either, sans the time they are willing to invest. So, really, if proper spelling and punctuation is the bare nesseties, formating is making your prost pretty-er, and more accessible for reading. While the content stays unchanged, there is still a significant difference between a non-formated, and a formated post.


Also, just like writing, one will come to a certain style of "decorating" the posts.

Breaking up monotony is most important though - or rather, the worst one can do, is a monotone wall of text.
Give listings headers, give important information colours, give two empty spaces if you change the topic, those kinda things.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

A. Standard - This ship was recently built specifically for interstellar travel and this mission, it is light and has an integrated cargo hold built so far.  Everything else is up to you.

200 RU
50 Space
12 base mass
Medium Size 20 cargo hold

Now, I really just took this example, especially because it was the first choice on the first page.

A - Standard
This ship was recently built specifically for interstellar travel and this mission, it is light and has an integrated cargo hold built so far.
Everything else, is up to you.

200 RU
50 Space
12 base mass
Medium Size 20 cargo hold

Now, if things like RU are "colour-coded", searching through those big lists becomes way more intuitive, and less straining.
For the reader, that is. As GM, colour-coding all those items, could easily take 1 or 2 hours or so - then again, what are 1 or 2 hours, after all those hours already spent?
Well, that is my stance on this topic. Invest 1/5 or so more time, and have a far greater margin of players interested.