NOTE ON SIGNUPS: Rather than first-come, first serve, I'll be evaluating sheets and picking the ones I think will work best.
Maybe you've got a criminal record that unfairly holds you down. Maybe everyone laughed at your political manifesto or new spiritual epiphany. Maybe folks back home just don't approve of your lifestyle choices. Or maybe you're just tired of it all and looking for another way. Whatever the reason, you've decided to leave mainstream society behind and form a commune, where you hope you can live in a more ideal society. Together with a handful of others, you've pooled your funds to build a modestly priced space capsule and crashed it into an unclaimed hunk of rock known as 217-β. Here you hope to prove that space travel is no longer for the elite, and that with thrift and teamwork, the common person can live by their own rules, by their own sweat, away from mother earth.
Rules:This will have more mechanics than most games that I run, though the main focus is RP. The primary thing that you should worry about is that I'll sort of be keeping track of certain resources and structures.
Resources:Food: Most of you will need this to live. The average person needs around 200 units per day to stay healthy and alive. This may vary by certain circumstances/conditions.
Energy: Everyone depends on this. You need it for pretty much anything you want to do, including growing food. Bear in mind that energy is difficult to store, and your capacity depends on available storage devices. Things that output energy tend to do so constantly, so a 1000e source can power, say, 5 200e objects all the time. Only when the grid's energy input is lower than the output do devices drain stored charge on a daily basis.
Materials: This category will be subdivided as needed. Things used to make other things. Though not directly necessary for your survival, you'll probably need them to get the things you need.
Money: Used to get goods and services from the outside world. Probably hard to come by initially. May or may not be important to your survival, depending on how you play.
Space: Pretty much everything you own takes up space. Even energy, because the batteries/capacitors have to go somewhere. More on this in its own section. Every unoccupied space can hold up to 1000 units of stuff (food or material). Digging out a new space creates around 1000 units of material, depending on the method.
Space (storage, living, the vast void of, etc):AKA where to keep all the people and possessions. You're going to want more rather quickly. There are two basic kinds: indoors, and outdoors. Outdoors, you technically have an unlimited amount of, but it isn't very secure, what with cosmic radiation, micrometeors, and the lackluster gravitational pull of the asteroid (though you can still use it). Indoor space, you gotta make your own.
There are two ways of doing this: digging into the rock, or building. Any new indoor space is going to need to be pressurized if you want people to be able to go inside without a space suit. It takes 100 units of air to properly pressurize a space, and an above-ground space will need radiation shielding to be completely habitable. Living with insufficient pressure will lead to negative health effects, the timing and severity depending on how low the pressure is.
I probably won't be drawing a map, but I will be keeping track of space as "rooms/chambers." So, if a room has 20 spaces, it needs 2000 air to be fully pressurized, but if necessary, you can pump air from less important rooms to more important ones, or leave rooms unpressurized. Properties such as radiation shielding, faraday caging, reinforcing, soundproofing, etc will also be kept track of at the room level.
You start off with 12 indoor space inside your space capsule. With your starting equipment and food taking up 8 of those, it's a bit cramped in there.
Structures:Things what do things. If you don't have a thing that can do one thing, or all things that can do that one thing are destroyed/lost, then you can't do that thing. You can improvise/invent these, just ask about building/acquiring something, tell me what it's supposed to do, and I'll tell you what you'd need in order to get it. There will be some pre-defined things that you don't start with but I think you'll probably be wanting. Every structure takes up at least 1 space.
Things you start with and what they do:*May be amended before game start, especially depending on people's characters.
Hydropod: Grows food from energy and recycled waste. Needs 100 energy per day, produces 1000 food at the end of every week. 1 space (indoors)
Recyclor: Recycles air and waste (the latter only if people use it right, because it doubles as the toilet). 200e. 2 spaces (indoors)
Electrolysis Crucible: Produces 25 oxygen, 25 aluminum, and 50 slag from every 100 rock. 2 spaces (indoors)
Gas Compressor: Stores air, capacity 2000 (starts filled). 1e per 10 units to fill. 2 spaces (outdoors)
Communications antenna: Sends and receives radio signals. 25e, but only drains when in use. 1 space (outdoors)
Radar: Detects objects in nearby space. 25e, but only drains when in use. 1 space (outdoors)
Solar Panels (2x): Provide 500e each, but only when facing the sun. (1 space each, outdoors)
Pod Battery: Holds up to 400e. Starts charged. 1 space (outdoors)
Pulverizer (3x): Large hand-held powertool used for digging. 1e per space dug. 900 rock per space dug.
3100 stored foodCharacter Info:*NOTE: may be some discussion to do before sign-ups are ready.
LoreI want to leave this a bit open, as we'll be dealing with a small group of people mostly cut off from the outside world, but there are some important things to note. No one's been outside the solar system, space travel is still mainly handled by governments/corporations/super-wealthy individuals (though times are changing on that front). FTL is not a thing. The rights of artificial beings and their place in society are contentious issues.
Types:What kind of thing you are. Choices here will have gameplay implications, which we'll discuss when you submit your sheet, but think about RP, rather than stats. Notice I'm leaving a lot of room for fluff.
Pretty much your natural-bred homo sapiens, perhaps with some cosmetic surgery, piercing, light body modding, etc, if you so choose. Upkeep: 200 food per day, might vary.
People who for varying reasons have varying levels of gadgetry fused with their bodies. Often more capable, but also higher upkeep, depending on augments. First, choose a power source:
-Bio-electricity: your augments are powered through the chemical energy of your own body! However, this increases your nutritional requirements. (225 base food upkeep + augments)
-Internal battery: your augments are powered by an internal battery! Keep it charged from external sources. Be careful if your life depends on any of your augments! (225 base energy upkeep + augments)
Next, choose two augments. Feel free to discuss these/suggest new ones. In fact, please do.
-Life-support: You have a recyclor build right into your body, allowing you to recycle the chemicals of your metabolism. You no longer need to eat! In fact, doing so may mess up the delicate balance of your insides (though you might have to if you get wounded). All food requirements become energy requirements.
-Carapace: Your body is encased in a second skin of various materials, capable of sealing itself and thus negating the need for a space-suit. (+10 e/f requirement)
-Pneumatic muscles: Your skeletal and muscular systems are reinforced with synthetic fibers, greatly increasing your physical strength and durability (+50 e/f requirement)
-Neural Interface: You can interact with nearby network-capable devices with your mind! (+10 e/f requirement)
-Robotic limbs: An extra pair of hands is always useful! (How this affects your upkeep really depends. If it's a prosthetic replacing an amputation with no fancy features, probably not much. If you're Doc Oc, probably more. As with everything, we'll discuss.)
-Sensory augmentation: You can see infrared! You can hear ultrasound! You can taste WiFi! (+10 upkeep, probably. Depends on the specifics.)
Chemicals messing with your parent's gametes, rogue engineered retroviruses, inbreeding, whatever. Something has messed up your DNA. However, it didn't kill you, so here you are. Basic upkeep is 200 food/day, depending on mutations. Choose 1 beneficial mutation, and 1 harmful mutation (and possibly minor ones for flavor). You could also do one with a direct tradeoff (regeneration at the cost of having to eat more). Examples (again, feel free to discuss/suggest):
Beneficial:
-Improved metabolism: you lucked out, somehow your mutated body is better at using its resources than other peoples' are. (-25 food upkeep)
-Better sense(s)
-Minor healing factor: your body recovers from injuries at a much faster rate than normal.
-Food storage: your body can store chemical energy for later, for when food is scarce.
-Waaay immune: you could get stabbed with a rusty knife covered in cow poo and not get an infection.
Harmful:
-Disabled: you were born with a missing/atrophied something, like a limb or an organ.
-Odor: your body produces a foul stench that your fellows have to take steps to deal with.
-Immunodefficiency: you could get an infection from being in the presence of a rusty knife, cow poo or no.
-No homeostasis: you'll get really sick if the atmospherics aren't juuust right.
Machines designed to resemble people, in both appearance and behavior, to varying degrees. Most androids don't need to breathe, but are still vulnerable to cosmic radiation. Basic upkeep: 200 energy per day. However, an android might have features that alter this, sort of like a cyborg:
-additional limbs
-built-in tools
-greater than human strength
Waaay open to discussion
Name:
Type: Put your type and the necessary information therein here.
Description: appearance, gender, personality, all that stuff.
Background: What was this person doing before and why'd they decide to go live out on a rock in space with a bunch of weirdos? What skills might they have? Motive is important.
PS: Bonus points to anyone who's read
The Blithedale Romance.