So, for the moment, thinking of going with the Mars one. Here's a preliminary list of things you can get at the start of the game. Feel free to discuss.
I need to add a bit more options for the spacecraft, as well as adding a lot more options for the base itself. This game will allow mid-expedition resupply, so prefab buildings are warrented.
Vessels
Ariane 6 HE Cost : 5 ICU Size Capability : 30 Mass Capability : 40
Energia Cost : 20 ICU Size Capability : 80 Mass Capability : 80
SLS Block 2 Cost : 30 ICU Size Capability : 160 Mass Capability : 130
Hydrolox Transfer Stage Cost : Size : Mass : A simple, conventional engine that uses a hydrogen oxygen fuel to place a payload on a transfer course towards Mars. Needs to account for at least 75% of the spacecrafts weight in order to successfully execute the mission. The proper trajectory for this mission appears every 2 years, and the voyage takes 9 months.
Ion engine Cost: Size: Mass: Though far more fuel efficient than conventional engines, the ion engine is not without its drawbacks. It's high consumption of power and low thrust mean that a simple mission to Mars will take almost 4 years, though it's not dependent on orbital alignments. 10% of vessel mass needs to be Ion engines.
Pressurized Cargo
Unpressurized Cargo
Solar pannels
RTG
Orbital Survey Satellite. Cost 10 RU, Size 3, Mass 3. Highly developed satellite intended to be launched in to stable orbit over a planet or a moon. Using a variety of technologies, it slowly if steadily scans the body below it for mineral deposits and transmits the data regarding location, depth, materials and size of deposits to a ship or a ground installation using radio. A single satellite can fully scan an Earth-like planet in 10 years.
Weather Satellite. Cost 10 RU, Size 3, Mass 3. A combination of passive and active technologies, this satellite is intended to gather information of atmospheric conditions. Moisture-analyzers, high-atmosphere wind speed measurers, cloud radar, lightning bolt detectors, particle density optometers and other technologies make this satellite an effective orbital weather- and atmospheric analysis laboratory. Unfortunately, the design cannot incorporate the complex and power-hungry Expert Systems to collate and analyze the data for an on-the-spot prediction of weather conditions. This satellite can only provide a remote user with all the necessary information. In addition, a single satellite can only observe a limited area at a time – the size of central Europe, for reference.
Communications Satellite. Cost 10 RU, Size 4, Mass 3. A relatively simple satellite which should allow communications to be bounced across the horizon with great accuracy. Just point any strong radio transmission at it, starting with a set of target coordinates, and it will beam it down to anywhere within range. However, that range is theoretically limited to a quarter of a planet's surface, even assuming it were a perfect sphere; also, the further from the center of that range the sender or reciever is, the worse the signal will be. Any atmospheric conditions which interfere with radio transmissions on the ground will have double the effect on transmissions passed through this satellite.
Conventional Heatshield and Airbag : A simple design, utilizing a heatshield and then airbag to drop bulk payloads on the surface. Unsuitable for fragile equipment and humans, due to the forces involved.
Retropropulsive Landing : A complex array of rockets within the spacecraft serve slow down the spacecraft, gently setting it down upon the surface at not-insignificant expense.
Cargo
Resources: Containers of resources, in the form of raw material or finished parts, to be used for repairs in-flight or for use once the ship has landed. All resources come in Size-1 containers. Available types:
Common Materials. Cost 1, mass 2. Refined metals and ceramics, used as material for most production and making Basic Parts.
Rare Materials. Cost 2, mass 2. Ingots of uncommon or hard-to-produce materials, used for production of optronics, superconductors, fancy sensors, and the like. Also used to make Advanced Parts.
Basic Parts. Cost 2, mass 1. Used for easier production of mechanical and electronic machinery, and provides a bonus to appropriate production or maintenance tasks.
Advanced parts. Cost 3, mass 1. Needed for production of Advanced technology, and some repairs; provides a bonus to maintenance on Advanced technology if they are not required.
Water. Cost 1, mass 2. Water is vital to most life, and the only so much can be conserved by even the best closed systems. This provides a source of water, for easy use, or in case there is none available at the destination.
Air. Cost 1, mass 1. Air is an important part of any Outpost, and it is often difficult to get more useable air from the environment. This contains tanks of pressurized air, usable for pressurizing the ship, the base, or anything else that needs it.
Food. 0.5 RU, Size 3, Mass 1. Compressed protein and vitamin bars, carbohydrate sludge and other such forms of slightly distasteful if highly nutritious examples of deep space food. Minimal quality, but sufficient for a healthy diet, for 10 awake persons for 5 year.
Advanced Medical Supplies: 2 RUs, size 1, mass 1. A truck-container's worth of advanced medicines, drugs, and miniature medical equipment. Requires medical facilities to use. Can be used to quickly heal injured crew or replace damaged medical equipment.
Bio-recycler kit. Cost 3 RU, Size 2, Mass 4. Nearly all organic materials can be broken down, when mixed with water and put under sufficient preassure and heat. The rest break down just as easily if you add ozone or some recently developed chemicals as catalysts. This kit provides industrial scale mixers, pressure boilers, separator columns, ozone injectors, necessary chemicals and so forth, to reduce any and all organic waste produced by up to 200 people into basic but useable hydrocarbons. Simply select a place, assemble the kit, provide water and 5 MW of electricity for continued and fully automated operation.
Hydroponics kit. Cost 7 RU, Size 6, Mass 5. All the equipment – barring water – to begin farming at the target planet. Simply excavate a suitable cavern, build a dome, or deploy outdoors if you are lucky, pickup a wrench and begin assembly Within a matter of months, you'll have your first set of harvest coming along nicely. Provides sustainably sufficient food for up to 50 active individuals, as long as water, and warmth with sunlight (or 15 MW of electricity) is provided. The kit also includes full blueprints and technical manuals as hard copies, for easy repair, maintenance and expansion of the farm.
Organic Sludge Compressor kit. Cost 2 RU, Size 2, Mass 1. Newly established installations often have to contend with limited space or resources. Even hydroponics can at times be an unaffordable luxury. The most recent solution: Organic Sludge Compressor, based upon the theoretical concept of protein resequencers. Sophisticated analysis unit recognizes organic materials and a chemistry expert system calculates required input to turn that material into basic edible nutrition. As long as an organic base is provided, even simple inorganic materials can be processed for the missing elements. Once all requirements have been fulfilled, it processes them into basic nutritious goo containing artificial vitamins, proteins and so forth. 5 MW of power required for continued operation, can sustainably feed up to 100 persons. Note: Advanced Technology. Takes 3 months to construct.
Meat-vat kit. Cost 15 RU, Size 4, Mass 5. More than one army has fallen due to poor food supply, more than one rebellion started from hunger. With the wonders from stem-cell research, an industrial scale petri dish, nutrients and a little power, a juicy beef steak ready for cooking is born. This facility takes in 2 MW of power, any organic materials, and intelligent oversight from one person, to produce fresh and artificial meat as a supplement for dietary needs. At full production, this facility can feed up to 20 individuals with a meat-based diet.
Water Synthesizer. Cost 1 RU. Size 2, Mass 2. Liquid water is a necessity for all known life. Too bad it cannot be counted upon to be easily available at the destination. This 'synthesizer' plant burns hydrogen in a series of fuel cells in presence of almost pure oxygen. Old-fashioned, but effective and reliable. As long as sufficient raw materials are present, a single unit can provide up 1 unit of water per turn, along with 1 MW of power.
Atmospheric Harvester Cost: Mass: Size : A large, industrial system designed to gather and pressurize the thin martian atmosphere, allowing it to be used by lifesupport or other systems.
Seed Bank. 2 RU, 4 mass, 3 size. A seed bank of several hundred varieties of GM plants, ranging from simple grasses to fruit-hybrid trees to hydroponic rice to Mars-soil adapted wheat. Will greatly assist in setting up agriculture on alien worlds. Combined with a biotech lab, these seeds can also be used as a template for future variation and gene-editing.
Habitation Dome S / M / L. Cost 4 / 6 / 8. Size 1 / 2 / 3, Mass 0.5 / 1 / 1.5 An inflatable, fairly durable, vacuum rated plastic habitation dome with aluminium/titanium supports. Provides near-instant, basic empty space for equipment, living space or other such purposes. Simply find a flat piece of ground, assemble the supports, and inflate with air.
Armored Habitation Dome S / M / L. Cost 6 / 10 / 14, Size 2 / 4 / 6. Mass 2.5 / 5 / 7.5. With a core of basic Habitation Dome, this upgraded version includes a rigid outer shell of military-grade composite armor. It naturally weights quite a bit more and takes longer to fully assemble. However it provides solid protection from aggressive weather phenomena or micro-meteors, nearly guaranteeing the physical integrity of the Dome even in the most hazardous environments. Small dome is 300, medium 600 and largest 1000 square meters, with top height ranging from 5m to 20m.
Solar Panels. Cost 20 RU, Size 10, Mass 6. Latest technological improvements at Sol have given solar panels a staggering efficiency, approaching 30% limit. While power output might not be stable, or as high per ton of equipment as fusion generators, solar power is simpler, cannot explode and does not depend upon fuel. Simple take a panel, point it at the sun, and plug in a cord. A single set contains enough panels to provide 30 MW of power on Earth-like conditions.
He-3 Inertial Fusion Generator kit. Cost 15 / 40 / 75 RU, Size 2/10/20. Mass 4/10/20. Generates 50 / 150 / 500 MW. A prefabricated, tightly packed construction kit of the same shipboard systems widely used in ships of mankind – sans the massive heat radiators required to operate such a power plant in space. Lay down the groundwork and keep building, and faster than you'd might think you'll have a stable, easy to maintain, tried and tested type of fusion generator ready to provide your Outpost with power. As long as you can provide it with fuel, and intelligent oversight to make sure it doesn't go boom.
Radioisotope thermoelectric battery. 1 RU. Size 1. Mass 1. Generates 1 MW for 50 years. Take some radioactive isotopes, surround them with heat-to-electricity converters, encase it all in radiation shielding. Presto; cheap, long term battery. Too bad about the radioactive waste and poor efficiency though.Note: Simple technology, fast and easy to use. Extremely unlikely to malfunction. Cannot be refuelled.
Ore Processor. Cost 6 RU, Size 4, Mass 5. Basic, rugged design intended to crush rock and ore, and separate materials within by weight, density and/or magnetic properties. 2 MW of electricity required, throughput per day of 1 unit.
Manufacturing equipment. Cost 9 RU, Size 3, Mass 4. A workshop-type solution for early manufacturing needs. This set contains all the necessary equipment and work benches to construct basic electronics, practice small-scale metallurgy, and turn simple raw materials into spare parts and components, and with time, more complex tools. Has a limited capability to work with Advanced parts. However, the limited use of robotics makes this manpower-intensive solution and unsuitable for large-scale manufacturing. Requires 8 persons and 1MW of power for optimal efficiency. Effectively zero maintenance required.
Automated Production Line. Cost 20 RU, Size 4, Mass 7. Robotics based self-contained small assembly line. Provide 10MW of power, intelligent oversight from 2 persons and basic raw materials, and simply watch finished parts and components come out. Given time, it can produce all the parts of simple bots, or even an unassembled copy of itself. The basic model is unable to produce Advanced Technology parts, such as optronic circuitry. As these units are often used to provide basic manufacturing capability on remote locations with manpower concerns, they have been optimized for batch type work. This makes the units more complex and overall only somewhat faster than manual labour from a skilled team with basic facilities. As such, it requires high-maintenance, though all the information and tools required to operate and maintain this unit safely are included. Takes 3 months to construct.
Automated Bot Assembly Line: 18 RU. Size 4. Mass 6. Electricity 8 MW. A dedicated assembly line programmed to build a variety of bots from preprogrammed templates. In addition to modern-day optronics-based mining and construction bots, it is equipped with schematics for older models of bots as well. The system is rugged and reliable, used in several asteroid belt bases to build their own bots on site. Retasking it to build anything else will be problematic however due to need for significant retooling. Takes 3 months to construct.
My First Factory kit. Cost 40 RU, Size 10, Mass 20. A package of parts and equipment simply waiting to be assembled at a suitable location and plugged to a power generator. Once finished, this heavily automated batch-type industrial unit is capable of turning raw materials into any finished basic technological product, up to the size of a semi-truck and to the complexity of a simple Bot in a single go. Given time and resources, this facility can produce Advanced parts, and eventually produce components to assemble another one like it. Due to heavy use of robotics, expert systems and simple 3D printers, along with in-built ore processor and electronics fabricator, only a single person is required to oversee the entire factory and blueprints can be directly fed to the system to being production of the intended finished component or product. Compared to simpler automated systems, this unit is highly effective and productive. You only need 20 MW of power, along with unprocessed requisite raw materials (though availability of pre-processed materials speeds up the function of this unit). Users however often note that complexity of this unit also results in high maintenance demand and periodic breakdowns. Note: Advanced Technology. Construction time: 12 months.
Optronic Central Computer. Cost 10 RU. Size 2. Mass 2. A large series of Expert Systems, combined with centralized databases and computing power, along with wirelessly connected tablet-computers, this unit is ready to function as a central computer hub for a small to medium installation or colony. It provides capability to run oversight or control programs on a large number of other machines, various other programs, collate and store data, or even provide advice. Extensive knowledge of historical applications to solve problems an Outpost might be facing, is combined with special-built Expert System to accept input from the colonists regarding problems and available materials and equipment. The system then analyzes the requirements and seeks to match it with a solution programmed to its database, finally providing the colonists with the fastest, simplest or cheapest solution that fulfills the restrictive criteria. When required, the system can print out blueprints, assembly guides or historical records regarding the solution, as long as such exist within the system's databanks. Note: Advanced Technology. Takes 6 months to construct.
Prefabricated General Laboratory: 20 RU. Size 6. Mass 4. Electricity 3 MW. A generalist lab setup that can do a bit of everything in most areas of science, but nothing well and lacks specialist equipment. In time, it can be expanded using included schematics for lab equipment. Note: Advanced technology. Takes 3 months to construct.
Life Sciences Laboratory: 20 RU. Size 10. Mass 15. Electricity 20 MW. An advanced,self contained bio laboratory with a database of nearly every living species on Earth, as well as an optronic computer with expert systems to allow for the easy modification of animals. Also includes a versatile cloning system, isolation chambers and a multi-functional cryosystem for long term observation. Note: Advanced technology. Takes 3 months to construct.
Powered Exo-skeleton Constructor Units. Cost 2 RU, Size 3, Mass 2. A pair of advanced, 2.5m tall constructor units. Forget searching for the right tool, waiting for a crane to swing over or even most common hazards. Simply get into one of these, and you're a single-man hybrid of a constructor team and a cargo loader. The variants being offered to Outpost missions are atmospherically sealed.
Digging & drilling vehicles. Cost 2 RU, Size 4, Mass 4. A pair of advanced vehicles powered by electric engines, intended to be operated by a single person each. These drill-headed, tracked vehicles can dig, burrow and drill through most rock without any real problems. Advanced servo technology allows them to dig even straight down, or make 90 degree turns in spaces smaller than they are, the haul out the materials with their internal containers. Atmospherically sealed and rollcage made from starship-hull grade materials make these excellent, modern tools for basic groundworking or underground drilling.
Heavy Bot Mech - 8 RU, Size 3, Mass 3. A hybrid child of a multipurpose bot team and a exoskeleton, the Heavy Bot can perform both mining and construction tasks as well as its normal multi-bot parents whilst encased in a heavier chassis for durability and ease of production with only needing to make one large optronic brain rather than several. The downside is that it works alone and can't perform swarm-logic like its little cousins, and still isn't as good as a dedicated bot team although more efficient than a regular exo duo. Still needs a human remote-control overseer to coordinate activity and make sure it doesn't wander off target.
Constructor Bot Team. Cost 15 RU, Size 5, Mass 4. A team of ten remote-operateable semi-automated constructor robots, that can build anything on personal or industrial scale. These things are not intelligent, but work tirelessly and with precision as long as intelligent oversight is present. They multiply the amount of physical labour a single human can accomplish to staggering amounts. You only need to periodically recharge their batteries. User's manual, remote-interface program, recharge station and maintenance manual included, as usual.
Mining Bot Team. Cost 12 RU, Size 5, Mass 4. Used all over the place in the Sol-system asteroid fields, a single mining bot team works as a unit to dig into rock, excavate the materials, transport them to a site nearby and sort them according to rough criteria (such as "Iron ore here, porous rock there"). They are also often used for underground excavations, for constructor bots to create entire subterranean installations to the space opened up by these units. The bots are not intelligent and a team requires oversight from one human, if they are to accomplish anything. However, they are precise and efficient, and have to pause only for recharging. As usual, everything except actual spare parts are included in the package, to ensure stable long-term operation.
Multipurpose Bot Teams. Cost 17 RU, Size 5, Mass 4. By removing redundancies, half the members of both teams, and top end capabilities, a hybrid remote-operated bot team capable of both construction and digging is created. It cannot do either task as well as a full, dedicated bot team can, but are versatile and still ought to function more efficiently than either human-operated constructors or drillers at either task.
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Topic: General Interest Check and Idea Thread (Read 1330 times)