@OceanSoul: Just so you know for your future actions, I'm going to be cutting you a lot of slack in terms of "inventing" or otherwise obtaining the things needed for your genetics stuff. So don't worry too much about whatever methods you use to obtain the things. Same goes for everyone really. In fact...
Individual Scientists is more of a "soft sci-fi" game. Basically, the player characters don't
necessarily have to abide by the regular laws of reality. Things are much easier for them, and more. See Independent Scientist for things like this - the character made hydrogen fuel cell in less than a week that was potentially one of the best hydrogen fuel cells in existence for its size and fuel requirements. You're all able to do things like that.
Essentially, you abide by the laws of balance, and not reality.
Finally: I just want to state this before it starts actually becoming relevant, but for inventions and the like, I will be using whatever name you refer to it as. It's up to you if you want creative names for your stuff.
May 5th, 2017RobosonYou learn many fun and cool facts about animals today, but nothing that can be used for science. Learning programming is a bit different. You already know programming, so normally the concepts explained in a book as simple as the one you currently have wouldn't add anything to your knowledge or skill levels. However, excerpts in the Robotics textbook currently possessed by you combined with some tidbits of new information gleamed from the programming book lead to you gaining the knowledge
Basic Robotic Programming. The robotic construction ideas discussed in the textbook were ideas that you already knew, and hence you learned nothing new in that department.
You buy
Work Tools for
$35 and buy
5u Mechanical Bits for
$20 at a store once this reading is over with. Yup, mechanical bits also include nuts and bolts and similar items.
As you walk home with your bags full of tools and mechanical bits, you stop at a used electronics store after noticing a "HELP WANTED" sign plastered to the window. Despite how late it's getting at this point, you luckily manage to get a part-time job for the wondrous wage of
$4 per day. With this done, you eventually finish walking to your garage and drop the goods on the ground before collapsing onto your "bed".
Tomorrow, you'll earn
$4 from your part-time job at an used electronics store.
Home: Garage; New Bounds
Cash: $45
Outfit: Regular Clothing
Knowledge
- Basic Robotic Programming: A basic knowledge of programming simple robotics using a variety of methods from wiring to computer coding.
Inventory
Equipment & Tools
- Work Tools (basic set of work tools including items such as a wrench, screwdriver, hammer, and more.)
Materials
- 3u Scrap Metal
- 7u Scrap Electronics
- 7u Electronics
- 8u Mechanical Bits
Clothing
- Regular Clothing
Miscellaneous Items
- Small Book: 101 Fun Animals! [Return to library: May 9th]
- Small Book: Programming: Is it really that different from cooking? [Return to library: May 9th]
- Textbook: A Comprehensive History of Robotics [Return to library: May 9th]
After some time spent searching, you
finally find a printer free of charge. You spend some degree of time printing out a number of flyers offering $20 for a 1-hour hypnotism session. Once a stack of flyers is printed, you spend the rest of the day distributing the flyers and attaching them to various objects.
Back at the garage, you study your small collection of books for anything that could be used to practice hypnotism. While there are some mentions that make you confident you'll get the basics, there's nothing that actually
helps you improve a basic hypnotism technique. You'll have to use subjects for that, as practicing without a subject is useless.
You also don't receive any subjects today. You just posted the flyers, and any volunteers will likely come tomorrow. You should likely prepare for the experimentation with the volunteers (and also decide how many to accept - $20 is a lot of money!) when the time comes.
Tomorrow, you'll receive subjects (if any) to test hypnotism on for an hour in exchange for $20 to the subject.
You earn
$5 from your part-time construction job today.
Home: Garage; New Bounds
Cash: $105
Outfit: Regular Clothing
Knowledge
- Basics of the Human Mind: Basic factual knowledge on the functioning and anatomy of the human brain.
- Human Reaction Theory: Understanding of the inherent similarities and few differences and how to semi-accurately predict human reaction to stimuli given numerous variables.
Inventory
Clothing
- Regular Clothing
Miscellaneous Items
- Large Notebook & Pencils
- Neuroscience Graduate Textbook [Return to library: May 9th]
- Simple Psychology Book [Return to library: May 9th]
- Textbook: The Human Mind 101 [Return to library: May 9th]
The first thing done today is returning the library book. It's a simple affair, and once done, you can focus your attention on other, more important, things.
The scope of the new game is hard to determine off-hand, but you decide a 2-day project would be a good idea to start with. It could take longer if not everything goes as planned, but the day goes well as you work on the game. If nothing goes horribly wrong tomorrow, then the game will be complete.
Home: Garage; New Bounds
Cash: $72
Outfit: Lab Coat + T-Shirt, Sweatpants, Rimmed Glasses
Knowledge
- Basic Programming Knowledge: Knowing how to perform basic programming feats and applications.
- Basic Game Development: Knowledge and experience of the basic game development process.
Inventory
Equipment & Tools
- Low-Quality Netbook
Clothing
- Lab Coat + T-Shirt
- Sweatpants
- Rimmed glasses
Miscellaneous Items
- Library Card
You buy a cheap crowbar for
$5 at a tools store a whiles away from your garage, and while in the area, you also locate a place selling
2x Cans of Red Spray Paint. You originally intended to only use one can to paint the car, but given the sizes of the cans they were selling and how much you needed, you bought 2 for
$8.
With the completely conspicuous goods ready in their bags, you walk back to your home where you begin work on the car. The
Stolen New Bounds License Plate is removed and red spray paint is applied to the car using
1.5x Cans of Red Spray Paint. There's still half a can left over for other purposes once you're done painting the car, however. You store the can and admire your newly-red car. It's looking much better, but the license plate
is missing and that tends to be suspicious. There's also still the problem of you missing the keys.
Home: Garage; New Bounds
Cash: $72
Outfit: Trench Coat, Black Bandana
Knowledge
Inventory
Vehicles
- 1993 Cheap Car (Red) [No license plate] [No keys]
Equipment
- Lock-picking Set
Materials
- 5u Scrap Metal
- 2u Engine Parts
Clothing
- Trench Coat
- Black Bandana
Miscellaneous Items
- Stolen New Bounds License Plate
Look up the price of basic supplies needed to alter genes in specific ways, or, at least, to view/read an organism's genes. If the latter can be obtained. spend time looking into the genetics of various brands of potato, as practice. If not, spend time looking for a better job. Any jobs at the museum? How about the zoo?
You decide to spend time at the library computers looking up prices of equipment required to read genes. It's... complicated.
Basically, traditional gene sequencing and modification is something done in an expensive lab. There's a laundry list of equipment required and it's all prohibitively expensive well past the point of you ever being able to afford it in a reasonable time frame.
But, perhaps another method could be devised. You remember that you already have a plethora of skills in mechanical areas, meaning actually making things to help you in your tasks isn't out of the question. You know that a cheap Radiation Emitter is
$60, and with the right techniques that could be used to modify DNA. Just buying the radiation emitter wouldn't be enough, but again, with the right ideas...
But viewing DNA is tricky. A basic and old DNA sequencer can cost at least
$2,000, which is unreasonable. You'd have to make a lot of money or find an alternative way to make or to obtain one. The New Bounds University may have one? You couldn't just walk in and use it, but that's a starting point. Alternatively, you could make your own, but you have less of an idea where to start on that.
Without the equipment and/or capability to
mess with life view the genetics of potatoes, you decide to go looking for a better job at a place like a zoo or perhaps a museum.
After escaping the museum from that particularly angry animal and horrifically failed interview, you instead try the museum. They, unlike the zoo,
don't use the "hands-on" approach in their interview and it goes much more smoothingly. You get a job there! It's still part-time, but it's a wage of $6! That's a $1 raise!
You really are moving up in the world.
You receive
$5 from your part-time job at a fast-food place, but tomorrow you will start working at the museum where you will earn
$6.
Home: Garage; New Bounds
Cash: $110
Outfit: Grey Lab Coat, Black Boots
Knowledge
- Basic Genetics: General knowledge surrounding genetics and their operation.
- Basics of Genetic Mutation: Basic overall knowledge primarily surrounding the mutation of genetic code in organisms.
Inventory
Clothing
- Grey Lab Coat
- Black Boots
- Black Gloves
Miscellaneous Items
- Library Card
- Informative Mutation Book [Return to library: May 16th]
- Genetics Graduate Textbook [Return to library: May 16th]
You begin work on your...
flour bomb.
After some
pasta scientific material is made, you actually start.
The coil is made first, with your knowledge of elasticity helping you in this area. A few tests yield a piece of pasta that is sufficiently elastic, and the coiling process manages to go through without breaking it. Tests of it in action prove to be successful - it succesfully disperses its payload in roughly a 1m radius around the coil. The fuse is simple, yet not as functional. Some
ingredients supplies are combined to make a basic flammable fuse. Flame tests show that it
works but is unreliable in its time to burn - it could be anywhere from instant to five seconds.
The
flour explosive payload is the fun part. Of course, it being
flour, it won't be this tremendously effective explosive regardless of what you do. But that does
not stop you from trying regardless. The end result is a very effective combustion wherever the payload is dispersed. You believe it's enough to inflict serious burns on anyone in the blast area, but nothing near life-threatening. There's no lasting effect but if this was used on something flammable...
You used
4u Culinary Ingredients in your experiments but replicating the result will just take 3u. You have
1x Flour Bomb left-over from testing as well! However, using it is going to be a problem as it requires preservation in a fridge overnight, expires after a week, and delivering it is tricky because of the fuse. The fact that some of the flour falls onto your hands is annoying, but not the end of the world, however.
With all this done, you cackle maniacally! It's an improvement from last time, but there's still work to be done in that area.
You earn
$6 from your part-time job at a pasta kitchen.
Home: Garage; New Bounds
Cash: $8
Outfit: Lab Coat + Oversized Indecipherable Glasses
Inventions
- Flour Bomb: A culinary combustion bomb with a 1m blast radius. Produces enough flames in blast area to seriously burn people or set flammable objects on fire. [/color]An unreliable fuse can take anywhere from 0 to 5 seconds to detonate. Has to be stored overnight in a fridge. Expires after 1 week. Requires 3u Culinary Ingredients and use of Basic Kitchen Supplies.
Knowledge
- Very Basic Pasta Elasticity: Knowing how to make pasta noodles slightly more stretchy. Guard this secret well.
- Kitchen Chemistry: Knowing the ins-and-outs of chemical (and physical) reactions in the kitchen.
Inventory
Weapons
- 1x Flour Bomb
Equipment & Tools
- Basic Kitchen Supplies (measuring containers, mixing utensils, bowls of varying sizes, and other kitchen utensils and supplies)
- Used Minifridge
Materials
- 1u Culinary Ingredients
Clothing
- Lab Coat
- Oversized Indecipherable Glasses
The first half of your day is marked by searching again online and offline for anyone willing to buy your metal. Finally, you find someone willing to buy it. They work at some kind of workshop and tell you they'd be willing to buy formless iron from you for $9/u. You tell them you'll be contact and return home for the second part of today's agenda.
Some very mild experimentation combined with a decent amount of calculation yields some light on improvements for your electrolysis setup. A better battery would probably improve the speed of electrolysis, and beakers would improve the capacity. Ultimately, both aspects of improvement simply allow you to make more formless iron per day at the same rate you've been doing so already. Though perhaps if you were to devise some kind of device to enhance the process? Anywhere from reducing your personal workload to increasing its efficiency somehow would be great benefits for you.
Home: Garage; New Bounds
Cash: $54
Outfit: Regular Clothing
Knowledge
- Efficient Basic Electrolysis: Knowledge on how to perform basic electrolysis with simple metals and materials at a 1:1 rate. Can perform electrolysis on 3u worth of materials total per day by hand. You need 1u of purified water to purify 1u of materials. Takes a long amount of time.
Contacts
- Metal Dealer
Inventory
Items
- 3x Small Beakers
- 1x Small Battery & Electrodes
Materials
- 1u Scrap Metal
- 2u Purified Water
Clothing
- Regular Clothing
Author
Topic: Individual Scientists! May 8th 2017 [7/7] (Read 6333 times)