[CYOA] Space Australia: GAME. SET. MATCH.

Abdhyius

Spend 500 resources on shivs and drugs.

Elderlycrawfish

Abdhyius wrote:

Spend 500 resources on personal grooming appliances shivs and drugs.

Capfalcon

Greeper wrote:

Guys, cannibalism. We'll eat the rapists and email spammers...

Greeper makes a convincing argument.

A (11 o clock)
3

Celebrim

Elderlycrawfish wrote:

Abdhyius wrote:

Spend 500 resources on personal grooming appliances shivs and therapeutic medications drugs.

Celebrim

My current issue with the cannibalism option is that we just lost population and a second population decrease goes further to cutting away our only advantage, numbers. I should probably have other issues with the option, but I guess that's why I was on pod 6.

Malkor

But.

The entire reason we freed those jerks was to eat 'em. We're on a new planet, and I brought this 'How to Serve Man' book and everything.

Elderlycrawfish

You gonna want someone to dig the latrines and other hard stuff first, perhaps?

Get a couple days work out of 'em, then eat them!

Egos

D 2

dun dun dun

Void Slayer

J-3 is clearly the best option, maybe we can find the inhabitants of the other pod and... use option 3 on them as well.

Mojo_Jojo

D(researching tasty plants) just manages to pip C(building a hydroponics bay to grow good, traditional honest human food). A few stragglers want to run around a bit, but fail to unite on a direction.

It's a close run between rationing and cannibalism, but rationing wins out for the moment.


Turn 2

Decision: D2 Rationing and Research. The two R's.

Overview
Population: 2.2k [2.5k cap]
Food: 4.1k [-1.1k/turn] [Rationing]
Resources: 5k [+0/turn]
Energy: 5/5
Morale: Unhappy [-2]

Pod Six Colony
No Big Structure
Crashed Pod [2.5k Housing, no energy requirement]
Nuclear microreactor [+5 Energy]

Forces
100 prisoners with guns [Level 1 Soldiers]

Research
Planetology: Basic Xenobotany [allows Xenofarm construction]

Summary

A few of the former prisoners lobbied hard on the merits of cannibalism, extolling the virtues of long pork. In several cases the spokespeople don't even pretend to be new to the subject. The reasons why some of them had been locked away become clearer and clearer. Still, for now, the cannibals are a minority faction in the complex social system of a freed penal colony. The colonists aren't adapting well to their position towards the bottom of the food chain, but then again, they don't have the guns or the muscle, so it really doesn't make any difference.

One of the larger prisoners vying for power, a man named "Angry Bruce", outlines his rationing system. He carefully explains that everybody gets half what they would expect. He goes on to suggest that anybody caught attempting to hoard supplies or deceive the system will be added to the menu. This last part gets a big cheer for the would be cannibals.

Even with reduced rations of food for each of Pod Six's survivors, they'd need a source of food. Fortunately there are several botanists in the population. Better than that there are several farmers. A large number of these were actually convicts, but in such tough times it's better no to wonder how a man studying better strains of maize ends up in a high security prison with people like the cannibals and Angry Bruce.

People stride out of the airlock, moving in small groups with at least one of the men carrying a gun. The air's ammonia levels and the cold climate which hasn't broken zero since your arrival means that the explorers have to wrap up well, with their skin entirely covered to avoid frozen alkali burns. The few scientists and agriculturalists set up shop within Pod Six not far from the airlock awaiting the first of their samples. Care is taken to ensure that all samples are isolated from the general environment. One rogue alien disease now would kill the entire colony.

The foragers effectively strip mine the nearby landscape. The narrow purplish leaves that were first spotted are hard to remove from the ground, pulling on them simply snaps the stem and after digging down for almost a metre there's no sign of a root mass (or body). Other specimens are more easily removed, of various shapes and sizes, although all of the xenoplant life seems to be somewhere on the scale of black, purple or blue. There's no greenery. Perhaps this is a feature of the alien sun, it is much redder than Earth's. Some of the men report seeing movement. A few even fire shots. It must just be the wind.

Nobody manages to produce any evidence of life beyond plants, not even insects. Some wonder if they've crashed in a desert (there's very little plantlife and just a few patches of frost for surface water) but even without the LSN or complex instruments, it's not hard to discern that they have crashed near the equator. It'll only be colder (and presumably even more devoid of life) towards the poles.

The most striking thing about the plants, for the scientists, is that they are all coated with some kind of symbiotic (or parasitic) fungus or lichen. Every square centre of the plants that exists above the ground is coated with these dark purplish or blue fungi. Once removed they reveal the more traditional green of plants. The familiar sight of green vegetation brings some hope, although aside from that the xenobotanical samples are indigestible at worst and poisonous at best. It's hard to tell without proper science equipment, but they don't quite seem to confirm to the same core biological structures that plantlife on Earth did. In fact several of the specimens seem to have clearly defined animal-like organs, and one has a strange circulatory system of white fluid driven by a small pump-bladder. An enterprising farmer drops some of the more promising items (squat little things that look rather like savoy cabbage, but with a spiral of growths at their core. Growths that look and feel awfully like human teeth) into a pot, seals the lid and boils them at high pressure. And strangely, it works. The gruel is thick, lumpy and full of the "teeth" but it's nutritious and warm!

[Roll against difficulty 10 (with a -2) to see if the foraging directly provides any food. 12! You gain 1d4 - 200 units of food from prototype cabbage stew]

With enough land, you could directly farm the tooth cabbages and set up a processing plant to convert them into an edible form.

Following their trips outside, all of the breathing masks and suits have picked up a thin layer of the alien fungus. Worrying it's spread along the inside of the exhausts. If an expedition had been sent further they would have likely died, either as the fungus reached critical mass and clogged an outlet or held a valve open causing the oxygen rich air to vent and the victim to quickly suffocate, or more worryingly if it entered the air supply. All suits are thoroughly fumigated to avoid bringing the parasite inside.

[Population growth roll 1d6(-2) - 1d6. 4 - 2 - 2 = +0. No growth due to low morale interfering with sexy times]


Map
(I added some numbers to help us determine directions and marked on that smoke plume)


Decision Time
(Choose a letter and a number)

A - Explore a hex [see the map, give a direction] [Dangerous, difficulty 8 roll to avoid dying]
B - Build More Housing [+0.5k population cap, needs 1 energy, costs 500 resources]
C - Build Hydroponics Bay [+0.5k food per turn, needs 2 energy, costs 1000 resources]
D - Build Xenofarm [+0.8k food per turn, needs 1 energy, needs 200 population to work, costs 1500 resources, is Big]
E - Research Planetology [Narcotic uses of Xenobotany]
F - Research Planetology [Anti-fungal systems - Removes danger from exploring]
G - Research Industry [Transport - Rovers for better exploration]
H - Research Fundamental Science [Communication problems]
I - Research Military [Improvised Weapons]


1 - Bury the 300 who died in the crash outside the pod
2 - Store the 300 partial bodies in a deep freeze
3 - Eat the 300 who died in the crash [+0.6k food]


Somebody mentioned shivs, the option is there! Improvised Weapons = Space Shivs. Right now in my head I'm thinking that unarmed civilians could fight with a 0.1 effectiveness (compared to the soldiers being "1" each). Space shivs would get that up to 0.25.

The Big Structure thing is a limit of one per hex. It gives you a reason to explore, they also usually need a dedicated workforce (to actually make that expanded population mean something). While I give the impression of having thought about this game, I sort of typed out how it works off the top of my head. You're all just lucky I didn't decide to use playing cards or something more stupid than dice.

Erlec

C - 1

If we cannot feed our own folks at home, how can we expand our own empire?! I mean, sure we can eat our own delicous delicous flesh and some of the fat people, however How would we live with our selves afterwards? (not starving withstanding of course).

Mojo_jojo: Don't worry about, CYOA are 90 % make it up as it goes, 5 % dice rolls and 5 % how far can you go before you make the most horrible empire history has seen.

Capfalcon

Fine, since we wanna be all safe and stuff...

D - Build Xenofarm [+0.8k food per turn, needs 1 energy, needs 200 population to work, costs 1500 resources, is Big]

1 - Bury the 300 who died in the crash outside the pod

We're going to open our own civilization! With Blackjack! And Hookers!

And a rousing memorial ceremony to raise our morale in the wake of our brush with starvation.

Elderlycrawfish

D2. I guess tooth cabbage stew will be our salvation for now; produces a bit more food than hydroponics, that'll help at least a little until we can get both running.

And 2 is for just in case. Also, I have concerns that we'll either have their buried bodies stolen away and the native wildlife will get a taste for human flesh, or that crazy fungus is going to turn 'em into space zombies or something.

Anyone get the feeling that the native vegetables aren't really vegetables?

Tmoiy

E2

Some fine therapeutic medications ought to raise morale.

Flarne

D2. Let's get a nice little farm going, maybe go out exploring towards the crash site tomorrow.

Erlec

Also, are we gonna pretend everyone is australian and therefore create a "space australia" in our glorious land.

Since I wouldn't mind it. I mean, space ale is great.

Mr Fuzzbutt

B - Breed

Whoops, wrong game.

D2

First priority should be to ensure we have enough food. Freeze the dead, we can choose to bury or eat them later depending on how things turn out.

Capfalcon

Erlec wrote:

Also, are we gonna pretend everyone is australian and therefore create a "space australia" in our glorious land.

National Animal: The Majestic Space Duck.

QUACK!

Abdhyius

D3

Jimmy "Teeth" Aldridge is hungry.

hoodie13

D2

We definitely need food, and this'll provide the most bang for our buck. And our resources are just fine. Also, I'm really uncomfortable with putting our people outside for now. Who's to know what that fungus will do to earth-life? Someone already posited the threat of space-zombies... we definitely don't need another Flood.

I, for one, and not going to go searching through any Libraries

Mojo_Jojo

Right, we've got a clear winner here. Six for D, versus one each for C and E. Five for 2, versus two for 1 and one for 3.


Turn 3

Decision: D2 (again) Freeze the Dead and Build a Farm

Overview
Population: 2.2k [2.5k cap]
Food: 3.8k [(+0.8k -1.1k)/turn] [Rationing]
Resources: 3.5k [+0/turn]
Energy: 4/5
Morale: Unhappy [-2]
Frozen Dead People : 0.3k [0.6k of food]

Pod Six Colony
Xenofarm [+0.8k food per turn, -1 energy, 200 pop workers, Big]
Crashed Pod [2.5k Housing, no energy requirement]
Nuclear microreactor [+5 Energy]

Forces
100 prisoners with guns [Level 1 Soldiers]

Research
Planetology I: Basic Xenobotany [allows Xenofarm construction]

Summary

The dead from the crash were moved into storage, a large section of the pod outfitted as a freezer. The cannibals grew organised and were now led by Jimmy "Teeth" Aldridge. Teeth took charge of moving the bodies into a more permanent storage, although Angry Bruce was sure to keep a few of his militia around to ensure that nothing got accidentally eaten. For the rest of the colony, it wasn't too clear whether their dead were being kept inside as a safety precaution or whether it was an emergency food reserve. Perhaps it was both. The division between colonist and prisoner was dwindling, with most of the former accepting their fate and joining the strongest gang that would take them.

Outside the camp, the Xenobotanists collected the tooth-cabbages, doing their best to extract the plants in full. A wide area was cleared and filled with orderly rows of the plants. Beside this, the nutrient-slurry refinery was assembled. Several of the prefabricated sheds were bolted together: The first served to decontaminate the vegetation, stripping them of their fungal growths and anything else that could be lurking on the planet before they passed through an airlock into a series of high pressure vats. It's a simple design for a simple process, but it's very labour intensive, with two hundred of the colonists working around the daylight hours of the thirty hour days. With a bit more work, the facility could be automated to a greater degree. Possibly the yields could be improved too. For now, it was a supply of food. A supply of food for a much smaller colony. Even with the rationing it was not enough. For now, Angry Bruce's militia maintain the peace, ensuring that the Xenofarm workers didn't decide to take the lion's share of their supply, or worse.

Within the various supplies of Pod Six were a few solar panels. The output yield wasn't fantastic, but it ought to have been enough to run the Xenofarm. However, the engineers could only produce a negligible power. The reddish light of the sun wasn't providing enough useful wavelengths of light. These were designed with a yellow star in mind. If this problem could be solved perhaps the panels could be adapted to run the farm, producing more would be tricky without some kind of R&D facility. For now, a thick cable trails between Pod Six and the Xenofarm, it would be very easy for a disgruntled individual to sabotage.

[Population growth roll 1d6(-2) - 1d6. 2(-2) - 5. No growth again]

While there's certainly a lot of sex going on in the crude shanty town constructed within the crashed pod, there are only a few children and pregnancies.

Map


Decision Time
(Choose a letter)

A - Explore a hex [see the map, give a direction] [Dangerous, difficulty 8 roll to avoid dying]
B - Build More Housing [+0.5k population cap, needs 1 energy, costs 0.5k resources]
C - Build Hydroponics Bay [+0.5k food per turn, needs 2 energy, costs 1k resources]
D - Build Labs [needs 4 energy, costs 3k resources]
E - Research Planetology [Narcotic uses of Xenobotany]
F - Research Planetology [Anti-fungal systems - Removes danger from exploring]
G - Research Industry [Transport - Rovers for better exploration]
H - Research Fundamental Science [Communication problems]
I - Research Fundamental Science [Solar Array problems]
J - Research Military [Improvised Weapons]



We could use better names for these various factions and gangs. And are we going with Space Australia as the colony/empire name?

Erlec

F

Space Australia is a good name. I also would like a faction called "The Philosophy Party Of Bruces". From the university of Woolloomooloo!
Gang name could be "Shrimps on the barbe" or "The Large knives".

Also - insert popculture refrences into whatever fits -

Shiny New Toys

F

Wins out slightly over E

Flarne

F sounds like a fun time.

GrimmyTOA

F

hoodie13

Heck no, need a Hydroponics farm. Let's fix the food issue first.

C

Flarne

hoodie13 wrote:

Heck no, need a Hydroponics farm. Let's fix the food issue first.

C

But it's so expensive! We can survive on the stores we have for a good while, maybe go out and find some better food options elsewhere.

BobCesca

F - Research Planetology [Anti-fungal systems - Removes danger from exploring]

Tiphareth

C - Build some fabulous space food. Teethsoup is just not enough.

Oh, and full rations for everyone. We don't want all these nice criminals to get too cranky.

Celebrim

C - Hydroponics

We may want to get our house in order and arm our people in case that is a crash site. If it has survivors, they may not willingly accept leadership from a bunch of ex-convicts.

Celebrim

I would prefer New Botany Bay to Space Australia.

EDIT: Although one could be the colony and one could be the Empire I guess

hoodie13

Flarne wrote:

hoodie13 wrote:

Heck no, need a Hydroponics farm. Let's fix the food issue first.

C

But it's so expensive! We can survive on the stores we have for a good while, maybe go out and find some better food options elsewhere.

The expense is worth it. I'd rather have food and a happy populace before forcing death marches across alien wastes.

Flarne

We can't afford to build enough hydroponics bays to go to full rations. I think a better food option would be getting the solar panels fixed and exploring another hex so we can maybe build a new Xenofarm. Or researching better food options.

Greeper

I'm actually going to go with I, Greeper the Creeper's gang wants solar panels!

electricitylikesme

D - Build Labs.

What we call "science" has literally been the only thing keeping us alive so far. The prison gangs may run things, but the talents of the colonist scientists and the prisoners creativity with basic supplies are the only way anyone stays alive.

With more better labs, and more lab space, we should be able to accomplish more of the equally vital tasks we need. It's an investment in the future.

The Sparky gang also points out that our resource production is currently zero, principally because of all the stuff we desperately need to understand.

electricitylikesme

Ode to the Ancestors wrote:

Tesla designs the power,
Tesla builds the coil,
Tesla sees the light,
But it's just the power from the coil

- Electricity crimes convicts motto

Greeper

You say we have no resource production, but you brazen Sparkies want to deplete our reserves to almost nothing, for what, for 'science'? We won't have the power from our generator for any additional farms!

Void Slayer

Excerpt from a journal recovered from colony pod 6 ruins, mission year 34

It's been getting worse these last few weeks, the claustrophobia. Maybe it's all these "guards" as some of the ex-cons call the small group of young toughs patrolling these dank and nearly light less lower cells. I hope this reaches you one day Marra, wherever you are.

I was promised open skies and a future here if I underwent the training, not being forced to choose which group is going to cut my throat in the night. I wasted 10 years on board training for this and gave up you and the kids. It's not that bad really but I just don't think I can stand these walls any longer. I keep trying to explain that we need to know whats around us, that I have the training, that I'll take the risks. Big tooth or whatever he is called laughs at me and I could see what looked like hunger in his eyes. I don't think he wants me to escape.

I'm through making pleas to their circle of bosses, they know I am ready to risk it so i just hope they let me.

There are a few others like me from the original crew. We have more then they think and might be able stand together and make a break for it. It might be our only chance before we are eaten alive.

I really think we should explore towards that other pod first, we have too many people, lets risk them!

A(2)

Edit: Oh and a lab is a bad idea until we get the food situation resolved, I mean, we can last 10 turns right now but do you really want to use up ALL our energy?

(is the lab the same as the science advancement from the starting pod?)

Malkor

F. Although, I do agree we need more science. Maybe in the next turn.

Mojo_Jojo

Oh cool, fiction! That's the spirit.

Turn 4

Decision: F Research Planetology [Anti-fungal systems - Removes danger from exploring]

Overview: Glorious Space Australia
Population: 2.2k [2.5k cap]
Food: 3.5k [(+0.8k -1.1k)/turn] [Rationing]
Resources: 3.5k [+0/turn]
Energy: 4/5
Morale: Unhappy [-2]
Frozen Dead People : 0.3k [0.6k of food]

Pod Six Colony: New Botany Bay
Xenofarm [+0.8k food per turn, -1 energy, 200 pop workers, Big]
Crashed Pod [2.5k Housing, no energy requirement]
Nuclear microreactor [+5 Energy]

Forces
100 prisoners with guns [Level 1 Soldiers]

Research
Planetology II: Basic Xenobotany [allows Xenofarm construction], Anti-fungal Design [Removes fungus problems on short trips]

Summary

Despite rumbling bellies, Angry Bruce had done his people proud. Food supplies continued to dwindle, but far more slowly as the preserved protein rations from the pod supplies being added to the tooth-cabbage slurry. There was not a great deal of variation, but it was enough to keep people alive (just).

Still, spending their days cooped up in the crashed pod was causing a great deal of tension between the various gangs and factions. Some of the more scientifically minded colonists had taken to wearing strips of reflective blankets and referring to themselves as "Sparkies". Bad blood was particularly building between the Sparkies and the Xenofarm labourers (who everybody else had taken to calling the "Jackaroos"). Rumblings have also started along religious lines.

Preventing the fungal growths from intruding within the pod or processing centre was a daily struggle. But little by little, and with only a few educational beatings, people were learning to stick to the protocol. The fungal spawn suffered at temperatures above zero and was more or less completely unable to grow at temperatures above forty degrees. Tweaking the pre-existing air tanks to have have heated exhausts solved the worst of the problems from venturing outside. The bodysuits were kept in the airlock and routinely boiled.

A thick layer of the fungus has now covered the exterior of Pod Six, the silver lozenge now appearing a mottled deep purple. Most of the populace dislike their home gradually being covered in the alien growth but it does provide useful camouflage. It was slowly spreading across the processing facility. Aside form a fence and some neatly aligned alien crops, the entire of New Botany Bay would be hard to spot. The cold-loving fungus even obscured the pod partially from IR cameras.

[Population growth roll 1d6(-2) - 1d6. 3(-2) - 4. No growth again]

Map
(it's the same)


Decision Time
(Choose a letter and a number)

A - Explore a hex [see the map, give a direction]
B - Build More Housing [+0.5k population cap, needs 1 energy, costs 0.5k resources]
C - Build Hydroponics Bay [+0.5k food per turn, needs 2 energy, costs 1k resources]
D - Build Labs [needs 4 energy, costs 3k resources]
E - Research Planetology [Narcotic uses of Xenobotany]
F - Research Industry [Transport - Rovers for better exploration]
G - Research Fundamental Science [Communication problems]
H - Research Fundamental Science [Solar Array problems]
I - Research Military [Improvised Weapons]

1) Remove the fungus from Pod Six (and the Xenofarm) and keep it clean
2) Leave the fungus alone

Edit

Void Slayer wrote:

(is the lab the same as the science advancement from the starting pod?)

I'm a bit torn on this. What I decided in the end was no, it'll let you do advanced stuff (like manufacturing high tech doodads and open up more tech options That said, there will be a "big" Tech Centre that will give you the chance of a breakthrough each turn (while also justifying any other science bits and bobs that you need). The Tech Centre will need the Labs to be built though. Or such is my current thinking, I'm really very open to suggestions.