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

Bedlam

G - 2

Void Slayer

I really think more xeno farms are the way to go, but we wont know where they can be built until we know whats out there. Solar panels and exploration go!

I mean we DID research the less dangerous exploring, right?

H 1

Erlec

A3 - 1

All 4x games is about one thing: Finding goodie huts! WE NEED TO FIND GOODIE HUTS!

hoodie13

C1. Don't need that crap growing on my hull!

GrimmyTOA

A3 - 2

Exploring seems like a good way of giving our people a break from one another. I'm in favour of keeping our protective camouflage for now.

Celebrim

A3 - 2

Anything that makes our home look less like the prison gets my vote. Plus, everyone knows that we need the fungus to attract the mindworms.

Shiny New Toys

Explore away. A3 - 2

I also wonder if the fungus is mentally communicating with anyone. Is this where the religious thoughts are coming from?

Void Slayer

Shiny New Toys wrote:

Explore away. A3 - 2

I also wonder if the fungus is mentally communicating with anyone. Is this where the religious thoughts are coming from?

I think you have been smoking the wrong fungus, here try some of mine.

Elderlycrawfish

Gonna go with A3, 2 as well. We need everything, but right now keeping folks from going stir crazy and/or uncovering more resources/learning about this godforsaken fungus ball of a planet is what we need.

As long as food/morale/resources don't deplete severely in the next couple of turns, I think the exploration should try to get to the second crash site sooner than later; we won't be able to find it or salvage anything if the fungus growth problems we have is any indication.

Egos

I think H 2

Darian

A3 - 2

Things are stable enough now, we should go ahead and explore a bit.

Greeper

Greeper's Cannibal Creepers agree we should get to the crash site, A3-1, but that fungus has to go

Shiny New Toys

Void Slayer wrote:

Shiny New Toys wrote:

Explore away. A3 - 2

I also wonder if the fungus is mentally communicating with anyone. Is this where the religious thoughts are coming from?

I think you have been smoking the wrong fungus, here try some of mine.

I thought E was looking into the recreational drug value of the fungus. do you have a head start on us?

:rotate:

Capfalcon

A3 - 2

Another territory would give us another xenofarm, which is much better than the hydroponics bay.

Malkor

G2. I have a great feeling about that fungus!

Cayrus

A3-2

Tmoiy

A2 - 2. Take that, majority!

Unknown

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Unknown

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piL

I might just be one of those botanists, but I feel that the solar array needs some looking into.

H-1

Also, I propose that individuals subject to execution for crimes against the colony be given the option of exposure to fungus. We could use some more information.

Edit: I would love to see this with more than one colony competing on the planet's surface.

jakobagger

Lets not have the death penalty. Space Utopia for everyone! Also, I propose our empire or at least something in it be named Zarek something. Zarek Collective (for that Hive flavour). Tom Zarek City.

blahmcblah

G-2 for shits and giggles.

Mojo_Jojo

These votes are getting to be fairly close. 10:7 on the cleaning vote.

Turn 5

Decision: A(3) - 2 Set out an expedition toward the crash site, keep the fungus

Overview: Glorious Space Australia
Population: 2.2k [2.5k cap]
Food: 3.4k [(+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]

Empty Hex 1
Can have any(?) Big structure

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

The strangest thing about the fungus or lichen or whatever you call the weird alien parasite was that it didn't tend to grow on anything but the native plants. Sure, you got the odd patch on a rock, almost invisible until you got up close, but it eerily seemed to bloom wherever there was life. At first this just meant on the colonists gear while they were out in the unbreathable air, but the increasingly thick coating on both the Xenofarm and the Colony Pod itself was just creepy. Still, it stopped the obviously manmade structures from standing out too badly and for a colony composed of hardened convicts that was priority one: Avoiding the enemy's notice so could drive a shiv into their back when they walked past.

A hundred brave men, lead by Jimmy the Snitch as always, but composed from all the factions (Even including the space farmers, the Jackaroos) marched out across the reddish sand. With the communication issues, even short range contact was impossible, and so once the explorers vanished from sight, there was nothing to do but wait.

It was not hard going, and being outside the colony pod provided a rare moment of bonding for the group. Sure, it would have be a small thing to slice an enemy's air pipe and watch him writhe on the ground as ammonia and carbon dioxide filled his lungs, but everybody manages to act like perfect gentleman and avoid taking advantage of a chance to off their enemies. The land beyond Pod Six to the east is fairly flat, a series of gently rolling hills, every so often somebody stops to scoop up a likely looking plant or interesting rock. The whole escapade is like being back at Scout Camp on Earth. The red sun above threatens to start its descent and even with their heated exhausted, there's only so much that men can do on foot. Every man has his arms full by the end of it even though the vegetation was sparse here even compared to the crash site. There's only so much a man can carry, a few inquire about the earlier idea of knocking together a few simple cargo rovers to help them carry their loot.

Aside from the new plant samples and promising geological elements, there's no radiation dangers or change in the atmospheric makeup. A few deeper craters are dotted around, but the ammonia tends to pool in them, creating alkali pits that are too dangerous to explore for now.

[Exploration role: Difficulty 10. 13! Success. They find something of immediate value. It's... 200 food]

Brief study of the plants reveals most of them are again utterly worthless as food and all of them are coated with the dark fungal growths. There is an exception, however - something like a tree, a squat cylinder the height of a man (or a little more) topped with a saucer shape. Beneath the fungus the whole thing is a brownish green and all of it has a waxy yet fibrous texture. The promise comes from its "fruit" (or as another team thinks, it's sensory organs): vines the width of a thumb that burst out from the saucer and then dangle down onto the earth. The white fruit is coated by a particularly thick layer of alien lichen but it's easily transformed into food and tastes a little better than the cabbages. Both could be grown quite easily, it won't improve yields, but it will improve the variety on the menu.

Several bearded men who must be geologists seem to think that it's a decent site for a mine/manufacturing centre. Right now there are some technical issues (transportation to sustain a growing industry mainly) but they are confident that there's decent ore in the ground. They might even get lucky and find something rare while they're prospecting for the mine.

[Population growth roll 1d6(-2) - 1d6. 3(-2) - 5. No growth again. Sad sperm just can't fertilise those eggs]

Angry Bruce is pleased, but more land for his empire means he'll need to start splitting his forces. Running an effective police state was difficult enough as it was with so few guns, and now he was under pressure to send some of his troops off to keep an eye on things to the east. Aside from the inevitable rise in incidental shankings that were part and parcel of prison life it could lead to some of the less stable elements starting to flout the law. And what was prison without law?

And then there's the other pod, the smoke has long gone, but it can't be far now. Somewhere in those increasingly rocky hills.

Map
(Green numbers are for explored hexes, red numbers are exploration directions.)



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 - Build Xenofarm in Hex 1 [+0.8k food per turn, needs 1 energy, needs 200 population to work, costs 1500 resources, is Big]
F - Research Planetology [Narcotic uses of Xenobotany]
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]

1) Send 20 soldiers to keep an eye on the new lands you've claimed for Space Australia
2) Keep all the troops together, there's nobody out there to claim jump.

piL wrote:

Edit: I would love to see this with more than one colony competing on the planet's surface.

I think if it's PVP you end up needing to run things in a much clearer and fairer manner to avoid people getting upset. That said, there's another forum I'd love to try this on. Non-intersecting parallel worlds would be fascinating. Still, ain't got no time.

Tmoiy

I think most people voted to explore the southeast hex rather than the northeast hex. Not me though!

Let's remedy the communications breakdown. H2

blahmcblah

In this dark future we could use some narcotics. F-2

Mojo_Jojo

Tmoiy wrote:

I think most people voted to explore the southeast hex rather than the northeast hex. Not me though!

Tits. How did I cock that up? Err, does anybody really care? I could change it, if needed.

Erlec

A4 - 2

We have to salvage what we can, also we have met no hostile forces so sending out guards at this point of time is a bit too paranoid.

Mojo_Jojo: Nah we really don't care that much so long as we can get to the crash site as soon as possible.

Void Slayer

Let's get some rovers, drag racing is gonna be all the rage on this empty planet.

Also I think dooming people to working at the death pits farming site without proper housing or solar panels or transport there and back would be a bad idea.

No structure, no need to defend it However we might need some resources soon.

G-2

Capfalcon

A4-2

Goodie Boxes AHOY!

Void Slayer

Capfalcon wrote:

A4-2

Goodie Boxes AHOY!

You have encounter hostile natives!

Flarne

If the crash site has anything useful we probably need some vehicles to be able to get it home. I vote for G-2.

Elderlycrawfish

I think we were mainly looking for space and getting close to the crash site, so it doesn't really matter which spot it was. It should be fine to leave it alone. Of course, we'd all be screaming shennanigans if we had discovered nano-herpes or something in that sector, but it turned out just fine. :P

Anyway, I still say we should check out the crash site before it's too late, so A4 - 2. Potential resources from the remainder of the ship, best to get it before it's too hard to find.

Capfalcon

Void Slayer wrote:

Capfalcon wrote:

A4-2

Goodie Boxes AHOY!

You have encounter hostile natives!

Psh. That's what the guns are for.

We do need to fix the transportation and communcations after we explore this next hex, though.

Shiny New Toys

G - 2

I think that if we find anything big at the crash site we will need transport to bring it back.

Elderlycrawfish

Also need to get another Xenofarm or Hydroponics Bay setup in the next few turns too; once we cut out rationing, morale should improve, right?

Capfalcon

Do we need to build a reactor in the hex, or will the power be shared throughout our empire?

Mojo_Jojo

Capfalcon wrote:

Do we need to build a reactor in the hex, or will the power be shared throughout our empire?

Right now you'll be laying big fat cables to give them power. This might cause problems. Also, no uranium = no more nuclear reactors.

Elderlycrawfish wrote:

Also need to get another Xenofarm or Hydroponics Bay setup in the next few turns too; once we cut out rationing, morale should improve, right?

If you stop rationing, then you'll be able to make the roll to improve your morale yeah. Right now it's just getting skipped each turn.
Actually, rolling would be silly. Going to full rations would raise morale back to fine the turn you do it.

piL

F1

A group of stationary armed men would provide an opportunity for more long term observations of this planet. More importantly, the potential use of alien botany as narcotics would both help acquire my fix and help secure the power of the growing ruling class, as long as it's distribution was controlled.

Elderlycrawfish

I just realized we should be coming up with a horrible pun/mash-up name for our new fruit/sensory organ food crop.

The only thing my tired mind could think of was p-eye-neapples, which is absolutely terrible and I may have violated some international laws just saying it. As pioneering explorers of Space Australia, we must give things names before we eat it/exploit it/conquer it/mate with it!

Mojo_Jojo

Elderlycrawfish wrote:

I just realized we should be coming up with a horrible pun/mash-up name for our new fruit/sensory organ food crop.

Yes, yes you do.