[ATE] Farming example

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by (E)

- Concrete factory, has moat of the amenities of a small town...

It has a moat of amenities? now that I've got to see!





The funny thing is the first time I read it I was skimming so it kinda blurred by and kinda stuck in and made 'sense'. It was only on my slower second read through that it struck me as odd...

[(E)]

Cabinet farms aka “Farm seed”

Purpose
To provide a small amount of fresh food, occupational therapy and a means of maintaining seed viability. Not designed for perpetual use the Cabinet Farm incorporates stockpiles of key consumables.

Basic set-up
A large cabinet with multiple deep adjustable shelves (approximately 4 meters long, floor to ceiling), each shelf is (from bottom to top) made up from;
- A hydroponic (or soil) layer
- A gap for the plant to grow
- A LED light tuned to the specific wavelengths of light required for the plants within.
- A mushroom growing chamber on top of the light to utilise the waste heat
- A worm farm also acting as an insulation layer

Incorporated in the structure is clear tubing providing a growing environment for Spirulina. All internal surfaces are reflective to improve energy efficiency. Fans are used for airflow and temperature control.

As well a “Climate” control system there is also, seed storage space, sterilization equipment, tools, testing equipment, spare parts, nutrient supplies, various other gardening chemicals and a big book of instructions. Optional components include a composting toilet, brine shrimp tank, fish farm, water condenser, seed freezer (for the seeds that can tolerate it).

There are three types of plantings in the cabinet, seed maintenance, system support and food. The seed maintenance plants are grown on adjustable shelves and the selection is grown cyclically (about 40 species of non-hybrid garden/crop varieties), this also provides a small amount of fresh food and material for the worms and mushrooms.
The system support plants are more specific varieties, For example a cereal is grown to be fed to yeast that are fed to brine shrimp that is combined with worms and spirulina and fed to the fish. Other system support plants are used to “rebalance” the system to extend its lifespan or provide a good growing medium for the fungi.
Most of the food plants are selected for vitamin content, growth rate, light efficiency, yield and height rather than any other consideration so flavor can be an issue. For a single person the yield will be around 33-66 kgs of food per year, if supplementing a larger group variety is less of an issue and 1000kgs is possible (lettuce).

If the right species of fish are present their waste is rich in nitrates and can act as a fertilizer for the plants.

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by (E)

If the right species of fish are present their waste is rich in nitrates and can act as a fertilizer for the plants.

Catfish are a very popular suggestion for this. They taste fine, are vegetarians and can be fed a simple diet of grain and soybeans, and aren't terribly delicate. They need a fairly warm climate though, so that restricts your options.

Carp might be another option; they don't like an entirely herbivorous diet, but they can eat it.

[(E)]

Originally Posted by Bruno

Catfish are a very popular suggestion for this. They taste fine, are vegetarians and can be fed a simple diet of grain and soybeans, and aren't terribly delicate. They need a fairly warm climate though, so that restricts your options.

Carp might be another option; they don't like an entirely herbivorous diet, but they can eat it.

The system does produce worms and brine shrimp for fish to eat, I didn't think the scale of the planting would be sufficient for a large operation though so I left the output blank. I also have no experience farming fish beyond fattening caught fish / kura(NZ fresh water crayfish) in tanks. So I left the detail light.

One of the thoughts I had when writing the post was it would serve as a plausible explanation for an AtE farm starting point.

Still more stuff to write up, but feel free to add more suggestions. The more detail the easier it is to work out.

[Bruno]

From what I've been reading, domestic carp are sort of the fish version of pigs as far as diet - they can be fed a lot of the bits and bobs and trimmings left over from human food, and that may not be 100%, but it'll help a lot in the keeping. You'd have to produce a lot of brine shrimp and worms to use that as a primary food source for a significant amount of fish, and it will definitely impact the taste of the flesh. Herbivorous diets are simpler.

A problem that traditional farmers mostly didn't have to consider, also, is that the higher up the food chain you eat, the more concentrated toxins, heavy metals, radioactive particles, nanites, and so forth will be in the flesh. That's of course where the mercury problem in fish comes from - we like to eat predator fish.

[(E)]

Originally Posted by Bruno

From what I've been reading, domestic carp are sort of the fish version of pigs as far as diet - they can be fed a lot of the bits and bobs and trimmings left over from human food, and that may not be 100%, but it'll help a lot in the keeping. You'd have to produce a lot of brine shrimp and worms to use that as a primary food source for a significant amount of fish, and it will definitely impact the taste of the flesh. Herbivorous diets are simpler.

A problem that traditional farmers mostly didn't have to consider, also, is that the higher up the food chain you eat, the more concentrated toxins, heavy metals, radioactive particles, nanites, and so forth will be in the flesh. That's of course where the mercury problem in fish comes from - we like to eat predator fish.

The space alone means that this particular system will never have a significant population of animals. In theory there is just going to be a maintenance population that can be expanded at a later date when conditions change.

[(E)]

A place to call home

a look at the process rather than the outcomes.

Assumptions and resources
- Chosen location.
- Farming skill involved
- Trees can grow
- There is a need for a defensive location
- Mature forest containing some hardwood
- TL 8 and a bit
- Group has a salvager, metal worker and a chemist

Start point
A defensible location with water and some clean soil is found. One smaller part is highly defensible. It is hard to find and no existing infrastructure exists. It's main value is it's potential.

Step one
You have found some land and you want to put a farm on it. So what do you do first? You file paper work regarding land ownership and check legal rights.

1) Put a marker up on the entrance
2) Kill all the nasties in the area, have a good look around.
3) Write it in diary.

Step two
Clearing the land; trees, rocks and other obstacles.
Options, Fire and explosives, hard work and time, machinery, draft animals or combination there of.

Fortunately one of the recent battles was against a Bossgoon with an electric chainsaw. Some salvaging skills and a thorough search yield solar panels, a charger, spare chain and chainsaw file. This and some hand saws made from scavenged heavy sheet and light plate metal are used to fell and process the local trees. Other required tools that are made and salvaged include chains, various clasps and hooks, pulleys, timber jacks, axes, spades, shovels and rudimentary wood working tools. A wheel barrow would be good too.

As the appearance of the wood is less of an issue the trees are left with the greenery intact for several weeks after felling, this extracts a huge amount of moisture from the wood (making it lighter) but stains the timber. The trees are then limbed and rolled to the pit for sawing. The timber is then stacked to dry properly. Much of this stage depends on climate and species.
The chemist makes some black powder to clear the larger stumps and rocks. The rest of the stumps will be left until the soil dries and the stumps come out easier. This will be done with an A frame and a pulley attacked to a lot of muscle (A horse for example)
The wood is used to build a basic A frame shelter and a seasoning rack for the rest of the timber.
A surface garden in started with a bed of the smaller branches, dirt and leaf litter. This garden is walled with rocks or timber. Basic animal pens are built from narrow trunks and split timber.
Building a cooking fire, water storage and the kiln for the chemist. A forge is also built as the files are getting tired and new ones are critical. Furniture and fixtures are added to the camp and shelter.

Step two, challenges
Remaining fed while working hard, hunting scavenging supplies. (Survival, supplies)
Felling trees in the right direction. (IQ, Per, professional skill)
Building a basic pit for sawing timber, a structure and a second better pit. (Architecture)
Injury recovery will reduce manpower considerably (First aid, physician etc)
Drainage is likely to be awful so wet under foot. (Ht, mitigated by some professional skills)
Finding seeds and plants to start with. (Adventure)
Building with wood. (Carpentry)
Organizing and making the best of the resources (Housekeeping)

Step two questions
Do you have to prepare for winter? (Yes as this adds a deadline)
Are there other issues relating to the End? (Yes mumble mumble)
Is the area safe? (No, go have an adventure and deal with it)

Step two, yields.
- Old growth timber 900* m3 per hectare hardwood. None seasoned yet.
- A structure, a future shed but currently a residence.
- Half a hectare of cleared land, riddled with stumps.
- Lots of firewood
- A raised bed garden
- Kiln
- Water storage
- Cooking fire/smoking fire to help preserve food

Wants
- Containers
- Food especially long lasting
- Plants that would benefit from a long preparation, old stock fruit trees, grasses that will take a while to establish etc.

Does anyone want this stage by stage example continued? or something different for that matter?

Edit
Is this too nice? Should a toxic element be added?

Edit 2
*This number is very generous, but possible with an existing stand of trees getting flattened in the end. This has the replacement trees all growing at the same time meaning they produce better timber than other wise. 850m3 can be achieved with pinus radiata in 28 years

[Stelknecht]

I really like what you're doing here. I have a player who wants to do this sort of thing; develop, defend, grow. My preparations were for more of a wandering nomad (ok, murder-hobo) playstyle, so this is turning out to be invaluable.

[tshiggins]

Originally Posted by (E)

A place to call home

(SNIP)

Edit
Is this too nice? Should a toxic element be added?

Nah. Not every place will suck. There's bound to be a few spots, here and there, where people got their acts together, pretty quickly, had decent resources available, and made smart choices about how to use them.

Of course, in AtE's setting, those communities will be called "havens" or "oases" by many, and "targets" by bandits.

One of the best things any GM can do, in any game, is to give the PCs something worth fighting to defend.

Speaking of which (and here's a cool idea), how would you write up the petroleum station, in The Road Warrior?

Wells for oil and (especially) natural gas produce water as a byproduct, just because it gets pumped out the same as everything else. Usually, it winds up dumped in a retaining pond or (if clean enough -- and sometimes not) discharged into a local stream. Carefully husbanded, that could form the basis for a small community of no more than about three dozen people, which is what we see, there.

It's got at least a couple of camels, as well as pigs and a few chickens. The camels can probably graze on the scrub, and the pigs and chickens can eat scraps. I don't see greenhouses, but I'm not sure they'd need them. What would they grow, there? Grains and vegetables?

They'd definitely exist on the ragged edge, that's for sure, which makes their situation during the siege by Humungus so very desperate.

[(E)]

A place to call home, winter

Assumptions and resources
Mixture of limestone and clay in the area. (Limestone or other porous rock makes a good justification for a clean water spring)

Stage 1, acquire plants and animals
Over the last few months the group has collected a number of edible weeds and wild plants including onion weed, lambs quarters, dandelion, watercress, plantain and wild carrot.(the exact list will vary based on location, some names vary too.) A poplar has also been coppiced for later use as poles for planting.

A wild bull was a mixed blessing as it resulted in a broken leg and 440lbs of beef. The metal worker and the chemist stay behind as a result when the rest of the group go looking for seeds. They fish and gather food for winter. The metal worker spends some time maintaining gear and making nails, building materials etc.

Preserving the meat
Dealing with surpluses is a big part of both survival and farming.

They use all the available containers to make potted beef until they run out of fat and containers.

A perpetual stew can be used to make the meat last as well but the group lacks a large cooking vessel.

Some of the meat is smoked, but caution means they are prefer not to have large plumes of smoke rising into the clear autumn sky. Cold smoking requires a means to cool the smoke. Hardwood is required not softwood.

A small portion of the meat is dried but the group is not entirely successful.

An absence of salt rules out salt curing or pickling the beef.

With a cool place to hang a carcass, some meat can last several weeks, especially if other techniques are used help. Bleeding the joints for example.

Canning is an option as the chemist can make a wax. However suitable containers are in short supply.

Other preservation methods exist, lye and jelly can also be used as can fermenting, jugging and storing in oil. Some foods are not suited to all preservation methods though. Numerous species of plants can be used to repel insects as well.

Seed hunting
The group travels to a ruined town to see if they can find seeds and plants.
After 40 years there is only a slim chance any packaged seeds are still fecund. Feral crops are likely to either heirloom varieties or decendants of hybrids. Some species do not reproduce without human intervention, corn being the notable example.
After a dramatic encounter or two the group are chased into the only remaining fenced off area in the town, the playcenter (kindergarten). Here they find several packets of seed in draws and a selection of carpentry equipment, including egg beater drills, clear plastic sheets. (These things are present at my daughter's playcenter) all the plants in the garden are also non-toxic. Feral plants in the garden include tomatoes and spinach (hybrid decendants). Also found are shallots and squash. A handful of apples, lemons and peaches are also discovered. The apples can be used to grow root stock for later grafting to hopefully increase the yield.

One surprising find is a child's clockwork laptop/document reader in working condition with an encyclopedia memory card (feel free to substitute a full sized encyclopedia set)

Note. No staple food (except possibly the lambs quarters) has been introduced yet. If a more rapid build up is desired add a staple crop like potatoes, amaranth or taro (all can do well in the wild).

Projects, current and planned
- Build a smoke house or make a smoker.
- Dig a cool room out of the nearby limestone slope.
- Build an evaporation refrigerator.
- Build a frame to lift/work on a carcass.
- Some climates might suit an ice house

Wants
- Get better cookware
- Improve workshop.
- Batteries and power.
- Garden supplies.
- Gearbox for turning the chainsaw into a winch.
- Wire
- hoses/pipe and fittings for moving water

Questions
- Is the group followed home? (Yes, an exiting chase ensues as the members of a group narrowly fail to stop a Militia scout from reporting to his lieutenant, after the desperate battle the group discovers some useful bomb making supplies including Urea)
- Do the defenses need work? (GM's judgement, perhaps only camouflage)
- What are the neighbors like?
- Are there any means of making transport easier? (e.g A navigable river runs near by)
- Is there any infrastructure specific to the location (e.g. A crane could be used to make transporting goods to the farm easier)

Challenges
- cabin fever (leadership, will, psychology )
- identify plants (Survival, farming, botany, gardening, naturalist)
- butchering meat (animal handling(cattle), survival)
- preserving meat (cooking, survival, housekeeping <TL7)
- maintain secrecy (Camouflage, tracking)
- Further work on camp (Carpentry)
- plan defenses (? architecture, strategy?, tactics?)

Bonuses
- Use of prospecting will reveal small amounts of coal.

work in progress

The refinery is coming. I am wondering if I have to rewatch the movie first though