Farming in difficult environments AtE and other worlds

[Polydamas]

To put it another way, a major theme of the 'thoughtful' kind of After the End game (as opposed to the boom boom boom baboom da-da boom {flamethrower riff!} kind of game) is systems collapse, and games are explicitly intended to be set somewhere that society has broken down and not yet been restored. So I would like a focus on the systems supporting settlements, what their limits are, and how they can break.

Any focus on settlement-building would have a 'Dwarf Fortress' philosophy of every success just making the eventual collapse more spectacular.

Knowing whether the wheat yield is 4:1 or 6:1 in a year with good weather (desperate laughter on the brink of madness) is not interesting. A fight set at the fish ponds, with the infrastructure for cover and concealment, slippery ground, and the feisty occupants of pond 3a, or knowing whether the available technology supports about 1000 or about 10,000 people in a settlement, those are interesting.

The trouble with ignoring trade is that agrarian settlements do not exist in a vacuum. When you look, you usually find one household that focuses on gardening or brewing, the village in the next valley which makes and sells millstones, the outcasts who burn charcoal ... you see specialization at every scale, even if most households grow some of the staple grain and have a few livestock or a smokehouse for the game that the men take.

[Minuteman37]

Originally Posted by (E)

What does everyone want to use this writing for exactly?
- Fleshing out the background of settlements and settings, adding depth.
- Determining reasonable numbers for what is possible under assorted conditions.
- Shaping how a campaign centered around building for the future might look.
- Something else entirely.

Primarily 3, with a good bit of 2.

1 is nice and all, but like a characters backstory; it's not nearly as important as what's actually happening when the game is being played.

[Daigoro]

The only in-game instance I can think of was when my gadgeteer bioengineered some magical ultra-tech mushrooms to harvest in the starship's cargo bay. Stats on growth rates, inputs, outputs and necessities could've been handy, but we basically hand-waved the details.

[jason taylor]

How much support do you have? Benedictines were able to get an edge by having an organization that could move capital, personal, and information from one monastary to another in Western Europe. Their infrastructure made for a more effective farming system.

[(E)]

Ok, progress so far.
I have a basic mechanic that is hopefully not too complex that covers crops. TL improvement is covered, as is finding weaknesses in a broad sense. Low intensity vs intensive farming is also covered. The same formula will also be useful when determining how much space supports a person. Much data grinding and fact sifting is still required however, this is not a fast project.

[johndallman]

Good show! Getting this right is much more important than a few weeks of time.

[TGLS]

Oh another thing. Maybe talk about alternatives to sunlight (for farming underground or in deep space).

[(E)]

Originally Posted by TGLS

Oh another thing. Maybe talk about alternatives to sunlight (for farming underground or in deep space).

Covered (or at least partially so), current LEDs top out at 28% efficiency while next generations looks like 68%. Fungi and various animals use chemical energy (food) instead of light so they get mentioned as well.

[(E)]

Apparently LEDs can reach 230% efficiency

The devil is of course in the details (wired article)

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by (E)

Apparently LEDs can reach 230% efficiency

The devil is of course in the details (wired article)

I wonder if this will have strong applications in cooling... overheating is a serious problem with grow lights.