Would a 9 lb sapient spider producing 1/10 lb of silk a day suspend your disbelief?

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Too bad Low Tech armor only gives a CF rather than breaking it down into materials and labor costs.

There's more on making stuff in the Companions, but basically you won't get "The Big List Of Everything Broken Down Into Materials And Labor Costs" because that would be about as big as Low Tech itself, even more research-intensive, consist of nothing but charts causing the layout guy to quit, and not enough people care about it to make the effort profitable.

Which is a shame, cuz my inner nerd thinks it would be a totally cool thing.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Bruno

There's more on making stuff in the Companions, but basically you won't get "The Big List Of Everything Broken Down Into Materials And Labor Costs" because that would be about as big as Low Tech itself, even more research-intensive, consist of nothing but charts causing the layout guy to quit, and not enough people care about it to make the effort profitable.

Which is a shame, cuz my inner nerd thinks it would be a totally cool thing.

My inner nerd would love it too.
So what CF sounds appropriate for 1 lb costing $500?
Off the top of my head I'm guessing CF +49

Also, when working with truly expensive materials, masterful tailoring should pay for itself with its savings going to the tailor's profit. Right?

[Ze'Manel Cunha]

Originally Posted by Crakkerjakk

Oh, and thanks Ze for the brain-eating egg-laying head-spiders. I'm sure I'll sleep like a babe tonight.

Sure thing, after all, ears do make nice pre-made burrowed layers, going pass the drum membrane there's a readied egg laying space in the inner year and then it's simply a matter of the digesting of the auditory nerve while inching into the brain.

I suppose the first symptom of being a host to a batch of new spiders would then be slight hearing loss for a couple of weeks while the egg sack matures in the inner ear, call it Hearing -1.

A couple of weeks later as the eggs hatch and start eating their way up the auditory canal the Hearing loss becomes more significant, -4 on that side, -2 overall.

A couple of days after the tiny spiders get to the brain and start digesting it, we can start adding several days of mental disadvantages and such before the spiders do enough damage to cause the death of their host.

They then will continue to eat the host's brain for several more days post-morten, depending then on whether or not the spiders cannabilize each other or not, we then have either a few, or several hundred, ounce sized spiders eat their way out through their host's eyes...

[pyratejohn]

I'm suddenly reminded of the zombie ant fungus.
http://www.livescience.com/animals/0...nt-fungus.html

[SuedodeuS]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

My inner nerd would love it too.
So what CF sounds appropriate for 1 lb costing $500?
Off the top of my head I'm guessing CF +49

That gives ~$417/lb for padded cloth (low, but maybe some of the padding isn't silk?), $625/lb for light layered cloth, $875/lb for medium layered cloth, and ~$1070/lb for heavy layered cloth. That seems in the right ballpark, if we assume no materials are lost in the process of making the armor (which strikes me as fairly optimistic).

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Also, when working with truly expensive materials, masterful tailoring should pay for itself with its savings going to the tailor's profit. Right?

Depends on the material. I think the lost weight basically ends up turning into scraps in the process of masterful tailoring. If these scraps can readily be processed into usable material (like bronze, IIRC), it might be possible to offset (partially or entirely) the cost of masterful tailoring. If the scraps cannot be readily processed - as likely in the case of textiles - an offset is exceedingly unlikely. Regardless, I'd say it's more likely to be something you'd have to work out with the artisan, rather than being the default case. Masterful tailoring is a lot of work on the part of the artisan, after all.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Bruno

Yesterday I had to escort outside a house centipede the size of my thumb. Turns out I'm the only person in the company who isn't freaked out by them, and of course they're coming inside this time of year for the winter. It's going to be a long six months for me and the centipedes I think.

To quote the guy two cubes down after arriving to 'deal' with the centipede "You said it was a big bug, not a monster!"

I gather that species isn't especially venomous?

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

I gather that species isn't especially venomous?

Utterly harmless. They can't even pierce a facial tissue with their stinger-legs. They mostly just flail around and freak people out when handled directly. They hold very still if you wrap them up in a tissue quickly though, which makes getting them outside easy.

They just have a lot of very long legs, run quickly and in defiance of gravity, and see humans well enough to react "intelligently" to us menacing them (ie dodging the descending shoe), which freaks people out.

[Flyndaran]

That is not what I picture when I think of a centipede.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

That is not what I picture when I think of a centipede.

Do you have the desert centipede (Scolopendra polymorpha) that far north? At any rate you are probably thinking of a member of the family Scolopendridae not Scutigeridae to which the house centipede belongs.

[Anders]

It's creepy, crawly, and disgusting.