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Old 08-11-2018, 07:03 AM   #191
(E)
 
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Default Re: [ATE] Farming example

The buried garden
An adventure seed, a fragment of a news report dated immediately before the end winds up in the player's hands. This report details a police raid on a large facility that was growing illegal narcotics. Using off the grid technology as well as artificial light sources made using their own 3D printer. If this site could be found the rewards would be huge. The powers that be in the Pyramid may even grant the party title to several floors within the tower itself. Challenges, where is it?, who lives there now?

Economy
The Pyramid can produce flour and weapons, they are using these as a basis for trade. Flour to sell and guns to make sure they get paid. They run a monthly market every new moon and have been improving their security in case they attract any undue attention. The security force is divided up into three groups snipers, equipped with climbing gear, engineers who operate the tower’s numerous defences and heavily armoured guards who are equipped for corridor and close fighting. The later group frequently wear armour made from semi expired kevlar and strips of conveyor belt that was reinforced with a UV stabilised and water resistant polymer similar to Kevlar.

The market
While barter is largely acceptable there is a defacto currency developing in the tower based on a cup of flour. This represents close to a ¼ of a person's daily energy requirement, is fairly light and relatively long lasting. Maybe G$0.5 each cup.

What's for sale
- Flour.
- Ammunition, pistol calibers are common while rifle bullets may have a premium added for security reasons.
- Alcohol, Millet beer as well as Blackberry wine and cider represent the more palatable varieties available. Pure alcohol is also available in small quantities.
- Soap, seriously when was the last time your character had a bath.
- Water, two varieties Clean and Hot. The later may be combined with soap.
- Milk and dairy like products (Horchata), made from Chufa (a.k.a tigernut)
- Prepared food, bannock either sweeter with blackberry jam or savoury with duck or pigeon. Baked yams (technically not a yam but oxalis)
- Canned and dried food is available for travelers.
- Black powder would be available in small amounts.
- Worked metal products.
- Oils and fats, linseed, duck, chufa.

High value Barter
- Lead
- Plumbing equipment and supplies
- Phosphate/potassium sources
- Metal working tools
- Brass
- Scopes
- Clothes and fibre
- Mercury
- Fuels
- Pressure cylinders

Food preservation
- Cool room
- Canning
- Drying

Defense
The first line of defense is information for that reason there is an observation platform with several telescopes at the top of the tower and because what's a pyramid without an all seeing eye.
The residents of the Pyramid have an ally by the name of Sir Isaac Newton who provides 9.8mps of assistance every second. This means that for example a fletched and sharpened piece of reinforcing steel might do 5D or 6D of impaling damage if dropped from the top of the tower. There are two delivery methods in use. The first one is the cables that stretch out to the nearby buildings, these are loaded with baskets on runners that release their contents at predetermined distances. The second delivery method uses a byproduct of the plumbing system, air pressure. Air cannons could have up to 200 psi of pressure depending on the strength of the pressure containers. Each pound of moderately dense material would do 2D-3D damage. Accuracy is an issue as the time taken for something to fall that far is about 8 seconds. On the other hand the ammunition available is only limited by the resident's imagination and morals. They also have muzzle loading cannons.

Phosphates, potassium and other soil additives
While not required in huge amounts there are two likely sources for these elements, cleaning products and the old sewage system. Limestone used for architectural purposes could be broken up with some difficulty for agricultural use. Sulphur is readily available in the form of Gypsum in plaster board.

The parks
Several green spaces exist in the city but they are all overlooked by numerous high buildings making farming a very dangerous proposition. As a result the nearby parks are used as places to source materials such as soil and wood. To discourage raiders the Pyramid residents try to keep the hunting and foraging poor.

Water cannon
A standard water cannon for riot control use might do 4D (knockback only) damage with ½ damage at 30 yards and max range of 67 yards. The water cannons of the tower can run at twice that pressure and potentially have a lot higher volume. At best double damage, add 1D of regular damage and increase max range to 110 yards. There is also the option of mixing other chemicals with the water, ammonia would be possible as is salt which would make the water more conductive…

Switches

- Algae farms if present add 10% (built from scratch) or 20% (salvaged TL 9 system) to the total food production. (On a side note wild terrestrial algae has been used as a famine food in China historically.)
- Salt hasn't been covered, most large cities are coastal however and failing that stockpiles of salt might exist for de-icing roads (purification required) or it might just be salvaged from pre-end homes and businesses.
- Gardens instead of crops rather than a centrally organized crop rotation in the tower there could be a gardening approach with households or individuals maintaining their own gardens next to where the live. This may increase the food production and would certainly mean an improvement in food reliability but would reduce the amount of cereal and oil crops available. (at different points in history upwards of 40% of person's diet was sourced from a house garden)
- Methane plant, hydro-power or tidal power. More energy means the labor requirement is lessened allowing more people and productivity for non food related tasks.
- Bore, a simple underground bore would be another possible source of water for the community. Add electrical engineering in this case as the water table may be too deep for a purely mechanical pump.
- Wheat and other crops, if the seeds can be sourced higher yielding crops can be planted, people with the skills or experience with these crops would be required as well. Maybe a 20-60% increase in yield.
- Stored energy, a potential energy store is gravity, using windmills to pump water to the highest stories of the tower electricity could then be reliably generated by releasing the water.

Skills present

Machining TL8
Chemistry TL6
Farming TL6
Architecture TL 9
Armory (firearms) TL 7
Engineer (several) TL8+9
Gardening

Crunch and the other categories are coming. Again this is another example that could be taken in a number of directions based on numerous details.
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Old 08-11-2018, 07:28 PM   #192
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Default Re: [ATE] Farming example

Quote:
Originally Posted by (E) View Post
The pyramid
(Formerly known as 23 Pyramid plaza)

(SNIP)

Get me a (live) pig, the guards of the tower have managed to capture several sows, now they just need some enterprising people to capture a boar or two so they can expand their farming activities.

continued..
I love this thread, for lots of reasons, but this one made me laugh.

"Wait, you want us to do what?"

Also, here's a fun idea for you:

Cloud cities on floating platforms exist in a place where there is no ground, no earth, but portals exist that allow brief, intermittent access to Manhattan.

(Anybody who reads the Facets thread knows where this is coming from.)

The environment supposes temperatures on the platforms that vary between 50 degrees F and 70 degrees F, and experience a standard gravity. The light available is equivalent to that of a cloudy day, but there is no night cycle, at all.

Winds on most of the platforms tend to be light, because the builders don't want to have to do much in the way of station-keeping. The atmospheric pressure varies between 1.1 atmospheres, sea level, and 0.9 atmospheres.

The atmosphere actually varies a lot more than that, but the platforms exist at these layers. It thins out, gets colder and and grows brighter, the "higher" one gets. However, the most interesting stuff happens down low, in the warmer, thicker, darker reaches of the unending atmosphere.

Down low, where the temperature reaches triple-digits, Farenheit, the thick atmosphere acquires a tan haze that shades to darker brown, the deeper it gets. This is the layer at which most of the native life starts to appear.

Two types of microbial life form the basis of the realm’s ecosystem. The first organism is an algae that uses a form of chlorophyll (Chfb) to convert infrared radiation (heat) and benzene (C6H6) rings into bright, visible light.

The IR rising from deep in the atmosphere hits the algae’s Chfb, which then uses the energy to capture carbon and free hydrogen, and then convert it to benzene. Three benzene rings form a steady-state, but the algae continues to make the conversion until it produces a fourth benzene ring.

At that point, the benzene has an unstable configuration, and one ring promptly collapses. The algae’s structure incorporates a ligand similar to TTB, and that takes the energy released by the collapse and converts it to visible light. This returns the algae’s benzene structure to a steady-state, and the process begins again

Since each bit of algae contains thousands, or even tens of thousands, of these combinations of Chfb, and ligands, the result is an algae that glows brightly. Much of the time, the algae emits a white light; however, should it have been fortunate enough to form around some metallic atoms that exist as dust in the lower atmosphere, that changes.

The four metallic atoms it can ingest usefully are europium (63Eu); samarium (62Sm), Cerium (58Ce) and (60Nd). When the algae incorporate those elements into their structure, the ligands adhere to the atoms and borrow ions. This allows the ligands to function far more effectively (as the ions increase the energy available for conversion) but change the color of the light emitted.

Since the metallic atoms are not evenly dispersed (and natural selection has made different algae better at incorporating different types, preferentially), the emitter algae tend to specialize in the release of a particular color.

The light, in turn, is captured by the second organism, a symbiont algae that uses more traditional chlorophylls to absorb the light emitted, to produce sugars from carbon and water, and emit oxygen. The symbiont produces more sugars than it needs and, as it sheds them (or dies off from age), those sugars get absorbed by the light-emitters, which use them for supplemental energy (IR is notoriously low energy).

The symbionts vary in color, depending on the type of light they, in turn, specialize in absorbing. While all types of the emitter algae can manage the white light if they lack the metallic atoms to provide ions, and the symbionts can use the white light effectively, the colored light is brighter and provides much more energy.

Code:
Metal Incorporated	Glow Emitted	Symbiont Color
63Eu	                    Red	       Blues and Greens
62Sm	                  Yellow	   Reds
58Ce	                   Blue	          Greens
60Nd	                  Green	       Reds and Yellows
(This is actually somewhat based on real-world chemistry. However, the ligand-benzene cycle requires temperatures of 150 degrees C. Here, it happens at much lower temperatures, because that's what I wanted.)

The emitter-symbiont combinations form thin, filmy layers of organic matter that drift among the thick clouds and get steadily thicker as the atmospheric density and heat increases. Much of the emitter algae lacks metals, and the finely mixed symbiont algae ranges from light tan to deep brown – especially at the upper levels, where they absorb the white light from the sky just fine.

The color of this upper layer tends to be darker brown, and the film of symbiont algae thicker, where the light from the sky is more direct. In shady areas, the color lightens, considerably, as the symbionts become sparse. That said, upon close examination, each of the different colors can be seen, all swirling together as they ride the air currents.

The upper layer of symbiont algae effectively blocks the white sky light from reaching the lower layers, and there the emitter algae become necessary for life.

As a general rule, the algae that incorporates 63Eu tends to form smaller, thicker patches with its symbiont. The higher energy of blue light means those emitters that incorporate 58Ce and their symbionts tend to have wider, larger, flatter patches. The others tend to lie somewhere between the two.

However, the algae-layer isn’t even that uniform. As winds eddy and creatures fly through, they disrupt the layers of emitters and symbionts, leaving trails and streams of light of various colors that slowly fade as the algae fill in the gaps.

In all cases, the algae pair form thick layers of aerosol droplets that taste sweet and cheesy, but aren’t pleasant to breathe in. However, the algae, itself, isn’t the real problem, as far as that goes. Rather, as the “area producers” that lie at the foundation of the ecosystem, the algae layers also host the orbital realm’s rich selection of bacteria and "phytoplankton" that, in turn, are fed upon by larger organisms.

Some of the bacteria thrive in animal lungs, just fine (and some of the phytoplankton can adopt parasitical roles), so unprotected humans in the lower depths require a HT roll every hour to prevent illness. For every layer descended below atmospheric pressure 21.5 psi (where the temperature is about 95 degrees F), reduce the HT roll by -1 for breathing in the algae and plankton, in addition to any penalties for the high heat and air pressure.

Some of the larger organisms the benefit either directly (by eating algae and cloud plankton), or indirectly (by eating things that eat the area producers or ingesting waste products), include:

-“Integral trees” that swirl among the fog, absorbing water, gases and the concentrated carbon and sugars, and use that (along with their own chlorophyll analogs) to create vast trunks covered with branches and leaves like green clouds. They float by absorbing free hydrogen and helium from the atmosphere, and fill bladders that leak slowly, constantly needing a cycle to refill;
-Mats or balls of vegetation held aloft by similar (but smaller) bladders of mostly helium, which house creatures of all sorts;
-Filter-feeding skywhales that have an avian biochemistry, floating along via gasbags filled with the lower atmosphere’s relatively abundant helium;
-Vast flocks/schools of gliding birds of various species;
-Swarms of stirges that act as parasites to larger creatures;
-Lightning-eels that use bio-electricity to crack water into hydrogen to stay afloat, and oxygen to feed their own tissues;
-Giant, amazingly dangerous cloud-kraken, which resemble a cross between jelly-fish and squid, much larger than even the largest of Earths’ cephalopods, also held aloft by bladders of hydrogen and helium that surrounded the central nervous system, similar to how a mushroom cap extends from the central stem;
-Swift, winged raptors that dart among the smaller creatures; the largest of these don’t hesitate to try to knock a human from the deck of an airship, and eat them as they fall toward the hot, dark depths.

Despite the dangers, people descend frequently to the layers where the air grows thick, to hunt and harvest. Many of the creature are edible, and the vegetation that floats amongst the roiling clouds offers some of the few sources of building materials and fibers, as well as vegetable proteins and vitamins.

This resource extraction forms the basis of the economies of most settlements, and either the gathering or the processing of the food and resources gathered, as well as trade between the floating cities, employ the vast majority of the population. It also makes the gatherers and traders targets of pirates and bandits of all sorts.

(continued...)
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Old 08-11-2018, 07:45 PM   #193
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Default Re: [ATE] Farming example

(...continued)

Fountains of Life

While much of the sky consists of mostly-flat layers of air of various temperatures, thicknesses and inhabitants, that isn’t always the case. Occasionally, a nexus of heat far below the inhabitable regions sends a hot jet upwards, and vast clouds rise hundreds, or even thousands, of miles into the sky.

These “chimneys” send hot air high above where it normally occurs, and the combination of this heat and greater availability of sky glow make the vast clouds into fountains of life. The upwellings of heat tend to kick up aerosolized minerals from deep within the thick atmosphere, and that adds to the energy available to support rich and complex ecosystems in these massive clouds.

The columns have rich color variations, but generally follow the same basic pattern. The algae that lives on the heaviest element, 63Eu, mostly collect toward the bottom of the chimney clouds, which gives it a rich azure tone. From there, the clouds shade into purples and then reds. Those, in turn, slowly transition to green, while the tops of the clouds are capped with yellows and then deep oranges.

The explosion of energy-rich cloud-algae area producers allow creatures normally found only in the thick soup to survive and prosper at zed-levels far above those they normally inhabit. Sometimes hundreds of miles across, the chimneys create fountains of life that can last anywhere from a few weeks to a few millenia.

Moreover, the benefits don’t just occur within the cloud-columns, themselves. The rising air causes an inrush of winds from all directions, but the existing prevailing winds tend to prove stronger. That creates a constant “outflow” of rich nutrients on the leeward side of the column.

As the substances blown out of the life fountains cool and start to descend, they eventually reach the thicker atmosphere levels where life normally thrives. The extra nutrients create wide oases of rich life that skew leeward from the bases of the cloud columns for hundreds of miles.

In rare cases, a particularly powerful upwelling of heat sends a cloud column shooting high enough to reach the levels with frigid temperatures. The algae and associated phytoplankton ride the column up, die in the thin and bitterly cold air, and get blown off the top of the column by the prevailing winds.

The dead matter falls as a “snow” until it reaches the warmer environs, at which point it liquifies into a slightly oily rain, rich in sugars and other nutrients. Depending on the winds, these extra nutrients can fertilize the thicker levels for thousands of miles downwind of these vast fountains of life.

The vast cloud-columns act as the most desirable areas of the Orbital Realm of Jupiter. Airships need not descend into the hot, thick levels to glean food and rich resources, which makes the trips slightly safer (all the predators that live below also live in the cloud-fountains) and much more profitable.

Fountains that have existed for long enough to be considered “stable” tend to attract considerable population density, as people create settlements of all sorts in close proximity to the easily accessible resources. When the various settlements get along well with one another, they can form large polities.

When they don’t they make war.

So, that's the setting. The platforms are:

Nieuw Amsterdam
Started as a stable platform 500 yards across (250 yards radius).
Has expanded to 4000 yards, much too large for the anchor platform to support.
Extra mass supported with a geodesic tensegrity sphere, that allows for enough internal heating to keep the platform floating and stable

Resources Available:
TL 8, portal to Manhattan Island in the year 2015 opens 12 minutes in the summer evenings; 12 hours in the Autumn equinox, at altitude 1,370 feet. Large enough to allow entry of a Shenandoah-class dirigible.
The leaders of the city also own (through many cut-outs) the Empire State Building, the antenna of which rises in close proximity to the portal.

Limitations:
Passage through the portal must remain secret, so even though it could handle a dirigible, the passage of such a large and obvious airship is strictly forbidden.
Platform leaders prefer self-sufficiency, with absolutely minimal inputs from 2015 Manhattan.
Electricity generated by non-biological organisms arcs uncontrollably, and destroys the generator and any wiring.
Internal combustion that uses spark-plugs self-destruct, but pressure combustion similar to that used in early diesel engines works fine.

New Wollaston
Three stable circular platforms each 500 yards across (250 yards radius). Each has its own anchor that supports it, but all three are linked by a wooden platform and bridges, at a common center. The configuration is stable.
The platforms are open to the elements.

Resources available:
An alternate TL6 Manhattan, verging on TL 7 (mostly in the form of fixed-wing aircraft and internal combustion engines).
Portal opens in the same pattern, as above.
Allies control a large airship factory, on the part of Manhattan beneath the portal.

Limitations:
On dark, foggy nights, an airship can slip through the portal, but this high-risk behavior is reserved for emergencies and high-priority tasks.
The leaders also require self-sufficiency, so as to minimize the risk discovery.
The other physical rules noted above also apply, here.

Nieuw Haarlem
A single anchored platform 150 yards across (75 yards radius), but with a hodge-podge of extensions wholly or partially supported by gasbags. The anchor platform is stable, but the extensions require constant maintenance.
Open to the elements.

Resources available:
Access through a portal that follows the above limitations, to an alternate Manhattan of TL 5, verging on TL 6.
A Fountain of Life rises nearby, and the city lies in the leeward nutrient-fall zone.

Limitations:
Outbreak of war has made people on the Manhattan side far more wary of aerial activities, and the leaders of Nieuw Haarlem want the portal to remain undiscovered.
The leaders do not control the part of Manhattan that lies under the portal, but do have allies in the city.
The airships available are quite limited -- equivalent to about the LZ-10, at best.

The questions

What sorts of crops would/could/should each platform grow?
-They do have access to gleaned resources from surrounding area, but that includes forest-style and scrub-style habitats.
-There are no grasses of any sort, except those brought through from Manhattan.
-The biology is fully compatible with Earth's, just adapted to an improbable environment. Most animal flesh has nutrient values (and an oily taste) similar to ducks or geese.
-I'd imagine they could have dovecotes and other facilities for poultry, but pastures would constitute a highly inefficient use of space.

How many people could each platform support?

They will have satellite communities supported by clusters of balloons, suspended with some assistance in floating vegetation mats, or built on the trunks of the sequoia-sized floating trees. What would they mostly need, from those settlements?

The light-emitting algae probably can't be used for anything other than illumination, but the symbionts don't differ that much from terrestrial algae, other than the incorporation of tiny helium and hydrogen bladders. The symbionts produce similar sorts of long-chain hydrocarbons, starches and sugars.

How much regular algae would be needed to produce biodiesel? Does the benzene-rich emitter algae offer any special advantages, beyond bright, multi-colored illumination?

Thanks!
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Old 08-13-2018, 03:37 PM   #194
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Default Re: [ATE] Farming example

Lots of interesting thinking to do about the cloud cities.
Random thoughts one the matter
- pre 1960s wet algae farming was limited to central Africa (South America stopped algae farming in the 16th or 17th century), China harvested land based algae for food.
- Given that its Manhattan/New York the Ireland has some tradition of harvesting algae (sea weed)
- Lichen is a naturally occurring fungi + algae symbiotic relationship. This might make for a lighter hydroponic crop bed for larger crop type plants.
- Bamboo
- Cacti and desert plants wouldn't require a large (heavy) water overhead.
- Aeroponics
- Dwarf varieties.
Lots to think about.
[Edit]
Reindeer eat lichen, hmm now what could eat floating lichen? Ho Ho Ho
[Edit]

On a side note I added some more content to the Pyramid but haven't finished the crunch yet. Which is going slightly slower this time as I'm incorporating the data into the in progress farm mechanic.

Another couple of examples have been added to my to do list.
- Nomadic raiders
- 300 years after the end, TL 3 or 4 ish with the various TL 10? Artifacts that might survive.

Anyone have any opinions on working through the Super Grim Global Warming example as a future history of a farming community starting before the end?
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Old 08-14-2018, 01:11 AM   #195
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Default Re: [ATE] Farming example

Quote:
Originally Posted by (E) View Post
Anyone have any opinions on working through the Super Grim Global Warming example as a future history of a farming community starting before the end?
Go for it, this is all interesting stuff.
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Old 08-14-2018, 01:27 AM   #196
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Default Re: [ATE] Farming example

I'm curious about dwarves- I'm sure they wouldn't just live on cave mushrooms.
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Old 08-15-2018, 07:47 PM   #197
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Default Re: [ATE] Farming example

The Pyramid, crunch

Tower
440 meters tall not 300 meters, (I made mistake in my notes)
100 floors providing about 2 hectares (5 acres) of space that gets enough light for crops.
Millet, 1000 lbs food 2000 lbs straw
Edible green weeds, *900 lbs food 500lbs waste
Chufa, 3250 lbs food 3000 lbs waste
Beans, *40000 lbs 20000 lbs waste
*increase in yield due to regular picking rather than single harvest. Beans thrive in this environment, weight given in this instance is for green beans including pod.
The waste plant material is further processed into 4000 lbs of mushrooms and 600 lbs of duck or pigeon.
This feeds around 75 people (who must like beans)

On top of the wall
Mixed garden, high labour, seasonal, relies on other systems.
Provides the equivalent of complete diet for 120 people. 90,000 lbs of waste gets turned into compost and 1000 lbs of duck and pigeon.

Overpass (flyover?)
Sorghum, 4000 lbs an acre 6000 lbs waste
Oxalis, 5500 lbs an acre 3000 lbs waste
Edible weeds, 1500 lbs an acre
Beans, 4500 lbs an acre 6000 lbs waste
The waste supports 500 lbs of mushrooms and 200 lbs of duck or pigeon per acre.
Average per acre yield of about 3750 lbs. Average acre length maybe 240 meters (260 yards)**
Each mile of overpass adds another 30 or so people to the population. 10 miles of overpass are developed taking the total population of the tower to about 500 people.

**Oddly enough a 6 lane road may have a similar width to a medieval acre.
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Old 08-16-2018, 07:12 PM   #198
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Default Re: [ATE] Farming example

A floating dairy farm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-45130010
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Old 08-17-2018, 12:30 AM   #199
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Default Re: [ATE] Farming example

The Trux

Fuel
Sourced from Chinese Tallow, a weed in the south east of the U.S. A managed stand of chinese tallow may produce as much as 500 gallons of biodiesel per acre. Unmanaged stands produce a far more variable yield. But given that there isn't much competition the best wild areas can be harvested. 200+ gallons an acre. After two years of thinning and pruning a wild area would be functionally a low yielding managed stand providing maybe 400 gallons.

Harvesting
Two main options exist human picking and vacuums. If this group is raiders then slaves may provide the former. In that case managed plantations would dominate and 6 person days of labour to harvest an acre. If the group has the ability to maintain the equipment a vacuum allows for larger wild trees to be harvested more efficiently. At best the fruit is available September and October.

5,000 gallons would represent the fuel load a larger truck would tow in a tanker trailer. Maybe another 500 gallons on board. This gives a theoretical range of maybe 22,000 miles.

Using a larger truck with a 40 tonne capacity this leaves 20 tonnes for everything else. Spare parts would account for 2 tonnes. Armour covering a whole truck front back and sides adds maybe 6.7 tonnes. (¼ inch steel plate) (I'll let any vehicle experts replace what I've written here, I'm also not working in my native metric) a still and grinder would add maybe half a tonne empty.

Sample route
(I would also defer anyone with more experience with American geography)

The nomadic cycle that begins near Texas for the autumn harvest of chinese tallow. As temperatures drop the Trux head to where Hogs are common to stock up on meat. (presuming the number of hogs skyrocketed without human intervention)
The Trux then either head to home base or a city with good salvage prospects to pass the winter doing the heavy maintenance required on their vehicles. Come spring they head towards pine country to load their stills up for the production of turpentine. After this they may either loop back towards Texas via either coast. At this stage they would be keeping their eyes out for sugar rich material to fuel their stills for ethanol production. Abandoned orchards might be sought out. They would also detour to gather salt for curing the pork the collect.

Ok this system went in a different direction than I anticipated so it's a bit short on content.The ideas here would work for raiders, friendlier travelers or the PCs themselves.
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Old 08-17-2018, 12:55 AM   #200
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Originally Posted by (E) View Post

Overpass (flyover?)
...
Oxalis, 5500 lbs an acre 3000 lbs waste
...
Creeping Wood Sorrel (Oxalis corniculata), or some more edible domesticated variety?

To be honest, I just know this as a weed who's rhizomes galahs seem to like digging for in autumn and winter.
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