--- On Sun, 2/21/10, Onno Meyer <[email protected]> wrote: > Susan asked: > > Well that would sort of depend on how long you want to > wait for your > > terraforming to take hold. > > If terraforming is part of the adventure rather than part > of the > backdrop, I need results in decades or even years. A > terraformer > character who spends dozens of points in esoteric, > non-adventure > skills deserves to see a result before the campaign grinds > to a > hold out of sheer boredom ... > > If terraforming is part of the backdrop ("Emigrate to New > Eden, > early colonists get subsidized tickets and free plots of > land!") > you can get away with a slower pace. The terraformers would > be > NPCs only, so there is no raw deal for the players. > > > Yes, or several smaller ones. > > On the plus side, several smaller ships give redundancy. If > one > gets a meteorite strike, or a GM bug gets out of control, > there > are other ships to continue the mission. > > On the minus side, the teams will be more dispersed. They > won't > be able to do a small-talk-and-staff-meeting at lunch. The > cost > for the fleet goes up without economies of scale, too. > > Last but not least, putting everything into one ship means > that > a gang of heroes/villains can affect the entire mission. > Plucky > heroes deserve a chance to save the day after a crawl > through > the air ducts of the Mothership and a fight with the Greedy > > Corporate Paper-Pusher/Evil Genius/Alien Princess (pick > one). > > > If all you want to do is give yourself a beginning > atmosphere, > > you could theoretically do this with just the > microflora/fauna > > decreasing the size of the tanks you need. > > Step 1: Scouting. Little, expendable ship. > Step 2: Seeding. Little, expendable ships with a > standardized > collection of bugs. Skip this > step if there is already > a breathable atmosphere. > Step 3: Introduction of homelike flora and fauna in a > balanced > ecosystem. That calls for the > big, expensive ships with > expert staff. > > > If you are going for anything larger then you have to > either > > have plants or plant them for the herbivores. However > they > > have to become established before you place herbivores > there. > > You also need a fungal population to get rid of the > old plant > > growth and start turning it into soil. > > > > Alternately if you are talking a place which has > edible plant > > life all you really need is a few rats and a few > rabbits. ;) > > See below. > > And Jon wrote: > > What will the herbivores eat? > > Herbs planted by millions of little agribots? Bio-Tech says > that > forced growth tanks work for plants, too. (Possibly not the > same > ones -- maybe there are three different types of ship for > bugs, > flora and fauna.) > > The realistic option is not to have any specialized > terraforming > ships. Put the labs into standard shipping containers, send > them > with a regular freighter, set up on the world, and the work > will > last long enough to make shipping the labs home pointless. > But > if that is the answer, I don't have a reason to write a > special > ship, which was the point of the question.
If you want a reason to write a special ship. I'd write a series of smaller modules that can be independent or can be connected to form a larger ship...."Lego in space" There would be times where you'd want complete isolation of the various groups of organisms. And micros, plants, fungus, insects, fish, and mammals would be logical splits. _______________________________________________ GurpsNet-L mailing list <[email protected]> http://mail.sjgames.com/mailman/listinfo/gurpsnet-l
