You've done 3 or 4 jumps (depending on the ship), plus 6 weeks of flying so :
McTavish = (4*2.5) + (6*1.25) = 17.5 tons of fuel of 50 used
Resplendent = (3*500) + (6*110) = 2160 tons of fuel of 5000 used
You have a fuel purification plant which process 200 tons of fuel every 9 hours. Which means to fully refuel requires...
200/50 = 4, 9/4 = 2.25 hours to refuel McTavish.
Every 3 hours the McTavish can put 49.5 tons of fuel into Resplendent.
To fully refuel Resplendent takes 5000/49.5 = 101 * 3 = 303 hours (12 days). Given Resplendent will use 220 tons of fuel while being refueled, this brings total time to 13 days. In other words, 2 weeks to refuel.
I recommend we refuel. Never know when that extra H2 will come in handy.
Plus I am a conservative engineer!
I can agree with refueling. Besides, there's plenty of nearby fuel around!
Also, this following weekend I'll be in a wedding. and unavailable from that Thursday until probably Monday night. Feel free to NPC me as needed!
I assume we bought a set of Telthani flags (carefully hidden, of course!) that we can retrieve and plant on unsettled planets :P?
(Given, there might be a pre-radio society living there already...)
Don't we call pre radio society folks serfs?
Just kidding.
'Listen up you primitive screw-heads, this is my boomstick!' :)?
Also, we prefer to use the term 'community service'...
@Dilemma - Claiming new worlds for Telthani is tempting, but we are also supposed to *not* leave traces pointing back home. Hmm
@Planet - I'd say we survey it so we get a better idea of what we are looking at. Might make the decision easier :)
Not much to hunt. But maybe there's another abandoned station.
Do we normally scan for artificial energy signatures?
Can the telepath scan for thoughts?
-20 C harsh? It's -20 C on the way to drop the kids at school today. ;D
cheers
And I assume you did in fact wear warm nice clothes and so when you did that =)?
If it needs an extra pair of pants, I would say it is harsh :P
Not to mention, we have windchill to consider. A strong breeze brings down -20C to about -35C on earth and this world has a 20% denser atmosphere (which should result in a higher rate of heat loss).
Edit: On the other hand, we could save alot of material by doing something like this. So the subzero temperatures isn't all bad :D
Yeppers.
Plus, you don't really have arctic weather gear on the ship (nobody thought you'd need it). So you're making do with the same gear you used on Mylthani, which wasn't nearly so cold.
Add in dense atmosphere with 30 and 50 mph gusts and you get some nasty weather. Think Hoth from Star Wars.
Extra pair of pants? Well, I force the kids to wear snowpants.
My jacket, hat, and gloves should be equivalent to a light cold weather outfit.
Just need to minimize skin exposure to that cold...
EDIT I've been to an ice hotel. It's still cold.
@Ice houses - Yah. But ice is cheaper to build from then to haul building material from home. And I suspect it is abundant on this world :P
@Pants - Snowpants count as extra pants =)
@Danger - As long as we find a reasonably sheltered place (ie no blizzard at this moment) stepping outside and jumping once or twice in the ice should bring no harm : )
@Hoth - It has the strangest of names ...
Besides, buildings made out of ice are cool^^
Err just to clarify, I agree with you Vathan that -20C (and lower) isn't that dangerous if one dresses appropriately and don't get stuck in bad weather : )
Edit: Speaking of weather, is the world like the film version of Hoth and basically covered in perpetual snowstorms? Or are there like clear spots of relative calm weather?
If it is the former, I respectfully withdraw my desire to set foot on that world for the time being :)
@Crew - Are you okay with some orbital bombardment (after we scanned and found a good spot - and made sure there are no cavemen there!) and drowning a probe (for science!)?
Hoth had it's clear days too.
It's about 60% stormy, 40% clear. Just hard to tell the difference visually, it's solid white.
As I said in the RP thread, I vote for both! Blow a crater in a clear spot, land the shuttle/APC, setup some kind of winch, drop the probe in (like a fishing lure!), take data, retrieve probe, possibly rinse and repeat.
While we wait, we can build a snowman! And maybe a snowmylthani! And Vathan can trounce everyone in the snowball fight!
What we *could* do, if we decide not to claim it, is to leave a probe around and broadcasting a claim made in another name. It might deter others from trying to steal it if we want it later :P
And we could name the world something - Rolverna perhaps? In honour of our fallen comrade.
I finally took the time to look trough the crew pictures.
I'm not sure how I feel about HQ assigning this guy as an ensign on my ship :P
We could wear vac suits. They keep you warm in space which is colder than -20c.
But not sure we need to be looking at the surface either unless we detect something down there.
Depends on where in space you are. :) In sunlight, it's a lot warmer than -20C. In shade, a lot colder. :)
Space itself doesn't really have at temperature. It's how cold or warm things in space get.
In earth orbit, a piece of metal can hit 260 C in direct sunlight. In the shade of earth or a space station, -100 C.
So, yes, the suits would work on the surface. They just aren't rated for rough use, so you'll need to be careful. Basically, a big jagged shard of ice could slice it open, or heavy wind with ice particles could degrade it. But as long as you are careful, you'll be fine.
You do have two hazardous environment suits that would work, hard suits. Those would be pretty much impervious to everything on the surface, even falling into the ocean water (for an hour or two). But they are harder to work in. -5 in gravity to all skill checks.
Send out one guy/gal in hard suit with a rope attached first? Just to check the environment for anything unforeseen.
Then we can dress up properly and take a look : )
Vathan seems like a natural choice given the possible danger. Holt (and yourself) have experience with the hard suits. Or we could always go fishing with a red shirt.
@mdt - Do the probes need to fuel to power their sensors, or just for movement? Is it possible to send them through and just have them collect data until we retrieve them? Not saying this is a good idea right now, I'm just curious for the future.
They need fuel for sensors, movement, communications, etc.
They can shut down generators when not moving, to extend their lifetime. Basically, they bring generators online as needed for what they're doing, up to a maximum.
If you send them through with just gathering, they could pop through and operate for a week or so stationary, or a couple of days moving around. The exact time varies, as they all traveled different distances to get to the warp points, and then spent different amounts of time scanning for the point.
Send out one guy/gal in hard suit with a rope attached first? Just to check the environment for anything unforeseen.
Then we can dress up properly and take a look : )
Are you serious? In my home game once, I let my dwarf monk character have a rope tied around his waist and go swimming in an underground lake with the rest of the party holding the rope. What's the worst that can happen? We call that dwarfing now, because they had to reincarnate him using a leg.
If you are serious, I would ask you to consider/enumerate all of the benefits that would/might be gained by sending a single person planetside versus the risks associated with it.
To me, the benefits are not all that clear.
cheers
I have to agree - I am not sure what we are looking for on the surface that we cannot detect from orbit.
Let's try a careful surface scan and (if we find something) we can go from there.
Randomly trying a spot on a globe 6,000 km in diameter when our search radius is measured in meters doesn't yield a great chance of finding anything.
@ mdt - point taken about temperatures in space. Your more elaborate answer was actually my point, and my bad for not being clearer.
Work has been challenging so my posting is dropping off a bit, but hope to be back on my game (so to speak) Friday.
I'd thought I'd drop by and say that I need to finish up an assignment today - hopefully I have time/energy to post up something tonight : )
No problem.
As I see it, you have the following options :
A) Go back and follow other warp points from the previous system.
B) Continue on one of the warp points from this system.
There are pro's and con's to both. The pro of going back is you're less likely to miss something close to your home star.
The con is, the more you spread out your search, the more branches you have to follow up on to make sure you haven't overlooked something that will possibly see your probes.
In other words, right now, you have a long but thin intrusion.
If you spread it out and leave more probes, you'll have more out to be found.
Then again, the more you spread out, the more likely you are to find something.
So it's really a toss up.
@Line, hook & sinker - Putting someone on a rope and hardsuit is merely a basic confirmation that the environment is indeed safe. An extra precaution if you will. (ie is the atmosphere actually breathable? Does the ice hold our weight? No weird radiation? Cold spikes? Gas vents?)
Also a great way to lose a redshirt to the current monster of the week. But it is a sacrifice I am willing to make =)
@Exploration plan - I think the quicker approach is favourable. We might have to adjust our story from 'travelling merchants' to 'surveyors' but it is an deception we are better fit for in all honesty. I fear that if we take the slower route, we might just end up being really time-inefficient...
I vote to explore widely with probes for a series or two. And then we can evaluate where we want to focus.
From a game / backstory standpoint, is the level of class M planets about what we have found? To clarify - do we have some sort of history that tells us how many habitable planets were there before the collapse as compared to the number of warp points we have found?
There were less than a hundred habitable planets before the collapse.
What you've found so far is pretty typical. About 1 in 5 class M planets is naturally a good spot for life forms (like Telthani), the other 4 are marginal in some way (Masterson's tidal lock, Mylthani's cold climbat, this new planet's cold climate).
Not to be contrarian, but I dislike thin and wide. I like doubling back and verifying everything close. Know your backyard strategy.
Cheers
I am alright with either approach. And that was me with an earlier post when I forgot to change my avatar. Too many games online I suppose....
Fair enough if half the team wants to go for the safer option it only seems reasonable that we'll do just that. :P
I'd say we ought to prioritize looking into those nodes that are open on the other side (since the closed ones are less likely to be discovered - aka not as urgent!)
Just let me know your next destination.
Hmm. That would be back to the 'closest to home' system with unexplored warp points. I *think* that may be the space shark system, but I'm not sure.
I'll try and update the system charts tomorrow once more of my braincells are awake :)
MWP06
We're heading for a mini ski vacation tomorrow to return Thursday night. Probably won't have internet. Might not post until Friday.
cheers
I was the one suggesting MWP06 before, so that is still my vote.
I'm back. Bit busy today. Thinking about a long post making up the results of the obstacle course. Any thoughts?
cheers
That sounds good. I was thinking about writing something like that for Holt anyway. She'd be interested in partaking, at least the physical training part. She'd give the weapons training a go, and her accuracy isn't bad, but she still has trouble compensating for recoil.
Sorry I've been busy this week, new project, should settle down. Will try to get posts up today or tomorrow.
I was hoping you'd all do the obstacle course stuff as well (what your character did, etc).
By the frequent use of spoilers earlier, I assume Vathan is on-top of (or at least keeping an eye on) the Montinegro situation.
Just poke me OOC if you want me to summon people for a 'talk' or something :P
Just a quick question - are the radio and tachyon transmissions similar to our tech level, or above or below?
400 point sources sounds like a populated system with many ships moving about is my first impression.
Tachyon is TL 10+. Radio is TL6+. So the tachyon's are above your tech level, but only because your planet regressed during the long night. The McTavish is TL 11. (TL = Tech Level)
Where are we making contact with the alien fleet? MWP06 as per the map?
Is the Resplendent Commerce at MWP04 as per the map? Where is the Kerrus Refinium 2383?
cheers
'Alien'?
Wait, I just assumed that they were human since we had their ships in our databanks - doh!
Does can we tell whom usually fields such a ship?