Bay 12 Games Forum

It would seem that with the conditions of space combat, the most effective means of combat would involve capital ships bristling with point-defence weapons, and swarms of drones or fighters.

Given that long-range combat is impossible due to light-lag and energy dispersal, the weapons would have to be applied at short-range. Self-guided missiles would be viable, but the conventional concept would be highly vulnerable to lasers and similar measures unless they had mitigating circumstances such as ECM or massively overwhelming numbers.

Small, mobile weapons platforms designed for unloading on the enemy at minimal cost would be most effective. Being small and nimble enough to have a chance at avoiding being obliterated instantly would be the main bonus, and the larger carrier-support ships would be far easier targets. Human pilots would be highly unlikely, so autonomous or semi-autonomous drones would be necessary. In order to avoid light-lag and jamming, they would have to be able to continue combat without direct input from controllers.

In that case, the crewed spaceship would be in a command, supply and support role. It would house drones and missiles, using as many as possible to overwhelm the defences of the enemy. Electronic and cyber warfare would also be crucial to disrupting and limiting the effectiveness of the enemy.

This is of course assuming that things such as FTL, wormholes and energy shields do not exist.

There will probably be more meat walking around once the snow is gone.

There's some common trade language that's used between humans, elves and dwarves, especially if they're in the business of working with foreigners. Actually knowing another language instead of a mishmash of words with lots of gesturing could be useful.

I really hope the various players who have not posted for many days or weeks come back.

What transpired in the week:

Norrec went exploring in the forest. She found that weird cave again, and saw some unusual happenings. She came back with help, and together they discovered a fearsome beast and a portal. Urist and Norrec fell through it, killed the beast and returned. Nobody was hurt, and Mikhail's food stash was discovered. No sign of his weapons and armour.

Overall there is a feeling that the heady early days are over, and now it's really getting serious.

You all smell kind of bad by now.

Food
Due to the dwindling food supply, many members went out to find food in the forest through hunting and foraging. A total of 13 Trail Berries, 7 Forest Truffles and a solitary Rabbit were found. The rabbit was butchered, providing a few meals worth of meat.

The chickens have started laying eggs, which were combined with fresh Maggot Milk by Norrec to create omelettes. A total of 12 Dwarf Omelettes were made. They, along with the rest of the prepared food were eaten.

The three mules in camp are oblivious to their potential fate.

Work started on making an underground farm. The north-east room was prepared by placing a substrate of soil and rotting material across the floor, making it unpleasant to be in but suitable for growing subterranean plants and fungi.

Mining
Further digging continued, though the work was somewhat impaired by the lack of lighting. Litast's glow scarab could only help so much, but at least there were skilled hands to hold the picks. 16 squares were excavated, producing 13 boulders and 6 piles of rubble.

Gar insists that there is some sort of ore to the east of the north-east room.

If digging were to proceed at maximum efficiency, precious oil would have to be burned.

Animals
One of Tholtig's puppies and Sandow's roosters each disappeared sometime this week. There are no culprits.

Golem
Sandow's golem was getting dangerously close to critical failure. In order to prevent this, Kogan went to town on it and replaced its guts with shiny new components. Tholtig also helped, and solidified the animating forces that were beginning to fade. As it is neither destroyed or berserk, it can only be assumed by the others that it was properly serviced.

Building
Kogan calculates that his wall would have a built footprint of 219 units, plus 11 using the natural cliff formations. Further planning would have to be done regarding how it changes with the gatehouse and river, and the materials used.

Manufacturing
A few boulders were cut into blocks, and Gar used some of these to quickly build himself a table, seat and fitting-less door. This consumed the last of the metal fittings, so more will have to be produced, traded or scavenged.

Norrec also spontaneously carved a crude statue of Hipobis out of logs. It was pretty crude.

Without fittings, work quality will drop well below Common.
Map

There's no need to repost your schedule if you aren't changing anything, so you know.

If you leave right now, you can get back around midday.

I could set a pack of wolves on you... Either way that extends the food supply, right?

The cave is no wider than a single tile at any point, so you know.

In any case Litast will have to decide what to do with you two.