I think that's meant to be loneliness. Poverty varies a bit. There's the semi-disenfranchised lower/middle classes in the inner system. They aren't starving (it's practically impossible to starve) but are heavily burdened by the need to upgrade their Genetic Service Packs, and many things like having children can involve expensive genetic licences. Not owning the genetic code you use is a bummer. Jake Carter's family is an example of this (Sunward page 96 has more) Below them you've got people trapped in Pods or Synths. These people own practically nothing but their bodies, which are often "fit for purpose" working morphs rather than something really comfortable. They're missing some human rights (no ability to have children) but can sell their labor and what fancy tricks their body might have (like working as a non-indentured vacworker with a Vacuum Pod). Similar to, but more destitute in some ways than the modern working class. Below them you have indentures, who own nothing, and are owned. In theory they're similar to the above, but they can be legally micromanaged a lot more, and have very few legal recourses to mistreatment. Many of them live in "Dream Factories", infomorph filled servers where they don't actually have a body, let alone own one. The bottom of the ladder (of instanced people, Cold Storage Egos would still be below) are Zeroes. They're indentures who lack basic modern amenities like mesh access, and are generally kept in corporate compounds or servers and see nothing of the outside world or know much about it. Colonizing an earthlike planet is a lot easier than a lot of places which have been colonized, as morphs need few if any mods to survive unaided (no need for Q-Morphs or Hulders for extreme example), but how easy it is depends on blueprint access. A colony with abundant blueprint access can scale itself up to be a comfortable place to live permanently in days. Ones with more limited blueprint access often turn to extreme cost saving measures to stretch macguyvered machines and resources further (Rorty and Synergy are examples of what colonies in these situations turn to). With full access and skilled personnel it would be very easy, but that doesn't always happen, and blind spots in blueprint acquisition or function (like generators which break down quickly in the alien atmosphere for example) can make things harder.

Opiyel wrote:

Would it still be necessary to go out and secure the raw materials for them to use?

Yes. It could be a big problem/plot point that your supply of feedstock for CMs was lost or for example due to some clerical error you have double the amount of vanadium and nickel, but no thorium or lanthanum.

My comment about the energy requirements holds only if you treat nanofabricators as using ONLY nanobots to construct things. If you treat them as miniaturized automated factories supplemented by nanomachines then the energy required is muuuuuch lower.

X-risks is kind of a bad example for what most alien life is like, as it won't include the ones which aren't dangerous. There's no Vohaulian statblock for example. One nasty option is some kind of alien microbe which causes basic biomods to freak out, as opposed to the "natural" human body. For nanofabrication a useful approximate for energy use is how much energy it would take to melt or decompose the mass of the substances you're making; as that's pretty much what's happening on a molecular level. It'd be a little higher than that thanks to moving parts and computer control calling for power, and other inefficiencies, but it's an ok number. For a kg of iron, this is about a megajoule, which is actually very manageable. It's about as much power as a dryer uses in 20 minutes. Carbon is both a much more common material to use, and requires a lot more energy. Melting a Kg of diamond calls for about 11-12 MJ of energy, which is a lot higher, but still totally doable. (It's like running a dryer for 4 hours) It'll depend a lot on what you're actually using and how precise you need it to be placed, as you'd need to keep the work surface much colder for precise work. Making a grain of sand sized computer might still be in the MJ thanks to the machine needing to keep the work surface at cryonic temperatures for example. I might have messed this math up, it's been a little while since I calculated any of this enthalpy stuff. This is a pretty basic calculation as well, and assumes that the nanofabber is extremely efficient. You could easily double these numbers and potentially use the nanofab as a space heater. The point being that small scale nanofabrication is in a similar range of energy use as large household appliances. A consumer nanofab annex probably looks a lot like a laudromat for energy uses. Industrial scale stuff would scale based on any efficiency losses which come with size (hard to figure out the internal layout of a theoretical technology though), and with the amount of substance they work with. At larger scales or with less needed precision conventional macroscopic manufacturing starts being appealing, as it tends to get more efficient as it gets larger. For powering one, it depends on what the local planet is like. If the planet is close enough then large solar arrays can handle energy needs for a while. If there's running water then small hydropower is easy. If fossil fuels are easy to get a hold of then a natural gas or coal plant is an easy kickstart to fusion. If the planet's star is young enough, then you can do fission with unenriched uranium, which would be very useful. That's all for industrial scale work though, you could definitely use a vehicle to power a desktop CM. I'd expect most colonies to use a portable fusion generator (apparently the theoretical minimum for how small that could get is about a cubic meter) and a supply of fuel for the first while. You'd need some *serious* active cooling though, like a nearby river for that though.

Sorry for hijacking the thread, but:

Trappedinwikipedia wrote:

For nanofabrication a useful approximate for energy use is how much energy it would take to melt or decompose the mass of the substances you're making; as that's pretty much what's happening on a molecular level. It'd be a little higher than that thanks to moving parts and computer control calling for power, and other inefficiencies, but it's an ok number. For a kg of iron, this is about a megajoule, which is actually very manageable. It's about as much power as a dryer uses in 20 minutes. Carbon is both a much more common material to use, and requires a lot more energy. Melting a Kg of diamond calls for about 11-12 MJ of energy, which is a lot higher, but still totally doable. (It's like running a dryer for 4 hours) It'll depend a lot on what you're actually using and how precise you need it to be placed, as you'd need to keep the work surface much colder for precise work. Making a grain of sand sized computer might still be in the MJ thanks to the machine needing to keep the work surface at cryonic temperatures for example. I might have messed this math up, it's been a little while since I calculated any of this enthalpy stuff. This is a pretty basic calculation as well, and assumes that the nanofabber is extremely efficient. You could easily double these numbers and potentially use the nanofab as a space heater. The point being that small scale nanofabrication is in a similar range of energy use as large household appliances. A consumer nanofab annex probably looks a lot like a laudromat for energy uses.

Nope, nope, noooooope. First let me get something out of the way: In EP nanotechnology is magic. Almost on the level of Numenerra. But if you assumed that cornucopia machine is something akin to 3d printer on a molecular scale, or microscopic bots, that move around freely then your energy expenditure is much greater than simple overall enthalpy balance would suggest. Enthalpy change is change of the state of matter between two states disregarding all the states in between. (I suppose you all already know this ;-) And the state in the midst of fabrication is a nanobot or nanofabrication printer head moving around, and moving objects around is work, if we assume that they are more massive than portion of material they manipulate. Safe assumption considering that they have to be of similar level of complication to bacterial cell. Movement at this scale is anything BUT efficient. We get several hundreds times energy required to move the material, just to move the nanobots. Remember that melting and solidifying are simple Heat processes the simplest of the simple state changes in nature. Nanofabrication is not simple. So the claim that nanofabricator can consume amounts of energy as a clothes dryer is ... questionable. I would give it something between a car and an industrial rectification column. EDIT I guess vehicle mounted fusion plant would easily suffice to power multiple CMs

Please do bear in mind that players want to play a roleplaying game; they [i]probably[/i] do not want to acquire degrees in engineering, mathematics, theoretical physics, astronautics, etc, to know how to solve the problems their characters can solve in space exploration, any more than any of them want to attend the U.S. Army Ranger School and become certified badasses to know how to solve the problems their characters can solve in a firefight. Worse; if you do that, they may [i]become[/i] certified experts, and then they'll start pulling out graphing calculators and physics texts and explaining why you're wrong in ways that are so far above your head that you're either going to have to say yes to everything they say, or piss them off for [i]mis[/i]applying the actual science - knowing just enough to be incredibly wrong, in other words. So the exact amounts of energy a cornucopia machine generates aren't critical; all you need to know is "Can I run a CM with the appliance outlets in my home today?" The answer is yes, but your electrical bill will hurt. Or the answer is "no, but the average suburban home of 2140, if such a thing still exists, can." Another question that's going to come up: "Can the power plant in my Crasher Truck/GEV power a CM?" The answer is yes, obviously, because it comes equipped with one "Several CMs and a single healing vat," implying that a CM requires many times less power than a healing vat, and also that the GEV can power all of them at once. So, if your Crasher Truck can power it, then any colonial power supply should be able to do so as well, meaning that the power requirements for a cornucopia machine are not high compared to the power outputs that people equipped with modern (as of EP) equipment can generate. One of the big things that isn't mentioned here:[i]Space![/i] I don't mean the vacuum of nothing, I mean workshop volume, a place to do your things in. This is a big problem on a lot of worlds; the great outdoors is not a great place to be working on sensitive modern equipment. In vacuum, you have things like radiation and micrometeorites; on the surface of an airless rock you have both of those [i]and[/i] dust - nasty lunar dust, or else ice - to contend with. On the surface of a planet like Mars and Mercury, lots of dust/rock/grit, on a place like Titan you have tons and tons of ice and slush and crap, on an earthlike world, hooo boy do you have tons and tons of crap, etc. In an existing habitat, you have plenty of space, but you probably have competition [i]for[/i] that space. As for other things, well... Do your research, but don't be exacting. Don't throw out numbers that players can call bullshit on. They need to secure a source of X? Fine. They don't want to do what you planned out for them to do to acquire X? Have a backup plan; and be ready to say "Well, um... Yeah, okay, that could work," if they come up with something you [i]didn't[/i] anticipate, like recycling someone else's stuff.

CordialUltimate2 wrote:

Players busting out calculators during a session are naughty, naughty players. Unless they do that to add bajilions of modifiers in D&D3.5. After all it's a game and game must go on.

If you're trying to make the science exact, you cannot, and must not, penalize the players for being exacting with their science. Otherwise you're just being a dick and brandishing numbers to make yourself sound important.

Quote:

But this forum is for the idle speculation and theorizing that doesn't belong at the table. Understanding your world better is one of the pillars of being a good GM. Now we are idly speculating here about theoretical problems of nanofabrication. The GM can come in read this thread chose what they feel is right based on their interpretation of EP world, and them use it to adjudicate such problems, as: Alien dinosaur stomped on your fusion reactor. You need to to power up the cornucopia machine to make replacement parts. How many internal batteries batteries, tanks of alien plumbus juice, hours of watermill working does it take to make one replacement superconducting magnet?

Sure, and for that, you don't [b]need[/b] exact numbers. Also, the obvious answer is to capture that alien dinosaur, and rig it up to a gargantuan windlass turning a huge iron thingy inside copper wiring. You stomp on my nuclear reactor, you're goddamn well building me a new one, and I don't care if you're not even sapient!

I would assume that a Cornucopia Machine has batteries and capacitors built in. If need be, it can slowly collect power until it either has enough to do work or is fully charged. It'll remove the need to provide all the energy you require at once. To answer questions in the original post, a good chunk of poverty in Eclipse Phase is psychological. Its real easy to meet your physical needs. A lot of the inner system economy is based around convincing people they have needs other than sustenance, like fame, prestige, and wealth. To make their consumers to want more, to "need" more. To push their expectations of what they can get in life higher and farther. I can imagine that many workers in a new colony might get depressed at the fact that they aren't living the dream yet. Maybe they'll drop in productivity, start stealing fabber materials and completed goods, or might vote to produce luxuries instead of more important things like a spare fusion generator.

DivineWrath wrote:

I can imagine that many workers in a new colony might get depressed at the fact that they aren't living the dream yet. Maybe they'll drop in productivity, start stealing fabber materials and completed goods, or might vote to produce luxuries instead of more important things like a spare fusion generator.

THIS! Once the basic needs of survival are met, unless colonist are very homogenous, or a hive (etc), there will be disagrements over how to allocate scarce resources. You will have factions emerging, and if the colony will be sufficiently small, everyone knows everyone and philosophical differences get personal. You can play that to great effect, because conflict between hedonists (they just want to fabricate some simspace servers) and pragmatists ( we need more mining bots, or our stockpile of titanium will last for only one year) is tearing the village apart. The Mayor wants to chill out in the Bahamas from time to time, the Chef Techie is slightly paranoid prepper. The sheriff doesn't give a shit, as long as no one is hurt. And the Psychosurgeon is lurking in the background consoling everyone, but somehow people visiting him are the most vocal in the quarrel. In that sort of environment players have a lot more power to bring about change than in 200 million strong Mars society. Use it to trek great stories. And better yet make them live with consequences of their choices. EDIT: Throw in some alien tech (maybe the techies need all those mining drones to dug out some alien artifact and are already using some to overcklock the fusion plant) exotic flora and fauna (a fungus that maked everyone happy by unable to do any work, but they don't want to be cured; an alien critter that is cute and smart. Maybe little to smart, what's up with them) some ethical/cultural problems (maybe the sect that funded half the expedition has some strange moral code they don't like simulspaces and/or alien artifacts) You will get a gordian knot that will occupy your players for at least couple of sessions.

I have a few more ideas of character types that can clash with their "tribe". A soldier who held his ground during the fall. He held their ground until it was their turn to be farcasted off Earth. He has since become deeply paranoid and wants a large arsenal. Anything less than what is needed to level a small city isn't good enough for him. Also no pods or synthmorphs. He thinks that only biomorphs are safe from TITAN hacking. He doesn't trust anyone or anything that can be hacked and turned into an enemy. A singularity seeker. Not someone very welcomed anywhere 10 years after the fall. Like anywhere else, his goals and what he wants to do must be kept secret. He might steal resources and tech to aid in his pursuits. He might eventually decide to make off with some stuff when he thinks he can't finish his work around those who simply can't understand the importance of his work. Someone on the receiving end of a bad deal. This might be an indentured worker. Maybe an uplift or AGI that has to pay off its creation bills. Or something else. The character shows up at the colony not happy about his deal and is likely to lash out at other colonists or try to make them miserable too. Maybe spread bad rumors and sabotage equipment.

CordialUltimate2 wrote:

http://eclipsephase.com/self-constructing-outpost-how-turn-eclipse-phase... I recommend checking out this write up. It has a lot of built in assumptions that you can use when estabilishing a colony. The priorities list and resource gathering fluff being the most important. It is a shame that on this forum threads like this get buried and forgotten.

Wow. It's a hell of a boost seeing some shit I made ages ago resurface. I didn't even wanna plug that old thing for fear I'd be tooting my horn.

I would give it additive timeframes. At this moment I would like to remind you (and myself ;-) that these details are important for worldbuilding and creating "realistic" scenarios, but ultimately they are tools for narrative control and the purpose of story is RPG to entertain. Don't get bogged in the details. Sprinkle them around, but ultimately when your player asks you: "How much time will we survive on the failing life support?" The answer is: |whatever is best to make dramatic entertaining story| not: "Ahh, umm, Let me check this article on ISS life support" EDIT: The world i was looking for was not realistic, but CONSISTENT, you can have exurgents that do wierdest shit and break laws of physics. Or exhumans, or space fairies. But as long as they are CONSISTENT, your players will gooble it up and won't complain. (just remember to estabilish patterns first so they won't feel cheated). Damn you probably have more experience in DMing than me (not a hard thing). I will shut up now. About this topic. The thing with Eclipse Phase is that the whole setting is very consistent, and has its INTERNAL logic. That's why I love it. The only inconsistency are the anarchists:-)

DivineWrath wrote:

I also liked that thread. I considered contributing to it, but I didn't want to necro it.

I could repost it as v.1.05. I made some modifications to the doc after rereading it.

Almost certainly a lot longer, and a very, very long time if you're starting from the surface of a planet that has a serious gravity well, because you're basically recreating all of spaceflight at that point. That having been said, if you're okay with a habitat which lacks spingrav, and you're in Sol system, a modular cluster hab can be trucked in module-by-module from somewhere the modules are manufactured, and that can be assembled rapidly. The construction and transit will take lead-time, though. If the players are starting with an asteroid which has reasonably low gravity and a Pandora gate, it would probably be better to start by building a beehive hab INTO the asteroid first, and then going interplanetary.