[first] [prev] [next] The city was overcast, as was most of the planet, the rain thick with uptake from the orbital bombardments, the atomic weaponry, the directed nuclear weapons, and, as always, the fires. It coated heat sinks, sensors, visors, armor, buildings, and the dead alike. The sun was barely visible, unable to warm up the landscape or the day despite it having been summer before it had all began. In orbit the Precursor Autonomous War Machines had brought in reinforcements, obviously intending on dedicating the amount of metal needed to take the system away from the Lanaktallan Unified Council, the people who lived on it, and deny the Confederate military any semblance of victory. The PAWM's had announced their next wave of reinforcements by simply Helljumping straight into the system and going guns clear. With a hundred Goliath class Haverster vessels. More than had been seen in any one place the entire war. Their new tactic, of making directly for the planets, not bothering to secure control of the system first, was resulted in debris slowly spreading out from the system as the Confederate Space Force Naval Vessels had engaged them at ranges they could not answer. Hundreds of millions had died already. But there were billions left to fight for. Vuxten was riding on the back of one of 3rd Armor's medium tanks. He had dialed down the psychic shielding until he could hear the screams again after the first two attempted ambushes. He could hear it, the steady screaming from up ahead and had jumped up on the back of Captain Lee's tank, a member of 8/68 "The Warsteel Dukes", to let her know that he could hear it. He was crouched down slightly, using the turret for cover while he knelt on the back of the medium tank. Medium. It weighs nearly eight hundred tons, half of that is armor, Vuxten thought to himself. His visor gave a pop of sparks and the rain and debris cleared off. "Drones out," Captain Lee said from where she was half out of the tank commander's hatch. She wasn't wearing her helmet and Vuxten kept having to restrain himself from yelling at her to put her helmet on. He could see the three red rounded end bars stacked at the base of her skull. The two tanks from 8/68 and the one from the Great Herd sat idling, the Terran tank's engines rumbling and the Lanaktallan tanks hoverfans howling. Thankfully Vuxten's armor automatically edited out those sounds. After a moment she put her hand on the datalink on her left temple and cursed. "Give me a spiral search pattern, let's see if that's a pattern." "What?" Vuxten asked over the channel. "Here, look. We've got a problem," Captain Lee said. She made a tossing motion and Vuxten 'caught' the data packet, opening it up and putting it on his visor with zero transparency. The building was largely gutted, small and medium Precursor Autonomous War Machines inside. There was one of the big ones in there, heavy tracks and the armored surface covered with guns. Strapped around the guns were civilians. Lanaktallan and neo-sapients both. Vuxten could see where the cabling had been run through their bodies, woven around them, then sloppily welded to the hull. Some of them were screaming, others were weakly crying out, still others were just slumped against the hull of the war machine. He counted fifty total just on one side. "Shit," he said. --what-- 471 asked from where he was keeping an eye on Vuxten's heat. "Look," Vuxten passed the data to his little green battle buddy. --shit-- 471 agreed. Captain Lee put her hand to her temple again and Vuxten could tell she was subvocalizing, talking to someone. After a minute she looked around. "All non-Terran units are to pull out of the city," she said. She gave a heaving breath. "3rd Armor and 8th Infantry will be handling this," she turned and looked at Vuxten. "That includes First Telkan. Get your men out." Vuxten frowned and opened his mouth to object then closed it. The Battle Tactical Network was already updating. "Let's go, men," Vuxten said, jumping down off the back deck. "What, we're leaving?" Nultek asked. "Yes, Lance Corporal, we're leaving," Vuxten said. He began jogging down the torn up asphalt road. Behind him he could hear the sound of the Lanaktallan hover tank turning around, the graviton generators howling as they balanced the weight. "Fall back to Log Base Tau." ---------------- Vuxten could tell everyone was angry. Non-Terran units had gone to the nearest Log Base, meaning 1/1 of 1st Armored Scout Division was present, all of Second Telkan Marine Division, and close to two hundred of the Lanaktallan hover tanks. A lot of people wanted to know what was going on and even more were mad at the perceived slight of being pulled out of the city. Colonel O'Malley, in charge of Vuxten's 1st Assault Regiment, was hurrying over to him, Lieutenant Colonel N'gatu right behind her. Vuxten altered direction to meet up with her between two of the five hundred ton Lanaktallan battle wagons. "Your men out?" she asked. "First Platoon's all accounted for, ma'am," Vuxten said. "All Telkan elements have fallen back to the log bases." She turned her visor clear and nodded. "Trucker called everyone back who isn't 3rd Armor or 8th Infantry. He doesn't want any non-Terrans to clear that city." "Why?" Vuxten asked, following her into the 'Main Gate' tunnel and moving through the ten meter thick wall. "General Vandu wants to order First Telkan back into the city but General Ko'Draka overrode her," the Terran Colonel said. She paused when they left the tunnel, looking at the few blocky buildings that were more or less blocks of armor with a few doors cut into it to access the inner spaces. She reached out and touched Vuxten's helmet and he saw the "PRIVATE CHANNEL" icon flash. "I'm bringing you because you're the highest ranking Telkan. If you survive, someday you'll take my place, so you need to see what kind of shit show you can walk into through no fault of your own," she said. "Yes, ma'am," Vuxten said. He suddenly wished he was anywhere else. Preferably being shot at. They moved into the bigger armored block, O'Malley moving down the center of the corridor. Troops in adaptive camouflage and light armor called out "Make way!" or "Make a hole!" as she approached and moved against the wall. The only exception was six enlisted carrying a long loop of armored fiber optic cable. Vuxten and O'Malley both pressed against the wall to let the work detail get by. Finally they reached the command center, or at least what was passing for one. Four days was a lot, especially when backed by nanoforges and troops who had decades or centuries of experience, but everything was pretty much ad-hoc still. The holotank was pretty much just the tank itself, with enough of a flat surface around it to hold the datascreens for individual dataslates, the chairs were missing or had only the bases installed, and cabling still hung down from the walls, the plating that was supposed to cover it either missing completely or leaned against the affixed plate next to it. Vuxten's armor immediately pinged the holograms and living beings in the room. Colonel Kalnek, Commander of Log Base Tau was physically present, as was General Vandu. Trucker and Kilkatrikak were visible from the waist up. Vuxten saw Trucker spit as his arms and upper body shook and knew the big Terran was engaged in combat. Kilkatrikak had a cigarette in his mouth and obviously jogging. General Papatonis, in charge of combined armor operations, was present physically, his face tired looking and the blackish tinge of propellant residue on his face. Planetary Armor Great Most High A'armo'o was physically present, leaning against the wall and injecting a stim-cone into his forearm. General Kilkatrikak's face and upper torso, armored all in black, suddenly lit up, reflecting rapid flashes. Around him little bubbles reading "DAKKA DAKKA DAKKA" floated up in the hologram. "The Treana'ad Infantry Hordes are still engaged," O'Malley whispered. General Ko'Draka and General Ullmunka were present virtually, Ko'Draka with a cigarette in his mandibles and Ullmunka sitting in a comfortable chair, her grayish-green hands folded over her adaptive camouflage covered knee. "Colonel O'Malley, welcome," General Ko'Draka said, taking a drink from a plastic bottle. "This should be enough." "Moment," Trucker's hologram said. "GODDAMN IT, FLE-" his hologram cut out speech. "Just listen, Trucker," Ko'Draka said. "Pay attention to your fight. I'll 'tach you the transcript." "Roger! TWO O'CLOCK, PANAMA PAM! YOUR OTHER TWO O'CLOCK, YOU MORON!" Trucker said. Ko'Draka made a motion and the sound from Trucker was muted. "All right, we're here to discuss my obviously unpopular decision," General Ko'Draka said, folding his hands and crossing his bladearms. "You pulled a fifth of my power armor troops out of that city," General Vandu snarled. "They're needed to sweep the buildings." Ko'Draka nodded slowly. "In normal circumstances, yes." "You pulled 9th Warborg Division in to take their place, completely disrupting my war plan," Vandu added. "You still have eighty percent of your power armor troops. 9th Warborg can easily fill the gap. They've got the most experience at city fighting against Precursor Autonomous War Machines out of every unit in Task Force Angry Duck," Ko'Draka said. "Except First Telkan," she shot back. Vuxten was tempted to tell her not to bring him into it. "General, do you understand why I pulled all non Confederate forces out of that city?" General Ko'Draka asked. She shook her head. "I do," A'armo'o said, pushing himself off the wall and trotted up by the half-completed tactical holotank. General Vandu turned, opening her mouth, then shut it. "The Type Three Autonomous War Machines have attached civilians to their heavy armored vehicles in hopes that it will make any who face them pause for the critical milliseconds for them to get the upper hand," A'armo'o said. He shook out his arm he'd injected the stim-cone into. "Lanaktallan and neo-sapients obviously taken prisoner from the city's population that have not yet been placed into what is being called a 'screaming array' by the troops." "The power armor troops can go in to free them," Vandu said. A'armo'o laughed, a sound like a gorilla jumping up and down on bagpipes. "And when they rush in they can wave their magic wands and turn all of the Precursor machines into soap bubbles so that they don't have to fight against dozens, scores of Precursor machines and hope that the hostages don't get injured." "How dare you!" Vandu started to say. "He's right," O'Malley added. "Standard procedure for the big ones is to fire off their anti-personnel strips if power armor troops get close, which would turn those hostages into..." "Did I ask for your opinion, Colonel?" Vandu asked, turning and glaring at the lower ranking woman. O'Malley shut her mouth and stepped backwards to stand next to Vuxten. "The fact that Lanaktallan troops are working next to Confederate troops is politically charged enough, but when, not if, when it got out that Lanaktallan troops took part in what is going to be a slaughter, there would be reprisals by allied species troops as well as civilians," A'armo'o said. He undid his canteen, a Space Force version, not a Lanaktallan one, and took a drink. "Recalling First Armored Scout Division as well as Telkan First Marine Division, that ensures that the only ones taking part in the fighting in the city are Confederate forces." Vandu pointed at Vuxten. "His people are part of the Confederacy." "His people were neo-sapients less than three years ago, deemed unsuited even for cannon fodder and not even trusted with weapons," A'armo'o said. He looked at Vuxten. "No offense." "None taken," Vuxten said, blocking 471's profane emoji. "All anyone will see, is rather than fight a difficult battle, the Confederacy sent in what the inhabitants of this planet will see as Unified Military Council forces if my own forces, General Ekert, or the Telkan Marines are sent in," A'armo'o said. "So you're just going to force 3rd Armor and 8th Infantry to wade through gore?" Vandu asked. A'armo'o shrugged. "I am unbothered by it either way. I have spent centuries inside a tank. I no longer even see what is in my gunsight beyond a target," he took another swallow off his canteen. "Tying hostages to equipment is standard procedure in the fights I have been part of." He moved back to the wall and leaned against it. "Nothing convinces local guerillas not to shoot at your tanks like tying their mates and young to the hull." "Space Force doesn't do that," General Ko'Draka said. "Any more," A'armo'o shrugged. "You outgrew something that we still routinely practice. It is why I am comfortable following your orders." There was an uncomfortable silence. "So, it's OK to have the Terrans wade through blood," Vandu started again. "General, compose yourself," Ko'Draka said, lighting another cigarette. "I realize that things are difficult with the SUDS issue, but attempt to comport yourself as an officer." Vuxten managed to keep from snickering. "And to answer your question, yes. It is acceptable for the Confederate Space Force to fight their way through even though there are civilians attached to the vehicles," Ko'Draka said. "Which is why I'm having 108th Military Intelligence pin-point the houses that ambushes are waiting and using artillery to destroy them and damage the ambushers. A high impulse thermobaric pulse round from a Poohawk Missile System should be acceptable to ensure those poor bastards don't feel any pain." Vandu clenched her jaw. "We can't send anyone in, the lesser machines will rip them up. We can't send forces against them, just firing the weapons near them will severely injure them or kill them," Ko'Draka leaned into his hologram. "They're already dead." Vandu turned her head away. ------------- TELKAN FORGE WORLDS I've managed to get some of the records from Second Telkan untangled. ---NOTHING FOLLOWS--- AKLTAK FREE FLIGHT What's wrong with the data? ---NOTHING FOLLOWS--- TELKAN FORGE WORLDS The data's timestamps are messed up. Apparently there's temporal warfare going on out there. Looks like someone keeps making the forces out there relived the same events over and over, trying to change the outcomes. ---NOTHING FOLLOWS--- TNVARU GRIPPING HANDS Will that work? Keep refighting the same day over and over until you win? ---NOTHING FOLLOWS--- TERRASOLMIL No. ---NOTHING FOLLOWS--- TELKAN FORGE WORLDS BAH! Where did you come from? Ok, now I sound like Treana'ad. ---NOTHING FOLLOWS--- TNVARU GRIPPING HANDS Why doesn't it? ---NOTHING FOLLOWS--- TERRASOLMIL Because Terrans don't do the same thing over and over. There's... anomalies. There is always anomalies. Someone who remembers each day, someone who does something different. It then causes a butterfly effect. The best bet is to rewind the day for you so you have fresh troops, but leave the enemy troops still in same linear time stream, so they're damaged and have casualties. ---NOTHING FOLLOWS--- AKLTAK FREE FLIGHT Except that won't work on Terrans. Nanoforges and clone banks mean you just rearm, refit, and reinforce. ---NOTHING FOLLOWS--- TERRASOLMIL That's one of the reasons we have those protocols. ---NOTHING FOLLOWS--- TNVARU GRIPPING HANDS Wait, could that be what's happening to the SUDS? ---NOTHING FOLLOWS--- TERRASOLMIL Who knows. The SUDS is a cludged together hodgepodge that's been half blown out a dozen times so far. ---NOTHING FOLLOWS--- TERRASOL What ever happened to the SUDS is more than just temporal warfare. The SUDS system is built to handle that due to the Second Temporal War, so there has to be something else that effected the SUDS to cause it to red-dot. //////// TELKAN FORGE WORLDS The Second what? ---NOTHING FOLLOWS--- TERRASOL What? ///////// TELKAN FORGE WORLDS What do you mean what? ---NOTHING FOLLOWS--- TERRASOL Sorry, time lag. Temporal resonance issues. Can't understand you. //////// MANTID FREE WORLDS You get used to that. [first] [prev] [next]
What technologies and systems does Spacex need to work on over the next 4 years besides Starship to achieve its mars goals?
I wrote a post a few months ago (What will it take for Spacex to send humans to mars in 2024?) which did rather well. However I focused only on Starship itself, not on any of the other pieces that are just as important to achieve Spacex’s mars-sized ambitions, so let’s take a look at everything but the big shiny rocket. To be clear (like before), this is less me predicting the future and more me looking to start a discussion based on the data we have and a whole bunch of assumptions, speculations and wishes. Let's start off by making the mother of all Big Falcon assumptions: Starship works as intended This is a MASSIVE leap of faith to take. While SN5’s (and now SN6’s) flight(s) did alleviate some concerns regarding Starship’s ascent, and Superheavy doesn’t really worry me with all the falcon 9 first stages Spacex has to draw experience from, there’s no guarantee that Spacex’s re-entry, descent and landing systems will work as well as they want and expect them to, since those all fall somewhere between unusual and revolutionary. Nor is the rapid and reliable reuse guaranteed to work as well as we all want it to. Although I will say people need to cool it with claiming Starship is years and years away from orbit; the raptor works and the tanks, plumbing and command & control system are up to standards, as SN5&6 showed. If Spacex wanted to (and had enough engines) they could bolt together a Superheavy booster, stick a Starship on it and fly both expendable to put 100-200 tons in orbit right now if they had a launch pad and a humongous crane. Big waste of money and engines but they could do it. Once Superheavy hops (successfully) you can seriously argue that Starship is closer to reaching orbit than SLS, despite the latter’s development being started a decade earlier. It’s just that reaching orbit isn’t Starships main goal; getting to orbit and back down cheaply and reliably is, which is another thing entirely. To me, SN8’s 20 km flight will be the big thing to watch: if that works, Starship is ready for orbit. If not, Spacex has a nasty problem or two to solve. For the record, I will say that I think the launch, ascent and descent of SN8 will go fine, but that the flip-down has a high chance of going very, very wrong the first few times. Just to reiterate: this is not me saying what will happen, this is me speculating what Elon plans/wants to make happen in order to put humans on the red planet basically 4 years from now, to give people something to ponder on and give their own take. Personally I doubt that humans will really depart for mars in 2024, but given Elon’s repeated statements that 2024 is still the goal, and the fact that at least at tesla his timelines are getting a little more accurate recently, I have crammed the insane amount of progress needed into the next 3-4 years to make it fit. My timeline should not be taken as a prediction but as my best guess to somehow get all the needed pieces into place given the insane objectives. So, if we make the admittedly stomach-churning assumption that Starship works and is flying reliably and reusable sometime (early) next year, what else should SpaceX be working on? To me, it seems they need four other pieces to realize their mars ambitions: getting Starship to mars -> orbital refueling getting Starship back from mars -> fuel production on mars getting the humans inside Starship to mars -> life support in space keeping the humans inside Starship alive on the surface of mars -> life support on mars I will go through them in order from what I consider to be least to most difficult (no part is “easy” if you ask me): Orbital refueling: This one I’ve made a U-turn on. I used to think it was a major obstacle but recently have concluded that it won’t slow down Spacex at all. Why? Because in their Artemis bid, Spacex announced that they plan to use not just tankers, but fuel depots. This simplifies the whole operation massively. Spacex can launch a few custom Starships that consist of nothing but a giant empty fuel tank, something which they can probably build today. No heat shield, no fins, no payload bay, no life support, to maximize the fuel capacity. Only some batteries, a solar panel, rcs and a way to dock. Heck with the recent raptor improvements they might be able to stretch this type of Starship to have even more internal volume for fuel. Now these most likely will have to be painted pitch black to prevent an angry mob of astronomers marching on boca chica with pitchforks, but that’s probably not a bad idea regardless. The fuel boil off in LEO will be a lot less than Starship will have to deal with on its way to mars due to a noticeable lack of shade during the transfer, so subjecting the LEO fuelers to as high a temperature as possible seems like a useful safety margin when designing for that. The current Starship can hold 1200 tons of propellant with a large amount of its volume turned over for cargo. Given that a Superheavy can hold 3300 tons of propellant, let’s say that a fuel depot Starship can hold between 2000 and 3000 tons depending on how much it’s stretched, with the lower estimate being more likely. Edit: elon recently stated that they are pushing for Starship being able to hold up to 2000 tons of fuel, supporting my hunch that Starship’s length will increase. Some back-of-the-envelope calculations show that a 250 ton Starship (100 ton dry mass, 150 ton payload) with 750 tons of fuel and an isp of 380 will have just over 5 km/s of delta V. Going from earth to mars using a hohmann transfer takes just over 4 km/s, while a much faster 3-month transfer takes around 4.8 km/s. This fits well with Elon’s step-by-step strategy. For the first flights having an extra 1000 m/s will most likely be invaluable, allowing on-route course corrections, meaningful maneuvers in martian orbit, as well as an easier landing, both due to being able to start the landing burn higher up and the fact that more fuel means more mass at the bottom of the Starship making it more stable during the flip and upon touching down. Later flights, after Spacex has a high enough confidence in their navigation, aerodynamic controls and landing system, can then start to burn more fuel to incrementally shorten that transfer time until they reach Elon’s goal of a three month transfer for humans. Now what would this mean? If Spacex launches say three of these fuel depot Starships early next year (and they totally will have the means to build and launch these by then, all they need is a working Superheavy), they now have something to use their insane launch cadence for that is both useful and dirt-cheap. Each one of these fully fueled will provide the propellant for three mars-bound or two lunar-surface-bound Starships to reach their destinations. Since the tankers will be able to carry between 100 and 150 tons to LEO depending on how far along the vacuum raptor engine is, this is 60 to 90 flights right here for Starship. If I’m Elon/SpaceX, all I’m doing in 2021 is flying Starship tankers DOZENS of times to bring fuel up to these depots for use in 2022. Now I know people are excited about a Starship launch putting 400 Starlink satellites into orbit in one go, but let’s remember that those still cost $300.000 a piece to make, and that’s after achieving an impressive economy of scale (120 a month). One failure on ascent and there goes over a hundred million dollars. At least for the first dozen launches, Spacex would be wise to start with fuel only imho, and move to include Starlink launches after a few months of successful fuel flights. It will give Starship a simple cheap payload to fly over and over again with minimal impact if it suffers a catastrophic failure on ascent. Simply learn and move on; nothing of significant value was lost. While the engineers focus on decreasing the turn-around time and fixing whatever unexpected problems arise due to Starships re-entering multiple times (which there definitely will be, don’t tell yourself otherwise), the designers can spend 2021 seriously working on life support and ISRU systems, with both available to support the other should they need to. As an additional bonus, all these launches will greatly boost the confidence in Starship from both nasa and the commercial sector, paving the way for Starship’s utter domination of the commercial launch market from 2022 onward. Finally, maybe the realization that voting for Artemis meant voting for orbital fuel depots will give Shelby a well-earned heart attack (one can dream). /s If Spacex can get 10 to 20 Starship tankers to orbit in 2021 (they can all be the same ship, they can be 3 different ships or they can be 10 different ships depending on how successful they are in their re-use objectives by then), it will give them a much easier time in 2022; “simply” fly the mars-bound or moon-bound Starship to LEO, dock with the depot and perform a single large fuel transfer. This way Spacex won’t have to worry about keeping a dozen Starship tankers in orbit at a time. As for orbital refueling itself (wow, went a little bit of topic there), I don't see any major hurdles: if Starship’s fuel lines can handle the pressures of being fueled on the pad through the Superheavy booster as is currently the plan, than all Spacex needs to do is not exceed those pressures during on-orbit fuel transfers, which really should not be hard so long as they take their time with them. Life support on mars This might surprise some, but I actually think keeping humans alive on the martian surface will be much easier than keeping them alive in space due to the zero-g and radiation concerns that the latter will have to deal with. Consequently, if I were to suggest only one thing to Spacex from my very comfortable armchair, it would be to split the two: one type of Starship designed to act as a permanently inhabitable martian base that is basically an office tower with a big empty drained fuel tank and some engines at the bottom, and one designed for crewed use in zero-g as well as ascent and descent on both mars and earth. Trying to make a Starship do both is asking for trouble if you ask me, as well as greatly complicating the design (“the best part is no part”). Yes this would mean that these “base” Starships will not return to earth, but that is not that big a loss given the production rates Spacex is already achieving, plus having a few extra raptors on mars that can be cannibalised for parts or simply swapped with a malfunctioning raptor of another Starship sounds to me like good redundancy. Furthermore this split would have three enormous upsides: 1: The base ones are easier to design and build due to only being operated and inhabited under gravity after landing. Let’s remind ourselves that if Spacex wants to send people to mars in 2024, it will be much easier to find support from nasa and the like if there already is a habitable structure waiting on the martian surface for them, which will have to be sent there in 2022. The easier base ones can be the focus of design in 2021 before being built and launched in 2022. Meanwhile the manned zero-g Starship will be granted another year to prove itself as now it won’t be needed until 2023, which is probably a good thing anyway. Even if Spacex can build these next year there is no guarantee that any agency would have enough confidence in Starship by then to provide them with astronauts. Taking another year to really prove Starship’s reliability as a launch and landing system might be enough (remember this means dozens of launches since we’re assuming Starship works) for a Starship to take on crew in LEO at the end of 2022/early 2023, probably at first using a dragon capsule to go to and from orbit as Tim Dodd and others have suggested. 2: It’s simply much safer. Living and working in a separate Starship from the one that you land and launch in will probably be a whole lot more comfortable for the crew on mars. Sleeping well might be a bit harder if every morning the giant fuel tank a few dozen meters below you is a little bit fuller with highly combustible propellant than the day before. Compared to if the tank beneath you is completely drained while the Starship you will return in sits a few miles away being steadily refueled with you only returning to it a few hours/days before launch. Good back-up in terms of life support systems too; if something is really vitally needed you can take it with you from the landelauncher upon arrival or from the base/habitat upon leaving, as only one at a time will be housing crew. I’m sure nasa would be much more comfortable with this system too. 3: This base/habitat Starship would be perfect for nasa’s Artemis program: While I don’t agree with Zubrin on a lot of things (seriously, he needs to stop with the whole mini-starship idea, it’s not gonna happen), he is right when he says that starship as a lunar ascent vehicle makes very little sense imo. It would be a huge investment of fuel and time for no real gain besides funding and nasa support, the latter of which is all but assured if Starship works. If instead Spacex offered Starship as a lunar base and suggested that nasa use the landers from the other two companies to go to and from the lunar surface, there’s no way nasa would say no. Imagine the offer: “So here’s the deal: we will build a Starship interior to your specifications and wishes. Once built we will launch it, refuel it in orbit and fly it out to whatever lunar crater you want us to. Once landed, we fill drain every drop of fuel out of the tanks, lower the staircase/elevator and wait for your crew to arrive on one of those landers. It will have a thousand cubic meters of interior volume, aka more than the ISS, and you can have it on the moon in 2023 since we want to send one or two to mars in 2022 anyway. We’d like you to give us a billion dollars and a promise for martian astronauts in 2024 once we’ve landed it in exchange. Deal?”. Obviously Spacex won’t be that blunt, but I don’t believe that nasa wouldn’t fall over themselves to take an offer like that. So what would this designed-for-gravity Starship need? Honestly, nothing fancy, which is why I suggested splitting them. Starship will have the unique luxury to simply, as musk has stated, throw mass at a problem until it is solved. As an example, let us say that a mars crew would number an impressive 12 people (one mission commandetest pilot, 4 scientists, 3 engineers, 2 botanists and 2 doctors). We know that they will be staying on mars for at least two years, but for safety let’s design it for 4 years. If they all eat like the most wasteful people on earth (cough, americans, cough...) they will consume 10 tons of food per year, with half of that being the recommended healthy amount. So.... let’s just put 40 tons of food on board. Done. 4 to 8 years of food just like that. This is what using mass as a solution looks like. All Spacex needs is a way to store and preserve that food by either drying or freezing it for up to 5+ years, at which point that problem is solved. I’m no food expert but surely that technology exists? Same story with water. 12 people will drink less than 10 tons of water a year, but here recycling is a well-understood and “easy” thing to implement. We’re able to reach 90+% efficiency on the ISS I think (if I’m wrong feel free to correct me), so if Spacex gets anywhere close to that (anything over 50% will do) they can put 20 or 30 tons of water on board Starship and for all intents and purposes have an unlimited supply. Recycling CO2 back into O2 is a solved problem that basically only requires power which Starship will have plenty of. Also keep in mind that the above figures don’t assume food production or recycling, higher efficiency or using martian resources like water ice, any one of which would make surviving on mars for a few years a non-issue. So… is that it? Well... yeah, pretty much. Spacex will need to design some ways to control temperature, humidity and (human) waste disposal as well as provide communication and spacesuits for the astronauts, but these are by no means show stoppers, especially with help from nasa and all the lessons learned from dragon. As for spare parts they can either take a 3D-printer or simply a literal ton worth of the more important components, or both if they want to. None of the above is easy, but none of it is something that Spacex cannot obtain or build in a year (that year being 2021). I have a design in my head for how this thing would look like on the inside but I’m a pretty bad programmemodeller. If someone who is good at that wants to model and render it and read my far too detailed description feel free to ask. Just be prepared for a very long response comment. Life support in space This is where things start to get “actually” difficult even if Starship works. Keeping astronauts alive during the 6+ month trip to mars will be easy. Keeping them healthy and in good condition will be very hard. Like I said with the mars base Starship, food, water and air won’t be a problem. Even basic water recycling and CO2 scrubbers will keep the crew alive just fine. Put 10 tons of food and 10 tons of water on board and there’s your problem solved. Even if they have to abort the martian landing on-route for some reason and slingshot back to earth they will be fine as they will have 1 to 2 years or more of food, water and air. No, the two big problems will be radiation and weightlessness. On mars neither of these factors are a show stopper: The gravity most likely will be fine and mars and its atmosphere will shield you from some/much of the cosmic rays, while putting the radiation shelter right below your 40 tons of food with your 20-30 tons of water surrounding it will protect you reasonably well from solar storms. None of these “easy fixes” is available in interplanetary space, as there is no planet to create gravity or block radiation (shocking I know), nor will these ones be as full of food and water to use as shielding since they will be carrying much more cargo and scientific instruments. No reason not to if there is already a base Starship full of food and water waiting on mars. The simplest way to solve the radiation problem is some sort of physical shielding material in the walls (maybe hydrogen-rich foam?) and a solar storm shelter which is surrounded by all of the food and water on board. Whatever Spacex comes up with, this is something that I hope they work very closely with nasa on. The main problem is that they will not have much time to test this theoretical solution with humans on board until probably 2023. At the earliest Starship will be flying with crew on board in 2022, and even that’s jaw-droppingly aggressive. It would probably require Starship to reach falcon 9’s current amount of launches (a 100 basically) in less than two years (aka, one orbital launch every week on average) with little to no failures before nasa would trust Starship to launch and land safely, since I don’t see any sign of Spacex adding a launch abort system or changing the landing sequence. For the first few flights they can use a dragon to shuttle between a Starship in LEO and earth’s surface, but they can only do that a few times before the costs in both money and disposed falcon 9 second stages start adding up. No humans have ever gone beyond the earth-moon system, and no human has gone beyond earth’s magnetic shield since 1972, so this part very much has a possibility of providing some unwelcome unknown unknowns. There is another big thing though that I think too many people ignore: weightlessness. The first flights to mars will take at least 6 months. Even with exercise, I think it’s fair to say that astronauts currently do not have the muscle and bone strength to stand up and walk by themselves after returning from a 6 month mission on the ISS without help. Mars’ lower gravity might help them recuperate faster, but this too is a complete unknown that neither nasa nor Spacex will or should count on imho. So far I’ve seen only two solutions suggested: lots of exercise on-route combined with simply letting the crew recover slowly once they land on mars, or tethering two starships together and spinning them. I don’t think either one will be an option. The first one is probably not enough, and the second one is too risky. Nasa would almost certainly go pale with that amount of inhabited mass under constant loads and stresses from circular acceleration, even if Spacex can make it work mechanically. The only alternative I can come up with is this (and since I don’t believe for a second that I’m smarter than the teams at Spacex I’d very much appreciate someone more knowledgeable to explain to me where my thinking is flawed): You place a ring inside the pressurised part of Starship 8 meters in diameter and 3 meters in height, connected to a central pole that is bolted to the floors above and below but is free to spin. You put the sleeping accommodations on the inside of this ring with your head facing towards the centre. At the start of the sleeping shift, you spin the ring up to a lateral speed where you feel your back being pushed into the wall at a force of one g. Since your entire body is experiencing the same acceleration at every part, as the radius between your head and the pole and your feet and the pole is constant, it shouldn’t be nauseating. If there are walls on all sides of you (and one door) so that you don’t see the rotation, and your “bed” is slanted slightly to account for the coriolis effect, would it not feel just like regular gravity? Big bonus: you can start at one g and slowly move to 0.38 g over the course of several months to acclimate to mars. Small bonus: if you’re willing to pay the power cost, putting some big scoops or buckets on the outside of this ring might help with circulating the air around the ship since it will be spinning quite fast. Finally you could also spin it faster to do exercises like push-ups (basically any effort where your body remains more or less fixed to the floor could work), meaning you could compensate for being in zero g most of the day by sleeping under gravity and performing some exercises while under higher gravity [insert goku joke here]. I’m sure I have overlooked something, but it seems to me like this would work and be a reasonably effective and practical solution. Feel free to explain to me why I’m wrong. In short, Spacex needs to find a solution to the zero-g and radiation problems by the end of 2022 at the latest. Firstly because dearmoon is scheduled for 2023 and I can’t see nasa (much less the US congress) stomach letting private civilians being the first humans to return to the moon’s vicinity since Apollo instead of nasa astronauts. If a Starship capable of sustaining humans is flying successfully in 2022 and dearmoon is set for mid-to-late 2023, I’d bet on there being effectively an order from congress for Spacex and nasa to fly american astronauts on Starship around the moon before dearmoon takes place, regardless of the state of either SLS or Artemis. And before you say that that would be massive hypocrisy, remember that these are US politicians we’re talking about. Secondly because they really need to perform a 6 month trial run at the L2 earth-moon lagrange point to confirm that their life support, radiation protection and zero-g mitigation solutions work as intended. (This is why my money is still on humans to mars in 2026 because I can’t make myself believe that everything will work right the first time they try it). If they want to send people to mars in 2024 they will need to have this test done to satisfy nasa (or whomever is providing them with astronauts) by the end of 2023. So my reasoning/guess is that Spacex will want the design of this version of Starship finished in early 2022, build and launch one that summer, and maybe bring some crew on board with a dragon to prove out its life support systems by the end of the year. The big year for this piece of the puzzle will be 2023, as this is the Starship type that they will most likely use for dearmoon as well as perform any major test runs in the earth-moon system, before the big launch of the first crew to mars in 2024. Refueling starships on mars So why do I think this is the biggest hurdle? Isn’t the sabatier process a well-understood and quite simple chemical reaction? Yes it is, and the problem as I see it isn’t with the chemistry, but with the scale, the schedule and the industrial processes that are needed. Spacex will have to design, test and build a full-on fuel production system… and have it ready for launch roughly 18 months from now. Why so soon? Because there is no way, repeat NO WAY that Spacex will be allowed to send astronauts to mars, on a rocket that cannot get back to earth without being refueled, if there is no fuel production on mars at the time of launch. I know Elon has often said that there is a real chance that the first crew sent to mars will die, but I can’t imagine he actually believes that he can get professional astronauts and nasa support if he doesn’t take every precaution possible to ensure that they can get back home safely. Just to be clear: I don’t mean that there needs to be a fully fuelled Starship sitting on mars when the first crew lands, but there absolutely, 100% needs to be a Starship on mars producing fuel by the time the first crew leaves earth. And this is not as easy to pull off as it might seem. Getting the CO2 is a non-issue: mars’ atmosphere is so rich with it that you might not even need to filter the incoming air. Also as long as the crane/elevator on Starship works, setting up a large solar field won’t be that difficult provided Spacex has made the panels reasonably easy to unload and deploy (safe assumption if you ask me), and if the surrounding surface is flat. Given that Spacex has chosen a landing/base site in the northern plains (IIRC) this should also not give any major problems. The main difficulty will be getting enough water to produce enough fuel. If Elon is serious with his recent comment about “~2 tons/day” of fuel, which I have to assume he is, that means many tons of water ice have to be excavated, moved, filtered of other materials, melted and separated into H2 and O2, per day, for over two years, with no one around to fix something if it breaks. This is orders of magnitude more intense than what we’ve done on mars before. To be blunt, we are talking nothing less than autonomous bulldozers, that weigh several tons and make Perseverance look like a toy. Scooping up and gathering a truckload of ice and rocks daily and dumping them into whatever device Spacex comes up with to separate out the ice, melt it and split it into hydrogen and oxygen (of which the former probably must be combined with CO2 and turned into methane immediately given its habit of not liking being stored and subsequently floating away), and not break down thanks to the martian dust getting anywhere crucial. Even setting aside the fact that this operation will make the planetary protection crowd pull their hair out, the chances of it working as designed the first time are not high if you ask me. There is every chance that something wears out faster than expected, stops working due to some unknown unknown, or gets wrecked by a malfunctioning autonomous vehicle glitching out and driving into/over it. Once there are actual humans on mars, keeping these machines operational won’t be all that hard, but basic safety standards (and nasa) are going to require that the fuel farm works reliably on its own, for as long as it takes to make enough propellant for the first crew to return home safely in case of an emergency, before the go-ahead is given for that first crewed mars mission to leave earth. I would not be shocked if Spacex manages to design, test and build a system that they think will work in 2021 and launch, refuel, transfer to and land it on mars in 2022, only to find out that some crucial part doesn’t work as designed under the martian conditions, leaving a fully habitable base Starship and an empty propellant plant Starship sitting on mars with all the accompanying parts needed to start a base (pressurised cybertruck rover, unpressurised cybertruck rover, water ice gatherebulldozer, fuel transporter, solar farm and guidance & landing beacon) present, but no way to make fuel. It will be the most infuriating and cathartic thing ever at the same time. Such a situation will almost certainly set the Spacex timetable back the full two years, as I just can’t see nasa allowing astronauts to get in a Starship and blasting off to mars if there is no way for them to get back yet. I don’t think the argument “Well once they are there they can fix the fuel farm instantly!” will hold much weight, since if something important has broken, what’s to say that something else will not go wrong unexpectedly that the crew can’t fix, leaving them stranded? My basic reasoning is this: the other three parts can be tested in LEO or on earth with the results being representative of their supposed tasks, but this one cannot. The environment on mars is simply too different from the one on earth (especially the atmosphere), and the scale and ambition of Spacex’s plan means that the rovers currently on mars are not much of a reference either. There is no way for us to know outside computer models what a five-ton vehicle driving around on mars for years hauling several tons of regolith and ice around daily would go through in terms of wear and tear, creating a massive potential for unknown unknowns to appear where we don’t expect them. To put Spacex’s project in perspective: the first fully loaded Starship upon touchdown will probably consist of 99% of all the mass humanity has ever landed on the surface of mars. Let that sink in... So that’s my take on Spacex’s mars ambitions. If Starship works (big if, but it seems to be getting more believable by the day), I am reasonably confident about orbital refueling and a martian habitat being ready on time, but have reservations about the human-rated Starships and am outright concerned regarding the autonomous propellant plant working as designed. As I’ve mentioned, my money if SN8’s 20 km flight goes well is on Spacex getting a Starship to mars in 2022, but not sending humans until 2026, either due to the 2022 starships not performing as well as intended (or not performing at all if they crash) or due to Starship not yet being declared safe for human flight in 2024. Now before I go ahead and request the longest-reddit-thread-of-the-year award (I genuinely think this post is twice as long as my previous one), I’m curious as to your response to the three questions that in my opinion sum up the whole thing: 1, Did I miss something important besides the four areas I covered? 2, If you agree that these are the major roadblocks for Spacex and Starship, do you agree with my take on them? Did I badly underestimate something that is much harder than I gave it credit for? Or are certain things that I considered difficult much easier than I made them out to be? 3, Regardless of whether or not you agree with my list, ranking and reasoning, what do you think Spacex’s biggest obstacle will be to sending humans to mars in 2024, assuming Starship itself works? Looking forward to your responses, opinions and rebuttals.
On Spells and Society, or how 5e spells completely change everyone's lives.
Today i have a confession to make: i'm a little bit of a minmaxer. And honestly, i think that's a pretty desirable trait in a DM. The minmaxer knows the rules, and exploits them to maximum efficiency. "But wait, what does that have to do with spell use in society?" - someone, probably. Well, the thing is that humans are absolutely all about minmaxing. There's a rule in the universe that reads "gas expands when hot", and suddenly we have steam engines (or something like that, i'm a political scientist not an engineer). A rule says 1+1 = 2, and suddenly we have calculus, computers and all kinds of digital stuff that runs on math. Sound is energy? Let's convert that shit into electricity, run it through a wire and turn it back into sound on the other side. Bruh. Science is just minmaxing the laws of nature. Humanity in real life is just a big bunch of munchkins, and it should be no different in your setting. And that is why minmaxing magic usage is something societies as a whole would do, specially with some notable spells. Today i will go in depth on how and why each of these notable mentions has a huge impact on a fantasy society. We'll go from lowest level to highest, keeping in mind that the lower level a spell the more common it should be to find someone who has it, so often a level 2-3 spell will have more impact than a level 9 spell. Mending (cantrip). Repair anything in one minute. Your axe lost its edge? Tore your shirt? Just have someone Mend it. Someone out there is crying "but wait! Not every village has a wizard!" and while that is true, keep in mind any High Elf knows a cantrip, as can any Variant Human. A single "mender" could replace a lot of the work a smith, woodworker or seamstress does, freeing their time to only work on making new things rather than repair old ones. Prestidigitation (cantrip). Clean anything in six seconds. Committed axe murders until the axe got blunt, and now there's blood everywhere? Dog shit on your pillow out of spite? Someone walked all over the living room with muddy boots? Just Prestidigitate it away. This may look like a small thing, but its actually huge when you apply it to laundry. Before washing machines were a thing housewives had to spend several hours a week washing them manually, and with Prestidigitation you can just hire someone to get it done in a few minutes. A single "magic cleaner" can attend to several dozen homes, if not hundreds, thus freeing several hours of the time of dozens of women. Fun fact: there's an interesting theory that says feminism only existed because of laundry machines and similar devices. Women found themselves having more free time, which they used to read and socialize. Educated women with more contacts made for easy organization of political movements, and the fact men were now able to do "the women's work" by pushing a button meant men were less opposed to losing their housewives' labor. Having specialized menders and magic cleaners could cause a comparable revolution in a fantasy setting, and help explain why women have a similar standing to men even in combat occupations such as adventuring. Healing in general (1st-2nd level). This one is fairly obvious. A commoner has 4 hit points, that means just about any spell is a full heal to the average person. That means most cuts, stab wounds, etc. can be solved by the resident cleric. Even broken bones that would leave you in bed for months can be solved in a matter of seconds as soon as the holy man arrives. But that's nothing compared to the ability to cure diseases. While the only spell that can cure diseases is Lesser Restoration, which is second level, a paladin can do it much more easily with just a Lay on Hands. This means if one or two people catch a disease it can just be eradicated with a touch. However doing that comes with a cost. If everyone is instantly expunged of illness, the populace does not build up their immune systems. Regular disease becomes less common, sure, but whenever it is reintroduced (by, say, immigrants or contact with less civilized humanoids) it can spread like wildfire, afflicting people so fast that no amount of healers will have the magic juice to deal with it. Diseases become rare, plagues become common. Continual Flame (2nd). Ok, this one is a topic i love and could easily be its own post. There's an article called "Why the Falling Cost of Light Matters", which goes in detail about how man went from chopping wood for fire, to using animal fat for candles, then other oils, whale oil, kerosene, then finally incandescent light bulbs, and more recently LED lights. Each of these leaps is orders of grandeur more efficient than the previous one, to the point that the cost of light today is about 500,000 times cheaper than it was for for a caveman. And until the early 1900s the only way mankind knew of making light was to set things on fire. Continual Flame on the other hand allows you to turn 50gp worth of rubies and a 2nd level spell slot into a torch that burns forever. In a society that spends 60 hours of labor to be able to generate 140 minutes of light, this is a huge game changer. This single spell, which i am 99% sure was just created as an excuse for why the dungeon is lit despite going for centuries without maintenance, allows you to have things like public lighting. Even if you only add a new "torchpost" every other week or month sooner or later you'll be left with a neatly lit city, specially if the city has had thousands of years in which to gather the rubies and light them up. And because the demand of rubies becomes so important, consider how governments would react. Lighting the streets is a public service, if its strategically relevant to make the city safer at night, would that not warrant some restrictions on ruby sales? Perhaps even banning the use of rubies in jewelry? Trivia: John D. Rockefeller, the richest man in history, gained his wealth selling kerosene. Kerosene at the time was used to light lamps. Gasoline was invented much later, when Rockefeller tasked a bunch of scientists to come up with a use for some byproducts of the kerosene production. This illustrates how much money is to be had in the lighting industry, and you could even have your own Rockefeller ruby baron in your game. I shall call him... Dohn J. Stonebreaker. Perfect name for a mining entrepreneur. Whether the ruby trade ends up a monopoly under the direct supervision of the king or a free market, do keep in mind that Continual Flame is by far the most efficient way of creating light. Gentle Repose (2nd). Cast it on a corpse, and it stays preserved for 10 days. This has many potential uses, from preserving foodstuffs (hey, some rare meats are expensive enough to warrant it) to keeping the bodies of old rulers preserved. Even if a ruler died of old age and cannot be resurrected, the body could be kept "fresh" out of respect/ceremony. Besides, it keeps the corpse from becoming undead. Skywrite (2nd). Ok, this one is mostly a gag. While the spell can be used by officials to make official announcements to the populace, such as new laws or important news, i like to just use it for spam. I mean, its a ritual spell that writes a message on the sky; what else would people use it for? Imagine you show up in a city, and there's half a dozen clouds reading "buy at X, we have what you need", "get your farming supplies over at Joe's store" or "vote Y for the city council". The possibilities are endless, and there's no way the players can expect it. Just keep in mind that by RAW the spell can only do words, meaning no images. No Patrick, "8===D" is not a word. Zone of Truth (2nd). This one is too obvious. Put all suspects of a crime into a ZoT, wait a couple minutes to make sure they fail the save, then ask each one if he did it. Sure its not a perfect system, things like the Ring of Mind Shielding still exist, but it's got a better chance of getting the right guy than most medieval justice systems. And probably more than a few contemporary ones. All while taking only a fraction of the time. More importantly, with all the average crimes being handled instantly, the guards and investigators have more time to properly investigate the more unusual crimes that might actually involve a Thought Shield, Ring of Mind Shielding or a level 17 Mastermind. There is a human rights argument against messing with people's minds in any way, which is why this may not be practiced in every kingdom. But there are definitely some more lawful societies that would use ZoT on just about every crime. Why swear to speak the truth and nothing but the truth when you can just stand in a zone of truth? Another interesting use for ZoT is oaths. When someone is appointed into an office, gets to a high rank in the military or a guild, just put them in a ZoT while they make their oath to stand for the organization's values and yadda yadda. Of course they can be corrupted later on, but at least you make sure they're honest when they are sworn in. Sending (3rd). Sending is busted in so many ways. The more "vanilla" use of it is to just communicate over long distances. We all know that information is important, and that sometimes getting information a whole day ahead can lead to a 40% return on a massive two-year investment. Being able to know of invasions, monsters, disasters, etc. without waiting days or weeks for a courier can be vital for the survival of a nation. Another notable example is that one dude who ran super fast for a while to be the first to tell his side of a recent event. But the real broken thing here is... Sending can Send to any creature, on any plane; the only restriction being "with which you are familiar". In D&D dead people just get sent to one of the afterlife planes, meaning that talking to your dead grandfather would be as simple as Sending to him. Settling inheritance disputes was never easier! Before moving on to the next point let me ask you something: Is a cleric familiar with his god? Is a warlock familiar with his patron? Speak With Dead (3rd). Much like Sending, this lets you easily settle disputes. Is the senate/council arguing over a controversial topic? Just ask the beloved hero or ruler from 200 years ago what he thinks on the subject. As long his skeleton still has a jaw (or if he has been kept in Gentle Repose), he can answer. This can also be used to ask people who killed them, except murderers also know this. Plan on killing someone? Accidentally killed someone? Make sure to inutilize the jaw. Its either that, being so stealthy the victim can't identify you, or being caught. Note on spell availability. Oh boy. No world-altering 4th level spells for some reason, and suddenly we're playing with the big boys now. Spells up to 3rd level are what I'd consider "somewhat accessible", and can be arranged for a fee even for regular citizens. For instance the vanilla Priest statblock (MM348) is a 5th level cleric, and the standard vanilla Druid (MM346) a 4th level druid. Spells of 5th level onward will be considered something only the top 1% is able to afford, or large organizations such as guilds, temples or government. Dream (5th). I was originally going to put Dream along with Sending and Telepathy as "long range communication", but decided against it due to each of them having unique uses. And when it comes to Dream, it has the unique ability of allowing you to put your 8 hours of sleep to good use. A tutor could hire someone to cast Dream on him, thus allowing him to teach his student for 8 hours at any distance. This is a way you could even access hermits that live in the middle of nowhere or in secluded monasteries. Very wealthy families or rulers would be willing to pay a good amount of money to make sure their heirs get that extra bit of education. Its like online classes, but while you sleep! Another interesting use is for cheating. Know a princess or queen you like? She likes you back? Her dad put 400 trained soldiers between you? No problemo! Just find a 9th level Bard, Warlock or Wizard, but who am i kidding, of course it'll be a bard. And that bard is probably you. Now you have 8 hours to do whatever you want, and no physical evidence will be left. Raise Dead (5th). Few things matter more in life than death. And the ability to resurrect people has a huge impact on society. The impact is so huge that this topic needs topics of its own. First, diamond monopoly. Remember what i said about how Continual Flame would lead to controlled ruby sales due to its strategic value? This is the same principle, but a hundred times stronger. Resurrection is a huge strategic resource. It makes assassinations harder, can be used to bring back your officials or highest level soldiers over and over during a war, etc. This means more authoritarian regimes would do everything within their power to control the supply and stock of diamonds. Which in turn means if anyone wants to have someone resurrected, even in times of peace, they'll need to call in a favor, do a quest, grease some hands... Second, resurrection insurance. People hate risks. That's why insurance is such a huge industry, taking up about 15% of the US GDP. People insure their cars, houses... even their lives. Resurrection just means "life insurance" is taken more literally. This makes even more sense when you consider how expensive resurrection is: nobody can afford it in one go, but if you pay a little every month or year you can save up enough to have it done when the need arises. This is generally incompatible with the idea of a State-run monopoly over diamonds, but that just means different countries within a setting can take different approaches. To make things easier, i even used some microeconomics to make a sheet in my personal random generators to calculate the price of such a service. Just head to the "Insurance" tab and fill in the information relative to your setting. With actual life insurance resurrection can cost as little as 5gp a year for humans or 8sp a year for elves, making resurrection way more affordable than it looks. Also, do you know why pirates wore a single gold earring? It was so that if your body washes up on the shore whoever finds it can use the money to arrange a proper burial. Sure there's a risk of the finder taking it and walking away, but the pirates did it anyway. With resurrection in play, might as well just wear a diamond earring instead and hope the finder is nice enough to bring you back. I got so carried away with the whole insurance thing i almost forgot: the possibility of resurrection also changes how murders are committed. If you want someone dead but resurrection exists, you have to remove the vital organs. Decapitation would be far more common. Sure resurrection is still possible, but it requires higher level spells or Reincarnate, which has... quirks. As a result it should be very obvious when someone was killed by accident or an overreaction, and when someone was specifically out to kill the victim. Scrying (5th). This one is somewhat obvious, in that everyone and their mother knows it helps finding people. But who needs finding? Well, that would be those who are hiding. The main use i see for this spell, by far, is locating escaped criminals. Just collect a sample of hair or blood when arresting someone (or shipping them to hard labor which is way smarter), and if they escape you'll be almost guaranteed to successfully scry on them. A similar concept to this is seen in the Dragon Age series. If you're a mage the paladins keep a sample of your blood in something called a phylactery, and that can be used to track you down. There's even a quest or two about mages trying to destroy their phylacteries before escaping. Similarly, if you plan a jailbreak it would be highly beneficial to destroy the blood/hair sample first. As a matter of fact i can even see a thieves guild hiring a low level party to take out the sample while the professional infiltrators get the prisoner out. Keep in mind both events must be done at the same time, otherwise the guards will just collect a new sample or would have already taken it to the wizard. But guards aren't the only ones with resources. A loan shark could keep blood samples of his debtors, a mobster can keep one of those who owe him favors, etc. And the blood is ceremoniously returned only when the debt is fully paid. Teleportation Circle (5th), Transport Via Plants (6th). In other words, long range teleportation. This is such a huge thing that it is hard to properly explain how important it is. Teleportation Circle creates a 10ft. circle, and everyone has one round to get in and appear on the target location. Assuming 30ft. movement that means you can get 192 people through, which is a lot of potential merchants going across any distance. Or 672 people dashing. Math note: A 30ft radius square around a 10ft. diameter square, minus the 4 original squares. Or [(6*2+2)^2]-4 squares of 5ft. each. Hence 192 people. Getting hundreds of merchants, workers, soldiers, etc. across any distance is nothing to scoff at. In fact, it could help explain why PHB item prices are so standardized: Arbitrage is so easy and cheap that price differences across multiple markets become negligible. Unless of course countries start setting up tax collectors outside of the permanent teleportation circles in order to charge tariffs. Transport Via Plants does something very similar but it requires 5ft of movement to go through, which means less people can be teleported. On the other hand it doesn't burn 50gp and can take you to any tree the druid is familiar with, making it nearly impossible for tax collectors to be waiting on the other side. Unfortunately druids tend to be a lot less willing to aid smugglers, so your best bet might be a bard using spells that don't belong to his list. With these methods of long range teleportation not only does trade get easier, but it also becomes possible to colonize or inhabit far away places. For instance if someone finds a gold mine in the antarctic you could set up a mine and bring food and other supplies via teleportation. Major Image (6th level slot). Major Image is a 3rd level spell that creates an illusion over a 20ft cube, complete with image, sound, smell and temperature. When cast with a 6th level slot or higher, it lasts indefinitely. That my friends, is a huge spell. Why get the world's best painter to decorate the ceiling of your cathedral when you can just get an illusion made in six seconds? The uses for decorating large buildings is already good, but remember: we're not restricted to sight. Cast this on a room and it'll always be cool and smell nice. Inns would love that, as would anyone who always sleeps or works in the same room. Desert cities have never been so chill. You can even use an illusion to make the front of your shop seem flashier, while hollering on loop to bring customers in. The only limit to this spell is your imagination, though I'm pretty sure it was originally made just to hide secret passages. Trivia: the ki-rin (VGM163) can cast Major Image as a 6th level spell, at will. It's probably meant to give them fabulous lairs yet all it takes is someone doing the holy horsey a big favor, and it could enchant the whole city in a few hours. Shiniest city on the planet, always at a nice temperature and with a fragrance of lilac, gooseberries or whatever you want. Simulacrum (7th). Spend 12 hours and 1500gp worth of ruby dust, and get a clone of yourself. Notably, each caster can only have one simulacrum, regardless of who the person he cloned is. How this changes the world? By allowing the rich and powerful to be in two places at once. Kings now have a perfect impersonator who thinks just like them. A wealthy banker can run two branches of his company. Etc. This makes life much easier, but also competes with Continual Flame over resources. It also gives "go fuck yourself" a whole new meaning, making the sentence a valid Suggestion. Clone (8th). If there's one spell i despise, its Clone. Wizard-only preemptive resurrection. Touch spell, costs 1.000gp worth of diamonds each time, takes 120 days to come into effect, and creates a copy of the creature that the soul occupies if the original dies. Oh, and the copy can be made younger. Why is it so despicable? Because it makes people effectively immortal. Accidents and assassinations just get you sent to the clone, and old age can be forever delayed because you keep going back to younger versions of yourself. Being a touch spell means the wizard can cast it on anyone he wants. In other words: high level wizards, and only wizards, get to make anyone immortal. That means wizards will inevitably rule any world in which this spell exists. Think about it. Rulers want to live forever. Wizards can make you live forever. Wizards want other stuff, which you must give them if you want to continue being Cloned. Rulers who refuse this deal eventually die, rulers who accept stick around forever. Natural selection makes it so that eventually the only rulers left are those who sold their soul to wizards. Figuratively, i hope. The fact that there are only a handful of wizards out there who are high enough level to cast the spell means its easier for them organize and/or form a cartel or union (cartels/unions are easier to maintain the fewer suppliers are involved). This leads to a dystopian scenario where mages rule, kings are authoritarian pawns and nobody else has a say in anything. Honestly it would make for a fun campaign in and of itself, but unless that's specifically what you're going for it'll just derail everything else. Oh, and Clone also means any and all liches are absolute idiots. Liches are people who turned themselves into undead abominations in order to gain eternal life at the cost of having to feed on souls. They're all able to cast 9th level wizard spells, so why not just cast an 8th level one and keep undeath away? Saves you the trouble of going after souls, and you keep the ability to enjoy food or a day in the sun. Demiplane (8th). Your own 30ft. room of nothingness. Perfect place for storage and a DM's nightmare given how once players have access to it they'll just start looting furniture and such. Oh the horror. But alas, infinite storage is not the reason this is a broken spell. No sir. Remember: you can access someone else's demiplane. That means a caster in city 1 can put things into a demiplane, and a caster in city 2 can pull them out of any surface. But wait, there's more! There's nothing anywhere saying you can't have two doors to the same demiplane open at once. Now you're effectively opening a portal between two places, which stays open for a whole hour. But wait, there's even more! Anyone from any plane can open a door to your neat little demiplane. Now we can get multiple casters from multiple planes connecting all of those places, for one hour. Sure this is a very expensive thing to do since you're having to coordinate multiple high level individuals in different planes, but the payoff is just as high. We're talking about potential integration between the most varied markets imaginable, few things in the multiverse are more valuable or profitable. Its a do-it-yourself Sigil. One little plot hook i like about demiplanes is abandoned/inactive ones. Old wizard/warlock died, and nobody knows how to access his demiplanes. Because he's at least level 15 you just know there's some good stuff in there, but nobody can get to it. Now the players have to find a journal, diary, stored memory or any other way of knowing enough about the demiplane to access it. True Polymorph (9th). True Polymorph. The spell that can turn any race into any other race, or object. And vice-versa. You can go full fairy godmother and turn mice into horses. For a spell that can change anything about one's body it would not be an unusual ruling to say it can change one's sex. At the very least it can turn a man into a chair, and the chair into a woman (or vice-versa of course). But honestly, that's just the tip of the True Polymorph iceberg. Just read this more carefully: > You transform the creature into a different creature, the creature into a nonmagical object, or the object into a creature This means you can turn a rock or twig into a human. A fully functional human with, as far as the rules go, a soul. You can create life. But wait, there's more! Nothing there says you have to turn the target into a known creature on an existing creature. The narcissist bard wants to create a whole race of people who look like him? True Polymorph. A player wants to play a weird ass homebrew race and you have no idea how it would fit into the setting? True Polymorph. Wizard needs a way to quickly populate a kingdom and doesn't want to wait decades for the subjects to grow up? True Polymorph. Warlock must provide his patron 100 souls in order to free his own? True Polymorph. The sorcerer wants to do something cool? Fuck that guy, sorcerers don't get any of the fun high level spells; True Poly is available to literally every arcane caster but the sorcerer. Note: what good is Twinned Spell if all the high level twinnable spells have been specifically made unavailable to sorcerers? Do keep in mind however that this brings a whole new discussion on human rights. Does a table have rights? Does it have rights after being turned into a living thing? If it had an owner, is it now a slave? Your country will need so many new laws, just to deal with this one spell. People often say that high level wizards are deities for all intents and purposes. This is the utmost proof of that. Clerics don't get to create life out of thin air, wizards do. The cleric worships a deity, the wizard is the deity. Conclusion. Intelligent creatures not only can game the system, but it is entirely in character for them to do so. I'll even argue that if humanoids don't use magic to improve their lives when it's available, you're pushing the suspension of disbelief. With this post i hope to have helped you make more complex and realistic societies, as well as provide a few interesting and unusual plot hooks Lastly, as much as i hate comment begging i must admit i am eager to see what spells other players think can completely change the world. Because at the end of the day we all know that extra d6 damage is not what causes empires to rise and fall, its the utility spells that make the best stories. Edit: Added spell level to all spells, and would like to thank u/kaul_field for helping with finishing touches and being overall a great mod.
[first] [prev] [next] The hard light hologram was being projected from a sphere the size of a softball and took the appearance of a Terran Descent Human male all in silver and red, dressed in a business suit. It was standing next to a pair of Lanaktallan, one an adult male, the other an adolescent female. The three stood in front of an Imperial aerospace fighter. It had long wings, the back of them angles, the front two triangles that stuck out, the cockpit two balls welded together. It was sleek and lethal looking, all in black warsteel and chromed battlesteel. The cockpit had two different windows. The seat on the left was obviously built for a Terran and had the instruments and controls. The other one was a bench seat with a swivel mounted back rest, a modification to allow for a Lanaktallan passenger. "This will be slightly scary at times," the red Terran, known as Red Prince, said to the adult Lanaktallan. 'Just remember that Markus-3328A5 is an experienced pilot, all right, La'amo'o?" The adult Lanaktallan nodded jerkily, his tendrils around his mouth curled protectively. He was dressed in a white suit that covered his abdomen and torso and legs and had a helmet in his hands. The suit had "CIVILIAN" marked on the sides of his abdomen, on the front and back of the torso, and written on the white helmet above the amber face shield. "Are you really going to do this, daddy?" the adolescent asked. "Yes, Alma'ana," the adult, La'amo'o said. He trembled slightly and Red Prince could tell it was a mixture of apprehension and excitement. Another Terran came forward, dressed in all black body armor, a helmet concealing his face. He had on Imperial rankings and on his helmet was 3328A5. The Terran held out his hand and La'amo'o shook it, remembering the lessons on the Tri-Vee. "I'm Flight Lieutenant Markus-3328A5, sir," the Terran said. "I am La'amo'o," the Lanaktallan said. "Moff Red Prince," the red Terran said. The black armored Terran saluted, then turned back to the Lanaktallan. "We'll take it easy at first, no high-G maneuvering, just some basic flight," he said. "I'll want to check your pressure suit before we take off." "That would relieve my anxiety slightly," La'amo'o said, still staring at the aerospace fighter. It looked almost eager to start flying to him and he had to keep reciting calming mantras to keep from shuffling in place and clacking his hooves with excitement. The pilot checked La'amo'o's suit, making sure that it was correctly worn. He found a single cuff that wasn't tightened securely and merely re-tightened it himself. Once that was done he turned to the ship and motioned. "Let's get in the air, shall we?" he asked. La'amo'o nodded, watching as the pilot walked up to the back of the ship, opened a panel, and typed in a quick six digit code. He moved over to a heavy hose and motioned at La'amo'o. "Do you want to help me disconnect it so we can get going?" Markus asked. "Yes, please," La'amo'o said. La'amo'o said out loud what each cable and hose did, getting nods of approval from the pilot. When the wires and cables that held the ship in place were removed the pilot opened the back of the passenger side and La'amo'o rubbed all four hands together in excitement as the ramp lowered. "Go ahead and get in, I'll strap you in, make sure your suit is hooked up, then I'll close you up before getting in," the pilot said. La'amo'o was excited as he straddled the bench and sat down. The heavily padded back rest swiveled into place and the arm rests lifted up. The pilot hooked him into the ship's systems, including the pressure suit he wore. Once that was done, the pilot helped him put on the helmet. All kinds of information showed up when he put on the helmet. Speed, direction, fuel status, battle-screen status, armor status, structural integrity. He noticed the ammunition read zero and the weapons read --OFFLINE-- on his displays. The text "Welcome LA'AMO'O" floated up and he gripped the arm rests so he didn't rub his hands together. After a moment the ship vibrated for a moment then steadied. "All right, La'amo'o. Moff Prince said that you like these craft," Markus said. "Yes. I have built several scale models of them for therapy," La'amo'o said honestly. "Do you know the pre-flight checklist?" Markus asked. "Yes," La'amo'o was trembling with excitement. "How about we go through it together?" Markus asked. "I would like that very much, Flight Lieutenant Markus," La'amo'o said. Markus had La'amo'o call out the various things that had to be checked, from reactor level to pilot connection to the communications check and transponder beacon check. Finally the little ship lifted off and La'amo'o almost swooned with delight. Markus angled it up at a forty-five degree angle, matching the green pips that made up the launch corridor markers. La'amo'o was pushed back into the backrest by the take-off and gave a whinnying sound of happiness. Once they leveled off Markus took the ship through various manuevers. Spinning as it turned, tight loops, all kinds of exciting maneuvers that had La'amo'o squealing with joy. "Are you OK, La'amo'o?" Markus asked as the ship idled along over thirty thousand meters up. "Yes. This has been very exciting and very pleasing," La'amo'o said. "I've got authorization for a slow speed flyby on the Super-Star Destroyer Dominitus if you'd like. We can't get too close, about a kilometer out. We'll be in high orbit though, are you all right with that?" Markus asked. "I would like that very much. It is an amazing offer," La'amo'o said. He was quiet, letting Markus concentrate, as the ship spiraled up until the blue of the sky was replaced by the black of space, with the stars needle bright and the moon crisp and clear. They flew for a while, slowly drawing closer to the huge wedge shaped ship. It was massive. Breathtaking. Not at all ominous. To La'amo'o, it represented justice, it stood for security, it was a physical totem that granted his daughter a life worth living. It was the Empire itself. He marveled at the multitude of guns, the huge fighter bays, the solid architecture. He could see maintenance workers on the hull, tiny speck-like figures doing upkeep on the massive war machine. Markus even got permission to stand off twenty kilometers and use the magnification systems to let La'amo'o see an entire flight wing of fighters take off from the bay, leaving five at a time and quickly getting into formation before heading toward the outer system to do a pirate sweep. Afterwards, Markus flew back, taking a leisurely path, letting La'amo'o see all the sights from high up in the sky. When it landed La'amo'o felt slightly tired, the excitement of the flight leaving him yawning. He clopped out and took his daughter's hands, squeezing them. "Was it fun, daddy?" she asked. "Very much," La'amo'o said. "I got to see the Dominitus up close." Prince watched the interaction between La'amo'o and his daughter. Prince had taken her to the movie theater where she had watched Nine Days Till Summer Ends, a recent big budget kids movie that Prince's friends had deepfaked Lanaktallan to replace the main actors. She had laughed at a lot of the parts, including where all five of the kids had jumped into the lake onto to find out it was about a foot of water and then mud. It saddened Prince that anything higher up than a children's comedy movie was too difficult for the average Lanaktallan to process emotionally. He used his hard-light projector to escort them back to their apartment. Alma'ana ran her fingers along the pale peach colored wall and sighed in happiness as the trio walked down the hall to La'amo'o and Alma'ana's apartment. When the Empire had invaded it had been cracked plascrete. Now all the lights worked, there was variable hardness tile on the floor, and the ceiling was painted cream and the walls pale peach, all of it pleasing to Lanaktallan eyes. To Prince it felt less like a prison complex on a Hellworld and more like a standard universal habitation complex, the kind that everyone in the Confederacy was allowed free of charge (unless local laws prevented it due to system or local culture and beliefs) on almost every planet. "Did the two of you enjoy your outing?" Prince asked, pausing at the doorway. "Yes. Thank you for arranging it. It was even more exciting than I had ever dreamed," La'amo'o said. He trembled slightly in remembered excitement. "The movie was funny. I enjoyed it and even forgot, for a little while, it was just people pretending to be other people," Alma'ana said. "I'm glad that the two of you had a good day. I'll leave you here. Enjoy dinner, and please, take care of one another," Red Prince said. "You have a good day also," La'amo'o said. Alma'ana surprised Prince by suddenly leaning forward and hugging him. It was the first time she had initiated contact with anyone but her father in the entire time Red Prince had been treating her. "It was wonderful," the young Lanaktallan said. Red Prince felt his coding blur slightly, the equivalent of a tear, and smiled down at her, patting her back. "I am glad you and your father had a good day." Alma'ana let him go, stepping back and wiping her eyes. "It is a good crying," she said. She reached out with both of her left hands and took La'amo'o's hands. "Thank you." "You're welcome," Red Prince said. He nodded and shrunk before vanishing into the orb, which hovered down the hallway. La'amo'o unlocked the door, leading his daughter inside their modest apartment. It was different than it had been. The walls were no longer dingy grayish white, but were now painted calming pastel colors. The walls were no longer bare. Alma'ana and La'amo'o's therapy artwork adorned the walls, several shelves had the models of starships that La'amo'o had carefully built. They ate together, chatting about their day, then watched a public service announcement reminding them that forming queues was the polite way to wait for service or entry to a location. Afterwards they watched Uncle Mikey together, sitting on the couch and holding hands. Afterwards, Alma'ana worked on what her therapist had called 'macaroni art' while La'amo'o worked on a scale model of a Terran Viper IV aerospace fighter. When they went to their separate rooms and went to bed, they both privately thought about what a wonderful day it had been. And looked forward to tomorrow. -------------------- FROM: MOFF RED PRINCE TO: GRAND MOFF HECTOR CC: DARTH HARMONIUS Current therapy protocols are having a better effect than I had predicted. The Lanaktallan citizenry are showing more and more interest in their own world and place in it. The maintenance of the habitation blocks, as well as painting the buildings, has shown a marked uptick in morale. Sadly, the current adult generation will take 20-50 years of therapeutic treatment to be considered functional adults. Many of them are only educated enough to do menial work that the Confederacy has long ago relegated to automatic systems or nanoforge fabrication. At this time I recommend that the current industry remain intact to give those who find purpose in labor a place to feel as if they are still fitting in. The younger generation should be reaching baseline in the next 5-10 years, with therapeutic treatment according to plans I have filed with you. Sadly, there are protocols in Terran history to give me a good baseline of what I should do and how I should proceed. In some ways I'm performing labor camp rehabilitation, in other ways I'm performing therapy for children suffering from attachment disorders and emotional delay. I concur with Moff KwarKra that leaving Imperial Law Enforcement in place is the best bet. Lanaktallan law enforcement will carry memories of the Socio-Police for a long time. As ever, I remain, your friend. Red Prince [first] [prev] [next]
The humans seemed relatively easy to infiltrate. Shave his fur, dye his skin, undergo extensive facial reconstructive surgery... Some would have said that last requirement made infiltration far from easy, but Egil's great-uncle had needed extra vertebrae added to his neck and a prosthetic tail in order to infiltrate the Raquids before their assimilation by the Cultivators' Combine. Egil was shorter and stockier than the human norm, but there was enough variation in the species that he should be able to pass with only the occasional double-take. A species that had obviously never developed the germ theory of disease couldn't possibly have sufficient medical sophistication to detect the internal differences in his anatomy. That assumption proved to be in error. Every career path that might lead to an inside look at the human military capabilities was barricaded by the need for a physical exam, either to make sure he wouldn't kill himself trying to do the job or else for their "health insurance". Egil escaped detection at the unexpectedly thorough initial exam by feigning a panic attack (apparently these humans regarded phobias as a disability to be worked around rather than a character flaw), but he found himself relegated to the less bureaucratized sections of the human economy. Even the criminal element proved instructive--but in a way that Egil found most disheartening. The weapons available on the civilian black market were sufficiently advanced to make any ground assault a bloodbath. Presumably these were inferior to what the human militaries possessed. Worse, a non-negligible percentage of the humans he observed in hostile interactions with each other displayed sufficient spite to destroy resources they could not prevent a rival from seizing. "We have limited time," Egil reported over the hyper-com he'd set up. "They are currently scrambling to preserve the remnants of their system's fourth planet's productivity. Once they realize that the effort is futile, they will almost certainly begin expanding their agricultural efforts on the third. From what i have seen, they will be unwilling to restrict themselves to starvation rations, and the population density is already much higher than we had thought possible based on their current land usage. Although they have not yet fully exploited their potential arable land, we can assume the clock to have started ticking. "Unfortunately," Egil continued, "despite their minimal space based infrastructure, their suborbital weaponry is sufficient to render a ground assault useful only for population reduction. We also cannot count on orbital superiority to cow them into submission: too many of them score too high for spite. We could exterminate them if we were willing to glass a farm world to do it; we cannot assimilate them by force." "You look unwell, Egil," the officer taking his report said. "Is it merely fretting over our collective future if we cannot obtain this world and its resources?" Egil shook his head and answered, "I am unwell. This planet's fungi and bacteria are astonishingly prolific. I had a great deal of difficulty in finding quarters that could be adequately sanitized. I finally had to resort to removing all non-essential wall materials and furnishings, and i've been buying disinfectants in quantities that are getting me odd looks from the neighbors. Despite my best efforts, however, i've developed severe diarrhea, and the antibiotics i'm taking are becoming ever less effective. I'm already taking the maximum unsupervised dosage; i would appreciate an opportunity to consult with one of our medics about whether i should risk going higher. "I would advise against medical evacuation," Egil continued. "This is not something to risk introducing to the home ships." The recording officer bowed his head in acknowledgement. "That's an exemplary conduct medal, at a minimum, should the worst come to pass. Obviously the preferred reward would be a long life--but such is not within our power to grant or withhold. I will see about arranging a medical consultation window." -------------------- Egil awakened in a human hospital bed with multiple IVs feeding him fluids. Three of the humans in the room had dark suits and postures that screamed 'security'; three wore white coats, gloves, and surgical masks; and one wore a business suit and gave the impression of being some kind of diplomat. There were also multiple cameras and microphones and screens apparently intended to allow two way communication. "He's awake," someone noted. "Well, Mr. Extra-terrestrial," one of the doctors said, "i don't know whether to thank you for giving us a new class of antibiotics or chew you out for giving us a strain of C. diff that's already resistant to it. Although i suppose the C. diff is doing a pretty good job of that for us." " 'Already'?" Egil asked groggily. "This resistance to the antibiotics is something you expect to happen?" "We usually get a year or two after introducing a new antibiotic before resistant strains start turning up in awkward places, but yes, it's inevitable. The resistant strains already exist in trace amounts--even in the one case of a completely synthetic class of antibiotic--they just suffer from sufficient metabolic penalties that they can only proliferate in the presence of the relevant antibiotics." "I see," Egil said. "You haven't exterminated your microbes because you can't, not because you don't know they cause illness. This explains many of the seeming contradictions. I suppose that putting enough chlorine in your water to kill all the microbes rather than most would exceed your own threshold of toxicity?" "Precisely," the doctor answered. "That isn't our only reason for not attempting to exterminate all microbes, however. Pathogenic strains are a minuscule minority among microbes; most are harmless or beneficial." "Beneficial!" Egil said incredulously. "What possible benefit could a parasite be?" "Some of our gut microbes break down complex sugars that we can't; others produce essential vitamins. Most help inhibit the growth of pathogenic strains; some help regulate our immune reactions. There's a skin bacteria whose whole job is to help calm the inflammatory response to minimize the risk of overreactions. I'd bet that when your people first exterminated their micro-flora, they saw a massive spike in allergy rates." "I am not a historian," Egil said. "We lose maybe ten percent of our children to severe food allergies, however. Not because we don't know how to treat them but because supporting that many with chronic conditions would jeopardize our ability to support everyone else. We keep hoping it will be bred out of our population--but we've been hoping that for over a thousand years." "Brutal," the diplomat said. "But based on your research notes, i can see why your people feel they don't have a choice in the matter." "You know, then," Egil said. "Why go to all this trouble," he indicated the medical equipment, "for a spy?" "Because we want a channel to open negotiations through before your people's warships arrive. Your comm gear is both bio-metrically coded and password protected, which means we need you alive," the diplomatic explained. "I won't deny that we're all indulging in a little schadenfreude at your diarrhea problem, but we'll be a lot happier if you can convince your people to hand over enough medical data for us to keep you alive." He looked to the doctors. "How hard is that going to be, anyway?" "Hydration is straightforward enough," a different doctor than the one that had addressed Egil previously answered. "But we're guessing at the electrolyte balance. We can work out the normal nutritional requirements based on his supply of emergency rations and supplements--but what's needed for maintaining good health can be different than what's needed to replenish one's reserves after a major illness." Egil nodded slowly. "The recommended solution for mild diarrhea is similar to what's in your sports drinks; it's assumed that there's no point in including severe cases in the basic emergency medical training because you can't do anything if you've passed out, anyway. Was that how i was found out?" "No," the diplomat said. "You were buying household disinfectants in suspiciously large quantities. Large enough to get you on a terrorism watch list. It didn't take long to determine that you were using all that bleach for its intended purpose, and were only in danger of accidentally gassing yourself--but by then it was equally clear that you were spying for somebody, and that you weren't making your reports in any known language. At least that nasty little C. diff infection you've got exonerates you from suspicion of planning a chemical attack." "Is it untreatable, then?" Egil asked. "If my antibiotics don't work, and yours don't work either..." The first doctor answered, "The most effective treatment for recurring C. diff infections is a fecal transplant. Although C. diff has a frustrating ability to survive on surfaces and is immune to alcohol based sanitizers, it is fairly weak against competing micro-flora. Unfortunately, we don't know which microbes are harmful and which are benign in your species. Obviously, none are absolutely essential, since you haven't died off from the lack of gut bacteria. You said it's been a thousand years since you exterminated them--that may be long enough that your species has lost the ability to interface properly with mutualistic microbes. On the other hand, since you haven't been able to breed out the susceptibility to fatal allergic reactions, it's possible that your immune requirements haven't changed enough to matter. But trial and error testing on a sample size of one is problematic on both ethical and procedural counts." Egil nodded slowly. "I fail to see how you could make things any worse than they are now. Even if you decided to send me home, i would refuse to go--i will not risk introducing this pathogen to our ships. But if my condition seems stable, it might be prudent to defer any such experiments until after we have opened channels for whatever negotiations you think are possible." "Your people need food, correct?" the diplomat asked. "Yes," Egil said. "All of our home ships and capital warships have extensive hydroponic sections, but that's only enough for starvation rations. A single farmworld can double our food supply to something comfortable." "Uh-huh," the diplomat said slowly. "How many people do you think our planet currently supports." "Based on how much of your arable land you're actually using, around five hundred million," Egil answered. "Double that if you're on starvation rations--which from my observations, most of you clearly aren't." Everyone in the room, security men included, struggled to not burst out laughing. "We passed the one billion mark approximately two and a half centuries ago," the diplomat explained. "We're well past eight billion now; i can't remember if the estimate is flirting with nine billion yet. Figure eight and a half billion plus or minus a couple of hundred million." Egil sat up so hard that one of the IVs threatened to pull out. "That's impossible!" "Let me guess," the diplomat said. "Your people took the same kill everything approach to crop pathogens that you did to personal ones, didn't you?" "Of course," Egil said. "Microbes are dangerous; every civilization exterminates them once they realize how disease is transmitted." "Many diseases are caused by microbes," the first doctor said. "Not all of them. Some are genetic, some are idiopathic--and some are caused by not having enough of the right microbes." "And when you wiped out the environmental microbiome," the diplomat said, "you also wiped out the nitrogen fixing bacteria and the fungal networks that share nutrients between plants and the microbes that break down dead organic matter so that the nutrients can be recycled. No wonder your people kill planets so fast." "To keep a planet productive for a hundred years is a feat we have finally learned to duplicate reliably. It is the pinnacle of multiple civilizations' accomplishments." "And for how many millennia were these planets fertile before your ignorance touched them?" the diplomat demanded. He practically snarled, "How much do your people need to live--per year, that is." Egil named a figure, and everyone in the room stared at him in disbelief. Probably wondering how a single planet could supply that much. "That's all?" one of the doctors said, not quite under his breath. "And how many planets have you used up?" the diplomat asked. "I'm not sure," Egil said. "Based on the number of species in the combine, it must be over seven hundred. Probably higher, since some did not survive long enough to be absorbed. Sometimes because they refused to assimilate, sometimes dead before we discovered their world, sometimes reason they died off unknown." "If i thought there was any chance we could make up the tech difference in time," the diplomat said, "i'd tell you all to go to hell. But since there's no way we can pull off space superiority before your fleets arrive, i'll have to settle for a small wager." "What do you think you have to wager with?" Egil asked. "Our planet, of course," the diplomat answered. "You advised your superiors against conquest by force just based on an incomplete knowledge of our conventional weapons. You missed the fact that we still have stockpiles of nuclear weapons large enough to go scorched earth in a way that only the microbes your people are so terrified of could hope to survive." "Nuclear weapons?" Egil asked. "What, like weaponized fission reactors? As good as fission reactors are for power to fuel ratios, we wouldn't risk using them on any ship that might end up in the same system as a farmworld, just from the potential severity of the accidents." "We deployed two of them in combat," the diplomat said. "Not sure how many got detonated in above-ground testing before we decided that was a bad idea. Doesn't seem to have done any but localized harm, and that for a shorter duration than many of us expected. Mad as it is, mutually assured destruction is the only true strategic defense there is--otherwise some idiot just has to think he has the upper hand to get a lot of people killed trying to take your stuff." "We cannot risk the possibility that you are not bluffing about your willingness to use these weapons," Egil said. "But we equally cannot afford to leave empty handed. What do you propose?" "Ten years," the diplomat said. "We give you the amount of food you have stated, and you give us cargo ships and the coordinates of these no longer fertile worlds. If we get these planets producing food again, we keep half of them. If not, we keep feeding you from ours." "What is to stop you from taking these cargo ships and turning them into warships?" Egil demanded. "What is to stop you from taking all the worlds we restore, if we do not?" the diplomat returned. "If you could somehow make us all disappear while leaving earth untouched, you would gain only a single planet that you would use up in only a single century. But if you take this wager, you get hundreds of planets to feed from, and the knowledge of how to keep them fertile." Something had been nagging at Egil, and he finally identified it. "You lie. Your system's fourth planet. You have not been able to save it." "Save it?" the diplomat asked puzzled. "What do you mean, save Mars?" Then he realized, "You think it started habitable?" The other humans echoed his incredulity. "We're terraforming it. Until we accidentally introduced a few microbes with our rovers, that place was dead as a doornail." Egil fainted. The idea was just too preposterous. ---------------------- Terrance took a deep breath as he prepared to address the UN general assembly. Despite the alien Combine's bizarre ignorance of basic ecology, he had the feeling that they were the easier group to convince to accept his proposal. "Fellow humans, for generations we have speculated on the whether might life might exist elsewhere in the universe. For generations we imagined what a first meeting might be like, whether they would find us or we would find them. Whether they would be better than us, or worse; whether they would be like us, or too alien to understand. "One of the scenarios we imagined was that they might find us as an adult finds a wayward child carelessly destroying the things he needs in order to survive. That they would lecture us on how we have been destroying our environment and teach us how to live better. "Instead, we have learned that at our worst we barely put our ecosystem into the scratch and dent section, while they have done--this!" The screen behind Terrance changed to display a selection of dramatic views of the aliens' former farmworlds. Some were dust bowls, some were deserts, some looked like the immediate aftermath of a forest fire or volcanic eruption. All were barren. Terrance continued, "Every one of these worlds was, within living memory, as green as our earth. But these aliens believe that any organism that is not useful is a pathogen or a pest to be exterminated. They believe that any organism with no known use is useless. They don't even understand that grass-eating animals need their gut bacteria in order to digest cellulose! As a result, they destroyed every organism that contributed to the survival of their food crops and animals. "Having exhausted the last of their worlds, and being able to produce only starvation rations from their ships' gardens, they have turned their attention to our world. Allowed to have their way, they will do to earth just as they have to each of these worlds. "As you know, space superiority is a well nigh insurmountable advantage: this is why we have treaties prohibiting space weaponization. These aliens are not party to our treaties, nor will they see any reason why they should be. Our only advantage is that they need our world intact, and we can, if we choose, put up enough of a fight to go out with a blaze of glory instead of the slow century long withering away they intend for our world." Terrance waited for the delegates to absorb the implications and then added, "We do have one other advantage. The amount i was told they require per year to feed their population is only a tenth of our global production." That got everyone's attention. "So i propose we make a wager with this Cultivators' Combine. We give them the food they need. In return, they give us ships so that we can travel to these worlds they have destroyed and begin restoring them. If we succeed, we keep half the planets. If we fail, better to have us doing the farming here on earth than them. And, of course, we can set aside a small fraction of those ships to reverse engineer to start building fleets of our own--just in case these aliens try to weasel out of their agreement when we win the bet." Terrance signaled that he was finished, and ready to begin taking questions. "How many planets are we talking about?" "Twelve hundred and sixty-seven," Terrance answered. "I left the question of what should be done with the odd one to this assembly's more subtle diplomatic skills." "How are the worlds to be divided?" "I made it absolutely clear that their choosing their half first was unacceptable," Terrance said. "Whether it is better to draw a line on a starmap or to play 'i choose one, you choose one' with them is something i defer to your judgement, as well as being a question that may have a different answer after we've been working with them for a decade or so than it does at this time." "I understand why you think these planets are salvageable--at worst, it can't be any harder than terraforming Mars; but why do you think it can be done so quickly?" "Invasive species," Terrance said, getting a laugh. "Really, though, these are habitable planets. They still have breathable atmospheres and robust magnetic fields. They just need a planet-sized dose of probiotics. And there are enough of them that we don't have to waste time arguing over the best way to go about it, the way we are with Mars. We can try one plan on one planet, a different plan on another. As long as we aren't exporting seed-stock faster than earth can replenish it, we can't lose."
[Next] Andelia was proud of herself. In the past 200 years of acquiring contestants and beasts for the Galactic Arena, she had never come across so fine and rare a specimen. The planet she had found him on was in an out of the way “undiscovered” system that she had paid good money for the information on. The initial scan of the species revealed that they had only just left the surface of their planet recently (an honestly impressive feat given their level of technology and punishing amount of gravity). They had been discovered through a scan of background radio waves on a nearby potential colony. Some sensor tech had smudged the results of the scan and sold the original to pay off some debts to some friends in high places. Friends that Andelia happened to share. So, there she was using those same radio wave transmissions to find herself a good candidate. The problem was they were all so short, high gravity and all that, and she needed some “wow factor,” something that would really pull in the big crowds and give some decent returns on this rather expensive excursion. Lucky for her these little monkeys (calling themselves humans) had many contests of strength and ability, and they LOVED entertainment. The list of potential contestants kept growing and growing. She would definitely have to come back if the first one went well. That was when she found him. The perfect choice. He was young but nearing his middle age. He was well known for his prowess but, would not cause an uproar if he mysteriously vanished or died. There was also plenty of footage from his native media which would make for great advertising on his skills and abilities, he even had a stage name! Andelia specialized in low-impact capture, meaning she could remove a specimen form its environment without drawing suspicion that “aliens come from the sky and steal people!” She used one of the oldest tactics in the book. Faking the specimen’s death. For this particular creature that would be a more difficult, however, not impossible task, as the native species had a large collection of information of their anatomy and medicine from which to construct the necessary toxin. And so, she killed him…not literally but you get the point. The Games Master was surprised when Andelia wanted the monkey thrown into the main brackets without testing him first. It was a poor investment to place a rookie with the professionals unless they were fodder for the early rounds. Seeing as though the monkey was laughably small he acquiesced her request and offered her a 15% cut of earning for the match since she was undoubtedly going to lose money on her find and he felt bad for the old reptilian huntress. The next day they brought the human out of his medically induced coma. They put him in a cell below the arena away from the other contestants at the request of Andelia. She didn’t want any of the veteran fighters selling out her secret to their sponsors. She made sure to bring enough equipment and decoration from the human’s home world, including food, so as not to make him suspect of his current situation. The gravity was only slightly less than his home planet inside the arena, and there was little she could do to change that. She had built translation software based on the media he had been a part of and spoke to him shortly after he awoke. “Everyone you know believes you are dead,” Andelia said, “you have been brought to this place to fight, to entertain. There is no escape besides victory or death. Prove yourself a champion and freedom may be yours.” He didn’t move. He didn’t say a word. He simply got out of his cot, sat on the ground with his legs crossed beneath him and started breathing, slowly and rhythmically. Andelia had watched enough footage of him to know that he was preparing himself. She was gratified beyond words. There wouldn’t have to be beatings to make him fight. No starvation or other torture. She had chosen well. Pleased with this development, she returned to the Games Master to see who he would be fighting. She knew his prospects weren’t bright given her cut of the profits, and she also knew that this cycle had some big names that had returned to the Arena. When she reached his office all of her earlier gratification had turned to nervousness. She knocked on the real wood door. “Come in!” he sounded in a bad mood. “Andelia I was hoping you would stop by soon, please take a seat.” As usual, the proud huntress, despite her age, chose to remain standing. “Very well,” he continued, “I have good news and bad news. The good news is you will probably make your money back on the first round. The bad news is your little monkey is going up against Champion Al’Xerd.” Silence hung in the air between them. She had wasted her time. No one had beaten Al’Xerd in 30 years. The 4-meter-tall champion was a legend having won his freedom twice over, she didn’t know that he had returned again. “Your right. At least I’ll make my money back.” She left before he could say anything. Andelia walked solemnly back to the human’s cell, at least he deserved some parting words before the match. When she arrived and looked through the viewing port, the little creature’s peace was obvious. He hadn’t moved. She watched him for a few minutes before keying the speaker to the cell, “Die well little one.” Andelia unkeyed the intercom and turned to leave when she heard him speak for the first time, “As you think, so you shall become.” The human’s cryptic wisdom would not save him from slaughter, she thought as she walked away. The viewing booth was nice, but not too nice. There were several other hunters and huntresses who all acknowledged Andelia due to her age and experience in the trade. She pulled a seat near the front left corner of the viewing booth, where she could get a good view without being disturbed. Meanwhile the other hunters were talking about how the season would unfold and were placing steep bets on their captures, as was typical. The Announcer descended from the central viewing booth, reserved for VIPs, into the center of the arena. His voice echoed out across the stone and sand, “WELCOME ONE AND ALL TO THE GRAND GALACTIC ARENA! THIS YEAR BRINGS PROMISE AND SURPIRSE LIKE NEVER BEFORE WITH THE RETURN OF ONE OF YOUR FAVORITES FOR THE FIRST ROUND: CHAMPION AL’XERD!” The Arena shook with excitement and thunderous cheering as the champion exited from the side of the arena opposite to Andelia. He was a Tar’Meer from their outer worlds, born and bred to fight for the glory of the Arena. Tar’Meer were bipedal, and easily one of the largest species in the galaxy. With a large set of horns upon his mighty head, and tusks that protruded a half meter from his mouth, he was terrifying to behold. His thick skin protected his enormous muscles, which rested upon his massive frame. He was adorned in precious metals and wielded no weapons, at least none that weren’t natural. He had four arms with four fingers on each hand, each finger was capped with a long razor-sharp claw. His tail nearly hung down to his split hooves, which had ended the lives of many contestants. He wore no armor, as his speed was unmatched. The odds were strongly in his favor no matter who fought him. “May as well go for broke,” Andelia whispered to herself as she wagered all 15% of her earnings on her little human winning, it was good luck anyway. The human definitely brought a wow factor when he entered…since everyone thought it was a joke. And a funny one at that too. Even the Champion joined in on the taunting and laughing as the little human strode across the floor towards him. “I GUESS ALL THAT IS LEFT IS COWARDS AND CHILDREN TO FIGHT ME!” Al’Xerd yelled to the crowd, turning his back on the little biped that barely reached the top of his leg. “LET ME GUESS,” he turned around and squatted down to the little human’s height, resting on his massive haunches, “YOU GOT LOST LOOKING FOR YOUR…” Before the champion could finish, the little human moved faster than the cameras could track and pushed his hand through the Champions throat and pulled his vocal cords out along with his windpipe. “Showing off is the fool’s idea of glory.” He dropped the champions throat on the ground and with a kick almost as fast as the strike before, sent the champion flying back several meters onto his back where he writhed on the ground choking on his own blood. The Arena fell silent as the little human turned to make his way back to his cell without pause. The Arena would soon understand the way of the Dragon.
Small reviews of (I think) all incremental games I've ever played on Android
I don't know if this will be useful to anyone. So I write a line or two about every game I play, and decided to find all the incremental in my game journal and post them here. It starts with the latest games I've played and I think goes back to several years back. One thing I've realized is I have such a love-hate-hate relationship with this genre since I think I've hated 90% of the games and 100% of myself after each incremental phase. I usually angrily stop playing them for a while and restart them again, so this is more or less a journal of addiction, I suppose. THE BEST GAMES I'VE PLAYED ARE THESE (no order):
Kittens Game
Antimatter Dimensions
Oil Tycoon
Honorable Mention: Eggs, Inc The rest: more or less hated it Additional comment if you decide to scan through it, I complain a lot, so it is perfectly reasonable and normal to think, "why the fuck are you even playing these games, idiot??". ------ Time Idle RPG This game was confusing. It tells me the game's resources is time, where you get 1 of it every second, but that's not really something as unique as I assumed. It would have been cool if time as resources meant you used it to deal with something related to time. Maybe time travel? Maybe slowing and speeding time? Instead time as resource buys you stuff like a library. And then you buy a camp or something. Honestly, I wasn't really feeling it. 2 Path of Idling The biggest cardinal sin for me when it comes to incremental is when a game has a lot of features and it just completely throws them all at you instantly. The joy of a great incremental is how things slowly open up and each new achievement feels progress. The game is a RPG game and these are the things that opened up for me in the first few hours. Combat which includes normal fighting, dungeon, raid, boss, PVP (locked, but it just needs an ascend, which I haven't done) Skills Hero upgrades which include Passive (strength, defence, stamina, intelligence), Train, and a huge Tree Town which you can buy workers who get you various things like gold, orbs, knowledge, etc. You can upgrade stuff here. Quest that also includes Perks and Skill quests. Gear which 5 equipment slots, plus craft plus trade plus smelt Also gear for your Pet, which is also another tab! Now, here is the thing. Because I have all of this pretty much instantly, I don't really know which ones are helping me go past a well. How is adding 10 points in strength helping me? Should I have added five in strength instead and five in defence? I have already bought 20 or so upgrades in the Tree, but I have no idea if I am made the optimal choice. There is no real excitement with getting new gear. And so on. The dev has added a lot of features, now it's time to rework the game, and have the features take their time. 2 Idle Slayer The game is like a super simple platformer. Your character is running and any enemy it hits, it automatically slays it. There is no HP, and all enemies die in one shot. Your only active play is jumping occasionally to grab coins or hit the flying enemies. Also, you have a run skill that has a cool down. With the coins, we get new weapons that give us more coins. Enemies give us souls which is used for the prestige system that provides us with an interesting skill tree which provides a lot of choices on the path you want to do in terms of upgrades. So far excellent, however, the game has an extremely serious issue of pacing. The game initially progresses so fast that in the first hour or so, you get almost all the weapons aside from the last two, which then grinds down to a snail pace. You can upgrade your past weapons, but they never really get into play again. Reaching high levels of past weapons sometimes gave me upgrades of that weapon of 10,000% but they still did nothing to my overall coin per second. I think the pacing needs to be fully reworked. It would have been nice to get new weapons after certain prestige cycles, so that every new weapon feels like we have passed a significant wall. The best part of an incremental game for me is to face a wall, and when I finally break it, I feel powerful again for a while. This game feels like this though, powerful powerful powerful powerful WALL........break it....WALL. And so on. I'm still playing it as I want to get some of the skills, but I feel like it could have been so much better. 4 Exponential Idle A very back to the foundation kind of incremental. The premise is that you are a student and working on a formula. There is a neat story where as you progress in the game, your character progresses through university. Each upgrade gives you more and more automation until I reached a stage where I would check back once every 2 or 3 days, click a 2nd layer prestige reset, and close it. Meaning the game was something like 5 seconds of game player every 2 days. I just opened it for this review and realized I had reached the end game. The story wraps up and it tells me "You can take a rest. Travel a bit. Go outside!" NO, DON'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO GAME. 3 Factoid Factoid & Spark should have the same review as they are almost the same game with only small differences. The games are the most basic kind of incremental, where you buy something with resources, until you get the next thing which gives you more of the resources. Both give you upgrades to speed things up, and finally prestige and it's own prestige upgrades. That's it. It's nice little change of pace from all the recent incremental that sometimes do too much, but obviously due to the very simple nature of it, it does eventually feel pointless, specially after you more or less open up everything and the prestige upgrades just keep repeating. 3 Spark Factoid & Spark should have the same review as they are almost the same game with only small differences. The games are the most basic kind of incremental, where you buy something with resources, until you get the next thing which gives you more of the resources. Both give you upgrades to speed things up, and finally prestige and it's own prestige upgrades. That's it. It's nice little change of pace from all the recent incremental that sometimes do too much, but obviously due to the very simple nature of it, it does eventually feel pointless, specially after you more or less open up everything and the prestige upgrades just keep repeating. 3 Antimatter Dimensions Easily top 5 incremental on mobile. Does everything perfectly. You progress nicely, and when new features open it, not only is it rewarding but more importantly, it keeps adding new dimensions (lol) to the game. I'd at the end game as I write this, and I realize that there was no point in the game where it felt stale. Each new prestige layer made the game feel fresh and almost like a new incremental game. 5 Melvor Idle It seems this game was mainly aimed at Runescape players, which is probably why it didn't click for me. It also run extremely slow on my phone which also played a part in me not really getting into. 2 A Girl Adrift The animation is really pretty and is a nice change of pace for incrementals, but I didn't really like the too much active play. Really had to keep going back and forth to different areas to do the fishing which got too repetitive for me. You travel to different areas of the map to catch fish, which you get points and then you upgrade stuff, but I didn't really find any real excitement about the upgrades because I kept having to go back to previous areas to fish similar creatures. 3 Archer: Danger Phone I'm really annoyed how terrible of a game this was. Two things I like, the TV show "Archer" and incremental games, and it's done in the most lazy manner. The game is the worst aspect of idle games where it's just a straight path of clicking the next upgrade with absolutely zero decision making. Every once in a while there is a mini game where Archer gets to shoot others but it's done in the most basic form of early 2000s flash games, where the animation budget is probably 3 dollars. Same static background and both enemies and Archer have just two animation frames. The absolute laziness of it is almost insulting to the player, because it feels like we aren't even worth the effort. There is an Archer story in the game which develops really fast, which is the only positive part, but no voice acting is again another evidence that the creators of the game weren't given any budget for this. 1 Home Quest This game is way too slow. You have to collect materials to build your settlement but everything takes time, so you click for a few seconds, and then you have to leave the game. Which I'm fine with, but the problem isn't the idle part of it, it's how the idle part of it combines with constant checking of the game which annoys me. I like an idle game where you forget to start the game for a day, you come up to a lot of resources, but this is a game which needs you to check back in every 30 minutes or an hour to really get anywhere. I felt that the micromanagement was getting worse as I progressed (without any actual thing to do when I am active in the game) that made me give up. 2 Idle Industry This is probably an interesting game, but I gave up because the one thing I really disliked was the amount of resources and manufacturing that very quickly opens to you. You can buy raw materials, and you can either sell these raw materials or turn them into finished goods and sell them either. And each of these has several upgrade options (increase selling price, increase production, etc). Without even really getting too deep into the game, I have around 20 raw materials and around 30 finished products. A satisfying part of this genre is to have things slow open up for you, which gives me a decent feeling of satisfaction. But the money I got would quickly open up new products, so I would just jump ahead and purchase more expensive ones, and after a while I had a lot of materials and products at zero, and was instead focusing on latter ones. 2 Masters of Madness Somewhat neat atmosphere and visuals, but too much active clicking. Click, upgrade to get more per clicks, get minions to get you some points without clicking, typical clicker, but with the added benefit of almost no idling. I like idling incrementals but clickers is a hard no from me. 1 Soda Dungeon 2 Basically similar to the first one, as far as I could tell. I did "finish" it but maybe I shouldn't have, since it really is the same thing from early on, specially once you get all the heroes and you kind of sort out which characters work best, then it's just the same. But because it was somewhat short and no real wall, it was at least easy to stick to it to the end. 2 Bacterial Takeover Played for a decent amount and was actually more interesting that I thought, given the buttload of ad incentives. You create and upgrade bacteria, attack planets, and eventually go into a blackhole to prestige. Most of the game was good, but the part that killed it for me was the prestige system. Once you prestige, planets get super easy to attack, which becomes a lot of active play. I realized that each prestige was taking me at least 30 minutes to get to where I was, and it was just meaningless clicking. It got to a point where I was putting off prestige because it seemed like it would be a hassle so I stopped. 2 LogRogue Cute graphics. The hero sort of hopping to hit the tiny monsters is cute to look at, but how long can you look at it and do nothing before you realize that it's boring? I suppose this is a game where it's just not for me. I don't like to have my phone open on a game and just watch it like a crazy person and do nothing. My rule is simple for incrementals. While the app is open, be active, if there isn't any choices to make, close the app while resources build up or whatever. I don't like it being open while I do nothing. 3 A Kittens Game Incremental games are so strange. I get in and out of the phases. I loved this for so long and so obsessively that I wanted to only play incremental games. And then, just like that, I was wondering why the fuck I was wasting my time with this. Has happened countless times before. But still probably the best incremental ever. 5 A Dark Room An incremental cult classic of sorts but I don't find it really matches the genre. There is a bit of incremental at the beginning with people huts and stuff but then its just a ascii exploring game, which wasn't interesting to me. 2 Little Healer Saw it mentioned in the Reddit incremental forum in one of the posts and thought it was a healer themed incremental which sounded neat. But it's like being a healer in a raid in World of Warcraft without any if the extras. Just a couple of bars representing your team mates and you healing them while they fight the boss. I didn't even like playing the healer in WoW so no way would I play this game. 1 Clickie Zoo Started playing for a few days until I realized there a beta released with the dev reworking the game completely from scratch and releasing it as "Idle Zoo Tycoon". So, played that instead but this seemed like a game I would enjoy anyway. 4 Idling to Rule the Gods The UI and one drawing if your character is really ugly enough to be distracting to me. The game, seemed interesting and I eventually was into it, but seems like a game that has been constantly being updated, which is not always a good thing, because features are obviously updated regularly to it, making the whole thing a bit bloaty. I guess, this is the problem with this game for me, it's too fat. Also, one main part of the game is that your character creates Shadow Clones up to a maximum limit. Which is fine except the clones can't be made in offline mode. This might not be a big deal in its original web browser game but that doesn't work as well in a mobile format. 2 Realm Grinder This is one of the really popular incremental and it's fanbase seems to love it for it's depth, but to be honest, I don't play these games for the depth, I play it for the simple dopamine rush of doing the same thing over and over again. It relaxes. Although, I didn't even get to the depth part because I dislike games where it rushes in the beginning. I constantly bought buildings, got spells, and got upgrades without even looking at the description. Apparently, later on, we can get complicated race upgades, which seems not what I'm looking for in such a genre. 2 Spaceplan A short (!!) incremental with an actual story (!!!). That's two cool points for it but unfortunately, the game mechanics of increment genre isn't so good. It's a space game with nice visuals and a great ending (cool music set to cool graphics) but the game itself wasn't really that fun. This same exact game would have been better in a different genre (maybe something like "Out There"?) 3 Zombidle Felt like idle games again and this is the kind of examples that kept me away. Too much clicking and seems like advancement will start to get irritating since it relies on IAPs 2 Eggs, Inc While I was playing it, Eggs, Inc was probably my favorite Android game I had ever played. But like most incremental games, there comes a moment when I suddenly stop and think, what am I doing? Because there is something fascinating about Incrementals. Their addictiveness is in a way the whole point. An incremental is less of a game and more an act of electronic addictiveness. What's the point? Eggs, Inc is a very well made and fun incremental but even the best in its genre is still pointless. 4 Castle Clicker Supposedly a mix of incremental and city building but didn't really find out since the clickings were way to much. I know this is supposed to be the genre but I like the incremental part more than the tapping part. This seemed to be a good way to hurt your fingers. 2 Endless Era This RPG clicker game is like other such games but with horrible GUI and animations. Tap tap tap. It's my fault for downloading such games. Why would I ever think this would be fun??? 1 Idle Quote An incremental game with a unique twist. This time we get to make up quotes! The first negative about the game and this irritates me a lot is most of the quotes are fake. A quick search on Google and this proves it. Quotes are generally attributed to Buddha or Ghandi or shit like that and it's usually fake like most quotes on the internet. This kills the major possible advantage of the game because I thought coming up with arbitrary words would at least give me some quotes to learn. Aside from the this, the game isn't fun either because it slows down very quickly meaning you combine words very slowly at a certain stage of the game and then it becomes a boring grind. 2 Monster Miser An incremental game with almost no graphics. We just see character portraits of monsters which we buy and then upgrade until we buy the next monster. Eventually we prestige which gives us multipliers. The only game choice is choosing between two monsters with each new monster with unique benefits. Annoyingly there is a max limit which I wish didn't exist because I wanted to prestige so much that I would be over powerful in upgrading like that "Idle Oil Tycoon". Still, pointless but reasonably fun. 3 Pocket Politics An incremental take on politics sounds fun but it's so generic that it could have been about anything. A Capitalist idle game or a cooking idle game, it wouldn't matter. IAP was also the usual shitty kind. 1 Time Clickers A shooter incremental sounds like a cool twist but it's not a FPS like I imagined it would be. I'm just stuck in a room and I was shooting blocks. Upgrades didn't give me any enjoyment since I was shooting fucking blocks. 1 Tap Tap Fish - Abyssrium I thought this was going to be relaxing incremental but the ridiculous and generic IAPs and all the social integeration spoil it. Too much time is spent in them asking you to buy or share or tweet or post or give them a blowjob. And there is nothing relaxing about that. 2 Cartoon 999 Incremental game about comic book writers, but not the marvel DC kind, it seemed to be the webcomic one and I think it's a Korean developer so all the characters and injokes made no sense to me. The whole thing was just targeted to a very specific audience. 2 Dungeon Manager Incremental games need to be simple but this is beyond simple, it's just upgrade a fighter to level 5, go to next dungeon character, do the same, and just continue without any of the delicious balancing of upgrades like other idle games. 2 Final Fortress Incremental games are already pointless but when it's super heavy on IAP than its also annoying, but when it always has bugs that doesn't register my offline earnings, then it just needs a uninstall in its face. The zombie skin was also crappy. 1 Mana Maker Here is how I know this clicker isn't very good. It doesn't make me hate all clickers and my life and mobile gaming in general for being so addictive and pointless. So fail, sorry. 2 Infinity Dungeon The usual incremental RPG that I should probably never play again. Starts simple enough and then gets more or a chore as you play. 1 Another incremental game which I had promised myself not to play anymore because they are so pointless and repetitive and endless. Well, this wasn't infinite and had a goal at 999 level so I thought it was good but while the humor was cute, the game did become very repetitive. Every 10 levels the slimes changed but after every 100 levels the whole thing restarted and while the monsters got stronger, I seemed to get even stronger. So the game became easier as I progressed and there was no more challenge. By level 800, I gave up. 2 Tap Dungeon RPG Okay, I'm running out of ways to complain about those incremental RPG games that all have similar problems. It starts off reasonably fast and fun but soon it seems like I am in a data entry job. Doing the same thing over and over again with little changes. 1 Dungeon 999 F: Secret of Slime Dungeon Another incremental game which I had promised myself not to play anymore because they are so pointless and repetitive and endless. Well, this wasn't infinite and had a goal at 999 level so I thought it was good but while the humor was cute, the game did become very repetitive. Every 10 levels the slimes changed but after every 100 levels the whole thing restarted and while the monsters got stronger, I seemed to get even stronger. So the game became easier as I progressed and there was no more challenge. By level 800, I gave up. 2 Tap Dungeon RPG Okay, I'm running out of ways to complain about those incremental RPG games that all have similar problems. It starts off reasonably fast and fun but soon it seems like I am in a data entry job. Doing the same thing over and over again with little changes. 1 Tower of Hero You start on the first floor of the tower and keep fighting your way up by summoning your heroes (by clicking) and recruiting other fighters, get upgrades, level up, and then, ugh, here is the typical incremental RPG part, restart, get items, and do it ALL over again. There is something fun about restarting and getting slowly stronger each time but it also feels so pointless after a while. Such a pointless genre now that I have played a billion of such titles, heh. 3 Pageboy Yet another incremental RPG which I have no idea why I downloaded because I'm sick of the genre. I played a pageboy to a knight who does the fighting while I collect the lot. I collect the loot, buy stuff for the knight, and eventually I restart to do the same thing again and get better items but this game I didn't even RESTART! Because fuck it! Fuck it! 2 Idle Warriors The story is cute. Human population is regressing while monster population is on the rise. So the humans start enslaving monsters to mine for them! The brave warriors beat the crap out of monsters, kidnap the bosses, and enslave them. The animation of monsters slaving away while speech balloons above them talk about their wife and children is funny. But the game itself is another RPG incremental which I should start staying away from. These games are like a chore for me nowadays because I'm doing the same crap again and again. The blame is probably on me because it seems like a reasonably solid game. But hey, fuck it, I PERSONALLY didn't enjoy it. 2 Tap! Tap! Faraway! Any game that is remotely like Tap Titan scares me. They are addictive at first and very fast moving but after every restart gets more and more annoying. It soon turns into a time eating activity with the player having to redo the initial levels to get relics to get better items to progress further to restart to get relics to and so on until the player realizes how much time he is putting in the game for a repetitive activity. 2 Auto RPG Now that is a title the game developers didn't spend too much time on. RPG battles are automatic but I can help out by clicking like a mad man. I started with one hero but would get additional members in my party as the story progressed. Party members receive skills as as they level up and while all the skill usage is automatic, it did give me a sense of progression which is extremely important in a RPG and which I think is usually lacking in incremental games. It usually starts feeling useless but in this game at least there are new maps, new members, and an actual end sight! There is an infinity stage once the last boss is defeated but I am glad the infinity stage happens AFTER the end and it's not the game itself. 4 Merchant Hire a hero and send on to battle. The battles is done automatically and takes time, starts with something short like 10 seconds with each battle taking longer. The loot is raw materials which can be used to craft equipment which also takes real life time with better items taking longer. The crafted items can either be sold or equipped to the hero to make him be able to fight stronger monsters. I was worried I would hate the longer crafting and fighting times because I hate games which I have to watch for a task to finish but even though the durations for longer, I had more to do. However, I don't know what would have happened in the end game because I gave up on it. New maps were exactly like the first map just with different heroes but the progression was similar in each level which felt that I was doing the exact same thing all over again but with longer task times. 2 Idle Oil Tycoon This is the best idle game I played. It's graphics aren't just minor, they are none existent. It's just numbers, so basic that my sister thought I was on a stock market app. It's such a simple concept. Invest, get oil, upgrade then like other idlers restart to get a bonus and do the full thing all over again. When I finished the game, I played the unlimited mode which I played until the unlimited mode couldn't handle the numbers anymore. 5 Soda Dungeon This kind-of Idle Dungeon was great. I started with weak ass fighters who would fight on my behalf while I collected the loot. I then got to use the lot to upgrade the sofa bar to recruit more adventurers. Not sure why it was a sofa bar. Maybe they wanted to make it a family game and not have alcohol? Sounds weird but the sofa element in a RPG game sounds weirder. The game only hit a brick for me when, like most other incremental games, there is no real closure. Once I thought I bet the big bad guy, it just goes on, harder but similar enough with no end in sight. Eventually, we have to stop playing right, but it always feels a bit like a let down when I don't feel like I have finished the game. 4 10 Billion Wives Kept Man Life The two games from this company, 10 Billion Wives and Kept Man Life, have similar strengths and weaknesses. I liked the silly premises from both. In 10BM, I had to get married as much as I could, using the loves I collect to marry more expensive wives! In KML, I'm a boyfriend who doesn't work and I have to please my career gf so she would take care of me. Both start reasonably fast and I was willing to grind through difficult parts but the end game is like a brick wall. Passing through it to get all the achievements is pretty much impossible unless one puts in way too many hours. And it's a shame because I really wanted to get all the achievements to see all the tiny little extra stuff. 3 Adventure Capitalist One of the better incremental games, but now that I am out of the short lived incremental fan phase, I realized how dumb the genre is. Tap, tap, tap, upgrade, do this a million times, reset, and do it all over again like a moron. The game does deserve credits for me acting like a moron and playing it for so long but I also cheated and got free cash and then if occupying became even more pointless. 3 The Monolith A combination of an incremental and a civilization building game seemed like an excellent idea and in some ways, it was, specially how we get to upgrade through the ages from cavemen to futuristic. But no offline feature means that the resets aren't enticing. 2 USSR Simulator An incremental game that has a great theme (USSR!) but absolutely horrible to enjoy, even though I did stick to it. After a certain upgrades, the game just turned into me popping in the game, clicking an upgrade and then forgetting about the game for a few days. 2 RPG Clicker They should call these games tappers not clickers. We are not clicking anything on a touchscreen device. Anyway, tap tap tap level up buy weapons tap tap and uninstall. 1 Logging Quest Logging Quest 2 [Review is for the original and its sequel] There is not much of a difference between the game. I actually played them both at the same time because the actual game is offline. You choose your hero, send them to a dungeon, and then come back to the game after a while to see how well they did. I thought an offline RPG like this might be interesting but then, if you don't really play a game, how much fun can it be? 1 Another pointless incremental. I was in an incremental phase and got so many incremental games that I know realize were absolutely pointless. Hit a tree, buy upgrades, get a new hero, and continue hitting a tree. Not much offline it seems which is what I like about incrementals. 1 Galaxy Clicker A space incremental that should have been a lot of fun. You get to upgrade your spaceship and buy new ones and explorer new planets. But first of all, the interface is so ugly that it makes playing the game less enjoyable. And a lot of things I didn't really get no matter how much I would play like the full exploring planets. The spaceships were nice, so it could have been fun. 2 Megatramp A pretty pointless incremental kind of game. You are a tramp and then you can collect money to buy upgrades to make more money, with no strategy needed, nor any effort needs to be made to hurt your brain cells. 1 Inflation RPG It supposed to be some kind of incremental RPG, I think, which has you resetting and getting more powerful and then fighting monsters to get insane levels. It is very unique but I couldn't get into it. 2 Widget RPG Are you fucking with me? This is button bashing rpg in the most extreme manner. You get a widget, so you don't even have to open the game and distract yourself from the button bushing. Just click the button and the game plays behind the scenes and gets you experience, loot, and kills. It's a ridiculous idea that is fun for a few minutes to see what they come up with but there is only so much button bashing you can do. 2 Capitalist Tycoon I downloaded this game because I was in an incremental/idle game phase and really enjoyed AdVenture Capitalist. But this game is nothing like that. On the surface, it seems similar, buy small investments, make money, buy bigger investments, and so on. But with this game, there is no offline mode, and you keep having to wake up managers, AND the goal is to see how much you make in one year. Bah. I prefer the incremental approach which makes you build and build and build, not try to rush it in just a year. 2 Clicking Bad An incremental clicking game that is themed after Breaking Bad. It is a fun idea it's a very simple game with little to do aside from the obvious of upgrading and upgrading. The only twist might be to balance out making lots of money selling drugs and not attracting the law but even that is only a small challenge at the start. Eventually, you will get enough upgrades to bring the law risk so down that it makes no impact on the game play. 2 Zombie Tapper A super basic incremental clicker game with a zombie team. Click click click to eat brains, use brains (?) to buy zombies to do the brain eating for you and then buy upgrades for your zombies, and buy new zombies and it all feels very pointless. 1 Bitcoin Billionaire I started to enjoy incremental games, but it needs to have a good offline mode, because I don’t want to just play a game where I keep tapping. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t play. I played it, and I played a lot of it, because I could reset the game (like most incremental games) and it gives you a small benefit where you could finish the full game a bit faster (it gives you bonus income). So, I kept finishing and resetting, and each time the start to finish would shorten, so I thought I would reach a stage where I could finish each start-to-finish in an instant! It didn’t happen. I got bored first. 3 Tap Titan An addictive tapping game. Just tap on the creatures, level up, get new skills, hire heroes, and then reset and to it all over again to progress further. It’s an incremental game where it depends on resets to progress, but no real offline bonus, so you have to be playing online. Which got boring, so I installed an app that does the tapping for me, which is actually a stupid way to play the game, but this isn’t an attempt to prove to anyone my intelligence. Anyway, thankfully something went wrong and my progress got deleted, WHICH WAS A GOOD THING, because the game was extremely addictive. 4 God Squad I’ve realized most incremental games are stupid. Tap on monsters to kill, collect gold, buy Roman Gods, level them up, fight other monsters, and then get bored. 1
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