what production ratio models are you using for the cattle? I was doubling the population of the cattle every 6 months with no losses-nothing being consumed for food till year 5(to get a sustainable pop, with enough genetic variance) ,
I’m using a slightly more realistic model than the one you are using. Your model is ignoring gestation and maturity.
A cow’s pregnancy lasts little over 9 months. It takes about two years for a cow to reach breeding age. After calving it takes 45-90 days before she can breed again.
If you are looking at attaining a useful cattle population in 3-4 years (for milking, meat and raw materials [i.e. leather and manure]), starting with a dozen is simply not going to cut it.
I'm using 3 (today that should be 6) people for ever 400 head, used as a secondary source 3 head a day for 2.5k people (primary source should be 3 head per 1k people) what are you using ?
I’m using a generic, general 500 kg of mixed livestock per colonist. Nothing fancy. The more livestock you bring, the more quickly the areas around the colony and homesteads get “terraformed†(for lack of a better word); adding human-friendly bacteria and organisms into an alien, if still human-friendly, environment.
are you using a 5/3 as a secondary food source (7-8/3 for primary) or something else, cause I couldn't make them self sustaining for at least 10 years to meet your projected population. I just don't under stand why you are bothering with meat, even at 4/3 (2/1.5) it is prohibitive.
Meat is a by-product of the colonial cattle “industryâ€, at least during the first few waves of colonization; they are more useful in dairy and fertilizer production. Most male calves not bred for studding will be turned to meat, as will cows that have gone past their useful dairy lives.
Rats and Rabbits are 1.9/1.6 still very wasteful.
Nobody in their right mind will introduce mice or rats to a new colony. But rabbits multiply like crazy and taste good. The fur is also a useful raw material.
I am assuming using high tech farming, by the end of year 2 they should be up to 1/3 but if they are feeding animals as a food source they will be 2/1 probably 2.5/1. (x/y x what you spend, y what you get back related to subject at hand) So the 5/3 model (modern industry standard for raising cattle today, so for one cattle you spend enough to feed 5 people and get enough food to feed 3 people- the 5/3 is an average of many different ). it's more like 4.89/3.1 for current day high tech. Farms are about 1/3 for a high yield, high tech, and high maintenance (today).
I’m also assuming modern farming methods, ensuring maximum or near-maximum yields from a given plot of land. Keep in mind that the raw manure can be processed to be more nutrient-rich and modern herbicides, pesticides and planting/tending techniques will be used.
Remember, the primary food source for the first few months will be “consumables†brought with them, until the crops come in. As I said, meat will be a by-product (a relatively rare treat), though eggs, milk, cheese and even other types of protein (i.e. meats) will be available in sufficient quantities to satisfy the needs of the current wave of the colony.
I updated these numbers, but they are not mine They are by Isaac Asimov when he critiqued his own colony plan, his part of the family unit was the best (a bit out dated but still a very enjoyable read).
Which plan? He had different plans for space colonies, lunar colonies, martian colonies…
Whats your model for equipment failure/maintenance needs? EI hours of usage to hours of maintenance needs? i was using 1/30 one hour maintenance for 30 hours work, for the first 1k hours after that 1 hour for 15 hours. (better than anything we have now) modern car is about 1 hour maintenance for 25 hours of usage. heavy equipment is about 1/20 (new). I was only factoring a fraction of the maintenance hours that would be needed, cause just the animal husbandry was a man hour hog. What model are you using for vehicle attrition? Whats the supply ratio of equipment? I was expecting 25 tons (light vehicle bay) 25 tons for attachments per vehicle, and 25 tons per vehicle for part maintenance/repairs (for 1.5 years per vehicle).
When you pay me a few million dollars to start up my colony, I’ll work out these numbers. Until then, the closest thing we can do it look at the maintenance requirements of combat/non-combat equipment in BT.
Given the parts and the ability to fabricate commonly worn/broken parts (like saw wheels, for example), and given the fact that technicians and farmers capable of effecting repair and maintenance (which is their ONLY job for long periods of time) are readily available, I’ll stick to the 1,000 tons of vehicles and equipment mentioned in the article without going into detail; for the first wave, the needs of the colony can be easily satisfied by this; sub-ton personal transport vehicles, multi-function farm equipment that is rotated throughout the farms as needed (yes, they do that even today), large transport units and small personal farm equipment (as well as some larger repair and exploration vehicles) will round out the 400 tons of vehicles.
If you find this low, by all means, increase it; I kept it generic because every world and every culture that may be colonizing has its own quirks and I wanted to describe the GENERAL process of building a colony, not a cast-in-stone model that would be useless better than 50% of the time.
how many ares of land can you have cleared, leveled properly, removed rocks, irrigate to have ready for planting for 2- 3 month growing periods? the first 3 month period I was using 1k ares to start and 2k more acres for the second period. (Thats around 5x better than anything we on earth today has ever achieved with virgin lands) with about 1.5k acres added by the end of year 2. I was thinking 9 months total to get that second crop in. (btw they can get 3 crops a year after the first year).
Ask the professional farmers and agricultural science experts that go on the colony. We only have some rough numbers based on some equipment described in canon (with rules); suffice it to say, that in much less than one week, a properly-equipped unit can level a mapsheet’s worth of forest and rough and smooth it out. That’s 500m squared.
Clearing rocks? Heck, gather everyone in the cleared field and make it a party; in one day the kids, adults and everyone else will have turned that field into pure dirt ready for the spreader. For the record, I have no doubt that even with the loss of technology, a method of clearing rocks from fields will have been devised that did not involve sending the town’s kinds into a field to see who could pick the most rocks and who could find the biggest one… my back still hurts just thinking about it.
In the first year your first crop is always used to seed next years first crop. The second crop, most will be needed to plant next years second crop. the last crop will be mostly for your cattle and livestock so they can survive the off season (about 6 months till the next crop-3-4 months before they can graze again).
They already have seed. It’s all they have. Enough for two whole crops. I know I wrote that in the article.
Only about 5% (using high-tech modern farming methods) of the crop needs to be reserved for seed. Since we are stockpiling seed for more farms next year, we reserve 10% from each crop; 5% for the next crop and 5% for growing an entire crop of seed. The first crop (and likely second crop), minus the seed reserve, go to feed the colonists… and their livestock (which I included in my calculations as well).
If they are keeping livestock in the first wave I can not see them having enough land cleared to take care of themselves, let alone bringing in more people.
Because you are not seeing the phased homesteading process I mentioned in the article; the first month or so is spent setting up the town center AND the first farm or two. They are still using the “consumables†at this point, as well as animal product (milk, eggs, the occasional meat). Once the first 1-2 crops are in, the next farms get cleared for the next growing cycle. By the time the first crops are in, the “consumables†should be running low, but with the crops, the food supply is being replenished even as the next crops are in the ground.
by the end of year 4. By this time most of the vehicles will be so over used that they will need to be abandoned and new ones will already have to be there.
You underestimate the resilience of battletech machinery, which has been known to last centuries of constant use.
You also forget that the colony has the techs to maintain the equipment, the parts to repair it with and the ability to fabricate parts it does not have. The vehicles and equipment would be selected specifically for their reliablily. Having them last 3-4 years is more than believable. Unless someone crashes the vehicle, there should be no problem in keeping them working well until after their supplemental replacements come in with the second wave.
If you slow down to 5 years before next wave, your equipment will fair better and your workforce will not be as fatigued but you will still be at the same place. (not ready to take in new people). after 5 years these 2.5k workers will still be heavily dependent on outside foodstuffs. Even with fisheries you will only be seeing 1.5/1 parity after 4 years, EI not enough to bring in more people, you would need to have 1/1.5 min to get the population you are expecting, to shift the amounts of manpower off farming to start building . Using Strat ops maintenance this colony would be doomed by first years end (manpower for maintenance way to high). use FMMerc R.
I am factoring 75% from grazing and autumn crop per year (currently 65% the rest is fortified feed to max out growth and weight)
I was actually using real world numbers for my calculations; amount of X crop used yearly per capita… blah-blak blah. It gets complicated real fast.
The problem is that you are coming from a faulty premise on how the seed colony is made. I laid it out in the article and in supplemental posts. From my calculations, the numbers work, even taking losses into account.
Heavily improved modern tech, best case events, and act of god almost ever day in favor of the colony, I still cann't make it work with the numbers your are proposing. Labor deficits
Again, you are basing your assumptions on a faulty premise.
Manpower-wise, there is far more than enough to run the farms (crops and livestock) at full tilt AND still have other dedicated labour.
Food-wise, there is more than enough to maintain the colony for the 3-4 months it takes for the first crops to come in. Once the crops (we are not talking just one wheat crop; I’m talking about at least two types of grains for people, another two for livestock, plus a variety of legumes, herbs, fruits and vegetables plus culturally important plants, like tea, coffee and “other†[such as purely ornamental plants, like tulips or cherry blossoms]) are in, the road to self-sufficiency begins; the colony still has some “consumablesâ€, which are used to supplement the crops and the colony’s dairy products (and occasional meat; you don’t raise egging chickens without eating chicken… it’s a by-product). This allows for the delegation of labour to start preparing the next homesteads, which allows for the preparation of land for future homesteads.
It’s a rolling process. You are confusing “drop†colonies with “seed†colonies.
I'm using CBT's ratio of 1 ton of consumables for 2 people on an earth like world per month.
1 ton of consumables = 200 man/days
This is canon.
1 ton will last two people 100 days; about THREE months.
Of course, this assumes a local usable water supply, which should be a given for selecting the landing site on an Earth-like world. Every colony WILL have a water treatment plant with it, if not multiple small ROWPU or UVWPU units for each homestead. If water is NOT present, that is another issue, but since we are discussing mostly Earth-like environments, it is not an issue for purposes of this discussion.
Um why would the colony ship land? what would they re purpose a K-F drive core for? And what would they need a interplanetary drive for?
You see, this is why I say that you are starting from a faulty premise, based on not reading posts carefully enough. ::)
Maingunnery
specifically mentioned a 2/3 thrust DROPship. This was reinforced by RunandFindOut’s reply, which again specifically refers to dropships and by my post as well.
Since you were fixated on the idea of the pre-dropship jumpship, you jumped to the conclusion that it was a KF-equipped jumpship.
As to what to use the interplanetary drive for, you forget that it is a massive fusion engine capable of producing truly staggering amounts of electricity for the starting colony. The actual, you know,
thrusty parts would be removed to prevent accidents and for other uses, like smelting furnaces.
