Cattle and sheep dogs can be invaluable, PROVIDED they're properly trained and the handler knows what they're doing.

Like I was saying, range riding as currently done seems to me (though I am no ranch hand) to be more appropriate to say organized territories. I think that in most other cases except maybe cantonments that you probably at the very least need a watchtower or two in addition to regular patrols.

Yes. Dogs are useful for a variety of things like TRACKING, SENTRY DUTY, ATTACK, BOMB DETECTION, RESCUE WORK, and even as a food source. Dogs can be used to pull a plow. Native Americans used them to pull/drag litters for the sick, wounded, or cargo and Eskimos used them for transportation and hunting bears. This is why you always see dogs on Special Forces missions today.

You are misperceiving LINEAR DISTANCE with SQUARE AREA. Milano's ranch might encompass 8km but it is most likely 8 SQUARE KM. This means that the farthest distance from his ranch house to the fence might be 2 or 3 km at most. In open terrain, you can often see this far with just a pair of binoculars. This is why I told everyone in my post above to imagine an Acre as a football field. This gives one a good idea of the size of a given patch of terrain.

The food chart in Twilight2000 is WAY OFF. The amount of grain it recommends for a horse would be for a Percheron or Belgium DRAFT HORSE doing heavy manual labor. A Quarter Horse being ridden two periods a day might require 4kg of grain (if ridden HARD) and 4kg of hay. It may need less IF it were allowed to graze before and after riding.

For those wanting a more accurate chart than Twilight2000's, just GOOGLE "Horse feeding requirements" and a number of charts that cross-reference a horse's weight and activity level will give you accurate, real-world amounts of grain and hay based on activity v. size.

I will begin posting my homebrew rules this week. Done with all the Court stuff, now I just have to get Dad's stuff sold or distributed [to various family members].

No, I'm not actually.
Yes it might be possible to see that far, but that assumes relatively flat and open terrain. I grew up on 200 acres - a fairly small block really, but there was no way you could see from one end to the other because of the ridgelines, forested areas, etc. It was often impossible to even hear gunfire from some points.
Additionally, the idea is to meet any threats well away from your boundaries if at all possible. You'd want to extend your patrols several miles in all directions.
If you're dealing with bandits within your boundary, you've got major problems.

Now, if your land is on nice flat ground with clear sight lines for miles, then a simple watchtower might well suffice. Problem with that is sight lines are two directional.

In the initial stages while the characters are learning the how of farming, as I mentioned earlier, it's far better they focus on small area subsistence farming with an emphasis on concealment and protection. As their skills and resources improve (scavenged machinery, seed stock, additional personnel, etc) they can expand their cultivated area, always however with security as a background thought - even several years post nuke there's still a lot of starving people willing and able to do nasty things to get a meal.

Somewhat tangential, but page 273 is almost certainly excessive for animal food consumption. It calls for 15 kg of grain for a horse or 10 kg for a mule plus 8 hours of grazing.

For comparison, here's what the British Army provided animals "in camp" (i.e. at the front lines) during World War I. When "in stables" the diet was reduced by 2 pounds of grain per day (oats for the horses and maize for the mules). Chaff was a 50/50 mix of hay and straw.

Heavy Draft Horse: 13 pounds oats, 4 pounds maize, 16 pounds chaff
Officer's Horse or Riding Horse taller than 15.1 1/2 hands: 12 pounds oats, 10 pounds chaff
Pack Horse or Riding Horse shorter than 15.1 1/2 hands: 11 pounds oats, 10 pounds chaff
Light Draft Horse: 9 pounds oats, 4 pounds maize, 10 pounds chaff
Heavy Draft Mule: 14 pounds maize, 16 pounds chaff
Light Draft Mule: 12 pounds maize, 10 pounds chaff
Pack Mule: 7 pounds maize, 10 pounds chaff

The amount of grain required on page 273 is equal to the total amount of feed for a Heavy Draft Horse or Light Draft Mule. A relatively simple suggested house rule is to require either the amount of grain listed with no grazing or half the amount listed with 8 hours of grazing.

I think you can reconcile the game amounts with reality by assuming the post nuke "grain" isn't as high a quality was pre nuke. Contains a lot more chaff than actual grain, the crops themselves are effected by radiation, limited rainfall and sunshine, etc.
Yes, it's a bit of a generalised handwaving, but...

One of the issues with the location is that it is lying in the vicinity of two roads. One is a two lane nearby, one is a major highway 4 km away. While the area is insular and communities are small and isolated due to the devastation, even if marauders, hungry refugees and others might just be passing through, the farming could be a tempting target for marauders, scavengers and refugees.

That's great. It adds up with an older book I read that was published in the 1930s called Animal Management.

The party had found a stray horse, clearly domesticated but on its own and seeking company/help. They had no idea what to do with it and I didn't tell them, so they ended up leaving it on its own and it got killed by predators. Hopefully they learned their lesson.

You know, IRL I know nothing about farming or taking care of animals other than dogs or cats. I'd need scads of teachers in T2K to become useful on a farm.

Of course, once my meds ran out, I be in a continual severe psychosis, and probably of no use to anyone, including myself. Probably spend a lot of time breaking into pharmacies looking for Invega, Ativan, and Modafinel.

Sorry to threadjack, but how would the mentally ill survive in a T2K world? Would they even?

Most of those who need regular access to pharmacies and other infrastructure supported medical support facilities would either be in really rough shape or dead.

Even in modern industrial nations like Kenya or Zambia, or in some of the former Soviet republics, they lack the ability to accomodate mental illness or some disabilities like visual impairment. People underestimate how much medical advances and prosperity make such help available.

So how much of a stockpile would the average state in the Union have? And how good would their distribution be?

But that's a good point, a great adventure hook.

Let's say you have a character with a chronic illness, like Diabetes 1, or with a mental illness requiring a medical regimen. But the person is a loved one, part of the group, or even an expert in a field that has become rare where their expertise is needed. The characters, who would perhaps normally avoid cities, are forced to go to one.

I may even do that to force the group to go to the New American enclave and go to Lewiston or some such place, forced to treat and deal with them or sneak in and sneak out...

One area where I'm STILL kind of working on for the SCAVENGING RULES IS the creation of meds and chemicals. We have people with Chemistry and Biology skills in the game and chemicals can be acquired or even created, so why can't people with prior careers as Chemists, Doctors, and RNs MAKE medicine? We humans have been doing that since the Dark Ages.

There IS a Pharmacy equivalent to the PHYSICIAN'S DESK REFERENCE for Pharmacists. It lists various drugs, their components, and potential interactions with other drugs. This would be like a "bible" for a fledgling "compounding lab." Once you know what's in a given drug, you should be able to either approximate it or replicate it.

My idea for this follows the same pattern that I use for salvaging industrial machines and electronics...

1) Set a Difficulty Level starting at EASY and moving up to IMPOSSIBLE based on the complexity of the item.
2) Determine the number and type of Tools and Resources [units] needed to perform the task. For example, a new radio might require 6 small repair parts units, 3 electronics parts units, and a battery. It would also require an Electronics toolkit.
3) Determine the Skill OR Skills required to make the item in question. ie. Electronics skill for the radio above.

This is the standard procedure I use for most of my Salvage rules.

One thing I do see in this Forum that I still don't quite understand is this idea that you HAVE to find a thing in order to have it because NOTHING is being made now. Maybe it's because I grew up on a farm. If we needed something and didn't have it, we just either fabricated it or "repurposed" something else to meet our needs. In my mind, I can see all kinds of people in Twilight2000 doing just that.

Need a certain type of tool? Modify another tool or just make what you need using welders and a grinder.

Need a hand lifting something? enlist a horse or cow to give you what you need, or at the very least, rig a block and tackle.

Need to make a certain chemical? Just get yourself a college chemistry book with the formula in it and try NOT to burn your eyebrows off (and yes, I'm guilty... and no I'm not going to talk about it).

This is what I'd do in the real world and this is what I encourage my PC to do in my games.

That's actually a damn fine question and one that came up recently in Lurken's Discord game. An NPC was determined to have a brain injury resulting in a loss of Intelligence (down to 1).
Through long term use of appropriate skills (a mix of Medicine: Diagnosis, Interrogation and Persuasion for the most part), and possibly medication (Chemistry with a touch of Biology) a few points might, in time be regained.
Of course while in the middle of Poland in 2000 that's rather unlikely to happen, but who knows?

For others with less "recoverable" illnesses once the medication runs out with little chance to acquire more, it might be more humane to give them a final rest with a lead pill. Not a nice thing to have to contemplate, but when you've exhausted all other options.... :(

Hey wasn't that the kind of information you would find in the Farmer's Almanac and books like that?

The same question applies to a host of other medical issues that require pharmaceutical maintenance or other regular care. Enfield mentioned diabetes, which is the classic example from Lucifer's Hammer. Among other factors, I would expect the HIV/AIDS epidemic to be a source of paranoia, discrimination, and other social complications atop its medical implications.

For that matter, anyone dependent on electrically-powered medical equipment probably died shortly after the first wave of nuclear strikes. Anyone know the effects of EMP on pacemakers?

Back to the thread topic, these issues present an interesting complication for any group attempting to align itself with the Cascadians. The Cascadians are working toward the survival of civilization, not necessarily that of any given individual. It's up to each referee to determine how far they take it in their campaign, but I'll point to one of the Cascadian movement's principles:

- C.

A book that this issue was a central part of is "one second after" by William R. Forstchen. Main characters daughter is a diabetic, and town doctor talked a bit about some of the antipsychotic medications, or the withdraws from them.

According to a report I read, it is not automatic that a pacemaker will be destroyed by EMP. Interestingly, the human body will act as a kind of Faraday Cage and shield the device.Unless the person is pretty close to the blast radius, people with pacemakers should be fine.

Hay, that's me! You f**k!:D

That sort of makes me wonder...what if I asked Dr Pola (my doctor; he's young enough he may have RPGd at some point) what it would take to mix up a reliable batch of my medicine, or if there's an herbal substitute. Unfortunately, my next regular appointment with him is not until 7 June, and I don't want to call for a special appointment just to ask him RPG questions! He is, though, an Iraq Vet, and might have put some thought into this sort of thing, maybe for the Iraqi people who were probably short of this type of medication.

It is an interesting question. One of the purposes of my campaign is to have a community build around the initial group of survivors led by the PCs. The leadership core (based around the PCs) have expressly stated that they want to form a larger community around the farm, so as they contact others they will have that opportunity, and inevitably some people will have chronic illnesses and conditions. It will be interesting to see how they figure out the ethics of that.

I'm going to go over all of this for my pig/ geese farm plan I mentioned in another thread. I'd also like to go through several threads for a Homestead Home front book. It can be GDW/FFE specific or a generic guide, or better yet, both. Notes on how to establish a colony or a cantonment or just keeping a small town alive.

I already designed a cover for you. ;)

Seriously, though, I'd be interested in reading that. I can envision a couple of different ways you could present the material.

- C.

A potential source for mining some of the concepts in terms of modelling for gaming systems, HarnMaster has a supplement called HarnManor which goes into great detail on how to generate medieval agricultural settlements. Such things as how many people are needed for how much acreage, crop and farmed animal yields, other trades and specialties typically found in such settlements, etc.

Cool! This can be done. I can check the TNE World Tamer's Handbook for technology improvements.

That's great! Seriously, your module "Pacific Northwest" is first on the reading list.
Pacific Northwest's civilian career "Survivalist" can be converted to "Homesteader" by skill choice since the careers have some similarities. also the equipment, particularly chainsaws, long underwear, and the ATVs and UATVs. The weather rules for off season.

Paul Mulcahy's Site for more gear.

The food preservation and water purification threads on this site.

Traveller TNE's "World Tamer's Handbook" has ag and industry rules.

Also T2013 had a building system in man hours and some "civvie stuff".

World Tamers has complex rules cause of multiple world types. T2013 has farm rules and amounts in hectacres as well as equipment modifiers, I'll get the Harn book next pay day. I might treat pigs as manual laborers with two to three periods of hard labor, depending on how much daylight. I might try to stat an old tractor or two like the Ford Jubilee and some old John Deere trikes and the like.

Here is the beginning of my homebrew:Attachment 4637

Speaking of World Tamer's, one thing in it that would have been very useful in the T2K rules is its Roads sidebar, which covers what's available at each tech level and how they deteriorate. The tech levels aren't useful, but here are the roads that would be available in the Twilight War era:

Trails: simple unimproved routes where brush has been cleared by the constant passage of people, vehicles, or animals. Vehicles travel at off-road speed +1.25 kph (+5 to Tr Move). Reduce to normal speed in rain due to mud.

Improved Trails: widened trails graded by animal-powered scrapers. Travel is at off-road speed +2.5 kph (+10 to Tr Move), but reduced to normal in rain.

Crowned Roads: cambered so water will run off and often topped with stone or gravel. +3.75 kph (+15 to Tr Move) and unaffected by rain. Use by heavy (10 tonnes or greater) wheeled vehicles will destroy them in 1d20 days and use by tracked vehicles of any weight will destroy them in 2 hours, reducing the road to an Improved Trail.

Macadam Roads: crowned roads with an impervious surface of stone. +5 kph (+20 to Tr Move), unaffected by rain. Heavy wheeled vehicles will destroy them in 1d10 weeks and tracked vehicles in 6 hours, reducing to Improved Trail.

Asphalt Roads: crowned and drained and topped with a bitumen-gravel mix. Travel at road speed regardless of weather. Heavy wheeled vehicles will destroy them in 10+1d10 months and tracked vehicles in 12 hours, once again reducing to Improved Trail.

Concrete Roads: more durable, surfaced with a thermally converted mix of sand, gravel, and limestone. Unaffected by wheeled vehicles, destroyed by 18 hours of tracked vehicle use, reduced to Improved Trail.

The deterioration of roads over time during the Twilight War would (in my opinion) reinforce to players how the systems that tie the world together are breaking down, as transportation becomes more difficult.

Here are some videos from my research you might find interesting. For the record, I use the HOSS double-wheeled system and find it superior to all other hand-powered garden tools (I have power tools too). Keep in mind that these are modern machines not something from an antique store either.

https://youtu.be/vuiqNFgDyCg

Here's a video of people going old school with equipment you can buy right now.

https://youtu.be/O82ZecB0UPk

Then there are people like me and my friends who would totally do this! Please note, this is a vintage horse plow being towed in this video.

https://youtu.be/tnNSFzxgZys

Enjoy!

Swag.

I would say that you should institute some sort of "deterioration check" to see if the roads degrade or not. Around my house, we have many dirt roads with heavily compacted bases (due to the heavy farm machinery driven on them) that only need to be graded once a year. They are just that packed down. There are also highways out there which are overbuilt (the Autobahn comes to mind immediately) that will fair better than your typical US highway.

The US used to put concrete then asphalt down, then decided double asphalt was cheaper, so now high ways don't last as long.

Thanks!

You're welcome. Judging from his accent, the guy in the 3rd video is from the Ridge or Central PA. Yep... Olefin, Wallshadow, and I have to claim him... look at the truck's license plate.
PA representn' rednecks everywhere!

Corn isn't very economical for the space required, and neither are most other grains. techzpod mobdro - edited these were links.


More spammers. Keep an eye out - Kato

So once again, it's all about the Benjamins...

I'm going through and putting together a "garden tool kit", some stuff overlaps "Excavation Tools", but not all and as an example, garden hoes and concrete hoes are slightly different but round point shovels and spades are the same.
The gardening is going to be on a smaller scale than the ones discussed in T2013 too. I'm also making slight changes and putting the homestead in Dark Conspiracy, I run the country side like a T2K in certain parts. I've been working at a snail's pace but have the notes gathered together, now to try and not make anyones head hurt reading the thing.

I'm going through and putting together a "garden tool kit", some stuff overlaps "Excavation Tools"

Posting that here? Or doing a module at DriveThru or somewhere similar?

The dead make good fertilizer.

Here, My skills at composition are poor anyway.