Fishing
 

So you all know, I am trying to run a 2k campaign in Manhattan where my group sort of sets up shop to take over.

So with that in mind...

My problem is calculating food production numbers...most publications give Manhattan alone a population of over 100k.

I am having some measurable problems with trying to figure the math out to feed 100k people. Or even how they can feed themselves.

Have any of you worked out details on fishing fleets/food production numbers and such?

I've never done the math. My impression is that 100k people are being fed a) poorly, b) by eating everything in sight, and c) with as much trade to communities elsewhere as possible. I'll be the first to admit that the 100k population figure requires a bit of suspension of disbelief. On the other hand, I'm claiming in "Thunder Empire" that 400,000 can be supported with local resources in Cochise, Santa Cruz, and Pima Counties. I'd be willing to consider almost any plausible explanation--if for no other reason than to support the official history. (I read the canon post)

Webstral

Agricultural census for 1997
http://www.agcensus.usda.gov/Publica...1997/index.asp

New York Agriculture county breakdown for 1997

http://www.agcensus.usda.gov/Publica...rk/ny_chp2.pdf


Arizona
http://www.agcensus.usda.gov/Publica...na/az_chp2.pdf


Won't help for fishing except to tell you that New York state has a few fish farms, but might help with agricultural production for neighboring counties.

If Manhattan was spared so was Long Island. At time, I had done some math and came up with a final figure of about 400k survivors with 100k in Manhattan and the remaining ones in Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island and Long Island.

Long Island can be turned in farmland (actually it still has several farmers I think). Fishing is important of course and I can imagine the people in the area trading with the fishermen of Rhode Island (or fighting with them over fishing areas). Of course, central park had been turned into farmlands.

Feeding would be poor and unequal (especially because of the gangs) but I think that it can work.

What do you think? Actually I have never seen anything on Long Island and I have the feeling it would play a major role.

Queens, Kings (Brooklyn),Nassau and Suffolk counties make up Long Island.

Kings county has 8 farms covering 8 acres.
Nassau county has 55 farms covering 1,390 acres.
Queens county has 2 farms covering 4 acres.
Suffolk county has 606 farms covering 35,858 acres.

They're not farms, they're backyard vegetable plots!

100k seems very excessive to me, but as has been posted, it's possible I think provided the inhabitants aren't picky about what they eat. Rats, dogs, cats, pigeons, you name it would all see duty on the dinner plate.
Anywhere something can grow, somebody is almost certainly trying to grow something. Even in dank, dark cellars! (mushrooms)
Of course we can't forget parks, vacant blocks, rooftops and so on. Hydroponic systems are likely to be fairly widespread and especially useful for the winter months if set up indoors. Indoor (even outdoor) swimming pools could be converted into fish ponds (food, not gold).

So, I don't think food production is likely to be on a large scale, but just about everyone will be involved in it somehow. Yes, fishing the surrounding waters is very likely, but I believe that would represent a very small percentage of the total.

If the T2K population of Manhatten Island includes dements, well we know what they are often happy enough to eat...

In times of short supply, I think many people might resort to that (even if they never admit to it later).

Long Island will be a major part of the collective AFTER the players secure and organize Manhattan. Three of the 5 players grew up there so they want to "rule" Manhattan as it were. :)

I completely see the suggestions as possible, if not must have, scenarios. Mushrooms, fish farms, pigeon pens, rabbits, rat hunting perhaps farming, are all great ways to supplement food production.

Parks and every flat piece of land will be turned and cultivated of course. But without massive demolition the most free land we could come up with is bout 3000-4000 acres. And by our research the most we might get from that land, considering current conditions, is maybe 4 people fed for every acre we devote to food production. But you might want some of it for raising livestock or fuel production too...

Thats gonna leave alot of mouths to feed, and considering the availability of fishing vessels in the surrounding area, fishing seems the logical choice. The original rules give us something like 80kgs per person per day in open water, taking some things for granted for gameplay. But others have noted that if possible, some of the larger fishing vessels could feed much much more then that.

Does anyone have any numbers or resources they know of to project some actual numbers?

I have never been one for "just believe me" gaming, it has to make sense and have a base in at least a lil reality. :)

Thanks for all the great ideas, keep em coming.

Roof tops and gardens can represent a new form of "fields." Especialy in garden pots and tables laid out like a greenhouse.

And also think of vertical gardening. Things like vine plants that grow either up or town the side of a building from one balcony. Which could have a new group of people or kids whose purpose is to scale up say a net that the plants grow on as they scale the side of the buildings harvesting and tending the vines. And also, toss in folks using the windowwashers cart to tend and harvest as well.


These could then become castles in the sky. Where a modern fuedal lord would have several buildings, perhaps having a skywalk or even a zipline with either cablecars or just a zipline allowing his workers and his soldiers to move from building to building protecting their buildings and more importantly their crops.

And then, adding some fantasy to it, they could also have a team of members with paragliders or rectangular parachutes to land and raid their rivals, or even an ultralights or two for scouting, or, a hangglider or two again used to swoop down and attack their enemies as well as scouting.

Also, maybe falconry by the lord and his senior vassals attacking the children of their enemies as they tend the gardens, or the poor wretches who scramble in the ruble to eack out a living for nothing more than sport. Or to damage the enemys pigeon flock. Or even a modern form of cockfighting, except in this case, the birds would fight one another midflight.


And another option is along the rivers and harbor, raisng muscles is very easy! All you need is to place strings in the water and before long they will attatch themselves and grow. I can see pens along the water where these could be grown and jeaously guarded as well. With the harvest smoked or dried.

I can see several scenarios here, the muscle harvesters or waterfront people fighting with the people who farm the few ground based lands, and the people of the skyscrappers thinking they are the higher of people fighting them all, and then we have the poor who sift through the ruble in several groups and then the tunnel dwellers. Toss in those who actively fish who have a relation with the waterfront folk and you have ALOT of groups to battle over scarce resources.

The problem I see with large fishing boats is that of fuel. Where are they going to get it, how much will they have to pay for it, and so on.
The larger boats can potentially catch tonnes of fish in a short period of time, but with food in such a short supply in the city already, little will be available to brew alcohol.

Perhaps it takes several months to brew enough for a two day voyage, maybe they have to be based many miles away and travel, or maybe raiding for fuel is an option (both on land at at sea).

Smaller wind powered boats are likely to be common, however I'm thinking there's likely to be a skill shortage for sailing them and they're not exactly all weather vessels. A decent storm is going to keep them in port and out of production for days.

Fishing in the immediate area is likely to be poor with centries of city development polluting the waterways and overfishing depleting prewar stocks. Three years after the nukes, the chemical pollutants are probably still there with the added radioactive pollution not helping the situation.

Fish stocks may have increased due to less intensive fishing, but you'd have to be hungry to risk chemical and radiation poisioning (but them these people are effectively living next to a couple of nuke craters...)

In my mind, cities are not the place to be post nuke. Fine for a visit and quick scavenge, but you wouldn't want to live there.

Mussels and other shellfish can be dangerous to eat if they are grown in areas with pollution such as heavy metals or radioactive fallout.

Leg Breaker and Targan;

We must weigh the whole living in a nuked city in a post nuke work and eating muscles that are filter feeders that have been exposed to contaminants. Sorry guys, but I am laughing right now and its not just the bourbon. Kinda like when I was in and the hippie health freaks were protesting Marlboro from giving us free smokes. Yeah smokes can kill you but being in a combat zone where lead is slung your way is alot more unhealthy. Which would you rather go out by?

And another thing to consider, what is the live of a muscle? Most of the ones who would have had a signifigant exposure to the massive polutants and toxins durring the war and immeidatly after would have died at the end of their life cycle falling to the bottom of the river/bay. A newly farmed crop would be less dangerous and you would only have to worry about recent contaminants. Since its best to do it in a bay with tidal activity or river alot of the polutants would have moved on. Not all but most. And the risk would be no more than breathing the air or going outside in the region a few months or years after a strike.

As for a lack of sailing ability.

There are ALOT of weekend sailors who are pretty good. And a good number of sailboats in the 30+ foot class in the area. <Hell they have ALOT for sale on EBAY most of the time, much cheaper than here in Cali> Those would be the ones I would bet would have the lucratrive trade of going fishing I would say 1000 to 1200 25 foot or better who could make it a decent distance to fishing areas. And of course carry enough netting and have enough cargo capacity for a worthwhile catch.


There is something else to consider, in many areas regular fish still have contaminants of mercury and DDT and other pesticides in their systems, it is usualy the predatory fish though. I know in my area they have warning that localy caught fish a person should not eat more than two meals of fish a month if the fish are from local waters. So, how long are people to wait? And if they are starving and there is little other option? Really what does it matter?

I see where you are coming from Jest but shellfish can continue to live and grow while containing toxins which at the same levels would kill a mammal. If heavily contaminated shellfish were a major part of your diet you would have major health problems within a few years, maybe even months. And they would be really nasty, non-reversible health problems too - kidney and liver damage, cancers, stuff like that.

Aren't time zone differences great! You're drinking Bourbon and I've just had breakfast with my daughter! Makes you realise that we really are a global community on here!

The board on which the sun never sets. :D

It is Targ! Truly, I realized that as I was sipping on good Dutch Beer I found at the market and some nice hot French bread with a spinach dip as I posted how great it was on the yahoo forum.


As for the whole cumulative effects of contaminated food. I guess what I was getting at was when a person and his faimily is starving they will ignore long term effects for immeidate satation of hunger. And recently raised as in farmed post war you would only have to deal with lingering contaminants. The plus side, most of the routine contaminants would cease instantly. Which is something we have never seen in history, to have them stop all together.

I do understand about contaminated muscles and such. There are oytsters near my marina where my boat is and where I lived for a time that were as big as a childs head, I sliced the sole of my foot on the lip of one towing my raft along the shore after the engine failed. A huge oyster for sure, but I would not eat that muscle if my life depended on it. At least at present time. If I were on the brink of starvation then I may reconsider. But knowing what is up the river that flows into that little bay, no thank you!

how many rations / month
 

I would simplify -and have done in previous sessions -

1. try to deduce number of boats and crew available

2. split into 1 or 2 caregories :ocean /deep sea and the other coastal

3. set a base value of kg fish that they pull in pr workday and multiply with number of boats

4.roll a dice to determine if its a bad or good month and modify total catch acccordingly

5. roll a dice to gleen the number of people eating bad stuff and getting sick

6.new month /week -repeat
7.obviously fishfarms and shell fish breeding grounds will be another matter ,but for simplicity just follow the above procedure and change names ,places and capacity .

GM tip -be stricter rather than lenient to keep your players from creating a surplus that takes the fear of hunger out of them .

As for other means of feeding people ratfarms,hogfarms,rabbitfarms,mushrooms in the dung cellars,every available pot and bucket filled with soil and potatoted ( stacks of old tires can be used to this end as well )
Insects are very protein rich and I guess cockroaches could be cultivated in a sense .

(yeah..I know..but it is after the nuclear holocaust after all )

look up potato farming -it doesnt require the expertise of most agriculture and it demands little in the way of infrastructure.Good dirt,dung and water will do most of it . Ask Graebearde for number of square feet needed pr person with agricultural program.(Look up the farming thread -his stuff is good ).

give each "farm" or "fishery" a monthly or weekly value and add/subtract after the "RESULT " roll is done .

Lack of fuel or foul weather etc will be bad , but PCs managing to conquer a traincar with fertilizers from marauders will be good etc .

Just suggestions of course .

Some good discussion here guys. Thanks, giving me lost of ideas. :)

HQ - I will definitely simplify it for "maintenance" rolls and such. But my problem now is to try and get a realistic number as a baseline for kg caught per person/day.

I was going to go with something like this:

Fishing from a boat on a large body of water will triple my catch.
Base MoS of 5 as an average - will develop a training cadre to increase the fishermens skill levels.
10hr days

Each fishermen will catch on average 150 "meals" or roughly 350kgs of fish.

This is a "compilation" of both v2.2 and 2013 rules and some assumptions for game "playability".

Anyone have any feedback on those numbers? Good? Bad? :)

As my previous posts tried to imply, seafood (and other sources) are almost certainly contaminated with something, however, if you're hungry, you'll eat anything.

I've got some numbers at home for food requirements and space necessary to support life in a sealed environment. Not a lot of help with collection, but could be useful working out space necessary for crops, animals, etc.
I'll post the link in about 10-12 hours.

Thanks Legbreaker, everything might help. :)

As for contamination, I understand your point. But seeing as most of the commercial style fishing happens in open ocean, I dont see that playing any more of a part then it might now.

A mans gotta eat...

Yes, you've got to eat....
With regard to sailing skills, what's to say all the recreational sailors stayed in New York? If they had a boat, I'd imagine they'd have sailed off into the sunset at the first sign of trouble. Those that stayed are likely to have suffered a similar casualty rate as the rest of the populace in the attack and subsequent famines, plagues, riots, etc which would have added to the impulse to get out in any way possible, and a boat ride is a lot better than walking!

Since '97 those few remaining would be exposed to piracy as well as kidnapping, etc (sail for us or else).

Numbers would be small at first...not everyone can be a commercial fisherman, just watch Deadliest Catch once and you will know. :)

But as I have said, I would form Training Cadres to ever increase the number of available fishermen/sailors. Of course the same for boats of course. I wont simply be able to field 100 boats with 5000 people as crew to feed millions. :P

But the part I am having problems with is the math. Based on the rules, and game experience, does the math I posted a few posts up work for most people?

As someone who is a math nut I have a problem blessing numbers without a little more research. That being said nothing leaps out at me as being ridiculous.

After a few trips to South Korea, I was amazed at how productive their small, labor intensive, personal gardens were. The largest percentage of their agricultural production is based on family rice farms of 3 hectares (7.413 acres) or less. The fact that these farms are primarily located in mountainous terrain makes it even more impressive.

Hard work plus a culture of self sufficiency lead to this country, which is the size of Indiana and has a population of 47 million, be able to remain a net food exporter as recently as 2002. (I know this is in monetary value not calories, so processed food and meat exports might skew the results, but it is nonetheless impressive.)

I also at one point in the past determined that in terms of sheer calories from grain production alone, the United States could feed the T2k canon population 2000 calories a day with something like 11% of prewar production. This excluded all meats/fruits/vegetables/nuts and fields which were purposely left to fallow to keep prices artificially high. It also did not include newly gardened areas. (I really wish RPGhost had not purged that post, as it was A LOT of work. Oh well that wont be an issue if I decide to do it again).

All of this information has radically changed my opinions of how many people can be fed from a small area. I know this makes me one of the more optimistic GMs in terms of food production, but I like my numbers :D.

I'm as optimistic as you are but that's only because I already witnessed how much food you can get even from a small garden. What you'll lose the most in a T2K setting will be diversity. What can be a real problem, however, is the weather and planting planning.

A good inspiration for that could be "Reign of Fire". I love the dragons but the community is exactly what I would expect a T2K community to be. The military unit is also great using all kind of equipements.

http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3g.html
Don't know how much use it'll be, but that site contains just about all you'd even need to know about life support, food and water requirements in a closed environment (ie spaceship or base).
Stumbled across it while researching for my Aliens game.

Agreed, i think 100k people would be underfed. A major population area isnt the place to be.

Most people, civilians, wouldnt know or even think some foods could be contaminated.

Soldeirs, scientists and others who knew there was a chance of food contamination would either move on or do what they gotta do ...

The 'strong" would make sure there food was of a higher quality.

If your into fishing, dont forget grenade fishing.

kalos72, do you have 'Armies of the Night'? It is very useful to anyone running a campaign in NYC. I know you are mostly looking for info and stats on fishing and food consumtion, but I find no information in the module that indicates fishing provides food for the survivors in Manhattan. Here are a few notes from the module.

Many thousands (tens -of-thousands?) of NYC's inhabitants are virtual slaves under the yoke of the Mayor or another gang. These slaves are certainly underfed.

Cockroaches are mentioned; "roaches are an important source of food. As edible as any other arthopod, they are much smaller than lobsters-but far more numerous, and considerably easier to trap."

Pigeons are present in the millions, and use the lower tiers of buildings that had their windows blown out by blast damage or vandals.

Rats are another pest that Manhattan's residents call lunch.

The gang that took over the Seaport Museum uses captured sailing vessels to raid nearby farming communities on the East and Hudson rivers. Food is the primary target of these raids.

Rovers seem very active in searching buildings for lost or forgotten caches of food. During the build-up to the nuclear war many residents stock piled food and water. When the bombs fell on the Thanksgiving holiday, many people were away from the city, and never made it back to thier pre-war stash.

In the street markets of Manhattan T2K a 9mm pistol is worth 35 kg of canned/ domestic food, while an M16 is valued at 120 kg.

Though it is never mentioned, I always imagined that many people fished from shore, bridges, or docks as best as they could manage with improvised poles and throw lines.

I just wanted to give you some of this info. I think it is cool if you want to make fish a major part of the economy in your game. This could lead to all kinds of game hooks like controlling the vibrant fish market(s), communities that specialize in salting/smoking fish for preservation, fishermen who are attacked by pirates etc.

I had a campaign in NYC once years ago where the players tried to set up a supply line to import wheat-flour and bake bread on a large scale. This baked bread would have been distributed among the poor peaceful communities to encourage the locals to support the players. This never really got past the planning stages, although the team did recon several retail and commercial bakeries.

The problem with these types of plans is that NYC is one of the most violent, desperate places on earth, where the strongest gang-members carry multiple firearms and are veterans of the streets. Gun battles among a landscape saturated by hard cover and dangerous terrain is serious business, and my players managed enough bad luck to spend about half the campaign recovering from one serious wound or another. Good times.

In my campaign the PCs caused so much mayhem at the markets they attended in NYC that the frequency of market gatherings sharply decreased and the PC's party were pretty much persona non grata.

Actually not off by much, as vegetable/truck farming is the main type of farm in the area. Potatoes are one of the major crops on LI, or use to be. A few acres of spuds can feed a LOT of person, at least filling them with carbs.

And roof top gardens are a very good idea... They might not supply the calories/carbs needed but are an excellent source of the vitamins/minerals needed. There are more gardeners in the Big Apple than we realize. It's just a challege.

ORGANIZATION under a strong leader is what will make the difference in long term survival of any area, not just NYC.

Also think New Jersey, across the river. Outside the city is expansive farming. They don't call NJ the Garden State for nothing. Also CT.

As for fishing, it's more a hit/miss affair than farming/gardening. Most of the east coast fisheries have suffered increasingly in the past century, but a few years after the oops they might breed back up. There's boats operating out of the area though not as many as further east or south.

Here's some data you might not like, I didn't. I just got back from eight days on the gulf. We shore fished.. seven of us. We came back with ONE sizeable fish. Now I realize under 'survival' conditions I would count the hardheads and mullets we caught as food. Mullets were easy with a cast net, but under survival conditions with EVERYONE trying it the source will rapidly be depleted.

I think your rule of thumb will be good. The amount of fish consumed per meal though seems high.. Were I running the show real life, there would be stew/soup where the only thing going to waste was offal, scales and bones. Definately a time for some source of potatoes. Fish is a source of protien, usually not much energy in them unless they are an extremely oily fish. And you'll still need other vegetables/fruits for vitamins, or you population is doomed. Scurvey etal will come to take them down hard. I know this is a game, but it's something that should be considered when figuring food consumpiton, as all food is NOT created equal.

BTW it all depends on the crop and method of production as to how many acres will support one person. With a 'modern' yield on spuds at 10 TONS per acre and figuring stuffing five pounds away per person daily (I can't imagine that, but then I'm not in a survival starving situation) your can feed ten people on spuds a year.. Using more conservative yields, such as I do from pre-ww2, where yield was ~4-5 TONS per acre your down to 4-5 persons per acre. It was mentioned spuds are easy to raise, BUT remember what happened in Ireland ~150 years ago. When I do yields I take the conservative yield as a starting point, then use my concocted table to determine what kind of yield's available based on seasonal weather, experience of the workers, and just plain luck.

Grae;

About fishing, I wholeheartedly agree on the fishing. However if some enterprising person were to start some form of aquaculture then that could produce a regular source of fish protein. As I have said several times the raising of muscles is pretty easy, hell they are a pest in and around my marina, leave a line in the water and in a week it will have small muscles growing in a month, they will be the size of your thumb.

So, raising fish is a possibility, those private koi ponds now are private fish ponds. Or in New York, they have water tanks and swimming pools atop some buildings, these, could they not be converted into ponds for raising fish like Carp, Koi, Eels and other fish that can live in stagnant water?

And as for fishing wild.

Shore fishing and other areas would surely be depleted. this goes to reason as the remaining people would have the most access to these areas.

HOWEVER!

With the breakdown of mechanization and transportation networks, would not the traditional fishing grounds out to see have a break from the constant fishing? And thus they would have a year or two or three recovery with only a fraction of vessels making the now long and dangerous journey to them. And then, those vessles will be less mechanized and much smaller than the larger vessels and even fishing fleets that sail today?

Instead of a vessel that holds fish on the scale of 30, 40 or even 100 tons of fish, they now hold 1/10 of that?

And then once things become semi organized through private communities or someone pulls it together and they use modern large sail boats as we discussed earlier they would not be able to stay out as long or carry as much so their impact would be signifigantly less which would be a benefit for the offshore fishery allowing it to recover by giving it a break, something that it really hasn't had since the begining of thei ndustrial age.

Jes.

I concur, but the drawback I see with the aquaculture in NYC is winter. The tanks/pools would more than likely freeze, though probably not solid. The species selected would have to be tollarant to colder waters. The cold cycle will also slow down the growth of the fish. But hell, it sure is worth the try. If nothing else you 'store' the catch in the tanks since you don't have refigeration to speak of?

I do wonder if the water tanks would freeze or at least freeze solid. Since if they are in water tanks atop buildings or roof top pools they would freeze as if they were at ground level. Couple that with insulation, after all, they use those tanks for regular water in the buildings as it is. worse case scenario there should be plenty of insulation from abandoned buildings you could scavenge. And then, put a jacket over them much as one would a jacket on their water heater. As for swimming pools, they have solar insulation covers that work really well.

Another option is build a greenhouse over it. And then of course since they won't freeze solid, many fish slowdown or do almost dormant and will simply sink to the bottom. Carp and Koi do this regularly, agan a fish that can survive in a pond or tank without running water.

I am also wondering if one could turn the tops of other buildings into nothing but a greenhouse. An example, remove the roof but leave the walls, and totaly empty the top floor which is now exposed and turn it into nothing but a garden, the walls would give some protection from winds and even put in a skylight to turn the entire floor into a greenhouse.

Other examples as like I said grow vine plants, on ledges and balconys, but also build lond narrow catwalks that are really large planters between and just below most windows, making them run from one window to the other with a wide plank as a walkway so persons can tend them.

I have wondered and thought that a large building if down right could be a self sufficient castle really. Remove the non weight bearing walls and floors of the bottom two or three floors so it is difficult for someone to get up to your area which would be the upper floors.

Or one could just burry them in solid ruble but again you would have to remove all means of gaining access from the bottom to the upper floors. And then you now have a tower that is defensible, you just drop rubble or what not down on any attacker.

Collect rain water, or have a series of pumps pumping ground/well water, pumping from the well to a lower level tank, and from there to another tank several levels up and so on until you reach the top. And then of course your gardens in large oversized planter boxes/catwalks and the roof with its fish pond and greenhouse.

Another idea would be to have drawbridges to neighboring buildings as a means of moving from one to the other without dealing with the scavengers and hostiles of the ground. Thus, you would now have a people of the sky.

All relatively good ideas in principle, however materials and manpower might be a bit scarce to put them into practice. I can see however a handful of buildings having some of the ideas implemented - those in the heart of strongly held areas.

Fish, while a great idea (and one I'd definately be working towards) has it's own problems - where do you get your stock in the first place? Isn't the waterways around NYC seawater in which case you've got real problems keeping the water in your tank/pool/etc from simply killing your fish.

Freshwater fish solve that issue, however it raises another - where do you get enough live freshwater fish?

All problems can be surmounted given time and resources, but I don't see them as available in the first 5-6 years after the nukes, possibly even longer.

There are several rivers that run into the harbor. As well as the water tanks atop many buildings.

As for fish, koi ponds are not that uncomon ornamnental, as well as carp and similiar fish can be found in small backwater tributaries. Simply catch a few, toss them in a bucket and transport when you are done and go from there. I would also toss in some water vegetation as well.

Rivers are usually salty for quite a distance from the sea....
Chances are you'd have to travel dozens of miles to get to relatively fresh water unless there was some impediment to sea water mixing with the fresh such as a weir or dam.