Prime Base

[cosmicfish]

Why try and solve this with a single installation? Create a small town out in the middle of nowhere and give it a small number of businesses and residences, all Project-owned, that combine to explain the needed traffic. Have a regional trucking company or other distribution center. to explain trucks going in and out. Perhaps have some kind of communications company that uses the low-noise region to test different antenna technologies, to explain the antennas.

Then run a tunnel a few miles away to the actual Base, housed in an old mine or some such. You could do all pre-war operations through the tunnel, and open the PB main doors from the inside with hydraulic rams when it is safe to do so.

[tsofian]

Originally Posted by cosmicfish

Why try and solve this with a single installation? Create a small town out in the middle of nowhere and give it a small number of businesses and residences, all Project-owned, that combine to explain the needed traffic. Have a regional trucking company or other distribution center. to explain trucks going in and out. Perhaps have some kind of communications company that uses the low-noise region to test different antenna technologies, to explain the antennas.

Then run a tunnel a few miles away to the actual Base, housed in an old mine or some such. You could do all pre-war operations through the tunnel, and open the PB main doors from the inside with hydraulic rams when it is safe to do so.

There is some really great stuff here! The communications company idea is perfect-although it could be a SETI station which means it will have no staff and no one really expects any results, link it up via the "dead" microwave system discussed earlier and I think that the issue with prewar communications is totally solved. The communications array in the middle of no place offers a great clue to help the players find the base.

The issue with the town is that it still provides shelter and the possibility of supplies and salvage for wandering survivors. I see the long tunnel to Prime from the "peacetime" service entrance. It would be deep, over 150 feet. It zig-zags about a bit before it heads to the base, just to mess with folks trying to figure out which direction to Prime Base.

I figure the tunnel either gets collapsed or flooded with water (or both!)

There is still a guard post at the rump entrance of the tunnel.

[cosmicfish]

Originally Posted by tsofian

There is some really great stuff here! The communications company idea is perfect-although it could be a SETI station which means it will have no staff and no one really expects any results, link it up via the "dead" microwave system discussed earlier and I think that the issue with prewar communications is totally solved. The communications array in the middle of no place offers a great clue to help the players find the base.

I suggested a research facility because they would have good reason to avoid people while also having a reason to have a variety of antennas - a fake SETI installation would attract alien enthusiasts and conspiracy nuts and would have a hard time explaining why they have all those other antennas that could only communicate with Earth facilities.

Originally Posted by tsofian

The issue with the town is that it still provides shelter and the possibility of supplies and salvage for wandering survivors.

To a certain extent this is unavoidable - anyplace will draw survivors or scavengers eventually. But the town can be just "over the hill" from any highways and after the war PB could do a lot to divert attention from the facility and move stragglers away.

[nuke11]

Isn't there a ranch just south-west of PB? Soldier Meadows Ranch and Lodge : http://soldiermeadows.com/. It seems to have been there for at least 100 years. Wouldn't this make a decent place to use as a cover to help the base?