Realistically, Ridge was quite surprised by how little the resource usage was for the many buildings they were creating, and at some point he had begun to question if he was perhaps not pushing the crew enough to get many more things done.
Unfortunately, his sense of caution, while great in many ways, was also a flaw for him. It's this caution that left him thinking it would be a great idea to keep stockpiling the resources and use them here and there rather than just throwing them back into the base recklessly.
It was always a thought in the back of his head, but he wasn't quite sure how to act on it yet.
Since his little conversation with Lind, he had finally been put back into action, so to speak, by helping Caroline organize the labor and also doing some himself. Usually he would be bored out of his mind waiting for others to complete their tasks, so finally he wouldn't be patrolling and training all day. Not that he stopped doing those things even now.
The first thing that took priority was the cannon towers on the wall. To put it simply, they only needed to be reinforced, and a blueprint wasn't really needed for that, so Caroline just had the men and Ridge haul over some materials using the trailblazer and a relatively basic trailer that they fashioned up using some of the felled wood and newly refined metals.
It was these low-effort additions that added quite substantially to the efficiency of everything. After all, they stockpiled quite a few resources at the outpost and had been slowly bringing them over to the main base before. Now things were at the very least three to four times quicker, which would only speed up construction.
Letting out a grunt as he dropped the final materials from the trailer, Ridge quickly made his way over to the on-site inspector, who ensured they had everything needed.
"That should be all the materials needed. You guys can get started once everything's in order; don't hesitate to send out a message if you need anything else," he told the inspector.
"Thanks for the help, sir, and will do."
Hearing his reply, Ridge nodded and left to continue grabbing materials from the stockpile; this time it was going to be for the houses.
The order in which they were grabbing the materials was also the order in which they would be building projects. The reinforcements on the wall took priority merely because they already had most of the cannons assembled, or, to be more specific, the parts of the cannons ready to be assembled, and it was also the only project that was bolstering the base's defences, so in Ridge's eyes it would always take priority over everything else.
He spent most of the day and then the following week doing transportation; occasionally he helped out with the buildings themselves, though the engineers were doing a great job teaching the others how to build things, so at some point he had withdrawn himself primarily for the benefit of the others. If they got the hang of building and grew more and more proficient, it would only help the base.
A progress report within that week had also been sent to his wrist panel from Lind, though it wasn't anything amazing.
'Progress Report on Becke:
Patient has exhibited no signs of resistance to my experiments, even when he is awake and should be aware of the pain; he doesn't scream or seem to feel it. Perhaps the transformation into a humanoid fungus messes with the body or has at the very least turned his pain receptors off.
He does, however, still seem to have some kind of nerve system intact, as he can still feel sensations. Perhaps the fungi species has specifically evolved to create soldiers to fight without pain. Either way, it's an interesting discovery.
His healing factor, as we both discovered when you last visited, is that he was able to heal from most wounds; however, the bigger the wound, the slower the recovery. To push this even further, I cut his entire arm down from the shoulder to his hand. Still no blood, as expected; however, it took a total of three days for it to heal completely. There was, interestingly enough, a scar that also healed after another day passed.
Finally, it would seem that his ability to recover heavily relied on some kind of energy reserve which presumably builds up from eating things. It's highly possible that if he had more energy from food or something else, his healing would have been much quicker. Will try and test that theory soon. Lind Out.'
Reading the report, Ridge rubbed his chin in deep thought. He really didn't want to keep Becke within the base for much longer, but it would seem they would need to delay killing him off once again. The progress was much slower than he would have liked, but that's just how things were when you had no advanced machines to help out, not to mention only one scientist working on it.
This thought eventually led Ridge to remember the starch project. They had, with great speed, built mostly everything they needed to build so far, which included the Greenhouse, so he was curious if the science side of that project was done being researched.
He stretched as he got up from his bed; looking down, he saw that it was the second of the fourth month already. They had been here for quite a while now; he was just glad they didn't lose more people within that time.
He skipped breakfast this time around and decided to head straight to the laboratory. As usual, he greeted the workers who passed and were going to the cafeteria before he stepped outside.
The sight that greeted him as it opened was quite different from the usual view. Besides the usual laboratory placed in the north within the walls and the water plant in the west, there were now fourteen houses a little south of the very center of the base. They had pretty much decided that the south of the base would be residential, the north research, and the east mostly empty for now. That side of the base only had a gate and road leading to the parked battleship. Perhaps they could build something to help expand the capacity of the base's power grid.
Coming out of the new houses, Ridge had quickly noticed that the soldiers and normal crew seemed to be much happier, evident by the smiles they were showing; he was glad, though ever since they got here it was quite hard to see smiles during everyday life.
Shaking his head of these thoughts, he headed north and entered into the laboratory.
Inside, Hopi and Ryan were both examining a plant. The first thing Ridge noticed was its slightly bushy form and thick leaves, but below that he also noticed elongated tubers which were smooth and seemingly dense. Even without soil clinging to them, the thick roots looked heavy with starch.
Hearing him come in, Hopi turned and let him get a better view. "It's a success, Commander, well, the best we can do for now given the time frame."
"How's the performance? Is there any way to know?" he asked curiously as he took it in his hand. As expected, it felt like it had some weight to it.
"Using some of the computers, we were able to simulate that within the greenhouse; at the very least, each plant can produce four to seven kilograms or two point seven to four point seven food units of usable starch per harvest cycle.
The biggest downside for us is that each cycle is around seventy days," she paused.
Frowning slightly, Ridge asked a question before she continued, "Is there any way to bring that down at all? And also how much is a full greenhouse able to grow?"
"Unfortunately, no, at least not with our current tools and ability. As for the amount tallied up from each plant. So long as we use up all the space and take good care of the plants, it should be around 200 food units per cycle. Considering the amount of time it takes per cycle, I think it would be a better idea to build at least one or two more greenhouses. The tradeoff is worth it, in my opinion. It won't solve the food problem, but it will certainly stretch the days till we have to worry about starving to death. Which allows us to build more greenhouses or research better plants with a shorter harvest cycle." She answered.
Slightly chewing his lip in thought, Ridge nodded, "Yeah, alright, plant the seeds right away and make sure to teach some of the crew how to care for them; I'll have to talk with Caroline about building at least two more of these greenhouses."
"Got it, sir."
Ryan had been silent this whole time, but as usual, Ridge attributed it to his introverted nature, so after giving them the green light, he returned to the main building to find Caroline and let them get to work.
Because the checkup didn't take long, he was able to find her quite quickly within the cafeteria, still eating; once again, her appearance only made it easier. That, and the fact that only the higher-ups of the base sat at the table where she was sitting.
Besides her, he also saw George and Yayha, who had likely just finished eating, considering they had no tray in front of them.
He walked towards the group.