Is the human race able to survive Cataclysm?

[azaelous]

Huh, I guess I just heard it from someone else and it stuck hard.

[nameless_survivor]

Nope, studies have shown about 150 people is enough for colony/generational ships and other limited population scenarios.

[Bobdole44]

Dang, that makes for even better odds

[nameless_survivor]

I’ve only got my one tank at the moment (though it has the firepower of like 3). I’ve been considering building or salvaging a couple more tanks and armored vehicles though, in case NPCs ever get the ability to drive or even just for decoration. I’m imagining having rows of tanks and APCs in a big garage, like D-6 from Metro 2033.

[GrandpuhTy]

Is it possible to port your fort and NPCs into Defense Mode? Might be interesting to see how long it’d hold out against unending waves.

[Trigon]

20 women and a freezer full of sperm is actually enough to guarantee genetic diversity for 10-20 generations.

There’s also an island that has a population of 216 that originated from a pool of 15 or 16 individuals. They’re all related and somewhat inbred, but not enough to cause I’ll health effects.

The higher the level of technology the lower the population you actually need since you have artificial insemination and sperm and egg freezing. So previous generations can continue to breed after their death. With optimal models it gets pretty insane.

Honestly the main thing to consider is how rapid the surviving humans can mutate. Everyone being blob infected makes me wonder how that effects the genetic makeup of the subsequent generations.

[kevin.granade]

studies have shown about 150 people is enough

Is that “150 random people breeding randomly”, or “150 hand-picked individuals breeding according to a sophisticated plan”? If it’s the latter, that’s not the scenario you find yourself in in dda.

[Mantar]

I dunno, it might be the situation HE finds himself in, since he’s basically playing tinpot dictator for the last stand of mankind.

[kevin.granade]

Well, considering there’s no way to do genetic testing in the game, I’m pretty sure he hasn’t done it

That’s the thing about the scenario, if you have the resources to hand-pick the “chosen ones”, you have the resources to just recruit enough people to not need to be picky about it. It makes sense for recruiting people from a healthy civilization to found a colony, but it doesn’t make sense to do the same in a survival scenario where there are just a random assortment of survivors to recruit. The only time you’d rationally want to reject a survivor is if they would be unable to pull their weight in the short term (or are a threat to your group).

[Hof1993]

Exactly. It’s world wide best I can tell

[Hof1993]

Eventually a portal will open up on main street of his lil town and shit out all kinds of Hell all over his population. Most people don’t live long enough to see this crap happen. But it does…and will. And we mutants will watch from the hills and laugh.

[GamelyDerping]

Triffids are awfully vulnerable to fire.
Fungus worries me a lot more.

[ecchi_squid]

Only 150 people? Sounds like good odds of getting with a blood relative. Good ol’ anime…

[GamelyDerping]

Well, considering there’s no way to do genetic testing in the game, I’m pretty sure he hasn’t done it

What?!
I have a chemistry set, a dozen nearby not-so-secret-anymore government laboratories, a couple of mostly intact hospitals, an Autodoc, and a Mr Stem Cell. There’s no practical reason that I couldn’t do as much genetic testing as I care to do when the time comes.
That is to say, I don’t have a mechanism to do it in the game in the same way that I don’t have a mechanism for urinating in the game, because that isn’t what the game is about (though come to think of it, there’s an awful lot of useful chemistry that I’d be able to do if I could simply designate a container to save my urine in, in the game). The game is about killing monsters and surviving; it is NOT about reproducing (although @ecchi_squid seems to be tacitly suggesting that he would be happy with more options for reproduction and reproduction related activities in the game), doing medical lab tests, and peeing in the woods.
The fact that I don’t have time to do so in early and mid game does nothing at all to prevent me from doing so once things are better under control if I have a need to do so.

[kevin.granade]

You’re taking this out of context, I was commenting on a specific player and their specific game they were describing.

You’re also ignoring my main point, which is that assembling a small number of specially selected survivors would be basically pointless because you’d expend a great deal of resources doing it, and you’d tend to be much more successful by simply accumulating a larger variety of survivors.

I also disagree that the survivor would be able to do extensive genetic screening with any achievable amount of resources, it takes huge amounts of lab and computing resources to do genetic testing, and that’s just not readily available.

[Bobdole44]

“20 women and a freezer full of sperm”. Thats going to be the name of my new band, or a really low taste reality show

[Mantar]

it takes huge amounts of lab and computing resources to do genetic testing, and that’s just not readily available.

I’ve heard the main bottleneck for that is qualified specialists. There’s not nearly enough people who know how to run genetic sequencing for our needs today.

[Bobdole44]

Bi-planes and fungicide

[Bobdole44]

God#$*#it ecchi. lmao.

[Troll_from_behind1]

Of course they will survive.
Cities will be rised on tracks and they will move from one place to another to avoid hordes or to find better farmland.
The whole concept of man turning dumb after big boom is just plain stupid and repeated in nearly every apocalyptic fiction.
The ONLY thing capable to bring end to mankind is mankind itself.
All we have to do is stay away while the baddies clash and deal with what gets left.
Kinda worried about the old nuclear powerplants and other dangerous stuff left running alone and slowly degrading into potential big boom…