Re: Magic to aid farming in space

> In 1820, (yeah, I know, but it was all I could find) 90% of the US
> population
> was rural. By, 1990 the number was less than 10%. I would suggest
> that  farming
> in the 1820's was better, but not hugely better than renaissance
> farming
> techniques. I like the 90% number in that it makes any math very
> easy, but
> understand that it may not be accurate. For renaissance farming
> productivity, I
> would suggest 20 to 1?

I suggest US farming in the 1820s was not better than renaissance, in
fact I suggest it was worse than areas like Europe that had all that
nice support going for so long (like irrigational, canals, Roman
aqueducts...).  The US rural population was hardly all farmers as well.
 There were many prospectors, hunters, etc.  There were also many
farmers who were subsistence farmers and didn't support any cities or
whatnot.  And they had a lot of frontier to deal with while a farming
asteroid is probably pretty safe except from scavvers (until something
that wipes the asteroid out like neogi or illithids comes along but
then you don't have to worry about the farms)--the point is, wandering
animals, bad weather effects, and so on made farming in the US in 1820
much more unreliable than a stable asteroid can handle once it's
infrastructure is set up.

> See above for what may be more "accurate" ratios. Also, from some of
> the
> reading, farmers made what they could, but they couldn't make much.

Actually wasn't there some sort of pre-industrial revolution when
merchants started organizing this rural labor?  As well, many farmers
were nearly self-sufficient.

> From a game perspective, while I like everyday magic in my games, I
> don’t think
> the idea of industrial scale magic works. Not a lot of wizards are
> going to
> make thousands of items when each item takes days to make, and you
> lose
> experience each time you make an item.

Biggest difference here will probably the availability of druids and
clerics but I agree mostly with the sentiment.  The addition of magical
water sources to some asteroids I don't think is too much of a stretch, however.

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