Reply To: Need of beryllium and other rare materials for Focus Fusion

[Rezwan]

In farmville, the mechanics of farming are key.

Likewise, with fusionville, we can build the game around the mechanics of setting up a fusion lab. We have a variety of reactor types / experimental approaches to choose from – so the players get a choice of what type of facilities to work in.

Naturally, those people who want to “farm” with a tokamak will need really huge facilities. So they’ll have to go in together with a lot of other people to make the huge thing. This will be an important design factor – figuring out how much things “cost” so that proportional “fusioncash” is used for each reactor.

This will give people a sense of proportion. You’ll be able to SEE that one ITER costs as much as hundreds (thousands?) of smaller scale research endeavors.

Other reactor types can get off and running with smaller teams and resources.

Activities revolve around:

Pulling together the resources,
physical infrastructure
instrumentation,
power inputs
people with skills and resources (recruiting other players to your team)

Running experiments,
Sustaining damage to the machine – and repairing it
coming up with new fixes and ideas for improvement of the machine
Diagnosing what’s wrong with the machine

Getting fusion results
Experimental machines do achieve fusion – we just don’t have net energy yet.
So…the game machines also get fusion, and that’s one way to get points. Measuring your neutrons or alpha particles – coming up with ways of harnessing the output energy. Also, for those trying aneutronic experiments – different output is measured (not neutrons – except at stage 1)

False results:
Of course, you can have breakdowns and defective parts with all of the above, so your instrument doesn’t work (we’ll have a randomizer added to the game to alert you that it’s not working, or you may notice anomalous results).

Peer review
You can also publish false results and see how long it takes for people to peer review you back to reality.

Actual results from the real world:
The game could be set up to be linked to real world events. In other words, as a real fusion project goes forward, the homage project in fusionville gets to incorporate the results – we’ll have to set up an algorithm for that. So, if a project in the real world shows an improved density-confinement – you get a boost in your game, and your stocks go up. If your real world project starts breaking down, you likewise lose energy points.