BAY 1 · TROUGH A
Empty trough
RING STATION KESTREL · HYDROPONICS DECK 3
Orbital Orchard
Twelve orbits. One turning torus. The sun comes round the ring once, and then the season is over.
Match the crop to the light
Every orbit the sun steps 30° round the ring: one bay faces it dead on, the far side is night. Each crop wants a band of that light. Plant it badly and you get slow growth and Grade D fruit.
Ration the loop
Water and nutrient are finite and life support takes its cut. Six duty stints a pass, and standing crops drink whether you tend them or not.
Catch the blight early
Twice a season spores land in a bay. Cull them under half virulence and you lose a bay. Let it ripen and it takes a whole quadrant. Ship 52 crates with one quadrant or fewer lost to be certified.
A D walk the ring · W S cross the deck · E work a trough · Space advance the orbit
DECK CLOCKED
Paused
The ring keeps turning. Your pass does not.
GROWER'S NOTE
How the ring works
Light
Light angle is measured from dead-on sun. On orbit n, bay n gets 0°, the bays either side of it 30° a step, and the far side of the ring 180°. The gauge under the console shows where this bay sits and where each crop band falls on that scale.
Growth
Crops take one step per orbit, at a rate set by light match, water and nutrition. Sunvine and Emberpepper finish in two orbits, Crownmelon and Lumenfern need three. Bad light slows growth as well as spoiling the grade.
Duty stints
Six actions an orbit: plant, flush a bed, charge nutrients, scout, lift a crop, cull. Harvesting is free. The condenser tap stands in bay 4 and the nutrient hopper in bay 9; each costs two stints.
Blight
Outbreaks land on two seeded orbits, always in a bay that has crops. Virulence climbs a third every orbit. Cull under half and the ring is saved, with two crates of salvage. Past full it burns the quadrant and the spores jump to the next one.
Grades
Light match sets the grade and the crate count: A pays 1.7×, B 1.25×, C 0.85×, D 0.4×. A well-watered bed adds a quarter again. Lifting a crop returns a little water and nutrient as biomass.
The reckoning
After the twelfth orbit the ring is audited. Fifty-two crates with no more than one quadrant lost is a certification. Anything else is struck from the register and the torus is re-tasked for cargo.
FINAL RECKONING
Orchard certified
| Orbit | Sun | Lifted | Total | Ripe | Log |
|---|