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Post by bigbombr on Nov 22, 2016 14:10:38 GMT
As explained in a blog before the game was released ( childrenofadeadearth.wordpress.com/2016/04/12/why-does-it-look-like-that-part-2/ ), convex shapes are used because the rocket equation is a pain in the ass. You need to use as little mass as possible to armour your spacecraft (and keep the parts together in a structurally sound way) so you can maintain maximum performance. The more dry mass you add to your spacecraft, the worse it performs - acceleration, total range, cross section, turning speed, etc. If you really dislike cylinders, you could go with spheres and accept the efficiency problems with space and radiation. Would be something visually different, though might not be what you are looking for. Wedges (asymmetrical broadsiders) with a sharp angle facing the opponent, and the opposite side having minimal armor and all the radiators.
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Post by Easy on Nov 22, 2016 15:27:53 GMT
What about starship shapes? I mean, there has to be more than rods, bullets and cones, right? In CoaDE I've eschewed radial ship designs. I use one of two engagement directions. Either bow-on or a single strong side where 100% of weapons have coverage. If you have a preferred defensive direction you can have thick, sloped armor in that direction. The underbelly would have much thinner civilian-type protection and is where all the windows and more sensitive equipment, vulnerabilities, docking areas, cargo doors and other protruding equipment would exist. You can do asymmetric armor in CoaDE but, it doesn't let you shape and slope armor in ways such as adding a dorsal ridge. Rolling the strong side towards the threat works very well, until you've got all-round threats, which is a bad situation. We might end up with something that looks like an upside-down ship hull, where the turrets are below the "waterline."
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Post by Easy on Nov 22, 2016 15:40:27 GMT
I present a very silly example of a non-cone spaceship. Pretend the gun turrets have high enough elevation and are sloped.
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Post by subunit on Nov 22, 2016 17:21:53 GMT
I present a very silly example of a non-cone spaceship. Pretend the gun turrets have high enough elevation and are sloped. I'm dying
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Post by beta on Nov 22, 2016 18:08:16 GMT
The general shape is still going to be best as a simple convex shape. Until you don't really care about mass ratios, that's how it will be for high performance craft. Either that, or you only armour the craft in specific parts ie: armour the reactor, crew compartment, and weapons magazine/area, but leave the fuel tanks in between unarmoured. The craft would have a bulging kind of look.
For armour design, I tend to agree that either a strong side or an armoured frontal aspect is ideal. The forward-facing design is great for minimal cross section - avoid getting shot is a good defensive concept.
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Post by Easy on Nov 23, 2016 0:25:26 GMT
The general shape is still going to be best as a simple convex shape. Until you don't really care about mass ratios, that's how it will be for high performance craft. Either that, or you only armour the craft in specific parts ie: armour the reactor, crew compartment, and weapons magazine/area, but leave the fuel tanks in between unarmoured. The craft would have a bulging kind of look. For armour design, I tend to agree that either a strong side or an armoured frontal aspect is ideal. The forward-facing design is great for minimal cross section - avoid getting shot is a good defensive concept. One issue with going nose-on or bow-on is your main engine only really lets you aim or thrust forward. You could have a side-stepping high thrust combat engine for those needs. You'd only need one, since you just roll the ship to aim it. Of course if we're going that route we can just get rid of the engine at the rear and have the main engine in the midsection. Its not like we need to be aerodynamic. I'm sure you've seen the UFO saucer-like designs some people have made.
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Post by srbrant on Nov 23, 2016 5:36:41 GMT
The general shape is still going to be best as a simple convex shape. Until you don't really care about mass ratios, that's how it will be for high performance craft. Either that, or you only armour the craft in specific parts ie: armour the reactor, crew compartment, and weapons magazine/area, but leave the fuel tanks in between unarmoured. The craft would have a bulging kind of look. For armour design, I tend to agree that either a strong side or an armoured frontal aspect is ideal. The forward-facing design is great for minimal cross section - avoid getting shot is a good defensive concept. One issue with going nose-on or bow-on is your main engine only really lets you aim or thrust forward. You could have a side-stepping high thrust combat engine for those needs. You'd only need one, since you just roll the ship to aim it. Of course if we're going that route we can just get rid of the engine at the rear and have the main engine in the midsection. Its not like we need to be aerodynamic. I'm sure you've seen the UFO saucer-like designs some people have made. In the game, I've found that radial engines are incredibly useful in maneuvering, though I'm sure heavy-duty RCS modules may do the same. I'll definitely put those in my series. But since my story is 3500 years in the future, newer technologies would allow for more liberties to be taken in terms of shapes, weaponry and other modules. So some work-arounds or "handwaves" may be necessary. For my work, starship design theory is a careful balance between ships like those in Children of a Dead Earth and The Killing Star versus the ones described in Jodorowsky's Dune or the ones shown in Tenchi Muyo! A few...colorful descriptors of ideal starships from Jodorowsky himself. That man is my idol. He was on...something, certainly, but that man is still a genius. So I just have to mix something like that with something well-grounded in scientific reality.
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Post by lol on Dec 5, 2016 23:11:39 GMT
One issue with going nose-on or bow-on is your main engine only really lets you aim or thrust forward. You could have a side-stepping high thrust combat engine for those needs. You'd only need one, since you just roll the ship to aim it. Of course if we're going that route we can just get rid of the engine at the rear and have the main engine in the midsection. Its not like we need to be aerodynamic. I'm sure you've seen the UFO saucer-like designs some people have made. In the game, I've found that radial engines are incredibly useful in maneuvering, though I'm sure heavy-duty RCS modules may do the same. I'll definitely put those in my series. But since my story is 3500 years in the future, newer technologies would allow for more liberties to be taken in terms of shapes, weaponry and other modules. So some work-arounds or "handwaves" may be necessary. For my work, starship design theory is a careful balance between ships like those in Children of a Dead Earth and The Killing Star versus the ones described in Jodorowsky's Dune or the ones shown in Tenchi Muyo! A few...colorful descriptors of ideal starships from Jodorowsky himself. That man is my idol. He was on...something, certainly, but that man is still a genius. So I just have to mix something like that with something well-grounded in scientific reality. It may at first sound way too hard, but I would recommend you just fuck unbelievium part and go hard sci-fy. Fantasy in space is no longer new and understanding of physics by average person who would bother reading any sci-fy makes it harder to create a plausible total handwavium then to get a basic understanding of how it should work and just drop in a viable torchship such as fusion rocket or open-cycle gas-core NTRs. This actually create a lot more room for plot - with arbitrary powerful drives theere is no actual conflict for resources and so nothing to fight to begin with. On the contrary, torchships, especially OCGSNTRs would naturally create conflict immediately by their sole existence, without even any need to invent plausible motivations for conflict in (assumably) post-scarcity planetary sociopolitic situation. Providing at least (basic)* subsistence for free is a logical guess given a lot more energy is already spent on maintaining life-supporting conditions such as air. In such material conditions politicians would naturally either try to covertly dump useless population, try to make them useful or just leave it as is(but this is highly unstable). This depends on public accountability(which strongly correlates with average education), resource abundance and subsequent balance between spending on cost-reduction and investing in (human)** capital. Cost-reduction means those in power either don't need that much population because it will basically spends resources to maintain itself. There is practical luxury consumption saturation limit above which total benefits of additional production are outweighted by resource depletion. To give a rough IRL analog, luxury shipbuilding production capacity is less limited by potential price limit richest can spend on yachts, but more by limit of being able to provide each customer with one state-of-art(size and etc. limited by current technology of not falling apart while maintaining speed in exess of 50 knots) product in the (practical) shortest possible time limited by diminishing returns of employing more people that will physically interfere with each other when working on a single ship hull. If public accountability is a thing(to be useful they need to be educated anyway), future technological increases in productivity per worker don't nesessary correlate with cost-efficiency of further population reduction because distraction costs rise, so there are steep diminishing returns on this strategy. Population investment depends on how much do elites expect returns on raising productivity per worker and technological limits on what is currently possible. My not pay off when it means increase in resource consumption and loss of control over smarter population. Speaking of habitats on small bodies, public accoutability in small close-knit communitites is real - you live in a few hours of walking distance from ALL potential assasins, and even assuming you are an absolute monarch, employing heavy security and being too seclude is already suspicious enough to raise voices about storming your apartment with blowtorches. These societies will tend to be more democratic because education requrements to live in space are order of magnitude higher than on planet - people need to partake in maintenance of everything around you, lest everyone die and any spare parts are limited by mass to make them, so overspecialisation and and lack of strategic thinking is not plausible. Thus, cost-reduction on population hardly pays off, while investment in making these dumbfucks waste less resorces does. Anyway, public accountebility and mental capacity will naturally evolve in (actually working) democracy of armed people cooperating in face of other armed people fucking absolute nothing everywhere outside the walls, akin to aincient greek polis. Also, small-body requrements apply to interplanetary fleet as well. They have to be fucked in the head enough to sit in a titanium can waiting to arrive to face almost certin death and make decisions on their own as order transmission delay is days. It's one thing to go to sacrifice storming a beach when you can tell youself it's not your desision and you will be shot in your back for desertion anyway and another when you actually fire on enemy offering you VERY(half of the ship price) good terms of surrender in unescapable situation. Not just press a button, but thinking how and where you will die to inflict maximum casualties, planning your death months ahead, while trying to do the little you can to outsmart them and make them incorrectly estimate your intentions. Like starting to plausibly negotiate surrender if their military capacity suddenly increases, so plausibly your own command will be unsure if you are still loyal, plotting transfer to a minor enemy base and midway expending all your dV to a low error margin intercept course to their main fleet for a low-chance suicide attack, hoping to have your remains collide with something of value while their CIWS will be owerwhelmed by everything you throw on them. Fuck that, even ordinary fleet fire exchange in space usually leaves 10-15% of attackers capable of return trip, while defending forces can actually collect small escape pods or let them deorbit themselves. As much as democracy fucks up military, enforcing hierarchy onboard is unfeasible. Somebody is nominally in charge, but level of interdependency means any decision is consensus or near consensus(when we go in >100 crewmemebers territory). This can only work like said by argonabait childrenofadeadearth.boards.net/thread/210/ranks-rfp-spacyAlso, assuming I correctly understood the implications of "formula" you started with, things like sacred band of thebes apply as well. Large bodies are less constrained by resource waste in short-term, but population investments hit PLCL faster and long chains of command allow to lower accountability, not to mention huge competition for power in these chains making it unsafe for middle-high level managers, who will be more complicit to any attempts to reduce it. Long-term resource depletion will be much more devastating to large populations relative to small bodies since their consumption of resorces relative to total amount in solar system is higher. These bodies need to artificially keep population in check(on small bodies, living space and it's quality limits it naturally since they get resorces from outside, such as from uninhabited asteroid) not to turn into shithole. Just look China - totalitarim was always in their culture because otherwise everything turns into shithole(look India). Wast size also means that you either rule with iron fist or not rule at all and hello balkanisation(Russian empire -> USSR -> Russia). Balkanisation above 3-4 countries means lack of strong planetary defence force, which means that a rich asteroid body sends a fleet to demand minerals from everyone under threat of applying those wonderful multigigaton nukes on population centers(note that unlike current COADE, Teller-Ulam bombs are avaliable and their power can be scaled virtually unlimited - main fissle body is nearly stable depleted uranium tamper activated by fast neutrons). Bonus points for bunker-buster designs which can slow down on reentry to 300-600 m/s, penetrate the ground for 15-30 meters and now you've got solid ejecta and seismic waves to deal with. Also, mass entertainment tends to dumb large communities more because of crowd hype effect. As you can see, practical limitations of engines create political conflicts immediately. if that's not enough, consider what would happend how everyone else in the system will be happy when someone with good acess to fissle matherials and piss poor to everything else say fuck everyone and fields OCGCNTRs. When a large totalitarian body sends numerically superior forces(which may or may not have inferior morale depending on type of totalitarism) to exert pressure on some smaller body controlling fissle-rich asteroids this can turn the tides, but system-wide arms race will ensue soon after irrespective of results. Bonus kek for infighting inside major factions and full-scale hot war. As history shows, functional*** democracies can be as much if not more agressive than any totalitarian regime where people in big chain of command, competing their whole life to get out of the dirt into huge(compared to the bottom) power, rights and luxury have a very conservative midset and unvilling to risk it. No ebil eliens needed for a dreaded apocalypse ending everything, while treason and personal dramas are much, much more plausible then when it's simple us vs them win or die. This is a simple suggestion from a person with zero literary experience, so you clearly can come up with something much better if you actually try to keep it scientific. I'm sure, we all can help you with estimating what is plausible and what is not in terms of physics, engines and spaceships. P.S.: You don't need to make a spaceship of a complex shape to make it interesting. It is used to ddos our imagination to increase immersion, but when you actually can say something on how it works, interesting details flesh out themselves even on something as minute as internal EVA walk to maintain a gun. Especially under 0.01 g acceleration. Especially when closing in on enemy under long-range lazer fire and armor above your head is already heating. Oh yeah, dem ammo racks can explode. And enemy railgun drones are also underway. Nasa space benis is boring because they are ultimately fail-deadly, one hit and everyone is dead. You don't need to crudely translate navy into space when you can actually have plausible space warfare. *Electronics are dirt cheap already, e.g.: iphone production cost is somewhere around 5-7$ per unit. Any non-proteine medicine can be sinthetized for shit in bulk quantities with just COADE technology(just slightly more expensive than a diamond hull per unit mass). Living space and nonrecycleable resources are much more constraining even on planets, not to mention mass in space. **iseewhatyoudidthere.jpg ***Elective "democracies" with choice between 2 unaccountable dicks to suck need not apply.
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Post by Easy on Dec 7, 2016 0:47:04 GMT
A lot of good ideas in that post. CoDE has quite a good setting that I color with my Moon is a Harsh Mistress goggles.
You've got lots of tight knit communities that have some major economic focus and supporting cottage industry that provides a lot of independence in each major habitat. Each minor body might not be totally self sufficient, but they can survive several years or more without outside assistance.
I wouldn't expect every asteroid to assemble their own ships, nuclear reactors or highly technical components, but they would be able to manage and improvise with the equipment they have.
Everyone might have access to very powerful 3d printers, machine shop and omni-foundry. But that unspecialized equipment won't work with every material or equipment.
If peace has been the norm the void will be full of civilian transports and working ships with very few "Coast Guard" vessels that primarily do customs duties. The first CoDE is shooting down a vessel that was showing the flag (display of power) in your orbit. That poor corvette was not expecting to be fired upon.
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Post by Easy on Dec 7, 2016 2:39:02 GMT
Design philosophy of the work ships might be interesting. Some would be tiny landers for getting around a large asteroid or around a small group of bodies. Some might be mining or construction/repair focused.
A bit of reliability, durability and local material usage might be major factors. Materials that are plentiful and easy to machine, propellent that is locally sourced.
The belter might not make the NTR or reactor, but they might make the bulk of the rocket and fuel it with water-ice slush.
Then again maybe they just ordered something out a catalog.
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Post by lol on Dec 7, 2016 10:01:31 GMT
A lot of good ideas in that post. CoDE has quite a good setting that I color with my Moon is a Harsh Mistress goggles. You've got lots of tight knit communities that have some major economic focus and supporting cottage industry that provides a lot of independence in each major habitat. Each minor body might not be totally self sufficient, but they can survive several years or more without outside assistance. I wouldn't expect every asteroid to assemble their own ships, nuclear reactors or highly technical components, but they would be able to manage and improvise with the equipment they have. Everyone might have access to very powerful 3d printers, machine shop and omni-foundry. But that unspecialized equipment won't work with every material or equipment. If peace has been the norm the void will be full of civilian transports and working ships with very few "Coast Guard" vessels that primarily do customs duties. The first CoDE is shooting down a vessel that was showing the flag (display of power) in your orbit. That poor corvette was not expecting to be fired upon. >small bodies Would be natural for them to form federations driven by nesessety of being capable of producing own fleet, limited in size by desire to remain independent(another power balance to drive the plot). Assembling nuclear reactors require space and shielding, but is not not that hard. Two critical technologies are pressure forge for vessel and radiation-resistant(if the flux is high)manipulators. The latter we have at ISS, the former is the only piece of machinery hard to assemble in void and stabilize enough not to shake violently. The hardest thing is making a ship hull, since additive manufacturing in void means evaporation so either HUGE hangars, or mass loss. Additive manufacturing in general is physically limited in speed of deposition, unless you have very high pressure(another thing hard to come by in void when dealing with things of this size). Also pressure even of noble gases create imperfections, and your best pick depends on balance between what's left of their activity(they actually make some exotic acids and can be unsafe with some oxidizers), their atomic mass, volume and cost per mole. Thus, only someone totally fucking rich can afford it for monolitihic high-density ship hulls, rest left with fibres, aero(void)gel and thin layers. No kiloton diamonds for plebs. Having a join shipyard, probably, a set of big pressure forges for various matherials(they are single-purpose by design) and similar big investments capable of all this fancy stuff is a valid reason to try to unite. Though single-purpose equipment can be owned by singular bodies in alliance, each specializing in one full cyle(leads to bigger degree of interdependency to be stable, everyone has ultimative bargaining leverage). By the way, even a single asteroid rich in scarse resource such as fluorides* can import any components they need, or, in dire situation, demand under threat of detonating themselves and making gigatons of precious fluorine unminable (and probably kessler) fragments. The biggest problem is energy. Import fissles, mine fissles or die. Mining fissles in space means a lot of mass for shielding of miner ship or drone and complex managment procedures when near habitable bases. Radioactive kessler, or even docking a dirty ship is immediate fuckup of immense proportions, though totally pays up if successfull because lifting fissles, especially if body in question has at least rudimentary athmosphere... Well, what can possibly go wrong? If fusion reactors are feasible, you have to git gud on deiterium or thritium, H+H is useless cuz damn neitrinos. Lithium and shit requires breeder cycle on thorium, or a huge and fucked up stellarator reactor with fuck you magnet arrangement to have a place to put some lithium to irradiate. In general, fusion works for big bodies rich on shit and mass and those on their good side(trade discounts have to be huge to surpass fissles). In general, interplanetary economic equivalent would be fissles, valued as much, as much energy can be extracted. Everything else would be traded for them, or evaluated in them as a sort of currency, credit EEEU stands for extractable energy(avaliable mass defect) equivalent unit. If some body or faction runs reactors incompatible with fuel offered, value of this fuel would be lower for them - they will either have to resell it, or invest in reactors. Yes, natural currencies and their competition, so if you are a die-hard libertarian, you just received a legitimate reason to come in your pants. Oh, prices are also constantly fluid**. Also, naturally decaying one, so reinvest or get fucked, passive savings get rekt m8. Actally, a major power balance too - dependance on some paricular fuel and competition between major players to make smaller players use their fuel a a form of subtle pseudovassalitet. OP, just imagine a Thorium Fuel Unification Convention(TFUC) engaged with Mining Uranium Association(MAU) in a standoff over Jovian L3 refueling facility and fate of fuel prices for neptunian moons depends on figurehead sent by His Majesty Life President of Ceres to mediate the conflict bribe everyone to make these warhawks at least seat at one table unarmed and discuss. Now imagine that said figurehead is irresponsible teenager sent because he is his only son(and successor) and so the only person he can trust with this mission while he deals with his rebel problem. Assuming I read OP correctly, racial issues can turn into PRAISE KEK111 on interplanetary scale at any time, so OCGCNREs are quite expectable whenever someone gets too butthurt, desperate for lebensraum or, Kek forbid, a slightly higher cell repair rate. Expence and time of interplanetary travel means only rich and VERY bored can travel purely for leasure, which means formation of distinct unique cultures in a very short time***. OP, you will miss all these plot possiblities unless you go full COADE. Assuming I read you correctly, presumed biological advances will make perfect sence for global genocidal conflict to erupt, burying everyone incapable of affor ding such fancy things incapable of affording gettig into orbit before shit hits the fan. After all, rich are decadent and if you can fuck with genes to make your life longer****, why not to fuck with genes a bit harder? Also can explain(you sick bastard) why in COADE timescale in a few centuries population on large bodies can raise so high. Also, assuming people on this forum choose avatars not on totally random basis, you will have quite a few people to strongly support you. Some of them, namely nivik, seem to be immensely competent at the fine art of engineering space murder. Anyway, I think I will speak for everyone if I say that we will support you with any possible conflicts eveluation(resource abundance, travel windows and areas for feasible alliances stemming from that shit) - this game needs as much advertisement as it can get, especially since enough monies can get us some multiplayer, there was a good suggestion by Autochton childrenofadeadearth.boards.net/thread/192/coade-mmo We will definitely support you as much as we could, and surely, nivik et al will adjust our general estimations for biological diversity. Basically, we offer you any possible help with worldbuilding to make it fit in COADE as much as possible, so even those who would pirate to try(80%) will buy it afterwards. Even creating campain mods further down the road is possible, assuming campain is not hardcoded(if it is it should be moved out of main code anyway because it's not just bad, it is literally indian programming). JUST DO THE FUCKING THING PLS, WE DESPERATELY NEED SOME POOR CODEMONKEYS TO HELP qswitched. Look at dwarf fortress - raises 6-8k$ each month. The author just keeps creating his eternally alpha masterpiece and lives off that. *fluorine is a scarce fuel for high-efficiency chemical engines, which can be smaller than critical radius of any more or less stable isotope, and be stored indefinetely without decay(small reactors with low criticality reserve have a short shelf life and will either require relatiely heawy shielding, or will fry electronics) **e.g.: amount of platinum given on vesta for a megaton of osmium today is different from amount you get in a year when a good transfer window to ceres occurs and their neptunian moons overlords are nuts on good thermocouples because they need maximum efficiency for millions of fuckers literally freezing or selling their fleet to buy some overpriced fissles with decades of delivery(if not urgent superbrachistochrone and twice overpriced). Or drilling through tens of kilometers of ice to extract some ppb(optimistic) from saltwater under huge pressure. Dem drills need alloys. ***The side benefit is that we will see them added just so OP can write this thing and advertise the game to his cronies fellow gentlemen with fine tastes. From studying niche content economics, they can spend a lot of cash on relevant content. After all, there should be some strong papers on this type of propulsion and if not, they are quite easy to estimate as they are essentially NREs with fissle mass loss, taking into account "relatively simple" gas equations for flow of adiabatically heating(because self-heating in whole volume, heat generation in a spot as a function of radius fromcenter where the flux is highest) gas leaving a chamber depending on cylinder length and width(the parameter of interest is effective molecule lifetime in chamber), adjust free parameters to match avaliable papers. Walls and rods cooled regeneratively by propellant(control rods are hollow and blatantly used as injectors) or even deiterum if used it as expendable moderator and primary propellant(pure UF6 melt the fucking chamber in microseconds). Also fluorine becomes much more desired resorce with applications beyound small chemical engines, niche chemistry and photolitoraphy. ****By plausible 20-30%, but sustaining active life shortly until brain death(you can't modify this part too hard while it functions, lest things will go haywire). 0, why
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Post by lol on Dec 7, 2016 10:02:15 GMT
disregard 0, why
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Post by srbrant on Dec 28, 2016 5:13:18 GMT
The thing about fantasy technology in SF is that it acts as motivation and inspiration for scientists and engineers. Were it not for Star Trek, anyone who wanted to research teleportation, FTL travel or cloaking devices would be laughed out of the laboratory. So I like to aim for that, but also aim for, well, realism. Create ships and colonies that are not only fantastic, but also believable.
As for propulsion - and please forgive me if I already mentioned this - Reaction mass tanks would be noticeably smaller because of numerous advances in engine design and fuel efficiency. Ships would also have their reactors closer to habitat modules thanks to better radiation containment as well.
Regarding colonies, I'm thinking that many of them on airless worlds would be built underground (Like the Vaults of Fallout fame) for a number of reasons, such as radiation shielding, meteoroid protection and greater defense from piracy. Because ship speeds around asteroids and dwarf planets are mind-bogglingly slow, getting to and from warp points would be a pain, meaning that their populations would be very self-sufficient and have to carefully manage their populations to ensure that everyone gets what they need. I imagine they would also have to have a number of tourist attractions to motivate trade and make long STL travel times worthwhile.
And then there's the issue of having to live in a ship for weeks or months on end without going straight-up mad. One of my ideas was a communications module that allowed for FTL internet/TV access and games galore. And if the comms module is on the fritz or there's other communication problems, there's the textbook-sized issues of Helionaut Magazine - the space traveler's quarterly digest. Printed and written especially for long-haul flights.
I'll elaborate on the subject tomorrow, I'm bushed.
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Post by The Astronomer on Dec 28, 2016 14:25:56 GMT
The thing about fantasy technology in SF is that it acts as motivation and inspiration for scientists and engineers. Were it not for Star Trek, anyone who wanted to research teleportation, FTL travel or cloaking devices would be laughed out of the laboratory. So I like to aim for that, but also aim for, well, realism. Create ships and colonies that are not only fantastic, but also believable. As for propulsion - and please forgive me if I already mentioned this - Reaction mass tanks would be noticeably smaller because of numerous advances in engine design and fuel efficiency. Ships would also have their reactors closer to habitat modules thanks to better radiation containment as well. Regarding colonies, I'm thinking that many of them on airless worlds would be built underground (Like the Vaults of Fallout fame) for a number of reasons, such as radiation shielding, meteoroid protection and greater defense from piracy. Because ship speeds around asteroids and dwarf planets are mind-bogglingly slow, getting to and from warp points would be a pain, meaning that their populations would be very self-sufficient and have to carefully manage their populations to ensure that everyone gets what they need. I imagine they would also have to have a number of tourist attractions to motivate trade and make long STL travel times worthwhile. And then there's the issue of having to live in a ship for weeks or months on end without going straight-up mad. One of my ideas was a communications module that allowed for FTL internet/TV access and games galore. And if the comms module is on the fritz or there's other communication problems, there's the textbook-sized issues of Helionaut Magazine - the space traveler's quarterly digest. Printed and written especially for long-haul flights. I'll elaborate on the subject tomorrow, I'm bushed. First question: How scientific-hard is your project? tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MohsScaleOfScienceFictionHardness[Going full science] 1. Yes, sci-fi is one of the main motivations, but plausibility. That's the problem. Cloaking devices are perfectly possible, and is invented. However, there's no way it can enable stealth in space because of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Teleportation would requires quantum mechanic exploitation, and requires VERY, VERY smart Archai to do it. FTL violates Special Relativity, and thus, 'Special Relativity, Casualty, FTL.' Select any two. 2. I know, amat/conversion drives with Li-6 radshield, right? 3. You can, and should be using the brachistochrone trajectories within smaller bodies, because you wouldn't want to wait for the hohmann transfers which could take days around. 4. Most people in 5000 years' time wouldn't even know what a screen is. Their entertainment would be virtual worlds within their spacecrafts where they can upload themselves into one, and even that is possible in few hundred years' time. Communication between star systems is possible with systems of wormholes. Even Orion's Arm wormholes required to be placed far from any big objects, you might take it less serious and place one around every planet, and in larger ships to enable FTL travels and communications.
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Post by The Astronomer on Dec 28, 2016 14:32:21 GMT
...- this game needs as much advertisement as it can get, especially since enough monies can get us some multiplayer, there was a good suggestion by Autochton childrenofadeadearth.boards.net/thread/192/coade-mmo We will definitely support you as much as we could,... Wait, my name is Autochton?
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