UAs, Barnacles & other mysteries Thread 7 - The Canonn

Status
Thread Closed: Not open for further replies.
Wait what?? ive heard that sound at a crater on that planet only the other day no joke. the crater is beside a canyon and is about the size of about 3 condas?? I never got the XYs myself as i was only there for a bit before some nasty AI pirates showed up and i blasted away but i have heard that noise also!


coords, guys... we need coords to check this thing.
 
It's not realy Morse code ascwe know it though.
It uses high/low pitch, in stead of short/long pulses.
The letters the same every time, but they are rather messy.

It's like someone learned Morse code from paper, but never heard it.


Sorry Han-Zen
wikipedia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequency-shift_keying "In 1910, Reginald Fessenden invented a two-tone method of transmitting Morse code. Dots and dashes were replaced with different tones of equal length.[10] The intent was to minimize transmission time."
 
Ok I've been thinking this through and have possible explanations for the flaws in my previous post. So here we go:

A possible explanation for Unknown Artefacts, Unknown Probes and Barnacles and how they function.

Stage 1 - Star location

The probe creators are aware of one or more exceptionally rare elements in the Galaxy. They know these elements only occur on some Supernovae. Therefore the elements will only occur in Nebulae and other stellar clouds. However the only way to detect these elements is when they they get caught up in the next round of star formation. Thus the only way to find then is in at least 2nd generation stars (following the Supernova that created them). They know the there are as few as one in one Billion stars that contain the elements they seek.

In order to locate such stars they use Class 1 probes (what we call Unknown Artefacts). They distribute hundreds of these probes across a given area of nebulosity. The probes are made up of two key parts: a sensor head and a propulsion unit of 12 cells. The probes are very difficult to manufacture, requiring some rather exotic technology (which may include artificial biology). As such they have a very narrow range of tolerances. They are specifically designed to work in the vacuum of space and at low temperatures. Due to their cost all efforts are made to keep them functioning. If for any reason they find themselves outside of their operational tolerances, they are fitted with highly sophisticated self repair mechanisms which will attempt to use any surrounding matter to stabilise the probe.

Each probe has an effective sensor range of 500 or 1000 light years. Once deployed, each probe begins to meticulously scan all the stars within it's range. In our case the local probes were in this state when we first found them. They did not point anywhere as they were still scanning local space.

In the unlikely event that a probe detects a candidate star, it then uses it's drive unit to move to a pre-determined distance from that star and aligns with it. It then begins to transmit data about the star's location. Hundreds of probes are used in order to avoid possible false positives. When many probes make a detection they will start to form a sphere. It will not a be a perfect sphere as the initial distribution of probes is highly unlikely to evenly surround a candidate star but, it will still be a recognisable shell with all probes pointing at the same star.

When the probe creator then get hundreds of data signals from the same batch of probes, they know they have a confirmed positive.


Stage 2 - Planetary body location


It is not possible to locate the elements from a stellar cloud alone. Thus they need to wait till matter condenses into a star, which emits information, in order to find the elements. Of course, they cannot mine stars. However planets and other rocky bodies form from the same materials so it is possible that a solid body in the star system, if it has such bodies, might also contain the elements. In order to locate such a body a much more powerful probe is required. These Class 2 probes (what we call Unknown Probes) are therefore deployed directly into the candidate system. A long range ship (as that will likely be needed) is despatched with the probes. These probes have two sensor heads which are much more powerful. That cannot even have drive units as that would interfere with their operation. A handful are manually distributed in the target system. These then begin highly detailed scans of all solid bodies in the system. If a candidate body is located, they all point at it and begin transmitting data.


Possible stage 3 - Mining and refining


The host ship, which will still be in system then moves to the target body and begins a manual scan of the surface. If possible concentrations of the elements are detected in a given region on the upper crust a mining unit is deployed. These mining units are non-sentient, genetically engineered, semi-organic factories (what we call Barnacles). These objects partly burrow into the crust and become very secure. Their upper shell is designed to withstand high velocity impacts from meteorites. They then grow down into the crust in search of the elements. If such elements are found they grow long shoots back up to, and through the surface, around the central column. The materials are slowly refined as they are moved to the exposed tips of these shoots. They are then designed to be harvested and will regrow over a few days.

Because even at this stage, the chances of acquiring the elements are still low, if the mining unit finds anything other rare minerals and resources it will extract, refine and push these to the surface as well.


Other thoughts

It has been hinted that the UAs/UPs may not be directly related to the Barnacles. So these could be different organisations that own them, but they might be after the same thing.

This is all of course just speculation on my part to try and explain everything we have observed. Unfortunately it is not very scientific as it does not really suggest an experiment we can do to prove or disprove it.
 
Last edited:
Again paging Canonn - I don't know what to do with this UA, and I see no benefit in selling it on the black market - I can get plenty credits elsewhere through legitimate means.

I'd rather my encounter lead to some kind of good use, maybe some answers too....
 
Aaaaaaaah! I've missed the "seconds" part!
Recently, I'm parking my car 135-150 mt from my house, to be sure to find it again...

Ah, but does your car point to your house?
and if you drop your car on your house which end lands first?
and does it stay vertical or lie horizontally on your house? if you then move it to various rooms in your house does it point to the kitchen?
and have you tried to communicate with it? :eek:

Sorry, I am being driven mad by the amount of sheer speculation with almost zero experimental evidence! This is not science.
 
Ok I've been thinking this through and have possible explanations for the flaws in my previous post. So here we go:

A possible explanation for Unknown Artefacts, Unknown Probes and Barnacles and how they function.

This is all of course just speculation on my part to try and explain everything we have observed. Unfortunately it is not very scientific as it does not really suggest an experiment we can do to prove or disprove it.

I think unknown artifacts are star imploders. The probe is sent out and seeds viable planets with barnacles. These barnacles mine and produce UA's that it ejects into space. Once in space the UA identifies the target star and aligns itself at a safe distance.


A pre-programmed ship id allows said ship to activate the network of UA's, causing all the UA's to activate and collapse the star into a huge hyperspace hole allowing Cthulu entrance into our reality. Or invasion forces of Thargoids.
 
I agree. Morse code as we know it used in an alien artefact seems unlikely.

Well yes, but this is a game after all. They wouldn't make up an entire new language that we'd have to figure out with linguists and stuff. We have to recognize something in it to get a hint as it were. Makes perfect gameplay sense to me if you're trying to 'hide' something in plain sound. If they had an unlimited budget and design team sure...
...but everything they do is designed to be part of a game and they do have relatively limited budget, staff, and time especially compared to say, a national intelligence agency.
 
Ok, some quick calculations on my linear method.

A 10 degree arc flying down a line of longitude is taking 15m at about 285m/s.
For a full line from pole to pole that's about 4.5hrs.

To get the 10 degree separation coverage is 36 longitude lines or 162hrs.
For latitude, only the equator is a great circle, so all the way around would be 9 hrs.
Progressively less towards the poles, let's say 1hr less per 10 degrees, total 79hrs.
Let's round that.

So 250 pilot hours to get 10 degree separation grid coverage of the whole planet.
So 500 pilot hours to get 5 degree separation coverage.
And 2500 pilot hours to get 1 degree separation coverage.

In the process, we'd log every significant canyon system, crater, and mountain on the planet.

Sounds doable to me.
 
Again paging Canonn - I don't know what to do with this UA, and I see no benefit in selling it on the black market - I can get plenty credits elsewhere through legitimate means.

I'd rather my encounter lead to some kind of good use, maybe some answers too....

They are pretty common these days. Not a lot of tests being worked on at the moment. We mostly just stare at them and listen to them..
 
Dont know if people are recording what has been surveyed, but I did -70 -80 to -70 -150 at around 300-500m up. Nothing of note
 

No offense cmdr, but I really think your search protocol is way too wide. I think we would do better focusing all our research efforts in one single database. Did you see the one I implemented yesterday? I'm still adding features, maybe you'd like to add the info you have gathered to it. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1I6sezk6EEBv76P1oFLJQnCk9r4TQwzwBIrIoYjM3kCY/edit?usp=sharing
 
No offense cmdr, but I really think your search protocol is way too wide. I think we would do better focusing all our research efforts in one single database. Did you see the one I implemented yesterday? I'm still adding features, maybe you'd like to add the info you have gathered to it. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1I6sezk6EEBv76P1oFLJQnCk9r4TQwzwBIrIoYjM3kCY/edit?usp=sharing

Mine uses a completely different search methodology. Flying in straight lines instead of criss-crossing a single grid.
The idea of mine is to provide a coarse level of full planetary coverage to start with and then start filling in the gaps.

Should provide redundancy and also a level of confirmation.
 
Wait what?? ive heard that sound at a crater on that planet only the other day no joke. the crater is beside a canyon and is about the size of about 3 condas?? I never got the XYs myself as i was only there for a bit before some nasty AI pirates showed up and i blasted away but i have heard that noise also!

It's always good to get into the habit of taking a screenshot whenever anything weird pops up. I have my screenshot button mapped to my joystick for this very purpose, in fact. Bonus points if you can remember to always keep the nearest celestial body targeted too. That way anytime there's anything weird at all, you always have a record of where.
 
Status
Thread Closed: Not open for further replies.
Back
Top Bottom