Ammonia water worlds
- Thread starter Phongsalt
- Start date
What are these?
Some pics & stats would be nice.
I assume an "ammonia water world" would be a Water World with a high ammonia content in the atmosphere. They look like regular Water Worlds, except the high ammonia content makes them look brownish (or purplish under a red star) rather than straight blue.
They are more valuable than Ammonia Worlds because they are still Water Worlds, despite the noxious atmosphere. Water Worlds always pay more than Ammonia Worlds, presumably because their ecosystems are water-based so are more likely to be amenable to exploitation and colonization by humans. Some high-ammonia Water Worlds are classified as Terraformable, meaning they could be given a human-tolerable temperature, pressure and atmospheric composition once the ammonia is all stripped away.
The funniest examples are Terraformable Water Worlds with high ammonia content in the atmosphere, and "ammonia magma" volcanism. Good luck turning off all those noxious volcanoes, guys.
They are more valuable than Ammonia Worlds because they are still Water Worlds, despite the noxious atmosphere. Water Worlds always pay more than Ammonia Worlds, presumably because their ecosystems are water-based so are more likely to be amenable to exploitation and colonization by humans. Some high-ammonia Water Worlds are classified as Terraformable, meaning they could be given a human-tolerable temperature, pressure and atmospheric composition once the ammonia is all stripped away.
The funniest examples are Terraformable Water Worlds with high ammonia content in the atmosphere, and "ammonia magma" volcanism. Good luck turning off all those noxious volcanoes, guys.
Oh yeah, sorry.I found a system a ways back with three waterworlds,one of which was the standard type similar to sol 3,another was Ammonia water world with standard atmoshere, and i think the third was ammonia ww with ammonia atmosphere.I'll see if i can dig out some pix.or take more next time i encounter one.
The only reason for ammonia worlds having high priority is Thargoid related, as far as i know, so i'm assuming such a system would have potential for a Thargoid spawning ground/home world.
The only reason for ammonia worlds having high priority is Thargoid related, as far as i know, so i'm assuming such a system would have potential for a Thargoid spawning ground/home world.
Deleted member 38366
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AFAIK everything Thargoid is hand-placed and updated only during Thursday's Server Maintenance periods.
Ammonia worlds (against all lore) apparently play no role and Thargoids have never shown any interest in them. One would expect at least some mild connection - but there seems to be none, at least not in-game.
And for all I know... there's no such thing as an "Ammonia Water World" (?)
Only Ammonia Worlds.
The Codex has a bug though (unsure if it's fixed already) that can list an Ammonia World as "Terraformable" as a separate Codex entry.
On top, many "Ammonia Worlds" have no trace of Ammonia in their (bugged) Atmosphere, which is a very old additional bug of Stellar Forge.
Ammonia worlds (against all lore) apparently play no role and Thargoids have never shown any interest in them. One would expect at least some mild connection - but there seems to be none, at least not in-game.
And for all I know... there's no such thing as an "Ammonia Water World" (?)
Only Ammonia Worlds.
The Codex has a bug though (unsure if it's fixed already) that can list an Ammonia World as "Terraformable" as a separate Codex entry.
On top, many "Ammonia Worlds" have no trace of Ammonia in their (bugged) Atmosphere, which is a very old additional bug of Stellar Forge.
I don't think ammonia being absent from the top 3 components of an ammonia world's atmosphere is a bug, any more than water not being in the top three of a water world or earth like's atmosphere.
Deleted member 38366
D
Well, the Planet Description clearly states "Atmosphere type : Ammonia and Oxygen"
However, the actual Atmosphere :
Dunno.... No trace of either in the Atmosphere. Doesn't compute. Instead, this one has an Atmosphere type : Nitrogen and Argon.
I'm guessing this is what the OP is referring to. Both the one selected and the one next to it are listed as having ammonia based atmospheres. I found really quite a lot of this type of WW on my last exploration trip.
And this is what it looks like...
Some of the others were even browner looking than that. Hard to identify as water worlds at all.
And this is what it looks like...
Some of the others were even browner looking than that. Hard to identify as water worlds at all.
To me, it's kind of like describing Earth's atmosphere as "water and oxygen", when neither water nor oxygen are a majority component of the atmosphere; they're simply the necessary components for the local ecosystem to survive. It's a xenobiological label, rather than a planetological label. In Falconfly's example planet, the atmosphere is so thick that even a trace of oxygen and ammonia is enough to sustain life.
So it's not really a "bug", rather an error or misunderstanding in nomenclature and classification.
Well, there are some "mild" connections: Thargoid probes are found orbiting Ammonia worlds, and the recent Thargoid incursion did seem to attack space stations orbiting Ammonia worlds (mostly Tourism stations) far more commonly than pure random chance would indicate, given that there aren't very many Tourism stations orbiting Ammonia worlds within the Bubble.
Deleted member 38366
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Hm, I looked at Earth-like worlds to make sure...
And their Atmosphere isn't described as "Water and Oxygen" (which would be incorrect in most cases anyway indeed, being typically Nitrogen and Oxygen; Water Atmospheres in Stellar Forge usually result in huge Atmospheric pressures and very high surface temperatures).
I could swear though that this was the case at some distant time in the past? Unsure but "Water and Oxygen" clearly rings a bell with me, that used to be a thing IMHO.
ELWs read "Suitable for Water-based life", which nicely avoids an all-encompassing or detailed Atmospheric Description. Humans in the 3300's seem to require very little Oxygen, since the lowest ratio of Oxygen on an ELW can be as low as ~3%.
btw. thanks for the Thargoid-Ammonia World heads-up, wasn't aware of that. So there's at least something... better than nothing.
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The actual percentage of oxygen is irrelevant for habitability calculations. What's important is the partial pressure of oxygen. Example: a planet with only 0.5 atmospheres, but with 42% oxygen (twice the Earth percentage of oxygen) in the atmosphere, would have exactly the same oxygen levels as Earth does: a partial pressure of 0.21 atmospheres. The air on such a planet would "feel thin", and Earth-birds and Earth-insects would be unable to fly due to the thinner air, but it would be perfectly breathable indefinitely. Likewise, a planet with twice the total pressure but half the oxygen percentage would have the same partial pressure of oxygen to Earth.
That Earth-like planet in Falconfly's post above, with 0.55 atmospheres and 28.7% oxygen, is dangerously low-oxygen - it has only 0.157 atmospheres partial pressure of oxygen, or the equivalent of 15.7% Earth-normal-pressure oxygen. Humans can survive with oxygen levels that low, so long as they're not physically exerting themselves too much, but it's a very low quality of life. Below 0.14 atmospheres partial pressure of oxygen, even a completely motionless human won't get enough oxygen to prevent mental impairment - they'd be manually concentrating on deep, non-reflexive breathing so much that they wouldn't be able to think about anything else.
I think the cutoff in ED is a partial pressure somewhere around 0.15 atmospheres. That would mean the lowest in-game reported oxygen content of a procedurally-generated ELW should be around 3.6% for a planet with about 4 atmospheres total pressure (the highest total pressure a human can tolerate before the inert gases in the atmosphere become toxic). Such a planet would be super-uncomfortable for an unaugmented human to live on: pea-soup-thick air that made you work hard for every molecule of oxygen you got into your lungs. But even humans could take off and fly, just by strapping some wings onto their arms and flapping.
You might find "ELWs" in the bubble with total pressures way above 4 atmospheres (I think the record is somewhere around 8 or 9 atmospheres) and oxygen levels down around 2% (I believe I have seen such worlds), but those are hand-crafted anomalies that should not in practice exist. The Stellar Forge knows that such planets don't really have "Earth-like" conditions and when it makes such worlds, it doesn't call them "Earth-like".
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Yes,those are good examples.I'll probably have to wait until i get back to find the system map., so it may take a while (always assuming that i make it back in one piece), but thanks for the replies.I still find it hard to get my head round some of the details like terraformables/non-terraformables.
Only terraformable WWs pay more than AWs. The rest are not worth the mapping time.
Must . . . map . . . all . . .
HE HE HE, I got through that disease pretty quickly. Mapping it all makes no sense at all. Not only is it a very low paying "job", you also can't find anything interesting... If only we were able to find something interesting, I'd be glad to spend a week in a single system. As it is... jump!
Haha, I didn't mean EVERYTHING. Just all water worlds.
Why is that?
Because you won't get much credits for them. They pay 800k less than terraformable HMCs. And usually I don't even map those any more.
Naturally, depends on your definition of "worth it" and "being a true explorer". I am rational enough to always ask myself "why am I doing this", so my definitions are (IMO) practical. Also because my gaming time is pretty limited, being a father of three.