Space elevators and Dyson Spheres
- Thread starter Jon Jaymes
- Start date
Pah, what you're looking for is this
http://i0.wp.com/www.ruthlessreviews.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Spaceballs_MegaMaid.jpg
Meh. You can threaten all you want, but you'll never guess the code to my planetary shield.
Good point regarding the habitats - they should usually be much more sustainable and cheaper to build and maintain than orbital platforms or space stations. Gravity is a useful tool to rely on.
When it comes to thargoids, it would be great if they really were fundamentally differrent to human colonisation schemes. So a massive dyson ring or two being their favoured colonisation tool would be exceedingly cool and a wonder to somehow visit without being reduced to your component atoms. On a game-dev front, it would be an "interesting challenge" (a.k.a. likely to be a complete pain in the butt) to actually model and render though. But it would be a defining distinction and could lead to be or as a result of other differences, e.g. thargoid ships tend not to be capable of planetary landings but have different maneuverability profiles as a result (that and alien perceptions and reactions). Conflict would be easy to instigate somehow, for example just the fundamental difference in mentality of races, but also for resources, e.g. "we are going to build a new habitable thargoid ring in this system and we need the resources of the neighbouring systems whether you are willing or not to get out of our way".
FD could have some fun with the thargoid motivations and action/reactions and I really hope they take this opportunity to put something interesting in place.
Fill the void... with life, things and Dyson Spheres !!!
Hope to see more out there... ist empty. Only stars but no one is home. Wanna see other life forms. Planet based and space based.
Nebulas so dense that i have to fly by instruments. Wanna touch the outer layers of the gas gigants. Alien lifeforms. Some dangerous. Other friendly. Other so far advanced that they don´t care for us.
Stuff that make it worthy to go exploring. Black holes should be feared. Wanna chase asteroids for money.
And on and on
What about you ?
Hope to see more out there... ist empty. Only stars but no one is home. Wanna see other life forms. Planet based and space based.
Nebulas so dense that i have to fly by instruments. Wanna touch the outer layers of the gas gigants. Alien lifeforms. Some dangerous. Other friendly. Other so far advanced that they don´t care for us.
Stuff that make it worthy to go exploring. Black holes should be feared. Wanna chase asteroids for money.
And on and on
What about you ?
Can't disagree with you but I'd rather it be science fiction, rather than science fantasy. My belief though is that Frontier Developments have that in their vision.
David Braben has said that one of his dreams is to be able to land on an unexplored planet, get out of his ship on foot or in a buggy and go big game hunting. Bearing that in mind, though we won't be able to land on planets until the expansion comes along, we can at least imagine life already existing on the planets. City lights are a clue to that also.
Immediately the galaxy feels more lived in for me. I do like your idea about "thick nebulas" (perhaps a star is about to ignite) but such star births are unfortunately incredibly rare, in any given galaxy.
I think you can expect more shuttle craft, ground crew and people in the stations, again when expansions allow, but I don't think (and I hope it doesn't) will include "energy based intelligences" and swirling entities that teleport you. However, at some time in the future, it would be a lot of fun to see rare and dangerous microscopic lifeforms that corrode metal, spreading like infection through known space destroying stations, big game trading, Thargoids, of course, asteroid-planet collisions and moon quakes.
+1
David Braben has said that one of his dreams is to be able to land on an unexplored planet, get out of his ship on foot or in a buggy and go big game hunting. Bearing that in mind, though we won't be able to land on planets until the expansion comes along, we can at least imagine life already existing on the planets. City lights are a clue to that also.
Immediately the galaxy feels more lived in for me. I do like your idea about "thick nebulas" (perhaps a star is about to ignite) but such star births are unfortunately incredibly rare, in any given galaxy.
I think you can expect more shuttle craft, ground crew and people in the stations, again when expansions allow, but I don't think (and I hope it doesn't) will include "energy based intelligences" and swirling entities that teleport you. However, at some time in the future, it would be a lot of fun to see rare and dangerous microscopic lifeforms that corrode metal, spreading like infection through known space destroying stations, big game trading, Thargoids, of course, asteroid-planet collisions and moon quakes.
+1
yea, the idea of finding something extraordinary is great. but it has to be extremely rare.
the possibilities are basically limitless. huge abandoned alien space stations, giant alien spacecraft, giant planets that are broken in half (dunno if this is physically possible though), humongous asteroids ala star wars episode 5 or even huge alien lifeforms that eat asteroids.
like, generally i'd like to see ginormous things. currently, the only really big things are stations. i'd like this to get expanded.
the possibilities are basically limitless. huge abandoned alien space stations, giant alien spacecraft, giant planets that are broken in half (dunno if this is physically possible though), humongous asteroids ala star wars episode 5 or even huge alien lifeforms that eat asteroids.
like, generally i'd like to see ginormous things. currently, the only really big things are stations. i'd like this to get expanded.
Jep... like the Badlands in Star Trek. Would be fine to see this or something like this. To the starbirth thingy. There are a lot of these areas out there. Dense areas where many newborn star are around. But to see the remains of a supernova or novae would be cool too...
So much options. Hope we don´t have to wait a year or two to see this. I fear that a lot will shift to SC if the persistent universe is online. And that will be prox. in a year.
But i think they work hard at FD. Let us hope the best !
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I second all of this !!! Everything that gives us lore will be great. Hope to see rare ship equiment too. Or rare ships... Pew pew is good and i like it but not for a year or so on. Need new stuff.
So much options. Hope we don´t have to wait a year or two to see this. I fear that a lot will shift to SC if the persistent universe is online. And that will be prox. in a year.
But i think they work hard at FD. Let us hope the best !
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I second all of this !!! Everything that gives us lore will be great. Hope to see rare ship equiment too. Or rare ships... Pew pew is good and i like it but not for a year or so on. Need new stuff.
Yes x infinity.
The galaxy is mind-bogglingly vast. Why would we expect homo sapiens to be the only intelligent species in it?
Things I'd like to see:
* Dyson spheres
* Alien space probes (perhaps self replicating and/or hostile "berserker" types that would attack resource sites, attempting to build a swarm)
* Alien ruins / abandoned space stations / ship graveyards
* Primitive planets with 20th century level technology that you can land on and annoy/make first contact with the locals
* Weird and wonderful alien factions
* The odd super rare stable wormhole / jump gate
The galaxy is mind-bogglingly vast. Why would we expect homo sapiens to be the only intelligent species in it?
Things I'd like to see:
* Dyson spheres
* Alien space probes (perhaps self replicating and/or hostile "berserker" types that would attack resource sites, attempting to build a swarm)
* Alien ruins / abandoned space stations / ship graveyards
* Primitive planets with 20th century level technology that you can land on and annoy/make first contact with the locals
* Weird and wonderful alien factions
* The odd super rare stable wormhole / jump gate
Deleted member 37733
D
Sounds like the zombie plague from Wrath of the Lich King, and we all know that went down a storm. [/sarcasm]
Some of your other ideas are a bit better though.
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You have to admit though that there is not a lot of point spending development time on something not many people are going to experience.
I agree, completely. I am currently playing with concepts for several alien life forms based on something other than carbon-water or carbon-ammonia biochemistry. If I don't get bored or stuck with numbers (it's a tough subject for someone who used to run from chemistry classes), I might post something relatively elaborated here.
Chemists among us will probably laugh, tough
Chemists among us will probably laugh, tough
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I was thinking Andromeda Strain .. continuos degradation of ship systems, needing regular repairs or a complete overhaul to "disinfect"?
Will be interested to see these ....
I agree, completely. I am currently playing with concepts for several alien life forms based on something other than carbon-water or carbon-ammonia biochemistry. If I don't get bored or stuck with numbers (it's a tough subject for someone who used to run from chemistry classes), I might post something relatively elaborated here.
Chemists among us will probably laugh, tough
There are many ways to fill Elite with life. And i hope to see something before summer. And not all alien lifeforms need to be dangerous.
And with the coming expansion aka planet landings it would be nice to explore. Grab artifacts and sell them to the black market and so on. Or touch the outer layers of gas gigants... So many options.
And with the coming expansion aka planet landings it would be nice to explore. Grab artifacts and sell them to the black market and so on. Or touch the outer layers of gas gigants... So many options.
I was thinking Andromeda Strain .. continuos degradation of ship systems, needing regular repairs or a complete overhaul to "disinfect"?
Will be interested to see these ....
Sounds like the destruction of the Liberator in Blakes 7 by 'fluidic particles'
eventually, everyone will experience it. but not as regular as a funeral service in a unidentified signal source.
Actually there is one way to potentially discover at least the possibility of a Dyson's sphere - and that is if a relatively young and healthy star disappears from our night sky. Either the star-fairy stole it, or somebody built a Dyson's sphere around it
Of course many of the stars we see could already have Dyson's spheres built around them - but we are seeing old light, hundreds of years old in some cases. Light that left the star before the giant world was built around it.Building such a sphere is perfectly possible - just an immense engineering achievement that would probably take millenia to build. The real difficulty I believe in a civilisation being able to build one is to not destroy itself during the very long time it would take to construct.
To put the task into perspective - imagine the engineering required to build a replica earth shell 20ft thick. That is, a spherical structure the exact size of the earth - but only 20 ft thick and hollow inside.
Pretty massive engineering task, huh? The surface area on the inside of an Earth-To-Sun radius sphere is approximately 1 billion that of the surface area of the Earth. So imagine the length of time involved in getting the materials and building another Earth-sized shell, and multiply that effort to 1 billion to begin to understand what it might take to build a Dyson's sphere.
The reason I use 20ft as an example is that Larry Niven in his essay "Bigger That Worlds" calculated one could build an Earth-radius shell around our sun using only the materials from Jupiter, assuming mass transmutation technologies were in place.
And such a shell would be about 20 ft thick. Of course, it doesn't matter how thick the shell is - the gravitational attraction at any point of the inside of a sphere is zero. And so you'll either need to spin it for centrafugal force and "live" on the band around the equator - using the rest of the sphere to capture energy. Or you would need to work out how to generate gravity artificially.
At 20ft it would be impossible to defend against meteors and comets and so punctures would regularly occur.
Larry Niven's Ringworld presents some advantages over a Dyson's sphere. You can spin it for centrefugal force and the entire structure becomes habitable, building walls on the edge to hold in the atmosphere. A challenge would be to get the energy to spin such a large structure up to the required 770 miles per second to generate 1g worth of centrefugal force outward. But using only the mass of Jupiter you could make such a structure 1000 metres thick and therefore a lot sturdier than a Dyson's Sphere.
But the argument mainly goes that although right now we can't begin to dream of building such megastructures, by the time our civilisation progresses to the stage where we need it, we'll know how to build it.
Right now I am waiting for TransLink in Vancouver to extend their Skytrain from Surrey for the extra 15km or so out to Langley where I live. It was supposed to be done in 2010, then pushed to 2030 - now I hear it may be 2050.
In that perspective it's fair to say that a Ringworld or a Dyson Sphere is a way off yet
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