UA Mystery thread 4 - The Canonn

[EAGLE 5]

I'm unhappy to report that my precious blue airless waterworld in Pleiades Sector GW-W C15-1 is off limits as well. And right as I shift tabbed to type this I got scan detected from a lone wolf police viper who jumped out before I could scan it. Music seems ominous too never heard it before.

There are a couple of spots here I want to see then I'm off to try my luck in Merope.

 

[jpaulwilson1982]

totally dude

Spoiler

View attachment 80173

Whale done... wah wah wah waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah

One major variable/factor to consider is how does game mechanics play into Merope being chosen. We always have to consider the tools and thought processes available to the devs. Better said, lets think as if we were GMs and not players.

Another way to ask why Merope is: What are the goals of the game developers?

Merope may be a random choice within the Pleadius Nebula, because they wanted a place to spawn UAs near the edge of the bubble. The GMs were needing an mundane, yet slightly unique system near the bubble so that we can find the UAs.

Additional questions to ask.. why the 150 ly UA shell? Why near the bubble.. why not on the otherside of the galaxy?

My theory is: The GMs needed the UAs far enough away to be rare, but close enough for players to capture and sell on the BM. Merope, could simply be a random choice, and only chosen because it was in the Pleadies nebula.

These seem like very practical assumptions. While I lean toward the idea that a random system was chosen, I also lean toward FD choosing Pleiades specifically because (IIRC) it's the closest Nebula outside the bubble or, at least, a prominent nebula. It makes sense.

What confuses me is the pattern of the systems with station malfunctions. I checked here and the pattern seems somewhat inconsistent. If players are indeed using UAs to sabotage enemy systems, why hasn't Achenar or Alioth been affected? Or any other capital of each power?

The only answers that really come to mind is that perhaps black market value increases in more distant systems from where the UA is found. Is the UA price uniform throughout all stations? Or do they have varying values? If this isn't known, I'll be willing to test this.

(Less practical thought here): Also, if the UAs may in fact react to certain chemical elements, would the gas in the Pleiades Nebula be comprised of anything that might effect the UA? Or could the UAs be giving off a gas similar to what is in the Pleiades?

One more thought- maybe the UAs are giving off a type of exhaust produced from using something for fuel. Considering that the UAs distort stars behind it, it would have to be putting out either a form of exhaust (heated gas) or it's distorting the space-time around it.

Anyways, just food for thought. I just hope it's productive thought

 

[EAGLE 5]

Ta. And some extra chars.

Edit: Three ELWs, at least one with indigenous life, now all lifeless rocky bodies. What the heck are we supposed to read into that? Are the FFE system descriptions canon (with one n) or not? Masses are completely different also, at least for 5A. Ditto surface temp, orbital period and radius.

Edit2: Interesting that the age of Merope in ED is 774 million years, when the actual star cluster is estimated to only be 75 to 150 million years old. Sigh.

Not to mention that at 73C you can pretty much write off both Humans and Thargoids.

 

[King Sancho]

Whale done... wah wah wah waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah




These seem like very practical assumptions. While I lean toward the idea that a random system was chosen, I also lean toward FD choosing Pleiades specifically because (IIRC) it's the closest Nebula outside the bubble or, at least, a prominent nebula. It makes sense.

What confuses me is the pattern of the systems with station malfunctions. I checked here and the pattern seems somewhat inconsistent. If players are indeed using UAs to sabotage enemy systems, why hasn't Achenar or Alioth been affected? Or any other capital of each power?

The only answers that really come to mind is that perhaps black market value increases in more distant systems from where the UA is found. Is the UA price uniform throughout all stations? Or do they have varying values? If this isn't known, I'll be willing to test this.

(Less practical thought here): Also, if the UAs may in fact react to certain chemical elements, would the gas in the Pleiades Nebula be comprised of anything that might effect the UA? Or could the UAs be giving off a gas similar to what is in the Pleiades?

One more thought- maybe the UAs are giving off a type of exhaust produced from using something for fuel. Considering that the UAs distort stars behind it, it would have to be putting out either a form of exhaust (heated gas) or it's distorting the space-time around it.

Anyways, just food for thought. I just hope it's productive thought

Please, lets NOT see the day my beloved Achnear is plagued with UA shenanigans.

On a serious note, the idea that there MAY be a price difference, ultimately making certain systems more vulnerable than others is worth considering. BUT.. wouldn't the price of the UA be higher the further you go from shell? That would be 1 count against your thoughts.

Maybe the price is not calculated, but just quantity or frequency of sales.

 

[Derthek]

pretty sure price is fixed, last i checked

 

[Tyrit Shadowstalker]

Still chasing my wild goose idea on the ai relics as possibly having some kind of advanced anti-virus program in them, expecially considering the galnet posting that it may be a computer virus of some kind taking down stations.

no luck finding one of the blighted things though. They're supposed to spawn in strong signal sources and are bait for a pirate trap... right? Is there any particular region of space that they show up in?

 

[Dommarraa]

Still chasing my wild goose idea on the ai relics as possibly having some kind of advanced anti-virus program in them, expecially considering the galnet posting that it may be a computer virus of some kind taking down stations.

no luck finding one of the blighted things though. They're supposed to spawn in strong signal sources and are bait for a pirate trap... right? Is there any particular region of space that they show up in?

They are occassionally bait, don't know if they are still in wss.
I have not done many of these missions in 1.4, so I dont know how rare they are any more, but in 1.3 the best bet would have been to find a 'collect Ai relics' mission. You would then get a guaranteed spawn, and you could go and get dozens of them very easily

 

[Tyrit Shadowstalker]

They are occassionally bait, don't know if they are still in wss.
I have not done many of these missions in 1.4, so I dont know how rare they are any more, but in 1.3 the best bet would have been to find a 'collect Ai relics' mission. You would then get a guaranteed spawn, and you could go and get dozens of them very easily

Neat, now if only I could get that as a salvage mission and then I could bring a shipful of them in without taking too much of a dent to the Corvette fund.

 

[Han_Zen]

BTW can barnacles survive in a vacuum?

Not the small regular barnacles, but I guess those that live on airless worlds can.

 

[dan_b]

Tardigrades (water bears) have been exposed to vacuum and survived.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tardigrade

"Tardigrades are notable for being perhaps the most durable of known organisms; they are able to survive extreme conditions that would be rapidly fatal to nearly all other known life forms. They can withstand temperature ranges from −458 °F (−272.222 °C) to 300 °F (149 °C),[7] pressures about six times greater than those found in the deepest ocean trenches, ionizing radiation at doses hundreds of times higher than the lethal dose for a human, and the vacuum of outer space.[8] They can go without food or water for more than 10 years, drying out to the point where they are 3% or less water, only to rehydrate, forage, and reproduce"

Not the small regular barnacles, but I guess those that live on airless worlds can.

 

[Han_Zen]

Tardigrades (water bears) have been exposed to vacuum and survived.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tardigrade

"Tardigrades are notable for being perhaps the most durable of known organisms; they are able to survive extreme conditions that would be rapidly fatal to nearly all other known life forms. They can withstand temperature ranges from −458 °F (−272.222 °C) to 300 °F (149 °C),[7] pressures about six times greater than those found in the deepest ocean trenches, ionizing radiation at doses hundreds of times higher than the lethal dose for a human, and the vacuum of outer space.[8] They can go without food or water for more than 10 years, drying out to the point where they are 3% or less water, only to rehydrate, forage, and reproduce"

Ha ha, you found the Water Bear

We discussed that one quite a bit in the last thread(or the one before).

Come to think of it, It wasn't that much of a discussion. It was mostly me nagging people with it.

We will talk more about the 'barnacles' when 2.0 is out of beta.

If you are interested in the background for this, please read this article: https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20906-life-like-cells-are-made-of-metal/

 

[RedWizzard]

Why would the Thargoids use Morse? We came into contact with them before; we could talk to them before; we surely didn't use Morse! No, I suspect the UAs have something human about them. If you wanted to get a message out to another civilization with no common vocabulary or linguistics, you'd use science: something like the Periodic Table of Elements, which would be common knowledge to an advanced civilization. There's no "mistranslation" of atomic numbers. I would venture that the Thargoids have no knowledge of an obscure human language/code like Morse.

Given that the sleeper ships/generational ships left Earth long ago, Morse seems to me to connote a human source. They aren't trying to contact another civilization; they are trying to contact humans...

You may be right, but I think it's easy to explain the points you're basing your reasoning on. Morse is not obscure, or archaic, or obsolete. It's transmitted by every nav beacon in the galaxy. So it's not an unreasonable choice for an alien race trying to communicate. Also you're assuming that just because some Thargoids were in contact with humans before and developed a translator, all Thargoids must therefore be able to communicate that way. But we've been told there are at least two Thargoid factions several times (the Soontil Relics Galnet post hints at it and I believe Michael has stated as much as well), and considering that the translator was controlled by the major factions' governments and INRA to the exclusion of all of the rest of humanity, how can we assume something similar didn't happen on the Thargoid side?

From a meta point of view Morse is the obvious choice. It was already in the game so the code was already done. FD wouldn't have known how much traction this mystery would get so they would have been reluctant to do unnecessary work just to make it a little more realistic (note that the ship degradation was also an existing mechanic). It's not like they don't have a huge laundry-list of other stuff that needs to be implemented.

The point of this mystery is to engage as many people as possible, and to buy time for them to develop and implement the Thargoid (or other) presence in game. A puzzle in Morse suits those two aims much better than either having them communicate directly in English via the FFE translator (which would be too simple), or something more realistic based on atomic numbers, or universal constants, or mathematics, or whatever (which would be too hard; that sort of thing is easy to use to establish intelligence but it's not at all obvious how you go from recognising atomic numbers/primes/the Planck constant/etc to meaningful communications).

 

[dan_b]

Tardigrades were in the news again just recently as their DNA has been fully sequenced and it's quite remarkably strange DNA too, which befits its amazing survival abilities I guess.

Ha ha, you found the Water Bear

We discussed that one quite a bit in the last thread(or the one before).

Come to think of it, It wasn't that much of a discussion. It was mostly me nagging people with it.

We will talk more about the 'barnacles' when 2.0 is out of beta.

If you are interested in the background for this, please read this article: https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20906-life-like-cells-are-made-of-metal/

 

[SpocksOddSocks]

Merope in greek mythology was the only one of the seven sisters to marry a human
Maybe that is the hint they wanted us to get could be human alien hybrid race about to make itself know.
This maybe who is in the escape pods in the medical convoys

I really like the idea of this being a clue in the way that you suggest.

 

[Kicks]

Merope in greek mythology was the only one of the seven sisters to marry a human
Maybe that is the hint they wanted us to get could be human alien hybrid race about to make itself know.
This maybe who is in the escape pods in the medical convoys

Yeah, and the guy she married was a violent -nozzle. If this encounter is even loosely based on the Pleiades Merope, we're doomed

 

[Han_Zen]

Yeah, and the guy she married was a violent -nozzle. If this encounter is even loosely based on the Pleiades Merope, we're doomed

Remember that we are the violent -nozzles, not the nymph

 

[Kicks]

Remember that we are the violent -nozzles, not the nymph

So, doomed then?

 

[cpunkftw]

Remember that we are the violent -nozzles, not the nymph

But by that thinking we are doomed from the start by the book :O

 

[Han_Zen]

So, doomed then?

If you consider rolling a rock up a hill every day only for it to roll back down again every time as doomed, then yes.

I think were so used to it that we wouldn't even notice

 

[Edith_The_Hutt]

If you consider rolling a rock up a hill every day only for it to roll back down again every time as doomed, then yes.

I think were so used to it that we wouldn't even notice

That description is a pretty apt metaphor for working in IT support...