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Post by lowry on Jun 7, 2016 15:29:35 GMT
Or light molecule compounds... Go on... Well, aren't they currently saying that due to the relatively unstable nature of the molecules they can currently make, that compounding or alloying may be a solution to actually developing feasible hard light materials...
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Post by rocket54321 on Jun 7, 2016 15:38:04 GMT
That's where the more fictional sci-fi technologies kick in I guess. You could go the Xenonauts/XCOM route and build plasma weapons based around graviton emitter tech. Basically: a plasma gun fires plasma and a bundle of gravitons which holds the plasma "bolt" together. Thus pretty much working like a traditional "plasma gun". This kind of thinking could probably be applied to other kinds of tech as well. (But since gravitons are only theorethical, they probably wont be in the game.) But why would you bother doing all the research necessary to fire self-contained blobs of plasma that would simply dissipate most of their energy before they reach the target, when you could create a laser-pumped particle beam weapon that can do much more damage, or indeed, if you can harness gravitons or gluons, simply fire those? Plasma throwers follow rule of cool, sure, but I happen to think there is already a cornucopia of cool that we can gorge ourselves on while being less unrealistic. Edit: as for artificial life, yeah, we will definitely allow the creation of artificial life as part of future-tech. The first half of the game would already have all the systems involved in creating a new lifeform, so from a software-engineering standpoint it's not an insane proposition. But I'm unsure if we'd put much work into allowing you to create things that you wouldn't have been able to evolve in the game. Maybe some new organelles that you can develop and put in artificial cells, maybe some new types of tissue that include synthetic materials, but more than that would probably involve a lot of extra work. I'm sorry, this is a sci-fi stage in a sci-fi game. Plasma cannons can be in it. I think that if we are fine with a space stage, then we are fine with plasma cannons. And lasers. And spaceships. All the spaceships. Never judge the spaceships. Never. I think we should go with plasma cannons. Spaceships.
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Post by Moopli on Jun 7, 2016 19:59:27 GMT
I'm not too keen on having sci-fi tech that is effectively magic. I can tolerate some handwaving, for example, where it serves a seriously important gameplay purpose as FTL does, but for osmething like hard light, how do you justify that? Do you mean just photons that are being held in a static position relative to the generating device? Do they interact, for some reason, the way that fermionic matter does? How would the light be 'hard' if it didn't?
Then again, I'm just one dev.
Edit. Spaceships.
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infectant
Multicellular
Spreading throughout your body...
Posts: 44
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Post by infectant on Jun 11, 2016 4:03:00 GMT
I also like the idea of having a lot of different FTL methods available. We could have Alcubierre drives (generally what warp drives are based on) for slow, free movement; since you'd likely have to exit your bubble frequently to prevent the buildup of too much matter in the front of the bubble that would crash into you upon bubble collapse. We could have Krasnikov tubes, constructed by alcubierre ships with specially-modified drives, that allow FTL travel from one endpoint to the other, a superhighway that actually exists in regular space (and thus, perhaps travel through one can be detected). We could have wormholes too, though I'd prefer some limitations in exactly how they operate. Maybe the local space at both source and target has to be minimally distorted (implying that they have to be accelerating very quickly when near a large mass) which would make safe travel harder but would do nothing to stop wormhole planet nukes. Oh, and just an addendum to the thread, but don't forget hyperspace drives, however unscientific they are.
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Post by Moopli on Jun 12, 2016 17:31:17 GMT
You'd have to be more specific than that, since there are plenty of different kinds of hyperdrive in science fiction.
Do you mean the idea of there being a set of parallel dimensions to regular space, perhaps with its own denizens like the Warp in WH40K, or perhaps only partially mapped like in Star Wars, or perhaps with specific 'hyperspace lanes' between specific points like in Stellaris?
Since we'll be relatively free to pick something with good gameplay implications, and since we want there to be a reasonable amount of diversity in FTL techs, I don't think we'll want to use something simple like standard sci-fi hyperspace, or something effectively static like the hyperspace lanes in Star Wars and Stellaris. For hyperspace lanes I like the idea of using krasnikov tubes, since they effectively provide point-to-point fast (not instant) travel, can be constructed, and can be handwaved to have various dangers/downsides (maybe they cost a lot of energy to maintain, or maybe they make whatever is travelling inside very vulnerable to being attacked from outside, etc).
As for the whole parallel-dimension/Warp/Immaterium idea, I like the idea of a dimension where distance scales differently, so you can traverse longer distances in realspace -- because with this idea, then you can even intercept ships in hyperspace, and you can have realistic-seeming difficulties with entering and exiting (like having to survive the change in scale somehow).
We could even have multiple such parallel dimensions, maybe even some where distances are much longer. Could be useful for storage space, for example.
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Post by vitagum246 on Jul 2, 2016 3:14:42 GMT
Would organic ships/buildings/vehicles be fully implemented into the game? If it is implemented, will there be a special editor that will allow you to take certain organisms from the environment and allow you to morph them with a combination of organic and mechanical parts (sorry for the long sentence)? Or maybe there could be an organism that could already be molded into certain units like the Lekgolo in Halo? I can imagine giant spider like tanks and weird flying ship creatures in the sky. Kinda like the Combine in Half-life.
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Post by tjwhale on Jul 2, 2016 8:49:47 GMT
I'm not too keen on having sci-fi tech that is effectively magic. I can tolerate some handwaving, for example, where it serves a seriously important gameplay purpose as FTL does, but for osmething like hard light, how do you justify that? Do you mean just photons that are being held in a static position relative to the generating device? Do they interact, for some reason, the way that fermionic matter does? How would the light be 'hard' if it didn't? Then again, I'm just one dev. Edit. Spaceships. I'm just one person too and I support this. I think an exercise in Hard Science Fiction is a good idea (where we try to stay within the known laws of physics). To me that's very interesting and fits with the general principle of the whole game, which in my eyes is "what is possible inside the scientific laws we currently know?" Anyway late space stage could be much more speculative. I have always imagined it being quite like Alpha Centauri (which is literally amazing if you haven't played it). That game had an amazing future tech tree that really made me stop and think. It also allowed for very different styles of play (Gaians vs Religious vs Diplomatic etc) and that was super cool too. It's a long way off so we don't know what will happen then. If I have a say I'll be pushing for scientific realism.
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Notsae
Multicellular
Posts: 41
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Post by Notsae on Aug 23, 2016 23:20:22 GMT
What about directed "beams" of antimatter like the Mi-Go in cthulu tech?
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Post by Moopli on Sept 6, 2016 19:54:48 GMT
What about directed "beams" of antimatter like the Mi-Go in cthulu tech? Particle beam weapons, just using antimatter particles? Sure.
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Post by elementalred on Sept 10, 2016 16:39:07 GMT
Would organic ships/buildings/vehicles be fully implemented into the game? If it is implemented, will there be a special editor that will allow you to take certain organisms from the environment and allow you to morph them with a combination of organic and mechanical parts (sorry for the long sentence)? Or maybe there could be an organism that could already be molded into certain units like the Lekgolo in Halo? I can imagine giant spider like tanks and weird flying ship creatures in the sky. Kinda like the Combine in Half-life. Oh yeah I was also wondering that; being capable of making "biomachines" like the hunter, the strider and airships from Half-Life 2.
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Post by rocket54321 on Sept 15, 2016 21:09:34 GMT
Would organic ships/buildings/vehicles be fully implemented into the game? If it is implemented, will there be a special editor that will allow you to take certain organisms from the environment and allow you to morph them with a combination of organic and mechanical parts (sorry for the long sentence)? Or maybe there could be an organism that could already be molded into certain units like the Lekgolo in Halo? I can imagine giant spider like tanks and weird flying ship creatures in the sky. Kinda like the Combine in Half-life. Oh yeah I was also wondering that; being capable of making "biomachines" like the hunter, the strider and airships from Half-Life 2. and the houses from Railhead (book) also, organic spaceships maybe you could do GM trees that are super strong and could replace metal girders. Or... Idea! GM tree space elevator, with the canopy forming a organic spaceport!
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