Re: The REAL milky way galaxy map - sol @ centre ;)
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">IIRC, there are a few very dim red dwarf stars closer to us than Alpha Centauri. They have only been seen/discovered very recently, but are too dim to see without a very powerful telescope...preferably an infrared one.

Just a few bits of info...

Re: The REAL milky way galaxy map - sol @ centre ;)
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I still stand by my assertion : http://www.shrapnelgames.com/cgi-bin...;f=23;t=008169
Traveling at such speed would require a nice-looking, aerodynamic designs. More like WhiteStars than EA destroyers http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: The REAL milky way galaxy map - sol @ centre ;)
 

Would be very interested in a "realism" based Sol Centered galaxy for IV Gold.

He are some thoughts:

There's lots of water ice planetoids / comets in systems. In our system, beyond Pluto and in several other gravitationally stable points.

Mining low G comets and asteroids is a hell of a lot easier than high G planets (ie gravity wells).

Moon-Europa-Titan like natural sats are valuable. Earth is priceless. That is, if the Moon is "worth" $10, the Earth is worth $10^14th or something. Or put it another way, between the two, the ratio of all goods produced on Earth will always be significantly greater than the value of goods produced on the Moon. I doubt Lunar GDP will ever be 0.1% of Earth's.

Most planets tumble (their rotational axis moves radically over time) unless they are stablized in some fashion. Higher order evolution is more probable with stability. The Earth-Moon system is stablized, but is probably quite rare.

I personally am in the Fermi (where are they?) camp believing there are very very few intelligent species AND/OR very many practical barriers to interstellar travel/colonization. (Sorry, no worm holes!)

So I like the idea of scenarios which have single point of origin species radiating/conflicting outward. Inter-species contact would always mean "conquest" (in some sense) by the technologically superior, unless there is some sort of High number of species gallactic civilization where tech gets spread around.

I don't like colonization on high/low G planets (relative to your homeword) without very costly gravity tech, which still limits the economic value of these planets. Likewise I don't care for high value/ population colonization on planets without breathable atmospheres. Therefore, atmospheric/biospheric engineering tech and expense is critical to realism.

I'm ok with faster than C communication through some kind of quantum effects tech, but not the movement of living beings.

Most sci-fi is way too Malthusian. "Resources" are way too important to Communist Central Planning Technocrats and SciFi writers. The tech to manipulate Earth based mass and generate energy is far more probable/economically realistic than the tech to mine the universe. Once you get to anti-matter annihilation energy tech, the only thing you need in large quantities in deep space is any kind of mass to excellerate out the back of your ship.

The goal of any realistic inter-stellar space travel is:

#1 find/colonize Earth like planets
#2 find others
#3 conduct xeno-archeology (if past dead civilization are found).
#4 build infastructure to extend your reach further out.
#5 find planets that can be engineered into Earth like planets

I hate sci-fi weapons. The idea of firing no/low yield cannon ball like objects drives me nuts. A 1950's tactical nuke projectile does more damage than a Star Trek ship-ship weapon. If I literally hit you with any object, other than you running at high V into my "sand" mine field, you're dead.

But that's my 2 cents. Good luck on your project!

Re: The REAL milky way galaxy map - sol @ centre ;)
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Seen Proportions?

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Hence, asteroids have a much higher resource percentage than planets.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Probably true, but that doesn't do much for a space exploration game, does it? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">You sort of get that in SEIV in that you get a much lower number of facility slots on planets with a different atmosphere. Yeah, gravity probably ought to play a role as well, but you gotta draw the line between realism and playability somewhere (somebody should have told the MOO3 designers that...)

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">The "resource exploitation/guns-or-butter" model of strategy gaming has been with us for ages, and probably will stay that way - if only for competitive game mechanics.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Well, SEIV comes pretty close to this, in most respects... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Indeed. Look what a little chunk of ice did to the Space Shuttle. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif If anything, most sci-fi weaponry is too complex. Why waste time and energy hauling a huge laser into space when a pea-shooter (literally!) will yield the same results?

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">If you're out of the bLast radius too...

Re: The REAL milky way galaxy map - sol @ centre ;)
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">The bLast radius of a Nuke is so large because the bLasted chunks of uranium/plutonium/etc. moving at incredible cause fission in all of the molecules around the detonation point that they run into, which then cause more fission and so on. There is less and less of it as you move away, but the chain reaction is what makes it so large. In space, the explosion would be very small in comparison. Not less deadly at the bLast point though, just a much smaller area of effect.

Re: The REAL milky way galaxy map - sol @ centre ;)
 

Fyron..there's a bit of a problem with that explanation. Namely, air is mostly nitrogen. If you split nitrogen, you get a net LOSS of energy. IIRC you have to have an element above iron before fission starts giving energy back; anything else is just too stable.

Now, if the bLast caused -fusion- in the surroundings..yeah, I could maybe buy that.

Re: The REAL milky way galaxy map - sol @ centre ;)
 

Oh... perhaps it was fusion and not fission. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif Or maybe a little of both. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif Either way there is a chain reaction that magnifies the explosive energy.

Re: The REAL milky way galaxy map - sol @ centre ;)
 

Well, there's a chain reaction in the uranium itself, if that's what you were thinking of..

Re: The REAL milky way galaxy map - sol @ centre ;)
 

No, I am talking about after the urnanium is done fissing (fissioning?). The particles ejected cause intense reactions with those in the atmosphere, thus intensifying the shockwave of the explosion.

Re: The REAL milky way galaxy map - sol @ centre ;)
 

Its fissioning, and the only thing I've heard that is anywhere similar to what you're talking about is fallout. Or maybe the overpressure and bLast waves.