Too many planets

[apache]

Well, my theory on Gas Giant colonization is that they are in some sort of massive space station that orbits the planet within the atmosphere. This would be quite feasible, especially if there was some sort of anti-gravitational technology. They could fly around in aircraft or whatever to get from place to place.
I think the difference between the domed Versions of all the planets and non-domed is basically the life forms would need some sort of breathing apparatus to survive outside the dome, while in non-domed planets, they would need simply an environmental suit to protect them from the hostile environments. This would allow them to get around the planet much easier if they did not need to bring their air with them.

[Barnacle Bill]

I definately interpret "undomed" as meaning walking around like people do on earth. You don't need breathing apparatus, you don't need any special high-tech equipment, if civilization drops back to the stone age on that planet due to some disaster the folks there can still survive (perhaps at lower population density due to food production). The "dome" thing means you can't use the surface of the planet normally and have to live in a structure with the right environment, which isolates you from the outside environment. "Undomed" means you can live normally in the outside environment.

For colonists not to go too deep in a gas giant's atmosphere, that requires that they have a way to do that. That requires they must be naturally buoyant like a fish in water, or some hypothetical critter which floats in the air like a blimp by virtue of internal cavities filled with some lighter-than-air gas. Either of those require, in addition to buoyancy, a means of propulsion without touching the ground. If they live on an artificial structure which is itself buoyant, or supported by gravity, that is a "dome". No life form that I can think of here on earth could live in the atmoshere of a gas giant, outside of a man-made artificial environment. Certainly not a human, or anything produced by genetically engineering humans if the result was to recognizable as & interfertile with humans.

If you have to live deep in the caves under the surface of an ice planet to take advantage of the heat from a molten core, that is a "dome" too, for all practical purposes.

So, I can see life forms from an rock or ice or gas giant planet being able to live on one of the other two INSIDE a constructed artificial environment which mimics their natural one (i.e. a "dome"). I can't see them ever being able to live "undomed" on one. If you change a gas giant critter unough to live on an ice planet "undomed", it is no longer a gas giant critter but rather an ice planet critter. If you change an ice planet unough that a gas giant critter can live on it "undomed", it is no longer an ice planet but rather a gas giant planet.

The tools do not exist to model this properly in SE4 via mod for ALL the three planet types. The choice seems to be to either make each type a racial trait so you can never colonize the other, or make it work right for one and eliminate the possibility of races originating on the other two. In my data set, I did the later.

If separate abilities existed for colonizing a given planet type with a dome and colonizing without a dome, it could then be modeled correctly by making the "colonize without a dome" a racial trait and "colonize with a dome" something anybody could learn.

[dmm]

quote:

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Originally posted by apache:
I think the difference between the domed Versions of all the planets and non-domed is basically the life forms would need some sort of breathing apparatus to survive outside the dome, while in non-domed planets, they would need simply an environmental suit to protect them from the hostile environments. This would allow them to get around the planet much easier if they did not need to bring their air with them.

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Yeah, that's the way I was thinking about it.

I think BB is being too restrictive saying that undomed colonies should be able to survive under stone-age conditions. How many modern urbanites would survive if Earth suddenly reverted to stone age conditions? And we're not very advanced compared to the spacefaring SEIV races.

However, I do very much agree with BB that, for example, rock races should always have a harder time colonizing gas and ice planets. I would like to see that idea (dare I say "reality"?) reflected in the rules, just not as restrictively as BB proposes.

Ideally, I would propose 4 classes of colonies:
4. total artificial environment (wrong atmos, wrong type)
3. partial artificial environment (right atmos, wrong type)
2. lightly domed (wrong atmos, right type)
1. unrestricted (right atmos, right type).

The max pop, facil, & storage would increase for each class. The ability to build the top two colony classes would be a racial trait. To compensate for making the game harder for peace-lovers, give players the ability to trade population with other players, or allow immigration, or allow research into genetically-altered populations.

[Barnacle Bill]

quote:

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Originally posted by dmm:
How many modern urbanites would survive if Earth suddenly reverted to stone age conditions? And we're not very advanced compared to the spacefaring SEIV races.

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That is why I wrote "perhaps at lower population density due to food production". If technology on earth today suddenly dropped to the stone age, there will be a huge die-off. I can't think of a scenario for dropping it to the stone age which wouldn't involve killing lots of people, anyway, but if it did then most remaining people would die because they did not know how to survive, and because as technology goes lower the population density you can feed goes down. In the end, though, people will be left alive. From what I have read, North America had about 2 million inhabitants when Europeans first found the place. The combined population of the US & CAnada today is in the vicinity of 300 million. That is the sort of "die off" you would be talking about.

Now consider folks living in domes on the moon. There is no nature - nothing to hunt or fish, not roots & nuts & fruits & berries to gather. Hydoponic farms, etc... require chemical processing, which is gone. Food is not the real problem, though. The equipment that reprocesses the air cannot be operated or maintained. Everybody dies.

I do agree there should be degrees, much as you have proposed. It is much more difficult to put a dome in where the atmoshere is just the wrong gas than it is when you have to deal with all those other issues.



[This message has been edited by Barnacle Bill (edited 03 February 2001).]