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

[General Woundwort]

Originally posted by 7o62x39:
Would be very interested in a "realism" based Sol Centered galaxy for IV Gold.

Seen Proportions?

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

Hence, asteroids have a much higher resource percentage than planets.

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!)

Probably true, but that doesn't do much for a space exploration game, does it?

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.

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...)

[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 "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.

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

Well, SEIV comes pretty close to this, in most respects...

I hate sci-fi weapons. The idea of firing no/low yield cannon ball like objects drives me nuts...
If I literally hit you with any object, other than you running at high V into my "sand" mine field, you're dead.

Indeed. Look what a little chunk of ice did to the Space Shuttle. 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?

A 1950's tactical nuke projectile does more damage than a Star Trek ship-ship weapon.
But that's my 2 cents. Good luck on your project!

If you're out of the bLast radius too...

[Fyron]

If you're out of the bLast radius too...

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.

[Phoenix-D]

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.

[Fyron]

Oh... perhaps it was fusion and not fission. Or maybe a little of both. Either way there is a chain reaction that magnifies the explosive energy.

[Phoenix-D]

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

[Fyron]

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.

[Phoenix-D]

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.