Realism (of a sort)

bmills · #1 January 27th, 2001, 07:19 PM

It seems to me that when you make a ringworld or sphereworld it should not have any mineral resources. After all, you built it, right? Why would you bury minerals just so you could mine them again? You could make it fertile so it should have good organics, and if the term "radioactives" really means energy sources in general, then these worlds should have high Ratings for their solar collection capability. At any rate, I would like to customize my own games this way. I remember seeing a way to set a planet's initial resource levels in the data files, but now can't find it again. Can somebody tell me where it is?

Tomgs · #2 January 27th, 2001, 08:24 PM

Well the settings.txt in the Data file has this but it is for all planets. I don't see any way to change it just for ring and sphere worlds.

bmills · #3 January 27th, 2001, 08:41 PM

The two I've built both had Ratings of 150% in all three areas, so there must be something that sets these values rather than assigning them randomly like other planets. Maybe it's not in the files?

Aegis · #4 January 29th, 2001, 12:22 PM

Well it depends on how a ring or sphere world is built. The only feasible way that I can see is that you build large gravity generators in a grid, and attract matter to them( asteroids, space dust and such). These fill the spaces between the grid lines, and provide most of the material for the worlds. They can then be mined.
Now, even then the idea is farstretched. I love RW's and SW's, but in reality getting the material for them is always going to be problematic. After all they are HUGE. (The present Versions actually allow each inhabitent to have at least a continent size area to themselves, even when they're fully populated. They could easily hold trillions of people. )
However, given that you have built one, however implausible the building process, I see no reason why you can't generate resources there. They are not just a very big ship after all. They are worlds. Massive worlds.

-Aegis

DirectorTsaarx · #5 January 29th, 2001, 06:58 PM

The other thing that comes with being a huge structure is a huge gravity well - which means extraneous material is constantly being pulled in from space as well. Maybe the mineral miners are pulling in "space debris" as well...

Puke · #6 January 29th, 2001, 11:24 PM

quote:
Originally posted by Aegis:
Well it depends on how a ring or sphere world is built. The only feasible way that I can see is that you build large gravity generators in a grid, and attract matter to them( asteroids, space dust and such). These fill the spaces between the grid lines, and provide most of the material for the worlds. They can then be mined.
Now, even then the idea is farstretched. I love RW's and SW's, but in reality getting the material for them is always going to be problematic. After all they are HUGE. (The present Versions actually allow each inhabitent to have at least a continent size area to themselves, even when they're fully populated. They could easily hold trillions of people. )
However, given that you have built one, however implausible the building process, I see no reason why you can't generate resources there. They are not just a very big ship after all. They are worlds. Massive worlds.

-Aegis

wow. check out the big brain on Aegis, thats something I had not really considered in their construction before. if that were the case, in a limited resource game, could you mine the world out, then just flick on the gravity generator again to replenish the resources? would it crush all your existing facilities if you did so? would something that big have enough gravity by its bad self without even needing generators, and woud it not take advantage of all the stars gravity and the naturally occuring ring of dust / debris in the stars orbital plain? hmmm...

..and if there is artificial gravity (or a spining ring) could the facilities be built on the inside while resources pile up on the outside?

DirectorTsaarx · #7 January 29th, 2001, 11:55 PM

quote:
Originally posted by Puke:

<snip> would something that big have enough gravity by its bad self without even needing generators, and woud it not take advantage of all the stars gravity and the naturally occuring ring of dust / debris in the stars orbital plain? hmmm...

..and if there is artificial gravity (or a spining ring) could the facilities be built on the inside while resources pile up on the outside?

Uh, Puke, I mentioned that possibility in my post below - something the size of a ring/sphere world would certainly create its own gravity well, which could drag in all kinds of debris. Not to mention the incredible amount of surface area available to catch meteorites and comets and other space debris.

And while we're on this subject: the "infinite resources" available on naturally occurring planets is just as unrealistic as infinite resources on a ring or sphere world.

bmills · #8 January 30th, 2001, 01:47 AM

A ring or sphereworld would indeed be massive, but don't forget that it would also be a dispersed mass. The gravity well would reach far out into the solar system, but would be rather weak at any given point. I doubt it would create a noticeable influx of matter.
To restate my original point, say you have a valuable asteroid. Would it make more sense to haul it directly to a processing facility in zero-g, or to use it to build a ring/sphereworld, and then have to mine it back out of the artificial dirt and expend fuel to haul it back out of the gravity (artificial or otherwise) of the world? The problem is not that it couldn't be done, but that it would be insanely uneconomical.

Puke · #9 January 30th, 2001, 02:09 AM

quote:
Originally posted by DirectorTsaarx:
And while we're on this subject: the "infinite resources" available on naturally occurring planets is just as unrealistic as infinite resources on a ring or sphere world.

or as unrealistic. as far as mineral resources go, its not terribly likely the mantle of an earth sized planet will be tapped out. that is unless those mineral mining facilities are greenland-sized boreholes or something, and if you were to work that into kilitons, oh-my-f'ing-god. but then where would the planet be after you mined it out? gone? smaller? asteroid debris? I dont see any 'realistic' limit to mineral or radioactive extraction, especially considering things like quantum technology. organics might get hard to come by after the top layer of a planets crust was stripped, but the whole issue is game ballance and play style rather than realism. oh well.

Puke · #10 January 30th, 2001, 02:19 AM

quote:
Originally posted by Puke:
I dont see any 'realistic' limit to mineral or radioactive extraction, especially considering things like quantum technology. organics might get hard to come by after the top layer of a planets crust was stripped, but the whole issue is game ballance and play style rather than realism. oh well.

to elaborate, why not some sort of matter conVersion? there is already resource conVersion tech, so why are minerals rare? in theory you could take any kind of matter and turn in into an equal (atomic) mass of another type of matter using the same prinicpals, with some loss to entropy. so if you had a medium sized planet, and you did nothing but convert its mass into mineral resources, even if you lost 50% to entropy, whats 1/2 the mass of the earth? more than most empires produce in a 200 turn game? probably. that sort of sends play ballance out the window, but why wouldn't a galactic empire with super-technology be able to convert a small moon into a million or so warships in a year or so? realism? where? and who's Version of super-science do we use for it?

and why do we need mineral / rad storage facilities? come on now! find an empty planet or moon, and stick it there. or put it in solar orbit for heaven's sake! what's it going to do, walk off? sure someone might try to take your 100,000KT of minerals thats orbiting Bravo Seti III, but I dont think volume is really an issue here. I would gladly dedicate 1 planet to resource storage, and I would sure expect it to be unlimited storage if a WHOLE PLANET was dedicated to it. MT Everest has got to way a bit more than 100,000 KT, and it is not even a significant portion of the earth's surface. I wont even GET INTO planetary cargo vs. cargo ship capacity.

pardon my little rant.

[This message has been edited by Puke (edited 30 January 2001).]