Bay 12 Games Forum

Quote from: GreatWyrmGold on December 31, 2012, 02:40:15 pm

Quote from: 10ebbor10 on December 30, 2012, 02:43:10 pm

Effeciency losses do add up though. Also, I made some calculations once for orbital power plants, and they don't ever come out energy efficient. Not with current technology. You'd need hyperefficient pannels (60% or more), hyperlightweight pannels, and hyperefficient transmission. Remember that the transmission calls for 1km diameter recievers.

I'd be interested to see your math.

Well, let's see. Normal solar pannels weight 20 kg per kilowatt production. Expected lifetime is less than a decade. As such, a 4 GigaWatt station would weight 80.000 metric tonnes. Just solar pannels alone, no supporting structure or anything at all. Assuming we can dump that in LEo, which we can't, and we do it with cheapest, most efficient heavy load rocket (Falcon Heavy (in development) at the moment). We still need at least 1509 rockets. Each costing 125 million dollars. Coming up at 188.625 billion dollars total. (Launchcost of panels only)  While that's not energy efficiency; I think I made my point.
Actually, probably not.
-Energy produced: 4GW*85%(transmission losses)* 10 years = 1072224 terrajoules
-Energy used: Is hard to find, because I only get thrust, not joules. So let's just go for economical viability then. Energy cost about 40 euro per Megawatt hour. Meaning that your solar pannel nets you 1191,360  million dollars

And there's another idea for my science fiction down the drain.
...Unless we make a space elevator first?

Quote from: GreatWyrmGold on December 31, 2012, 09:04:07 pm

Quote from: Sheb on December 31, 2012, 05:40:18 pm

Well, all that water has to be put in orbit.

Quote from: Sheb on December 31, 2012, 06:48:55 pm

You don't understand how much water this is. Since we've been talking about mile-wide station, let us imagine one 1km across, in a ribbon 50 m wide and 5 m high. That's around 3 km of circumpherence, 150 000 sq. m of surface. If you want to have a 5m wall of water all around, you'd need twice that plus some stuff for the 6 m of wall, so around 2*150000*5+2*5*3000*5=1.650.000 cubic meters of water. That's 1.650.000 tons you have to pu in orbit. And why on earth would you need over 1.5 billion liters of water?

You're taking me far too seriously.
...And that number might not be too crazy. Two sources I found suggested water useage of ~60 gallons per person or ~400 gallons per family. Assuming a family of 2 parents and 2 children (to account for households with more children and fewer parents), a very rough but conservative answer of 75 gallons per person per day. That's around 300 liters. Assuming that half of the water is not used for everyday household purposes, and that the water recycling techniques can only recycle 1/10 of the total water supply per day, that's 6,000 liters or so needed in storage per person, so it would...um...never mind. I'm too proud of this math to discard it, darn it!

Modern day Recycling systems have 99% efficiency.

It's not the efficiency, it's how much can be recycled a day.
Which, of course, depends on how much machinery you use.
Of course, even with my estimates you'd need around a quarter million people in that kilometer-wide disk to need that much water.

As for cosmic rays. They're (mostly) composed of very high energy particles. And

Quote

Of primary cosmic rays, about 99% are the nuclei (stripped of their electron shells) of well-known atoms, and about 1% are solitary electrons (similar to beta particles). Of the nuclei, about 90% are simple protons, i. e. hydrogen nuclei; 9% are helium nuclei or alpha particles, and 1% are the nuclei of heavier elements

All these are sharged particles. Meaning that you can use a magnetic shield to deflect them.
Still need to worry about X-rays and gamma rays and stuff though.

Two things.
1. How good are we at creating such magnetic shields in an energy-efficient manner?
2. Aren't X- and Gamma rays sorta deadly? I'd imagine that, long-term, that much exposure would give you about the same chance of survival as kicking Bruce Banner in the shin and then insulting him a lot.

Still, given the massive logistic hurdle of getting those space station up and shielded. Why don't we just colonize the friggin moon?

Because someone argued that we could eventually all move to space-based habitats, nevermind the cost or that every benefit of space stations can be achieved planetside.

if we manage to get to a portion of light speed, and have suspended animation...
whats 200 years while asleep anyways?

A one-way trip. Generation ships are probably more practical.
Relatively speaking.

Let's just talk about circuitry. Are there any computers that have survived more than 20 years without maintenance? Probably not. There has to be a lot of redundancy, and yet it can't use to much energy, or too few(Freezing is dangerous).

Of course, most computers haven't been around since before 1993.
...Not that there's a lot of computers from pre-1993 that still function, but that might be as much from changing technology as anything. On that note, the toughest computers probably include some of the newest.
I'm going to stop and leave this to someone who knows what they're talking about before I embarrass myself more.

That seems ludicrous. Animals are not bloodthirsty killers. They're creatures that want to live and make a new generation.

Maybe with a dozen generations of breeding you could create an aggressive rabbit or whatever suitable for war use, but not in a single animal. Unless magic gets involved, of course.

Quote from: GreatWyrmGold on December 30, 2012, 10:58:39 pm

Quote from: Neonivek on December 30, 2012, 03:01:40 pm

To me Semimegabeasts shouldn't be numberous enough to be able to form entire civs with just themselves.

Although I can see bands of semimegabeasts and other powerful critters...say, a dragon, a couple minotaurs, a giant, and some ogres...that would be neat.

I can't. I could see semi/megabeasts of the same race forming groups, but not a bunch of bloodthirsty monsters with next to nothing in common.

What do you mean, bloodthirsty monsters with next to nothing in common?
At their worst, they're like animals; animals can easily get along with each other and even exist in symbiosis.
At their best, they're creatures as or more intelligent than humans; obviously, intelligent creatures can get along with each other.
In the middle, they're kinda dumb, making them easy to control, but smart enough to recognize the value of working together.
As for nothing in common? They're all big, strong creatures who are persecuted by the smaller, more numerous races. Real-world groups have gotten together for less.

I really don't mind if all my carriers die, they already payed for themselves.
My worshippers are who I want to keep alive, and they haven't killed anyone

I won't punish them, I'll...um...
I don't think I thought this through enough...

What other ways is javier in the world, and is it possible to attack him directly?

Looking at stuff relevant to Waljan:

"It would be unwise for me to attempt to gain the Oaken Crown, when I am not even considered a true leader by my own people. Perhaps I will see about gaining some allies before pursuing such an endeavor... though what better way to gain the respect of my people than becoming the king of Keldared..."
Gragrar Hvítr shook his head, dismissing the thought and pulled up his hood to observe the rest of the gathering.

Gragrar Hvítr returns to the Stronghold of the Steggir.

The nearest clan on the island is that of the Magnars, and their northern neighbors are the Undars (you don't know much about the ones further north - they stopped sending ships your way during the Watchful Peace). Both clans are well known raiders, and they've been at war since the news of the King's death arrived, not even bothering to wait for the King's Peace to officially end. In fact, it looks like the Undars are winning: this could be dire news...

...

A small flotilla of raiders have started harassing the Bay since the King's death. Relatively well organized, they've taken to raiding small villages along the coastline, counting on the lack of superior authority to prevent the clans from setting up an organized defense. Although the major clans were not touched, due to their relatively larger standing armies, many of the minor clans or even simple villagers have sent a call for help.
In order to deal with the situation, the King's Loremaster has put a bounty of one Ducat on the head of every captain - there are five in total. The raiders are most likely impossible to catch at sea, but one could probably cut them off from their ships and finish them off when they're stuck inside the land...

Hm. Food for thought, which won't feed Waljan's family...
Where are those raiders currently? Which coastline?

Do what the hospital staff asks you to do.

Sneak closer.