Bay 12 Games Forum

How is that not a violation of the agreement?

Yeah, it was a good idea but way too much work. If I figure out a simpler way that retains detail, I'll try this again, but don't hold your breath for that either.

On the bright side, I might be able to restart my Feudalismey game.

Quote from: StrawBarrel on December 29, 2012, 06:46:50 am

Also killing many people that have not done anything to us will give people the 'right' of go off and kill all the night trolls in to world like they did a few hundred years ago. We can't just become a monster just because people became monsters to kill all the night trolls in the world (night troll babies, children, physically or mentally impaired, or even trolls that were integrated with mortals).

Ask the Foghorn family if they know anything on the night troll genocide.

Err... I'm not really sure what you mean here, could you clarify?

If we kill a bunch of people, people will want to kill us. We don't want to be killed.

Millennia.  Mil means the same thing it always does as a prefix.

Millennia. Nope, spellcheck doesn't like that either. Oh well.

In any case, supposing that the craft uses a really old school nuclear reactor (diesel punk ftw), you could always just toss it out of the ship. Space, within the region of star is already dangerously radioactive already.

...In what universe is nuclear reactors "diesel punk?" It's some sort of punk, but not really diesel. Nuclear punk? Is that a thing?

Quote from: GreatWyrmGold on December 29, 2012, 12:03:07 am

Au contrare. Solar energy will be about two and a half times more efficient in space, and while I can't remember the exact stats I seem to recall something like 1,367 watts per square meter available. Even at 10% efficiency (and current photovolkaic cells can get a bit above 17%) would generate over 50,000 watts with just two 5x5 meter squares.

Ah, I thought you would use it on the surface of mars . Around earth solar would be great even with the theoretical limit we have reacted with today's tech. Another way to harness solar energy is to simply skip the solar panel thing. Sticking out copper rods into the vacuum of space can absorb a lot of energy, and can operate like that of nuclear reactor, albeit with a lot more moving parts.

Seems like it would be a lot of work to keep rotating the rods...unless they were sticking halfway into space and halfway into the reactor...probably better to make them sheets.

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To be more specific actually, there is likely a large deposit of uranium on mars.

I'm a bit skeptical about fueling a whole fleet on uranium deposits. I guess I'm just thinking a few centuries/mellenia ahead of everyone else. Millenia? How do you even spell that word?

Well a nuclear reactor doesn't need that much fuel to power it. New models of nuclear reactors can be engineered to the size of a large freezer (trouble being funding and the general public's fear of loading nuclear fuel into it every few years). The energy density of uranium is incredibly high, and is vital in areas further from the sun, where sun exposure is limited, and when the star ship might encounter situations that simply call for more power, or consistent power.

I'm not sure about relying on nuclear power. I'm not against it, but I'd rather we moved our spacefleet to renewable energy ASAP.

As for mining, I'd imagine it'd be pretty simple actually. Most of the energy used to mine out uranium is used to ensure that it doesn't kill the people mining it, and that it doesn't pollute the environment. Neither of which is going to be an issue on mars. The only issue on mars, is that it would have to be sent into orbit and require a lot of energy to be done so, even if it's smaller than the earth. A more practical solution is to mine it outside of a large body. Mar's moons are relatively unexplored, but our moon does have uranium, and can be mined and sent into orbit with relatively little energy cost because of the low gravity. Asteroids are another contender. Though they might be mined for other more valuable metals than fuel.

Again, the problem isn't with nuclear power, it's more with finiteness. Also, the tech for solar power is already here. Even that copper sheet boiler idea probably wouldn't be too hard to figure out...and if not, it's not important.

Talking about the energy sources used on the surface of mars is like talking about what the inflight meal is going to be on a proposed jet airliner design, an afterthought.  The huge central problem is the transport costs to get to the surface of mars.  Every kilogram of non-human equipment you send to mars is going to cost as much as sending more then 10 kilograms into orbit.  Human cargo would be even more prohibitively expensive.  Power is a cakewalk in comparison, you could just crash some radioactive material into the planet without parachutes, dig it up then use radioactive decay power generation like deep space probes do.  That wouldn't be cheap but it would be a rounding error compared to getting functioning life support equipment onto the planet or getting living humans to safely touch down in such a thin atmosphere let alone landing the tools for industry.

Hardly true. Even though energy expedentures on the colony for the first little while won't be much, they're vital and WILL add up. Besides, you'd need to lift the same stuff into orbit to make a space station--more, because mining isn't an option in space, so you'll need to bring EVERYTHING with you.

The whole point to the space station colony idea is that it minimizes launch costs whenever possible.

How? You're still lifting the same mass up. Descent is insignificant compared to ascent.

As little of the work is done on the moon because its much more expensive to reach the moon then to go into orbit.  Bulk materials are launched from the moon by catapult rail because that allows you to avoiding using massively expensive rockets.  Keep your population and your work close to earth where they are easier to support.  Then when they develop their own industry they can build propulsion in space far more cheaply then sending it up from space.

Wouldn't it be easier to smelt the ores on Luna before launching them, or better--not launch them at all?

Let your ideas live and die by delta-v costs.

Same to you.

If you can get those to work the idea can be made to work.  If they cant then nothing else matters.

Guess what? Your ideas are harder on delta-v.

Oh, and about shooting stuff into the Pacific or Canada or wherever: Ever read The Moon is a Harsh Mistress? They threw rocks at Terra. Ore is rock; metal is essentially rock. Be very very careful about shooting heavy stuff at Earth...

Feeding off of death or something makes sense for the Hell-Born origin of goblins.

Quote from: GreatWyrmGold on December 28, 2012, 12:27:36 pm

What would Diggles add to DF?

More FUN.

Why? What do Diggles do?

Oh. Yeah, I missed the58 and thought the guy before me had skipped from 57a to 59.