Wardion2000

Got it.

You are correct Cornflakes. On all your points. You possess knowledge not normally held by those I typically have discussions with about physics. My explanations were not meant for yourself in particular and I would love to discuss high energy physics and their applications with you..... But perhaps here is not the best place. Personal messenger later? But just to let you know I'm not just talking out of my @$$. The article which I provided a link to first, glosses over the science that shows the lasers ease to oscillate inhomogeneously and its fluctuating weak field direction due to slight changes in wavelength when the polaritons decay. These properties have great applications as a ponderomotive force...... I admit I should have found a better news article on this particular laser. But my options were limited without going over the entire published report and ALL the science myself. And no one is going to read that here. I'm also getting the impression you think I am purposefully trying to equate "charge" with "conduct" or 'electrically charged' maybe. Though I may be misreading you there. I am not trying to do this. In fact, the purpose of my post was exactly the opposite. Sorry if I didn't make that clear. I AM trying to equate "charge" with spin (positive spin = normal matter, negative spin = antimatter, no spin = Majorana particle). But only as an example. The same way I would explain an Einstein-Rosen bridge as a "hole in the fabric of the universe" rather than a topological feature of spacetime where two separate points intersect. I get nods with one explanation and head scratches with the other. If I write about physics on a forum like this, I will make a LOT of analogous statements or comparable explanations. Like the gamma ray laser I mentioned. It is technically not a laser since you stimulate the atomic nuclei of a nuclear isomer and not an excited molecular state or some other ion derivative as a whole. It would be correctly called an "Induced Gamma Emission". But even with this, many physicists still call it a gamma ray laser or graser even. So when I write about it here I'm gonna dub it a "laser" of some kind. I wonder how many heads I will give cause to scratch with this post.

I have no idea what most of this means.

To quote Mark Twain "Get your facts first, then you can DISTORT them as you please." If it just "sounds" right. You will inevitably say something that doesn't "sound" right. It won't necessarily make good science fiction (even for a game). I don't mind technobabble. Sure Star Trek used technobabble and it even worked for a time (original series mostly). But then they just made things up. The first time on Star Trek Voyager I heard "We'll escape through the crack in the event horizon!" The entirely IMAGINARY boundary from which no form of radiation can escape a black hole. I face palmed. They could have just as easily said "We'll use magic to escape!" and it would have made as much sense and been just as relevant. There's Sci-Fi and then there's make believe. I would prefer in-game reasoning to steer away from the latter seeing that those of us who are drawn to Sci-Fi (even in game form) probably know a little about science.

That would work with almost no handwaving. (Just the gamma ray solar panel)

I see where you are coming from. A laser in general, cannot conduct an electromagnetic charge. There are exceptions. (Link here) However, a laser is in itself a beam of electromagnetic radiation with its own fields and those fields themselves have a "charge" (positive, negative, or neutral). These fields react differently than simple 'does it or does it not conduct'. (Link here) A couple of examples, a CO2 laser will: Pass through air Cut metal But finds water to be opaque A gamma ray laser being neutrally charged on the other hand will: Pass through (most) magnetic and electromagnetic shielding Cut through anything else Finds nothing (so far) opaque P.S. When I refer to it as "opaque" I mean the beam will not alter the molecular structure of what is struck it will instead be converted. Like when visible spectrum light hits something that is 'black' the photons are absorbed and converted into kinetic excitation e.g. "heat".

It's a method of control. You would use neutrally charged lasers to deliver exactly the same amounts of matter and antimatter together. Otherwise, you might have antimatter left over and it would annihilate in places you don't want.... Like your thruster nozzles. Also, too much matter and antimatter together wouldn't work. Think of it like two bricks, one of matter and one of antimatter. Slam them together and only the surfaces would annihilate each other and push the rest of the bricks apart. Not very useful but it would certainly be fun to watch.

CHALLENGE ACCEPTED

Please don't take this the wrong way yamamushi........ MY EARS ARE BLEEDING! KILL IT! KILL IT WITH FIRE!!!!! Crap that was loud.

After seeing this video (Link here) building a ringworld is now greatly simplified. I will now make the inner core of the ringworld out of dirt! But in all seriousness, If there is no upper limit on far things can stay attached structurally making a ring world in layers starting with simple substances will make the needed construction expertise almost trivial.

This video answered so many questions and hypotheticals we had on the last Round Table discussion.

I always find these discussions interesting because the reality always falls short of the idea. While technically everything posted so far is correct, logically it is also wrong. And before everybody blows up on me. Let me explain. Antimatter is a tricky subject because it tends to be used as a catchall term. There are many different kinds of antimatter and they all behave differently. First off what kind of antimatter are we talking about? Positrons and antiprotons? You can trap them with something called a 'Penning trap' and no cooling is needed because sub-atomic particles can't be condensed anyway. There is no such thing as 'liquid' electricity for instance. But these very reasons also mean I could never contain a lot of free antimatter sub-atomic particles. Superconductors make the transfer of energy more efficient, not the storage. Storage is easy. If sub-atomic particles have little to no place to go they just won't go anywhere. Antihydrogen? Since they are neutrally charged you need a 'Loffe trap'. It's basically a magnetic 'bowl' with antihydrogen rolling towards the center. I could cool this and condense it into liquid. Largely pointless by that point, it just saves space and in a vacuum, only the total mass and inertia of an object counts towards movement, not its volume. (I reserve judgement for its use in atmosphere.) Neutrinos? Have no charge (and almost no mass) at all so no anti-particles. Or theoretically, are both particles AND anti-particles. Wrap your head around that one. Though the energy output of 1 kilogram of antimatter is equal to roughly 43 MEGATONS of TNT, (just short of the largest nuke ever set off) it is achieved through annihilation meaning that most of the energy given off is photonic in nature and isn't as usable. Positrons give off mostly gamma rays when annihilated for instance. Dangerous to be sure but not directly useful for propulsion. Antiproton annihilation happens unequally producing mesons that further degrade into gamma rays, electrons, positrons, and neutrinos. Once again dangerous as hell but less useful for direct propulsion. When scientists talk about its applications for space propulsion they are talking about two different methods. The first, setting off an antimatter reaction in certain isotopes (high-grade uranium for instance) makes a nuclear reaction more efficient and by extension more powerful. For this application, you don't need a lot of antimatter to do it. So gathering what little antimatter is captured by a planet's magnetic field (called Van Allen radiation belts) now becomes feasible and one no longer has to spend a million billion (not an exaggeration) dollars to produce a single gram of antimatter artificially. But this is not the type of reaction you use for power or propulsion. THIS IS A BOMB! The second is the annihilation of protons and antiprotons. Most of the energy once again is photonic (gamma rays) but some (a relatively small amount) of the particles that come about due to the unequal annihilation will be in the form of mesons. Some of these particles (another relatively small amount) hold a charge that can be deflected magnetically and can provide propulsion. However as mentioned above I can never contain any large quantity of antiprotons so this method is slow and inefficient. It is relatively easy to gather what you need as you fly through space however and therefore, ideal for lightweight long-range space missions where time is less of a factor. P.S. I am so sorry I went into teacher mode.

An excellent post Draco. And you reasoning against food is quite robust. I would like to point out that some people LIKE complexity (I am very guilty of this). I find that if properly done it can be quite rewarding. An example I would use is The Secret World. When most people left the game their stated reason was "it sucked". (Not a useful response when devs want to improve something.) When asked to further elaborate, the most stated reasons oddly enough weren't "it was buggy or unplayable" (It did have these moments but what MMO doesn't in the beginning?) It was things like "I couldn't get past Blue Mountain" (this was the zone right after the starting area.) and "The investigation quests are too hard." These factors were due to "irreducible complexity". However, that was the game was about. People who came from games like WoW could not wrap their head around the idea that you had to change your role, skills, and equipment on the fly. They didn't get that "I want to play a tank, or only with pistols." was an unacceptable stance to have. As for the investigation quests. One literally had to investigate. You had to take notes, interpret languages, decipher codes, look up information, and you know 'think'. If you could overcome these hurdles you had access to a game rich in story-telling, lore and possessing incredible "depth" of gameplay. Notice though FUNCOM has never shied away from this complexity they made the game they wanted to, they don't have the player base that other MMO's have but they are okay with that. The 'Food in DU' topic fits in the same category. Is it a complexity? Sure. Will it drive some people away IF they implement it? Undoubtedly. Are the devs okay with "irreducible complexity"? Absolutely. You'd be hard pressed to think otherwise, and if you do I'm not sure what game you've been following. I've been following the one that is going to allow me to design, build, and shape my own ships from SCRATCH no less, AND write my own LUA and HTML5 programming into it.

They already have quite a few LUA scripting programs (plug-ins, interfaces?) out there. FEKO is one, ATOM editor is another (though ATOM is designed for Table Top Simulator, it should still work with a little tweaking.) so it shouldn't be hard to find one that works for those who want it. The biggest hurdle in such a visual editor is the macro (working pre-set scripts) library. Setting up or downloading a working script isn't hard but SOMEONE will have to do the initial programming work. For those of us who can script, we develop these libraries as we go . We come up with a line of code and keep it for repeated use. Many of the programmers reading this topic could probably create a library for others, but should they? I for one WANT a clear division of talent between players. And I want to be clear I have nothing against making certain aspects of the game more accessible, but to do that with scripting I would have in game tutorials so they could learn ACTUAL programming. Not turn it into a "mini-game". When you start including mini-games for everything that is challenging it stops being a sandbox.

No, that's what makes a GAME unplayable. And this is also the point. You are making the exact same assumption/mistake those game developers did. You cannot control something like this. As soon as you program in virulence it has all the same problems it has in real life. The only way they could stop the outbreak in WoW was to turn that program off completely. There is no "easily cleansing" or clever in-game mechanic to resolve it. I don't think I can express enough how bad an idea this and how we don't need this level of immersion.

IF the DU devs introduce a biological weapon into the game, I pray that it has NO contagious effects what so ever! Every time a game developer tries to incorporate an in-game disease thinking they are being clever, it explodes in their face. World of Warcraft had TWO outbreaks of an in-game disease effect spreading out of control. (Some how they didn't learn their lesson the first time.) In both cases, the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) studied the outbreak for actual research. Food for thought.

Hello and welcome! Looking forward to hearing any ideas you may have!

As much as I am for a full sandbox game. I can live without a group of players who's sole purpose is to grief others and try and break the game. I hope the devs feel the same way.

Hello and welcome! I look forward to reading any great ideas you may have for the community.

?????? "low-poly"....... I'm assuming you mean "lower the resolution of rendered voxels." A voxel and a polygon are two different things. It's apples and dishwashers, mice and men, oranges and orangutans. Your second statement assumes a lot about builders and players. What evidence do you have that supports this?

Plenty of the current player base attracted to DU come from games like Space Engineers. There the crafting of weapons from voxels is not only common, it's also the norm. I'd love to see the same ability in DU but it may not be feasible to have a hundred different player made weapons on screen.

I don't think it would necessarily. It would be an economy that doesn't follow modern day standards is all. Instead of finished products being of value conceptual products (like blueprints) and construction materials would be its basis. Somewhat fitting as this was how economies amongst early settlers worked.

......... The Voxelmancer is NOT pleased with your feeble attempt at usurpation! P.S.

You forgot puppeteer.

I can see building communication components into ships and structures but what about the other two? Is the VR unit a pod I install as part of a structure? Is the Ark unit? Please elaborate on those two.