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Gas Giants and Fusion Reactors


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So if I remember correctly, there was something about there soon being a need for energy? Like we'll have fuel for thrust and reactors to power everything else? Well what if there was Gas Giants, and we could harvest Hydrogen and Helium from them in order to fuel Fusion Reactors? But of course it'd have to be an on ship mounted tool that gather's the gas, and it'd be a dangerous job as if you get too far in the gravitational pull of a gas giant, there is no amount of thrust that can save you.

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  • 3 weeks later...

If I remember correctly, hydrogen doesn't run a fusion reactor, it's supposed to get it started and the fireball within the reactor is supposed to last a very long time before it extinguishes. Right now in real life fusion reactors are experimental and need to be fed different gases to keep the fireball stable. Scientists and engineers are trying to find a way to make the fireball stable for longer and then they will be finding a way to mass produce fusion reactors, so we are not far off getting fusion power stations. So a fusion reactor would use very little hydrogen as fuel, if it was going to be a thing in the game, it would have to be hard to make in my opinion.

Usually we extract hydrogen from water, so even if we were very active in space, farming hydrogen from a gas giant is extremely unsafe and would tear apart equipment that would be used to collect the gases. The wind speeds on Jupiter are extremely high and the sediment in the air would wear down metal very quickly, that's if it doesn't get dragged down by it's magnetic field, which would mess with electronics that aren't insulated from it too.

So your idea isn't very realistic from an actual scientific point of view, but it is a good idea nonetheless.

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  • 5 weeks later...

Well I think it would be pretty cool to add it into the game, but I think we should not limit to harvesting gases to ships. The biggest strength of this game is that it truly is a sand box and creativity is going to be a big draw. I don't see why you can't just build a station on the gas planet if you have the resources/investment and harvest it on the planet passively before refinement. I think it would be pretty cool for people to create like a mining colony like this pic of a scene in Jupiter Ascending. Outside structure is like glass and that prevents the winds from tearing the structures inside apart.

 

Kind of interesting that in fantasy/Sci-fi we have tons of info we can mine for ideas/inspiration.

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Edited by plmkoi
India has crap Internet
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  • 2 weeks later...

Star wars handles most fuel sources quite similarly to this, but instead of using real gases(hydrogen, helium, etc), they use Tibanna gas, which is used for everything, from fueling their guns to their reactors. DU could have something similar, as I'd imagine, hydrogen would not be sufficient for futuristic technology that might be using more than the yearly energy usage in north America. Having some kind of special gas resource would only add to the economy, and create more jobs and opportunities for the market.

 

Using cloud city from star wars as an example, players could build huge orbital refineries that either scoop up the gas or suck it up from the atmosphere. Cities and important space stations could either form from these, or near these. It does create quite a few fun possibilities, such as experiencing total economic free fall after multiple of these stations go up in flames because of the highly combustible gas, and subsequently causing the stations to slowly drift towards the gas giants core. Which then causes the price of this fuel to sky rocket due to a shortage, which might just make rebuilding these refineries even slower.

That being said, this gas shouldn't just be exclusive to gas giants, you should be able to source it from planets, similar to how we source our helium supplies currently. So people stranded aren't just out of luck, they would just have to make a long trek to some kind of geothermal vent or synthesize it from the rocks or whatever.

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  • 2 weeks later...

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