Gas, Gas Giants, and Gas Harvesting.

[ClockworkRose]

One cool addition to the game would be Gas Giants, Nebula, and other forms of gas in space (and maybe on planet surfaces). These could be large and (gameplay wise) slowly replenishing resources. You could harvest it by flying a ship through a nebula with a collector attachment, or dragging a collector on the surface of a gas giant. Maybe even construct a station in a nebula that is constantly collecting a small quantity.

 

You could harvest everything and get the same nebulous "Gas". or if you wanted to make things more interesting, You could have different gasses, with different sources and different uses. Methane, Hydrogen, etc.

 

Then you could go as complicated as you want for its uses. The logical first step is reactant for a chemical rocket. Probably some sort of early game fuel, preceding reactionless rocket tech. Following that, hydrogen gas could be processed into a a reactant in a fusion reactor. All sorts of things are possible for propulsion. Maybe you need to restock your maneuvering jets every once in a while.

 

You could also need the gases for processing and creating elements in factories. Maybe they are needed as a catalyst, or you need a huge refinery with dozens of steps and feedback to create rare compounds.

 

One major problem I see is implementation. I don't know what their engine looks like, but I didn't see much in the way of gasses or nebulae in any of the videos that have been shown. It might take some magic to make it work in their voxel system, and it might not even work at all.

 

Thoughts?

 

 

 

 

[Dominar]

Very nice. I can see how this would make sense. With the Devs magic system they've come up with, such a thing should be possible.

[rmhenn]

Very interesting, gas harvesting in general would be very useful more quite a few different reasons.

 

1. considering most gas giants contain significant amounts of hydrogen harvesting could be used as a source of energy (fusion).

 

2. gases could be used to create multitudes of things (as OP said) like water (back to the hydrogen idea).

 

3. could POTENTIALLY  gather up unfathomable amounts in order to create a star (because why the hell not).

 

4. any other crackpot idea I haven't thought of yet

 

not quite sure of the validity or probability of my ideas (especially #3) but those are my thoughts.

[ShadowLordAlpha]

I am now thinking of spaceballs and stealing air from a planet

[Shynras]

I am now thinking of spaceballs and stealing air from a planet

 

Fart wars are real

[rmhenn]

I am now thinking of spaceballs and stealing air from a planet

what about siphoning someone's space gas from their space truck?

[Khaymann]

Epic idea! I wonder if we would need connectors/conveyors like in SE to connect containers to drills or scoops in this case.

[Anaximander]

Well, given the procedurally generated planets, it's safe to assume that different stars will generate possibly different planets. So, a star like god ol[ Sun, you betcha it could have gas giants. A neutron star, prepare for barren, scorched worlds. Red suns, mostly desert worlds. It's just that gas giants are so overrated. Why would you like to farm fart-gas (methane) to make... gas. >_> It's Future-Space, everyone knows that in Future-Space everything runs on unicorn oil

[guttertrash]

I like the idea a lot.  This is something so few space games seem to bother including as anything other than a visual element.

It would be cool to have a planet that's gas and you can fly into it and its all foggy or whatever then if you go to deep you start taking damage. 

[Megaddd]

I believe Gas giants could open up a very interesting aspect to planetary gameplay, a planet where one cannot hide from sight and radar underground. Where you can experience the extreme buoyancy as you go further down that at some point requires force to go down instead of up.

 

But my biggest fantasy involving Gas Giants is perfectly illustrated by a Planetary Interaction item from EVE:

 

http://img.itemdrop.net/eve/Rhea/Renders/2135.png

 

Flavour text: "Maintaining control over a section of "territory" above a gas giant requires a very specific type of command facility, one that is able to maintain its own orbit, house administrative personnel, and easily communicate and interact with other nodes. Suspended with equilibrium technology, these nodes are able to maintain altitude with minimal upkeep. If there is one major advantage to colonizing gas giant planets, it is that these facilities can literally be dropped directly from orbit with almost no concern for their descent or deployment."

[TANK102703]

Well, given the procedurally generated planets, it's safe to assume that different stars will generate possibly different planets. So, a star like god ol[ Sun, you betcha it could have gas giants. A neutron star, prepare for barren, scorched worlds. Red suns, mostly desert worlds. It's just that gas giants are so overrated. Why would you like to farm fart-gas (methane) to make... gas. >_> It's Future-Space, everyone knows that in Future-Space everything runs on unicorn oil

Unicorn oil? Really?

 

...Puppy Farts are the Future

[rmhenn]

I believe Gas giants could open up a very interesting aspect to planetary gameplay, a planet where one cannot hide from sight and radar underground. Where you can experience the extreme buoyancy as you go further down that at some point requires force to go down instead of up.

 

you could also make a floating city like bespin from star wars

[Anaximander]

Unicorn oil? Really?

 

...Puppy Farts are the Future

Everyone knows unicorn oil has a 1.337 ratio on energy-to-fuel efficiency mate. Everyone. Puppy farts are not even getting close >_< .

[UniversalG]

me like, adds possibility's for new occupations like fuel haulers or "gas drilling" or sucking.  

[Cornflakes]

I believe Gas giants could open up a very interesting aspect to planetary gameplay, a planet where one cannot hide from sight and radar underground. Where you can experience the extreme buoyancy as you go further down that at some point requires force to go down instead of up.

 

Unlikely that any spacecraft thats not designed to be buoyant in a gas giant would float.

Considering that the (predicted) density of /metallic/ (solid, it doesnt get much denser for it) hydrogen is 0.8g/cm³.

Where as water has 1g/cm³, iron has 7.8g/cm³ and aluminium 2.7g/cm³

So a spaceship will have a higher average density than any fluid in a gas giant and thus sink.

[Megaddd]

So a spaceship will have a higher average density than any fluid in a gas giant and thus sink.

From relevant xkcd:

To reach a depth where it could "float" in Jupiter, the submarine would have to go halfway to the center of the planet, where the intense pressure turns the air into a metallic soup that's hotter than the surface of the Sun. The pressure there would be so high that not only would the submarine be crushed, the substances that make it up would probably be converted into new and exciting forms.

 

Huh, I guess it is quite unlikely for a solid blob of Iron to float. However, gigantic metallic objects with lots of empty space, or even filled with something like helium (a la metal balloons)? Those are much more likely to have a viable depth before it gets too hot to float.   

Bring on the floating gas cities!

[Cornflakes]

From relevant xkcd:

To reach a depth where it could "float" in Jupiter, the submarine would have to go halfway to the center of the planet, where the intense pressure turns the air into a metallic soup that's hotter than the surface of the Sun. The pressure there would be so high that not only would the submarine be crushed, the substances that make it up would probably be converted into new and exciting forms.

 

Huh, I guess it is quite unlikely for a solid blob of Iron to float. However, gigantic metallic objects with lots of empty space, or even filled with something like helium (a la metal balloons)? Those are much more likely to have a viable depth before it gets too hot to float.

Bring on the floating gas cities!

 

"Filled with helium" would be the "unless specifically built to do so"

 

And as liquid hydrogen has a density another order of magnitude smaller its still unlikely that something not built to float there would float.

A spaceship with 1% metal content per volume isnt exactly viable :V

[Megaddd]

A spaceship with 1% metal content per volume isnt exactly viable :V

Space-ship? Probably not.

Permanent station? Bring it! 

 

I love the concept of building such a station in space and just dropping it from orbit with little concern, because of it's safe buoyancy depth.

[Anaximander]

"Filled with helium" would be the "unless specifically built to do so"

 

And as liquid hydrogen has a density another order of magnitude smaller its still unlikely that something not built to float there would float.

A spaceship with 1% metal content per volume isnt exactly viable :V

UNless of course, it's made out of space-jelly, or it's a space-whale :V

[Antioch]

Sounds great! That way you'll be able to gather huge amount of resources and have a mass production system.

[Quinn23]

I haven't seen anywhere the mention of ship fuel. If the ships were fuel dependent, this would be a method of garnering unrefined free fuel.

[matus1976]

Floating cities are not unreasonable, there have been proposals to do so on Venus, due to its thick atmosphere and hostile conditions on the surface. A hollow structure filled with breathable air would float at about 50 kilometers, with enough buoyancy for extra components supporting a population 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonization_of_Venus

[GrandMaster Apex]

Sounds great! That way you'll be able to gather huge amount of resources and have a mass production system.

I imagine seeing an NQ has already stated that they don't want resources to be too easy to gather especially rare ones, that the gas giant; if we can extract from it' will still follow the same concept of mining in that their is only so much you can mine and x amount of rare resource (which given it being gas) is very unlikely to be found in close proximity in large amounts. However it may be that the counter of this is that their are huge amounts of resources that can be used to make the very common solid resources which may balance it out if the ratio is done correctly.

 

I do think it is a brilliant idea though and something I would love to see, especially a floating city!

[ShadowLordAlpha]

I haven't seen anywhere the mention of ship fuel. If the ships were fuel dependent, this would be a method of garnering unrefined free fuel.

Its in an interview i think with JC on the DUExplorers youtube though I was not part of that one so I can't say for sure.

[Lethys]

And ship fuel is mentioned in the construction video