Gas giants Good or Bad?

[CW]

quote:

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Originally posted by TerranC:
No offence to everybody here but...
Maybe build a station to mine it but the idea of colonization is farfetched.

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That's right. The idea is farfetched, but who knows what will happen in 400 years time? I seem to remember that not long ago people thought going to the moon or even flying were farfetched ideas...

I tend not to rule out anything.

[Resident Alien 2]

quote:

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Originally posted by TerranC:
No offence to everybody here but...
Frankly, colonizing a Gas Giant is unreal.

I know it's a game but this has always ticked me off: races such as us can't colonize gas giants because it would get crushed by the immense pressure and its wind velocities would flail a colony around the planet so many times...

Energy beings (if there are ones) would be able to survive but carbon based lifeforms wouldnt be able to survive the elements of a gas giant.

Maybe build a station to mine it but the idea of colonization is farfetched.

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True for carbon based lifeforms that are usually associated with rocky planets.

However in SE4 you might be playing a very alien race that could live on a Gas Giant. I have read a number of novels that propose life on gas giants (e.g. Wheelers by Ian Steward and Jack Cohen)

In a science fiction based 4X game anything should be possible.

[ 30 January 2002: Message edited by: Resident Alien 2 ]

[Puke]

inertial dampners and shield grids will stop that wind-whipping. sure it all sounds stupid, but its sci-fi techno-babble.

we probably have enough raw materials in our own solar system to support more human beings than i know how to pronounce the numbers for. we can already change some kinds of atoms into other atoms, and create molecular scale self-assembling-machines, why would we ever need to go anywhere else except out of curiosity? i think the main reason space-opera is intertaining is because you can combine 18-19th century imperialism with 20th century warfare, and throw it all into the future.

none of its realistic, but it sure is fun.

[Suicide Junkie]

How about futuristic, armored blimp buildings?
There's tons of area on a gas giant, and you can spread out in 3D no problem.
The common house zeppelins could float to a level near 1 atmosphere pressure, factories would float up and down to the level where gathering their particular resource is easiest.

Gas giants are just so freaking huge that 8 billion Zeppelin houses would rarely ever meet.
You could avoid the stormy areas (go up/down/north/south) with basic propulsion, and being in a 500KM/H wind dosen't matter when you're moving at 500KM/H with the wind. Your airspeed is almost zero, and there's no ground to compare to or crash into.

[ 30 January 2002: Message edited by: suicide_junkie ]

[DirectorTsaarx]

For those floating colonies, I picture something like Cloud City from SW:ROTJ. Just imagine many of those floating around a gas giant, and you have a non-native colony.

BTW - a variant of this discussion was carried on at length many months ago, and led to MM adding a feature that allowed you to set "Colonize only home planet type" or "Colonize only native atmosphere". So, if you really don't like rock planet life forms colonizing gas giants (or vice versa), just choose the "Colonize only home planet type" option at game setup.

If you're looking for an option that allows certain races to colonize anywhere (why should energy beings care what kind of planet it is?), that's a bit trickier. Probably would have to mod the colony techs to be racial techs, and chosen at game setup. The problem is that the first colony tech should be free, but not the second and/or third. Anyone tried this?

[geoschmo]

We made a uni-colony component for Devnull mod that became available when all three colony techs had been researched. I suppose you could easily make this a racial tech and allow the race choosing it to colonize all three types earlier.

I think in terms of what will be technically possible in the far future, colonizing gas-giants is a lot more likely than many of the other things that we take for granted in SEIV and other Sci-fi literature and games.

In terms of strict realism I think it's way less likely that a species native to a gas giant could develop the tools nessecary to build ships to leave their planet than it would be for us to go there. But if you try to make the game fit into strict realism, it wouldn't be very fun.

Geoschmo

[mac5732]

I like to play Gas Hydrogen, or Ice Hydrogen, I just feel it gives me a small handicap against the AI, as there are not usually that many good ones close to each other especially Gas, but when you do find one its usually a 20-25 facility world. Use these for base in that system or area until you either research, steal or trade for one of the other colony types to expand.

In regards to reality, don't judge other races, species or their possible capabilities by what the human race does or thinks. An Alien culture would be just that and possibly everything about them would be strange or impossible to our way of thinking, but yet anything is possible. It wasn't that far back in our history that landing on the moon was considered sci-fi and never happen.

just some ideas mac

[Suicide Junkie]

quote:

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In regards to reality, don't judge other races, species or their possible capabilities by what the human race does or thinks.

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Right. But if we can do it with today-ish technology, then it can't be that hard for a spacefaring race.

[ 31 January 2002: Message edited by: suicide_junkie ]

[Egregius]

Actually there should be an option to make colonizing other types possible via research but not capturable.

[Egregius]

I'm glad for the 'can only colonize home planet type' option, as taking over a neutral or just conquering a race with a different planet type gives you way too much advantage.

Anyway, if Gas giants are inhospitable because of the winds, the poles should be large enough and windless enough.