SPACE EXPLOITATION (ver1.0): Hosted by Smilo

[wheathin]

Well... there's no reason that the Earth went to hell after Unity left. If those planet-hopping punks could discover lots of wonderful new tech in a few short centuries, why couldn't Civ3 continue on Earth past 2050.

I think Space and Under-sea are wonderful ideas that need to be incorporated into Civ3. SMAC's undersea is decent, as is CtPs, and the separate "layer" for space in CtP would be a welcome addition to Civ3.

wheathin

[EnochF]

Think about it economically. Right now the prohibitive cost of launching material into orbit limits space travel to governmental bodies, but the advent of commercial spacefaring is almost upon us. (Commercial Spacefaring should be a tech, I believe.)

Corporations will not be exploring the solar system for interesting data, though. They'll be after the valuable minerals contained in the asteroids and on the Moon. (Asteroid Mining should also be a tech; Call to Power got that much right.)

However, the mere act of dragging minerals back down the gravity well is not entirely practical, so corporations will soon begin to research Orbital Construction (which should also be a tech, leading eventually to space cities) so that orbital factories could manufacture goods from the materials gathered by mining asteroids. One could speculate that certain materials could be more easily produced in a zero-gee environment. Perhaps certain pharmaceuticals or chemicals or electronic components could be manufactured in zero gee that would be literally impossible to synthesize in earthgrav.

These orbital factories could soon produce at such a rate that they could adequately supply Lunar Colonies (perhaps a tech unto itself), or at least give them the boost they need to become self-sufficient. Of course, who wants a self-sufficient Lunar Colony when they can make a hefty profit selling their zero-gee manufactured goods on the Moon?

And how do we get to Mars or the asteroids? There's going to be a lot of fuel involved, unless the corporations are very patient and are willing to accept fifty-year-long mining expeditions. Companies may institute Space Lanes (a possible tech) and then use them to establish semi-permanent Wakeways (another tech), lanes seeded with fuel. That way, spacecraft would no longer need to bring their fuel with them, decreasing their mass and production cost. "Seeder" craft, probably robotic, could maintain the Wakeways using material mined from comets or asteroids. Then mining or passenger craft could simply act as primitive ramjets, provided they never veer off the Wakeway itself. This isn't the Bussard ramjet working solely on interstellar hydrogen. This would be a cheaper ramjet which could only function along Wakeways.

Of course, medicine will end up playing a part in all this. One example might be the migration of the elderly into lowgrav environments like the Moon and Earth orbit, in order to prolong their lives; never intending to return to one gee, they need not worry too much about the deterioration of their bones. On the other hand, for those who would visit space with no intention of staying, doctors would need to discover new ways to prevent decay. Obviously, space cities could use the "bicycle wheel" strategy of 2001, the use of centrifugal force as a gravity substitute. But for interplanetary travel, this might not be entirely feasible. There may be new drugs or "supplements" which slow the deterioration of bone tissue and heart muscle.

And what about the first child to be born in zero gee, or the first child on the Moon? Will he or she survive? Why? Why not? How long? Is there any way we can modify the child's genes to ensure survival? Will such manipulation prevent the child from ever walking in one gee? For that matter, will the first child born in space be a matter of choice, or an official government experiment? Think about that one. Would the government permit parents to conceive and bear a child in space with no knowledge of what the risks would be?

I'll let others speculate about the military applications of space. No doubt there will eventually be "space fighters" and "space bombers" and perhaps even laser platforms or attack robots. Perhaps space suits will evolve into primitive battle suits along the lines of The Forever War or even Robotech. Or perhaps by the time space travel has entered into its own, technology will have evolved into superadvanced nanotech with self-repairing, strength-enhancing space suits. Who knows?

I tend to think space warfare is highly unlikely, though space vigilantism is a possibility, and thus space law enforcement a necessity. After all, who owns the Moon? Who will accept jurisdiction for crimes committed there?

It may well be that space travel will prove the catalyst for global unification of government. Honestly, I can't see such a thing happening anytime in the next century, but it's a concept I think Civ III will be hard pressed to ignore if it extends into the year 3000 or even 2500.

For that matter, by the year 3000, the term "human" might come to mean something entirely alien to our own experience. The progress of artificial intelligence, combined with new and complex modes of intelligence amplification, as well as new applications for nanotechnology in the fields of medicine (specifically genetic engineering and neurology), may move the human species in whatever evolutionary direction its individuals choose for themselves.

There. There's some issues to digest.

(Other areas of future tech which will be hard to ignore are the steady progression of new and faster computers and their effect on mathematics and cosmology, and the effects of biotechnology on the human species as a whole. Intelligence amplification and biotechnology will have their own sociological impacts, the positives and negatives of which I'm not comfortable weighing right at the moment... but really, who is...? Future directions of government and religion seem, to me, an exercise in futility, so I won't go there.)

[Harel]

Wheatthin, i don't agree that Earth will be destroied either...
very apocalypstic and in-accurate. Something like the fear of a nucelear war... that will never happen. Humanity is not as bent on self-annihilation as people love to think.
I over-all didn't like SMAC story at all: all the psi bulli****, trying to entering the new-age idioticy in what that should be a purely sci-fi game. And the living-world... pls.
HOWEVER, SM is very bent ( at least they say so ) on the thread-of-time. All games related: in a future petch, you could jump from CIV III to SMAC, carrying your nation idiology and tech. Therefor, the story of the game must connect to SMAC, meaning like the intro to SMAC, that earth is lost in fights and wars. Therefor, the unity must launched at latest 2050, and the Earth must be destroyed. Therefor, we can't move beyond that time-frame.
I say once more that several maps will make the game harder and dis-orienting, you couldn't want with ease all of the area. Keep it simple and wonder based ( or, maybe, build buildings which will count as orbital, lunar or martian cities ).

[crusher]

Well.....Here goes:

#1-I'm sure most of you have found the end game to be pretty dull.Only one other civ is left and he's just understood philosophy. My idea is a race of aliens that start on the moon and,while having the same tech they get different units. Eventually they produce a fleet of world ships and decide to pay you a visit. These aliens would be extramly hostil,with little chance of them liking you. they could appear on any forign planet. They could also colonize a planet untill Its resourses run out.

#2-If a planets resourses become depleated
(so much food or production is taken from them)they become desolete wastlands.All lans becoms either hills or mountains and all citys shrink to size one. Only years of terriforming would make the city radius healthy enough for it to support life again.

#3-In these space citys should be the ability to whord terriform points or production.

------------------
"War does not determine who is right,It determines who is left."
-Crusher-

[EnochF]

On a less vague note... we've already had the suggestion that the Moon and perhaps Mars and other habitable worlds might be colonizable, each with its own "map." The whole concept sounds too cool for words, and if lunar colonization makes it into Civ III, I'm pre-ordering it, I'm beta-testing it, and I'm leaving a hefty tip.

What about the ability to randomly create a solar system, along with randomly-generated "world" maps? Maybe even customize a solar system. "Number of planets? 3-5, 6-10, 11-15." "Composition of planets? Mostly gaseous. Evenly distributed. Mostly terrestrial." You would begin to learn about the major planets in ancient times, when you discover astronomy. You might discover more planets upon discovery of, say, optics or lens crafting. Eventually you'd send out unmanned probes to gather data on the planets, as to whether they would eventually be "colonizable" or lend themselves to terraforming. Maybe you'll end up with a system of gas giants, or maybe you'll have a dozen moons and planets to colonize.

Just an idea.

[Ecce Homo]

Harel, it would be sad if Meier wanted to follow the storyline that hard. I would really like to play with a few centuries of science fiction, while preparing the voyage to Alpha Centauri (which should last longer itself).

I would also like some small addendums to the AC race.

For instance, in Civ 1/2 your spaceship crashes if your palace is lost. In Civ 3 the spaceship should instead be dependent of an Interstellar Communication Centre, which could be built anywhere, well hidden from the enemy. You should be able to build back-ups.

Also, the Spaceship part concept could be incorporated with building space stations. I mean - they are also made up by framework and habitation/support modules. Space stations would however have science/manufacturing components.

By the way, why have the spaceships got Solar Panels? They might be useful within the distance of Pluto, but later the Sun doesn't shine much more than any star. Nuclear reactors or fuel cells would make more sense - another solution is to research cryogenics and freeze the colonists so they don't need too much support.

<font size=1 color=444444>[This message has been edited by Ecce Homo (edited June 07, 1999).]</font>

[wheathin]

Or, better still, you could have the CHOICE of freezing them. In Civ1,2, you had to get a single tech for each ship part - and the only consideration was how big a ship you wanted. Either you were far ahead, and built the biggest thing you could, or you were locked in a tight race, and built the fastest thing you could.

Civ3 should have more of a sliding scale. The farther into the future your tech goes, the faster you can build a ship, and the faster it will travel. You could build an expensive, slow, multi-generational ship with ~2025 tech, or a faster fusion ship that could be smaller in ~2100, or a stasis/cryo-freeze ship that needs less resources (and can go much faster) and has some silly future-named engine (hyper-ultra-deltecto drive?) in ~2200, and finally you could discover teleportation, build a big machine, and beam the colonists over in a single turn. You would have to make a choice based on how fast your science accumulates vs. how fast your production accumulates (faster sci = wait, faster prod = build it now), and then consider other players. More variables, more dynamic, more challenge.

wheathin

[Harel]

Well Ecco, it WOULD be sad, true, but it has to follow the story, even if abit differently. However, Whithin post seems to be completly off-track ( no offense ), but i don't belive they could explain the difference in SMAC between a starship and teleporation. If you had teleportion, and all the resources of back-home, what made you back-drop to primitve ( realitivy speaking ) technology?
Besides, the sweep-of-time gives SMAC the biggest technological and social development of the future. If you strip that off, and give it to CIV III, what would you have left?

[Harel]

I agree, the unity should be covered by a spectrum varying from 2030-2150 technology. I only refered to the teleporation option. Here are the possible ( in my idea ) options for the unity:
* Catapult: a ship using rocket fuel, catapuling by passing planets. very cheap and fast too build. however, takes around 200 years ( much more, but let's say that ), with 10% of sucess.
* nuclear drive: while we can't have it's "real" speed, let's say 100 years and 30% of sucess, cost: normal. Today technology.
* laser-directed ship ( moved by a laser beam sented by sun-orbiting sats ). 40 years, 80% of sucess ( nothing much to fail ). very near-at-hand tech ( possible today, technacly ). cost: high.
* fusion drive: 50 years seems to be ok. 50% of sucess. 20-30 years from now? cost: normal.
* cold-fusion drive: 30 years, 70% sucess. futuristic technology. cost: normal.
* continuum-slide ( pepetra momentum ): a ship propeled by mach principle, a pure kinetic force. time is around 15 years, VERY high tech stuff. sucess: 70%. cost: normal.
* warp-drive: a ship using gravitional force to warp space around her, giving her FTL speeds. while this IS possible ( magnetic fields warping managed to bring several proton over wraped space to 4.2 C ), a controled field of millions of tons is very far indeed. time: 4-5 turns. cost: very high. tech: max. Sucess: 30%.

[EnochF]

Er, Harel... if the "cold fusion" drive comes after... doesn't that mean that the "fusion" drive would require the engine to be roughly the temperature of the center of a star...?

"Cold fusion" is impossible. I'd go with "laser induced fusion," which is only almost impossible.

[Harel]

Hahaha EnochF, you now fallen into my realm I study physics, so I can give you perfect answer

Ok! first off, by fusion we mean the fusion of hydrogren. There are two forms: pure hydrogen ( which require a tempture of around 200 million c , of "heavy" hydrogren, a mixture of deutrium and tritium atoms. Those "only" require the tempture of 4-6 million C.
Now, those temptures are attainable. They are not created by LASER, btw but with the use of elctro-magnetic defelctors which create the force which is equal to almost 10,000 tons. This pressure creates the heat. The problem? the system is not effeicent enough. However, better fueling techniches are close at hand, and "heavy" fusion systems are very close indeed and would be reached in our life-time, probaly.

NOW, something competly different and almost sci-fi. That is cold-fusion. Cold fusion is, well, not cold. It's working in the OPPISITE direction to the sun, it's braking down matter. This is why it's called cold, cause it's working the other-way around of the normal "hot" fusion. While fusioning 4 hydrogen atoms would create 1 helium atom ( with 1/273 of the mass released in the form of energy ), cold fusion breaks down the helium into 4 hydrogen atoms, releasing more energy.
Fields that create this chain-reaction ( the break-down of matter ) can be created for short duration of time, but can't be controled or stablize. Some scientists even say we would never achieve this technology, this its just against the law of physics: we would always use more energy to create the chain reaction and controling it then recieving back.
In fusion systems however, we are very close to pass the thresh-hold and get more energy then we put in, the bargain every one are seeking.
If you want comparsion to SMAC, compare fusion power to quantum power.

[wheathin]

Harel: true... although the rest of the idea is still pretty good. There's no reason the Unity can't be far more advanced then we are now. The big 'tech-crash' comes from having most of Unity's resources scattered across the planet, having each of the factions *crashing* on the surface, and having the collective knowledge and skills of the group splintered into smaller pieces.

As to what that leaves SMAC, well, it gets the joy of colonizing an alien world. And, for all intents and purposes, most of the techs and gizmos in SAMC have incomprehensible names anyway. Who can tell if they are 60 years in the future or 600?

wheathin

[don Don]

Uh, no… Fusion is always fusing two or more atoms into one. The fission you're describing has negative energy potential, i.e., it requires more energy to break the helium than is liberated when the nucleus is broken. "Cold fusion" is fusion where heavy hydrogen mixtures are absorbed in a matrix (palladium is the best bet at present) to create the confinement criterium for fusion without using massive pressure and heat. Without extra energy of the heat it is a slow reaction, perhaps suitable for long life, low power energy cells of some sort.

[don Don]

I forgot. I've always thought the space race in Civ/Civ2 dumb. "Let's jump straight from current (laughable) space technology to near-light-speed interstellar transport!" Let's have a real space race.

1) getting to orbit
2) building satellites
3) in no particular order:
3a) exploring the moon
3b) remote planetary exploration
3c) better satellites
3d) exploitation of lunar resources
4) gradual development of interplanetary transport tech
5) orbital industry of scale worth including
6) manned exploration of inner system
7) orbital colonization
8) waaaay in the future, planetary colonization

[EnochF]

Yes, the "breaking apart of helium atoms" you describe is most definitely not fusion of any kind. If anything, it is mere nuclear fission. And the fission of helium is indeed a negative-energy process. Uranium and plutonium are far better substances for fission, as they are inherently unstable. To repeat, fusion never involves "breaking up" matter. However, I won't dwell on this, as it's unclear from your post whether you, (a) aren't fully conversant with the concept, or (b) have a complete grasp of physics but aren't fully conversant with the language and did not express the concepts correctly.

Moving on. Fusion, of course, does not necessarily require intense heat. What it does require is enough motive force to overcome the repulsion of atomic nuclei (made up of protons and neutrons, or in the case of hydrogen, one proton). This may be overcome with some sort of mechanical device or "electromagnetic deflectors," I suppose (the deflectors would not "generate heat," per se, but merely accelerate atoms much like a cyclotron). But in order to fuse mass quantities of hydrogen into helium, the most efficient way of overcoming the threshold is to simply turn up the heat, which simultaneously speeds up large numbers of atoms and increases the probability that fusion will take place.

Laser induced fusion: By bombarding a localized group of hydrogen and helium atoms with high-intensity lasers, one could theoretically begin a contained fusion reaction. Much like your own idea, only substituting lasers for deflectors. Lasers would have the advantage of being able to effect more atoms per square meter.

"Cold fusion" can be one of two things:
(1) an atomic reaction utterly inexplicable to our current knowledge of physics, or
(2) a fraud.
Most scientists tend to lean toward the latter, though of course any test which confirms the repeatability of the experiment will immediately tip the scales the other way.