Grognerd_INC
Posts: 919
Joined: 11/17/2005 From: CA native, retired in FL Status: offline
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The link below is where I get a lot of my inspiration for a realism mod in DW2, it's sister website is 3D Starmaps in case you want fairly accurate star maps of all scales. It's purpose is to give Sci-Fi writers some real science background and is a very comprehensive site. ProjectRho - Atomic Rockets The amount of "suspend your disbelief" necessary for any entertaining sort of gaming experience for Science Fiction games and 4X style is utterly absurd. So many little things get in the way! Like the Laws of thermodynamics, Fundamental forces of nature and many, many others. Entertainment like Star Trek, Star Wars & even The Expanse break most of these fundamental things to tiny little pieces. Based on what is an allowable mod in DW2 I am going to attempt to create this mod. So far my idea is to build it around a local star field transferred to a 2D or (Hopefully) a 3D starmap. 1500 to 2000 stars are somewhere around a 65 light year bubble with Sol in the center. There is plenty of software available to use as a reference, a few of the paid ones have pretty up to date astronomical data. I will use the lists of known exoplanets to populate the data. I want to modify the resources lists to mimic the periodic table (no unobtainium or other fictitious items). There is plenty to work with in the periodic table, along with some well thought out manufactured materials. Research should follow the known fundamental forces and not get into real crazy technologies, after all a laser beam can be at various energy levels, light, UV, X-Ray & gamma ray. I'd imagine a gamma ray laser would be pretty dangerous! Particle beams sure can be a thing, they need to be neutral beam type. Missile systems can't be based on chemical rockets, not enough ranges, dang an ICBM only has an intercontinental range! Probably based on nuclear engines or Ion drives. Detonation lasers could be a thing (X-ray scatter shot laser pumped by a nuclear weapon). Gauss cannons and rail guns could be a thing (they are not the same thing). I get too wordy sorry... But it's crazy, just look up how starships would generate electricity is pretty funny. Very limited ways to generate electricity from Fission, Fusion or any other energy source. The other funny thing is the amount of heat generated to get rid of is amazing. Look at the Space Shuttle or ISS and review their heat radiator systems. A starship with gigawatts of energy for the lasers alone would require enormous amounts of heat exchangers, in space only radiation works to dissipate heat which limits your options and you end up with a third of your ships mass in radiators. Heat radiation is a big thing and it gets no mention in any SCI-Fi tropes. Yep even though I want to address all these overlooked technical details in research and ships components, I still will need to "suspend some disbelief" to pull it off! I won't even mention FTL drive but you gotta have it! Based on how the game uses FTL I'll either use the old Einstein-Rosen bridge (wormhole) or the Alcubierre drive - the only two candidates that are accepted in physics today. Might have to go with the old vacuum energy ploy to make them feasible. At least neither incurs any time dilation effects! Many other mods to go over but I'll end this post here before it gets too wordy!
< Message edited by larrybush -- 1/20/2020 5:48:21 PM >
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