Gas giants Good or Bad?

DirectorTsaarx · #1 January 29th, 2002, 11:48 PM

quote:
Originally posted by Phoenix-D:
Gas giant planets are both rarer and larger than normal planets- no gas giant moons, for example. In short, it places a premium on your colonies- you'll have fewer to protect, but each one you loose will hurt more.

Other than that, no huge effects.

Phoenix-D

Gas Giants are even rarer if you use the "Ancient" quadrant type for the map.

TerranC · #2 January 30th, 2002, 12:32 AM

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.

CW · #3 January 30th, 2002, 03:25 AM

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

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 · #4 January 30th, 2002, 03:43 AM

quote:
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.

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 · #5 January 30th, 2002, 03:52 AM

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 · #6 January 30th, 2002, 04:09 AM

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 · #7 January 30th, 2002, 09:10 PM

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?