millertime335

This is directed to the Stardock team, but anyone else with experience feel free to contribute. I was just curious on what steps/processes are involved in the making of a video game. Personally, I've always been interested in making a game, or being involved somehow, but I have no programming education (well, very little; I self taught myself basic use of Java and dabbled in a few other languages, but no formal training). So, hypothetically, is there anything one could contribute to

But a nuke rocket not crashing, would still lack containment of nuclear radioactive exauhst would it not? Well, we have used nuclear powered rockets before, though this isn't referring to the actual rocket, just that there is a nuclear reactor producing the ship's electricity. So there is no fallout from those type of rockets. A rocket that actually used fusion to propel it would leave behind some fallout. So the rad

it isnt environmental that is the problem with a nuke rocket. it is what happens if it crashes. Right, it explodes, spreading fallout and potentially killing people. Thats an environmental issue, a very lethal one.

have we developed fusion technology already? What do you think an H-bomb is? H stands for Hydrogen, with which we induce fusion to cause destruction on a large scale. I think you are thinking of fusion reactors , where we would contain a controlled fusion reaction and convert its energy into electricity. That we are still working on. However, we have had H-bombs for a while, and using controlled fusion as rocket fuel is within our grasp, we wou

That would mean the object's speed would increase as it moved into the black hole. The object is still increasing speed. The effect is a result of the spacetime warping due to the intense gravity; relativity kicks in and only makes it appear to slow down. And we do have the theory behind a fusion rocket, we just don't use it. Actually, the ramjet that dystopic started this thread with is one of these fusion rockets attached to a magnet

There are no shortcuts through it. Well, you can always trade for higher techs, and hit the ground running.

About lower techs "increasing" in time to research: assuming you haven't passed the "threshold", where all your infrastructure is built and you just start piling money in the bank, you have to carefully manage your resources, correct? You are probably trying to research when you have a low budget and you reduced your spending, whether overall or for just research. Either way, it is taking longer because you are throwing less money at it per week.

Since no atomic interaction, There isn't any atomic interaction because the particles aren't arranged into what we refer to as atoms. The particles, however, still have mass, and therefore gravity, so that is one interaction (the prominent one at that). They also still retain their charge; the protons repel other protons and attract electrons, electrons repel as well. But it is so minuscule compared to the gravitational forces, which is what holds the

since 1 we don't know if they would survive spaghuettification. or two what actually happens in the heart of the beast. Well, no, they don't "survive" spaghettification. Initially, the intermolecular bonds fail, and the object is reduced to molecules, and then the object is torn apart at the molecular level, however, the atoms are still intact. Then, when they get closer, the atoms are torn apart into electrons, protons, and neutrons, and then those ar

What other enviromental conditions could affect a popluation? What if the sun was different colour? I think that in a civilization's early development that would have a large effect, however in a culture that has already been shaped by Earth wouldn't react as strongly to these minor changes, at least not as strongly as it would to other factors, like isolation from Earth. another thing that's occured to me is inviting

Is it magnetic or chemical? A chemical bond is the atoms' electrons forming a stable orbit created by their magnetic interactions with the nuclei. It's all magnetics; but it's just referred to as chemical bonds, probably because it isn't all the relevant to most studies in chemistry. I think that most chemists are more worried about molecular reactions on a large scale rather than what goes on inside the atom. are t

However i must stress that this could still be impossible if no material exists that can resist compression/expansion enough to beat the speed of light. And it is indeed impossible. The force that travels along a rigid body is transferred by photons traversing the interlocking magnetic fields between atoms (chemical bonds); hence, it can only go as fast as those photons: the speed of light.

When you start a new game, you get to choose among various settings, from tech rate to various celestial bodies. However, I am confused about what some of them actually do. Specifically the relationship between planets and habitable planets. Are they separate amounts, or does the setting on habitable planets account for a proportion of the planets in general? Basically, I'm want to set it so that there are more habitable planets than uninhabitable. So does anyone know the actual numbers or

Card actually uses something similar to danielost's ideas in Children of the Mind . Better get on it dystopic.

The question for the astrophysicists to ponder is: is the gravity coming out or going in? AFAIK both. Gravity is the result of two bodies of mass exchanging gravitons, a theoretically massless particle (if it weren't massless, gravity would drawn to itself, which would make for some very strange effects in physics. I believe the technical term for this is "FUBAR" <img src="http://images.stardock.com/gc2/T_DL/smiles/Laugh.gif" border=0 align="absmi

Right, thats what I thought. You're probably right. Though, I noticed you used the word 'conceivable'.

i had a big post in response to what you guys have said, but i lost it again. You know, when I am writing a long post, I just highlight the whole thing every so often and copy it to the clipboard. Then if I lose it for some reason, I just hit Ctrl-V. Unlikely. After all, the main energy sources in the galaxy are all EM emitters, it is pretty fundamental energy, even if just as a side effect. I fail to s

If there are intelligent alien life forms, they are so far away that niether of us can detect eachother due to the time it takes for a transmission to travel that far (millions of light years) or their state of developement hasn't reached the point where we could dectect them (pre industrial revolution - for example). Well, I was thinking about this, but isn't it also possible that an alien civilization is so advanced that they no longer use radio/EM rad

Well, I usually don't play on anything higher than Tough, or the occasional Painful, so I'm free to cut out otherwise necessary things, like building significant military forces. Also, after getting around 5 planets I switch from transports to constructors so that I can claim mining resources. The AI's are particularly greedy when it comes to those, so I try to start early in that market rather than focus on planets; besides there are plenty of planets that are uninhabitable at first, which I

i've only ever read the original Ender's Game. Definitely read the sequels. The ones that follow Ender seem to be more relevant to what you want; the Shadow series remains on Earth. They're all good though. P.S. Speaker of the Dead Xenocide Children of the Mind these are the ones that follow Ender.

Do you read Popular Mechanics? I just looked at the September issue, and the main article was about plans/projections/theories for lunar and martian bases in the future. It was really interesting, and obviously relevant to our discussion here, in regards to the types of technology that would be deployed. We had been talking about how you wouldn't really need to ship materials from other worlds, but one thing that the article mentioned (briefly), which is something that I hadn't consid

I assume that when creating a custom race you will be able to select one of these tech trees, or perhaps a generic one?

Hey, I was just thinking it might be interesting to do a Star Trek: Voyager -esque story about the hardships of colonist life aboard the ship in transit to the new colony. Maybe if your first goes well you can write a prequel .

you forget gravity pulls on everything at the same force. True. gravitational force decreases exponentially with increased distance. Also true. if you drop a feather and a rock on the moon they will both hit at the same time. Ah, but this is only true if the rock and the feather start at the same altitude (and the absence of resistance, or course)

I certainly have no objection to any mod, ever. Very good sir. Carry on.