Colonizing the sun??

For what's not in 'Top Priority Game Design'. Post your ideas, visions, suggestions for the game, rules, modifications, etc.

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Dreamer
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Colonizing the sun??

#1 Post by Dreamer »

Just another weird idea. Special bases / colonies extracting energy from the sun. Or some race capable of living here.

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utilae
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#2 Post by utilae »

Impaler was talking about some wierd reace that could live in suns (in the race categories thread).

Impaler
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#3 Post by Impaler »

Yes their are several Sci-Fi stories I have read about Stellar life. Usaly its Plasma-Energy based life that lives in the Photosphere of the star. They would be much like the giant Gass-bag creatures that live in Gas-giant planets.

I think Dreamer is thinking more along the lines of building a giant solar colector or Dyson-Sphere like thing that colects all the light from a star and produces energy. This could be a cool project to build around a Star in the very late game. By that time your creating your own planets and Starlanes and this could provide the energy to do so with.
Fear is the Mind Killer - Frank Herbert -Dune

guiguibaah
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Interesting

#4 Post by guiguibaah »

That could be really interesting... Even if it isn't a playable race. Different coloured suns do different things.

Perhaps due to their nature of living in suns, they are hard to get rid of, if at all... They start in one sun... and grow. Their duty is to spread to another adjacent sun.

Only in the mid-late game can you actually get rid of them. In the early-mid game, your focus (if you so chose) is to prevent them from spreading to another sun.

They can grow faster by raiding colonies, yet they are technologically inept.

- They could look like a phoenix / fire race of somesuch.
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haravikk
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#5 Post by haravikk »

What if they were a single entity that could grow in many parts, or a hive mind type thing with a central intelligence somewhere. One of the objectives in the game could be to communicate with this intelligence, which would have been around for quite a while :)

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utilae
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#6 Post by utilae »

The I only thing I am wondering is that if a race can live inside a sun, ie not hurt by the extreeme heat of the sun, then how would weapons be able to hurt them.

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yaromir
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#7 Post by yaromir »

The I only thing I am wondering is that if a race can live inside a sun, ie not hurt by the extreeme heat of the sun, then how would weapons be able to hurt them.
They would have to be hit with disassociative weaponry, like molecular cutter. Something that destroys the bonds between molecules

Or if they are pure-energy then some dissipative, dampening or even absorbant weaponry could do it ;)
Staying awake and aware is perhaps the hardest thing to do.

Dreamer
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Re: Interesting

#8 Post by Dreamer »

guiguibaah wrote:Perhaps due to their nature of living in suns, they are hard to get rid of, if at all... They start in one sun... and grow. Their duty is to spread to another adjacent sun.
Maybe in a parasitic way. You get an "infected" sun and begins to age rapidly. Your colonies are in danger and you have to act quickly. It's something like the space eels in Moo2, but more dangerous. If the sun ages too much every planet is destroyed and the star becomes a neutron star.

Ways to defeat them: energy absortion / dissipation, mind control? (wow!).


I was also thinking about the ability to build special structures around the sun to extract energy.

Carbon Copy Man
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#9 Post by Carbon Copy Man »

But how would a creature, adept at surviving in the EXTREME environment of the sun, be able to cope with the inversely extreme conditions of space? How would it shield itself? If a lifeform could feed off the unimaginable energy of the sun, wouldn't it quickly starve in space?


There's something in Dreamer's idea that appeals to me, but I think its an idea that could be simplified by simply classifying the sun as "unstable". Maybe you could add a lifeform as one of several possible circumstances (in the interest of player-volunteered micromanagement).

But I doubt such a lifeform would work as a player race.

shinryuu
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#10 Post by shinryuu »

well, if not living ON the sun, then how about close-orbit colonies harvesting massive amounts of solar radiation? Creatures adapted to say, a Mercury-like environment who became space-farers, and, unable to replicate their environment on other planets, built colonies orbiting suns? It would be a pretty unique racial advantage ;)

A 'sun creature' would be a pretty great event, however, and I like the idea of an intelligent and benign sun intelligence! (Dude, the sun is talking to me...)

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#11 Post by Wolverine »

If we are into Dyson-sphere that probably affects production, why not allow us to build Matroshka-Brain that does exactly the same, except not for production but for research?
The emperor wants to control outer space. Yoda wants to control inner space. That's the fundamental difference between the good and the bad sides of the force... - Mof, Human Traffic ;)

Magus
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#12 Post by Magus »

If they live in a sun and need to spread to others, the only way to do that is inducing a supernova.

Have fun with that :)

The_Commentator
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Re: Interesting

#13 Post by The_Commentator »

guiguibaah wrote:That could be really interesting... Even if it isn't a playable race. Different coloured suns do different things.

Perhaps due to their nature of living in suns, they are hard to get rid of, if at all... They start in one sun... and grow. Their duty is to spread to another adjacent sun.

Only in the mid-late game can you actually get rid of them. In the early-mid game, your focus (if you so chose) is to prevent them from spreading to another sun.

They can grow faster by raiding colonies, yet they are technologically inept.

- They could look like a phoenix / fire race of somesuch.
I think you're refering to a staple of every civ game I've ever played--they're called "Barbarians". I don't really like the idea of Barbarians as I've seen it so far because they're too limited.

But what if one group of these "Barbarians" was able to take over one of your colonies?

Or what if the game randomly allowed "Barbarians" to "spawn" in previously uninhabited star systems?

I think both situations should lead to the real-time creation of brand-new empires, making the game much more interesting, and frankly, more realilistic. These empires should have full abilities, just like all the other Ai/human players. Plus, there should be many different kinds of "Barbarians".

I think the "Phoenix" alien is a great idea--let's just say that some weapons work better against some aliens than others [water based?]

--T.C.

muxec
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#14 Post by muxec »

Dyson sphere:):)

Barbarians:(:(

Mystical race that travels through the universe and you can trade with them under special conditions:):):)

Mystical race that attacks you as antarians in MOO2 but on less random basis :):):)

discord
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#15 Post by discord »

HEY! dont forget the ringworld! might not be quite as impressive as a dysonsphere....but a few million times the living space of a planet IS a noticable difference....dont remember the exact math, but it was a insanely huge number of 'x amount of earths'.

oh, and hi, been a while.

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