[Sandwich]

 

Originally posted by Su-tehp:
Yeah, but but, Aldo, in some missions in FS 2.9, you're actually flying INSIDE the Sphere. This means getting rid of the regular "stars and nebula and planets" background and replacing it with actual ground/planetary terrain.

That's actually not a problem... just make a low-poly sphere (think around 16 polies or so), have the face normals face inwards, and texture it with 16 different tiling earth-like tiles. Oh, and make it 50,000 km in diameter.  

EDIT: Wait a sec... How do you know that some missions are inside Dyson spheres?

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America, stand assured that Israel truly understands what you are going through.

"He who laughs last thinks slowest."
"Just becase you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you."
"To err is human; to really screw up you need a computer."
Creator of the Sandvich Bar, the CapShip Turret Upgrade, the Complete FS2 Ship List and the System Backgrounds List (all available from the site)

[This message has been edited by sandwich (edited 11-03-2001).]

[Su-tehp]

 

Originally posted by sandwich:
Wait a sec... How do you know that some missions are inside Dyson spheres?

It's easy enough to deduce, Sandwich. Remember that subspace jumps work by "phasing" a ship (making it insubstantial such that it can pass through objects in physical space) through a subspace hole smaller than a micron. This means that the jumping ship essentially "teleports" when it jumps, allowing it to "bypass" solid objects in space.

Looking at Ascraeus' map for FS 2.9, there are some routes for the GTVA task force that lead to star systems labeled with the words "Dyson Sphere". If Dyson spheres encompass whole star systems, then the only conclusion to reach is that the GTVA taskforce jumped/teleported INSIDE these Dyson Spheres because jump nodes form inside star systems, or at least form near stars. (The nebular jump nodes would seem to be an obvious exception to this rule, but there is a star seen inside the nebula as well when you fly some of the FS2 nebular missions.)

If there are jump nodes located inside the Dyson Sphere, then a ship can jump into the Sphere from the outside if there is an adjacent jump node connecting to a node inside the Sphere. A jumping ship would "bypass" the wall of the Sphere like it wasn't there.

It's easy enough to deduce, isn't it?

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FRED Zone's Grammar editor/ FS history moderator
Former member of TCA
Member in good standing of 99th Skulls
Honorary member of TCS and UGC

"I created your civilization...now I will destroy it!"
--Ra, the Sun God


[This message has been edited by Su-tehp (edited 11-03-2001).]

[jonskowitz]

Didn't venom or somebody make a giant asteroid model (complete with tunnels) that you could fly inside?

And as far as the Dyson shpere problem, it seems to me that it should be even simpler than that.  use bitmaps for the background showing the scenery for the inside of the sphere and ser stars to 0.

[This message has been edited by jonskowitz (edited 11-03-2001).]

[Sandwich]

 

Originally posted by Su-tehp:
 It's easy enough to deduce, Sandwich. Remember that subspace jumps work by "phasing" a ship (making it insubstantial such that it can pass through objects in physical space) through a subspace hole smaller than a micron. This means that the jumping ship essentially "teleports" when it jumps, allowing it to "bypass" solid objects in space.

Looking at Ascraeus' map for FS 2.9, there are some routes for the GTVA task force that lead to star systems labeled with the words "Dyson Sphere". If Dyson spheres encompass whole star systems, then the only conclusion to reach is that the GTVA taskforce jumped/teleported INSIDE these Dyson Spheres because jump nodes form inside star systems, or at least form near stars. (The nebular jump nodes would seem to be an obvious exception to this rule, but there is a star seen inside the nebula as well when you fly some of the FS2 nebular missions.)

There are a couple of flaws in your reasoning, although I don't doubt that some missions will take place inside Dyson spheres.

- One, subspace drives cause a ship to vibrate at a certain frequency in order to open up a way into subspace. However, this does not rule out ships being able to jump into and out ofa Dyson sphere freely using a simple local subspace jump (no node required).

- Two, Dyson spheres must have a radius equal to the distance of any given inhabitable planet from the sun. For Sol, a Dyson sphere would be 1 AU from the sun. For a Shivan system, a sphere would be at the distance that a Shivan-habitable planet would be (an idea I doubt is realistic, as Shivans don't use planets...).
With this in mind, there is a high likelyhood that a jump node would not be located inside the diameter of a Dyson sphere (ie. inside Eartg orbit).

Anyway, the reason I asked was because I thought maybe you managed to get "inside" information about the campaign somehow... I want in, too...  

------------------
America, stand assured that Israel truly understands what you are going through.

"He who laughs last thinks slowest."
"Just becase you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you."
"To err is human; to really screw up you need a computer."
Creator of the Sandvich Bar, the CapShip Turret Upgrade, the Complete FS2 Ship List and the System Backgrounds List (all available from the site)

[aldo_14]

It was on his webpage / the VBB about being inside the Dyson spheres... actually, it would be easier to make inside a sphere than outside... it would be so large that it wouldn't appear curved (i.e. like the surface of the earth), so you could simply use a massive set of planes for sides (also using the limitations on battlefield side).

You could either make the inside a nebula (no need to worry 'bout backgropunds), or, again, use a set of giant planes some distance from the mission boundaries, to create the impression of a vast, distant surface.  Or, create a tiny object with a gigantic engine glow for the inner star, and have planets in the distance / asteroid fields..

[Su-tehp]

 

Originally posted by sandwich:
There are a couple of flaws in your reasoning, although I don't doubt that some missions will take place inside Dyson spheres.

- One, subspace drives cause a ship to vibrate at a certain frequency in order to open up a way into subspace. However, this does not rule out ships being able to jump into and out of a Dyson sphere freely using a simple local subspace jump (no node required).

- Two, Dyson spheres must have a radius equal to the distance of any given inhabitable planet from the sun. For Sol, a Dyson sphere would be 1 AU from the sun. For a Shivan system, a sphere would be at the distance that a Shivan-habitable planet would be (an idea I doubt is realistic, as Shivans don't use planets...).
With this in mind, there is a high likelyhood that a jump node would not be located inside the diameter of a Dyson sphere (ie. inside Earth orbit).

The way I always envisioned Dyson Spheres to be was that they would have to encompass the ENTIRE solar system, meaning all the planets orciting the star the Sphere was built around.

Take our own solar system as an example. A single Dyson Sphere, just because of the amount of material and mass it would have to contain, would create a HUGE gravitaional field, many times more than any star. (Dyson Spheres are THAT massive.) If you attempted to build a Dyson Sphere here in our own solar system such that it would only go out to, say, just beyond Mars' orbit, then Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, Uranus and Pluto would come crashing into the surface of the Sphere before long, because the increased gravity of the Sphere would pull more heavily on these planets, disrupting their orbits.

Also, if the Sphere was built too small as to be just beyond Mars' orbit, Mars might be pulled into the INSIDE suface of the Sphere because of the increased gravitational force pulling the opposite way.

In order to prevent this sort of gravitaional disruption, the Sphere built around Sol would have to go out beyond Pluto's orbit, which is, if I remember correctly, about 120 A.U.s from the Sun. Without question, in order to preserve all the planets in a solar system, a Dyson Sphere would have to encompass all planets in the star system. This would include jump nodes inside the system because jump nodes, so far as I know, form inside star systems.

 

Originally posted by sandwich:
- One, subspace drives cause a ship to vibrate at a certain frequency in order to open up a way into subspace. However, this does not rule out ships being able to jump into and out of a Dyson sphere freely using a simple local subspace jump (no node required).

Local jumps not requiring a jump node, also known as "intrasystem jumps," only take place near stellar gravity wells. Local jumps CANNOT be used in interstellar space where there are no stars. (This is mentioned in the Technical database under the "Subspace" entry in FS2.) Whether or not a Dyson Sphere's own gravity would be able to substitute for a star's gravity to allow local jumps is an open question.

 

Originally posted by sandwich:
Anyway, the reason I asked was because I thought maybe you managed to get "inside" information about the campaign somehow... I want in, too...    

Nah, no inside info here. Just my own brain (such as it is...).

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FRED Zone's Grammar editor/ FS history moderator
Former member of TCA
Member in good standing of 99th Skulls
Honorary member of TCS and UGC

"I created your civilization...now I will destroy it!"
--Ra, the Sun God


[This message has been edited by Su-tehp (edited 11-04-2001).]

[joek]

 

Originally posted by Su-tehp:
In order to prevent this sort of gravitaional disruption, the Sphere built around Sol would have to go out beyond Pluto's orbit, which is, if I remember correctly, about 120 A.U.s from the Sun. Without question, in order to preserve all the planets in a solar system, a Dyson Sphere would have to encompass all planets in the star system. This would include jump nodes inside the system because jump nodes, so far as I know, form inside star systems.

But that's missing the whole point of a Dyson Sphere.

1a) A Dyson Sphere is created to collect all the energy from a star,
1b) while supporting the sentient beings who created the Dyson Sphere.

Because of this you want the Dyson Sphere's inside circumfrence(sp?) to be the same distance from your star as the planet you were created on. You also want the inside of the Sphere to have the same gravitational force as your planet of origin.

I don't remember who said it, or where I read it, but one scientist (or a group of) said that Dyson Spheres could never be created because their mass would require more material than exists inside of any star system.

So, because of how much mass the Dyson Sphere needs to:
A) hold it together from falling in towards the star, and
B) create the same gravitational force as the planet who's residents are building it,
basically the entire star system (except for the star of course) would be canabalized for the Dyson Sphere.

This means that you don't have to worry about Jupiter crashing into the Sphere, because Jupiter would have already been taken apart probably to create the gigantic atmosphere clinging to the inside of the Sphere.

So, (in conclusion),
1) a Dyson Sphere would on reach to the distance of the habitable zone of the star it surrounds, and
2) there would be no other planets, asteroids, etc in the star system because they would have been used to create the Sphere.

Now, on to the second point(s) I wanted to make.

Yes, the idea of six large textured planes (at a distance greater than Alpha 1 can fly), could be used to minic the inside of the Sphere.

And, for the exterior, I don't think that you need to create an object (like a planet object). Mainly because a Dyson Sphere would be much larger than a planet (and that's an understatement, at the distance above the Earth the Space Shuttle flys, if you were that distance above a Dyson Sphere, whereas the Earth looks round from that distance, the Dyson Sphere would look as flat as if you're standing on the Earth).

So how would I create a Dyson Sphere? Just create a Dyson Sphere .pcx and place it over the star in FRED (and I haven't tried this, so you might also need to make a black star or something to remove the star glow when Alpha 1 turns toward the Sphere.

Joe.

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www.joek.com
Revelations: A FS2 Campaign

[Culloden]

In general, the star accounts for 99% of the mass in the average star system, so you're right.

[TDM/JM]

Great discussion here! Very informative, and really fun to read. Sandwich, I posted a note to you over on the VBB thread.

A few points:

(1) Su-tehp is correct: a number of the missions do take place inside Dyson Spheres. For dramatic purposes, it would have to be done -- can you imagine flying around the periphery of such a construct without having a chance to go inside? What a rip!

(2) If you are inside a Dyson Sphere, flying high above the interior surface, light sourcing from the star and from surface illumination will give an indication of curvature, from what I've read. Large flat planes may not be convincing, unless they're blended and textured. If you are on the ground, the only sense you'll have of the sphere is "odd" look of the sky, particularly at sunset/sunrise and at night.

(3) It's not tough to imagine the sphere-builders leaving a planet or two inside the sphere, for aesthetic purposes. Or perhaps even preserving their home planet for sentimental reasons. There might also be a mechanism inside for blocking light and heat from the central star on a temporary, rotating basis, simulating night and day and the seasons -- like the "shadow squares" that Niven described in RINGWORLD.

(4) There are two ways to build a shell without creating a lot of mass (and therefore gravity). First: thin, high-tensile material that compresses with rotational torque, quark-weaved stuff that takes advantage of strong force on the subatomic scale. Two: extrusions of non-contiguous physical properties from another universe, shaped into barriers the way we shape metal or plastic. It would be impossible to break, but you could blow it up by disrupting the fields that shape it and hold it in check. See Greg Bear's novel EON, for example.

(5) None of the missions I envisioned took place near the interior surface, nor in the atmosphere of a Dyson Sphere, because I thought the technical issues might be too great. If someone wants to tell me differently, I'd be fascinated to hear it. The missions I wrote were "in space," near the central sun, or outside, near the exterior surface.

(6) On "getting into" the Dyson Sphere, I had envisioned several ways: a rare jump node in the interior, a Shivan-built portal inside (of course!), and an enormous, planet-sized "gate" on the exterior-to-interior surface that irised open.

(7) On the dimensions of a Dyson Sphere: matching the sphere's radius to the central star's "life zone" won't necessarily work. The interior surface will trap 100% of the star's radiation. Convective heat in the surface itself will add heat. Infrared reflection inside a sphere will not "cool" the surface as much. I'd imagine that the interior surface of the sphere would be further out that the original life zone, and much of the energy will ducted to the exterior surface and radiated into space using huge heat sinks. So a Dyson Sphere will glow red and orange in places, possibly putting out as much heat and light as a small star. In some ways, it's a trickier problem than gravity.

(8) Besides, who ever said that the sphere builders would be satisfied with a single, central star? Why not tow another star or two into the central space of an enormous sphere, and set them in stable orbits? That's what the GTVA task force encounters INSIDE Khrishna on the map -- Khrishna being the outermost "core" system of Shivan civilization -- the others are beyond the map.

(9) If you want a technical challenge, here's what I had envisioned for the Krishna missions -- Having uncovered the technical wherewithall to collapse stars and create the rebound effect that results in supernovaes (as witness the Capella explosion), the GTVA task force enters the Khrishna sphere with the intent of setting off the largest of the three central suns with an effect like a pipe bomb -- the whole sphere blows apart in titanic pieces of shrapnel. In the last of the Khrishna missions, the task force exits the sphere and must reach a jump node before the thing goes up, battling Shivan evacuation convoys. So the sphere blows just as the task force reaches the node, and the player has to race the expanding shock wave/debris wave to retrieval, with Shivans taking shots at him/her the whole way . . . .

Ascraeus

[jonskowitz]

Well, I was going to post something, but Ascraeus pretty much covered everything I was going to bring up, darnit...  

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I told you that It would be done by November, well, mostly anyway...

[This message has been edited by jonskowitz (edited 11-04-2001).]

[joek]

 

Originally posted by TDM/JM:
(2) ... If you are on the ground, the only sense you'll have of the sphere is "odd" look of the sky, particularly at sunset/sunrise and at night.

Actually, it would look very flat like the Earth, but the real thing you would notice is that there is no sunrise, sunset, nor even night. Since you're not on a planet that revolves its surface away from the star, you would never have night. (Unless of course the engineers created large orbiting planes to give sections of the sphere night at different times... D'oh! I see that point in #3  )

 

Originally posted by TDM/JM:
(5) None of the missions I envisioned took place near the interior surface, nor in the atmosphere of a Dyson Sphere, because I thought the technical issues might be too great. If someone wants to tell me differently, I'd be fascinated to hear it.

Nah... then you'd just have to make atmospheric craft for FS2... I like flying in space.  

 

Originally posted by TDM/JM:
(7) On the dimensions of a Dyson Sphere: matching the sphere's radius to the central star's "life zone" won't necessarily work. The interior surface will trap 100% of the star's radiation. Convective heat in the surface itself will add heat. Infrared reflection inside a sphere will not "cool" the surface as much. I'd imagine that the interior surface of the sphere would be further out that the original life zone, and much of the energy will ducted to the exterior surface and radiated into space using huge heat sinks. So a Dyson Sphere will glow red and orange in places, possibly putting out as much heat and light as a small star. In some ways, it's a trickier problem than gravity.

Interesting idea. But I still imagine that the reason you create the Sphere is to capture 100% of the star's energy, converting most of it into energy to power your systems (TV, computers  ). Maybe even if you don't build the Sphere with enough mass to create its own gravity, you've got the technology to generate your own gravity, and you'd use a chunk of the star's energy to power these gravity machines. Probably, rather then venting it into space, you'd use it to power up your space vehicles, maybe even things like laser sails.

 

Originally posted by TDM/JM:
(8) Besides, who ever said that the sphere builders would be satisfied with a single, central star? Why not tow another star or two into the central space of an enormous sphere, and set them in stable orbits? That's what the GTVA task force encounters INSIDE Khrishna on the map -- Khrishna being the outermost "core" system of Shivan civilization -- the others are beyond the map.

Now that sounds cool.  

 

Originally posted by TDM/JM:
(9) If you want a technical challenge, here's what I had envisioned for the Krishna missions -- Having uncovered the technical wherewithall to collapse stars and create the rebound effect that results in supernovaes (as witness the Capella explosion), the GTVA task force enters the Khrishna sphere with the intent of setting off the largest of the three central suns with an effect like a pipe bomb -- the whole sphere blows apart in titanic pieces of shrapnel. In the last of the Khrishna missions, the task force exits the sphere and must reach a jump node before the thing goes up, battling Shivan evacuation convoys. So the sphere blows just as the task force reaches the node, and the player has to race the expanding shock wave/debris wave to retrieval, with Shivans taking shots at him/her the whole way . . . .

Hmm... that does sound tough, though I don't know if it's really that doable. I mean in the last FS2 mission the expanding shockwave vaporizes Alpha 1 if you don't get out in time.  

Joe.

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www.joek.com
Revelations: A FS2 Campaign

[jonskowitz]

 

Originally posted by joek:
Nah... then you'd just have to make atmospheric craft for FS2... I like flying in space.

Besides, if we want atmospheric missions and craft we already have the 'Starfighter' conversion  

Just wait until I get my terrain models finished.  I have 2 planned, one of Earth (at an undisclosed location) and the other of the western tip of the "martian grand canyon" don't remember the name right off hand, have to look at my martian maps when I get home).

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I told you that It would be done by November, well, mostly anyway...

[This message has been edited by jonskowitz (edited 11-04-2001).]

[Shrike]

Personally..... why would Shivans need Dyson Spheres?

[jonskowitz]

For the same reason anyone else would need them.  A place to live...

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I told you that It would be done by November, well, mostly anyway...

[Shrike]

But isn't the general idea that Shivans are Zeegee inhabiting critters?  What would they need all that room for when loose rocks would work just as well.

[jonskowitz]

Well, we still don't know exactly who or even what the Shivans are.  I think the point of this campaign was to (finally) show us a little bit about them.  How they live, what are they capable of, what drives them so xenophobic and unneighborly.

[TDM/JM]

Dunno if anyone saw this on the VBB, but I was trying to frame the concept of "superwars" and how Dyson Spheres might give a sense of a "higher conflict" that the GTVA stumbles onto. It's another dimension of the DS idea.

**The only way you're going to destroy a Dyson Sphere is by doing what the Shivans did to Capella, which suggests that they're old hands at that sort of "superwar" on an astronomical scale.

Which means that if you do posit another terrifically-advanced species (the Andarta) in a "ten-thousand-year" war with Shivans, then you're going to have to do some thinking about redesigning the nature of war itself. You'll have to reflect that redesign in your campaign -- it's not just about fleets of big ships launching fighters. There's a whole strategic realm above and beyond that where
both sides fling stuff on an astonomical scale at each other. That's what the Capella mystery hinted at -- the Shivans do this sort of thing all the time.

You can design a campaign to give a sense of this -- the Dyson Sphere idea is one way. In my outline the GTVA task force stumbles across several nebulae which are the wreckage of old campaigns between the Shivans and Andarta (Prisni, Paranath, to a lesser degree, Erui). That's another way to create an "atmosphere" of "superwar." And of course, there's drama here -- the GTVA folks  have to react to a type of conflict they've never witnessed, etc.**

Shrike has a point. Both FS1 & 2 briefly imply that the Shivans seem at home in zeegee, and that they are connected somehow with interstitial hyperspace. I'm not sure that's solid enough information to negate the Dyson Sphere idea, however. Hard surfaces,  lots of it, 100% stellar energy, and control over transit points are attractive options, even for zeegee types.

Ultimately, if I'm forced to, I'll fall back to the following argument: it's cooler to have them building Dysons Spheres than floating around in space.  

Ascraeus

[Shrike]

What, and fighting your way through ten thousand beam-spitting asteroids isn't?  

[jonskowitz]

Naaaaah, that's just what we do for fun  

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I told you that It would be done by November, well, mostly anyway...

[joek]

 

Originally posted by Shrike:
But isn't the general idea that Shivans are Zeegee inhabiting critters?  What would they need all that room for when loose rocks would work just as well.

You know, they might not even need full Dyson Spheres. I mean they don't need gravity, so the Sphere wouldn't be loaded with mass to create gravity. So instead of Dyson Spheres as big terrestrial habitats around a star, the Shivans probably use them as huge spacedocks around a star.

Joe.

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www.joek.com
Revelations: A FS2 Campaign