[Phantom Hoover]

Making it rotate would be unbearable on the materials? Probably, don't remember that bit.

In practical terms yes, but also in practical terms it's a Dyson sphere and the materials science involved is already very, very trololololololol, so...

More importantly, your atmosphere is all going to accumulate in the equatorial region, meaning that the inhabitable region is, for all intents and purposes, a Ringworld.

[FreeSpaceFreak]

Making it rotate would be unbearable on the materials? Probably, don't remember that bit.

Making it rotate would give you maximum gravity near the equator and zero gravity at the poles. Which would definitely make life interesting, but perhaps not very practical Also, what Phantom Hoover said.

[oliacym]

I guess there'd be a ton of different industries in a Dyson Sphere, and not all of it would be for habitation. A good chunk of the surface would be automated to serve the needs of those living in the 'Hab Zone' at the equator. A lot of the surface would likely be used for energy collection in any case, so maybe living space restricted to the equator is for the best?

[Phantom Hoover]

I don't think you realise just how little of the sphere's surface area is actually usable. A quick calculation shows that the strip on a Dyson sphere the size of Earth's orbit within Earth's inhabited pressure range is about the width of Jupiter -- which sounds like a lot, but that's about 0.02% of the total surface area. For energy collection, a swarm would be better in every way; for any kind of industry, the added complications of gravity and a rotating reference frame would probably make it not worthwhile. The short of it is that a Dyson sphere is utterly, utterly impractical; but that's been known for a long time.

[qwadtep]

I think that the complications of gravity and a rotating reference frame are probably child's play for a civilization with the technology and resources to build a Dyson sphere. Hell, if you're building a Dyson sphere, it's probably because you have a very specific need and already have those problems solved for whatever industry is moving in before you even start construction, else you'd have just covered every rock in the system with antimatter factories and built your ExxonGalactic palace elsewhere.

[Luis Dias]

I also think that what we are thinking when we utter "Dyson Sphere" is just a really cartoonish, simplified version of what it would actually be like. Despite the all correct problems that Phantom Hoover detects in the simple design we have in our heads, it's still true that the core principle of the Dyson Sphere is how to get the full power output of a Sun.

The only real question that makes the DS "impractible", "impossible" or "stupid" in my head is if there's a much better way to extract energy from the universe other than collecting it directly from stars. I'm not saying there is not, but if there isn't, then it would be built. It would probably not spin the way we think, it would probably be much more complex than we can even imagine, it would probably solve many "intractable" things with surprising efficiency and simplicity, etc.

Although I feel that any renderization of an actual Dyson Sphere in any sci-fi setting that I've seen never really captured the real scale of what it really means. ST:TNG's take on it is pityful, absolutely cartoonish (looks like a huge room with a strange light bulb at the center), without followup (I mean, for a civilization to have built up this thing millions of miles of radius long, it means this civ is by far the most advanced in ST universe, and still after the Enterprise goes away, not even one further mention of it is done. No one cares about any riches that can be extracted from such an advanced ruin! It's mind boggling).

[Phantom Hoover]

I think the main point I'm getting at is that there is no real reason to build a solid Dyson sphere rather than a swarm -- it's orders of magnitude harder to build, far harder to maintain, and all its supposed additional uses beyond energy collection are better served by other structures.

[An4ximandros]

 Funnily enough, Dyson's original pitch for the sphere was a lot closer to the swarm proposal.

 On topic: It would be an interesting addition to the game, the likes of that goddamn interesting grid level from hell that's in directional eclipse. Just because it's not scientifically possible (like, say, freespace ), it does not mean we should not have it. There is always some sort of technobabble work around. Like the sphere being symbolic of flipping off nature by a civilization that has advanced beyond our understanding of reality and it's engineering.

 Just the idea of a skybox being all planet makes it an interesting addition to the community's assets.

Addition: You could work this idea into something like, the Shivan homeworld or dimension or whatthefrakever.

[Luis Dias]

I think the main point I'm getting at is that there is no real reason to build a solid Dyson sphere rather than a swarm -- it's orders of magnitude harder to build, far harder to maintain, and all its supposed additional uses beyond energy collection are better served by other structures.

Oh sure, I agree, my point is even beyond that, that what would eventually be built wouldn't really be describable as "Dyson Swarms", "Dyson Spheres" or Statites or Bubbles or whatever. It would be absolutely strange, mind bendingly counter-intuitive and downright obscene to our 21st century scientific sensibilities .