Realistic Re-Name for Resources

[Borealis4x (OP)]

I flunked out of chemistry AND geography, but that won't stop me from trying to find IRL equivalents to the trans-newtonian elements we see in the game.

Their IRL alternatives are based off of their applications in game; so Neutronium which is described as a dense metal used to make kinetic weapons is replaced by Tungsten, which is a dense metal used to make kinetic weapons. Some comparisons are better than other, but that's to be expected when each element has such broad uses.

The descriptions of what each trans-newtonian element does can be found here:
http://aurorawiki.pentarch.org/index.php?title=Trans_Newtonian_Elements

Duranium => Iron: The most widely used of all metals, it should be pretty obvious why I chose Iron as Duranium's real life counterpart. Iron's importance cannot be understated.

Sorium => Hydrogen: Given how they are found on gas giants to the exclusion of all else and are used as literal fuel, I think Hydrogen is an easy choice to stand-in for Sorium.

Neutronium => Tungsten: A dense metal, tungsten has been used to make advanced ballistic weapons since WWII. It is also used to make high-performing super alloys that can be used for armor or the heavy equipment you might find in a shipyard.

Corbomite => : I'm stumped. Cordomite is used for the most fantastical technologies like space stealth and shields, things I can't see any IRL element contributing to. I can't begin to theorize how shields or space stealth would even work let alone theorize what sorts of materials their devices would be made out of.

Tritanium=> Uranium: Back to being obvious. Your missiles all have nuclear-based explosives strapped to them until you get way up there in the tech tree.

Boronide => Tantalum: Tantalum makes really good capacitors and its use in lab equipment would be useful on a terraforming installation. Truth be told, I'd rather this be a gas or something but I don't know of any sort of gas that would be useful for terraforming and use in a capacitor.

Uridium => Noble Metals: Gold, silver and platinum; all vital for any computing and communication device.

Corundium => Copper: Needed for all electronics, including energy weapons. Also fitting that copper, like corundium, is almost always in short supply.

Mercassium => Noble Gases: Used for a variety of scientific and medical applications such as breathing gases, treating decompression sickness in divers, scientific measuring devices like thermometers, Geiger counters, and bubble chambers, and use in scientific excimer lasers.

Vendarite => Aluminum: I don't really agree with fighters needing a resource since they are in effect just smaller ships, but if you had to give them one it'd be aluminum for the same reason we use it for planes today due to its low density.

Gallicite => Titanium: Strong and light-weight, Titanium is used to make spacecraft, jet and missile engines IRL. Can't argue with that.

Your feedback?

[nuclearslurpee]

If I were to rename the TNEs as real-life elements, I would probably use groups of materials rather than single elements for most of them. Neutronium for example might be representative of refractory metals including tungsten, titanium, vanadium, and other very tough materials.

That said, as far as single elements go you definitely are missing carbon which is a pretty reasonable stand-in for corbomite, particularly since it is used for stealth coating materials, it is also incredibly versatile and the most likely to see some sort of "fantastical" application out of any element, I think.

For Vendarite, note that it is primarily used for ground units and Gauss Cannons, so maybe aluminum is not the best fit? Actually titanium might make sense here... really this is a case where the delimiting of the TNEs is rather fuzzy and hand-wavey as several of them are used in applications which usually require very similar materials.

For boronide you might consider...boron? Seems obvious enough from the name and it has enough applications to be widely useful, since boronide in-game is pretty widely-used in smaller quantities.

One thing to consider, by the way, is that if you look at the mass of TNEs used to build most items and compare to the sizes of items built in-game, it is clear that the majority of material used is not TNEs but other conventional materials - iron/steel, aluminum, polymers, graphite, and so on. At least until you get to very high tech levels when the cost of things is much greater.

[Borealis4x (OP)]

If I were to rename the TNEs as real-life elements, I would probably use groups of materials rather than single elements for most of them. Neutronium for example might be representative of refractory metals including tungsten, titanium, vanadium, and other very tough materials.

That said, as far as single elements go you definitely are missing carbon which is a pretty reasonable stand-in for corbomite, particularly since it is used for stealth coating materials, it is also incredibly versatile and the most likely to see some sort of "fantastical" application out of any element, I think.

For Vendarite, note that it is primarily used for ground units and Gauss Cannons, so maybe aluminum is not the best fit? Actually titanium might make sense here... really this is a case where the delimiting of the TNEs is rather fuzzy and hand-wavey as several of them are used in applications which usually require very similar materials.

For boronide you might consider...boron? Seems obvious enough from the name and it has enough applications to be widely useful, since boronide in-game is pretty widely-used in smaller quantities.

One thing to consider, by the way, is that if you look at the mass of TNEs used to build most items and compare to the sizes of items built in-game, it is clear that the majority of material used is not TNEs but other conventional materials - iron/steel, aluminum, polymers, graphite, and so on. At least until you get to very high tech levels when the cost of things is much greater.

I did try using groups instead of specific elements before, but it resulted in too much overlap.

As you point out, the material you use is not nearly enough to account for the size of the ships you build, so I assume that any other elements used that are not represented are simply so abundant that they are always on-hand and don't need to be accounted for.

[Bremen]

Hydrogen is way too common to be Sorium. At least make it Deuterium or Tritium.

The real problem with making TNEs map to real elements is that most planets don't have any. If Duranium is iron, it makes little sense that Mars might not have any (iron is literally what makes Mars red).

That's why I tend to view TNEs as rare magic elements that get used alongside more common materials. So your ships might be mostly iron with a little Duranium used in alloys or specific components.

[TallTroll]

If you REALLY want to make TNEs into real(ish) elements, look to the transuranics. It is theorised that although the high atomic number elements we have discovered thus far are not very stable, there may be an "island of stability" around an atomic number of 112-114. Since TNEs break the laws of physics as we know them, it's not hard to throw in an as yet unknown 5th fundamental force of physics (for which there is actually some evidence, fwiw) which causes some isotopes of those elements to be stable enough to be useful and mineable, and grants them their properties