C# Aurora Changes Discussion

[Kelewan]

Well, they are a problem now .  Hydro Extent above 75% starts to reduce max population.  A 100% water world has 1% of the normal max population.

It's a good point about removing water.  I just need to figure out a way to remove it within the terraforming rules.  On Earth, a small portion of the planet's water is in the atmosphere, so perhaps I should add evaporation as well as condensation, which will provide some water vapour to remove.  I'll give it some thought.

There would be an equilibrium between evaporation and condensation in a short time, so why not make a fix rate between water vapour and water on the planet based ob total pressure and temperature.   

[Steve Walmsley]

About 0.001% of Earth's water is in the air, representing about 2% of the atmosphere on average. BTW that type of ratio is why you need so much water vapour in terraforming to create surface water (in reality you would need a lot more than I am specifying but I am trying to create a balance between game play and reality)

I will add some code to evaporate a tiny fraction of any liquid water so it can be extracted by terraforming.

[Bremen]

I don't mind waterforming being significantly slower. Means you can work on atmospheres first and reserve growing/shrinking oceans for when you don't have more urgent work for your terraformers (or even make it a long term task for terraforming installations)

[Steve Walmsley]

I have added an evaporation cycle following condensation that will stabilise water vapour in the atmosphere of a planet with liquid water at a level of:

Atmospheric Pressure * (Hydro Extent / 100) * 0.01 atm. For Earth that would be 1 * (70/100) * 0.01 atm = 0.007 atm

That atm * 20 is the % of the planet's surface that loses water. For Earth that would be 0.14%

As the water vapour is removed from the atmosphere, it will replenish from the surface water.

[ardem]

Would making the planet colder reduce hydroextent. As the water is drawn to the polar caps to create ice. You might have a cold race or the planet might be already very warm and reducing the temp and creating ice caps will reduce the oceans?

Evaporation does not really help, however ocean dredging into the crust, with huge machinery will lower the ocean as well. Maybe activating some type of volcanic activity to spew rock and lava might be another way to create islands. I do not see evaporation as an answer as too much water vapour only ends up falling again.

[Bremen]

Would making the planet colder reduce hydroextent. As the water is drawn to the polar caps to create ice. You might have a cold race or the planet might be already very warm and reducing the temp and creating ice caps will reduce the oceans?

Evaporation does not really help, however ocean dredging into the crust, with huge machinery will lower the ocean as well. Maybe activating some type of volcanic activity to spew rock and lava might be another way to create islands. I do not see evaporation as an answer as too much water vapour only ends up falling again.

I believe ice is currently considered part of hydro extent. If so, that might mean that adding water vapor to a cold planet would reduce the temperature by increasing the ice shelf, which is kind of cool (though not terribly useful since there's anti greenhouse gas).

[dukea42]

Loving this update energy!  Some thoughts for the discussion. 

1) Should terraforming have a fuel cost per module/installation?  Seems like there needs to be economic impact to represent all the effort of hauling space debris or cracking rocks to produce all this ATM. 

2) Can there be a tech line around racial radiation resistance?  Just read a few older campaigns (Kurt's 6 powers) that would have fit the roleplay theme to have a faction (try to) adapt to the nuclear winter.

3) Same campaign gave me the thought that maybe mesons should be allowed as an alternative CIWS option from the energy weapon side.   Maybe another tech line to improve 'split projectors' to improve PD effectiveness?  While there's beam vs missile tactic discussion, seems like a lot of roleplay between energy vs kinetic factions. 

4) I also wondered if there was any role left for passive thermal tech?  Seems like it should at least improve CIWS quality.   My crazier ideal is that the smaller missiles (<10 msp?) are detected via "active optical" laser based sensors (thermal tech) and boosted by thermal sensitivity.   

Sorry if it's too much random ideas at once. 

[Gyrfalcon]

Something to consider, but it would be awesome if there was a terraforming 'simulator' built into Aurora where you can plan out the proposed atmosphere and be shown what the end result would be (temperature, atmosphere density, colony cost, etc.)

[alex_brunius]

Something to consider, but it would be awesome if there was a terraforming 'simulator' built into Aurora where you can plan out the proposed atmosphere and be shown what the end result would be (temperature, atmosphere density, colony cost, etc.)

Maybe have a "queue" of atmosphere changes you will make, and then display what the target values will be after entire queue is executed?

Queue could also display expected dates when changes will be finished based on current terraforming rate.

[TheDeadlyShoe]

other possibilities: make terraforming modules a high tech system; introduce diminishing returns on terraforming rate; cause active terraforming to introduce a negative manufacturing modifier; make terraforming facilities non-transferrable.

[MarcAFK]

I'll throw in my two cents. Make terraforming modules/mining modules require reactor power like I suggested for sensors. Then Require reactors to consume fuel.
Then Aurora just becomes a huge fuel logistics simulator.

[sloanjh (OP)]

I have added an evaporation cycle following condensation that will stabilise water vapour in the atmosphere of a planet with liquid water at a level of:

Atmospheric Pressure * (Hydro Extent / 100) * 0.01 atm. For Earth that would be 1 * (70/100) * 0.01 atm = 0.007 atm

That atm * 20 is the % of the planet's surface that loses water. For Earth that would be 0.14%

As the water vapour is removed from the atmosphere, it will replenish from the surface water.

I'm confused about the hydro/atmo water balance.  Is the 0.14% above a rate, or is it an equilibrium level?  (I would vote for equilibrium level.)  If it's an equilibrium level, then how does that square with what I think I read in the rules change, which is that 20% hydro requires 1 atmo of water (which seems way to high, given that Earth has 75% hydro without having 3.75 atmospheres of water vapor ).

Just thinking aloud here on the fly:

- there are 3 main reservoirs for water: atmo, hydro, and ice caps
- ideal gas law says Pressure = constant * density * temp.  So as someone above mentioned, pressure should be proportional to temperature (in degrees kelvin ).
- hmmm - this (pressure scales with temperature) should actually apply to all gasses.  So maybe the terrarforming pressures should be measured in "standard" atmospheres, then the "actual" pressure should be standard pressure * (temp/300 kelvin).
- can use Earth data to calibrate numerical constants, i.e. plug 75% in for hydro and pick constants so actual Earth atmo pressure comes out (think this is mentioned above).
- below ice cap temperature, all hydro should go to water.
- need a constant conversion factor that converts from 1 atmo of water vapor to x% surface coverage.  This means you'd need to dump a LOT of water in the atmosphere to get any change in hydro (so atmo is essentially controlled by hydro %)
- Maybe hydro system shouldn't be controlled by terraforming at all (since it takes so much material).  Either you take what you get (without being able to change), or one is able to drop asteroids/comets (whole new game mechanic that probably isn't worth it), or hydro percent change costs 10s of thousands (or even millions) times as much as gases when done through terrarforming.

John

[TMaekler]

Maybe have a "queue" of atmosphere changes you will make, and then display what the target values will be after entire queue is executed?

Queue could also display expected dates when changes will be finished based on current terraforming rate.

Either a queue or having the option to set the final atmosphere composition and the TFs slowly insert/remove all elements at the same time (if terraforming has 0.02 atm these should of course be split up on all involved elements, not 0.02 for all at the same time).

[Detros]

one is able to drop asteroids/comets (whole new game mechanic that probably isn't worth it)

You mine water at other planets, then use mass drivers to lob it at the body you are terraforming.

[TCD]

Am I the only person who thinks that with the changes Steve has already made we have more than enough terraforming detail? I'd much rather Steve moved onto other areas now.