Cold Sun - Discussion

[Steve Walmsley]

Extinction looming in the horizon, are you going to distribute crucial technologies that'd help speed up the evacuation and colonization of planets? Even in such a extreme situation I have no doubt that nations would help each other in real life situation.

I think they would help each other in situations of mutual benefit, but not for pure altruism.

[JustAnotherDude]

 Been meaning to ask this but haven't gotten around to it. Have you activated any new spoilers during these test games?

[Steve Walmsley]

Been meaning to ask this but haven't gotten around to it. Have you activated any new spoilers during these test games?

Not yet. They have been on, but none were discovered. Spoilers are also on in the current game.

[Garfunkel]

Intriguing start! Fingers crossed for a Gaia world in Alpha Centauri

[Hazard]

Nice. Just as an assessment, will the losses of non evacuated population be bad ? I mean, a rough idea of what percentage won't make it out, it surely won't be as catastrophic as the Commonwealth evacuation of Earth in the Trans-Newtonian campaign but still.

Loss of non-evacuated population will be total. Not in the immediate sense, and for a while infrastructure will be able to catch the difference, but as the cooling worsens so does the difficulty of providing for everyone, until colony cost escalates beyond the nation's ability to cope with it.

At that point, mass death is certain.

Then you just need to be aware that 2% per year is VERY rapid cooling. At that rate, the sun will HALVE in temperature in 34 years.

Note that that is halved in Kelvin, so if Earth cools at the same pace, our expected average temperature would be -129.25 degrees celcius. After only 34 years.

Unless my math is out.

IIRC a body's energy emission is exponentially linked to its temperature.

That's to say, as the temperature of the body changes, the amount of energy lost by radiation changes more rapidly.

[The Forbidden (OP)]

Nice. Just as an assessment, will the losses of non evacuated population be bad ? I mean, a rough idea of what percentage won't make it out, it surely won't be as catastrophic as the Commonwealth evacuation of Earth in the Trans-Newtonian campaign but still.

Loss of non-evacuated population will be total. Not in the immediate sense, and for a while infrastructure will be able to catch the difference, but as the cooling worsens so does the difficulty of providing for everyone, until colony cost escalates beyond the nation's ability to cope with it.

At that point, mass death is certain.

Then you just need to be aware that 2% per year is VERY rapid cooling. At that rate, the sun will HALVE in temperature in 34 years.

Note that that is halved in Kelvin, so if Earth cools at the same pace, our expected average temperature would be -129.25 degrees celcius. After only 34 years.

Unless my math is out.

IIRC a body's energy emission is exponentially linked to its temperature.

That's to say, as the temperature of the body changes, the amount of energy lost by radiation changes more rapidly.

I should have phrased that better, I knew all of those who would be left behind would eventually die. What I wanted to know was a rough evaluation of how many could be shipped off world before it was too late.

[Rabid_Cog]

Yeah I figured it wasn't linear, I was just using linear as a best case. Also, I was lazy to look up the exact math.

Steve, let us know at what point Earth starts having >0 colony cost. I think it will be interesting to measure how long it lasts.

You may end up with a situation where your only surviving civilians are those that are on board your colony ships, looking for a new world. Although I suppose an orbital habitat will be an excellent stopgap in this particular case until you get jump drives. Plenty of industrial production and resources, no viable planets.

As for Mercury as temporary place to huddle against the cold, it doesn't have an atmosphere. That means 2.0 colony cost at best and a ton of infrastructure just to bring some population. Also, what is the population limit of Mercury?

[Bughunter]

We will probably see all options play out as different factions try different strategies, looking forward to it.

[Hazard]

I should have phrased that better, I knew all of those who would be left behind would eventually die. What I wanted to know was a rough evaluation of how many could be shipped off world before it was too late.

That is really, really dependent on space lift capacity and the distance to the nearest inhabitable world with a stable star. I will note however that, however cruel, industry is more valuable than people, due to how the manufacturing and finance systems work in the game, and the rapid population growth a new colony is likely to see. Unless Steve has yet to recode the wealth system.

Rabid Cog's idea of building a large number of orbital habitat's quite clever though. Habitats after all ignore all colony costs.

[chrislocke2000]

I'm wondering whether the structural shell build options become very helpful in this case. Just build a bunch with colony transport components and a tug to drag them off. No rush to move them in some cases and can use all of industry to build rather than going through the slow painful process of expanding shipyards enough.

[Sirce]

The minor irony, China leading the effort in Global Warming.

[The Forbidden (OP)]

Yes ! Part 2 is out ! The international terraforming effort is nice, and the ruins are definitely a surprise. (Too bad everyone will be too focused on Earth to fight over them. Trans-Newtonian campaign anyone ?) Now the great question being : will good habitable worlds be found beyond the jump points ?

[Rabid_Cog]

Cooperation changes the game. Nice. With the terraformers buying you a couple of extra years, you might be able to get significantly more people offworld... IF you find a habitable planet in a nearby system. Or, you know, 6 of them since that is how many empires there are.

It is quite ironic, Sol would be an amazing home system if it wasn't for the cooling sun. 0.9 sorium gas giant, venus with tons of minerals, even ruins on mars. I can see a cold, dead Sol still being exploited for resources, fuel, industry and alien artifacts for a long time to come.

[The Forbidden (OP)]

Cooperation changes the game. Nice. With the terraformers buying you a couple of extra years, you might be able to get significantly more people offworld... IF you find a habitable planet in a nearby system. Or, you know, 6 of them since that is how many empires there are.

It is quite ironic, Sol would be an amazing home system if it wasn't for the cooling sun. 0.9 sorium gas giant, venus with tons of minerals, even ruins on mars. I can see a cold, dead Sol still being exploited for resources, fuel, industry and alien artifacts for a long time to come.

Sol will probably stay filled with habitats and fuel harvester for quite a while indeed.

[Hazard]

If you build enough habitats Sol might well be the biggest producer, but that might only be an option if any inhabitable world is simply too far away to be reasonably settled anytime soon.