Author Topic: Potential Supernova Mechanics  (Read 4529 times)

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Offline Steve Walmsley (OP)

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Re: Potential Supernova Mechanics
« Reply #15 on: September 07, 2022, 04:29:17 PM »
Its been a long time since I read David Zindell's Neverness series, but this is giving me that sort of vibe.  Maybe it could be a new (or existing) spoiler race that is detonating stars for some inscrutable reason of their own.  It could be what the Swarm ultimately does if left unchecked - builds a fleet of star killers that surrounds a star, and when they have enough of them, sends themselves and anyone in the local area to the next life.

Fascinating idea. I hadn't considering some form of high tech alien intervention. That would make the invaders seem tame by comparison :)

There was something in Star Fleet Battles called a Sun Snake that caused stars to go nova.
 

Offline Pedroig

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Re: Potential Supernova Mechanics
« Reply #16 on: September 07, 2022, 05:46:59 PM »
Don't forget Red Matter...

And I see adding LY distance between stars on the change list so that some "fun" mechanics of having a star go supernova and perhaps effecting systems "further down the line" before/more than those a "jump" away can be a thing.
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Offline Destragon

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Re: Potential Supernova Mechanics
« Reply #17 on: September 07, 2022, 07:13:12 PM »
Its been a long time since I read David Zindell's Neverness series, but this is giving me that sort of vibe.  Maybe it could be a new (or existing) spoiler race that is detonating stars for some inscrutable reason of their own.  It could be what the Swarm ultimately does if left unchecked - builds a fleet of star killers that surrounds a star, and when they have enough of them, sends themselves and anyone in the local area to the next life.

Fascinating idea. I hadn't considering some form of high tech alien intervention. That would make the invaders seem tame by comparison :)

There was something in Star Fleet Battles called a Sun Snake that caused stars to go nova.
I like the sound of a giant space monster with that kinda ability. Kinda like the swarm, except a singular entity instead of a whole swarm of creatures.
 

Offline Droll

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Re: Potential Supernova Mechanics
« Reply #18 on: September 07, 2022, 07:31:23 PM »
It makes sense to give the invaders this massive maybe billions of tonnes large star destroyer design, I mean their whole thing is making portals that irradiate systems so why not double down on that. It would be an excuse to take another look at their balance and tech level shenanigans too.
 

Offline Black

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Re: Potential Supernova Mechanics
« Reply #19 on: September 08, 2022, 12:58:53 AM »

I like the sound of a giant space monster with that kinda ability. Kinda like the swarm, except a singular entity instead of a whole swarm of creatures.

There is something similar in Stellaris. Monster that consume stars called Stellar Devourer, it has opposite effect that what Steve proposes here as it consumes part of the star and decrease the solar output. There is also Spectral Wraith that is born in pulsars.
 

Offline serger

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Re: Potential Supernova Mechanics
« Reply #20 on: September 08, 2022, 02:50:26 AM »
Iron Sunrise!
 

Offline Andrew

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Re: Potential Supernova Mechanics
« Reply #21 on: September 08, 2022, 04:28:07 AM »
There was a book series Antares Dawn etc that featured this as a major plot element.
Antares explodes in a Supernova which has the effect of changing the structure of WP , due to the change in mass of the star. Some WP move, some dissapear and some new ones appear. Of the ones that appear or dissapear some of those vanish again when the front of the Supernova passes over the affected system
 

Offline Steve Walmsley (OP)

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Re: Potential Supernova Mechanics
« Reply #22 on: September 08, 2022, 05:06:04 AM »
There was a book series Antares Dawn etc that featured this as a major plot element.
Antares explodes in a Supernova which has the effect of changing the structure of WP , due to the change in mass of the star. Some WP move, some dissapear and some new ones appear. Of the ones that appear or dissapear some of those vanish again when the front of the Supernova passes over the affected system

Yes, that book gave me the idea :)
 

Offline Rich.h

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Re: Potential Supernova Mechanics
« Reply #23 on: September 08, 2022, 11:06:47 AM »
If you can do this for a small number of stars, does this mean you could implement a method by which stars can get hotter/colder after the game start? So you could have a lesser form of this by copying the method the Sol disaster starts works, some fluff reason means the star around that new colony starts get hotter and hotter meaning it will be less habitable as a system?

It would make gameplay more dynamic in general while behind it all you can still have the very rare chance of things also just going bang
 

Offline Laurence

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Re: Potential Supernova Mechanics
« Reply #24 on: September 08, 2022, 02:38:24 PM »
If you can do this for a small number of stars, does this mean you could implement a method by which stars can get hotter/colder after the game start? So you could have a lesser form of this by copying the method the Sol disaster starts works, some fluff reason means the star around that new colony starts get hotter and hotter meaning it will be less habitable as a system?

It would make gameplay more dynamic in general while behind it all you can still have the very rare chance of things also just going bang

A variable star could do this.  Are there any variables in the near star list that is in the game? For non-real stars games then a % chance of a particular star being variable could bring some in.
« Last Edit: September 08, 2022, 04:16:20 PM by Laurence »
 

Offline hyramgraff

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Re: Potential Supernova Mechanics
« Reply #25 on: September 08, 2022, 11:13:17 PM »
Its been a long time since I read David Zindell's Neverness series, but this is giving me that sort of vibe.  Maybe it could be a new (or existing) spoiler race that is detonating stars for some inscrutable reason of their own.  It could be what the Swarm ultimately does if left unchecked - builds a fleet of star killers that surrounds a star, and when they have enough of them, sends themselves and anyone in the local area to the next life.

Fascinating idea. I hadn't considering some form of high tech alien intervention. That would make the invaders seem tame by comparison :)

There was something in Star Fleet Battles called a Sun Snake that caused stars to go nova.

Famous last words: With enough shielding we should be able to harvest Sorium from inside a star!  :D
 

Offline Vandermeer

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Re: Potential Supernova Mechanics
« Reply #26 on: September 09, 2022, 01:57:51 AM »
I didn't take it personally - I was just explaining that for Aurora, gameplay is more important than 'realism', within the confines of internally consistent rules. Terraforming is a gross simplification, as is movement, mineral extraction, shipyards, weapon mechanics, etc.. Each one is a very complex subject that has been distilled down to something that has the same 'flavour', but with mechanics that allow interesting gameplay decisions.
The difference with all these are just that they are literally just simplifications. The industry related things don't actually break anything, and for the Terraforming you provided a proper scifi reason.(I think it was "summoning/translating gases out of the fluid space")
That is the thing that separates good and bad scifi. Under the pretense of extra-dimensions existing, -which, they might, although the leads have been getting worse and worse for years-, you can justify a lot of fantasy elements, like summoning the gases. It was good enough for me, and so was the fluid-mechanics movement through space justified by it.
I have done this often in the fiction I logged here. Whether it is constructor theory probability control, push-forward tunneling effect superluminosity(which actually exists), space expansion being lightspeed when looking closely, or the transnewtonian elements being exotic matter that grant anti-gravity, - the technique is to just have some new root principle discovery or invention by which the board of known science can be legally flipped over. :) (as long as you apply it)

That is one of the things I consider very good about Aurora, it is all on the good scifi site, and there is also effort to have some good data around, like all the detail lists on orbiting bodies.
Insisting that the average supernova is a deadly threat would as far as I can see become the first hard break, because this is simply untrue. It is not inventing something from the mist of the unknown, or suggesting that we might find ways to do things that we obviously don't know of yet (like reflecting gamma-lasers). It is 'very' falsely representing a natural phenomenon and thus revising known reality.
..At least as it is, but here is the thing; -just like with the fluid-mechanics movement-, you could for example simply cite the fiction that you legally created in the realms of the unknown (which is fluid space extra dimensions here), and use those to justify 1.why it is so deadly, and even 2.why it happens right here right now despite being so rare. All you have to do to justify all this is attach an explanation from the root of the legal scifi, which can be an alien race using fluid space technology to make the explosion like Mike2R suggested, or perhaps something like Star Trek did with the "our Warp travel destabilizes the subspace which causes rifts" thing, or maybe a star was primed as a fluid-space bomb in ancient times, etcetc. . As long as you make clear that these are no ordinary Supernovae, all hard science breaks could be avoided no problem.

Quote
You chose the example of the laser in your reply, but no one really thinks that Aurora lasers reflect reality - they just have the right flavour to represent them. You could call them something else and it would still fit the game and be internally consistent. The proposed supernova mechanics are the same. They create the impression of what everyone thinks of when they hear 'supernova' but with mechanics that work within the game. I am sure that for most Aurora mechanics there will be some players who find it hard to accept the simplifications, probably dependent on their own areas of expertise.
I have had no issue accepting everything so far btw., and I am literally a physics graduate with a quarter of my specialization in astrophysics. Quite frankly, the higher scifi root standard actually drew me to Aurora; next to the immense sandbox factor of course.
Again, the 'supernova' only sticks out because there isn't a scifi justifier to it like with everything else. If it was an 'artificial supernova' or 'fluid bomb supernova' (maybe some better name could be found), or at least some justification existed in the background, there would again be no problem.

The laser thing by the way was not aimed at Aurora. I was just trying to give an example of a hard science break that isn't acceptable in the boundary of 'good scifi', and an old show came to mind where they insisted they could store laser light in a mirrorbox, and then release it later to melt walls and stuff. That is just dumb, and stuff like this is usually done by directors who now neither of science nor fiction. I could never watch Andromeda for similar reasons for example, even as a kid.
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Offline Steve Walmsley (OP)

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Re: Potential Supernova Mechanics
« Reply #27 on: September 09, 2022, 03:56:04 AM »
If you can do this for a small number of stars, does this mean you could implement a method by which stars can get hotter/colder after the game start? So you could have a lesser form of this by copying the method the Sol disaster starts works, some fluff reason means the star around that new colony starts get hotter and hotter meaning it will be less habitable as a system?

It would make gameplay more dynamic in general while behind it all you can still have the very rare chance of things also just going bang

Yes, I could extend the Sol Disaster scenarios to other system fairly easily.
 

Offline Steve Walmsley (OP)

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Re: Potential Supernova Mechanics
« Reply #28 on: September 09, 2022, 04:12:00 AM »
If you can do this for a small number of stars, does this mean you could implement a method by which stars can get hotter/colder after the game start? So you could have a lesser form of this by copying the method the Sol disaster starts works, some fluff reason means the star around that new colony starts get hotter and hotter meaning it will be less habitable as a system?

It would make gameplay more dynamic in general while behind it all you can still have the very rare chance of things also just going bang

A variable star could do this.  Are there any variables in the near star list that is in the game? For non-real stars games then a % chance of a particular star being variable could bring some in.

Variable stars are are interesting, but would add another variable to colony cost, which might start to tax players ability to understand what is going on. An alternative that includes stars close to Sol is Flare Stars, which I have considered implementing in the past. I would implement solar flares in general with mechanics for impacts on ships and populations, but with very large flares in those systems. They would affect an arc of the system rather than all of it.
 

Offline Steve Walmsley (OP)

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Re: Potential Supernova Mechanics
« Reply #29 on: September 09, 2022, 04:14:24 AM »
I have had no issue accepting everything so far btw., and I am literally a physics graduate with a quarter of my specialization in astrophysics. Quite frankly, the higher scifi root standard actually drew me to Aurora; next to the immense sandbox factor of course.
Again, the 'supernova' only sticks out because there isn't a scifi justifier to it like with everything else. If it was an 'artificial supernova' or 'fluid bomb supernova' (maybe some better name could be found), or at least some justification existed in the background, there would again be no problem.

I think probably easiest if we just agree to disagree. This will be an optional mechanic so can just be ignored if it breaks suspension of disbelief