Stargate525

I think the idea of his suggestion was that the war was bad enough there is no longer a WAY to ask the Chinese (or anyone outside reasonable walking distance) what they think.

If by 'based on a mythological event' you mean 'three to four years after Christ's birth,' then yes. It is, essentially, arbitrary, but no less arbitrary than basing one on a random event deemed significant by the scientific community. I'm in agreement with one of the above posters; we'll probably keep this one until something so massive happens that it destroys society. (going from Anno Domini to 'After the Bombs Fell')

Oh, then they're farther along than I realized I vaguely recall reading an article about some scientist that had managed to grew human ears out of a rat's back, or something... But as far as the 'don't know what generation they are' thing... I imagine that it's just new, healthy, YOUNG cells. Body of a 40-year old, but that new arm is functionally 20. If that's the case... Sheesh, the only thing that could take you out in a hundred years is massive trauma or brain degeneration. Everything else... I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but that sounds to be like the ability to get a factory-new replacement part for anything on the body?

I was under the impression that wheels on a macro scale never evolved because the wheel and the load are by necessity two things. If it were a biological thing, it would have to be shedded or somehow detached in order to rotate. And, if you need a new one, you're completely immobile until the new one grows.

...Why do you need to spin a flask like that? I'm just curious, never seen it needed like that before. And I'd imagine at those speeds you might be getting negative impact from imperfections in the glass throwing off your balance. Dunno how you would account for that, though. Would adding a flywheel dampen vibration?

I'm shooting from the dark here, but it may have to do with vibrations in your engine/shaft assembly? Could you get the desired effect by increasing the arm length? Less rpm, but the same rotational speed at the edge.

I've had a personal finance course, focused on taxes. 'Learning how to do your taxes' is essentially figuring out how to hide as much cash from the government as possible without, technically, breaking any laws. If that's not evading I don't know what is. My economics class was pretty good, but yeah. I'd love to cover more specific classes in high school, but so much of the year is devoted to teaching what was SUPPOSED to be taught last year, and re-teaching the same blasted stuff to fix mistakes made back in grade school. American history is INCREDIBLY biased until you hit college, and I'm of the opinion that mathematics should be taught algebraically as early as possible.

Yeah, I'll give a point-by-point a shot here. He's just described an Alcubierre Drive. This requires both a negative-mass particle and massive amounts of energy. The math on it is free and publicly available. Ask him where the gov got the particles, where they're hiding the accelerator to MAKE these particles, and how they are managing to produce and contain the requisite amounts of energy (mass equivalent of about a ton, I believe it's down to) to make it work. The video/camera trick doesn't fool infrared or radar, which is the things aircraft really need to hide from, and even visibly it breaks down on viewing angles. At best, you'd turn the object into a shimmering... thing. Visible, but hard to discern. Regarding the field thing... Last I heard of it, it was on a microscopic level, and required a stonehenge-like array around the object, which WASN'T hidden. Even then it only hid a narrow band. What possible military or covert application does an invisibility cloak have that doesn't hide you from easily-obtained IR gear, or even a person with a slightly higher-than-normal visible spectrum? AFAIK this is actually something true, and is currently in the testing phase. The issue on it is cost. for organs. Limbs are a LOT more complex than this, and require multiple cell types and development you can't get in situ. Stronger, sure. Lighter, sure. Smart? HELL no. We're working on it, but again, it's still in prototype. Just because we haven't heard about it recently doesn't mean it's a coverup. Typically you only hear about the 'hey I've got this idea!' and the 'hey we're selling this thing!' stages of development. In the interim, the R&D usually vanishes. We're talking about the government that can't decide whether or not to pay itself, missed an entire japanese fleet moving towards the biggest naval base we had, and failed to be concerned about foreign nationals with known ties to terrorist groups coming into our country, learning how to fly a plane, but specifically not bothering with learning how to take off or land. He's putting a lot of faith in the government to be competent. Either the federal government, at every level, is pulling the biggest con game in history, or there are no conspiracies and the government is relatively inept. Ask him if these are true, why wouldn't Edward Snowden have leaked details on this stuff?

IE, tax evasion. But yeah, biology's required because it is useful to know the basics in a lot of different fields. It really does help with your internal BS detector.

You also forgot to mention that trees annihilate a tank's turret traverse capabilities. I would assume an arm-mounted gun would be able to elevate enough to maneuver around them.

We've only gotten to the point where the engineering and materials science is allowing the drawbacks of their complexity to not outweigh the benefits. A damaged tread is just easier to repair than a broken mech leg. If we see them, I'm betting they're going to end up looking much more like power armor than anything else. 2-5 tons, used as a heavy weapons support platform, strong enough to take care of some basic clearing for heavier tanks and such, but unable to deflect anything tanks would throw.

Agreed, but all of those will be completed in one or two missions for all but the very first time players. Is that even really meaningful?

This. I think Ryder's idea might need to wait until contracts and money are implemented, since that will put a lot of similar restrictions into play.

It's adorable that you think that the real world makes sense... But anyway. A soil sample didn't get a docking port. You're right. In fact, it's gotten us absolutely nothing of practical use except a better knowledge of celestial formation. Better cut those out, then, since you can't get anything for them in career! And what's inherent about getting a precise orbit that warrants giving you a docking port? As far as I'm concerned, I can abstract the current science system to make sense: samples and data is returned, it is of some value to someone which is expressed as a number. various cooperative backscratching is performed with physicists and engineers, and the specs on your new engine is delivered. I can get that, and it's fairly realistic for the type of game it is. Your version sounds like some sort of mix of the planned contracts and the tech tree. If you're going to simulate reality, NOTHING in the current science system, with the possible exception of the materials bay for life support data and general crew reports, remains useable. Temperature readings, atmospheric composition, surface samples, none of that gives you any insight into building a better rocket. Somehow, I doubt the devs are going to just chuck out all of that. I agree that the tech tree needs a massive overhaul. A line for science equipment, a line for engines, a line for structurals... Something that makes logical sense to progress from one to another. But all I can see that you're doing is replacing the arbitrary temperature scans with equally arbitrary acheivements, and removing the ability to hand pick what you want from the tree in your pursuit of 'realism.' I have Orbiter for my space simulation needs. I'm not arguing that reality is unrealistic, I'm going to argue that it makes for a pretty terrible GAME. And I have to agree, you are coming off as rather arrogant.

Ah. Then I'm against it. We didn't HAVE to go to North America to develop better sailing ships. Saying 'well, you can go to North or South America' doesn't help this. I don't want my planet destinations chosen for me because I want X rocket part. I do like the idea of splitting sciences up into metallurgy, biology, etc, and making the BALANCE of those points available different on different planets... But holding a part as a reward for going somewhere is equally as unrealistic as buying them with points.

The biggest problem I have with yours, Ryder, is that you're tying parts to acheivements, as far as I can tell. If I want part X, I HAVE to go to Duna. Am I reading it right?

I have, it's quite good. And VERY honest about how much of *******s we can be when we want to be. Zoom in far enough on a lot of curve types and they look exponential. It's entirely possible we're on the upwards tick of a sine wave, or a serpentine curve.

Run. Run and never look back. Kidnap a few physicists and get it reverse-engineered.

I've done it. It's a royal pain in the butt since once you get within about 10km, as you've observed, non-physics timewarp is rendered useless. I needed to bring fuel to a stranded Moho vessel... The next time I need to do that, I'm sending a new ship and EVAing like you did, rather than sending a robotic fuel tank.

Yes. Yes it is.

Ignore the balls for a moment. Focus on the center of mass. It's not going anywhere. You're sliding the device back and forth around it. If the rod is a meter long, and the closest edge is 1000m above the surface in stage 1, stage 2 moves the rod about half a meter downward, stage three moves it another half meter, so that when you rotate it around it's back to 1000m above the surface.

But it hasn't been observed at very high speeds, has it? I mean, standard physics breaks down at super-small scale, and gravity doesn't really seem to work properly at massive scale (hence why there's an ever increasing amount of dark matter in rings around galaxies to get the maths right). Could it be that the dilation is a curve, and not linear?

...I can't believe these people are serious... Yes, it's the Wi-Fi that's making your kids 'sick' in school, not the fact that they are IN SCHOOL and you as a parent are harping on about how they're going to GET SICK FROM THE WI-FI... GUH.

I'd rather we settle whatever candidate planet chosen; if extremophiles can live there, then it wouldn't be too much of a nudge to get humans to live there. And it also brings out the problem of: If our Earth life can live there, are we certain that the planet's not already occupied?

Never observed, but the prevailing model of the universe, afaik, doesn't preclude it. And just because it doesn't exist doesn't mean it can't be fabricated. The elements in the islands of stability certainly don't exist in nature, but that doesn't mean we couldn't get our hands on some.