Sun question

Discussion in 'Starbound FAQs, Q&A, and General Help' started by Twiganator, Aug 26, 2012.

?

should you be able to travel to the suns of starbound.

  1. heck yes

    34.1%
  2. no

    65.9%
  1. Twiganator

    Twiganator The Count

    HEY don't go insulting the hatters. That's what people have been doing since this thread was made... therefor its purpose.:rock:
     
  2. Vjedi729

    Vjedi729 Subatomic Cosmonaut

    Most Important: Everyone needs to stop calling each other stupid. Mostly, it is actually the person calling stupid who is wrong. Ex: (no offense intended) The post above me says that "a star/sun is made of hydrogen and helium not plasma..." which, of course is both correct and incorrect. Stars are made of Hydrogen and Helium. Stars are made of plasma. These are not mutually exclusive. It is akin to saying that "Ice is made of water. Ice is made of a solid." Plasma is a state of matter, not a type of matter, and even rock can become plasma if you somehow pump in enough energy.

    Part 2: The fact is that the sun has a good number of reason to be a place to go to.

    1. You want free hydrogen to convert into something else.
    2. You want to gather the enormous amounts of free energy
    3. You want to blow it up in the hope that some planets will be created.
    4. You want to harvest helium, which is a useful inert gas that can shield you from chemical reactions.
    5. You are bored and have nothing better to do
    6. You used all you copper to make bronze armor and you want it back to create wires. You melt it and separate it from the tin with one slingshot around due to the massive G-forces.

    Part 3: Why you can go to the sun.

    1. You can survive the gravity. Many Sci Fi books have a "inertial compensator" (think Star Wars). They also measure acceleration in Gravities or "Gs" which is about 9.8 meters per second squared.
    2. You don't have to go there yourself. We have probes, and drones, both of which we know can exist.
    3. There are star-level heat resistant materials. Not elements, we have found all of those which are stable (although they say that around 120 there is an group of atoms that have a half-life comparable to Bismuth, which is to say more than a million times the age of the universe). But, there are two types of pure substances, it is very likely that there is a compound that has the ability to withstand the heat of the sun.
    4. You can do plenty from orbit. Think of the insane energy in the form of the insane heat. If you could tap it directly, rather than only getting the parts in the form of IR radiation, the amount of energy would be so ridiculous that if we could store it, we wouldn't need more energy till the sun went supernova. And you can boil water long before you get close enough to the sun to melt titanium, or even steel.
    5. You don't need a surface. With the huge amounts of energy, you could float around on a variable solar sail, catching radiation and neutrinos to keep you far above the sun's deadly corona.

    If there is any argument I missed, tell me.
     
    Twiganator likes this.
  3. VandBRT

    VandBRT Subatomic Cosmonaut

    Vjedi729, you are overthinking it.

    1, 2. You will spend WAY more energy trying to extract hydrogen from A RUNNING REACTOR'S ACTIVE ZONE and then cooling it down. The stars' light itself can vaporize titanium when in close (by astronomical standards) proximity, not speaking of the star's temperature itself. You are better off extracting hydrogen from, y'know, water. Or, if you want to think big, find yourself a gas giant and suck up gases from there.
    3. How do you blow it up? Stars are already in the process of "blowing up", actually. And how does stellar annihilation produce all that debris needed to form a planet?
    4. Again, helium can be harvested elsewhere with smaller expenses.
    5. Alright. This is the thing I may agree on.
    6. Why not smelt it in an industrial furnace? And you probably can't visit a star if all you have is preindustrial alloys.

    As for "part 3"
    1. It's called a handwave. Handwaving important aspects of physics, mathematics and common sense ruins the suspension of disbelief. There is a reason why a vast majority of SW EU is trash.
    2. ...Which will get pulverized just like your ship.
    3. This is what I said earlier, but I am not certain that "there are". I AM certain that "there were" and "there will be". Nevermind.
    4. Yeah, this is called "solar power" and we use it right now. Earth is in orbit around Sun, we have at least two forms of solar power gathering (both IR and steam), seems legit. If we could construct humongous orbital solar panels and finalize those microwave energy transmitters for wireless energy grids, our power problems will be solved forever.
    5. Hard to do in a 2d tile-based game.
     
  4. Vjedi729

    Vjedi729 Subatomic Cosmonaut

    Well it sounds like a fun place to go with other players to PVP and things like that.

    Solar power would be thousands of times more efficient if it orbited the Sun, or even Mercury, before most of the energy is lost in deep space.

    Inertial Compensators do not defy physics, and they are needed to allow for realistic acceleration to speeds to take you outside the solar system.
     
  5. VandBRT

    VandBRT Subatomic Cosmonaut

    Fun? A star is a completely featureless cloud of highly ionized matter.
    Now... How do you participate in PvP combats on a star? It isn't a solid object, you can't stand anywhere, you can't see anything and heat/pressure/light from the star will be much more effective in annihilating anything than your guns. And I don't understand how to implement, say, Dyson Spheres in a 2D tile-based game.
     
  6. Vjedi729

    Vjedi729 Subatomic Cosmonaut

    The point is that people have to be creative to knock each other into the whirling ball of hydrogen plasma, while everyone dies a lot... over and over and over.
     
  7. VandBRT

    VandBRT Subatomic Cosmonaut

    Well, it isn't really a ball, more like a vaguely spherical cloud with random protrusions...
    And I can think of at least ten much more fun and breathtaking PvP combat areas.
     
  8. Tea Mate

    Tea Mate Existential Complex

    Well, as i see it, there's ridiculous sci-fi and then there's the smart sci-fi. Traveling to a star crosses the boundary of smart sci-fi and belongs to the ridiculous kind of sci-fi in my view.
    But heat isn't the only problem. Read this: http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2011/23aug_coldeststars/
    There's a ton of other factors that would make going there impossible.
    Oh, and stars are made of plasma. And plasma is simply ionized gas(not jelly, liquid or solid matter, but matter in the form of gas). And ionized means... Ah, never mind. If you want to find out, go to wikipedia. It's much simpler than it sounds really.

    So i will repeat what i already said - there is a smart kind of sci-fi. That includes things that seem miraculous, and yet have some logic behind them and are not too many miles away from reality. It also includes things we don't know much about - like black holes. However, there is the other side of sci-fi. The kind of things that cross the boundaries i mentioned. Unfortunately, this idea is one of the later. Thus i wouldn't want it implemented. Perhaps it would be all right if you became advanced enough to harness the power of the sun, i myself remember dreaming that humanity will one day(in a few million years perhaps) go the the centre of our galaxy and harness the power of a black hole. Right now it would be ridiculous if you could achieve that in this game. It would be almost a mockery of the natural forces of space. Perhaps there could be a story of an incredibly advanced race who could do that, but there simply are things that are better left untouched by the player. Or at least better left not touched too early.

    Oh, and if i wasn't clear enough - i'm against being able to actually travel to a star in person or via probes, not against sending super-resistant satellites to orbit it or harnessing it's energy. Just commenting my choice in the poll.
     
    Bombzero likes this.
  9. nerdgf

    nerdgf Void-Bound Voyager

    Plasma is gas that gets so hot it gets ionized :), and yeah, most of them are mostly helium and hydrogen (thus a "giant hydrogen bomb" as I said), that is right :)
     
  10. Tea Mate

    Tea Mate Existential Complex

    People are usually confused by the fact that "plasma" has a few meanings. One of the is ionized gas. Another meaning is, for example, a liquid that makes up about ~70%(if i remember correctly) of your blood(known as blood plasma). There's also the jelly-like cytoplasm that's inside every living cell. Also, as i noticed, some people call a state of matter between solid and liquid "plasma" too. It might have more meanings, though none that i can remember right now. The word is translated from ancient Greek i think, though it might also be from latin. I just remember it means "formed" or something close. Perhaps it might mean "created" or "unstable". Can't remember exactly. I usually remember just the meaning of the word and mix up from which one of those two languages is it.
     
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  11. Vjedi729

    Vjedi729 Subatomic Cosmonaut

    That is exactly correct. Plasma in physics terms is either gas that has been ionized (it has an electrical charge) or gas that has been super-heated, and turn to a new form of matter, also called plasma, in which the heat gives electrons the energy to flow freely rather that staying attached to atoms. The second one is the type you find in stars.
     
  12. Fluffy Arsonist

    Fluffy Arsonist Cosmic Narwhal

    to blow up a star you would fire something extremely heavy with extreme power. it would essentially blow it apart, in the same way that if you launch something through a cloud, it can make a tunnel.
    using solar panels, we only catch a small amount of energy. if we were to get closer, and use larger panels, you would catch much more.
     
  13. Jeme223

    Jeme223 Pangalactic Porcupine

    Personally, I think blowing up a sun would be awesome! Like if it changed all the planets near the sun to always be dark and cold, probably uninhabitable for most things, but it'd be interesting to see how Tiy would do It if he did it.
     
  14. Tea Mate

    Tea Mate Existential Complex

    But the closer you set those panels to sun, the more energy would be lost while transferring it through cables in space. And it might present other problems. For example, do you know where the energy that isn't used up goes? It isn't stored anywhere. It just turns into heat and heats the cable. Now imagine that happening in space, with an incredibly long cable. It would melt or cosmic garbage could ruin it. Little stones are also a possibility. Too many problems with the cable.

    Of course, there is the possibility of wireless energy transfer, but i'm not sure about that. We are a bit too far away from that yet to be certain if it's possible and if it's worth it. But in a sci-fi game, it might work.

    Also, so far there are no viable ways to store energy for long. But again, in a sci-fi game it might be possible.

    Also, creating something strong enough to blow up a star is ridiculous. If you had the tools to create something like that... The energy and resources needed would be ridiculous and insane. Why would anyone waste that much resources to blow up a star? And if you could afford that, then you would have to be incredibly advanced.
     
    Bombzero likes this.
  15. Fluffy Arsonist

    Fluffy Arsonist Cosmic Narwhal

    [quote="§hifter, post: 298073, member: 7677Also, creating something strong enough to blow up a star is ridiculous. If you had the tools to create something like that... The energy and resources needed would be ridiculous and insane. Why would anyone waste that much resources to blow up a star? And if you could afford that, then you would have to be incredibly advanced.[/quote]
    it wouldnt have to be anything too advanced, you could really use a massive lump of something heat resistant enough to stay at least tliquid against the surface of thr sun, with some big rockets attached.
     
  16. Tea Mate

    Tea Mate Existential Complex

    I hope you do understand how ridiculous that is. First of, to create something heat resistant enough you would already need to be extremely advanced. Even though i am half-convinced it's impossible. Second, gathering up such a massive amount of it is just as ridiculous. Finally, rockets wouldn't work to push that thing. And even if you managed to push it into the sun, it would still do nothing most probably. Where did you get the idea that pushing something through the sun would make it explode?
     
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  17. VandBRT

    VandBRT Subatomic Cosmonaut

    You cannot "explode" the damn star, it is not solid. You can either dissipate it, probably forming a nebula on the long run, or collapse it onto itself, forming a supermassive object.
    Now, I do not see any remotely plausible way to pull off something like stellar annihilation with just one character (or even 30 of them), considering that they start off without any tools except for their hands and an occasional stick laying around. I think even building a functional solar collector/wind turbine/coal power plant will be enough of a challenge for you. And a crazy cold fusion plant as endgame content.
    If you want to blow up stars for fun, play Solar 2, for example.

    2Vortex:
    Alright, you hurled some object into a star. What are you gonna do next? Are you aware that even if we smashed all the contents of our solar system into the Sun, nothing would happen to it? Or that our Sun is tiny compared to Wolf-Rayet or, say, Sirius? Do you have any idea how ridiculously huge ANY star is?
     
  18. Tea Mate

    Tea Mate Existential Complex




    A star is not damned, in most ancient religions stars, and especially the sun were considered holy.
    So, as you can see, it's a ridiculous idea.
    Firs of all, you couldn't create anything that could stay solid long enough to actually plunge into the sun.
    And secondly, even if you managed to do it by some miracle, it wouldn't do anything.

    But what caught my attention was the comment about supermassive objects.
    I wonder if there will be something more interesting you can find in space than asteroids/stars/planets.
    Super-massive objects like neutron stars and black holes for one. What if there were coordinates for those too. You couldn;t land, sure, but upon entering such coordinates you would come to a relatively close proximity and study them, which could unlock some new tech. It wouldn't be as far-fetched as walking on stars or exploding them. It would also make sense. And more useful than studying stars. Even now we know a lot about stars. But we don't know much about those super-massive objects i mentioned. Perhaps studying a black hole is a bit too much for the start. But a neutron star would be a perfect target for studies. Perhaps in time it could unlock the study of black holes, because neutron stars are kind of similar to black holes in many ways.

    So, as you can see, perhaps walking on stars is a bit pointless, but there are many other things you can do that are not stretched too far and make more sense.
     
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  19. VandBRT

    VandBRT Subatomic Cosmonaut

    Well, I was getting rather annoyed at people using pulp sci-fi to study the world and "damn" is the strongest possible expletive that one can allow oneself to say on a forum with 13+ age policy. Sorry if I offended your religious feelings.
    Now, as for...
    Why, yes!!!:mwahaha:
    Actually, a one-man research mission is something that IS possible and WAS done by man (not on the interplanetary scale, but on intercontinental - like studying Africa, Australia, Arctic/Antarctica and Americas) and has a certain spirit to it - a spirit of achievement, spilling beans intestines light on parts unknown!
    I hope for this feature getting properly implemented. Imagine the fun we could have in multiplayer - stumbling upon somebody else's research outpost with surveillance and analysis equipment - satellite dishes, computers, recorders, radiotelescopes and whatnot, looting the precious equipment to repurpose and use later, and using the gathered data in your exploits. Or stuffing hidden turrets in your outpost that would activate in case of a break-in. And watching your frag count go up.
    Like, improving your energy weapons, enabling you to build wireless energy transmitters and other such hi-tech stuff.

    It would also be pleasant to have effects of those stars on orbiting planets - like your electronics going haywire near a magnetar, or [stock sci-fi incident] near a catastrophic variable, or just having a magnificent background on a planet near Wolf-Rayet star (I really hope somebody tweets its image to Tiy's Twitter).
     
  20. Vjedi729

    Vjedi729 Subatomic Cosmonaut

    Your comment on super-massive objects made me think of something. I was just recently reading about super-brown dwarfs. With a lower temperature limit of about 80 degrees Fahrenheit, many of these stars are perfect for living by, as their mass is also much lower. Just pick one around, say, 500 degree (Fahrenheit) and you have a free oven too! But in all seriousness, I am one of the weird people who likes to start games in places with lots of good early-midgame tier things, where on key object, like wood, or ground to stand on, are missing. The particular challenge of starting up, coupled with the boost you would get later on would be well worth it.
     

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