RELEASED Avali Race Mod, The second thread!

For the record the name's are almost completely arbitrary. I could just list them as "armour1hat" "armour2hat" "armour3hat" if it bothers you that much - second I'm curious to see your ideas for how the avali could wear fully enclosed headgear, with the longer crest styles - short od plucking out the feathers, they ARE pretty rigid.

 

Yes! More facts!
Also, the solution is aerogel.
Literally, when they put on the helmets they pour an aerogel solution down the back of the head so it hardens in that shape.
I understand how aerogel works. Really.
I actually don't.

Aerogel. Bringing fashion and combat survival together since nineteen ninety gel.

 

Try not to burn your feathers off in the process. With what you have left, anyway.
In the mean time, I'll try to find Bosley for Avali...

 

You're not THAT far off

The created as one possible pathway in the sol-gel process:

As you can see, you start off with a colloidal suspension of a suitable alkoxide - that is then turned into a gel, so it forms a very fine structure between the molecules. Then the solvent is evaporated, leaving just the wisp-like structure behind (an aerogel) - hence the name, it's literally a gel with the solvent replaced by air. Convenently the same initial process can be used for fabricating ballistic grade ceramics.

Though the Avali cheat a little, they don't usually use a gel in the process at all, but instead use the 3D printer to fabricate the wisp-like structure directly, hence it's described as "aerogel LIKE", because there was never any gel involved. But it's a fair description of the product.

 

I think we're finding out how many happy avali you can fit in one place before dawws start being louder than comfortable sound ranges, this is the upper limit:

Makes me wonder about avali night life and party behavior.

 

Ok, how about this for a fact:
"The avali don't have toilets, instead they use teleporter technology..."
Not really... I just havn't decided on the final details for the bathrom props

 

Poor understanding of satellites? Check.
Sound in space? Check.
Panel-breaking Daws? Check.

 

Heh...

 

Ok, ok. I'm stopping now.

 

I did some thinking on Avali suits, since everyone seems to have problems with the feathers poking out. For purposes of this discussion, I'll class protective gear into two categories based on mild and extreme hazards. I'll call these suits "hazardous environment suits" (HEV suits) and "extreme hazardous environment suits" (EHEV suits). Before we look at how each type of suit would be built, let's first think of the sorts of hazards they would need to protect against and what would be required for that function.

This section ended up longer than I intended, so it's now spoiler'd for length.

Bullets

Nanocanvas or similar overlayer.
Ceramic assault plates.
Sealant gel.

While civilian applications may not need this, any interstellar military will eventually be forced to fight in a hazardous environment. When this happens, it's good to be prepared. A first layer of nanocanvas would work like kevlar in modern body armor, with assault plating underneath to redirect high-caliber rounds otherwise capable of penetrating the nanocanvas. Sealant gel is a necessity in case of damage to the suit; it's no good to survive the bullet only to die from an environmental hazard.
​

Submerged Environments

Self-contained methane tanks.
Wetsuit layer.

Even if the Avali don't have problems with swimming and getting their feathers wet normally (do they?), the wetsuit's important because they might not always be swimming in ammonia. A source of propulsion is also a good idea, but doesn't need to be a standard part of the suit.
​

Vacuum + Zero Gee

Self-contained methane tanks.
Radiation-absorbent layer.
Mechanical counterpressure layer.
Heating and cooling underlays.

Here's where a lot of people get confused, I think. The classic NASA spacesuit is a pressurized environmental suits. Atmospheric pressure keeps limbs from swelling from the lower pressure as well as giving the astronaut something to breathe. But the Avali make use of a "mechanical counterpressure" system, in which the suit is not pressurized, and instead presses tightly against the skin to provide the same force as a pressurized suit, again preventing swelling and leaving the limbs functional. Because the suit isn't pressurized, having feathers sticking out would actually be completely possible, and would have no disadvantages other than that the feathers would be quickly bleached by unshielded solar radiation. That's the other function of a space suit, to be sure the astronauts don't cook in the sunlight (since heat in space is only lost by radiation, not any form of conduction, freezing is not such an immediate concern, regardless of what Starbound would have you believe). As with submerged environments, EVA manuevering gear and fuel is an excellent idea, but doesn't need to be part of the default setup.
​

Extreme Gravity

Artificial musculature layer (or however it is the Avali make their powered armor move; I just always assume synthetic polymuscle made of shape-memory smart polymers when it comes to powered armor).

There are reasons for powered armor outside of combat applications. This is one.
​

Extreme Heat/Cold

Insulation.
Heating and cooling underlays.

While this has already been treated to some degree in "Vaccuum + Zero Gee," there are times where hotter or colder temperatures than those of space might be encountered; for instance, an Avali working in a metal foundry (blacksmiths are awesome; Avali blacksmiths are even more awesome, combining metalwork with extremely hazardous materials handling).
​

Chemical Exposure/Contamination (Mild)

Non-reactive surface coating.

To define mild, I mean chemicals that are corrosive or otherwise reactive. This is a difficult safety measure to define, so additional measures might be added here.
​

Chemical Exposure/Contamination (Extreme)

Non-reactive surface coating.
Internal atmospheric overpressure.
Completely sealed.

Here we reach our first function requiring complete sealing, and the first entry in the modern trio of Chemical-Biological-Radiological protective gear, though the futuristic setting requires us to eventually add a fourth entry as well. This gear isn't for handling stuff like reactive chemicals, but instead for things like deadly neurotoxin or other incredibly lethal material. This stuff must be atmospherically overpressurized to its environment, to make sure nothing gets inside the suit in case of a rip or microscopic permeabilities.
​

Biological Exposure/Contamination

Anti-bacterial (or equivalent) coating.
Internal atmospheric overpressure.
Completely sealed.

Same deal as with chemical. Certain coatings are just generally inhospitable to single-celled organisms, and it is such a surface that I am recommending here, not anything involving medication, which would have to be tailored to a specific threat.
​

Radiation Exposure/Contamination

Radiation-absorbent layer.
Internal atmospheric overpressure.
Completely sealed.

Pretty much the same thing as the other three, for reasons that should be clear to everyone.
​

Nanotech Exposure/Contamination

Non-stick coating.
Internal atmospheric overpressure.
Completely sealed.

This is the trickiest. I don't know how to make gear to protect against hostile nanites, but the best bet seems to be to either make a coating out of a material that the nanites cannot do anything with, or one that they can't do anything to. Either make it something that self-replicating nanites cannot replicate from, or make it so they can't land on it and start breaking it down in the first place.
​

Alright! Now that we look at it, the only things that clearly need a completely contained environment are suits designed for handling CBRN (Chemical-Biological-Radiological-Nanotechnological) threats. Others make a certain degree of sense but given how much of a hassle feather-plucking is, aren't strictly neccessary: vacuum, extreme heat/cold, and mild chemical exposure. While damage to feathers is a possibility with a standard HEV suit (bleaching, thermal burns, and chemical burns, respectively), under short notice or for an experienced operator choosing to leave the feathers exposed may be more sensible and pleasant than removing them for use of an EHEV suit.

Now, probably the most controversial conclusion here is that spacewalking with exposed feathers is easily survivable. However, because the Avali use mechanical counterpressure systems instead of pressurizing their suits, it would be trivial for them to simply have a slot in the arm through which the long feathers slip. Feathers are tough, and wouldn't be damaged by vacuum (though they might eventually be bleached after direct exposure to sunlight, similarly to human hair after intense exposure to sunlight). Because the counterpressure suit is designed to maintain this pressure across a broad surface, having a small slit in the suit wouldn't be enough to make a difference. Remember, there's nothing magical about vacuum. Having a sliver of exposed skin will not cause the skin to freeze, disentegrate, or otherwise self-destruct - even if it were truly bare, which it is not since it would be completely covered by feathers.

So to conclude: HEV suits with simple slots for the feathers probably protect from bullets, submerged environments, vacuum environments, extreme gravity, extreme heat and cold, and mild chemical exposure. EHEV suits requiring plucking before use probably protect from bullets, submerged environments, vacuum environments, extreme gravity, extreme heat and cold, mild chemical exposure, extreme chemical exposure, biohazard exposure, radiation exposure, and limited exposure to rampant nanotechnology. It may not be possible for a single suit to have a surface coating resistant to chemicals, bacteria, and nanites all at the same time, but having the perfect coating isn't necessary for a reasonable degree of safety.

If this gets the thumbs up from our lord and master Ryuujin, I'll try to get some of this clarification uploaded to the wiki. Once finals week ends and I have time, that is.

 

While making the AvaliMerchants plug-in, I had the same issue.

I advised Ryuujin on how to fix this problem, but he ignored it. :/

It doesn't matter. If the merchants are showing up at all, then there is a list that is successfully (as in, no issue there) being called up by the merchant. Crashing when interacting with said merchant means there is an issue with that list being called up which is preventing it from being shown.

RYUUJIN, I TOLD YOU HOW TO FIX THIS. LISTEN TO THE GUY WHO WORKS WITH MERCHANTS KTHNX.

 

You forget, Nanotech is INSANELY vulnerable to heat; its one of the only things it WOULD be vulnerable to. Make the outer layers out of a superconducting material doped with electrically resistant materials, and run voltage through it until the exterior is hot. Either that, or have the suit fireproof, and make a system were the suit could periodically douse itself with fire of some kind. Of course, the end all solution would be to have your own Hunter/Killer nanites in the suit material itself, programmed to kill any nanite not carrying the right IFF. Downside to that is that you'd have only a limited amount of H/K's on the suit, while potentially, you'd be facing near limitless numbers of enemy nanites if it was bad.

And there IS no nanotech-proof substance in existence, nor will there ever be; Nanites are molecular machines. Unless you have a coating of unbroken Neutronium all over the suit, they're going to be able to eventually pry apart the molecular bonds of any armor.

 

Heat sounds like an interesting concept. Would depend on how, exactly, they're working though. And yeah, the point was more that by getting a very smooth and hard-to-latch-onto surface, or one that's useless to the nanites as feedstock, you could slow them down, not stop them. Of course, real nanotech wouldn't be nearly energetic enough to do any of this, which is why it's so hard to say what would and wouldn't work.

Though neutronium armor would have it's own set of problems.

Two thoughts occurred to me while I showered (which is how you know they're good ideas).

1] The toilets could maybe be low to the ground and not run on water (I'm thinking something like litter boxes, since as desert creatures Avali excrement would be fairly dry?)
2] There should be a fancy medical dispensary to hold our aerogel pills.

(Or to stash stims into, I suppose.)​

​

 

Hmm...
"Arlan, have you decoded the message yet?"
"I think so. The characters looked similar enough but I had a few false starts. Plus, the whole language thing."
"What does it say, Arlan?"
"'Kitties they go the home,' unless I'm mistaken."
(Both have a good laugh.)

 

That's not the fix or the problem! - JSON might be finicky, but it's not that finicky. As memory serves your suggestion was to add an extra space to the formatting.

There is a merchants file in the game regardless - so if I specify it to spawn an avali, using the merchant.npctype - an Avali npc will spawn. The problem emerges when another mod is overwriting merchants.npctype - then we have an avali merchant, with no list of stuff to sell. Thus: Crash occurs.

 

No, that is NOT the problem. I controlled for that very issue when I was making AvaliMerchants. Even after double and triple-checking to ensure that there were no overwrites, there was crashing upon interaction with the merchants that called for your lists.

Even after copying directly from your _merge to make the New avali_merchant.npctype file, a unique file which did not occur elsewhere, and changing all merchants to use the new file, crashes still occurred, indicating that that is not the issue at all! Rather, it was an issue with your coding!

After pounding my head in frustration, looking over your coding and not finding any glaring problems, I needed to experiment. In order to actually get the files to work, which I, not you, did, I delved into your coding, removed all excess "rarity" values and added spaces between all words and colons. The next test I did? I released soon afterwards because it no longer crashed.

I am not sure why this is the case. It is probably not a JSON issue, but a LUA one during list translation. Normally, I'd agree with you but what you claim is just. Not. True. Here.

But please, ignore the guy whose main mod centers around experimenting with merchants and understanding how they work. It inspires so much confidence that you won't listen to someone who has explained how to fix the issue.

 

I think he has a point, sorry Ryuujin. Interesting though, I thought the rarity key had a use for random weapons vendors, either way it's unused here.

I don't see why this had to get bitter though...

 

I don't know for sure, either. It's 6:20am, so maybe that, coupled with the frustration of being ignored, had something to do with it.

As for "rarity" function, I removed it from the lists, not because it wouldn't work but, because there is no point to having the "rarity" value applied when all items sold have the same "rarity" values. It was just pointless coding because all items in the list had an equal chance to be displayed, as if the "rarity" value didn't exist.

 

You're not being ignored. It's just your error report is unilateral.

A few people have reported the merchants causing crashes - which historically occurs when the file is overwritten. Nobody has sent me an error log pertaining to the merchants in over a month. I cannot act on an error, if I do not know an error exists.
What you're saying, is that there is a new, previously unverified error, that causes all Avali merchants to crash, without exception? - If so, can you please provide me with an error log of the crash. I keep asking people to send me logs and then they don't bother, so I assume it was something on their end, or my suggested fix worked (ie it's an overwrite issue).

I don't see why you're getting angry at me, when you're the one not supplying the error logs. I am I not psychic, if you encounter a new crash but don't give me the details, I cannot resolve it. Telling me "how to fix it", without telling me what is actually happening, I certainly won't take your word and implement a fix for a problem I don't know exists.