RELEASED Avali Race Mod, The second thread!

Straddling the line IMO; I've read a lot of Sci-Fi that has nanotech as a plot device; some, yes, have nanotech be essentially "magic", while in others, nanotech, whilst powerful, is limited and slow. Nanotech augmentations I'd imagine would take a long time to work, on the order of months or even years for large scale things.

 

It's not a source of scientific information, but I'd recommend reading this page to see what we're trying to avoid: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Nanomachines .

To put it in my own words; nanotech has become an enabler for poor writing. When a science-fiction writer needs a miracle, he turns to nanotech. But for the Avali, we don't want miracle machines, we want stuff that is relatively plausible, and that means it needs to run on specific rules. Why can it do this? Why can't it do this?

I don't know what Ryuujin has planned for Avali nanotech, but based on what we've already seen it doesn't seem to reproduce* aggressively (otherwise they'd have nanite bombs) and seems to be fragile (since they are confirmed to rely on modified bacteria for exotic materials production rather than nanotech). Those two limitations imply (but do not necessarily confirm) that we're not dealing with omnipotent nano-robots, but instead very complex and specially-designed molecules and proteins probably capable of some degree of networking and coordination.

So what sort of augmentation do nano-molecular constructs allow?

Super speed: no
Super strength: no
Accelerated healing (Wolverine-style): no
Just about any comic-book superpower: no

Metabolism control: possibly
Minor improvements to reflexes: possibly

Maintaining strong nerve connections to mechanical augmentations: probably

Accelerated healing (shorter-hospital-stay-style): yes
Improved immune system response: yes
Injury and illness detection: yes
Hyper-oxygenation of the bloodstream delaying asphyxiation by 5-10 minutes: yes
​

Major biological structural modifications (adding new body parts, changing existing ones in any functional way) are straight out. Moderate degrees of modification (curing genetic illnesses, selecting for strength and endurance) would work only with pre-natal genetic modification (which could be accomplished through nanotech**, but only at that stage of development). Smaller things like permanently changing feather color might be possible even in an adult organism, but not through genetics.

....

* Functionally, nanotech designed to reproduce in an open environment is identical to bacteria. It's often simpler to just modify a bacterial strain instead. Only very soft-science nanotech can eat just anything. See Note 2, and note how neither viruses nor prions have consumed the world.

**Modified viruses present a way to do this, by current understanding. By preventing the viruses to reproduce but preserving their ability to modify DNA inside a target cell, you have a fairly cheap way to perform gene therapy. The line between what constitutes a virus and what constitutes virus-like nanotech is very fine, since both are considered to be technically non-living and would run on proteins for their operation rather than consuming food for energy. In fact, with a sufficiently loose definition, you could argue that viruses are naturally occurring nanotech. Prions (rogue proteins; one such prion causes mad cow disease) are another contender for the title of naturally-occurring nanotech.

 

Exactly. Hence the image I posted on the previous page, the Metal Gear franchise is a prime example of this in my opinion, since most things are explained by nanomachines.

 

The thing to realise is that enzymes are already nanoscale machines, as are bacteria. If anything, nanomachines may not be all that useful in the long run, as enzymes allow even more precise functionality, and are organic by design:

 

You'd run the risk of mutation, wouldn't you?

 

Because mutation is not something that already happens in literally every known living being to date right?

EDIT: I have the feeling that I completely missed the point of the post. Oh well.
EDIT 2: Yeah I think I totes missed it.

 

Point, but having it occur in the tiny organisms who would be floating around in my bloodstream and responsible for fixing or altering me at the cellular level? Not exactly my idea of a "good thing".

 

Yes, a mutation could hypothetically happen. Should you worry? No.

Harmless microorganisms make up about 1-2% of your body mass, and you don't see people randomly dying on the streets because their beneficial gut bacteria mutated. Self-replicating nanotech would be the same way. I'm of the opinion, in fact, that self-replicating nanotech would be practically identical in capability and function to engineered bacterial cells, to the point where it's probably simpler to just use bacteria instead of monkeying around with creating self-replicating nanites in a lab. And if the nanotech's not self-replicating, then it's not even an issue since only one piece of nanotech out of millions will be affected by a specific mutation.

 

I could build that possibly.

 

hello, i would like this armor fully restored to the avali mod, i been holding on to it as a personal armor mod but my crappy mod skills have not work well in make it work with others, so i would love it if you would be soo kind as to put it back in the mod, please and thank you.
PS, i link a pic of the removed armor, the white/green avali has it on her chest, black cloak with yellow trim.

 

So just as a general question, since I'm new here and to Starbound in general. Does this mod work in multiplayer if the other person doesn't have it? My friend and I were just talking about playing together.
Also, I totally recommend the lightdrones mod.

A suggestion question mix! If they do not already exist, I suggest sleeves to go with the armor. I make the suggestion because I could not find any, and it doesn't make sense to me that they'd leave them exposed.

 

Armoured sleeves will be coming in future, creating sprite sheets takes a lot of time and the mod is in early beta. One thing at a time.

For the mod to work in multiplayer, both the server, and the other players must have the mod installed. if the server lacks it you'll likely be rejected from the server, if the other players lack it, they will crash frequently and won't see avali characters or props.

That armour was never even in the game in the first place without data mining.

 

Thank you very much for the information.

 

This thread is rather inactive, eh?
Anyway, I have a question. What would the underground of Avalon look like?

 

Very, very interesting...

 

Wouldn't the air be full of methane fog?

 

Shouldn't be. Methane still doesn't turn to liquid until much lower than avalon surface temperatures, and disturbance in air created by leaking gas is due to the difference in density between methane and nitrogen - but if the atmosphere is fairly homogenous anyway there'll be no differences to see.

It might be the long range visibility is lower, but I wouldn't call it a fog.

 

I gotta say that is pretty as fudge.

 

Before anyone asks "would it be the same colour", the answer is "yes", because most the ice on Avalon is water ice, and those glaciers are water ice. Heavily compressed water ice actually becomes increasingly blue as the air is squeezed out, some extreme examples can be unbelievably vivid:



That iceberg may or may not have contained the avatar

 

Icecaves are something else, that's for sure.

This does lead me to ask a somewhat related question (the link here being "subterranean"). The wiki page on Flora and Fauna had mentioned oceanic leviathans dwelling under the glacial icepacks, punching through to grab snacks from the surface. Something about this didn't sound quite right to me, so I looked up the numbers. According to Wikipedia's information on the relative densities of water ice and liquid ammonia, water ice is actually denser than ammonia (916.7 kg/m3 for ice, 681.9 kg/m3 at −33.3 °C for NH3) and would, it seems, sink into an ammonia ocean.

So what kind of oceans does Avalon have? As a relatively flat planet, I would guess that it's oceans are relatively shallow when compared to Earth's, though I may very well be unaware of some important complexities of Avalon's terrain and geology. Is liquid ammonia fairly scarce on the surface? The Avali are, of course, adapted for surviving the higher temperatures on Avalon's surface, but do they also dwell in a desert in the sense of having only restricted access to liquids? Would another advantage provided by the mountain fortresses have been that the atmospheric disturbances from the elevation shift brought more regular rains than usual?

Or instead of oceans, does Avalon instead have many large lakes and oases scattered across the landscape? Alternately, does the Avali diet provide them with plenty of ammonia? Or are the Avali simply extremely liquid-efficient?

Just a few questions that'd been piling up.