Let us assume Isaac is correct when he suggests that future society would primarily live on artificial habitats - OβNeill cylinders and the like.
Let us also assume that there are both plenty of worlds that are close enough to Earth conditions to warrant terraforming, and that society doesnβt generally feel the need to dismantle every spare rock it comes across to build habitats. Maybe thereβs even a planetary preservation initiative that forbids dismantling planets that are deemed worth terraforming.
So, what is likely to be done with them?
On the one hand, terraforming them is still not as economically viable as just building habitats. Even with orbital rings and other such infrastructure, it still will take more energy to move goods in/out of the planetβs gravity well. Economic activity is still going to be less efficient than in a habitat - compare the variable conditions farms have to deal with, as opposed to a greenhouse. Purpose-built structures would naturally be superior to making do with what nature provides.
On the other hand, there is something about the firm footing of a planet that just feels fundamentally⦠right.
One idea I have is that planets will be great places for those that want to maintain a distinct culture apart from the rest of society - particularly if interstellar travel is comparatively cheap, easy, and/or fast (like if we have FTL). By their very nature, they have a modest amount of insulation from the rest of society, but not enough to prohibit commerce and migration. Just enough to make it less appealing. Implicit in this assumption is that the travel and commerce between habitats has a very homogenizing effect.
So, I am currently creating a race that requires to live in a high gravity planet but also needs to evolve in a planet that has low gravity,
so, question is, can moons enable some sort of low gravity phase on a certain part of a planet?
it doesnt need to be zero gravity type of stuff, it just needs to reduce the gravity of the planet to a certain extent.
What would you consider to be the best temperature and precipitation settings for making a generally Earthlike world? I'm thinking about the planet as a whole, not just a specific area.
The suggestion/wish/discussion is a bit more alienlike flora and fauna. The suggestions below are simply examples in hopes that the devs can be a bit more creative than earth 2.0.
New Animals and plants for cold regions
Crystalix: 6 legs, white fur, looks a bit like a dog. Has one eye only. Omnivore. Long tentacle from its mouth to eat and defend itself with dealing pierce damage. Its fur has worse cold insulation than most other cold insulation materials, but it is extremely durable and gets a large bonus to durability. They are found in small groups and provide little meat. Their tentacle attack has a chance to paralyze.
Myglacelium: A big fungus tree which provides 50/50 wood and blue fungus when cut. It grows during night and emits a beautiful blue glowing light at night, and rests during the day. They grow in small cluster forests of 8-24 trees. Blue fungus is a dangerous food type to human, unless they are a psycaster. Psycasters love it, and food with blue fungus gives a long lasting buff to meditation% speed and neural heat dissipation.
New animals and plants for hot region
Rockdrake: A medium sized salamander looking creature with 2 tails and rock hard scales. In combat it attacks by emitting a sound frequency which drastically reduces the sleep meter. When a creature falls asleep from exhaustion, the Rockdrake grabs the prey with its huge maw and eats it while still alive. Rockdrakes are solitary. Their scales are mediocre at most defenses, but is exceptionally good for protecting against explosive damage. Its meat is plentiful and it has very high nutritional value, but overconsumption of its meat can cause Sonic Feedback Syndrome, reducing hearing to 0% for a temporary but long period.
Hellfire Grass: This grass grows in small to medium random fields on sand. Walking over the grass causes minor burn wounds (without actually setting someone on fire). The grass does not have many practical uses, but looks very beautiful, is immune to fire, and can be sown as a defensive strategy as walking through it causes pain and burns. Pyromaniacs will gaze at Hellfire Grass instead of going on a fire spreading spree if Hellfire Grass is present. Pyromaniacs can also meditate at Hellfire Grass.
i was wondering if theres a trick to navigation on planets, i just started a new save with a mod that limits my jetpack abilities in atmospheres so i can just do what i usually do and scout ahead then return for my spawn rover. is there a trick to knowing if your in the far south/north?
As I understand it stable rings around planets almost always form around the equatorial plane because of tidal forces.
If somehow a small moon were to be captured by an earth-like planet (I realize this is unlikely) and then be pulled in and apart at the roche limit would a ring form or would it be a cloud of debris? If a ring does form how long would it be stable before it is messed up by tidal forces?
I apologize for any ignorance in my assumptions. I was curious about this while reading this: http://josephshoer.com/blog/2009/11/a-nifty-thought-experiment-the-earth-with-rings/
Bonus points if anyone has a resource to model this! Would love to be able to play with parameters if someone has modeled this and posted it on the internet.
EDIT: I suspect this earth sized planet would need to lack a Luna sized Moon, as I understand that this would likely disrupt any ring formation around a planet our size. Perhaps someone has a way to make that work?
Part of the concept for the world I'm trying to build is that there are equatorial regions which are uninhabitable due to extreme heat, other than some cooler isolated highlands, as well as significant polar ice-caps. I'm trying to figure out a way to justify this. It seems that increasing the rotation rate so that there is a very short day (like 6 hours) could result in an increased number of atmospheric convection cells and thereby decrease the effectiveness of heat flow from the tropics to the poles, and thereby increase the temperature difference. But I'm not keen on the idea of having such a short day. Alternately, increasing the radius substantially (like to twice Earth's radius) would increase the distance that heat needs to travel to be redistributed from the tropics to the poles, and also thereby result in a larger temperature span. But this would either necessitate having a very high gravity strength, which I'm not keen on, or a very low planetary density, which probably means having very low quantities of metals, which I'm also not keen on. Other options I can figure out include having a very low atmospheric density (also with other repercussions I'm not crazy about). Potentially something like a planetary ring with a large central clearing may cast a shadow much more heavily on the poleward regions than the tropics and facilitate colder polar winters, although it would still leave higher insolation in the polar summers with accompanying melting.
Are there other realistic options that allow a fairly Earth-like planet to have a much more pronounce temperature difference between tropical and polar regions?
I was doing a cave mission on microtech to clear some baddies out and took my helmet off to eat a snack, instead of dying of hunger, I suffocated. I was barely that far in the cave
Its like you cross a barrier and all of a sudden the cave has no atmosphere and starts drawing from your tanks, and when take your helmet off you suffocate.
