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Mechanical Ape posted:I find myself wondering how Earth religions and the associated calendars, dietary laws, etc. would adapt to existence on an alien world (to say nothing of the five generations spent in deep space). Do people still pray toward Mecca, for instance? How do you know when Easter happens? Are space tubers kosher?
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Aug 14, 2019 19:22
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I think if you're escaping a ruined civilization in the hopes of establishing life elsewhere religious dietary restrictions prob take a back-seat. So....won't our outpost get owned by all of the nasty-looking sea creatures in the area?
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Aug 14, 2019 20:33
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Aliens are docile in the beginning, so no need to worry about them.
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Aug 14, 2019 22:22
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Jesenjin posted:Aliens are docile in the beginning, so no need to worry about them. Yup, I'm trying very hard to avoid pissing off the aliens in the name of rapid expansion. Getting into an early fight with the aliens is more trouble than it's worth in my experience. Boksi posted:For the direction of Mecca, praying towards the engine compartment ought to be enough since that'd be pointing towards Earth. Once landed, it's probably easy enough to develop an app to do the trigonometry for you since I assume they haven't lost track of where Sol is. Easter would have to be adapted to the local year, I suppose, though how exactly would depend on whether or not the planet has a sizable moon or not. I don't know enough about space tubers to say with certainty if they're kosher, but they probably are unless they're very weird. I'm actually planning to address the Mecca thing once Al Falah completes its survey of the stars visible from this planet's surface - it's part of the fluff for an early game tech. As for space tubers and halal or kosher (Arshia Kishk is explicitly Muslim in the fluff, but there's probably plenty of Christians and Jews and whatever else in Al Falah - they're Arabic, not a religious group), use your imagination and go nuts. Siegkrow posted:I'd say that actually this is rather light on screenshots for an sslp Would people prefer longer updates? It's hard to judge what a good cutoff point is in a 4X, and this is my first fully fledged LP. I was trying to keep the first couple of updates digestible since there's so much mechanics chat.
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Aug 14, 2019 22:47
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In my experience even if you attack and attagonize every single alien you can get at and use the raging
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Aug 14, 2019 23:36
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Also, wooo Cyth is doing an LP. Due to previous Cyth shenanigans I'm going to assume you are going to go full planetmind? I still remember THAT lp.
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Aug 14, 2019 23:45
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Siegkrow posted:Also, wooo Cyth is doing an LP. That will depend on the votes when affinity comes up - which I may do this weekend along with a more in-depth look at the tech web (and why it's not as cool in practice as it sounds in theory). Beyond Earth isn't as story-driven as SMAC, and I'm trying to make this an informative LP more than a narrative one since it's a game and setting not many people are familiar with. Planetmind is an option depending on affinity choice, but it's my least favorite ending path aside from conquest. Edit since I meant to put this in the previous update when Ard finished the Clinic: Civlopedia on the Clinic posted:A clinic is a small-scale medical facility, intended to serve the primary health care needs in small communities. By the late 21st Century, health clinics were largely automated, with a doctor or nurse on call by the networked systems only in the case of an ailment or injury the diagnostic programs could not identify. Automated dispensing cabinets (computerized drug storage units), surgical microbots, telemedicine stations, monitoring smartbeds, autonomous point-of-care devices and similar advanced medical technology could handle all out- and short-term patients. While the hardware was not always part of the colony payload, the software and specifications for construction were included as a matter of policy. In the early years of a colony’s existence on this planet, as information of the various dangers and diseases expanded exponentially, the clinics were more vital than ever for the stability and growth of the colonial population. Procedures and treatments for miasma poisoning, for instance, were quickly added to the medical database linking the colonial clinics; that alone saved hundreds of human lives. Although in the larger settlements, staffed hospitals eventually supplanted the smaller healthcare facilities, automated clinics remain a staple in most neighborhoods and villages. Cythereal fucked around with this message at 02:25 on Aug 15, 2019 |
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Aug 14, 2019 23:53
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Boksi posted:I don't know enough about space tubers to say with certainty if they're kosher, but they probably are unless they're very weird. I guarantee you that a bunch of Rabbis have argued this point up, down, and around at least once, so there'd probably be a consensus on it prior to the colony ship taking off. Okay, I lie, there's probably N different positions where N is the number of Rabbis who debated it plus or minus a half dozen.
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Aug 15, 2019 05:20
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Omnicrom posted:I guarantee you that a bunch of Rabbis have argued this point up, down, and around at least once, so there'd probably be a consensus on it prior to the colony ship taking off. Tubers are a funny example given that, well, potatoes weren't around in the middle-east during biblical times, what with being from the Americas. So there is some precedent there though of course there is gonna be far bigger differences in different planets. What seems like a real pain is the calendar, at least for stuff that's not kinda seasonal. Do we even have a moon?
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Aug 15, 2019 05:51
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Mechanical Ape posted:I find myself wondering how Earth religions and the associated calendars, dietary laws, etc. would adapt to existence on an alien world (to say nothing of the five generations spent in deep space). Do people still pray toward Mecca, for instance? How do you know when Easter happens? Are space tubers kosher? I forget what the conclusion was, but I know there was a muslim astronaut (Malaysian, I think?) up on the ISS at one point, and there was a debate among muslim scholars about the qibla and what the meaning of instructions like "starting at sundown" are while in orbit. So there are definitely people thinking about these issues! edit: Minor pedantry moment: the people/culture are described as "Arab", only the language is "Arabic".
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Aug 15, 2019 08:00
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Y'all are going to make me do some actual research on planetology.  I'd planned to make a writeup about where exactly we are in the stellar neighborhood and what the star system looks like - I'd identified a real star as being the location of this LP, complete with an exoplanet - when we researched a certain early game tech, but I can finish it up and post when I get home from work tonight.
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Aug 15, 2019 12:29
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Mechanical Ape posted:I find myself wondering how Earth religions and the associated calendars, dietary laws, etc. would adapt to existence on an alien world (to say nothing of the five generations spent in deep space). Do people still pray toward Mecca, for instance? How do you know when Easter happens? Are space tubers kosher? There's also the issue of Ramadan - generally, it's not considered to officially start until the first night the moon is observed after the new moon. Whether that has to specifically be Earth's moon that's been observed, or if you can substitute seeing any moon is something you'd need to work out...
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Aug 15, 2019 12:47
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Angry Salami posted:There's also the issue of Ramadan - generally, it's not considered to officially start until the first night the moon is observed after the new moon. Whether that has to specifically be Earth's moon that's been observed, or if you can substitute seeing any moon is something you'd need to work out... Also, what if said moon's orbit is longer/shorter than 28 days, or there are multiple moons with erratic orbit time? As far as I know, there is a consensus among Islamic scholars that any spaceborn person can use time zone/clock from the point of launch. So if a person takes off from Indonesia, then use that time zone and time.
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Aug 15, 2019 15:41
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 Mission Brief: Planetary System Overview For Al Falah command staff only Barnard's Star Stellar Classification: Red dwarf Distance from Sol: 6 light years Progenitor Presence: Yes Barnard's Star is the closest star to Sol beyond the Alpha Centauri system, a very old red dwarf star well studied by humanity. Even in the early 21st century before the Mistake, Barnard's Star was known to possess at least one terrestrial planet. Survey by Provenance telescopes has identified Barnard's Star as the tentative target for our Seeding. Planet Alpha Planetary Classification: Terrestrial Atmosphere: Carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide Moons: None Habitability: N/A Alpha is a close-orbiting rocky planet to Barnard's Star, with an atmosphere similar to Venus but less dense and corrosive. Alpha is not a viable colonization target, but may be viable for mining once a colony in system is established. Planet Beta Planetary Classification: Terrestrial Atmosphere: Oxygen-Nitrogen Moons: One Habitability: Viable Barnard's Star Beta is our tentative colonization target, existing just inside the stellar system's habitable zone. Though identified in the early 21st century as a super-Earth, Beta is in truth about only 15% larger in diameter than Earth. Provenance survey has confirmed that the planet's environmental conditions are habitable by humans, if extreme due to cold, and planetary biochemistry is compatible with humanity. Beta is orbited by a single large moon tidally locked to the planet in a fashion similar to Luna's orbit of Earth. This moon has a thin atmosphere of its own and survey has detected ongoing volcanic activity on the surface. Data from the Provenance Discovery has confirmed that the Progenitors once maintained a presence on Beta, but translations estimate that the Progenitors abandoned the world millions of years ago. Given the nature of Progenitor technology, more artifacts are likely intact and operational on the surface. Most importantly for the Seeding, Beta is by far the closest habitable world to Earth that we've identified - a critical consideration for our launch given the lack of cryogenic sleep systems (the less said about the Alpha Centauri survey, the better). Though the weather conditions will be harsh, Beta's rotational period is similar to Earth's and the single large moon will provide similar tidal effects. Day and night cycles will be similar, though the planet takes considerably longer around the star. We estimate that a complete year on Beta would be approximately five hundred Earth days. The planet's lack of an axial tilt means seasons will likely not exist as such, or at least to nowhere near the same extent as Earth. In short, it's not ideal but it has a lot to recommend it for one of the most important parameters of our Seeding. It is also our hope that given the planet's harsh climate, other Seeding sponsors will pass this world by. Planet Gamma Planetary Classification: Terrestrial Atmosphere: None Moons: None Habitability: N/A Planet Gamma is a small world of airless rock in an unusual elliptical orbit around Barnard's Star. This orbit does not impact the orbits of Alpha or Beta in any form, but Provenance data has markers on this world we have yet to identify. Some members of the survey team believe Gamma might be a chthonian planet, the rocky core of a gas giant whose atmosphere has been stripped away, or perhaps an extrasolar capture. Planet Delta Planetary Classification: Gas Giant Atmosphere: Hydrogen based Moons: 14 Habitability: N/A Planet Delta appears to be a standard hydrogen-based gas giant in all respects, and a welcome source of fuel for the Seeding once a colony on Beta is sufficiently established. Interesting note, a relative abundance of chlorine in Delta's atmosphere gives the planet a striking green color. Planet Epsilon Planetary Classification: Gas Giant Atmosphere: Hydrogen based Moons: 19 Habitability: N/A Planet Epsilon is the last major planetary body in the Barnard's Star system, and like Delta appears to be a standard hydrogen-helium. Epsilon has a very long and slightly elliptical orbital period, similar to Neptune in Sol, and will likely serve the same purpose in the distant future. End Report No promises I got the astronomy right, but I'm sure this thread will correct any errors.
Cythereal fucked around with this message at 17:36 on Aug 15, 2019 |
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Aug 15, 2019 17:34
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I played Beyond Earth thinking it'd have some of what made SMAC good but it didn't. I certainly enjoyed it and had a narrative of sorts figured out as I played it but the game was really barebones. Going to follow this and see how it goes and how much changed.
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Aug 16, 2019 04:29
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Akratic Method posted:I forget what the conclusion was, but I know there was a muslim astronaut (Malaysian, I think?) up on the ISS at one point, and there was a debate among muslim scholars about the qibla and what the meaning of instructions like "starting at sundown" are while in orbit. So there are definitely people thinking about these issues! I definitely remember this, because I remember the conclusion was that even if you are orbiting the Earth every few minutes, stuff that is done "daily" is to be done once per Earth day. There was speculation that this might have implications for astronauts traveling at relativistic speeds. Would Al Falah have to be concerned about this? Well, Barnard's Star is 6 light-years away, and Ms. Kiahk was a fifth-generation spaceborn. Let's call that a transit time of 150-200 years. Let's take the low end. 6 ly / 150 y = a speed of 0.04c. That produces a time dilation factor of 1/sqrt(1 - (v/c)^2) = 1/sqrt(1-.0016) = 1/sqrt(.9984)= 1.0008. That works out to a 24-hour day on Earth taking 23 hours, 58 minutes, and 51 seconds onboard the Seedships. That is not really noticable day to day, but it does add up. The Muslim population has a duty ("salah") to pray five times a day, and ship and Earth time desync by about 70 seconds each day. So, while in transit, every eight months or so, a sixth daily prayer would then be performed. Upon arrival at Al-Jalidia, the flow of time relative to Earth was restored to normal, but the colonists continued to mark eight-month anniversaries with a small celebration to honor the journey from Old Earth as well as Earth herself.
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Aug 16, 2019 05:42
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ManxomeBromide posted:I definitely remember this, because I remember the conclusion was that even if you are orbiting the Earth every few minutes, stuff that is done "daily" is to be done once per Earth day. There was speculation that this might have implications for astronauts traveling at relativistic speeds. Interestingly, with the >approximately five hundred Earth days< we're looking at 16 30-day months (for 480 days) and a 20-day month (for 500 days total) - or 16 31-day months (for 496 days), so the 8th month celebrations would be performed twice annually. That's a nice little coincidence.
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Aug 16, 2019 14:51
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OddObserver posted:What seems like a real pain is the calendar, at least for stuff that's not kinda seasonal. Do we even have a moon? There would have to be, or the planet's axial wobble would be killer and the day would likely be 6-10 hours long and extremely windy. The moon does way more for the Earth than just making waves for surfers. Edit: And with a little more study I learned that if Jupiter were closer the moon would make Earth's axial wobble worse, not better. So it's even more complicated than I gave it credit for! PoptartsNinja fucked around with this message at 16:37 on Aug 16, 2019 |
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Aug 16, 2019 16:33
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Divided Destiny Making these slightly larger for the person who asked. Let me know if I still need to fiddle.  One problem that had somehow escaped Al Falah's mission planners: establishing a local calendar on the new world. Eventually, a solution was reached: given that an Al-Jalidian day was about the same length as an Earth day, but an Al-Jalidian year was five hundred Earth days, the accurately but unimaginatively named New Stellar Calendar was divided into 16 31-day months. The remaining four days, governor Arshia Kishk declared, would become a special festival period at the beginning of the calendar, as defined by the day of Al Falah's landing, celebrating Al Falah's journey across the stars. Thus, retroactively, the day of Planetfall became January 1, 1 NSC. What to name the four new months of the year, Arshia declared would be put to popular vote. So, the state of Al Falah at turn 14. Ard is doing well under the circumstances. Nomad, our starting explorer, has returned home for resupply - explorers can only perform one expedition at the game's start and must return to a city (Farah is an outpost so it doesn't count) to restock. We'll unlock ways to increase the number of expeditions explorers can perform later. Meanwhile, Pioneer 1 is heading east to mine the copper deposit we now have access to. The algae southwest of the city is a low priority for improvement, the important half of algae's bonuses, +1 food, you get without a tile improvement. Ard itself is building another explorer. Here you can see the value of starting with a worker, we could start improving tiles from the word go rather than needing to first build a worker and only then start moving and improving tiles.  Farah is still an outpost and will be until the end of this update. As an outpost, Farah is very vulnerable to attack but will slowly acquire the tiles around it. Once all tiles are acquired, Farah will become a fully fledged city. The second social policy I picked up, Homesteading, grants a 30% bonus to outpost growth speed. If we had a second worker, we could indeed start improving Farah's starting ring of tiles before the city is even founded.   The nascent Al Falah Defense Force - a tentative name, born of Al Falah's police department - and the Civic Administration found themselves at loggerheads within months of Ard Central Hospital, both demanding priority access to Ard's medical facilities. With council debate deadlocked, Arshia Kishk cast her vote in favor of the Civic Administration. Pioneer teams, explorers, and other civil workers would receive free first call treatment for injuries and illness sustained in the course of their duties. Our first building quest! Almost every building in the game triggers a "quest" after completing one. How long it takes for the event to fire is random, though the more of that building you construct in your civ the faster the event happens. Here, I pick caring for civil workers. Clinics provide +1 science and +1 health (Civ fans, think happiness, everyone else, just accept that health limits our expansion), and taking this option provides an extra +1 health. If we'd chosen the other option, it would upgrade all clinics to also provide +15 city HP - useful for city defense. I, however, am of the mind that if this bonus is ever relevant then something has gone terribly wrong. Most building events are along this line, offering either an improvement to what the building already does or some new bonus to the building.  Alarms ring throughout Ard and Farah as another Seed lander burns through the night sky at a shockingly low angle, terribly close to Al Falah's landing zone...  Dangerously close. Al Falah has a neighbor. Well, poo poo. This is not good. The AI in Beyond Earth gets very touchy about you settling too close to its borders, and in cases where they land right next to you? The AI will often consider your starting city a provocation, and settling a new city on the opposite side of your starting city from them to still be dangerously close, which in turn often triggers an early war. I had hoped to not need to do this, but it looks like we'll be building an army (well, navy) sooner rather than later. In the meantime, the longer we can keep from officially discovering this neighbor, the more time we have before they start bitching at us. This close to us, they are going to be ornery. Especially if this is one of the AIs that's actually expansionist or territorial.  Although the copper deposit to Ard's east lies in a miasma field, the Civic Administration issues strict orders concerning how long workers can stay in a miasma field. With regular rotation of equipment, only machinery should suffer damage in the miasma. Meanwhile, Nomad unit heads southwest. Miasma deals 10 HP damage per turn, and all units have 100 HP. Building a tile improvement by default is 6 turns. Our worker will be fine, if banged up by the end of this.  Nomad makes another peculiar sighting: large boulders, streaked through with brilliant purple, hovering above the ocean. The geology department of the Science Division hosts an impromptu party for rewriting yet another basic rule of thumb, while the rest of the government shakes their head in exasperation. Meanwhile, the newly christened Outrider expedition departs for the south. Floatstone is the last of Beyond Earth's strategic resources. Like firaxite and xenomass, it will be a while before we can do anything with it.  On the island to Ard's west, another derelict human settlement is discovered. And, poking above the waves to the north, the unmistakable signs of Progenitor architecture. As before, Kishk orders Nomad to investigate the human structures first. Just like the settlement we saw before, but I'm hoping for the other result. The three little towers in the water north of this island are a different kind of expedition site we'll get to later.  A basic survey of local chemical conditions, the construction of an ethanol refinery and the necessary infrastructure to handle chemical resources, the establishment of a proper fuel depot for government purposes... no one thing marked the completion of the chemistry development project, but everything had value. Our first tech! Like SMAC, BE's techs are presented with an in-universe quote most often from one of the national leaders. Except in this game, they're all read by the same voice actress. Hutama here is the leader of the Commonwealth of the Pacific, a nation we may or may not see in the game. Chemistry does a lot of useful things for us. The recycler is one of the first production boosting structures available, the laboratory is the first science boosting structure, submarines are a useful combat unit, and we can now exploit petroleum resources we find - like the one near Farah. If we hadn't started with a tectonic scanner, researching Chemistry would be required to even see petroleum on the map.  Kishk's next order is to develop the infrastructure and official procedures necessary to settle Al-Jalidia in a more organized fashion than the slapdash burst of enthusiasm that built Farah. Pioneering will let us build colonist units at will, trade depots which will increase production and support trade routes, and trade convoys. Trade routes are a very important tool in Beyond Earth, and we will definitely be making use of them.  Outrider expedition finds another supply pod drifting on the waves. The fusion reactor inside is welcome but less interesting than the last part of the genetic testing station from the Golden Shah.  A welcome science boost, this will speed Pioneering along.  No one steps forward to claim that they were the one who left a toy lodged inside the vial sampler. Another artifact we still can't do anything with. We pop another pod shortly after this and it's just more money.  Outrider finds a landmass to the south, by the looks of it much bigger than any we've seen before. Note another Progenitor tower. Say it with me, we can't do anything with it yet.  With the copper mines completed without any casualties, Pioneer 1 is routed into the forest to begin clearing the forest for cultivation of the so-called fruit cones. In Ard itself, construction begins on a central recycling facility. Nothing on the Golden Shah was permitted to go to waste, and so it will be on Al-Jalidia if Arshia Kishk has anything to say about it.  Likewise, a will to step up and do what the community needs had been a hallmark of Al Falah's spirit aboard the Golden Shah. A new pioneer unit is raised from the Civic Administration's volunteers and sent east towards Farah. Culture virtue number four, and why I didn't bother making a new worker for Farah - waiting for this was about as fast as actually building a new worker at Ard.  And just in the nick of time, too!  Nomad's report to Ard is triumphant: they found survivors. The federal government of the United States of America had launched its own seeding to Al-Jalidia, and much like Amaterasu's ill-fated vessel, the Conestoga had suffered a catastrophic malfunction on final planetary approach. A malfunction, it was surmised, that was the result of the same experimental ultra-fast engine design. But the Americans' story had ended more happily than the Japanese colony, as six hundred survivors huddled around a functional nuclear fission reactor and fished the arctic waters for food. After much consternation in Ard - the treatment Al Falah's ancestors had received from the United States of America was a thing of both record and legend among Al Falah - and a great deal of public debate, the surviving American colonists were granted sanctuary in Ard. Recycling the remains of the American camp, a new refugee settlement was established on the edge of Ard. Before abandoning what they had come to call Roanoke, the Americans placed a small memorial to their ship and all their lost fellows. The new American refugee settlement in Ard, they dubbed Plymouth.  The Americans brought one of the more useful tools in keeping themselves debatably sane under the conditions with them.  So this is what artifacts are for. Once you have three, you can combine them to get various goodies. Three different categories of artifacts, and right now we have three Old Earth artifacts. What kind of reward you get depends on what kind of artifacts you put in the mixer - every possible combination leads to a defined reward.  Here, we can see what we'd get for combining these. Namely, jack poo poo. The one-time production and culture boost would be useful-ish, but the Old Voice Archives building is pretty bad. If you're at war with anyone, this building grants +10% to all the city's food/energy/science/culture yields. Compared to what other combinations can get, this isn't even worth mentioning. Some of the poo poo you can get from artifacts is bonkers, and I elect to hold on to these artifacts for now.  Shortly after the American resettlement, another translator is required: one who can speak Korean. A foreign explorer expedition has been sighted by Outrider.  The Korean explorers are polite but noncommittal, and the first teleconference between Governor Arshia Kishk and Director Han-Jae Moon leaves Al Falah's leadership with more questions than answers. 'Chungsu' appeared only twice in Al Falah's entire databanks from Earth, where it was deemed a mere rumor, a conspiracy theory - supposedly a secret paramilitary organization founded in response to the Provenance Discovery, fearing that this seemingly benign discovery was in fact a precursor to alien invasion. Han Jae Moon himself did not appear in any databases whatsoever, and man spoke flawless Arabic (Earth Arabic that is, the better part of two centuries of linguistic drift on the Golden Shah had made Al Falah's a distinct dialect) with no need for a translator. Moon displayed no visible emotion at any point during the preliminary talks, merely noting that Al Falah's presence on this world was something Chungsu had taken into account before departure and that Chungsu had no interest in entanglements hostile or friendly with Al Falah at this time. Our first neighbor! Chungsu is not actually the group right next door to us, we get vision on the starting city of each faction as we meet them and Chungsu made Planetfall far to the south of us. They're explicitly a reference to X-COM, another video game series Firaxis makes, except their secret base was underwater rather than underground and they were based out of South Korea. Chungsu was added in Rising Tide, and their factional bonus is that they start with spies and are really good at using their spies to steal research from other factions - we won't be getting access to the espionage system for some time, so it's probably a given that Chungsu will be spying on us. There's a lot of stuff on the diplomacy screen here that will become relevant later in the game, but at the start there's not much to see. Good news for us is, Moon's pretty easygoing most of the time. He's going to spy on us, that's a given, but he's usually not into military aggression unless he feels threatened.  A few days later, the Civic Administration reports that they are prepared to direct and support colonial expansion efforts. We can now build settlers, trade depots (which boost production in addition to enabling trade routes), and trade convoys. We will be building all of these.  The next priority, Kishk decides, is to develop a basic understanding of Al-Jalidia's ecology. The pioneer units dearly need some way of dealing with the miasma, and some way to deter the larger alien life forms from approaching Al Falah's cities would be welcome. Ecology is our next stop, which has three perks. From left to right, Ecology will grant us vivariums (a structure that makes more food for the city - Ard needs this!), ultrasonic fences (significantly reduces the chance of aliens coming within two tiles of the city - nerfed from the absolute two-tile exclusion zone of the base game but still useful), and lets our workers clear away miasma.  State of Al Falah, turn 28 Ard is as it's been, the worker is still slogging away at building the fruit plantation because forests make tile improvements take longer. But the copper mine is up and running, and miasma doesn't interfere with a city's ability to work a tile. Ard finished the recycler for +2 production and is now building a trade depot for an additional +1 production and the ability to build trade units.  Farah has finally grown into a city and has started work on a trade depot as it's quicker to build than a recycler. The aliens are making getting the worker to Farah a nuisance, this city is probably going to need a ultrasonic fence as soon as I can get one.  To the south of Ard, I'm eyeing this landmass as the site of our next city. Probably on the forested, miasma hill on the river, assuming no one beats us to it. Chemistry posted:From the ancient age when Bacon, Boyle, Hooke and Mayow began reshaping alchemy into a scientific discipline, bringing rigor and order to the study of the elements, chemistry has been one of the most vital fields of research. As the laws of chemistry were codified and the nature of matter understood, chemistry became a vital area of industrial and scientific endeavor. When Mankind pushed into space, new branches opened, such as astrochemistry, supramolecular chemistry, and organometallic chemistry. New planets bring new discoveries – such as firaxite and floatstone – which in turn drive chemical research into unexpected directions. Of the applied sciences, it can be readily said that chemistry is the most vital for the successful human colonization of the cosmos. Pioneering posted:Generally based on the romanticized tales of the primitive pioneers that migrated westward across the North American continent, it was envisioned that, following the initial settlement on the new planet, small groups would radiate outward to plant distant outposts, claiming ever more territory for the growing enterprise. Using automated construction and pre-fab buildings, these pioneers sought to lay early claim to resources, agricultural lands, and strategic locations for what Earth-bound planners envisioned as an expansive, profitable and secure colony. Eventually and inevitably, these outposts would grow into towns in their own right, and industrial plants, administrative buildings and transportation hubs would be added. Recycler posted:A materials recovery facility – or as the colonists termed it, a “recycler” – separates and prepares waste materials for alternate end-use production. The early colonial recyclers used mechanical-biological treatments, such as anaerobic digestion or biodrying or gasification; later facilities used more advanced techniques, adapted by colonial scientists for use on this planet. One such method found effective here is pyrolysis, the thermochemical rapid decomposition of organic materials in the absence of oxygen, producing – among other things – biochar and biofuel. Another efficient method is biomass catalytic partial oxidation, which leads to the production of syngas, used in a number of types of heavy construction equipment. Waste autoclaves convert various organic wastes into exceedingly rich fertilizer and animal feeds, boosting agricultural production on colonial farms. And recent plasma-arc methods are able to separate the components of alloys for reuse by manufacturing plants, notably those requiring rare earth metals. Without recyclers, it is doubtful that some settlements would have reached the size they now are, as limited Earth-type resources would have halted expansion before native substitutes could have been discovered. Cythereal fucked around with this message at 04:45 on Aug 17, 2019 |
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Aug 17, 2019 02:45
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Now I'm wondering what legends they've inherited from earth, and what new legends are being told ABOUT earth. Is Mickey still just an entertainment idol?
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Aug 17, 2019 08:34
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I don't know why but I love the idea of a city just being surrounded by these big dumb weird aliens bumbling around and constantly getting in the way and bumping into you every time you try to do anything 
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Aug 17, 2019 09:31
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Siegkrow posted:Now I'm wondering what legends they've inherited from earth, and what new legends are being told ABOUT earth. Beyond Earth poking fun at this is one of the game's better sources of charm. Have some quotes from stuff we'll likely never see in the regular course of the LP: The Gene Vault posted:"The five mythical creatures of Earth are: The dragon, the unicorn, the griffin, the llama, and the chimera." Seismic Induction posted:"John Henry pulled out two 5-pound nano-oscillators, one for each side of the fault. They shook and shook, the earth trembling everywhere. Half an hour later, John Henry had shook himself up a mountain, while the industrial engineers had only managed a tiny hill." Geoscaping posted:"The five oceans of Earth are: the Pacific, the Atlantic, the Titanic, the Arctic and the Indian." Abyssal Mirror posted:"When Paul Bunyan died, they buried him at sea. But the little fishes fed on his body and turned into sea dragons, and the squid drank his blood and turned into krakens, and Anansi stole one of Paul’s eyeballs to look at the stars." Alien Materials posted:"Floatstone beat Anansi and Coyote at poker, and won the right to leave the ground. But Floatstone forgot to ask for wings to fly, and so it just sort of hangs around feeling sorry for itself."
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Aug 17, 2019 13:05
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Personally I find the whole theme of Earth facts and traditional stories being warped by time one of the biggest missed opportunities of the game's writing. While some of them are indeed quite charming and worthy of a chuckle (especially Uncle Nevercloned's stuff), too many of them veer into the domain of just being silly to me. Like, the names of Earth's oceans is such an easy thing to fact in any sort of information society. It would have made sense in some form of post-apocalyptic scenario where all you have to go on are oral traditions, or would have been a fun piece of world building if the source had been a student or something, but the idea of a presumably influential work getting such basic facts wrong makes it feel sloppy and unrealistic. It's a waste, because perceptions about Earth in a far future post-Earth society (iirc most of the game's lore is presumably written long after even the events of the game?) could have been a really interesting theme to explore if it had been executed better. I belong to the minority of people who actually really like BE, but it's just such a shame that the game could have been so much better if the writing had been even slightly more thought through and ambitious story telling-wise.
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Aug 17, 2019 18:44
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It's time to talk about a couple of the big mechanics of Beyond Earth in greater detail, and to make a very important decision about the LP: what affinity will we pursue? 'Affinity' is CBE's term for how, broadly speaking, will our society evolve in this far future. What ideologies will come to define us, how will we respond to the disaster of Earth, and what is humanity going to look like in the future? This is the single biggest conceptual divergence from CBE's spiritual predecessor, Alpha Centauri. In Alpha Centauri, every faction (well, most of them - see the Pirates and Data Angels) was defined by a specific ideology and vision for the future. Beyond Earth wants this to be your decision, and that any nation can pursue any affinity they choose. This decision is probably the root cause of why until Rising Tide, none of the leaders in Beyond Earth had a particularly defined personality, vision, or set of goals for their society. Any leader could pursue any affinity, and needed to be believable as such. Affinity is part cultural outlook, part vision for the future, part path of technological development, part ethics system, and even part religion. Whichever affinity we choose is going to define Al Falah moving into the future, determining what quests may appear for us, how other leaders will react to us in part, what units and buildings will become available to us, and ultimately what victory conditions we can pursue. One of the most common criticisms of the Affinity system, one that's been voiced in this thread, is that choosing your affinity doesn't feel like an organic process. Some quests award affinity points based on your responses, but you'll rarely see more than one or two per game as these quests stop appearing once you hit a certain level in one affinity. Some expedition sites can also award points for a random affinity. Most of your affinity progress, though, will come from research. The majority of technologies in Beyond Earth are associated with one or more affinities and will give points accordingly. In the base game of Beyond Earth, affinity techs were very siloed in nature. You would not gain affinity points by accident, and had to specifically seek out affinity techs for those points. The net result was that barring expedition sites, you'd gain exclusively the affinity levels you desired. In Rising Tide, almost every tech now awards affinity points. This means that by the end of the game, in addition to our actual chosen affinity, we're likely to be at least level 4 or 5 in every other affinity (out of a cap of 18).  The carrier unit progression gives a good look at the aesthetics of the three major affinities. Starting with the basic, non-affinity carrier on the left, you have: Harmony's Hydra class; Purity's Bastion class; and Supremacy's Shepherd class. So what does affinity actually get you? First, it improves your units. The core units of Beyond Earth are actually quite few in number: soldier, ranged soldier, tank, artillery, patrol boat, capital ship, submarine, carrier, airplane. As you gain affinity levels, you'll start to upgrade these units to new tiers. There are 4 tiers in all for most units, and the basic starting units tend to have a fairly conventional, somewhat slapdash look to them - exploration rovers with guns hastily fitted onto them, for example. The second tier, reflecting that your colony is now firmly established and can build dedicated combat units, tend to have a very normal 21st century semi-futuristic look to them. It's at tiers 3 and up that your affinity takes charge and puts their unique aesthetic on things. Second, every affinity has a suite of affinity-specific units. We'll unlock some from normal research that we'll never use, but many are part of techs that give their respective affinity points. Some of these units are useful, some are not, some would be useful if they weren't buried at the far end of the tech web. Third, every affinity has a range of buildings that require a certain level in their respective affinity to build. Like the units, we'll unlock some of these regardless and some will require dedicated research. Most of these are very useful. Fourth, other leaders will like or dislike us based on our affinity, and theirs, once they develop an affinity of their own. CBE tries to keep the number of factions following each affinity pretty even - naturally, AI leaders following the same affinity we are will like us, and AI leaders choosing a different path will dislike us. Fifth, each affinity has a special victory condition that requires level 15 in that affinity to complete. There's a fourth peaceful victory path we can take regardless, and of course there's the conquest option. So, what are the affinities? Supremacy  "The choice between man and machine is a false dichotomy designed to confuse and mislead." Earth died because by the time we developed the technology to fix it, we'd run out of the resources and time we needed to do it. On this new world, we finally have the opportunity to make a revolutionary leap forward as a species. The Culture. Not only did you in fact ask for this, you went back for a second helping. Supremacy embraces technology as the solution to society's ills and the problems faced by your colony, and represents the most traditional science fiction version of transhumanism. The key technological and social theme of Supremacy is that of blending and merging man and machine, starting with advanced robotics and artificial intelligence research before moving on to cybernetics, self-aware AI, and eventually the likes of neural uploading. There's also a trend towards thought-sharing and even progressing towards a sort of hive mind if we go this route as many advantages are fluffed as soldiers, scientists, and artists pooling their conscious and unconscious knowledge and abilities to produce a whole greater than the sum of its parts. Supremacy is the most forward-thinking affinity, both conceptually and in gameplay. Supremacy is the only affinity with a special building to increase our science output, and narratively is the one affinity that doesn't much care about the past or hand-wring over why Earth went wrong. Supremacy's eyes are set firmly on the future. Embracing Supremacy will turn our aesthetic lean and harshly angular, dominated by black, gunmetal grey, and flashes of gold. The iconic upgrade for Supremacy combat units is growing in power when units are adjacent to one another, and many Supremacy units feature specialized upgrade options that make them significantly more powerful in a specific role. Supremacy's unique victory path is returning to Earth to save that broken world and uplift those who stayed behind. Supremacy specific techs include Tactical Robotics, Synthetic Thought, Neural Uploading, and Euthenics. If we pursue this affinity, Al Falah will increasingly take a technocratic approach to solving the challenges of this new world: any problem can be solved through technology, and when in doubt we'll throw a robot at it. Purity civilizations will accuse us of sacrificing our humanity on the altar of efficiency and power, and Harmony civilizations will shake their heads at us while saying we're charging blindly towards the future without taking a moment to think about what we're doing and what the universe has tried to teach us. Harmony  "We destroyed one planet when we moved against its rhythms, and brought ourselves to the brink of extinction. What great things will we accomplish as we dance with this world?" Earth died because we in our arrogance believed we were something more than a part of our world and abused our world terribly. On this new world, we finally have the opportunity to learn from the mistakes of the past and become one with our new home. Avatar. The root cause of Earth's fall was that we mistakenly believed we were in control of the world and superior to other life forms. We know better now. Harmony as an ideology emphasizes the idea that humanity is only one part of a greater whole, and seeks to redefine mankind's traditional relationship with the natural world. Radical genetic engineering and biotechnology define Harmony's more concrete technological direction, integrating alien genetics into terrestrial DNA to produce a new humanity perfectly adapted to this new world while living in cities and vehicles that are more grown than built. Harmony is also the most overtly spiritual ideology, and is just as concerned with the evolution of the human spirit as it is with the evolution of the human body. There's a fundamental shift in how Harmony civilizations see humanity's place in the universe that's absent in the other affinities, even if it's not at all any guarantee of humility. Embracing Harmony will turn our aesthetic smooth and organic, dominated by teal with lots of white, purple, and occasionally florescent green. Most Harmony units feature an upgrade to grow substantially in power when there are no adjacent friendly units, and to grow in power while in miasma. Other options tend to emphasize a fast and exceptionally aggressive play style, to the point of exploding on death to damage enemy units. Harmony's unique victory path is connecting to an alien neural web that stretches throughout the entire planet, creating a new gestalt consciousness of the very planet. Harmony specific techs include Alien Hybridization, Swarm Intelligence, Tissue Engineering, and Metamaterials. If we pursue this affinity, Al Falah will work to adapt themselves to the conditions and needs of their new home rather than trying to force this world to adapt to Al Falah's needs. Al Falah will largely hold Earth as an example of what not to do, not a golden age. Purity civilizations will accuse us of forgetting where we came from and what species we are, and Supremacy civilizations will dismiss us as short-sighted and irrational. Purity  "Actual human beings everywhere now are more important than potential 'improved' humans that may or may not exist in the future." Earth died because we were too wrapped up in petty divisions, conflicts, and accidents of history to live up to our potential as a species. On this new world, we finally have the opportunity to emerge from the bloody shadows of our past and build a better future as a species without repeating the mistakes of the past. Star Trek. Despite our long and bleak history, we as a species can do better, be better, if given the right opportunity. Purity is the most conceptually conservative affinity in Beyond Earth and comprehensively rejects any need to alter what it means to be human in pursuit of a better tomorrow. This is not to say Purity completely rejects the benefit of technology, many Purity advances involve small genetic improvements to wipe out genetic disorders, reconstructive cybernetics to mend injuries, and so on and so forth. What Purity emphatically does not do is use technology to redefine the base line for what a human being is. Purity likes technology that keeps humans firmly in the driver's seat: powered armor, hovercraft, giant mechs (with pilots, mind, not Supremacy's AI-driven robots), and so on and so forth. There's also a lot of emphasis on terraforming later in the tech tree: this isn't Earth, but we can make it something close in time. Embracing Purity will turn our aesthetic brown and red, with bits of white, and use architecture and unit designs recognizable to us today, if tending towards the brick on wheels/treads/wings/hull look. Defensive bonuses are the most common Purity upgrade for our units, though many also offer improvements to both attack and defense based on how many movement points remain. Purity armies tend to be slow-moving, ideal for taking and holding territory. Purity's unique victory path is bringing millions of refugees from Earth to this new Earth we've prepared for them. Purity specific techs include Servomachinery, Biospheres, Seismic Induction, and Mobile LEV. If we pursue this affinity, Al Falah will idealize Earth and stubbornly dig their heels in regarding this new planet and its challenges. We can overcome all these hurdles as we are, because humans are special like that. Supremacy civilizations will look down on us for being trapped in a past that was never all that great, and Harmony civilizations will despise us for being so insistent on repeating the same path that destroyed Earth.  A screenshot from another save I have shows what a mid to late game Harmony civilization looks like. You can see how the city has changed dramatically, and that warship to the west was grown, not built.  But wait, there's more! Rising Tide introduced hybrid affinities as well, giving each their own ideology and aesthetic. However, this feature is ultimately half-baked in implementation. While there are unique units for each hybrid ideology, and hybrid upgrades for the core unit list (infantry, tanks, patrol ships, capital ships), the more specialized units do not enjoy hybrid upgrades. Nor does the aesthetic of your cities change, and there are no hybrid-specific events, quests, or victory conditions. Supremacy-Purity: Funnily enough, I can't think of a fictional setting that plays this ideology straight... and too many to count where it's invoked only as backstory to it going wrong. S-P marries Purity's rejection of transhumanism and embrace of human potential with Supremacy's keen interest in robotics and artificial intelligence. Actual self-aware AI is a strict no-no in this ideology, as this society uses robots - even very sophisticated robots - for all manual labor and freeing humanity for lives of leisure and the creative pursuits. Self-aware AI is explicitly banned in this ideology, and cybernetics are only used to grant humans direct control over other machines. Humanity is still very much in control if we pursue this path. S-P offers a shiny smooth white-and-blue iFuture aesthetic for its unique units, which range from human infantry with combat drone support to walking tanks designed as expendable meat shields for the soldiers following behind. Supremacy-Harmony: Not unlike S-P, S-H represents an ideology invariably invoked in fiction as a nightmarish dystopia. Supremacy-Harmony looks at both affinities and asks why they should be considered contradictory, then decides that they are not. S-H advocates a cybernetic society in perhaps its truest form: radical genetic engineering, robotics, and artificial intelligence all together, turning down no advantage if it makes lives better for people or makes humanity stronger. Under this ideology, it will ultimately be difficult to tell where the machine ends and the organism begins - and the locals would tell you that that's a false distinction, they're one and the same. S-H is certainly the most radical and alien affinity available, but is also one that says that humanity is something biology cannot alter nor technology take away. S-H opts for a purple and black color scheme, and features some of the strangest units in the game. Purity-Harmony: Too many dystopias to count. P-H is the last of the transhuman ideologies, but advocates transhumanism in a carefully controlled sense. No alien genetics getting into the human genome here, no sir, but instead the pursuit of perfecting the human form. P-H's end goal is an entire society of ten-foot-tall immortal geniuses more akin to Greek gods than what we'd currently recognize as human, exalting the human body and form to something more befitting the human spirit. If any of these ideologies is likely to start wearing togas with lots of crystal architecture everywhere, it's P-H. P-H not coincidentally likes shiny bronze with molded abs and purple crystals for its look, and every single unique unit here is some breed of genetically enhanced superhuman. If the thread ends up voting for a hybrid affinity, how exactly I will characterize Al Falah will depend on what the dominant affinity is - all three of these can have the dominant affinity be either one.  Every affinity and hybrid affinity also comes with its own increasing tiers of bonuses, which there's this handy window to track. This one's from that save I used for the city example. And now, a more detailed look at the tech web.  Open in a new tab if you want to see the tech web in its full size. Now, quick! Tell me what you'd research if you want airplanes! Or factories! Or want to improve your farms! Actually, I could tell you because I've played the game so much I know where everything is and what everything does, but that's a tall ask. Let's take a more detailed look.  From the same Harmony game save, let's take a closer look at one stem-and-leaf tech set: Alien Sciences, Alien Adaptation, and Alien Ecology. If you look closely, you can actually tell what kind of thing every one of these things is. Under Alien Sciences, the white icons with a 7-sided border indicate buildings we can construct in our cities. The blue pentagon represents a tile improvement we can use to access a new resource. Under Alien Adaptation, the white icon with the circular border is a new unit. The white star surrounded by a pink starburst is some kind of passive faction-wide bonus - these are almost always a bonus to some tile improvement or other. Under Alien Ecology, we can see another new unit. The pink starburst without a white icon represents a new ability that will be given to our worker units. Most of this, incidentally, comes from the Rising Tide expansion. This was even harder to read in the base game.  Rising Tide also added search functions to the top left of the screen. The actual search function is pretty responsible, but here I'm showing a filter option. I set it to Harmony, and every tech that grants any amount of Harmony points lights up on the web.  Another type of filter goes by what kind of thing you want - buildings, units, etc. In this case, I selected new tile improvements.  Or I can search for production. Every lit up tech here will grant some way to improve our cities' production output.  Or I can search for Aquatic, which lights up any structures that can only be built in aquatic cities, improve water-based resources, unlock naval units, etc.  One last system to take a brief look at, the culture system. I haven't been talking much about it except when I get a new virtue, but here it is from the same example save. The Might tree is primarily about military benefits. If you want to go conquering, you'll probably invest a lot of virtues here. Prosperity, which we'll still be in for a while in the Al Falah LP, is mainly about city growth. Direct growth like the free colonist and worker I got in the LP already, but also a lot of health improvements that help you keep expanding. Knowledge is mainly about science and culture, with some spying benefits. Industry offers mostly production and money benefits, but also sneaks in a couple of very powerful health benefits. In the LP, once I get three more virtues I want from the Prosperity tree I'll be diving in here. Note the increment bars going horizontally across the top of each tree, and going vertically down the side of the window. These are synergy bonuses, and each virtue you take lights up one pip in both the horizontal and vertical cell for the square it belongs to. Whether you go wide across multiple trees or deep in any given tree, there's benefits to be gained. Voting Time! The choice of our affinity, I leave to the thread. Please make your votes in this format: X - Y. X will be our primary affinity. Y is your vote for our secondary affinity, if any. If you want to vote for going straight in one of the three affinities, vote for the same affinity in both slots.
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Aug 17, 2019 19:27
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Cythereal posted:Voting Time! 1) Supremacy, because giant robots are fun, pure Harmony is disappointing and boring, and Purity I dislike. I'd prefer to go to Earth to save it. 2) Harmony secondary, because don't be dicks to the cute aliens PoptartsNinja fucked around with this message at 20:45 on Aug 17, 2019 |
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Aug 17, 2019 19:31
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Harmony - Supremacy Hippies will rule the world 
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Aug 17, 2019 19:33
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Harmony-Purity 1) Harmony. Because we have to learn to adapt to this world as we adapted our culture to survive generations in space 2) Purity. Just because the world turned their back on us doesn't mean we should turn our backs on the rest of humanity Servetus fucked around with this message at 20:55 on Aug 17, 2019 |
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Aug 17, 2019 19:39
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PoptartsNinja posted:1) Supremacy, because giant robots are fun, pure Harmony is disappointing and boring, and Purity are Nazis. I was hoping I wouldn't have to post this. This LP is a dystopia-free zone. Do not call anyone a Nazi and do not suggest war crimes or similar poo poo is happening. Beyond Earth tries to be a very positive look at the future, and I appreciate it for that.
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Aug 17, 2019 20:09
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Supremacy - Harmony The first because I like the "return to earth and revive it" angle for our background, and second because not causing an ecological mess here sounds like good prep for sorting earth out.
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Aug 17, 2019 20:12
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Cythereal posted:Purity's unique victory path is bringing millions of refugees from Earth to this new Earth we've prepared for them.
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Aug 17, 2019 20:25
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Supremacy-Harmony But, uh, none of these options sound like particularly well reasoned positions 
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Aug 17, 2019 20:32
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Supremacy-Harmony I guess. I will admit that this LP got me interested in the game, but hoo boy, only on sale. It’s still pretty much full price on Steam because ???
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Aug 17, 2019 20:34
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hopeandjoy posted:I will admit that this LP got me interested in the game, but hoo boy, only on sale. It’s still pretty much full price on Steam because ??? 
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Aug 17, 2019 20:35
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Cythereal posted:I was hoping I wouldn't have to post this. My apologies.
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Aug 17, 2019 20:47
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Harmony because Deidre is right 
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Aug 17, 2019 21:25
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We should go Supremacy-Harmony. As for fictional examples, a good example of Supremacy-Purity would the The Admin from David Weber and Jacob Holo's "The Gordian Protocol". While they had advanced tech like brain-computer interfaces and mind-state uploading, fully self-aware AI was extremely restricted. They do have a handful of them and when things go sufficiently pear-shaped they bring out and partially "unbox" one of them. I think the Culture is closer to Supremacy-Harmony than pure Supremacy given their preference for artificial environments instead of messing with natural ecosystems. And Purity-Harmony is clearly Imperium of Man from WH40K.
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Aug 17, 2019 21:49
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THe imperium of man is clearly Purity-Supremacy. Purity includes genetic manipulation that maintains the basic human form, the Imperium is pro-cybernetics but anti mutation or genetic maniulation, the Imperium has no respects for ecology or alien life.
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Aug 17, 2019 22:20
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Going to throw my vote in for Primary: Harmony, because aliens are cute, and Secondary: Purity, so we can bring more people here to appreciate cute aliens.
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Aug 17, 2019 22:21
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Primary Supremacy Secondary Purity We should never be held back by our past mistakes, but neither should we forget where we came from.
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Aug 17, 2019 22:23
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Supremacy, and nothing beyond that. Let this be the age of the glorious Machine.
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Aug 17, 2019 22:50
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