I can’t speak for the whole team, but I don’t think the others really are against it. Simply, when developping Thrive, focuses are to be chosen for development. Aquatic civs would need to be so different that they’ll need a specific focus, both in programming, theory and such, and we don’t have manpower to devote to this specific element, especially if it actually turns out not possible in the end.
Having too many complicated features demanded by people not realizing how costly that would be nearly killed the game a long time ago, when roadkillguy, the only programmer, did leave the project, because of this. And I thing it is only wise to prevent things like this from happening again.
TL;DR: I don’t think the devs are against aquatic civs, it simply is a waste of resources to focus on this as of today and tomorrow, unless someone comes up with a well-described and scientifically accurate way to integrate this smoothly within the game.
I for one believe that we (developpers) really should wait at least for awakening stage to come before even starting to consider it.
Do you think domestication will be available in the game? Also do you think it is possible to do it underwater to form tools and replacements for metal using tech just enough to at least get some of them out of the water to get metal and continue?
I for one think that we aren’t at the point we actually have multicellular organisms ; so, while I think that domestication will most likely be part of the game given it’s importance, I can’t tell you at all which forms it may take in the future.
Wrong, you said that human created “adjustments” to make it possible to go in places where we would die, and I said that to make those “adjustments” you need metal, and I also remembered you that such an aquatic species would not even have “wood”.
I said that those adjustments might not need metal, and I didn’t mean literal wood, and whether or not aliens had wood was not my point. Also you must keep in mind these adjustments are not the same and thinking they are is an oversimplification only focusing on the transition, not the direction.
Right! If the solution to aquatic civs is that they need entirely different tech tree. Then they add a ton of extra work, that could be better spent on, for example, finishing and polishing up the space stage. That’s why I’ve been asking people to figure out how to get underwater civs on the normal tech tree track. That’s why smelting metal and making watertight things to get electricity going have been the main focuses of the underwater civs discussion.
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Deathwake
(i nuked zenzone and will never let him forget it)
438
I suppose I have to agree but in 3030 when thrive is finished and the cult of thriving has an identity crisis then the future cultists can always make a new tech web then, and make non-carbon based life and multiplayer and all that good stuff while they’re at it, so regardless no matter what we do thrive will have aquatic civs.
yet a material is needed to make those adjustments… Your underwater species would have stone and some algae rope at best.
How is this supposed to make what I said wrong? Also, you are right, for a terrestrial species it is much easier to develop technology to stay underwater than for an underwater species to develop technology to go to dry land or to go to a lower water pressure.
Metal is needed because literally no other group of elements is mildly capable of the mechanical feats and balanced qualities metals achieve. Even among metals, there are some metals that are the absolute only thing that can stand up to a certain job. Then there’s the matter of resisting ultra high fluid pressure and heat. Certain portions of modern rifles for example are physically not possible to safely create from anything other than certain steels and metals with very specific qualities like 4150 ChroMoly V steel (the EXACT alloy steel used in most gun barrels, too different of a grade of carbon steel may literally explode). Which brings up another thing, Machine Tolerances. Metals can be machined to insane tolerances (like +/- .05 of a mm for the mold blocks used just to make Lego bricks) and keep them there for very long even under extreme mechanical stress. Not even plastic can match metal in this area or really even just get the job done in the first place depending on the job.
Just as a final thing too, 80% of elements are metals, an additional 5% are metalloids, good luck being a technologically advanced society working with 15% of everything available to use and build with and more importantly for Thrive, coming up with Tech Tree alternatives for every necessary case.
I have my text book on Metallurgy from my Mechanical Engineering classes right on my desk, and on my tablet if you have any further questions on metal.
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Deathwake
(i nuked zenzone and will never let him forget it)
443
I do agree to a point, but I have three objections.
1: a singular metal substitute can’t do all the thing metal can. Use more than one.
2: wow metals are so tough, use carbon allotropes for most of those needs and ceramics for temperature.
3: 80% of elements may be metals, but only a tiny percentage of molecules are true metals, and most of the others incorporate metals into their structures and yet don’t require smelting to aquire, like, say, paint. Or the iron in food. Or salt. A metal gets it’s great properties because it can form a special chemical bond with other metal atoms, but there aren’t that many combinations of them, so most of the chemicals with metals in them aren’t metals that you must smelt.
1: I don’t really understand this point. If I have a job only say Plutonium could do (which such tasks exist) you can’t just combine things until they perform the same task.
2: Carbon allotropes aren’t even close to as useful as metal in toughness. A common misconception about carbon is that it is many times stronger than steel and therefore better. The truth is carbon is universally far more brittle because it is so hard and will literally disintegrate in use cases where you would need say super alloy steel. The use of ceramics is actually the same story, ceramics are great at dealing with temperature but they shatter very easily. SAPI plates, the silicon-carbide ceramic used in soldier armor to stop armor piercing bullets, will crack if dropped on the floor too hard.
3: 80% of elements are metals. That is all. I have no clue what you mean when you say “true metal”. If you’re saying there’s more polymers than there are alloys, this might be true (although I don’t even know about that one), but they still don’t approach the qualities of metal (the fact you don’t have to smelt it is actually proof of this) Also, there are a truly epic amount of alloys out there, “there aren’t that many combinations of them” is just not true. there are over 3500 different grades of steel alone, many not being interchangeable in the jobs they do.
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Deathwake
(i nuked zenzone and will never let him forget it)
445
1: so don’t use nuclear power. If you need power not all jobs done by metal can’t be substituted for. It doesn’t need to be easy, just not impossible.
2: it doesn’t need to be easy. It just needs to be doable.
3: I guess I mean polymers verses what we normally think of as metal.
I never said easy, I said can’t. You cannot replace metal in many of it’s use cases. And when I say that, I mean 100% it can’t be done. It’s not just nuclear power, to go back to my earlier example, anything involving ultra-high pressure and heat can’t be substituted by anything other than metal and believe me when I say it has been tried. No polymer is truly comparable to metal btw. Even if you put the metal you want in it that doesn’t mean it has some of the strength and properties of that metal.
Deathwake
(i nuked zenzone and will never let him forget it)
447
Hey what about getting your non-metallic tech so advanced that when they realize they need something metal-like for their space ships, they can just use metal (and far as I can tell spaceships are the only tech to really need metallic strength that is also a must for your civ, guns aren’t a requirement).
How would they know the strength of metals if they can’t test them? And how do they smelt metals after realizing they need them?
Deathwake
(i nuked zenzone and will never let him forget it)
449
Once youre into your “1700s” you just test all kinds of materials and would find out what metals were and how they worked after studying, say, meteoric iron and wondering if artificial versions could be made.
Yeah I get things such as metal providing correct tensile qualities and can handle better loads and tolerate more stress, and their material structure is optimal for heavier load things. It is clear that metal is certainly optimal without question and there are some things you simply can not built without metal. What I am putting to question though is, might it be possible for an aquatic civilisation to advance without metals to the point they can venture to some sort of scenario where they can make the next step towards making metals where the material is 100% crucial? And this is not concerning anything like the invention of gun powder or such, but the progression towards better forms of power and perhaps even the space age? Perhaps some conditions even if just by luck (since I am not concerned of this being added to the game any longer) stating that perhaps there could be an exception though far more unlikely than terrestrial civilisation (which I would imagine to be exceedingly rare)? Perhaps there could be a potential scenario where they could somehow at least leave the bounds and limits of the water as difficult as that be and eventually discover metals as we did. I will not say it will ever, but I won’t say never either.