bone wouldn’t work because it is carbon based and therefore exceptionally brittle especially in specific directions. It also has a grain like wood. It’s worse than carbon allotropes like you suggested earlier. idk who told you it compares with metal.
Also, making things big (regarding you computer idea) doesn’t remove the need for sub mm tolerance high precision (which not bone nor plastic nor stone will give you, especially not for long). It actually makes all your problems as an engineer significantly worse in many cases.
I’d just like to also finish this by pointing out literally not one person with any capability to change anything has agreed with you thus far, and with that, I wish you luck if you want to figure out the science, game design, and code for all this yourself.
1 Like
Deathwake
(i nuked zenzone and will never let him forget it)
472
Whelp I mean I’m not trying to affect monumental change or anything, I’m just trying to make a few points.
And now that you’ve poked a hole in basically every one of my ideas, it’s time to use the stupid ones.
Why are we using earthly vertebrate bone as or example? Why not tungsten allotropes instead of carbon ones? Why not PVC made from chlorine and whatnot by an alien frog? Why not pig iron used as bones by some stupid creature? What if the “wood” on your planet is a polymer that behaves very similarly to steel? It doesn’t have to be metal, but it can be super useful as a material.
As for why these would exist,
1: luck
2: quantity over quality, water worlds are common, one of them will have super useful sticks or something.
3: evolve them yourself and use your gaming skill to be a super successful clade. Then you can just hunt your relatives.
Anyways I’d say try and beat that but you’d prolly do it so I won’t.
Sorta like those tool breeders from all tommorows, where they force evolved tools biologicaly.
Deathwake
(i nuked zenzone and will never let him forget it)
474
Yeah, and if you need new materials you can just force feed the critters uranium or some Belgium. That’ll speed up mutation, and cancer. Bone tumors could be useful if the bone can block bullets.
To be honest, we should not assume that alien life will use calcium carbonate skeletal structures similar to us with similar material properties, but I would say the likely hood of anything possibly evolving on any planet that has some structure anywhere comparable to metal is low, and I am sure many here would say is impossible. However, we shouldn’t disregard that alien life will not always be so comparable to ours.
Deathwake
(i nuked zenzone and will never let him forget it)
477
yeah i don’t think metal-like polymers or such are likely but something with the sturdiness and mailability for those rare jobs where there is no alternate material due to a specific matchup of strengths that are hard to get without metal is far more likely.
The core of the issue lies there. You’re not trying to come up with plausible ideas, that eventually lead to a situation; you’re coming up with a situation that has no prior reason to exist (not attested), and try to grasp an aspect of the real world which has not been proven to prevent this situation. But that’s not science!
Science is about Occam’s razor, that is, supposing true the claim that is the easiest to prove false. Proving that aquatic civs are possible amounts to prove that one specific chain of events makes it happen, proving that they are impossible requires to prove that EVERY SINGLE chain of events can’t lead to it. You can’t deny there is a huge gap in difficulty between the two! The only sensible scientific consideration at that point, especially after so many proposals debunked, is to consider them impossible as of now.
Now, granted, Thrive is a game, not a scientific simulation in a lab. But it’s deeply rooted within science.
I get that you really want aquatic civs to be a thing, but I think you don’t realize that we simply don’t have the resources to devote to every single idea you have, especially if these are “stupid”. We already got your point: yes, we can’t prove undoubtedly that aquatic civs can not exist. But that does not simply mean that we can, nor should make it happen either.
What you should do, instead of throwing ideas out with a faint hope that you score without even looking,is to take the best idea you have in mind. From there, read science books/articles (there are plenty online, and you can ask people around for references as well), and come up with a detailed proof that an aquatic civilization can exist by going down this path. Once you’ve done that, I for one would be happy to reconsider.
If there was existing scientific resource summaries on whether underwater civs can happen, I doubt we would be having this conversation…
This is why in the past I said, I’d close the underwater civs thread until someone comes up with a scientific essay type paper (at least, I’d prefer to have more of a bachelor’s thesis level work) that describes the whole process on how you can get underwater civs with advanced tech without skipping or handwaving anything.
Deathwake
(i nuked zenzone and will never let him forget it)
481
Sigh, yeah I guess, but I still think that nonearthly biomaterials are a great idea and underrated. Can’t argue with Occams razer though, always cuts my ideas to shreds when they start to falter.
I think right now underwater civilizations is DLC or major update level, someone has to make a compelling argument as to how they should be added without an entirely different tech tree and blended in the normal tech tree at least relatively easily.
