Outpost Universe Forums
Outpost Series Games => Outpost 2 Divided Destiny => Topic started by: knux on April 05, 2004, 08:53:48 PM
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For my work on op3, I've been playing op2 again. (it's been a while)
But as I played, I noticed something.
Plastic is used a lot when producing things, but how do they make it?
Plastic comes from petroleum, so how did they make it on new terra?
hmm.....
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Mabey they have a way to materialize something out of dust particles? lol.
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I would assume that they get all the materials directly from the ore.
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They must have figured out how to make a polymer from the ore. That's my guess.
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They could extract hydrogen from the atmosphere or a gas giant nearby, and carbon from the soil. Plastic is a hydrocarbon.
Doesn't necessarily have to come from oil.
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Hacker's not just a programmer eh? He's truely a man of many talents.
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I would assume that they get all the materials directly from the ore.
You see there's the problem....
You did organic chemistry in high school?
Ore is metal, while plastic and polymers are hydrocarbons. You must have hydrogen, oxygen and carbon. Doesn't come from rock.
Carbon only exists in the soil if there are plants. No plants on new terra. (not including the ones eden made)
Getting it from a gas giant? But they're back on the ground? That's a very costly way to make a chocolate bar wrapper.
Possibly they get it from the agridomes? They have made plants that produce plastic here.
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Let's just assume that it's transparent aluminum and not plastic. :heh:
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What if it's not plastic at all. Maybe it's some kinda new material not found here on earth at present time.
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Here's another possibility.
They could engineer atoms, that is take a metal, for example, iron (atomic #28), and "smash off" excess protons and neutrons until they get carbon (#6).
That has been done here on earth (yes, in our world = example: Nuclear reactor) just not on large scale amounts.
So maybe they figure out how to do it on the large scale.
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anyone who has taken basic chemistry in HS knows about fusion and fision, how one atom can become another.
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So there you go Knux, at least 2 good answers.
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Are you sure, there isn't any carbon in form of coal? And oxygen, I believe, is included in ore.
Well, transparent aluminium would of course be a solution, too. :lol:
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*gives the volka 'live long and prosper' sign*
trekkie thing.
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I believe their called Vulcans.
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yes, kiith, I know that. How mnay times do I have to say that I don't check my spelling?
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12,
But Volka!, it looks and sounds a bit like vodka
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no, 72
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TOPIC!
Actually, I haven't taken Chemistry yet.. I will in College though.
Note that they never really defined ore, did they? It could contain everything they need, or by use of the agridomes.. either that or the colonists don't wear clothing.. hey Emma... ! Anyway.. yea..
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lol, x, remember, G-ratinG!
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Oxygen that we breathe is not oxygen, it is dioxygen. Plants produce dioxygen.
For Eden's terraforming experiments to work at all, the Blight would have to extract oxygen from the crust of New Terra.
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Im glad I don't have to take chemistry in college for my major, once is enoughf!
Although it was fun to see the football players sniffing the fumes from the hydrocloric acid. lol.
But anyways, Xfir is right, ore is not really defined as any specific substance, It could be a combination of substances for all we know!
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Are you sure, there isn't any carbon in form of coal? And oxygen, I believe, is included in ore.
Well, transparent aluminium would of course be a solution, too. :lol:
But coal is a fossil fuel. Which implies fossils....
ALL: Yes....knux.....
Sounds stupid but that means the coal comes from plants and animals that have rotted down. There haven't been any plants or there is no evidence of plants/animals so no coal. Infact the planet seems to lack any ecosystem at all. Must be too young or has a trapped water source.
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That gets me wondering,
If they don't have any coal, they can't refine ore.
So they must use electricity or something to refine the ore.
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This is one interesting conundrum (/me is laughing at the word). But how do we know the metal used for the Conastoga (spelling?) wasn't an alloy with a lot of carbon in it? Seeing as we have the ability to artificially make diamonds using pencil lead, I don't see why they couldn't find a way by that time period to extract the carbon from the modules that came down and turn it into coal. Once they have all that started, you also have to remember that there is more CO2 in the air than is need for the plants, so how do we know they can't extract some Carbon from that? The possibilites are endless.
(BTW, knux, because Carbon is an element, couldn't it have another existant form under different conditions that we just do not know about because it isn't possible for it to go into because of the conditions on Earth?)
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Have you played "Sid Meir's (sp) Alpha Centauri"?
This was an earth type planet situation that orbited a tri-star system Centauri.
The ecosystem was quite starved of carbon and it recycled every bit. So when they got there, there wasn't any fossil fuels and they were stuffed. You have to reasearch it later on (artificial fossil fuels).
I'll try to get scans of the manual.
As for ore extraction. Eden's acid cloud research suggests an acidic compound and hot cracking efficiency suggests a very hot metal column that melts the metal out of the ore.
Funny, I've always thought about this, but I've never had anyone to talk about it.
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uh, knux, you lost me there.
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I've played Alpha Centauri and little bit, so I understand you Knux. It is a possibility that that's how the people on Outpost got fuel, but maybe it was already researched? The world will never know.
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well, like xfir said they could have taken the carbon from the plants of the agridomes, they were brought from earth didn't they?
Also, there can be artificial coal, all you have to do is to burn wood in an non-oxygened environment
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The problem is that they can build all these things which might need carbon, without having an Agridome.
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well
i suppose that the metal syroup that's in the smelters and storage tanks actually has carbon in it too.
And i guess that you being able to build things after you smelthed thing without an agridome was made this way for playability purpose solely
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Let's say that the structures are made of steel. And that the ore that is mined is iron. In order to make steel, they would also need carbon.
Since organic matter contains carbon, it could be extracted from the agridome not only to make the steel for the structures, but also for plastics and such.
Of course all this is on the assupmtion that the buildings use steel...
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You do seem to forget that the planet has an atmosphere somewhat like Mars. So it would be full of CO2. They could strip the oxygen and get pure carbon. And also, if they wanted they could extract carbon from their wastes (yes, our intestines are lined with bacteria converting wastes to CH4 (methane))
And yes Arklon we breathe O2. There is no way to get O in a single atom form for long since it's a diatomic element, and it binds very easily to other atoms.... (This is how oxidation/rusting occurs on a metal)
As far as how the smelters convert ore to metals, this is what the Outpost2 help file says:
The technology used in both the ore smelting structures is similar to that used in the GORF recycling structure. Ores are pretreated to maximize the concentrations of useful metal, then crushed to a uniform pellet size and fed into a fusion-electric smelter and pumped under pressure into a hot cracking column for separation into individual metals. While most metals are extracted in pure form, some, such as uranium and aluminum, require additional processing.
The resulting molten metal streams are solidified into micro-pellets, which are mixed into a synthetic oil-based medium to create a slurry, which can be pumped through pipes, stored in tanks, and easily provided to factory machinery in the form of a constant flow.
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Or they don't get carbon since it's a game and anything that they want to happen or be there will happen or be there. Since it isn't real the laws of this world that we know to be true, don't neccasarily have to be true there. Since they make their own world (the game makers) they can make their own rules of nature, like oxygen could be H4O2 there if they wanted in to be instead of H2O.
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I don't believe, that Outpost 2 breaks any law of nature. Op2 is a realistic game. Why should they ruin it with such irreallistic aspects?
I suppose, they just didn't think about stuff like that and not leave it out intentionally.
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I'm just saying, no matter what ya'll say, it could be correct since it isn't completely made around reality. So you could say that they have a mouse running in a wheel producing carbon and for all we know you could be correct.
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Like it is made with table RPGs sometimes you have to sacrify some realisme to make it more playable.
They could have did this or maybe they just didn't noticed this error
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They probably didn't notice that. Remember the point of a game corporation is to make money, not be uber-realistic to the last drop.
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They used "Dan's dark mage could make more plastic." and let that be the end of it.
The first is simply called Common Ore, and it is rich in lighter metals such as aluminum, titanium, magnesium, yttrium, and chromium, as well as a few common heavier metals like copper and iron. So-called Rare Ores are rich in heavier metals including radioactives. Metals in this group include gold, silver, lead, cobalt, nickel, palladium, osmium, platinum, cadmium, zinc, mercury, thorium, and uranium.
So it does say what ore is.
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Coal comes from diamonds, I believe...
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there has been extencive reashurch in chemistry concerning the production of plastics on Mars, and it has shown it can be done (they have made plastic out of martion metarites) I dont know the exact chemistry, but I know it can be done, I have read a book by Robert Zubrin that gives all the details of all chemical reactions nessacery to colonise a planet of Martion class, it is called "A Case for Mars"
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Coal comes from diamonds, I believe...
Don't come diamonds from coal?
There most likely is carbon on every planet. (why shouldn't it be there?). It just has to be found and extracted.
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It also says that the Residental Units are what manufactures the clothing.
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Coal comes from diamonds, I believe...
Don't come diamonds from coal?
There most likely is carbon on every planet. (why shouldn't it be there?). It just has to be found and extracted.
As long as there has been some sort of organic chemistry then there will be carbon in the environment. Is there carbon on the moon?
If you've play Sid Meiers(sp?) Alpha Centauri, it outlines a hypothetical situation where the carbon is totally recycled within the ecosystem. Thus there are no fossil fuels on the planet.
But diamonds are carbon. Just a covalent network of carbon molecules.
Just get charcoal and heat it up to thousands of degrees and squish it under thousands of tons of pressure. Let that simmer for about a million years or so. Done!
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oxygen and other gases are made in the CHAP facility that is (in op2) integrated into the CC
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for a planet not to have an element expecially one as common as carbon would be extremly rare, and you would think the sensors on the starship would detect if a planet did not have any carbon, and would quickly rule out that planets canidecy for colanization
as for hydrogen, well that is the most abundent element in the universe, for a planet not to have hydrogen is just plain ludacris
now some heavyer elements a planet may be dafissant in, but mabe later in the game you can have astroied mining or somthing to get those (such as iridum wich is very scarse on earth, but fairly abundent on astroids)
all that said, it all boggs down to on simple statement, where there is a will, there is a way
if the colonists need plastic t survive, they will find a way to make plastic
its funny, I thought of the same question when I was reading the noliva, but the fact that eden has made plants grow on New Terra convinced me that if the soil had suffecent carbon/nitrogen/water for plants (even ganeticly enhanced ones) than it should have more than enough to make plastic for a few buildings and vecs
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well if u ad read the story u would now its not plastic its glass which could easily be made from sand.
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yes they have glass, but the noliva sais that they have plastic as well, reference to the first chapter in the eden noliva where the melting woman is describing what the blight does
quote: She continued, either unable to hear him, or unwilling to stop talking. "It grows too fast, but Nguyen wasn't willing to wait. 'An atmosphere in our lifetime,' he said." She shook her head as though to clear it. She brushed her hair out of her face, and he could see that she was trembling. "Not enough time to explain. Attacks organics, even protein units in boptronic computers, even the plastics in our environmental seals." :quote
so as you can see, there were plastics in op2
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oh, beta, noliva is spelled novella lol.
Plastic isn't an easy thing to decompose either, has a rather long half life. Shows you how powerful the blight really was. Glass is easier to come by, cause it is easily made with sand. I would rather use Glass on a Colony then Plastic, unless it is for sealing purposes, cause plastice tends to seal a little better then glass.
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also couldnt the glass have been "softened" into a plastic like thingy (sry really tired) and usees that way also from earth they had to ahve brought plants or at least seed with them. and then useing there great technology they could introduce a gene into the plants to produce raw crude oil. also people remains and other materials could be compressed in to oil which could be refiend inotpalstic as with the raw crude oil from the plants.
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plastic and glass have very different charictirstics, it would be almost impossible to use glass in place of plastic