Asteroid bases

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peteyg
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Asteroid bases

Post by peteyg »

I was just thinking about how silly the current asteroid bases look. the human-made structures are almost bigger than the asteroid itself, making it look like most of the metals and stuff mined from the asteroid went to building those docking tower thingies. I think JackS said something about also being dissatisfied with this once.

It seems to me that a mining asteroid would be very very big, with several small docking areas, and some small protruding structures. The asteroid would be either thoroughly stripmined and abandoned, or it would be mined in such a way as to leave several large hollowed-out caverns for further development once mining operations have ceased. The caverns would then be pressurized, irrigated, and then seeded with various kinds of food and oxygen giving plant life. They would have some level of gravity too, since there's artificial gravity in Vega Strike. That would keep the water on the ground.

The biocaverns would support mining operations, but when the minerals started to get too cost-ineffective to extract, the asteroid would then transition to some other kind of industry. The biocaverns could independently support a pretty large population, perhaps even exporting some food stuffs to completely artificial stations with no biosphere sections. The asteroid might gradually transition to some kind of industry that could utilize the asteroid's decreasing trickle of minerals, maybe some kind of refinery, or starship parts factory.

Really, a mined out asteroid could be any kind of base that would benefit from having a lot of protection around the sensitive sections deep inside the asteroid, or a large natural food and oxygen production capability. Military bases, factories, refineries... you name it.

Obviously, we wouldn't want evolved asteroids to completely supplant existing factory and refinery units. Or maybe we would? But they don't have to do that.

Also, having dynamic asteroids like this would present some aesthetic problems... as in keeping the user from self destructing after arriving at the 50th identical asteroid base. We would have to come up with at least 3 distinct asteroid models, and would could have a few styles of external structures. We could also alter the add to the external structures for different stages of development, with a mining asteroid only having the docking port, and maybe some kind of comm antenna (or something) on the other side. We could add external buildings (for the view!), extra docking ports, turrets, and various other equipment, depending on what the asteroid would be used for.

This stuff wouldn't be all that hard to do in artwork terms. What does everyone think?
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Post by hellcatv »

you make some very valid points, petey :-)
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Post by peteyg »

Spent a few minutes making an asteroid in Wings (and a few seconds texturing it), and then tossed some structures on to outline what I'm talking about a bit more visually.

Image
link

the, uh, pink things are various structures. The bottom two are a small spaceport, the big long one is pretty much a docking arm for big cargo ships, and the top structures are a series of tall buildings that would start popping up once the asteroid started moving away from straight-up mining, and lots more people started inhabiting it.

This was totally a quick sketch. Just for to put the idea on paper.
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Post by hellcatv »

maybe more boxish and scaffloldish structures to make it look less like a porcupine...clearly the 'roid has plenty of surface area to put more flat buildings before they grow
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Post by zaydana »

I fully agree with what you said about the asteroid bases, but I also agree with hellcat that the model you gave us might look a bit too much like an echidna :P So I've tried to do up a different style of asteroid base. My texturing is a horrid 30min job, and the model of the asteroid is nowhere near as good as yours, but its the style that counts ;)

What you peeps think?
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Post by Silverain »

PeteyG, good points. Personally I've always felt that the current mining/asteroid base is to reminiscient of the mining base in privateer - way too similar. I think it'd be worth removing.

I recall some artwork of strangelet's that could feature as an asteroid base.

Strangelet?
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Post by peteyg »

You GO Zaydana. That's pretty much what I'm talking about.

Mkruer said he had a bunch of good asteroid models he'd let us use. So really, all we need is to make cool buildings and past them on.

It would be nice to get a thumbs up / thumbs down from JackS.
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Post by jackS »

the mining bases are most definitely in need of replacement for reasons spanning from IP issues to general absurdity.

as for using holllowed out asteroids for all sort and manner of base...I'm not entirely decided on where I stand - might make a lot more sense for some factions than others.

also, for mining bases, it might be nice to do a couple of things -
1) more than one roid - have the mining-base be a collection of large and mid-sized roids held to gether with some structural tethers and girders (no point in bothering with smaller ones).
2) if doing the above even partially via subunits, one could easily form a fair number of aesthetic variants with minimal hassle
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a little somthing to add

Post by Highlander »

i dont know if this aplyes to this paticular topic but the thought was spawned by it well: anothr variation that can be added amongst the differant types of roids is differant flags or symbols on the bases for the different fations in fact that can be a new string
New String: ID flag/symbol for the different factions.
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Post by hellcatv »

we have this with the logo option

most meshes don't have logos placed on them--in fact only the much maligned Asteroid Mining Base seems to have one as I recall
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Post by etheral walker »

I see dead polygons....
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Post by etheral walker »

I see dead polygons....
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Post by Madawg »

Etheral walker, here is the site of that very game : http://www.deepspacesaga.com/
There are some screenshot there too and it's way faster...
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Post by etheral walker »

Yes, I know this URL, but there is less screens than the slow one
I see dead polygons....
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Post by theBlind »

I always thought of those mining bases as spaceports really.
They are, in my imagination, placed at a very big rock outside an asteroid belt. From there, they serve as the central hub for mining operations (fly a small ship out to a roid, anchor, dig off some valuables, the fly somewhere for processing.

The base then functions both as a warehouse as well as a spaceport to the incoming freighters (that's why it's always at the edge of the asteroids - the freighters would have to get in otherwise)

Using a hollow asteroid as a space base, is, imo, not an exception but should be the rule. After all, the material is cheap and already there. You just have to dig a hole and place your interiors. Much cheaper than building the whole thing from scratch
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Post by sasKuach »

I like the idea of the mining base being only a central docking/logistical building to an asteroid field. Reason for this is that it seems rather wasteful to build any structure on a single asteroid just to mine it; especially in a whole asteroid field.
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Post by Orb99 »

I'm an oddball with an oddball idea.

Maybe the appearance of asteroid mining bases having all their construction on one end isn't a deceptive illusion. Maybe that is the entire base, and the big rock it's attached to is just raw material, shot through with mineshafts.

When the rock is played out, the miners bring all the equipment back into the base, whistle for the mining droids, seal off the base/rock connection, and cut loose from the spent asteroid. They then hire, or have on hand, someone to tow the base over to the next likely-looking rock, where they install themselves on one end of it just like before, and begin again.

Just a theory.
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Post by Silverain »

@Orb99,

A pretty good theory I think. It's workable. Basically, a mining base is an independant platform that attaches itself to a huge asteroid, then honeycombes the asteroid for mining (or alternatively, just crushes the asteroid into rubble and extracts minerals - more likely).

This platform would have docking bays in the platform itself, not located in the asteroid its attached to though.

On a related note, I still believe our current model for a mining base resembles the Privateer model too much for IP purposes. Anyone interested in remodeling?
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Post by kark88 »

I have a mining base I am working on for the Aera. It is not yet textured.

Overview picture:
http://tempel-studios.dyndns.org/images ... ase-3d.jpg

Docking bay
http://tempel-studios.dyndns.org/images ... ng_bay.jpg

Control tower
http://tempel-studios.dyndns.org/images ... _tower.jpg

Its not yet finished. . .
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Post by Silverain »

Yes, that's what I imagined. The base attaches itself to an asteroid for mining, but is functional away from the asteroid. Once finished with an asteroid, it detaches and moves to the next one.

I suggest ensuring that there be a docking point somewhere on the outside rims to provide docking access to the big cargo haulers that would usually transport the mined materials.
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Post by kark88 »

Large ships like Mules can dock inbetween the docking claws, and also if you notice on the outside, at the widest point there is another docking point on both sides, so it should be able to accomodate large ships.

If anyone has suggestions it would be much appreciated. Right now it only has 1600 polys, which is quite low I believe.

Here is the file if anyone wants a closer look:
http://tempel-studios.dyndns.org/images ... Base.wings
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Post by Silverain »

Q. Is there a necessity for higher polys? I have no idea, just asking.

Suggestion: maybe have 'exhaust' pipes (two of them) leading in opposing directions from the main structure. These vents jettison the remaining small rubble/dust into local space. They need to be opposing so that venting does not provide thrust, spinning the base around. This rubble/dust can tie in with (chucks?) suggestion of space debris, particularly around these types of bases. Not necessarily dangerous, but could create a dust/fog like effect surrounding such bases.

Lastly, is there a reason why we model mining bases as permanently attached to an asteroid? Would it be better to have an independant base model, so that we could have a situation of a mining base being moved to a new location/field/asteroid? Also, this could lend itself to the base having all arms attached to the same asteroid, or arms attached to multiple asteroids.

Thoughts anyone?
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mining

Post by Tarran »

if you base mining off of RL.. then there's very little reason to have mining bases attached to asteroids.. most metal mining only requires the material and a way to pulverize it.. you can extract most heavy materials using shaker boxes or shaker screens (you could use the artificial gravity for that) the crusher box could simply be tractors and repulsers and a thick metal wall.. or even a shield like system that material is flung at... most leads, and heavy metals can be seperated in this manner.. gold can be put into a container, flooded with liquid cyanide (which makes it a liquid), then given a zinc bath (which makes it solid once again).. ferrous metals can be seperated using magnetic fields and tractor/repulsor technology.. crystals/gems can be mined using a variation on shaker boxes and and a high pressure liquid medium.. then lasers can be used to test the quality of various crystals/gems.. you can even use the existing rules of thumb for different kinds of minerals (like for example, gold is found in quartz veins or stangnant lime)
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Re: mining

Post by Silverain »

Tarran wrote:if you base mining off of RL.. then there's very little reason to have mining bases attached to asteroids..
Mmm, I would think it more likely, if only to reduce the costs of transport between the extraction point (asteroid surface/interior) and the base itself where the processing takes place.

Gives us two options though, have a base attached to an asteroid for direct mining; or, have a base floating in a minefield with mining tugs moving between asteroids and the base hauling the rubble.
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Post by Tarran »

-=silverain=-
Mmm, I would think it more likely, if only to reduce the costs of transport between the extraction point (asteroid surface/interior) and the base itself where the processing takes place.

a different way to do that, I think, would just be to take the mining base right up to the asteroid, use tractors to manuever the asteroid (or the the base, depending on which of the two had the greater mass), have something like a massive industrial quality shield on that end and feed the asteroid into it.. then the material is proccessed through the plant, and on the other end, unwanted materials are spewed into space.. (just a thought)

-=added on=-
as a side thing, you could end up with a faction or two decrying the destruction of those beautiful or natural asteroid fields.. spoiling the universe and all that
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