Could a Marine species DLC work?

[kettch]

It's a future, man. You can make breathable liquids so light it can float in air.

'Future' does not mean you can just ignore simple physics. If you actually manage to create liquids which have less mass than air (which I cannot think a way of how it could work atm), I really doubt the physical procedures to make this happen would not be highly detrimental to normal marine lifeforms.

Not meaning to say this issue cannot be resolved. On the contrary I am quite interested in what kinds of solutions can be found for this. I just want those to be at least somewhat plausable. Things like this are perfect opportunities to make races more distinctive and interesting. The Liir are a perfect example with their ships having really high mass, but still being highly manouverable and not being affected by inertia normally because of the Flicker Drive (high frequency teleportation on extremely short range, for those who do not know it).

 

[Avil]

'Future' does not mean you can just ignore simple physics. If you actually manage to create liquids which have less mass than air (which I cannot think a way of how it could work atm), I really doubt the physical procedures to make this happen would not be highly detrimental to normal marine lifeforms.

Yeah. Even humans develop liquid breathing space technologies, naturally liquid breathing species may have less trouble with that. You don't need to fill whole ship with it, only space around target. I.e. it can be costume, rebreather, gel that allows to breath air. You can just change composition of air to be endurable for marine (why exactly marine can't life on land?).
If it's composition, you can modify it. If it's "drying skin", use gels. If it's pressure, simulate it. Artificial gravity isn't a problem, right?

 

[CiderMuffin]

Yeah. Even humans develop liquid breathing space technologies, naturally liquid breathing species may have less trouble with that. You don't need to fill whole ship with it, only space around target. I.e. it can be costume, rebreather, gel that allows to breath air. You can just change composition of air to be endurable for marine (why exactly marine can't life on land?).
If it's composition, you can modify it. If it's "drying skin", use gels. If it's pressure, simulate it. Artificial gravity isn't a problem, right?

This is kinda why I like my idea of living crew being put into life-preserving pods with a mind-connection to do their duties with everything else being done by A.I. or controlled robots.

Basically like controlling a drone, you have the controls and can see what they see but the drones are expanded to do more then just fly around and see stuff.

 

[Avil]

I see now, what exactly you mean. Problem is how they even gonna build a ship if they can't grab tools In addition to physical possibility. Literally, goldfish in a pod, placed on robot body, haha.

 

[CiderMuffin]

Telekinesis, robotic limbs, tentacles or just say screw it and give them arms.

Mostly I just want a minor-telekinetic race at the start that becomes more adept at psionic stuff as it develops.

 

[Avil]

Telekinesis, robotic limbs, tentacles or just say screw it and give them arms.

They don't need drones for control if they can use psycho-powers to build a ship Why even build a ship?

You can't kick his ass, because on his stage of evolution he doesn't need it.

 

[Ezumiyr]

Please, there have been already MANY, MANY discussions about the possibility of aquatic life achieving space faring.

The obvious conclusion is that we are talking about Science Fiction, and in Science Fiction we find many examples of amphibious or aquatic sentient, space faring, life forms. It doesn't matter if it's really possible, but even if it mattered, it is completely arbitrary to think that our way to think how a race can achieve space-faring (which we didn't do yet, by the way, so as far as we know, maybe a race needs to be aquatic in order to conquer the galaxy) or industry is necessarily the same as ours. No need to be fire-obsessed. Plus anthropologists nowadays think that the most important thing was in fact the birth of a complex language ability. But let's close the debate here, there is really no reason to necro this topic.

The question (which is very clearly asked by OP btw) here is : would it fit as a theme for a cosmetic DLC ?

I say : why not. But like I said on the other thread, I'd prefer either an "Exotic Lifeforms DLC" (like a compilation of strange-looking species from what SF has to offer) or an "Humanoid Species DLC" (Star Trek-like, or maybe less humanoid than that and more Star Wars-like).

 

[CiderMuffin]

I just really want more exotic aliens with more exotic features. Like psionic races would make sense for stuff we already have (looking at you Molluscoid #7 and Fungoid #3) so I don't see why not have a race with minor psionic powers? It's a cool concept.

 

[Garfazz Steamfang]

I'm myself quite excited for an AI/synthetic race and silicoid race if they are NOT cosmetic races and have special features (energy= food for synthetic, mineral= food for silicoids, Hive Mind governement type etc...)

 

[CiderMuffin]

I'm myself quite excited for an AI/synthetic race and silicoid race if they are NOT cosmetic races and have special features (energy= food for synthetic, mineral= food for silicoids, Hive Mind governement type etc...)

Hive-mind and AI races (especially if we could have both in one) would definitely be a fun playthrough imo. Materialists can become a hive-mind like group through subconscious consensus as a advanced government form and collectivists could also form a hive-mind eventually.

 

[Garfazz Steamfang]

Hive-mind and AI races (especially if we could have both in one) would definitely be a fun playthrough imo. Materialists can become a hive-mind like group through subconscious consensus as a advanced government form and collectivists could also form a hive-mind eventually.

I hope that, if there is one DLC with synthetic race it would come with cybernetism for materialist ethos. Would be great to have acces to cybernetism, when you look at materialist governement or spiritualist AI empires quotes you look like a machine and you have a lot of consensus etc... Definitly there is place for cybernetism.

 

[Orinsul]

I mean, science is fun and everything
But I was really only thinking about a cosmetic graphics pack with aliens with designs are based on fish rather than a whole, mechanics for ocean world species thing.

 

[CiderMuffin]

I mean, science is fun and everything
But I was really only thinking about a cosmetic graphics pack with aliens with designs are based on fish rather than a whole, mechanics for ocean world species thing.

The thing is, there should be something new for new species since the Plantoid DLC which is nice wasn't really worth 8 dollars when all it is is cosmetic.

Plus discussing science and how a race would act is pretty fun.

 

[Morbid Gerbil]

a spaceship is a species home away from the homeworld
a place to work as well as to rest and recuperate

it's not very restful if you have to spend every second in a survival suit or pod.

space travel is easy for species that breathe gasses, gasses are not very dense and therefore have little mass, so there are fewer stresses placed on the vessel

liquids on the other hand
they are not low mass, low density mediums.
as the size of the ship increases the internal volume does also.
as the volume of the liquid increases it mass increases at a higher rate
mass to power ratio's are very important in calculating acceleration & deceleration rates
species that live in a liquid environment will have an upper limit of maximum ship size forced upon them by the fundamental laws of physics
that ship size will be SMALLER than it is for a gas breathing species

even in zero gravity situations objects retain their MASS whilst having no WEIGHT
tl/dr liquid based forms, nice idea, shame about the science

edit
a liquid environment would give them advantages however
it would be a very effective heat-sink, highly useful if that species used energy based weapons
air-breathers may need inertial dampeners built into their ships, liquid breathers wouldn't
minor hull-breaches would be almost instantly sealed by escaping & freezing liquid

 

[praftd]

I think an amphibian race would be a good comprimise. Something that lives in both land and water.

I don't see a pure aquatic race working as the game requires all species to be able to live in all environments.

 

[faljen_isus]

aquatics could make spacefaring vessels, the only catch for them being completely sea creatures and having such vessels is for the vessels to be biological in nature, without a trace of metal... think on the line of zerg leviathans

 

[Saviour of Galaxy]

Some theorize that they could use deep-sea vents for smelting

"Some" - read: the guys who love StarWars and every difficulty with the most basic problems with smelting and FORGING under water try to reduce to temperature. Friction, pressure and chemical properties of water like termal conductivity are not a concern for them at all. Its all really easy becouse "vulcanoes".

However, why would game even care for probability? It's not a life simulation, lets just forget about realism here.

 

[Sibericus]

I see now, what exactly you mean. Problem is how they even gonna build a ship if they can't grab tools In addition to physical possibility. Literally, goldfish in a pod, placed on robot body, haha.

You know those fish that walk on their fins along the seafloor? Picture those evolving into grasping structures.
Other candidates for cool grabbing parts include anglerfish lures, catfish whiskers, eel bodies, lobe-fins, etc. There's this one extinct fish, a placoderm that had jointed limbs. And that's only if you limit yourself to real-world fish. Cephalopods and many arthropods have grasping appendages, but they already have portraits so we don't need to worry about them. I digress. Alien "fish" could be so much more diverse in their body structure, just let your imagination run wild.