38 réponses à ce sujet

[Kabooooom]

One of my favorite parts about Mass Effect was the degree of scientific detail that was painstakingly added to every star system in the game. Although Bioware made a lot of it up, and much was unrealistic - some of it was quite realistic. It makes me wonder if they had a scientific advisor for that sort of thing.

And in my opinion, this should continue. It is a part of Mass Effect. It creates an immersive environment and a realistic setting. Please do NOT create fanciful star systems that are not bound or representative of the laws of physics. I am worried that this may happen, given some of the art I have seen so far for this game.

And for the most part, Bioware has totally avoided that. For example, they correctly acknowledged that a planet orbiting within the goldilocks zone of a red dwarf would be tidally locked, which is a level of detail that surprised me when I first stumbled across it. And there are numerous examples like that too.

I realize that creating a scientifically accurate stellar landscape requires a lot of work, but there are ways to quickly create and explore realistic solar system models. For example, the game Universe Sandbox 2 is the most realistic cosmological physics simulator that I have ever seen. Here's an example (ignore his mixup of calling red dwarfs, red giants):

http://m.youtube.com...h?v=LbXU26t1ALk

In it, you can easily create realistic orbits, explore the habitable zone of any type of star, explore the surface temperature of a given world with a given atmosphere, greenhouse effect and orbit, terraform worlds, create realistic tidal heating from tidal effects, create supernovae and black holes, neutron stars, simulate a Roche limit, speed up time to see how your solar system evolves over time and which planets become tidally locked, simulate collisions between planetary bodies...and much, much more. It is truly quite remarkable. I recommend everyone that is interested in astronomy to download and play with this.

So, Bioware, don't slack on the details of the little things just because you think people won't pay attention or care. Many of us Mass Effect fans DO care about what the surface temperature and gravity of a random planet is - we find it interesting, provided that it is realistic. And there are ways to quickly create realistic solar systems.

[Sartoz]

One of my favorite parts about Mass Effect was the degree of scientific detail that was painstakingly added to every star system in the game. Although Bioware made a lot of it up, and much was unrealistic - some of it was quite realistic. It makes me wonder if they had a scientific advisor for that sort of thing.
 

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I'm not sure what you mean by painstakingly and scientific.

As you know, planetary bodies come in all sizes and orbits. And I agree with you that most of it was made up.

For example:

In previous ME games you had planets outside the liquid water zone that sustained life... which is rubbish.

 

ME:A will show off the FB3 engine's ability to generate planetary terrain. But, many of these planets will be enhanced and customized by Bio's artists to show ancient ruins, for one or with flora and fauna a plenty.  Whether these planets' terrain will accurately reflect their solar orbit vs the sun' s stellar classification is another matter.

example:

1. Class O stars are very hot and extremely luminous, with most of their radiated output in the ultraviolet range.

2. Our sun is class G.

 

At six light minutes from our sun, we are in the liquid water zone. Whereas, for a class O type star,  six light minutes is too hot.

 

Somehow, I doubt Bio will generate star systems this accurately.  For gaming purposes also irrelevant, I think, for most of the greater unwashed game fans... where greater unwashed =  clueless, don't care for accuracy crowd.

[Kabooooom]

Habitable planets can exist outside of the "liquid water zone". The concept, as you state it, is too simplistic. Distance from a given star with a given solar output is not the sole determination of habitability. Most notably, the atmospheric density and greenhouse effect, volcanic activity, presence of a magnetosphere all contribute to average temperature.

Indeed, it is even possible for a moon to be orbiting a gas giant outside of the "liquid water zone", and be sufficiently warmed from tidal heating to sustain liquid water. See: Europa.

So, the concept of a habitable zone around a star is useful, but too childish. Realistically, life can probably exist outside of such zones provided that there is liquid water and a source of energy, which doesn't have to be solar energy.

So I pretty much disagree with that entire part of your post.

And while most of it was made up, it was actually mostly realistic. They actually paid attention to the temperature a planet should be, the atmospheric composition it may have and the density given a particular gravitational field, tidal locking, etc. They even explored the possibility of inhabitable moons around gas giants in a semi-realistic fashion. They paid attention to the temperature of brown dwarfs AND what they would look like.

So made up =/= entirely pulled out of ass. They pulled it out of their ass but in an educated fashion. But they were loose with the details.

And like I pointed out, with Universe Sandbox it takes a next to minimal effort to create entire realistic solar systems.

I can do it in less than five minutes.

[Han Shot First]

The more plausible the star systems in the game, the better.

 

All life doesn't necessarily have to exist to within the goldilocks zone of its parent star either.

 

 

 

Liquid water environments suitable for sustaining a diversity of organisms, both simple and complex, have been found to exist in isolation of atmospheric pressure and at temperatures outside the CHZ temperature range. Titan and Europa, both outside the habitable zone, may possess liquid water as well.

 

In addition, testing of a number of organisms has found some are capable of surviving in extra-CHZ conditions.

 

Tidal heating and radioactive decay are two possible heat sources which could contribute to surface water environments outside the CHZ. Abbot & Switzer (2011) put forward the possibility that surface water could exist on rogue systems as a result of these mechanisms.

 

With some theorising that life on Earth may have actually originated beneath the surface in stable habitats protected from chaotic surface conditions early in the planet's history it has been suggested that it may be common for wet subsurface extraterrestrial habitats to 'teem with life'. Indeed, life on Earth is found more than 6 kilometres below the surface.

 

Alternatives to water

 

Another possibility is that outside the CHZ organisms may use alternative biochemistries that do not require water at all. Astrobiologists, including NASA's Christopher McKay, have suggested that methane may be a solvent conducive to the development of "cryolife", with the Sun's methane habitable zone being centered on 1.6×109 km (1,000,000,000 mi) from the star. This distance is coincidental with the location of Saturn's moon Titan, whose lakes and rain of methane make it an ideal location to find McKay's proposed cryolife.

 

Circumstellar Habitable Zone - Habitability outside the CHZ

[Kabooooom]

Yup.^^ as usual, I 100% agree with Han's post.

[Kabooooom]

Mass Effect didn't explore that very much. There were a select few planet descriptions that did. They did, however, explore the possibility of life "not-as-we-know-it". My favorite was the description of life on Caleston, which was actually fairly plausible.

One thing that would be nice to see is variation of photosynthetic pigments within plant life, which is something that is extremely easy to predict since it is 100% dependent upon solar wavelength output. Plants on an inhabitable world in a red dwarf star system would actually be black, for example. Not green.

[AngryFrozenWater]

[...] It makes me wonder if they had a scientific advisor for that sort of thing.

 

[...]

I remember from an interview that there was a BW employee that was supposed to keep track of the ME-science and integrate it in the lore, dialogue, codex, etc. That must be hard to do, given the number of writers involved. For an example, at the last ComicCon BW stated that there would be approx. 60,000 lines of dialogue in ME:A. Looks like a tremendous task to keep the ME-science consistent.

[Han Shot First]

Mass Effect didn't explore that very much. There were a select few planet descriptions that did. They did, however, explore the possibility of life "not-as-we-know-it". My favorite was the description of life on Caleston, which was actually fairly plausible.

One thing that would be nice to see is variation of photosynthetic pigments within plant life, which is something that is extremely easy to predict since it is 100% dependent upon solar wavelength output. Plants on an inhabitable world in a red dwarf star system would actually be black, for example. Not green.

 

I'd love to see something like that. 

[Hanako Ikezawa]

Since they are in Andromeda, where no individual stars or stellar systems are documented, chances are they will make everything up. They already did with the cluster we are in according to the leak. 

[Sartoz]

Habitable planets can exist outside of the "liquid water zone". The concept, as you state it, is too simplistic. Distance from a given star with a given solar output is not the sole determination of habitability. Most notably, the atmospheric density and greenhouse effect, volcanic activity, presence of a magnetosphere all contribute to average temperature.

Indeed, it is even possible for a moon to be orbiting a gas giant outside of the "liquid water zone", and be sufficiently warmed from tidal heating to sustain liquid water. See: Europa.

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All said and done a Human habitable world must have:

 

temperature 

Surface temps in the range of -15C to about 110C

 

Water

Must be regularly available.

 

Atmosphere

Venus and Earth are the right size to hold enough atmosphere Earth's is about 100 miles thick and keeps the surface temp warm. Also protects agains small-medium size meteorites. Also, for human's, the necessary gas mix of Oxygen, Hydrogen and other gases.

 

Energy

A steady input of light provides the cells with the energy tu run the chem reactions for life.

 

Nutrients

Necessary to build and maintain an organism's body

 

Gravity

Human habitable planets must be in the range of .8 -  1.2 gravities. I doubt a colony will survive outside of that especially if the other factors are in the "not so good" range.

 

In the end, generating all this good stuff in a game, such as ME:A, makes it more appealing to those that are sticklers for accuracy but is irrelevant to most.  And, as Bio put it, what is the time, resources and value to Bio, for doing all of this?

[Catastrophy]

A planet teeming with life under a neutron star would probably not make much sense. Apart from that I have enough imagination to accept a not-so-scientific approach to storytelling.

[Sartoz]

This is a great thread and I hope it garners more conversations! 

 

That said I have a question and two additions to make to this thread:

 

1) What did you (and you all) think of those fire tornadoes interacting with what looks like lava vents on that one world in the ME:A trailer?

 

2) Liquid water as an absolute requirement for life. That's so passé!    How about a liquid ammonia based lifeform on that frozen world in the trailer?!

 

3) Or we could have a liquid hydrogen sulfide based lifeform on that yellowish, sulfur-like, giant red beetle and coral-like plant infested world (i'm sorry for the cluttered descriptors, but that world looks weird and very interesting).

 

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I'm not against non Oxygen breathing intelligent lifeforms. However, "cool" as these may be, regular interaction would be problematic. with the O2 breathers... think environmental suits. Add aliens from high gravity worlds mix in silica based lifeforms and you just got a cornucopia of intelligent lifeforms with little commonality  and interests besides intelligence.

 

This won't perform well in the game.

 

The game needs aliens that can interact with each other and us.  Meaning all want to colonize the same type of planets. This, then, is the pressure cooker needed to create a hostile, kill-or-be-kill, land-grabbing-real estate (planets) starting point. Add treasure  planets, high-tech and rare resource asteroids or moon location cahes and you've got immense material for your main story arc...especially if one of the alien species can be your LI..

[LinksOcarina]

They did that with the Volus, the limitation is they are always in breathing suits. Which from a design standpoint, actually makes sense for those aliens that are used to non carbon-based lifeforms.

 

Such design does need to be accounted for it you go there. I mentioned this before, but I did a tabletop supplement book about alien life for an indie sci-fi game, one of the playable races I created was a speculative, helium-based lifeform that needed a pressurized suit to survive outside of extreme cold temperatures, or else their skeletal structure will simply collapse because their body chemistry is made of liquid helium.

 

Is it scientific? Not necessarily. I used some scientific theories to give the creature some rationale to them to make it plausible, because anything regarding sci-fi is pure speculation. To ask for a complete "hard science" approach to that. Chances are there will be worlds that are inhospitable completely, while others are more suited for certain types of life. The real pressure cooker will be how these different types of life can establish dominance on a planet; will it be together, will it be apart? Will they mingle with other species, or will they subjugate them?

 

That is where the fantastical elements come in, that has very little to do with the science of it all. And you can have believable conflict with the likes of the Volus or another "suit-based lifeform" that way.

[Kabooooom]

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All said and done a Human habitable world must have:

temperature
Surface temps in the range of -15C to about 110C

Water
Must be regularly available.

Atmosphere
Venus and Earth are the right size to hold enough atmosphere Earth's is about 100 miles thick and keeps the surface temp warm. Also protects agains small-medium size meteorites. Also, for human's, the necessary gas mix of Oxygen, Hydrogen and other gases.

Energy
A steady input of light provides the cells with the energy tu run the chem reactions for life.

Nutrients
Necessary to build and maintain an organism's body

Gravity
Human habitable planets must be in the range of .8 - 1.2 gravities. I doubt a colony will survive outside of that especially if the other factors are in the "not so good" range.

In the end, generating all this good stuff in a game, such as ME:A, makes it more appealing to those that are sticklers for accuracy but is irrelevant to most. And, as Bio put it, what is the time, resources and value to Bio, for doing all of this?

Again, I'm not sure if you are reading the entirety of my posts or if you checked out Universe Sandbox 2 - the time and resources are virtually nonexistent. They created solar systems in all three Mass Effect games with planetary descriptors on temperature, gravity, atmospheric pressure and composition, rotation period and orbital period, distance in AUs, and more. For every planet.

You know how long it takes to get that info in Universe Sandbox? One second. It calculates it automatically. It actually takes LONGER to make it up than it does to create it!

All you do is you pick a star, pick a planet with a given mass, put it in orbit at a given distance (a toggle switch highlights the habitable zone for you) and it calculates everything.

It is an extremely, extremely accurate and realistic physics simulator.

Then, all you would have to do is recreate that system in Andromeda, and you have a scientifically accurate star system. Easy peasy.

[Kabooooom]

Since they are in Andromeda, where no individual stars or stellar systems are documented, chances are they will make everything up. They already did with the cluster we are in according to the leak.

You completely missed the point of this discussion. The point is NOT that they would make it up (as obviously they would), but that they make it up in a scientifically accurate fashion instead of a fantastical, bullshit fashion.

And I provided a quick means to do that.

[Kabooooom]

This is a great thread and I hope it garners more conversations!

That said I have a question and two additions to make to this thread:

1) What did you (and you all) think of those fire tornadoes interacting with what looks like lava vents on that one world in the ME:A trailer?

2) Liquid water as an absolute requirement for life. That's so passé! How about a liquid ammonia based lifeform on that frozen world in the trailer?!

3) Or we could have a liquid hydrogen sulfide based lifeform on that yellowish, sulfur-like, giant red beetle and coral-like plant infested world (i'm sorry for the cluttered descriptors, but that world looks weird and very interesting).

1) Do such planets exist in nature? Yes, definitely. I didn't have a problem with the depiction of the fire tornadoes. Such a phenomenon most certainly is real.

2) We were discussing liquid water because that is the easiest to talk about. Life that uses ammonia as a universal solvent, in my opinion as a biologist, probably exists. But, it would require some extremely specific criteria. Bioware, to their credit, attempted to account for this criteria. I didn't mention this, because out of the long list of things that they almost got right, this was one of them.

3) Maybe. Personally, I suspect that life can utilize a wide variety of chemical solvents and most biologists who theorize about xenobiology do too. It is why some people seriously think that Titan may harbor life. Personally, I do not think that it does. I think the best candidate for that sort of thing is Europa, by FAR. But that would he life "as-we-know-it".

I think that Earth itself is probably not that unique. Well, in a sense. The most common life-bearing worlds, statistically are probably tidally locked worlds in orbit around red dwarfs. These worlds would be extremely different from Earth, but still possess life as we know it. The Rachni homeworld is actually a very good example of this. In that sense, Earth is not the most common sort of environment for life. Furthermore, it is more common for binary star systems to exist than for solitary ones (with the exception of red dwarfs). So, Earth is also probably not the most common in that sense, as an inhabitable world in a binary star system would be more common (provided stable orbits are possible).

Now, because of how ubiquitous water is in the universe, life "as-we-know-it" is probably the most common type of life. Furthermore, the chemistry of carbon is MUCH more stable and versatile over a wider range of temperatures than silicon. Thus, carbon based life is chemically more probable than silicon based. My guess would be liquid water carbon based life and liquid ammonia carbon based life are more common than anything silicon based. Silicon life would require very specific criteria to exist as well. Including the absence of any possibility for carbon based life to be present, as it would most certainly outcompete. To their credit, Caleston presents somewhat plausible criteria.

I do believe life that utilizes truly exotic chemistry exists. It is probably less common than life as-we-know-it solely due to the ubiquitous nature of water and ammonia and the stable and versatile chemistry of carbon. But it most certainly exists. As for how to predict what it would be like...honestly, we wouldn't even know where to start.

As a side note, given the abundance of gas giants and brown dwarfs in the universe, it is probably very common for liquid water to exist on moons. They dont have to be in a stars' inhabitable zone. Tidal heating is extremely efficient at creating such environments. Indeed, these worlds are probably even more common than terrestrial planets.

[Hanako Ikezawa]

You completely missed the point of this discussion. The point is NOT that they would make it up (as obviously they would), but that they make it up in a scientifically accurate fashion instead of a fantastical, bullshit fashion.

And I provided a quick means to do that.

I know, and as my second sentence points out they already haven't if the leak is true. A cluster containing 100s of star systems with 100s of planets, many of which can sustain life, is not physically possible. Gas giants, the simplest of planets, don't even form in those conditions. Planets only start to form after the stars have started to separate. 

[Kabooooom]

I know, and as my second sentence points out they already haven't if the leak is true. A cluster containing 100s of star systems with 100s of planets, many of which can sustain life, is not physically possible. Gas giants, the simplest of planets, don't even form in those conditions. Planets only start to form after the stars have started to separate.

That is not entirely true. We dont know the density if this fictitious cluster. I am not concerned with that at all.

What I AM concerned with is the possible abundance of life here. That is unrealistic. Mass Effect did a reasonable job of acknowledging that life probably isn't around every corner, but it felt common because the relay network linked every inhabitable world in the galaxy (otherwise the purpose of it would be defeated).

A star cluster that has several intelligent species and dozens of lifebearing worlds is probably unrealistic. Then again, I may be too pessimistic about the abundance of life in nature.

But rather I am pessimistic or not is irrelevant, because Mass Effect lore itself is pessimistic. Every primary relay is separate by an average of several thousand light years. Which implies that lifebearing worlds are, on average, NOT located right next to each other.

Andromeda seems to be throwing that very, very, very reasonable assumption out the window.

Which I do not like.

[Kabooooom]

Also, it is worth noting in this discussion that all of these assumptions about life are based on our biased understanding of life on earth.

However, while biased, we have a very thorough understanding of life on Earth. We understand biology, biochemistry, biomechanics, evolution, and genetics so well that we can read the genetic code and modify organisms at a genetic level at a whim.

Which used to be my job, actually. So I do think it is reasonable, very reasonable in fact, to extrapolate from what we KNOW works with life to what may or may not work.

[Zazzerka]

As someone who appreciated the original Mass Effect for its attention to space detail (even though it buggered it up in a lot of areas), I thank you for this thread. What I want from Mass Effect is more believable "space" and "future" in general. Realistic star systems are obviously a part of that.

 

What I want (and haven't found), is a game set in the future that tries to make itself as believable as possible. Mass Effect hooked me in that sense. There was an explanation for everything - from relativity-free intragalactic travel to people typing on holographic keyboards. Spaceships had limitations, as any modern form of travel does, and I loved it.

 

The last thing I want Mass Effect to do is blow all of that out of the water and say, "It's the future, so anything we say, goes."

 

Tell me more about how medi-gel works, please.

[MrFob]

I do want them to be realistic as well. However, I also want the writers to be creative in what they do. For example, I liked the more freaky planets in ME1, like the planet that may have been a Jupiter Brain or Klendagon with its Mass Accelerator impact crater. Or how about that one planet somewhere in Tuchanka's cluster, that got blown up and nobody doesn't really know what happened.

Of course, the basic details should be as realistic as possible and I agree that Universe Sandbox is probably a good resource in order to get a starting point for systems and planet descriptions. But that should not constrain the devs from being creative in coming up with cool scenarios and unusual planet descriptions. There needs to be a good balance there, which I think ME had figured out pretty well in it's games so far.

 

Also, BW should try and get Chris L'Etoille back for the job.

[Hanako Ikezawa]

That is not entirely true. We dont know the density if this fictitious cluster. I am not concerned with that at all.

That is true. If it is several hundred or thousand light years across with each star being a few light years from each other(though that is stretching the definition of the term cluster to its breaking point), then it is possible. But that presents new problems, like traveling through a cluster that size efficiently. 

[Kabooooom]

I do want them to be realistic as well. However, I also want the writers to be creative in what they do. For example, I liked the more freaky planets in ME1, like the planet that may have been a Jupiter Brain or Klendagon with its Mass Accelerator impact crater. Or how about that one planet somewhere in Tuchanka's cluster, that got blown up and nobody doesn't really know what happened.
Of course, the basic details should be as realistic as possible and I agree that Universe Sandbox is probably a good resource in order to get a starting point for systems and planet descriptions. But that should not constrain the devs from being creative in coming up with cool scenarios and unusual planet descriptions.

Also, BW should try and get Chris L'Etoille back for the job.

I agree, I do want them to be creative in that sense. Kip Thorne did that with Interstellar. He asked, "what is the most extreme, but physically possible (although unlikely) system that can exist?" And then mathematically worked it out.

Which, incidentally, you can exactly recreate the Gargantua system in Universe Sandbox 2 due to his very specific calculations. And it is mind-blowing. It breaks the simulator, almost.

[Kabooooom]

That is true. If it is several hundred or thousand light years across with each star being a few light years from each other(though that is stretching the definition of the term cluster to its breaking point), then it is possible. But that presents new problems, like traveling through a cluster that size efficiently.

Yea, and the leak does imply this to be the case. It will be interesting to see how they do it.