"Neutronium"

[Emelio Lizardo]

"Neutronium"

Why does every SF video game propose to use this stuff? Well, probably because of the Star Trek (TOS) episode that had a "Beserker" type ship made of it. But it really can't exist outside of a neutron star. A chunk of "neutronium" outside the gravity well of the star would rapidly, and spectacularly, dissolve. I don't think there is even a theory on how to contain this crap.

And if it were somehow kept from doing this, being surrounded by it would be like being surrounded by the condensed material a a star. Everything would so rapidly become 'one' with the 'neutronium' that there probably isn't a applicable measure of time to describe it.

You've no concept (and I don't either) of how dense this stuff is and it's effect on anything normal that would be near it.

It's not like some unreactive impenitrable lead. It's activly nasty in a way that puts to shame nasty. The only thing more frightening in the universe is a singularity.

Please find a different name for whatever material is necessary to be impressive armor. Like regular steel and Krupt Steel.

[crgzero]

It's a game, reality is disregarded in pretty much every videogame ever made when it's useful or entertaining to do so.

[cooltv27]

for context on its density, neutron stars are basically PURE neutrons, the uncharged particles in the nucleaus of atoms. "matter is 99% empty space" because of the electron clouds, neutron starts dont have that. its at least 100 times more dense than any material on earth CAN be, AT LEAST 100 times, very probably a few orders of magnitude more than that

[Shahadem]

The truth is we don't know how it would behave. Neutronium might actually be more stable than expected because neutrons don't repel each other with the same force as protons. We can hypothesize and theorize, do the math, try to create our own neutronium in lab on an extremely small scale, but the truth is we simply don't know for sure.

While neutronium is extremely dense, simply having it on a ship might not produce an enormous gravity. It could be that neutronium armor is incredibly thin, so there is less than 1 cm of neutronium.

[Emelio Lizardo]

Originally posted by crgzero:

It's a game, reality is disregarded in pretty much every videogame ever made when it's useful or entertaining to do so.

That's the lazy fanboy answer. Yes we do disregard certain realities when it's necessary, but we do try to conform to what is plausable. And certainly we shouldn't give things names with known attributes that totally disregard those attributes. It's like having a rocket move backwards against its thrust just because it's a game and we can do anything that's entertaining.

Well when stuff doesn't seem believeable let alone plausable I lose my ability to suspend belief and that spoils the game.

Names are important. And just because many video games out there are lax and undiclpined it's not a reason for Paradox to copy that.

[Nova225]

Originally posted by Emelio Lizardo:

Originally posted by crgzero:

It's a game, reality is disregarded in pretty much every videogame ever made when it's useful or entertaining to do so.

That's the lazy fanboy answer. Yes we do disregard certain realities when it's necessary, but we do try to conform to what is plausable. And certainly we shouldn't give things names with known attributes that totally disregard those attributes. It's like having a rocket move backwards against its thrust just because it's a game and we can do anything that's entertaining.

Well when stuff doesn't seem believeable let alone plausable I lose my ability to suspend belief and that spoils the game.

Names are important. And just because many video games out there are lax and undiclpined it's not a reason for Paradox to copy that.

"is a proposed name for a substance composed purely of neutrons. The word was coined by scientist Andreas von Antropoff in 1926 (before the discovery of the neutron) for the conjectured "element of atomic number zero" that he placed at the head of the periodic table.[2][3] However, the meaning of the term has changed over time, and from the last half of the 20th century onward it has been also used legitimately to refer to extremely dense substances resembling the neutron-degenerate matter theorized to exist in the cores of neutron stars; hereinafter "degenerate neutronium" will refer to this. Science fiction and popular literature frequently use the term "neutronium" to refer to a highly dense phase of matter composed primarily of neutrons."

Courtesty of wikipedia. Neutronium isn't a substance that is readily observed, which is why science fiction can play fast and loose with it.

I find it odd you're picking on this one term in particular. Pretty much every piece of in-game tech past the second tier is at a theory stage at best or pure science fiction at worst. You're just being nitpicky.

[Twelvefield]

There are hundreds of rip-offs from all sorts of SF stories in Stellaris. Frank Herbert is dead, so the project to get him to write for the Paradox devs has hit an unfortunate snag with dubious necromancy. Goat's blood, eye of newt, and pentagrams all have zoomed up in price on the open market, thus forcing Paradox to in turn pass on higher costs to their customers, you may have noticed that.

I think my favourite neutron star-matter story is a Superman comic where he is being defeated by a ganster with a high-powered megaphone - the sound waves keep bouncing The Man Of Steel back. Supes' solution is to fly to the nearest neutron star and grab a handful of the stuff, which he uses to make Super Ear Plugs for himself. Then he comes back to Earth and his Super Hearing suitably Super Muffled, he beats the crap out of the bad guy and busts up the megaphone.

I'll see if I can find it online, if so I will show a link.

EDIT: I will show a link! Enjoy! (There is some language in the comments)

http://www.earljwoods.com/2008/06/to-ear-is-superhuman.html

[Shahadem]

Originally posted by Twelvefield:

There are hundreds of rip-offs from all sorts of SF stories in Stellaris. Frank Herbert is dead, so the project to get him to write for the Paradox devs has hit an unfortunate snag with dubious necromancy. Goat's blood, eye of newt, and pentagrams all have zoomed up in price on the open market, thus forcing Paradox to in turn pass on higher costs to their customers, you may have noticed that.

I think my favourite neutron star-matter story is a Superman comic where he is being defeated by a ganster with a high-powered megaphone - the sound waves keep bouncing The Man Of Steel back. Supes' solution is to fly to the nearest neutron star and grab a handful of the stuff, which he uses to make Super Ear Plugs for himself. Then he comes back to Earth and his Super Hearing suitably Super Muffled, he beats the crap out of the bad guy and busts up the megaphone.

I'll see if I can find it online, if so I will show a link.

EDIT: I will show a link! Enjoy! (There is some language in the comments)

http://www.earljwoods.com/2008/06/to-ear-is-superhuman.html

A better misuse of Neutronium would be the key that Superman made from carving up the heart of a neutron star. He places this key on top of some ice outside his fortress of solitude or whatever his ice house is called. Instead of melting and sinking through the ice, the neutronium key only makes a small divet in the ice.

Another famous neutronium item is the Hammer of Thor.

A bigger complaint than Neutronium should be about anti-matter reactors not costing 10,000 times more to operate than nuclear reactors or that ships travel from one end of a solar system to another in only a couple of months using chemical rockets and never run out of propellant even if they haven't been refueled in 100 years.

Or how about the way that the game violates multiple conservation laws by allowing you to mine millions of units of minerals from Ringworlds which only contain at most 100,000 minerals in total according to their construction cost. Minerals which are instantly transported to the construction site and stored god knows where, Hammerspace I guess. Why doesn't megastructure construction require energy? Why does it require influence?

How does a space dragon fly through vacuum using wings?

I could go on but I think you get the point.

Neutronium, a substance with entirely unknown properties at the macroscopic level which may or may not even be able to be fashioned into armor plating is hardly the worse offender. It at least makes more sense than hyperlane travel or wormhole travel or the Shroud or the concept that people would kill themselves off and have robots built to replace them.

[Emelio Lizardo]

I assume the dragon 'wings' are vestigal.

Yea, lots of SF stories and games misuse it. But that needn't be the case here.

The Superman story in particular is simply stupid, but once you've accepted the basic stupidity of it then it makes sense again. Thor's hammer the same, The writers simply use the word without considering what it really is.

We know better.

The density of neutronium is unimaginable. Imagine the solar system as an atom and that it collapes to a single point. It's unusable as a material.

There are simply better alternatives to the misuse of names.

[JJ]

Originally posted by Shahadem:

Originally posted by Twelvefield:

There are hundreds of rip-offs from all sorts of SF stories in Stellaris. Frank Herbert is dead, so the project to get him to write for the Paradox devs has hit an unfortunate snag with dubious necromancy. Goat's blood, eye of newt, and pentagrams all have zoomed up in price on the open market, thus forcing Paradox to in turn pass on higher costs to their customers, you may have noticed that.

I think my favourite neutron star-matter story is a Superman comic where he is being defeated by a ganster with a high-powered megaphone - the sound waves keep bouncing The Man Of Steel back. Supes' solution is to fly to the nearest neutron star and grab a handful of the stuff, which he uses to make Super Ear Plugs for himself. Then he comes back to Earth and his Super Hearing suitably Super Muffled, he beats the crap out of the bad guy and busts up the megaphone.

I'll see if I can find it online, if so I will show a link.

EDIT: I will show a link! Enjoy! (There is some language in the comments)

http://www.earljwoods.com/2008/06/to-ear-is-superhuman.html

A better misuse of Neutronium would be the key that Superman made from carving up the heart of a neutron star. He places this key on top of some ice outside his fortress of solitude or whatever his ice house is called. Instead of melting and sinking through the ice, the neutronium key only makes a small divet in the ice.

Another famous neutronium item is the Hammer of Thor.

A bigger complaint than Neutronium should be about anti-matter reactors not costing 10,000 times more to operate than nuclear reactors or that ships travel from one end of a solar system to another in only a couple of months using chemical rockets and never run out of propellant even if they haven't been refueled in 100 years.

Or how about the way that the game violates multiple conservation laws by allowing you to mine millions of units of minerals from Ringworlds which only contain at most 100,000 minerals in total according to their construction cost. Minerals which are instantly transported to the construction site and stored god knows where, Hammerspace I guess. Why doesn't megastructure construction require energy? Why does it require influence?

How does a space dragon fly through vacuum using wings?

I could go on but I think you get the point.

Neutronium, a substance with entirely unknown properties at the macroscopic level which may or may not even be able to be fashioned into armor plating is hardly the worse offender. It at least makes more sense than hyperlane travel or wormhole travel or the Shroud or the concept that people would kill themselves off and have robots built to replace them.

Good points right there. I guess the point ill make is realism doesn't make for great gameplay, or it rarely ever does. I find Integrating subjects isn't that slow, considering I play on the fastest speed.

[Twelvefield]

Originally posted by Emelio Lizardo:

I assume the dragon 'wings' are vestigal.

Yea, lots of SF stories and games misuse it. But that needn't be the case here.

The Superman story in particular is simply stupid, but once you've accepted the basic stupidity of it then it makes sense again. Thor's hammer the same, The writers simply use the word without considering what it really is.

We know better.

The density of neutronium is unimaginable. Imagine the solar system as an atom and that it collapes to a single point. It's unusable as a material.

There are simply better alternatives to the misuse of names.

While I agree with you to a point (other writers are particularly lazy, but if I am using a trope like "neutronium" in my writing, I am successfully invoking retro-chic mise-en-scene) I have a problem where you find a lack of immersion in Stellaris but you are willing to buy into the stupidity of Superman loading his earholes with neutronium harvested from the heart of a star. I'm the other way around: as long as there are long cylindrical moon rockets and whip wielding space lesbians, I say power up the neutronium reactor and arm the radium torpedos! But I find most superhero culture to be bland and repetitive and in live action there's no way for a human actor to not look like a complete dolt in costume, Wonder Woman being the possible exception that proves the rule.

[Azunai]

neutronium is about as realistic as faster than light travel or psionics or dyson spheres or ringworlds. there's a ton of "soft" sci fi stuff in this game that doesn't make much (or any) sense at all.

[Malvastor]

Let's be realistic: Stellaris wouldn't work at all as a hard sci-fi game. It's filled with all the soft sci-fii concepts from Star Trek/Wars/-gate/what have you, and it works really well. Using the word neutronium, as Shahadem pointed out, isn't anywhere close to the least plausible thing in it, and that's fine because all that bad science comes together to make a really good game.

[paugus]

Originally posted by Emelio Lizardo:

I assume the dragon 'wings' are vestigal.

Originally posted by Emelio Lizardo:

That's the lazy fanboy answer. Yes we do disregard certain realities when it's necessary, but we do try to conform to what is plausable.

You think a space dragon who apparently adapted from atmospheric conditions to a vacuum is plausible? Vestigial wings is a pretty lazy fanboy answer, man. That's how space eagles started, an eagle flew out of the stratosphere and was like "y'know what, this is such a nice place I think I'll stay here and raise a family."

[crgzero]

OH MAH GAWD it's not a game it's real life zomgwtfbbq if you disregarded reality for even a moment and accept that it's just a game then you're a lazy fanboi.

Go ♥♥♥♥ yourself you stupid piece of ♥♥♥♥.

[Beef Hammer]

nerds man...