Biological components please!

[Nomad525]

Hmm I like the idea of having Bio/Living ships, would give an awesome cylon, zerg feel, but I feel regenerative armor would create to many problems. What if instead of regenerative armor there was instead skin. It would be primarily a cosmetic thing because and would have no armor value but could heal so long as the blocks aren't fully destroyed. then maybe a power system that looked like organs. Just for the cosmetic reasons (and maybe it could heal like the skin).

 

[Madman198237]

Brain blocks. We should get carbon-based asteroids (They're fairly common IRL). Only molecules like carbon and silicon can conceivably serve as the basis for life, so ores are out. And we need some sort of "organ" capable of processing materials into more useful variants, an organ that synthesizes advanced bio-systems and such. Also, we need a "reproduction" organ...

My idea is that this organ builds a vessel based on a blueprint/equivalent, leaving it docked to the "organ" that built it. The more modules this reproduction/biological shipyard thing has, the faster the construction goes.


Also, biological materials can in fact reach extreme strengths. Imagine a creature that grew a thick coat of a material similar to a thicker spider string. It'd be like wearing a Kevlar suit, all the time. Especially if the coat gets tangled and knotted.

 

[sayerulz]

Having bio ships be a stronger but higher maintenance option (which is the impression I get from Madman198237 is saying) seems backwards to me. Biological materials are not as strong as metals and synthetic composites. Some spider-silk kevlar might sound like a good idea.... until someone applies a bit of heat and it gets evaporated. If we want to get complicated, something like that could take reduced damage from missiles and possibly cannons (its not really clear if they are an energy weapon or some form of projectile) but get evaporated by beams and pulses. It might make beams better at least.

I don't think we need some whole new set of ores and asteroids. Rather, I think that various rocks should serve as a source of carbon. Most rocks contain a fair bit of carbon, and that goes for asteroids too. "Food" would be accomplished by feeding rocks and dirt into the ship, and then the ship can slowly repair itself.

 

[Cluwne]

I think there are a few asteroid kinds that already have ice on them

Oh my goodness, how could I forget about that. And they're easy to find in large quantities too, courtesy of residing in outermost belts.

We need an organic factory to produce organic blocks to build an organic ship in the first place.

Why can't we grow them directly on ships? This would also double as part of the regeneration mechanic.

If you just mine asteroids and get resources exactly the same, that's kind of boring.

Oh that's only part of the scheme. You mine asteroids, turn water and rock into biomass through photosynthesis near star of appropriate spectrum, then you use said biomass, along with ores and crystals, to grow your ship.
This way organics would still need some infrastructure to support ships, but at the same time this infrastructure could be mobile and allow migrating armadas with no set homebase.

How do we conceptualize Bobby AI biologicals?

Brain, a simple and elegant solution.

How do we conceptualize Fleet controls for biologicals?

Probably some kind of "telepathy" for the organics.

How do we conceptualize turrets for biologicals?

Well, first of all, forget about 360° turning turrets. In fact, with the way current system works, you might forget about turrets altogether. Organics don't exactly work like that.
Still, if you insist, we can look at it as symbiosis of two bioships. Still, no 360° turning.

Also, biological materials can in fact reach extreme strengths. Imagine a creature that grew a thick coat of a material similar to a thicker spider string. It'd be like wearing a Kevlar suit, all the time. Especially if the coat gets tangled and knotted.

Well, you could use excess biomass to "reinforce" the ship, constantly draining your supplies and adding more damage mitigation.

spider string

Now you got me thinking about space spiders and energy nets.

 

[Madman198237]

Now you got me thinking about space spiders and energy nets.

I'm sorry, OK!

But, realistically, a silica or carbon-based lifeform can be incredibly tough. In order to survive space, these things would have to be capable of retaining an atmosphere (Assuming that smaller lifeforms reside within the vessel) or at least holding together under vacuum conditions. They must require no (Or carry their own, which is more likely) atmosphere, be capable of taking extreme cold and extreme heat (WITHOUT catastrophically deforming), surviving radiation, taking micrometeorite impacts, do everything that spaceship hull has to do....oh, and if the species is assumed to be intelligent, then they've also bred their spaceship creatures (Yuuzhan Vong!) to be strong enough to take hits from weaponry in space, yet not die./depressurize.

Also, these would be superb additions as part of the fauna arc. Suddenly, there's a race of aliens (To go along with the present bugs) that travels space, infests various places.....and hates you for using technology disagrees with you because yes.

 

[sayerulz]

I'm sorry, OK!

But, realistically, a silica or carbon-based lifeform can be incredibly tough. In order to survive space, these things would have to be capable of retaining an atmosphere (Assuming that smaller lifeforms reside within the vessel) or at least holding together under vacuum conditions. They must require no (Or carry their own, which is more likely) atmosphere, be capable of taking extreme cold and extreme heat (WITHOUT catastrophically deforming), surviving radiation, taking micrometeorite impacts, do everything that spaceship hull has to do....oh, and if the species is assumed to be intelligent, then they've also bred their spaceship creatures (Yuuzhan Vong!) to be strong enough to take hits from weaponry in space, yet not die./depressurize.

Also, these would be superb additions as part of the fauna arc. Suddenly, there's a race of aliens (To go along with the present bugs) that travels space, infests various places.....and hates you for using technology disagrees with you because yes.

As I recall, the vong coral ships gained their hulls durability primarily through having a large mass of inert material, not through the material being particularly strong. They were durable because they could take having large portions of their mass evaporated without suffering loss of function.

In game, this could be done simply by stacking large masses of light, cheap organic blocks over your systems. By coupling that with the regeneration, you could get a durable ship.

 

[Lecic]

Why can't we grow them directly on ships? This would also double as part of the regeneration mechanic.

How am I supposed to originally build my ship? You need a way to make the ships in the first place.

 

[Madman198237]

The problem, of course, is that in Star Wars there were (generally) no missiles capable of vaporizing a planet instantly. We have those. They would so thoroughly annihilate vessels that the game would become massively unbalanced.
Yorik coral was in fact remarkably strong. It took hits from lasers better than hull material. It was thicker, yes, but it dealt with the energy effectively.
Coral could not, however, be regrown in combat. It took more time.
So perhaps the best way to handle these ships is to make them expensive, natural armor tankers (Remember, they don't have shields), that can regrow when provided with materials.

So, Lecic, you mentioned originally building a ship. Perhaps a new reaction in the basic factory to produce (Inefficiently) biomass from rocks/carbon/water. Then you can create a bio-core (Use the brain block as core AND BOBBY AI) and start a bioship. Produce yourself a fancy stomach organ and away you go.

Bioweapons: I agree with DoT effectives and parasites. Perhaps also something that launches straight projectiles (Sorry, I'm thinking Yuuzhan Vong again, and their stone/molten rock throwers)

 

[Lecic]

So, Lecic, you mentioned originally building a ship. Perhaps a new reaction in the basic factory to produce (Inefficiently) biomass from rocks/carbon/water. Then you can create a bio-core (Use the brain block as core AND BOBBY AI) and start a bioship. Produce yourself a fancy stomach organ and away you go.

But how do you get the stomach in the first place?

 

[Madman198237]

Using a factory to create biomass, to create basic bio-components.
Bug off, I'm too tired to make sense

 

[Cluwne]

How am I supposed to originally build my ship? You need a way to make the ships in the first place.

Once again shameless self-promotion:

bioships could only require raw materials and rocks to essentially build themselves, not even needing a shipyard. Actually, raw materials could just accelerate the growth substantially, but the ship can grow without them, just very, very slow.
Instead of blueprints you'd have a "genetic template"-thing that you put in the organic core.
Regarding designing a bioship, in build mode you only designate where things should be instead of actually putting them down, with everything being saved into the genetic template in the biocore. With an added bonus that no matter what happens to the rest of the ship, as long as core exists, the ship will simply regrow.

With necessary biomass produced by inefficient inorganic factories, like Madman198237 suggested.

 

[sayerulz]

If planets in star wars were the size of the ones in starmade, they would most definitely be getting evaporated by missiles. I don't think that bio ships being super armor tanks makes sense. They should have shields, and should have armor based on large thickness of relatively weak blocks.

The idea behind them is that they are somewhat weaker than normal ships, but that they are easy to maintain since they repair themselves without the need for a shipyard. Hybrid ships should also be a thing, although obviously the need for two different power sources for a hybrid ship means that one has to think before just slapping bio components onto a normal ship, or else the result will probably not be very efficient.

 

[Madman198237]

They don't need to be extremely effective armor tanks, they should just have the natural ability to shrug off certain types of damage better when built right....unless we want some sort of biological shielding system...which would be unnatural. Maybe a magnetic-field-generating metallic organ that can defeat certain types of weapons but not others?

 

[Lecic]

I have said it once and I will say it again- there is zero reason to not allow hybrid ships.

 

[Madman198237]

Yes, but that should have its own disadvantages. Inefficient power? Or will the simple disadvantage of needing the different type of blocks (That cannot be repaired by the biomechanism, instead requiring multiple types of support infrastructure [Shipyard]) be enough to keep things balanced?

 

[sayerulz]

Yes, but that should have its own disadvantages. Inefficient power? Or will the simple disadvantage of needing the different type of blocks (That cannot be repaired by the biomechanism, instead requiring multiple types of support infrastructure [Shipyard]) be enough to keep things balanced?

It's going to be naturally disadvantaged because bio components and mechanical ones use two totally different power systems. Because of that, you would need two smaller power setups, which is generally going to be less efficient. This could be made even more so if the optimal power layout for bio generators (placeholder name) is something that you can't just weave normal power into.

 

[MacThule]

It's going to be naturally disadvantaged because bio components and mechanical ones use two totally different power systems. Because of that, you would need two smaller power setups, which is generally going to be less efficient. This could be made even more so if the optimal power layout for bio generators (placeholder name) is something that you can't just weave normal power into.

So basically two ships merged into one - each with all the normal requisites and dependencies it would normally have? Optimizing such an entity could be extremely difficult.

 

[sayerulz]

So basically two ships merged into one - each with all the normal requisites and dependencies it would normally have? Optimizing such an entity could be extremely difficult.

Precisely the point. Which is why you would have to consider carefully how each system is placed, and which ones you really need.

 

[Madman198237]

My basic idea for the stomach/energy-producing organ is to have one that provides more energy the larger it is, and also processes materials faster the larger it is.