Author Topic: Meteorite Storm  (Read 5435 times)

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Marco2001

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Meteorite Storm
« on: November 21, 2010, 07:52:23 PM »


Meteorite Storm
( Sporadical bursts of faling micro-meteorites on Mars do accur, but they aren't as common as dust- and radiation storms, and pose no greater threat directly to habitat or to astronauts outside. They do however block totaly any communications on mars since they make hard-ionization just above the ground. Becouse of that - during meteorite storms players don't have the GPS, work order list, link with the nearest comm.tower and many other. On the other hand - Meteorite Storms make a beutiful view...especialy at night! )

One of the unmentioned phenomena accuring at mars are the Meteorite Storms.
Becouse Mars has very thing atmosphere, not all space-debrea is beying burn...some of them sporadically makes to the ground.
On many cases we can predicts when the next meteorite shower accurs.
On the other hand - sometimes we don't know about that meteorite hive and when mars gets in position it get's then a rapid bombardment with meteors.
Every equipement on Mars is protected from those small micrometeorites.
Becouse of that, and the fact that those storms are rare, the propability of any loss coused becouse by them is astronomicaly low.
But that doesn't mean they are safe. They do pose a threat...they can disable all communications on mars, which can lead to a disaster.
How does it work?
Since mars has no ionosphere, all radio signals must travel in the line of sight (they can't be bounced from the atmosphere as we do it on Earth for long-range communications).
Becouse of the thin atmosphere, the micrometeorites gets very close to the ground, and they leave behind them a trail of ionized plasma that is active for even up-to 2 sec.. (longer than on earth BTW). Some of the micrometoerites even do get hit at the ground.
Becouse of the heaviliy ionized plasma trail blocking the way of the radio wave, none of the signals gets threw - they gets blocked.
That is why we don't have the ability to communicate...which can be very anoying :-)

Graphical implementation in MCO:
Micrometeorites can't be seen. They are just to darn small.
What you can see is when everoy now-and-then one of them hits the ground.
There won't be any noise, therw won't be any crater, no damage...you would only notice that the dust is rapidly blowing from one spot. From your point of view it looks exactly as a GPR shoot...just 100x times smaller  ;)

On the sky hovever...you could propably see meteor rain. Every and each meteor you see here cames from one point in the sky called "radiant". It's trully beutiful! On mars thin atmosphere it must looks even more spectactular!



Base would be equiped (at the comm.&weather module) with a meteorite detector (the sameone used in space probes like pionier 10 & 11). You won't get a warning before it starts, but at least, you woult know that it's happening right now.

(P.S. Sorry for my errors in the text. Iam typing on someones else laptop right now)

Poland here. My time: GMT + 1h
Writing a book about Mars. Any ideas? Type to me.
I'am an Astrobiology/Biology student.

pad69

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Re: Meteorite Storm
« Reply #1 on: November 24, 2010, 11:52:35 AM »
Thank you quite nice and interesting to read. Cool to!
Murphy's Law applies "Anything that can possibly go wrong, does." or some say it this way "If anything can go wrong, it will.

Van Clan 101

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Re: Meteorite Storm
« Reply #2 on: November 29, 2010, 11:40:58 AM »
Would players be able to die in the meteorite storm and what would the damage be

Hyper

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Re: Meteorite Storm
« Reply #3 on: November 29, 2010, 03:14:32 PM »
Meteorite storm is in the plan now, matter of fact I think the code is there just activate it. Havent done it yet cause there are so many other issues to work out.
@Van death in game is a good question. Permadeath or Spawndeath. I like Permadeath but most dont. Most people would choose to have a respawn with some sort of penalty.

Marco2001

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Re: Meteorite Storm
« Reply #4 on: November 29, 2010, 05:25:23 PM »
Would players be able to die in the meteorite storm and what would the damage be

No. The propability of beying hit by a meteor on mars is several times lover than winning in a lotery and even if you somehow get hit - the propabilities that the micro-metorite has enough momentum to do some damage is also as much inpropable. Meteor showers are mainly a nuisance becouse they make radio contact on mars nearly impossible due to the ionization of the atmosphere (and THAT can be dangerous).

Meteorite storm is in the plan now, matter of fact I think the code is there just activate it. Havent done it yet cause there are so many other issues to work out.
@Van death in game is a good question. Permadeath or Spawndeath. I like Permadeath but most dont. Most people would choose to have a respawn with some sort of penalty.

Wow! I never considered the possibility that player could be dead "for real". I like the idea of Permadeath - I just never imagined that there could be a game that doesnt enable respawn. Can you give me more info about how that could look like hyper? For a simulation game like MCO it sounds interesting! I can image what the repercusions of that would have been! For instance - the game would be more real and players would try to avoid it AT ALL COST (no more suicidal/killing pranks on computer games), planing is essential for survival, even one small mistake would couse you to die - and that's what makes it so thrilling!

Poland here. My time: GMT + 1h
Writing a book about Mars. Any ideas? Type to me.
I'am an Astrobiology/Biology student.

Mecanico

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Re: Meteorite Storm
« Reply #5 on: December 02, 2010, 06:20:50 AM »
I think it will be easy: death = deleting account. And if someone wants to keep play, have to create new account and start from zero (experience, cash?, standings, etc) and travel from Earth to Mars.
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Snowpig

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Re: Meteorite Storm
« Reply #6 on: December 02, 2010, 06:38:50 AM »
Quote
@Van death in game is a good question. Permadeath or Spawndeath. I like Permadeath but most dont. Most people would choose to have a respawn with some sort of penalty.

Make a switch and let the future server-admin decide, what type of game he wants to offer. Personally i'd prefer the permadeath-method too, because it forces you to plan your actions thoroughly.

atm. when i travel from the base hub to the mining outpost, my rover has at least toolkit, oxygen can and methane can in it to prevent being stuck too far away from the next base  :P

edit: just an idea to play around with: make a maximum number of allowed respawns in a game. every death beyond that number is a permadeath.
« Last Edit: December 02, 2010, 06:41:00 AM by Snowpig »