[Alpha 1C Released] [World Region] The 21st Century

54x · Post by **54x** » 30 Sep 2004 05:24

You could just have it as nuclear coolant, you know. Suddenly the fact that it's liquid and green is explained away.

ChrisCF · Post by **ChrisCF** » 30 Sep 2004 05:42

Nuclear coolant, otherwise known as water

You can't use one radioactive material to cool another. Fission reactions generate heat.

PurdueGuy · Post by **PurdueGuy** » 30 Sep 2004 05:50

Nuclear coolant.... that's usually called water. Or heavy water. Nothing green that I know of. Of course, this stuff is in tanks, so there's nothing to say that it is or is not green. I'm just not a fan of green clouds spewing out of the plant.

You could have a facility that produces heavy water, and then transport that to a power plant. I saw a cool historical show about some special forces during WW2 (I forget what country they were from). Hitler's scientists had come up with heavy water (water molocule with extra neutron in the hydrogen), and the special forces blew up a ferry carrying the rail tankers with the heavy water. It basically determined for sure that Hitler wouldn't get nuclear weapons. Pretty cool. Anyway, back from the tangent.

If more mods are planned for the graphics, that's fine. I may very well end up liking what is made. And I apologize for the Toyland reference - that was uncalled for.

No mod developer deserves that. Unless they try to make Toyland. Then they should be shot.

I am probably a little more touchy about nuclear stuff because my wife is a nuclear engineer, and I watch her constantly have to battle people's ignorance on the topic.

I could buy that nuclear fuel could be put into a semi-liquid form. For example, one type of nuclear reactor uses balls of fuel (uranium, plutonium, etc) surrounded by the material used to control the reaction. One theoretical way to make nuclear fuel semi-fluid would be to use these, because they are tiny and would flow. These could then be used in the tank cars.

I'd be cool to come up with more technical-sounding names for stuff than just nuke(fill in the blank). Just a suggestion.

jules · Post by **jules** » 30 Sep 2004 06:54

PurdueGuy wrote:I am probably a little more touchy about nuclear stuff because my wife is a nuclear engineer, and I watch her constantly have to battle people's ignorance on the topic.

Riight... erm, there's a slight thing about this, where it, err, isn't real... err, not meant to be.. and erm, well is fiction....

Why is everyone getting so uptight about this, if you want something realistic, go here...
http://www.tt-forums.net/viewtopic.php?t=10750

As for this, i like the green smoke, and the fact its slightly more colourful (no not toyland:roll:) and that there is something called nukefill, or nukefuel or whatever, and that small towns of 20 people have spaceports...
Its just a bit of FUN. Star trek and star wars have so many greater problems than whats being picked at here, "smoke wont be green", but A LOT of people in these forums will have enjoyed at least one episode/film.

Keep up the good work johns.

Korenn · Post by **Korenn** » 30 Sep 2004 12:13

some people don't read beyond the first page... (like me first time

)

- robot production lines: Great idea!
- floating cars: has to be a must.

You could even add a new type of road with no tarmac or sand or supports when raised, just a few outlines. That way you could have cars zipping through what seems to be thin air from one city to the next. (also an option would be to build it as a type of tram track)

ChrisCF · Post by **ChrisCF** » 30 Sep 2004 15:08

jules wrote:Riight... erm, there's a slight thing about this, where it, err, isn't real... err, not meant to be.. and erm, well is fiction....

For about the third time, science fiction with flawed science is nothing more than Toyland. You need to plug the holes. Such as why, when this nuclear fuel is so cheap and abundant, we're still running diesel trains, instead of nuclear-fuelled engines. Or why you can't transport the material at more than the 100mph that the locos and rolling stock will allow. Little excuses like "Regulations prohibit it" don't really figure.

I do like the idea of roads consisting of nothing more than landing lights to mark out a path for levitating vehicles, but you need to plug the holes. What powers those vehicles? They'd probably be using electro-magnetic fields to achieve the levitation - what is generating the power? The concept of resurrecting trollys in the late 21st century sounds a bit silly - "Yes, let's get that all-important pantograph fitted to the car ..."

The key difference between science fiction and patent nonsense (i.e. toyland) is that the fictional explanations are grounded in some way in plausible fact - things that the player can believe when told, as opposed to forcing them to believe things.

Example of a fictional but still plausible explanation: "Recent developments in nuclear science and materials technology have allowed the creation of a micro-reactor. Roughly the same size as an industrial washing machine, they can be used as backup generators in houses, or arranged in vast arrays for controllable output at fission power stations." That's not forced down your throat. People with any kind of background in physics would agree that there's nothing in there that stretches the truth too far, and your man on the street would not only be able to accept it, but expect that it turns up on an episode of Tomorrow's World (the programme that showcased the cashpoint some 5 years before they started to appear en masse) at some point.

Example of patent nonsense: "In 2042, J. Random Thermochemist discovers a miracle fuel that is cheap and easy to produce, yet extremely efficient. Within 5 years, everyone is using it as replacements for their oil-driven appliances. Suddenly, everyone's cars are converted from oil to this magical nuclear fluid." It's not believable in itself, and may prove hard to swallow, and generally leads to Toyland-style scenarios.

It's one thing to make it all up, but unless it's believable or plausible, you're basically spouting bullsh*t, and someone that plays for any length of time will notice it.

Some more plausible ideas: materials technology is such that you can use a variety of heavy plastics to create solid bodies for robots which are slightly weaker structurally, but very much lighter than steel or titanium. The net result is that the robots are so much cheaper to produce that they become standard household goods. The wealthy classes across the country have robots to deal with the most menial and repetitive unskilled tasks. Robots can be adapted to a number of different tasks, thanks to the use of field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), which are now programmed and flashed with relative ease - just insert a flash card and power up your robot. Resultant food chain: --plastics+steel-> robotics factory --goods->

TheDaian · Post by **TheDaian** » 30 Sep 2004 15:10

personally, i like the green smoke. it sorta gives it a 60s scifi look (fantasic four, spiderman... toxic avenger. any nuclear thing was green) i don't know of any other way to EASILY distingush between the nuclear power plants and the coal power plants. i suppose you could take the coal based plants and just add a huge "radioactive" sign on the cooling towers....

ok, so maybe an oil/uranium mixture wouldn't work out too well. perhaps the mod could be changed to include a "heavy water" plant, as opposed to using oil?

ChrisCF · Post by **ChrisCF** » 30 Sep 2004 15:16

A way to distinguish between the coal and nuclear plants would be to make the nuclear power plant look less like the coal plant by replacing the small buildings with smoke stacks with something else. Also, this is a nuclear power plant, so use the radiation sign, not the biohazard sign. As obvious as this might sound, the biohazard sign is for biohazards, and a nuclear power plant doesn't present one.

You can always make the cooling towers brighter, to reflect the theory that the white colour would reflect heat away, and therefore cool the reactors more efficiently.

As for the whole fuel thing, I still don't see what's wrong with ditching the nukefill idea in favour of uranium mine -[raw uranium]> uranium processing plant -[refined nuclear fuel (rods, pellets, whatever)]> power plant/spaceport -[spent fuel]> waste disposal site.

PurdueGuy · Post by **PurdueGuy** » 30 Sep 2004 16:16

Just to throw this info out there, in case it might inspire someone - partially nuclear powered rocket engine designs do exist. The designs I've seen basically are like a standard rocket, but use the nuclear reaction to superheat the fuel, getting a LOT more power out of the rocket. It is likely that if missions are ever done to anyplace further away than the moon, these types of rockets will have to be used.

The fuel for these rockets differs a fair amount from the fuel used in power plants. The rods in power plants are composed of about 5-10% uranium. The fuel for a rocket would be much more concentrated (like 90%) to save on weight and to keep the half-lives from making the fuel useless after a number of years of travel.

Also, the reactor I mentioned before is a pebble-bed reactor. The balls used in it are actually more tennis-ball sized, but contained within them are a lot of granual balls of fuel surrounded by a material that slows down the neutrons that cause fission. If the particles aren't slowed, they don't react as well, because they often just bounce off other atoms instead of being absorbed by them and causing fission. Anyway, to make this relevant - the fluid fuel could be the grainual uranium mixed in with a moderating fluid. This would require the processing facility (Nukeworks), and could be used to fuel the rockets at the spaceport.

norfolksouthern37 · Post by **norfolksouthern37** » 30 Sep 2004 19:24

to throw off the topic a bit.

Villem · Post by **Villem** » 30 Sep 2004 19:52

*picks the jaw from the floor*whoa that looks awesome, thats for mine and John_Volition's maglev?

Johns_Volition · Post by **Johns_Volition** » 30 Sep 2004 20:16

Awesome... I love this design very much. (makes you my personal hero)
Listen I did not intend to provocate such a serious debate about Nukefuel.
As I stated, I haven't even begun the graphic work on the Power Plant, the graphics are more or less a placeholders, so I beg you please stop arguing about the design of it! There won't be any green smoke or leftovers from the coal power plant. Ok? Are we friends again? Wonderful.
Anyway, I was discussing the matter of it a little with Patchman and co, and we might have found a solution, but more to this when I finished this industrie chain.
More news: Next week I'll begin work on rendering and photoshoping the Meglev track I started with Akalamanaia.

Edit: Here an Image for the Colonists Academy

PurdueGuy · Post by **PurdueGuy** » 30 Sep 2004 23:08

Johns_Volition wrote:Are we friends again? Wonderful.

Sure, I didn't mean for it to get this bad anyway. I probably shouldn't post late at night - harder to judge how people will take what I say.

So, um, yeah. Looks good. Keep it up.

Also, nice looking loco, norfolksouthern37. That diesel? (a guess based on the vents on top) Or is that cooling fans for another propultion type?

DarkMatter · Post by **DarkMatter** » 01 Oct 2004 00:49

I *hope* they're not still using diesel in 2026...

PurdueGuy · Post by **PurdueGuy** » 01 Oct 2004 02:53

The Colonists Academy looks cool. Where does it fit into an industry chain?

Singaporekid · Post by **Singaporekid** » 01 Oct 2004 05:17

A steam maglev would also look good

What does the Colonists Academy do?

jules · Post by **jules** » 01 Oct 2004 06:08

train people how to colonise the moon i'd guess

Rens2Sea · Post by **Rens2Sea** » 01 Oct 2004 09:38

passengers -> academy -> colonists -> space-port

norfolksouthern37 · Post by **norfolksouthern37** » 01 Oct 2004 10:18

PurdueGuy wrote:
Johns_Volition wrote:Are we friends again? Wonderful.
Sure, I didn't mean for it to get this bad anyway. I probably shouldn't post late at night - harder to judge how people will take what I say.

So, um, yeah. Looks good. Keep it up.

Also, nice looking loco, norfolksouthern37. That diesel? (a guess based on the vents on top) Or is that cooling fans for another propultion type?

even the fans on top of modern diesels are nothing more than radiator fans. i didnt specify a propulsion type, but the rest is pretty clear. no matter what it runs on, the fans are only there to keep the internals cool (and to keep a nice lineage with current EMD models).

Singaporekid: how on earth does a steam powered maglev seem reasonable??? thats going down in my 'most rediculous things ive ever heard of' list.

Singaporekid · Post by **Singaporekid** » 01 Oct 2004 10:42

I was kidding about it, notice the smilely at the end of it
And besides, locomotion isn't supposed to be 100% reallistic
It's ridiculous, but i could make it just for fun

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