Elite roleplay: Q&A and OOC
17 Sep 2020, 9:15am
Clouds of Colour | ED-RP
https://discord.com/invite/kRn8k8m
20 Sep 2020, 7:07pm
JjanZThere is one that I know of:
Clouds of Colour | ED-RP
https://discord.com/invite/kRn8k8m
bookmarks for later
23 Sep 2020, 1:39pm
Last edit: 23 Sep 2020, 1:54pm
23 Sep 2020, 3:54pm
~now, why is my 3rd man a female, wearing glasses
25 Sep 2020, 6:44am
25 Sep 2020, 7:39am
SakashiroMakes me wonder how drinks get served in a galactic bar at 0.1 G.
I would imagine in low but not insignificant gravity you could have almost spherical glasses with a smaller opening; this would mean that any sideways motion of the fluid would direct it along the glass and allow sufficient time to make it turn "downward" instead of out of the glass. I think that's the most "classy" option.
25 Sep 2020, 7:39am
If you want to know what moving about in that sort of gravity is like for us that live on earth, there are plenty of reports from astronauts that visited the moon telling us how awkward it was. They weighed about one-third of what they did on earth wearing a 300-pound suit with most the weight being in the pack. (also 1 third weight on the moon) The videos of moonwalkers failing all over the place was down to them not being used to the difference between weighing less, yet still dealing with the same mass.
Stations with large rings have close enough to earth normal gravity. Just remember, the closer ya get to the center of the station's rotation, the less centrifugal force is applied.
I read some clever bods work on calculating the size and speed of station rotation in Elite and they posted a good diagram of the gravity equivalence for each station type, like a target board laid over the stations. I hunted for the link, but I found it on one of those evenings when ya just clicking link after link reading stuff.
25 Sep 2020, 9:33am
Since our atmosphere on Earth consists mainly of 80% nitrogen & 20% oxygen @ ~15 PSI, & that a force field in the 'mailslot' retains the station atmosphere, I think it conceivable that the air pressure might be reduced to 3 PSI if it's changed to 100% oxygen.
That would reduce the pressure & force needed to retain it, & eliminating all of the useless nitrogen, leaving the remaining oxygen & reducing the pressure by 80% would still allow enough pressure to allow that essential respiration function in roughly equivalent amounts...
Would this be plausible (I think currently our astronauts do something like this to reduce the strain on their EV suits which also increases their flexibility) & if so, how might this affect the carbonation of beverages, cooking of foods, & smoking of various substances, for instance?
Just tossing the question out there for your contemplation.
25 Sep 2020, 9:44am
Personally, I chose to gloss over most of that as I imagine people in the Elite universe would set the air pressure they prefer on their own ship and not worry about the new boiling temperature for water when they made a cup of tea. A % of Earth Normal is gonna be used all over the galaxy by its humans I think.
There's only so much *real* a game/story needs to make a good experience/read.
Last edit: 25 Sep 2020, 10:03am
25 Sep 2020, 10:36am
I can hardly imagine all the issues that space travelers have to deal with, e.g. using zero-G toilets...
25 Sep 2020, 10:40am
The secondary effect of ~3 psi is that water boils at around 70 degrees instead, so your coffee/tee wont be nearly as hot. Evaporation is based on partial pressure, so carbonation would be lost a lot quicker, and pure alcohol would boil at about 34 C. Its too long since I worked with vapour pressure so I don't remember how to calculate the equilibrium concentration of water-ethanol at that pressure. Likely you would struggle with strong alcohol at that pressure, considering how close the boiling point is to room temperature. You also get other effects such as reduced heat transfer from convection, as there's less gas molecules to absorb and transfer the heat, so using conventional radiators for heat loss would be less efficient. A positive effect of a lower pressure would be less air resistance, and less total glass weight needed (though still same oxygen weight).
With those practical things considered, I think while it may be plausible, I don't think it's likely that the station (as a whole) keep that low pressure. Also note that in a rotating habitat that's comparably small size, you might be likely to see a separation of gases so that low density gas escape to the central zero-gee zone. It could be reasonably that the central landing area contained a low pressure with pure oxygen, which was sealed from the actual living areas. I could see benefits to that, and everyday life wouldn't be limited by the lower pressure. As your station presumably have airlocks in case of failures anyway, having certain areas with lower pressures would be feasible.
Conclusion: probable for the landing areas, improbable below the surface.