Welcome! These forums will be deactivated by the end of this year. The conversation continues in a new morph over on Discord! Please join us there for a more active conversation and the occasional opportunity to ask developers questions directly! Go to the PS+ Discord Server.

How large are your habitats?

6 posts / 0 new
Last post
Prophet710 Prophet710's picture
How large are your habitats?
Basically I'm looking at how big we all consider our habitats. I'm keeping them extremely small and without much in terms of amenities (I run a very gritty campaign[I'm talking no sunlight, biomods need to be serviced regularly, problems with atrophied muscles]). I am also looking for the likelyhood of certain types of transit in the many kinds of habitats and settlements, mainly air and ground vehicles as opposed to just walking/space walking to the destination. Obviously there is more of a call for such transit for planetside settlements but for smaller spaceborn habitats, even O'neill and Hamilton cylinders, I don't see any kind of transit needed. thoughts.
"And yet, across the gulf of space, minds immeasurably superior to ours regarded this Earth with envious eyes. And slowly, and surely, they drew their plans against us."
Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture
Re: How large are your habitats?
I see the size range between ISS-size to tens of kilometres. Most are of course small, probably with some power law distribution running all the way up to Progress and Extropia. Rotating habitats have to be at least 100m across to avoid too strong Coriolis forces. Ground transit is needed if 1) distances become larger than a few hundred meters, or 2) you need to move cargo, especially in a (pseudo)gravity field. The later is likely true almost everywhere, but can be done using hidden subsurface transport on big habitats or special elevators/heavy lifer bots in smaller ones.
Extropian
Quincey Forder Quincey Forder's picture
Re: How large are your habitats?
it depends on the type of habitat, really. Generally I base mine on the habitat shown in Gundam series and Clarke's Rendez-vous With Rama, for O'Neill ones. That mean about 10 to 20 miles. Big enough to contain a medium city and the subburbs with some greens and crops. Look at the Helios habitat in Gundam Seed's beginning. Or Anaheim Station an Pau Station in Gundam Unicorn. or the big station in the videogame Vanquish for inspiriration
[center] Q U I N C E Y ^_*_^ F O R D E R [/center] Remember The Cant! [img]http://tinyurl.com/h8azy78[/img] [img]http://i249.photobucket.com/albums/gg205/tachistarfire/theeye_fanzine_us...
root root's picture
Re: How large are your habitats?
root@hab size [hr] I vary mine based on how close to the Singularity the habitat was built. Habitats from well before hand look like something you can google in relation to current thoughts on habitats: cramped and small, as everything had to come up the gravity well. Habitats from after can be of any size, but for all practical limits is restricted to a few kilometers in size, and generally is only long in one dimension. Habitats built as the Singularity was taking off can be everything from a Geiger-inspired Dark City the size of a metropolis to virtual reality pods just large enough to hold a decapitated head floating. Those habs tend to start with me wearing a black tophat and giving a great Mwhahaha, and players for some reason keep running apps that search for traps.
[ @-rep +1 | c-rep +1 | g-rep +1 | r-rep +1 ]
Cray Cray's picture
Re: How large are your habitats?
Note that rotating habitats trying to simulate 1G will want to be at least 200m diameter so they can have a 3rpm (or slower) rotational period. Coriolis effects are quite noticeable to human ears at spin rates faster than 1rpm (achieved at 1800m for 1G) unless heads are kept still, but 1-3rpm the effects are minor enough that people can adapt to sensations. Above 3rpm, few people adapt rapidly, if at all.
Mike Miller
Re-Laborat Re-Laborat's picture
Re: How large are your habitats?
Habitat for who or what is another question to consider. I recall reading the suggestion that a mostly-infomorph habitat might consist of a few significant servers burrowed into a convenient hunk of rock with solar and fusion power systems and some arachnid synths to handle repairs...And might have a population of thousands or tens of thousands. A habitat for synths doesn't need an atmosphere at all, nor facilities for eating, bathing, sleeping, exercise...Nothing but the necessities for power generation, communications and entertainment. Then you've got your mined-out asteroid habitat. Might actually be quite a bit of living space but when it's almost entirely tunnels the width of the bore/processor synth that did the digging, it will seem like quite close quarters to a person used to Mars or Luna, and transportation to get anywhere will not only be 'on foot', but will likely be crowded and constantly feeling the intrusion of walking through other peoples' living space. So what I'm trying to say is, habitat size and mobility is going to change a great deal dependent on how crowded it is and how large the population is and even what kind of a population it is. I don't see much call for air vehicles in most habitats. They would represent too much of a risk in a spinning O'Neill cylinder. If you want to strap on wings and risk your neck, that's one thing, but anything with any real mass fluttering around near the axis and losing power/control could make a mess out of someone's structure on the rim. Bearing in mind that power is not much of a limiter in a post-scarcity environment, you're welcome to have monorails/elevators/slidewalks what have you for 'mid-sized' habs. Small ones will surely be 'walk where you need to go', but I imagine that few will really be so large as to require transportation except for shifting heavy cargoes around. I can't think of Scum clumps/flotillas without my mind drifting back to Alfie Bester's delightful opening set for his anti-hero Gulliver Foyle, who is certainly an early transhuman Scum who by the end of the book has gone large and in charge: "He lived in the only airtight room left intact in the wreck, a tool locker off the main-deck corridor. The locker was four feet wide, four feet deep, and nine feet high. It was the size of a giant's coffin. Six hundred years before, it had been judged the most exquisite Oriental torture to imprison a man in a cage that size for a few weeks. Yet Foyle had existed in this lightless coffin for five months, twenty days, and four hours." - The Stars My Destination If you've never read Bester's work, I highly commend it. He's one of the sources from which an amazing number of modern concepts spring. You could drop Foyle, character and mentality-wise, right into EP without having to do much besides dust him off.