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Activity for Arvex‭

Type On... Excerpt Status Date
Question If it could be shaped, would chitin from giant insects make decent body armor?
I found a previous question on using chitin from giant insects to make weapons and armor, but the answer left out something I had considered for the medieval fantasy setting I'm developing. The answer suggested that the chitin pieces would not likely fit the shape of a humanoid race and would need to...
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over 4 years ago
Question What would be the most practical way to use a dragon's scales as armor?
I'm working on a roleplaying game in a medieval fantasy setting with a focus on crafting and I am having trouble visualizing how armor made from scales of creatures would be assembled; both for art and material list purposes. I wasn't able to find any good examples as animal scale isn't generally use...
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about 5 years ago
Question Energy costs of giving Mars and Venus moons: moving gas giant moons vs. capturing a rogue planet?
As many here likely know, one of the factors that make both Mars and Venus uninhabitable to humans are their lack of a magnetosphere to keep solar winds out. In the setting I am working on, I wanted Mars and Venus to be terraformed. Among the steps taken in the terraforming process; they would each ...
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almost 7 years ago
Question Would combining thermoelectric cells and electronic warfare reduce chances of a ship being detected?
In the science fiction setting I'm working on, I had a thought on how to reduce the detection ranges in space. On a previous question, I suggested the idea of capital ships and other support ships producing a cloud of electromagnetic interference that would make it near impossible to isolate individu...
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almost 7 years ago
Question What conditions could create a planet that has higher amounts of antimatter in its radiation belt?
In the science fiction setting I'm working on, one of the factions are supposed to be using naturally occurring antimatter because the systems they reside in have sufficient natural sources of it. I've explored the idea of chasing positrons in gas giant storms, but found that antiprotons can be foun...
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almost 7 years ago
Question Building a drone for gas giant flight: Lightning considerations
A previous question's answer established that naturally occurring positrons could be gathered through positron-emitting isotopes. I've started looking into means that these isotopes could be gathered and utilized. The original approach involved mining for potassium-40, but its million year half life...
(more)
almost 7 years ago
Question Manipulating decaying positron-emitting isotopes for positron "mining"
In a previous question, it was established that antimatter could be "mined" through positron-emitting isotopes. By gathering positrons from decaying positron-emitting isotopes (potassium-40 and aluminum-26, for example) that could be found around young stars, you would have antimatter that was far l...
(more)
almost 7 years ago
Question Energy gain/loss of using synthesized antimatter as a fuel?
Setting aside concerns of containment for now; how much energy would it take to create antimatter? And how much of it would we get back using it as a fuel in a matter-antimatter reactor? What I'm worried about is that the amount of energy you put into making antimatter is less than the amount of ene...
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almost 7 years ago
Question Using magnetic fields to prevent a weaponized warp drive?
I've been thinking of ways that an FTL-capable galaxy would prevent weaponized FTL missiles. Ignoring causality violations and paradoxes, I'm looking for a way to keep something based on an Alcubierre drive from being launched at a planet or other ship. I didn't want to simply say "computers don't ...
(more)
about 7 years ago
Question What are the risks with massive banks of batteries/capacitors?
In redesigning a large number of my ships, I've decided that having larger ships generate enough power for FTL was too convenient and made balancing the factions varied FTL methods difficult (both for writing and game development.) To work around this, I'm moving the ships towards having large banks ...
(more)
about 7 years ago
Question Conditions for ideal/quick terraforming candidates that cannot currently support life
I'm looking to have a few worlds that were relatively easy to terraform as a first wave of colonies. The first colonies in this setting were meant to be on worlds that were relatively easy to terraform with only one planet already able to sustain life. These easily terraformed planets were meant to ...
(more)
about 7 years ago
Question Capital space ships: Several large fusion reactors vs many smaller ones
A group of ships I've made are supposed to be modular in design with each modular hull segment being self sustainable both in terms of power needs and crew upkeep (oxygen, food, water, etc.) I've been split between having the ships house massive reactors, with one or two (for redundancy) in each seg...
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about 7 years ago
Question What happens to asteroids when heated into a plasma?
I'm looking to build a scientifically plausible mining laser for my science fiction setting. The first approach that came to mind was a high-power laser that heats the surface asteroid until it becomes a plasma then pulls in the ionized material in with an electromagnetic tractor beam. I'm already i...
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over 7 years ago
Question Disabling a spaceship while leaving it repairable?
I'm looking for a weapon a ship can carry that can disable a ship without any permanent damage to its subsystems or significant hull breaches. This will mostly be used by pirate factions (capturing a ship to hijack and/or loot) and law enforcement (retrieving stolen ships and capturing fugitives aliv...
(more)
over 7 years ago
Question Method for determining manpower needed to crew a starship based on size
In the setting I'm building up, there are starships ranging from several meters in length to 1.6 kilometers. I'm trying to devise a means to determine what sort of manpower each ship would likely need. My current method is looking at naval vessels of similar roles to their fictional counterparts (an...
(more)
over 7 years ago
Question Food sources for engineered spaceborne life forms
Years ago, I was tinkering around with the idea of an engineered life form which could survive the vacuum of space and be made into a starship. I have since given up on the idea, but curiosity is still there in case I find another use for the concept. Setting aside the question of IF life can natura...
(more)
over 7 years ago
Question What would a realistic plasma shield look like?
A follow-up to my previous question-barrage: Properties of magnetically confined plasma shielding After some of the feedback, I'm splitting it into several smaller questions. In the world I'm building up for a game, one of the factions have magnetically confined plasma shielding technology. I'm c...
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over 7 years ago
Question Moving asteroids into a planet's orbit to increase rotation to produce a magnetic field
I was doing research on the terraforming of planets with a solid iron core and no magnetic field and saw a few suggested ideas for starting a magnetic field on Mars that got me thinking. Most of what I read suggested that if you could get a planet to rotate faster, the core temperature would increas...
(more)
almost 8 years ago