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Mods / Re: [0.95a] Terraforming and Station Construction (v7.1.0)
« on: May 10, 2021, 12:04:21 PM »Improving planetary defense, perhaps? Think about it, if the reflector array is basically a big space mirror, what happens if you focus all that light onto a much smaller point as opposed to a diffuse scattering over a large portion of the planet?
Handwave concerns with some stuff about needing the massive processing power of an AI core to do it in a way that won't damage the reflector or cause collateral damage to structures and defenders on the ground, if it needs handwaving.
Likewise for Ismara's Sling - having to navigate around/avoid incoming projectiles on approach would make invasions harder. That, or perhaps it could increase the resource output of any Mining/Void Extraction Industries in the same system if that's plausible.
The "sun gun" concept is interesting and has a real life basis. I'll probably implement that in a future patch.
I think it would work from a coding standpoint to have the sling boost production in-system, but I'm not sure how that would make sense from a lore/realism standpoint.
I'm not exactly sure how to justify using an AI core to unlock that particular perk, but it doesn't seem that strange to me that you could fling a few different asteroids to different destinations now and then.
It says that Slingshot "was designed by copying ... remaining mass drivers ... built ... before Collapse". I think this can be stretched into "we made a perfect copy because we don't exactly know why it was designed as it was designed and as a consequence we only know how to operate it in one specific mode (i.e. terraforming by slinging ice asteroids)".
Added AI Core can reverse engineer the design and learn how to operate it in other mode, i.e. to sling other types of things into other types of targets.
Lore-wise Beta (or even Gamma) AI is sufficient enough to allow to sling different types of asteroids (ice and ore asteroids are similar enough so you just have to make minor adjustments to operating parameters of a Sling to sling ore instead of ice)
While Alpha, with its unique creativity aspect, can also allow to sling asteroids (or something else) to different types of targets (so not originally intended operating mode of a Sling, hence creativity aspect). Like for example slinging dense packets of metal slugs into incoming ships.
Conclusion:
* No cores: ice asteroids payload to desert planets => terraforming
* Beta core: also ore asteroids payload to any planet => terraforming + mining (on Sling market) / refining effectiveness (whole system)
* Alpha core: also metal slugs to any target => all of the above + defence boost if flat heavy machinery and metals demand is met.
