I don't know how well this will go over, but this is how I weapons should work. There's also a couple questions. I'd appreciate any criticism, added opinions, etc. That's why I made the topic—for people to comment on it. Note that I am not saying this is a great approach—just the most realistic.

I'm kind of sick of all this plasma and laser and stuff. They're ridiculous. Plasma is the fourth state of matter, found in stars, lightning, and neon signs, among other things. We don't understand it. Lasers are beams of light. They do not kill people. They can burn, but not kill, unless they are really powerful. I think someone should actually do something with this, instead of reusing the pathetic old "this is a laser cannon, blah blah blah, blah blah blah...". I personally think plasma cannons should be screwed altogether. Blasts of light are unrealistic. It makes more sense to have a laser that's a beam, and scorches a hull rather than just doing damage to shields. In fact, I think shields are unrealistic. We'd more likely have just heavily plated armor. Also, I don't know how much we know about antimatter, but I'm quite sure it's very little, if we know about it at all. It may not even exist. Guided missiles are stupid. We can't target a missile to a specific target. The best we have is heat-seeking, and heat-seeking missiles probably can't exist in space. Any mechanical waves you can think of, save sound for effect, should be completely removed. I forget...is heat an electromagnetic or a mechanical wave?

In summary, I think the most realistic approach, while not the most interesting, would be to have only physical weapons, i.e. rockets and guns, and laser beams that scorch armor, and to have no shields, only armor. Sensors are bad, too (not the one in the sidebar interface, as that can be justified as a quick-and-easy reference of what's around you), but that's a rant all on its own.

I once found an explanation of how explosions should look, but don't remember and can't think of what to search for. Can anyone explain how an explosion would really be?

I hope you found this rant interesting, if nothing else.

This is related to plug-in development, right?

------------------
The programmer's code of entomology: there's always another bug.
Windows users: stop asking for plugins. (url="http://"http://www.aznt.com/EVN/EVNEW/")Make one yourself.(/url)
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We understand plasma quite fine. In fact, an understanding of the fundamental properties of plasma is crucial to the successful development of an economical tokamak-design nuclear fusion reactor. Plasma is just matter in which the electrons have been seperated from the atoms- for that to be accomplished, the matter must usually be superheated or otherwise 'excited'. That is why it is so common as a weapon; superheated plasma drawn out of a ship's fusion reactors could conceivably serve as a weapon, burning through hull plating.

Why the hell would anyone put a laser pointer on a ship as a weapon? No, any type of laser that serves as a weapon would need to be a high-output device. Why does a laser have to kill a person? As long as the laser destroys the ship, the person(s) inside will probably be killed. In fact, lasers were a key component of the proposed SDI (Star Wars) that people were talking about during the Cold War- they would have been used to heat and rupture the fuel tanks of ICBMs coming up through the atmosphere. The United States Air Force is developing a modified 747 that will have a laser mounted within it and fired through the nose cone, as part of a new missile-defense system.

And while we're at it, why does anything need to be realistic? If someone in the year 1850 wanted to write an account of a fictional World War which would occur about 100 or so years later, would he have thought of writing about airplanes? Tanks? New bombs capable of destroying entire cities? Probably not. Your big mistake is assuming that there will be no technological development in the future- almost all science-fiction 'science' is, in the most basic terms, bull****.

And the explosions thing you're talking about was written by Martin Turner; he explained that the orange explosions we see are caused by rapid oxidation (explosion, burning in air), and that realistic explosions would involve an EMP blast or something and lots of particles being thrown off the hull at high velocity.

------------------
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(This message has been edited by UE_Research & Development (edited 12-26-2003).)

(This message has been edited by UE_Research & Development (edited 12-26-2003).)

Quote

Originally posted by orcaloverbri9:

I'm kind of sick of all this plasma and laser and stuff. They're ridiculous. Plasma is the fourth state of matter, found in stars, lightning, and neon signs, among other things. We don't understand it.

Exactly, Humans don't. But Whose to say that any other Alien species hasn't developed the technology needed. Human's are not the be-all and end-all. Maybe the Universe is infinately different to our understanding™.

I do sort-of get what your saying though, how can some-one write about plasma weapons when none of us know how they'd work. Make it up. In the end, it's just a game.

About explosions, they woulden't appear red and orange, It's something to do with no oxygen in space, and it's oxygen fueled explosions that are red-and orange. I think.

------------------
"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." - Mark Twain.

(This message has been edited by TheRedeemer (edited 12-26-2003).)

Quote

Originally posted by UE_Research & Development:
**We understand plasma quite fine. In fact, an understanding of the fundamental properties of plasma is crucial to the successful development of an economical tokamak-design nuclear fusion reactor. Plasma is just matter in which the electrons have been seperated from the atoms- for that to be accomplished, the matter must usually be superheated or otherwise 'excited'. That is why it is so common as a weapon; superheated plasma drawn out of a ship's fusion reactors could conceivably serve as a weapon, burning through hull plating.

Why the hell would anyone put a laser pointer on a ship as a weapon? No, any type of laser that serves as a weapon would need to be a high-output device. Why does a laser have to kill a person? As long as the laser destroys the ship, the person(s) inside will probably be killed. In fact, lasers were a key component of the proposed SDI (Star Wars) that people were talking about during the Cold War- they would have been used to heat and rupture the fuel tanks of ICBMs coming up through the atmosphere. The United States Air Force is developing a modified 747 that will have a laser mounted within it and fired through the nose cone, as part of a new missile-defense system.

And while we're at it, why does anything need to be realistic? If someone in the year 1850 wanted to write an account of a fictional World War which would occur about 100 or so years later, would he have thought of writing about airplanes? Tanks? New bombs capable of destroying entire cities? Probably not. Your big mistake is assuming that there will be no technological development in the future- almost all science-fiction 'science' is, in the most basic terms, bull****.

And the explosions thing you're talking about was written by Martin Turner; he explained that the orange explosions we see are caused by rapid oxidation (explosion, burning in air), and that realistic explosions would involve an EMP blast or something and lots of particles being thrown off the hull at high velocity.**

I said multiple times that it was not the most interesting—just the most realistic (to me). I am not assuming that there will be no technological development, I am simply not assuming what will happen in the future. I never mentioned Science Fiction—that's why it's fiction. I was focusing on realism to the best degree I can.

We understand plasma? My understanding was that it existed and nothing else. And the laser-pointer makes more sense—why would you have little blasts of light, rather than a steady stream? I was referring to an extremely powerful laser, by the way. When I said "can kill a person", I was talking about sidearms. It was a little unrelated, but the point still stands.

Anyhow, I said lasers were fine—I just think the way we think of them is unrealistic. A high-powered laser would be an excellent weapon. But I doubt it would be common, like it tends to be in SF, and would probably be expensive.

Thanks for the comments!

------------------
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Sorry for the double-post, but...

Quote

Originally posted by TheRedeemer:
**Exactly, Humans don't. But Whose to say that any other Alien species hasn't developed the technology needed. Human's are not the be-all and end-all. Maybe the Universe is infinately different to our understanding™.

I do sort-of get what your saying though, how can some-one write about plasma weapons when none of us know how they'd work. Make it up. In the end, it's just a game.

About explosions, they woulden't appear red and orange, It's something to do with no oxygen in space, and it's oxygen fueled explosions that are red-and orange. I think.**

I don't want to get into aliens. That's another rant all on its own™. Hehe.

Like I said, not the most interesting, just the most realistic.

Yes, that's why they wouldn't work.

<common knowledge>
Explosions require three things: Fuel (something to burn), oxygen, and heat. There is no oxygen and space, and thus explosions cannot occur.
</common knowledge>

A better way would be to have the ship erupt into a bunch of fragments, with crew pouring out. This has been done multiple times, except that there is still an explosion, and no crew is coming out.

------------------
The programmer's code of entomology: there's always another bug.
Windows users: stop asking for plugins. (url="http://"http://www.aznt.com/EVN/EVNEW/")Make one yourself.(/url)
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Quote

Originally posted by orcaloverbri9:
**Sorry for the double-post, but...

I don't want to get into aliens. That's another rant all on its own™. Hehe.

A better way would be to have the ship erupt into a bunch of fragments, with crew pouring out. This has been done multiple times, except that there is still an explosion, and no crew is coming out.

**

Go on, start a rant about aliens, now that would be fun. By the way, I like this type of topic, not exactly plug-in development, but none-the-less useful, interesting and a good way to get people to share thoughts and Ideas. We need more of these topics.

The main problem with explosions with people coming out is probably scale. Think it Nova, and many plug-in's and TC's, not all the ships are to scale, so you'd have to explain the different sized people, or why a person is the size of the bridge on a leviathan etc. To much hassle really, And I doubt that many people would notice.

The fragments Idea I like, I think the Polycon explosions far out-classed the Nova ones, though there was still the whole Oxygen fire thing going on. I have seen some nuclear/emp type blue particle explosions as UE R&D; mentioned, and I think they are the way forward really. This is because most ships in the EV Universe's probably are eventually destroyed from some kind of reactor explosion, and it looks a lot cooler and more futuristic than a few orange blobs.

Just think of your favourite sci-fi movies, and about all the bright, flashy, shockwave ring type explosion, and how good they look.

------------------
"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." - Mark Twain.

Quote

Originally posted by orcaloverbri9:
Plasma is the fourth state of matter, found in stars, lightning, and neon signs, among other things. We don't understand it.

The guy aboe me explained enough, basically we DO understand it quite well, and it WOULD make an effective weapon.

Quote

Lasers are beams of light. They do not kill people. They can burn, but not kill, unless they are really powerful. I think someone should actually do something with this, instead of reusing the pathetic old "this is a laser cannon, blah blah blah, blah blah blah...". I personally think plasma cannons should be screwed altogether. Blasts of light are unrealistic. It makes more sense to have a laser that's a beam, and scorches a hull rather than just doing damage to shields.

You can pretty powerful lasers that can burn through metal. And a laser moves at the speed of light, so "bolts" of laser are a bit "unrealistic" as they wouldnt be around very long. You're right that a connected, focused beam would be the best form of the weapon. We already use lasers now to burn things: laser surgery for example, thats a pretty weak laser and that can cut through skin in picoseconds (not quite pico: im overexagerating)

Quote

In fact, I think shields are unrealistic. We'd more likely have just heavily plated armor.

I too think this, in my tc there is no shield i did a bit of research on this to help me name and charaterise the shields, but all the data i found was sci-fi nonesense. A good page to read is : http://www.stardestr...pire/index.html

Quote

Also, I don't know how much we know about antimatter, but I'm quite sure it's very little, if we know about it at all. It may not even exist.

We know a lot about Anti-Matter, we've even produced it! I'm SURE we've made Positron (AM form of an electron) in labs, and i heard something about making an anti-hydrogen atom from a few anti-electrons and protons etc. Not sure if they actually made that though

Quote

Guided missiles are stupid. We can't target a missile to a specific target. The best we have is heat-seeking, and heat-seeking missiles probably can't exist in space. Any mechanical waves you can think of, save sound for effect, should be completely removed. I forget...is heat an electromagnetic or a mechanical wave?

I disagree on the fact we can;t track indiidual targets, of course we can. I also agree with you on this though: Heat tracking is useless in space, heat dosn't disapte much in space, so the heat wouldnt be able to get to the sensors on the missiles im assuming. Howeer EM based tracking, like IR or RADAR WILL work! After all EM moes pretty damn sharpish in a vacuum. Today missiles have onboard computers that lock onto thier targets and persue them following thier IR or RADAR signatures; so why not in a few years time?

Quote

In summary, I think the most realistic approach, while not the most interesting, would be to have only physical weapons, i.e. rockets and guns, and laser beams that scorch armor, and to have no shields, only armor. Sensors are bad, too (not the one in the sidebar interface, as that can be justified as a quick-and-easy reference of what's around you), but that's a rant all on its own.

This is how my mod is going to work, i've pretty much ruled out all "nonsense" science except for hyper drives, any technology i couldn't find a reasonable basis for i excluded

Quote

I once found an explanation of how explosions should look, but don't remember and can't think of what to search for. Can anyone explain how an explosion would really be?

I once asked a friend for a description of flames/explosion in space (not that hes an expert at all , but he knows bits and bobs). Basically you need fuel to burn, right? So the only thing that would burn would be the oxygen/whatever other chemicals are supporting the life piloting the ship, and any heated metals that reached a high enough temperature. So different chemicals may give different coloured explosions, im no expert so i dont know :D. The explosions themselves would be almost spherical.

Speaking of that.... why do explosions in things like Star Trek only have a 2d Shock wave? surley the shock wae would expand spherical-like?

Quote

I hope you found this rant interesting, if nothing else.

I did indeed Hopefully you, me and other people gained some info from this.

------------------

Okay
I have a few comments:
Guided missiles definately are very realistic. By the time we are in space, miniaturization of electronics will have advanced to the point that you could make a very sophisticated guidance system and have it easilly fit into a missile. A missile could use the infra-red singature of the target, or any number of other methods, some of which we couldnt imagine today for guidance.
What the heck is wrong with sensors?
Heat-seeking missiles today use infared radiation, which is light. Objects emit IR, and hot objects emit more IR radiation of shorter wavelengths until the temperature is such that the emited radiation enters the range of visible light and glows (when the object is "red hot").
Heat seeking would work in space, but so would any number of other guidance methods.

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Quote

Originally posted by TheRedeemer:
**Go on, start a rant about aliens, now that would be fun. By the way, I like this type of topic, not exactly plug-in development, but none-the-less useful, interesting and a good way to get people to share thoughts and Ideas. We need more of these topics.

The main problem with explosions with people coming out is probably scale. Think it Nova, and many plug-in's and TC's, not all the ships are to scale, so you'd have to explain the different sized people, or why a person is the size of the bridge on a leviathan etc. To much hassle really, And I doubt that many people would notice.

The fragments Idea I like, I think the Polycon explosions far out-classed the Nova ones, though there was still the whole Oxygen fire thing going on. I have seen some nuclear/emp type blue particle explosions as UE R&D; mentioned, and I think they are the way forward really. This is because most ships in the EV Universe's probably are eventually destroyed from some kind of reactor explosion, and it looks a lot cooler and more futuristic than a few orange blobs.

Just think of your favourite sci-fi movies, and about all the bright, flashy, shockwave ring type explosion, and how good they look.**

Funny you should mention Polycon's explosions—that's exactly what I was thinking of when I posted the comment on "no crew, plus the explosion". The only problem with fragments would be that you'd need a bunch of different types of explosions. Not that that's a bad thing.

Perhaps we could do an EMP "ring", plus fragments flying away. That would be awesome, and more realistic.

Yay! My topic got a compliment!

Rant about aliens:

What the hell is up with what we think of aliens? Whenever we think of aliens, we think of them being incredibly advanced, and/or having special powers, and/or having non-humanlike things like organic spaceships. It's stupid. I don't think that there are no advanced species other than us out there; in fact, I totally and completely support the idea that there are other species out there, even intelligent species. But they would almost certainly be far away, and are not necessarily five trillion times as technologically advanced as us. In fact, they may very well be not as advanced, or even about as advanced as us. It disgusts me when I think of all these games and stuff where the aliens are fifty billion times as smart as us and can kick our asses in two seconds flat. And it's even stupider to think that they have telepathic powers and other s*** like that. Maybe one species, far-away, but very advanced, and not twelve quadrillion times as intelligent as us. Maybe half a century ahead. Then maybe one not as smart as us, as or more far from us than the really advanced species. Then maybe one that's about as smart as us, as or more far than the other two. Maybe duplicates of these. But not a dozen alien species that know eighty million times as much as us.

I know, I used a bunch of different exaggerations.

------------------
The programmer's code of entomology: there's always another bug.
Windows users: stop asking for plugins. (url="http://"http://www.aznt.com/EVN/EVNEW/")Make one yourself.(/url)
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whilst typing that two people mentioned two things i did : fuel for burning and shockwaves

wierd huh? :E

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Quote

Originally posted by orcaloverbri9:
**

What the hell is up with what we think of aliens? Whenever we think of aliens, we think of them being incredibly advanced, and/or having special powers, and/or having non-humanlike things like organic spaceships. It's stupid. I don't think that there are no advanced species other than us out there; in fact, I totally and completely support the idea that there are other species out there, even intelligent species. But they would almost certainly be far away, and are not necessarily five trillion times as technologically advanced as us. In fact, they may very well be not as advanced, or even about as advanced as us. It disgusts me when I think of all these games and stuff where the aliens are fifty billion times as smart as us and can kick our asses in two seconds flat. And it's even stupider to think that they have telepathic powers and other s*** like that. Maybe one species, far-away, but very advanced, and not twelve quadrillion times as intelligent as us. Maybe half a century ahead. Then maybe one not as smart as us, as or more far from us than the really advanced species. Then maybe one that's about as smart as us, as or more far than the other two. Maybe duplicates of these. But not a dozen alien species that know eighty million times as much as us.

I know, I used a bunch of different exaggerations.

**

don't tar every author with the same brush

and im going to pre-empt this question
heres something form my "RESOURCES>SPACE" bookmark section (url="http://"http://www.sff.net/people/Geoffrey.Landis/vacuum.html")http://www.sff.net/p...dis/vacuum.html(/url)
the effects of vacuum on a human (i think this may come up the way you lot are talking about crew falling out of destroyed ships :))
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(This message has been edited by Pod (edited 12-26-2003).)

Oh, God. Too many replies to keep track of. Here I go.

Ignore my comments about sensors and guided missiles. I didn't think much about those. All of you have good points. My experiment has turned out to be very productive!

I agree, Redeemer—we need more topics like this, where we discuss what's a good idea and what's just stupid.

Thanks for the replies, guys! Keep 'em coming!

------------------
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Windows users: stop asking for plugins. (url="http://"http://www.aznt.com/EVN/EVNEW/")Make one yourself.(/url)
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(This message has been edited by orcaloverbri9 (edited 12-26-2003).)

Interesting Rant topic.

Weapons: If someone can figure a way to kill others with any kind of device no matter how technically advanced they will make a weapon from such a method. In a hundred or maybe a thousand years into our future any weapon that exists would seem like pure magic to those of us living today. Basing some weapons in a game today that are based on what we think we know about science may not be that far fetch and may miss the mark totally. Who knows. If it makes for a good game today or even good fiction that helps us relax and have fun then all I say is; why not. We can't be any further odd the mark than those folks that thought the world was flat.

Aliens in SciFi have run the gambit from totally stupid to incredibly smart. If you really examine the game as it stands we have a wide range of beings. Yet they all seem to be branched from the same basic human stock. Personally i feel that if we ever find other life out there it would be totally different from what we perceive as being human. They we be evolded under a different environment than we were. They may not even look in any way like any kind of life we know or have imagined. Even trying to communicate may be a huge leap of faith. They could communicate using some sense that we don't enjoy at the present or even if they have a form of comminication that we recognize as being communication that does not mean that we can if that same evolution let them see things from a different perspective.

So where does that leave us? I think it provides a lot more impossibilities that any of us can even perceive.

Just my humble opinion.

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Nothing like the smell of burnt rubber in the morning. - Now let's see some Tiresmoke!
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Quote

Originally posted by orcaloverbri9:
**

What the hell is up with what we think of aliens? Whenever we think of aliens, we think of them being incredibly advanced, and/or having special powers, and/or having non-humanlike things like organic spaceships. It's stupid. I don't think that there are no advanced species other than us out there; in fact, I totally and completely support the idea that there are other species out there, even intelligent species. But they would almost certainly be far away, and are not necessarily five trillion times as technologically advanced as us. In fact, they may very well be not as advanced, or even about as advanced as us. It disgusts me when I think of all these games and stuff where the aliens are fifty billion times as smart as us and can kick our asses in two seconds flat. And it's even stupider to think that they have telepathic powers and other s*** like that. Maybe one species, far-away, but very advanced, and not twelve quadrillion times as intelligent as us. Maybe half a century ahead. Then maybe one not as smart as us, as or more far from us than the really advanced species. Then maybe one that's about as smart as us, as or more far than the other two. Maybe duplicates of these. But not a dozen alien species that know eighty million times as much as us.

I know, I used a bunch of different exaggerations.

**

I agree with you about the super-advanced races, they can be pretty annoying. I have a few Ideas for my Aliens, All are about on the same level of Intelligence as humans, but they all opt for different tactics. They are really no more advanced than humans, they have just focused there efforts in different areas.

I understand your annoyance about most of the time Intelligent species seem to be just a few jumps away, but thats EV for you really, It's not geared towards having thousands of different empty galaxies, and If it did players would get Intensely bored.

------------------
"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." - Mark Twain.

How do you know that there is no intellegent life here in this solar system? We haven't as yet explored far enough to know that there isn't. Even I admit that it's pretty far fetched the possibility remains yet unexplored.

Let us open our minds rather than close them to possibilities. There is not one single person here that can even begin to guess all the questions that will lead to the answers of what is out there.

------------------
Nothing like the smell of burnt rubber in the morning. - Now let's see some Tiresmoke!
(url="http://"http://www.rsdg.net")www.rsdg.net(/url)

Quote

Why the hell would anyone put a laser pointer on a ship as a weapon?

The most realistic laser would be invisible in space and act as a beam. I'm assuming that there'll be some type of plasma tracer that allows the beam to be visible in space for the sake of programming sanity.

Contrary to what you think, we know quite a bit about plasma and anti-matter. Anti-matter is simply matter with the opposite charge- e.g. a positron is basically an electron with a positive charge, etc. Both certainly exist. Just because you don't understand something doesn't mean that it doesn't exist.

What do we know about aliens? They could be super-smart. They could be on par with us. They could be comprehensible, or not. We may as well argue about the Setalriitanius Empire, as much good as that will do concerning our understanding of such matters. (For me, I have a variety of different 'experience levels' planned.)

If you don't want to break the laws of physics, just find a different way to do things. If a landslide has buried a mountain pass underneath tons of rocks, would it be better to try and move all the rocks yourself, or find another pass?

------------------
Retribution: An Upcoming Plug-in for EVN.
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Quote

Originally posted by orcaloverbri9:
What the hell is up with what we think of aliens? Whenever we think of aliens, we think of them being incredibly advanced, and/or having special powers, and/or having non-humanlike things like organic spaceships. It's stupid. I don't think that there are no advanced species other than us out there; in fact, I totally and completely support the idea that there are other species out there, even intelligent species. But they would almost certainly be far away, and are not necessarily five trillion times as technologically advanced as us. In fact, they may very well be not as advanced, or even about as advanced as us. It disgusts me when I think of all these games and stuff where the aliens are fifty billion times as smart as us and can kick our asses in two seconds flat. And it's even stupider to think that they have telepathic powers and other s* like that. Maybe one species, far-away, but very advanced, and not twelve quadrillion times as intelligent as us. Maybe half a century ahead. Then maybe one not as smart as us, as or more far from us than the really advanced species. Then maybe one that's about as smart as us, as or more far than the other two. Maybe duplicates of these. But not a dozen alien species that know eighty million times as much as us.
**

Well, just to point out that our Sun is at least a second-generation star (i.e. it's formed from the material that another star gave out as it died) so the universe has been round a LONG time, so aliens could be very far ahead of us, not to mention the fact that their brain structure could be very different and their evolutionary rate higher than ours. Of course, these points could be applied in reverse as well. And who says telepathy can't exist?

------------------

Quote

Originally posted by TheRedeemer:
**I agree with you about the super-advanced races, they can be pretty annoying. I have a few Ideas for my Aliens, All are about on the same level of Intelligence as humans, but they all opt for different tactics. They are really no more advanced than humans, they have just focused there efforts in different areas.

I understand your annoyance about most of the time Intelligent species seem to be just a few jumps away, but thats EV for you really, It's not geared towards having thousands of different empty galaxies, and If it did players would get Intensely bored.**

True...but then again, there's always hypergates!

Of course, we have no justification for hypergates, seeing as we can't even teleport. And wormholes...are we even sure of their existence? I think what would be best is to find the quickest way to each Alien galaxy, and then have a mission that moves the player to the nearest alien system of that galaxy, incrementing the date accordingly. I'm not sure about fuel. Maybe just give every ship 100,000 fuel, with no display on the sidebar.

I'm getting ideas for a TC...each system has a star, systems are far apart, weapons are physical or laser beams, and possibly plasma cannons (not little blasts, a steady stream), etc...remind me to save this topic to my computer.

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The programmer's code of entomology: there's always another bug.
Windows users: stop asking for plugins. (url="http://"http://www.aznt.com/EVN/EVNEW/")Make one yourself.(/url)
(url="http://"http://www.cwssoftware.com")Sephil Saga Website(/url)

(url="http://"http://spider.ipac.caltech.edu/staff/waw/mad/mad12.html")http://spider.ipac.c.../mad/mad12.html(/url)
^^ explosions in a vacuum. someone want to model it? :E

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As I said, UE, I was under the impression we knew very little. I apologize. You're trying to beat a dead horse to death now, in my opinion (which probably doesn't mean much to you :p).

Anyhow, I never said that there couldn't be a more intelligent species—the thing is, the aliens we see in SF are almost always more advanced. Sure, there are probably some, but if you're going to include super-smart guys, you should probably have have not-super-smart guys for a more balanced (and realistic) universe.

Of course, realism isn't as interesting as SF unless you do it very well.

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The programmer's code of entomology: there's always another bug.
Windows users: stop asking for plugins. (url="http://"http://www.aznt.com/EVN/EVNEW/")Make one yourself.(/url)
(url="http://"http://www.cwssoftware.com")Sephil Saga Website(/url)