Subset Games Forum

You arrive to find yourself extremely close to a star. You receive a message from a pirate ship, "I'm glad you arrived; our ship is damaged and we were getting desperate... I hope you don't mind if we take yours." Hostiles detected on board our ship!

You don't know how the intruders managed to get past your Zoltan Energy Shield!

1. Continue...

I would like it a lot better if it went like this instead.

You arrive to find yourself extremely close to a star. You receive a message from a pirate ship, "I'm glad you arrived; our ship is damaged and we were getting desperate... I hope you don't mind if we take yours."

1. Continue...
2. Oh wait, I have a Zoltan Energy Shield.

(pick option 2)

After the transmission ends, the bodies of four pirates appear outside of your ship at the edge of your shield. They squirm around a bit before exploding from decompression. How unfortunate for them, but better them than you.

With some graphics of those bodies exploding of course

On the other hand, putting some more humour in the game wouldn't hurt. Taking it too seriously could hurt it in some way.

I'm pretty sure it's an urban myth that you explode from decompression in space.

Zuriki wrote:I'm pretty sure it's an urban myth that you explode from decompression in space.

You do not "explode" from the 1 atmosphere pressure difference between human norm and vacuum. You do, however, boil into nothing due to the massive amount of electromagnetic radiation being emitted by the star this happens around.

Techercizer wrote:

Zuriki wrote:I'm pretty sure it's an urban myth that you explode from decompression in space.

You do not "explode" from the 1 atmosphere pressure difference between human norm and vacuum. You do, however, boil into nothing due to the massive amount of electromagnetic radiation being emitted by the star this happens around.

...that's even more preposterous than flat-out exploding. Yes, all the liquid outside of your body would 'boil' out of you due to the pressure difference (note outside; your blood would not, since it's inside you and thus remains pressurized)... but then you'd probably just slowly dessicate. Then you'd probably drift into a gravity well.

Staying cold in space is hard. Oh sure the background temperature is all of 3 kelvin if you're in the right place, but losing heat close to a star is a pain in the ass. It's why designs tending towards realism tend to have lots of radiator arrays they use like inverse solar arrays, radiating away excess heat.

The 'explosive' in 'explosive decompression' refers to the rate at which it occurs. Although a suitably explosive decompression between two very differing pressure levels can indeed result in a more conventional and literally 'explosive' decompression event.

This thread got nerdy fast.

The 'explosive' in 'explosive decompression' refers to the rate at which it occurs. Although a suitably explosive decompression between two very differing pressure levels can indeed result in a more conventional and literally 'explosive' decompression event.

Didn't Mythbusters do a test to see what happened if you suffered explosive decompression while inside an ancient deep diving suit? I think their human analogues liver ended up in the helmet.

Zironic wrote:

The 'explosive' in 'explosive decompression' refers to the rate at which it occurs. Although a suitably explosive decompression between two very differing pressure levels can indeed result in a more conventional and literally 'explosive' decompression event.

Didn't Mythbusters do a test to see what happened if you suffered explosive decompression while inside an ancient deep diving suit? I think their human analogues liver ended up in the helmet.

Actually, that's water pressure crushing said person. There's a much larger difference than 1 atmo between the surface and the bottom of the ocean!

I like it. I'm tired of having intruders board me with my Zoltan ship but not being able to board enemy Zoltan ships.

Arcalane wrote:

Techercizer wrote:

Zuriki wrote:I'm pretty sure it's an urban myth that you explode from decompression in space.

You do not "explode" from the 1 atmosphere pressure difference between human norm and vacuum. You do, however, boil into nothing due to the massive amount of electromagnetic radiation being emitted by the star this happens around.

...that's even more preposterous than flat-out exploding. Yes, all the liquid outside of your body would 'boil' out of you due to the pressure difference (note outside; your blood would not, since it's inside you and thus remains pressurized)... but then you'd probably just slowly dessicate. Then you'd probably drift into a gravity well.

Staying cold in space is hard. Oh sure the background temperature is all of 3 kelvin if you're in the right place, but losing heat close to a star is a pain in the ass. It's why designs tending towards realism tend to have lots of radiator arrays they use like inverse solar arrays, radiating away excess heat.

The 'explosive' in 'explosive decompression' refers to the rate at which it occurs. Although a suitably explosive decompression between two very differing pressure levels can indeed result in a more conventional and literally 'explosive' decompression event.

I'm fairly sure that you glossed over Techercizer reminding everyone that this random encounter takes place extremely close to a star. We aren't talking about hard vacuum, microgravity, and general background radiation levels. We are discussing being within range of a star sending solar flares our way every half a minute or so.