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Old 08-26-2015, 12:01 AM   #24
Mailanka
 
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Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Eindhoven, the Netherlands
Default Re: [Spaceships] Heat Signature, Cloaking Device, and Stealth Hull

Quote:
Originally Posted by safisher View Post
There are so many other problems with spaceships as depicted in adventure games it never ceases to amaze me why people want to throw down the gauntlet on this one. But you did it anyway.
What really baffles me is that there's always someone who's willing to fight to the death to suggest that perhaps there's an element of truth to things like Star Trek (with its nadion beams and its psychic and surprisingly humanoid aliens), and the hill they want to die on is stealth in space.

Why does it matter? Real space combat will look nothing like what you see in "adventure games." It will feature radiators, it will not feature stealth, there won't be any gravity, they probably won't even happen on "ships" at all, and the cute bridge bunny certainly won't wear a skirt.

So? As you point out, lots of adventure games feature that sort of stuff. If we want that, we can play that. I do want that, so I do play it. But does it matter that it's not real? You know that elves aren't real either, right? Do you run into fantasy threads and argue that perhaps one of our cousin races actually managed to survive into the early dark ages and that's the origin of the "elf" myth? Does that even need to be said to justify a fantasy game featuring elves?

There are so many flavors of sci-fi that it's not even funny. I like hard sci-fi, so I spend a lot of time on places like Atomic Rockets and I read up on orbital mechanics and I watch things like Moon. I also like wild and wooly space opera: I love to play FTL or Master of Orion, and I think DS9 is the best Star Trek and I'm baffled and disappointed that Netflix managed to lose Farscape. But I don't need the first to justify the second. They're different genres and they both appeal to me, and I understand how and why they appeal.
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