Superpowers

[Dan Dixon]

...please don't tell me you are going to make this software into a game versus an educational and visual tool...

No worries. I'm most in love with simulating reality and the new version will preserve and expand on all the educational aspects.

That said... a handful of fictional super weapons or super powers that act on the simulation in a realistic way...

[phinehas]

<censored>

[Darvince]

Phinehas, I think you might want to take a look at this (concerning photons):

The photon is actually a real particle, it is the particle of light.

[phinehas]

<censored>

[Dan Dixon]

Darvince is just trying to be helpful; no need to be condescending.

Anyway... I found it interest to read even the first few sentences in the article.

[smjjames]

Darvince,

Really?  I know what a real photon is supposed to be.  Thanks.

You do realize that the Star Trek's fictional photon torpedo didn't have "photons" in it but was a matter/anti-matter charge.  The "photon" is in reference to the fact that it wasn't limited to the speed of light like lasers were.  Hence they could fire them effectivley during warp speed.

Hopefully you won't be arguing next for the existence of the Binary Fart Bomb and Captain Marvel.

Dan eased by apprehension about the direction US was going in and that's fine.

That was a proton torpedo, but photon, proton... easy to mix up anyways. And ah, binary fart bomb? lol.

I see the thread as a way to think up fun tools.

[phinehas]

<censored>

[sean2323]

A power that makes a wave of energy, the energy wave could be heat, solar-wind, or a few others, heat waves would travel at the speed of light, and cause planets nearby to heat up a huge amount until the wave has passed (This wave could be added in planet or star collisions as well!  )

The solar wind/gravity wave would push planets and stars away slowly, and could be added to massive star collisions.

last power, extragalactic jets... Gamma or X-rays, basically, Black holes and Quasars (REEEEEEALLY big black holes) would emit a line of blue dust, this dust would look like long thin cones on either side of the black hole, and if they hit a star, may disrupt it causing it to premature eja... go super nova/hyper nova, and heat the crap out of planets.

Of course, to make it a power, You could be able to aim a gamma ray at something you don't like too much... =D

Note, I did not read other people's suggestions, (low amount of time), so if anything I said is similar to what others said, my apologies.

[smjjames]

A power that makes a wave of energy, the energy wave could be heat, solar-wind, or a few others, heat waves would travel at the speed of light, and cause planets nearby to heat up a huge amount until the wave has passed (This wave could be added in planet or star collisions as well!  )

Solar wind has no effect on a planets orbit, however it would have an effect on dust (protostellar accretion disks when the star ignites for example). The heat wave I kind of like, could be added as an effect of a supernova

The solar wind/gravity wave would push planets and stars away slowly, and could be added to massive star collisions.

Unless the star was so close it would be considered a companion, it wouldn't have an effect on stars. As for planets, the way I'm thinking of this one and the kind of thing above is in a supernova explosion, which would more than likely destroy any planets anyway.

last power, extragalactic jets... Gamma or X-rays, basically, Black holes and Quasars (REEEEEEALLY big black holes) would emit a line of blue dust, this dust would look like long thin cones on either side of the black hole, and if they hit a star, may disrupt it causing it to premature eja... go super nova/hyper nova, and heat the crap out of planets.

That would be a gamma ray burst, cool.

[mrt127]

It might sound stupid but maybe to have the ability to increase volcanic activity on a planet, you know you could use it to change the surface of the planet or something like that.

(I'd love to see what would happen if Olympus Mons was active again!  )

[Atmosfear]

Interestingly enough, I'm a fiction writer (and have a few ideas kicking around for a gravity-based magic system).  I actually bought US for the purposes of making a realistic physics-based system for the story to take place (insert thanks to FiahOwl who did the heavy lifting).

Dan, some possible ideas:

Inertial Negation- Target body (or simulation-wide) loses all speed/momentum instantly reset to 0.  This would cause earth to fall towards the sun, or stop a satellite cold in the path of the planet it's orbiting (smash!).  Of course, this might be faulty logic since the sun and our entire system is already moving...

Gravity Inversion- Instead of gravity attracting, gravity would repel.  Closer, larger objects would push harder against each other, distant objects not so much.  This could either be an interaction between two bodies (in which case you'd have a push-pull going on between many objects) or a simulation-wide event.

Mass Fluctuation- Target body's mass is unstable (unrealistic, I know) and fluctuates between 10% and 1000% of the original mass.  Fluctuations could either be a straight sliding back and forth between 10% and 1000% or a constantly random (no pun intended) increase and decrease.  This would make for some wonky physics experiments.

[FiahOwl]

Interestingly enough, I'm a fiction writer (and have a few ideas kicking around for a gravity-based magic system).  I actually bought US for the purposes of making a realistic physics-based system for the story to take place (insert thanks to FiahOwl who did the heavy lifting).

Awww your welcome :3

Dan, some possible ideas:

Inertial Negation- Target body (or simulation-wide) loses all speed/momentum instantly reset to 0.  This would cause earth to fall towards the sun, or stop a satellite cold in the path of the planet it's orbiting (smash!).  Of course, this might be faulty logic since the sun and our entire system is already moving...

Sounds kool, but there is a way to do this: select all the bodies in the system with the box tool, and there is an option.

Gravity Inversion- Instead of gravity attracting, gravity would repel.  Closer, larger objects would push harder against each other, distant objects not so much.  This could either be an interaction between two bodies (in which case you'd have a push-pull going on between many objects) or a simulation-wide event.

There is an option to set gravity to negative, but it would be much cooler when you spent 30 minutes making a system and you accidentally hit the key to trigger it.

Mass Fluctuation- Target body's mass is unstable (unrealistic, I know) and fluctuates between 10% and 1000% of the original mass.  Fluctuations could either be a straight sliding back and forth between 10% and 1000% or a constantly random (no pun intended) increase and decrease.  This would make for some wonky physics experiments.

Best idea I have heard of in this thread.

[Dan Dixon]

These are great suggestions Atmosfear. Thanks!

[vh]

maybe a chain reaction? if an object collides into another, it'll explode. This will cause more bodies flying around and causing others to explode etc (as long as used in a dense system).

[smjjames]

I can see a situation where you have LOTS of objects, initiate a chain reaction and it ramps up the amount of bodies up exponentially. Even my computer can barely handle 2k objects without the program being very slow.

It would probably have to be as dense as the initial explosion ball for that to happen, but sounds like that kind of thing would be fun.

[vh]

an auto-culling feature that removes excessive bodies to prevent too much lag when that happens then, maybe.

[smjjames]

Well, we don't want to end up with the ones we want to keep being deleted. So, it should be in the method that is already used to deal with particles in various programs simply stop new ones from being spawned by explosions, also have an option to set the upper limit as different computers can handle different amounts and an option to turn that feature on or off, or maybe just for that specific 'superpower'.

Although we should see what the performance will be like in US3 since it'll have a whole new graphics engine and multicore capability.