Airtight voxels

the raw cave mode slow leak would cause a fairly slow consumption of the base oxygen as though it's having to supply a number of extra occupants beyond your space buddy. Nothing like an explosive depressurization, but just slowly consumes the o2 in tanks as tiny % of the voxel surface leaks into the hostile environment. I would love to be able to just carve a cave and put a door over the opening. A number of oxygen farms would easily be able to offset it.

I think there was a discussion about this in a prior thread, this sounds familiar. Magnetic sealing (or simply inflatable gaskets that seal gaps) would definitely be useful.

In the case of structures built inside of voxels (partly), it's always been a little wonky to have to place blocks essentially inside the voxels to 'seal' them to make an airtight chamber. The two tier approach above would allow you to build in an asteroid without embedding walls, one tier would require constant o2 added into the system to offset the slow leaks, the higher tier would function as normal because the voxel surface was treated by some sort of resin compound. If that area gets drilled again after sealing, then it would start leaking again and drop to the tier 1 state.

I think the difference here is that even if it is semi porous and not completely 'airtight', this would not mean the air would blast through it like an open airlock door. It might leak air, but if you had a steady supply of it you could maintain a stable air pressure inside, even if some of it escapes through cracks and more porous surfaces. You could easily spray synthetic foams or the like to seal a surface more easily than concrete (which is also gas permeable). Also the carbonaceous asteroids are agreeably most common and would be the least suitable for this sort of thing, stony S-types would be 'better' (still leaky) and I'd love to see pure metallic asteroids at some point that would be fully airtight but harder to carve a habitat into. Similarly to the pure ice asteroids we have in game, those would be meltable, but airtight. Since there are no sublimation physics in game, these would be nice and stable airtight habitats with no modification.

One must not confuse asteroids with meteorites. A meteorite is the hardest component—the hardest part—of whatever entered the atmosphere. That said, there are also small asteroids that are “one large boulder” of cohesive rock. However, they are quite rare.

Foam is not a good idea in a vacuum—in a vacuum, it behaves completely differently than it does under Earth’s conditions, in the atmosphere. Under atmospheric conditions, bubble growth stops when the gas pressure inside the bubbles equals atmospheric pressure. In a vacuum, foam bubbles grow “unlimitedly” and subsequently burst, forming microdroplets.

Concrete is usually not perfectly gas-tight, although there are concrete mixtures that are gas-tight. However, concrete is highly cohesive, unlike most natural materials.

Most natural materials have one undesirable property—when gas penetrates the material, “internal erosion by the flowing gas” occurs. This causes a gradual weakening of the material’s cohesion.

I believe that the simplest “system-level” solution is to declare the voxel-based material of asteroids to be non-gas-tight and incapable of maintaining internal overpressure. Instead, create building blocks—thin-walled, large-area panels with low strength, designed for the rapid and relatively inexpensive construction of gas-tight spaces in underground cavities (or “temporary” surface structures).

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

In the past, the term “crystalline complex” was used in geology to refer to deep-seated igneous and metamorphic rocks—granite, gneiss, schist, etc.—that form the foundation of a geological sequence.

Above the crystalline rocks lies either a layer of “crustal” rocks or a layer of consolidated or metamorphosed sedimentary rocks—sandstones, limestones, marbles, shales, and others...

On top of the consolidated sediments lie younger, unconsolidated sediments, alluvium (“alluvial deposits”), eolian (desert) deposits, and various types of soil.

A special group consists of volcanic rocks, formed by volcanic activity from magma as extrusive or plutonic bodies.

This classification applies exclusively to the Earth’s planetary crust, where relatively strong gravity, liquid water, and an atmosphere are present. On “moons” without water or an atmosphere, there is a crystalline core, and on top of it there may be mantle layers covered by regolith—material from the crystalline core and mantle layers crushed by meteorite bombardment, as well as material from meteorites.

Asteroids should consist solely of regolith and primordial material.

From the perspective of the game and this topic, crystalline rocks should be considered gas-impermeable. Nappe rocks, sufficiently thick volcanic rocks, and consolidated sediments could be considered limitedly gas-impermeable. Other materials should be considered gas-permeable.

From the perspective of the game and its mechanics, the simplest solution seems to me to be the introduction of a “gas-tightness” property for voxel materials in three classes: gas-tight voxel material, partially gas-tight voxel material that can be sealed by applying a gas-tight layer, and non-gas-tight voxel material that cannot be sealed (within the game mechanics).

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

I will put it in a much simpler way: we need concrete.

Let me put it another way—concrete is one of the simplest and most affordable solutions.

Furthermore, concrete is a very versatile solution.

I think it's safe to say that in SE2, the 'quality' of the asteroid is essentially a constant. The asteroids we find in this star system do not seem to be carbonaceous, which are the type you're mostly referencing as loose piles of accumulated material. If that were the case, the drill would largely just throw loose material into space more like a leaf blower on earth blowing on a pile of sand.

Instead, we are clearly drilling into rock, there are sparks and it is a solid rocky surface, which means the asteroids we're looking at are more stony silicate rock with trace minerals. In this case, these would not be loose piles of materials that are highly porous, we would be dealing with something that has more of the physical consistency of concrete but is more microfractured. That would also leak air, but it wouldn't be the same kind of leaking profile as it would with a carbonaceous asteroid.

Sealing a stony asteroid interior would be similar to sealing one made of concrete. The game itself is telling us what the material is like based on the interaction with the material when we drill it.

Also, as an aside, a foam material would absolutely work for these microfractures, even in space. Your observation above is 100% accurate for a foam in a vacuum, but if the foam material were injected into a microfracture, its expansion behavior is completely different from open space, The microfracture itself acts as a microscopic physical barrier that would limit the expansion of the gas bubbles. The confined microfracture environment would self pressurize as the foam expands inside it and it would still result in a stable sealed crack.

The rate of gas/atmospheric air/oxygen leakage should depend on the “quality” of the wall, its thickness and surface area, the pressure difference, and, of course, time. That is, in units of “kilograms of gas per square meter of surface area, with a wall thickness of one meter, per day (24 hours), and at an overpressure of 0.1 MPa.”

Gas can only escape through the surface, so the leakage rate does not depend on the volume of the space but on the surface area of the walls.

However, it is good to take the volume of the space into account, because it determines the mass of gas in the space (1.29 kg/m³ for air).

Gas leakage through structural elements (undamaged ones) should be very low, at most a fraction of a gram per square meter.

To put this in perspective—air loss from the ISS was planned at 0.27 kg of air per day. Currently, due to problems with the aging of the modules (and the expansion of the station), it ranges from 0.45 to 1.1 kg of air per day. The station’s internal volume is approximately 950 m³, the surface area of the pressurized compartment is approximately 1,000 m², and the pressure is 0.103 MPa. The walls are made of aluminum sheet metal, no more than a few millimeters thick. The mass of the air inside the station is approximately 1225 kg.

asteroid 162173 Ryugu:

mass 4.50±0.06×10^11 kg ~450 mil ton

asteroid 101955 Bennu:

mass 7.329(±0.009)×10^10 kg ~73 mil. ton

asteroid 25143 Itokawa:

mass 3.58(±0.18)×10^10kg ~35 mil. ton

error

Not arguing that in real life about 75% of asteroids appear to be type C carbonaceous asteroids that are loose regolith-like material as you're describing. None of which appear to be in Almagest,

Instead, the game designers have made every asteroid you encounter in almagest into a solid rock-like structure (or ice) that is very consistent with real life stony S-type asteroids which are primarily of uniform density that approximates earth's crust (about 2.7-3g/cm^3. Fractured from impacts often (in real life) that would mean that there would be microfractures held together by mutual microgravity, our earlier discussion about sealing such would still apply. I'm not trying to debate the nature of real life asteroids, I'm applying what the game provides us with, which are largely non-rubble pile S-type asteroids that are either monolithic shards broken off larger asteroids (which we don't find), or lightly fractured solid core (which is consistent with in game drilling).

My entire point is that given the way asteroids are represented in game by voxels (and o2-less less planets and moons for that matter) they should be considered monolithic stony asteroids that should be reasonably air-sealable as I propose above. If your argument is that 'real life asteroids don't...', then I'll restate that the game asteroids do not mimic real life asteroids in any measurable way apart form being lightly fractured S type asteroids.

asteroid 162173 Ryugu Mean density 1.19±0.03 g/cm3

asteroid 101955 Bennu Mean density 1,190 ± 0,013 g/cm3

asteroid 25143 Itokawa Mean density 2,3±0,3 g/cm3

Asteroids could likely be classified based on their average density. There should be two significant peaks—one in the range of 1.5–2.2 g/cm³ (about 70–75% of all asteroids, predominantly C-type), and another in the range of 2.5–3.5 g/cm³ (predominantly S-type, 15–18% of the total), and then a sparse “continuum” in the range above 4 g/cm³ extending up to over 8 g/cm³ (predominantly M-type asteroids), although the range above 7 g/cm³ may also be subject to significant errors in determining the asteroids’ dimensions.

I saw an interesting graph—the relationship between rotation speed (or more precisely, rotational velocity) and asteroid dimensions. It showed a sharp cutoff in the number of asteroids. On one side of the cutoff, there were very few asteroids—only a few dozen—while on the other side, there were “thousands.” The author noted that asteroids with high rotational speeds beyond the boundary are “solid, homogeneous boulders,” while the others can be “homogeneous boulders,” “piles of rubble,” or “boulders covered in debris”—that is, a layer of regolith.

But never mind. I chose these three asteroids simply because they’re in the same image.

As for the game and its mechanics—creating asteroids from voxel material is the only option. Voxel material apparently has the same properties and the same strength everywhere. Essentially, it makes no sense to talk about mass, because “movable voxel material” doesn’t exist yet.

In SE1, the voxel material for asteroids wasn't gas-tight. I tested that. However, I didn't test the voxel material for planets for this property.

I’ve expressed my view on the issue and hope I’ve explained it as best I could, given the limitations of the translator.

The SE2 game universe isn’t developing in the direction I’d like. What can I do...

I feel your uncertainty on your last statement, I'm also unsure about direction choices and my gameplay has dropped off considerably recently. The feedback here simply vanishing into the archives with no return feedback (hey, a simple 'we looked at it and it doesn't fit into our current plans' would work wonders, vs. just dumping it...especially ones that were 'under consideration' that just instantly drop to archived.) also doesn't help with that. It's kind of disheartening.

For this one, I'm curious Semtex, is the opposition-ish feedback you've been providing because 'this isn't how real asteroids work', or more 'this isn't something that I think should be in the game'. I can totally understand if this owuld be just 'one more thing that breaks immersion' for you, the game is full of them (and SE1 for that matter). I suggested it more because I find having to literally bury construction blocks inside of the voxel surfaces to airseal a natural solid surface-looking space to be more immersion breaking in the opposite direction. I would love to have a door on an asteroid that is hollowed out to act as a base and always felt the instant (vs. slow leak) depressurization through a mostly solid voxel surface to be equally immersion breaking. Even some people defending 'magic' backpack building where you have a single man-portable backpack that has a jetpack, oxygen supply, battery, smelter, 3-d printer and related gear, that also carries 8 tons of storage, yet find building roughly airtight habitats inside asteroids to be 'unrealistic'. (Not saying this is you Semtex, just to be clear). Everyone seems to have their own willing suspension of disbelief as to what is immersion breaking for them.

I'd like the game to feature a universe that behaves as “realistically as possible.” I realize that it's impossible to simulate the universe perfectly—not only because it would be extremely demanding in terms of accurately describing its behavior and the computing power required. But even so, many aspects of the “SE2 universe” are a step backward compared to SE1.

You mention the backpack… It’s literally a tragedy. Another tragedy is the variety and availability of construction materials… I’m willing to tolerate physical nonsense in games like No Man’s Sky or Astroneer—and have quite a bit of fun doing so. Not so much in games like Empyrion (after a little over a hundred hours, I deleted it from my hard drive), and certainly not in games like SE, which include “Engineer” in their title and make this claim:

[quote= https://www.keenswh.com/]

Our Games

We want to create games that are based on real science, real facts, real physics, and real emotions. No magic & fantasy allowed.

We want to use our games to promote science and to encourage creativity. We want to help foster an interest in space exploration, physics, history, and all STEM fields. We want players to learn new stuff while playing our games.

We want to make our fans happy.

[/quote]

and then they sell us SE2...

So far, they've only been able to create real emotions... 😵‍💫

Customers might also succeed in court with a lawsuit alleging false advertising 🤐 ...

Well, I guess if you're willing to assume that we're only talking about rocky S-type (non rubble pile) asteroids as the only suspension of belief, this asteroid base idea isn't too bad compared to other stuff. But...it also might be a straw too many for some :(

Regarding this topic:

I believe that asteroid material should not be gas-tight, or should not allow for the construction of gas-tight structures.

But if the asteroid material in the game did allow for the construction of gas-tight structures, I have no objection to that. I don’t consider it a fundamental problem that would significantly undermine my sense of realism while playing the game. There are other problems that are far more significant.

In the game, I would simply ignore the fact that the cave walls are gas-tight and build at least a small living block as a normal gas-tight structure using construction blocks.

If it seems to you that this is a major issue for me because I’ve written so much about it, that’s not the case. I just have a habit of clearly describing my position and supporting it with relevant arguments.

We just need big and cheap concrete blocks :)

Radiation shielding is its own interesting topic. It made no sense that thin glass panels were capable of blocking 100% radiation in SE1.

A simple question: Where is the source of the radiation? Where does the radiation come from?

It's purely a ‘designer’ decision with no basis in reality. Just because every other game has this nonsense, we have to have it too.

Radiation is pretty much everywhere. On Earth we are protected by a thick atmosphere and magnetosphere. Verdure can have something similar, otherwise plants won't survive.

Overall, I think radiation is a good hazard to have in the game. It makes you want to build protected and pressurized habitats in space. What we are missing is a reason to take off the suit when inside.

An average person on Earth | ~2.5–3 mSv/year ~6–8 microSv/24 hours | Natural background radiation

Commercial flight | ~0.05 mSv/10 hours ~120 microSv/24 hours | Higher altitude = weaker atmospheric protection

International Space Station (ISS) | ~70 to 160 mSv over 6 months ~350–900 microSv/24 hours | Approximately 30 to 50 times the annual dose on Earth

The Moon’s surface | ~1.369 mSv/24 hours (data from the rover of the Chinese Chang’e 4 probe) | About 2.6 times more than on the ISS (the Moon has neither an atmosphere nor a magnetic field); Approximately 200 times the Earth’s natural background radiation

Journey to Mars (round trip) | ~600 mSv (during transit only) ~800–1,000 microSv/24 hours | Significantly exceeds standard limits for ground-based workers, 100–200 times the average daily dose on Earth

Mars mission (approx. 3 years total) | over 1,000 mSv (1 Sv) over three years (estimate) | roughly the threshold at which the stochastic effects of radiation give way to deterministic effects

Four billion years ago, the dose rate of penetrating radiation at the Earth’s surface was 3–6 times higher than it is today. This is because primordial isotopes with short half-lives (<100–200 million years) had not yet completely decayed, and there were 5–10 times more isotopes with longer half-lives (~1 billion years), such as ⁴⁰K and ²³⁵U. The Sun also produced more radiation and was more active.

Sources of radiation in space:

Galactic cosmic rays (GCR) | approximately 1.5 to 3 mSv/day (about 500 to 1,000 mSv per year) | protons, electrons, alpha particles (helions), “heavy” nuclei... The most dangerous component is heavy nuclei, due to their high “quality” parameter Q

Solar energetic particles (SEPs) | highly variable flux ranging from microsieverts during “quiet” solar activity to 1–5 Sv during strong solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) CME events last a few hours.

Dangerous Places:

Supernova Remnants (Supernova Remnants – SNR) are one of the sources of (GCR) | the energy density of cosmic rays in young supernova remnants (such as the Crab Nebula or Cassiopeia A) is 100 to 1,000 times higher than the average background in open space. Dose rate in units ranging from single to tens of Sieverts (Sv) per hour. Death within a few minutes, or at most a few hours...

Planetary Nebulae | The surface temperature of a young white dwarf ranges from 30,000 to over 100,000 Kelvin. It therefore emits radiation primarily in the hard ultraviolet (UV) and soft X-ray regions. Directly inside the nebula, the radiation dose would be tens to hundreds of mSv per day (depending on the proximity to the central white dwarf).

Red dwarfs of class M (very popular due to the discovery of exoplanets)

Surprisingly, they produce a great deal of X-ray and extreme UV radiation. In the “habitable zone,” the X-ray flux is 10–1,000 times higher than what Earth receives from the Sun. This is true when they are in their “quiet phase”... But in the “active phase” during superflares (stellar flares), the radiation flux increases by a factor of 100 to 10,000 compared to the quiet state (1,000–10,000,000 times more than what Earth receives from the Sun). Massive streams of high-energy protons and hard X-rays are ejected into the surrounding space. The radiation dose in the “habitable zone” during a single superflare can reach several Sieverts (Sv) to tens of Sv in a single day. And superflares can recur several times a week, or even in a single day... A person in open space would receive a lethal dose in a matter of minutes or even seconds...

From what has been written so far, one might conclude that I am wrong... But there is another side to this coin.

No original planets or asteroids orbit the remnants of supernovae (pulsars) or the cores of planetary nebulae (white dwarfs)—the supernova explosion reliably destroyed, incinerated, vaporized, and shattered planets within a distance of hundreds of astronomical units, and smaller bodies, such as moons and asteroids, within a distance of thousands of astronomical units. A nova explosion, which forms planetary nebulae, is weaker, but even that would not have allowed any planet in the solar system to survive, let alone asteroids.

So there is no work here for a space engineer. There is only gas and mayby some dust...

When it comes to red dwarfs, it’s more complicated… Planets can form and may even survive for a long time.

But intense radiation and very frequent, very powerful eruptions and coronal mass ejections over a very short period of time—a few tens of millions of years, or at most a few hundred million years—will strip planets in the “habitable zone” of their atmospheres and water, transforming them into something vaguely resembling Mercury or the Moon (but even more scorched).

Radiation, explosions, and CMEs also have another effect.

They destroy asteroids and small moons. If they can destroy and blow away a planet’s atmosphere over tens of millions of years, they can also “wear down” and blow away asteroids with diameters ranging from tens to hundreds of kilometers in the same amount of time, because such large (or that small) bodies do not have gravitational fields strong enough to hold onto the atoms they release.

The result will be similar—some planets exist, dead, barren, and lifeless, but there are no asteroids or moons.

So there is no work here for a space engineer. Again...

I think the radiation source argument works fine in Almagest. We are not in the Solar System, we are in Almagest, with a red dwarf at the center of the map. So radiation can simply depend on how far we are from that star.

It doesn’t even have to be extremely high in normal space. It could be something that becomes dangerous mainly after prolonged exposure, while some areas have much higher radiation. For example, areas close to the red dwarf, certain asteroid clusters, anomalies, uranium deposits, alien structures, or even some areas on planets.

And I don’t think we need to calculate it exactly like real life. We already have a huge time compression in the game. An engineer can build a medium ship in an hour, so obviously gameplay time doesn’t represent real time. The radiation rate can also be adjusted for gameplay. If it’s so low that nobody cares about it, then there is not much point in having the mechanic in the first place. The point should be to give us another reason to build and prepare.

But shielding is important here. Normal armor or glass shouldn’t just magically block harsh radiation. You could need dedicated radiation shielding, special materials, shielded rooms, suit modules, etc.

And in really harsh radiation zones, even drones shouldn’t be a perfect solution. Radiation can damage electronics, computers and communications, so a remote-controlled drone could lose control or simply stop working. That would make those areas much more interesting, because sometimes you actually need to build proper protection and send an engineer in, rather than just solving everything with a drone.

So imo radiation doesn’t need to make all of space deadly. It just needs to be uneven and meaningful, with some places where you really need to prepare before going there.

The radiation level mentioned above applies to the “habitable zone” around a red dwarf. In the simplest terms, this is the region where the surface temperature of planets is high enough for liquid water to theoretically exist there. In other words, it is a region where the planet’s surface temperature ranges from 0°C (in the warmest part of the planet) to 100°C (in the coldest part of the planet), taking into account the greenhouse effect of the atmosphere and other phenomena. Or the range in which the radiation flux from the star is between 2,500 W/m² and 600 W/m² (Earth receives 1,361–1,367 W/m², Venus ~2,611 W/m², Mars ~589 W/m²).

Red dwarfs are small stars, so the habitable zone is much closer to the star than it is for the Sun. For the Sun, it is at a distance of about 1 astronomical unit; for red dwarfs, it is less than one-tenth of an astronomical unit. And at a distance of 1 astronomical unit from a red dwarf, temperatures on the planets are already similar to those on Pluto.

So yes, there may be planets orbiting red dwarfs where radiation is lower, but these planets are completely frozen solid, and solar panels don’t work there—nor do wind turbines—and if anything flows on the surface, it’s liquid methane or hydrogen...

ehh, i dont know semtex, i seen a recent article about pluto and how its actually got a sort of atmosphere that it trades with its moon, but even then, with fluid in play, they wont just necessarily be "wind" turbines, they could be TURBINES that we use for either case as we need it (with the correct materials for each use base of course).

i digress, thats only kinda what the OP is about in anycase, airtightness and voxles. i was just curious how this particular aspect might play in that.

I’ll digress a bit. When we talk about turbines—whether “water” (fluid) or wind turbines—they extract energy from a kinetic energy flowing fluid by means of the forces acting on the turbine blades. For these forces to be sufficient, the fluid—whether a liquid or a gas—must have sufficient density and sufficient flow velocity.

That's an interesting idea. Although maybe not an ore detector, but a ground-penetrating radar.

GPR, yeah!

This is how it works in No Man’s Sky

The ore detector is part of the “multi-tool.” It operates continuously, but the information displayed is limited to a simple marker.

For a more detailed survey, you need to use active scanning, which takes some time to “recharge.” Compared to the ore detector, the active scan has a relatively short range (though both depend on the model, type, and equipment of the multi-tool).

The full display lasts only a few seconds; it gradually “fades out,” leaving only a view of the “visible part” of the ore deposit.

NMS uses a system similar to voxels, but only to a certain depth below the terrain surface; at greater depths, there is an impenetrable layer. The size of the planets is similar to SE1 (diameter ranging from about 50 km to 150–200 km).

The mechanisms for mining ore using a universal tool or a ship are inconsistent. The mechanisms for mining ore in open space and on a planet are also inconsistent (in NMS).

Asteroids as we know them in the SE do not exist in the NMS.

GPR and similar devices would certainly be useful.

The problem is that the game developers are too lazy to create meaningful “informational” content for the game.

be fair sem.. right now "meaningful information" is largely not vital to development at this stage.

hell weve only just been given basic altitude to sea level info for our hud, and you would think that vehicles being integral to the game that would have been seen as VITAL, but we worked around it untill it was added.