Lore

[erdrik]

...
TL;DR
My point is basically as an alpha Rimworld's gameplay mechanics can't be considered indicative of what the finale product will be so criticizing the Lore based upon what I think the evidence suggests is just a place holder system is kind of excessive imho.

I generally side with what I think is the most definitive evidence presented, and mechanics already in the game will beat(but not disregard) non specific promises.
(no matter how much I trust the person giving them)

Besides, if the "exit ramp" in question (medium) is 5-10 years as you suggest, that still seems:
at worse: too swift to, from scratch, make system ships too rare a commodity to be used as common trade vessels.
at best: still doesn't hit the minimum to make system ships unlikely as common trade vessels.

(But it is a pointless number argument anyway, since Tynan hasn't actually given any numbers on how long these exit ramps would be designed around)


But whatever, I wasn't criticizing the lore.
I was criticizing comments that claimed system ships were not feasible as a common trade vessel.

[JesterHell]

But whatever, I wasn't criticizing the lore.
I was criticizing comments that claimed system ships were not feasible as a common trade vessel.

Sorry about that, I went off on a bit of a tangent there as I actually agree with the fact that all evidence support in system ships as quite a common thing.

I think my point was how their not intended to be that common... or something.

[Pactrick Willis]

But then there's a precedent of the player's colony, that get's to space-travel tech level in a few years, it should be even easier in a town of a few thousand inhabitants.

I find It funny that you can build a spaceship out of bits of steel, But you can't craft the most basic of firearms. 

[Mikhail Reign]

But then there's a precedent of the player's colony, that get's to space-travel tech level in a few years, it should be even easier in a town of a few thousand inhabitants.

I find It funny that you can build a spaceship out of bits of steel, But you can't craft the most basic of firearms.

But you can. Turrets and mortars are guns.

[Boston]

But then there's a precedent of the player's colony, that get's to space-travel tech level in a few years, it should be even easier in a town of a few thousand inhabitants.

I find It funny that you can build a spaceship out of bits of steel, But you can't craft the most basic of firearms.

But you can. Turrets and mortars are guns.

But yet you can't crank out a musket, which at its most basic form is literally a metal pipe, welded shut at one end, with a hole drilled in it?

[Pactrick Willis]

But then there's a precedent of the player's colony, that get's to space-travel tech level in a few years, it should be even easier in a town of a few thousand inhabitants.

I find It funny that you can build a spaceship out of bits of steel, But you can't craft the most basic of firearms.

But you can. Turrets and mortars are guns.

But yet you can't crank out a musket, which at its most basic form is literally a metal pipe, welded shut at one end, with a hole drilled in it?

Exactly.

[Playbahnosh]

There is a pretty plausible way to rationalize the technological differences. Like, building a space ship out of ores and bits of makeshift electronics.

It's all about knowledge and resources.

Think about it, prehistoric humans had the exact same resources at their disposal as today's humans, that didn't change. Yet back then they made due with wooden spears and they lived in caves, but today we live in skyscrapers and fly to space. The only thing that changed is the knowledge.

Even today, if you somehow get stuck in the wilderness with basically nothing on you, if you read some survival guides and had a good general education, you can create stuff that would seem magic or witchcraft to someone from ancient times. You can make a water filtration system from sticks, leaves, stones, sand and bits of charcoal. Sure, it's not gonna be as effective as a modern water treatment plant, but it'll work in a pinch. We also know a myriad of ways to light a fire using only sticks and stones, shards of glass or whatever is at hand. If you had some bits of wire on you, you can make a battery from a lemon or a potato and make fire using the arc in seconds. Hell, if you had the basics of metallurgy, like a forge and some tools and resources around, you can make a makeshift rifle like improvised pipe guns or even a friggin rocket. With enough technological knowledge and available resources, given enough time, you can construct better forging and tools, instruments, and with those construct even better and more precise machines, tools and instruments. After a few iterations of this, it's not impossible you'd be able to make different alloys, powered tools, vehicles, even programmable circuits.

This is all just using old materials in new ways using the knowledge we've acquired as a civilization. Now try to project this into the future, Rimworld's future, where space travel is mundane and we have all sorts of new technology we can't even comprehend today. Now image those people, with the knowledge of that future technology, crashing on a planet. Sure, not all of them would possess the know-how to create a space shuttle out of rocks and bits of chewing gum paper, but basically that's what a compass or a potato battery would look like to a prehistoric person. Using old materials in new ways. And given enough time, research, and iterations of technology (you have to build a forge, workbenches, get tools, etc in-game), you COULD be able to build a rudimentary space ship. Sure, the in-game progression is waay exaggerated, but with the right mindset, is plausible.

[erdrik]

...
Think about it, prehistoric humans had the exact same resources at their disposal as today's humans...

I think your underestimating the importance of and effort/cost/manpower required for proper infrastructure.

Personally, Im not gunna disagree within the context of the game and how easy it seems to build stuff that should be way harder. It just irks me a bit when I hear talk about how "easy" it would be to restart civilization with our current knowledge. Our current civilizations exist on the backs of the work and knowledge of previous generations.
A lot of what was built was done so using infrastructure that no longer exists and knowledge that has been forgotten. While there are some of us that retain some of the older knowledge, we don't have it all and not nearly in the numbers to be useful on a national scale.

Besides Knowledge and Infrastructure IS a resource, so no. Prehistoric humans did not have the exact same resources.

[Playbahnosh]

I never said it would be "easy", I only said it's PLAUSIBLE!

Besides Knowledge and Infrastructure IS a resource, so no. Prehistoric humans did not have the exact same resources.

I meant natural resources. Even if they didn't know how to access them or what to do with them. Like coal and crude oil was down there, metals and minerals were inside mountains and underground, certain plants and flora with medical and industrial use were right there. All that unutilized.

And yes, infrastructure is convenient, but I never talked about mass-production or built-to-order professional machinery. Aggregate knowledge is indeed the key here, and I'm sticking to that. Given enough time, effort and knowledge, one COULD build a working internal combustion engine from scratch using makeshift die-cast components and home made tools and instruments. Granted, it most likely won't be perfect and it's efficiency and longevity would be sub-par compared to a Bugatti, but the fact is you DON'T need a robotics automated modern car factory to do it.

A lot of what was built was done so using infrastructure that no longer exists and knowledge that has been forgotten.

No useful knowledge is ever forgotten. What has been forgotten along the years and centuries is stuff we no longer use because either we invented something better or is no longer valid considering today's scientific knowledge.
For example I no longer need to know the proper technique for bloodletting or trepanning, because medical science progressed way beyond that. You learn how set a breakage or a sprain, how to properly clean and suture a wound in basic first-aid, and unlike people of old, we know willow bark contains aspirin and the white mold Penicillium is an antibiotic. Same goes for other things, like I don't need to know which caves are safe to live in or how to make a hovel using sticks and mud because I know I can make way stronger shelters using bricks made of clay and mortar made of sand and burnt lime, while tar/bitumen can be used for waterproofing. All this is not even specialized knowledge, I learned this in school many years ago. Also, none of this requires specialized infrastructure, just the knowledge of where to get the raw materials and how to utilize them.

From an in-game standpoint, it's not unfeasable the survivors managed to save a data storage device from the wreckage or had it on them. Nowadays you can fit an entire national library on a memory card or USB stick, not to mention a tablet or smartphone. Think about what kind of data storage they'll have in Rimworld-time. The survivors themselves don't even need to possess the exact knowledge on how to build all the stuff they do if they have a data pad with so much information, and just have research the means on how to suit those technologies for the planet's resources.

[JesterHell]

No useful knowledge is ever forgotten. What has been forgotten along the years and centuries is stuff we no longer use because either we invented something better or is no longer valid considering today's scientific knowledge.

I believe that this is incorrect, I give you Starlite. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxqFyDugqs4

In 1993, an episode of Tomorrow's World (the once popular BBC science and technology television programme) opened with a close-up of an intense blue flame heating an egg. The welding torch was working hard against the egg's shell, producing temperatures of 1200 °C, yet the egg appears normal and unscorched. The presenter leaves it under the torch's glare for a few more minutes, then extinguishes the flame and picks the egg up. He flashes us a knowing smile, and cracks it into a glass bowl. It is completely raw.

The egg had been coated in Starlite

He refused to send further samples away to be tested. Sadly, in 2011, with Starlite's composition very much still a mystery, Maurice Ward died.

http://www.isciencemag.co.uk/features/the-secret-life-of-starlite/

In fact, Ward let a sample out of his sight only once. In June 1991, a sample was sent to White Sands atomic weapons testing site in New Mexico, in the care of the SAS, and subjected to a simulated nuclear onslaught. 'It was classed as the biggest bang in town. I've seen a video [on which] it shredded forest to sawdust, rolled some tanks around, stripped an aircraft into pieces.' But Starlite survived. Further tests at Foulness had subjected it to the force of 75 Hiroshimas, and it survived that, too.

Starlite has a Q-value [an energy absorption rating] of 2,470. The space shuttle tiles have a Q-value of 1.' Not only that, but because Starlite is so lightweight – 1mm thick, compared to 75mm for the space tiles – it's actually '2,470 x 75 times better'.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/5158972/Starlite-the-nuclear-blast-defying-plastic-that-could-change-the-world.html

A great invention, that was better then anything we have right now but all the sources I've found say that Maurice Ward took the formula to his grave.

[erdrik]

^To add to what JesterHell said...

What has been forgotten along the years and centuries is stuff we no longer use because either we invented something better or is no longer valid considering today's scientific knowledge.

Infrastructure is not just "convenient". It is the very foundations that allowed "today's scientific knowledge" and technology. We don't use the old infrastructure any more because we built and learned things with it that made it obsolete.
But if we lose what we built and learned we will need that old infrastructure again to rebuild and relearn the more modern stuff. And maintaining the knowledge of how to do that, to the extent that you suggested(rebooting from the stage of prehistoric humans), is insanely difficult.


But as I said in my previous post, I don't disagree within the context of the game and how easy it seems to build stuff that should be way harder.
I just get irked when it seems like someone lessens the importance and difficulty of the infrastructure of previous generation.

[Boston]

^To add to what JesterHell said...

What has been forgotten along the years and centuries is stuff we no longer use because either we invented something better or is no longer valid considering today's scientific knowledge.

Infrastructure is not just "convenient". It is the very foundations that allowed "today's scientific knowledge" and technology. We don't use the old infrastructure any more because we built and learned things with it that made it obsolete.
But if we lose what we built and learned we will need that old infrastructure again to rebuild and relearn the more modern stuff. And maintaining the knowledge of how to do that, to the extent that you suggested(rebooting from the stage of prehistoric humans), is insanely difficult.


But as I said in my previous post, I don't disagree within the context of the game and how easy it seems to build stuff that should be way harder.
I just get irked when it seems like someone lessens the importance and difficulty of the infrastructure or previous generation.

Pretty much. Kinda like how, if OUR "real-world" society collapsed, and took technology with it, we would be highly unlikely be able to have a second Industrial Revolution, due to the fact that we have used up so much of the necessary raw materials?

People often forget that

1) raw materials are hard to get. Humanity has known about Iron for around 3000 years, yet actual "dig a hole in the ground" mines (this goes for other materials, as well) have only been economically feasible for the last 300 years, due to the development and improvement of the the steam engine, which in turn allowed for effective water pumps. Without steam power (and the accompanying labor-saving practices), the overwhelming majority of iron (and other metals/materials that can't be found on the Earth's surface) was made laboriously by hand, usually in the form of "bog iron" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bog_iron), which can generally only be "used" once in a generation. Or, that without the Bessemer Process, actual steel is really fucking expensive and hard to make? Not to mention charcoal, seasoned timber, clay
2) People aren't stupid. Take a "caveman" (hint: actual people in the Paleolithic, even Neanderthals, didn't actually live in caves, they built houses/tents from stone, bone and hides), throw him in the modern day, and with an adjustment period, they would have no problems. The Greeks and the Romans discovered steam power, more than once.  Take a "modern" human, throw them back in time to the Paleolithic (or, hell, even a Classical time period), and they are likely going to die. People who lived in earlier time periods were more skilled and "intelligent than people living in modern eras. They HAD to be, or they would die.

Take, for example, a medieval peasant. In real life, and in game-terms, they are often portrayed as stupid and uneducated. Uneducated (that is, illiterate), maybe, but not stupid. Tell me, could you know:
1) How to plant different crops, how much "return" you will get from your land, and how to best manage the crops (treat diseases, when to harvest, etc)
2) How to raise numerous different species of animals, how to treat them for disease, how to  birth new animals, etc etc
3) How to build houses that will keep you warm in the winter, cool in the summer, and dry all year round?
4) How to accomplish different crafts (smithing, weaving, leatherworking, etc) that you actually make money off of?

And they did all of this without having references, like seed packets or animal manuals. By experience and passed-on knowledge.