Of Dyson Spheres and Skyboxes.

hmmm I know you could mod the skyboxes

as to the other effect, Im not sure but it would be cool

This would indeed be sick. I hope you either are, or know a good artist to make the art for it .

I think they tried to put a dyson sphere or something like one in the end of the game Freelancer, it was pretty cool... Although it was extremely disorienting flying around seeing nothing but structure and trying to find the one little pinhole that leads out.

With the right art, the inside of a dyson sphere would make an awesome skybox...

My favorite skyboxes were the ones from Homeworld that happened inside massive space-hulks. Just the memory of flying around inside a massive, damaged ghost-hulk sends a shiver down my spine.

I hate shipwrecks underwater, but have this odd facination with them in space, especially if they encompass the whole map in a game. It's just so erie and atmospheric. makes me think of the sound of creaking metal and lazily drifting loose components.

In fact, if we were fighting over the interior of an abandoned dyson sphere, some of the planets could be, in fact, drifing planet-sized bits that have broken from the interior of the sphere, with their own unique model and effects (aka a drifting docking spar becomes a planet with extra logistics ports or something).

I hate to be the bubble burster here, but although Dyson Spheres are big, they arent solar system encompassing big, they just cover the sun, thats it.

Exactly!

A dyson sphere's outer shell would be about earth orbit away from the star, so few planets would actually fit inside. And the Karos hulk in Homeworld someone mentioned was a destroyed Dyson ring apparently, but what was the Great Derelict?

But yes, i'm definetly rooting for giant structure skyboxes

Dyson spheres can be of any size. Though, any solar system to have one would be rather devoid of planets (for obvios reasons)

well, if they can build it around a sun (or several suns) they can probably either bring planets in or build around systems that already ahve planets.

But I would rather have drifing planet sized components:

Twisted Docking Spar: +10 Logistics Slots, +20% Trade Income

Drifting Administrative Spire: +20% culture spread rate from this well

Massive Drifting Forge: +20% build speed in this well

etc.

The amount of materials needed to create such a massive structure would require most of the planets, asteroids, comets, etc that are around said star to build

a ringworld would only require a minor amount (something the size of Jupiter for a 1 AU radius ring) and so in that situation yes you could have planets

So now that we are seeing there is interest in such an idea. The next step and question is, is there a modder and/or artist willing to step up to this momentous challenge?

Actually, this probably wouldn't be that big of a challenge.  Stars each have their own skyboxes that fade as you zoom away from them.  I don't know if you could do anything about the zoom-fade, but technically speaking, for flying around inside it, you would just need to create that skybox and attach it to a star, either as an optional skybox, or create a star specifically for it.  I'd probably suggest the latter so that when you do zoom out far enough to see a galactic view, you can have a dyson's sphere icon replace the star icon.  This could also be done with a ring-world in the same fashion, but making star icon with part of the ring 'blocking' light from it.

As for the planets or no planets part.. well, the first is easy, use planets.  For no planets inside, the easiest way to go about that would be to create custom planets, but use, say just for ease, the orbital buildings for any given race as the mesh.  I may suggest resizing them to be a bit more appropriate as massive structures that'd actually house the people and pump out the fleets that'd be created in a normal game, though.

'Course, both parts of the above have already been mentioned, I'm just more or less confirming that that's pretty much all there would be too it, discounting any fully custom stuff that would be wanted beyond textures/icon images.  But, before anyone suggests I do it, since I'm kinda making this sound easy, I'm sadly *not* a texture artist (and how I seriously wish I was.. Or all that artsy at all...), or I honestly would just take up the project, because it'd be a fun mod (or mod addition) to have.

you have a damn good point.

Hmm....

A ruined dysof sphere with bits and peices floating arround as planets, with the rest of the hulk in the back ground.

I want one.

Having one as a skybox wouldn't be impossible. You would phase jump to a star, but instead of joining a web of phase lanes and planets, you just end up outside a titanic sphere. Once inside through whatever means you get to see the internal face of the sphere and all the buildings and such.

It doesn't have to be a total sphere. In which case you could enter through a hole and exit phase already inside. Or phase drives could let you pass through the wall. Who knows. It would be really cool

Ahhh, the suspense is killing me. I can see it's also killing you guys. Is there any texture artist and/or modder who is willing to work on this? come on 7ds people, this is liquid gold .

LOL dyyson spheres require many many more planets then a solar system has, any race that could build one could also transport planets in whole or pieces to where they would need the materials. 

"At such a radius, the interior surface area would be about 7 × 10¹⁶ km², or 550 million times the entire surface area of the planet Earth. Such a surface area could easily support the lives of many quadrillions of beings."

thats from a star trek Dyson sphere, but they could be any sice, now thats surface area, think aobut how thick 1 would need to be also. for obvious reasons if something was that big around, iwt would be logical that it would be very thick to have the strength needed to hold a shell that big together.

Sol (our sun) alone has the mass of 1 million earths.

Here's what I'm thinking one could do for a (big) map. Have the Starmap be a shattered Dyson sphere, with segments inside it. At the same time, it might be possible to somehow incorporate other peices near the edge of the sphere. Possibly whole segment's (if you can get them to fit)

I hate to be a bubble-burster here, but if you want the REAL dirt on Freeman Dyson's infamous megastructure, look here.

In actuality, Dyson himself knew a solid, hollow sphere would be a ludicrous proposal in and of itself - what he actually proposed is more commonly known as a Dyson swarm, which is just a bunch of statically-positioned satellites positioned about the star.

Just thought y'all could do with the information.

Warlord Mike, the Information Guru, signing off.

yea i was reading that, in his swarm which is much mroe likely, i believe ringworld, was what originally got me looking in to those things. but if we are going to fantasize about any such endevour lets just go for the big time

good point, after all we are playing a very realistic game so maybe a Dyson Sphere would not be proper

Sins is hardly realistic. I think that as a skybox, a Dyson sphere would be kickass.

I'd rather see a star varient of a dyson sphere.

distant stars mod would make an awesome one for it.  They already have blackholes and white stars.  Add in a dyson sphere