Radio Waves, The Ionosphere and Echoes of the Past.
Kodasa
New Zealand Join Date: 2015-04-17 Member: 203545Members
New Zealand Join Date: 2015-04-17 Member: 203545Members
So I mentioned it briefly in the "New Base Sketches" thread. I think, it could be possible, and interesting, to have a radio antenna complete with speakers to add to your base. I know you're probably thinking "I'm alone on this planet, what radio waves am I going to pick up on?"
Well. For one the radio can double as a beacon, meaning you have one attached directly to the base instead of a small one floating. However my thinking was that the radio could be used to add some interesting flavour into the games currently mediocre plot. Or at least a little touch of home.
The idea was that you construct the antenna, and link it to the tuner box, then you can place speakers around your base, in your cyclops, maybe in your seamoth and perhaps even personal ones for your suit. Then you could fiddle with this tuner box, and manually tune it to any frequency you liked. However you'd only get transmissions from certain frequencies. My ideas for the transmissions you receive are:
~ An Old Signal from Earth.
Playing wartime radio from world war two, it travelled all that distance at the speed of light, hence why it's so late getting to the planet. The signal would be fuzzy of course, but you could hear some good old timey songs and get updates from Earth's past. For those wanting a sort of... different... approach to subnautica. (I suggested it mainly to show the idea of radio waves travelling through space at the speed of light.)
~ A newer, more recent signal from Earth.
Thanks to the newer technology being created, radio transmissions can be beamed across massive spans of the galaxy in mere seconds. This radio station would be for adding flavour to the plot of the current year, featuring news updates (Talk of the Aurora perhaps and maybe even the rescue efforts), among other things happening in the galaxy, product advertisements and perhaps some weird new age electronic music, something to let the sound artists go nuts with. The other thing is that the idea of rescue efforts could lead to several more crashed ships for you to explore due to failed attempts. This also leaves the sort of open door idea where, if the devs want you to be rescued, an attempt can succeed, and if they don't, the news can tell you about how the military is now ruling the planet uninhabitable and forbidding all travel to the surface, effectively leaving you stuck there for years. The news stories could be epic in the sense that the devs could, in theory, add a new set of stories each week, or every couple of weeks, so that you don't always hear the same recycled transmissions.
~ A strange alien signal, in an unintelligible language.
It would sound spooky to listen to, and it wouldn't contain any music. It could almost be a loop of audio, like a distress beacon or propaganda broadcast.
So having read all that, you're probably thinking, well if I can pick up on these signals, why can I not broadcast for help? Why has nobody heard the cries of the Aurora? What happens if I don't tune it into a station? This is where we take the plot we've already got, and spin it in our favour. The Aurora was brought down by a mysterious energy pulse, this caused it to crash, if we assume that the ionosphere is charged and something on the Aurora was the catalyst to cause this pulse, then one could assume that the Ionosphere of the planet catches and traps all radio waves inside, not allowing them to escape. Eventually they would fade as they lost their strength, hence why you only get old timey war music and nothing older, the newer stuff hasn't caught up yet.
So this is why your cries for help were never headed, because the radio waves were trapped by the Ionosphere and have been bouncing around inside it ever since. This is where the "Echoes of the past" bit comes into it. I thought it could be interesting to have a frequency, that when tuned into, you could hear the frantic radio chatter of the Aurora's crew as the ship went down, the may day cries and the last goodbyes etc. The signals having been trapped and reflecting around the Ionosphere ever since. This would be a great way to add flavour text to the game, the signal could perhaps begin as the Aurora arrives in orbit, and feature the AI, and crew all talking. The best part is, because of the way the signal is bouncing, it could be used to provide several days worth of interesting exposition and plot to the Aurora. Perhaps even featuring the player character. If they did give the character an actual voice then they could technically have a "I am stranded on an unknown planet, I am the only survivor of the Aurora, please help me." sort of signal bouncing around on a frequency too.
Just spit balling an idea for the flavor text. It's not the most important thing to be added, but it'd be pretty damn neat.
Edit: I forgot to mention what happens if you don't tune it to a station. I was thinking it could simply feature a static hiss, aka white noise, Interestingly static hissing can be linked to cosmic noise, particularly if your antenna is aimed at the sun or other stars. I doubt the antenna in game would be strong enough to pick up on these signals, but the idea of having static or 'dead air' being your character listening to empty space is admittedly almost as neat as picking up on radio signals from earth or other human planets.
Well. For one the radio can double as a beacon, meaning you have one attached directly to the base instead of a small one floating. However my thinking was that the radio could be used to add some interesting flavour into the games currently mediocre plot. Or at least a little touch of home.
The idea was that you construct the antenna, and link it to the tuner box, then you can place speakers around your base, in your cyclops, maybe in your seamoth and perhaps even personal ones for your suit. Then you could fiddle with this tuner box, and manually tune it to any frequency you liked. However you'd only get transmissions from certain frequencies. My ideas for the transmissions you receive are:
~ An Old Signal from Earth.
Playing wartime radio from world war two, it travelled all that distance at the speed of light, hence why it's so late getting to the planet. The signal would be fuzzy of course, but you could hear some good old timey songs and get updates from Earth's past. For those wanting a sort of... different... approach to subnautica. (I suggested it mainly to show the idea of radio waves travelling through space at the speed of light.)
~ A newer, more recent signal from Earth.
Thanks to the newer technology being created, radio transmissions can be beamed across massive spans of the galaxy in mere seconds. This radio station would be for adding flavour to the plot of the current year, featuring news updates (Talk of the Aurora perhaps and maybe even the rescue efforts), among other things happening in the galaxy, product advertisements and perhaps some weird new age electronic music, something to let the sound artists go nuts with. The other thing is that the idea of rescue efforts could lead to several more crashed ships for you to explore due to failed attempts. This also leaves the sort of open door idea where, if the devs want you to be rescued, an attempt can succeed, and if they don't, the news can tell you about how the military is now ruling the planet uninhabitable and forbidding all travel to the surface, effectively leaving you stuck there for years. The news stories could be epic in the sense that the devs could, in theory, add a new set of stories each week, or every couple of weeks, so that you don't always hear the same recycled transmissions.
~ A strange alien signal, in an unintelligible language.
It would sound spooky to listen to, and it wouldn't contain any music. It could almost be a loop of audio, like a distress beacon or propaganda broadcast.
So having read all that, you're probably thinking, well if I can pick up on these signals, why can I not broadcast for help? Why has nobody heard the cries of the Aurora? What happens if I don't tune it into a station? This is where we take the plot we've already got, and spin it in our favour. The Aurora was brought down by a mysterious energy pulse, this caused it to crash, if we assume that the ionosphere is charged and something on the Aurora was the catalyst to cause this pulse, then one could assume that the Ionosphere of the planet catches and traps all radio waves inside, not allowing them to escape. Eventually they would fade as they lost their strength, hence why you only get old timey war music and nothing older, the newer stuff hasn't caught up yet.
So this is why your cries for help were never headed, because the radio waves were trapped by the Ionosphere and have been bouncing around inside it ever since. This is where the "Echoes of the past" bit comes into it. I thought it could be interesting to have a frequency, that when tuned into, you could hear the frantic radio chatter of the Aurora's crew as the ship went down, the may day cries and the last goodbyes etc. The signals having been trapped and reflecting around the Ionosphere ever since. This would be a great way to add flavour text to the game, the signal could perhaps begin as the Aurora arrives in orbit, and feature the AI, and crew all talking. The best part is, because of the way the signal is bouncing, it could be used to provide several days worth of interesting exposition and plot to the Aurora. Perhaps even featuring the player character. If they did give the character an actual voice then they could technically have a "I am stranded on an unknown planet, I am the only survivor of the Aurora, please help me." sort of signal bouncing around on a frequency too.
Just spit balling an idea for the flavor text. It's not the most important thing to be added, but it'd be pretty damn neat.
Edit: I forgot to mention what happens if you don't tune it to a station. I was thinking it could simply feature a static hiss, aka white noise, Interestingly static hissing can be linked to cosmic noise, particularly if your antenna is aimed at the sun or other stars. I doubt the antenna in game would be strong enough to pick up on these signals, but the idea of having static or 'dead air' being your character listening to empty space is admittedly almost as neat as picking up on radio signals from earth or other human planets.
Comments
What if you rarely get to hear these voices? Like you are tuning in on a music station or a news station, like we actually get to know more about that future in a reels of news that come back from earth maybe some that are DECADES OLD. But what if we are just hearing to the latest pop-rock hit and then we hear a scream of "HELP US" or just loud screaming or long chattering and whispers?
The first thing we transmit is like you said a radio distress signal but if you keep tuning into it you MIGHT find a rare event of a soft whisper voice saying "you are not alone" or "where are you?" and then you hear a knock-knock from the nearest hatch. Like no there is deffo not going to be anything out there but like they ARE completely alone and one moment or the other they WILL start hearing/seeing things its just a matter of time. This isn't just talking, remember we keep ourselves busy all the time like the unnamed survivor (i call him Dave) tries to keep themselves busy for some reason like why doesn't he ever relax and stops working so damn much? Why not make a cozy bed and call it a day? Paranoia and hallucinations are common effects of isolation and extreme loneliness plus they did just lose everyone, they worked with all of these people maybe most of them were their friends.
You just also solved a major plot hole issue as any advanced civilization WILL send someone to check if they don't get any news from the first vessel they sent, in this case the Aurora. We could hear the military or a news moment talking about the traggic loss of the Aurora and that the planet is declared off-limits maybe even have the unnamed survivor react to it fully voiced and all. Plus that solves the issues of lethal weapons for the community as we would then have to wait before getting anything close to being a weapon or maybe just get some sort of new light weight armor.
I'm not really good at wording like you did but I'm sure you get the idea of what I meant, your original idea is totally perfect though and I would love to see it implemented!
almost all early access sandbox/survival games i own have this problem- lack of narrative. some developers seem to refuse to add any narrative saying that the player must make his own story. but i think the most important for good world-building is really a well thought out lore and base-narrative.
in subnautica that part is really very weak so far. specially a science fiction game demands an intelligent back story. imo
a mysterious signal brings a huge spaceship comes down - good idea, hope the reason for it is well thought out.
why is there only ONE life-pod ? why is that life-pod not equipped with at least some basic supplies ? hope there is a very good reason for that.
being part of the early access i would hope to get a glimpse in the games lore.
I'd have to agree. Look at say... Sins of a Solar empire. It has an overarching lore narrative, that is introduced in the games intro cinematic, however there is no campaign mode, as they claim it is up to the player to create their own story for each game (One game can last... 8+ hours so... understandable). However there is still the overarching narrative for that character to build off of.
In the case of subnautica, this is the same situation. I agree with the idea of the player making their own story. But that story is of how they survive, and the hardships they face, the risks they take etc. That story does not, or should not, be left to cover the past.
Basically, things that happen without the players involvement (Aka everything that led up to the crash of the Aurora) should be well explained in narrative format, or at least available for optional access in game. Hence this suggestion. The Devs would be able to take creativity to the extreme end of the narrative spectrum, making up their own music, adverts and even newsreels. If they ever get stuck for ideas on that I'd be more than happy to offer some suggestions that can fit into the current timeline.
EDIT: I'm not sure how on board I am with the sanity thing, I like the concept but I don't want the devs to think that it absolutely comes bundled with this idea, because it does not. It is a neat concept and if they wish to pick it up then it could tie in nicely to this, but if they do not wish to pick it up, then this idea can work without it too. Felt like I needed to clarify that. Not sure the devs actually read these threads though.
There is that fact, however having never stated the actual design of the antenna itself. It is entirely possible to have the antenna be a module you construct on your base, that releases a buoy that floats up to the surface which has the antenna attached. This would mean you couldn't access radio if you constructed your base in a cave, but that makes sense. You wouldn't pick up radio waves very well inside a cave on Earth either.
There could always be a slightly different chemical make-up of the seawater on this planet that allows radio waves to penetrate as well. I mean, we can't separate the salt out of it, we can find naturally occurring salt deposits but no actual salt in the water molecules themselves. This could just be a design oversight but, thus far we've been content to just assume the water is standard salt water like Earth.
Also, we have the technology of the AI voice communicating with us directly when the Aurora is going to explode right? She is part of the Aurora, as is evidenced when she begins to stutter right before the Aurora actually explodes. So how is she communicating with us even though we're underwater, if that same technology was applied to the construction of your Radio Antenna it could conceivably pick up radio waves even under water. Maybe not old timey radio, but that was just a sort of idea I had to prove the concept of radio wave propagation through space at luminal speeds, I didn't think it would actually fit into the game, but it would also give you an idea of how far away the planet is from earth if they picked a period in history that had radio, and then had you pick up on that signal.
The new technology would allow for SuperLuminal Communications, aka communications faster than the speed of light (Currently only a theory in reality) So it would likely not use Radio at all, as Radio waves are limited to the speed of light and cannot travel faster than this. I simply used Radio because it's the most relatable thing we have as humans, when it comes to tuning into different frequencies and such. I suppose you could call it tuning into the galactic extranet.
But you're right about them not working well in water, salt water at least. Hence submarines having to surface in the real world.
Also i have read that some submarines use sound waves like radio waves to communicate. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrophone Sound waves travel much longer underwater than in air because water is thicker. (As far as i know).. (:
The submarines IRL is where I stole the idea of the Buoy antenna
The Reason salt water hinders radio waves is due to the charged salt-ions, which absorb and reflect radio waves which are composed of electromagnetic radiation. So... There is also the possibility that the antenna creates a Deionized channel of water which allows smooth passage of radio waves even underwater. This means it would effectively purify any water that passed through this beam however. I think I prefer the floating buoy linked with communication cables instead.
There could however be a direct link between the cyclops and the base, not a cable link but some form of direct transmission, similar to Quantum Entanglement, just something to explain why you can link up speakers in the Cyclops to hear the radio as well. I wouldn't want it to be limited to just your base after all.
Hearing an old broadcast from Earth would mean that you should have had to travel a humongous distance faster than light, which is impossible. Even with 'warping technology' it sounds little off. Also, hearing 2 signals from the Earth from different time period means that those signals travel in different speed (not possible), or the other one went through a longer route. Longer route might be possible if the waves can bend in a black hole's vicinity the same way as light, but the signal would probably just fade before reaching you. Radio waves do not travel that far away, so that's a problem. And lastly, when we (people) gained more knowledge about electromagnetic waves, we also gained the ability to send them in specific directions, which means that only tiny amount of brodcasts actually go off to the space. Nowadays there are some 'stations' that you can call to and they'll send your message to travel through the space. You could possibly hear those, but they would probably be just bs.
Picking up alien radio signals or signals from passing Earthly spaceships is a different thing, though, since the source of the signal might be near to you.
Directional broadcasting would make hearing modern signals pretty much impossible.
Trapped radiowaves would probably fade over time to nothing. Also remember the long distance.
The idea sounds cool and everything, but I would like to have relatively accurate physics behind the game features. Warping and such are still OK, since we can just say that future technology could enable that. The same doesn't apply to radio signal problem. And now I'm feeling like a total nerd...
As I said before, the idea of having a WW2 era broadcast, and a modern day broadcast, was to show the difference in technology and the difference in the ability to transmit. The old world war 2 signal, which was broadcast from an Omni-directional antenna, would propagate outwards from earth at the speed of light (The speed electromagnetic waves move at) So at luminal speeds it took roughly 2000 something years for the signal to arrive at the planet. There is a theory, currently just a scientific theory, about the idea of space-time not being linear, but instead being like a cloth, something we can fold with the right technology. Sure we've not discovered it yet, but in the future of subnautica we have the ability to freeze a small bubble of time temporarily, so it's plausible to believe that the spaceflight, has faster than light travel. However not in the traditional sense.
Instead of simply travelling at superluminal speeds, the ship takes Point A (It's current location) and Point C (The Intended destination) and basically opens a wormhole between these two points. Traversing this wormhole would take say... years, instead of thousands of years for them to arrive, it doesn't travel faster than light, it just shortens the distance between Point A and C. The Radio Communication technology of the time would use something similar. Alternatively they could have large relays for accelerating mass. Therefore the particles carrying the radio wave are accelerated or "fired" at rapid speed across the universe it's directional, but fires to a local hub, and antenna in that region tune into that hub of the galactic extranet, thereby allowing them to hear the radio signal, from just about any distance, streamed in what is only a few seconds behind real-time communication. Hence having a modern day signal and an old timey one. There would be a local hub connected to the extranet in orbit, because one of the first things the Aurora would do, before attempting descent, is set up its communications equipment, they'd be stupid not to.
A lot of the technology I'm discussing is hypothetical, it's either from the realm of video games or scientists just aren't sure how to make it yet, but they've theorized it's possible. This is also a video game in which you explore a planet that is not earth, find aquatic life that is not terrestrial and flew there in a big spaceship which crashed due to unexplained energy fluctuations. So I'm pretty content to let realism take a bit of a back seat, in favour of adding to the games lore in a unique and interesting way.
We could always delve into the idea of having Quantum entanglement involved too. When two Quantum Entangled particles are separated, any changes made to one, will immediately reflect in the other, allowing for instantaneous real time communication over any distance. The downside to this is they're immensely expensive to produce and don't have any kind of Hub connection as it is impossible to include more than two particles in one entanglement. There would also be the issue of, how is your particle entangled to any others if you just built it. But that could be answered by saying you have to scavenge the array from the Aurora. Personally I prefer the extranet idea. With the Ionosphere of the planet preventing transmissions from leaving.
I love your reasoning.
But anyway, signal fading still kinda bugs me, and also this somehow feels odd, but I quess I'd accept the signals with this. It is just in the boundaries of "relatively accurate physics" for me.
I did also mention the signal fade in the original post as well, Signal fade is the reason the ionosphere isn't cluttered with signals from before world war 2. Otherwise you'd have to fight with the noise of all the earlier broadcasts as well. But they've faded, hence a WW2 era broadcast, because it literally just arrived at the planet as you did, it's still a fresh signal for the planet, and since time passes in a weird way, it doesn't need to fade while you're playing the game, it can be put to reason that it fades after you leave, or die. When it faded it would just become replaced by the next wave of radio signals from that era.
A radio wave does not fade in the medium of space, because there is nothing to stop it. It simply expands outwards, planets may intercept it in certain directions, but at the end of the day the wave will always propagate outwards from earth at the speed of light.
Eventually, the radio waves we sent, will reach Alpha Centauri, the TV signals we have beamed around, will reach other planets. Although it's only an animated show, Futurama showed the concept perfectly. In an episode where Lur from Omicron Persei 8 was watching an earth TV show which was aired in 1999 on earth, and something Fry had done in the 1999 interfered with the signal. Lur then invades earth and demands to see the ending to the show, which is 1000 years old and no remaining tapes are left, forcing the crew to make up their own ending, which, using the technology of the day, is beamed straight to Omicron Persei 8 in real time.
The current tech we have, has no method for accelerating particles faster than the speed of light. As human beings we're currently limited to the speed of light, it's the fastest we know of particles moving, however it is conceivable and in fact highly likely that in the future, we will have discovered a faster speed to work with, or at least a way to multiply the speed of light and apply those speeds to particles. Alternatively, as I said, there is the idea of artificial wormholes, which would effectively Fold Point A and Point C together, leaving only a short hop to the destination at the speed of light. Effectively it's folding of the space time continuum. Einstein was the one that initially theorized it I believe.
http://www.space.com/20881-wormholes.html
The Important Bits:
Also another idea for radio:
There was an ancient civilization on the planet, and they left behind some tech. There could be still a barely working radio transmitter somewhere, and you could pick up that weak signal and locate the place.
You're welcome.
The idea of ancient ruins is something I could see being played with, in much the same way that Stranded deep had a UFO in it. So it could be something generating an electromagnetic signal that your antenna can pick up on yes, allowing you to track down an ancient, crumbling ruin. But it shouldn't be a temple type thing, it should be like an ancient science lab, or possibly, if procedural generation becomes possible, something like a completely submerged city. It might even be possible to find landmass under the water as if the planet had undergone some kind of cataclysmic biblical style flood. Something that saw the sea level rise above the tops of all the landmass. So it could be possible to have the remains of an ancient civilization there. I will make that idea a separate thread though, or add it to another thread on the topic.
The flood theory sounds awesome. I'm building up a huge suggestion list here, and I think I might add some of your ideas in there, too. Hope you don't mind it.
Much more in keeping with the theme.
Personally, I don't think there is a real need for this. I would file it under nice to have if it was implemented, but not really important to the core game. Just my opinion though.
Go to such lengths? it's just constructing a base module. That's not exactly huge lengths. The point of having it is to offer the ability for a nice, interesting way to add to the games lore, while also providing a unique and interesting scientific angle AND solving the plothole of why you've not called for help.
I don't care about music, I care about story, and the news will give me a lot more story than an ipod ever will.
I don't mind it at all. Just be sure to link to the thread.