Celestia Forums

Really cool model, but... Considering gravity here, wouldn't there be WAY too much pull at the surface. I would think you would see a flat featureless surface... Of course, I never read Ringworld, so I do not know the back story.

buggs_moran wrote:Really cool model, but... Considering gravity here, wouldn't there be WAY too much pull at the surface. I would think you would see a flat featureless surface... Of course, I never read Ringworld, so I do not know the back story.

Well, according to the book there isn??t much gravity, it is centrifugal force, it spins to provide one G. It is a very thin strip of unobtainium covered with dirt, water and rock...

- rthorvald

Guess I'll have to read it... I love sci-fi, but taking the leap of "faith" to get into it has become increasingly tougher the older I get... I've wanted to write a novel many times, but always want the science to be right so my ideas meet with the silly wall of reality so often... At least that's one of the excuses I use...

buggs_moran wrote:Guess I'll have to read it... I love sci-fi, but taking the leap of "faith" to get into it has become increasingly tougher the older I get...

Well, i haven??t read it for twenty-five years. I doubt it is a good novel, it is more an adventure story than literature, and the scifi is probably very outdated. I remember almost nothing of the story - i just remember the imagery of the fantastically grand world it describes...

- rthorvald

rthorvald wrote:If i remember correctly, the centrifugal force was delivered by a 770mph orbital speed.

770 miles per second.

Of course, if it was the future, the protagonists would more likely be using kilometres rather than miles.

(770 miles per second is roughly 1240 kilometres per second.)

You can go here to get detailed information on the size of the ringworld and it's spin velocity etc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ringworld# ... ngineering

Thanks Reiko. It's funny, after reading the plot I am sure I have read at least one of the books because the puppeteer aliens sound very familiar... Perhaps I read one of the sequels.

buggs_moran wrote:It's funny, after reading the plot I am sure I have read at least one of the books because the puppeteer aliens sound very familiar

If i remember right, the puppeteers inhabit a lot of Niven??s stories, not just the Ringworld books?

- rthorvald

I think the puppeteers were in some of his short stories but were mostly seen in the four ringworld books.

That crazy Pierson's puppeteer named Nessus kicked me in the ribs in the short story: "The Soft Weapon".

Bloody leaf-eater!

The Soft Weapon was made into an episode of Star Trek: The Animated Series
http://www.danhausertrek.com/AnimatedSe ... eapon.html
But the puppeteers were not in that version, although the Kzinti were.

A couple more screenshots; the last ones for now
(no time; i am going to get my Ran project out, and then
there??s the JTPS and Titan add-ons to update for 1.5), so
this is as far as i go with this for the time being.

In these pics, three different views from the Great Oval Ocean:




... What you see here is 360 models, one per degree of arc. The foremost
one holds a 2k ground and (separate) cloud texture, the rest are at 1k
though i have 2k versions. I wonder if Celestia recognizes mipmaps when
the DDS file is embedded in the CMOD? If so, 2k might be feasible for the
entire ring, and perhaps even 4k for the ocean (all the action in the book
takes place close to it, so no point in higher resolution anywhere else).

Of course, one must also have detail models of the ground locations on
top of that... And perhaps the clouds should be on a separate model
to make them move.

- rthorvald

That is some beautiful work Runar.

I've read just about every story written by Larry Niven.

Ok, i have decided to go forward with this. I have mapped the Great Ocean,
and here is the result - the Earth is slightly enlarged, or it would just be a pixelated
tiny blob. It is just about large enough to make out the continents.


Also, the surface textures are properly painted now - not just thrown together.
I had to add a *lot* of water bodies - and darker , coloured clouds - to recreate the
"blue ribbon" Niven writes about - in the first version, it just looked a greenish brown
from afar. The clouds are moving. Here is the current sky:


Next, i need to model the Needle of Inquiry. However, i don?t have the book, and it
is more than 20 years since i read it. Can anybody who have it send me a description
of what the ship looks like?

- rthorvald

Runar,

The original Ringworld Ship (which transported Nessus, Louis Wu, Teela, and Speaker-to-Animals to the Ringworld and then crashed on it) was actually called "The Lying Bastard" or "The Liar" for short. - I assume this is the one you want to model.
I remember that it was based on a General Products No 2 transparent hull with most of the equipment, drives etc installed outside the hull.
The "Needle of Inquiry" I think was the later ship introduced in "Ringworld Engineers".

I have both books somewhere. Unfortunately my scanner's not been working for a while. If I can get it working again, I'll scan the relevant pages for you. This might take a while though, so maybe if someone else has the book, and a working scanner, they could do the same for you.

CC

Hot Needle of Inquiry was their second ship, flown in Ringworld Engineers, with a GP #3 hull.

Aha. Well. it is so long since i read it...
The Lying Bastard, yes, that is the one.
If i can get the description, it would be very nice!

I found these images, but if i remember correctly, should not the ship be transparent?
http://www.larryniven.org/images/ringwo ... basthi.jpg
http://www.larryniven.org/images/ringwo ... world1.jpg
http://www.larryniven.org/images/ringwo ... liar-1.jpg
EDIT: this one is transparent: http://www.larryniven.org/images/ringwo ... liar-3.jpg

Another thing remember is some flying houses, or a flying city. Anybody knows what i mean?

- rthorvald

--- edit ---

rthorvald wrote:Aha. Well. it is so long since i read it...
The Lying Bastard, yes, that is the one.
If i can get the description, it would be very nice!

I found these images, but if i remember correctly, should not the ship be transparent?
http://www.larryniven.org/images/ringwo ... basthi.jpg
http://www.larryniven.org/images/ringwo ... world1.jpg
http://www.larryniven.org/images/ringwo ... liar-1.jpg
EDIT: this one is transparent: http://www.larryniven.org/images/ringwo ... liar-3.jpg

Another thing remember is some flying houses, or a flying city. Anybody knows what i mean?

- rthorvald

LOL you beat me to it

Nasty

here another pic not sure if it will help but here it is