Do the aliens have skeletons?
peregrinus
Join Date: 2010-07-16 Member: 72445Members
Join Date: 2010-07-16 Member: 72445Members
Is there any concept art or other images of what the Aliens' skeletons look like?
(I'm not talking about the 'skeletons' used for animation purposes)
Since the game is called 'Natural Selection' it might be cool to make some images up of those for marketing and whatnot.
<img src="http://i371.photobucket.com/albums/oo152/hobbymodelgroup/prealien00a1.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
(I'm not talking about the 'skeletons' used for animation purposes)
Since the game is called 'Natural Selection' it might be cool to make some images up of those for marketing and whatnot.
<img src="http://i371.photobucket.com/albums/oo152/hobbymodelgroup/prealien00a1.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
Comments
found one of the Onos
<a href="http://pcmedia.ign.com/pc/image/article/100/1001060/natural-selection-2-20090702045838688.jpg" target="_blank">http://pcmedia.ign.com/pc/image/article/10...02045838688.jpg</a>
Insects for example wear exoskelletons (armor) as well, but they dont have a bone structure, their inards are all gooshy and slimey.
On another note, are sizes known from Starship Troopers even physically possible?
Would be pretty fun to see their skeleton since all their armour-outgrowths would look just freeeaky.
Awesome, I've saved the pic of the fade cos thats in profile. Are there any of the gorge and skulk like that?
Re. The ragdoll, I think some better constraints would be cool. At the moment everything (marines, kharaa, hydras) just flops about, even flying across the room. Harvesters are easily pushed around, too (when dead).
Some weight, solidity, constraints in the joints, these things would make me a happy camper.
<!--quoteo(post=1820494:date=Dec 31 2010, 06:45 AM:name=RobB)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (RobB @ Dec 31 2010, 06:45 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1820494"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->On another note, are sizes known from Starship Troopers even physically possible?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
AFAIK, no. The chitin their exoskeletons are made of does not have the tensile strength to allow them to be that big. I am a complete layman, tho, so I am talking out my donkey here. Also, I believe (again, same caveat) that since they breathe via diffusion and don't have lungs, there is a size limit.
Insects for example wear exoskelletons (armor) as well, but they dont have a bone structure, their inards are all gooshy and slimey.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Except that it's actually bone, and how else does their body structure hold together?
And exoskeletons are in no way always made of bone.
That ###### on their face? That's bone. UWE have called it bone.
If they've got bone anyway, why wouldn't they have bones?
They don't have an entire exoskeleton, so how would they hold their bodies together? Skeletons.
Silly question is silly.
Silly question is silly.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Technically teeth aren't made of bone.
Depends on the environment, but for general intents and purposes? No, creatures of Starship Troopers' size (or even NS/2's size) would not be able to survive using Earth-based insect physiology.
The reason has to do with the square-cube law and problems it causes:
One, the legs of insects would have to increase in size much faster than their increase in weight would permit and to be fair, alter their shape as well (essentially, the cross-sectional area of your legs determines the amount of weight they can sustain and since your weight increases at a cubic rate as you get proportionally larger, the legs fail to adequately support the body). I mention shape because if you compare the legs of an elephant with the legs of a grasshopper, it's pretty obvious which one would be better suited to holding up more weight effectively (there's a reason an elephant's legs are thick and directly underneath their bodies). Additionally, the legs of insects are already very thin in proportion to the rest of their bodies (since at their real-world size, the weight they have to sustain is so little) and scale <i>even worse</i> as they get proportionally larger.
Two, the insect respiratory system is very weak and inefficient. Essentially, insects breath through small holes in the sides of their bodies (spiracles) and transport the oxygen gained via a system of tubes to cells that diffuse the oxygen to surrounding cells. Assuming human-acceptable levels of oxygen, an insect from Starship Troopers would not have enough (or large enough) spiracles to take in enough air to get the necessary oxygen. Additionally, even if it somehow managed to <i>get</i> the air into its body, the amount/size of tracheal tubes the insect would need would displace too much the insect's internal organs for it to survive (this goes back to point one--the tracheal tubes would take up so much space in the legs that again, the insect wouldn't have enough muscle area to support itself). Then on top of that? The rate of diffusing the oxygen is fixed at a rather slow pace, meaning that the respiratory system has to get even <i>larger</i> to support its body. That said, in an extremely oxygen-rich environment, insects can grow to large sizes since the increased amount of oxygen they receive with each "breath" offsets some of the needed size. Even then, if you use the Carboniferous Period as an example, they still only get so large.
There are more issues such as the rudimentary insect heart getting less and less able to push its vascular system (which again, needs to supply proportionally more nutrients than its size increase would be capable of doing) and what-not, but I think you should be able to get the drift of why huge insects don't work from the above wall of text.
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And to you people thinking that maybe the Marines are fighting in oxygen-saturated environments capable of supporting Kharaa-sized insect bodies, that would be dumb and anti-climactic.
"Oh no! The Kharaa are attacking our space ship! Oh wait, just make Life Support simulate Earth oxygen levels." *War over.*
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*edit* Felt I should add this link for those interested: <a href="http://irl.cs.ucla.edu/papers/right-size.html" target="_blank">http://irl.cs.ucla.edu/papers/right-size.html</a>
See? You <i>can</i> learn something from gaming =)
Thanks for that very informative, well written and obviously well-based post. You have enriched us with real knowledge and for that, sir, I salute you.
Are you an entomologist or "merely" an enthusiast?
Anyway, many of the posts here seem to conflate exoskeleton, skeleton, bone, horn, tooth. These are separate things. It should be rather obvious that Kharaa are modeled with bones, skin and muscles. Some of them have what appears to be horns and claws, true, but this is not bone. Just like teeth are neither bone nor horn. Hair (something the Kharaa seem to lack) is horn. I think of the Kharaa as being armed and armored like a rhinoceros. Only more garishly colored and with flashy bits.