Concerning the 'DNA' Injection
Britemac
Texas Join Date: 2015-07-20 Member: 206290Members
Texas Join Date: 2015-07-20 Member: 206290Members
Dunno if this will be implemented in the final game but...I honestly hope it isn't, and not for reasons most would think. My main reason for it is, well, this isn't how DNA works. Really, it's not. No one has or will gain superpowers by injecting themselves with DNA from random animals, as it stands radiation would be a better way to mutate a person than this. That aside there are a number of alternative ways to go about this genetic research -> self improvement that aren't 'magic needles' (or Plasmids from Bioshock, etc.).
1) Grafting. With this one, you'd need to grow the part you wanted to graft to yourself using a modified version of your own flesh (meaning it would likely cost health) and then after it's grown you surgically install it to yourself (likely with help of advanced machines)
2) Modified Virus. While this one could work and may seem like a 'lol magic needle' it would still logically take multiple days to work (at best) during which your food/water/health would most likely constantly drop by a small amount/increased need for food/water due to immune response
3) Cybernetics. Similar to Grafting, but using mechanical as opposed to biological upgrades to well, upgrade yourself.
These three are just off the top of my head but, I feel, would fit better
1) Grafting. With this one, you'd need to grow the part you wanted to graft to yourself using a modified version of your own flesh (meaning it would likely cost health) and then after it's grown you surgically install it to yourself (likely with help of advanced machines)
2) Modified Virus. While this one could work and may seem like a 'lol magic needle' it would still logically take multiple days to work (at best) during which your food/water/health would most likely constantly drop by a small amount/increased need for food/water due to immune response
3) Cybernetics. Similar to Grafting, but using mechanical as opposed to biological upgrades to well, upgrade yourself.
These three are just off the top of my head but, I feel, would fit better
Comments
Can't see why your ideas wouldn't work really. The way it worked / is working (in experimental) is very simple
Its not impossible or unreasonable, some species have special things to them because of their ecosystem like in this case the Reefback is big and probably evolved to be like that for reasons.
Also you methods seems to be way past anything the game is meant to be like, and at least I am not going to be happy about but butchering myself for something like fins.
No I meant gameplay wise... Lol
Right click
left click
Done
That's too simple xP
Yes but Genetic Modification isn't as simple as 'take it from x, and use on self' at that point it is practicallly magic ala tf2 heal beams, or auto regenerating health of Halo 2+, to me it would make a game that seems to care about making things, moderately realistic on an alien world, and even if genetic modification was that simple it would still take time to take effect, not to mention only 10% of the cells that make up a human body actually contain your DNA, humans are their own micro ecosystem, we are a celular colony organism.
That's not science, that's magical alchemical thinking. "Oh, hey, here is a turtle that whose large shell protects him from harm. I'm sure that defensive property is a result of some physical manifestation of defense (rather than the turtle's protective shell being a result of its overall structure). So I could extract and inject myself with that physical manifestation of defense so my body's defense will increase!".
Silly thinking like this is why some animals have gone extinct or near extinction for nothing but superstition.
It's not how biology works, its not how chemistry works, it's not even how nutrition works. It is inherently flawed because it confuses a perceived subjective property (defensiveness) with real properties (the hardness of the turtle's shell) and does not consider the long chain of things that would be in-between those two things (why does a human find a turtle's shell defensive? just what makes up a turtle's shell?).
I like the idea of taking and analyzing DNA samples, I do not like the idea of just injecting random DNA into random creatures having instant magical effects.
A better explanation is that the player character is augmented by Nanites in his body that augment various biological functions in him, everything to breathing trough digestion to appearance. It would explain how he's able to adapt to the planet so quickly (the nanites help his body cope and adapt if not outright do the job themselves), how he doesn't get some alien infection (the nanites protect him and keep alien stuff out of his body), even how he can eat a one-sided diet of alien fish (the nanites help brake down otherwise toxic stuff and use the food's energy to build nutrients that the body needs but is not in the food).
So what taking and analyzing the tissue and DNA of various creatures we use nanites to do that. The result are nanites that can do things that they otherwise wouldn't by mimicking the cell structure of the creatures or using the stuff to make unique nanites. By studying alien tissue and DNA, the player finds ways to make unique nanites that do things they otherwise couldn't do. So we are in essence use one research to archive breakthroughs in other branch of research (this happens in real life).
Ofc I would agree here... it's just that because of how simple it is to actually give yourself a DNA injection, there SHOULD be some different way of doing it :P
A better way to use the native life to improve oneself is to study how creatures survive and use that to create cybernetics. One could, for instance, study the chemical that gasopods release, and create a device you can wear that releases a similar substance that drives off predators but will not harm you.
It might be cool to see both-- cybernetics cost resources ofc, and are therefore expensive, but don't have too many downsides-- while DNA has upsides but also downsides?
What a lazy argument. Somehow building verisimilitude is now a bad thing now.
It's not a bad thing, but this is a game, with a target audience of everyone, from children, to grandparents and above. Making things too realistic and obtuse is not the type of game the majority of the world will enjoy.
Bro, you nearly killed me with that one. Haven't laughed so hard in years...
Sci-Fi = Science Fiction, that is to say Fictional Science.
Science Fiction != Reality
Subnautica != Reality
Subnautica = Hardcore Sci-Fi
I don't understand why some people claim to love Sci-Fi, yet hate so hard on the fiction part.
That doesn't make Subnautica bad, it just makes it soft sci fi. I happen to be a fan of both ends of the spectrum. Star Trek and (even softer) Star Wars are good stuff, after all.
Uh...you do realise there is a 3d liquid style printer prototype that hardens the printed structure out of the fluid via lazers, right?
Most likely because SciFi actually started as a far more realistic genre of books and novels-- the stories were actually "possible" in the world that we know of now, and it almost was meant as an educational tool in some cases :P
I actually think that star trek is softer than star wars, because star trek makes up nonsensical explanations for what is happening, such as when they apparently needed to remove all the baryons from their ship (baryons are the particles that make up all matter)
That 3-D printer is modern day tech, while I agree the lead thing is kind of weird, it wouldn't have to be due to breaking them apart and recombining them, it could be that the reason for it is the silver/copper are impure so the machine is more or less alloying the copper/silver , leaving lead, as pure copper/silver isn't a very common thing, so it could just be a filtering/purifying/alloying thing. Idk, I'm not a metallurgist, however I know conductive elements alloy very, very well, and due to how easily their electrons move around make pure versions of them very rare, almost impossible, to find.
Also, Magnets can indeed affect non ferrous things, if it produces a strong enough field. Case and Point
Every science fiction in the end is fiction, but there is a massive difference between how that fiction is approached. One of the positive hallmarks of (good) hard sci-fi is that they try to establish why what you see is possible and how, creating rules and then following those rules closely. The drama involved not braking those rules but following them in creative ways. They try to veer away from the outright impossible but still explores the imagination resulting in a world more believable where the impossible is dismissed or violated at the shrug of the hand.
And what in the world supports this preposterous notion? All I did is to take an explanation that relied on bad magical thinking and made one that explained more about the world, you and your place in the game's universe, shifting the burden of miracle-working from a vague misunderstanding of basics of biology to one that probably overestimates a futuristic (but real) technology. Not a perfect solution but it makes more sense and gives a bit of a dimension into the gameworld. How is this making them "too realistic" (realistic is actually good because it known and thus intuitive) or how does it make it more obtuse than the game already is?
I understand exactly what you mean't.
What you don't understand is It's those silly sub-labels everyone creates for stuff, which were the target of my comment.
IMO, your points require no argument. Realism can be fkn great. However this never was supposed to be a realism sim. So, I think it's silly to get so nit-picky. How realistic is anything in this game? Honestly? A submarine appears from a faint thin blue print in thin air. How's that for verisimilitude, among many other things...
Cybernetic enhancement makes sense, mutating yourself cause 'lol sci fi' does not. A graft makes sense (you grow it flush the cells out leaving a rough frame work then 'print' living, and modified cells from your own body to make it do what you need, they are already doing this for making prosthetic ears/noses/hearts, it reduces the rejection rate of the replacement part immensely) where as the injection...it's over done. Seriously. Bioshock has ridden that undersea pony to death with plasmids and adam, which are essentially the same thing a 'dna injector' would be.
Sure cybernetics aren't exactly 'fresh' but it could be addressed in a new way, perhaps instead of fully mechanical, a biomechanical type of augment, mixing grafting with cybernetic implants, that's not exactly something often used.
Oooh that sounds cool, like build up some genetic material and 'grow' a bone sharks exo skeleton? give yourself a dive suit more resistant to damage?
Essentially, yes, like I said, they are already doing that, by flushing the live cells out of organs (leaving a 'frame work') and replacing the now empty spaces with cells from the one who is to receive the implant
Which would allow for longer lasting, higher quality food, yeah, lol, love how this went from talking about the DNA injectors to talking about food, then again, any food has genetic information in it....so food is essentially a form of dna injection in a very, very roundabout way (mainly in the form of broken down amino acid chains)
I think you are failing to get an important aspect of the entire argument taking place.
Taking DNA from one thing and injecting that DNA into another thing in expectation that the second will somehow gain the properties of the first is stupid.
It is not a matter of realism, where realism is some sort of indulgence that can be made when it would be convenient (and that's not getting into how one unrealistic thing doesn't excuse the other). The explanation and mechanism described makes no sense and even if it is on an alien planet. The story's suspension of disbelief is shattered which is a problem that can be solved.
DNA is not life essence (see above), injecting DNA around into random creatures does nothing because we know how that works. You are "injected" by DNA every time you eat food but you don't absorb it. Your body actually relies on recognizing and rejecting foreign DNA to work. You don't need to be a biologist to know this. You do not gain feathers from eating chicken or crow cobs when eating corn. This is not some esoteric knowledge of biologists, this is common knowledge.
Having an alternative, better explanation costs the developers almost nothing, especially in this stage of development. It wouldn't even require changing existing game props.
so... you just want to make it a more complex procedure? because I'm fairly sure the taking DNA from one organism and putting it into yourself isn't the final method.
If it makes the process make more sense and work better with the story, yes.
Than what is it?