Biotech Alt History Brainstorming Thread

[Hydromancerx]

 

[Azurian]

Photosynthetic Skyscaper
Biolumen streetlights
Artificial immune system

 

[Faustmouse]

The problem of making "alternative timeline" techs for future-techs is very difficult, isnt it ? I am pretty sure that "modeling animals " what you call genetic artistery will become a normal subject in elementary school one day^^
And I'm not sure about those two animals.... you want to give the neoraptor a movementspeed superior to Humwees? I dont think any animal, if designed or not will be able to run that fast over a long time. You might better give him many firststrikes to represent his carmoflage ability and its high speed.

Here are some more ideas:

Artificial Dreaming (as in a James Bond Film, I think it was "die another day") (Technology)
needs neurobiology, brain-machine-interface, 3D Reality
+10% and +10% in all cities, also +5 in all cities.
Leads to: Dream Artistry (someone complained there are no future Art-Techs)

Dream Artistry (TECHNOLOGY)
needs Artifactal Dreaming
+2 in all cities


High-Explosive plants (TECHNOLOGY)
needs gene manipulation
all forests in your territory +10% Defence (if this is possible)
enables: Plant-Mines (Building)

Plant-Mines (Building):
All units in adjusted tiles gets 10% damage per second, stacks with other mines/traps and the watch-tower line.


Other ideas:

Controlled Insect-Swarms
Controlled Micro-Swarms
(both similar to the Nanite-clouds)

Viral-micro-Accumulator
-> as super small batteries, already "done" in real life:
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2009/virus-battery-0402.html
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=102647672

DNA-based assasinates (design DNA or enzymes that will only kill a people with a specific DNA. You can release those molecules into drinking water and no-one except the target person should be harmed.)
-> requires the tailor-made viruses

Do you make any cuts between biotech- and nanotech-alternative timelines? Because these are very close to each other.

 

[ls612]

I have always had a problem with future alt-timelines. After all, isn't every future tech, including the Transhuman and Galactic Eras, alt-timeline technically?

Also, having Biopunk and Cyberpunk is kind of superflorus, as they are very close to, if not identical to, what is already in the 'core' techtree. I think we should just put every future tech in either the Transhuman or Galactic Era, and thereby beef up those eras, which have fewer techs than the Prehistoric or Industrial eras.

 

[Hydromancerx]

Well Biopunk can be anything from 80's and 90's technology with a sci-fi twist all the way to futuristic technology.

For instance look at Jurassic Park where its computers were typical 90s tech. The internet was just coming online for the masses and things like iPods or iPads were not invented yet.

 

[steampunk1880]

I don't know if we can or should do alternative timeline techs anymore. Having punk as a resource invites us to insert unusual, different or superpowered buildings and units into already existing techs. If we were to have special punk tech trees then in one of the threads on this board there was mention of having a special unlockable tech tree on a new special menu for it. For examaple, the Master of Mana modmod has special magic school tech trees the rate of research in which is determined by a new commerce generated thingy called spellresearch. If we were to implement special alt timeline tech trees (which would take a lot of work to code and build) research in it should probably be tied to something like clockpunkresearch or steampunkresearch points generated exclusively by buildings and wonders of the respective alt timelines. The first and initially only thing to generate xresearch would of course be the culture building.

I'm going to stop talking about that stuff before i get too carried away. I'll end by saying that the above would be a much more difficult/flexable way to implement alt timeline stuff than a resource.

@Faustmouse
Artifactal? Artistery?? Technologie??? Territorium?!?! ...Mashine...?

@Is612 I'm for having both. The wacky, improbably implemented, or superpowerful biological based stuff goes in biopunk, the wacky, improbably implemented, or superpowerful computer based stuff goes in cyberpunk.
I wanted the future past the modern era to be retooled to be an either or thing with three branches: Cyber, Space, and Bio. with cyber and bio being mutually exclusive and space available to both for the purposes of colonizing the solar system and junk. The point being that at some point a civ would have the choice between starting down the cyber path or the bio bath and depending on which tech the researched first the other path would be locked. each path would have both analogues with each other (bio: Gen-engineered crops for improved farms, cyber: automated farming systems) as well as exclusives to give each other flavors and a unique scientific victory at the end of each.

 

[Faustmouse]

@Faustmouse
Artifactal? Artistery?? Technologie??? Territorium?!?! ...Mashine...?

Kill me for my spelling mistakes...
Sorry, it's been a while since I used english^^ I will edit it.

Artifactal must be artificial
Artistery meant Artistry
Technologie must be Technology, its simple the Type of the thing I wanted to add.
Territorium must be Territory
Mashine must be machine

 

[steampunk1880]

@Mouse
Whoops, completely forgot to actually talk about what you were suggesting. I'm really sorry about that.

About stuff like artificial dreaming and all I can't really see that as a biopunk thing, rather it'd be a cyberpunk thing like you plug your brain into a computer that generates the dreams or whatever. I admit I never watched Die Another Day so I'm not really sure what that's like. A biopunk thing that messes with minds and stuff would be like a genetically engineered hallucinogenic plant or a mind control slug or something like that.
Consider suggesting Artificial Dreaming in cyberpunk. Also I don't think the technology should give any bonuses, rather if you could suggest a building that does much the same thing that you could construct with this technology, like a house of dreams entertainment building, that would be better than just automatically having all this stuff happen as soon as you research the tech. Also why such a large blow to health? Is it because the people get all fat and lazy spending all their time debauching it up in dreams? If so then why the increase in commerce and hammers, it seems like a purely Happy Face generating thing that would actually hurt productivity.

Explosive plants as a defense seem silly to me. If we're going to weaponize plantlife then why not go with colossal man-eating venus flytraps or something similar instead? Can we call the tech a non specific "Weaponized Flora" or "Weaponized Plantlife"? Then inside that tech we could fit all sorts of goodies. Not just explosive plants (still think it's odd though) but killer vines, man-eating trees and Audrey Junior of Little Shop of Horrors fame.

 

[Azurian]

@Mouse
Whoops, completely forgot to actually talk about what you were suggesting. I'm really sorry about that.

About stuff like artificial dreaming and all I can't really see that as a biopunk thing, rather it'd be a cyberpunk thing like you plug your brain into a computer that generates the dreams or whatever. I admit I never watched Die Another Day so I'm not really sure what that's like. A biopunk thing that messes with minds and stuff would be like a genetically engineered hallucinogenic plant or a mind control slug or something like that.
Consider suggesting Artificial Dreaming in cyberpunk. Also I don't think the technology should give any bonuses, rather if you could suggest a building that does much the same thing that you could construct with this technology, like a house of dreams entertainment building, that would be better than just automatically having all this stuff happen as soon as you research the tech. Also why such a large blow to health? Is it because the people get all fat and lazy spending all their time debauching it up in dreams? If so then why the increase in commerce and hammers, it seems like a purely Happy Face generating thing that would actually hurt productivity.

Explosive plants as a defense seem silly to me. If we're going to weaponize plantlife then why not go with colossal man-eating venus flytraps or something similar instead? Can we call the tech a non specific "Weaponized Flora" or "Weaponized Plantlife"? Then inside that tech we could fit all sorts of goodies. Not just explosive plants (still think it's odd though) but killer vines, man-eating trees and Audrey Junior of Little Shop of Horrors fame.

I like the name Weaponized Flora

 

[Faustmouse]

Exploding PLants was just the first thing that pops in my mind
Weaponized Flora sounds good to me too.

In Die another day (if that was the right film^^) a man wears a funky looking helmet when he wanted to sleep. This way, he could spend about one or two hours with that dreaminghelmet instead of spending six to eight hours of normal sleeping. If all your people would do this, it will increase your productivity. The downside was that those artificial dreams wasn't as health as normal sleeping, thats why I suggested the

 

[steampunk1880]

Ok, that helmet still sounds like it belongs in cyberpunk instead. Plug your cyberbrain into the dream machine and get 8 hours of sleep in two. Side effects include headaches, the shakes, and random psychotic breaks (rhyming, yay!). And the focus wouldn't necessarily be just dreaming, which is more or less a side-effect of deep sleep. This is a sleep aid. A Biopunk thing similar to that would be like an engineered ultracaffine or some other pick me up pill. It's something that almost but not quite replaces actual sleep and should have a distribution building instead of the benefits/drawbacks being tied directly to the tech.

I could go ahead and stick weaponized flora up top but I'd like some sort of confirmation that a tech actually COULD improve a civ's defense bonus on specific terrains. I'm pretty sure the auto damage thing from the plant mines building actually can't be restricted to forests, but that's OK because shrubbery and grass can explode just as easily as trees. I think. So simply adjacent units 10 percent damage for plant mines building? How about some unhealth? Anytime you mine an area, some innocent bystander's going to get a limb blown off, especially if the mine looks like a potato plant.

 

[Faustmouse]

I could go ahead and stick weaponized flora up top but I'd like some sort of confirmation that a tech actually COULD improve a civ's defense bonus on specific terrains.

I think there is a wonder which upgrades all your mudpaths to paved roads. It should be possible to change it into "built a weaponized flora in every forest". Then you need a tile improvement with said name which can be build even if there already is an improvement on the forest. I think this should be possible, since you can build a road and a farmat the same tile... Maybe just make a new road that is like the newest road you can build with some extra defense?

 

[Faustmouse]

As new ideas for defence structures in the TH era:

- Living Wall

- Weaponized Fauna (as Traps), may add defenseboni to forests and jungels in own territory

 

[Hydromancerx]

As new ideas for defence structures in the TH era:

- Living Wall

- Weaponized Fauna (as Traps), may add defenseboni to forests and jungels in own territory

Cool ideas. Maybe it could become a new type of terrain feature like a "Genetically Engineered Forest"

 

[Thunderbrd]

I think there is a wonder which upgrades all your mudpaths to paved roads. It should be possible to change it into "built a weaponized flora in every forest". Then you need a tile improvement with said name which can be build even if there already is an improvement on the forest. I think this should be possible, since you can build a road and a farmat the same tile... Maybe just make a new road that is like the newest road you can build with some extra defense?

For tiles, this, I think that the Trap mod plans we have could probably help. As for the buildings... noted and I agree it's a good idea. It's in Hydro's court there though

 

[Faustmouse]

Protein Artist
Requires Protein Lab
Requires Advanced Molecular Biology
Can turn 1 Citizen into an Artist
+ 5 Culture
+5 Science
-> Proteins are designed with the only purpose that they look beautiful under a Microscope.

Microbiology Artist
Requires Microbiology Lab
Requires Genesis Biology
Cost 3200
Can turn 1 Citizen into an Artist
+ 5 Culture
+5 Science
-> Microorganism are designed with the only purpose that they look beautiful under a Microscope.


Animal Designer
Requires Cloning Lab
Requires Genesis Biology
cost 3200
Can turn 1 Citizen into an Artist
+ 5 Culture
+10 Science
+ 5 Gold
-> Animals are designed.

Designed Animal Battle Arena
Requires Animal Designer
cost 3200
Requires Genesis Biology
+ 10% Gold
+ 10 Culture
+ 20 Science
Not sure if + or +... I think of + and + with an advanced tech.

International Designed Animal Show [NW]
Requires Cloning Lab
Requires 10 Animal Designers
Requires Genesis Biology
cost 16000
+ 3 free Celebrity
+ 20 Culture
+50 Science
+20% gold
+5 Happyness in every city


Completely Organic City
Requires Organic Cities
costs 3 times more than a normal building in the same colum.
+10 Health
-500 Air Pollution
-500 Water Pollution
-300% City Defense
+30% repel
+50% Building Construction Speed



The idea is to turn your whole city into green: You life in designed trees, use designed Animals for transport, basically everything is grown naturally.

 

[Yudishtira]

Might get - Defence? How good does a wooden laser rifle work?

 

[Faustmouse]

Haha You know that Episode of Futurama where Bender, the robot, get's a "downgrade" and is then made out of wood?

But yeah... so probably a BIG FAT Minus Defense. But increased Spy-Defense. So it would be only good in your core cities. And, of course, your troops would still non-wooden equipment

 

[Hydromancerx]

@Faustmouse

If you plan to work on these remember you have to have them in the Modules/Alt_Timelines/Biopunk folder and then edit/add the appropriate files like Biopunk_CIV4BuildingInfos.xml

All Alt-timeline stuff is put in there so people can manually turn them off if they don't want it in their game.

 

[Faustmouse]

@Faustmouse

If you plan to work on these remember you have to have them in the Modules/Alt_Timelines/Biopunk folder and then edit/add the appropriate files like Biopunk_CIV4BuildingInfos.xml

All Alt-timeline stuff is put in there so people can manually turn them off if they don't want it in their game.

Ok sure!