11 Minute Look at ALIENS: Colonial Marines - E3 2011

[BishopIII]

 Unless the buildings really were built to withstand a nuclear explosion, maybe they are made as standard, an all-purpose habitat. May work out cheaper for WY to just churn out the same modules for every colony. Makes sense to make them resistant, if you think about it. What if the AP went critical? Say, a supply ship crashed and hit it? Would they really risk their investments in such a colony and its personnel if there was a danger that it might all be vapourised? Of course not, they'd strive to create a safe harbour for the colonists, so that a rescue might be possible, or even repairs and replacements.

 I just can't see why they would risk their very expensive colony by putting a giant fusion reactor slap bang next to it, unless it could withstand the possible explosion.

 I'm looking forward to this game, either way!

[Hudson]

Fine, but if the whole container side of the complex is still there, then that's just silly. Which is sad because we really never got to see that part of the place in the movie.

[BountyHunter]

I don't think there was one, other than fanwank.

I dunno, maybe Bishop forgot to carry the one. Overestimated the destruction. 

I'll buy this as an explanation.

Now I can play the game without worrying about silly continuity stuff.  Thanks beckmen.  lol

[Thedus]

...OK, so the buildings survived... it's a stretch, but let's go with it for a second. ...wouldn't the entire complex be a radioactive wash, and wouldn't there still be considerable fallout over the area?

[Company Man]

Maybe in the FUTURE, such trivial things like nuclear fallout have been "GREENED", so as they are less harmfull to us...

And yes, I am being sarcastic!

[deezelboy]

...OK, so the buildings survived... it's a stretch, but let's go with it for a second. ...wouldn't the entire complex be a radioactive wash, and wouldn't there still be considerable fallout over the area?

Fusion reactors (if they could explode like that, etc!) wouldn't kick out much in the way of fallout.  It'd be pretty clean.

[Arnold666]

Is there a release date yet  for this game?      

[Hudson]

The game was just recently pushed back to Fall of 2012 I believe. There's a trailer that has recently been released (which uses the score from Moon I believe) that shows this.

[SM]

...OK, so the buildings survived... it's a stretch, but let's go with it for a second.

Must we?  Aliens can bash down doors that marines can melt enough to weld shut.  But they can withstand a mammoth nuclear explosion?

And there's more - an AP station that is vulnerable to it's cooling system being ruptured by firearms and being crashed into by dropships, can withstand being at ground zero of a nuclear explosion!

Ripley and the others shoulda just ducked and covered.

[deezelboy]

Aliens can bash down doors that marines can melt enough to weld shut.  But they can withstand a mammoth nuclear explosion?

Probably. The thermal pulse is very very brief.

Back in the days of Project Orion, where they were seriously looking at propelling a spaceship by detonating nukes behind it, they were understandably concerned about the risk of vaporising the pusher plate and ship.

Lew Allen strung up a series of steel balls on test towers around a testing site, and remarkably they survived with very little damage despite being subject to temperatures around 150,000 kelvin - about 30 times hotter than the surface of the sun.

What happens is that the outer layer heats up very suddenly, becoming opaque to any remaining thermal radiation, protecting the interior of the ball. It's similar to the mechanism that protects meteorites - when they hit the ground they're normally very very cold because only the surface has heated up and ablated away during re-entry. 

So exterior doors would probably survive thermal effects, and interior doors probably wouldn't be touched by them.

The AP, on the other hand... I don't think it would have been entirely vaporised, but it would be at the centre of the shockwave. IMHO it'd be scattered wreckage.

[beckmen]

The AP, on the other hand... I don't think it would have been entirely vaporised, but it would be at the centre of the shockwave. IMHO it'd be scattered wreckage.

In nineteen minutes, this area's gonna be a cloud of vapor the size of Nebraska.

Two 'artificial persons' with opposing conclusions. 

[deezelboy]

With all due respect to Bishop, he'd be lucky if he was a cloud of vapour the size of Nebraska if the AP exploded immediately after he said that while sitting on top of it.

However, I fully understand the need to communicate the urgency of the situation while abandoning any precise calculation or constructing a detailed simulation. 

If the artificial person had been me at the time, I would have simply shut down my interface and calculated the exact area of vapour I could become after the AP's victory incandescence for the sake of preciseness, together with the probability of vaporisation given the range and cover between myself and ground zero.

This would almost certainly have taken me more than 19 minutes to complete.

I would however have had the last laugh, albeit in silicon heaven.

[Hudson]

I kind of think Gearbox probably didn't look this in depth into it and were more like "Okay...screw the explosion destroying everything..."

I'm honestly more interested in where the meat of the story is going to take place because I don't buy for a second that more than 20% of the game is going to be at the colony. Much like how The Thing got really convoluted I'm pretty sure this will as well with its locations. Creative people just can't resist making their own shit.

[BlackWatch]

I kind of think Gearbox probably didn't look this in depth into it and were more like "Okay...screw the explosion destroying everything..."

Oh, but, Randy Pitchford is such a big fan of the movies and knows everything there is to know about the mythos so the game is going to be so jam-packed-full-of-Alien-awesomeness-it-won't-even-matter!!!!!1!11!!!!!!!!

[deezelboy]

What I don't get is the obsession with LV426 and the Sulaco. Why not just set it somewhere else, another colony and another warship that look the same if that's what they want, thus getting rid of the whole 'but could it survive being nuked' stuff.