So I'm working on designing a Sci-fi Open World RPG(Not Exploration, in that the whole game takes place on a single space colony. Think the Crucible from Mass Effect) and I've run into in where I want to preserve some sense of realism, which imo the best Sci-FI and Fiction in general does, suspension of Disblief and such, and their is the issue of humans being in space environment for a long time. Most games handwave the fact that Low G or Zero G has disatrous effects on the body, Cosmic Radiation is much stronger outside of the Heliosphere, Space is filled with a lot of near empty space while Humans need a lot of resources, and FTL should wreak havoc on the human body if it mearly a matter of acceleration rather than a teleportation.

To combat the hostility of space, a common and super handwavy way of solving this undoubtedly crossed my mind.

Nanomachines.

>_>

You know tiny robotos that can give you super powers and the like. I'm thinking of having everyone embedded with Nanomachines to keep them healthy and preserve their genetics.

What doest thou sayest?

...sounds like you are going with nanomachines?

I just want opinions on it, any feedback no matter how small is good.

Well, isn't the "machines" part something of a misnomer? Aren't they really biological in origin? Modified enzymes, proteins, and the like? In that sense, they are totally feasible. However, if they're used as a catch-all to fix plot holes then ... yeah.

Also, isn't faster than light travel based on acceleration pretty much impossible?

I think if you're tactful and subtle with how they're explained and don't go on about it, it works. Drag out an explanation and/or base gameplay around it and it might become eye rollingly pretentious and annoying.

But you knew that already ;)

The nanobots are controlled by an outside AI that regulates everything and they form nanomachines in the body. Creating them out of organic material is actually a great idea but these nanomachines are alot more dynamic then normal protiens as depending on the instructions they recieve it can go from regulating the heart to modifying the genetics of an embryo. Or so I imagine. And there are billions in each body doing different things simultaneously.

As you also might have guessed, these nanomachines go haywire if disconnected from the network, and since they control everything from homeostatsis to gentics, it can be a real can o worms.

Also with the FTL thing, yeah its supposed to be impossible...

Nanomachines, son! It's not the most original idea but it can work pretty well I think, I like the part where you said things can go horribly wrong, that opens up a can of worms of possibilities!

At least it's somewhat based in reality.

Since competent enough nanomachines would be able to do pretty much anything in the human body that would give you a free pass on a lot of things but not everything.

They might be able to cure the cancer caused by space radiation but they can't eliminate strong enough radiation. Also FTL travel is still very much out of the question.

I'm going to love this thread, as I myself am writing a scifi novel about colonial stations (Mainly one called Elyzium)  here

http://storywrite.com/story/11524378-The-Passenger--ELYZIUM--Sleepless-Souls-Prologue--by-PullusPardus

I think you should start writing short stories and read scifi novels first then move to video games, you will get more experience that way

Hard Scifi is a genre that goes into the technical aspects rather than fiction, think more Deus Ex rather than Star Wars.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29579.Foundation

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21611.The_Forever_War?from_search=true

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/112537.Rendezvous_with_Rama?from_search=true

Here is a random song about space that you might enjoy

Now back to the topic..

I would like to ask, does your story have aliens in it? 

Faster than light travel based on acceleration is impossible, acceleration is limited by phsyical reactions that prevent the body matter from going faster than the light.

Galaxies work exactly like Atoms and planets work like Nuclei 

Gravity is the result of those planets moving around, we're always falling and falling and falling through space, imagine now if we stopped and ignored the aspect of gravity, how is that possible?, it is possible I believe. 

Create a chamber / space ship that has artificial gravity in it, artificial gravity is more powerful than normal gravity, because you're not "falling" you're being magnetised (will get on that later) , now after you create an anti gravity shamber your body will have no gravity, your blood, brain, fluid, everything that your body is used to will vanish, so you will feel sick, or maybe unable to move at all, so you should have something to make the characters sit on, and here is where theory of relativity comes in, if your ship goes out of gravity from the outside the inside will be not affected because the inside is going relative to the outside, so your characters will be normally walking around when you go into hyper speed (speed is physical thing so I suggest change the name, maybe gravitational warp, or singularity warp)

To achieve ZERO gravity (not zero g) you would need something that is much more powerful than gravity to go against it, planets spin around stars because of their gravity to the star, stars are basically pulsars that formed by sucking gas and other elements.

.

Note that this sound is virtual, it doesn't actually emit a sound its just sound being reflected from it (to see how fast it spins by converting the frequency)   

the denser the element the closer it gets to the sun, so the farthest planet from the sun contains the lowest (therefor lightest) mass, I'm not talking about the size of the planet because size is irrelivent to mass, for example the jupiter is lighter than earth even though its bigger

what does that matter anyways to faster than light travel? well in order to travel faster than what is faster than gravity we need something that is so fast and has a pull so powerful that it could break gravity a thing so powerful that not even light can filter through what do we have that is likie this? 

well of course its the black hole

Think these things as portals, everything sucked in them gets "spaghettified" (thats actually a real term used by scientists , yeah its dumb)

It gets sucked so hard that not even time itself can filter through , keep in mind time is just our perseption of gravity and the rotation around the sun, so without gravity there is no time, and without time you can travel faster than light and without light you can just "warp" from one place to the other. 

In my story humans discovered a way to create their own black holes so when a ship goes into "Zero gravity" the people inside the ship do not feel anything at all , because relative to the outside the ship isn't moving, but outside the ship is sucked into the black hole , black holes in my story are made by super magnetic fields (more powerful than the sun, since human science became so advanced that they can use the power of stars for their own) , opening up a portal around the ship and then going through it, it takes a lot of energy from the ship and about 30 minutes to prepare and then more minutes to find a "stoppng point", so its not something they can do instantly but its the basis of space travel. 

Now about nanomahines in my story humans have become nearly immortals, thanks to advancement in science, and thanks to transhumanism  (click on it its interesting) , organ augmentation and transplant became very rapid and diseases and medication became very advanced that diseases we have today that are considered deadly are nothing to them, and thanks to them being stuck in virtual gravity they do not pshycially age as fast as we do, however thanks to them being in space (not all characters are in space some live in planets, and there is no aliens in my story) the ones who live in Xiberia (a space station) are taller have paler skin, bigger eyes, and are skinner (because muscles rely on gravity) so when they meet other characters from "Sekkena" (a desert planet similar to dune) compared to them sekkenians are darker skinned, shorter, and more muscled , they also have more skin complexions.

so no , humans will not die if they're in space they will just adapt, so basically the aliens in my story are just other humans living in other colonies (the colonies are super huge and very far apart, i did this so that every colony has their own culture based on today's countries , Fer'Dos for example is inspired by Arabian culture, while Xiberia is Russian)

So then where do nanomachines step in? they're part of medicial science and augmentation, in my story (albeit controversial) humans have evolved from being just "Natural" to being augmented by machinary, they are past the point where they find it "unatural" , since they believe that humans in their basic form are primitive and through augmentation they can evolve, even the ones that rather have old traditional lifestyles (i call them Authies, basically hipsters in space) embrace medial science rather than oppose it , I myself believe that humans will not survive as species if they do not embrace the idea of transhumanism. not the ones like your avatar for example (not exactly cyborgs) but to have machines be an extension of us, why oppose something we ourselves create ? rather than what is naturally created for us? I am given clay to build a wall for my house, but I can instead use metal to build my house why would I use what is given to me rather than what I can do myself which is better? , Metal is more powerful than clay and I will use it to make a more powerful home.

why do you think that? and what is exactly a strong radiation? 

you have an infected organ you replace it, through nanomachines you can just basically connect the dots, your body becomes like a computer, much better than what is normally is.

also holy crap I wrote an essay without noticing up there