X-Com Floating Bases

[Ki-tat Chung]

it could be build onto a rock face while still having a pool of water:

 

Pool of water

___________

|.................|

|.................|

|...sub sits...| Door

|....here......|

|.................|

 

[metalangel]

The bases are probably mostly submerged and tethered in place with... something... with only a single module (the access lift) above the surface (so people can get in). So while they are floating, they're floating in the same way a submarine floats (ie: no on the surface but not grinding the sea floor either).

 

As for keeping the water out, you just have to pressurise the base. Or you can use a diving bell-style technique. If you've seen Waterworld, you remember when Kevin the fishguy takes the bitchy woman down to see the ruined city? Like that!

 

The aquanauts likely use something (or a development of) 'Oxygene' which was developed by the US Navy. It is the stuff from the Abyss, it works under the principle that while your lungs can be crushed at a huge depth due to the pressure, liquid can't be compressed, therefore lungs filled with breathable liquid would survive at any depth (so long as you didn't mind the sensation of inhaling liquid for the first few seconds). If you're wondering why your ears don't get crushed (if you ever go swimming, dive more than 10 feet and your ears will start to hurt!) you just use the old scuba-diving trick - hold your nose, hold your breath, and try to blow out through your nose - your inner ear's pressure will equalise. It's also worked for me during the descent in an airliner

[M. Hoz]

The answer's simple then.

Alien Alloys!

These things are strong,but are flexible as Rubber!

[metalangel]

Am I alone in thinking I wouldn't be to happy underwater in a base where the walls would wobble if I poked em? :o

[NKF]

I sure wouldn't. Some people just can't stop poking things. *poke* *poke*

 

Still, I doubt alien alloys would last under prolonged exposure to salt water. Ever stop and wonder why you never find any shot down UFOs on the seabed (from the UFO-era)?

 

Just food for thought.

 

- NKF

 

P. S: And no, 'the game designers forgot' doesn't count!

[BladeFireLight]

Alien Alloys Oxedize when exposed to salt water.

 

after 40 years they would be to rusted to recognize...

 

How ever the Triton's "Lithium" armor would react vilently with water.. It probably wouldnt last 40 minuets

 

Lithium's Reactivity wit water.

 

TFTD notebook Check Page 16 for the disciption of the Triton.

 

My question is.. Why does SORESO exist.. if the elirum goes inert with prolonged contact with water. (stated in one of the game manuals timeline) What are they looking for.. souvenirs?

 

-Blade FireLight

[The Veteran]

The guy who founded SORESO was mentally unstable and kind of an alien fanatic... He basically has billions of dollars and nothing to do with it so he's just pretending to be XCom really...

[metalangel]

Well, the idea was that... maybe, just maybe, there might be an intact UFO sitting somewhere where water had not reached the power core, and the elerium was still humming happily to itself.

 

As for the bases, just think of Sealab 2021, laugh, and forget about this silly 'dissolving' thing, bignutz.