Bulding big

it would need to be unfathomably big
the construciton would rely upon materials capable of withstanding stresses far in excess of what we currently have or could theoretically create
and thats just the tip of the iceberg. logistically, building it would be a nightmare

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After looking around I guess what I might be trying to convey is a Dyson Swarm but on a planetary scale. (possibly)

yeah, thats up in type 3 civilization projects
were still a type 1 or less

Man it's gonna take for-ever...

>Building a literal shell around a star
How many planets worth of resources would it take to make such a thing? I mean, it just seems insanely impractical, just set up satellites with solar panels or something.

I don't think we're even firmly in type 1 yet.
We're probably damn close, though.

How would we even get to type 1? From what I understand, it would require covering the earth with solar panels. Unless I'm not understanding the idea properly.

Humanity is type 0. No matter what engineering projects a civilization can complete, they are still considered type 0 unless they have solved every social, economic and political issue in their society. We're a damn long way from type 1.

Where are you getting this? Far as I can tell, we're talking about energy use.

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Um, one?
Possibly zero, if you Kylo Ren it and just take fuel and material from the star.

Also, you can use it as a matryoshka brain

What do you mean one? Do you realize how fucking insanely huge stars get? Ours isn't all that big, and it's orders bigger than Earth. Also, just sucking out the component materials is stupid, you want the reactions to happen.

Yeah, writers can't into scale. Reminds me of people talking about Dead Space, and wondering why it seems to be a common occurrence to literally split planets open in order to rapidly harvest their raw materials, because the material usage that implies would probably be astronomical.

We are NOT going to fully reach Type 1.

Seriously, I'm curious now, how do you even reach type 1, just hypothetically speaking.

Gravitational Stress would be a big one. Even assuming the planet is perfectly round and you have a material that would withstand the stress of being constantly pulled inward, you would have to hope there's no other gravitational forces acting on it. With such a large structure the smallest unexpected adjustment would start a hula hoop effect and most likely destroy the planet and the ring in the process.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale

I know, but then I read
>Technological level of a civilization that can harness all the energy that falls on a planet from its parent star
Which makes me think that a type 1 civilization will cover the entire surface of its planet with solar panels, which sounds too ridiculous to be accurate.

>Dead Space, and wondering why it seems to be a common occurrence to literally split planets open in order to rapidly harvest their raw materials, because the material usage that implies would probably be astronomical
Maybe Dead Space is a setting where planned obsolescence is rampant and humanity cannot into recycling

Earth and all it's colonies must be huge scrap pits then, or at least have planet sized junkyards not far off.

Actually, Isaac being a social outcast because he likes to reuse things kinda makes sense.

So, anyway, now that we've established that Dyson Spheres are crap, what do you guys think about ringworlds? They seem kinda pointless to me, frankly. And if I'm being completely honest, it just seems like one of those things that got really popular and everyone else just copied it without really thinking about it (Three Laws of Robotics and positronic brains, I'm looking at you).

All megastructures are downright pointless for regular civilization reasons. The only purpose for building them is to do cosmic galaxy-wrecking stuff, like wiping out all life or building a time machine or birthing stars or just showing off to the lesser species

>or just showing off to the lesser species
What more reason does one need?

Yeah, doesn't really make any sense for practical reasons. It's implied in the books the ringworld was build to survive the cascade of supernovas working it's way out of the center of the galaxy. Since the outside of it was constructed of pretty much invulnerable material.

>Dyson Spheres are crap
They are not, but civilization that needs them would be so far off from humanity, you could safely call them gods.

>or just showing off to the lesser species
I kinda want to see this now.
>Oh, what's that, Earther, your species hasn't even built one Dyson Sphere, you just half-assed it with your stupid little satellite array? See, this is why nobody takes you seriously. If you don't have some needlessly huge megastructure that can bend space and time in half or wipe out half the universe, what's the point in even existing?

Yes, they are. And if another civilization did that, I'd call them idiots. It is so needlessly wasteful and overcomplicated, I would have to question the intelligence of a species that is at once smart enough to put it together but dumb enough not to see the obvious problems with it. It sounds like the kind of race that invents WMD's as a hobby. It might not intend on using them any time soon, but you'd still be pretty fucking nervous around them.

I didn't mean using it as a habitat though, but dyson sphere as energy collector is not that bad of idea if you don't care about what happens to other planets in the solar system.

Not with that attitude.

If civilization can produce more energy than what falls on the planet, by nuclear fusion for example, it would count as type 1.

Cylinders are far more practical than a ringworld and you can build as many of them as you need.

Based on the perspectives here, if that is a yellow dwarf star, that ring around it probably required more metal than there is in our galaxy.

This is the most comprehensible list I know of:

orionsarm.com/eg-topic/45b5645097563

>Megascale Engineering

>Megascale Engineering is also referred to as megatechnology. Megascale engineering uses energies and methods (including self-replicating nanotechnology and other more advanced techniques up to and including metric engineering) sufficient to build immense structures on an asteroidal, planetary, or even stellar scale.

This seems very relevent to this thread:

youtube.com/channel/UCZFipeZtQM5CKUjx6grh54g

Loads of these guys videos focus on megastructures and what it would take to build them.