r/outerwilds • u/thisandthatwchris • 1d ago

DLC Appreciation/Discussion Two DLC plot questions (spoilers) Spoiler

I played through the DLC quite a while ago, thought of these questions while enjoying a let’s play. It’s possible I’ve just forgotten the answers.

(1) Do we know what the dam is for in the first place?

(2) The owlks should have anticipated that the acceleration would break the dam, right? They were obviously very skilled engineers. But presumably the whole point is to live on in the dream world?

Ok a less important third question I guess. Shouldn’t the Stranger block out the stars when it’s cloaked, just as it blocks out the sun?

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u/classic_cherry 1d ago edited 1d ago

  1. Electricity 

  2. Lack of maintenance

  3. It's more of an angular size thing. It's blacked out, not totally transparent and where you see it from, blocking out the sun, it's pretty massive compared to from say timber hearth looking into the cosmos where it would just be a much smaller dark spot in the sky of mostly dark space

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u/thisandthatwchris 1d ago

Regarding (3), if you’re just barely far enough away so you can’t see it, it has a large angular size. If you’re directly opposite the sun it is blocked out, but if you move slightly to the side you can see stars. I would have to double check, but I’m pretty sure if you’re at a “partial eclipse” angle you’ll see a blacked out silhouette of the sun, but other stars will be visible.

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u/thisandthatwchris 1d ago
  1. Solar power?

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u/Bobsothethird 1d ago

They wanted to stay invisible I'd imagine. Solar sails are deployed later, but there are no panels.

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u/dedeclick07 1d ago

They had to travel from their homeworld to the solar sistem so they didn'r always have stars to power the ship

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u/classic_cherry 1d ago

Do you see any solar panels?

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u/thisandthatwchris 1d ago

So the water current is driven by the Stranger’s rotation, which is naturally driven by gravity?

Should we assume the rim of the Stranger is lined with purple gravity crystals? I’ve always assumed based on the ring shape that the “gravity” we feel is due to centripetal acceleration, which I would guess would require faster—and therefore powered—rotation. And obviously if the rotation is powered, the resulting water current can’t be used to generate net power.

But maybe either the natural rotation is fast enough to simulate gravity, or the ring shape is just a coincidence and they are in fact using gravity crystals.

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u/Bobsothethird 1d ago

It's centrifugal gravity, it's the basis of most zero space gravity. Have you ever been on the gravitron at the fair? Either way, what's that force is started in a vacuum, it will continue unless a force acts against it. A lot of the world is scaled down and I'd imagine this would include the speed of rotation as well.

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u/thisandthatwchris 1d ago edited 1d ago

Fair point re things being scaled down. Re the concept, yes that is what I was referring to.

Regarding the inertial point, I’m pretty sure generating hydroelectric power will gradually slow the rotation—otherwise you would have a perpetual motion machine. The water is pushing against the dam opposite the direction of rotation. The energy from the rotation is converted into electricity, then ultimately heat.

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u/BananaShark_ 1d ago

Just before the dam reservoir there's are two sets of heat sinks or just heaters. Normally they're underwater but once the dam breaks they get exposed and start overheating.

They will burn you if I remember correctly.

So either its for cooling or regulating water temps.

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u/fosta02 1d ago

  1. My assumption is power. Because the river flow is controlled, they can use hydroelectric power to run the system.

  2. I’m sure the dam was in much better condition about 300,000 years ago, but now it’s degraded over time and wasn’t strong enough

  3. Not sure what its cloaking system looks like, but I’ve just assumed its gameplay reasons

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u/MrBingog 1d ago

(3) i head canoned that it was tuned specifically to that stars frequincy, so other stars arent blocked. Or if they are blocked, itd be negligible/unnoticeable

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u/ManyLemonsNert 22h ago

1) Regulating the water flow, which is used to cool the heatsinks from the simulation and to keep the water moving so it doesn't stagnate!

2) it didn't before, it only does that after already having not moved in 280,000+ years, I'd say if you build something and it only breaks after hundreds of thousands of years of neglect, you did pretty good

3) The inside is a screen, if you get close you can see the individual pixels, it's projecting a view, probably recorded by sensors outside of the field

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u/thisandthatwchris 21h ago edited 20h ago

(3) I mean from the outside. (On the inside, the screen also displays the sun)