Hard Light Productions Forums
General FreeSpace => FreeSpace Discussion => Topic started by: TopAce on September 10, 2003, 09:25:48 am
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I was wondering if anyone has more detailed information about sectors acting in FS. Like how usable that sectors are, how many planets do they have, how much time does it take for a ship to reach it with subspace from another sector etc. etc.
Geographical things.
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no help, but I was also woundering if it was possible to get access to the full map from FS2 command briefings.
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Do a search for "Nodemaps". There were a couple posted in the last month or so. :)
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There are lots of node maps around. I'd reccomend one but The Freespace Reference Guide (http://freespace.volitionwatch.com/fs2/refguide/fs2refguide.chm) has one and is something anyone seriously interested in FS2 should have anyway.
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I made this last month. It's the most up-to-date nodemap in existance, to my knowledge.
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So how long does it take to go from one node to the other? Does distance matter in subspace? Or does all subspace travel take x amount of time to get thru?
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I think subspace travel is relatively fast, a matter of a few minutes for interstellar jumps and a few seconds for in system jumps. The bigger factor in ship movement I think is the time it takes for subspace drives to recharge... from all observed data it seems this takes from between 5 and 15 minutes (though it could be a reserve thing too, limiting a large ship to x jumps a day) though there is little canon info on this.
And GE, I like that map more every time I see it :nod:
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I had an idea once for an advanced subspace drive system that would greatly reduce the time for subspace transit. Currently, in order to travel from point A in system 1, to point B in system 2, a ship must: enter local subspace in system 1 from point A, travel through local subspace to the inter-system node to system 2, drop out of subspace, enter the node and activate inter-system subspace drive, travel through the subspace corridor, exit from the node on the side of system 2, enter local subspace in system 2, travel through local subspace to point B, and exit back to normal space. With this advanced drive, you would enter local subspace from point A, travel through local subspace to a point there that corresponds to the jump node to system 2, then go directly from local subspace into the inter-system corridor without having to drop back to normal space first. The same would be true on the far side. If someone managed to acquire that capability, it would allow someone to go anywhere that is connected by inter-system nodes and never exit subspace until they reach their destination. Current military tactics of holding back an enemy advance by blockading jump nodes, would become completely obsolete. Cool eh?
Later!
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I tend use the word "sector" as a general term in briefings to refer to a particular sub-region of a system.
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subspace depends on the speed of the ship, you can move around freely, seems like a tunnel.
if it was just a "stream" that you entered and exited at the 2 points, it would have made the lucifer mission in fs 1 impossible, because you would never be able to catch up with it.
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about subspace recharge rate: 'Endgame', NTF Iceni. :doubt:
so?
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Originally posted by Havock
subspace depends on the speed of the ship, you can move around freely, seems like a tunnel.
if it was just a "stream" that you entered and exited at the 2 points, it would have made the lucifer mission in fs 1 impossible, because you would never be able to catch up with it.
Subspace is a stream. Thats what the Subspace POF tries to make obvious. It is sucking you through the whole thing, but you can still add extra thrust with your engines or slow down a little if you fly in the opposite direction. So you can catch up with the Lucifer, but instead of flying your 50 m/s you'll prolly be flying something like (high value)+50 m/s - still faster than the (high value) m/s Lucifer. ;)
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Originally posted by GalacticEmperor
I made this last month. It's the most up-to-date nodemap in existance, to my knowledge.
Does that include systems seen in mods?
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apparently Tau Sigma is not canon :D
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Originally posted by Lightspeed
Subspace is a stream. Thats what the Subspace POF tries to make obvious. It is sucking you through the whole thing, but you can still add extra thrust with your engines or slow down a little if you fly in the opposite direction. So you can catch up with the Lucifer, but instead of flying your 50 m/s you'll prolly be flying something like (high value)+50 m/s - still faster than the (high value) m/s Lucifer. ;)
Of course. Absolute velocity is a meaningless concept in space.
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Originally posted by Woolie Wool
Of course. Absolute velocity is a meaningless concept in space.
bah ... good to know :)
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Originally posted by TopAce
apparently Tau Sigma is not canon :D
Then T&T's two new systems need to be added to the map: 61 Cygni (about seven light-years from Earth, connected to Barnard's Star) and Proxima Centauri (slightly closer to Earth than Alpha Centauri, connected to Barnard's Star and by a jumpgate to Sol (the jumpgate is completed about halfway through A Terror and a Traitor, so there is initially no line between Proxima Centauri and Sol).
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allright ... you know the mods better. I only know the original [V] campaign and that waste Derelict.
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I'd be interested in seeing a real shot of our sector of the galaxy, with the FS2 systems placed on it, would be interesting ( and funny, I believe :doubt: )
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I've written a lot of theories about subspace, but a few things are generally agreed upon:
Subspace is an n-dimensional rift that shortens your way across the galaxy.
It takes energy to travel through subspace, the bigger the ship you have, the less likely that you'll have enough energy to make it travel fast.
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GE, how did you make that map??
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Originally posted by TopAce
about subspace recharge rate: 'Endgame', NTF Iceni. :doubt:
so?
Well maybe there is some kind of reserve, or perhaps the Iceni was designed with a redundant SS drive and reactor for that purpose. Otherwise, it seems that ships do not have an instantaneous subspace recharge, as they never jump if they are close to a node. When Capella went boom, you didn't see ships popping out of subspace left and right around the node, by my argumentm because they wouldn't have been able to jump again in time anyway.
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Maybe the engine was powered by plotium ;)
That map was one of the first things I downloaded when I started FS2 modding ages ago, possibly not that exact map, but it was damn similar!
Flipside :D
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about subspace recharge rate: 'Endgame', NTF Iceni.
There are two types of subspace drives: intersystem and intrasystem. Most fighters are equipped with an intra for obvious reasons, but cap ships are equipped with both. Therefore, when a ship comes out of a jump node, its intersystem drive reserves are depleted but its intrasystem isnt necessarily or doesnt use up as much power as the intersystem drive. So when the Iceni came out of subspace, it used up a little bit of the reserves to make an intrasystem jump, but still had enough energy to make an intersystem jump. :yes:
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Originally posted by DeepSpace9er
There are two types of subspace drives: intersystem and intrasystem. Most fighters are equipped with an intra for obvious reasons, but cap ships are equipped with both. Therefore, when a ship comes out of a jump node, its intersystem drive reserves are depleted but its intrasystem isnt necessarily or doesnt use up as much power as the intersystem drive. So when the Iceni came out of subspace, it used up a little bit of the reserves to make an intrasystem jump, but still had enough energy to make an intersystem jump. :yes:
Doesn't make sense in the slightest that all capships have this caspability but only the Iceni used it. Want to explain why the NTF ships in King's Gambit all came through the node and then sat about of 2-3 minutes being shot by Mjolnirs if they could have simply leaped out?
Far more likely is that the Iceni was specially built to run blockades etc and had the extra drive or reserve you mention. The Iceni is a special case. Any other NTF ship wouldn't have been able to make the jump the Iceni made.
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Or maybe the Iceni had been prepped for just that manouver, and the NTF fleet in King's Gambit hadn't.. though that assumes that they had no forwarning of the blockade (unlikely) and couldn't communicate back through the node to warn their chums...
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King's Gambit is an just an example. If ships can jump out immediately after jumping in why does FS2 have so many escort ship x to the node style missions. Why not have them jump in and only be vulnerable for 30 seconds?
Add to that the fact that the Iceni did manage to evade the blockade of the node when even smaller NTF ships who presumably can recharge more quickly didn't and it starts to look like the Iceni was designed specially for running blockades and quicker jumps.
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Originally posted by Lightspeed
Subspace is a stream. Thats what the Subspace POF tries to make obvious...
Originally posted by StratComm
I think subspace travel is relatively fast, a matter of a few minutes for interstellar jumps and a few seconds for in system jumps...
How would you define in-system jumps? Does a fighter create it's own stream from point A to B? If so, how far could such a stream go (is energy the limiting factor)?
Would be interesting, because:
http://www.solstation.com/stars/vega.htm
Vega is located within 25.3 light-years (ly) away from our Sun, Sol, as the brightest star in Constellation Lyra, the Lyre or Harp...
# 1 ly = 600000 AU
# distance sun-pluto = 39 AU = 0,000065 ly
# distance sun-vega: 15180000 AU = 25,3 ly
Let's say you need 5sec for sun-pluto jump (as suggested by StratComm) => avg. jump speed ~ 7 AU/sec
# distance = speed * time => distance/speed = time
# 15180000/7 ~ 2168571,42 /3600 ~ 602,38 /24 ~ 25,1 days
Let's double the time with reactor recharging and stuff like that.
=> A node-connection to earth would not be mandatory cause you could travel by in-system jumps as well.
32 years since the first great war and no contact with earth would mean that intra system drives can't jump very far.
(Hope I calculated correctly :nervous: )
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As I understand it, local subspace is generated by the gravitational field of a star and thus is a pocket of subspace. Since its a pocket, there is a physical limit to its range so you just can't travel as far as you want away from the source star. Inter system jumps make use of a deeper realm of subspace that runs from one stellar pocket to another. I have my own theories to fill in some of the gaps and give subspace more depth (figuratively speeking), but they're not for open forum discussions.
Later!
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If I remember correctly, 'King's Gambit' involved two intersystem jumps. So the intrasystem drive would've been useless.
As for subspace, I think it's a little inconsistant. For example, if you were inside a Black Hole's gravity well, and you made an intrasystem jump away from the Event Horizon, you woudl use a certain amount of energy X. If you were to move the same distance on fusion drive, you would use a (probably greater) amount of energy Y. Y should be approximately equal to the amount of potential energy gained by moving the ship away from the Black Hole, but from the way subspace is described in the tech room I get the idea that subspace jumps are easier in strong gravity wells, so X could be less than Y. This breaks the law of conservation of energy!
It is far more likely that the energy required by a subspace jump is equal to the difference in potential between the start and end points. Therefore, making a jump towards a planet actually generates energy, since the ship is losing potential energy. Jumping between two points on an equipotential would not take any energy at all, unless friction and other forms of energy waste are a factor.
Besides, where does the gravitational influence of a mass end?
Answer: it doesn't. The Earth's gravity has influence (not much, admittedly) even in galaxies quadrillions of light years away. Hell, even the pen on the desk beside me does!
So if intrasystem subspace jumps are dependant on a gravity well, they should work over the whole universe, because that's the extent of any gravity well!
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Originally posted by Descenterace
If I remember correctly, 'King's Gambit' involved two intersystem jumps. So the intrasystem drive would've been useless.
You don't remember correctly :D
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Originally posted by Descenterace
If I remember correctly, 'King's Gambit' involved two intersystem jumps. So the intrasystem drive would've been useless.
As for subspace, I think it's a little inconsistant. For example, if you were inside a Black Hole's gravity well, and you made an intrasystem jump away from the Event Horizon, you woudl use a certain amount of energy X. If you were to move the same distance on fusion drive, you would use a (probably greater) amount of energy Y. Y should be approximately equal to the amount of potential energy gained by moving the ship away from the Black Hole, but from the way subspace is described in the tech room I get the idea that subspace jumps are easier in strong gravity wells, so X could be less than Y. This breaks the law of conservation of energy!
It is far more likely that the energy required by a subspace jump is equal to the difference in potential between the start and end points. Therefore, making a jump towards a planet actually generates energy, since the ship is losing potential energy. Jumping between two points on an equipotential would not take any energy at all, unless friction and other forms of energy waste are a factor.
Besides, where does the gravitational influence of a mass end?
Answer: it doesn't. The Earth's gravity has influence (not much, admittedly) even in galaxies quadrillions of light years away. Hell, even the pen on the desk beside me does!
So if intrasystem subspace jumps are dependant on a gravity well, they should work over the whole universe, because that's the extent of any gravity well!
Ah but that's the beauty of subspace... it's like warp drive or hyperspace, it allows you to break the laws of physics without any logical argument against it. Therefore your reasoning about potential energy is relatively outside of the bounds of the question; subspace bypasses normal space and therefore does not require that the laws of physics hold true as if it were part of normal space. And, after all, we should all know better than to try to explain any of Freespace's physics.
Also, as for gravity, there is a difference between a gravity field and a strong gravity field. While the Earth exerts a strong force on us, the force it exerts on, say, pluto is not so great. In fact, were you to remove the mass of earth from the system holding pluto in its orbit, the effect on the planet's motion would be negligable. If you want an explanation, then perhaps it ends when the local strength of the gravity field is equal to the strength of the gravity generated by the ship making the jump.
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Originally posted by karajorma
Add to that the fact that the Iceni did manage to evade the blockade of the node when even smaller NTF ships who presumably can recharge more quickly didn't and it starts to look like the Iceni was designed specially for running blockades and quicker jumps.
And why not? After all, it has the highest top speed of any capital ship in FS2. So it would be logical to assume, that it also has the fastest subspace drives
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Originally posted by Stunaep
And why not? After all, it has the highest top speed of any capital ship in FS2. So it would be logical to assume, that it also has the fastest subspace drives
Top speed in deep space does not unconditionally mean it has faster subspace recharge time.
These are two different things, like an egg and a hen.
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TopAce, he;s not saying it does. He is saying, however, that the Iceni's high top speed makes it seem like a specifically designed blockade runner,which would imply fast-charging or multi-use subspace drives. It's not a certaintly but the likelyhood is there. As for the Iceni itself, no one is going to argue that it was a particularly well-designed ship, as it has more issues than you can shake a stick at model and weapon wise. (I recommend visiting the site in my sig on that note, it fixes up the Iceni's dock paths.) Because it is not viable as a tactical weapon, it has to have some other special purpose.
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__________________________________right now
And it's left :D
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do you mind if i use and modify that map for my campaign? you can find details on my site in my sig.