Hard Light Productions Forums
General FreeSpace => FreeSpace Discussion => Topic started by: aldo_14 on February 25, 2005, 11:29:52 am
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Doing some digging through the old FDL....
http://ml.warpcore.org/fdl/199807/msg00194.html
[q]>What is the technology level of the GTA overall? For example, do any of the
>following "sci-fi" things exist?
>
>* Genetic engineering
Sure.
>* Artificial intelligence
Sure, have that today in computer games, right?
>* Advanced robots
>* Hand-held energy weapons
Sure. Although the most effective ones are still projectile-based. Energy
weapons are too big to be hand held.
>* Cryogenic freezing of living organisms (and recovery, of course).
>* Anti-gravity
Sure.[/q]
EDIT; also, all 3 nodes from Sol were destroyed by the Lucifers explosion. that's from a pre-FS2 post (July 1998 or so), may I add. I'm amazed there's not someone here who's already red & remembered this stuff...
EDIT2; then they changed their mind; http://ml.warpcore.org/fdl/199808/msg00110.html
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Can we give em headz dispensers, the GTVA has noticed a worryingly rapid ammount of pilots without heads in the ranks.
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Anti-gravity, at least, might provide a fitting reason why Freespace ships would be capable of atmospheric flight. We all know that there's absolutely nothing aerodynamic about, say, an Ursa. :p Some sort of anti-grav technology would enable atmospheric flight without worrying about aerodynamic craft.
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that and people walk around in the main hall.
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There's definitely some sort of anti-gravity tech, or else fighters would need wheels to land. It doesn't seem like they turn off the gravity when ships fly into the main hall.
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Magentics?
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it might be contact plating, you have to be touching it for it to work. the secret of anti gravity is not to scew with gravity itself, but to create a force that could simulate it.
for atmospheric flight you could probibly warp your shields to create an airfoil effect. not that youd need to, just use your subaspace drive and jump into orbit:D
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Heh, and take out large chunks of land, liek the In Amber Clad did when it jumped in New Mmbasa :p
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It wasnt the In Amber Clad that initiated the jump, that was Regrets ship. They just hopped alongside the covieship as it jumped. That was a cool sequence though.
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Amber Clad? Mmbasa? 'Covie'? = Halo 2?
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Mmkay. He speaks of "bad stuff" happening to the systems beyond Ross 128. I think this Shivan pocket in R128 was one of the direct causes of the Luyten New Alliance's formation in '36 (or maybe before). The Luytenese colonists (and the fleet sent to protect them) fight for their lives against a merciless Shivan horde, with no factories yet capable of producing Avengers or shields, and few GTA supplies forthcoming.
Say, that'd be an interesting campaign to fight through. Someone could do that. Start off fighting Terran bandits (backwater system, oldish equipment) and get thrust into fighting the Shivan Swarm with your pathetic little ML-16s, Furies, and Phoenix IV's.
(No, this isn't my Side Project. But you're welcome to use this plotline if you want.)
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Originally posted by Carl
that and people walk around in the main hall.
That's called artificial gravity, not antigravity. :p
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http://ml.warpcore.org/fdl/199809/msg01524.html
http://ml.warpcore.org/fdl/199901/msg00326.html
http://ml.warpcore.org/fdl/199903/msg00118.html
http://ml.warpcore.org/fdl/199904/msg00827.html / http://ml.warpcore.org/fdl/199910/msg00186.html / http://ml.warpcore.org/fdl/199910/msg00195.html(ship designations)
http://ml.warpcore.org/fdl/199906/msg00524.html
(I'll admit, I'm just noting this out of interest to myself mainly....)
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Interesting...very interesting...they planned mecha for FS3?
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Originally posted by TrashMan
Interesting...very interesting...they planned mecha for FS3?
Apparently they were planning some sort of terrain engine for FS2 for quite a long time during development, too, but it was decided against. (I think I forgot to link to that one)... and that the nebula effect was a toss-up between itself and a gas giant atmosphere.
The only specific stuff I can remember about FS3 from any other source is a brief interview mentioning ships big enough to have their own gravity.......
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Originally posted by aldo_14
EDIT; also, all 3 nodes from Sol were destroyed by the Lucifers explosion. that's from a pre-FS2 post (July 1998 or so), may I add. I'm amazed there's not someone here who's already red & remembered this stuff...
:wtf:
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Originally posted by WMCoolmon
There's definitely some sort of anti-gravity tech, or else fighters would need wheels to land. It doesn't seem like they turn off the gravity when ships fly into the main hall.
Why would they need wheels? They can just do what spacecraft today do: match vector and acceleration, then ease in at very low relative speeds. If the support ship can dock with me while I'm moving at any speed less then 20 m/s, and destroyers move at 15 m/s, then I don't see why they'd need wheels when they can manuver well enough to get two ships together without even a noticible bump.
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But the people and things in the main hall don't seem to be made for or acting like they're in a low-G environment.
Edit: http://www.descent-freespace.com/goodies/gallery/mainhall/main0244.jpg
(Danger: HUGE)
http://www.descent-freespace.com/goodies/gallery/big/stillmainhall02.jpg
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Antigravity and artificial gravity go hand-in-hand, I would think. If you can do one, you ought to be able to do the other.
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Originally posted by Cobra
:wtf:
What?!
Don't post :wtf: smilies without making a point, sonny jim.
Originally posted by WMCoolmon
But the people and things in the main hall don't seem to be made for or acting like they're in a low-G environment.
Edit: http://www.descent-freespace.com/goodies/gallery/mainhall/main0244.jpg
(Danger: HUGE)
http://www.descent-freespace.com/goodies/gallery/big/stillmainhall02.jpg
Would that smoke be rising up in a non-G environment, anyways? I would think without gravity it'd just sort of dissipate into hanging particles rather than a solid column.
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Originally posted by WMCoolmon
But the people and things in the main hall don't seem to be made for or acting like they're in a low-G environment.
When ever someone claims that they're using magnetic boots etc I simply point to the sparks in the FS1 mainhall. There's absolutely no way that those sparks would follow that parabolic course unless the orion is under roughly 1G.
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Also look at the difficulties experienced by astronouts today even on short missions. They suffer bone wastage and would become practicaly unable to operate in a gravitational enviroment after less than a year.
Now consider that in your whole time in FS2 or FS1 you never go or hear of any crew or ship going planet side. So you would be in space for hugely long periods of time, sertainly enough to be unfeasible for a human crew to operate effectively without artificial grav.
Its common sence that for long term space flight you either have to spend most of your time exersising and still lose bone mass or invent artificial grav. Look at B5 no warship without Grav is considered viable for long missions as the crew cant operate.
This leads inevitably to the conclusion that for the fleets of the GTA and GTVA to operate efficiently they would have to have Grav on their ships.
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Originally posted by aldo_14
What?!
Don't post :wtf: smilies without making a point, sonny jim.
Sol doesn't have 3 nodes. don't direct me to the thread where you discussed this.
i looked at all the FS1 and FS2 cbanims that showed Sol on it. none of them showed more than 1 jump node.
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Probably some kind of feild generator in the decks.
Magnetic? electric? some other force? mabye NWF or NSF
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actually, it's "something compression" i forgot what the first word was.
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Originally posted by Cobra
i looked at all the FS1 and FS2 cbanims that showed Sol on it. none of them showed more than 1 jump node.
Then you didn't look at the FS1 cbanims... :rolleyes:
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Originally posted by Cobra
Sol doesn't have 3 nodes. don't direct me to the thread where you discussed this.
i looked at all the FS1 and FS2 cbanims that showed Sol on it. none of them showed more than 1 jump node.
READ. THIS. LINK.
http://ml.warpcore.org/fdl/199808/msg00110.html
Understand?
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Originally posted by Cobra
i looked at all the FS1 and FS2 cbanims that showed Sol on it. none of them showed more than 1 jump node.
You really need to look again. The 3 nodes to Sol is one of the biggest errors in FreeSpace.
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Originally posted by aldo_14
READ. THIS. LINK.
http://ml.warpcore.org/fdl/199808/msg00110.html
Understand?
kinda...
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Alright.
It's simple; FS1s maps shown multiple nodes (3) to Sol; DS obviously, and 2 others (one of which was IIRC Beta Aquilae). That's why the end cutscene says 'nodes' plural.
When it came to FS2, volition toyed with the idea of keeping the 3 nodes, and explaining that they were sufficiently sensitive to be collapsed together (like dominos); they decided this was too complex and to go with the single node arguement.
The FS1 briefs, incidentally, were made before the nodemap was finalised. That's why they don't match the official map.
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Besides the fact that jump nodes to Sol have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with this argument, the insistance that the community is wrong on these things is quite misplaced Cobra. We've had all of these arguments multiple times, and some theories just work better than others.
On the note of antigrav, I could point to half a dozen things in the FS2 mainhall that would require some kind of gravity-like force-field to accomplish. The elevator (why would you need it if gravity wasn't constant across the decks), the black guy sitting in a chair (magnetic boots won't do that), and the fact that all of the equipment and ships in the hanger are sitting on the floor or some rack-like surface pretty clearly indicate that there's artificial gravity of some kind. Similarly with the sparks and smoke in the FS1 mainhalls, you wouldn't have sparks fall nor smoke rise without a force acting on everything (including the air) in a fashion much like true gravity.
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it's probably air compression or something like that. "artificial gravity" i think has something to do with air compression.
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Read up on your physics, please.....
The air pressure can be caused by gravity, but hardly the other way around, at least AFAIK.
EDIT: Erm, timewarpage. this is a reply to Cobra's post.
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i get ya. although i'm only in 8th grade, i ain't in high school yet :D
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^^ this explains so much
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The largest problem with 'artificial gravity', is that it's...well...artificial. Gravity is a physical law; we've quantified gravity, but only in terms of mass, because that's how gravity exists - sufficient mass. in order to have gravity comparable to earth, you have to have an object equal in mass to that of earth. So, any notion of ships being large enough to possess noticeable gravity is out of the picture.
Therefore, you have to find a way to create the PULL of mass on an object, without actually HAVING the mass required. This is why every artifical gravity theory comes with a great big honking WTF??!?! at the end of it. Where's the mass coming from? You couldn't just have it in one spot, either - assuming it was possible to have an object or field that is SO dense, it holds the same gravity as earth - this obect or field would have to be concentrated absolutely equally around the whole of the ship, unless all spacecrafts were round. otherwise, you'd have everything on the ship pulled toward the center of the mass, wherever this 'gravity making thingy' is located.
Of course, this would also mean that the ship would be at least as heavy as earth; God forbid it ever tries to approach another spacefaring object, or stellar body. For that matter, how would it MOVE? You'd have about as much luck trying to attatch jet engines to earth itself, and hope it can generate enough thrust to move us.
Put simpy, it's very difficult to justify artificial gravity, in it's truest sense - even though all deep-space exploration would depend on it, especially freespace.
The way real world physicists get around this, is by either (theoretically) magnets on boots, or (more realistically) centrifugal force. This second form utilizes a spinning compartment, wherin the decks, or rooms, are positioned so that the floors are on the inside edge of this spinning room, and the momentum itself holds everything to the side of the compartment. This is utilizing the principle of momentum, however, not gravity. The B5 series uses this process, as did 'mission to mars' the popular, yet stupid, movie. (insert flame here)
However, freespace ignores both ideas.
The ineresting part is the infamous 'hallfight' cutscene. in it, it's apparent that Elysium transports do not 'create' gravity (an impossiblity, besides), nor does the shivan ship, and the space marines are shown using magnetic boots. however, in an (earlier? later? can't rememver) cutscene, the wing leader of your squadron onboard the Galatea is shown pacing as he's giving you your briefing, while the pilots are sitting down.
So, we're led to believe that Warships of sufficient size somehow create gravity at will, even though even the most extreme methods of doing so (like dark matter, or trans-dimensional material, or fields designed to emulate gravity)would render the ship immobile and dangerous to any object it approaches.
The only viable theory is listed above, somehow creating a directional, and short-ranged, field that SOMEHOW replicates the effects of gravity, WITHOUT effecting anything beyond it's range, which makes little sense, because gravity is gravity. Perhaps a form of this would be the use of magnetics in a more creative sense, like hallways that hold you down, but roofing above that repels you, due to the field generated by an IMMENSE electromagnet. But, this of course, does not take into account the smoke and particle details listed in previous posts.
So, FreeSpace not only ignores physics, but contadicts the physics it has made up or altered. such as flight.
To be fair, so has Star Trek, Star Wars, and 99% of all the other space licences. The funny part is that each licence finds a very creative way to solve SOME problems, such as distance, and the speed of light, and a totally, bafflingly stupid way to solve others, such as 'listing' ships (star trek 6), or gravity. Sometimes the theories used, especially for flight physics, or power generation, are quite ingenious, even plausible. But some are just...stupid. Like Gravity. And the effect a laser beam has on the human body. And shields. This doesn't mean that the genre should go the opposite direction, and sacrifice gameplay mechanics (ala X2), but some of this is just plain silly Oh well. We'll get over it.
Please excuse the long post.
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The largest problem with 'artificial gravity', is that it's...well...artificial. Gravity is a physical law; we've quantified gravity, but only in terms of mass, because that's how gravity exists - sufficient mass. in order to have gravity comparable to earth, you have to have an object equal in mass to that of earth. So, any notion of ships being large enough to possess noticeable gravity is out of the picture.
Therefore, you have to find a way to create the PULL of mass on an object, without actually HAVING the mass required. This is why every artifical gravity theory comes with a great big honking WTF??!?! at the end of it. Where's the mass coming from? You couldn't just have it in one spot, either - assuming it was possible to have an object or field that is SO dense, it holds the same gravity as earth - this obect or field would have to be concentrated absolutely equally around the whole of the ship, unless all spacecrafts were round. otherwise, you'd have everything on the ship pulled toward the center of the mass, wherever this 'gravity making thingy' is located.
*Chuckles* I can't help but think that that's what people probably said about lightning/electricity.
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Meh, true enough. It's the nature of scientific discovery; you gotta think outside the box. Who really knows what's next? Every generation thinks it's the last generation in terms of scientific discovery. I suppose I'm guilty of the same assumption. I just like to pick on freespace.
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Just a quick warning Luke. If a topic has been dead for more than a couple of weeks you probably shouldn't be replying to it unless you've got a good reason.
People around here tend to respond badly to thread necromancy. :) It's not really a problem this time, just don't make it a habit.
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Sorry, I just love this sort of thing. I'll watch the thread bumping.
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Mabye there's lotsa wind in the mainhalls being blown down from fans?
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I think the Elysiums do produce gravity, but the Azrael (Shivan transport) doesn't.
I think the way FS would get around artificial gravity (If it ever had to) would say that its a newly discovered technology called [insert very long unpronouncable name here].
EDIT: I did put the unpronouncable name bit before, but I put it in Greater Than and Less Than signs so the board thought I was doing HTML code. I want just copying Carl.
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Originally posted by Lukeskywalkie
The largest problem with 'artificial gravity', is that it's...well...artificial. Gravity is a physical law; we've quantified gravity, but only in terms of mass, because that's how gravity exists - sufficient mass. in order to have gravity comparable to earth, you have to have an object equal in mass to that of earth. So, any notion of ships being large enough to possess noticeable gravity is out of the picture.
artifical gravity isn't real gravity, since it is artifical. it just has to simulate it. there are a number of possible ways of creating artifical gravity. particles with negative mass that quickly decay could be shot up from special emmiters in the floor, for instance.
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Or magical sci-fi pixie dust.
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That's what carl said :p
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what i said wasn't just some random technobabble, just so you know.
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Originally posted by Carl
artifical gravity isn't real gravity, since it is artifical
Like artificial electricity?
We don't know until we prove it can / cannot be done.
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Ah, but threrin lies my point. Artificial Electricity, i.e. man-made electricity, still retains all the properties of electricity. Artificial gravity is a misnomer. Simulated gravity is a much better term for this problem.
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Originally posted by WMCoolmon
*Chuckles* I can't help but think that that's what people probably said about lightning/electricity.
Wrong. Electromagnetism has never needed a large mass to exert an appreciable effect, Handheld magnets can lift pieces of iron off a table and EM forces hold your own particles together, both in complete defiance of the gravitational force exerted by a 6.6-sextillion-ton (yes, that's a real number, and no, it's not funny) planet. Don't confuse the superstitious babbling of uneducated fools in the 19th century with real scientists who are probing the deepest secrets of the universe. Most likely, the GTA's artificial "gravity" is itself a form of electromagnetism.
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. <----------------- Here's a point for you Woolie.
Feel free to shoot at it all you like. I already know that you're good at missing them. :p
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mabye the ships have internal gyrating chambers?
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Originally posted by Woolie Wool
Wrong. Electromagnetism has never needed a large mass to exert an appreciable effect, Handheld magnets can lift pieces of iron off a table and EM forces hold your own particles together, both in complete defiance of the gravitational force exerted by a 6.6-sextillion-ton (yes, that's a real number, and no, it's not funny) planet. Don't confuse the superstitious babbling of uneducated fools in the 19th century with real scientists who are probing the deepest secrets of the universe. Most likely, the GTA's artificial "gravity" is itself a form of electromagnetism.
Saying "you need a planet to have gravity" seems analogous to "you need a thunderstorm to have electricity".
Who would've thought that people could make their own electricity, and even moved their muscles through electrical currents?
By the same token I hear a lot of talk about large masses causing gravity, but no one really seems to knows what gravity is. We "understand" gravity in the same way that someone who simply measured lightning with a volt meter and a thermometer would understand electricity.
It seems just as plausible to me that the GTVA invented some anti-grav device as they perfected a form of electromagnetism without any problems of immense power requirements, brain damage, electronics problems, evening the field out through the whole ship, etc.
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Exactly WMC. When someone actually finds the graviton then maybe I'll believe that a large mass is the only way to generate them.
Till then anyone who says they understand how gravity works is talking crap. Even if they have a PhD in the subject :D
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Originally posted by WMCoolmon
Saying "you need a planet to have gravity" seems analogous to "you need a thunderstorm to have electricity".
Who would've thought that people could make their own electricity, and even moved their muscles through electrical currents?
By the same token I hear a lot of talk about large masses causing gravity, but no one really seems to knows what gravity is. We "understand" gravity in the same way that someone who simply measured lightning with a volt meter and a thermometer would understand electricity.
It seems just as plausible to me that the GTVA invented some anti-grav device as they perfected a form of electromagnetism without any problems of immense power requirements, brain damage, electronics problems, evening the field out through the whole ship, etc.
You once again are completely wrong. No matter what technology we have, gravity is 24 orders of magnitude weaker than electromagnetism, and will always be that way. Electromagnetism can do anything that gravity can do, only about 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (24 zeroes!) times better. This is why a handheld magnet can out-pull the Earth.
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:lol:
You do of course realise that there are enormous drawbacks to attempting to use electrostatic attraction as a replacement for gravity?
"Welcome to the GTD Woolie Wool. The crew are all dead again at the moment. The seem to all die of electric shocks when we attempt to turn our AG field on"
:lol:
Besides as I said before when you can find me a gravition and prove that it's energy can only exist in that particular quantum level and that furthermore there is no possibility that you couldn't fake gravity using another elementary particle then I might believe you're not talking out of your arse.
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karajorma, do you know any other spin 2 particle?
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The problem with hanging around Electromagnetic fields too much is that Magnetism is contagious, and the last thing you want is all the iron in your blood starting to become charged and attracting/repulsing each other, not good for circulation ;)
Also, it's not just a question of power, it a question of controlled acceleration. Magnets tend to be exponential in their behaviour, which is fine if you don't mind scraping the crew off the rear bulkhead after each journey ;)
I'm not saying it's impossible to use Magnetism, but it's not like making a monorail, your ship would have to cope with the Magnetic field in the upper Atmosphere to make sure it does not lose control of it's own magnetic field. Considering our magnetic field is in flux at the moment, that would take some pretty daredevil engineering ;)
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I'm not saying there is one. I just find it hard to accept this kind of nonsense from someone who has previously argued that Star Wars ships have perfectly sensible energy outputs.
AG is no less sensible than warping space, hyperspace or any of the other myriad other ideas that we commonly see in sci-fi. Why it's being picked on and said to be impossible is beyond me.
19th century scientists spent a hell of a long time trying to detect the presence of the universal ether because since sound propogated through a medium then light had to as well.
Of course they were completely wrong and we know a lot more now than we did then but it is worth remembering that the graviton is almost completely hypothetical. The hypothesis is based upon the way light waves are made up of photons so therefore gravity waves should be made up of gravitons. We've not even been able to detect gravity waves let alone a single particle.
The possibility is there for a huge upset which is why I get annoyed with people who like Woolie think you can start ruling things out on the basis of an unproven hypothesis.
Do I think quantum theory is wrong? To be frank I don't think anyone on this board is qualified to make a judgement in either direction. As a scientist though I think you should always keep an open mind and always make sure that your assumptions are always viewed as exactly that.
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I did not say that SW had sensible energy outputs. I said that the 200GT turbolaser figures were canon. I said nothing about whether they were sensible or feasible in real life, only that SW has them. Actually, a 10-ton matter/antimatter warhead would be around 200GT, so it's not really that silly. Assuming that you could get the 5-ton antimatter part of the warhead in the first place.
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You once again are completely wrong. No matter what technology we have, gravity is 24 orders of magnitude weaker than electromagnetism, and will always be that way. Electromagnetism can do anything that gravity can do, only about 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (24 zeroes!) times better. This is why a handheld magnet can out-pull the Earth.
But that's just even worse. The greater efficiency is nice, but you start tossing around electromagnets powerful enough to attract people, with enough force to simulate 1G, and you won't be able to use *any* metal objects. Not to mention that any type of 'radio', in the classical sense, will probably be utterly worthless. And God help the guy who was wearing a watch when the field was turned on; he's gonna be minus a hand since the field will effect his watch far more than it does his hand.
Hopefully the electronics on board are shielded as well.
Not to mention what effect that's going to have on the crew's brains, and any inhabited planets or ships nearby. (OTOH, this might explain why wingmen seem to be inextricably attracted to other vessels, and often end up slamming into them repeatedly.)
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Ohh i got it! a subspace potal that leads into a gravitational feild (planet)
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Originally posted by WMCoolmon
Not to mention what effect that's going to have on the crew's brains, and any inhabited planets or ships nearby. (OTOH, this might explain why wingmen seem to be inextricably attracted to other vessels, and often end up slamming into them repeatedly.)
Finally! We have an answer! :p