Hard Light Productions Forums
General FreeSpace => FreeSpace Discussion => Topic started by: eliex on January 17, 2008, 01:12:47 am
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Jeez, I really can't believe that merely yesterday that this thought occurred to me: I've played freespace since I was like . . . 9 . . .
And here it is < *something that is going to go BOOM the bubble's burst!* >: Why is the GTVA, are any other faction for that matter
pinned down to subspace? Or subspace nodes?
Okay, I freely admit that I don't have a nerd's capacity to know all about subspace, so, please, correct me if I'm wrong:
1. Those blue portals that materalise out of thin space when a ship appears or dissapears is an indicative of a subspace jump and can be done so without being next to a "jump node", i.e, anywhere.
According to Inferno Release 1, in the mission Nemisis, the final confrontation between the GTCa Independence and the EASD Nemisis, command clearly states that when the Nemisis jumps out for first time, the Nemisis is making a nano-subspace jump.
So underlying Q: Can subspace be used anywhere?
Followed up with: So what's the point of a jump node?
< Don't get bored :P >
2. Nowadays, people can get around in space quite easily without subspace. So . . . if subspace is just a SUPAR fast way of getting around, then people can still live and move without it right?
Since us Terrans are so worked up about the collapse of the Delta Serpentis-Sol jump node, why couldn't the GTVA assign this really massive ship loaded with food, petrol, helium, water, people, games, toys, dart boards, beds, whatever and make the LONG, LONG way back to Sol?
Just use your engines and hey-ho! Eventually you'll get to Sol . . . just depends that you haven't died out of old age . . . that's all.
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Can subspace be used anywhere?
No. In the Intelligence section of the Tech Room, under Subspace, it clearly states there are two kinds of jumps: ones within a star system, which require the gravity source (sun), and ones using jump nodes to go between star systems
As for #2,
Yes, they could have, but it'd be even easier to send a message and wait four years for it to arrive, and hope that earth does likewise.
Both of these have been discussed before.
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1. Well, terran ships are pinned to subspace nodes for trips to other systems, and can jump to anywhere in-system. But the shivans can use less stable nodes the like, some nodes form and dissapear in minutes (some in nanoseconds, others in millions of years) so a shivan ship can use these, but terrans can't, but for the games sake the shivans are safer to use stable nodes, many of which the terrans have marked out.
2. I can't be bothered travelling for centuries so only my great great great grandchildren reach Sol (estimate), by the time they got there, everyone would probably be dead that remembered it, and the others have lived on a space craft and call that home, there wouldn't be much point, lets just find a new way to get there, like a knosses device.
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2. I can't be bothered travelling for centuries so only my great great great grandchildren reach Sol (estimate), by the time they got there, everyone would probably be dead that remembered it, and the others have lived on a space craft and call that home.
Heh, like the average speed of a GTVA destroyer max is 15 metres per second!! :nod:
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I believe that that may be for playability issues. I think in real life, their speed would be in km/s, and be able to cover something like 4000km in a matter of minutes. I mean the Apollo Spacecraft travelled fast than FS ships.
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Yep, it wouldn't be that fun to travel the length of the largest space faring warship ever contrusted in a second!!
Edit: Replace But, with yep,, that makes a bit more sence and gives a bit more (a lot more) clarification on my meaning.
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like i said playability
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According to Inferno Release 1, in the mission Nemisis, the final confrontation between the GTCa Independence and the EASD Nemisis, command clearly states that when the Nemisis jumps out for first time, the Nemisis is making a nano-subspace jump.
Referencing anything found in Inferno as support for an argument about canonical background universe elements will just result in somebody groaning, slapping their forehead, and then telling you not to do that because Inferno is not canon.
I could make a campaign that says subspace drives are powered by unicorns and fairy dust but that certainly doesn't make it true.
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Uhm, I hope I'm not derailing this thread... but I've been wondering recently as to whether the GTVA or anyone else has a use for subspace other than as a fast way of getting from A to B, and maybe for communication. I mean, there's "realspace" and the GTVA has installations floating around in that, but why not have bases in subspace? It's like a another universe to explore in a way... All we see in game is that it's a tunnel but I think it would be well cool to have things like hidden bases and such in subspace. I reckon I've been thinking about hyperspace in B5 too much.
EDIT: Hmm, then again if subspace travel is fast then maybe there's no need to have bases in it to act as refuelling points or service stations, and if it is just a tunnel, formed when an object generates a subspace field or whatever, then I suppose there's no point hiding something in it as someone would travel by it eventually. I guess I'm wondering: what's beyond those subspace tunnels? And can it be explored and inhabited? Who knows. No-one probably. :blah:
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As to that, I think the point is that when a realspace ship jumps into subspace, it pulls a "bubble" of realspace along with it, preventing a catastrophic compression of the ship into a microscopic size.
The way I understand subspace is, that it is a hyper-compressed version of realspace. Traveling 1 km in subspace is equivalent to something on the order of billions of km in realspace. The ships aren't moving any faster when in subspace... merely taking a shortcut, you might say. However, some realspace has to be dragged into subspace with the ship, or they'd be hyper-compressed too... which would likely result in death. The "tunnel" we see is the boundary between the realspace bubble and unaltered subspace.
So beyond the bounds of the subspace tunnel is "normal" subspace, an area that would be quite lethal to any realspacers. Not much point in going there.
However, the GTVA does seem to use subspace for communications as well. Think about it... you get near-instantaneous responses from Command, even though we all assume Command is well on the other end of the system (they obviously wouldn't be right there in the battle with you). From that distance, radio waves would take hours, days, maybe even weeks to cross, so they can't be using radio, but FTL communications, which likely means subspace.
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(they obviously wouldn't be right there in the battle with you).
Unless...Command is actually the GTVA's version of Clippy. That would explain a lot, actually...
But seriously, :V: did go to some extra trouble to have Command transmitting messages from 3rd Fleet HQ in Dunkerque(?) so I believe the implication is that command is some guy back at HQ. That would mean transmitting clear across two systems and through a nebula in FS2, so subspace comms are the most reasonable explanation.
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My view is that the comms are relayed by the capships. That's why you can get signals from command in Mystery of the Trinity when the Aquitaine is the only GTVA ship in the nebula but can't get them in Into the Lion's Den when the GTVA has no ships around to pass the messages on to you.
The alternative is that capships don't act as in-system relays and the reason for Command's silence in Into the Lion's Den is because there was nothing in the Nebula to pass the message on through the knossos portal to you and Snipes.
(I suppose it could also be due to an incompatibility with whatever comm system they stuck in the Maras but you were able to talk to Command in Playing Judas).
Whichever one it is I can see some interesting missions being based around the idea that you need something in a system to relay messages.
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Unless...Command is actually the GTVA's version of Clippy. That would explain a lot, actually...
Who's Clippy?
I agree with Karajorma. The Comms Link to Command is Relayed to you by the nearest friendly Cap-ship in system
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But we're still assuming they're subspace-based, right? I don't see much way around that, unless we assume that 'Command' is moving from system to system, and is always at the node one system behind or close by in the same system as Alpha 1.
Which seems rather unlikely. :p
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Yeah. I can't see them being anything other than subspace. Communications across a system would take hours even at light speed.
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Who's Clippy?
That annoying animated helper in Office 2000.
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Or Command as we see him is really an omniprescent Computer. All GTVA ships maintaining an uplink with it.
However, for missions like ITLD or other SOC missions, where you are in sesitive situations, the Uplink is closed down by Allied ships involved.
I've also worked it out. cos i was bored
Them moon is over 250,000 miles away from earth. Apollo travelled it in about 3 days
at 15 m/s a GTD/VD travels 900 m/min
-->54000 m/hour
-->1296000 m/day
-->3888000 m/3days = 3888 km/3days
1.6 km to the mile
that puts a GTD/VD at 2430 miles every 3 day
810 miles every day
At that speed, it would take a destroyer 309 days to reach the moon.
Therefore as i said earlier, in Real Life the ships would travel MUCH faster
The only reason they travel so rediculously slow is because of playability
Who's Clippy?
That annoying animated helper in Office 2000.
Is he that annoying paper clip
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Is he that annoying paper clip
Yep, although he is a changeling and can take many forms, his most common is a paper clip, hence his name.
Anyway, the GTVA uses subspace because there really isn't anything better. With subspace it doesn't really matter how fast capships are since they can jump anywhere in the system instantly.
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Yes but if their Jump drive is DESTROYED, then they have to walk home, so to speak. At the in game speeds, it would take a destroyed almost a year just to get from the earth to the moon (Unless someone onboard has the series on DVD :lol:) [And if they were forced to walk back to Earth halfway from Mars, It would take years] I say that in real life a destroyed would be able to cover that distance in about a day, Cos Apollo was just using momenum and course corrections. Corvettes and cruisers, even faster.
For a short hop like that, subspace wouldn't be used
Now for longer distances, ie mars, which currently is a 2 year trip, Subspace would be use
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Yes but if their Jump drive is DESTROYED,
Then they call in another ship to bring technicians and spare parts. In a combat situation they're dead, like what happened to the Galatea in FS1.
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When i say the Subspace Drive is destroyed, i mean it can't be repaired meaning the ship has to limp to wherever it's going. My point is that in real-life, the ships Normal Space speeds would be much faster than they are in-game
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Is he that annoying paper clip
Yep, although he is a changeling and can take many forms, his most common is a paper clip, hence his name.
Anyway, the GTVA uses subspace because there really isn't anything better. With subspace it doesn't really matter how fast capships are since they can jump anywhere in the system instantly.
How do they navigate if it's instant?
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When i say the Subspace Drive is destroyed, i mean it can't be repaired meaning the ship has to limp to wherever it's going. My point is that in real-life, the ships Normal Space speeds would be much faster than they are in-game
Repaired? Build or get a new one. Every ship might have a backup one.
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I suspect they'd bring the bits to the ship rather than the other way round.
Besides the Subspace drive and the normal drive seem to be linked together in most missions. My bet is that a ship which can't use subspace can't move at all.
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Snail
what i mean is that the entire subspace drive system is wrecked beyond repair and it can only be replaced during a long refit in drydock Field replacements/repairs can't be done
Karajorma
That again is for playability. Like my point about the speed, in RL Disabling one, wouldnt mean disableing the other
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Snail
what i mean is that the entire subspace drive system is wrecked beyond repair and it can only be replaced during a long refit in drydock Field replacements/repairs can't be done
Well then it would be towed away by another ship, I would guess.
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My whole point is this.
*In Real-life the ships travel a lot faster than they do the game.
Ie a trip to the moon in Normal space for a destroyer would only take about a day in real-life, where as in the game to travel that same distance would take most of a year (1/2 to 3/4) as i worked out.
*Therefore if the Ship's subspace drive is damaged beyond repair - that rules out field replacements as well - but it's normal space engines are still functioning, then the ship can "walk home" - travel back the old fashioned way. And as the ships travel faster, the trip only takes a few weeks/months as opposed to years.
Besides the way i understand it. The Subspace drive only opens the portal, the is then pulled in by the forces.
Think of it like this:
You = Ship [Note -you'd be wearing a space suit :p to hole-pokers
Your Fist = subspace drive
Interior of space station = Normal Space
Window to ouside of space station = Barrier between SS & NS
Space outside spacestation = Subspace
Your are on a space station = Ship in normal Space
You punch through and shatter the Window with the outside view = Subspace Drive Puching through the barrier between SS & NS - portal opens
You are ejected from the spacestation by the Explosive decompression = ship is drawn through by the tidal forces
You are floating outside the spacestation = Ship in Subspace
The Window self-repairs behind you stopping others from following = Barrier between SS & NS self-repairs and no-one drawn in - portal closes, no-one else can use it
[Note if the ship is disabled, that's you getting caught on somthing preventing you from being ejected. Maybe your boots are magnetic or something or you are caught on the window frame]
Jumping back to Subspace = You puching through an underwater window from the exterior - the water pressure carries you inside
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Seems more likely they'd have a couple of large bolt on engines for such occurrences. If GTVA ships can travel faster there are numerous situations in which they would have.
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let me make this Clear. THe point that Im trying to make is what the Ships would be like in REAL-LIFE.
We all know how the ships are in the Games. But I'm trying to point out that if the Ships were real, then the point i've been trying to explain ad nausium would Actually occur
Prehaps this will clear things up
GAME - all due to playability issues
Capital Ships travel rediculously slow
No Momentum/Inertia - The Glide ability in some Mods doesnt count. I'm talking proper physics
Disabling Subspace Drives Disables the Main Engines stranding the ship until a field repair can be effected. This is not always possible. Unless it is scripted to be unable to jump. At the in game speed, it takes months just to reach the moon. Travelling back halfway from Mars (at it's closest point to Earth) would take Years
REAL-LIFE
Capital Ships would travel alot faster. I'm talking faster than the Apollo Space craft travelled > They reached the moon in 3 days usin Inertia and Course-Corrections. In RL, FS Caps would reach the moon in about a day. The smaller ones would reach it faster.
There would be momentum/Inertia and all that other physics junk
Disabling Subspace Drive doesn't disable main Engines. If the SSDrive is damaged beyond repair, then the ship can still fly home in descent amount of time. If able to reach the moon in a day, Then traveling back halfway from Mars (at it's Closest point to Earth) would only take a matter of months in comparison
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That's all non-canon, however you put it.
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Yes I know its non-canon. Untill I actually create these ships in real-life :pimp:
Okay getting back to the point of the topic.
GTVA can only travel between star systems using subspace. Otherwise we're talking missions that last millenia. and that's stupid
For travelling within a star system. They are not dependant on Subspace to travel. SS travel cuts down on the time-factor. But the trip can still be made in Normal Space - it just takes alot longer - months instead of hours/minutes. It's still a somewhat viable option.
I do have some grumblings though - but a believe I have argued them enough. Snail and Karajorma seem to be annoyed with me. See my previous posts in this topic.
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Snail and Karajorma seem to be annoyed with me. See my previous posts in this topic.
No, no, I'm not annoyed, I only find it unfeasible that a ship should have to travel astronomical distances on their normal engines. I think that it would almost certainly be towed away by a subspace-capable ship or something.
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Unfeesable? that's what our current level of Tech is at.
Besides, how would somthing like the colossum be towed? Dozens of cronos' with fishing lines behind them? :lol:
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Unfeesable? that's what our current level of Tech is at.
If ships could move that fast, then they'd move that fast during combat.
Besides, how would somthing like the colossum be towed? Dozens of cronos' with fishing lines behind them? :lol:
A cruiser? :rolleyes:
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I was refering to our current level of space flight. You know, Voyager 1&2, The Pioneer series, Spaceshuttle (even if it is an out-of-date hunk of junk). Anyway, i never said that combat would be held at top-speeds...Maybe Capship chases, ie An orion chasing down a Hades through Sol...But it would be easier to aim and manouver at lower speeds. The Top-Speed would only be used for large distance travels, when subspace cant be used. Or when its a waste of energy, like jumping from Earth to the Moon.
If ships could move that fast, then they'd move that fast during combat.
Besides, how would somthing like the colossum be towed? Dozens of cronos' with fishing lines behind them? :lol:
A cruiser? :rolleyes:
I'm having flashes of that scene from Babylon 5: Thirdspace, Where the TS jumpgate is being towed out of hyperspace, by a bunch of shuttles, White Stars and the entire garrison of Starfuries
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Okay then.
I think it's rather silly (-adj absurd, ridiculous, irrational • weak minded or lacking good sense) that someone would rather take months or weeks to go somewhere rather than just use subspace. In addition to that, we've never seen this happen, or heard anything alluding to this in the entire game. This leads me to believe that subspace is the main traveling technology, and that this "theoretical high-velocity Newtonian physics engine" is complete... wait for it...
POPPYCOCK!
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I agree with Snail here. Why why why WHY would they make a higher speed realspace drive when they don't have any use for it? If you want to compare FS movement to something else, then subspace jumps are the "main" drive, and realspace drives are equivalent to "maneuvering thrusters".
As for our own ships (that is, us in real-life) being able to move faster than the FS ships, perhaps they abandoned the sort of engine we use now because it was highly inefficient or something? Sure, the drives they use now may be slower, but as already stated they have no need to move faster in realspace, so why bother?
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Look. In my opinion, Subspace is used mostly because yes its faster. However, they still keep the ships prepared with good old-fashioned Rockets as backup.
Relying wholey on Subspace is putting all you're eggs in one basket. All one needs to do is invent a weapon that disrupts subspace enought that it cant be used and you guys are in a motorboat up a stagnant creek and the engine has fallen off and no paddle.
Having both SS and Newtonian Drives means you have both the engine and a paddle. So if you loose the engine you can still row to shore
Besides, Snail, They may not say it happens, but they don't say it doesnt happen.
Not confirming some thing doesnt make it false
Not denying it doesnt make it true,
I will go on believing in my oppinion, Thank you very much
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If they are using ion drive technology, it would take a phenomenal amount of time to accelerate to system-spanning speeds. They probably let out a large burst to accelerate the ship to in-game speed, but then only maintain their speed.
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If you had our current level of weaponry tech, you could waste any ship in Freespace. Sure, they can withstand multiple impacts from antimatter warheads, but their turrets and fighters would be quickly wiped out by precision-targeted missiles. If they abandoned our current drives because they're inefficient, they made a really poor choice :p
We do know that the GTVA uses "fusion drives" for its realspace maneuvering, at least on the Hecate class of ships.
I do agree that the GTVA would tow a ship into subspace if its drives were wrecked. But I think if, for whatever reason, the GTVA did not tow the ship it would be able to get back to a planet in a matter of days or weeks. I view the in-game physics as more of a symbolic representation of FS physics rather than an absolutely accurate simulation of those physics.
I don't think that :V: literally meant to suggest that no spacecraft in the galaxy could go faster than a 1950s prop plane (http://www.aerospaceweb.org/aircraft/jetliner/tu114/).
Most likely that would be a last-ditch option due to the relativistic effects of traveling at a significant portion of the speed of light. This, IMHO, is why the GTVA makes such an extensive use of subspace. Without it, it would essentially be impossible to operate at the level of commerce and interstellar interaction that the GTVA does.
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Do you think that it is realistic that two destroyers have their beams turrets knocked out by their smart Alpha 1's and Destroyer A jumps out into subspace (jump node) and then Destroyer B tells all her fighters to pull back, then it follows Destroyer A into subspace.
When the two destroyers trade shots and some miss, do you think that the *plasma* cannon shots will energize the subspace field that it might collapse ( destruction of the Lucifer example ) or it might make the travel between one system to the other MMUUUUUCCCCCHHHHH
faster. Like the Delta Serpentis-Sol jump takes about 7 minutes, according to Command in the final mission in FS1, so it's canon.
If Destroyer A gets killed and Destroyer B has only about 3% structure integrity left, then would the trasit between the dimensions of subspace and realspace make Destroyer B totally disintegrate? :confused:
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My whole point is this.
*In Real-life the ships travel a lot faster than they do the game.
Ie a trip to the moon in Normal space for a destroyer would only take about a day in real-life, where as in the game to travel that same distance would take most of a year (1/2 to 3/4) as i worked out.
*Therefore if the Ship's subspace drive is damaged beyond repair - that rules out field replacements as well - but it's normal space engines are still functioning, then the ship can "walk home" - travel back the old fashioned way. And as the ships travel faster, the trip only takes a few weeks/months as opposed to years.
Besides the way i understand it. The Subspace drive only opens the portal, the is then pulled in by the forces.
Think of it like this:
You = Ship [Note -you'd be wearing a space suit :p to hole-pokers
Your Fist = subspace drive
Interior of space station = Normal Space
Window to ouside of space station = Barrier between SS & NS
Space outside spacestation = Subspace
Your are on a space station = Ship in normal Space
You punch through and shatter the Window with the outside view = Subspace Drive Puching through the barrier between SS & NS - portal opens
You are ejected from the spacestation by the Explosive decompression = ship is drawn through by the tidal forces
You are floating outside the spacestation = Ship in Subspace
The Window self-repairs behind you stopping others from following = Barrier between SS & NS self-repairs and no-one drawn in - portal closes, no-one else can use it
[Note if the ship is disabled, that's you getting caught on somthing preventing you from being ejected. Maybe your boots are magnetic or something or you are caught on the window frame]
Jumping back to Subspace = You puching through an underwater window from the exterior - the water pressure carries you inside
I know what you're trying to say, but that's an invalid analogy.
1) You can't punch through a space station's window. Otherwise the pressure differences would do the work for you.
2) Even if you could, it's very possible that you break your hand when you do. You don't break your subspace drive when you jump.
let me make this Clear. THe point that Im trying to make is what the Ships would be like in REAL-LIFE.
We all know how the ships are in the Games. But I'm trying to point out that if the Ships were real, then the point i've been trying to explain ad nausium would Actually occur
Prehaps this will clear things up
GAME - all due to playability issues
Capital Ships travel rediculously slow
No Momentum/Inertia - The Glide ability in some Mods doesnt count. I'm talking proper physics
Disabling Subspace Drives Disables the Main Engines stranding the ship until a field repair can be effected. This is not always possible. Unless it is scripted to be unable to jump. At the in game speed, it takes months just to reach the moon. Travelling back halfway from Mars (at it's closest point to Earth) would take Years
REAL-LIFE
Capital Ships would travel alot faster. I'm talking faster than the Apollo Space craft travelled > They reached the moon in 3 days usin Inertia and Course-Corrections. In RL, FS Caps would reach the moon in about a day. The smaller ones would reach it faster.
There would be momentum/Inertia and all that other physics junk
Disabling Subspace Drive doesn't disable main Engines. If the SSDrive is damaged beyond repair, then the ship can still fly home in descent amount of time. If able to reach the moon in a day, Then traveling back halfway from Mars (at it's Closest point to Earth) would only take a matter of months in comparison
Good point, but you forget one major piece of information: Freespace isn't real life, and therefore isn't bound by laws of physics. (Hence why you can hear stuff while flying, the lack of Newtonian physics, visible photon beam cannons, etc...)
Look. In my opinion, Subspace is used mostly because yes its faster. However, they still keep the ships prepared with good old-fashioned Rockets as backup.
Relying wholey on Subspace is putting all you're eggs in one basket. All one needs to do is invent a weapon that disrupts subspace enought that it cant be used and you guys are in a motorboat up a stagnant creek and the engine has fallen off and no paddle.
Having both SS and Newtonian Drives means you have both the engine and a paddle. So if you loose the engine you can still row to shore
Besides, Snail, They may not say it happens, but they don't say it doesnt happen.
Not confirming some thing doesnt make it false
Not denying it doesnt make it true,
I will go on believing in my oppinion, Thank you very much
1) FS ships never use rockets.
2) "Relying wholey on Subspace..." That's like saying all you need to do to exterminate all matter in the universe is to invent a weapon that destroys matter.
3) Just because something is your opinion doesn't make it sensible. Examples:
Opinion: Freespace is awesome.
Fact: Freespace is a game.
compare to your "opinion": Freespace ships move faster than they do.
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1 My analagy was a rough one - i knew the holes. Yes you wouldn;t normally be able to punch through a space station window. Within the analagy, thats akin to Today's space craft - they can break through the batrrier into subspace - if it really Exists.
Now say your fist is made of a metal (one of the strong ones - dont start about the weight). It punches through.
2 Homogeneity is a weakness, versitility is strength. You should never rely too much on one thing. ie subspace. I agree that my mention of an SScollapsing was extreame though. Im just saying that for intrasystem travel, subspace should be is just an option. Sure its the more popular option, but at least their are alternatives
3 Okay - not rockets but the 24th centuary descendant of Current Engines
4 Im saying that if the Ships were real, then theyd travel faster than they do in the games. As i have stated - playability.
5 :hopping: :mad: I KNOW THAT ITS A GAME! IM NOT STUPID! :hopping: :mad: i know that it is fiction and thus not bound by the laws of nature, physics, reality or anything else :mad2:
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Uh-oh. You don't want to let Karajorma hear that.
5 :hopping: :mad: I KNOW THAT ITS A GAME! IM NOT STUPID! :hopping: :mad: i know that it is fiction and thus not bound by the laws of nature, physics, reality or anything else :mad2:
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No offence Karajorma
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I'm bored, :o
A car travelling at 100km/hr is going at 27.777 reacurring m/s
A Boeing 747 cruisers at 985 km/hr is going at 273.6111 reacurring m/s
(according to a book published in 2000)
The land speed record is 341.0341666 reacurring m/s (1227.723 km/hr {don't ask me why this has got decimals going into the thousandths and the others have none!!})
The water speed record is 142.777 reacurring m/s (514 km/hr)
The world speed record (air) is 2020.555 reacurring m/s (7274 km/hr)
I'm sure a high tech super speed space interceptor without friction and going having high tech engines wouldn't travel at a little over half the speed of an airliner!! But as i already said, it wouldn't be fun to travel the length of largest space faring vessel (known) ever constructed in a matter of seconds!! PLAYABILITY!! :D
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No offence Karajorma
Don't worry, thesizzler should be more worried, he's the one who brought up the subject. :)
Look. In my opinion, Subspace is used mostly because yes its faster. However, they still keep the ships prepared with good old-fashioned Rockets as backup.
Why? There's no point taking, weeks or months to get somewhere if you can warp in another ship to tow it away.
In addition, there about a hundred missions when a ship is disabled and it is able to repair the engine. I believe that every ship has a backup subspace drive that can be rewired to the main network should its subspace drive be disabled.
I agree that in-universe ships move faster than they would in the game, but that's still no reason to make a journey take months or years if it can take an hour or a minute with subspace. I believe that the GTVA is putting all their eggs in one basket, for better or for worse.
Supporting my opinion:
- We have never seen a single ship use rockets. (!!)
- We have never heard of any mention of this happening (!!)
- They can warp in another ship to tow them away
- If you could use these rockets then they would use them during combat
- Considering it in-universe, they would already move extremely fast, and there is no need for these retro (as in 1960s) rockets.
- Assuming that you cannot simply jump in near to a node, why don't convoy ships just use their rockets to approach them at high speed?
BTW, please keep the :mad: :hopping: :mad2: :rolleyes: :doubt: smileys out of this, it's just bound to call in an airstrike of hot, hot lockage. This is just a discussion, anyway, it's not like we're trying to make enemies or anything (or at least I'm not...)
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Personally, I think the in-game speeds are just relative speeds. Everything happens in orbit around the star (look at the asteroids, for example), and the speed a ship can reach without being sucked into the star or getting thrown to the outer boundaries of the system, is limited and somehow related to its mass.
This also means that FS ships DO move way faster than indicated (since they're in orbit), but :v: didn't want it to be that complicated, so they decided to indicate relative speeds instead.
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Uh-oh. You don't want to let Karajorma hear that.
5 :hopping: :mad: I KNOW THAT ITS A GAME! IM NOT STUPID! :hopping: :mad: i know that it is fiction and thus not bound by the laws of nature, physics, reality or anything else :mad2:
Actually I said I'd ban the next person who used "It's a game!" as an excuse to try to stop an in-universe debate. That's not what terran_emperor was doing so he's welcome to continue even though I disagree with the point he's trying to make (longer explanation of why I think he's wrong along with an in-universe explanation is on its way when I've finished turning it over in my head).
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:nervous: umm... hmm... Just to... "clarify" the point I was making with that line is that you can't compare current technology to FS technology because of the huge gap in times. It'd be like some 17th century dude saying "oh! in the year 2000 the horses are going to run super fast! And the boats will have ultra sails to go at a billion miles an hour!" I'm wasn't saying that in a scapegoat tactic, I'm reminding you that this is set 350 years in the future, and things are very different; It's not necessarily inhibited by many of today's paradigms of space and stuff.
*whew
And the other main point:
4 Im saying that if the Ships were real, then they'd travel faster than they do in the games. As i have stated - playability.
That is not an opinion. It's non-canon. If FS says something, it's true in the universe. If it says there is no god, then there is no god in FS. If it says that the ships move in meters per second, then the ships move in meters per second. You don't just change something solely in the game for gameplay purposes. Look at Freelancer; If they tried that, they'd be so screwed it wouldn't even be funny.
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Sizzler
Ive never played Freelancer. And i know 4 is non-canon.
At least KW and Snail get that point about the speeds
I understand what you are saying in your 1st point.
Look at it this way:
If the Same guy said that The Horse+Carriage would go faster, then he is right in a manner of speaking
Modern descendent of the horse+Carriage = The Automobile (Horse = Engine, The actual frame where you sit = Carriage)
And yes i already knew the point about it being set in the future.
Another Analogy
Okay, Say you are travelling from New York to LA.
*Most travel by Plane - That's Equivalent to Travelling in subspace, (Mercuary to Pluto in one go)
But you still have the options of going by Train, by car(lorry, Monster Truck, whatever) or on foot.
Now i grant that each of those longer than the previous, but they are still options
Train could be the journy in a series of short hops (Mercury-Venus-Earth-Moon-Mars-Ceres-Jupiter-Saturn-Uranus-Neptune-Pluto)
Car would be traveling without subspace
*Foot could be travelling via EVA. Now i grant that in Real-life that distance is too far to travel realistically in EVA.
In fact this comarison /\ is stupid ;). but you can get my drift from the other 3.
Snail
Did you read point 3?
Prehaps I should have said 24th Centuary equivalent instead - and i did say not rockets in that point. Besides when i first said rockets i was being facitous.
Like i aready said in this post
the Car is the modern equivalent of horse+Carriage
Also, it might not be tactically feasible to deploy a subspace tug (a ship assigned to tow). There could be heavy combat conditions, meaning a support ship like that couldnt be sent in and survive and the destroyer's only chance relys on it limping back home and it's fighter surport.
P.S. Im sorry about the "hopping", "mad" and "mad2"s i was just abit stressed out the time. Im not looking to make enemies either.
P.P.S. The points i have made are my opiniona. Everyone is free to agree or disagree with them as they please.
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I think :v: just had to select between these two:
1) realistic speeds (fast) => boring dogfights
2) unrealistic speeds (slow) => fun dogfights
And chose 2), not caring a flying **** about the inconsistencies it creates ;) The right choice, IMO.
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Snail
Did you read point 3?
Prehaps I should have said 24th Centuary equivalent instead - and i did say not rockets in that point. Besides when i first said rockets i was being facitous.
My points are still valid, particularly the last one and the first two.
(in case you have forgotten what I said.)
- We have never seen a single ship use rockets. (!!)
- We have never heard of any mention of this happening (!!)
- They can warp in another ship to tow them away
- If you could use these rockets then they would use them during combat
- Considering it in-universe, they would already move extremely fast, and there is no need for these retro (as in 1960s) rockets.
- Assuming that you cannot simply jump in near to a node, why don't convoy ships just use their rockets to approach them at high speed?
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Snail, I think what terran_emperor is trying to say is that in the Freespace Universe (NOT freepace game) the Ion drive,s fusion driver or whatever standard engines ship use are way faster than they are in-game.
Have you tried playing the game with vastly increased ship speeds? It's unplayable..and it make big ships look smaller and less significant.
Terran_Emperors point is valid, as no matter what happens to the subspace drive, the ship will have the normal drives to fall back to.
The speed in FS (the game) is an abstraction, modified for gameplay purposes...like hit points.. or did you ever read a Forgotten Realm novel where a charachter got stabbed 4 times with a greatsword and continued in his merry way?
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Well what I thought terran_emperor was saying is that ships have backup super-high velocity engines in case their subspace drives are disabled.
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Hallelujah. Finally someone gets what ive been saying all along. Maybe i could have phased it better. but it is nice still the same
Snail
I was never trying to say that.
I never ment that they would have ships that travel a say half Lightspeed.
I never ment that a GTD ORion could get home from Mars to Earth in hours.
I meant that was that the ship travels fast enough in normal space that (if it was necessary) the trip could be done in months instead of years
The point ive been trying to make is this
For intersystem travel, the GTVA is 100% dependant on subspace - like i said millenia long missions are stupid
For Intrasystem travel, while Subspace is the prefered method of travel, they are not 100% dependant on it. maybe about 80-85% but not 100%
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I meant that was that the ship travels fast enough in normal space that (if it was necessary) the trip could be done in months instead of years
My points still valid.
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Lookwe all have valid points. im not going to agrue this any more. Lets just each stick to our own interpretation of the FS Universe. and not come to blows about it
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Then that makes this thread pointless.
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Well. sure we can descuss them...just not look to kill each other over differences of opinion. There're too much of that in the world as it is.
What i have tried to say is my inturpretation of the FS universe.
Now I know that my views will never be the same as yours. and that you may not agree with me.
I could see where you are comming from...though.
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Well I was certainly not involved in any homicide, at least not in this thread. :p
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Let's look at the shuttle. The shuttle is about 40x25x20m across and is used to take loads into space. The Satis is about 60x45x110m in size and I feel it's reasonable from the destruction of Vasuda Prime CBani to say it can do the same thing. Let's compare them then.
In order to put itself in space the Shuttle has to burn 106,261kg of H2 in 629,340kg of O2 + whatever it gets from the solid fuel boosters to get to escape velocity. Once in orbit it's engines are IIRC basically useless and it it only has a few minutes of burn time on the thrusters it uses in orbit.
The Satis on the other hand doesn't need any external help and can manoeuvre as long as it likes even though it undoubtedly has more mass. So how does it do that? Well we know it's fusion powered so it could be that it works simply by fusing hydrogen and squirting the exhaust out the back to provide thrust. Or it could be that it uses the fusion plant to power some kind of reactionless drive (We know that the GTVA has the capability to generate gravitational fields so let's go with that as an alternative).
Now take the Orion. How much does it weigh? Well going from this page (http://www.kitsune.addr.com/SF-Conversions/Rifts-SW-Vehicles/Imperator_SD.htm) a Star Wars Star Destroyer weighs 25 million tonnes. An Orion is bigger so let's say 30 million. How much power are you going to need to push that at even a small acceleration using reaction drives? If it takes more than half a million kg of fuel to get power the Shuttle needs to get up to orbital speed how much is it going to take to get an Orion up to the same speed as the Shuttle or Apollo? Bearing in mind that the shuttle could land in the hanger bay of the Orion.
If someone wants to do the calcs they're more than welcome but for now I still think that we're just as likely to be dealing with a reactionless drive. And if we are then all the stuff about interplanetary runs without using subspace quickly goes out of the window.
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Yep, that's why I'am always annoyed when people complain about how slow the ships are. I'm sure most FreeSpace ships could move very fast but they couldn't do it for long before they run out of fuel.
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I don't think an Orion launches from a planet...ergo, it doesn't have to fight a planets gravity.
IIRC, you could use the most basic rocket to push a Orion.. But it would take, like - forever - for it to get up to any speed. :lol:
The Orion has big honking engines so by leaving them on a ship should theoreticly accelerate for as long as the engines are on (until it reaches some maximum speed)
Given that FS and physics don't really like eachother too much, I fail to see the importance of this discovery.
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I like the theory that guy said just now about the speeds being relative to the gamespace, though all the ships are actually moving thousands of times faster. Who was that?
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I don't think an Orion launches from a planet...ergo, it doesn't have to fight a planets gravity.
IIRC, you could use the most basic rocket to push a Orion.. But it would take, like - forever - for it to get up to any speed. :lol:
The Orion has big honking engines so by leaving them on a ship should theoreticly accelerate for as long as the engines are on (until it reaches some maximum speed)
Given that FS and physics don't really like eachother too much, I fail to see the importance of this discovery.
1) You've completely missed my point about the drives possibly being reactionless. They can leave them on for centuries and it might not make a difference depending on how the system worked.
2) Regardless of whether or not it launches from a planet it still has to accelerate its own mass.
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Jeez, I really can't believe that merely yesterday that this thought occurred to me: I've played freespace since I was like . . . 9 . . .
I know how you feel! :lol:
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I like the theory that guy said just now about the speeds being relative to the gamespace, though all the ships are actually moving thousands of times faster. Who was that?
Me. Thanks, you're the first one who actually replies to it. I was beginning to think it was a stupid theory...
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Me. Thanks, you're the first one who actually replies to it. I was beginning to think it was a stupid theory...
Actually, that might be a good thing: no one finds anything to criticize. ;)
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Me. Thanks, you're the first one who actually replies to it. I was beginning to think it was a stupid theory...
Actually, that might be a good thing: no one finds anything to criticize. ;)
YIPPEEE! I'M A GENIUS! I FOUND SOMETHING EVEN KARA AND TMAN CAN'T CRITICIZE!
If you don't understand, please ask me :lol:
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I like the theory that guy said just now about the speeds being relative to the gamespace, though all the ships are actually moving thousands of times faster. Who was that?
Me. Thanks, you're the first one who actually replies to it. I was beginning to think it was a stupid theory...
That would mean that the ships are hundreds of kilometers long. And the people piloting the fighters would be huge, too.
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Why?
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That would mean that the ships are hundreds of kilometers long. And the people piloting the fighters would be huge, too.
Ah, someone who doesn't understand. Let me explain.
To remain in a continuous orbit, your speed must be more or less continuous, depending of the radius of the orbit. If you go too slow, you fall closer to the star; if you go too fast, you will go away from it. As long as your speed doesn't differ from the standard orbit speed too much, the effects are within acceptable margins. That is basic physics.
Now, the asteroids in FS are definitely in orbit. All asteroids are in orbit. Their speeds are comparable with those of FS ships (i.e. they don't move at several clicks per second), so the ships are in orbit as well.
Now indicating ACTUAL speeds (i.e. several clicks per sec), would be way too complicated and nearly impossible to program. It would take the fun out of the game, too. So what we see are RELATIVE speeds. There is the standard orbit speed on these coordinates, and the indicated speed is how much you or anything else differs from it.
It's not that difficult to understand, I think...
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That would mean that the ships are hundreds of kilometers long. And the people piloting the fighters would be huge, too.
Ah, someone who doesn't understand. Let me explain.
To remain in a continuous orbit, your speed must be more or less continuous, depending of the radius of the orbit. If you go too slow, you fall closer to the star; if you go too fast, you will go away from it. As long as your speed doesn't differ from the standard orbit speed too much, the effects are within acceptable margins. That is basic physics.
Now, the asteroids in FS are definitely in orbit. All asteroids are in orbit. Their speeds are comparable with those of FS ships (i.e. they don't move at several clicks per second), so the ships are in orbit as well.
Now indicating ACTUAL speeds (i.e. several clicks per sec), would be way too complicated and nearly impossible to program. It would take the fun out of the game, too. So what we see are RELATIVE speeds. There is the standard orbit speed on these coordinates, and the indicated speed is how much you or anything else differs from it.
It's not that difficult to understand, I think...
Good theory in fact I have been thinking the same thing for a while....
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That speeds are relative is something I've thought so obvious that I've never mentioned it. You have missions where planets are in the background and yet they don't zoom off at orbital speeds. It's fairly obvious the ship must therefore being keeping pace with the planet.
However (and it is a big however) we've got no proof that the ships engines could get a Freespace ship to that speed. Ships come out of subspace matching the speed of everything else around them. The only explanation I can think of is that they can some how match speeds with everything around them when they come out of subspace.
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That speeds are relative is something I've thought so obvious that I've never mentioned it. You have missions where planets are in the background and yet they don't zoom off at orbital speeds. It's fairly obvious the ship must therefore being keeping pace with the planet.
However (and it is a big however) we've got no proof that the ships engines could get a Freespace ship to that speed. Ships come out of subspace matching the speed of everything else around them. The only explanation I can think of is that they can some how match speeds with everything around them when they come out of subspace.
Well, there was a discussion about it, so I thought I should explain it.
About the 'ships coming out of subspace': the nodes are in orbit too, as are the warp holes. The same goes for in-system jumps.
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That would mean that the ships are hundreds of kilometers long. And the people piloting the fighters would be huge, too.
Not really...that only means the space is scaled down and nothing else.
Ever play Sword of the Stars? Master of Orion 3? Conquest: Fronteer war?
The planets there are only several times bigger than the warships (which are all all 300-1000m ) Does that mean that planets are miniscule? Or that the ships are humongous? It doesn't mean anything really..
ABSTRACTION.. What you see in game doesn't have to correlate to the "game universe fluff" for gameplay purposes. How fun would it be to fay for an hour or shoot at ships way beyond visual range?
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Conquest: Fronteer war?
:lol: My God! Again!
I've played Conquest: Frontier Wars, but no, never Conquest Fronteer War.
And trashman, there is a fine line between gameplay purposes, and general stupidness. I really pity you if you never really think about this stuff when playing games.
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Then pity away..
I really like realism in games, but I also realise that realism and fun don't always mix together.
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realism and fun don't always mix together.
:lol:
That's the funniest thing I've heard all day!
EDIT: Think about it w/o context.
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That speeds are relative is something I've thought so obvious that I've never mentioned it. You have missions where planets are in the background and yet they don't zoom off at orbital speeds. It's fairly obvious the ship must therefore being keeping pace with the planet.
However (and it is a big however) we've got no proof that the ships engines could get a Freespace ship to that speed. Ships come out of subspace matching the speed of everything else around them. The only explanation I can think of is that they can some how match speeds with everything around them when they come out of subspace.
Really off-the-wall theory here:
Maybe that explains why ships cannot use subspace outside of a gravitational well. The intense deceleration seen is actually the ship adjusting the absolute speed at the location that it entered subspace with to the absolute speed of the gravitational field that it exited subspace in.
This could also help to explain 'stable' and 'unstable' jump points; a jump point located near two bodies moving at drastically different speeds would cause a ship to be torn apart as it attempted to gradually change velocity to match both bodies. More advanced subspace technology would allow the ship to focus on one gravitational point, hence why the Shivans can use unstable jump nodes.
Travel outside of a system would naturally be possible, but as there would be no significant gravitational force for the ship to lock on to, it would effectively become rooted at a speed of absolute 0 - and the entire galaxy would zoom past it. Alternatively, it would emerge outside of the system with the velocity of the galaxy, and the orbital velocity of the solar system that it had started from would cause the ship to be completely out of range in a matter of seconds.
You could even use this to explain Capella. By detonating Capella, this would spread the mass of the sun all over the area that the solar system had used to be. Now I don't know what the calculations exactly would be, but wouldn't that mean you could get further away from the former position of Capella and have a greater proportion of the gravity affect you? Or possibly the Shivans simply need the mass.
But regardless, destroying Capella or another sun could expand the radius of the spherical area that you can jump to in a system. By spreading it out and increasing the radius, it might be possible to jump from the outer edge of that sphere to the outer edge of the sphere of a system that wasn't originally connected to the node network in any way.
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That's actually not a bad theory. ;)
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That's actually not a bad theory. ;)
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Really off-the-wall theory here:
Maybe that explains why ships cannot use subspace outside of a gravitational well. The intense deceleration seen is actually the ship adjusting the absolute speed at the location that it entered subspace with to the absolute speed of the gravitational field that it exited subspace in.
I'd say the deceleration is simply caused by the ship coming out of subspace. If you think about it logically roughly half the time the ship will be arriving from somewhere faster and half the time somewhere slower. But we never see a ship accelerate as it leaves subspace.
This could also help to explain 'stable' and 'unstable' jump points; a jump point located near two bodies moving at drastically different speeds would cause a ship to be torn apart as it attempted to gradually change velocity to match both bodies. More advanced subspace technology would allow the ship to focus on one gravitational point, hence why the Shivans can use unstable jump nodes.
Travel outside of a system would naturally be possible, but as there would be no significant gravitational force for the ship to lock on to, it would effectively become rooted at a speed of absolute 0 - and the entire galaxy would zoom past it. Alternatively, it would emerge outside of the system with the velocity of the galaxy, and the orbital velocity of the solar system that it had started from would cause the ship to be completely out of range in a matter of seconds.
:yes: Seems a reasonable possibility to me. I'd simply been thinking that matching speeds was part of the navigation calculations you had to do for a jump but it could just as easily simply be a side effect of actually making a jump like you say.
You could even use this to explain Capella. By detonating Capella, this would spread the mass of the sun all over the area that the solar system had used to be. Now I don't know what the calculations exactly would be, but wouldn't that mean you could get further away from the former position of Capella and have a greater proportion of the gravity affect you? Or possibly the Shivans simply need the mass.
Now we get to the bit where my knowledge of physics runs out too and I'd need a proper physicist to tell me if that works. :) Treating Capella as a point mass nothing would change. But I don't know where during the expansion of the new nebula that no longer becomes the sensible thing to do.
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Actually, I think I know the answer to that, although I didn't think of it at the time. I'm pretty sure that at any point outside the mass particles resulting from the supernova, you would experience no net gravitational change. That's assuming that the sun is the only object in the solar system.
If you were inside the nebula (we'll call it a nebula) created by the supernova, the gravitational forces would actually be less than if Capella were still a star. This is because the mass on the outside of the sphere would cancel out the mass further inside the sphere, closer to where Capella had used to be.
Now since the planets were also destroyed by the supernova, and the mass seemed to be propelled at an extremely fast (and probably unrealistic, but I digress :p) speed away from the sun, there would be some change in the force of gravity at overall points in the system. It would probably be slightly stronger closer to the planetary debris.
So destroying Capella shouldn't have any kind of gravitational effects outside of the nebula aside from redistributing the planets' mass, so long as the supernova were a perfect sphere. Hardly something to get excited about, unless the Shivans actually destroyed Capella when the planets were roughly aligned in the direction they wanted to go. And I don't think :V: would have gone to that level of detail.
But that's not counting mass that was converted into energy during the supernova.
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It wouldn't have any gravitational effects on surrounding stars at first (said as much earlier in fact). But if the nebula grew until it was 10LY across and was now 1LY away from a star system is it still sensible to treat it as a point mass 6LY away? I don't think so.
Admittedly it takes thousands of years for that sort of thing to happen but we know that the Shivans did survive for thousands of years so it's not impossible that they'd have blown up Capella for something that would take thousands of years to happen.
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It wouldn't have any gravitational effects on surrounding stars at first (said as much earlier in fact). But if the nebula grew until it was 10LY across and was now 1LY away from a star system is it still sensible to treat it as a point mass 6LY away? I don't think so.
Here (http://amazing-space.stsci.edu/resources/explorations/blackholes/teacher/sciencebackground.html)'s the page that explains the idea.
Unfortunately, I can't really give a mathematical basis for this. Doing the math it doesn't seem like it would work out that way. A quick particle experiment, by assuming that there are two particles on opposite sides of the sphere that lie on a line that intersects the point we're trying to look at...
If you assume a 5 m radius sphere and our point is 1 m away
G = gravitational constant
dM = infinitely small slice of mass (ie our imaginary particle)
Before:
P1 = G*dM/1^2
P2 = G*dM/11^2
P1+P2 = GdM(1+1/121) = 1.0083*G*dM
After:
P1 = G*dM/2^2
P2 = G*dM/10^2
P1 + P2 = GdM(1/4 + 1/100) = .2600*G*dM
Which is a rather huge difference. So either my poor man's calculus is wrong, or that site is wrong.
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Simply thinking about without the maths says no too.
If you have two stars 6LY away then all the mass of both stars will be in a single plane and add together. If you have a nebula a lot of the mass will now be above and below the plane and will cancel out the vertical component of each others attraction. So you'd end up with a much weaker attraction overall.
What I'm not certain about is if and when this becomes important. The majority of the mass of Capella probably became a neutron star or black hole after all.
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Quick question.
Since I use GTVA in my fic, aside from gameplay there's nothing to stop them from using subspace to quickly traverse teh system from one jump node A to jump node B instead of the tiem it takes to launch fighters from a base and "escort them" through system to the jump node (for pirates/shivans, whatever)...
IE pop in Centari point A, intra system jump near point B, continue on merry way to another system...Right?
Has there ever been a mention of a "distance factor" that separates subspace ability from intra and inter system jumps?
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Sshh, you just invalidated every escort mission in existence. :nervous:
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Quick question.
Since I use GTVA in my fic, aside from gameplay there's nothing to stop them from using subspace to quickly traverse teh system from one jump node A to jump node B instead of the tiem it takes to launch fighters from a base and "escort them" through system to the jump node (for pirates/shivans, whatever)...
IE pop in Centari point A, intra system jump near point B, continue on merry way to another system...Right?
Has there ever been a mention of a "distance factor" that separates subspace ability from intra and inter system jumps?
There definitely is, although it's never stated explicitly. There is some kind of subspace 'turbulence' around every node, and at least larger ships can't jump within it (otherwise, all the escort missions wouldn't make sense, would they?). If they do try to, they get thrown off course, like the Psamtik just before she died.
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It's also possible that you can't jump from one end of the system to another in one jump.
Could be that the normal jump drives have some range limit, or that the gravity of the planets or the sun has some limiting effect.
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For the asteroid field escorts there's a simple explanation, they don't want to come out of subspace inside an asteroid. :P
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Simply thinking about without the maths says no too.
If you have two stars 6LY away then all the mass of both stars will be in a single plane and add together. If you have a nebula a lot of the mass will now be above and below the plane and will cancel out the vertical component of each others attraction. So you'd end up with a much weaker attraction overall.
The vertical components would be canceled out in any case. If you have two stars, there will be a hemisphere above the plane and below the plane for both of them. Treating things as point masses is only an approximation; there's not a magical distance or gradient where the properties of gravity suddenly change. :p
What I'm referring to is that at a given point in the system, you'd have a great deal of mass that was now closer to you in a nebula. But you'd also have a great deal of mass further away. So if you were outside our spherical nebula, you'd get pulled in the same direction; the question is whether or not it would be with the same magnitude. If the vertical forces didn't cancel out in a given plane, you'd be pulled in a vertical direction; which would make no sense unless you had more mass above the plane than below it or vice versa. But then the plane would have to run between the suns (which would have to have different masses) or you'd need a lopsided star.
But canonically speaking, Capella only has one star. There is no other stars in the missions based in Capella, and the CB states:
We are on the threshold of a new apocalypse. Though the juggernauts have not engaged our warships, they have set course for the Capella star. We can only speculate about their intentions, but this development cannot bode well for the Alliance.
I don't think the existence of a second star could be classified on a need-to-know basis. "Pay no attention to the nuclear fireball outside your starboard viewport!" :p
What I'm not certain about is if and when this becomes important. The majority of the mass of Capella probably became a neutron star or black hole after all.
Maybe, but we don't know for sure since the supernova itself was artificially induced. That also adds a lot of complexity to the situation - would the highly dense mass of a black hole change something about subspace that less dense objects wouldn't do? etc etc.
We have got to ask Stephen Hawking about this the next time he visits HLP...
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K thanks for the replies.
I'll be taking some creative license then with intra-system jumps.
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There definitely is, although it's never stated explicitly. There is some kind of subspace 'turbulence' around every node, and at least larger ships can't jump within it (otherwise, all the escort missions wouldn't make sense, would they?). If they do try to, they get thrown off course, like the Psamtik just before she died.
Given that the Carthage, and Dashor weren't pushed off course I don't believe that. The Psamtik may have been pushed off course due to the fact that the portal was uncharted and they didn't have time to improve the jump calculations or some other reasons but given that other ships have jumped in close to nodes on numerous occasions (The Iceni being the best example) I don't buy that you can't jump in close.
The reason for escort missions may be more simple. Jump engines need to recharge. Perhaps it's considered safer to be a moving target than a sitting duck waiting closer to the node for recharge.
The vertical components would be canceled out in any case. If you have two stars, there will be a hemisphere above the plane and below the plane for both of them. Treating things as point masses is only an approximation; there's not a magical distance or gradient where the properties of gravity suddenly change. :p
I'm not saying there is. Think of this in terms of vectors. For two stars 6LY apart the horizontal component is very large and the vertical one is basically negligible in comparison. When a nebula is 10LY across the vertical component is almost as big as horizontal one. That means a lot of the gravity is being cancelled out and the overall gravitational attraction felt by the remaining star is consequently much smaller.
My point is that its hard to say whether that's important or not. Depends on whether subspace nodes are simply dependant on the gravitational field of the local star or whether its dependant on all the stars in the vicinity too.
What I'm referring to is that at a given point in the system, you'd have a great deal of mass that was now closer to you in a nebula. But you'd also have a great deal of mass further away. So if you were outside our spherical nebula, you'd get pulled in the same direction; the question is whether or not it would be with the same magnitude.
It wouldn't be exactly the same, that's what I'm getting at above. How big a difference it would make depends on how much mass Capella has ejected during the supernova and how big the nebula has become. My point is that I can't give numbers for that since I don't remember the maths any more.
Remember I'm not talking about effects within the Capella system only. I'm talking about the Capella explosion possibly having gravitational effects on other star systems.
We have got to ask Stephen Hawking about this the next time he visits HLP...
But even if he explained it I doubt we could understand it. No that wasn't a voice box joke for the one person tasteless enough to think it was! :p
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We have got to ask Stephen Hawking about this the next time he visits HLP...
Anybody think we could get him to? :P
But even if he explained it I doubt we could understand it. (No that wasn't a voice box joke for the one person tasteless enough to think it was! :P )
There are some people (like myself) who are interested in real science almost as much as, (if not equal to) science fiction. So some of us could at least puzzle out what was being said.
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The vertical components would be canceled out in any case. If you have two stars, there will be a hemisphere above the plane and below the plane for both of them. Treating things as point masses is only an approximation; there's not a magical distance or gradient where the properties of gravity suddenly change. :p
I'm not saying there is. Think of this in terms of vectors. For two stars 6LY apart the horizontal component is very large and the vertical one is basically negligible in comparison. When a nebula is 10LY across the vertical component is almost as big as horizontal one. That means a lot of the gravity is being cancelled out and the overall gravitational attraction felt by the remaining star is consequently much smaller.
Ahh, okay. Then the site I linked to earlier may actually be right.
The horizontal component will also move closer to the second sun too. And based on my last set of calculations, we know(?) that that will affect the second sun much more so than the particles moving vertically only and the particles on the other side of the original sun. It looks like the two might actually cancel each other out.
Moving vertically:
Before:
P1x = (G*dM/6^2)*cos0
P1y = (G*dM/6^2)*sin0
P2x = (G*dM/6^2)*cos0
P2y = (G*dM/6^2)*sin0
Px = P1x + P2x = .0556G*dM
After:
P1x = (G*dM/7.8102^2)*cos(atan2(5,6))
P1y = (G*dM/7.8102^2)*sin(atan2(5,6))
P2x = (G*dM/7.8102^2)*cos(atan2(-5,6))
P2y = (G*dM/7.8102^2)*sin(atan2(-5,6))
Px = P1x + P2x = .0252*G*dM
Moving towards the other sun:
P1 = G*dM/6^2
P2 = G*dM/6^2
P1+P2 = .0556G*dM
P1 = G*dM/1^2
P2 = G*dM/11^2
P1+P2 = 1.0083*G*dM
There's also particles in the x axis which will behave much more like the vertical particles. I think you'd need to do the full integration to know for sure.
My point is that its hard to say whether that's important or not. Depends on whether subspace nodes are simply dependant on the gravitational field of the local star or whether its dependant on all the stars in the vicinity too.
That's not even what I was saying in the first place. I'm not talking about subspace nodes at all, nor am I talking about more than one sun. Quit bringing up new topics into this discussion; it's hard enough when neither of us have a very good grasp of the physics involved.
We know that intrasystem subspace drives depend on a gravitational field.
Assumption: There is a threshold to the gravitational field beyond which it is too weak for intrasystem subspace drives to work.
Question: Would destroying the Capellan sun increase the distance from the system's center that the required field strength exists?
Experiment: Does expanding the mass of the Capellan sun cause the gravitational force at a constant point outside both the nebula and the sun to increase or decrease?
It wouldn't be exactly the same, that's what I'm getting at above. How big a difference it would make depends on how much mass Capella has ejected during the supernova and how big the nebula has become. My point is that I can't give numbers for that since I don't remember the maths any more.
Remember I'm not talking about effects within the Capella system only. I'm talking about the Capella explosion possibly having gravitational effects on other star systems.
Fine, then go start your own thread instead of trying to derail my reasoning :p We know that intrasystem jump drives will not reach to other systems under ordinary circumstances. If the answer to the question for my experiment is "Yes", then it's possible that intrasystem jump drives could reach there. If the answer is "no", then we know that they still wouldn't.
IIRC it would take years for the effects to reach other solar systems anyway, so what it would actually do would be irrelevant as subspace travel is generally conducted on the order of hours or minutes.
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Oh wait. My bad. Since this thread is all about nodes I thought I was on this thread (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,51530.msg1043164.html#msg1043164). :D
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Ahh, that makes much more sense now. :)
EDIT: Also, :wtf: - your entire example about the vertical component is completely invalidated by both that link I supplied (Which I got from you) and contradicted by the argument you made in the other thread. Why did you argue against it here?
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I don't see a contradiction. The vertical component stuff was talking about once the nebula gets big enough that you can't treat it as a point mass any more if you are outside the nebula. That's going to take years if not hundreds of years.
What I'm saying is that there are three possible ways the destruction of Capella could affect the entire subspace node network.
1) Instantaneously - The node network figures out that Capella was destroyed by signals propagated through subspace. Nodes may become unstable instantly.
2) Speed of light(ish) - Some percentage of Capella's mass will be moving in the second blast wave. Not sure how much it is or whether its a negligible amount not to mention neutrinos and all manner of other stuff. Possibly could have an effect on nodes.
3) Gravitational effects (not at all certain on the time scale for these). - As far as I can tell eventually you can't consider Capella's nebula as a point mass where Capella used to be. Not sure when this is. It might only be once other stars are actually within the nebula or it might be earlier.
AFAIK nebula from supernovae tend not to be spherical (planetary nebulae often are spherical or toroid but most supernova nebulae I've seen pictures of seem to be lopsided) So that's gonna have an effect too.
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You guis make my head go spoaaaaaaaaaadddsssssss. I can figure out 80% of what you said. Never liked math or pshisics therefore i suck at th respective areas. Could you well put it in DUMB language so that all of us non math/pshisics genoiuses could understand it???
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Sure, here's the translation:
"duuuuh...uuuuuu--arrrrgh...drooooool gweaaaaah" . oh, no wait..this was in retard language..you wanted just stupid right? Damn, sry, I can't speak that one :p
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In non technical language I'm saying that if the destruction of Capella does cause the nodes to change stability in other systems it can happen almost instantly or take thousands of years to have an effect.
In the Capella system the changes would only occur after the shockwave has passed that point in space. So people who think that the Shivans can't have left via the Gamma Draconis node because it would have closed the second Capella blew up are probably wrong. The node wouldn't notice a difference in the gravitational field until the shockwave got there. It wouldn't collapse instantly.
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Oh I see.
OH and TMan youre mean as usual.
Also I happen do disagree with you. If the node would of noticed the change in gravitational forces instantly then the node would of colapsed instantly. However how much does it take for a gravitational abnormality of this magnitude to be felt by anyone or in this case the node?
If it would of colapsed after the shockwave would of passed by how much time is that?
Would the shivans have time to jusp to the node then enter the node to jump out again? Mneaning reacharge period and stuff....these are all unknowns i would say!
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Also I happen do disagree with you. If the node would of noticed the change in gravitational forces instantly then the node would of colapsed instantly. However how much does it take for a gravitational abnormality of this magnitude to be felt by anyone or in this case the node?
That's the point. The supernova shockwave travels at lightspeed. Gravity also travels at lightspeed (Or relativity is wrong) so there is no way the node can know Capella has exploded until the shockwave gets there.
If it would of colapsed after the shockwave would of passed by how much time is that?
Depends on where the node actually is. It takes light 8 minutes to get to Earth and several hours to get to the outer planets. So the Shivans could have had hours to evacuate through the Gamma Draconis node. Now look at how many arrive in the 15 minutes that you spend in Shivan space in Into the Lion's Den.
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That is...err....that means that all those fat bastards 8 leggede freacks had more then enough time to escape before the shokwawe hit them. I dont like this one bit.
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OH and TMan youre mean as usual
Mean? Read it again, you're missing the obvious joke (directed at myself no less). :lol:
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Well i got the joke but i still think you have a mean bone in you somewhere :D :P
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:confused:
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You guis make my head go spoaaaaaaaaaadddsssssss. I can figure out 80% of what you said. Never liked math or pshisics therefore i suck at th respective areas. Could you well put it in DUMB language so that all of us non math/pshisics genoiuses could understand it???
What I'm saying (and I've now checked this against other sources as well) is if Capella were to become a perfectly spherical nebula, a ship outside the nebula wouldn't feel any difference. Similarly, if it were to become a black hole, neutron star, etc there would be no difference on that same ship. This is excluding any matter converted to energy during the explosion, or any matter that got moved around from the planets being destroyed.
Basically what it means is that blowing up the sun probably wouldn't affect the area that you could use subspace without a node, or if anything, it would make it smaller. So it's not a reasonable motive for the Shivans to have destroyed Capella. (Which is progress, at least we can rule something out)
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Whaaaaaa? THIS IS AN IMPORTANT DEVELOPMENT. We need to write this down somewhere. It has just been proved that the Shivans could have escaped Capella had they jumped in time!
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How do we know that those sathanas even jumped out of system? For all we know, they could have just made an intrasystem jump to avoid the supernova shockwave, then jumped back in into to the resulting nebula - like diving underwater to avoid a tidalwave for example. Then they piece together their equivalent to a knossos round the collapsed nodes
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The shockwave reached the GDrax node in under 15 minutes. Why?
Play a mission which takes place there, near the GDrax node in Capella. High Noon, for example. Now take a good look at the star. Note that it looks suspiciously much like our sun. That means you - and therefore the GDrax node - at about the same distance from Capella as the Earth is from the sun, 8 light-minutes. Say 5 to 15 light-minutes, to have an acceptable margin.
That means that the Shivans would have had only 5 to 15 minutes to evacuate.
Now play Into the Lion's Den. Count the juggernauts jumping in (about 5, IIRC). That number could have left Capella in time. The others would have been destroyed.
As for the intrasystem jump theory, play through the main campaign again. Write down any mission which does not take place at about the same distance from the star. None.
Subspace seems to be limited to a thin sphere, and most likely even a small ring, around the star. It's speculation, but there is nothing that denies it. Prove me wrong, anybody.
I do think that the supernode theory is the most likely.
EDIT: Clarified my post a little bit, so that Snail can understand it too :pimp:
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The shockwave reached the GDrax node in under 10 minutes. Why? Play a mission which takes place there. High Noon, for example.
High Noon was in Capella. Just blew your whole theory open.
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Even if the shivies had an HOUR they couldn't have evacuated all the Juggs.
1. They are slow
2. They have the jump in a bit from the node then travel to it and THEN jump
3. They can only jump out 1 by 1.
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And if it was a supernode?
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The shockwave reached the GDrax node in under 10 minutes. Why? Play a mission which takes place there. High Noon, for example.
High Noon was in Capella. Just blew your whole theory open.
:doubt: Snail. That's exactly what I'm saying.
I know that your post count is greater than mine, but let me make something clear: when I say the GDrax node, i mean the subspace node leading to Gamma Draconis.
I KNOW that High Noon is in Capella. It's near the GDrax node in Capella. It's what my whole theory is about.
And the GDrax node in Capella is NOT (repeat, NOT) a supernode. The GTVA would have known that.
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I was referring to the "OMG, the shivan thing went wrong and kablooie and they jumped to GD node to evacuate" theory.
Possible, but there's no way in hell you can evac all 60 juggs trough that node in time. You'd be lucky to get half out.
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And how do you know that there werent any uncharted nodes in Capella?
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The shockwave reached the GDrax node in under 15 minutes.
Your entire argument rests on :v: being good enough at physics to position the sun correctly.
In other words it's probably wrong. :p
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And how do you know that there werent any uncharted nodes in Capella?
Doesn't matter.. The saths have to jump to that node and hten jump out one by one.
If you give em an hour it's still not enough.
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That again gives some support to the Supernode theory as a Supernode would be big enough for all Saths to jump out at once.
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Doesn't matter.. The saths have to jump to that node and hten jump out one by one.
If you give em an hour it's still not enough.
Why? If anything you ought to be able to jump them out four at time or so, because subspace nodes have no directionality for entry, only for exit.
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As the old poet once said, "There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
Somehow, I think that, for the Shivans, common sense doesn't apply in some areas.
Why? If anything you ought to be able to jump them out four at time or so, because subspace nodes have no directionality for entry, only for exit.
Are you sure? I've seen Dragons emerge from the wrong end of a Knossos before (A Flaming Sword)...
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Why? If anything you ought to be able to jump them out four at time or so, because subspace nodes have no directionality for entry, only for exit.
The node is big enough to fit only one at a time..if two try to jump in at the same time there will be a colission.
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There is type 1 and type 2 jumps.
type 1 sorta whips you around the sun until you pull somethin like in Apollo 13 (i think, neveral understood that one as good)
type 2..... haven't you ever heard-o wormholes?
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There is type 1 and type 2 jumps.
type 1 sorta whips you around the sun until you pull somethin like in Apollo 13 (i think, neveral understood that one as good)
type 2..... haven't you ever heard-o wormholes?
:wtf: And WHERE exactly did you get that from? We're talking about the FS universe here, you know.
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The node is big enough to fit only one at a time..if two try to jump in at the same time there will be a colission.
Nope, they only have to jump with their exit portals inside the node. So you could have two get out at the same time, at least, jumping from opposite ends.
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There is type 1 and type 2 jumps.
type 1 sorta whips you around the sun until you pull somethin like in Apollo 13 (i think, neveral understood that one as good)
type 2..... haven't you ever heard-o wormholes?
Uhhh..... what? :wtf:
The only type of jump in FS involves wormholes. There is no slingshotting around stars.
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The shockwave reached the GDrax node in under 15 minutes.
Your entire argument rests on :v: being good enough at physics to position the sun correctly.
In other words it's probably wrong. :p
I have absolutely NO skill at physics, but what is this?
http://www.blazelabs.com/f-u-const.asp
Where did I get it? and is it real? :D
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The shockwave reached the GDrax node in under 15 minutes.
Your entire argument rests on :v: being good enough at physics to position the sun correctly.
In other words it's probably wrong. :p
You're probably right, but that sounds suspiciously much like "It's a game" to me :P
One thing we know about subspace is that it is related to gravity. One thing we know about gravity is that it varies according to distance. Hence my theory that subspace is only stable enough for travel within a certain distance from a star. Sounds logical to me anyway.
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The node is big enough to fit only one at a time..if two try to jump in at the same time there will be a colission.
Nope, they only have to jump with their exit portals inside the node. So you could have two get out at the same time, at least, jumping from opposite ends.
Except that the exit/entrance portal is in the center of a node.
And IIRC, there is no canon confirmation if one can enter a node from 10 different angles.
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Isn't there? You can enter from any angle during missions where you've got to exit through a jump node.
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Common sense says you could, Trashman. Jump nodes are spherical in shape, and in space there is definitely no real direction. You wouldn't be jumping in on the same plane each and every time you used a particular node.
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to me that doesn't make sense, maybe I don't have lot... :p
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And yet every single ship always jumps out of the node in the same direction...
But regardless of that, simply because the entrance point is in the very centre of a node, 2 Saths can't go in at the same tim.e
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... I wish JAD was considered canon...
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And yet every single ship always jumps out of the node in the same direction...
But regardless of that, simply because the entrance point is in the very centre of a node, 2 Saths can't go in at the same tim.e
No it isn't, play a mission like Into the Lions' Den or Apocalypse, fly right to the edge of the node, facing away from the centre and you can still jump.
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a fighter, maby...but for a capship....no. Every time a capship jumps it fill the whole damn node when it does so.
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Now that I do agree with.
The ships always being on the same plane I put down to :v: lacking any imaginative use of the y-axis.
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a fighter, maby...but for a capship....no. Every time a capship jumps it fill the whole damn node when it does so.
If that is true, than the Sathanas is oversized. :drevil:
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Except that the exit/entrance portal is in the center of a node.
And IIRC, there is no canon confirmation if one can enter a node from 10 different angles.
Wrong.
In fact, the same mission in FS1 provides proof of both.
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And even if all Saths used the same exit vector you only need to wait the time it takes a Sathanas to travel the 6km length of a Sathanas between sending them through. You'd end up with a conga line of Sathanases in GD but it's perfectly feasible.
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[...] but it's perfectly feasible.
If it was all that easy, why did some of them remain behind :confused:
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Well, maybe the Saths have an ability similar to a Knossos portal, so a few had to stay behind to keep the node stable, whilst the rest went through?
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Yes, I know, but it's a question to kara. He said that it was an ordinary intra-system jump instead of a supernode. I can't imagine why some would have remained behind, if it was all that easy.
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Because they were still doing something to the star. The ones that remained behind were obviously keeping the process going, whatever that process may have been. It may have been totally unrelated to jumping anywhere at all.
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Or maybe they just broke down and the rest of the fleet prioritized getting their arses out of there instead of helping the malfunctioning ships.
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[...] but it's perfectly feasible.
If it was all that easy, why did some of them remain behind :confused:
You're asking the wrong question. If you believe that they couldn't get out of the system the question is not "Why did some remain behind?" the question is "Why did any of them jump out?"
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Because they were still doing something to the star. The ones that remained behind were obviously keeping the process going, whatever that process may have been. It may have been totally unrelated to jumping anywhere at all.
Yup, exactly, there's so little that can actually be assumed from that scene, and Petrarchs opinions are, in truth, no more valid than our own.
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[...] but it's perfectly feasible.
If it was all that easy, why did some of them remain behind :confused:
You're asking the wrong question. If you believe that they couldn't get out of the system the question is not "Why did some remain behind?" the question is "Why did any of them jump out?"
I DO think that they could have left the system (except for the ones that overpowered and broke down), but NOT through the GD node. The Saths escaped through a supernode, in which they all fitted nicely.
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Sometime we should have a discussion on Capella where the concept of a supernode is considered forbidden. :p It'd be interesting to come up with some (probably convoluted and utterly unrealistic) new theories on what happened, rather than rehashing ideas from eight years ago like a bad Stargate episode.
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Fine, can you come up with a theory which explains the happenings in the cutscene better and with less inconsistencies than the supernode theory?
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"Dear, why did you bring me all the way out here?"
"Just wait for it...wait..."
*distant flare*
"Oh my God...it's beautiful! How did you know I've always wanted to see a supernova?"
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Hmmh, no major inconsistencies, everything is fitting into the game context. This must be the best Shivan theory ever! :P
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The shivans did it for pure "WHAT THE F**K?!" Value to see how we'd react - by we i mean the GTVA. Capella was a massive reaction test.
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The various cutscene narrators make too many conflicting assumptions to rely on what they say as fact. It's canon that they said it, but we can't say it's fact.
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Here's a non supernode theory. They saw that their experiment or whatever they were doing to the star went wrong and jumped to the GD node, where they promptly got the heck out of Capella. :D
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In addition to your theory, they were trying to chage the star's spectral type. but it went wrong
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Changing a star's spectral type? That's the most ridiculous thing I've ... well, no, I've heard more ridiculous.
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If you can make a star go supernova, you can probably change its spectral type. Assuming you've got enough precision with the process.
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Now we know the Shivans' real objective... To Paint the Universe Red :lol:
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Sounds good to me