Author Topic: Help: Relative speeds in Subspace  (Read 3870 times)

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Offline karajorma

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Help: Relative speeds in Subspace
True but when you measure your distances in light years it takes a long while for things like galactic rotation to make a difference and things like planetary orbits are negligable anyway :)

Still if you wanted to set a mission 10,000 years in the future you might have to make changes :))
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Offline IceFire

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Help: Relative speeds in Subspace
Since subspace is supposed to be a dimension that exists relatively apart from our own (on another layer if you will) the distance between stars and the time it takes is arbitrary.  Subspace, aside from jump nodes, does not have any correspondance with normal space.  Vega may be 25 light years away from Sol but it takes 4 jumps (that may be over an hour just in subspace jumps - but then there are all the systems to cross) while Delta Serpentis is 209 (thats what someone said up there) and takes one jump with about 10 minutes of subspace travel time.  Its impossible to calculate the distance travelled in subspace compaired to normal space by using the time taken inside subspace - its relative.
- IceFire
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Help: Relative speeds in Subspace
I know this doesnt have much to do with freespace's idea of subspace, but for all those struggling to understand some basic things about travelling faster than light, i think its important to explain, since ive seen about 4 topics today discussing jump nodes and the like:

Take a peice of paper, and draw 2 dots on it, a good few centimeters apart. Now whats the shortest distance between them? A straight line? Wrong. The actual shortest distance is 0.  Fold the paper so the dots match up, it'll show that.
If u can fold space, the distance you have to travel is reduced greatly.
A lot of sci fi bases itself upon this theory.
____________________________________________________

However freespace is based up the theory that there are multiple dimensions existing, each with their own set of physics laws, different from ours.  In FS1 it explained that when a ship wants to slip into the dimension of subspace, it vibrates at a set frequency, and it leaves our physical dimension and only exists in freespace till it leaves it again.
Jumpnodes are used to to do intersystem jumps because the jumpnodes form where the gravity of stars weakens the separation between subspace and real space.  However this does not explain why intersystem jumps take more time than jumps in the same system.  We assume that it takes less time, but we cannot explain it from what we are told in freespace.  The obvious answer is that there is less distance to cover, but in distance in subspace are irrelevant of realspace distances, sine its a different dimension.  In fact, it is most probable that a seperate dimension is created for each intrasystem jump, since there have been no cases of intercepting a ship in subspace jumping around a system.

Lesson : Never ( ever ) compair subspace and realspace.  DON'T.
it upsets me. :( :mad:


If you want to write up some useful information about subspace Kitsune, write about how a ship acheives subspace.

pete

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Offline karajorma

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Help: Relative speeds in Subspace
Quote
Originally posted by IceFire
Since subspace is supposed to be a dimension that exists relatively apart from our own (on another layer if you will) the distance between stars and the time it takes is arbitrary.  Subspace, aside from jump nodes, does not have any correspondance with normal space.  Vega may be 25 light years away from Sol but it takes 4 jumps (that may be over an hour just in subspace jumps - but then there are all the systems to cross) while Delta Serpentis is 209 (thats what someone said up there) and takes one jump with about 10 minutes of subspace travel time.  Its impossible to calculate the distance travelled in subspace compaired to normal space by using the time taken inside subspace - its relative.


While I agree with you that it's all relative you aren`t comparing like with like. There is no node between vega and sol so it doesn`t matter how far apart they are.

Here's a good example of what I mean.
 

Suppose the Sol - Delta Serpentis jump takes 10 minutes and that the distance covered is 100 light years. (figures may not be correct)

Now suppose Regulus is about 400 Light Years away from Polaris. Would a jump from one to the other take 40 minutes or 10?
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Offline Kitsune

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Help: Relative speeds in Subspace
Okay, it's obvious I'm going to have to fudge it all since I can't get any kind of concrete answer that can be agreed on.

But you have shown a point that I'm going to have to arbitrarily put down some numbers for ease of gameplay.
About one minute of subspace travel (At 50 m/s) covers 10 LightYears worth of distance.  
This way intersystem jumps would be near instantaneous.  Except for the drives powering up, getting up to speed, travel the distance, then exiting and slowing down.

And while I'm going to briefly describe the subspace drive, I'm not going into details on it as I'm a mechanic, not a physicist  And it sure as hell wouldn't hold any water for some of the nit-pickers who won't simply take 'It works, some how it works.'
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Offline IceFire

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Help: Relative speeds in Subspace
Quote
Now suppose Regulus is about 400 Light Years away from Polaris. Would a jump from one to the other take 40 minutes or 10?

Or 5 or 16.5 minutes or 23 minutes.....the distances in normal space are irrelevant.

If we use the paper analogy...then imagine two pieces of paper one ontop of the other.  Every place there is a star on the bottom piece of paper, there is a dent in the top piece of paper.  That shows us the gravitational effects on subspace.  Now, take some straws and link up the appropriate stars (always going up to subspace and then back down to the star).  Now...take that second piece of paper and make it a 1000th of the size (thats impossible but this is the analogy) and scrunch it up a bit.  Now you've got subspace and real space.  The real space paper is nice and "flat" while the subspace one is at an angle and with lots of dents and scrunch marks.
- IceFire
BlackWater Ops, Cold Element
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Help: Relative speeds in Subspace
Position in subspace is tottaly irrelevant of position or distance in real space. Subspace is not a shrunk version of real space.
Accept it.

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Offline Kitsune

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Help: Relative speeds in Subspace
Pete, if that was the case, why didn't the Lucy jump to subspace, then immediately jump out again after a minute to recharge it's engines?!
~Space Kitsuné
6-Tailed RPG Nut.

"Why the hell don't we have any missles on this damn boat?!"
"But Sir, we have Tempests, Rockeyes, and unknown bombs."
"Like I said ensign, 'Why don't we have any missles on this damn boat?!"

"I went to a fight last night and a hockey game broke out."  -Groucho Marx