Okay, if this has been done before, forget you ever read this post. If not, then I'm officialy laying claim to this idea. I might use it in my TC (if I do my TC at all, that is).

Anyway, I came up with the idea while musing over the upcoming Sephil Saga. Basicaly, each system is actualy made up of individual syst resources (Frozen Heart did this with Sol). In game, systs would be called sectors (although there are some places they'd still be called systems because of the engine). So you could have Sol with an Earth sector, a Mars sector, etc. For the sake of simplicity, you'd only have at most four spobs in each sector, yet you could actualy have numerous planets and moons and stations and whatever in each system.

Now here's the important part. Near the middle of the system, there'd be a central sector that connects to the central sectors of local systems. Based on your legal record, the local authorities could prevent you from jumping into the system directly. There are two ways you could do this: by a hypergate style spob or just using systs and controling the links with NCBs. I don't know much about Nova plugs yet, so I'm not sure how this could best be done.

Now for the other important part: for the sake of continuity, you'd have a lot of unihabited systs that link the systems but don't use the hypergates. Then if the player has a bad record, he/she could still get to a system without using hypergates, but there would be, like, at least five jumps between the outermost sectors of each system. However, this is ugly and I loath having numerous uninhabited systs.

This is more realistic. Hyperjumping is actualy based on distance, not some ephemeral star connection thing. Don't get me wrong, I'm not in to hard science fiction, but having numerous systems with inhabitable planets isn't realistic. A light year is a hell of a long distance and to say we could skip over thousands of them with a hyperspace system is unrealistic.

Well, that's about it. What do you think?

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Quote

Originally posted by B Rob:
**A light year is a hell of a long distance and to say we could skip over thousands of them with a hyperspace system is unrealistic.

**

In the interest of intellectual debate only....

It depends on how you look at Hyperspace. Since of course no amount of energy can get a strictly Einstienian ship across a light year in less than a year, any invocation of "hyperspace" is an admission that the usual limits are off -- there is then no reason , physics-speaking, to assume a jump of 1 kilo-parsec would cost any more energy than one of 1 light-year.

For an SF novel I put together a new excuse for a dendritic map; assume an expanding universe, and further assume that ships exit hyperspace with exactly their entering velocity. I added to that relatively inefficient normal-space drives (aka about a magnitude better than anything we have today). Thuswise you are unlimited in what system you can hyperspace to, but extremely limited in what system you can actually visit; go beyong a certain radius of velocity difference and your ship simply can't make up the delta-V from it's own tanks. In plain english...you jump in and then rocket though at 120 kilometers-per-second. You could drop mail off that way, or packages with their own retro-rockets, but forget getting your big ship down to local reference.

The technique in that novel was to jump from system to system, slowly altering your delta-V with local gravity assist and by taking on more fuel. Thus the map took on a typical "jump route" look but, like the London "Tube," the map only roughly resembled the territory. A "hub" system might be located a hundred parsecs away from any of the systems it connected.

For something that would translate better to EV; how about a galaxy of very suspicious, parochial people who will emphatically not give out their always-changing jump co-ords to any but select neighbors. Therefore, the only way to jump to Brisias is to fly out of Heimdahl, getting the needed coords from the port on the way out, and the only way to get to Heimdahl is by flying out of Briaros, and the only way to jump to Briaros.... This would be a very interesting way to do hypergate networks, too; there could be several "local" networks that only join at certain transfer points -- to cross you would need permissions from both networks.

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"As a weapon of war it leaves much to be desired; but as a spectacle it takes much beating." -- a General observing the disastrous test of the JATO-assisted "jumping" tank.

Quote

Originally posted by B Rob:
**< snip>
Basicaly, each system is actualy made up of individual syst resources
<snip>
**

I really like that idea, since it allows expanding the amount of detail one is able to present in each stellar "system". It obviously has a lot of potential. I'm definitely going to experiment with it just for my own amusement.

Quote

Originally posted by Commander Arashi:
**In the interest of intellectual debate only....
<snip>
there is then no reason , physics-speaking, to assume a jump of 1 kilo-parsec would cost any more energy than one of 1 light-year.
<snip>
**

Another interesting tidbit is the somewhat anomalous adoption of the parsec as a unit of inter-galactic measure. Since a parallax second is derived from the orbital ellipse base-line of the planet Earth about its primary, it's always seemed odd to me that someone on the other side of the galaxy would use our planets orbit as a unit of measure. It has always smacked of a flat-earth kind of thinking where everything is Earth centric, when in actuality we're way out on the fringes of one arm of our galaxy with hardly anything "nearby". On the other hand a light-year has its basis in hard physics, which one (perhaps provincially) assumes is a universal constant. Then again, as in any discussion of real science versus game science, it's only a game (but a real good one).

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Quote

Originally posted by B Rob:
Now here's the important part. Near the middle of the system, there'd be a central sector that connects to the central sectors of local systems. Based on your legal record, the local authorities could prevent you from jumping into the system directly. There are two ways you could do this: by a hypergate style spob or just using systs and controling the links with NCBs. I don't know much about Nova plugs yet, so I'm not sure how this could best be done.

Without hypergates you can't do it. You can't control individual jumps between systems, ie you can't turn off one connection. The only way to alter how systems are connected is to change the system entirely, thus changing what systems it's connected to. This can get ugly though, especially if you have one system that branches out into three others but you want control over each jump. You'd have to have 8 or 9 copies of just the first system each with the correct connections for the player's status. Doable but messy and cumbersome. The real problem comes from not being able to control ncb's through legal rating. The only way to connect the two is by using missions that affect the player's rating while activating/deactivating bits.

It is possible with hypergates since your legal rating affects whether or not you can use spobs. Just assign each hypergate or group of hypergates to it's own govt and set the MinCool level. You can also do it by using the Require/Contribute flags. Say some mission gives you a special pass key that uses a particular Contribute bit. That "key" will make passage through all the associated hypergates possible while refusal to others will remain in effect until the player gains the appropriate key.

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You do realize that you can place 16 spobs in a system, although only 4 of them are Nav Hotkeys. Just something to think about.

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Quote

Originally posted by Arturo:
On the other hand a light-year has its basis in hard physics, which one (perhaps provincially) assumes is a universal constant.

Well... unfortunately, it's a light- year. How long is a year? "Oh, that's the period of the Earth's orbit." Ok, how about a second? Nope, that's 1/60 of 1/60 of 1/24 of the Earth's polar rotation period. How about a meter? That's 1/10,000,000 of the distance from the Earth's equator to a pole. A gram? That's the mass of a cube of water with a side length of 1/1,000,000,000 the distance from the Earth's equator to a pole*. All this leads me to conclude: "Augh!!! Have we no absolute units at all?!?"

• While some of those quantities have been redefined based on light wavelengths, etc. they are still highly arbitrary and are based on physical properties of the Earth.

-Vaumnou

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(This message has been edited by Vaumnou (edited 06-25-2003).)

Like I said, I'm not in to hard science, I just wanted to do something cool. Judge it on possible coolness, not technical accuracy.

That said, would anybody actualy want a plug that uses this idea?

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Quote

Originally posted by Vaumnou:
**Have we no absolute units at all?!?"
**

Things will get REALLY interesting if the S.E.T.I. project ever strikes gold. I mean we bilateral tetrapods have a hard enough time communicating with each other, let alone an alien species.
(/digression)

Meanwhile back on-topic:
The concept of expanding a single system out to a s˙st per planet and then connecting them in a local cluster of hyperjumps still has merit, even if trying to regulate inter-s˙st jumping is frought with complexity issues. Our very own solar system is comprised of well over 50 stellar objects and that's not counting the asteroids and possible space stations. Couldn't hardly squeeze all of that into 16 spöb locations. I've already started an experimental implementation of a more representative Nova simulacrum of the solar system, just to see how it "feels".

(edit: ps.- B Rob, I'm not gonna' steal your idea, I'm just trying it out)
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(This message has been edited by Arturo (edited 06-25-2003).)

Quote

Originally posted by Arturo:
**Our very own solar system is comprised of well over 50 stellar objects and that's not counting the asteroids and possible space stations. Couldn't hardly squeeze all of that into 16 spöb locations. I've already started an experimental implementation of a more representative Nova simulacrum of the solar system, just to see how it "feels".

(edit: ps.- B Rob, I'm not gonna' steal your idea, I'm just trying it out)**

The only idea I could come up with the represent some of that orbital menagerie (much less the actual asteroid belt) was to create a humungus spob who's graphic was lots of little planetismals on a star-shot black background. Would kinda clog the game engine, tho.

I seem to remember the second has now been defined as a certain number of decay events in a bar of iridium or some-such. So is as divorced from the actual rotation of the Earth as the inch is from the left thumb of a long-passed king.

But of course...astronomers and astrophysics can be very terra-centric. Add to light year and parsec, the AU (average distance from Earth to Sun, used for distances between planetary objects that could care less), the solar mass unit, even the derivation of gram/cc -- which only holds for liquid water (a most unusual substance in the universe). Star catalogs list simply by apparent magnitude and a position which is a projection of Earth's equator. And let's not even talk about stellar magnitudes, based on the eyesight of a Greek astronomer of 130 B.C.!

However, must give kudos to the astronomers for not letting themselves be trapped in comparisons to earthly analogs out where distances and masses are quite beyond comprehension. Describing Betelgeusse as "Bigger than a million Earths!" will do for the popular science books but a true astronomer will measure that red giant in grams and centimeters. What's a few more digits on the exponents when you are talking in that scale? Oh, and our lovely little sun is merely a "G" class among stars. Not an "A," not even in the middle of the scale. Just a "G"...in fact, last I heard was a G2.

Wish you luck with more representational systems. Remember that the universe tends to be fractal...each stellar body may be one of many revolving around common center of gravity (my books say that less than half of all stars are solitary.) About each star may be larger planets. About each larger planet may be smaller moons...and any of these moons might be larger than a lesser planet and of course quite capable of supporting life (or at least commerce). And it is theoretically possible for at least some of the mentioned bodies to be doubles or more themselves....Earth and it's own oversized moon almost qualify as a double planet. And of course there are rings and debris of various sorts...trojan asteroids (debris in the trojan points of a large body), hermes asteroids, etc. etc.

But then...a lot of this stuff is pretty small, and it is also very spread out, and not that interesting either. We might want to look at all those tiny moons and frigid methane planets as mere background. Since we are primarily interested in worlds where we can trade, let's place transponders on those worlds. It is then these transponders, and the resulting computer-interpretation of the system, that we look at in the nav window.

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"As a weapon of war it leaves much to be desired; but as a spectacle it takes much beating." -- a General observing the disastrous test of the JATO-assisted "jumping" tank.

Okay, I think we need some clarification here:
In most EV scenarios, Sol is represented with Earth in the middle, Mars not too far off in a corner, and possibly another planet in the opposite dirrection of Mars. Most other systems are organized in this way.

This is ridiculous! I mean, it's a game after all, but geeze!

With my plan, jumping is more like planet to planet then system to system. If the player isn't using the hypergate, he/she has to make several jumps just to get to the edge of the next system. This reduces the number of inhabited systems (taking the game world definition, not the engine definition) to a believable level. Hopefuly, it also more closely lines up with reality but is still a game, you know?

Feel free to try this and let me know how it turns out. I'd hate to spend months of my time trying something that turns out to suck.

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You could make a mission that automaticly accepts when person is on good terms with the government that turns on a bit that switches the current system between a version that has links and a version that doesn't.

(This message has been edited by asdf (edited 06-30-2003).)

This is actually something i was going to be doing with the TC I'm planning after SFA (the whole s˙st for each planetary cluster within a star system thing), but in all my tests for it, I've yet to come up with something that adequately and satisfactorily addresses the exponential increase in orbital distances as they get further from the sun and yet still has aesthetic appeal in a plug-in -- because, let's face it, you don't want a lot of criss-crossing link lines confusing you.

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Quote

Originally posted by UncleTwitchy:
-- because, let's face it, you don't want a lot of criss-crossing link lines confusing you.

I've taken the approach that the player-pilot has to use the sun's gravity-well to get to any planetary sub-systems. So what I wind up with is a central sun-system with nine radial hyperjump lines, one for each planetary sub-system. The player-pilot then jumps from planet to planet by "looping" through the sun's system. Likewise, all inter-system (eg. Sol to Tichel, Wolf 359, Tau Ceti, etc.) requires going to the sun-sysyem to make the jump out of the entire solar system. Makes for a lot of links to the sun-system though, so an alternative would be to treat our solar system as a binary Sol-Jupiter gravity well. That way both the intra- and inter-system jumps could be divvied up between the sun and Jupiter.

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