After trying to explain my/our current system for explaining speed limits for Sephil Saga, I realized that it is irreparably lame. So, I've been experimenting with speed limits determined by the power of your engines. I know from relativity theory that an engine of X power can only push you to a certain velocity. What I don't know is why. I'm pretty good with basic physics, but I haven't had relativity yet. Can anybody explain this effect? More specifically, I'd like to know what effect size, drag, and mass have on it. Because as far as I can tell, if I make speed dependant on engines, ships with high accel will have high speed- the two will be linked more or less 1-to-1. This is fine, but it's definately not Nova-ish, since Freighters will have big engines to carry their cargo.

So, as an example of what I need to understand. I have a ship with a certain engine.
A. If I load 10 tons of cargo into the ship, it will have less acceleration. What about it's top speed? What is the relation? Accelleration drops linearly. Does top speed also? Logarithmically? Exponentially? Steeper on a linear drop?
B. With those same engines, I make the ship just a big plate- the most unaerodynamic shape possible. Mass stays constant. Will this affect top speed? (in SS, ships are not capable of flight in an atmosphere, so aerodynamic drag is 0).
C. Using the ship from A, I put in engines with the same mass that have 2x the thrust. Accel goes up 2x. What happens to speed? Note: unfortunately due to the limitations of EV, in SS this is not what will happen. If you have a ship with 600 thrust engines that has 200 accel because of weight penalties, and you put in 1200 thrust engines, you will end up with 800 accel, not 200. Maybe this is correct? I don't know!

Another question relates to weapon effects on various types of shields. In SS, we are using Magnetic (high-density, repulsive magnetic fields) and Particle Shielding (ions trapped in a magnetic field that absorb impacts). Can anybody explain the exact pseudo-physics involved in these common theories of shields?
Azratax has provided info about railguns that blows or current system to shreds. I thought they had to have ferro-magnetic ammo, and would thus be turned away by magnetic shielding. Apparently, this is not the case. Also, after thinking about it a while, I realized that Particle Beams would be stopped dead by particle shields OR magnetic shields. (Particle beams being essentially massdrivers that accelerate charged particles instead of large slugs). The beauty of P-beams is that they cause electronics to short out and die, which in SS has always been ionization.
What I'd like to know what people feel wouldl be the most realistic effects for a variety of weapons, including:
Railguns
Massdrivers
Particle Beams
Lasers
Explosives (missiles, rockets)
Cannons/Normal Guns
Plasma Lances
EMP
Antimatter (basically explosives + more radiation and EMP)
Any other types of weapon you can think of, or have heard of!

Any input is extremely valuble! At this point, it is not yet too late to change Sephil Saga- the weapon balance is just starting to be done, and not enough ships are made yet that we can't go back and take out the velocity shielding. It is supposed to be a hard-science sci-fi setting. Available tech includes small fusion reactors and room-temp superconductors, so keep that in mind. Thanks alot!

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~Charlie
Sephil Saga Homepage: (url="http://"http://www.cwssoftware.com")www.cwssoftware.com(/url)

If you want, Mr. Masamune, I can do some book research on railguns and other topics for you.

About :
Lasers: barely visible beam weapon (for sake of gameplay). Unless the laser is very powerful and there are a lot of particles between the laser and the target, there won't be a beam without a tracer.
Explosives: very small but very brilliant explosion (no air for sustained combustion), lots of particles thrown off at high velocity (because there is no air to slow them down).
Antimatter: Because matter+antimatter=energy in the form of photons, I suppose a very bright flash, followed by large numbers of particles being thrown off. If the antimatter pulse is unshielded, a cool effect would to be to make the pulse spark and flash as it went towards its target (the rationale being that minute bits of antimatter are reacting with dust particles in space, etc).
Plasma lance: if possible, the lance should bend near metal/ship hulls, because plasma has an electrical charge and would be repelled by a magnetic field. I don't know how feasible that would be, though.

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(This message has been edited by UE_Research & Development (edited 12-29-2003).)

(This message has been edited by UE_Research & Development (edited 12-29-2003).)

I've been reading up at (url="http://"http://www.railgun.org")www.railgun.org(/url). Some great info there! Interestingly, a requirement of the slug/armature (the correct term) is that it is NOT ferromagnetic! Exactly the opposite of what I thought!

As far as appearances go, we'll try our best to make it look right. However, lasers are going to be visible- I know you wouldn't be able to see them normally. As far as them being steady-stream, some will be/are. However, most high-powered lasers are pulse lasers because of cooling issues, so little blasts are actually fine. Inaccuracy is and will be zero. For explosions, I know that in a vacuum, an explosion is actually perfectly spherical. This would be nice, but where do we source the graphics? Plus, we have a large installed base of explosions, so I think people will have to live with it, just like they do sound in space!

AM weapons, if they happen to just fire little balls of AM, will definately have cool particle streams coming off them and lots of attenuation of damage. Most AM weapons will probably be warheads, though. BTW, AM is available in this scenario, but it is only really useful for destruction, not power.

The plasma lance is based on the one from Jovian Chronicles. Check out (url="http://"http://www.dp9.com/Worlds/Jc_page4b.htm")http://www.dp9.com/W...s/Jc_page4b.htm(/url). A lot of our tech is/was based on JC, actually. It is true that plasma is affected by mag feilds, so they may not be that great a weapon versus a shielded target.

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~Charlie
Sephil Saga Homepage: (url="http://"http://www.cwssoftware.com")www.cwssoftware.com(/url)

(This message has been edited by Masamune (edited 12-29-2003).)

Quote

Railguns
Massdrivers
Particle Beams
Lasers
Explosives (missiles, rockets)
Cannons/Normal Guns
Plasma Lances
EMP
Antimatter (basically explosives + more radiation and EMP)

If you're using a nonmagnetic material, such as copper, in your railgun pellets, EM sheilds should have no effect. Particle shielding will cause ablation of the pellet (less damage)

Mass Drivers basically use EM to accelerate slugs, right? So EM shields should stop them cold. However, you could have a nonmagnetic projectile with a magnetic sheath, which it sheds right after firing...

Lasers should simply ignore shields completely.

Missiles can have their guidance systems burned out by EM, so the best conventional missile design would have a mechanical firing mechanism, so even if the guidance fails, it'll still explode.

Now, missiles could also be set with guidance mechanisms that detonate it just out of range of the shields, spraying nonmagnetic shrapnel over the hull. Mines would work the same way.

Rockets should have mechanical (nonmagnetic) firing mechanisms.

Conventional guns should have no problems with shields, providing that the projectiles are not magnetic.

Plasma consists of ions, correct? EM repels ions. Goodbye plasma.

I'm assuming that by EMP you mean something like the EMP Torpedo from EVN; a blast of EM, charged particles, and radiation that kills electronics.

EM shielding should take care of the charged particles, and perhaps some of the EM. Particle shields should take care of some radiation. So, shielding reduces the effect, but I don't think that you can prevent some from getting through.
Particle beams, which are almost entirely charged particles, should be stopped cold.

The effect of EM on antimatter varies depending on the type of antimatter. If it's positrons or other charged particles, EM should stop it. If it's something like anti-hydrogen (positron and err.. (can't remember the word) anti-protons), EM shouldn't be able to defend against it.

So, basically, EM is good versus charged particles, ions, and electronics, but not unguided projectiles, certain guided projectiles, and chargeless particles. (Photons, neutrons..)

Quote

Originally posted by Masamune:
After trying to explain my/our current system for explaining speed limits for Sephil Saga, I realized that it is irreparably lame. So, I've been experimenting with speed limits determined by the power of your engines. I know from relativity theory that an engine of X power can only push you to a certain velocity. What I don't know is why. I'm pretty good with basic physics, but I haven't had relativity yet. Can anybody explain this effect?

The fundamental assumption of special relativity is that the speed of light will be observed to be the same in all inertial frames. One of the consequences of this is that nothing can ever reach the speed of light unless it is already there, which is only possible for massless particles. You can accelerate forever and never reach it.

Under classical Newtonian physics, momentum p = mv
Under relativistic Lorentizian physics, p = gamma * mv
where gamma = (1-v^2/c^2)^1/2

Force F= dp/dt = d(gamma)/dt mv + gamma * m dv/dt
F = (gamma)^3 * m dv/dt

The acceleration you get from an engine of constant force is therefore:
dv/dt = F / m (gamma)^3
dv/dt = F/m *(1-v^2/c^2)^3/2

If we take a binomial approximation, then at low velocities, dv/dt = F/m * (1-v^3/c^3), which is roughly equal to the classical answer of dv/dt = F/m. As we get to higher velocities, however, we can't use this approximation, but v/c -> 1, therefore (1-v^2/c^2) -> 1 and dv/dt -> 0.

i.e. The faster you go, the lower your acceleration.

Quote

More specifically, I'd like to know what effect size, drag, and mass have on it. Because as far as I can tell, if I make speed dependant on engines, ships with high accel will have high speed- the two will be linked more or less 1-to-1. This is fine, but it's definately not Nova-ish, since Freighters will have big engines to carry their cargo.

Drag is something I'm less familiar with, but if you're putting out enough power to push a starship a round at high velocities, impact with particles in space shouldn't be producing a hugely relevant force.

Size will only be relevant because cross-sectional area will affect the drag. Unless you mean size of engine in which case all the matters is the force its outputting.

Mass is relevant as shown above.

Quote

So, as an example of what I need to understand. I have a ship with a certain engine.
A. If I load 10 tons of cargo into the ship, it will have less acceleration. What about it's top speed? What is the relation? Accelleration drops linearly. Does top speed also? Logarithmically? Exponentially? Steeper on a linear drop?

See equations above. Top speed is unchanged. Acceleration drops in a fashion that can be approximated to linear at low velocities, but is fairly different at higher one.

Quote

B. With those same engines, I make the ship just a big plate- the most unaerodynamic shape possible. Mass stays constant. Will this affect top speed? (in SS, ships are not capable of flight in an atmosphere, so aerodynamic drag is 0).

No effect on top speed. There will be a change in drag due to collisions with atoms of hydrogen etc. that are floating about.

Quote

C. Using the ship from A, I put in engines with the same mass that have 2x the thrust. Accel goes up 2x. What happens to speed? Note: unfortunately due to the limitations of EV, in SS this is not what will happen. If you have a ship with 600 thrust engines that has 200 accel because of weight penalties, and you put in 1200 thrust engines, you will end up with 800 accel, not 200. Maybe this is correct? I don't know!

No change to speed. Ability to accelerate will double. Incidentally, I've got a proof-of-concept plug called Clockwork with a whole bunch of interesting stuff in it that I haven't seen anyone else use. Including a good approximation to correct behaviour re: mass change and acceleration - more massive ships pay less of an acceleration penalty then lower mass ones. If you want a copy, I can upload it to my iDisk for you. Feel free to include any of the stuff in SS, as long as I'm mentioned somewhere in the credits.

Quote

Another question relates to weapon effects on various types of shields. In SS, we are using Magnetic (high-density, repulsive magnetic fields) and Particle Shielding (ions trapped in a magnetic field that absorb impacts). Can anybody explain the exact pseudo-physics involved in these common theories of shields?

Is there anything in particular that you're not sure about?

Quote

Azratax has provided info about railguns that blows or current system to shreds. I thought they had to have ferro-magnetic ammo, and would thus be turned away by magnetic shielding. Apparently, this is not the case.

You could cheat and say everyone uses ferro-magnetic ammo :^)

Quote

**Also, after thinking about it a while, I realized that Particle Beams would be stopped dead by particle shields OR magnetic shields. (Particle beams being essentially massdrivers that accelerate charged particles instead of large slugs). The beauty of P-beams is that they cause electronics to short out and die, which in SS has always been ionization.
What I'd like to know what people feel wouldl be the most realistic effects for a variety of weapons, including:

<snip>

Any input is extremely valuble! At this point, it is not yet too late to change Sephil Saga- the weapon balance is just starting to be done, and not enough ships are made yet that we can't go back and take out the velocity shielding. It is supposed to be a hard-science sci-fi setting.**

Clockwork has reasonably realistic science at the moment. More so than SS I suspect :^) I've actually made a few modifications to the idea of shields that you might find interesting - rather than have lots of slowly recharging shields that all weapons can eventually work through, each ship has a very low level of shielding that rapidly recharges. Weapons have very low shield damage so only certain weapons can penetrate each level of 'shielding.' Most weapons would range from shield damage of 1->4, while battleships would have 5+ shields, rendering them invulnerable to small guns. The shields simulate varying thicknesses of armour. Gives lots of versatility in terms of what kind of weapons you have. You could have missiles that do a lot of mass damage, are very fast and agile, but do virtually no shield damage. Such weapons would be very effective against fighters, but useless against capital ships. Unless you manage to disable them of course. Lasers, due to their focusing, penetrate shields, but take a while to do much damage because they're fairly small beams.

Quote

Available tech includes small fusion reactors and room-temp superconductors, so keep that in mind. Thanks alot!

Room-temp superconductors isn't unrealistic. There are a few available at the moment.

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(url="http://"http://homepage.mac.com/jonathanboyd/evn/index.html")Classic4Nova plug-in(/url)

Ahem. The current "room-temp" superconductors actually require liquid-nitrogen cooling.

Unless this is something new I haven't heard about.

Quote

Originally posted by Masamune:
I've been reading up at www.railgun.org. Some great info there! Interestingly, a requirement of the slug/armature (the correct term) is that it is NOT ferromagnetic! Exactly the opposite of what I thought!

Hmm, i had the wrong idea about railguns too. I was thinking of coilguns.

Quote

As far as appearances go, we'll try our best to make it look right. However, lasers are going to be visible- I know you wouldn't be able to see them normally.

Seeing as we're watching a top down view of what's going on, from outside the ship we're supposedly in, you could say it's a computer projection of what's going on, with the computer filling in laser trails. For a while I toyed with the idea of completely implementing this, with ships shown simply as little triangles/circle/insignias like on naval computer displays. Anyone who's played Harpoon will know what I mean. Fixes the whole scaling issue as well.

Quote

As far as them being steady-stream, some will be/are. However, most high-powered lasers are pulse lasers because of cooling issues, so little blasts are actually fine. Inaccuracy is and will be zero. For explosions, I know that in a vacuum, an explosion is actually perfectly spherical. This would be nice, but where do we source the graphics? Plus, we have a large installed base of explosions, so I think people will have to live with it, just like they do sound in space!

Explosions aren't necessarily spherical. Depends very much on the shape and composition of what's blowing up. You can easily make shaped charges that throw most of the explosion in one direction. A nuke would probably be spherical though.

Quote

**AM weapons, if they happen to just fire little balls of AM, will definately have cool particle streams coming off them and lots of attenuation of damage. Most AM weapons will probably be warheads, though. BTW, AM is available in this scenario, but it is only really useful for destruction, not power.

The plasma lance is based on the one from Jovian Chronicles. Check out http://www.dp9.com/W.../Jc_page4b.htm. A lot of our tech is/was based on JC, actually. It is true that plasma is affected by mag feilds, so they may not be that great a weapon versus a shielded target. **

One problem with using an EM shield is that you can only deflect one charge at a time. You'll draw the other one in. If somebody fires a positively charged weapon at you, while someone else fires a negatively charged one, you'll deflect one, but make sure than the other hits and with even more force.

Going back to the subject of speed for a moment, what range of speeds are you looking at using?

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(url="http://"http://homepage.mac.com/jonathanboyd/evn/index.html")Classic4Nova plug-in(/url)

Quote

Originally posted by -Wyrm:
**Ahem. The current "room-temp" superconductors actually require liquid-nitrogen cooling.

Unless this is something new I haven't heard about.**

Thats the same as i have heard. They are getting better, but arnt there yet. It will be damned nice when we get there though, and its certainly not unrealistic.
-Az

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It is here. EVNEW Public Beta (url="http://"http://www.aznt.com/EVN/EVNEW")www.aznt.com/EVN/EVNEW(/url)

Quote

Originally posted by -Wyrm:
**Ahem. The current "room-temp" superconductors actually require liquid-nitrogen cooling.

Unless this is something new I haven't heard about.**

Well, there are a few superconductors around 100K, which is within an order of magnitude of room temperature :^) And I thought ceramic superconductors were even closer than that. Admittedly, this isn't something I know a huge deal about, so please correct me if I'm wrong.

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(url="http://"http://homepage.mac.com/jonathanboyd/evn/index.html")Classic4Nova plug-in(/url)

Jonathan, thank you for your rundown! I would LOVE to see clockwork- if I can use it you'll get whatever you want credit wise. Just e-mail me a link to it, please. Your shielding ideas were actually discussed early on in the going, but given the complete change in the way weapons will work now, we may as well change the way the shields work. I kind of like that system, and it would work great with the way SS does ship components- better shields=less stuff that hits, instead of more capacity. I also like the computer sim idea- the player is supposed to be seeing everything as computer-created images anyway. We might be able to make that a more consistent metaphor with a little interface reworking. We already have everything set up to look like touchscreens, anyway.
Sorry about the formatting, I'm using a text-only webbrowser over telnet right now.
Oh, as far as speeds go, we're looking at keeping it roughly within Nova's normal ranges, from about 100 to 1000.
Edit: about room-temp superconductors, as far as I can find, we're within about 100 degrees C, and climbing all the time. I figure that in 200 years they'll be all over the place :). I don't think they are unrealistic, just optimistic.
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~Charlie
Sephil Saga Homepage: (url="http://"http://www.cwssoftware.com")www.cwssoftware.com(/url)

(This message has been edited by Masamune (edited 12-29-2003).)

Quote

Originally posted by Masamune:
Jonathan, thank you for your rundown! I would LOVE to see clockwork- if I can use it you'll get whatever you want credit wise. Just e-mail me a link to it, please.

Here it is.

Quote

Your shielding ideas were actually discussed early on in the going, but given the complete change in the way weapons will work now, we may as well change the way the shields work. I kind of like that system, and it would work great with the way SS does ship components- better shields=less stuff that hits, instead of more capacity. I also like the computer sim idea- the player is supposed to be seeing everything as computer-created images anyway. We might be able to make that a more consistent metaphor with a little interface reworking. We already have everything set up to look like touchscreens, anyway.

I doubt I'll ever actually finish Clockwork (despite having the story and rest of the galaxy all mapped out), so feel free to use any of the ideas. May as well see the light of day somewhere.

Quote

Sorry about the formatting, I'm using a text-only webbrowser over telnet right now.

No problem :^)

Quote

Oh, as far as speeds go, we're looking at keeping it roughly within Nova's normal ranges, from about 100 to 1000.

Should have been a bit clearer here - what kind of real world velocities are you looking at? If they're low enough, then you can forget about relativity.

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(url="http://"http://homepage.mac.com/jonathanboyd/evn/index.html")Classic4Nova plug-in(/url)

aaah. antimatter. someone is speaking my language, i recently researched the theoretical effects of antimatter, and thus developed a wonderful plug in. i call it the ANTIMATTER MISSLE (creative name huh?) anyway, yes i had to borrow some cool explosion graphics (antimatter would be simalar to a nuclear detonation visually) but that is where the similarities end. antimatter would be stopped dead by electromagnetic shielding. however, upon reaching the hull, there is a huge reaction, hence the tiniest missle could destroy an auroran carrier if it made contact with the hull. the explosion is devistating with a large splash damage, but only if it actually makes contact. therefore the proximity detenator must be set accoringly, and the shot must expire without an explosion if it misses. it requires great care (special equipment) to carry.

for further details email me at: rickz33@hotmail.com

antimatter effects are VERY unique.

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A warrior can shape himself to suit anything in the universe.
A master can shape the universe to suit himself.

(This message has been edited by Cunjo (edited 12-29-2003).)

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Originally posted by Cunjo:
aaah. antimatter. someone is speaking my language, i recently researched the theoretical effects of antimatter, and thus developed a wonderful plug in. i call it the ANTIMATTER MISSLE (creative name huh?) anyway, yes i had to borrow some cool explosion graphics (antimatter would be simalar to a nuclear detonation visually) but that is where the similarities end. antimatter would be stopped dead by electromagnetic shielding.

Why do you think that EM shielding would stop antimatter dead? antimatter behaves identically to normal matter. anti-neutrons, for instance, wouldn't have a problem with shielding that's designed to stop charged particles. Same goes for anti-hydrogen for that matter.

Quote

however, upon reaching the hull, there is a huge reaction, hence the tiniest missle could destroy an auroran carrier if it made contact with the hull.

Not necessarily. With a 100% efficient explosion, you would release energy E = Mc^2, where m is the total mass annihilating. Given that half will be matter and half anti-matter, with m being the mass of the anti-matter, carried by the missile, E = 2mc^2. A bug chunk of the particles released aren't actually going to interact with the target, part of the explosion won't hit and there will be other inefficiencies, so let's say that the total efficiency is around 10%.

E = 0.2mc^2

A single gram of anti-matter on the missile would therefore be responsible for damage equivalent to around 4kT of TNT.

But that's just me being pedantic.

Quote

the explosion is devistating with a large splash damage, but only if it actually makes contact. therefore the proximity detonator must be set accoringly, and the shot must expire without an explosion if it misses. it requires great care (special equipment) to carry.

Alternatively, you could have a missile with both matter and antimatter, which would then detonate without needing to hit the hull.

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(url="http://"http://homepage.mac.com/jonathanboyd/evn/index.html")Classic4Nova plug-in(/url)

David Weber's Honor Harrington series has an interesting take on shields and the like that you might want to consider.

Starships are powered by a gravatic impeller, which projects "bands" of gravatic energy above and below the ship propelling it forward (there are reasons for this that I can't exactly remember right now). These bands are so powerful that they're practically impenetrable. The sides and the front and back are vulnerable, so they use "sidewall" generators to project a weaker gravity field to close the sides. The front and back have to be left open or else the ship can't accelerate.

Anyway, gravity fields would solve your shielding problems because gravity bends light (ie, it bends it around the ship, harmlessly deflecting it), and it prevents solid projectiles from entering. Lasers (and laser-like) weapons are only effective against sidewalls within certain ranges while they still have sufficient power to defeat the field. Projectile weapons require penetration aids to defeat shields, but they cause far more damage. Lasers, in Honor Harrington's universe are quite deadly because they're undetectable by gravatic sensors, and they travel at light speed, so you don't know that the enemy fires until you've been hit.

A way to explain maximum speeds is also provided in Honor Harrington's universe. All ships have radiation shields (probably particle shields) to protect the crew from cosmic radiation and micrometeorites. However, these aren't all powerful, and so depending on the strength of the radiation shields, a ship cannot exceed certain speeds or else the radiation and stuff will defeat the shields. Generally, warships have higher powered radiation shields than merchantmen, and larger ships have stronger shields than smaller ships.

Anyway, hope this gives you some ideas.

Matrix

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"Nothing is fool-proof to a sufficiently talented fool."
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Originally posted by what_is_the_matrix:
**A way to explain maximum speeds is also provided in Honor Harrington's universe. All ships have radiation shields (probably particle shields) to protect the crew from cosmic radiation and micrometeorites. However, these aren't all powerful, and so depending on the strength of the radiation shields, a ship cannot exceed certain speeds or else the radiation and stuff will defeat the shields. Generally, warships have higher powered radiation shields than merchantmen, and larger ships have stronger shields than smaller ships.

**

Basically, that's what the current Velocity Shields are. Exactly, actually. You can only go so fast before radiation and particles will defeat the shields, tearing you up. I don't think it's a particularly good explanation, though.

The problem with Gravity anything is simple: how the hell does one go about making gravity fields? All the other technologies we're using/discussing have firm roots in current tech- the only way to produce gravity that I know of is to condense a bunch of mass together, which isn't very efficient. Yes, we are talking about the future, but only 200 years or so. But thanks for the ideas, anyway!

Jonathan: as far as real world velocities go, it's basically whatever works. The general concept is that it takes a long time to get between planets, months depending on their positions, which is what makes the Hypergates so important- you only need to cruise out to the Lagrange Points L4 or L5 to get to any other L-point in hours. I've never considered the velocities involved to be anywhere near relativistic speeds (10% of lightspeed, for example- speeds where relativity is a big aspect). However, giving ships max topspeed and relying only on acceleration works like crap in Nova. I've tried it. It's fine until you jump somewhere, because you always jump in at top speed. Doing that in you bulk freighter ends up with you warping around the system several times trying to slow down. So, we need Nova-esque speed limits, and some way of explaining them that makes sense. If we can't think of anything, then V-shields it is!
Now, to look at your plug!

EDIT: Just looked at your plug. Interestingly, your Hyperspace idea is EXACTLY what we are already doing. I guess great minds think alike. Your shield/armor idea is also VERY similar to something I tried and abandonned a long time ago, but I might have to go back to it. Now, I just need to figure out if your accel-penalty system is compatible with my build-your-ship-from-components system (I bet I can find a way), but I also need to figure out a realistic and playable speed limit system!

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~Charlie
Sephil Saga Homepage: (url="http://"http://www.cwssoftware.com")www.cwssoftware.com(/url)

(This message has been edited by Masamune (edited 12-30-2003).)

(quote)Originally posted by Masamune:
**Basically, that's what the current Velocity Shields are. Exactly, actually. You can only go so fast before radiation and particles will defeat the shields, tearing you up. I don't think it's a particularly good explanation, though.

The problem with Gravity anything is simple: how the hell does one go about making gravity fields? All the other technologies we're using/discussing have firm roots in current tech- the only way to produce gravity that I know of is to condense a bunch of mass together, which isn't very efficient. Yes, we are talking about the future, but only 200 years or so. But thanks for the ideas, anyway!

(quote) Jonathan: as far as real world velocities go, it's basically whatever works. The general concept is that it takes a long time to get between planets, months depending on their positions, which is what makes the Hypergates so important- you only need to cruise out to the Lagrange Points L4 or L5 to get to any other L-point in hours. I've never considered the velocities involved to be anywhere near relativistic speeds (10% of lightspeed, for example- speeds where relativity is a big aspect). However, giving ships max topspeed and relying only on acceleration works like crap in Nova. I've tried it. It's fine until you jump somewhere, because you always jump in at top speed. Doing that in you bulk freighter ends up with you warping around the system several times trying to slow down. So, we need Nova-esque speed limits, and some way of explaining them that makes sense. If we can't think of anything, then V-shields it is! (/quote)

Hmm, yeah, relativity is right out of the equation then. The contribution would be pretty minimal. Also means that you shouldn't have too much of a problem from collisions and radiation though. Hmm.

(quote) **Now, to look at your plug!

EDIT: Just looked at your plug. Interestingly, your Hyperspace idea is EXACTLY what we are already doing. I guess great minds think alike. Your shield/armor idea is also VERY similar to something I tried and abandonned a long time ago, but I might have to go back to it.**(/quote)

And there was me thinking I was being original. Doh. Just say you weren't using the core concept that gives clockwork its name. The one that's responsible for most of the crons.

(quote) Now, I just need to figure out if your accel-penalty system is compatible with my build-your-ship-from-components system (I bet I can find a way), (/quote)

It only requires a few crons and outfits, so unless your component system changes the mass of ship significantly, it shouldn't a problem. Even if it does, I'm sure a couple more crons could be sued to work out when certain contribute bits should be set.

(quote)(b)but I also need to figure out a realistic and playable speed limit system!**(/quote)

Engine manufacturers hard coded a limit into their engines, at the behest of governments? Engines should be pretty hard to build, so no-one except large companies would be able to build one without limits.

Or it could be a safety system, to prevent you from going too fast to dodge asteroids.

Fuel consumption reasons - you need more fuel to get to higher speeds and then more to slow down again as well. If every ship was fitted with an afterburner, that could tie in well.

Expense - you'd need an engine that fires at high power for a long time. Inter-ship interaction reasons - too high a velocity differential and it would be a nightmare for ships to ever rendezvous. Bad for civilian ships, in case they need rescued, bad for government ships, in case they need to intercept someone, bad for pirates for a similar reason. Just a few ideas.

How about this for a shield system:

A magnetic field is used to push a cloud of plasma away from the ship into a bubble. The cloud would cause missiles to detonate prematurely, disrupting the cloud instead of the armour, diffract lasers, deflect charged particles to certain areas of the cloud, etc. Railcannons would penetrate, but most other things would damage the shields instead. Lasers wouldn't disrupt it much, so they could have very small shield damage and large mass damage, so they do very little until the cloud is disrupted (shields down) and then they rip through the hull. The cloud would disrupt sensors as well, so the lasers would only be able to get good hits on critical systems once it's gone. Some of the principles exist in the M2P2 propulsion system I linked to in a previous post.

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Well, on the subject of gravetic shielding, one would have to anti-gravity. Postitve gravity would not serve to protect you at all, rather it would bring in the projectiles. The intensity of the gravity field would have to be incredibly intense to have any affect on light (so intense that it would send the host object bouncing arround like a pinball). If we are dealing with a more advanced understanding of the physical world, perhaps a understanding of unified field theroy, then perhaps you could make the jump to gravetic impulsion and shielding, but I think it is a BIG stretch and I would recomend barking up a diferent tree. (Though if this really intrests you, I recently read a sidebar in SciAm about a prominent scientist who was trying create artifical gravity by bombarding charged superconductors with photons of a specific wavelength. I am sure a google search can turn up more than did the short section in the magazine.
Joe

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Well, according to CNN.com, Boeing is developing (among other things) 'anti-gravity propulsion technology' for the United States Air Force. And there was some article in Popular Science a while ago that talked about some type of gravity-manipulating device. I don't know what happened to either of those projects, though.

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Quote

Originally posted by Jonathan Boyd:
**Not necessarily. With a 100% efficient explosion, you would release energy E = Mc^2, where m is the total mass annihilating. Given that half will be matter and half anti-matter, with m being the mass of the anti-matter, carried by the missile, E = 2mc^2. A bug chunk of the particles released aren't actually going to interact with the target, part of the explosion won't hit and there will be other inefficiencies, so let's say that the total efficiency is around 10%.

**

actually, while that is true, that is just the reaction itself, the resulting explosion would do much more damage than the impact. also, shielding would help because it gives the missle less to react to, (significantly less does not mean nothing) therefore the resulting explosion would be much smaller.

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I think we need to face the fact that the top speeds in EV are good from a game-play point of view but completely silly from a science - or even science-fiction - point of view.

In the real universe, the key issues would be acceleration (including lateral or turning acceleration), and the fuel you could afford to expend accelerating.

For example, if a ship set off to chase another one, then as long as they both continued to burn fuel, the one with the higher acceleration would eventually catch or outdistance the other one. Even a fractional difference in acceleration would mean that the one caught the other long before relativistic effects came into place.

However, you could not possibly build this into an EV game without going into so much explanation that it would be obvious you were fudging it.

There's another issue, in that any acceleration faster than 90 metres per second per second would simply be intolerable to any human being over a prolonged period. Even at such an acceleration, it would still take you just under 20 days to reach half light speed without taking relativistic effects into account (at 50% of light speed your mass would be 1.15 times its rest mass), so, no, you could never reach your top speed in game time.

Of course, you could counter this by saying that there is some kind of antigravity which is reducing the acceleration as experienced by the crew - but, again, by this point you've moved a long, long way from real physics.

(BTW, if all the calculus stuff was difficult to get a hold on, then must remember that the mass of the ship at speed is equal to its rest mass divided by the square root of 1 - (velocity squared/light speed squared). In other words, as velocity approaches light speed, the momentary mass approaches 1/0 or infinity.)

If you want to take the thickness of the galactic medium into account in giving a maximum speed, you need to bear in mind that the interstellar medium is a lot less thick than the medium within a planetary system, especially close to a sun which is chucking out particles all the time. If you were flying towards the sun, therefore, the effect would be to slow you down. On the other hand, if you were flying away from the sun, the effect would be to speed you up. There's some nice SF about solar-sailing (and, of course, the Restaurant at the End of the Universe). But, of course, the effect of acceleration due to gravity would be much more pronounced, running in the opposite direction.

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