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Author Topic: Technology  (Read 43989 times)

FrameShifter

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Technology
« on: 2011-01-09 22:27:08 »
I see spaceships, impulse speed, jumpgates, space stations, but i am unsure how they all work, meaning, what's the technology behind it all. Better to not go into too much detail, but at least a believable 'excuse' for things working as they are would make conceptualizing models/effects/gameplay mechanics quite a bit easier.
First it would be best to see what we have so far, and think of ways of expanding on it.

StalKermit

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Re: Technology
« Reply #1 on: 2011-01-09 22:33:47 »
Every day the people of the galaxy pray to Ingar, the God of Space-like Thingies to grant them the power to travel the cosmos and boldly go where no map has gone before. Ingar has an automatic wish granter installed to take care of these requests and infuses it with some of his power so it can make ships work.

Ingar

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Re: Technology
« Reply #2 on: 2011-01-09 23:07:19 »
I see spaceships, impulse speed, jumpgates, space stations, but i am unsure how they all work, meaning, what's the technology behind it all. Better to not go into too much detail, but at least a believable 'excuse' for things working as they are would make conceptualizing models/effects/gameplay mechanics quite a bit easier.
First it would be best to see what we have so far, and think of ways of expanding on it.

What we have so far, is how space ship propulsion works:

At low speed, a spaceship uses conventional thrusters. They push the ship into any of the six cardinal directions and in combination with the afterburner (w key),
a ship can go up to attack speed, usually around 300 m/sec. Right now, there's no limit on afterburner usage, so you can go full throttle and use the afterburner all the time. The actual maximal speed depends on the ship's engine definitions.

When travelling between objects inside a single star system, ships use the kinetic impulse drive (the tab key). This piece of hardware enables high sub-luminal speed and is probably based on complicated electro-gravity optronics which I leave to the engineers to discuss. The maxmal impulse speed is the same for all ships and is currently 1500 m/sec by default, but can be changed through the g_impulsespeed variable.

Travelling between star systems is a different matter. The laws of physics still won't allow for supra-luminal speeds, fortunatly a handy work-around exists: hyperspace. Hyperspace is this weird thing curled around our space-time, and in some places, you can create extra-dimensional connections (wormholes)
to connect two distant places in normal space to each other. All you need is a hyperspace motivator that is able to bombard local subspace layers with sufficient gravitational energy. The trick if it is, that the destionation is fixed. The hyperspace points can be opened but if you go through them you will always end up in the same place, no matter if you use a jumpgate, or your own ship's jump engines.

Smaller ships do not have sufficient generator capacity to power a hyperspace motivator. Such ships have to rely on jumpgates, which
are basicly large hyperspace motivators, stationed in space.
« Last Edit: 2011-01-09 23:15:48 by Ingar »
OK Space Cadets, prepare to hurtle through the cosmos!

FrameShifter

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Re: Technology
« Reply #3 on: 2011-01-10 00:16:16 »
So, jumpgates make a rift in space and link with a fixed location on the other side? Like a wormhole? If so, can you make players see through to the other side?

What would be the general fuel of the universe? How is it obtained? What else is it used for? You can't make rifts in space with something that runs on gasoline, now can you  :P
I remember there being mention of superconductors, but not sure how that ended up. Found out that they are not extremely hard to make, and don't look all that special, but are still practical.
On another note, are there gonna be landing stations for planets, or are they just gonna be big rocky landmarks you can bump into? It's funny smashing into a planet without atmosphere + gravity making you have the time of your life for getting too close.

Mega

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Re: Technology
« Reply #4 on: 2011-01-10 04:29:35 »
What would be the general fuel of the universe?


Petroleum, of course.
Mega - Chief Ingar Annoyer