Glass Canopies Are Ridiculous

[Jeffers]

Logical mind.

I love this game just the way it is. Didn't the Thunderbolts have a vehicle with rear facing seats and no windshield? I think it was green.

That was Captain Scarlet in the Spectrum Pursuit Vehicle....

 

[Retu81]

Aluminium oxynitride

Except that's a ceramic, not metal.

Problem with metals is that they have disassociated electrons. It means that electrons can move freely around the ion lattice. This property is what makes metals ductile. It also means that electromagnetic radiation like light will interact with those electrons and will be absorbed and reflected from the metal surface. That's why metals are opaque. Only way to make metal transparent is to make it thin enough, like leaf gold.

 

[Raidiant]

Two more points for fun lol:

1) Sensors can be jammed and hacked

2) High technology has always had issues with human adaptability and chaos, as evidenced by Iraq, and Vietnam. In both wars the humans just ended up coming up with things that poked at all the weak points of high tech. Cheap rocket launchers brought down expensive apaches filled with weapons and sensors...guys strapped bombs to themselves...IEDs...and people made crazy boobytraps medieval style with spikes and (turned out pretty effective didn't it...)

Basically humans are great at trolling and being . By the way they have the same issue with fraud detection, the humans end up adapting like a virus...

 

[mossfoot]

Ever heard of "the speed of light"? The latency caused by a pilot being more than a few thousand miles away from his ship would be crippling.

Remote controlled drones would only work for fighters defending a capital ship or similar close action combat.

Well... except that FTL communications are pretty prevalent in the game - wing chat between star systems regardless of distance, being able to read GalNet from across the galaxy, bounty scanning being able to contact the authorities to tell you how much someone is worth, there are a thousand little things that demonstrate we have FTL communication.

Not that I'm defending the drone cause, just saying if you're going to find a hole in it, speed of light isn't the way to go.

 

[Oddball]

Glass Canopies Are Ridiculous

Its not as ridiculous as the current hologram system in your cockpit which is the same for every ship that you can fly.
Now if we had MFD's that you could slot in around your cockpit, we could customize things and put the instruments where
we preferred.

 

[Jason S]

If you going the realistic route then all the ships would be borg like.

I am glad we are not going too realistic !

 

[Frank]

I'd argue it's a big diamond - a single flawless crystal grown in the lab. That's why only the windscreen is made of it

What could possibly go wrong?..

[video=youtube;0tcP9SLKEG4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tcP9SLKEG4[/video]

 

[Tarman]

What could possibly go wrong?..

Hey!

You're that guy that everyone always says to be for a minute.

 

[OnePercent]

windows on aircraft are also ridiculous

 

[Iskariot]

Glass Canopies Are Ridiculous

The pixels that are used to create the illusion of a glass canopy or a metal hull are completely invulnerable to the pixels that are used to create laser beams and projectiles.

To make things more exiting FD has implemented special code to remedy this, because it would become a boring game otherwise.

 

[Enride]

I can't get over the fact that this game is like 1200 years in the future and our ships have glass canopies... I suspect that we would have the materials and technology to recreate the external reality without actually exposing ourselves to it.

In a fighter, for example, it would make a lot more sense to pilot from the center of the hull, with maximal protection (not that this matters since there are no pilot insta-kills).

I also envision that the ship would have a circulatory system, which would pump nanoprobes throughout the hull of the ship, regenerating damaged components, restoring hull integrity, and perhaps even rapidly changing the molecular structure of a certain section of the ship to accomplish a combat task -- Like changing the structure to open an armored sensor aperture, then near-instantaneously armoring it back up in the face of incoming weaponry.

Anyway, glass canopies are silly. And as long as they are there, we should be able to instantly kill a pilot with one well-placed shot when the shields go down...

K58

You do know that ED isnt meant to be a 100% accurate vision of a possible future, right?
Else, one would think the unexplainable friction and variable speedlimit would raise bigger questions, no?

Did you raise the same "issue" when you watched starwars?

 

[Stigbob]

Glass canopies are tame in skyrim I followed a chicken around for a week and it never laid an egg, talk about a broken background sim. Honestly who programs this stuff, don't they know obsessives have time to waste.

 

[CMDR Alonso]

Problem is it's not 1200 years of continuous technological development, there was World War 3 which blew humanity back to the bronze age, then civilization was rebuilt by corporations, then part of humanity split off to form a peace commune but some guy killed the pacifists and declared himself emperor. After that humanity fell into two groups, federation ruled by mega-corporations and where most of the people are unemployed due to a fully automated economy and the Empire where most of the people are slaves owned by nobles. There's not much need for technological innovation from either group. There was variety in that humanity only owned 45 of the 2040 inhabited planets, but the empire genocided all the aliens and destroyed Galcorp. That's a 98% reduction in galactic population since 3200.

Result is what you have now, where 12 tons of "domestic appliances" (washing machines and fridges), not even a truck load by today's standards, is considered to be enough to unstabalize entire systems and results in multiple interdictions where NPCs talk about how the delivery of these washing machines will cause untold death and destruction because of a "domestic appliance" gap between the factions. Compare that to our world where 200,000 ton capacity freighters are the norm, in the E setting a single Panther Clipper able to carry 1000 tons is quoted as being able to completely destroy a star system's socio-economic system.

Look at the Python and Anaconda, then look at "modern" ships like the Type-7 and Type-9. 600 year old ships are able to run rings around ships that are barely a decade old.

People in 3300 are lucky the lights still work and they have food to eat because they're living in some kind of dystopian post apocalyptic universe.

Can I copy and paste your post everytime someone complains about Elite failing at being a plausible future?

 

[Jarsil]

All people complaining about the fact the the AI should really pilot the ship, and not the human, should really read 2001: A Space Odissey - only the first book, rest is crap.

Read it, and you'll stop trusting even your iPad

 

[Rociferous Rexx]

Why can't I just synthesize some Painite?

 

[TIVBS]

Don't get mad, get GLAD!

For glass that isnt glass but looks like glass, and lets you keep on viewin that beautiful galaxy! only 19.99! Limited time offer, Call now!

 

[bigian12]

I doubt the canopy os made of glass, it is most likely made from some future transparent material. Possibly a crystalised metal ( aluminium or titanium) that is transparent but much stronger than glass.

 

[Rociferous Rexx]

I could tell you what it is, but that would violate the prime directi..... oh screw it... it's transparent titanium.

 

[EUS]

I don't think it's glass in the canopy.
In Star Trek the Enterprise has see-through whatever material on the bridge.
They have at least see-through aluminum (from the star trek IV movie).

 

[Cradle2Grave]

Most probably double-glazing. We have it at home and it's like well tough yeah. Bird flew into it once, nothing.