You use your on-board computer to apply thrust in the same way it supposedly does when you enter a station, effectively spinning your ship in such a manner as to apply enough centrifugal force for you to experience enough artificial gravity while you enjoy your coffee...?
Artificial Gravity for Ships not Stations
- Thread starter Chaparral
- Start date
You use your on-board computer to apply thrust in the same way it supposedly does when you enter a station, effectively spinning your ship in such a manner as to apply enough centrifugal force for you to experience enough artificial gravity while you enjoy your coffee...?
With great skill
When docked in a spinning station, there is low G (maybe .1 or .2 G) on the ships. Again, this is covered in the novels and explicitly stated in the EDRPG. So the walkways, stairs, etc. are necessary when landing on planets with higher gravity. They aren't really an impediment when in zero/low G; you can zip up and down decks a lot faster/easier.
The coffeemaker though... that I don't get. It's cute, but it doesn't fit. It should be dispensing coffee into sealed containers, not open mugs, so that it can be used in all environments. That or have sign on it saying "Do not use when below [insert G amount here] level environments!"
If talking the full on realism angle, nobody should be walking or floating around the ship during any maneuvers.
Acceleration doesn't care where you are in the ship, or how its designed — if you're not holding onto to something (railings or magboots), you will slam into anything.
I'd still feel safer on a catwalk with railings: open areas where you can simply float around, would be even more dangerous, as there would be nothing to grab hold of during any kind of acceleration/maneuvers.
I hope I haven't sounded patronizing with these replies. I just happen to have spent 10+ years on a 3D science fiction art forum, where we enjoyed talking about these kind of things, when making our 3D models.
The mugs are magnetic and the coffee is laced with iron particles. Don't ask me how you get the coffee out of the cup and into your stomach, perhaps a straw?
Anyway, coffee is a luxury item in space, so a coffee maker has no business being on a ship held together with duck tape.
It's mostly a vanity thing for posh pilots with a fetish about the 2000s. But in reality most use that coffee machine like all others in 3300: they just plug in a vaccuum bag.
I ALLOW IT (booming voice).
I feel very important now
.To be serious...
I did feel that FDev made it perhaps difficult for themselves to not allow for artificial gravity tech, but also anti gravity technology.
However, if they feel this is how the Elite universe is, and if they can do it, then it is up to them.
They could also just make is so we walk around and not worry about explaining the tech involved, because sci-fi and fun.
I ALLOW IT (booming voice).
I feel very important now
To be serious...
I did feel that FDev made it perhaps difficult for themselves to not allow for artificial gravity tech, but also anti gravity technology.
However, if they feel this is how the Elite universe is, and if they can do it, then it is up to them.
Who knows, maybe if we destroy enough Thargoid ships, and recover their tech, we might get artificial gravity on our ships. They seem to be using a gravitic drive system. Also, in one of the official novels, a Thargoid base clearly has anti-grav tech, which allows it to float in the clouds.
Wouldn't be the first thing we've reverse engineered from them. After all, where do you think our current FSD drives with fast jump times (seconds to jump, not days) and the frameshift function in system comes from?
Wouldn't be the first thing we've reverse engineered from them. After all, where do you think our current FSD drives with fast jump times (seconds to jump, not days) and the frameshift function in system comes from?
Kickstarter, obviously
So in terms of engineering, more effort is placed on how the ship would function on the ground then while in space? No built in hand holds projecting from all surfaces while in space? I'm not buying "more time on the ground" concept.
<writer-of-bad-scifi hat ON>
Lore in ED is that there is no artificial gravity. Let's do a bit of world-building around that bearing in mind what we actually see in the game.
Let's start with the FSD. No, it's not "bending space-time" - if it were it would be akin to a "warp" or "Alcubierre" type of explanation. We've already had definitive word from the lore-masters at FD that this is not what's happening. The key is in the name - it is "shifting your frame of reference", spacetime is not bent or otherwise influenced by your frame of reference being decoupled from it. Postulating that it is such a "decoupling" achieved by the FSD immediately answers some nagging questions. In normal flight, the FSD can provide a level of insulation from the effects of high acceleration but only to the interior of your vessel - that which is within the normal area of effect of the FSD. Operating at this low level it prevents us from being mashed into paste when we hit the boost button but it only acts as a "sink" - it cannot provide the effect of acceleration in its absence, only reduce it. No artificial gravity there.
So what about jumps? At the highest level of decoupling and the highest energy consumption it causes the frame of reference to shift radically in the "direction" to which it is aligned. This is dangerous. In the absence of a stellar-magnitude mass to lock onto as the limit of this translation is reached, coherency with normal spacetime will not be reestablished.
Supercruise is an intermediate state. The local reference frame is only partially decoupled from spacetime, "sliding" along it rather than being instantly relocated.
Note that this explanation fits nicely with the need for a ship to be aligned along its movement vector to jump, the existence of a "minimum speed" in SC, the interdiction and hyperdiction mechanics, the lack of artificial gravity, the SC response to gravity wells, the "safe" and "emergency" drops to normal space and the functioning of orbital cruise. With this one underpinning all the above require minimal handwavium to be completely consistent.
Next up, air in the docks and autorotation. The force fields keeping air in but letting solid objects pass through is pretty simple. Gaseous molecules are neither massive enough nor energetic enough to pass through. Solid objects and liquids penetrate on the grounds of being too massive for the fields to obstruct. Plasma would be too energetic (otherwise you couldn't shoot a PA through the docking slot, and you can) Autorotation is a function of the ships computer like flight assist. Just as you can turn FA off, you can also turn off rotational sync. It's even possible to land like that but I really wouldn't recommend it. If you can hold a position over the docking pad at a low enough altitude and low enough relative velocity the magnetic grapples in the pad will still capture your ship. In passing it should also be noted that when landing on a pad active components in your landing gear participate in the grappling process, otherwise getting into landing position with your gear up would result in the pads mag-grapples sucking you down into a damaging belly landing.
Now, let's look at those remloks and flight suits. The development of a cumbersome vac-suit or hard-suit into what several scifi writers have termed a "skinsuit" is not unreasonable. Nor is it unreasonable for them to have active magnetic components in the boots and actuators built into the suit to provide the necessary support and feedback to walk almost naturally when relying on those magnetic soles. if there is capacity for even a minute or two's atmospheric storage in such a lightweight suit it is also reasonable that reservoirs for micro-thrusters would also be feasible. Note that atmospheric storage would NOT be sufficient for more than a minute or two. Long enough to get from one source of external resupply to another and to switch between them. In normal flight the ship is pressurized and this is not needed, in the event of the cockpit venting through a breached canopy the bulk of your lifesupport endurance comes from reserves provided by the ship and built into your chair. For EVA work if/when that is ever implemented by FD a supplementary atmosphere supply will be required as will more capable personal thrusters.
The things we can and can't do in the ED universe DO hang together consistently. Just because some of us don't like how they do this doesn't make it inconsistent or not a coherently-built world. Picard couldn't pilot a Sganami-C class cruiser or command it effectively in combat. Honor Harrington couldn't do either with a Galaxy class starship.
Lore in ED is that there is no artificial gravity. Let's do a bit of world-building around that bearing in mind what we actually see in the game.
Let's start with the FSD. No, it's not "bending space-time" - if it were it would be akin to a "warp" or "Alcubierre" type of explanation. We've already had definitive word from the lore-masters at FD that this is not what's happening. The key is in the name - it is "shifting your frame of reference", spacetime is not bent or otherwise influenced by your frame of reference being decoupled from it. Postulating that it is such a "decoupling" achieved by the FSD immediately answers some nagging questions. In normal flight, the FSD can provide a level of insulation from the effects of high acceleration but only to the interior of your vessel - that which is within the normal area of effect of the FSD. Operating at this low level it prevents us from being mashed into paste when we hit the boost button but it only acts as a "sink" - it cannot provide the effect of acceleration in its absence, only reduce it. No artificial gravity there.
So what about jumps? At the highest level of decoupling and the highest energy consumption it causes the frame of reference to shift radically in the "direction" to which it is aligned. This is dangerous. In the absence of a stellar-magnitude mass to lock onto as the limit of this translation is reached, coherency with normal spacetime will not be reestablished.
Supercruise is an intermediate state. The local reference frame is only partially decoupled from spacetime, "sliding" along it rather than being instantly relocated.
Note that this explanation fits nicely with the need for a ship to be aligned along its movement vector to jump, the existence of a "minimum speed" in SC, the interdiction and hyperdiction mechanics, the lack of artificial gravity, the SC response to gravity wells, the "safe" and "emergency" drops to normal space and the functioning of orbital cruise. With this one underpinning all the above require minimal handwavium to be completely consistent.
Next up, air in the docks and autorotation. The force fields keeping air in but letting solid objects pass through is pretty simple. Gaseous molecules are neither massive enough nor energetic enough to pass through. Solid objects and liquids penetrate on the grounds of being too massive for the fields to obstruct. Plasma would be too energetic (otherwise you couldn't shoot a PA through the docking slot, and you can) Autorotation is a function of the ships computer like flight assist. Just as you can turn FA off, you can also turn off rotational sync. It's even possible to land like that but I really wouldn't recommend it. If you can hold a position over the docking pad at a low enough altitude and low enough relative velocity the magnetic grapples in the pad will still capture your ship. In passing it should also be noted that when landing on a pad active components in your landing gear participate in the grappling process, otherwise getting into landing position with your gear up would result in the pads mag-grapples sucking you down into a damaging belly landing.
Now, let's look at those remloks and flight suits. The development of a cumbersome vac-suit or hard-suit into what several scifi writers have termed a "skinsuit" is not unreasonable. Nor is it unreasonable for them to have active magnetic components in the boots and actuators built into the suit to provide the necessary support and feedback to walk almost naturally when relying on those magnetic soles. if there is capacity for even a minute or two's atmospheric storage in such a lightweight suit it is also reasonable that reservoirs for micro-thrusters would also be feasible. Note that atmospheric storage would NOT be sufficient for more than a minute or two. Long enough to get from one source of external resupply to another and to switch between them. In normal flight the ship is pressurized and this is not needed, in the event of the cockpit venting through a breached canopy the bulk of your lifesupport endurance comes from reserves provided by the ship and built into your chair. For EVA work if/when that is ever implemented by FD a supplementary atmosphere supply will be required as will more capable personal thrusters.
The things we can and can't do in the ED universe DO hang together consistently. Just because some of us don't like how they do this doesn't make it inconsistent or not a coherently-built world. Picard couldn't pilot a Sganami-C class cruiser or command it effectively in combat. Honor Harrington couldn't do either with a Galaxy class starship.
Deleted member 110222
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Yeah - NASA abandoned magboots. Even electromagnet magboots with tunable field strength.
Propelling yourself around in microgravity HANDHOLD TO HANDHOLD would be more efficient, but clearly, the internal spaces of these ships are not designed with microgravity movement in mind.
A huge number of players and even ship design intentions (ASP EXPLORER, DIAMONDBACK EXPLORER) has a fundamental expectation that the ships will be in space for much longer than they are "on the ground", yet we have flat wide decks with "up" oriented doors.
Unleash the gravity! This may even have some inertial positives as well...
Propelling yourself around in microgravity HANDHOLD TO HANDHOLD would be more efficient, but clearly, the internal spaces of these ships are not designed with microgravity movement in mind.
A huge number of players and even ship design intentions (ASP EXPLORER, DIAMONDBACK EXPLORER) has a fundamental expectation that the ships will be in space for much longer than they are "on the ground", yet we have flat wide decks with "up" oriented doors.
Unleash the gravity! This may even have some inertial positives as well...
How else do you explain it, considering there is no artificial gravity?
They use that in Elite lore as well.
There are no mugs in the Krait. If you've got a mug in your Krait then ... wait, that's no mug!
Artificial gravity already *is* a thing in Elite. All of you are in denial. The devs are all working on the game under the assumption that there is Star-Wars style localized gravity inside the ships. All your characters move and stand as if in gravity. Hair flows/"falls" downward. There are point-of-interest installations that are supposedly "space bars" but they have no centrifuge structures on them, which would make them a nonstarter for pouring drinks, dancing, socializing, or relaxing AT ALL unless there was artificial gravity on the stations. The layout of the ship interiors is clearly based on walking around - the spaces are huge and open with everything arranged on a single plane and there is practically nothing to grab onto. And the interior of the new Krait ship should be the final confirmation that there is artificial gravity in Elite. It has a coffee maker with a open top ceramic mug HANGING from a little hook on the side of the machine. And there is a plate with two cookies sitting next to it. Unless those are superpowered magnetic cookies and cups being pulled down onto the floor, I'm gonna say we have artificial gravity in Elite and you should expect things to play out that way if and when "space legs" becomes a thing.
Landing on planets with gravity would also give the ship internal rooms and spaces gravity as well.