Backwards view wrong in supercruise?

Avulon

A
Open question here, surely asked before but couldn't find.-
If I'm in supercruise at 1c or greater and look behind (using the camera 'fixed/tied' to ship) then how come any light catches up to the camera to be seen? Surely the only thing possibly seeable would be another ship moveing at close to the same speed or greater than myself - and that should be red shifted if moving slower and blue shifted if catching up, but what I actually see is the starfield as if I'm going less than 1c. I had expected to face the camera backwards and see nothing when going in excess of 1c but that isn't the case, why is that?
 

PiggyPiggyPig

PiggyPiggyPig
Not sure, I think that if you're moving faster than light then light can't catch up to you, but the light from those stars have been travelling for billions of years, so really you are moving into their light. It would be red-shifted as you face away. And as you increase speed, eventually the light will move into the infrared which is invisible to the naked eye.
 
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JetsonRING

JetsonRING
SInce nobody has ever experienced faster-than-light travel we can only theorise however, one of the theories is that the speed of light is relative to the observer and that except for some red-shifting objects "behind" you would in fact be visible.

Besides, it's a video game, not a simulator. o7
 

Greybeard_LXI

G
When you engaged the FSD you shifted into a different frame of reality with different laws of physics, and the light from the stars shifted with you.

Besides, FD put the stars there so you could have prettier pictures.
 

Sapyx

Sapyx
You aren't actually "seeing" anything... what you "See" in Supercruise is actually a computer-generated simulation of the surroundings, projected onto the cockpit panelling (or on your helmet visor if the cockpit is blown out) by your ship's computer. This is why relativistic visual effects are not apparent.

In terms of "what a faster-than-light starship would actually see", I believe the answer is "nothing". If it's faster than light, then looking behind would see nothing - but looking to the side would see nothing either, while looking in front would just be a bright point directly ahead, a singularity of extremely intense gamma radiation. Although a "warp bubble" or Alcubierre drive would separate itself from the regular normal-space universe entirely while in operation, so you would "see" absolutely nothing.

This thread should probably be moved from BGS to Lore, though. Reported for relocation.
 

Frank

Frank
David Braben has modelled the galaxy completely 100% accurately. The pilot you are playing in the game is in a computer game that the simulated version of David Braben wrote.

The only difference between the real world and the computer simulation of the world with the simulation of the Elite Galaxy is that most of the simulated people in the simulated Galaxy don't care that their simulation has these discrepancies.
 

Bryan K

Bryan K
This has, in fact, been discussed before at length, and the only explanation we have is “because it’s a game” which is satisfactory for me.

If supercruise was fully realistic, interplanetary navigation would be a pain in so many ways. You’d have to account for the fact that the planets would actually be in different positions due to the distance that the light has to travel, plus there’d be a Doppler shift in the light in front of you, making everything look like an acid-trip. No thank you.
 

777Driver

777Driver
Avulon said:
Open question here, surely asked before but couldn't find.-
If I'm in supercruise at 1c or greater and look behind (using the camera 'fixed/tied' to ship) then how come any light catches up to the camera to be seen? Surely the only thing possibly seeable would be another ship moveing at close to the same speed or greater than myself - and that should be red shifted if moving slower and blue shifted if catching up, but what I actually see is the starfield as if I'm going less than 1c. I had expected to face the camera backwards and see nothing when going in excess of 1c but that isn't the case, why is that?
Click to expand...

Putting aside the obvious fact that this is a computer game, our ships don't actually travel faster than light.

The FSD drive works by compressing spacetime around the ship in a bubble, shortening distances between two points while the ship moves at a normal speed. That means that your ship in Elite is *not* moving above relativistic speeds -- it is indeed flying just as fast as you do in normal space -- but the compression bubble pulling space around together makes you move much further than you normally do.

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/106861-DCello-s-Science-Guide-to-the-Galaxy

@Sapyx - Where did you read about the outside visuals being simulated? I have never heard of that being mentioned.
 
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CoyoteXStarrk

CoyoteXStarrk
You would still be able to see what is behind you by observing the light that has already been traveling away from those objects.


Its not as if the moment you go faster than light all light ceases to exist. You are simply travelling faster than it can. So you would not be able to see any new light from objects behind you if you were traveling faster than the speed of light, but you would simply be "passing" the light that those objects have already given off and observing that instead.



So yes you would be able to see them, but what exactly it would look like is anyone's guess.
 
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znôrt

znôrt
777Driver said:
our ships don't actually travel faster than light.

The FSD drive works by compressing spacetime around the ship in a bubble, shortening distances between two points while the ship moves at a normal speed. That means that your ship in Elite is *not* moving above relativistic speeds -- it is indeed flying just as fast as you do in normal space -- but the compression bubble pulling space around together makes you move much further than you normally do.
Click to expand...

but you can still see outside the compression bubble.

CoyoteXStarrk said:
You would still be able to see what is behind you by observing the light that has already been traveling away from those objects.
Click to expand...
CoyoteXStarrk said:
but what exactly it would look like is anyone's guess.
Click to expand...

you would actually see time on those objects running backwards.
 

DaggerSnake

DaggerSnake
Also, it’s very impractical to be an true invisible person, as light passes through you or is reflected or bent away from you, it would never hit the back of your eye and register against the rods and cones there. You’d be blind.

Oh fiction...
 

PanTast

PanTast
Actually this behaviour isn't gamey at all. The FSD works in a way that it shift the space surrounding the ship forward faster than light. But within this space we are barely moving. An exactly this patch of space contains the light we see. Thats the reason why we don't get red shift backwards or blueshift forward looking.

o7
 

BradHann

BradHann
777Driver said:
@Sapyx - Where did you read about the outside visuals being simulated? I have never heard of that being mentioned.
Click to expand...

Well it's fairly obvious that the external audio is being simulated, so it's not too much of a stretch to extend that to the visuals as well.
 

Crank Larson

Crank Larson
JetsonRING said:
SInce nobody has ever experienced faster-than-light travel we can only theorise however, one of the theories is that the speed of light is relative to the observer and that except for some red-shifting objects "behind" you would in fact be visible.
Click to expand...

This. No-one actually knows what would happen. :)
 
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