Discovery I've traveled 0.25 light years

[Greebie]

I knew where to find the FA Off option on the panels, I just assumed, as the ship never notifies me when I use my toggle, that FA Off didn't work in SC, as the pips don't seem to, either. There you go, you learn something new every day.

I'm sure I read somewhere that FA Off and pips weren't supposed to affect SC mode but I can't seem to find it so I must have imagined that!

Anyway, that's beside the point, I would imagine that FA Off doesn't affect the consumption of fuel by the Frame Shift Drive because it needs to keep running whether it's accelerating you, or not. It doesn't function in the way a normal drive does (ie, propelling you forward using standard thrust) but, instead, compresses space in front of you and expands it behind (an Alcubierre drive), providing you with forward motion (although, in actual fact, you're motionless within the "warp bubble" the drive creates.)

As a result, you can't switch the drive off and drift forward on momentum alone, as you would do with a normal drive and FA Off, as switching the drive off would collapse the "bubble" and dump you out of SC in much the same fashion as Interdictions and Emergency Stops/Mass Locking does.

 

[rgb_astro]

1c means "1x the speed of light" so right now you are traveling at 2500 times the speed of light. Yes...space is big.

The other stars are in one way real and in another way wallpaper. When you jump into a system the starfield is rendered accurately based on the galaxy map. So every star is where it suppose to be while being at that position in the galaxy. But you can't actually fly to them the way you are trying to do now. I'm afraid you won't see anything when you "arrive" since FD haven't programmed for this simply because you won't be able to do this later anyway when the fuel mechanics are in place.

So, from algorithmic POV a star system is loaded only when you hyperjump, not when you approach it "through space" directly? Technically, you still can fly to it as it's a "seamless" universe, but no star system assets would be loaded?

 

[Winterwalker]

OK .. two things ..

(would also like to say here that this is future expansion stuff that I'm suggesting, and waaay in the distance in terms of the beta build being played)

You're right, the DDF on fuel says nothing about being able to refuel your own ship from cargo which, given that frameshift depletes fuel, would be necessary for travel between systems in supercruise. However, as expansion of civilised systems depends of fuel supplies, the DDF says "Players can acquire fuel via a fuel transfer with another docked ship", presumably from their cargo, as (DDF says) you can't take it from their fuel tank. What's the difference between transfering fuel from another player's cargo to my tank, than from my own cargo into my tank? As spacewalking is also proposed as a future expansion, I think this probably should and maybe will (eventually) be possible to refuel yourself. All I do is choose a large ship, fill it with fuel cargo and set sail (for several hours), refuelling here and there while hoping no Thargoids show up, even more especially while I'm pants down in EVA.

Second ..

Immersion ... "Here I sit (in game) in orbit of a deserted system, having a cup of tea, looking at the stars. I'm studying starmaps and can identify the next closest star to me. I know that I can hyperdrive there but I also know that I CAN'T, even in theory, get there on normal engines, not even if I drifted for a year" .. this is the Truman Show example (1) .. Problem here is that I'm no longer sitting in a galaxy of 400 billion stars, I'm sitting in a little bubble within it ..

It's for this second reason that I still think there should be a transition point, between star systems, as it's kind of irrelevant whether anyone would be able to exploit it, due to lack of fuel, or not. The point being more about knowing that you are inside a "stitched together universe" of 400bn Stars etc.

Post above (2) might seed the geometry of a solution and I still give this OP my +1

(again) future expansion stuff, and waaay in the distance in terms of the beta build being played

RIGHT ON COMMMANDERS

 

[rgb_astro]

WINTERWALKER,

It doesn't require a lot of suspension of disbelief to think of a galaxy as one whole place. Hyperjumping doesn't take away that feeling.

My understanding is that to keep an absolute coordinate (galaxy wise) would either be impractical or not useful, since all players would stay within boundaries of a system. Therefore it's not necessary to have a global (on galactic scale) coordinate for a player's ship. Therefore, whenever a player is in the system, all other systems are represented by "marbles" in the sky. Theoretically FD could implement dynamic loading when you're in vicinity of a system, but because this type of drive will not be used for inter-stellar travel, they chose not to.

 

[Splendour]

Having made several attempts to travel between star systems in supercruise in Alpha 3.1 and 3.4, I can say that it took about 18 hours to cover the 4.5ish lightyears between the nearest systems.

At the end of the journies, I dropped droped back into normal space not in the system I was aiming for, but according to my flight computer still in the original system, just 4.5+ light years from it's bodies. No sign of the bodies of the target system.

Currently the only way to transition from one system to the next is Hyperspace (I've got a 500km hyperspace journey on my pilot's record now ), although this may change with later releases, particularly when explorers get to start poking around close clusters of stars.

 

[Keybuk]

However, as expansion of civilised systems depends of fuel supplies, the DDF says "Players can acquire fuel via a fuel transfer with another docked ship", presumably from their cargo as (DDF says) you can't take it from their fuel tank.

The DDF says it's Main Tank to Main Tank:

Fuel is transferred in whole units from one ships Main Tank directly into the other ships Main Tank

Though I'm curious how this mechanic will work. Will there be giant "tanker" ships that can jump out to you, refuel you, and still have enough fuel to jump back?

There's a mention in the forum itself of "Explorer Ships", I assume these are ships with much longer-range fuel tanks and fuel scoops?

 

[popuptoaster]

So I was wondering about this... why couldn't a Lakon commander use all 440 units of cargo space to store fuel and refuel along the way?

Because otherwise the explorers would all just use the biggest cargo vessel? So game play reasons would be my answer to that.

Fuel is not going to be the limiting factor anyway, things in the ship wear out and break down fi they are not serviced, it's entirely possible that due to handwavium, running your frame shift drive for extended periods will destroy it and then you'll be stuck unless you have a target in jump range.

 

[popuptoaster]

The DDF says it's Main Tank to Main Tank:



Though I'm curious how this mechanic will work. Will there be giant "tanker" ships that can jump out to you, refuel you, and still have enough fuel to jump back?

There's a mention in the forum itself of "Explorer Ships", I assume these are ships with much longer-range fuel tanks and fuel scoops?

Explorer class ships apparently have much bigger fuel tanks built into the hull, it's not something you can add later, they can also carry servicing and self repair equipment to keep systems up and running although it is not going to be possible to repair hull damage "out in the field"

 

[Swan]

This is a very interesting idea, but I'm unsure about the practicalities based on the potential variations in experience of passing through the termination shock into the interstellar medium - would you experience a huge increase in speed because of lower gravitational forces and massively reduced solar particle resistance and friction or would you be buffeted and slowed by eddies of exotic particles or gravitational attraction of wandering lone bodies?

Also, the structure of each heliosphere would have to complement the star according to its classification, and I'm unsure what kind of resources would be needed to accurately model this given the variations of stars and variations within sub-sets of those stars too (and their outlying large gas giants).

 

[Winterwalker]

My understanding is that to keep an absolute coordinate (galaxy wise) would either be impractical or not useful, since all players would stay within boundaries of a system. Therefore it's not necessary to have a global (on galactic scale) coordinate for a player's ship. Therefore, whenever a player is in the system, all other systems are represented by "marbles" in the sky. Theoretically FD could implement dynamic loading when you're in vicinity of a system, but because this type of drive will not be used for inter-stellar travel, they chose not to.

Thanks Astro .. I do get you. I've tried to keep things between "in the realm of what's imaginable" tags.

I work on simulation in my everyday, so I ask the question purely from the standpoint of saying ; Here's the model, it's been built and exists as designed (no worries) .. What else could you get it to do?

My first post above, I think says, that with the existing design and some mathematics, it might be possible to extend the existing simulation, which I have no problem with, to give the poster of this OP the opportunity to succeed, in what he's attempting to do.



EDIT; so no, not proposing galactic co-ordinates, as you say, it's dynamic loading; suggesting you eventually reach "the edge" of your current system, or where it merges with the next .. you then transfer into that new system (and are given new system co-ordinates) at it's outer edge. Also suggesting not as an immediate expansion but one for the future.

 

[Soul Reaver]

From that picture, looks like your cabin gravity generator has a slight case of the trumbles

 

[Winterwalker]

OK .. proposal

# Simplest Interstellar Navigation (Module)
assumes enough fuel etc etc.

1. Pilot starts in a solar sytem, A. He/ she selects any destination star system, for supercruise travel and from the starmap, probably from a specialist UI module. Calls up a destination star system, B.
2. Starmap already calculates distance in lghtyears to system B, from the current star, in lightyears from A to B (it being my assumption is that this already used for calculation of any fuel used in a Hyperspace Jump).
2. A "Transition Distance", T is calculated = (LightyearsA-B) / 2
3. On HUD the destination star potentially is highlighted in the nightsky / skybox, giving the pilot a heading but this is not necessarily essential (see 5).
4. At transition distance T, from A, instantaneous hyperspace to system B
5. In simplest example; the arrival coordinates within system B are unimportant, but spawn distance to star B = T (AB/2) lightyears.
(If coordinate is not specified there will be a potential exploit, system hopping, unless the player is somehow required to reach low orbit of Star B before being able to re-target for a new, interstellar navigation, target system, B2).
6. Starting from A, any destination star, eg. one half-way across galaxy, may be selected in the starmap, but transition will only be to that star and will ignore all other systems that may be between. This gives a corresponding (enormous) transition distance, T.

# Complex Interstellar Navigation
I must assume about the operation of the starmap or mapping of stars, and their positioning in the galaxy.

For now the "white bubble", that shows Hyperspace Range in the current starmap is used as example. We require detection of any stars within that sphere but, assuming that the skybox is generated from starmap, these stars are already drawn to a flat plane at some "draw distance", a resolution related to the number of stars being mapped (by "skybox"). Relatively very small, the "hyperspace range bubble" gives a low resolution, a short draw distance, as it contains only very few, nearby stars.

A model, is based on the "square bubble" (1) idea, where flat planes of intersection are created (geometry) and these planes are used to create AB Transition COORDINATES (and headings) in any direction of travel from A.
If a short draw distance is used, some flat planes will be missing, from the spherical bubble A, and the module will bug out. However, as distances are great and fuel is short this is unlikely to exhibit. (soution: At reaching draw distance from A, transition to a random system, or back to system A as a navigational malfucntion).

Module requires a computational subroutine to develop the square bubble, but that subroutine may only kick in at (example) 0.1 lightyears from star, A. At this "subroutine start distance" (~6000 AU from A), there will be no need to render starports, planets etc. as we are already far into deep space.

Yes, I know .. perhaps I'm a dog with a bone here but from what I can see the mechanic proposed by the OP can be implemented from within the current galaxy build, albeit that FD have (not surprisingly) not done so at this stage. I still give a +1 to this OP then (phew).