Hard Science: The ships in Elite Dangerous already have artificial gravity.

[killerofstars]

So as part of the lore and universe, there is no "magical" star trek like artificial gravity in Elite. Stations spin to generate gravity. The popularity of outposts, even on airless rocks, is probably because they have gravity without needing spin. So ships generally don't have artificial gravity when they're in flight. That's E lore.

Except...they do. Fuel is cheap in elite, and you don't need a lot of reaction mass with the right thrusters.

Also, the ships in elite can thrust vertically at over one gravity. Otherwise, they wouldn't be able to hover in midair over 1 g worlds.

So in theory, you should be able to continuously thrust up accelerating at 9 meters per second and you should have artificial gravity on ships.

Edit: A common reponse is: Ships can't accelerate indefinitely in Elite! Well, they can't, but that's a gameplay conceit to help dogfights not be relativistic jousting matches. This "speed limit" doesn't even exist in lore, it's JUST a gameplay element. As long as the thrusters on a ship are firing, that ship is technically accelerating. Meaning: Yes, yes, for gameplay reasons there's a speed limit, but "gravity" on our ships doesn't require acceleration. This isn't a physics sim. Instead, as long as the vertical thrusters are firing, there should be internal gravity. Maybe a switchable "Gravity mode."

 

[CMDR M. Lehman]

And if it was lore that that was how pilots routinely flew their ships, all that might have meant something.

 

[Friedenreich Xante]

Except that for "creating" gravity, you don't need speed, but acceleration. To mainain the gravity you are talking about over time, the ships would have to accelerate constantly upwards. Which would be impossible.

 

[Kyokushin]

Except that for "creating" gravity, you don't need speed, but acceleration. To mainain the gravity you are talking about over time, the ships would have to accelerate constantly upwards. Which would be impossible.

Why impossible?
As he wrote they can hover over the planets. You need acceleration to hover, not speed.

If ships can hover long-time then they can long-time accelerate with 1g.

 

[LKx]

Yes they can, but that's not "artificial" gravity, that's simulated gravity, just like spinning stations

 

[Friedenreich Xante]

Why impossible?
As he wrote they can hover over the planets. You need acceleration to hover, not speed.

If ships can hover long-time then they can long-time accelerate with 1g.

For hovering, you need thrust, not acceleration. What you will experience here is the gravity of the planet you are hovering over. In open space it would be different, because you would need to actually accelerate, hence to augment speed at a constant rate.

You need infinite amount of energy to accelerate infinitely, eventually reaching the boundaries of light speed. But our ships don't fly light speed. They fly 800 m/s at the very best. For reaching speeds above, they need to fold space-time (supercruise).

So you can just forget about gravity through acceleration. Or have your ship spinning constantly like a space station, if your living area is not situated to need the rotation axis, it might work a little.

BTW on a station, the gravity is higher on the outer parts than near the center, because the acceleration through spinning is higher the further you are from the rotation axis.

 

[DTUndercover]

Except that for "creating" gravity, you don't need speed, but acceleration. To mainain the gravity you are talking about over time, the ships would have to accelerate constantly upwards. Which would be impossible.

Unless of course the ships thrusters are programmed to fly the ship at 45° to the direction of travel... which would provide both the illusion of gravity and lateral motion...

 

[JesusRocks1988]

OP is talking about how ships simulate gravity in The Expanse, which makes sense for that show because all the ships seem to be designed that way - the floors of the ship sit on top of the main thruster. In Elite however, the floors run along the same line as the forward thruster, so it would take flying the ship in a different way to simulate gravity there.

It's possible that the luxury ships world perform these manoeuvres at their destinations for the pleasure of their passengers, but I've never seen any of them accelerating vertically for this purpose.

Besides, our ships accelerate to a speed and maintain it, we can't make our ships constantly accelerate in real space like they do in supercruise.

 

[CMDR ColD_ZA]

Consider that Elite has wind resistance in space and you can only accelerate till you reach your ships top speed


You could have your ship fly in a loop simulating gravity.

When we get space legs there should be a holding pattern option to have the ship automatically thrust forward and pull back on the stick to pitch up to give us 1g onboard

 

[Muetdhiver]

Yes they can, but that's not "artificial" gravity, that's simulated gravity, just like spinning stations

GR Equivalence principle begs to disagree XD

 

[Sabier]

Physicist here. The problem with Elite is that the flight model doesn't allow you to keep accelerating endlessly like it happens in real world, as speeds are capped (yes, you can accelerate endlessly in real life and yet never travel at speeds higher than the speed of light, but that would take us into a general relativity class that I'm not ready to impart), so you could not achieve artificial/simulated gravity in the way you said. You could, however, travel in a constant barrel roll fashion achieving the same effect as seen in the space stations to "generate" artificial/simulated gravity (centrifugal "force"). Flying like that would also be hella fun!!

 

[Friedenreich Xante]

Unless of course the ships thrusters are programmed to fly the ship at 45° to the direction of travel... which would provide both the illusion of gravity and lateral motion...

Again, the ship could only accelerate up to its top speed. Once there, the gravity created through acceleration would stop.

 

[killerofstars]

For hovering, you need thrust, not acceleration. What you will experience here is the gravity of the planet you are hovering over. In open space it would be different, because you would need to actually accelerate, hence to augment speed at a constant rate.

You need infinite amount of energy to accelerate infinitely, eventually reaching the boundaries of light speed. But our ships don't fly light speed. They fly 800 m/s at the very best. For reaching speeds above, they need to fold space-time (supercruise).

So you can just forget about gravity through acceleration. Or have your ship spinning constantly like a space station, if your living area is not situated to need the rotation axis, it might work a little.

BTW on a station, the gravity is higher on the outer parts than near the center, because the acceleration through spinning is higher the further you are from the rotation axis.

-Okay so: the point about hovering is to show that the ships can accelerate upward at a rate of 9 meters per second. (1g) As for lightspeed, you would approach lightspeed after like, a YEAR of constant acceleration. Ships don't need artificial gravity for that long.

As to some other points in the thread:

-Ships in Elite have a speed limit. Well, that's...not really in lore. That's a gameplay conceit to make dogfights more fun. That's not realistic and I don't think part of Elite's "reality"
-Ships arent designed the way they are in the expanse Yeah, agreed. You wouldn't get internal gravity from the main thrusters. You'd have to set the ship to thrust vertically.

 

[Lori Jameson]

To test if we have artificial gravity, we need Space Legs. That and we need to see Frontier's explanation of how a psudo-force is producing gravity. For example, simulated gravity is achived on the stations by rotating. However, it only works because your body constantly accelerating into the ring's floor; Thus, simulating gravity. If you were to jump on the station's Orbis ring you wouldn't be pulled back down.
Though people do live there like us on Earth. So, that leaves us three possibilities: Either the Orbis ring naturally has a super high density composite under the cities creating enough graitational force to justify 0.1g - 1g of force, everyone wears magnetised boots, or artificial gravity is generated in Grav Wells (not lore friendly).

 

[Captain N]

-Ships arent designed the way they are in the expanse Yeah, agreed. You wouldn't get internal gravity from the main thrusters. You'd have to set the ship to thrust vertically.

Time to accelerate to full speed (220 m/s) using the main thrusters of a stock Sidewinder - 8 seconds

Time to decelerate to 0 from full speed (220 m/s) using the vertical thrusters of a stock Sidewinder - 4 seconds

Seemingly the translational RCS in Elite ships are capable of producing at least up to 2 times the amount of thrust as the large main engines in the rear. So maybe they indeed are designed to fly "upwards" like ships in The Expanse. The flight computer just won't let us.

 

[Morbad]

If ships can hover long-time then they can long-time accelerate with 1g.

Not with the current speed caps in place, at least not without flying in circles.

 

[Herbrand]

Physicist here. The problem with Elite is that the flight model doesn't allow you to keep accelerating endlessly like it happens in real world, as speeds are capped (yes, you can accelerate endlessly in real life and yet never travel at speeds higher than the speed of light, but that would take us into a general relativity class that I'm not ready to impart), so you could not achieve artificial/simulated gravity in the way you said. You could, however, travel in a constant barrel roll fashion achieving the same effect as seen in the space stations to "generate" artificial/simulated gravity (centrifugal "force"). Flying like that would also be hella fun!!

That's what I was thinking, you put in words better than how I could. I think for long flights (~days) it would make sense.

 

[Limoncello Lizard]

If you were to jump on the station's Orbis ring you wouldn't be pulled back down.

Correct. You wouldn't be pulled back down. The ground would come up to meet you because you would still have a lot of sideways momentum. I doubt you could tell the difference between this and gravity.

 

[LKx]

.
Besides, our ships accelerate to a speed and maintain it, we can't make our ships constantly accelerate in real space like they do in supercruise.

Well, actually in supercruise you don't accelerate at all, so in supercruise there's 0g, unless the fsd generates some kind of gravity.

Thinking harder there's the artificial speed limit in normal space... So they actually can't simulate gravity

 

[Siobhan]

Have a look at the ship hangers in outpost stations one day. Not the ones on rocks, nor spinning stations... just a lone outpost.
Then look again.

So now think, ladders are useful, even in zero G you can pull yourdelf along them.

Now, look again.
And notice the stairs.

Not ladders
Stairs

So return to the surface
Now wonder why there are zero gravity notices everywhere on the pads.

If the whole station is in 0g, then what purpose do such notices serve?

The problem with E is the Lore doesn't match the models.

(Also in Elite '84, there quite clearly was artificial gravity)