Community Event / Creation Hyperspace engines - Useful but dangerous.

[SnowGhost]

OK, So i'm not writing a book. And everyone can feel free to ignore my suggestion here or add to it. Frontier can take it and say "This, we love it, we're going to use it". I give permission for that here. [edit] deleted something irrelevant [end edit] More likely is, they'll not use it.

I wanted to say something in the Hyperspace DDF thread but didn't get to it in time. So, I guess fan creations is a better place than anywhere else now.

There was a lot of fluff about how they might work. How much fuel they use, if normal space flight uses fuel, etc etc.

This is my suggestion on how this could be explained.

Any mention of pink unicorns means I haven't fleshed it out enough and someone else can remove pink unicorns and add a better solution.



Hyperspace engines work by creating a warp in space time and squeezing the ship into that warp. This warp can extend for considerable distance, but there are limits created by the mass of the ship, the fuel, how quickly that fuel can be used. Because of limits imposed by jumping in gravitational fields accuracy limits the distance to approximately 15 light years. if you try and jump further than what accuracy can deliver then you may exit hyperspace inside a planet. That would be bad. However it takes a lot of energy and fuel to warp that far.

Accuracy is also affected by usage and system maintenance.

The Hyperspace engine is, surprisingly enough, also used to move the ship in normal space.
How this works is the engine warps space within itself, rather than around the ship, and the engine slides into this space warp, dragging the ship along. By moving the location of the warp within the engine it is possible to manoeuvre the ship.
This also explains why space ships manoeuvre like atmospheric aircraft. Ships must curve around and accelerate/slow gradually.
Happily, because humanity evolved on a planet the human mind copes much better with this control requirement than what ancient man imagined would be the case of Newtonian controls (ie, space ships travel in straight lines until acted upon by external forces).
While technically the hyperspace engine could start flying immediately in reverse, in reality all that happens is the engine rips out and the ship disintegrates. This limits the acceleration available to the strength of the engine materials and mounting blocks. It would be possible to entirely rip the engine out of the ship if to high acceleration was attempted.
Computer control constrains acceleration and deceleration to acceptable limits even if the throttle/brakes or steering controls are applied to quickly.

This space warping does of course use fuel. But the power required and distance travelled is so minute compared to 15 light year hyperspace jumps that the usage is utterly irrelevant.

The exhaust seen behind space ships isn't propulsion, like the old style earth rockets. It is in fact just a toxic by-product that must be disposed of. So you need to keep your engine well serviced otherwise the by-product may leak into your cabin and kill you.

While simple logic would suggest that in space, with the near limitless power available from the Hyper space engine, top speed would be virtually unlimited, experiment proved this was incorrect. What happens is that the fabric of spacetime itself starts to revolt against the warping generated by the hyperspace engine within the small gravitation warp generated by the mass of the space ship. The faster the ship and more massive it is the greater the universe resists.

This revolt against spacetime warp within a gravity field also prevents making hyperspace jumps near to planets space stations.
[edit] Additionally this prevents space ships having an artificial gravity construct as it would completely prevent travel by hyperspace drive and hypersace warp. [end edit]
It also explains why space ships must power their engines continuously. If the ship powers down its engine it will coast to a stop. This is a combination of conservation of energy, entropy, the 2nd law of thermodynamics and invisible pink unicorn farts.

Space ship engineering is a constant fight to improve the ratios of ship & mass and abilities of engines while trying to dodge the unavoidable limits imposed by the Universe. Many engineers have commented that their job would be so much easier if the universe was just a little more co-operative.

Theoretical physicists have predicted that if a space ship of zero mass could mount an engine also of zero mass then a hyperspace engine could attain that ultimate speed of exactly the speed of light and could jump within any gravity well. Engineers have pointed out that this line for thought is stupid and that the speed of light doesn't apply to objects of zero mass anyway.

 

[Cmdr Andy B]

if your after credit over and above 'special thanks to all those who contributed both time and money to help make this game,' then I'm afraid your'e ruling your idea out on day one.

 

[SnowGhost]

if your after credit over and above 'special thanks to all those who contributed both time and money to help make this game,' then I'm afraid your'e ruling your idea out on day one.

Bah.

Well in that case.

Just use it. I'd rather see that I'd made a difference than see my name. I know what I added or altered and what I didn't. And no one else here knows who I am.

 

[Cmdr Andy B]

Bah.

Well in that case.

Just use it. I'd rather see that I'd made a difference than see my name. I know what I added or altered and what I didn't. And no one else here knows who I am.

yup, most of us feel the same. by the time the game is released it will be almost impossible to prove who had the idea in any case, we may of been brainstorming ideas for three months but David has been thinking them up for three decades or more.

who is to say one of the brilliant idea's we come up with in the forums doesn't already exist in a file on frontier's network? created years before the KS was an option.

you have one or two good ideas there, 'Accuracy is also affected by usage and system maintenance' for example, but if you want people to add to it I'd ask the mods to move the thread into game features and see what replies you get, this is probably the least frequented of the forums within the ED section so a lot of users will only see this thread when it's added too if it's left here.

 

[SnowGhost]

I put it here because it seems to suit better.

I think Michael is going to have a hard time trying to get 10 or 12 different authors all writing different books in the not well defined Elite universe.

It does have hyperspace, but that is about all we know. It used to take some real time, but I'm assuming the Elite canon will handwave that with "technological advances". But as far as I know I've not seen any even half way decription of how it works, or how the ships move without using much fuel. My thought was to try and fill that specific gap with something that is somewhat self consistent. And even that required a bit of hand waving.

I was also trying to fill out why the ships to move like they are in an atmosphere, yet have always had some sort of exhaust out the back. It's just exhaust and not propulsion.

 

[Cmdr Andy B]

I put it here because it seems to suit better.

I think Michael is going to have a hard time trying to get 10 or 12 different authors all writing different books in the not well defined Elite universe.

not sure about that, if you were writing about driving to the shops you wouldn't waste 5 words of describing how the car works - if you did it would look a little silly.

this is from the 'Writers guide' thread taken from This post

Don’t info dump. Remember your characters live on a spaceship, you absolutely mustn’t explain how things work. Would you explain how your car engine works if you were narrating a trip to the shops?

"Jason climbed into his silver Audi TT, which he named Roadslayer, and turned on the ignition for the petrol-powered internal combustion engine. It revved loudly as the chemical energy stored from millions of years of fossilied life ignited with oxygen in the combustion chamber, forcing steel pistons to oscillate and turbine blades to whir at thousands of revs per second. 'This time,' his deep voice murmured above the whistling noise of the platinum-infused catalytic exhaust system, 'I won't forget the milk.'"

see what i mean? too heavy on the details it comes over like a tech manual, good for a wiki, very very very bad for a book.

to be honest i think core technologies would be more important to the writers, questions like 'what sort of personal tech do people carry in 1100 years?' and details like what types of equipment are on each ship? even then a lot of it can be written without needing the names, it fills your story with placeholder words but those can be changed as the game nears completion and the blanks are filled in.

for example personal tech can be added like this:

'Harry grabbed his PTItem1 from the locker and slipped it into the top pocket of his flight suit.'

then you just use PTItem1 as you would any multi function device in the story, if your'e unsure the device in question will do what you want once included in the game just add a modifier.

'Harry waved his PTItem1 around the office, it's highly illegal scanner warbling to itself as it sough out and neutralized security sensors.'

'it's highly illegal scanner.' allows a little wiggle room on the devices use as far as the cannon goes.

Okay so it's not easy and there will be rewrites but unless someone tries to get too cleaver with themselves i can't see a major problem. take my own fan fiction as an example, described as having a 'live-wire opening' by one reviewer and enjoyed by all that have read it so far, both science fiction fan and non science fiction fan alike.

that opens with my main character refilling his hyperspace fuel from a type O star, 2300 words in that first chapter and i never even include the type of gas he is collecting as fuel.

 

[Susimetsa]

unless someone tries to get too cleaver with themselves i can't see a major problem.

Yup, that might get very bloody, very quickly.

But, yes, the Elite universe needs some clarifications to be consistently described in fiction. Some can be avoided simply, while other aspects will become glaringly obvious if described in different ways in each story. But, we have the writers' forum to sort all that out in the long run, so we should be ok if only we get a green light to the basic premises of each story and everyone can start writing.

I think Michael is going to have a hard time trying to get 10 or 12 different authors all writing different books in the not well defined Elite universe.

It's actually 24 - 30 authors, since there are 15 authors working on the Anthology alone and some other projects also include multiple authors...

 

[Cmdr Andy B]

It's actually 24 - 30 authors, since there are 15 authors working on the Anthology alone and some other projects also include multiple authors...

Cleaver/clever, to be fair i had just got up.

if you include the crowd sourced book that figure could be well over a hundred, I expect only the editor/organizer has access to the writers forums though so it will be her job to ensure the story stays within the canon.

saw in the news letter that we will be getting fiction updates soon - waiting with notepad in hand for that

 

[SnowGhost]

It's actually 24 - 30 authors, since there are 15 authors working on the Anthology alone and some other projects also include multiple authors...

I'd forgotten that. Makes it even harder.

Undoubtedly there will be numerous references to ancient history, Raxxla, The dark wheel and they all have to be somewhat consistent.

 

[Cmdr Andy B]

I'd forgotten that. Makes it even harder.

Undoubtedly there will be numerous references to ancient history, Raxxla, The dark wheel and they all have to be somewhat consistent.

what what I've read Michael is writing a universe bible as well as the dark wheel squeal and a few others have been asked to revise the historical side of things to bring it in line with the rebooted canon. a framework is being constructed for the writers to follow, it's just that some details will need to be filled in later and writers can't get to clever without taking a cleaver to their story come submission time.

still plenty of room for some good writing, but a little harder in some areas than having the freedom to make up your own universe and technology as you go.

if the writers wanted that they never would of bought into the project.

Edit: there are some fun idea's coming out to get round the various limitations of reality that will impact the fiction, here's a comical one I posted in the why not ag thread:

The pilot's federation recognizes the health implications of zero g living, to counter these effects it enforces a mandatory rest period in normal gravity of six hours out of every 24. traders sign up to this as a condition of holding a game-world licence. in real life this mandatory 1g period is refered to by several names, 'going to get a life,' 'logging off' and the more widely used term 'getting some sleep.'

 

[Darren Grey]

still plenty of room for some good writing, but a little harder in some areas than having the freedom to make up your own universe and technology as you go.

if the writers wanted that they never would of bought into the project.

From a writing perspective limits can be a good thing. And getting to integrate things in the Elite universe is outright cool. Plus Michael and co have been great so far. I'm looking forward to Elite 4 launch day - it'll have about 15 complete canon books all integrating and fitting with the game. How many other games can boast that?!

Regarding hyperspace, it gets a character from point A to point B. We know that it does so rather fast now, which from a narrative perspective is generally good. Beyond its use for transport it really has little bearing on character actions or interactions, which are the heart of any story. Writing good science fiction is exactly the same as writing in the real world, as ultimately it comes down to the characters not the technology.

Of course we nerd do like to geek out over the tech stuff, with lots of hand-waving pulp theoretical physics bandied about. But none of that has any place in a story!