Remember that the underlying principle of FSD travel is that your ship itself is not moving, but moving the space around it. So gravitational attraction, even from large masses, are going to be negligible compared to what you can travel in a second of SC. So for example, if you fly slowly past a star in SC, say for the length of about 30 seconds, its gravity has only pulled you a little towards it (online calculators say that at the Sun's surface, gravity would be 265 m/s^2, something even a Sidewinder could counter in normal space).
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Newcomer / Intro Slow down
- Thread starter Cradle2Grave
- Start date
Cradle2Grave
Banned
So what does slow me down?
See my post #18. My theory anyway, based on what FSD is supposed to be doing to make you move.
As an analogy, imagine a propeller of a ship. If the waters became thicker, it would be harder for the prop to turn and push the ship at the same speed. Sort of the same idea.
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Cradle2Grave
Banned
OK I get that but what is making the 'water' thicker? If not some kind of reverse gravity (repelling not attracting)? I'm not trying to be annoying I am just trying to understand it. If it acts in an opposite way to gravity then why has the game, that is based so carefully on real stuff, included something as (perhaps!) un-realistic as that?
The main purpose is gameplay, of course. We need to have some type of FTL travel to make the game playable. But in the aspect of trying to explain what is going on in the ED universe, for whatever reason a gravitational field resists being changed by a FSD. So warping near a body requires more work.
Heavy objects exert "frame drag" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frame-dragging - the way I see it, the Frame Shift drive controller slows you down in the presence of a heavy mass so the drive can accurately compensate for the frame dragging. Otherwise your ship would get torn apart. That's how I explain it in my head anyway.
Gravity does exist in the game, otherwise you would get no orbiting objects.
Gravity does exist in the game, otherwise you would get no orbiting objects.
For one, you are generally going faster than light speed, so gravity isn't going to accelerate you any more as you are already doing the impossible!
For another, I like to think of it like the drives in Iain Banks' books, which reach through to other dimensions to grab traction. The mass of a body inhibits this ability, thus reducing the traction your drive can get, which means you begin to drop back toward normal light speeds as your super duper break the laws of physics drive is no longer able to function as well.
But feel free to explain it however you wish! As they say - it is what it is!
For another, I like to think of it like the drives in Iain Banks' books, which reach through to other dimensions to grab traction. The mass of a body inhibits this ability, thus reducing the traction your drive can get, which means you begin to drop back toward normal light speeds as your super duper break the laws of physics drive is no longer able to function as well.
But feel free to explain it however you wish! As they say - it is what it is!
Gravity from large objects messes with your Frame Shift Drive, making it less efficient.
You can't go faster than the speed of light, 1c. That's a basic physical law. FSD gets around that much the same way that the Star Trek Enterprise does. Instead of trying to go faster , it warps space around it. It bends space towards it. Think of space like a long carpet, you pull the space towards you. you can go the equivalent of many times the speed of light. However, you are the only thing that warps space. Massive objects warp space as well. That's what gravity is, it's a massive object warping space, like a bowling ball on a trampoline , it bends the area around it. (That bit is actually true in the real world, not just in game, things fall towards the earth because they are actually falling into a curved space. We don't see the curve since it's all around us. not just very big things warp space, everything does, even you, even your laptop. But we are so small in a relative sense, that it's like a feather on the aforementioned trampoline, not much effect at all).
So when you are using your space warping drive and you come upon an area that's already warped by a much larger object, like a planet or sun, the ability of your FSD engines to warp space is reduced, which shows up as you slowing down.
That;s a combo of what's in the docs and what I have fleshed out on my own. It works quite well for me.
Cradle2Grave
Banned
Frame drag is caused by mass therefore by gravity?
I heard that there was no gravity in the game.
I heard that there was no gravity in the game.
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What i meant is that the game does not try in any way to simulate "gravity", no matter what you do, there is no force whatsoever that attracts you towards any planets/stars, perhaps there will be some degree of that when we can land on planet, when we'll get close to them i mean.
Going "RP", then you can always make up an explanation where space distorsion(yes gravity) is the cause, as FSD is precisely about distording space in such a way that it allows your ship to bypass the Light speed limit. So you can always pretend there is some kind of conflict between the two. But Remember, when you select/unselect a POI, it will have an impact on your FSD Speed. Especially if it is very close to you, no matter if it is a USS, far from any planet. Suddendly it looks more like some kind of build-in safety/assist in the FSD than the effect of gravity'/space distorsion.
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Avago Earo
Banned
Oh, the reasons for this mechanic in the game are obvious, even at near light speed it would take a lifetime to get nowhere. Space/time warping is not impossible according to scientific calculations and experiments though these experiments on a very small scale and not conclusive.
I am not scientifically minded and have what I imagine is an average curiosity, so I'm just going by T.V. programs and light reading standards.
Here's a video on the subject. From 6:30 mins there is a demonstration of producing negative energy:
[video=youtube;dXyQ92SPWds]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXyQ92SPWds&list=PLMCSvVCM_Up6R82mud9VYM1eWwnl-PQ4V&index=1[/video]
I am not scientifically minded and have what I imagine is an average curiosity, so I'm just going by T.V. programs and light reading standards.
Here's a video on the subject. From 6:30 mins there is a demonstration of producing negative energy:
[video=youtube;dXyQ92SPWds]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXyQ92SPWds&list=PLMCSvVCM_Up6R82mud9VYM1eWwnl-PQ4V&index=1[/video]
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forumuser8276
Banned
I wondered too. Thanks for the answers.
I thought it was simply some kind of "gravitational" answer (and in some cases it is - if you travel very close to a planet you'll go quite "slowly" even at max throttle, but get out of the gravity well and you'll speed up rapidly).
But generally - it's just to make the re-entry procedure easier for pilots, without making it all automatic. If you're looking for an in-universe explanation - assume any FrameShift Drive (which always sounds like "Friendship Drive" to me.. awww!) has a built-in safety device / pilot aid. Without the automatic deceleration, there would be some problems:
- Letting the player do the braking themselves, which would lead to ridiculous overshoots. Travelling at 1000+ times the speed of light (that's ~300,000 km per second) and trying to get your ship to within 1,000 Km though stabbing the brakes at the right time? Not going to happen. You'd have a window of ~ 0.00333 seconds at that speed. I'm 41, maybe my reaction times are a bit too slow for that now.....
- Giving the ships Insane Braking Ability(tm). The ships could go from 1000+ c to 0 in the space of 1,000 Km (by my calculations, that's about 4,582,484,726 negative G; but that could be very wrong). That would give you quite the headache, if anyone ever found your head or what's left of it.
They could just make it all happen automatically, but I actually prefer the challenge of it and getting it done right and quickly. I even developed a different method now than when I started: now I go full throttle all the way, until I get the Slow Down warning (too late already). I zero the throttle until I'm fight underneath the planet, then (with the throttle in the blue zone) I loop back around and inevitably I end up 1-5 Ls away from the planet and travelling at the right speed to cruise the rest of the way in quickly enough. It's less fiddly, and feels a lot faster.
But generally - it's just to make the re-entry procedure easier for pilots, without making it all automatic. If you're looking for an in-universe explanation - assume any FrameShift Drive (which always sounds like "Friendship Drive" to me.. awww!) has a built-in safety device / pilot aid. Without the automatic deceleration, there would be some problems:
- Letting the player do the braking themselves, which would lead to ridiculous overshoots. Travelling at 1000+ times the speed of light (that's ~300,000 km per second) and trying to get your ship to within 1,000 Km though stabbing the brakes at the right time? Not going to happen. You'd have a window of ~ 0.00333 seconds at that speed. I'm 41, maybe my reaction times are a bit too slow for that now.....
- Giving the ships Insane Braking Ability(tm). The ships could go from 1000+ c to 0 in the space of 1,000 Km (by my calculations, that's about 4,582,484,726 negative G; but that could be very wrong). That would give you quite the headache, if anyone ever found your head or what's left of it.
They could just make it all happen automatically, but I actually prefer the challenge of it and getting it done right and quickly. I even developed a different method now than when I started: now I go full throttle all the way, until I get the Slow Down warning (too late already). I zero the throttle until I'm fight underneath the planet, then (with the throttle in the blue zone) I loop back around and inevitably I end up 1-5 Ls away from the planet and travelling at the right speed to cruise the rest of the way in quickly enough. It's less fiddly, and feels a lot faster.
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