Wouldn't it be cool to see the celestial bodies move as they actually would if we approached them in FTL in-system frame-shift drive?
I will give the scientific background below, first a summary of the idea.
Proposal: We don't see celestial bodies as they are, we see them as they were when the light started traveling towards us. An object 600 light seconds away appears to be as it was 10 minutes ago. As we travel faster than light, we move through the light that the object emitted; for example, if we travel 10C, the object we're flying towards would appear as if moving 10 times faster.
Visual: planets would rotate faster, satellites would spin visibly around their gas giant as we approach, or move backwards if we travel away, and return to their position if we go back towards them.
Concordance: the actual coordinates of bodies is computed as now; it's just the visual representation that changes depending with the current distance.
No game mechanic change: This needs not to apply to other objects in frameshift drive, as they are already supposed to move "outside the space-time continuum", so we could simply ignore time dilation for other objects in FTL -- no change in-game to piracy or interdiction mechanics needed.
Technical: Only the visual representation of stationary objects would require adjustment. ED already computes the actual movement of the bodies, and does so with a somewhat precise accuracy. I think there is a tick in the simulation of the positions of bodies every minute. Absolute precision is not necessary, a linear interpolation of the expected position at light-time distance would be more than enough to give the effect.
Navigation: very little would actually change: in manual navigation, we already need to perform constant adjustments to follow the objects we point to, and in FSD assist the computer would simply point at the object where it appears to be from our current position, following the change in apparent position more or less as it does now. The only difference would be that we may 1) need to be a bit more pro-active in following static objects as they change position through time dilation and 2) see some subtle re-alignment of satellites and planet rotations as we approach them -- OR, and that's what I really like -- learn to anticipate where an object will be as we reach it.
[This may be very subtle: let's consider for example a planetary system 6kls out; that's 100 minutes. This means that when we reach the destination, the target planet will be where it would have moved in 100 minutes, or 1h20m, which I expect to be 1-10 planetary sizes. It may be barely noticeable, but noticeable enough in the orbit of its satellites that appear to subtly move as we approach].
Scientific background: There are two possible reasons why we observe a finite speed of light.
1) Either the universe is actually a space-time continuum, where every point is defined by 3 spatial and 1 temporal dimension, which causes objects in different places to experience also different times, or
2) There is a limit to the speed at which a change can be transmitted from a plank-size quantum to another -- in which case, we can REPRESENT the structure of the universe AS IF it was a spacetime continuum.
In both cases, general relativity provides a mathematical/geometrical 4-dimensional representation of the universe as space-time, which is in case 1 exactly matching the ontology of the universe, and in case 2 representing it well enough at a macroscopic scale to match our computations with the observed effects.
As we travel faster and faster through space, we also travel through time. Proxima Centauri is not "just" 4.2 light years away, it is ACTUALLY 4.2 YEARS away in time. Moving at the speed of light means to arrive there INSTANTLY, and INSTANTLY move into the TIME of Proxima Centauri, which is 4.2 years away from our time.
Now, this would be impractical in-game: things happening at a every starport would actually happen at different times: you subscribe for a community goal that lasts a week, go get some cargo in a system 40ly away, and when you come back to deposit it after 5 minutes on that same starport, 80 years have passed.
For this reason, we can imagine that hyperspace jump break the space-time continuum somehow.
However, the in-system FSD works differently, and time dilation through destinations is still acceptable. Moreover, seeing the system spin faster as we approach or return back to what it was when we move away would be incredibly cool
.
I will give the scientific background below, first a summary of the idea.
Proposal: We don't see celestial bodies as they are, we see them as they were when the light started traveling towards us. An object 600 light seconds away appears to be as it was 10 minutes ago. As we travel faster than light, we move through the light that the object emitted; for example, if we travel 10C, the object we're flying towards would appear as if moving 10 times faster.
Visual: planets would rotate faster, satellites would spin visibly around their gas giant as we approach, or move backwards if we travel away, and return to their position if we go back towards them.
Concordance: the actual coordinates of bodies is computed as now; it's just the visual representation that changes depending with the current distance.
No game mechanic change: This needs not to apply to other objects in frameshift drive, as they are already supposed to move "outside the space-time continuum", so we could simply ignore time dilation for other objects in FTL -- no change in-game to piracy or interdiction mechanics needed.
Technical: Only the visual representation of stationary objects would require adjustment. ED already computes the actual movement of the bodies, and does so with a somewhat precise accuracy. I think there is a tick in the simulation of the positions of bodies every minute. Absolute precision is not necessary, a linear interpolation of the expected position at light-time distance would be more than enough to give the effect.
Navigation: very little would actually change: in manual navigation, we already need to perform constant adjustments to follow the objects we point to, and in FSD assist the computer would simply point at the object where it appears to be from our current position, following the change in apparent position more or less as it does now. The only difference would be that we may 1) need to be a bit more pro-active in following static objects as they change position through time dilation and 2) see some subtle re-alignment of satellites and planet rotations as we approach them -- OR, and that's what I really like -- learn to anticipate where an object will be as we reach it.
[This may be very subtle: let's consider for example a planetary system 6kls out; that's 100 minutes. This means that when we reach the destination, the target planet will be where it would have moved in 100 minutes, or 1h20m, which I expect to be 1-10 planetary sizes. It may be barely noticeable, but noticeable enough in the orbit of its satellites that appear to subtly move as we approach].
Scientific background: There are two possible reasons why we observe a finite speed of light.
1) Either the universe is actually a space-time continuum, where every point is defined by 3 spatial and 1 temporal dimension, which causes objects in different places to experience also different times, or
2) There is a limit to the speed at which a change can be transmitted from a plank-size quantum to another -- in which case, we can REPRESENT the structure of the universe AS IF it was a spacetime continuum.
In both cases, general relativity provides a mathematical/geometrical 4-dimensional representation of the universe as space-time, which is in case 1 exactly matching the ontology of the universe, and in case 2 representing it well enough at a macroscopic scale to match our computations with the observed effects.
As we travel faster and faster through space, we also travel through time. Proxima Centauri is not "just" 4.2 light years away, it is ACTUALLY 4.2 YEARS away in time. Moving at the speed of light means to arrive there INSTANTLY, and INSTANTLY move into the TIME of Proxima Centauri, which is 4.2 years away from our time.
Now, this would be impractical in-game: things happening at a every starport would actually happen at different times: you subscribe for a community goal that lasts a week, go get some cargo in a system 40ly away, and when you come back to deposit it after 5 minutes on that same starport, 80 years have passed.
For this reason, we can imagine that hyperspace jump break the space-time continuum somehow.
However, the in-system FSD works differently, and time dilation through destinations is still acceptable. Moreover, seeing the system spin faster as we approach or return back to what it was when we move away would be incredibly cool
.
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