The realism on your speed of light and your black holes

[modiX]

Hello community and developers (I hope),

lately I came across your game and this is what I ever wanted. A great very realistic space simulation for what I would get an expensive HOTAS. I did not buy the game so far, I just saw some gameplay videos. And then I got sad a little bit. Even when it's so near of realism, traveling from one system to another is clearly wrong implemented.

Firstly, the problem is how the game presents traveling speed of light. It's wrong and looks not real, see https://youtu.be/lD08CuUi_Ek?t=6m13s to let Michael from VSauce explain it. In this video he explains when getting close to c your FOV would increase drastically because you can see the light behind you traveling in your direction, because you travel with it. This would let everything appear farer away in the first moment.

Also you're getting even faster than the speed of light with that Frame Shift Drive, but there is no need to get faster than speed of light, because there is nothing faster than speed of light and it would be fast enough. Why?
Because when really reaching speed of light, you can travel forever without any instant moment is over, see https://youtu.be/ACUuFg9Y9dY?t=5m36s to even hear up on Michael and feel free to scroll to the begin for further information and more explanation.

In another gameplay video of ED I saw the SOL (the black hole in the middle of the galaxy) and I got disappointed. For this, I want to refer to a full video of Michael again: https://youtu.be/3pAnRKD4raY Sorry but this guy got it and explains it a very great way.
So in your game there is no Spaghettification when entering the black hole and wrong light effects appear when viewing to the black hole in your game. This is sad.

This game is on the top of all star simulations, and it still lacks on the right behaviors on black holes and speed of light traveling. Don't want to know how many other things are physically wrong visualized and I hope anybody can tell me developers are aware of this and planning any changes to it. Frontier, you should hire some physic professors to look over your work before publishing it.

Right now, I'm unsure to buy this or not. However, thanks for your attention.


Faithfully, modiX.

 

[modiX]

Firstly, the problem is how the game presents traveling speed of light. It's wrong and looks not real, see https://youtu.be/lD08CuUi_Ek?t=6m13s to let Michael from VSauce explain it. In this video he explains when getting close to c your FOV would increase drastically because you can see the light behind you traveling in your direction, because you travel with it. This would let everything appear farer away in the first moment.

I forgot to mention there would also be a blue shift effect (cosmic background radiation) when getting close to speed of light, see the video.

But I think I have to admit the speed of light time concept is hard to implement, since all players have to experience the same time.

 

[Slippery Jim DiGriz]

But I think I have to admit the speed of light time concept is hard to implement, since all players have to experience the same time.

Impossible to effect if all players are to have the same time.

In reality there is no way any object with mass can attain the speed of light and nor would it want to, massless objects however have to travel at the speed of light but do not experience time, a photon for example from its perspective is created, at every point on its journey and destroyed simultaneously so a space ship gaining the speed of light would instantly find itself either destroyed by crashing into something or floating around at the heat death of the universe because once at C it would be impossible to move a control or have a timer to disengage the drive.

With speeds close to C there are problems with time dilation and mass expansion, the mass is another problem at C - any mass at C would have infinite mass and I would not like to be in the same galaxy as an object with infinite mass, I'm not sure if I'd even want to be in the same universe.

So to avoid this whole mess the game authors have decreed that the "frame shift" drive does not accelerate your ship to C or multiples thereof, instead they change your frame of reference or something which gives you an effective superluminal speed but not a real one. This is a GAME not a reflection of any real propulsion methods, live with it or ignore it.

Edit - remove errant apostrophe, the little swines creep in when you least expect it.

 

[JeffRyan]

Frameshift. Not relativistic. Ergo, handwavium effects.

 

[Mystif]

I'm pretty sure you're not actually traveling at C. Instead, the frame shift drive compresses space around you by a (massive) proportion, and your main drives continue to propel you at their normal capacity, resulting in you crossing ridiculous distances proportional to the level of compression achieved by the frame shift drive. The speed measurement you see on your HUD in supercruise and hyperspace is more or less a measure of "how quickly you'll get from point A to point B compared to light."

And as a sidenote, I believe the reason you continue gaining relative speed during supercruise over long distances is because the frame shift drive continues compressing space more and more, which would explain why there's no fixed range on frameshift interdictors and your ability to tether a target in supercruise depends on your relative speed, relative to their relative speed, or perhaps the amount of space being compressed by each of you in comparison :] And I'm not sure if there's a cap to this continuous compression, as I tend to be too lazy to attempt traveling to stations more than 20,000 Ls from the arrived-at-star in any given system.

 

[Argyris]

The FSD is a pretty elegant way to avoid all those problems which are connected to the whole relativity issue. Concerning the visual effects the OP is quite right though. Instead of having light seemingly moving towards you it should rather look like you're overtaking the light when travelling faster than c.

And yes, there is a cap to the supercruise velocity. Afaik the fastest possible speed for your space odyssey is 2001c.

 

[Mystif]

Well, wouldn't the visual results be mixed? Light traveling in the same direction as you, you would overtake, at a perceived rate that would depend on your speed, but light traveling towards you would quickly whizz by at an proportionally perceived rate on the other side of the scale. And as you reach relative speeds such as those achieved in hyperspace (~1000c+?), your depth perception would probably be relatively ineffective and it would be hard to tell which direction each grouping of light particles is traveling since everything is flying by SO quickly. I could be wrong but that's what I'm envisioning.

 

[JeffRyan]

I made my wife play Elite: Dangerous for three months. When she stopped she wasn't noticeably younger.

PLEASE get the relativity right Frontier before I try such a thing again.

 

[reverendK]

expanding on this discussion:

can somebody explain to me the fiction behind the system to system jumping?
i've heard that it's using "witch space" to tunnel between two points without traversing the actual distance between those two points.
completely scientifically accurate or not i'd LOVE some lore dumps in the game somewhere to deliver the fiction used for the handwaving. i enjoy my soft-science mumbo jumbo and i wish ED gave us more of it from time to time.

 

[modiX]

Impossible to effect if all players are to have the same time.

In reality there is no way any object with mass can attain the speed of light and nor would it want to, massless objects however have to travel at the speed of light but do not experience time, a photon for example from its perspective is created, at every point on its journey and destroyed simultaneously so a space ship gaining the speed of light would instantly find itself either destroyed by crashing into something or floating around at the heat death of the universe because once at C it would be impossible to move a control or have a timer to disengage the drive.

With speeds close to C there are problems with time dilation and mass expansion, the mass is another problem at C - any mass at C would have infinite mass and I would not like to be in the same galaxy as an object with infinite mass, I'm not sure if I'd even want to be in the same universe.

Oh yes, you are absolutely right. When reaching c there is - of course - no time to able to stop again. About the increasing mass on c, I learnt something new. Thanks. So it's impossible to assume we will reach c with any mass in future.

I'm pretty sure you're not actually traveling at C. Instead, the frame shift drive compresses space around you by a (massive) proportion, and your main drives continue to propel you at their normal capacity, resulting in you crossing ridiculous distances proportional to the level of compression achieved by the frame shift drive. The speed measurement you see on your HUD in supercruise and hyperspace is more or less a measure of "how quickly you'll get from point A to point B compared to light."

Quite interesting concept. So yea, I misunderstood FSD in the first place, so it seems to be cool and sounds acceptable for me.

Well, wouldn't the visual results be mixed?

Well I think you would still see the blue shift effect (cosmic background radiation), wouldn't you?

live with it or ignore it.

Don't worry, I'm aware of my options. Just hoping any staff reads this and the developers think about it.
Thanks for your help, though.

 

[Mystif]

Well I think you would still see the blue shift effect (cosmic background radiation), wouldn't you?


Don't worry, I'm aware of my options. Just hoping any staff reads this and the developers think about it.
Thanks for your help, though.

I think you may be right about the cosmic radiation. However, I quite prefer the appearance of your slowly catching up to the streams of light traveling away from you as you enter hyperspace. I don't know if I could deal with the amount of jumps I make in an average play session if I had to stare at the same blue, gradient circle for 30 seconds per jump

 

[Gormadoc]

I'm pretty sure you're not actually traveling at C. Instead, the frame shift drive compresses space around you by a (massive) proportion, and your main drives continue to propel you at their normal capacity, resulting in you crossing ridiculous distances proportional to the level of compression achieved by the frame shift drive. The speed measurement you see on your HUD in supercruise and hyperspace is more or less a measure of "how quickly you'll get from point A to point B compared to light."

AFAIR compressing space around you to achieve "faster than light" speed requires a Gravity force minimum equivalent with a super massive black hole and even in that case the effect would be extremely limited. But maybe i mix it up with time travel theory.

Personal remark: I myself could live with " Infinite Improbability drive" much much easier to understand.

 

[Zenith]

I'll just leave the phrase "Alcubierre Drive" here.

FSD is comparable, but not identical to an Alcubierre Drive.
The problem with an AD is that it requires exotic matter, and all the photons and relativistic matter pile up on the front of the "bubble " (like dust and bugs on a windshield) and would provide a nice planet sterilising burst of high energy gamma radiation when you slow down to approach a planet.

 

[Zieman]

Oh yes, you are absolutely right. When reaching c there is - of course - no time to able to stop again. About the increasing mass on c, I learnt something new. Thanks. So it's impossible to assume we will reach c with any mass in future.


Quite interesting concept. So yea, I misunderstood FSD in the first place, so it seems to be cool and sounds acceptable for me.


Well I think you would still see the blue shift effect (cosmic background radiation), wouldn't you?


Don't worry, I'm aware of my options. Just hoping any staff reads this and the developers think about it.
Thanks for your help, though.

I'm sure they will. I bet that how space travel works in the game isn't going to change though.

If you're interested on how the current system came about, have a look at these :

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=4809
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=5143
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=5443
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=5669
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=5710
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=5728
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/forumdisplay.php?f=38
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=7892

 

[modiX]

I'm sure they will. I bet that how space travel works in the game isn't going to change though.

If you're interested on how the current system came about, have a look at these :

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=4809
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=5143
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=5443
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=5669
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=5710
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=5728
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/forumdisplay.php?f=38
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=7892

Wow, thanks for those links, I should have spend more time on this forum before posting.
The team cares a lot about the design progress, so my first post is a bit odd. Sorry for that.

However, I still hope they will take care about the visualization of FSD and black holes, generally.

 

[Zieman]

However, I still hope they will take care about the visualization of FSD and black holes, generally.

Room for improvement in both, no doubt.

 

[Hagledesperado]

A subtle red/blueshift in supercruise would be nice, and maybe a narrowing of the field of view (outside the ship) when starting a hyperjump, but IMO it is a matter of taste. ED is not hard science fiction, so the art people will do what the art people will do, and I'll probably be happy either way.

 

[Slippery Jim DiGriz]

Blue shifting should be observed at speeds under but approaching C, but when crossing space at apparent speeds in excess of C by whatever devious means I'm pretty sure your computers would serve you up a view of what you'd see if the light was working like it does when you are as close to stationary as you can be (really the term "stationary" is nonsense in space, you can only be stationary relative to another object), as I suspect the actual view would be unintelligible to human eyes with everything shifted well out of the visible spectrum.

Well, wouldn't the visual results be mixed? Light traveling in the same direction as you, you would overtake, at a perceived rate that would depend on your speed, but light traveling towards you would quickly whizz by at an proportionally perceived rate on the other side of the scale.

Gosh, if life were only that simple. From the perspective of an observer all light is moving at C irrespective of the velocity of that observer, the observers perception of time will of course vary to allow for this, this is (a simplistic explanation of) why time dilates at high speeds. All the maths falls apart at speeds in excess of C, the sums all veer off into imaginary numbers (square roots of negative numbers) and those don't work too well in the physical universe.

 

[elrogarddublanc]

Frameshift. Not relativistic. Ergo, handwavium effects.

+1 to this. It's a game, with its own lore and sci-fi implementation. Who is to say how friendship drive works?

 

[CipherZR032]

I'll just leave the phrase "Alcubierre Drive" here.

FSD is comparable, but not identical to an Alcubierre Drive.
The problem with an AD is that it requires exotic matter, and all the photons and relativistic matter pile up on the front of the "bubble " (like dust and bugs on a windshield) and would provide a nice planet sterilising burst of high energy gamma radiation when you slow down to approach a planet.

This is how I also assume the FSD works similarly to.
What I don't get is why killing the thrusters stops the drive from working in the game, as they would be two separate methods of traveling, or am I mistaken.
Thrusters move the ships by physically accelerating them and the FSD allows for FTL travel by moving the space the ships are on thereby bending the known laws of physics not braking them.

Also it would be a very exciting huge leap for mankind if they can get Alcubierre Drives out of just being theory, somehow discover the necessary negative matter and make practical working versions of them.
Just a dream though at this stage