Fiction Time in space: How much?

[CMDR Byr Goefin]

In writing Byr's story, it became clear that I needed time for things to happen on the ship.

I am estimating, for purposes of RP, that travel from one system to another is around 3 to 6 hrs.

Does this sound reasonable?

Less? More?

 

[Susimetsa]

That is one of the problem areas with the latest game in the series. Back with the Gen1 and Gen2 hyperspace drives, it was clear that time was spent during the travel (ship clock sped forward when you jumped - in FFE it actually took a few days to arrive to a new system (now, the question back then was whether the jumps were instantaneous from the pilot's perspective or if the ship actually spent that time in hyperspace)). With the Gen3 drives, the jumps are basically instant and the time scale is the same you experience when you play the game. This is a bit of a problem when you want there to be time for something to happen _during_ the travel time when you write fiction...

 

[drew]

As Marko says, jumps are near instantaneous now. What you see in game is what fictional folks would see. To answer your question, it could be as low as 5 minutes for a single jump.

Have them stop over at a station if you need a 'pause' for a story telling reason.

Cheers,

Drew.

 

[Adam Lusardi]

Or go on a visit to Hutton Orbital (but that's not one system to another)

 

[CMDR Byr Goefin]

As Marko says, jumps are near instantaneous now. What you see in game is what fictional folks would see. To answer your question, it could be as low as 5 minutes for a single jump.

Have them stop over at a station if you need a 'pause' for a story telling reason.

Cheers,

Drew.

I have to
reread a couple of the canonical books I have that describe much longer times getting to the jump point... but the jump was instantaneous.

Makes me wonder why these ships have so much living room for those on board. When would they use it?
Can't imagine you would want to live on the ship in the docking bay when you have a station with services available.

 

[Susimetsa]

The living areas are a remnant from the time of the Generation 2 drives when the travel times were much longer. It is only about a decade that the Gen3 drives have been around, so the ships have not changed that much. And, of course, you may end up needing the living areas aboard your ship when you explore areas where there are no stations available, or land on scarcely populated planets and want to save money on hotel bills (watching the Firely TV series, the crew seemed to live aboard their ship even when they were spending time in a small town).

 

[CMDR Byr Goefin]

I guess I need the time for on-board narrative, since one of the characters cannot leave the ship for plot reasons, mainly needing advanced holoprojection to manifest.

Byr talking to a disembodied voice would less dramatic.

I guess in my mind having the ablity to cross such vast distances without any flight time just does not make sense in a story, but makes perfect sense in game.

ARTISTIC LICENSE! I WANTS IT!

 

[Susimetsa]

Yup, I agree. That was one of my worries as a writer back in the day when the Gen3 drives and changes to the "old way" were introduced to the tie-in fiction writers. Instant hyperjumps make the space feel so small that there's little time for "down time" and simple living aboard a spaceship anymore.

It all depends on your wishes as a writer, really. If you are willing to relax a little bit when it comes to being true to the game universe, then giving the characters a bit of time to fool around during jumps is something that you can naturally do. But if you want to stay strictly with the game universe rules, you may have to change the way you tell the story.

 

[Allen Stroud]

'Drive skipping' is explained in Lave Revolution; a way in which pre-Gen3 drives could be used to short the times, but hours is still given as a duration. The Gollancz writers mention 'microjumping' too.

I did write up the process of 'drive skipping' as a cover for the change and submitted this. It detailed the way in which the Stardreamer was phased out, but it was a long time after the guidebooks had been done. Michael Brookes would be the authoritative source on how things fitted together.

 

[Miko_Stargazer]

I guess I need the time for on-board narrative, since one of the characters cannot leave the ship for plot reasons, mainly needing advanced holoprojection to manifest.

I guess in my mind having the ablity to cross such vast distances without any flight time just does not make sense in a story, but makes perfect sense in game.

ARTISTIC LICENSE! I WANTS IT!

My interpretation of the near instantaneous transfer is closely tied to the reference to entering "witch space." Note, I haven't read any of the fiction aside from the first half of Dark Wheel so this is pretty much all from my in game experience

Contention: Traveling between stars via witch space is not 'travel' per se but more of an inter dimensional teleport where speed no longer has meaning.

exhibit A: When you travel between two systems, your speedometer goes absolutely nuts. You could interpret this as being like your speed is constantly going off scale, like one of those circular weight scales spinning all the way around...but that makes no sense for a digital display. Instead I would argue your speedometer is trying to figure out how fast you are going and it just has no eartlhy idea.

exhibit B: When you travel between stars, it doesn't matter if you're just hopping to the closest possible star or going 35 ly in your anaconda, you will see stars streaming by you and nebulas dancing around in all directions. It's almost as though travelling through witch space is making you exist everywhere at once before finally dropping you back into reality.

exhibit C: there is no correlation whatsoever between how long you are in witch space and how far your destination is. Most warps last the requisite 15 seconds tops, but I have had my warp kind of get stuck for a full minute in the past. This obviously was because the server was having a little trouble loading that star system, but from an in game perspective you can see time and distance lose a lot of meaning.

Conclusion: For artistic license, you could argue that normally it takes 15 seconds to a minute to get through witch space, but what if something goes wrong? Maybe an FSD malfunction can leave you stuck in witchspace for an hour while your computer tries to track down the problem and properly orients you back in reality.

It's a thought.

 

[Allen Stroud]

My interpretation of the near instantaneous transfer is closely tied to the reference to entering "witch space." Note, I haven't read any of the fiction aside from the first half of Dark Wheel so this is pretty much all from my in game experience

I'm afraid we got told pretty early on, witchspace wasn't 'the new black' as it were. Hyperspace is the Elite Dangerous concept, which I think is a shame as if you've read Holdstock's other writing, you'll know he was a very prominent mythologist and the hints he left in The Dark Wheel suggested all sorts of nefarious goings on in that space between spaces.

Contention: Traveling between stars via witch space is not 'travel' per se but more of an inter dimensional teleport where speed no longer has meaning.

exhibit A: When you travel between two systems, your speedometer goes absolutely nuts. You could interpret this as being like your speed is constantly going off scale, like one of those circular weight scales spinning all the way around...but that makes no sense for a digital display. Instead I would argue your speedometer is trying to figure out how fast you are going and it just has no eartlhy idea.

exhibit B: When you travel between stars, it doesn't matter if you're just hopping to the closest possible star or going 35 ly in your anaconda, you will see stars streaming by you and nebulas dancing around in all directions. It's almost as though travelling through witch space is making you exist everywhere at once before finally dropping you back into reality.

exhibit C: there is no correlation whatsoever between how long you are in witch space and how far your destination is. Most warps last the requisite 15 seconds tops, but I have had my warp kind of get stuck for a full minute in the past. This obviously was because the server was having a little trouble loading that star system, but from an in game perspective you can see time and distance lose a lot of meaning.

Conclusion: For artistic license, you could argue that normally it takes 15 seconds to a minute to get through witch space, but what if something goes wrong? Maybe an FSD malfunction can leave you stuck in witchspace for an hour while your computer tries to track down the problem and properly orients you back in reality.

It's a thought.

Indeed it is. However, there's always a need to establish consistency across the fiction where possible and the kind of blanket explanation assertions in an official novel that tie the game to a particular concept are something we were advised to avoid, particularly as we were writing whilst things were being developed. That said, I like your explanation and in the absence of another one, it would work well, particularly if spouted by a scientist in an appropriately crafted scene. That way it'd be a perspective and potential something to be contended against if needed.

 

[drew]

Hyperspace is the technical term, witch-space is the colloquial term. It's as simple as that. Older travellers will typically use the latter. As to whether anything spooky can happen when you're making a jump between stars... wait and see.

Cheers,

Drew.

 

[Durandal_1707]

Hello commander, you could always come up with an excuse for the protagonists ship to have an gen2 fsd, fixes both problems. maybe a malfunction where the only available option is to go planetside looking for a replacement only to find a very old derelict with a functional gen2.