Why doesn't heat increase the faster you go in supercruise?

[amadeus1171]

And for those saying that the ship isn't actually moving and that space is compressing in front and decompressing behind, w/e, I want you to try an experiment.

While in supercruise, disable your engines; not your FSD, but your engines. Tell me what happened.

 

[scadh]

It won't cost more power to push you just because you're going faster.

Newton and Einstein disagree. I'm not a physicist and don't understand all the mechanics precisely but since the topic fascinates me, I thought I'd share. Dumbed down so that even someone like me can understand, it basically works like this:

An object with mass in vacuum will continue at its speed and trajectory forever unless acted upon by an external force (Newton: "An object in motion / at rest ..."). The amount of energy required to accelerate, decelerate or change the trajectory of an object is directly proportional to its mass. Since energy and mass are equivalent (Einstein: "E=mc2"), adding energy to an object to accelerate it is the same thing as adding mass. By adding mass, the amount of energy required to accelerate it yet again is increased. As an object approaches the speed of light, its mass grows so large that all the energy in the universe would be insufficient to accelerate it further.

This is why faster-than-light travel is impossible. The cosmic speed limit is about 186,000 miles / 300,000 km per second. Even in-game lore is careful not to break this law, allowing FTL travel only by warping space while keeping the spacecraft speed within the laws of physics.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Considering in SC we move faster than the speed of light its clear the regular rules of the universe are being suspended. Its also clear that friction from atoms are not a problem, since we are travelling in kind of a warp bubble, compressing the universe in front of the ship and expanding it behind us.

Where more power generation might make sense is when we enter gravity wells, but only if we are pushing to maintain the same speed. However, our FSD, either by itself, or by the physics of it, slows us down anyway, so rather than increased heat/power we just go slower as the side effect.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

And for those saying that the ship isn't actually moving and that space is compressing in front and decompressing behind, w/e, I want you to try an experiment.

While in supercruise, disable your engines; not your FSD, but your engines. Tell me what happened.

Haven't tried it, but presume you drop out of SC?

Either way, its irrelevant, the lore is that is what the FSD is doing. Unless you want to tell FD their lore is wrong.

Reminds me of one of my players from my D&D days who used to tell me my lore was wrong (in my own homebrew setting).

 

[amadeus1171]

Haven't tried it, but presume you drop out of SC?

Either way, its irrelevant, the lore is that is what the FSD is doing. Unless you want to tell FD their lore is wrong.

Reminds me of one of my players from my D&D days who used to tell me my lore was wrong (in my own homebrew setting).

I'd like to tell FD their physics is wrong.

 

[Starshot_Jigawatts]

Newton and Einstein disagree. I'm not a physicist and don't understand all the mechanics precisely but since the topic fascinates me, I thought I'd share. Dumbed down so that even someone like me can understand, it basically works like this:

An object with mass in vacuum will continue at its speed and trajectory forever unless acted upon by an external force (Newton: "An object in motion / at rest ..."). The amount of energy required to accelerate, decelerate or change the trajectory of an object is directly proportional to its mass. Since energy and mass are equivalent (Einstein: "E=mc2"), adding energy to an object to accelerate it is the same thing as adding mass. By adding mass, the amount of energy required to accelerate it yet again is increased. As an object approaches the speed of light, its mass grows so large that all the energy in the universe would be insufficient to accelerate it further.

This is why faster-than-light travel is impossible. The cosmic speed limit is about 186,000 miles / 300,000 km per second. Even in-game lore is careful not to break this law, allowing FTL travel only by warping space while keeping the spacecraft speed within the laws of physics.

Yes well that is what we grew up understanding. Of course now cosmologists are coming up with the most fantastical unable-to-be-proven theories that don't make any sense. That the universe is full of undetectable "dark energy" pushing everything apart and that it's also made up of magical invisible undetectable "dark matter" pulling (only selective things like galaxies) together etc etc. That gravity is both repulsive and attractive depending on...errr, unicorn math.

So heck if I know what actually happens in space anymore. They say even Pluto isn't a planet anymore!

 

[scadh]

I'd like to tell FD their physics is wrong.

Well, their physics, like Star Wars, Star Trek and every other sci-fi universe you can name, is 100% made-up because real-life physics in 2021 has no mechanism to explain any means of FTL travel. I'm pretty sure the best we've got is: "Well... a wormhole is theoretically possible". . To FD's credit, at least their made-up physics obeys the "Thou Shalt Not Travel Faster Than Light" Commandment, allowing an FSD to warp space such that a ship can arrive at a destination earlier than light could have reached it, but without the ship ever having exceeded the speed of light along the way. That's something, at least.

Also, it's a game. A game you and all of us would REALLY hate playing if our ships were limited to sub-light speeds. If you started playing in 2017 and headed out in your ship for Sol's nearest neighbor, Proxima Centauri, and stayed right at light speed every minute since, you'd be almost there now!

 

[scadh]

They say even Pluto isn't a planet anymore!

Lol and many are even second-guessing that now! It's funny to think about how little we really know, and how unfathomably dumb we'll look to future scientists if our species survives on Earth into the 3300's.

 

[Thatchinho]

Newton and Einstein disagree. I'm not a physicist and don't understand all the mechanics precisely but since the topic fascinates me, I thought I'd share. Dumbed down so that even someone like me can understand, it basically works like this:

An object with mass in vacuum will continue at its speed and trajectory forever unless acted upon by an external force (Newton: "An object in motion / at rest ..."). The amount of energy required to accelerate, decelerate or change the trajectory of an object is directly proportional to its mass. Since energy and mass are equivalent (Einstein: "E=mc2"), adding energy to an object to accelerate it is the same thing as adding mass. By adding mass, the amount of energy required to accelerate it yet again is increased. As an object approaches the speed of light, its mass grows so large that all the energy in the universe would be insufficient to accelerate it further.

This is why faster-than-light travel is impossible. The cosmic speed limit is about 186,000 miles / 300,000 km per second. Even in-game lore is careful not to break this law, allowing FTL travel only by warping space while keeping the spacecraft speed within the laws of physics.

Newton and Einstein don't actually disagree with what @Commander Biscuit said.

Both you and they are correct in your descriptions.

What's key here is 'relativity', i.e. how things appear relatively to different observers.

There's two key fundamental principles:

1. The laws of physics apply equally to all observers
2. The speed of light is a constant

(What that means is that any observer will measure the speed of light to be the same, no matter what their reference frame is.)


For someone on the ship, it doesn't matter what speed they're travelling at, the laws of physics apply as normal, and if a constant thrust is applied, they will constantly accelerate, and to them they will appear to be doing so according to the standard laws of physics. (Essentially, an accelerometer in the ship will measure that they are accelerating according to the thrust exactly the same as if they started out stationary or at any other speed.)

For someone outside the ship, who the ship is accelerating relative to, the ship will indeed appear to accelerate towards the speed of light at an ever decreasing rate.


Einstein's relativity is essentially understanding working out how things will appear to different observers in different reference frames, and what that means.

 

[Lobstris]

Aside from the physics discussion, for gameplay reasons, going faster in supercruise should make you less stealthy... (and vice versa)

 

[Agony_Aunt]

I'd like to tell FD their physics is wrong.

You can try that as well.

Oh, by the way, that player of mine, his character, a wizard, ended up a small pile of dust after lore and rules lawyering against me one too many times.

 

[scadh]

Newton and Einstein don't actually disagree with what @Commander Biscuit said.

Both you and they are correct in your descriptions.

What's key here is 'relativity', i.e. how things appear relatively to different observers.

There's two key fundamental principles:

1. The laws of physics apply equally to all observers
2. The speed of light is a constant

(What that means is that any observer will measure the speed of light to be the same, no matter what their reference frame is.)


For someone on the ship, it doesn't matter what speed they're travelling at, the laws of physics apply as normal, and if a constant thrust is applied, they will constantly accelerate, and to them they will appear to be doing so according to the standard laws of physics. (Essentially, an accelerometer in the ship will measure that they are accelerating according to the thrust exactly the same as if they started out stationary or at any other speed.)

For someone outside the ship, who the ship is accelerating relative to, the ship will indeed appear to accelerate towards the speed of light at an ever decreasing rate.


Einstein's relativity is essentially understanding working out how things will appear to different observers in different reference frames, and what that means.

I was actually referring to the CMDRs comment that no additional power is required to further accelerate the ship, which is false irrespective of reference frame (isn't it?), rather than the occupant's perception of the acceleration. Regardless, nice job breaking down relativity! General and Special Relatively have always been the most fascinating thing in all of science to me. The brainpower to have been the first to CONCEIVE of that, let alone explain it, is remarkable. It's hard to fathom how that even OCCURRED to Einstein, let alone how he went about proving it! There's just so many bizarre aspects of it that are so cool to ponder. Whose favorite part about the movie Interstellar is NOT how 7 years passed for the astronaut in orbit for every hour Matthew McConaughey spent on the planet surface?!

 

[Thatchinho]

I was actually referring to the CMDRs comment that no additional power is required to further accelerate the ship, which is false irrespective of reference frame (isn't it?), rather than the occupant's perception of the acceleration.

What they said looked right to me. Just hazarding a guess here, but are/were you thinking of power in a general rather than technical sense? (I.e. using Power to mean Energy, whereas Power in this context is technically the rate of use of Energy.)

(Getting a bit late to reply to the rest properly, but thanks, and yeah that whole bit with time running at different speeds in Interstellar is very good. )

 

[Schmack]

Shouldn't this be a mechanic? And if not that, then definitely power usage should equal heat generation.

This should also hold when out of supercruise.

Heat should have a direct relation to power, and I don't see that happening in both supercruise and normal operation.

Technically it should decrease since the load on your ship is reduced (gravity). But we outrun heat, it cannot catch us, because it doesn't have a FSD interdictor.

 

[GunnerBill]

Does it need to?

 

[Morbad]

And if not that, then definitely power usage should equal heat generation.

This should also hold when out of supercruise.

Heat should have a direct relation to power, and I don't see that happening in both supercruise and normal operation.

SC has a fix power consumption, irrespective of SC velocity. The extra fuel consumption in SC doesn't translate into extra heat or extra power consumption, which is strange. However, in normal space, the ship's fuel consumption is directly tied to how much power output is actually being used by modules, which also determines standing head. Accelerating in normal space also applies an additional thermal load, but with no increase in actual power consumption, another oddity.

Yes well that is what we grew up understanding. Of course now cosmologists are coming up with the most fantastical unable-to-be-proven theories that don't make any sense. That the universe is full of undetectable "dark energy" pushing everything apart and that it's also made up of magical invisible undetectable "dark matter" pulling (only selective things like galaxies) together etc etc. That gravity is both repulsive and attractive depending on...errr, unicorn math.

No.

They say even Pluto isn't a planet anymore!

Lol and many are even second-guessing that now! It's funny to think about how little we really know, and how unfathomably dumb we'll look to future scientists if our species survives on Earth into the 3300's.

Whether Pluto is a planet, a dwarf planet, or something else has far more to do with how we decide to define these things than any uncertainty of Pluto's properties with regard to said definition.

It's an issue of classification. Do we want hundreds of planets? If not, then Pluto probably can't be one, because any consistent, objective, criteria that define Pluto as a planet result in a huge number of planets.

I was actually referring to the CMDRs comment that no additional power is required to further accelerate the ship, which is false irrespective of reference frame (isn't it?), rather than the occupant's perception of the acceleration.

From the perspective/frame of reference of the ship, the same amount of energy produces the same amount of acceleration (or more, in practice, as the vessel gets lighter as reaction mass is spent), no matter if it's stationary relative to the objects around them, or moving at a million times the speed of light (from it's own perspective).

From the perspective of an outside observer, the energy required increases exponentially, because the speed of light can never be reached, but the total energy still increases.

Phenomena like time dilation and relativistic mass are how these observations are reconciled. The outside observer sees the object get more massive and slow down (in time, not apparent instaneous velocity) for it. The observer on the craft just keeps accelerating like normal.

Space travel under constant acceleration - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The Relativistic Rocket

math.ucr.edu

What would a relativistic interstellar traveller see?

math.ucr.edu

Space Travel Calculator | Relativistic Rocket Equation

With the space travel calculator, you can plan your journey to another star system or even another galaxy.

www.omnicalculator.com

Technically it should decrease since the load on your ship is reduced (gravity).

Unless that reduced load is translated into a higher velocity potential...

 

[Northpin]

Considering in SC we move faster than the speed of light its clear the regular rules of the universe are being suspended. Its also clear that friction from atoms are not a problem, since we are travelling in kind of a warp bubble, compressing the universe in front of the ship and expanding it behind us.

Guess it's time for the lore to kick in once more.

Apparently the Supercruise travel is an idealized form of Alcubierre Drive, with all the good things and none of the bad things
In Supercruise we dont travel faster than the light of speed so don't get anywhere near relativistic time effects.

The FSD is compressing the space around our ship and we travel in that bubble of compressed space at a fixed speed, probably around 100m/s (yea, remember that even a non-engineered T9 can get into supercruise ).
How big is the compression level depends of nearby gravitational wells.

So what we see as 30c does not means that we actually travel with a speed 30 times bigger than the speed of light.
That is only the apparent speed, set up in a reference system we can relate to.
If the ship would be telling you that we move with 100m/s in a compression bubble of 90 millions to 1 it could get confusing.

 

[Northpin]

Space Travel Calculator | Relativistic Rocket Equation

With the space travel calculator, you can plan your journey to another star system or even another galaxy.

www.omnicalculator.com

interesting the space travel calculator.
I just run a simulation for 500t ship going to Sirius (8.6 ly) at 1g acceleration
The ship's passengers will spend 4.6 years on the ship while on Earth more than 10500 years will pass till they reach destination. (*)

*(plenty of time so we can discover the FSD, have Sirius as we know it in ED universe in 3307... And when the poor sods that left the Earth in 2091 using subluminic travel will reach Sirius, in the year 12600 we will put them in a museum - sure, assuming we are still around...).

Edit: as corrected by Morbad
damn dots and comas. Yea, it's 10.5 years - quite unimpressive... but still much bigger than the 45s we need to do the travel in 3307
I guess the time spent at relativistic speeds was not long enough to matter for a such short distance

 

[Morbad]

The ship's passengers will spend 4.6 years on the ship while on Earth more than 10500 years will pass till they reach destination. (*)

A bit over ten years years, not ten-thousand.

That said, longer trips would result in massive differentials. ~20 years for the ship to reach Sag A*, but ~27k years passing on Earth. ~28 years to Andromeda, ~2.5 million years on Earth.

 

[Starshot_Jigawatts]

No.




Whether Pluto is a planet, a dwarf planet, or something else has far more to do with how we decide to define these things than any uncertainty of Pluto's properties with regard to said definition.

It's an issue of classification. Do we want hundreds of planets? If not, then Pluto probably can't be one, because any consistent, objective, criteria that define Pluto as a planet result in a huge number of planets.

Can I know what you are saying "no" to here? Theorists have asserted with almost certainty that something like 90% of all the mass in the entire universe is "dark matter". Yet for something of such a huge volume, no "dark matter" detector we've built that has wasted billions of dollars - has ever found anything. It doesn't interact with light apparently, or any other waves/energies that all other forms of matter interact with. We're supposed to believe it has ONLY the properties of interacting gravitationaly with other objects, but in no other ways normal matter interacts with it's surroundings.

I understand the reason for the theory, but it's all very convenient. To me the most simple explanation is that we don't fully understand how gravity works on the scale of huge things like galaxies. Or even more likely: their mathematical calculations for mass - are just flawed off the bat. There's not a single shred of actual observable/testable science that supports the existence of this spooky matter we cannot see, caputure, detect or force an interaction with other particles/waves with.

As far as Pluto...give me a break. That whole thing was a farce. Less than 5% of the world's astrologists were even allowed to vote or debate it. Just those who hung around after some conference. Pluto is a dwarf planet, but dwarf planets aren't planets? Yeah guys, real genius move with that call lol.