Why don't small ships make a wormhole when jumping?
- Thread starter Cosmo
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Different technology.
Small ships use FSDs, capital ships use old style jump engines and Thargoids alien tech.
Small ships use FSDs, capital ships use old style jump engines and Thargoids alien tech.
Different type of jump drives, there's lore about it somewhere
Those based on Alcubierre drives? But we can see the ship travel through hyperspace during each jump not normal space.
Does it matter whether it is handwavium from the right or the left hand?
I don't think they are based on any hard science fiction, they just 'are'.
FSD supercruise is inspired to "Alcubierre drive", FSD jumps are wormholes, but different from the capital ships/carriers tech, and of course from tharg tech.
There should be a video by Drew about it
I'm not up on Elite lore, but in general science fiction there tends to be a distinction between "worm hole" and "hyperspace".
A "wormhole" typically is a hole punched in space-time with either side of the hole in wildly different locations.
"Hyperspace" typically means the ship travels through a parallel dimension where the rules of physics are different, usually in that the speed limit is dramatically faster.
Sometimes "wormhole" is just the means by which one enters and exits something like "hyperspace". But I don't think they are ever the same thing.
A "wormhole" typically is a hole punched in space-time with either side of the hole in wildly different locations.
"Hyperspace" typically means the ship travels through a parallel dimension where the rules of physics are different, usually in that the speed limit is dramatically faster.
Sometimes "wormhole" is just the means by which one enters and exits something like "hyperspace". But I don't think they are ever the same thing.
Okay, I checked the ED wiki. It says ships enter hyperspace via wormholes. If hyperspace is a parallel dimension, why do we see the same stars and the destination in front of the ship?
From memory, so apologies if I’m wrong:
In the original 3 games, ships travelled between systems via “WitchSpace” - at the full jump range of the vessel this would take a week of in-universe time (though according to the lore, it would seem almost instant to the ship). Once back in normal space, all travel was done at sub-light speeds.
Over the course of Frontier First Encounters (the third game) the player is able to acquire a Thargoid vessel which, at some stage in the latter half of the 33rd century, is reverse-engineered to produce what we have in the game now - the SuperCruise drives.
The big ships still transit via WitchSpace, though advances it those drives allow the journey to be almost instant and at greater distances than previously.
Any other questions about “how do our jump drives work?” should be answered by: “very well, thank you”
In the original 3 games, ships travelled between systems via “WitchSpace” - at the full jump range of the vessel this would take a week of in-universe time (though according to the lore, it would seem almost instant to the ship). Once back in normal space, all travel was done at sub-light speeds.
Over the course of Frontier First Encounters (the third game) the player is able to acquire a Thargoid vessel which, at some stage in the latter half of the 33rd century, is reverse-engineered to produce what we have in the game now - the SuperCruise drives.
The big ships still transit via WitchSpace, though advances it those drives allow the journey to be almost instant and at greater distances than previously.
Any other questions about “how do our jump drives work?” should be answered by: “very well, thank you”
According to the lore, it's the small ship FSD that is based on Thargoid tech. The lore isn't totally clear but it's implied that megaships are using an older jump technology that predates Sirius Corp's commercialization of the FSD, presumably because the ship FSD is impractical to scale up to such high hull masses. Correspondingly, the visual resemblance of megaship jumps to Thargoid wakes is somewhere between coincidental and due to the fact that both are making use of the Witchspace dimension.
Edit to add a note about FSD scaling:
We don't know the hull mass of a megaship. However, the dedicated large cargo ship (T9) achieves a cargo mass fraction of 90% (790T in an 850T hull) or almost 100% if you count the fuel tank. If we assume the same of fleet carriers they must have a hull mass of at least 25 kT. FSD optimal mass doesn't increase linearly with size, but the largest three sizes go up by about 50% per level. If that scaling held true (it might not) you would need about a class 13 FSD to move a fleet carrier. Meanwhile, they are clearly getting exponentially harder to build as you scale up - the cost increases by about a factor of three per class at the larger sizes. If that trend continued, a class 13A FSD would cost 37 billion credits - far more than the carrier itself! (If FCs use lowly C-rated drives, then the math kinda works, as a class 13C FSD would cost 3.7 billion, although that doesn't leave much margin for the rest of the bill of materials. Although more likely the math is actually much worse, as you need an optimal mass of more like 200 times the ship mass to get the range up to 500 LY, which means an unimaginable class 26A FSD!) Point being, it's at least logically consistent to suppose that ship FSD tech doesn't scale up to megaship scale.
Edit to add a note about FSD scaling:
We don't know the hull mass of a megaship. However, the dedicated large cargo ship (T9) achieves a cargo mass fraction of 90% (790T in an 850T hull) or almost 100% if you count the fuel tank. If we assume the same of fleet carriers they must have a hull mass of at least 25 kT. FSD optimal mass doesn't increase linearly with size, but the largest three sizes go up by about 50% per level. If that scaling held true (it might not) you would need about a class 13 FSD to move a fleet carrier. Meanwhile, they are clearly getting exponentially harder to build as you scale up - the cost increases by about a factor of three per class at the larger sizes. If that trend continued, a class 13A FSD would cost 37 billion credits - far more than the carrier itself! (If FCs use lowly C-rated drives, then the math kinda works, as a class 13C FSD would cost 3.7 billion, although that doesn't leave much margin for the rest of the bill of materials. Although more likely the math is actually much worse, as you need an optimal mass of more like 200 times the ship mass to get the range up to 500 LY, which means an unimaginable class 26A FSD!) Point being, it's at least logically consistent to suppose that ship FSD tech doesn't scale up to megaship scale.
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That was an interesting read. I get the sense that the whole thing is shrouded in mystery and uncertainty. It’s saying hyperspace works but we don’t fully understand how it works and if things go wrong a pilot emerges inside out. Also pilots glimpsing or hearing about ghosts of ships or seeing strange structures also makes me think we’re not really supposed to know what’s inside this higher dimension or this conduit.
I imagine it’s not unlike a woman's handbag. Have you seen inside one? I’ve been married 23 years and i’ve not seen whats in any of my wifes handbags. I’ve been told discreetly that if i do, i’ll be immediately struck blind and my gentleman parts will actually fall off. It’s like the ark of the covenant or something.
I’m taking no chances with witch space or handbags. It’s too damn’d dangerous.
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Yet, our Fleet Carriers, that seemingly use the same jump tech as Capital ships does, engage a FSD for jumping
Technically even a wormhole needs an additional dimention to bend space through, so i guess that you can call moving through it hyperspace
Something something spatial disturbance quotient is exponential relative to the scale of the hyper biscuit. larger vessel needs larger biscuit. The larger the hyper biscuit the more the temperature drops when forced in the cup. Temperature drop causes oils from the biscuit to congeal on the surface membrane of the space time in the cup and you get a visible spacetime effect.
Or mmaybe the FSD isn't a "supersonic" FTL drive but the larger ships' drives need to be. So you get a visible effect on the big guys and not on the small guys.
Maybe it's just a case of efficiency. Train smokestack vs. mostly invisible car exhaust.
Perhaps a case of smarter design causing the FSD not to need to work as hard. Maybe that effect is basically like sparks from the blowtorch of the FSD punching a hole or rearraning space and you just don't get them with the FSD.
Or maybe the capital ships being npc ships have no first-person circumstance in which to place fireworks
Or mmaybe the FSD isn't a "supersonic" FTL drive but the larger ships' drives need to be. So you get a visible effect on the big guys and not on the small guys.
Maybe it's just a case of efficiency. Train smokestack vs. mostly invisible car exhaust.
Perhaps a case of smarter design causing the FSD not to need to work as hard. Maybe that effect is basically like sparks from the blowtorch of the FSD punching a hole or rearraning space and you just don't get them with the FSD.
Or maybe the capital ships being npc ships have no first-person circumstance in which to place fireworks
Same stars? What make you think they are the same stars?
They can't be stars, as the destined one emerges in front of you at the end of the 'ride'. There usually aren't many stars between your starting point and your destination, if any.
There it is.