Well, the amount of time that ED will be alive as a game is small compared to the average time between supernova events in our galaxy. It's highly unlikely one would happen between 3302 and say 3312 or even 3402. So, yes, FD would need to simulate one, probably as mentioned as a Galnet article leading to a CG of some sort.
Would you turn up for a supernova?
- Thread starter CMDR Martin Dooley
- Start date
Well, the amount of time that ED will be alive as a game is small compared to the average time between supernova events in our galaxy. It's highly unlikely one would happen between 3302 and say 3312 or even 3402. So, yes, FD would need to simulate one, probably as mentioned as a Galnet article leading to a CG of some sort.
I think your next stop would be at a service station to get all the iron and heavier junk gumming up your fuel scoop cleaned out.
not quite the same thing, but a flavour!
2010 Jupiter ignition
[video=youtube;0zKqAbfxFsQ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zKqAbfxFsQ[/video]
2010 Jupiter ignition
[video=youtube;0zKqAbfxFsQ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zKqAbfxFsQ[/video]
There are several "problems" with this concept not yet mentioned.
The ED universe is a curious one, and a simplified one from a skybox modelling perspective: the speed of light is infinite. When you see a star or nebula thousands of LY away, you're seeing exactly the same image that someone floating in their ship only a few LY away can see. There are no dynamic objects in the FD galaxy that look different depending on where/when you see them.
Case in point: the Crab Nebula. It's a supernova remnant, and a fairly young, dynamic one. From the point of view of Earth, it didn't exist in the sky a few hundred years ago, and a thousand years ago, it was a star that we saw go supernova. So, if you travel a thousand lightyears in the opposite direction to the Crab Nebula, you "should" be able to catch up to the supernova wave and see it. And you can calculate exactly where you "ought to be" to be able to see it, since we know exactly when the supernova occurred and exactly how far away it is. But in ED, you can't. Fly 1000 LY from Earth in the opposite direction to the Crab Nebula, turn around, and all you will see (if anything) is the Crab Nebula.
Another example, even less likely to be seen in ED: in 1987, we saw a bright, naked-eye-visible supernova in the Large Magellanic Cloud. The Cloud is easily visible in the game on the skybox, but no matter where you go in the galaxy, you won't see the Cloud any differently, although you "should" see an extra bright star in it if you go just a couple dozen LYs from Sol in the opposite direction from the Cloud. The LMC is a static remote skybox feature.
So in ED, if they made a bright star like, say, Betelgeuse, or Canopus, or Gamma Velorum, go supernova - blew the star up and turned it into a neutron star or black hole, it would be visible everywhere in the galaxy at once. Or rather, suddenly become invisible.
But assuming one could work around this, and assuming FD want to "keep it real" rather than blow up a star at random, what supernova candidates are there? as I mentioned in a previous thread on the subject, in the inhabited bubble, there's only one: HR 8210, a small industrial system down in Delaine space. No inhabited planets, just one Orbis-class space station directly orbiting the star. They could, in theory, run a supernova evacuation CG there even now, since there aren't any colonized planets or settlements to evacuate - all we'd need to do is ship them the materials they'd need to build and attach engines so they can blast their own way out of there.
For some of the more remote stars on the list, we might already be too late. Eta Carinae, for example, has probably already exploded, we just haven't seen it here on Earth yet. But in ED, it's still there - though mysteriously, it is a thousand light years away from the nebula it is in-real-life associated with.
As for all the people saying how "dangerous" a supernova would be: don't forget, our ships can hover just a few metres away from a black hole and remain unharmed. I don't think a supernova shock wave would necessarily hurt them.
Still, there may be hope. Gamma Velorum is on the list, and Gamma Velorum (informally known as "Regor") is in the middle of the permit-locked Regor Sector. It's possible the star is about to blow and the region has been locked to prevent pilots from drifting into an imminent supernova.
The ED universe is a curious one, and a simplified one from a skybox modelling perspective: the speed of light is infinite. When you see a star or nebula thousands of LY away, you're seeing exactly the same image that someone floating in their ship only a few LY away can see. There are no dynamic objects in the FD galaxy that look different depending on where/when you see them.
Case in point: the Crab Nebula. It's a supernova remnant, and a fairly young, dynamic one. From the point of view of Earth, it didn't exist in the sky a few hundred years ago, and a thousand years ago, it was a star that we saw go supernova. So, if you travel a thousand lightyears in the opposite direction to the Crab Nebula, you "should" be able to catch up to the supernova wave and see it. And you can calculate exactly where you "ought to be" to be able to see it, since we know exactly when the supernova occurred and exactly how far away it is. But in ED, you can't. Fly 1000 LY from Earth in the opposite direction to the Crab Nebula, turn around, and all you will see (if anything) is the Crab Nebula.
Another example, even less likely to be seen in ED: in 1987, we saw a bright, naked-eye-visible supernova in the Large Magellanic Cloud. The Cloud is easily visible in the game on the skybox, but no matter where you go in the galaxy, you won't see the Cloud any differently, although you "should" see an extra bright star in it if you go just a couple dozen LYs from Sol in the opposite direction from the Cloud. The LMC is a static remote skybox feature.
So in ED, if they made a bright star like, say, Betelgeuse, or Canopus, or Gamma Velorum, go supernova - blew the star up and turned it into a neutron star or black hole, it would be visible everywhere in the galaxy at once. Or rather, suddenly become invisible.
But assuming one could work around this, and assuming FD want to "keep it real" rather than blow up a star at random, what supernova candidates are there? as I mentioned in a previous thread on the subject, in the inhabited bubble, there's only one: HR 8210, a small industrial system down in Delaine space. No inhabited planets, just one Orbis-class space station directly orbiting the star. They could, in theory, run a supernova evacuation CG there even now, since there aren't any colonized planets or settlements to evacuate - all we'd need to do is ship them the materials they'd need to build and attach engines so they can blast their own way out of there.
For some of the more remote stars on the list, we might already be too late. Eta Carinae, for example, has probably already exploded, we just haven't seen it here on Earth yet. But in ED, it's still there - though mysteriously, it is a thousand light years away from the nebula it is in-real-life associated with.
As for all the people saying how "dangerous" a supernova would be: don't forget, our ships can hover just a few metres away from a black hole and remain unharmed. I don't think a supernova shock wave would necessarily hurt them.
Still, there may be hope. Gamma Velorum is on the list, and Gamma Velorum (informally known as "Regor") is in the middle of the permit-locked Regor Sector. It's possible the star is about to blow and the region has been locked to prevent pilots from drifting into an imminent supernova.
Not gonna lie.
If they could work it out in a believable way..I'd watch.but it would be a scary thing seeing a gigantic orb of flame expanding towards me
If they could work it out in a believable way..I'd watch.but it would be a scary thing seeing a gigantic orb of flame expanding towards me