Discussion: Tweaking FTL Travel

[John Caridian]

Sorry if this is a really stupid question, but I haven't been here long enough to find out on my own. How do Star Army FTL drives deal with relativity?


Also, one of the things that I like about jump-gate type FTL is that it brings a whole new defensive element to interstellar warfare. It makes defending a jump-gate take a high priority, since if an enemy were to take a gate they could use it to send fleets almost anywhere in your system of gates. It gives a nice focal point for attack and defense.

I saw mention of no IC explanation for limiting FTL drives, but there are a few ways it could be done. What if someone managed to develop an anti-FTL technology, limiting the use of FTL drives in systems. This would force militaries and nations to develop new more moderate FTL drives. It could revolutionize combat in Star Army role-play.

But no need to listen to me, I'm just the new guy. Gotta spout out some ideas now and then. Don't expect numbers from me, I'm terrible at that stuff, but I'll be glad to toss out ideas now and then.

 

[Jatsu]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperspace ... fiction%29

Currently, the CDDs are like Star Trek and the Hyperfold drives are like Dune. Vesper's arguing for the tech from Babylon 5, and I'm arguing for the wormhole-based techs in Xenosaga and Cowboy Bebop, only a bit more advanced (you have to admit, battles in hyperspace tunnels are better than normal space battles).

 

[Fred]

I know there was the suggestion of merging FTL with hyperspace fold tech... but there is still a need of FTL propulsion for movement inside a star system to make it from one planet to another without it taking an eternity.

Jatsu, I based my 10 LY in 2 hours at a 300 000c speed on this page ( https://stararmy.com/setting/planets/index.html ). If it takes the Ayame II can make the 10 LY Kohana/Yamatai trip in 4.8 hours... it'd take a Sakura gunship 2.4 (I make no claim that my calculations were spot on when I tried that whole formula thingie... but my results sort of confirmed it).

Then again, I have hard time beleiving that the distance between Yamatai/Kohana is 81.69 LY and not around 10 LY, based on the map... then again, the map is only 2 dimensional.

 

[sada sakue]

I can not seem to find a reference for the speed of the hyperspace gates used in Cowboy Bebop but I do not believe it is more than a few hundred times c (if not less), as that speed would allow for travel between Jupiter and Earth (when they are farthest apart) taking roughly 10 minutes (equating to 309 times c) which seems relatively consistent with what I have seen of the series. There is also (to my knowledge) no alternate form of FTL, so expansion is very slow.

At some point in the anime, a professional trucker (Victoria Telpsicorei) sets a new record of 3 days to make a round-trip to venus. In the best case, if we suppose that she went from Jupiter (which is unlikely, since she says she's going to Europa at the beggining of the session), that's still pretty slow compared to SA FTL drives =)


(PS : ph33r my anime otaku skillz)

 

[Rine]

Sorry, hopping into this discussion a bit late, but I am definately for slower FTL and other hyperspace travel. It just makes it unrealistic for any organizations like mine (pirates) or guerilla activities to even be feasible if the main army can get to any backwater within moments for support. I know practically nothing about the science aspects of it (my major is computer science, not physics *shudders*), but story wise, it rewards the smaller organizations more since they wont just be immediately crushed if they raid some merchant ship in the middle of nowhere.

Also, might I suggest the mechanics of it be altered a bit? Currently to me it seems that (if my discussions with zakalwe gave me the right impression) if you want to travel to a planet in a system, you just jump from Point A to point B, so as soon as you leave hyperspace your right next to the planet, and no penalties as long as the space is relatively clear. Maybe FTL should be affected by gravity shadows (as in battletech/star wars) so that ships will have to enter a system at the apex or whateverthehellyoucallthebottom where there is no chance for a gravity shadow and very little chance for space junk. This will attach a bit more realism to the concepts, and adds a bit more to the timeline of travel.

 

[Vesper]

Keep in mind though that with neither of those systems can a ship enter hyperspace w/o a jump-point (the gates for Cowboy Bebop and the "Colum" for Xenosaga), irelevant of ship size. (I would say a completly open hyperspace would allow for far more drama than fixed tunnels.)

And I was geusstimating the long-axis of the SA to be ~ 60-65 Ly, not just the diameter of known space.
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To Rhine:

Indeed!! It also returs strategy to a important place, since one must put ships and defenses where you think they will attack, instead of having the ability to respond instantly to any threat.

 

[Doshii Jun]

Jatsu, I based my 10 LY in 2 hours at a 300 000c speed on this page ( https://stararmy.com/setting/planets/index.html ).

Errrrrrr ... if I remember right, this is old and outdated. So you're right, it isn't as far as you think; I did the same thing trying to figure out how long it would take a transport to reach Lor.

Indeed!! It also returs strategy to a important place, since one must put ships and defenses where you think they will attack, instead of having the ability to respond instantly to any threat.

Granted ... but does "strategy," in the military sense of placing units in certain areas, really get used here in the SARP? We lack a seemingly necessary component -- visuals. And we can't expect words to replace them, as they'll signify different things to different people.

The strategy is also only as good as what the GM allows. "The best laid plans," after all. Though I suppose there's an element of high drama in that as well. However, with things set up as they are (with the focus on individual ships) strategy's only going to matter to ships that really need it.

I know I'm generalizing, but it just seems like "strategy" is another way of saying "big-ass space battles," which haven't been used on the same scale as that term implies. I mean, Hoshi no Iori wasn't about strategy, it was about the Sakura's part in that fight. Which is cool with me.

Long story short, we're are on ships first, fleets last. A good time comes from that more often than the reverse, to me at least.

 

[Fred]

Perhaps the mere feasability of strategies being feasible just opens the way for more roleplaying events is one of the things to aim for.

As bent on sci-fi plausible tech as the SARP is, it's still a roleplay forum and so it is my belief that paving the way to make some theatrics possible (instead of being told some thing just can't be done, like a give-and-take lengthy spaceship duel, a pirate raid on a cargo convoy, and so on) can only be beneficial to ways stories can branch out.

 

[Jatsu]

Jatsu, I based my 10 LY in 2 hours at a 300 000c speed on this page ( https://stararmy.com/setting/planets/index.html ). If it takes the Ayame II can make the 10 LY Kohana/Yamatai trip in 4.8 hours... it'd take a Sakura gunship 2.4 (I make no claim that my calculations were spot on when I tried that whole formula thingie... but my results sort of confirmed it).

Then again, I have hard time beleiving that the distance between Yamatai/Kohana is 81.69 LY and not around 10 LY, based on the map... then again, the map is only 2 dimensional.

erm...well, that explains it. You calculated the time it would take to travel 81.69 ly, which is about 2.4 hours

At some point in the anime, a professional trucker (Victoria Telpsicorei) sets a new record of 3 days to make a round-trip to venus. In the best case, if we suppose that she went from Jupiter (which is unlikely, since she says she's going to Europa at the beggining of the session), that's still pretty slow compared to SA FTL drives =)

of course that round trip most likely included hyperspace, sublight, and atmospheric flight...as well as landing, unloading, and taking off again. She probably stopped for food and sleep a couple times along the way, too.

Keep in mind though that with neither of those systems can a ship enter hyperspace w/o a jump-point (the gates for Cowboy Bebop and the "Colum" for Xenosaga), irelevant of ship size. (I would say a completly open hyperspace would allow for far more drama than fixed tunnels.)

thus the "a bit more advanced" I tacked on at the end =P. And open hyperspace would cause too many problems. One wrong turn and you end up a few billion ly away with no idea how to get back, which doesn't actually matter since you just crashed into a quasar.

 

[Jadg Wolf]

I don't think anything's broken or anything needs fixing. It's worked for a long time, I just don't think there's reason enough to bother changing it.

 

[Cora]

It's to allow time for more character interaction Jadg.

Besides, why should ships have more the one type of FTL travel? It's a waste of ship space, which could be used to store more important things, like more targ- I mean, more crew...

<_<
>_>

 

[sada sakue]

At some point in the anime, a professional trucker (Victoria Telpsicorei) sets a new record of 3 days to make a round-trip to venus. In the best case, if we suppose that she went from Jupiter (which is unlikely, since she says she's going to Europa at the beggining of the session), that's still pretty slow compared to SA FTL drives =)

of course that round trip most likely included hyperspace, sublight, and atmospheric flight...as well as landing, unloading, and taking off again. She probably stopped for food and sleep a couple times along the way, too.

Let's say doing all the slow stuff like took her a quarter of the time (which isn't much. In France, legally, a trucker only travels around 10 hours/day (legally being the key word, here)).

That leaves us with around half a day to travel a distance shorter than the sol system's length. Which is still quite slow, compared the 2 hours to travel the whole SA galaxy.

Now, I've not been here long enough to have a good grasp about what should be better for the SARP, but, obviously, you can't change things drastically without breaking continuity (*poof* wormholes appeared and FTL drives don't work anymore. Sorry guys, I know you just bought that lastest CDD drive for a hundred millions KS, but oh well, life sucks, get over it.)
However, you could do fun stuff like some scientists discover that FTL drives at outrageously high speed aren't good for health (since travelling at near the light of speed distort time, how do we know what it could do at above it), or whatever.
Or maybe they noticed that FTL drives tend to be harmful when not shielded correctly, with so heavy metals that mounting them on anything but capital ships is impossible.
Or both.

That would lead to a complete refitting of existing military fleet and power armors. Time to start a corporation

 

[Zakalwe]

I don't think the social RP possibility's it would create would be so amazing. Let social RP be social RP, and mission RP be mission RP, after a mission some down-time is allowed due to the understanding that constant stress can lead to enormous psychological damage.

In a slower system this down-time would take the form of the transportation to the next mission, but in SA it should more take the form of a definate 'out' time. In addition there is nothing to say that the Captains have to drive their ships at the max, some may decide not too. But I'm fairly certain that just making journey's last longer will no increase the quality of the RP.

However changing the FTL, saying that some don't work, or making it go much slower etc, is an enormous change to continuity. FTL has been RPed out again and again and again, and its limits and capacities are a vital part of the RP, changing it would be a huge thing, and I don't think that's really important.

The problem of character research: The truth is that very little time passes in the plot-ships. If you tallied up all the IC time that happaned in a plot during an IC plot, it is unlikely to be much. However something must fill in the rest of this time, perhaps long period of 'shore leave', where they can research. I don't think slowing down FTL is going to help in this really.

As for the IC reason of 'We have just found out something terrible', I think that would be a terrible thing to do. It's weak, and lacks any real credibility, since the health problems, if there where any, due to the technology involved would be extreme enough to be easily discovered before now.

 

[sada sakue]

Yes, now that you mention it, my ideas seems pretty dumb >_> *blames dead braincells*

However, slower FTL would allow for more drama (will we make it in time ? watch the next episode !!11!)

But, in my opinion, this isn't really important. Slower FTL would replace the "It took 5 minutes for the [insert ship name here] to reach point A" to "It took half an hour for the [insert ship name here] to reach point A". You don't travel throughout the whole galaxy each mission anyway.

 

[Zack]

I don't think anything's broken or anything needs fixing. It's worked for a long time, I just don't think there's reason enough to bother changing it.

Wolf said it all.

It is not like you don't have enough character interaction time as it is.

 

[Jadg Wolf]

I was going to say this if someone replied, but I may as well say it now: you guys realize that a GM is not necessary for social RP, right? What's to stop you from getting together yourselves for character interaction and development if there isn't enough? Do you think your characters don't have any downtime? They do exist between big JP sessions.

 

[Tom]

I'm totally for reduction of FTL speeds.

Make moving entire fleets to far away locations actually mean something/have implications.

It may not be broke now, but it does result in very static combat situations.

Example: Small fleet engages larger Mishu fleet. Mere minutes later, several more Yamatai fleets arrive and kick Mishu butt. Mishu send more fleets, etc. Repeat.

I'd love a little more spice in the RP's strategy. It'd also be nice for fleet movements to have a deliberate purpose. Making it harder to travel would put more emphasis on each fleet's individual roles.

To draw a real-life analogy:

Overextending a military has negative consequences. Napoleon, the Axis, Rome, etc had crippling blows dealt to them after they extended too far.

All this FTL and physics-defying travel HAS to have some negative effect on the space environment. We're shredding reality every time we go FTL.

 

[Karma Mechanic]

....
All this FTL and physics-defying travel HAS to have some negative effect on the space environment. We're shredding reality every time we go FTL.

Let the truth ring loud Tom!

But anyway, time for some of my thoughts.

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This slowing down ships across the board seems like a good idea to me.

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Removing some of the more fanciful FTL methods is a good simplification. Also when it comes to this point (and some similar ones) it seems some people are confusing what the sugestion actually means; they say "no we can't remove (insert uber tech here) because (insert random mostly unused species here) has it and we can't have less than them!". The point isn't removing it from the Star Army only, its removing it from the entire SA setting.

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Then there is the "0MG we can't due that because of continuity" / "its already established in RP!" arguments.

Seriously everyone, the RP is just a game when it comes down to it. We can change the rules and it doesn't change the fun that was had playing before the change. Look at dnd versions for instance people have had plenty of fun on older versions, but many people still change so they can play with an improved game.

Anyway when looking at a lot of stuff, most of the histories of things are pretty vauge.

If people were seriously annoyied by any of this they could just go back and edit a few numbers to make everything nice and tidy.

This isn't even mentioning the fact that probably more than half of the tech thats listed in the RP was designed in the last ic year, so changing a few numbers wouldn't affect much, besides making things more realistic.

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Some nice theater work is possible in a RP, just look at the airbike races. Not too hard with a little change to get some good space scenes ya know.

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And for the argument "If it ain't broke don't fix it", the fact is that it is broken thats why theres a thread disscussing what should be done about it.

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I've got some more ideas and I could go into detail more with the ones I've already given but I really don't feel like it at the moment. But I'm sure someone can coax it out of me if they respond with any of the following, unrealistic techno-bable/overblown statements of the consequences of change/stupid insults/ or just anything fallacious.

 

[Jadg Wolf]

Scribbles, I ask that you refrain from putting random dashes between points and stop creating a new paragraph for every sentence. If you only have one sentence for a point, it's all right, otherwise it makes your post a bit disjointed.

Maybe I've forgotten, but I don't remember anyone pulling that race card you described.

I could talk about how the past RP isn't really a game anymore, but a story which would be rather foolish to change. You can't just go into the past and change numbers. You'd be screwing with everyone's head (at least the people who might've been around when that stuff happened) and it'd be a lot more trouble than it's worth. If you really want to get rid of it, there'd be a much simpler way to do it, considering your first exclamation. I'll get to that later.

Changing the rules in D&D or whatever is fine, sure. But those are OOC rules, not IC technologies. You keep trying to support this "changing the rules" thing but it doesn't really apply. We can't just say IC, "Here's a device for space travel. Wait, OOC players are complaining about it even though it's already been used for years, we'd better get rid of it and rewrite history." The histories might be vague if you're looking at the summarized timeline, but a lot of the later stuff was probably RPed out.

Uh, it's not broken. People are complaining OOC because they don't realize that they don't have to have a GM around to RP. There's no real IC reason, except possibly for the one Tom described. There doesn't have to be any change to get good space scenes, you know. If you looked at the old board you might see a lot of what I always thought was irrelevant social RP. My opinion doesn't really matter, I just didn't like that nothing was really being done, because most of the time it was just a few RPers getting together and doing pointless character interactions. Now it seems there's too much being done. People think they have to wait on GMs to RP. I already said this, but I'll reiterate: you don't. You can RP and edit and post transcripts of it yourself. If you're concerned about whether it would fit within the IC time frame you have, ask the GM. Obviously, if you're in the middle of a GM-run scene, you can't have your character running around in random RP. I suppose that could happen a lot, but I don't think it'd be impossible to make random RP work, because I don't think anyone's tried yet. Or at least I haven't heard about it.

That last sentence could almost be interpreted as an insult. In fact, now that I look at it again, basically all I'm getting from it is "I'm right and you people against me aren't. And on top of that, you're stupid." Definitely not how you want to end a post. And "coaxing it out of you"? Are you trying to be threatening?

Compromise: as in Tom's argument, the Star Army discovers that FTL travel wasn't as universe-friendly as they previously thought, and decide to tone it down. Frankly, I'm not really in favor of that either, but since I don't see anyone backing down, at least it's a valid IC reason that doesn't involve OOCly changing history and removing technology and pretending it never existed. I really think it should be written down somewhere: if you have a problem with some IC part of the setting, present your arguments and then actually suggest ways of acheiving your goal through IC actions instead of re-writing history.

 

[Abwehran Commander]

I agree with both Tom's and Jagd's points of view. Continuity in the IC universe has to be maintained at all costs. Just because a few people want to change the tech doesn't mean we should all rewrite the entire RPG. That's akin to having to start over from scratch.

But the others also have a point when it comes to the need to slow down FTL speeds. The resurrection of real strategy over technology is a good thing I believe as well as the logistical demand necessary. That's one thought I've been trying to use with my Abwehrans, large convoys with escorts to protect them from hostile forces. But I've had a hard time wrapping my head over how to do it with the current system we hold now.

A universally accepted FTL drive(s) seems to be a great idea as well. But I have now scientific data to back such a thing up. I only find it a good idea because it puts less stress upon people creating new races to develop new ways of traveling faster than light. So it mostly for personal reasons that I agree with it.

Jagd's Compromise, all in all, would be best for SARPG if all these drive systems need to be slowed down and reworked. But in the end, it's all up to the creator of this universe to make the decision.