Fred's Propulsion Brainstorming

HAY GUIS WHATS GOING ON IN THIS THREAD?

Well, from my understanding, I think, I just, kinda think here, that plasma is plasma, aether is aether, and Wes' creation is his creation. Aether is a trademark of the SARP, and changing it to plasma will make the setting generic, and unremarkable.

Now, for technobabble explanation of differences between power sources which Fred does not like~

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Plasma; Plasma energy is reliant upon the excitement of existing matter drawn from another source. Ram scoops, energy-to-matter converters, reserve tanks, etc. The matter used is excited by methods such as magnetic acceleration, laser acceleration, or electric pulses. Plasma relies on matter.

Antimatter; Antimatter energy is reliant upon the interaction of particles with opposing charges. The interaction of this pre-existing matter causes the energy potentials within the already present matter to be released as heat and radiation, causing the secondary reaction of being able to provide fusion-like power.

Aether; Aether energy is based upon the use of scalar emissions from a physically present production array to draw aetheric energy from an alternate dimensional layer. This energy does not require an initial charge, initial matter, or even an initial start-up supply of anything which is already in existence. Aether entirely relies on multi-dimensional energy which is not related to antimatter nor plasma in any way.

Commonly, aether energy interaction may be confused with plasma interaction based solely upon the effect of weaponized aether on target materials. Due to the massive energy involved in an aether beam, the interaction of such a beam with regular matter results in the rapid excitement of the material's atomic bonds, resulting in the full release of all energy potentials. This however does not produce plasma in any way, it simply annihilates matter into subatomic slag.

In short, aether is not plasma is not antimatter.

Something I noticed that could be a quick fix has something to do with Fold speeds. I will admit I stopped reading this thread halfway down page two, but I noticed something.

I mistakenly thought fold speed was in LY/H, and calculated a trip based on those numbers, the 239 ly journey coming to about 18.5 days, which seemed reasonable to me. Then this morning, I was told our fold speeds are calculated in LY/M which made it seem extremely too fast to me. LY/M is 60 times faster than LY/H, which just seems too unreasonable. An extremely easy fix would be to simply edit that 'M' in fold speeds to 'H', which would decrease fold speeds by a factor of 60. Of course, I don't know what CDD speeds equate to in LY/H, so that might make CDD speeds to be entirely too high, but I guess that's something that needs to be ironed out.

The only issue with any changes is, it will still be exploited, no one will b the better man, and give their stuff a low speed. Everyone will go for the best. :\ I've seen it enough on here to be very wary of things like this. It seems, compromise is a far fetched thing in regards to moderation of one's desires. It gets decreased, same old thing happens, the cycle begins anew. I am all for simplifying STL speeds, it makes for better understanding, but, tinkering with FTL again also brings up the point of "Same stuff, different day."

From the master Hyperspace travel page.

Actual time spent in hyperspace from the ship's point of view may not be the same as the actual time it takes to get from one place to another. Often, crew may spend hours in transit, but arrive at the time they departed.

Click to expand...

If we are going to adopt only Hyperspace Fold, can we get this addressed. To have some consistent way of telling how long the trip takes for the crew?

A wacked out form of Time Dilation I'd think.

I think that was a justification for why plotships end up being somewhat uneven in regard to timeline. This was the IC justification or something like it to support a bare modicum of suspension of disbelief.

Understand that to a point, but when playing ICly. The crew has to have an idea of how long the trip is going to take for them.

Before this thread came up and I thought I would be allowed to design my own FTL drive for longer-distance interstellar travel, I had been leaning towards a system that was susceptible to a shifting effect, where travel times are inconsistent because of distortions in the dimensions where the ships travel.

If the distances they traverse can be represented as a series of waves being recorded on a screen, the crests and troughs of waves with different wavelengths and frequencies would occasionally line up, even though they're no properly matched. Movement would occur when the waves are lined up, and travel time is increased when the number of waves crossed (distance) and the distance between matching points on the wave (disruptions) are increased.

Inversely, fewer waves (therefore smaller distances) or a large number of synchronous waves in a line/waves that are matched in a tight area on the display (fewer disruptions) would mean exceptionally faster travel. But, it sounds horridly complex and difficult to implement, and I'm sure that plenty of people will think this is just a poorly explained version of the 'fold dislocations' in Macross F.

Well, if hyperspace does have eddies, it would certainly put a lot more significance in the skill of the navigator in plotting jumps, and keeping an eye out during transits. Not all time variables could be constant and all that stuff.

That's just fluff, but it can again sort of support the motive for ships traveling in hyperspace not being in sync with realspace time. Avoidance of those eddies while in hyperspace could motivate faster travel times in realtime (assuming the ly/h figure is for the crew alone).

I'm not saying this actually really does make sense. But it would certainly fit well with the OoC concerns of time with different plotships being dealt differently. Or at least help with some of it.

I'll also admit I like Nashoba's and MissingNo's take on how being forcefully torn out of hyperspace could result in the ship reeling back into realspace. I figure that even if interdiction can't technically countered, a navigator could still have the option to bring the ship back into realspace on his terms (under control) rather than not on his terms.

A "Quick, take us out of hyperspace" command when facing interdiction that way sounds a lot better than being torn out and having a moment of vulnerability. That's both good incentive to go along with interdiction and perhaps decent roleplaying baggage for pilots.

Hi Fred,

That was my point, bringing the ship out of hyperspace by choice, be it because you arrived or to avoid being ripped out by an interdiction field would be a relatively smooth transition. Having the hyperspace bubble collapse should have some sort of rude effect.

-Scratches his chin.-

In regards to being ripped out of hyperspace. The idea of this is sound. We have out in the real world such things as speed bumps, or the tire shredders on certain roads to slow, or stop passing vehicles.

I'd wager there would be a cost to being ripped out of hyperspace, and back into normal space. Something like, the remaining charge within the Hyperspace Drive System beginning to overload the system, thereby damaging components. If you don't flush the system fast enough, you ruin the unit. It could be a good consequence.

Or, structural harm, stresses on the frame, and hull, nothing too inherently great. Micro cracks, and fissures maybe. While the immediate threat of this isn't there, if a battle were to proceed it, it'd be a big liability.

Another is a throw back to the hyperspace drive's "charge". If not flushed in time, maybe it'd begin to overload and fry systems outside of the unit, spreading.

My reasoning behind this is, if you charge it, and you have to sustain it. Then while you're going through a "window" you're either running off a charge, or constantly flowing source of energy. It'd be a higher degree more power normally needed to run the ship, and if that charge isn't dispersed, or the flow not properly cut off in time, it could wreak havoc on your systems that may not be able to sufficiently cope.