Aurora 4x
VB6 Aurora => VB6 Mechanics => Topic started by: Steve Walmsley on June 28, 2011, 10:35:11 AM
-
I have added black holes to Aurora for v5.50. These are only available in Real Stars games for the moment but I may expand that to random games as well, depending on how well they work out. Obviously there are no known black holes close to Sol so some artistic licence is involved. I am just assuming we haven't spotted them yet :). Or I guess the technobabble could be that the high gravity of distant black holes causes long-range jump points to form. I have considered black holes (and other stellar phenomena) for a while but I couldn't come up with a simple mechanic, especially as gravity doesn't really play a part in Aurora at the moment. Hopefully the following will be fun and straightforward and capture the basic scariness of black holes.
Each black hole is rated from Class I to Class X. The pull of the black hole is equal to 1000 km/s multiplied by the class, so a class IV black hole has a pull of 4000 km/s. If a fleet has a speed greater than the pull of the black hole then its speed is reduced by that pull but it can otherwise function normally. So a scout ship capable of 4500 km/s moving through a system with a class III black hole would move at 1500 km/s instead. If a fleet has a speed less then the black hole, then any orders are ignored (although not cancelled) and it is pulled straight toward the black hole at a speed equal to black hole pull minus fleet speed. So a fleet with a speed of 3200 km/s in a system with a class VI black hole would be pulled toward the black hole at 2800 km/s. On the system map, this pull speed is shown as a negative, so the aforementioned fleet would be shown as travelling at -2800 km/s.
When a fleet enters a black hole, all the ships in the fleet are instantly destroyed and leave no wreckage or life pods. A battle fought in a black hole system is going to be interesting because damaged ships are likely to get dragged away from the battle as they slow down. I haven't coded it yet but wrecks and lifepods will be pulled toward the black hole as well. As it would be very difficult to salvage a moving wreck I am also considering just not having any wreckage in black hole systems, although I would still have life pods.
A black hole system can be surveyed for jump points just like any other system. For purposes of the survey locations a black hole has stellar mass equal to its class, so higher class black hole systems will be harder to survey.
NPRs and civilians are aware of discovered black hole systems and will avoid them unless they have a sufficient speed advantage over the pull of the black hole.
Steve
-
it would be really sexy if moving towards the black hole was the sum of the pull and engine technology but moving away was the difference.
-
it would be really sexy if moving towards the black hole was the sum of the pull and engine technology but moving away was the difference.
What about laterally?
-
i can visualize particles only in a one dimensional box.
-
Well fights could be fairly interresting. First of all rockets would be a good bit slower which means a bit of lowtech PD should be able to kill them thus ray-weapons have an advantage in those places. On the other hand "bombs" and "mines" get funny like hell. Given that you have a good ping on your enemys (without him seeing you) you could go to the outskirts of the system to release some driveless mines with some thermal sensors. If you get it right these babys should drift right into the enemy. Well actually your ships could do the same. A group of facs drifting towards a enemy fleet could be "invisible" for quite long time - well longer then normaly and early on they could actually be faster by drifting.
Depending on where the Jumppoints are one could also make the trip through the system without fuel or atleast considerable less fuel.
I wonder if Steve will add Pulsars and Magnatars at some point. ^^ I could imagine that these places need shields or your crew gets fried. A very small gravity pull could also be interresting for normal stars.
-
Sounds pretty awesome. If I may make a suggestion, I think it would be interesting if a ship gets too close without actually falling in the black hole should start tearing random systems off the ship and killing some of the crew without totally wrecking the ship.
-
interesting thing would be positioning of the fleet, in may respects it like the wind in old sailing vessels, if you position you fleet heading towards the blackhole do you get a speed advantage, also are does you missile run faster?
It could make some interesting tactic if those aspects come into play. It is a pity you cannot target certain components on a ship, say engines
Also if you have a damage ship on tractor beam, does there own engines help the speed overall, or are tractor beams just on main ship engines?
-
Interesting,
Will a ship (that is faster than the black hole strength) also have the option to go towards the black hole and thereby greatly increasing it's speed?
-
Actually, I am torn in two directions here.
On one hand, black holes sure sound cool and all and some form of "terrain" aside from nebulas will come in handy.
On the ohter hand, I simply can´t forget that a black hole is just mass. A black hole of, say 5 sun-masses, is no different (from a gravitational point of view) than a star of 5 sun-masses, except for the fact you can get closer to a black hole than to the star unless your ship can stand to be _inside_ the star.
There also is no differnce whatsoever if this source is a star or a black hole in terms of movement.
My ship either can generate enough thrust to get away from it or not. If it can, no problem, if not, my ship dies. Again, there realy is no difference, if the ship dies when it is pulled into the star, or when it is ripped apart by the tidal forces approaching the black hole.
Of course, there may by all kinds of things generated by the black hole, radiation peaks, jets, gamma ray burts, you name it.
-
This is a place where a Newtonian physics model would come in handy - so that if your ship is slower than the pull of the hole, you could try to slingshot your way out of orbit. However that doesn't exist now in Aurora, and I doubt it will soon.
As for size, I'm guessing these are major black holes, not tiny ones like a 5-star mass.
It would be neat if these could generate ghost sensor readings when your active sensors are on, or sensor blackout areas.
-
I think you should use a double hyperlimit to increase the pull the closer you get. Then you could also add gravity to stars, albeit a very low one.
As for fluff, in the center of every stellar black hole resides a Singularity.
That could greatly bork TN drives, thus giving a fluff for why Black holes have an obscene pull on those objects.
On the other hand, that would mean that a conventional engine could corss the system at far lower speeds... tough one.
As James mentioned, it is probably also more likely that a huge black hole generates Jump points after the Nova that likely resulted in the Black hole.
Thus, they will be rather huge.
Sensor failures would also be neat.
Gamma Jets are likely only emitted from the Poles, and given that Aurora is two-Dimensional, with everything sort of happening on the Stats Equatorial axis, this wouldn't concern anyone.
-
I agree that super-massive black holes (SM-BH) would be scary. But then they would to be very _very_ rare.
Also, as the distance jumppoint - star are somewhat related to the star´s mass, the jumppoints leading to a SM-BH would probably be very far away, migiating its effect on the ship.
If we are talking about "regular" black holes, I used the 5-sun-masses just as an example. It doesn´t matter if the black hole is 5 or 20 or 50 sun-masses. It is still no different from a 5 or 20 or 50 sun-masses star (actually, the system would probably be more dangerous _before_ the star went supernova, as it will have to be a lot larger than 50 sun-masses to create a 50 sun-mass black hole)
yes, this is one of my pet-peeves with movies/books where a black hole is the end of everything.
Now, I am not against black holes, it just taxes my suspension of disbelieve to the limit ;)
The singularity affecting TN-technology is a good thought.
-
given that the main component of an active sensor is grav the should get seriously screwed (all ships readings swallowed by holes grav) so sensors should get a range penalty (10% per BH level maybe)
df weapons
mesions might work as a mession is so low mass it might get someware before being sucked in
rails + Gauss should have a massive decrease in range
particle beams not sure, definitely a reduction, half maybe
lasers should have an increase in range because of blue shift +2/3 range tech levels
all weapons should have a large hit penalty (trying to compensate for grav = bent firing paths)
idf weapons
missiles and plas torps should have a to hit penalty also as they would eather be going to fast, to slow or just plain all over the place when trying to hit the target
-
Meh. A 50 Solar mass black hole at 1 AU distance would exert an acceleration of 0.03 g on an object. Don't do it.
-
Hell, this is perfect.
By only really affecting TN drives, making them accelerate towards the hole like a ship in the bathtub when you pulled the plug (they treat space like water, after all), you could actually keep wrecks in the system, being rather uninterested in the matter and not knowing what all the fuss is about.
-
I like more 'things' and did not know that black holes were not gravity behemoths so it makes sense to fluff it so that a hither unknown effect of a black hole is to exert a massive pull on materials that are constructed from TN minerals.
This then opens up a tech tree that would negate the effects of a black hole in the same way that more armor on a ship negates the drag of a nebula.
You could use shields as a way to block that 'pull' from a black hole but have it such that each level of black hole reduces the shield level by a certain amount (over time maybe, like taking damage?).
So, if you want to traverse a black hole then you have to heavily shield your ship and run the risk that they fail before you get to your destination.
-
The likely effect is just to create a 'no-go' system. Doesn't honestly excite me.
-
I think it would be interesting if a black hole could randomly shift to another system, appearing in some random place there and eating whatever it landed on/is too close.
-
Now what sense would that make?
Ultimately, it creates gateway systems that are only available once you have sufficient engine tech.
-
Now what sense would that make?
Ultimately, it creates gateway systems that are only available once you have sufficient engine tech.
Currently, black holes make no sense simply the way they work.
-
.. he said directly after quoting the very sense they do indeed make ingame.
They create gateways.
Bork TN tech. makes totally sense to me.
No need to make them a second Invaders.
Theres already plenty of people who hate those.
-
Interesting,
Will a ship (that is faster than the black hole strength) also have the option to go towards the black hole and thereby greatly increasing it's speed?
No. I considered having an actual gravity effect. The problem is that if the black hole pulls you toward it at speed X and you are heading in a different direction Y, it will be difficult for the player to plan a course across the system. Simply heading toward a jump point will actually result in a non-optimal curving course. That is why I decided on the simpler speed reduction effect. You get the basic problem of being sucked in by a black hole without the difficulties involved in projecting courses within a strong gravitational field.
Steve
-
I agree that super-massive black holes (SM-BH) would be scary. But then they would to be very _very_ rare.
Also, as the distance jumppoint - star are somewhat related to the star´s mass, the jumppoints leading to a SM-BH would probably be very far away, migiating its effect on the ship.
If we are talking about "regular" black holes, I used the 5-sun-masses just as an example. It doesn´t matter if the black hole is 5 or 20 or 50 sun-masses. It is still no different from a 5 or 20 or 50 sun-masses star (actually, the system would probably be more dangerous _before_ the star went supernova, as it will have to be a lot larger than 50 sun-masses to create a 50 sun-mass black hole)
yes, this is one of my pet-peeves with movies/books where a black hole is the end of everything.
Now, I am not against black holes, it just taxes my suspension of disbelieve to the limit ;)
The singularity affecting TN-technology is a good thought.
Yes, I am guilty of the movie-version of black holes with this. Although I too like the technobabble that singularities have an effect on TN drives rather than it being the mass of the black hole.
Steve
-
Hell, this is perfect.
By only really affecting TN drives, making them accelerate towards the hole like a ship in the bathtub when you pulled the plug (they treat space like water, after all), you could actually keep wrecks in the system, being rather uninterested in the matter and not knowing what all the fuss is about.
Have to be a little careful here. I think the singularity would have to affect ships based on TN elements rather than just TN drives, otherwise could a ship escape BH effects by disengaging its engines? If it is TNE that are affected, then wrecks would be affected too, although perhaps not lifepods
Steve
-
Plotting a curve with a constant speed field shouldn't be too difficult for a computer to solve. A least time solution should be quite possible to compute although my math isn't good enough for me to give an answer instantly.
I can take a shot at it if you want.
(Constant speed towards the origin, constant magnitude vector applicable in any direction, is desired point reachable and find least time path)
-
Plotting a curve with a constant speed field shouldn't be too difficult for a computer to solve. A least time solution should be quite possible to compute although my math isn't good enough for me to give an answer instantly.
I can take a shot at it if you want.
(Constant speed towards the origin, constant magnitude vector applicable in any direction, is desired point reachable and find least time path)
Sorry I wasn't very clear. I didn't mean it would be hard for a computer to figure out the best course. I meant it would hard for a player to visualise what was going on and plan accordingly. Simpler mechanics make it easier for players to visualise and plan and aren't significantly less 'fun' than more realistic mechanics. It's the same reason that I used TN technobabble instead of Newtonian physics.
Steve
-
And here I was thinking it was because it would have been too much work to program /calculate very turn the inertia and acceleration of every single object....
::) ;D
-
And here I was thinking it was because it would have been too much work to program /calculate very turn the inertia and acceleration of every single object....
::) ;D
Aurora was designed that way originally, with real Newtonian mechanics and gravity effects and replicated real world rockets such as a Saturn V. I spent several weeks learning all I could about rocket science. In one of my attention to detail moments, I even rang up a company in the US to find out the mass of the insulation on a particular cryogenic fuel tank :). However, it was just too difficult to play with real physics so I invented Trans-newtonian physics instead.
Steve
-
Aurora was designed that way originally, with real Newtonian mechanics and gravity effects and replicated real world rockets such as a Saturn V. I spent several weeks learning all I could about rocket science. In one of my attention to detail moments, I even rang up a company in the US to find out the mass of the insulation on a particular cryogenic fuel tank :). However, it was just too difficult to play with real physics so I invented Trans-newtonian physics instead.
Steve
..*G--Phew..:-D
-
I would have loved the challenge. :D
But I suppose I can't complain either way.
-
I would have loved the challenge. :D
But I suppose I can't complain either way.
Imagine that.
You dial up the task group for a frieghter train on Earth and ask the computer to plot a route to Mars.
It gives three or four different routes, choosing between a few different methods.
Direct thrust, Hohmann transfer, Bi-elliptical, Low energy...
Freaking awesome, but planning a deep-space battle? =/ You dial up an enemy fleet and find out that your ships don't carry enough fuel to generate an intercept... and simply have to sit at your planet defending it.
And just imagining an attacker trying to engineer such a scenario... -.-
-
Awesome, isn't it?
I get exited just by thinking about it.
But I suppose it ends being a game there. ;D