Newtonian Aurora

[bean]

There are plenty of people in this thread with more practical knowledge and maths skills than myself so I am not going to get involved in any detailed discussions about shooting Earth from Neptune. However, the Earth is 12,000 kilometers in diameter and Neptune is about 4,500,000,000 km away, so the ratio is about 375,000-1. This may be a simplistic analogy but that is like putting a basketball on top of the Empire State building in New York (or perhaps having it move slowly across the NYC skyline) and trying to shoot it from the Washington Monument (about 435,000-1). Difficult but you could imagine it being possible with modern technology. Whether you could hit one particular spot on the basketball might be trickier but given the probable future state of technology in an Aurora game, I think most people would accept that something like that would be possible without much suspension of disbelief. It's certainly a lot easier than creating the engines in the game

I'm not totally sure about that, but it still leaves the question of why you would bother.  Unless you're trying for ecocide, there's no reason to throw unguided things at a planet from that sort of range.

My intention is not to create a perfectly accurate simulation but rather a game that has the feel of hard science. Gameplay and fun will always take precedence over physics and even though the game is a lot more 'hard science' than most, it is still going to be far more simplified than reality.

Steve

What?  Treason!!
 

[Yonder]

Again, that's not the problem.  If we could do such things, why do we need midcourse corrections on spacecraft?  The sort of thing you work on is more then adequate for a spacecraft that can correct its course, but if it can't, there's a problem.

We need mid-course correction for several reasons. The two big ones is that we are generally trying to do way, way harder things than shoot a largish planet. We are hitting specific target sites, or hitting the atmosphere at specific angles so that our fragile craft aren't destroyed, or going for narrow valid orbits on a planetary flyby maneuver. The second issue is one I mentioned earlier, the uncertainty of the position of an orbiting object increases geometrically with time. Many of our missions in the solar system (because of our sadly non-Aurora technology) take many, many months. The more interesting ones take several years, that just gives you enormously higher uncertainty than a shorter mission of a few weeks or a couple of months at most.

less than 7/1000 arc seconds

That's not as accurate as you think.  While it sounds impressive, you'll need much less to be able to hit anything, particularly at the ranges you're proposing.

That's just flat out wrong. Borrowing the numbers Steve just used, from Neptune the Earth is approximately .55 arc seconds. 7/1000 arc seconds is enough to Bulls-eye all but the smallest States every time.

Comparisons to modern weapons are fundamentally flawed.  To be able to do what you suggest, you'll need something that is as good if not better then top-of-the-line modern lab equipment.  And it has to be military hardware.  That's the kicker.  It has to be able to work reliably and without handholding from a dozen PhD's.

Ok, now I can't even tell if you understand the meaning of science fiction. You don't look at things that barely work in the lab today and say "well I guess that will never work, ever" you are trying to extrapolate (with various degrees of realism, depending on the sort of setting you are aiming for) future capabilities. One of the totally valid ways to do that for near term capabilities is to look at things that barely work in the lab, and try to take those capabilities forward with similar behavior and polish to the modern things the new tech will be replacing.

The other thing that paragraph bugs me about it that I haven't even been doing what you are accusing me of! I have taken a handful of things from Steve's schematics (really just muzzle velocity and ship speed) and applied other traits from modern hardware. Not laboratory "dozen PhDs fussing over it" equipment, but actual, real, equipment, and conservative estimates of that equipment. When I pulled up an Arc Minute as a guide for the accuracy of modern guns (not arc-second like I said in my last post, whoops, the original post I did the math in has the right number though), I did so simply by finding a reference to actual, used in the woods to shoot animals by real people, hunting rifles. And I did that on purpose! I could have tried for a much more detailed measurement of modern military capabilities, say by noting that a torso is around a foot wide, and the longest recorded sniper rifle kill is 2707 yards, and calculating a still conservative accuracy of a modern sniper rifle (since it includes human inaccuracy) of 25 arc seconds. But I was fine with grabbing a quick, easy, and above all conservative number.

Same with that 7/1000 arc seconds number from the Hubble. The Hubble is the most well known orbital telescope, but it's not the newest or the most advanced, but when I wanted a number for stability of a satellite I didn't go trying to look at proposed capabilities for the James Webb, or try to search for the most accurate and stable satellite there was, I just grabbed the conservative number of a satellite's capabilities. The Hubble isn't in a lab somewhere with students nursing it's finicky systems along. It's actually up in space, doing stuff, taking pictures, finding planets, stars, and galaxies, and it has been for 21 years.

[bean]

We need mid-course correction for several reasons. The two big ones is that we are generally trying to do way, way harder things than shoot a largish planet. We are hitting specific target sites, or hitting the atmosphere at specific angles so that our fragile craft aren't destroyed, or going for narrow valid orbits on a planetary flyby maneuver. The second issue is one I mentioned earlier, the uncertainty of the position of an orbiting object increases geometrically with time. Many of our missions in the solar system (because of our sadly non-Aurora technology) take many, many months. The more interesting ones take several years, that just gives you enormously higher uncertainty than a shorter mission of a few weeks or a couple of months at most.

Using models of the solar system that we've had years to build, not days.  I think it comes out in the wash.

That's just flat out wrong. Borrowing the numbers Steve just used, from Neptune the Earth is approximately .55 arc seconds. 7/1000 arc seconds is enough to Bulls-eye all but the smallest States every time.

True, assuming that is the only uncertainty involved, which it is not.

Ok, now I can't even tell if you understand the meaning of science fiction. You don't look at things that barely work in the lab today and say "well I guess that will never work, ever" you are trying to extrapolate (with various degrees of realism, depending on the sort of setting you are aiming for) future capabilities. One of the totally valid ways to do that for near term capabilities is to look at things that barely work in the lab, and try to take those capabilities forward with similar behavior and polish to the modern things the new tech will be replacing.

No, I'm pointing out that at the level of precision you are proposing, things start to break down.  Period.  I'm slightly skeptical of the sort of numbers involved for lasers, which are by nature more precise then kinetic weapons.  Hubble achieves that sort of accuracy only after taking into account things like thermal expansion from solar heating.  It isn't point and shoot.  And if it's a manned craft, you'll have things like people walking about, pumps, fans, and all the other stuff of life aboard.  Unless you have everyone stop and hold their breath, but then you're getting into my point about laboratories again.
And yes, I have had this debate before. 

The other thing that paragraph bugs me about it that I haven't even been doing what you are accusing me of! I have taken a handful of things from Steve's schematics (really just muzzle velocity and ship speed) and applied other traits from modern hardware. Not laboratory "dozen PhDs fussing over it" equipment, but actual, real, equipment, and conservative estimates of that equipment. When I pulled up an Arc Minute as a guide for the accuracy of modern guns (not arc-second like I said in my last post, whoops, the original post I did the math in has the right number though), I did so simply by finding a reference to actual, used in the woods to shoot animals by real people, hunting rifles. And I did that on purpose! I could have tried for a much more detailed measurement of modern military capabilities, say by noting that a torso is around a foot wide, and the longest recorded sniper rifle kill is 2707 yards, and calculating a still conservative accuracy of a modern sniper rifle (since it includes human inaccuracy) of 25 arc seconds. But I was fine with grabbing a quick, easy, and above all conservative number.

Same with that 7/1000 arc seconds number from the Hubble. The Hubble is the most well known orbital telescope, but it's not the newest or the most advanced, but when I wanted a number for stability of a satellite I didn't go trying to look at proposed capabilities for the James Webb, or try to search for the most accurate and stable satellite there was, I just grabbed the conservative number of a satellite's capabilities. The Hubble isn't in a lab somewhere with students nursing it's finicky systems along. It's actually up in space, doing stuff, taking pictures, finding planets, stars, and galaxies, and it has been for 21 years.

No, the Hubble is a piece of lab equipment.  It's unmanned, and totally dedicated to astronomy, so it can be totally motionless.  When required, virtually nothing is moving erratically.  It only operates with light, so you don't have to worry about things like recoil knocking it out of alignment.  Oh, and the people tending it are PhDs.  They just do it remotely.

The bigger question is why you want to do this.  Even granting all of your wishes, we still have the small problem of the fact that you can only hit a state-sized target.  Unless you wish to do ecocide, a guided weapon will be easier and cheaper to employ for a given effectiveness, assuming you're firing from somewhere around Jupiter or Neptune.  Always.  If you took a 1 megaton kinetic impact and distributed it randomly in the US, you would probably kill a few hundred people, and make us mad.  If you hit New York, it would be far, far, worse, but New York is too small to hit unless you guide it.  As for the cost of guidance, over any reasonable lifespan, you'll get it back in lower startup costs.  Not to mention needing less ammo.

[procyon]

I make it a habit of not bringing personal identities into internet arguments for a couple reasons, mainly because anyone can claim to be anything on the internet, and also because I don't like appeals to authority. I think that reasoned arguments (and lots of math) are the best way to go about things. However at this point we are really talking about more nebulous claims than can easily be demonstrated, and you've said "trust me" twice, so I suppose I'll return with the "I do this (examination and implementation of force and environment models to accurately propagate space craft and other heavenly bodies) for a living." I'm a software developer for the company I've linked to twice now, and the main developer of one of their propagation products.

I don't question your math, so much as the ability to actually implement it.  Without the giving of names and creds I worked for the government as a physicist in this field and still colaborate on several projects.  I resigned my formal government possition and accepted civilian support status and signed far too many forms to count that made it abundantly clear that if I was to share any of my work that I would get to spend a loooong time in a small cell with a big man named Bubba (my apologies to anyone named Bubba...) who will think I am really cute.

The simple fact that you have argued as intelligently as you have indicates that you also have an abundance of experience in this field.  I do not question that.  But as you are likely well familiar with, those of us in this field have very different ideas of what is possible when you actually get off this planet.

Calculating Sedna's orbit parameters from Earth is a much harder problem than getting a firing solution on Earth (from, say, Neptune). One of those involves propagating the position of an object 12750 km across a few (say 4) weeks forward in time from measurements taken 4.6E9 km away.

I am not saying that calculating it is that difficult.  It would be giving adequate time to collect the necessary data.  Collecting the data will take time.  How long it would take for a race with this level of tech, I don't know.  I do leave that to Steve.  I would base a kinetic projectile's maximum range/accuracy on the level you have surveyed a system.  (perhaps a mod of some sort? to prevent the jump in and blast the pop from extreme range).  The problem is like laying any type of non-guided weapon system.  The math is easy.  Getting the darned thing to go where the numbers say it will is nearly impossible and has more to do with luck than anything.  Ballistic calculators can tell us EXACTLY where a bullet should go with a given sectional density/ballistic coefficient/velocity/air temp and pressure/crossing influences/movement of the earth under it/etc. etc. ad nauseum.  Problem is those bullets/shells/ etc always spread out unpredictably.  Otherwise we would never miss a target.  Like I said, the math can be exact but it never describes reality when it does.

I'm also not sure how you got that I was trying to shoot at Earth from out past Sedna

You implied you were shooting from beyond Neptune, as I understood it.  If that was not your intention then I am sorry for the misunderstanding.  But even from Neptune, it would require something other than more advanced ways of making a projectile go fast.  Somehow you have to keep it from interacting with the interplanetary medium.  Jupiter would be considerably easier, but keeping an unguided projectile from deviating to the small degree that is necessary to deflect it would be almost impossible without some form of 'handwavium' that somehow repelled the particles without imparting any deflection.  

You also somehow need to keep the launcher and projectile from interacting in any way. Which would be inconducive to firing.

I also assume that in Aurora their algorithms and computers will be no less effective than ours, and will probably be at least an order of magnitude better.

I hope so.  Ours are getting better faster than I can keep up.  (Ok, I quit trying to over a decade ago.  I really haven't moved much past the point when I was happy to program one to generate a number between one and six in school.)
The crux is getting the data.  It takes time to measure movements, densities, etc.  And I doubt a dedicated warship is going to pack a large number of astrophysics types in its crew just to analyse reams of data so they can figure out how to shoot at a planet.  Especially when mass has such a big impact on a ship and its ability to get from point a to b.  I know what my superiors would have told me.  'Just get closer.'  Which is why when we shoot those asteroids or comets, we get REALLY close.  It is a lot easier to do than packing all the gear into a vehicle so that it can do it from a loong ways off.
Which is why I would beleive that most of those distant 'planet killers' would most likely be a missile launched from a long ways out that can follow the planet.  The firing solution is so much simpler and chance to hit is immeasurably higher if the vehicle can adjust to its target.  By the time it reaches the planet a kinetic kill missile will likely be going a lot faster than the rail gun.  This is why we shoot Tomahawks at targets instead of 16" shells.  The shells are way cheaper.  Just hard to know if you will actually hit anything.

According to NASA fact sites the Hubble telescope has a Pointing Accuracy of 7/1000th of an arcsecond, so platforms in space can align to a target with a great deal of stability. Now granted it's another ball game entirely to maintain stability on an object accelerating on a huge cloud of plasma. I suppose Steve could model accuracy penalties while accelerating, but I think he could also handwave that requirement away. We have a variety of ways already to mitigate instability and jolts for both turrets on naval vessels and more rudimentary science experiments, and it would seem fairly reasonable (to me anyways) to just say, "eh, they have something like that".

Now as far as how long it takes the platform to regain stability after a shot, that depends on the mass of the platform, the offset of the barrel from the center of mass, the abilities of the control system to torque the craft, and a heck of a lot of other things that Steve is not modelling. Seems reasonable to just say that the spaceship is able to damp out it's orientation by the time the next shot is ready.

Pointing something isn't the huge problem.  We can aquire a target with a high degree of precision.  It is the act of firing that will mess everything up.  When Hubble does this it is being held as 'motionless' (I hate that term, sorry) as possible.  Firing a projectile will upset this profoundly.  I agree that the next shot will not occur until the platform has stabilized, and that could be assumed under the rate of fire.  But the platform and launcher are moving and deforming during the shot, and this deviation is impossible to predict within certain levels of certainty.  If you are firing a projectile at the limit of what your technology is capable of using (and why wouldn't you on a military weapon) you will only be capable of a certain level of accuracy over distance.  The platform will deviate and the environment will then act on it.  They accuracy a weapon is capable of - I don't know.  But if Steve wished to limit it to much shorter distances than what some people are talking about - it is supportable.  Shooting from Earth to Mars - yeah.  Might not hit a spacestation/ship/habitat, but the planet would be easy.  If you really need to hit the little target either shoot alot (artillery barrage) or firs a missile (tomahawk).
Hitting a Callisto from Earth with an unguided weapon.   Better shoot a lot.  Hitting Earth from Neptune - hope Steve doesn't track ammo because you will need a lot.

For a normal unguided kinetic slug going through a coil gun or railgun you don’t have to worry about the G force destroying the slug since the magnetic forces apply to the entire projectile fairly uniformly.

Not a good arguement.  Gravity applies (as far as we know) perfectly uniformly.  Check what happens to a bridge if you exceed its bearing strength.  Even or not, exceed what it can take and it comes apart.  When you apply a quarter million G's plus to an object - even or not - it will deform unpredictably.  You can try to argue that it is being 'pulled' as much as it is being pushed, but that defies Newton's Third Law.  In the end, the slug is going to go a direction and the launcher won't be.  And they are going to act on one another with the slug absorbing a LOT of energy.  It will deform.  So will the launcher.  And just how much at a given point will be impossible to predict beyond a certain degree.

I base this on the entirety of our civilized history, which has shown our weapons becoming longer-ranged, higher powered, and more accurate over time.

Our weapons have better range and accuracy, but it is due to the type of weapon.  Guided munitions are a god send when the bullets start flying.  But our accuracy and range with unguided munitions hasn't actually changed much at all since WWII.  That is the reason we don't have bigger and better cannons (for the most part).  We have the ability to factor in more variables (which is why the Germans considered our use of artillery with TOT fire missions a violation of the rules of war in WWII), but the shell is only so accurate.  If they had gotten lots better, the battleships wouldn't be parked, and destroyers that are now the size of WWII cruisers would pack more than a single 5" gun.  The M1 fires a shell no bigger than those of the large Soviet Tanks of WWII.  We have better first hit percentages, but the range hasn't gotten much longer.  That was why when I did my time overseas we used the M1's laser designators to light up our targets for the helos Hellfire's that could find the target farther out than the M1 could reliably engage.



Ok, this will likely be my last post on this.  I have stated what I feel to be accurate.  What the future holds is going to be a lot different that any of us can see.  I mostly have pursued this to give support to the fact that if Steve wishes to give max ranges to unguided projectiles - it is realistic.  They don't have to be interplanetary weapons if he doesn't want them to be.  If he wants to say that 10+km/s projectiles are only accurate over a few light seconds - so be it.  If he wants to shut it off at a light minute - that is very realistic (probably optomistic).

Now guided planet killers ( missiles), those could be a problem.

( I will try to find a public reference to the particle densities in interplanetary space.  I don't have any on hand but I know I have read several college papers that stated this fact, so it has to be in the public forum somewhere.  I will PM you references that I find if you are truly interested.  I suspect that it could be googled to come up with results anymore.)

[procyon]

There are plenty of people in this thread with more practical knowledge and maths skills than myself so I am not going to get involved in any detailed discussions about shooting Earth from Neptune. However, the Earth is 12,000 kilometers in diameter and Neptune is about 4,500,000,000 km away, so the ratio is about 375,000-1. This may be a simplistic analogy but that is like putting a basketball on top of the Empire State building in New York (or perhaps having it move slowly across the NYC skyline) and trying to shoot it from the Washington Monument (about 435,000-1). Difficult but you could imagine it being possible with modern technology. Whether you could hit one particular spot on the basketball might be trickier but given the probable future state of technology in an Aurora game, I think most people would accept that something like that would be possible without much suspension of disbelief. It's certainly a lot easier than creating the engines in the game :)My intention is not to create a perfectly accurate simulation but rather a game that has the feel of hard science. Gameplay and fun will always take precedence over physics and even though the game is a lot more 'hard science' than most, it is still going to be far more simplified than reality.

Steve

No wish to step on your toes, and my most sincere apologies.  I really look forward to this (more than I would have expected for a computer game.  I have never found one that compared to playing on a tabletop with my family.   )

Whatever you decided, that is fine.  But when I see something claimed to be possible that is most likely the opposite with our current understanding, I have a nasty habit of speaking up.  (My wife hates this at gatherings.  I am not always the ideal party guest.)

The fact you have chosen to undertake in your spare time a task that PAID programmers have shied away from as 'to complicated' has earned you my respect.  The fact you put up with the rest of us babblers only raises my opinion.

Thank you.


EDIT

I will admit that I am beginning to suffer withdrawl from your fiction though....

[procyon]

Furthermore I cited earlier that those inaccuracies for a high quality civilian-available hunting rifle were around an arc second.

I'm sorry, I need to respond to this one.  I was also a competitive shooter (used to be on the Army Rifle Team, but now you are probably getting enough on me that you could possibly dig up who I am.)  A really good rifle shoots sub MOA.  Not sub SOA.  That would be wonderful.  A 10.47 inch group at 1000 yds is an arc minute.  So the difference between shooting (arc minute) and looking (tiny fraction of an arc second) are big.  Properly bedded down for a 1000m match, I can easily hold the rifle on a bullseye (probably an arc second give or take).  Getting that bullet to do what I wanted was always a pain.

An arc minute is 1/3440 (approx) of the radius.  An arc second 1/206,500 (rounding off a bunch).  So if Neptune to Earth is 1 to 375,000 it is about 2/3rd of an arc second.  That is just really small to shoot.  High precision shooting instruments today can only do about one percent of that with a flight time of about a second, and as you point out the longer the flight time the greater the error becomes.  Sub MOA is easy at 100m.  It is record breaking at 1000m.  Range compounds error and introduces new ones. 

It just feels wrong to say that not only has the accuracy improved by a factor of 100 times, but it can do it when the flight time has been increased over a half million times for a one week trip.  An increase of one half a billion times over what we can do now...Maybe it will happen one day. 


Ok, really am done now....

[Antagonist]

Absolutely no need to stop posting, informed opinions are of course welcome.

Rather, the issue of flared tempers and confrontation can be reduced, though with professionals it is a common failing to take 'incorrect' comments personally, something I myself have failings with.  Arguing on the internet, as aggravating as it may be is fun to be honest, if those you argue with are knowledgeable enough.

As stated, Steve has the final word, not in reality, but rather what will be implemented on Aurora based on a mixture of reality and fun.  But our discussions on reality certainly still have an effect.  It was the noting that the exhaust of the engines exceed the speed of light that prompted that change.  Discussion on this, if it can be modeled and be fun might find its way into Aurora as well.

What I'm thinking is the accuracy of unguided weapons affected by three effects.

First is target lock.  Just knowing a ship is there and where it is doesn't mean you know where it is within one meter.  There will still be errors in a sensor target lock, possibly off by meters or even kilometers, depending on how close the ship is to the firing ship and the technology of your sensors, affected even more by slight measurement deviations in velocity(even ignoring evasive maneuvers) when it comes to target prediction.  Including this as a gameplay mechanic would make missiles more useful due to course corrections and onboard sensors(whether they need a boost is debatable) and require snipers to pack better sensors than shorter range ships.  This could in effect be a soft limit on range, requiring longer ranged vessels to have more and better sensors.  This might also provide use for the idea of overlapping sensors, such as a ship following 1mil km behind might increase the locking accuracy while not affecting the range of sensors, as with planet based sensors.  Downside is micromanagement so this will need to be judged from a fun/realism ratio of course.

Second is pointing accuracy.  Realistic based on the Hubble Telescope, the effect might be negligible.  But I'm pointing this out to be complete.

Third is deformation and warping during firing.  This could be on the projectile or it could be the rails.  This can be improved with technology to allow increasingly accurate weapons (compensators or better materials), but is random enough to have a random effect on every shot.  The size and speed of the projectile could also have an effect, with larger and slower (but same MJ) projectiles being more accurate than harder hitting smaller projectiles.  This is something where it can be safe to step away from reality and pick values tuned to the desired maximum range.  Ingame the rails are too short for current modern materials, if I read the comments correctly, so it is already handwavium where gameplay suitable values of deformation can be selected.

Combine all three of these variables and you can have fun soft limits on killing range, giving value to moving close but still keeping longer sniping possible with enough investment.  You might still have the issue of attacking planets in general, but hitting a PDC would be difficult.  So you can keep bombing planets, eliminating population(less if they take shelter) and infrastructure, having a slight if any effect on industry (kill plenty of civilian industry, but 1000 rare material mines(as opposed to millions of regular material mines) spread over the surface of the planet would be hard to hit, even if every shot destroys a 10km radius(thumb-sucked value).  To be able to target these you need MUCH higher accuracy than just hitting a planet. Secondary killing effects such as tidal waves and radiation and climate wrecking smoke clouds is a different story, but potentially manageable with terraforming.  Don't get me wrong, MANY people will die, but either a VERY extended random bombardment or a more accurate closer attack would be needed to disable a planet's war ability.  In my non-expert opinion.

Well, in closing, I dislike hard limits, even if its actually generous like several light-seconds.  I prefer these range limits to be based on practicality and dependent on technology with diminishing returns.  That said, intuitive gameplay and fun takes precedence.  As for planets, its been noted that hitting them is easy, but I believe that hitting something actually important on the planet(as opposed to just killing people) is much more difficult and cracking a planet in two to kill all of it over extreme range is cost impractical.

EDIT: What's with me and commas?

EDIT2: Actually, more I think about it the more I like it.  From the rules post the only difference between the 4800 MJ 1kg and 2kg variations is the energy required.  An accuracy penalty for exceeding your race's Railgun vs Maximum projectile maximum would make this parameter tuning more important and possibly lend value to fighters.  Short-range harder-hitting rails carried by small faster fighters vs accurate but less powerful (per ton anyway, will be larger so still more powerful in absolute terms) could make fighters practical again in Newtonian Aurora.  Or at least FAC ships.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

No wish to step on your toes, and my most sincere apologies.  I really look forward to this (more than I would have expected for a computer game.  I have never found one that compared to playing on a tabletop with my family.   )

Don't apologise. That wasn't a request to halt the debate. I was just pointing out the reality isn't the final arbiter of what will end up in the game . I don't mind debates at all - I only mind if any comments are made that might be construed as personal attacks rather than contributing to the debate.

Whatever you decided, that is fine.  But when I see something claimed to be possible that is most likely the opposite with our current understanding, I have a nasty habit of speaking up.  (My wife hates this at gatherings.  I am not always the ideal party guest.)

I just read this out to my wife who LOL'ed as this is usually me

The fact you have chosen to undertake in your spare time a task that PAID programmers have shied away from as 'to complicated' has earned you my respect.  The fact you put up with the rest of us babblers only raises my opinion.

I greatly appreciate the community aspect of Aurora. For both Aurora and Starfire Assistant, the majority of the functionality has come from user suggestions.

I will admit that I am beginning to suffer withdrawl from your fiction though....

Me too! I miss writing it. At the moment I am leaning toward a 2300AD (GDW) flavour for the first Newtonian Aurora campaign. I haven't come up with the exact history yet but I may go for my largest number of starting nations yet . The thought of the potential for that campaign is keeping me going as I work my way through all the code changes.

Steve

[Beersatron]

Me too! I miss writing it. At the moment I am leaning toward a 2300AD (GDW) flavour for the first Newtonian Aurora campaign. I haven't come up with the exact history yet but I may go for my largest number of starting nations yet . The thought of the potential for that campaign is keeping me going as I work my way through all the code changes.

Steve

Is your NATO vs Soviets campaign still playable after all your changes? I know Newtora (get it? Newtonian Aurora) is the same executable but different to regular Aurora.

It would be nice to get a conclusion to it ... *hint* *hint*

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Is your NATO vs Soviets campaign still playable after all your changes? I know Newtora (get it? Newtonian Aurora) is the same executable but different to regular Aurora.

It would be nice to get a conclusion to it ... *hint* *hint*

No, Newtonian Aurora is a totally different game. It's difficult to convey just how major the changes are but it is a completely new playing experience. However, that doesn't stop me finishing the NATO vs Soviets game. I am now maintaining two different code bases and I can still play that campaign in Standard Aurora.

Steve

[Beersatron]

No, Newtonian Aurora is a totally different game. It's difficult to convey just how major the changes are but it is a completely new playing experience. However, that doesn't stop me finishing the NATO vs Soviets game. I am now maintaining two different code bases and I can still play that campaign in Standard Aurora.

Steve

Ah, when you originally started I thought I seen you mention that you were using the same code base which I thought weird at the time but I must have read it wrong.

Anyways, looking forward to Newtora and maybe even a Chinese resurgence - The Long March into Space!

[procyon]

Don't apologise. That wasn't a request to halt the debate. I was just pointing out the reality isn't the final arbiter of what will end up in the game . I don't mind debates at all - I only mind if any comments are made that might be construed as personal attacks rather than contributing to the debate.

Oh, I wasn't stopping for that.  I had stated what I felt to be accurate.  Yonder has a different opinion, which I respect even if I don't agree.  In that neither of us has actual knowledge of what will happen - or what another race may develop, I saw no point in continuing.  I simply agree to disagree on what would be possible.  I leave it to you to decided what will be best for the game.

I greatly appreciate the community aspect of Aurora. For both Aurora and Starfire Assistant, the majority of the functionality has come from user suggestions.

I have been amazed at what I have read so far in this thread, and your responses.  That is what got me to throw in my two cents at all.  As I said before, you have my respect.  Most folks have to be paid rather well to listen constructively to others (counselors and psych make good $).  You do it to try and improve what you are doing.

To paraphrase a saying in a book:  Don't criticize a fool, as he will only hate you for it.  But criticize a wise man and he will thank you. 

Me too! I miss writing it. At the moment I am leaning toward a 2300AD (GDW) flavour for the first Newtonian Aurora campaign. I haven't come up with the exact history yet but I may go for my largest number of starting nations yet . The thought of the potential for that campaign is keeping me going as I work my way through all the code changes.

Oh, now I have to sit patiently waiting on perhaps TWO stories.
How cruel...... 

[PTTG]

It seems that to a large degree, research seems to be of the engineering type rather than the classical science fiction Astounding Breakthroughs In Understanding type. You can develop a faster engine or a more accurate laser, but developing teleporters or biological starships or machine intelligence doesn't happen outside of RP.

One thing I'm particularly interested in is stellar-scale construction such as dyson spheres or (more likely) ringworlds/orbitals/halos.

[TheDeadlyShoe]

Even in a 'larger' game like Space Empires, those are absurdly lategame.. they basically never got built except for kicks. 

Tho you could build large scale Orbital Habitat and RP them as rings.

And technically you can build a dyson sphere already if you want to. There's just no point because you cant get energy from the sun nor use it for anything.

[jseah]

On ship structure and acceleration:

Given that we have a rough measure of how resistant TN materials are, would it be possible to enforce a ship size restriction based on weight and acceleration?

Since the acceleration of the ship comes from the engines, the front bits will press onto the back bits and there is a "limit" to how big you can build a ship before the walls crumple under the ever-so-huge nuclear torch drives. 

Might be in the hundred thousand tons or so but I have qualms about imagining what goes on in a twenty million ton orbital habitat that's under tow by a fleet of tugs.  1G on that?  Your structure might just break if your materials aren't good enough. 


EDIT:
basically, I'm suggesting a safe acceleration limit based on (weight of ship / armor tech level), capped to 3x racial gravity tolerances.
And yes, this means that an unladen freighter will have a higher acceleration limit than a fully laden one, which is only expected. 

Exceeding the limits might cause equipment to "age" far faster than usual, based again on percentage exceeding the limit.  Exceeding racial gravity tolerances might cause crew death. 

EDIT EDIT:
Might balance gravity in an interesting way too. 

Higher G races make better crews but have less qualifying planets.  Low G races can't accelerate as fast but can colonize many moons.