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Posted by: madpraxis
« on: April 29, 2012, 11:14:01 AM »

A quick two cents here....more distance = more error...so you pop out every couple of systems to take a star sighting basically like the good old days of sail, so you know, you end up somewhat near your target. Considering the shear amount of SLOW in-system drives have over the whoosh there we go power of jumping around you could literally shave days of in-system travel off by stopping on the way so you end up somewhere near and close in to your target instead way out in BFE. I read all, missed most, I'm going to sleep....as an excuse if this was already brought up. More like...wassat...er...david drakes books? Commander leary, thassit...
Posted by: PTTG
« on: January 23, 2012, 10:58:25 AM »

The debris is moving at stellar speeds. While fast in a cosmic sense, even over a few hundred years we probably won't see anything notable. Still, reminds me of some science fiction story where a rouge planet was tearing along at most of the speed of light through the galaxy. When explorers finally find it and reach it, they almost land before realizing it's from a different region of the universe- one dominated by antimatter. They actually find that the leading face of the planet has been radiated and eroded by constant impacts with interstellar hydrogen. There's apparently a civilization on the falling edge, although how it functions without a sun worries me. Perhaps they  collect matter from the horizon area and have a neutralization-based biology.
Posted by: Antagonist
« on: January 23, 2012, 06:59:39 AM »

While busy researching something for a game of my own, I came across a thought I think I'll share:

Apparently dwarf stars are MASSIVELY underrepresented in our star catalogs simply because of limitations to how far we can detect them.  If you add dead stars to this mass, it becomes possible that these could explain a quantity of dark matter as not being actual dark matter, but rather undetectable real matter.

Now if you have drives that operate by navigating using gravity wells, this potentially significant and constantly-changing interstellar debris could prove a significant navigational problem if it can pull ships out of hyperspace. Any actual collision is unlikely, since space is BIG... but scouts and explorers would likely travel to another star by jumping from gravity-pocket to gravity-pocket, staying in real-space only long enough to survey the debris and its gravitational effect, recalculate, then jump again.

This process would of course make interstellar travels much longer and more hazardous, possibly explaining lost ships.  Once mapped however you should be able to bypass all this debris and simply jump directly to the target star.

Such a system would make interdiction and interception possible, as well as introduce a 'survey upkeep' (the debris don't stand still after all) and make long jumps expensive and risky versus shorter jumps.

Any thoughts?
Posted by: chrislocke2000
« on: January 10, 2012, 06:28:36 AM »

Quote
Perhaps 30 - 170% (although making sure it didn't end up in something might be a coding nightmare -don't know).  If I had to miss I want to end a long way from the folks who might be shooting at me.  Jumping farther out just gives me more time to adjust for what I find.  If I accidentally end up in the middle of the system, in the midst of the 'natives' defenses - well, that could be a little embarrassing....

Jumping too close with a system of taking damage as a result of exiting in too strong a gravity field is how I was thinking of this. Landing next too your enemies with your fire controls in need of repair could be even more embarrassing...
Posted by: UnLimiTeD
« on: January 10, 2012, 03:21:13 AM »

Or you might end up right next to your target, and survive barely long enough to empty your box launcher of tactical nukes on the planet.
Goes both ways. :-\
Posted by: procyon
« on: January 10, 2012, 03:12:36 AM »

Quote from: Steve Walmsley
There is a minimum velocity requirement of 200 km/s for hyperspace entry and you can only jump when you are lined up on another star.

I probably missed it in all the reading.  My apologies.  Nice to know someone is solving the problems faster than I can think of them.

Quote from: Steve Walmsley
I like the idea of knowing the direction from which the ship originated. However I end up handling detection of ships entering the system, I'll include an estimate of the system of origin - based on heading.

Cool.

Quote from: Steve Walmsley
If the destination system is unsurveyed you will end up at a distance from the star somewhere between 100% and 170% of the hyper limit and in a random direction from the star. Your arrival heading will be consistent with your point of origin. So you could arrive on the far side of the star heading away from it. In fact, for an unsurveyed system it is highly unlikely you would arrive on an suitable attack heading.

No arguement.  I would just jump in at a 'low' speed as far out as I could.  Adjust course toward the primary and them release the ordinance.  Then turn toward where I want to go and jump out.  The ordinance won't need any fuel to get in system.  Picking targets will be a problem...but no plan is perfect.  The first run might just be missiles with sensors to find the targets.

As a thought, would it be a bad thing to fudge the 'unsurveyed jump' %s both up and down from 100%.  Perhaps 30 - 170% (although making sure it didn't end up in something might be a coding nightmare -don't know).  If I had to miss I want to end a long way from the folks who might be shooting at me.  Jumping farther out just gives me more time to adjust for what I find.  If I accidentally end up in the middle of the system, in the midst of the 'natives' defenses - well, that could be a little embarassing....
Posted by: PTTG
« on: January 08, 2012, 01:51:02 PM »

If the destination system is unsurveyed you will end up at a distance from the star somewhere between 100% and 170% of the hyper limit and in a random direction from the star. Your arrival heading will be consistent with your point of origin. So you could arrive on the far side of the star heading away from it. In fact, for an unsurveyed system it is highly unlikely you would arrive on an suitable attack heading.

Steve

I like this. It suggests that rough-and-ready prospectors will be able to operate in the frontier, and even guerrilla military forces, while making them far less efficient than regular navies.
Posted by: UnLimiTeD
« on: January 08, 2012, 09:25:50 AM »

Sweet.
Posted by: Steve Walmsley
« on: January 08, 2012, 07:55:06 AM »

Just a quick thought.

What would people think of the drop out of hyperspace being associated with a sensor flash.  It has already been talked about as a way to guard against the 'drive by nuking'.

Perhaps a hyperspace sensor tech, but add one thing.  Make the flash also carry the 'signature' of the system the ship came from.

Now the need to create forward bases becomes paramount.  Otherwise your jumps will tell your opponent exactly where your HOME is at.  They will trace the forward base instead.  When they get there, they will have to catch a ship jumping into the system to know your next system up the chain.

If you have jumps coming in from several systems, now they have to guess and prioritize their next move.  Secure the system and survey, or try to hit the next link up and maybe get too far to make it back.

Thoughts anyone....

I like the idea of knowing the direction from which the ship originated. However I end up handling detection of ships entering the system, I'll include an estimate of the system of origin - based on heading.

Steve
Posted by: Steve Walmsley
« on: January 08, 2012, 07:53:08 AM »

I don't see slow jumps as impractical, but to each their own.  If we are doing the hyperdrive as a multiplier of the ship's base speed, the slow jump uses less of your 'real space' fuel leaving more for maneuver when you arrive.

My worry is still the jump to deep out system.  If you can reset the jump drive fairly quickly, there is no reason to hang around and fight.  Jump in at a mid range speed.  Release self guided missiles towards distant targets.  Brake and reorient at best acceleration for the 'return to home' jump - and leave.  Let the missiles coast in system and take out the targets before enemy ordinance can even reach you.

Unless the enemy has much better sensors than you or gets lucky and has units near where you arrive at, he may have a hard time seeing you in time to do anything about it.

If he doesn't know where you come from, you can just keep doing this until you finally get lucky.

In real life, you would need to have a 'follow on' ship to find out the results.  It may be a good thing to have the system not report results of weapons in a system that has no ships/populations.

If the destination system is unsurveyed you will end up at a distance from the star somewhere between 100% and 170% of the hyper limit and in a random direction from the star. Your arrival heading will be consistent with your point of origin. So you could arrive on the far side of the star heading away from it. In fact, for an unsurveyed system it is highly unlikely you would arrive on an suitable attack heading.

Steve
Posted by: Steve Walmsley
« on: January 08, 2012, 07:49:37 AM »

Perhaps to limit in system jumps you could place a minimum time in hyperspace.  Just do this with the 'prep' time.  It may take 24 (or perhaps way more) hours to prep for a jump, and the same amount of time to prep the drive for the 'drop out' of hyperspace.

You would also likely need a minimum initial velocity to even make the jump into hyperspace (which would also limit the 'mini' jumps), and this could make preparing for the jump take even longer.  This would definitely limit the 'jump away' from combat syndrome.  You would need to make sure that you are lined up with where you want to go or your jump away from combat will likely take you to the middle of nowhere.

EDIT

Of course this raises the question of 'can you jump to the middle of nowhere, and then jump again from that point' to gain a specific orientation to your 'attack run.'
I would rather see jumps limited to 'star to star'.  Only gravity wells allow the use of the hyperdrive or some such justification.

There is a minimum velocity requirement of 200 km/s for hyperspace entry and you can only jump when you are lined up on another star.

Steve
Posted by: PTTG
« on: January 05, 2012, 01:29:29 PM »

Make it be a neutrino shower. You need  tons of water or ice to detect it.
Posted by: Hawkeye
« on: January 05, 2012, 12:51:36 AM »

I like the Renegade Legion thing,  although IIRC the fluff was that the wave propogated through HyperSpace but was detectable by a specialised sensor based on something in RealSpace, usually a planet or VLCA - but I think that some major ships (eg flagships, comms ships) had a more limited capability.

You remember the system better than me :)
Posted by: ZimRathbone
« on: January 04, 2012, 09:32:25 PM »

I like the Renegade Legion thing,  although IIRC the fluff was that the wave propogated through HyperSpace but was detectable by a specialised sensor based on something in RealSpace, usually a planet or VLCA - but I think that some major ships (eg flagships, comms ships) had a more limited capability.

I would agree that  the player should be given the originating system, if they have previously identified it by survey or similar.  If the havent it would merely report "unknown system" until such time as they obtain the survey data to uniquely ID the system signature - it can be assumed that the signature is made up of various measurements that can be obtained from the wave - i don't really see a need to specify exactly what these are.
Posted by: Yonder
« on: January 04, 2012, 01:03:13 PM »

Not sure this would be viable, but I´d like to throw in how the Renegade Legion RPG handled FTL detection.

There, a ship/fleet moving through hyperspace crates a "wave" in real-space, that could be detectd by specialized sensors.

When you say that it moved in real-space, do you mean that it moved at the speed of light? Such a system would be fairly useless.

Timothy Zahn's Conqueror trilogy did have a similar idea though, but the signature wave propagated through hyperspace instantaneously (the ships themselves did not move instantaneously, only the basic information about the ships). This gave any systems about... 12-36 hours of warning I believe.