Finish the SPEC drive

J18_2Late · Post by **J18_2Late** » Wed Aug 16, 2006 8:26 pm

I was playing around with the math to make my personal auto-pilot(Traveling away and around stellar bodes to get a avg. speed multiplier of 200000 is faster then traveling in a strait line near one with an avg. speed multiplier of 2) I had an epiphany. It seems my ship can't fold space(to simply arrive at my destination), or can't make temporary wormholes of it's own. That's fine, that would require game play balance ,and the explanation of how the ship has that massive a sum of power.

However; If I can compress space to accelerate, Why can't I expand space to decelerate? For that matter why contort space uniformly? Why not anchor my my ship to a fixed point just off to one side while expanding while expanding the space just off the other; Slinging me around the fixed point at neck braking speeds. Then warp the space my ship does occupies so that it's either less dense and has almost no mass(no inertia), or super dense and is not stressed beyond what it can handle?

For that matter if I can warp space to adjust my mass why do I have still inertia in the first place?

Edit: Ohh, While I'm thinking about it: If we can bend it why hasn't some one build a massive device that does have the power to fold space to the point of making a wormhole or a "fold gate"?

Oblivion · Post by **Oblivion** » Thu Aug 17, 2006 2:54 am

For that matter if I can warp space to adjust my mass why do I have still inertia in the first place?

good point. SPEC does seem to behave like it is just an ordinary accelerator engine, not a warp drive.

Again on the rpoposal of SPECIZ, SPEC could just cut off once its near a station, reverting to 0 acceleration and velocity (or it would be better if the engines resume the speed by which they were travelling before SPECing) . The player must then engage normal thrusters to approach the station. Safer, right?

Ohh, While I'm thinking about it: If we can bend it why hasn't some one build a massive device that does have the power to fold space to the point of making a wormhole or a "fold gate"?

agree. The jump holes, imo, should be artificial. "Wild" wormholes are just too unstable, a ship could probably be trapped in hyperspace, looping eternally, or come out inside out.

Jump holes should be changed to Jump Gates. A station by its own right.

Post by **jackS** » Thu Aug 17, 2006 6:24 am

Oblivion wrote:
Ohh, While I'm thinking about it: If we can bend it why hasn't some one build a massive device that does have the power to fold space to the point of making a wormhole or a "fold gate"?
agree. The jump holes, imo, should be artificial. "Wild" wormholes are just too unstable, a ship could probably be trapped in hyperspace, looping eternally, or come out inside out.

Jump holes should be changed to Jump Gates. A station by its own right.

The entire jump network is artificial and known to be such, but whatever devices created or continue to maintain the point-point connections have yet to be discovered, discerned, or duplicated by any of the known extant species. Which is to say, there aren't any gates to be seen.

Oblivion · Post by **Oblivion** » Fri Aug 18, 2006 12:19 pm

Ah!

....(in quivering, mysterious, sotto voce)..

...ancients....

Still, could we replace the ugly doughnut shapes to an animated, and alpha-mapped ball? Even a plain inversed star texture and model would be better(at least to me), than a green doughnut. I did notice one screenshot with a 'tornado' on the center of the doughnut. Does this exist? How come I haven't seen one?

Zeog · Post by **Zeog** » Fri Aug 18, 2006 12:49 pm

Oh, I've colorful swirls going right through the doughnut in my game...

But they only show after you jumped. Did you ever looked back after a jump?

Oblivion · Post by **Oblivion** » Fri Aug 18, 2006 12:58 pm

Oh yeah. I've seen that too. In fact I was wondering if it was only present in some systems, absent in others.

But..

there should be frosting too on the doughnut before you jump. And the doughnut farem should be visible only on cockpit view.

Post by **klauss** » Fri Aug 18, 2006 3:18 pm

What's wrong with the donut?
I kinda like it.

Post by **loki1950** » Fri Aug 18, 2006 7:47 pm

it's only an artafact of your HUD after all,it's highly unlikely that visual phenom would be side effect of the points ecistance.

Enjoy the Choice

Oblivion · Post by **Oblivion** » Sun Aug 20, 2006 11:15 am

Nothing's wrong with it, except that it's unrealistic to keep seeing the thing even when I'm viewing outside my hud.

it's only an artafact of your HUD after all

Silverain · Post by **Silverain** » Tue Sep 19, 2006 8:36 am

Oblivion wrote:I did notice one screenshot with a 'tornado' on the center of the doughnut. Does this exist? How come I haven't seen one?

As I recall, that was supposed to represent an unstable wormhole, which in theory could take you anywhere. Did that ever get implemented?

P.S. Hi all, long time no see!

Oblivion · Post by **Oblivion** » Wed Sep 20, 2006 3:58 am

welcome back Silverrain

dunno. but since the last posting here, I've seen tornadoes aplenty.

Post by **klauss** » Wed Sep 20, 2006 6:17 am

Silverain wrote:
Oblivion wrote:I did notice one screenshot with a 'tornado' on the center of the doughnut. Does this exist? How come I haven't seen one?
As I recall, that was supposed to represent an unstable wormhole, which in theory could take you anywhere. Did that ever get implemented?

P.S. Hi all, long time no see!

I think it was. I'm not sure whether the current dataset uses the feature, though, beyond drawing them as unstable.

Oh - and nice to see you again, Silverain.

Nano_Lite · Post by **Nano_Lite** » Sat Oct 07, 2006 10:00 pm

The doughnut reminds me of the wormhole metric itself...a kind of hyper-torridal superstructure in space that connects two points in space to create near-instantaneous travel. There's some really good wormhole graphics on the wikipedia aricle:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wormhole

WORMHOLES!!!!!!

Also look here for a more "absurd" method of space travel, though not impossible, just HIGHLY improbable

Post by **loki1950** » Sun Oct 08, 2006 12:06 am

Nano_Lite there's a model for the "Golden Heart" buried somewhere in the forums

Enjoy the Choice

smbarbour · Post by **smbarbour** » Tue Oct 17, 2006 4:50 pm

The "red" wormhole appears whenever the jump is in use (either by my ship or others if I'm not mistaken). I have also seen a "rainbow" wormhole which doesn't close like it's "red" counterpart. I am guessing that they are either a rarity or it was in a pre-defined system. Oddly enough... there was a research station right next to it.

AlbertSpeer · Post by **AlbertSpeer** » Tue Oct 17, 2006 9:25 pm

I've seen the rainbow ones collapse.

I saw something about the rainbow wormholes being 'unstable' somewhere in the documentation, but the same place said that this is currently unimplemented. Too bad I can't remember where that was...

Jesse_the_Midget · Post by **Jesse_the_Midget** » Wed Oct 18, 2006 12:38 am

here's a thaught, why not have massive station-sized guns that charge up for 5 minutes, but then can lock on to two objects, bend space, and make them collide at massive velocity? it'd be cool as an anti capsip weapon.

(ohh, that'd be sooo awesome! beams that can actually alter velocity in any direction!)

eh, what do the jump drives do anyway, shouldn't flying through a wormhole be enough if it's already there?

also, spec drive should have, in my opinion, modes. one would be how it is now, the safest approach, then there'd be emergency modes that'd do what others have said but be dangerous.

AlbertSpeer · Post by **AlbertSpeer** » Wed Oct 18, 2006 2:27 am

Jesse_the_Midget wrote:eh, what do the jump drives do anyway, shouldn't flying through a wormhole be enough if it's already there?

Based on reading http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/wiki/ ... lar_travel, it would appear that the jump points only mark locations where space-time is 'weaker', so that a concentrated gravitational field (created by the jump drive) can breach the wormhole's event horizon, allowing the drive-equipped ship to traverse the wormhole. Wormholes normally don't stay open for long enough for anything (even light) to cross through, and so the drive would (I guess) also be necessary to prevent getting 'stuck' in the wormhole.

mortaneous · Post by **mortaneous** » Wed Oct 18, 2006 9:08 pm

The unstable wormhole is just supposed to lead to a random system, i.e. you don't know exactly where it will take you, no matter how many times you traverse it... if my understanding was correct.