Add SPEC functions to allow for seamless orbit syncs

Talk among developers, and propose and discuss general development planning/tackling/etc... feature in this forum.
Post Reply
IansterGuy
Bounty Hunter
Bounty Hunter
Posts: 174
Joined: Mon Aug 13, 2012 8:49 am

Add SPEC functions to allow for seamless orbit syncs

Post by IansterGuy »

[This post has been move by reposting it here in feature requests]

This is a long term feature request that mostly applies to the idea of adding gravity to the game. Otherwise it is unessasary. So I expect that there would be no progress on it for a long time even if people liked the ideas presented here.

I like SPEC and how it's name feels right even though I don't even know what the acronym is. Though the way that it works and the rules for how it functions is a little fuzzy. SPEC as it was done originally was much different from the SPEC now. The SPEC multiplier used to simply multiply the ships speed in real space until it was deactivated. With this method change direction in SPEC always meant changing direction in real space which could make overshooting a target time consuming. After the change the ship in SPEC moves completely independent of real space which is much better.

Though this is good, what I think would be ideal for pacing in a game that intends to eventually feature gravity, would be to have a sort of hybrid SPEC system featuring two distinct travel functions that could be used simultaneously, one for speedy travel to new places like planets, and the other for seamlessly synchronizing orbits with those locations. Traveling to a new system would then be done at the same time as synchronizing with it's orbit. There would be lots of opportunity to automate functions that go together like this after the basic system was working. Simple controls would be on the surface like autopilot and many semi automatic controls. Hidden within key modifiers, would be the progressively more manual functions.

To better understand the controls that where designed for this setup see 'New keybinding proposal ESDF baised, left hand on home row' and look under <<<<Velocity setting and matching>>>> <<<<Movement Governors>>>> <<<<Autopilot>>>> <<<<<Manual SPEC flight>>>>> <<<<.Navigation route and orbit editing>>>>
All of these section have controls in them that rely upon and assume this dual functionality of the SPEC drive.

At first I could not think of any better solution to accomplish a fast pace game featuring gravity without time compression. This solution is intended to make the game as fast paced as an simulator can be made, maybe even faster paced than the current solution. It is intended to be fast and more precise, if your interpretation is that any part of this system would be any slower or more difficult please comment so to create more clarification or improve the idea.

With the old system the SPEC multiplier is shown on the dash/HUD, and the ship must accelerate forward in order to move in SPEC. That would mean that the ship couldn't adjust it's real space speed while in SPEC. Having real space speed independent of warp space as is now is great, but they still cannot be adjusted independently while SPEC is on. Rather speed is set to zero before the jump and without any indication telling how, the ship arrives at the same relative speed that it left at. If everything was truly moving, there would need to be some sort of mechanism to do this, and the pilot would want it controllable no doubt. In reality if it was possible to use any space warping technology to move a ship independent of real space, then any real space movement should not be effected by the active use of SPEC as it is now.

A new kind of movement multiplication could allow acceleration from thrust to be multiplied in normal space so that the ship is actually accelerating faster in real space, not just moving faster or farther temporary due to the space warping of current SPEC. If gravity was ever to be implemented, ships should ideally seamlessly synchronize orbits with the destination while SPEC is active, because when SPEC is active that is the most likely time the ship will be travelling to a new orbit where a new relative speed applies. The ships would need to be able to accelerate laterally in every direction to accomplish this in a way that looks similar to the way it supposedly magically is done now. Currently if it truely was syncing there is no visible stopping or turning of the ship during SPEC travel. It is as if nothing was happening, and that may be the idea way to do it. The ship could alternatively be allowed to turn, while in SPEC to visably thrust in the desired orbit direction under the assistance of the new acceleration multiplier.

I propose that SPEC should no longer just be a temporary forward movement multiplier, but rather a device for a various different functions. It would be renamed to a device for 'Subspace Point Expansion and Contraction'. It would work by using subspace technology just like cannon FTL data transmissions would. Similar to the way it is currently no ship could enter subspace directly not even with the jump dives which instead use wormhole at jump nodes for travel as is cannon now. SPEC would have two explicit functions: The Alcubierre wave (warp bubble) would be for moving the ship relative to outside the bubble to get places in the solar system.

Ideally I would call this next thing a gravity drive, but since the game already has a gravity drive I will name it a dilation drive, and describe it as if it was not the same thing. If possibbly real a simple gravity drive would cost too much energy for the amount of acceleration I was hopping the device to be supposedly capable of. A space dilation gravity drive called 'SPEC dilation' would shrink space in front of the ship so to accelerate more quickly through space given the same thrust. The dilation drive would be similar to the gravity drive and gravity based inertial mitigation technologies, but would be much more efficient away from any interfering sources of gravity. It would work the same way that creating a gravity well in front of the ship would, but limits the gravity to exactly where is is needed for maximum effect without the normal radiation of gravity. This could be visualized in 2d by putting the ship on a supper local incline the shape of the ship surrounded by negative energy to disconnect the local incline from the rest of space, thus saving most of the power normally required. This Space dilation could function in every direction and within the Alcubierre wave which would not effect it.

Dilation would work better farther from any source of localized gravity, so that the amount of gravity matters less than the proximity due to the curve in space-time that proximity creates. The strongest gravity present like the sun or maybe even the galactic black hole would then not effect the SPEC drive in general as much as objects in proximity like other ships passively inhibiting SPEC, or actively inhibiting SPEC with jamming interdiction. The 'SPEC dilation' drive would then be only useful for accelerating in real space for synchronizing orbits well before approaching any feasible orbit around a massive object. The 'SPEC's Alcubierre wave' would still significantly help ships escape gravity just as SPEC does now.

Now for some examples of how this would work. Dilation drive would not be as effective near any object, massive or not, and would be most effective mid trip, because that is when the ship is most alone. If changing low orbits around a massive object the fastest thing to do would not be to point toward the new orbit, but rather to fly away from the planet to a distance that allows the dilation drive to work sufficiently quickly. The ship would use 'SPEC dilation' to synchronize the orbit in real space there then re-approach the the planet with SPEC's regular Alcubierre wave drive at the appropriate orbit distance, already moving at real space orbit speed. All of this should be simple to do with either autopilot or navigation itineraries for choosing the orbits to synchronize to.

Here is an example of how to use the controls to get into a desired orbit. First one would press [O] once for orbit or twice to target the ships current nearest logical circular orbit. Then the player would quickly edit it with [M] [<] [>] [/]... and save it if he likes. With the orbit still targeted the player would press [A] to autopilot to that orbit or press [P] to set as vector reference, and if necessary [backspace] to set speed reference speed to zero. Alternatively one could press [Alt+\] to match speed without setting it as a vector reference.

For travelling in between distant objects with empty space in between it would be much simpler. Nothing special would appear to happen as travelling with SPEC using autopilot, nor in manual if target is preselected to be synchronized with once SPEC is activated. Since dilation would work best far away from objects, the middle of the trip would produce the fastest real space accelerations, and normally the speeds would be synchronized before half the trip is done. Only in odd circumstances where the distances are near and the relative speeds high would the ship need to stop in Alcubierre warp to wait for the dilation drive to synchronize in real space. This synchronization would normally happen early before the halfway point if the autopilot detects that the speeds are not yet matched before the trips point of highest dilation multiple.

EDIT: Changed introduction and added the now second and third and fourth paragraph. Made clarification edits and additions to the rest of the post.
:EDIT
Last edited by IansterGuy on Mon Feb 25, 2013 9:03 am, edited 3 times in total.
pheonixstorm
Elite
Elite
Posts: 1567
Joined: Tue Jan 26, 2010 2:03 am

Re: Add SPEC functions to allow for seamless orbit syncs

Post by pheonixstorm »

Have you tried manual SPEC travel? Its rather nasty if your hand goes twitchy.
Because of YOU Arbiter, MY kids? can't get enough gas. OR NIPPLE! How does that mkae you feeeel? ~ Halo
IansterGuy
Bounty Hunter
Bounty Hunter
Posts: 174
Joined: Mon Aug 13, 2012 8:49 am

Re: Add SPEC functions to allow for seamless orbit syncs

Post by IansterGuy »

pheonixstorm wrote:Have you tried manual SPEC travel? Its rather nasty if your hand goes twitchy.
Yea I use manual SPEC lots when ever I play, especially since the controls I was developing allows me to select the normal and SPEC speed without shifting my hand. The speed set moves way to fast though to be easily useful. I think that if the ship is in manoeuvre mode that the speed set should not move faster than the ship is capable of accelerating at any moment, even for SPEC travel. This alone would make manual so much easier to use.
IansterGuy
Bounty Hunter
Bounty Hunter
Posts: 174
Joined: Mon Aug 13, 2012 8:49 am

Re: Add SPEC functions to allow for seamless orbit syncs

Post by IansterGuy »

Safemode made a comment here describing some non linear travel that would easily replace the complex solution I have described here.

Instead of a confusing and hard to differentiate exception to the acceleration rules, a non linear 'Local Jump' could be given the same limitations as the 'SPEC dilation' I was proposing, except that it would not be effected by gravity, just distortion fields, EMP's and such things. It could exit the jumps at any relative speed that the system has power for. I'm thinking trading between maximum distance and maximum relative exit speed, where more of either or both costs more of the jump capacitor charge. Jump nodes could then just be sweet spots in space for getting to a particular distant system. Jump Drive usage would be jammed even easier than SPEC using spatial distortion.

So for getting into orbits, this would be equivalent to what I was proposing except if pulled into a planets gravity one could jump back to safety unless jammed at a distance by a hostile ship. This would prevent a lot of random AI deaths if gravity was implemented. More importantly if a ship can manage to prepare their jump drive for a short range local jump they could quickly put themselves into orbit or synchronize relative speed. The limitation would be that it is so easily jammed from a distance that it can almost never be used to escape combat so trying to get SPEC unjammed and working would still be the best chance of escape.

This is better than my old solution in hind site after the jamming discussion we had. It is easy to implement and wrap ones head around, though would rely heavily on passive jammers to prevent a sneaky enemy from popping anything right on top of the ship.
IansterGuy
Bounty Hunter
Bounty Hunter
Posts: 174
Joined: Mon Aug 13, 2012 8:49 am

Re: Add SPEC functions to allow for seamless orbit syncs

Post by IansterGuy »

Well it seem very few people not present before the "Fourm crash of 2012" read and understood what I was saying here. Partly because I made the mistake of using the words "Time compression" in a way that made people think it was the same thing as "SPEC's Space Dilation function". Previously I wanted to call it a 'Gravity drive', but that name is used by another device already in game. So I renamed it to a function of SPEC which I should have called by the full name "Space Dilation function". I thought the shorter version was a cool name, but people associate the word "dilation" too much with "Time dilation" it seems. So they thought it the same thing as "Time Compression", or "Time Acceleration".

Given this confusion, I think it is about time that I re-post an improvement to a collection of pictures that communicate quick visually how each of the methods of 'Space warping' and all methods of 'Faster Than Light' travel work.

First and simply here is a planets gravity warping space as it just sit's there. This image ignores the gravity of the local sun and the galactic black hole and everything else it seems.
Image

Next here is a traverse-able wormhole. Notice the negative energy in the middle is something unknown. Is it so infinity small that travel is instant like BSG-jump? Is it a long winding maze of subspace like slipstream is normally represented? This is the method that all non-linear travel I assume uses.
Image

Next a detailed representation of Alcubierre Warp drive including negative energy
Image

Now here is how I imagined both the gravity drive and SPEC dilation function would work. Basically create gravity in the front and negative gravity in the back. I know this is supposed to be a basic warp drive representation, but I think it fails as that, and better describes a ship being pulled by a gravity valley in the front and pushed by a gravity mountain in the back.
Image

So these are indeed just images, but they represent the concepts so simply that maybe no fictional techno babble is necessary.
IansterGuy
Bounty Hunter
Bounty Hunter
Posts: 174
Joined: Mon Aug 13, 2012 8:49 am

Re: Add SPEC functions to allow for seamless orbit syncs

Post by IansterGuy »

Another solution to the problem of not enough real space acceleration speed for orbit syncs is to have the ship accelerate much much faster than ten earth gravities (>10g) in given situation under certain preparations. For example, Firefly style travel has their ships accelerating much greater than ten earth gravities (>10 G's) momentary over and over for a much higher average acceleration too. This in addition to the engines could solve the problem where ships should get into orbit quickly when not in combat. The ship in firefly uses controlled fusion explosions at the back of the ship to accelerate impossibly fast in a short amount of time. I would assume that momentary bursts of artificial gravity would mitigate inertia to protect everything in the ship including the ship during the moments of extreme acceleration. Why I think this could be good as limited only to non combat is that during preparation for a burst, the ship would not be able to manoeuvre or move at all to avoid an uneven burst which would be disastrous. So it would not safe to ignite the fusion reaction once the ship has been fired upon. With some types of weapons the preparation could even explode damaging nearby ships. This could be supplementary to other fixes because it would work anywhere not disruptive because it would have no reason to be effected by gravity. This could be combined with SPEC automagic sync solutions for those situations where it is not convenient to have to first get out of the gravity well inhibition field to be able to sync nearby orbits, or to simply get somewhere faster when no one is attacking.
Post Reply