 August 16, 2007 - 4:31am | I am personally no fan of there existing a second dimension... voidspace/hyperspace/etc. Never liked it. It was odd to me that in so much fiction such a "different dimension" exists and only for travel. It just screams hokey. On the other hand, I really like the oversimplified Alpha Dawn approach. I didn't try to explain it, didn't need to overanalyze it. In AD: ships went 1LY per day when they were going FTL. Period. No explanation was given as to how they reached those speeds, nor how they slowed down. The rate of travel was fixed, and wasn't a factor of ship size or anything. I personally developed rules around Alpha Dawn's concept. Once Knight Hawks came out, I enjoyed it for its campaign elements, and played its tactical board game, but mostly ignored it for my FTL space travel. I surmised that FTL travel is fixed because of some existing astrophysical limitation that even the greatest minds of the five independent races could never overcome, though they work on it and experiment on it still. Differences in ship design won't change the speed of ships once they invoke their FTL drives, but will vary the amount of time they may spend at FTL speeds safely. Larger, more powerful, ships can sustain lots more FTL before needing overhauled, while smaller ships might need overhauled after every FTL voyage. Not overhauling results in a percent chance (that increases with each voyage thereafter) of the ship becoming damaged, losing functionality of one or more of its sub-systems, or worse. In my simple rules, FTL speed was just a relied on technology that works and I never bothered with such issues as acceleration times (though I did require people to be strapped in when making the transition from STL to FTL or back, and the special seats were equipped with inertia-dampening fields). When a FTL drive was invoked in my games, it wasn't spectacular or full of special effects: it was a burst of acceleration that lasted a minute or so and then you reached this spacial terminal velocity of 1LY per day and that was that. Deceleration back to STL speeds was the same. Ships shook and act like they're protesting the burden. Some people puked. Basically it was like take off or landing a 747 in Montana. 3. We wear sungoggles during the day. Not because the sun affects our
vision, but when you're cool like us the sun shines all the time. |
 March 22, 2008 - 10:16am | If you can fold spacetime to cross it, then you can strengthen spacetime to prevent the folding of spacetime. I don't think that's true. I think Space Time is as strong as it gets. All you can do is weaken it. So to prevent someone from coming through, you want to temporarily disrupt the point of entry. Strengthening it is a very unlikely scenario, because it's a balance. What's more balanced than balanced? Nothing. But disrupt the balance and the area becomes unstable.Well, theoretically it dosen't work like that, it's not a case of strenthening or weakening, or comming through or not. For a start, the effect is all relative, you only "fold" the spacetime that the vessel occupies not space-time generally, and folding is a simple 2-d analogy for a 4-d event that makes two points in spacetime contiguous with one another. The matter at one point briefly occupies both, then only one again, just a different one. But considering the staggering technology level and power output that you need to actually use a fold drive, you could probably find an easier way to move things about anyway. Of course you can still say "Hey, this is sci-fi" and chuck the physics out, but then all bets are off anyway so you can make up whatever rules you like. Fold drives need warm towels to operate and produce pink sparkly radiation as a byproduct that turns butter into guitars. And smells of cabbage. G. That last graf was simply TFF. The serious bits were spot-on, GJD, although some quantum theorists would bring parallel universes into the mix(I re-re-read Wolf's book on the subject on my breaks, so forgive me). "You're everything that's base in humanity," Cochrane continued. "Drawing up strict, senseless rules for the sole reason of putting you at the top and excluding anyone you say doesn't belong or fit in, for no other reason than just because you say so." —Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stephens, Federation |
March 22, 2008 - 10:17am | Quite possibly, acceleration to 1 PSL is necessary for the ship to build up power for the jump. "You're everything that's base in humanity," Cochrane continued. "Drawing up strict, senseless rules for the sole reason of putting you at the top and excluding anyone you say doesn't belong or fit in, for no other reason than just because you say so." —Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stephens, Federation |
 April 21, 2008 - 6:23pm | "Well, FTL travel is still under the same principles, but they've been modified. I'll give you a brief rundown on the current FTL technology available to the Frontier." I realize I'm bumping a REALLY old thread but... Methuselas, did you just make this up (not the concepts but their being in SF) or is it Star Frontiers canon that I missed?
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 April 24, 2008 - 2:22pm | I think that as a rule, whatever types of FTL are used in the game, that combat should only occur in normal space and that combat in FTL would at best be difficult and at worst be eniterly implausable. Fold space - also one of my favorite FTL theories and the basis of Jump drive tech in my campaigns. However if space can be folded, isn't the space in between the two spaces by pure definition, the void. Something to think about. As far as it being too powerful, well you could stop a vessel before it makes a jump or meet it on the other side after it makes the jump. Unique Emp type weapons could be devised that disrupt a ships ability to form the energy field required for the fold. I think the general riskiness of making a space-fold jump in and of itself would be the controlling factor. One wrong computation or equipment failure could fold space and jump you into a planet or asteroid. Or equipment break down and your suck in the void unable to complete the transition to the other side - just left there floating in emptiness. |
 April 24, 2008 - 5:52pm | AZ, interesting concept. What if you accelerated to Void speed, entered the Void and couldn't slow down. Major Void sickness.  beowulf has a campaign where a very *very* large civi ship was somehow attacked in the Void and different parts of the ship came out of the Void at different times with the bridge being first. I think it was weeks before the hind parts of the ship came out of the Void. Very cool setting - hope we can finish it. |
April 25, 2008 - 1:01pm | Also, Arizona, it's still possible to spring an ambush from normal space on a ship travelling through the Void, as passive sensors can easily detect the heat and radiation pulse resulting from the change in space-time density and weapons should be able to affect the jump field as if it were a solid object, as it's still in normal space time interacting with it. "You're everything that's base in humanity," Cochrane continued. "Drawing up strict, senseless rules for the sole reason of putting you at the top and excluding anyone you say doesn't belong or fit in, for no other reason than just because you say so." —Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stephens, Federation |
