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Old 11-23-2017, 10:29 AM   #7
kreios
 
Join Date: Jul 2013
Default Re: [Blog] n-Body Politics

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Originally Posted by Emerald Cat View Post
--Thoughts on FTL system--

Overall, your hyperdrive looks good. I'm confused, though. What is the range on your FTL drive? Or have you not come up with a specific number yet?
Both, actually: The FTL drive has a certain range defined (1/5th of the distance between habitable planets, and about one jump per unimportant system), but not in LY yet. If we take the average density of stars near Earth, then the range is about 6-8 LY.

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Note that your FTL design hasn't eliminated the potential for c-fractional (i.e. relativistic) projectiles. If you can drop out of hyperspace around asteroids, what is stopping you from dropping out at an asteroid in interstellar space? That would give you enough range to reach c-fractional velocity if you have a reactionless drive. If you're going to include reactionless STL drives, preventing this kind of abuse requires the FTL drive to be limited to the main part of a system or have sensors capable of detecting ships traveling at FTL at interstellar ranges.
Very good point. It does at least make acceleration-FTL-undetected annihilation impossible. But, spoilers, I'll not take reactionless drives.

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However, I find it hard to believe that the arrival zone has a hard boundary. I'd allow daring captains to jump in closer. But I can't figure out an astrogation penalty scheme that is light enough to make this plausible without making it so easy that everyone would risk it to cut right to the recharge zone. So never mind.
Actually, this is an interesting idea. I had an idea about the recharge limit as a more flexible boundary (which roughly scales like a sigmoid function, meaning you don't have to get closer to the main star if you're willing to wait for a few weeks). I'll keep it in mind for a revision.

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Speaking of which, what is being recharged at these pit stops?
Space Magic. Maybe the FTL core is starting to get decoherent during jumps and needs gravity to regenerate. I'll have to think about an in-universe reason.

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--Other Thoughts--

Does FTL communication exist in this setting? Or is communication limited to ship speeds?
I don't think it will, and neither will FTL sensors. However, I'll decide in the future.

Also, thank you for the interest!
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