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Emerald Cat · 11-22-2017, 04:44 PM

--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?

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.

Having the exclusion zone scale with mass seems more plausible than it scaling with diameter. That is a little more cumbersome than just using the diameter of the object. But on par with the math you would need to use the reaction drives from Spaceships.

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.

Speaking of which, what is being recharged at these pit stops?

--Other Thoughts--

Does FTL communication exist in this setting? Or is communication limited to ship speeds?

11-22-2017, 04:44 PM	#6
Emerald Cat Join Date: Oct 2015 Location: Cincinnati, OH, USA	Re: [Blog] n-Body Politics --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? 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. Having the exclusion zone scale with mass seems more plausible than it scaling with diameter. That is a little more cumbersome than just using the diameter of the object. But on par with the math you would need to use the reaction drives from Spaceships. 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. Speaking of which, what is being recharged at these pit stops? --Other Thoughts-- Does FTL communication exist in this setting? Or is communication limited to ship speeds?