[Space] FTL Ideas/Thoughts

ericthered · 03-18-2015, 04:26 PM

The length of the lanes, the traffic on the lanes, the cost of the traffic, and how frequent mishaps are.

If stasis pods are a viable technology, as seems to be indicated by the OP in an earlier statement, then wait times of a year or two to be rescued are perfectly acceptable.

Of course, you only have the year/two light years ratio if you are relying on a single distress beacon burst. If the ship gives out a burst every ten minutes, you only have to wait in place for 10 minutes for each stretch of the detection range. Which then means you need to know how far away you can detect the distress call, and how much power the distress call takes.

Given that the alpha-centauri to earth jaunt takes two months at FTL-3, I'm going to guess a month stranded is fine.

Actually, given that stasis pods are confirmed by the OP to be available, There's a cheaper (relatively) tactic: send a few tight beam transmissions to places you know to have people listening, climb into your pods, and wake up a year or two later when you get picked up (most routes should have viable radio targets within a light-year). Yeah, you wake up a year behind, but you did kind of a multi-month break out of you life in the first place. Its a lot better than a couple of decades.

03-18-2015, 04:26 PM	#16
ericthered Hero of Democracy Join Date: Mar 2012 Location: far from the ocean	Re: [Space] FTL Ideas/Thoughts The length of the lanes, the traffic on the lanes, the cost of the traffic, and how frequent mishaps are. If stasis pods are a viable technology, as seems to be indicated by the OP in an earlier statement, then wait times of a year or two to be rescued are perfectly acceptable. Of course, you only have the year/two light years ratio if you are relying on a single distress beacon burst. If the ship gives out a burst every ten minutes, you only have to wait in place for 10 minutes for each stretch of the detection range. Which then means you need to know how far away you can detect the distress call, and how much power the distress call takes. Given that the alpha-centauri to earth jaunt takes two months at FTL-3, I'm going to guess a month stranded is fine. Actually, given that stasis pods are confirmed by the OP to be available, There's a cheaper (relatively) tactic: send a few tight beam transmissions to places you know to have people listening, climb into your pods, and wake up a year or two later when you get picked up (most routes should have viable radio targets within a light-year). Yeah, you wake up a year behind, but you did kind of a multi-month break out of you life in the first place. Its a lot better than a couple of decades. __________________ Be helpful, not pedantic Worlds Beyond Earth -- my blog Check out the PbP forum! If you don't see a game you'd like, ask me about making one!