Advice Thread OOC Future Tech Only

[Inutoland]

Would using a wormhole generator to allow quick transit of a reserve fleet ontoo the battlefield as reinforcements be okay?

I'm personally okay with this to an extent. I do RP with a sprawling network of permanent wormholes (a.k.a. "static superluminal transit nodes"), as well as wormhole-based FTL ("dynamic superluminal transit"). However, I almost always apply Murphy's Law and make sure that something goes wrong if I'm using dynamic wormholes (most commonly, some glitch occurs where the contents of the wormhole-based transmission are pushed either forward or backward in time and/or in a completely different universe, therefore causing substantial delays), and even the static ones will occasionally fail (usually, they'll lose their main power and run on a battery backup, giving enough time for anyone/anything already in them to exit and for the node to be sealed off before power is cut completely). I also implement charging times on these dynamic wormholes - after all, creating two interconnected black holes large enough to not spaghettify a ship and stable enough to not collapse and slice the ship in two and at anywhere near my intended target takes quite a bit of energy.

Another restriction I impose upon myself is accuracy. Since I'd be reaching a destination faster than said destination's light is reaching my original position, there's not only a significant calculation cost as I have to precisely compute where the star I'm seeing now is located several hundred/thousand/million/billion years from when the light was first transmitted, but also the unlikelihood of actually reaching that position accurately via line-of-sight alone. Building a static node works around this issue, but at the cost of getting the necessary materials and engineering brainpower to that distant location, which takes quite a bit of time to do.

Basically, this would all depend on who you're RPing with; while I'm totally cool with it, others will, as Balrogga pointed out, consider it a dick move to just warp in a bunch of ships out of nowhere. My recommendation is that - if you do go this route - definitely impose some limitations and apply the Code of Bro.

More or less what YellowApple said. I'd be mostly OK with it, but it would need to be RPed well (ie with actual downsides and difficulties of using it that show up in actual space combat). My own spacedrives are pseudowormhole-based, with "theoretical" instantaneous transit anywhere within their range of operations. The weakness I RP in the system is twofold: imprecision and jump lag time. There's a chance, which increases as you generate longer Real Space transits, that you might not end up exactly where you intend. Jump coordinate calculation is extremely finicky; one of the ship's AI's main jobs is to deal with it, and we still require manual confirmation that we're in the right system for transstellar jumps. Precise short-hop jumps are usually more trouble co calculate than they're worth. The other penalty is what I call jump lag. It takes time for the system to recharge between jumps (which again increases with Real Space transit length), during which the ship is basically immobilised because this is the only engine we have except for docking thrusters. In short; I'm not going to be RPing tactical FTL without serious tactical penalties imposed on myself for doing so. It's only fair. And I probably won't be doing so at all.

[Of The Arch ilands]

I'm personally okay with this to an extent. I do RP with a sprawling network of permanent wormholes (a.k.a. "static superluminal transit nodes"), as well as wormhole-based FTL ("dynamic superluminal transit"). However, I almost always apply Murphy's Law and make sure that something goes wrong if I'm using dynamic wormholes (most commonly, some glitch occurs where the contents of the wormhole-based transmission are pushed either forward or backward in time and/or in a completely different universe, therefore causing substantial delays), and even the static ones will occasionally fail (usually, they'll lose their main power and run on a battery backup, giving enough time for anyone/anything already in them to exit and for the node to be sealed off before power is cut completely). I also implement charging times on these dynamic wormholes - after all, creating two interconnected black holes large enough to not spaghettify a ship and stable enough to not collapse and slice the ship in two and at anywhere near my intended target takes quite a bit of energy.

Another restriction I impose upon myself is accuracy. Since I'd be reaching a destination faster than said destination's light is reaching my original position, there's not only a significant calculation cost as I have to precisely compute where the star I'm seeing now is located several hundred/thousand/million/billion years from when the light was first transmitted, but also the unlikelihood of actually reaching that position accurately via line-of-sight alone. Building a static node works around this issue, but at the cost of getting the necessary materials and engineering brainpower to that distant location, which takes quite a bit of time to do.

Basically, this would all depend on who you're RPing with; while I'm totally cool with it, others will, as Balrogga pointed out, consider it a dick move to just warp in a bunch of ships out of nowhere. My recommendation is that - if you do go this route - definitely impose some limitations and apply the Code of Bro.

More or less what YellowApple said. I'd be mostly OK with it, but it would need to be RPed well (ie with actual downsides and difficulties of using it that show up in actual space combat). My own spacedrives are pseudowormhole-based, with "theoretical" instantaneous transit anywhere within their range of operations. The weakness I RP in the system is twofold: imprecision and jump lag time. There's a chance, which increases as you generate longer Real Space transits, that you might not end up exactly where you intend. Jump coordinate calculation is extremely finicky; one of the ship's AI's main jobs is to deal with it, and we still require manual confirmation that we're in the right system for transstellar jumps. Precise short-hop jumps are usually more trouble co calculate than they're worth. The other penalty is what I call jump lag. It takes time for the system to recharge between jumps (which again increases with Real Space transit length), during which the ship is basically immobilised because this is the only engine we have except for docking thrusters. In short; I'm not going to be RPing tactical FTL without serious tactical penalties imposed on myself for doing so. It's only fair. And I probably won't be doing so at all.

If It cant be done with as little ships as possible your doing something wrong! Personally I don't pull reinforcements into the fray unless I have a fleet on hand ready to react within a few minutes (99% of the time no one will have this!) Or its part of the plot for me to bring in another set of ships this of course always coincides with me having a fleet able to react within a moments notice and get there within a few minutes.

So if i was you I wouldn't bother bringing in reinforcements, just go back later with a bigger more capable fleet.

[SquareDisc City]

No, the gravity well of the black hole would cause the wormhole to collapse.

Says who? They're a bit more grounded in physics than most FTL methods, but wormholes still require sufficient non-physics to work that an RPer can attribute whatever behaviour they like to them, including not really being fussed by external gravitational fields.

In theory but the FT community considers that a dick move and frowns upon it. It takes time to transition through a wormhole, for fair play sake. It is not instant travel. Even the Ta'Nar takes ten minutes to travel through theirs and they have been at it since OOC 2004, an IC equivalent of thousands of years by some scales

An alternative would be that it takes time to open and close the wormholes, of course.

As it happens my own warp drives are quite capable; they're fast, don't care about gravity, and can bring along nearby objects not physically connected to the drive. ("Nearby" is point-blank range in combat turns, so I'm not likely to use it on an unwilling spaceship). Because it's a continuous drive they don't tend to have accuracy problems. Balancing that is that because it's a continuous drive, the craft using it can be intercepted while they're travelling, and that we can't make the drives small enough and cheap enough for use on missiles or normal fighters.

My warp drives would in fact be well-suited to tactical usage, especially as an in-system "warp hop" is essentially instantaneous, but the UPT is so used to its enemies (and itself) having FTL interdiction that it hasn't bothered developing such tactics. Also considering my main shields, the Dual Screens, can only be raised once combat is underway and the craft has to pause shooting while it's raising them (because game mechanics), they'd probably have to be reraised after each warp hop, forcing the UPT craft to either delay shooting thus blunting the surprise effect, or leave itself vulnerable to counterattack.

[Balrogga]

You see, the difference between our nations and his is we have had years of posting to learn what is acceptable and what is not. Also we have a history of acceptance with our nations using our own tech that backs up what we do with it. NTU is, from the tone of his questions, new at this.

I will not argue against the points you made because that is not what this Thread is for, the Advice goes here and Arguments goes in the appropriate Thread. That is why I made the two, so each would have its own place.

[Escalan Corps-Star Island]

I totally agree with the transit-time or lag-time restriction on wormholes and pseudo-instantaneous travel. I use portal-like folds in space to do pretty much the same thing, though they work by a different principle. Secondly, since I use instant gravitational measurements to pinpoint my target location, calculating positions of nearby objects is not too difficult. However, opening a rent to the exact location is harder the farther away the destination is. In other words, what we have stated here is the general rule for acceptable use of wormholes and the like.

[Kreanoltha]

Hehe. This clusterfuck again. This is why I, as a rule, never use tactical FTL. My fleets are too busy patrolling my space to be bunched up close enough to jump in in the middle of a battle unless that battle is going on for hours and hours.

[Balrogga]

I can use FTL Tactics and do.

My Grav Torps are capable of using FTL to transition from launch point to the EDGE of the battlefield. This means I can fire them from the neighboring system and they will accelerate to FTL speeds to allow them to get to the battle zone. Once in the area, they drop to Real Space and then use normal methods to reach their target.

The only bonus this gives me is being way beyond range to fire and then follow them in allowing be to release more so I can get several volleys in the void before actually entering battle itself. If I use my drives to vary the launch points it could look like attacks are arriving from everywhere with a single small group. While the sphere of torps are closing it makes for a dramatic moment as I deliver my "surrender or die" line.

Of course, this needs to be planned first with the other player, to not do so would be a dick move. Code of Bro.

[Oppressorion]

[Raises hand] Would this be a good time to mention that one of my (currently unused) weapons is a very large kinetic torpedo (as in, a remote-piloted regular ship filled with ballast), which typically travels at around 0.99c? It's balanced by certain limitations on where it can be deployed from and a significant warm-up time. True, it's not technically a tactical use of FTL, but it's pretty close.

[Balrogga]

Can it be defended against?

That is the deciding factor in my book.

The problem with FTL weapons is it bypasses many people's defenses which falls into the Godmod area because you are stating they cannot defend against your attack because it is FTL (or near FTL). This is why I only use FTL to get to the battle and then their normal defenses can try to counter my torps.

A good way to decide if it is fair or not is ask yourself, would it be a dick move if someone tried a particular attack against you.

[Vocenae]

When you really get right down to it, no matter what you use, or how much detail you put into it (think about the last few hundred pages of 'tech idea brainfart' spam that have plagued this thread), no one really cares how it works.

All the fancy technology and weapons someone claims to have will only be as powerful as the player you're using them against will let you be. All RP is about cooperation, there are no instant reinforcements, no FTL weapons, no FTLi, no nothing if the other player decides you're not playing fair.

Again, I cannot stress this quote enough; "Screw the Causes, tell me the Effects!"

[SquareDisc City]

I care about how my stuff works, and that's reason enough to consider it in all the detail I wish. The same goes for every other writer here.

[Kyrusia]

Out-of-Character: SquareDisc, you misunderstand.

By all means, be as detail-oriented and obsessive about your technology as you want; I know I am. Yet, at the end of the day, it only matters for your mythos and, in some instances, the immediate mythos of those who participate in collaboration with you. That does not mean that "SquareDisc Physics" necessarily meshes or merges with "Voc Physics" or any other player/writer fictional meta-interpretation of physical laws.

So yes; if it amuses you and helps you in your creativity, by all means, obsess. At the end of the day, though, if someone decides they don't want to acknowledge it, believe that it doesn't make sense, or any other number of situations where they feel it is not a collaborative or cooperative perspective or usage of the freedom in FT (ala "Code of Bro"), then they can ignore it, and no matter of obsessive detailing will change their mind.

As Voc so appropriately stated: "Screw the causes; tell me the effects!"

[YellowApple]

which typically travels at around 99c?

So at 99 times the speed of light?

I think you forgot a decimal point. That, or I'll be very curious as to how you got a kinetic torpedo anywhere near that fast.

[Oppressorion]

which typically travels at around 0.99c?

So at 99 times the speed of light?

I think you forgot a decimal point. That, or I'll be very curious as to how you got a kinetic torpedo anywhere near that fast.

There is now a decimal point there. There is now always been a decimal point there.

[SquareDisc City]

Well, in your factbook you mention your ships have massess of 360 million kg at a minimum. This seems reasonable, it's comparable to the displacement of a real-world supertanker at full load.

Now, 0.99c corresponds to a Lorentz factor γ=7. The relativistic kinetic energy is thus E = γmc² = 7 * 360 million kg * c² = 2.2 * 10²⁶ Joules, or about 54 thousand teratons of TNT.

It's still way short of what you'll need to outright destroy a planet, but that's a lot. I have some weapons in a similar yield range; they're megastructures 1000 km across, and were built to use against the planet-sized spaceships that some other powers in the home Universe had constructed.

So I'd say those "kinetic torpedoes" may be appropriate for a similarly specialised and rare weapon, that probably won't even see much use on NS anyway since few people claim suitable targets. But it would be a bit silly for them to be a mainstay IMHO.

[Oppressorion]

Well, in your factbook you mention your ships have massess of 360 million kg at a minimum. This seems reasonable, it's comparable to the displacement of a real-world supertanker at full load.

Now, 0.99c corresponds to a Lorentz factor γ=7. The relativistic kinetic energy is thus E = γmc² = 7 * 360 million kg * c² = 2.2 * 10²⁶ Joules, or about 54 thousand teratons of TNT.

It's still way short of what you'll need to outright destroy a planet, but that's a lot. I have some weapons in a similar yield range; they're megastructures 1000 km across, and were built to use against the planet-sized spaceships that some other powers in the home Universe had constructed.

So I'd say those "kinetic torpedoes" may be appropriate for a similarly specialised and rare weapon, that probably won't even see much use on NS anyway since few people claim suitable targets. But it would be a bit silly for them to be a mainstay IMHO.

First - Yay, someone read my factbook! Second - as I mention in said Factbook (at least, I think I did) - Sun Drive ships can only travel in straight lines, lined up with a star. Thus, to use said torpedo, you have to spend a lot of time lining it up so it goes through the star and slams straight into the target; otherwise, you have made a very expensive miss. It's not unlike a game of pool - you have to align your cue so that when you hit the white ball, it travels in a straight line to your target (fancy bouncing off of the sides notwithstanding).

[Balrogga]

Well, in your factbook you mention your ships have massess of 360 million kg at a minimum. This seems reasonable, it's comparable to the displacement of a real-world supertanker at full load.

Now, 0.99c corresponds to a Lorentz factor γ=7. The relativistic kinetic energy is thus E = γmc² = 7 * 360 million kg * c² = 2.2 * 10²⁶ Joules, or about 54 thousand teratons of TNT.

It's still way short of what you'll need to outright destroy a planet, but that's a lot. I have some weapons in a similar yield range; they're megastructures 1000 km across, and were built to use against the planet-sized spaceships that some other powers in the home Universe had constructed.

So I'd say those "kinetic torpedoes" may be appropriate for a similarly specialised and rare weapon, that probably won't even see much use on NS anyway since few people claim suitable targets. But it would be a bit silly for them to be a mainstay IMHO.

First - Yay, someone read my factbook! Second - as I mention in said Factbook (at least, I think I did) - Sun Drive ships can only travel in straight lines, lined up with a star. Thus, to use said torpedo, you have to spend a lot of time lining it up so it goes through the star and slams straight into the target; otherwise, you have made a very expensive miss. It's not unlike a game of pool - you have to align your cue so that when you hit the white ball, it travels in a straight line to your target (fancy bouncing off of the sides notwithstanding).

You would not necessarily need to go through the star to hit the target if you plan your shot to hit the target when it is between the star and your launch point. Stars are kinda dense and might mess up your aim and do other things to the shot.

[Essos]

I care about how my stuff works, and that's reason enough to consider it in all the detail I wish. The same goes for every other writer here.

Speak for yourself, and the politely termed "ideas" you have. Just tell me the verdammt effects.

[Oppressorion]

You would not necessarily need to go through the star to hit the target if you plan your shot to hit the target when it is between the star and your launch point. Stars are kinda dense and might mess up your aim and do other things to the shot.

No, SD ships have to go through the star because - excuse me -

they use the star's heat energy to accelerate. That's why the Sun Drive is so-called: it uses so much energy that the only way to power it is by moving towards a star on a carefully controlled constant acceleration. Before it gets to the star, it has the acceleration capabilities of a lorry made of lead.

[Balrogga]

You would not necessarily need to go through the star to hit the target if you plan your shot to hit the target when it is between the star and your launch point. Stars are kinda dense and might mess up your aim and do other things to the shot.

No, SD ships have to go through the star because - excuse me -

they use the star's heat energy to accelerate. That's why the Sun Drive is so-called: it uses so much energy that the only way to power it is by moving towards a star on a carefully controlled constant acceleration. Before it gets to the star, it has the acceleration capabilities of a lorry made of lead.

Don't forget about the mass sitting in your way, that is about 95% of the total mass of the system in the star, assuming it is similar to the RL stellar system we live in. I hope you are just grazing the corona or just skimming near the chromosphere because if you go deeper then things will get real nasty for you.

[Frizzbeez]

He has to be, quite sadly. Suspension of belief and artistic freedom only go so far before they become throw away.
A star is so hot and dense, -not to mention the fact that the whole thing is a gigantic "fucking nuclear fucking ball of fucking F1YUR!!!"- he'd be better off landing on a Jovian. Which I'll admit would be pretty awesome,...

But what I think he means is using the star as an enormous gravity sling shot, probably whilst using waste energy/mass gathered during the process to power some big engines so the whole things gets that real big "OOMPHF" factor going for it for the first half of the journey. Unless the target in question just happens to be in the way anyway.
I'll be honest again and say that I really don't know jack squat about what I'm talking about right now, and I'm too lazy to give it too much critical thought.

[Oppressorion]

He has to be, quite sadly. Suspension of belief and artistic freedom only go so far before they become throw away.
A star is so hot and dense, -not to mention the fact that the whole thing is a gigantic "fucking nuclear fucking ball of fucking F1YUR!!!"- he'd be better off landing on a Jovian. Which I'll admit would be pretty awesome,...

But what I think he means is using the star as an enormous gravity sling shot, probably whilst using waste energy/mass gathered during the process to power some big engines so the whole things gets that real big "OOMPHF" factor going for it for the first half of the journey. Unless the target in question just happens to be in the way anyway.
I'll be honest again and say that I really don't know jack squat about what I'm talking about right now, and I'm too lazy to give it too much critical thought.

No, that is not what I mean. The energy cost of travelling FTL using Sun Drives, well, it's ludicrous to say the least, and exponential - as you gain more acceleration, the cost increases. Thus, the only way to get enough is to fly at a tangent to a star, close enough to enter the outer layers. As you get closer more heat energy is available, and more acceleration is provided to get you closer faster, so that the heat from the star is cancelled by the frankly absurd energy consumption of the Drive. Eventually you hit FTL, and the laws of physics go wacky so the remaining heat is not an issue. As to pressure, the ship's got such a great acceleration at that point that it's only exposed for a few seconds at most.

[Balrogga]

I will let someone else give him advice, my head hurts from trying to follow his description and I just got home from a 13 hour shift.

[Our Most Resplendent Goddess Sen]

He has to be, quite sadly. Suspension of belief and artistic freedom only go so far before they become throw away.
A star is so hot and dense, -not to mention the fact that the whole thing is a gigantic "fucking nuclear fucking ball of fucking F1YUR!!!"- he'd be better off landing on a Jovian. Which I'll admit would be pretty awesome,...

Actually, the "surface" (assuming you mean the rocky core) of a jovian is substantially more extreme than the outer layers of a star. Compared to the photosphere, temperatures are five or six times greater, but that doesn't even matter because the pressures are such that no material conceivable with IRL physics has a compressive strength high enough to retains its structure at those depths. Pressures in the photosphere, the sun's visible "surface", vary from 1/150th of a bar (bar=earth sea level pressure) to 1/6th of a bar. The pressures at the surface of jupiter's rocky core? A few tens of millions of bars. Granted, most of the interior of the sun exists at pressures higher than that; by the time you get to the center, pressures hit a few hundred billion bar.

If your ships have typical FT BIGGATON ENERGY SHIELDS you should be capable of taking quick dives into the photosphere, and possibly even deeper if your biggatons are really big.

[North Calaveras]

Random but I get tired of ppl rping and having no flavor, there post is just one big stat fuck instead of good story telling, its a calculation instead of a post, sorry thought it should be brought up.