Future Tech Advice and Assistance Thread [O.O.C.]

[Halcyonis]

Thanks Kyrusia

[Doppio Giudici]

Okay, so I am trying to figure out how to move a ludicrous amount of energy over a large distance, perhaps a month or more of travel.

I have two options, and I'm not sure which one to use.

I could move a gigantic vessel filled up with hydrogen and run it in a fuel cell (Just a generator really), or as fusion material...

Or

Anti-matter engine with what I consider a large supply of anti-matter, along with the necessary cables to convert the high amount of electricity to the proper levels to be used. No way to store the output though.

Oh yeah, and does anyone know any civilizations close to the center of Beta, that could hold say... enough megawatt hours to power the USA for 500 months?

[Kyrusia]

I could move a gigantic vessel filled up with hydrogen and run it in a fuel cell (Just a generator really), or as fusion material...

Or

Anti-matter engine with what I consider a large supply of anti-matter, along with the necessary cables to convert the high amount of electricity to the proper levels to be used. No way to store the output though.

I'd, personally, say this is just a question about your specific flavor. Strictly speaking, anti-matter alone isn't an energy source anymore than "random normal matter" is; even assuming you're using anti-hydrogen, full conversion of mass-to-energy would require strictly hydrogen (an exact opposition of anti-hydrogen's quantum numbers), otherwise the annihilation needed for energy output would only be partial (and thus inefficient compared to the energy expended to contain the anti-matter to begin with, generally speaking). That means you'd need to actually carry double the mass (or collect it in situ, which is actually an option). Even so, I know a lot of FTers play anti-matter up to be a super-unstable, super-Boomable™ material - which is fine, mind you. Just not sure if that's your aesthetic; if it is, that'd probably play better, at least to me.

That said, I think I'd personally go with large-scale fuel cells. But really, that's just a personal opinion on preferred flavor.

[Doppio Giudici]

I could move a gigantic vessel filled up with hydrogen and run it in a fuel cell (Just a generator really), or as fusion material...

Or

Anti-matter engine with what I consider a large supply of anti-matter, along with the necessary cables to convert the high amount of electricity to the proper levels to be used. No way to store the output though.

I'd, personally, say this is just a question about your specific flavor. Strictly speaking, anti-matter alone isn't an energy source anymore than "random normal matter" is; even assuming you're using anti-hydrogen, full conversion of mass-to-energy would require strictly hydrogen (an exact opposition of anti-hydrogen's quantum numbers), otherwise the annihilation needed for energy output would only be partial (and thus inefficient compared to the energy expended to contain the anti-matter to begin with, generally speaking). That means you'd need to actually carry double the mass (or collect it in situ, which is actually an option). Even so, I know a lot of FTers play anti-matter up to be a super-unstable, super-Boomable™ material - which is fine, mind you. Just not sure if that's your aesthetic; if it is, that'd probably play better, at least to me.

That said, I think I'd personally go with large-scale fuel cells. But really, that's just a personal opinion on preferred flavor.

I'm afraid to calculate how much hydrogen fuel I would need to move or harvest, even if it was a fusion reaction. I'm trying to provide enough juice to bail out part of an economy.

Speaking of which, I'm still the only person using energy as money right, despite that aquaponics, weapons, entertainment, transportation, manufacturing and resource extraction all require energy?

How do people give each other money? Is there some bank that people just trust for some reason?

[Kyrusia]

Speaking of which, I'm still the only person using energy as money right, despite that aquaponics, weapons, entertainment, transportation, manufacturing and resource extraction all require energy?

There might be a few others, but none immediately come to mind.

How do people give each other money? Is there some bank that people just trust for some reason?

Some players, myself included, play-up their financial services sector and work with others for stuff like this, but, in my experience, the exact details - particularly for equity, escrow, and interstellar economics - just sort of get... fudged or handwaved to the benefit of allowing it to be roleplayed easier. Sort of how sci-fi is still very much, in general, in-love with the "Age of Sail"/Space Is an Ocean™ aesthetic - even though it doesn't really fit in a three-dimensional volume like space. It, in my opinion, makes for a sufficiently easy-to-grasp, easy-to-implement, and easy-to-portray narrative aesthetic. That said, it does get modified fairly often, even if the fundamentals remain.

[Doppio Giudici]

Speaking of which, I'm still the only person using energy as money right, despite that aquaponics, weapons, entertainment, transportation, manufacturing and resource extraction all require energy?

There might be a few others, but none immediately come to mind.

How do people give each other money? Is there some bank that people just trust for some reason?

Some players, myself included, play-up their financial services sector and work with others for stuff like this, but, in my experience, the exact details - particularly for equity, escrow, and interstellar economics - just sort of get... fudged or handwaved to the benefit of allowing it to be roleplayed easier. Sort of how sci-fi is still very much, in general, in-love with the "Age of Sail"/Space Is an Ocean™ aesthetic - even though it doesn't really fit in a three-dimensional volume like space. It, in my opinion, makes for a sufficiently easy-to-grasp, easy-to-implement, and easy-to-portray narrative aesthetic. That said, it does get modified fairly often, even if the fundamentals remain.

Would massive bulk shipments be available in Losieda?

How does the hyperlane by it work?

[Kyrusia]

Would massive bulk shipments be available in Losieda?

I mostly keep Losieda around as fluff anymore; it needs an entire re-working before I bring it back out in to RP, unfortunately. Namely because it was crafted by a puppet I no longer actively work-on or roleplay with (and has since largely been cannibalized by another creation).

How does the hyperlane by it work?

Which one? The Losieda Corridor is just a fluff-name for "a bunch of random shipping lanes" I decided intersect there. The Eucer Corridor is Valinon's creation; you'd have to talk to him about that.

[Doppio Giudici]

Would massive bulk shipments be available in Losieda?

I mostly keep Losieda around as fluff anymore; it needs an entire re-working before I bring it back out in to RP, unfortunately. Namely because it was crafted by a puppet I no longer actively work-on or roleplay with (and has since largely been cannibalized by another creation).

How does the hyperlane by it work?

Which one? The Losieda Corridor is just a fluff-name for "a bunch of random shipping lanes" I decided intersect there. The Eucer Corridor is Valinon's creation; you'd have to talk to him about that.

Well it's a shame, because it was a center of commerce in that area. If there is one thing I know, Beta is hungry for trade (Or at least inner Beta is). I was hoping my memory was wrong and some random player setup a trading station there, with huge warehouses.

How exactly do the shipping lanes work? Are they just mapped out and devoid of stuff that slows you down?

[Kyrusia]

How exactly do the shipping lanes work? Are they just mapped out and devoid of stuff that slows you down?

I'd say for most players it goes back a bit to the whole "Age of Sail" aesthetic: they're demarcated avenues through space - either by a combination of FTL infrastructure (such as shorter-distance gates, natural wormholes, etc.) and/or travel markers (communications buoys, arrays, etc.), either including systems or simply through interstellar medium - or perhaps a combination thereof. For specific tradelanes, you've have to talk with their operators to get the details.

[Doppio Giudici]

How exactly do the shipping lanes work? Are they just mapped out and devoid of stuff that slows you down?

I'd say for most players it goes back a bit to the whole "Age of Sail" aesthetic: they're demarcated avenues through space - either by a combination of FTL infrastructure (such as shorter-distance gates, natural wormholes, etc.) and/or travel markers (communications buoys, arrays, etc.), either including systems or simply through interstellar medium - or perhaps a combination thereof. For specific tradelanes, you've have to talk with their operators to get the details.

How do the wormholes work as part of the shipping lane? I find wormholes just kinda...open up wherever they want to, like just some place completely random in the galaxy, or even another galaxy.

Do they open up like six systems over, or the next system over or?

[Kyrusia]

How do the wormholes work as part of the shipping lane? I find wormholes just kinda...open up wherever they want to, like just some place completely random in the galaxy, or even another galaxy.

Do they open up like six systems over, or the next system over or?

The nice part about fiction is you can conveniently "find" (read: create through the narrative) what you need, within reason. Wormholes, for example, that coincidentally happen to align (or not align) with where you are generally heading. If a star-state happened to find, for example, a traversable wormhole with its paired mouth on the other side happening to open-up sixty parsecs "down-the-line" toward their destination, it would make sense to install infrastructure that helps stabilize the wormhole (if the player goes with the idea that wormholes dissipate over-time through evaporation or some other means) or otherwise assist with flight control, customs and security enforcement, etc. and incorporate it into the lane network.

Comparatively, maybe they find one that doesn't lead to where they need to go, but that can be useful in its own way.

[Doppio Giudici]

I've noticed that a couple RPs have fizzled out. Is there a discord or thread for people looking for new RPs?

[Kyrusia]

I've noticed that a couple RPs have fizzled out. Is there a discord or thread for people looking for new RPs?

There are several offsite venues mentioned in the OP, and, onsite, the RP Think Tank is another good place to look for roleplay partners.

[Great Aletia]

I can't believe I never heard of using energy as money before now.

[Doppio Giudici]

I can't believe I never heard of using energy as money before now.

Well, there is both a practical and philosophical nature to it. I have links to the philosophical part, but I don't entirely understand it.

I'll look up more information on the idea of it and tell you what I find.

I've noticed that a couple RPs have fizzled out. Is there a discord or thread for people looking for new RPs?

There are several offsite venues mentioned in the OP, and, onsite, the RP Think Tank is another good place to look for roleplay partners.

Has anyone figured out how much juice might possibly come out of a fusion or cold fusion reactor? Anyone in the FT verse selling such things?

[Sunset]

Has anyone figured out how much juice might possibly come out of a fusion or cold fusion reactor? Anyone in the FT verse selling such things?

Everyone and their dog sells fusion reactors. And everyone's dog also sells or tries to sell H3 to use in them. I would say fusion power and faster-than-light travel are near-absolutes for anyone who RPs in the FT environment. As far as power output goes, ITER (Link) is expected to put out 500MW and is about 12 meters across. Keep in mind that ITER is a 'fundamentals' reactor only, so it isn't as efficient as further operational generations will be. Some crude math puts that at about 1MW per 10 cubic meters but again - not a production system. What a production system might be able to produce I couldn't tell you.

[Doppio Giudici]

Everyone and their dog sells fusion reactors. And everyone's dog also sells or tries to sell H3 to use in them. I would say fusion power and faster-than-light travel are near-absolutes for anyone who RPs in the FT environment. As far as power output goes, ITER (Link) is expected to put out 500MW and is about 12 meters across. Keep in mind that ITER is a 'fundamentals' reactor only, so it isn't as efficient as further operational generations will be. Some crude math puts that at about 1MW per 10 cubic meters but again - not a production system. What a production system might be able to produce I couldn't tell you.

I'll look around and if I can't find something, I will find some shorthand for taking small scale stuff that is not efficient and making it mass produced efficient stuff.

Right now we are looking at an object of that size producing enough energy for maybe 1.5 houses a month. I'm trying to figure out how we can go further.

---

So is everyone doing "proton-proton fusion" like in Traveller, or has no one thought about that? The factions doing this kind of reaction, must be crazy advanced and I find a lot of us are not to that level.

Then again, most of us are having much larger shipping vessels and so on.

"380,000 MW-years of energy over a period of one week" is also the level of energy generation they are getting, at "19 MW-years of energy per kilogram of hydrogen".

I'm thinking that perhaps everyones use of hyperdrives or wormholes would use a lot less energy, but I still wonder what kind of fusion reactions people are doing.

[Northwest Slobovia]

So is everyone doing "proton-proton fusion" like in Traveller,

I can't speak for everybody, but since I started with Traveller back in the Dark Ages, I often use H-H fusion.

"380,000 MW-years of energy over a period of one week" is also the level of energy generation they are getting, at "19 MW-years of energy per kilogram of hydrogen".

I'm thinking that perhaps everyones use of hyperdrives or wormholes would use a lot less energy, but I still wonder what kind of fusion reactions people are doing.

Yeah, Traveller jump drives are absurdly energy hungry, and the reactors that feed them are silly-powerful.

[Kyrusia]

So is everyone doing "proton-proton fusion" like in Traveller,

I can't speak for everybody, but since I started with Traveller back in the Dark Ages, I often use H-H fusion.

"380,000 MW-years of energy over a period of one week" is also the level of energy generation they are getting, at "19 MW-years of energy per kilogram of hydrogen".

I'm thinking that perhaps everyones use of hyperdrives or wormholes would use a lot less energy, but I still wonder what kind of fusion reactions people are doing.

Yeah, Traveller jump drives are absurdly energy hungry, and the reactors that feed them are silly-powerful.

I love Traveller, yet every time it gets mentioned, I get reminded of the memes about its character creation, Slo.

[Doppio Giudici]

So is everyone doing "proton-proton fusion" like in Traveller,

I can't speak for everybody, but since I started with Traveller back in the Dark Ages, I often use H-H fusion.

"380,000 MW-years of energy over a period of one week" is also the level of energy generation they are getting, at "19 MW-years of energy per kilogram of hydrogen".

I'm thinking that perhaps everyones use of hyperdrives or wormholes would use a lot less energy, but I still wonder what kind of fusion reactions people are doing.

Yeah, Traveller jump drives are absurdly energy hungry, and the reactors that feed them are silly-powerful.

I'm not sure if H-H fusion is the best idea, as two issues come up in my mind.

1. Those of us running around are like between TL 9-17, if we are still using fusion for the vast majority of power generation and not anti-matter. For comparison, coal to nuclear power, is 3 TLs. So there is this huge technological area, where are using the most effective fusion drive possible, the kind used in stars. This is like making a wood burning stove and tripping into solar panels on your house.

2. Why do we need so much energy? We're not trying to travel 3.26 light years or something in a week. When I travel through hyperspace, I'm going like 80-90% of light speed, for like 9 hours, to cover the same kind of distance. In other words, I'm traveling like 1/21th as long, while going 1/153.22th as fast. I think I'm traveling at least 1/3000th the distance that traveller engines are travelling.

I think I would be using something like 1,000 MW-years, as opposed to 380,000 MW-years like they are. If I was doing proton-proton, that's like 50 kilograms of fuel right there.

Granted, opening a hyperspace is a huge energy sink, but I'm still using 1/4000th the energy to go forward, on the low end. If we factor in that going towards light speed is like going towards infinity when it comes to energy usage, I think I'm using a lot less energy this way.

In other words, I'm burning a lot more energy then 50 kilograms of fuel, so clearly I got to be not using proton-proton.

Either that or getting into hyperdrive is a crazy, insane amount of energy. Like 3,999/4000th of the energy I consume, is getting in and out of hyperspace.

EDIT, panic panic. I'm using D + 3He, which produces over half the energy of proton proton. 353.23 TJ/kg. I think it has to be that hyperspace is a huge energy sink, or I'm going to have stupid tiny fuel reserves.

[Great Aletia]

Isn't hyperspace usually depicted as a realm of pure energy? That's how I've always seen it. You're probably going to need to pay some form of energy toll to access something like that. It may be possible for you to use hyperspace to generate energy though. Before I decided on regular fusion, I considered using hypermatter, essentially a form of exotic antimatter, to power my ships. Hypermatter would be collected during hyperspace jumps, meaning FTL travel would actually refuel my ships. I never really considered how energy hungry a hyperdrive may be before now. I put ranges on my ships a long time ago, but never really came up with a reason for it. I think pegging FTL ranges to energy reserves would be a good reason. I imagine a hyperdrive would also need to cool down periodically, and that ships would need to periodically exit hyperspace to see where they are.

Has anyone ever put much thought into the mechanics surrounding hyperlanes? I want to rationalise why they go where they go. I've considered basing mine upon the intensity of gravity. Areas of high gravity, such as neighbouring systems, would connect to each other, creating a web of hyperlanes. Artificial hyperlanes could be created by embedding gravity generating satellites in hyperspace, but this would be extremely expensive. Huge investment would be required to create anything remotely transverseable. Artificial hyperlanes would thus come to resemble the "royal roads" of antiquity, with the construction of federal/royal/imperial hyperlanes being significant investments that take years to complete and partially function as a way of showing the wealth and power of the ruler.

[Kassaran]

Isn't hyperspace usually depicted as a realm of pure energy? That's how I've always seen it. You're probably going to need to pay some form of energy toll to access something like that. It may be possible for you to use hyperspace to generate energy though. Before I decided on regular fusion, I considered using hypermatter, essentially a form of exotic antimatter, to power my ships. Hypermatter would be collected during hyperspace jumps, meaning FTL travel would actually refuel my ships. I never really considered how energy hungry a hyperdrive may be before now. I put ranges on my ships a long time ago, but never really came up with a reason for it. I think pegging FTL ranges to energy reserves would be a good reason. I imagine a hyperdrive would also need to cool down periodically, and that ships would need to periodically exit hyperspace to see where they are.

Has anyone ever put much thought into the mechanics surrounding hyperlanes? I want to rationalise why they go where they go. I've considered basing mine upon the intensity of gravity. Areas of high gravity, such as neighbouring systems, would connect to each other, creating a web of hyperlanes. Artificial hyperlanes could be created by embedding gravity generating satellites in hyperspace, but this would be extremely expensive. Huge investment would be required to create anything remotely transverseable. Artificial hyperlanes would thus come to resemble the "royal roads" of antiquity, with the construction of federal/royal/imperial hyperlanes being significant investments that take years to complete and partially function as a way of showing the wealth and power of the ruler.

So, I actually have a system of FTL travel that I've worked on for the FT Kassaran alien race. Long-story short, it isn't flashy, it isn't super cool, but it is effective in doing it's job. It's the difference between a belly-flop into a pool, and a dive into the same pool.

The long-story of it came from the idea of 'how do I develop a system that requires an analogy akin to penetrating an actual barrier, such as with sound?'

My thought process had to start at what the Lightspeed boundary actually is, and that is causality. The Reality/Causality Barrier cannot in effect be broken lest it generate a paradox, so how would something correct itself if it did somehow break through this barrier? Well how does sound correct itself when an object slips past it? It creates a 'shockwave'. The stress this causes eventually imparts enough resistance on a supersonic object to push it back into regular limits. How can this be- in effect- recreated by looking at causality? Well the obvious answer would be to create a shockwave of light to symbolize a ship 'breaking light-speed' and then another when it drops below it, but I immediately threw out that idea for perhaps something a bit more new.

When a ship needs to break causality, it can't be rendered in reality, or more accurately the changes to it can't be rendered. You effectively have to 'remove' the point from observation, which implies perhaps something regarding Schrodinger and feline abuse, but in reality just means the point never actually 'updates'. If you remove any and all causation that is to effect an object, it's perhaps more accurate to say nothing happens to it at all. The ship, simply stops. The lore I wrote behind this effect is the Mass-Lock Effect, or what was known to early FTL-travelers as the 'Dead-Man's Lock'. The absolutely massive surge in all forms of radiation on the ship creates the flashing effect most FTL systems aesthetically create, is actually a sign of trying to Mass-Lock a point rather than a ship, which generates the gateway and is notably less energy efficient.

The Kassaran in the Nobis Pacem canon eventually determined how to travel faster than causality by Mass-Locking themselves instead. Instead of creating a gateway, which is akin to creating a slide or a chute to travel through, you retain your local position in space. As you build up inertial resistance to slowing down, you generate a constant power-draw which eventually reaches critical and snaps. This snap creates the stasis effect often seen by ships that witness a Kassaran vessel jump into FTL. It will first seem like the ship grows briefly more bright (as energy builds up observably), before suddenly becoming dark, cold, and technically lifeless. Attempted observation at close ranges of Kassaran ships at full Mass-Lock is highly dangerous as these ships create highly turbulent gravitic ripples in response to this phenomena. In fact, the strength of these tidal forces can signify the proximity of the ship in zero-space, to a point in the observable universe.

Entering Mass-Lock, the ship outwardly appears to suddenly stop moving, or becomes static as the Theory of Relative speeds would state. All radiation that comes from the vessel slowly gets shifted blue externally until the ship simply darkens and fades from view. How do you know if the ship completes it's jump? It simply begins to fade and the gravity turbulence ceases. If the ship is still visible or has a notable tidal forces originating from it, it hasn't completed the jump as being able to observe the ship in one location prevents it from appearing somewhere else in equal amounts. Of course re-entry into reality is something far more interesting as the ship will often begin appearing at great lengths of time before it ever actually 'arrives'. Much like how a craft that travels at supersonic speeds can still be viewed before it passes you, but cannot be heard, a ship travelling at 'superluminal' speeds could be seen if an observer was in the correct place to do so at the correct time, but that ship cannot be interacted with as it has yet to fall back into Causality. In this way, I address the shockwave problem as not being a flashy visual show which needs to be made, but a distinction in observations which needs to be made.

A ship that is observed travelling at superluminal speeds in the Kassaran canon, does not appear in some bright flash of light unless it is suddenly dispelling a massive buildup of energy from having self-bridged the gap between it's original location and a newer location. If the ship can afford to take on that load of heat or background radiation, it likely is travelling a very short distance or is needless large for its payload. Most ships cannot travel in this way and suffer strong penalties for this inefficient method of travel. On the other hand, a ship that shifts in and out of causality is able to do so with high degrees of efficiency over a comparable amount of time for less energy spent overall. While this doesn't aesthetically look as cool, the implications of an armada of Kassaran warships that simply fade in from the depths of space over a time enable most energy built up to be shed quietly. You can look at it as the difference between diving into a pool and belly-flopping. One imparts less resistance as it shows excellent understanding of hydrodynamic shaping while the other imparts high resistance, usually at high cost to the user, in showing less understanding of hydrodynamic shaping.

Now, there is something to be said on 'Warp' in the Nobis Pacem Universe, the FT universe I've set the Kassaran in. It is rarely used as it actually is incredibly dangerous without an extremely well-developed array of lighthouse arrays. Is it used? Yes. How often? Not often. Mostly people developed warp-travel for interplanetary travel within a system as it is easy to track items moving around within a star system, but beyond that, even the Kassaran have problems tracking most objects. Because Lighthouse arrays often take up a lot of energy to broadcast a signal into Warp-space, they usually are only used in and around documented stars with a significant buildup of infrastructure on the scale of Dyson clusters or rings.

End Rant/Tangent.

[Doppio Giudici]

You aren't in the Milky Way right?

[Great Aletia]

snip

snip

Wow. Your system is very detailed, I like it. What are the lighthouses you mentioned? I like the idea of the 40k Astronomican and have been considered developing hyperspace/warp beacons as integral parts of my form of hyperspace travel.

[Kyrusia]

snip

Wow. Your system is very detailed, I like it. What are the lighthouses you mentioned? I like the idea of the 40k Astronomican and have been considered developing hyperspace/warp beacons as integral parts of my form of hyperspace travel.

Not gonna lie, I find the concept of beacons in superluminal travel interesting myself. :thonking: