Topic: Space Ship Velocity

[Gellule]

The speed of your ship is displayed on your screen. You may not want to do that, for more fun/realism.

In you latest demo, you start with a zero velocity with respect to the asteroid that is sitting next to you (that;s what your display says). However you do not have any way to know if you and the asteroid are still or moving at the same speed. Basically, the concept of velocity is relative and you cannot define an absolute velocity. Why not then only display relative velocity with other objects in the world. You would for example display this relative velocity right on the objects that you are able to see. Relative speed of an asteroid, of a planet of another ship. And if you are in the middle of nowhere, then you don't realy know at what speed you are actually travelling.

Great work!

-Gellule

PS: I don't know if I am 100% clear.

[whitelynx]

That makes a lot of sense... and once we get the next iteration of the HUD working, it should be possible... but that will take a while. For now, absolute velocity is all we have. (simply because it's easy to do ;-))

Of course, we could also cheat and say that the "absolute velocity" was relative to the galactic core. ;-)

Dave

[Gellule]

Relative to the galaxy core? How would you measure that?  

Maybe have something like the following would do:

A ship jumps out of hyperspace (<-put anything you want there). The navigation systems scans for the available reference system (like a space GPS). If there is no one around it's impossible to find your position or you velocity. If there is some inhabited asteroid or planet, the navigation system locks on a given reference.

This could be fun within a solar system. How to go from one planet to another? It involves a fair amount of anticipation to reach a planet with the proper speed. Nowadays, the amount of energy required prevents us to achieve those inter-planet travels easily. Might be interesting to see how you could achieve that. What kind of "G" you need to experiment to have a reasonable time travel.

I don't know how much of this is playable though. And as you say this is only the beginning of what will certainly be a great game.

Last comment. "The Neutronium Alchemist", by Peter F. Hamilton, is a very interesting SF book to read that may fit very well in the context of this game. I am sure all of you read that one! If not, I recommend it very strongly.

-Gellule

[Morgul]

This is an interesting idea, and I'm not sure if it will be used, but it's given me a good deal to think about. We're going to be working on several things in the very near future, and I'm going to play with this idea. I'll let you know what I come up with.

--Chris

[fehknt]

what about this: absolute velocity in a system is measured from the sun, and if you're between systems, then you're probably in subspace anyway, where velocity is kinda screwey and might just be some sort of number based on how many times faster than when you entered subspace.

[Morgul]

Actually, subspace velocity is *absolute*. It's proportional to your 'height' in the 4th spacial dimension (aka 'subspace depth'). However, there is a maximum speed you can go, before your ship is torn apart atom by atom, and you make a nice pretty cloud of plasma.  

--Chris

[contingencyplan]

However, there is a maximum speed you can go, before your ship is torn apart atom by atom, and you make a nice pretty cloud of plasma.

** Pilot clicks one more notch on throttle knob **

Ship goes FOOF! :-D

Hey - there's an idea - Who can make the prettiest plasma cloud when they explode?

[Caenus]

A thought.  Why not treat space as fluid instead of a vacuum?  Then velocity will simply be relative to the space you occupy.

Also by making space fluid, you can assign a vector field to any area of space.  Then assign curl and div values to various points which can in turn be used to affect certain "free floating" objects such as asteroids. 

[Rosencrantz]

A thought.  Why not treat space as fluid instead of a vacuum?  Then velocity will simply be relative to the space you occupy.

Also by making space fluid, you can assign an extra vector field to any area of space.  Then assign curl and div values to various points which can in turn be used to affect certain "free floating" objects such as asteroids. 

As interesting as it would be to do this, I think that in the end it would be more beneficial to use a single object in the system as a point of reference, or make that point user configurable. Keeping track of an extra vector field on top of everything else that needs to be kept track of would bog down the server unneccesairly, imo.

[Caenus]

yeah, that's true.  I was thinking of this all in reference to a single player game that might be installed to a machine via DVD-ROM.  I forgot about the server side LAG that would create.  If you're looking to determine the velocity vector and as such relate the motion of the machine to the world it rests in, why not relate the vector to the point that represents the center of gravity for the ship itself?  That would relate each individual's velocity to his/her relative position.  I dunno, I'm so tired, and I don't really know enough about what you guys are designing - I'm just a mathematics major talking out my ass.  ;D

[PhinnFort]

Just be careful that it doesn't destroy playability. Imagine getting lost in space, not knowing if you're traveling or not...

-PhinnFort

[Caenus]

Which is why an tangential vector would be assigned a specific value based upon absolute velocity.  Ergo, you would always know whether you were travelling or not.