A discussion of GalCop technology.

[Ramen]

What have you guys noticed that does or does not make sense about Oolite's tech? I myself recently had this realization that GalCop has witchspace technology, laser technology, missile technolgy, spaceships, spacestations, and yet no faster-than-light missiles, or for that matter, ftl lasers. That doesn't make sense, really. I mean, yes, the apparently a witchspace engine requires at least an adder, but the witchspace engine just creates a wormhole to a beacon, so why not create a smaller, less stable wormhole? Given the size of a beacon, a ship could launch a temporary beacon at its target, then shoot a missile/laser through witchspace, and hit the target faster than it could react.

[ffutures]

I don't think you can navigate witchspace accurately enough for that to be useful - given how randomly you pop out of Witchspace when you jump between systems, why should a teeny wormhole be any more accurate.

Also, how would you aim the thing?

[cim]

the witchspace engine just creates a wormhole to a beacon

The destruction of the beacon doesn't in-game prevent - or noticeably affect - jumping into the system (two of the core game missions demonstrate this), though there are pieces of fiction which suggest it should. It could just be a way to indicate the witchpoint for in-system patrol and escort craft who'd otherwise have trouble reaching it.

The core game beacon is also a sphere 100m in diameter with the mass to match (they might look small, but creep up on the one at Lave in a Cobra III using the side external view to get an idea of the relative scale) - if you have a ship big enough to launch them onto a target, you probably don't need to get fancy: you can just use your ability to fire high-speed ship-sized kinetic missiles.

Sneaking a homing device on to a ship and then firing a bunch of missiles into its wormhole when it left the system would be an interesting if somewhat unreliable method of hard-to-trace assassination, though, in the right circumstances.

It's unclear if it's even possible to fire a laser through a wormhole (in-game, if you try it, it literally goes through the wormhole, out the other side, and hits whatever was behind the wormhole). Whether that's a game bug or not probably depends on which of the many models of witchspace you believe.


(Some other interesting and mostly canonical omissions from Galcop technology, I think, are "turret lasers" and "autonomous - or even remote-controlled - drones")

[spud42]

isnt FTL Laser an oxymoron? LASER is an acronym not a name. Light Amplification by the Stimulated Emission of Radiation. there how can light be faster than light????

[Diziet Sma]

isnt FTL Laser an oxymoron? LASER is an acronym not a name. Light Amplification by the Stimulated Emission of Radiation. there how can light be faster than light????

Aww damn.. you beat me to it!

[ffutures]

I've always assumed the Witchpoint beacon is simply the most likely place for things to come out of Witchspace when entering the system. The beacon is there as an assembly point for convoys, to broadcast traffic information, and as part of the system navigation system. I've never noticed it having any effect on Witchspace travel apart from that.

[Selezen]

What have you guys noticed that does or does not make sense about Oolite's tech? I myself recently had this realization that GalCop has witchspace technology, laser technology, missile technolgy, spaceships, spacestations, and yet no faster-than-light missiles, or for that matter, ftl lasers. That doesn't make sense, really. I mean, yes, the apparently a witchspace engine requires at least an adder, but the witchspace engine just creates a wormhole to a beacon, so why not create a smaller, less stable wormhole? Given the size of a beacon, a ship could launch a temporary beacon at its target, then shoot a missile/laser through witchspace, and hit the target faster than it could react.

One simple reason - practicality.

"Just because one CAN do a thing does not necessarily mean that one SHOULD do a thing."
- Chancellor Gorkon; shot in the chest. Very sad.

The technology no doubt exists in the Oolite universe to allow transiting a missile through hyperspace. Hyperdrive size isn't dictated by teh size of a wormhole. The wormhole aperture is the same size no matter how big a hyperdrive is (especially true if you consider the Frontier and FFE classes of drives. The missile itself is too small to carry any sort of hyperdrive so the parent ship would have to create the hyperspace tunnel, shoot the missile through then head off. So where's the advantage? The pilot doesn't know if the missile hits. The same is true if a missile is shot through another ship's wake.

As spud42 wrote, LASER is inherently limited by the speed of light.

[Disembodied]

The technology no doubt exists in the Oolite universe to allow transiting a missile through hyperspace.

Out of interest, what happens to a missile if its target jumps out of the system? I assume it self-destructs, and doesn't just fly on into the wormhole. But what happens in a missile accidentally flies into a wormhole opened up in its path by another ship?

Of course, it might be that anything as small as a missile would be torn apart by hyperspatial shear: any witchspace-capable missile might have to be the size of an Adder in order to survive the transit.

[Cody]

Out of interest, what happens to a missile if its target jumps out of the system?

I seem to recall that missiles can follow through a wormhole - but I might have imagined that!

[Norby]

I seem to recall that missiles can follow through a wormhole

I tried and it self-destruct in the moment when the target enter into the wormhole.

any witchspace-capable missile might have to be the size of an Adder in order to survive the transit.

I imagine a modified Adder with autopilot, injectors and full of explosives, attached to the side pads of [wiki]EscortDeck[/wiki] as an anti-BigShip missile.

[Cody]

I was thinking of a missile following the player through their wormhole?

[Norby]

I was thinking of a missile following the player through their wormhole?

Now I ordered a nearby ship to fire a missile to me via debug console, then I started a countdown and jumped about a second before the missile reach me, but after travel animation nothing comes out from the wormhole cloud behind me. An OXP can change this easily.

[Cody]

<nods> I must have imagined it then - thanks.

[Disembodied]

An OXP can change this easily.

It would have to take account of the time difference: even if you regard wormhole transit as instantaneous from the traveller's perspective, the winding-forward of the clock might have a funny effect on the missile, given that missiles only have a limited lifespan.

[Smivs]

Ah, this might explain why the Thargoids attacked in the first place - they were fed up with all these missiles dropping out of hyperspace and exploding near them.