Oolite Bulletins

Commander McLane wrote:

So please, don't try too hard to bring RealLife™-sense into your favorite game. Instead--relax and remember: it's just a game!

Agreed.

Commander McLane wrote:

All this has a very practical reason: Oolite is a game, not a simulation. If it was a correct sized simulation, it would be utterly boring as a game, because you never would find the tiny station orbiting the gigantic planet; and you would never ever meet another ship on any route, because in reality space is just waaaaaaay to huge to make encounters with anybody else likely.

So noted

Simon B wrote:

Of course, that sort of speed makes the game horrifyingly fast but posting real speeds would make the ships look puny. All you really need to know is that 350 is about twice as fast as 180.

etc.

I don't think anyone has insisted on trademark realism.

Actual third-light would be too fast to react to anything, but actual sizes would mean that the chances of their being anything to react to is miniscule. OK. I also Grok that doing 0.35 lights sounds cooler than doing 35kmps. Having established that the speed is as literal as anything else (i.e. not at all) it becomes a point of interest to discover the speed (as opposed to looking through the code).

Most inconsistencies have good game-play reasons... like the size of the cargo pods? Otherwise you'll never see them to scoop. They're hard enough to see as it is.

I thought one reason for the size of the cobra mk3 was to force players to work hard at their docking skills. The only reason the stations rotate is to provide this wee bit of drama... and the dimensions of the docks is exactly right to provide a tight squeeze. But I have noticed that quite small craft must rotate to dock (if the dock is rotating) too. Doesn't matter that their wingspan is smaller than the dock-height.

An idea of actual speeds and distances are important from the design perspective. Testing the physics, in-game, is part of the fun.

BTW: there is a mentality which watches a movie for the cinimatics rather than the movie. Spotting cultural references, homages, and gaffs is part of the fun.

I still think that the cobra mk3 size is the same sort of accident that gives us a 700CT Anaconda and a coordinate system that puts "port" along -x.

Haven't noticed anyone noticing that the Ooniverse may very well have it's own set of physics only similar to the milkyway in small bits. In our own universe the milkyway is a tiny part of it, so who is to say that some of the laws of our physics aren't different in some of the other galaxies?
Did you know that our laws of physics go out the window when you get very near absolute zero ( O degrees Kelvin) And maybe that's just another barrier like light speed, thought to be impossible at the moment.
But then there was a time not so long ago that everyone agreed that travelling at over 20mph would cause suffocation because the air pressure would stop you breathing out.
Personally I love the Ooniverses physics, without it, with the accelerations in game we would be globby stuff on the first bulk head behind.
I did try one of the later Elite releases where they tried to emulate true physics, it was way boring and gave it away after just 15mins.

Alex wrote:

Haven't noticed anyone noticing that the Ooniverse may very well have it's own set of physics only similar to the milkyway in small bits. In our own universe the milkyway is a tiny part of it, so who is to say that some of the laws of our physics aren't different in some of the other galaxies?

Well... for one thing, the dynamics of galaxies works using local "laws".

There are good reasons for thinking that the laws of physics are pretty much the same in distant parts of the universe as around here. It's one of the more tedious things physicists get accosted about at parties.

(Aside from UFOs and Nuclear weapons.)

The main thing likely to get different is when you look at photons which originate quite close to the start of Everything.

Did you know that our laws of physics go out the window when you get very near absolute zero ( O degrees Kelvin) And maybe that's just another barrier like light speed, thought to be impossible at the moment.

Perhaps you'd like to give an example? Physics worked quite well at around 4K last time I got my hands on some He-II.

But then there was a time not so long ago that everyone agreed that travelling at over 20mph would cause suffocation because the air pressure would stop you breathing out.

When was this? People were quite relaxed about the 66600mph or so speed of the Earth for quite some time I understand.

It is a given that there are somethings not within current Science. Finding out is what we do. However, there is very much within... if you can see it, for eg, it's got a strong body of knowledge describing it.

The main areas of mystery involve places where there are two conflicting descriptions which are equally strong, and when you try to work out what originated photons that are extremely old. Close to the start of the Universe, physics was very different... though related.

Simon B wrote:

Alex wrote:

But then there was a time not so long ago that everyone agreed that travelling at over 20mph would cause suffocation because the air pressure would stop you breathing out.

When was this? People were quite relaxed about the 66600mph or so speed of the Earth for quite some time I understand.

I have read that in the early days of the railway there were fears that people would suffocate if the train travelled faster than 30mph. If it is true that this story was current at the time, and it's not just a later "weren't our ancestors stupid" myth, I suspect it was an early 19th century version of "the Large Hadron Collider will destroy the earth!" fear-of-technology story. I don't think it was ever a serious scientific belief: apart from anything else, it's about the same speed as a galloping horse.

The New York Times reported that steam trains had attained speeds in excess of 85mph, in 1904
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.h ... 946597D6CF
... so you gotta go back to the dawn of steam to find the thing about suffocating passengers. Like:

http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/gansg/1-hist/01hist.htm

Once the decision was taken to consider using steam locomotives on at least part of the line the parliamentary debates on the Liverpool and Manchester line became even more heated. Existing steam locomotives were inefficient, using a lot of coal and producing a lot of smoke and soot which people believed would poison the land and cause cows to stop giving milk. The first attempt to obtain an Act for the Liverpool to Manchester line failed largely because a certain Duke thought the line would upset his fox hunting (research in the 1940's showed that a steam railway actually had less impact on wildlife than a well used footpath).

Respected scientists testified that people would be unable to breath at the high speeds (perhaps more than thirty miles per hour) suggested by the engineers. Partly due to Stephenson's enthusiasm for steam locomotives the Liverpool and Manchester Railway company staged a series of competitive engine trials at Rainhill in 1829. One entry was horse powered and another was operated by two men and a hand-crank but all the rest were all variations on the new steam locomotives of the time.

The "Rainhill Trials" saw a number of fast trains - the Rocket (winner) managed 30mph and the Novelty was reputed to be faster than this. Nobody suggested that the various drivers should use an air hose for fear of asphyxiation.

The "respected scientists" in question did not use scientific methods to arrive at their conclusions and were not taken seriously in their day. This was about political advantage, they were probably bucking for a peerage, and anyone opposed to the new railroad happily seized on these comments.

Mind you - if you'd seen the usual steam engine before the Rainhill trials, you'd understand the reluctance.

While considering these things - also note that a steam-boat cannot carry enough coal to cross the atlantic, a rocket cannot leave the atmosphere, and the Earth is about 4000 years old.

One of Niven's Laws is that "No matter how worthy the cause, you can always find some complete moron to defend it".

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Now what about that "throw away the laws of physics near zero-K" thing?

A lot of weird things happen at low temperatures - but AFAIK nothing outside well understood physical models.

Alex wrote:

Haven't noticed anyone noticing that the Ooniverse may very well have it's own set of physics only similar to the milkyway in small bits. In our own universe the milkyway is a tiny part of it, so who is to say that some of the laws of our physics aren't different in some of the other galaxies?

Apart from the other problems with this (pointed out by the guys above), please note that Oolite does not take place in a different galaxy from ours. If you include the 'Frontier'-sequels to Elite in your personal canon, Earth is a mere 63 lightyears away from Lave.

Selezen's excellent resources wrote:

• Lave is just over 63 light years from Earth
• The furthest system away from Lave in the direction of Earth is Orrira, which is 43.6 light years north east of Lave, right on the upper edge of the Galaxy 1 map...

But of course you don't need to consider Frontier 'canon'. In that case Elite/Oolite could be located in a distant galaxy. However, that still wouldn't make different laws of physics likely.

Why should Frontier be in our galaxy anyway? Okay, the physics are more like our own but...linear acceleration at relativistic scale is first thing that springs into my mind, and there is even more...I'd prefer thinking about it as a set of parallel universes, each one different, but all supporting life....

Well yes. The messed-up physics strongly suggest that the whole of Elite/Oolite/Frontier is set in sort of a parallel universe. However, Frontier contains Earth. Which means it is at least located in the same galaxy (in a parallel universe).

Commander McLane wrote:

Well yes. The messed-up physics strongly suggest that the whole of Elite/Oolite/Frontier is set in sort of a parallel universe. However, Frontier contains Earth. Which means it is at least located in the same galaxy (in a parallel universe).

A 2D galaxy, with different constellations...

Hmmm... trying to find out where that "absolute zero" comment could have come from, I've found there is quite a lot of confusion around the topic, even with people who are supposed to know better. So one can be forgiven for misunderstanding.