Hyperspace: Time of flight

[ADCK]

Well, I guess we could always say that forcing your way through the walls of the wormholes tunnel causes a time-spatial anomaly that sends you slightly into the future which by a remarkable coincidence happens to be the exact same amount of time it would of taken you without misjumping...

Or we could say a Wizard did it.

Damn space-wizards always using their evil magics to break science!

[JensAyton]

I think its fairly obvious from the distance to time relationship that speed of travel through witchspace is not linear.

As any physics student can tell you, in witchspace the speed of motion of an object multiplied by the length of the wormhole is a constant. Expressed in Light years per hour, the value of the constant is 1.

For a journey twice as far, the average speed of travel through the wormhole is halved.

For a wormhole of length 1 LY, the average speed of travel is 1 LY/Hour, for a journeytime of 1 H.

A wormhole of length 2LY has an average speed of 0.5 LY/Hour => 4Hour

A wormhole of 4LY, speed 0.25LY/H => 16 Hours.

If you abandon a flight of 4 LY half way, you were travelling around 0.25LY/Hour for 2LY meaning it took 8 hours.

Now that is a hand well waved. :-)

[JazHaz]

After reading that lot, my head hurts!

[Kaks]

Now that is a hand well waved.

Seconded! Cmdr James, that's first class Handwavium!

[Killer Wolf]

i must confess to being lost as to what the point of the time is? i guess it ties in if you're passenger-ferrying, but personally i've never ever found a use for the clock :-/

[Commander McLane]

i must confess to being lost as to what the point of the time is? i guess it ties in if you're passenger-ferrying, but personally i've never ever found a use for the clock :-/

AFAIK it hasn't been used yet. But for instance I am writing a mission OXP in which time will be of the essence. You will have to complete a couple of tasks (including travelling to other systems, of course) within a given and not too long time. So suddenly it makes a difference whether a misjump costs you extra time (as it appears to be now), or will on the contrary gain you time.

[Eric Walch]

But for instance I am writing a mission OXP in which time will be of the essence. You will have to complete a couple of tasks (including travelling to other systems, of course) within a given and not too long time. So suddenly it makes a difference whether a misjump costs you extra time (as it appears to be now), or will on the contrary gain you time.

Have you already looked here? In 1.74 it will be possible for a script to not only calculate time of a route for a minimum number of jumps, but also for the faster route with more shorter jump. (Thanks to A_C who added this stuff to JS). Add a few hours to this time and you know the player has no margin to spill any extra time. e.g. to clean up the floor of the docking bay

[PhantorGorth]

Just to point out that using half time is still a bit of a time cheat. If the jump is 6 ly (36 hours) a misjump of half is 18 hours. So far so good. but when you jump from that midpoint to the destination (assuming you can) then that second jump is a normal jump of 3 ly (9 hours) totaling 27 hours which is less than the original 36 hours.

To balance it you would need it to be 27 hours or 3/4 of the original time. Obviously more hand waving is required if you do that.

[DaddyHoggy]

Just to point out that using half time is still a bit of a time cheat. If the jump is 6 ly (36 hours) a misjump of half is 18 hours. So far so good. but when you jump from that midpoint to the destination (assuming you can) then that second jump is a normal jump of 3 ly (9 hours) totaling 27 hours which is less than the original 36 hours.

To balance it you would need it to be 27 hours or 3/4 of the original time. Obviously more hand waving is required if you do that.

You have of course presumed that a newbie is in fact not been reduced to base components by this "cheat" - I'd say at the very least it's a little recompense for surviving an encounter with the Thargoids.

[JensAyton]

You have of course presumed that a newbie is in fact not been reduced to base components by this "cheat" - I'd say at the very least it's a little recompense for surviving an encounter with the Thargoids.

I don’t want to break timed missions for non-newbies either.

[PhantorGorth]

Just to help with the hand waving if we go for 3/4 time.

For demonstration purposes lets assume the misjump point was at random fraction (f) of the distance rather than the set mid way point then to maintain the split jump having the same time as the normal single jump the time taken fraction of the normal single jump time (t) is 1-(1-f)^2 or 2f - f^2. After a bit of calculus, which I will spare you all, you get a velocity at any point along a normal jump journey (v) of 1/2(1-f) which means: a) you start at half the mean speed for the journey (6ly -> v=6ly/36hr/2 = 1/12 ly per hour) and b) ends at infinite velocity at the moment of exit.

[JazHaz]

Just to help with the hand waving if we go for 3/4 time.

For demonstration purposes lets assume the misjump point was at random fraction (f) of the distance rather than the set mid way point then to maintain the split jump having the same time as the normal single jump the time taken fraction of the normal single jump time (t) is 1-(1-f)^2 or 2f - f^2. After a bit of calculus, which I will spare you all, you get a velocity at any point along a normal jump journey (v) of 1/2(1-f) which means: a) you start at half the mean speed for the journey (6ly -> v=6ly/36hr/2 = 1/12 ly per hour) and b) ends at infinite velocity at the moment of exit.

Oh stop it! My head still hurts from yesterday!

[another_commander]

Whatever happened to simple things like E=mc² ? Physics in the 30th centrury just isn't what it used to be back in the days...

[ADCK]

Whatever happened to simple things like E=mc² ? Physics in the 30th centrury just isn't what it used to be back in the days...

At some point between now and the year 3000 they discoved it's infact E=mc³ in extra temporal physics.

(anyone who recognised this as a slightly modified 3rd Doctor quote from classic Doctor Who gets +50 points!)

[Yrol_Denjeah]

°blinks confused°
whats a "Dr. Hu?"

Also:
#1: "traversing several light years through hyperspace jumps
takes days or weeks, depending on the type of vessel and
hyperdrive."

#2:
"A hyperspace cloud is created in the entry and exit points.
These can be analyzed by those wishing to intercept and destroy
the jumping ship, as a faster ship can reach the destination
sooner. Sometimes, more often with engines that have not been
maintained properly, mis-jumps occur"

( Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperspace ... r_universe )

~~~
#1 and #2 combined means that the destinationcloud has to be
kept stable for hours, if not days. I find that hardly feasible and
do not think, any scientist could/would create a hyperjumpdrive in
such a way. Not to mention that the space around the witchspace-
beacon would be considerably more crowded by those
destinationclouds because they ( have to ) exist for such a long
time.

I could imagine three reasons for a misjump:
1. the navigation computer miscalculates
2. external influences such as "electrical" ( or otherwise) active
nebulae at the spots where the clouds have to be created,
or a mass ( ships, asteroids )
3. the jumpdrive has a malfunction

In case 1 and 2, there should in my opinion not be any difference
in time or speed. because the jump only gets miscalculated,
then all happens as if it were a normal jump
( otherwise the jumpdrive would not start at all )

The real danger is case 3, when the jumpdrive actually breaks
down. And THAT i think, would rather result in a "slightly" more
destructive outcome to ship and any lifeforms on board than in a
simple "oops, wrong door"-pizza-misdelivery-situation.

I would assume that in a setting like Elite, where spacetravel and
hyperspacetravel is SO common, the used equipment would be far
far more sophisticated than what the "urgency/importance" of this
topic suggests.

Trade is important, misjumps should not occur often, because
those who are involved and dependent of trade to be secure
for commodity AND pilots/passengers would not use a
nonfailsafe system.

Unless we are in a time of war in oolite, there should not be
many occurences of intentionally disrupted
hyperspacejumps that raise the probabilitylevel above
"legend has it, that 5 years ago, a pilot had a misjump"

Alternative:
leave everything as it is apart from the following changes:
1. misjumps can be fatal/lethal ( come on guys, there is a save and
load function. if you want to play without ever losing something,
play Rock-Paper-Scissors-Lizard-Spock)

2. make misjumps less AND more timeexpensive. inlcude a random
factor that influences the time and distance. allowing for misjumps
that go beyond the 7.0 LY limit but then leave the ship damaged
( half depleted energycells, not working scanner for 20 minutes
until it recalibrates or so ) or the pilot ( blurry vision through an
HUD-overlay? wobbly shipcontrols?)