Oolite Bulletins

The great thing about made-up physics is that it's so easy ...

The commonest reason for a misjump is the misalignment of a ship's witchdrive with the hyperspatial axis of the opening wormhole (or "wiggling about as you jump", to put it in layman's terms). This can create excessive tachyon shear and cause the wormhole to decohere at the point of maximum stress. This is of course the peak of the 4-dimensional bell-curve – i.e. half-way there. It's also rumoured that Thargoid ships, lurking in interstellar space, can detect the wave-fronts of approaching wormholes and disrupt them – again, at the moment of maximum stress ...

If it's necessary for game purposes to make a misjump take more time (and I think PhantorGorth has demonstrated that it is, otherwise misjumping becomes a short-cut), we can add on an extra component to cover the time taken for the ship to "fall" from the middle of the wormhole into normal space.

Disembodied wrote:

The great thing about made-up physics is that it's so easy ...

The commonest reason for a misjump is the misalignment of a ship's witchdrive with the hyperspatial axis of the opening wormhole (or "wiggling about as you jump", to put it in layman's terms). This can create excessive tachyon shear and cause the wormhole to decohere at the point of maximum stress. This is of course the peak of the 4-dimensional bell-curve – i.e. half-way there. It's also rumoured that Thargoid ships, lurking in interstellar space, can detect the wave-fronts of approaching wormholes and disrupt them – again, at the moment of maximum stress ...

The great thing about DisembodiedPhysics is that if you half-close your eyes and focus at some point in the distance, it actually makes sense

Apologies to JazHaz in advance as this may hurt.

Start of more made up physics:

I am going to expound on what I wrote earlier:

I had a fractional velocity (v) of 1/2(1-f) where f is the fractional distance. By reintroducing the units of light years (Ly) and hours I have to re-introduce the jump distance (s') and an actual distance of (S). The velocity (V) in Ly per hour becomes:

V= 1/2(s'-S)

Now if I differentiate to get the acceleration (A) I get:

A = 1/2(s'-S)^2 [Edit: Corrected by checking my maths on Wolfram Alpha. I don't know why I originally had a power of 3 here!]

If put in terms of velocity I get:

A = 2V^2 [Edit: changed because of the fix to the differentiation above]

This interesting as it implies that the behaviour is independent of the jump distance but is only dependent on the initial velocity that I stated in my previous post (half average speed of the journey or (1/2s') in ly per hour).

Of course the initial velocity is lower the longer the jump distance which is anti-intuitive as you put more energy/fuel in to get a lower initial speed. But there is precedence for this in the theoretical physics of tachyons (al a Disembodied) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tachyon).

Tachyons require more energy to travel slower and can never travel slower than the speed of light. Also they decay when they reach infinite velocity.

This all fits perfectly. When you create a witchspace wormhole you are exciting the tachyons of your ship's tachyon bubble to a slower speed. As you travel the tachyons' energy decays and you accelerate away. The slower the initial speed means it takes longer to reach infinite velocity and so you travel further. Once you reach infinite velocity (in a finite distance and time) all the tachyons have decayed and your ship is unceremoniously ejected back into normal space.

@Disembodied: With my explanation there is no need for an extra fallout time as it is all built into my equations, so at half way point the time taken is 3/4 of the normal total time.

End of made up physics.

[Please Note: mathematical edits don't change the logic of what I discussed, Phantor.]

Yrol_Denjeah wrote:

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

Maybe. That does make sense but it opens up the whole can of worms of hyperspace engines (al la military engines et al from the Fronteiervers). For now lets just agree nice idea, not going to happen in oolite.

Yrol_Denjeah wrote:

#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"

Yup, I agree completely. But as you say elsewhere (not quoted) it isnt sensible to create the exit until the ship arrives or shortly before, or every system will be peppered with clouds. This is also (for those that care) not elite canon.

Yrol_Denjeah wrote:

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"

Right, actually I think the probability for a maintained ship is very very low. I actually regard it as a "bug" that a player can trigger a misjump with the pitching thing. I know its canon, but it makes no sense to me, and even if it did, as is said elsewhere why is the place always full of thargoids? The explaintions in my opinion are weak. But still, its canon, and it is pretty core to the game I guess.

Yrol_Denjeah wrote:

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)

Its ok to kill a player, it seems kind of unsportsmanlike to just kill him randomly, at least let him fight it out with impossible odds...

Yrol_Denjeah wrote:

2. make misjumps less AND more time expensive. 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?)

I have to say, I have thought about some of these points myself. It is not clear that a misjump should be deterministic, depending on which sci-fi you like it might even make sense for them to be able to chuck you backwards in time (not far or it will do weird stuff to the gameplay!). It does make sense to me that a malfunction would have a random element. I was also thinking that a misjump should cause more wear and tear than a normal jump (thats the bit measured by trade in value).

Cmdr James wrote:

Yrol_Denjeah wrote:

#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"

Yup, I agree completely. But as you say elsewhere (not quoted) it isnt sensible to create the exit until the ship arrives or shortly before, or every system will be peppered with clouds. This is also (for those that care) not elite canon.

I just want to add that this is already part of Oolite. The witchcloud analyzer allows you to, well, analyze the entry cloud and lets you know where it goes and exactly when the ship will appear there. Of course we don't have faster engines, but you can choose an alternative route with more smaller jumps, and be in the destination system way before the ship that left the cloud. Obviously, this doesn't work if the destination system is the closest one in its direction, but as NPCs choose their destinations randomly, in many cases there will be a shortcut for the purpose of intercepting.

Cmdr James wrote:

Yrol_Denjeah wrote:

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"

Right, actually I think the probability for a maintained ship is very very low. I actually regard it as a "bug" that a player can trigger a misjump with the pitching thing. I know its canon, but it makes no sense to me, and even if it did, as is said elsewhere why is the place always full of thargoids? The explaintions in my opinion are weak. But still, its canon, and it is pretty core to the game I guess.

I think also this is basically how Oolite is working already (and all versions of Elite have always been working). By-chance misjumps are fairly rare. Of course, from a gameplay point of view, they shouldn't be so rare as to be practically non-existent, so once every five years would be a little too rare, IMO. From my longtime playing experience I would estimate the chance to be somewhere in the vicinity of once in every 50 to 100 jumps, which I think is fine. It means that it will happen to the player at some point, but it will always come as a surprise, not as something which you expect on every jump anyway.

I don't feel as strong as Cmdr James about self-induced misjumps, but I concede that it is a little odd that they can be triggered so easily. One would think that—once this possibility has been discovered—the drives would be upgraded to make them more foolproof. Or are there some powers-that-be who actually want stupid commanders to end up in interstellar space? Truth is, we don't know.

Cmdr James wrote:

Yrol_Denjeah wrote:

2. make misjumps less AND more time expensive. 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?)

I have to say, I have thought about some of these points myself. It is not clear that a misjump should be deterministic, depending on which sci-fi you like it might even make sense for them to be able to chuck you backwards in time (not far or it will do weird stuff to the gameplay!). It does make sense to me that a malfunction would have a random element. I was also thinking that a misjump should cause more wear and tear than a normal jump (thats the bit measured by trade in value).

I also have to confess that I've toyed with the idea of making misjumps more unpredictable. Especially with the possibility to give a script control over the exit point. Very tempting from a scripting point of view, to be able to let the player re-appear at any point on the chart. But honestly, I think that would be too radical. However, I still have a standing request that the exit point along the line to the destination system should become scriptable. So the misjump wouldn't always spit you out at the halfpoint between your entry and your exit system, but let's say at only a quarter or 1/10 of the distance. This is actually sort of canonical, because it is mentioned (and even performed as a triggered misjump in Status Quo, therefore controlled by the pilot himself). That would add some unpredictability from the player's point of view.

scriptable misjump distance ought to be easy, Ill see if I get time to look at it tonight.

Commander McLane wrote:

However, I still have a standing request that the exit point along the line to the destination system should become scriptable. So the misjump wouldn't always spit you out at the halfpoint between your entry and your exit system, but let's say at only a quarter or 1/10 of the distance. This is actually sort of canonical, because it is mentioned (and even performed as a triggered misjump in Status Quo, therefore controlled by the pilot himself). That would add some unpredictability from the player's point of view.

In the Dark Wheel, Alex Ryder jumps only 0.1 Ly effectively into the middle of nowhere (given subluminal speed of normal engines) to meet Rafe, which might be a nice side-effect of your scripting request - hidden deep bases that can only be located by going to a particular system, targeting another and then forcing a scripted mis-jump distance between them...

DaddyHoggy wrote:

Commander McLane wrote:

However, I still have a standing request that the exit point along the line to the destination system should become scriptable. So the misjump wouldn't always spit you out at the halfpoint between your entry and your exit system, but let's say at only a quarter or 1/10 of the distance. This is actually sort of canonical, because it is mentioned (and even performed as a triggered misjump in Status Quo, therefore controlled by the pilot himself). That would add some unpredictability from the player's point of view.

In the Dark Wheel, Alex Ryder jumps only 0.1 Ly effectively into the middle of nowhere (given subluminal speed of normal engines) to meet Rafe, which might be a nice side-effect of your scripting request - hidden deep bases that can only be located by going to a particular system, targeting another and then forcing a scripted mis-jump distance between them...

Yes, that's exactly what I'm aiming at.

And obviously your source knowledge is much superior to mine. I had thought the meeting with Rafe (because that's what I was alluding to, although I obviously also mixed up 0.1 LY with 0.1 * the distance) was from Status Quo. But if it's from the Dark Wheel, it's undeniably canon, making my request all the more justified.

this has got me thinking. why would they have to be MISjumps? they are when your engines/puter cocks up during transit, but if you're actually wanting to get out into Witchspace there should be a method of doing it more accurately. after all, the Navy are constantly engaged w/ the Thargoids there, it's highly unlikely they all set off and hope that everyone in the misjumps to the same point : the slightest timing deviation could fatally scatter their forces. it seems to me that the transit puters are programmed only to recognise standard destinations when jumping, but it would be perfectly possible for the pilot to deliberately request a jump to terminate in Witchspace. Of course, you'd have to click a couple of "are you sure?" boxes when selecting your destination, and deliberate jumps into Witchspace would probably invalidate all kinds of ship/life insurance policy clauses
i look upon it like my Catalyst overclocker facilities on my puter. the ability is there, but you have to click an unlock button, it warns you that you might SNAFU your puter by messing about, and if you still go ahead it washes its hands of the matter and records the unlock date to be used in evidence if you go claiming AMDs drivers melted your puter chips all by themselves

Killer Wolf wrote:

this has got me thinking.

This thread has had me thinking as well… trying to get my head around it, mainly, which hasn’t been easy.
I like the idea of ‘programmable’ or ‘scriptable’ mis-jumps of variable lengths… all sorts of possibilities.

A purely hypothetical scenario:
Two ships travel in company, the first ship opens a wormhole and the second follows it in and gets a free ride.
The first ship (the one that opened the wormhole) has a mis-jump, either deliberate or accidental.

Does the following ship also ‘misjump’ and exit witchspace at the exact same position?

It should.
Logically the follower should even have a higher chance to misjump,
because the calculations for the jump are done by a ship that is not
the one which initiated the jump.
( differnt mass, energeylevels, speed, cargo )

I think it would depend on when the misjump actually occurs, do they happen during the calculations before jumping, or when travelling throught the vortex? (In game i know it happens before, but i'm talking what's theorhetically possible in an Oolite universe not confined by developer coding limitations)

Do we actually have any control over a ship once it enters a hyperspace cloud? Could we veer off course while in one? What would happen if we came to a complete stop while inside the vortex? Could we live in hyperspace build space-stations there? So many questions

ADCK wrote:

I think it would depend on when the misjump actually occurs, do they happen during the calculations before jumping, or when travelling throught the vortex? (In game i know it happens before, but i'm talking what's theorhetically possible in an Oolite universe not confined by developer coding limitations)

Do we actually have any control over a ship once it enters a hyperspace cloud? Could we veer off course while in one? What would happen if we came to a complete stop while inside the vortex? Could we live in hyperspace build space-stations there? So many questions

Since we have no perception of time passing once inside the tunnel (the game clock updates on exit) so presume the ship computer knows nothing either - there's nothing to control...

There is only one problem with that, ADCK.

The constantly playing "HYPER! HYPER!"-song from Scooter
playing 24/7 like a christmas-carol from quantumhell.

^^ Scooooooooootaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh...!

Just one question:

Is "wormhole scanner" the same thing as "witchcloud analyzer"?

I'm asking because ReferenceSheet.pdf shows a "witchcloud" on page 6, but wiki has no article for it.

Gute Nacht ...