Oolite Bulletins

Ok don't laugh, but when one travels from system to system using hyperspace, the passage of time is always the same, practically, instantaneous. It does not matter whether the planet is 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, or 8 etc... light years away. Anyway, is it possible to add an a hyperspace tunnel to the jump? e.g. for every light year you jump you spend 1sec in the tunnel travelling.

example
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqHTF7eYYp4

The [wiki]BGS[/wiki] hyperspace tunnel effect lasts about eight seconds. Of course, hours/days pass in reality.

It only seems instantaneous to you. In 'reality' time passes - watch your ship's clock as you emerge and it adjusts to allow for the time you were in hyperspace.

No, I know that's what happens guys....and the hyperspace FX by BGS is lovely. I was just asking about whether or not a period of travel in a tunnel as I linked in my OP is possible.Can it be scripted and based on distance jumping? 5LY=5s 8Ly=8s

Smivs wrote:

It only seems instantaneous to you. In 'reality' time passes - watch your ship's clock as you emerge and it adjusts to allow for the time you were in hyperspace.

I'm never been sure of that. It could be that you travel instantaneously from your perspective while time passes outside of your ship. If that were to happen, space travellers would practically jump in time and see decades if not centuries pass and become more and more distanced from the everyday lives of people who never travel and live their lives on planets and stations...

Wolfwood wrote:

I'm never been sure of that. It could be that you travel instantaneously from your perspective while time passes outside of your ship. If that were to happen, space travellers would practically jump in time and see decades if not centuries pass and become more and more distanced from the everyday lives of people who never travel and live their lives on planets and stations...

The nearest you can get to "canon" is, I suppose, The Dark Wheel, and it says

The Dark Wheel wrote:

You're going to cover maybe seven light years in a few minutes [...] The ship drifted in 'Witch Light', in the non-place in space and time. It was crossing the void between stars in seconds, but for those seconds it was in a twilight world whose existence was beyond imagination.

Frankly, though, for my own fiction I find this inconvenient: I need to be able to isolate a cast of characters for a decent period of time, so they can interact (and occasionally for other reasons too). I also think it feels wrong: it turns space travel into a series of brief excursions. So as far as I'm concerned, it takes time.

What Big D said!

Ah, yes, the Dark Wheel - that's where I got that idea from.

And I don't think you will lack in ways to make your characters have a chance to interact if you take away the hyperspace time - there's plenty of in-system travel left, for example.

In my ages-old fiction that I do not even dare to read myself for fear of dying in shame, I made the travel work as in Dark Wheel. And I _think_ (as I said, I don't dare to check to make sure) I used it to dramatic effect to set my characters as distanced from the everyday lives of the rest of the humanity as their parents and siblings and their siblings' kids died while they still roamed the stars (have to be a very active traveller for that, though).

Wolfwood wrote:

I don't think you will lack in ways to make your characters have a chance to interact if you take away the hyperspace time - there's plenty of in-system travel left, for example.

Not enough - not nearly enough! Even without the Torus it doesn't take more than an hour to fly from the Witchpoint to the station (of course, here we hit problems of scale ...). I also want time where there's nothing for the crew to do, except a bit of routine - so I can sit them down and get them interacting if I need to. If I don't need anything to happen in transit, then it's easy enough to jump the narrative onwards (plus the extra time can throw up extra problems - quick plug for [wiki]Stranglehold[/wiki] ). And I still think it feels more like a voyage, instead of just a quick trip to the shops, if it takes time.

Wolfwood wrote:

In my ages-old fiction that I do not even dare to read myself for fear of dying in shame, I made the travel work as in Dark Wheel. And I _think_ (as I said, I don't dare to check to make sure) I used it to dramatic effect to set my characters as distanced from the everyday lives of the rest of the humanity as their parents and siblings and their siblings' kids died while they still roamed the stars (have to be a very active traveller for that, though).

Although the drifting apart of spacers and the rest of the population is an attractive notion, I admit!

Disembodied wrote:

... the drifting apart of spacers and the rest of the population is an attractive notion, I admit!

Indeed it is... and likely to happen in some form anyway, I reckon.

Disembodied wrote:

quick plug for [wiki]Stranglehold[/wiki] )

Plug away! I've been away for much too long and there's so much catching up to so. As soon as I'm done with Drew's stuff, I'll be looking out for more! I need something (a lot of somethings) to tide me over until Elite 4 comes out...

For those of us in the dark(me) about what you guys are talking about. It sounds( I might be wrong) like you may agree with me??? there needs to be some time between jumps in hyperspace itself

jacksy wrote:

For those of us in the dark(me) about what you guys are talking about. It sounds( I might be wrong) like you may agree with me??? there needs to be some time between jumps in hyperspace itself

Sorry, Jacksy - we've gone off talking about the game that happens in our heads (and our fiction), not what happens on the screen!

On the screen, re. your original idea: it would be a nice touch if a long witchjump took (a few seconds) more time and/or there was some sort of graphical signal to mark a difference between a long jump and a short jump (different/darker colours, maybe). At present, though, as Thargoid says the hyperspace pattern is probably of a fixed length. It might be possible to fiddle with this, but I don't know how difficult this might be to achieve something which is a nice, but purely cosmetic, change.

Disembodied wrote:

jacksy wrote:

For those of us in the dark(me) about what you guys are talking about. It sounds( I might be wrong) like you may agree with me??? there needs to be some time between jumps in hyperspace itself

Sorry, Jacksy - we've gone off talking about the game that happens in our heads (and our fiction), not what happens on the screen!

On the screen, re. your original idea: it would be a nice touch if a long witchjump took (a few seconds) more time and/or there was some sort of graphical signal to mark a difference between a long jump and a short jump (different/darker colours, maybe). At present, though, as Thargoid says the hyperspace pattern is probably of a fixed length. It might be possible to fiddle with this, but I don't know how difficult this might be to achieve something which is a nice, but purely cosmetic, change.

Yes of course it would be purely cosmetic and probably not a fave of the purists. I would like to feel like that each jump, depending on distance, has a feel of actually moving from A to B. At the moment as mentioned earlier it's just the clock that changes and of course the system. It's the same with the galactic jump, no feeling of moving a great distance. I would have a go at it myself but haven't the faintest about modding or scripting of games. Then again if it cannot be done with this game there would be no point even trying.