Oolite Bulletins

Hi All

What's the calculation for how long a witchspace jump of x LY takes in hours?

I only ask because... a while ago I hawked my newbie Cobra Mk III for a Hamadryad (and learned pretty quickly on seeing the red lollipop to hit the injectors and 'just flee!!') so I could start earning a reputation for punctuality and reliability on the cargo transport market. Well, now I see that there are some very nice haulage opportunities out there and I have been doing quite nicely. Oh yes, no complaints here... Very happy indeed... Soon be buying that <insert Iron Ass here>.... Mmm very happy...

Well, almost. I seem to be suffering the Ooniversal law that just a few jumps after taking a 'respectably paying' contract, a complete whopper comes along... and it seems at a rough guess from the Advanced Nav Array route to be "just maybe perhaps possible... but I better not take the risk of missing the deadline "

Wouldn't it be cool if I could have a more reliable estimate of time from A to G so I could be all prudent and traderly in deciding which 'mid-contract' contracts to take.

Any help much appreciated.

I think the formula is the jump time in hours equals the square of the distance in light-years ... so two short jumps of 3 light-years each – taking 9 hours a pop, or 18 hours in total – is a lot faster than doing one jump of 6 light-years, which would take 36 hours.

Disembodied wrote:

I think the formula is the jump time in hours equals the square of the distance in light-years.

based on what i keep seeing, i have to agree with that. question is, WHY did they do it this way?considering that on longer jumps you can reach a much higher speed, a longer jump should be faster than 2 shorter ones covering the same distance.

HI,
If your pressed for time it's also quicker to 'sun hop' rather than landing at the station, you also avoid the usual rush hours in the standard space lanes.
Make sure you have a heat shield before getting fuel from the sun, or you'll have a bit of a sun burn that even camomile lotion won't help.

harry747 wrote:

based on what i keep seeing, i have to agree with that. question is, WHY did they do it this way?considering that on longer jumps you can reach a much higher speed, a longer jump should be faster than 2 shorter ones covering the same distance.

Ah, but you're travelling through witchspace. "Speed" isn't really the issue here: rather, it's the amount of time that passes in the exterior universe while you're transiting the wormhole. I'd explain further, but there's a lot of hyperdimensional maths and I don't think this font has the right symbols ...

Or you can say alternatively, that this was done simply for adding an additional element of strategy in the game. IMHO, that has been a great idea.

thanks for the reply - now you come to mention it, it does look like the square of the LY, rounded to one decimal

I like the extra dimension that comes from calculating elapsed time between jumps in this way - it makes route-planning and working out the odds on "mid-contract contracts" that bit more fun, for one thing!

I traded up to a Cobra Courier last night - adios Hamadryad! So nice to be able to indulge in a little 'offensive defence', rather than just 'flee flee!!'

When I came to add a clock to the game (way back in those far off days) it was a deliberate move to make the travel times encourage more and shorter jumps (and therefore more interaction).

I'm glad you appreciate it.

aegidian wrote:

When I came to add a clock to the game (way back in those far off days) it was a deliberate move to make the travel times encourage more and shorter jumps (and therefore more interaction).

I'm glad you appreciate it.

Our Lord and Master briefly unlurks! Praise be the great Aegidian!

Alex wrote:

HI,
If your pressed for time it's also quicker to 'sun hop' rather than landing at the station, you also avoid the usual rush hours in the standard space lanes.
Make sure you have a heat shield before getting fuel from the sun, or you'll have a bit of a sun burn that even camomile lotion won't help.

Save your money - get fuel injectors instead.
Use injectors to zoom up to the sun and refuel extra fast. Once fully fueled hit the hyperspace and you'll be out of the heat before you can even marinade a Trumble.

Some theorycrafting from me here

Time passes faster in Witchspace than in normal space. Jumping a longer distance in normal space necessitates spending a longer time in Witchspace. Although one would personally experience a shorter journey, in the real world time has passed much much quicker.

Now this is just the theory bit, anybody wanna fudge up some mathematical formula to explain why it's the square of the distance travelled?

tomsk wrote:

Once fully fueled hit the hyperspace and you'll be out of the heat before you can even marinade a Trumble.

do that, and your life expectancy equals the length of the countdown. at least that's what happened to me several times.

...anybody wanna fudge up some mathematical formula to explain why it's the square of the distance travelled?

A famous Riedquatian theoretical physicist named Doctor Redflegie (Red for short) called his theory the Reverse Inverse Square Theory (R.I.S.T) which states that as the hyperspace conduit compresses the distance the time expansion squares.

The result is: t = 1 / (s / s ^ 2) ^ 2.

am I alone in not understand any of that.... only got a C in my gcse maths.... not a strong point!!!!

B

Hi Rebecca,

t = time and s = space.

t = 1 / (s / s ^ 2) ^ 2

If the distance from Lave to Zianonce is 7 light years, s = 7.

t = 1 / (7 / 7 ^ 2) ^ 2
t = 1 / (7 / 49) ^ 2
t = 1 / (0.142857) ^ 2
t = 7 ^ 2
t = 49

I basically took time = distance ^ 2 and made an inverse out of it unnecessarily complicating it to make the now famous Reverse Inverse Square Theory.