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Re: Star Citizen and question for Josh

#796
*watches the debate with interest*
Mistycica wrote:
ThymineC wrote: Your idea is very much a single invented principle (H-fields), a 'one big lie' used by Mass Effect (Element Zero) and Firefly (gravity projection) for example (or Singularity or Freefall or...). I'm fond of softer sci-fi, have nothing against it, enjoy it a lot, but it doesn't fit into my brackets of 'realistic' or 'believeable'. Practically applied muon-catalysed fusion is one of the far-fetched things I call plausible.

I suspend disbelief, have a blast, and marvel in the ingenuity of fantasy-science writers, be it LT, SC, or something as outrageous as Star Trek - though my focus is rarely on 'what drives this thing', I don't feel it's the point of sci-fi as a whole. But I'm boring when it comes to 'serious' nerding about, because I just leave so little leeway to fantasy.
Yay, +1 to all. We seem to have a similar perspective.

ThymineC's Heisenberg drive is a bit ingeniously creative, though, in my opinion.

My k.i.s.s. explanation for the LT flight model is that it all takes place in an alternate universe where the "ether" exists, and stuff has drag in space from it. I.E. stuff has different laws than what we're used to. It's a bit of handwavium, and I don't particularly like it because one handwave invites more to follow, but hey.

My actual explanation (in my head as I play this type of thing) is that ships have automatic reverse thrusters. Maybe it's an intergalactic law. Maybe it's just part of the package. Who knows. Seems to work, for the most part, besides the speed limit - unless you just add on that the ship's computer won't allow it to pass certain speeds. Why? Maybe safety reasons - flying through a cloud of dust might rip away at your ship if you fly too fast, who knows. It's probably not something I would think about every second of a playthrough.
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Re: Star Citizen and question for Josh

#797
ThymineC wrote: No, I'm asking for a justification of the Limit Theory flight model, where ships act as if they have drag constantly applied to them. How would you explain why ships fly the way they do in Limit Theory? I mean, I guess you would just not want to try and leave it as it is, but I need reasons for things.
Your guess is right. I have no explanation, because every explanation I could make up would be just that. Something I made up. Your probabilistic inertialess drive is good as any, and one of the more well-detailed ones I heard, though.
If I had to explain and make things up, I'd probably not dunk so much time into it, and would just wave my hand and go 'physics work this way in this universe'. I mean, do you ask yourself daily 'why are things governed by arbitrary universal constants like vacuum permittivity'? Well, okay, you might, but the run-of-the-mill spaceship jockey in LT's universe won't, just like the average truck driver on Earth. Or they may, but are left without answers.
Come to think of it, that's an awfully handy explanation, based not on made-up science in this Universe, but a made-up Universe with the same old psychology. And yes, I'm really liberal with the pen and paper GM's Rule #0 - it's because I said so ;)
Talvieno wrote:We seem to have a similar perspective.
I'm not gonna re-edit my post in works, but yea, apparently :P
panic
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Re: Star Citizen and question for Josh

#798
Talvieno wrote:My k.i.s.s. explanation for the LT flight model is that it all takes place in an alternate universe where the "ether" exists, and stuff has drag in space from it. I.E. stuff has different laws than what we're used to. It's a bit of handwavium, and I don't particularly like it because one handwave invites more to follow, but hey.
This could work, but I prefer to imagine that this is all set in the same universe at ours (or at least one with the same laws of physics) if not necessarily the same galaxy. Therefore I prefer explanations which focus on the subject (the ships) rather than the environment.
Talvieno wrote:My actual explanation (in my head as I play this type of thing) is that ships have automatic reverse thrusters. Maybe it's an intergalactic law. Maybe it's just part of the package. Who knows. Seems to work, for the most part, besides the speed limit - unless you just add on that the ship's computer won't allow it to pass certain speeds. Why? Maybe safety reasons - flying through a cloud of dust might rip away at your ship if you fly too fast, who knows. It's probably not something I would think about every second of a playthrough.
I anticipated this and suggested it myself half a year ago (before H-Drive). It's okay, but then if it's just a matter of assuming everyone follows the legislation all the time. And spacedust might explain why we don't get ships flying at 50% of the speed of light, but it doesn't explain why they're restricting themselves to a crappy 1000 m.s^-1 or so. You know the Voyager I is hurtling through space at 17,000 m.s^-1 right now? And it doesn't have armour or shields. So why don't we have pirates going ridiculously fast?

Also, both of your explanations I assume are based on conventional thrusters, which necessitates the use of fuel for travel, which I'm against.
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Re: Star Citizen and question for Josh

#799
ThymineC wrote:
Talvieno wrote:My actual explanation (in my head as I play this type of thing) is that ships have automatic reverse thrusters. Maybe it's an intergalactic law. Maybe it's just part of the package. Who knows. Seems to work, for the most part, besides the speed limit - unless you just add on that the ship's computer won't allow it to pass certain speeds. Why? Maybe safety reasons - flying through a cloud of dust might rip away at your ship if you fly too fast, who knows. It's probably not something I would think about every second of a playthrough.
I anticipated this and suggested it myself half a year ago. It's okay, but then if it's just a matter of assuming everyone follows the legislation all the time. And spacedust might explain why we don't get ships flying at 50% of the speed of light, but it doesn't explain why they're restricting themselves to a crappy 1000 ms^-1 or so. You know the Voyager I is hurtling through space at 17,000 ms^-1 right now? And it doesn't have armour or shields. So why don't we have pirates going ridiculously fast?
You may also have noticed that in the LT universe, nebulae are unusually thick. In real life, you can't really tell you're inside a nebula when you're inside one. In Mr. Parnell's universe, neublae are very, very thick. You may also have noticed the dense "fogs" of dust in some of the asteroid fields - also something you would never, ever see in real life because such clouds would very quickly condense into solid clumps.
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Re: Star Citizen and question for Josh

#800
ThymineC wrote: This could work, but I prefer to imagine that this is all set in the same universe at ours (or at least one with the same laws of physics) if not necessarily the same galaxy. Therefore I prefer explanations which focus on the subject (the ships) rather than the environment.
Manipulating probability, having an inertialess drive, gaining silly amounts of power with no fuel (admittedly I skimmed, so no idea what's your explanation there), that all doesn't quite fit into this universe. You are modifying it by letting such devices exist at all. 'Being against' universal laws is fine and all, but circumventing them with a black box doesn't mean it's all gonna be explained.
I have an idea, and it's only partially a joke, based on this comic strip: crossing vast amounts of space with ease by modifying constants in an equation like this. Or by directly meddling into universal constants and violating causality at the same time - change vacuum permittivity to change c! See the issue? I'm staying in this universe, I just have unexplained magic gadgets to make it not behave correctly. That's no better than swimming in aether, from the perspective of plausability.
(on a tangent, if you want to see a 'cool spaceship' powered by handwavium, look at the Far Star from Foundation's Edge)

From this point it all boils down to personal preference and gameplay issues. Max speed is meh, but results in a not-broken engine and better gameplay. Using conventional thrusters is way cool, but it's a nightmare if you want to play that way. Whatever you use to wave the compromises a programmer has to make away, it's going to be lacking, because it's a tarp to cover the blundering hole in logic and physics.
panic
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Re: Star Citizen and question for Josh

#801
While this discussion is pretty good in regards to the different lore and how to explain different mechanics (or why they need to be explained in the first place), you both might want to take that over to the H-Drive thread. We're getting off-topic from Star Citizen.
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Re: Star Citizen and question for Josh

#802
Warning: Minor spoilers ahead. :mrgreen:
Mistycica wrote:why can't I do the other thing (jamming your main menu - where is your god now)?
In Metal Gear Solid, one of the bosses, Psycho Mantis, turn off the video signal of your TV, move your PlayStation analog controller with his mind (instead of the other way around, usually you control the characters with a controller), and knows what other games have you been playing. You can fool him only in the real world.

In Metal Gear Solid 2 the main character, Raiden, whose real name is Jack (your connection with the game world) have acces to the main menu screen and can change your personal data. Then, over the course of the game, he is faced with the fact that he is a puppet in a videogame, and the only way to stop the villains is to stop following orders (from you, the player) and turn off the console. (This is probably one of the most brillian thematic moments in videogame history, the moment when the bad guys prove their theory through you, the player: than even if humankind discovers that everything is a lie, it will choose to continue with the lie, in the same way that you, the player, can not stop playing, even now you know that the whole game has been a deception.) In some moment, the real villain, the AI, now exposed, fakes a game over to force you to leave the game and lose the fight. Very clever indeed!

In Metal Gear Solid 3 you also can fake a game over screen to fool the enemy guards. CIA secret technology. :ghost:
Last edited by Etsu on Tue Jun 03, 2014 1:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Star Citizen and question for Josh

#803
Etsu wrote:Warning: Minor spoilers ahead. :mrgreen:
Mistycica wrote:why can't I do the other thing (jamming your main menu - where is your god now)?
In Metal Gear Solid, one of the bosses, Psycho Mantis, turn off the video signal of your TV, move your PlayStation analog controller with his mind (instead of the other way around, usually you control the characters with a controller), and knows what other game have you been playing. You can fool him only in the real world.

In Metal Gear Solid 2 the main character, Raiden, whose real name is Jack (your connection with the game world) have acces to the main menu screen and can change your personal data. Then, over the course of the game, he is faced with the fact that he is a puppet in a videogame, and the only way to stop the villains is to stop following orders (from you, the player) and turn off the console. (This is probably one of the most brillian thematic moments in videogame history, the moment when the bad guys prove their theory through you, the player: than even if humankind discovers that everything is a lie, it will choose to continue with the lie, in the same way that you, the player, can not stop playing, even now you know that the whole game has been a deception.) In some moment, the real villain, the AI, now exposed, fakes a game over to force you to leave the game and lose the fight. Very clever indeed!

In Metal Gear Solid 3 you also can fake a game over screen to fool the enemy guards. CIA secret technology. :ghost:
FISSION MAILED
EMIT
CONTINENT

I need scissors. 61!

Eehehe. Raiden is my hero.
(but this is really a huge thread hijack again)
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