Interstellar and Interplanetary travel - FTL

[impaktor]

I agree that there are too many potential ways to impement hyperjumps (ship mass, ship volume, engine class, distance to planet, atmosphere preassure, charge of capacitors, existance of navigational officer, ...).

Long before Elite Dangerous I thought we should switch to a system inspired by Carrier Command which had fixed equipment that could be damaged individually.

I remember spending hours on the Amiga trying to understand how to play Carrier Command. The woes of pirating games, not having a manual. Here's how the repair system looked like:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etiMz9xUSy0&t=6m57s

Looks similar to Silent Service II, where you also had independent parts of the sub that could be damaged.

[FluffyFreak]

Just linking to Noz's thoughts on Google Docs

[bszlrd]

An interesting article about the players ability to formulate plans that feels relevant here, for the UI and for Pioneer in general.

[kennworl]

I rather like the way Objects in Space handle damage and repairs. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=n0XpAfYGQHU

I agree that each ship should have modules or areas where different systems are located based on the specific design of the ship. When you take damage, certain components will have greater likelihood of taking damage depending on where the ship was struck.

Even better is the concept of these systems being comprised of interchangable components so that if you have a damaged system, you can repair that system by swapping in spare parts, or cannibalizing parts from a less critical system. Turns the dynamic of the game into more of a ship's captain than a fighter pilot. You can also put customise your ship systems in infinite ways to give you the edge in trading, combat, etc. That whole idea greatly appeals to me.

[impaktor]

I rather like the way Objects in Space handle damage and repairs. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=n0XpAfYGQHU

I like the sound of the computer rebooting at 2:11.

[impaktor]

Necro-posting 8 years later!
I'm currently reading Diaspora by Greg Egan. In chapter 7 (& 8,9) he lays out the physics for wormholes. I thought it interesting to note it down here:

• At the plank-Wheeler length, all of space is filled with quantum worm holes
• every elementary particle is the mouth of a long(er) lived worm hole than what is found in vacuum
• You can create worm hole by creating particle-anti-particle pairs
• Some worm holes are coupled like election-proton, thus this asymmetry when the universe cooled was the cause of all our matter
• Since the cool down off the universe, each particle has drifted from its pair-bonded partner.
• Thus if we can find the pair of particles that have drifted such that one is at our current position, and the other at our destination (preferably not inside a star) we can enlarge the wormhole entrance (by using energy)
• possibly you have to chain several pairs together if you want to jump very far

"Thus every grain of sand contains the gateway to all the stars in the universe" as he words it.

Chapter 8 and 9 continues to explore this dynamics to find a way to build worm holes consistent with physics anno 4000 AD.