Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

There is nothing against wormholes, which is better than any other form of FTL travel. There is no physical evidence of them, but theoretically they are fairly solid as the conclusions/solutions to various Einstienian equations. If you can actually find them, if they go the right place and if you can even enter them are the questions and the answers will probably be No, No and Not a chance. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

The big advantage of wormholes is that you don't actually travel faster than light. Yes you travel great distances in less time than you would, but you don't bugger around with causality and relativity while doing so. Not that there aren't seperate possible problems, but none in that league.

The universe is somewhat large, you do know this right? This is just one of several problems with your 'Nothing rules the entire universe, so there is no way to travel quickly.' That is possibly the worst argument against FTL travel I have ever, ever heard. So hopefully its a joke. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

LOL hey remember buck rogers the Draconians conquered 3/4ths of the universe lol my question why stop there? I mean come on an extra 1/4 of the universe can't really make that big a difference can it?

For that matter the Draconians had battleships the Earthers had fighters if they were so bent on conquering us why didn't they?

And they never showed hyperspace so anyway lol.

Ah it was a stupid show though Erin Grey was mmmmmmm hubba hubba http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif


Anyway I want to know what PROVES time slows down for something going faster then light, considering we never get anything to go faster then light how can we ask it?

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

Theoretically, time would actually go backwards for something travelling faster than light. As far as I know, current mainstream science considers actually testing such a hypothesis to be theoretically impossible.

Time slowing down as things approach the speed of light has been tested quite thoroughly, however. Just one result from a very quick google search is right here.

GPS systems have to take at least one, maybe both, branches of relativity into account to give accurate positioning data. If they didn't, all GPS systems would be at least several meters off and might not be very confident about your precise position.

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

Well with all respect and I know this will probobly make me sound a bit uninformed but I mean for all we know the Muons are not in fact having any sort of time dialation there could be other things we are not aware of yet affecting them.

However that is just one theory of mine and maybe others but I digress http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif there are any number of "loopholes" folks can think of to actually going FTL anyway.

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

Yes, the delayed decay could be caused by some unknown factor, but why postulate a new mystery when the current theory predicts not only the qualitative effect observed but also the exact quantitative effect to well within experimental measurement error? Both general and special relativity have been tested extensively many times, and the experimental results have never disagreed with the theoretical predictions without a flaw being discovered in the experiment's procedure, despite scientists striving for the smallest margins of error possible.

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

Actually, the square root of a negative number is not negative, but rather *imaginary*.

Presuming it makes any sense at all; instead of going backwards in time, you'd go perpendicular, or "sideways" in time. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

Considering that some scientists belive we live in a "multiverse", perhaps going sideways in time would work. Travel into one of those infinitely "other" universes.

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

Or it would not have any time dialation effects at all and you would just happen to get someplace else at the same time you left which is an interesting theory http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Imagine that "Ladies and gentlemen we are leaving at 12:01pm September 24 and proceeding 50 light years the trip will take x amount of time)

Say a week later "Ladies and gentlemen welcome to destination B 50 light years away, the time is 12:01 september 24th thank you for flying paradox air."

Possible http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

I like the Fedex suborbital option.
Pickup by 8am in New York, Delivery in Japan by 5pm the Previous Day.

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

Well as a wise man once said "Time is Relative"

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

My official position: Temporal Mechanics is very very bad for the health and should never be dabbled in more than necessary.

However time does slow down as you go faster in exact accordance with relativity. Hell, even at Mach 2 the effect is mesaurable. Take two atomic clocks, synchronsie them and stick one on a concorde. Compare the two when they land and you will find that the land based one is ahead.

As for FTL, you have asked for explanations, so here they are (but simplified, of course http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif). You cannot go FTL in a universe that has causality and relativity. Causality is simply cause and effect, something has to make something happen. Relativity is time slowing down, and eventually reversing, as you approach then pass light speed. If you can go faster than light, you can go back in time. If you've traveled in time you muck up causality hugely in a variety of, hopefully, obvious ways.

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

Well there is one flaw in your theory and that is that The Concorde fleet is grounded bwahahahaha I just defied physics http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/shock.gif. lol j/k

Seriously though I definately understand the whole atomic clock deal I'm just sayin' lord knows what else might effect this thing other then "time dialation" yah know? At least as we think of it. Not saying your wrong obviously but that whole "time and space" area of science is as you said best avoided for the sake of human sanity and health lol

Well good thing about the "FTL" in my story (even when and if I can get good enough to write a book, all I'd need is an editor like most authors http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif) is that it's "warp points" (name to change trust me) which are actual "folds" in space which don't actually make you go FTL so much as temporarily exist in two places at once and then fully "materialize" in the new place. Unfortunately this has rather bad effects on human orientation leaving earlier generations with "jump shock". Though as stated with my newer chapters the newer generations of GFGs are better able to compensate for this and thus little to no jump shock.

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

In comparison to breaking cause and effect I think we can safely say every other possible problem is minor.

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

Really I've heard that fold space is actually a simpler proposition compared to "warp" and "FTL" speeds, for that matter the Bab 5 and HH "Hyperspace" might be an even more accurate form of what FTL may look like in the future if we ever get it.

Oh and El_Phil as far as internal gravity goes I've read up on some stuff and other folks think that all it would take to get internal gravity is to have a "hyper dense" alloy or material located at the bottom of the ship to create a "pull". What is your opinion on this please http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

Hyperspace is shaky, partly the theoretical existence is very much conjecture. More seriously getting into a 'higher level' dimension whatever you call it would be tricky. More tricky would be getting back to the one you came from.

Wormholes could, maybe be used for backwards time travel depending on layout and a variety of other things. This is a bad thing and so travel through them would be impossible, ie they'd collapse as soon as you try and use them. If your wormhole is so arranged that you don't time travel it has more chance of working.

On the grav plating, the density gets ridiculous. As in 1.5E9 kg of mass beneath 100mm beneath your feet will give you ~1g. In real numbers thats 1.5 million tons of material compressed so much the centre of this mass is 0.1m under your shoes. I think you'd agree the density starts getting ridiculous. There's also the point that is unidirectional and falls off with distance. So if it's just at the bottom then your upper decks have much lower gravity (it's a squared law so double the distance and the force drops by 4.). If you have plating per deck then the crew will be attracted to the ceilings, not as strongly as too the floors, but enough to be very disoreintating and bad for the body. Imagine being weakly torn apart all the time.

Gravitons... It's a logical extension of quantum mechanics so they probably do exist. Probably. But they're only 'messenger' particles, you need the source of the gravity for them to be created, so they don't really solve the problem.

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

For 'anti-gravity', correct me if I'm wrong, but does an object's gravitational pull also depend on it the speed of it's rotation? ie: If the Earth had the same mass but spun faster, we'd have higher gravity?
Unless I'm totally wrong about that, then gravity could be created on a ship by placing sphere's of same undetermined high-density material underneath the floorplates and spinning it really fast. Of course that would really only work for the top deck of the ship, since the deck under it would have 1g pulling up and 1g pulling down, ergo zero G. This could be countered by having the spheres on Deck 2 spinning fast enough to create 2g and thus 1g pulling up and 2g pulling down works out at 1g downwards. Not sure whether that would be noticable to people or not, but either way it'd get really tricky the more decks you had since you'd have to account for the gravitational pull of more and more decks above you, and also said pull would be a bit variable since as you got further away from a given deck it's pull would begin wane, and lets not even talk about the decks below you pulling down.

Of course, take a tip from a fellow writer and don't bother explaining anything at all. Think about all the things that would have been considered science fiction 2000 years ago (assuming they had scifi, that is): Cars, Planes, Guns, Computers, Phones, Movies, CDs, DVDs, etc. Now, pretend you have a basic understanding of English but have never heard of any of the above. Is there anything about them that suggests what they are? Exactly my point. You tell your readers that your SD is armed with X number of Grasers, and they won't know what you're on about until someone says 'Fire Graser battery one!' Then they know it's a weapon and that's about all they need to know. Plus if you're not getting all scientifc, it lends you far greater poetic license.
Example: Compare & Contrast
"Fire!" Ordered the admiral.
The TWS Daedalus shuddered as she fired a full broadside of micro-fusion anti-proton beams into the enemy vessel, causing the atoms of it's hull to be instantly repelled from each other, and the whole ship was blown apart.

OR

"Fire!" Ordered the admiral.
The TWS Daedalus shuddered as she unleashed energies that rivaled the wrath of gods and the full might of her broadside sliced through the enemy ship's shields, ripped through it's armor and devastated the interior. Within seconds the enemy vessel was overwhelmed and exploded in a brilliant flash of light.

Now, example 1 might be 'scientifically' (I know it's a load of bollox, but bear with me) but example 2 sure sounds a lot better, doesn't it? And it doesn't reveal a single thing about how any of the technology actually works.

Cool, huh?

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

Sorry but I'm pretty sure you're wrong. Gravity is just mass and distance, Newton theory anyway. I'll admit to being shakier on Einstinean theory, but I think it's the same there. In fact if the earth spun faster you'd feel less gravity as there'd be a higher centrifugal reaction force offsetting the gravitational pull, so effective gravity would be lower.

But I completely agree with your other point, #2 did sound so much better. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

Car = Auto-mobile = "Thing that moves itself"
Comput-er = "Thing which does math"
DVD = Digital Video Disk = "technobabbled, (moving pictures/technobabble) on round, flat thing"
Tele-phone = "over-a-distance, and phon, meaning Sound; voice; speech."

Hrm... the "understandability" of the names might just be more closely related to the age of the technology relative to the plot's "now", rather than the age of the reader relative to the plot's "now".
At least in english.

When something new comes out, it gets a name that explains its purpose. After a couple years, long names like to collapse into acronyms. And after more years, the names get slanged-down into a syllable or two with no explanatory effect at all.

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

Agent zero GREAT advice you too El Phil (and El sorry about my earlier pigheadedness I am just trying to get a harder sci-fi then say star trek but softer then this one series where it takes decades to get anywhere and where energy weapons and all the like are heat based like Lasers. (I know lasers are technically not "heat" but they do tend to melt and burn rather then tear and explode whatever they hit).

And I thought gravitons were another Star Trek technogidgit like their "Tachyon scanner" and "Phase Cloak" stuff, I guess I learn something new every day http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Well SJ the thing is I suppose after a while I-laser would just get shortened further to IL or I-Las (that has a nice ring to it, say it with me Eye-Laz lol) so I guess you have a point to that terminology is subjective to who's using it and when.

BTW anyone ever heard of Induction weaponry? I tried a google search and got jackloads of porn (I dont know how Induction + Weaponry= Teen nudist camp but hey) so anyone got any idea of what exactly an "Induction Weapon" is and how it works?

I can't remember what sci-fi I heard/saw/read it from but it sounded strange as when I hear "Induction" I think "being brought in on" or "being initiated".

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

Here's a link on industion beam thingies (i think)

http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/a...g/roberds.html

http://www.lbl.gov/Science-Articles/...DARHT-one.html

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

Starhawk writes: "Or generally speaking the universe is really freaking huge and what are the odds of an interstellar empire just happening to bump into us?"

El_phil writes: "The universe is somewhat large, you do know this right?"

I also know a billion years is a long time. Given FTL travel and a few billion years' head start, the entire known universe is well within reach of one intelligent species. Note that any restrictions put on FTL travel to keep this (these) species out of our neighborhood also work against our own exploitation of FTL technology.

Granted, the "no contact" observation can also be interpreted as evidence against the existence of other intelligent, expansionist species--though we really need only one besides our own. Given the relative ease with which life developed on Earth--within a few hundred million years--and the "really freaking huge" size of the universe, what are the odds of that?

So no, this is not a joke. There are a number of possible explanations for this observation, but it remains a fact that has to be explained. And even if it can be plausibly explained, it's unlikely the explanation will be consistent with the kind of Space Empires-ish universe so popular in sci fi.

Note also that real science is a double-edged sword for sci fi: while future breakthroughs may confirm that FTL travel is both possible and practical, science may also shut the last theoretical door on FTL.

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

Yeah but for sci-fi that would be boring http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif


Well possibility is that we are the oldest sentient species, anyone ever consider that? No....why? Because it just isn't something we get in our puny little heads (mainly I think it started as a way to shut out the Creationist religions who say man came first so Evolutionists just said LIKE HELL) but anyway seriously even from my opinion (I'm a christian so I tend to think with the bible here lol) even if we acknowledge evolution as a creation factor.
Why is it not possible that we are the oldest race yet to acheive sentient status? I mean if you look at evolution it is supposed to have taken our ancestors a few hundred million years to acheive sentient status so maybe other planets got started a little after us http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif


Also possible: There ARE other expansionist races out there they just might not be in our block of the galaxy, so maybe if and when we get out there WE will be the expansionist Empire crushing all in our wake.


I am not joking here either btw.

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

Even if you can't go FTL, you could still colonize the entire galaxy in less than 10 million years from here.

IIRC, the assumptions were along the lines of:
- Travel at 10% of light speed
- 100 years per colony ship launched
- 500 years after landing for a colony to industrialize and send out its first colony ship.
- Goal of sending a colony ship to every star in the milky way.

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

Did that model take into account the possibility of multiple independent colony efforts going to the same stars, or was it assumed that it would all start with one master plan of chains of colonization that all colonies would have uncorrupted versions of? There's also the matter of how many colony ships would actually find livable planets to colonize at their destinations.

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

Here is one site I found that talks about it.

http://www.ibiblio.org/astrobiology/...?page=future05

It assumes 25% light speed and done in under 100 million years. Also assumes a few other things.

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

Speaking of contact, aliens and the like: are we currently ready to detect alien spacecraft in our vicinity, or could they slip past us unnoticed?

Consider that such a ship enters our system tomorrow, and uses technology comparable to ours (and within the boundaries of science as we know it): do we have the technology to (indirectly) detect that something is amiss? If so, is this technology currently used?

Oh, and just for kicks: am I right in thinking we would be hard to detect ourselves? SETI would be a clear give-away, if someone else was doing the same thing, and our satellites might allow detection; is our activity on Earth detectable without going up close?

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

Starhawk writes: "Well possibility is that we are the oldest sentient species, anyone ever consider that? No....why?"

This is of course one of many POSSIBLE explanations, as I suggested earlier. However, since solar systems capable of supporting terrestrial-type life almost certainly formed billions of years before our own, it SEEMS unlikely. I use the term "seems" because with only one data point we can't actually calculate the odds. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif Of course in a sci fi setting with many alien species, the more aliens, the less plausible it is that humans are first, or even comparably advanced.

Isaac Asimov has used the "humans first" premise either implicitly or explicitly in several of his stories, notably the "Foundation" series, his short story "The Last Question", and his novel "The End of Eternity". In this last novel, humanity squanders its head start by wasting 10 million years (a cosmic eyeblink) using temporal technology to "improve" human life on Earth, which inadvertently postpones interstellar travel until too late.

These are all great stories despite their failure to deal explicitly (or convincingly) with the "FTL yet humans first" paradox. If, however, an author makes a good effort to resolve the paradox, thereby at least making unlikely premises more self-consistent, then so much the better.

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

Suicide Junkie writes: "Even if you can't go FTL, you could still colonize the entire galaxy in less than 10 million years from here."

I remember seeing something like this in Carl Sagan's 1980 TV series "Cosmos", with a similar time scale. Presumably intergalactic distances are too great for "practical" STL travel (except perhaps by robots), but that just changes the problem from "first in the universe" to "first in the galaxy".

As for how we would detect advanced interstellar ships, presumably an expansionist species would colonize our solar system, or self-replicating robots would exploit it until all resources were consumed.

As for "them" detecting "us," I read somewhere that the Earth is one of the brightest radio sources in the sky. In Sagan's novel "Contact" the ETs respond to a TV broadcast of the 1936 Olympics.

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

Isaac designed a story universe shortly before his death in which humans were the newest and seventh species with FTL. It's called 'Isaacs' Universe' and there's some anthologies set in it. I've read three, I think. Pretty good.

Asimov described the Foundation series as '...a galaxy-wide lense to view humanity through...' - Near as I can remember.

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

Well I sort of stick mainly to humans only in my story as you can tell, I only had three "Xeno" species and they were primtiive compared to the comparable humans (I don't know why but thats how it worked in the game so it was great for my story) and if and when I right a book set in the latter "Fourth Empire" Icarans and they encounter aliens they'll probobly be roughly equal to Icarans.

Though one thing I would have is a "give and take" technological "equality" for example the Icarans have good weapons while the Xenos might have excellent drives considering unlike Star Trek I doubt every race would be researching along the same lines as one another forever.

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

To give at least one writer in ST credit they had worked a little that way, I remember something along the lines of Romulans swapping cloaks for Klingon engines. It is very tricky to make a sustained story where one side is massively out teched, ohh sure short stories or one offs (The B5 stuff in the EA-Minbari war for instance) but for a whole string of series its hard work.

The colonisation thing is still a bad argument, even if every habitable planet near us is colonised we be hard pressed to notice. While the signal from the 1936 Olympics was stupidly strong and sprayed everywhere to cover for poor tech, the signals from the 2004 Olympics probably would struggle to leave the solar system in any strengh, if at all. So SETI has to look for a relatively narrow window of signal, unless people start sending signals for you too look for. Even then needle in a haystack doesn't come close to describing the problem.

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

Given a billion years of FTL "they" could colonize, explore, or stake out every planet in the known universe. If for some reason "they" only live nearby, perhaps they'd come over just to see what's causing all the radio pollution. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Being serious for a moment, it seems the Earth itself sends radio signals ten times stronger than Jupiter's and much stronger than humanity's:

http://www.gi.alaska.edu/ScienceForum/ASF6/612.html

Assuming that a strong magnetic field is essential for life (deflecting all that ionized radiation), that alone might attract some attention. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Using current technology, a radio telescope at the distance of the star Vega would need to be about half the size of the mean Earth-Moon distance to pick up TV signals from Earth:

http://www.computing.edu.au/~bvk/ast.../HET608/essay/

Presumably it wouldn't require a single dish that size; a Very Long Baseline Interferometry setup of the proper size might do the trick. Military/scientific signals are more powerful, but probably too directional and/or intermittent to draw attention.

Of course given a billion years of research and a working FTL principle, all bets are off. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

Assuming they are even using radio...

Who's to say if other species might develop on planets with different conditions where radio doesn't function so well and so isn't adopted as a widespread technology? And who's to say that the [/i]culture[/i] might not be different and they might not want to be found by -- or to find -- anyone else 'out there'?

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

Maybe they found us, and there's a folder somewhere labelled 'Another boring species that calls it's planet 'Dirt'. I am never getting out of this office. Man, I bet Harry in the next cubicle gets a promotion before me, and he picks his nostrils. Hint hint hint. Filled, year 348248249. Man, I'm old.'

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

Another cute FTL trick to explain away the "why aren't the skies crawling with advanced spaceships" question is the "everyone gets it at the same time" hypothesis. This may or may not be scientifically plausible (I bet you could crowbar it into semi-plausbility if you were really determined) but it fits very nicely into the SE4 universe. It goes something like this:

Literal FTL is impossible. Warp drives, gravity drives, hyperspace- it's all bunk. The only possiblity for FTL travel is a wormhole, but they require insane quantities of energy to create artificially, and few- if any- civilisations are lucky enough to get one within range of their home system.

Therefore, all the sentient species in the galaxy/ universe develop in isolation. Some are still swinging around in what pass for trees on their planets bashing one-another with rocks; others have fully exploited their homesystems, cruising along at the stagnant peak of their civilisations and are just now thinking about sending STL probes or colonisers to nearby systems; others are just at the chemical-rocket-powered dawn of their interplanetary era, blah blah blah.

Suddenly, one day, it all changes. Some mysterious event occurs. Perhaps an unbelievably ancient and advanced species on the other side of the galaxy has harnessed some unimaginably powerful energy source and started tinkering with artificial wormhole creation; perhaps some not-quite-so-advanced race found a natural wormhole and started screwing around with it; perhaps it was some as-yet unhypothesised natural cosmic phenomneomeneon that suddenly decided to take place all on its own. Maybe God, having collected enough insects, decides to stick them all in the same jar and see who gets eaten first. Who knows? All we know is that somewhere, a single event kick starts a galaxy-wide chain reaction. A network of wormholes (*cough*warp points*cough*) begins to spread across the galaxy. Wormholes are springing spontaneously into being, stretching out from gravity well (star system) to gravity well. Each system that is touched by this network spawns one or two or three more wormholes, creating an exponential expansion from the unknown point of origin. The whole thing happens quickly. One day, humanity is all on its own, minding its own business, busily mining the asteroid belt and bombing one another over who gets to stick a flag in Europa. Overnight, a big, blue, wierd, great wobbly thing appears in space just outside Pluto's orbit, and then a few days later more appear. Suddenly, the human race is just a few jumps away from other star systems and other races who, despite being at hugely varied levels of technological development, all find themselves at the dawn of FTL travel at almost precisely the same moment in the galaxy's history.

It's at about this point you either start up se4 and click "new game", or start writing.

And if you use that, I want a free copy of your book. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

Dogscoff is right about the need to synchronize FTL introduction in fictional universes such as SE IV. In fact, if you also make this FTL tech the basis for STL propulsion, weapons, "shields", communications, etc., then all intelligent races start at essentially the same tech level, whether they've been in space for a year or for a million years.

Of course, as others have pointed out, even at STL speeds some species should have already overrun our galaxy.

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

Is there a way to make a frequent random effect that makes warp points?

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

You can have different tech areas being superior yet still have a balanced scheme I mean for example if you have one race with excellent weaponry yet slow ships a race with inferior weaponry yet much faster ships could outmaneuver them and strafe and the like.

Now there are also areas like personal weapons, armor shields yadda yadda that could all be different yet have balanced out effects.

And it's much better then every race having the exact same power weapons and the exact same shield outputs lol

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

After a fashion. You can spam the Events.txt file with open warp point events and increase the frequency of events in Settings.txt. Note that you can only ever have one event per turn.

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

I tried that with spatial anomallies once. Had about 200 events in the file but they only ocured every 10-20 turns. Is that one event per turn for every empire or all empires combined?

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

You also need to increase the chance-per-turn of an event in settings.txt.

There is a setting each for low, medium, and high event frequency.

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

Oi, folks, back on topic! We're supposed to be helping out Starhawk here. Just a few thoughts on 'tech balance' from my 3rd Dynasty Universe (the one Hell is for Heroes is set in. Look forward to a few new chapters this week, btw). In that universe, humanity is signifcantly more advanced than any other race in the galaxy, aside from one which is ridiculously more advanced but has little interest in the affairs of 'inferior' races. However, humanity isn't terribly aggressive in this universe, since they got lucky in the grand scheme of things and have a large number of habitable worlds. I've got a spreadsheet somewhere with all the details, but just winging it, the Terran Imperium (as it is known) consists of 2,252 habitable worlds, of which only 1,823 are colonized. In contrast, the Tauran Empire, which is roughly the same size cubic-lightyear-wise has 1,452 worlds to it's name and has colonized them all. This creates tension between the two empires, since the Taurans want to expand, but humanity isn't about to start giving away bits of it's empire, even if it hasn't really got a use for them.
Terran ships tend to be fast, heavily armoured and pack so much firepower it would liquify your brain to even think about it. The Taurans on the other hand tend to just cobble together ships with an eye towards building them quickly, rather than having them last very long once it hits the fan.
Other races have mainly been confined to a few star systems, and eargerly greet any conflict between Terrans and Taurans (yes, the name similarity is on purpose) as an oportunity to slice off a little piece of the big pie.

As for the whole whether or not an FTL race would have found us by now, I think most arguments are flawed by assuming that an alien race would have even remotely the same motivations as our own. Furthermore, while I find the notion that we are the only sentient life in the universe absurd on simple grounds of probablilty, even if there is more than one sentient race per galaxy in 99.99999999999% of the universe, ours could still be one of the many where only one sentient race has evolved.

And someone just answer one question for me because I honestly don't know the answer: Our solar system is located in one of the arms of the Milky Way's spiral, now does that make it part of the older (first to form) or newer parts of the galaxy?

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

The sun is 5 billion years old.
It is a 3rd generation star; it contains heavy elements which can only be produced in superheavy stars and supernovae.

The largest stars burn up in less than a billion years. The smallest ones can last nearly forever.


http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/GHZ/GHZmovie.html
The general idea is that it takes longer to make enough heavy elements for rocky planet formation in the outskirts of the galaxy since there are fewer supernovae. But close in, there are too many supernovae, and your planets get scorched too often.

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

Seems to have alot of newer stars.

"Sol is located 67 ly north of the galactic plane within a roughly 200-ly wide band that is rich in gas, dust, and newborn stars," from this page

http://members.nova.org/~sol/chview/chv5.htm

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

"north" ???

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

Based on spin and the right hand rule, I suspect.

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

Then there would be a "south" but no "east" or "west".

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

"Spinward" and "anti-spinward". http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

The entire quote is more precise: "... Sol lies less than half way out (26,000 ly) from the galactic center ... on the core-ward side of one of the galaxy's spiral arms named after Orion... Sol is located 67 ly north of the galactic plane ..."

So we have Radius, direction (if you can call in the direction of Orion a true direction) and distance above the galactic plane. That's cylindrical coordinates.

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

One could also give directions relative to something outside our galaxy, such as a prominent galaxy or cluster of galaxies more or less on the plane of the Milky Way. Movement around the galactic center would eventually change our position relative to this marker, of course, but differential movement would do the same with regard to stars inside our galaxy.

A Wikipedia article describes a spherical coordinate system for the Milky Way:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galactic_plane