Next patch requests

[jimbob]

JPL's ion engines are low thrust, long burn engines, quite a departure from what most of us think of (ion drives on TIE fighters). But hey, it'll help JPL sucker money out of some of the... er, less sharp politicians.

[Phoenix-D]

"But hey, it'll help JPL sucker money out of some of the... er, less sharp politicians."

It's not just suckering..

Let's say you have two cars. One can go 0-60 in one minute, but can only stay at 60 for one hour. Distance traveled: 60 miles. Time: 1 hour.

The second car can go 0-60 in one hour, but can stay there for a week. Distance traveled: 10,020 miles. Time: 168 hours. So you go 167 times the distance, for 168 times the time spent. Clearly if you need to go farther than a mile the second is a better choice..

That's why the current ion engines are useful. I have no idea why SF hit on "ion" engines being these speed demons, really.

Phoenix-D

[oleg]

Originally posted by Phoenix-D:
[QBThat's why the current ion engines are useful. I have no idea why SF hit on "ion" engines being these speed demons, really.

Phoenix-D[/QB]

Because in comparisson to chemical engines they are ! Well, potentially at least. There are no concevaible means to acclerate any more the exhast of standart rocket, while there might be ways to improve the thrust of other, so far exotic rocket engines. The close marking of any hints from academic establishment by mass media makes a perfect sense if you taxonony sci-fi literature according to its original postulate : a literature on the edge of our scientific progress. ( Star Trek is random string of techno bubble and has no right to be considered as a SCIENTIFIC fiction IMHO)

[Baron Munchausen]

Yes, ion drives have a strange Cache. First, I think 'ion' just sounds cool, and NASA has been talking about ion rives for ages. But also there was a specific Star Trek episode that touted the ion drives of some space ship that ambushed them and captured Spock, erm, Spock's brain, and I think that stuck in the popular imagination. While the exhaust speed of an ion drive is far greater than any current chemical rocket the thrust is very small and so the rate of acceleration is also very small. This high exhaust speed makes for great efficiency, though, so once you are out of the atmosphere it is a better thing to have for long-range probes that cannot come home and tank-up like a plane or ship can on earth. You get much more total thrust out of a given weight of propellant but it takes much longer to take effect. I don't think an ion drive can even operate within our atmosphere. They have to test them in a vacuum chamber.

Oleg -- Yes, treknobabble is garbage. I've made a distinction in my own mind between Science Fiction and 'Techno-drama'. Real SciFi actually has a plot that turns on the effects of scientific issues on how we see the universe and our place in it. Techno-drama is just soap opera with technological stage props and techno-babble. All but a handful of Star Trek episodes are nothing but Techno-drama.

[ 11 May 2002, 01:15: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

[TerranC]

Originally posted by Baron Munchausen:
I don't think an ion drive can even operate within our atmosphere. They have to test them in a vacuum chamber.

Yes they do. Albeit a Vacumm chamber filled with Xenons I think.

The Ion Engines that JPL is testing goes into the Ionosphear, charges up Ions, makes a "wall" of Dense Ions and gets out and push into a great distance... I think.

The Thing with the Ion engines is all it needs are Electricity that are generated by the Solar Panels, rather than Chemical fuels which run out.

Although you can't use Ion engins in a planet: It'll just cause electroshock to anything that surrounds Kenedy Space Center.

[Rusty_Nail]

If there is just ONE thing Malfador does, this should be it: give the AI some better movement strategies in combat. The following would at least TRIPLE AI effectiveness, especially if the same strategy was (optionally)NOT made available to humans (who I am sure use it always in tactical combat. I call it "just out of range". The AI usually moves right into the human's range without thinking, giving him first shot. As any human knows, first shot means guaranteed victory (I mean 100%) in a one-on-one all tech environment with equally good and optimal ships, no matter how good the opponent, and is a BIG advantage at any time. A single human ship in tactical combat can often take out a superior AI fleet without losing a single component as it is now. The game is just too easy in this respect. But suppose the AI practiced "just out of range", stopping his advance as a human would (i.e. stopping at distance 1+ opponent's minimum range + his number of moves) and let him come to you). That would really even the playing field and make strategic and simultaneous combat far more challenging for the humnan player. It can't be that difficult to program and would make a world of difference. Secondly, if they can do TWO things, teach the AI how to design better ships, using worms, subverters, talisman and ionic dispersers, the things that make the critical difference in who wins strategic combat between equally good designers (at least this is my experience to date). The first is, however, the key thing as the latter can be done with mods.

[Captain Kwok]

The biggest problem is humans can always find a way to exploit the AI, no matter what Aaron does to make the AI better. Of course you can crush the computer in tatical combat because you can react to thousands of different situations in a thousand ways. The AI has just a limited number of choices. If you want a challenging game...then don't cheat the AI by trading worthless junk for stuff, use strategic combat, things like that. You'll the notice the game becomes much more difficult.