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Veld

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Haven't seen a lot of physics talk going on so I thought I'd start a thread. Might be too early in development for this but I'm going to do it anyway. I'm going to break this up into separate posts because there's a lot to account for here. There's some discussion going on between the posts so just skip through and find my numbered and titles posts to see the full info in one place.

 

1: Investigating gravity and other values

 

In the video on atmospheric flight we can see certain values, given to us or expressed as variables, specific to the vessel and the environment:

Capture.JPG.96ac6e68c94c00e6b296a43aec837b07.JPGCapture2.JPG.0e11c6477b033b3fbf00ec020cea0423.JPG

Misc. values

  • Altitude

Presumably in m above sea level given the altitude in the above pic

  • Mass

In metric tons judging by the change in mass, in kg,  shown above. Thus 1 ton = 1000 kg

 

 

Forces

Looking at forces in the vertical plane we see:

  • Lift = 7.3mg
  • Force up = 8.3mg
  • Weight = mg

In the real world aerodynamic lift is a force due to the airflow under the wings of an aircraft. In this game this is not the case as the guy in the video said the vessel would have no lifting capability if there was no vertical booster. However, aerodynamic lifting parts are to be added in future: click here. Let’s look at the free body force diagram (not to scale):

 

cap4.JPG.f405e23538c286fc8208cb526779a289.JPG

 

Here we see Force up - Weight = Lift. This means lift is in fact the resultant force on the vessel going up. There is clearly no aerodynamic lift as if there were: Force up - Weight = Lift + Aerodynamic lift. Also this diagram shows us that g is the same for the values of acceleration given for the vessel and for the gravitational field of the planet (it would have to be a pretty hard coincidence if the difference in the values of g was making up for the apparent absence of some sort of aerodynamic lift). Another thing it shows is that the acceleration value next to the force (i.e. 200 kN/ 8.3 g) is the acceleration due to that force itself and not the resultant force on the vessel.

Finding g

So we can find the true value of g by rearranging F = ma = mng to g = F/mn (where F = force, m=mass and n = the coefficient of g for acceleration)

Using the forwards and upwards forces as input, their respective accelerations and the mass as 2 ton the two values of g we get are (to 4sf):

12.04 and 12.20 ms^-2

Averaging at:

12.12 ms^-2

It still feels a little weird having the value of as around 12 when the whole purpose of expressing the acceleration of the vessel in g instead of ms^-2 is to make it more relateable.

The thing is the uncertainty in the value of mass is 25%. Because it is rounded to 1sf it can be anywhere between 1.5 and 2.5 ton:

Doing the calculations in finding g again, using the upper limit of the mass (2.5 ton), we get the values:

9.639 and 9.756 ms^2

Averaging at:

9.698 ms^2

That's pretty close.

 

Gravity according to DU

Pretty wishy washy considering the certain info: In this video (06/042017) we can see a vessel reaching what the guy describes as "escape velocity” and then proceeding to perform some sort of orbit around the planet. Whether this is some form of pseudo-orbit or a proper orbit is debatable. The guy in the atmospheric flight video also states that if we have enough initial velocity on burnout we can escape the gravity 'reel' and orbit. Otherwise we fall back down. The thing is in real physics the term ‘escape velocity’ describes the initial velocity needed for an object to escape the pull of a gravitational field altogether. It’s unclear what his terminology is describing. He also implies that the engines on a craft need to be turned off for it to start orbiting. But we can clearly see his vessel in its ‘orbit state’ has acceleration of 0.5g and is moving at increasing speed. This means he is in an eccentric orbit and the field strength diminishes with distance, meaning one can alter their orbital trajectory and orbital mechanics is a thing (at least in the context of a ship around a planet- needs stronger affirmation). In the context of the video he is moving from the apoapsis to the periapsis as he is speeding up.

 

From a tweet on anti-gravity generators (discussed later) we find a simplified equation for the diminishing effect of gravity with distance:

 

image.png.f39cf3b0ae1b8dedc5bf24d68c95cf39.png.e3cc0256949e1ecb32b37ebe026ce56c.png

The real equation for the acceleration is:

 

image.png.c06ec6f2ff00ea01159a0cec278f4e2d.png.1f50d9acf28d5880da63e19c2e0e40ff.png (in the context of NQs equation r would be x)

(G=gravitational constant, M=mass of planet, r=radius from core)

But at NQ they don't have time to be thinking about the average density of a planet for its mass or the gravitational constant. What they do is simplify the right hand side of the expression (GM/r^2) to other values to make it have the same dimension. Instead of GM the constant of proportionality is gr0^2Which gives the same dimension of ms^-2.

 

Evidence of pseudo-gravity can be found in this video (05/07/2017) but will be discussed in later topics

In this video (18/07/2016), looking at the space station, we can see why there would be no spin on the planet and it isn’t orbiting the sun (that is assuming they haven't put the station in a geostationary orbit which I doubt they have). This is because the station is stationary and uses static cores (it is quoted to be 5km long so too big for dynamic core ships) as opposed to the dynamic ones for ships. NQ says (24/09/2016) they will add planet spin in the future though. But currently they use a rotating skybox. Also see this DU wiki quote:

“Currently, planets do not rotate on their axis, but this feature may be added at a later date. However, planets will never orbit around their stars, for technology and gameplay reasons.”

If spin is added, space stations cannot simply be static. However, if not added they can work fine. A docking ship can simply use its VTOL thrusters in braking its orbital velocity to prevent itself falling to the planet.

 

core3.JPG.d31d80eebc0490c4420ea10d653bbef5.JPG

 

 

Here we see a discussion on the fb page. This suggests static constructs in orbit will be an exception or a dynamic construct can be linked to a static construct to help it move. The latter makes sense as you would need a starting voxel to build off in space.

 

Another speculation is anti-gravity fields could hold constructs stationary instead of orbiting. See anti-gravity section for more details. However, the tweet where JC was working on antigravity is dated to 2018 whereas the static orbit video is dated to 2016. So it is unlikely antigravity was developed by this point.

Antigravity according to DU

We don’t know exactly how antigravity will work but we know how it might work.

 

antigrav.JPG.24aa7ac037c978c4a56f8c31688118cd.JPGantigrav2.JPG.c9b0f3c720f97a2e2a663507511cbdcd.JPG

 

Here we can see some of JC’s tweets on the matter. He has made some curves in desmos representing the effects of antigravity. One thing you can tell right off the bat is the green line represents a conventional curve of gravitational force against distance. So f(x) is probably force and x is probably distance. The first half of the equation previously discussed relates to the green line.

He has also explained the orange curve. It describes a field with a point in it that will repel objects entering the zone. Anything caught in the 'distortion well' that has no forces acting on it other that of gravitational pull will oscillate around x=34 without stopping unless placed perfectly on x=34.

The second part of the equation is mostly maths and does not have much to do with physics. By adding a gaussian function to the standard gravity field you are able to create a given area where g is negative (anti-gravity). The thing is you want it to be on a specific location. As if the anti-gravity function were simply a negative gravity function you would start with infinite acceleration at 0 displacement and that's why you use a gaussian function.

 

The function as a whole effectively simulates a planet. r0 is probably the radius of the planet which creates this field and h the altitude from the sea level of this planet. So r0 +h is the distance from the core of the planet and from the graphic, in this case, it values something around 32 (kilometres I guess). In the exponential term, s is a term that indicates how far across the well is and a indicates how deep the well is (the magnitude of negative acceleration produced by it).

So by choosing r0+h you can set where you want your gravity well to be, choose s to set how large it is and a to set how deep it is. If you want to have anti-gravity (so that the function is negative somewhere), you have to choose a wisely. If you choose a=0, then you have the standard field of gravity (the green curve). The well does not have much effect for small values of s.

 

The function also could represent the field around planets in game for space stations to achieve ‘static orbit’. The point is to make the gravity field being zero at some points. Then in these points you will no longer accelerate toward the planet and if your velocity is zero then you will stay on these points and so you are able to have an ‘floating’ station without needing it to have angular velocity (as it's supposed to be built using static cores in the game). But by doing this you have to place your object very accurately otherwise it will oscillate indefinitely around the point (depending how far you placed the object from the equilibrium point supposing that the gravity field is the only force). So it is likely they will introduce some friction (or anything that dissipates energy) to stabilize the position.

Conclusion

  • g is probably 9.81. It makes sense from a design POV, being the same for the planet and for the expression of the acceleration.
  • In the future we could see differing values of g for different celestial bodies causing different lifts.
  • Further, more controlled testing can affirm the value of g but through mere speculation (Trusting NQ is consistent in their game design) we can assume it to be 9.81.
  • Instead of going by the mass given in the engineer report, for more accuracy in your calculations use: m = F/g(1 + L) where F = force up and L = the coefficient of acceleration due to lift
  • I'm pretty 50/50 on whether NQ will add realistic orbital mechanics to the game as the evidence points to no clear conclusion. Will have to await more updates and to get myself into alpha 2 to do some tests. Keeping Newtonian mechanics to the basic level until further confirmation.
  • It is unclear as to how NQ plans to manage space station orbits as of yet. But they will orbit normally for sure.
  • Antigravity presented in the context of JC’s ‘orange line’ seems like it is supposed to hold objects in ‘stasis’ around a point. However, if this point moves the object in stasis will jiggle about accordingly. So it may be for ‘static orbits’ but needs polishing first if so.
  • The g against r equation from the tweet is highly suggestive of diminishing fields and itself being the equation to be used

 

Edited by Veld
Updated (07/04/2018)
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I'm impressed! That's a lot of quality deduction from one video. 

 

As far as I'm aware all astrodynamics in the game will be a consequence of the underlying physics engine. Notably, constructs won't be able to exert gravitational influence on voxels. 

 

Unlike Space Engineers ( /r^7), gravity should be falling off naturally ( /r^2), but I could be wrong there. 

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5 hours ago, AzureSkye said:

I'm impressed! That's a lot of quality deduction from one video. 

 

As far as I'm aware all astrodynamics in the game will be a consequence of the underlying physics engine. Notably, constructs won't be able to exert gravitational influence on voxels. 

 

Unlike Space Engineers ( /r^7), gravity should be falling off naturally ( /r^2), but I could be wrong there. 

Is that "big G" ie inverse square rule you're referring to above?

 

Also, what is the coefficient of gravity acceleration in the above OP post @Veld "n" I don't recollect small "n" at all? Perhaps it was in physics beyond what I studied at at school?

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5 hours ago, AzureSkye said:

I'm impressed! That's a lot of quality deduction from one video

Thanks. More to come soon perhaps.

5 hours ago, AzureSkye said:

As far as I'm aware all astrodynamics in the game will be a consequence of the underlying physics engine.

So that's to say that celestial bodies move around in orbit of their stars, planets etc.?

5 hours ago, AzureSkye said:

Notably, constructs won't be able to exert gravitational influence on voxels.

Understandable. Every voxel being calculated over is going to be a huge strain.

5 hours ago, AzureSkye said:

Unlike Space Engineers ( /r^7), gravity should be falling off naturally ( /r^2), but I could be wrong there. 

Interesting. I'll need to test it but not before I understand how orbital mechanics applies to the game more. If they do apply I'll make a circular orbit and relate the centripetal force equation to the gravitation equation to see if they apply. Although I need to know the mass of the planet somehow. Need to think about it more.

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33 minutes ago, MookMcMook said:

Also, what is the coefficient of gravity acceleration in the above OP post @Veld "n" I don't recollect small "n" at all? Perhaps it was in physics beyond what I studied at at school?

Sorry should have elaborated on the terminology I was using. In the game the acceleration due to certain forces on your vessel are given in terms of g. Hence the numbers they give you are a "coefficient of g for acceleration". I just made it up to describe what they were doing.

Here:  image.png.b3c405459be66ee824c3eebebe38c0f5.png the value of n is 7.3 for example

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14 minutes ago, Veld said:

So that's to say that celestial bodies move around in orbit of their stars, planets etc.?

No. Terrain Voxels cannot move. However, the rest, (Orbits, station keeping, transfer orbits) is in there.

20 minutes ago, MookMcMook said:

Is that "big G" ie inverse square rule you're referring to above?

Yes. However, I had to spell it out as, for example, Space Engineers does an Inverse Seventh rule.

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Actually just realised the field strength is in fact diminishing. Added it to the post. Here we can see the acceleration on the vessel is 0.5g with no forces acting on it other than gravity. Diminishing, but diminishing by what law is still indeterminable for me as of now.

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47 minutes ago, MookMcMook said:

OP you did see this:-

 

 

 

Yes I did but it means pretty much nothing to me. Way too many variables; no explanation. Although if I stare at it for a while I might be able to figure something out. One thing you can tell right off the bat is the green line represents a conventional curve of gravitational force against distance. So f(X) is probably force and x is probably distance. Maybe something to do with the size of the block in there but I honestly have no idea. Once I can play around with them it will make sense eventually.

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22 minutes ago, MookMcMook said:

Ah thanks, I was consulting you and I guess you have to consult the variables! The orange curve:-

 

 

 

Nice info but wow that's a mouthful. I must confess I'm not a physicist; I'm an engineer. Albeit a self proclaimed engineer. Looked up the "Gaussian well" and got a bunch of quantum mechanics (which I am terrible at and avoid at all costs). But for me it's not the intrinsics that count- it's the observed effects. This basically means the orange curve describes a field with a point in it that will repel objects entering the zone. Anything caught in the 'distortion well' that has no forces acting on it other that gravitational pull will oscillate around X=34 until it becomes stationary relative to the generator. This will be enough to add to my post on how gravity might work but I have one concern: I  believe JC used Desmos to make his graph and there is a certain mathematical operator I don't understand here. That little dot between the expressions.

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1 hour ago, Veld said:

I  believe JC used Desmos to make his graph and there is a certain mathematical operator I don't understand here. That little dot between the expressions.

That's a short form multiplication symbol. 

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11 hours ago, Veld said:

Nice info but wow that's a mouthful. I must confess I'm not a physicist; I'm an engineer. Albeit a self proclaimed engineer. Looked up the "Gaussian well" and got a bunch of quantum mechanics (which I am terrible at and avoid at all costs). But for me it's not the intrinsics that count- it's the observed effects. This basically means the orange curve describes a field with a point in it that will repel objects entering the zone. Anything caught in the 'distortion well' that has no forces acting on it other that gravitational pull will oscillate around X=34 until it becomes stationary relative to the generator. This will be enough to add to my post on how gravity might work but I have one concern: I  believe JC used Desmos to make his graph and there is a certain mathematical operator I don't understand here. That little dot between the expressions.

Well your own investigation is much appreciated! Dot is multiplication. e is the proportionality constant thingy that pops up everywhere I believe (!).

 

>*Looked up the "Gaussian well" and got a bunch of quantum mechanics*

 

LOL!

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51 minutes ago, Lethys said:

What? e is the e function with the euler number as base. 

Yeah that's what I meant: I forgot the e comes from Euler afterall (although iirc he strictly did not "discover" it). I just remember it from nature photos not physics!

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The function seems to describe the variation of the gravity field (unit : m.s-2, just like g) created by an object located at x=0 (probably a planet). x is the radius distance between the planet core and the position where you are.

r0 is probably the radius of the planet which creates this field and h the altitude from the sea level of this planet. So r0+h is the distance from the core of the planet and from the graphic, in this case, it values something around 32 (kilometers i guess). In the exponential term, s is a term that indicates how large is the well. a indicates how deep is the well.

So by choosing ro+h you can set where you want your gravity well to be, choose s to set how large it is and a to set how deep it is. If you want to have anti-gravity (so that the function is negative somewhere), you have to choose a wisely. If you choose a=0, then you have the standard field of gravity (the green curve).

 

I hope it will help some of you to understand but it's mostly maths and does not have much to do whith physics. To sum up, by adding a gaussian function to the standard gravity field you are able to create a given area where g is negative (=anti-gravity). The only trick is that you want it to be on a specific location and that's why you use a gaussian function (it does not have much effect at distances greater than a few s).

 

N.B : english is not my mother tongue so you may have some difficulties to understand what i meant only due to my poor english skills

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2 hours ago, KoshiHoshin said:

The function seems to describe the variation of the gravity field (unit : m.s-2, just like g) created by an object located at x=0 (probably a planet). x is the radius distance between the planet core and the position where you are.

Agreed. Not a force but an acceleration. NQ seems to like describing forces in terms of accelerations.

2 hours ago, KoshiHoshin said:

r0 is probably the radius of the planet which creates this field and h the altitude from the sea level of this planet. So r0+h is the distance from the core of the planet and from the graphic, in this case, it values something around 32 (kilometers i guess). In the exponential term, s is a term that indicates how large is the well. a indicates how deep is the well.

From your analysis , this image.png.f39cf3b0ae1b8dedc5bf24d68c95cf39.png  part of the function makes a sense to me now but the other half is beyond my mathematical ability but is unimportant to me as of now.

image.png.c06ec6f2ff00ea01159a0cec278f4e2d.pngis the equation for the acceleration in real life (G=gravitational constant, M=mass of planet, r=radius from core). But at NQ they don't have time to be thinking about the average density of a planet for it's mass or the gravitational constant. What they do is simplify the right hand side of the expression (GM/r^2) to other values to make it have the same dimension. Instead of GM the constant of proportionality is gr0^2Which gives the same dimension of ms^-2.

 

This is actually highly suggestive this is the function they use for gravitational fields in game. This is highly valuable information so thank you for bringing this up. I will be able to test this function later.

2 hours ago, KoshiHoshin said:

To sum up, by adding a gaussian function to the standard gravity field you are able to create a given area where g is negative (=anti-gravity). The only trick is that you want it to be on a specific location and that's why you use a gaussian function (it does not have much effect at distances greater than a few s).

I will add this to the antigravity section.

2 hours ago, KoshiHoshin said:

N.B : english is not my mother tongue so you may have some difficulties to understand what i meant only due to my poor english skills

Your english is perfect as far as I've observed.

 

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Speaking of testing I am actually only able to get into alpha 2. It may be a bit early to ask this but if anyone has access to alpha 1 and is willing to help me do tests that would be awesome. Can't do anything with pre-alpha guys right now because of NDA.

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2: Investigating orbital mechanics

What we know from our gravity analysis

  • Judging by the velocities and fuel time of the spacecraft in the videos, the delta-v supplied by the specific impulse must be huge. So huge it is plausible to simply make for the moon in a perfectly straight line. It is also important to note the planet, alioth, and its moon a very small in relation to our earth/moon pair and the distance between them is also very small in comparison.
  • When all the engines on a craft are turned off, standard Newtonian mechanics apply to it causing it to orbit around the planet. This is only in this context. For all we know the gravity field of the planet could become ineffective as soon as you start moving your craft around.
  • The sun and the planets do not move. Planets may spin in future but will never orbit their stars.
  • It is a possibility an antigravity ring is encapsulating every celestial body.

 

Deducing the nature of external forces on a vessel

 

Predictions:

  1. If the vessel was under no external force the acceleration should be constant (due to constant mass). There is no uncertainty to take into consideration here. No air resistance, constant mass and constant force in a straight line should give the same mass every time.
  2. Alternatively if there are no external forces on the craft but its mass is changing due to fuel depletion we should observe a more or less constant increase in acceleration
  3. If the vessel is under the external force of gravitational pull, acceleration should vary with respect to the path of the vessel. Take a look at this diagram of a simplified situation (not to scale):

vectordiagram.JPG.13d17866dce6d2d988f3b86bad4806f7.JPG

The vessel is at point A. The red vector is the acceleration of the ship, the blue vectors are the gravitational accelerations of the planet and moon (big one=moon, small one=planet) on the ship. The difference between them is the resultant acceleration due to gravity. On the left, the ship is making a bee line from the centre of the moon to the centre of the planet. Vector of resultant acceleration on it in green. On the right the ship has adjusted its course but still has the same magnitude of throttle. Vector of resultant acceleration on it in orange. We can see the further one deviates their flight path from the shortest path the lesser the magnitude of acceleration. This only applies to when the gravity is acting in the opposite direction to flight path. When you get closer to the planet you should get more acceleration.

 

If the vessel is at full throttle, the red vector will be unable to be any larger. So we are guaranteed to have less acceleration.

 

In the context of moving from moon to planet, since the field strength diminishes with distance, we should see greater accelerations of the vessel closer to the planet as the gravity will act as a ‘booster’.

Method: Using this pre-alpha footage, I took the acceleration of the vessel at discrete, arbitrary points at times when the craft was going straight forwards at full throttle (600 kN) and put them on a graph to illustrate the data. It is important to note these are arbitrary values and the graph is roughly showing how the acceleration varies throughout the journey.

Results:

acceleration.thumb.JPG.72dd5a5fb10e6febc222d02186219467.JPG

Looking at the purple ‘SetAvg’ graph, we can clearly see the case is that prediction 1 is does not apply as the acceleration varies between points. This means predictions 2 and 3 may hold. But there is no fuel in the vessel. We can see the gauges are 0% meaning the fuel is cheated. So prediction 2 does not hold. Up to point 10 we observe a relatively steady rise in acceleration, the vessel is moving toward equator of moon in the vertical direction. However, there are some anomalous readings. At points 4 and 11 we see a decrease in acceleration – negative acceleration at point 11 even. At point 11 it is also important to not the ‘space thrust’ is decreasing

 

My theories as to what the graph as whole represents, ranked in order of feasibility, are as follows:

 

A:

Gravity exists with engines on. The gradual change in acceleration is due to the deviation of the flight path towards the equator.  We observe a deviation toward the equator as the ship starts at one of the poles of the moon and moves to the equator of the planet.

 

The first anomalous reading represents the vessel’s diminished acceleration after change in trajectory due to velocity change needed (see theory B for velocity change explanation). The second is due to braking, atmospheric drag and larger velocity change needed.

 

It can be argued that if the gravity of the two bodies was remotely significant, considering the pilot starts from the one of the poles of the moon, that he would veer way off course. But the ship is scripted so that when the pilot moves the vessel to a different point in the field, the auxiliary thrusters act accordingly to keep it going straight. He clearly has a vertical booster and RCS. This would mean he would be accelerating downwards but the booster/RCS could easily compensate for the downward component of his acceleration. This is backed up by pre-alpha footage where you can see a ship’s VTOL thruster and main thruster acting in conjunction with one another.

 

As per prediction 3, gravity would cause smaller accelerations for changes in flight path.  However, this only warrants a dip in acceleration. Not a plummet into negative acceleration as we see with the second reading. To add to the deviant appearance of this anomaly from the first, at the point in the video where it is observed the acceleration due to gravity should be going towards the planet. This means the pilot should gain more acceleration for changes in trajectory toward the equator and not slow down.

 

It is suspected that the pilot entered an upper atmospheric layer of the planet here. This is backed up by the fact his space thrust is decreasing. When the pilot entered the layer he was relatively nose down to the surface so their drag force wasn’t enough to slow them to terminal velocity. But just before the spike in negative acceleration the craft rotates, exposing its underbelly to the ‘airflow’.  This meant a sharp increase in drag force occurred and the vessel was slowed to terminal velocity until the velocity vector straightened out with the nose of the vessel making the drag force in that new direction inadequate to cancel out the acceleration again

 

An alternate idea is the pilot applied their brakes here to slow themselves down and thus give negative acceleration. They did this as they were nearing the planet at 12000km/h which would make them burn up at such a steep ascent.

 

The problem with this theory is there are some factors you can't isolate.

  

B: 

 Gravity does not exist with engines on. Both anomalous readings represent the vessel after rather significant changes in trajectory at points where velocity was low and high. At the lower velocity closer to the starting point at the moon the vessel made a change in course which required little acceleration because of the small velocity. Conversely, at the higher velocity close to the planet the vessel made a change in course which required a larger acceleration due to its higher velocity:

image.png.b709dae46b459121f37332bd99bb51fd.png

In the diagram above we see a ship with velocity vector in black. To get the ship on the red velocity vector to change path we need to have velocity vector in blue acting on the ship. To get the blue vector, an acceleration over a certain time needs to be produced to get velocity components in purple (one braking and one lifting).

 

A problem with this theory is that you can't actually tell whether you're still accelerating up and back after you've straighten out without a close point of reference. The main problem is how can it explain non constant acceleration in a straight line?

 

C:

Gravity does not exist with engines on. Both anomalous readings represent some sort of ‘anti-gravity ring’ that encapsulates all celestial bodies and the second one was larger due to braking and atmospheric drag. This could be the space station ‘static orbit ring’ previously discussed. brake the vessel if coming in at break neck speeds. This is because the ships in game have potential for massive delta-v and could accelerate to very high velocities. This would make braking incredibly hard and frustrating for players. You would have to start braking your craft ages before you even arrived, travel very slowly or have the velocity of vessels capped.

 

The first issue with this theory is that the brakes could just be made more powerful and the velocity could be capped. In the atmospheric flight video we see a small braking force in the spec. But for a space vessel that could be a different case. This is probably the reason they chose different fuels for atmosphere and vacuum as everyone would just use space brakes in the atmosphere to stop almost instantly; which would be completely ridiculous to watch and potentially harmful to game balance.

 

Secondly, what if I have a slow moving vessel? I wouldn't be able to penetrate the field. It makes more sense to just have the antigravity generator as part of the space station rather than the planet so you don’t enforce your anti-gravity on anyone else.

 

Thirdly, the tweet where JC was working on antigravity is dated to early 2018 whereas the moon flight video is dated to late 2017. So it is unlikely antigravity was developed by this point. Especially for effective use in orbit.

 

Finally the major issue is that, like theory B, this cannot explain the changing acceleration in a straight line.

 

The bottom line is this theory is too far-fetched and illogical from a design point of view.

Conclusion

  • Confident orbital mechanics still apply with engines on. Don’t really need to test for myself, the evidence is here. No fuel depletion means there must be constant acceleration in a straight line unless an external force of gravity is acting on it.
  • It is possible an outer atmospheric layer exists rather high above the planet.
  • I believe the velocity will be capped to stop people from performing the following: If you’re being chased you could accelerate to an incredibly high velocity then brake. Your assailant would be miles ahead of you before he could react and you would have escaped. What is likely is a combination of more brake force and capped velocity in space vessels. A sweet spot between the two, so to speak, to make stopping easier but not exploitable. Also too high velocities would be impossible to compute.
  • Inconclusive as to if fuel has mass or not since it is not present but cheated in.
Edited by Veld
Updated (07/04/2018)
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1 hour ago, Veld said:

image.png.c06ec6f2ff00ea01159a0cec278f4e2d.pngis the equation for the acceleration in real life (G=gravitational constant, M=mass of planet, r=radius from core). But at NQ they don't have time to be thinking about the average density of a planet for it's mass or the gravitational constant. What they do is simplify the right hand side of the expression (GM/r^2) to other values to make it have the same dimension. Instead of GM the constant of proportionality is gr0^2Which gives the same dimension of ms^-2.

To be a bit more accurate, NQ's definition of g is g(r0) from your equation. In NQ's equation, r is reffered as x.

 

On 02/04/2018 at 11:33 PM, Veld said:

Antigravity presented in the context of JC’s ‘orange line’ seems like it is supposed to hold objects in ‘stasis’ around a point. However, if this point moves the object in stasis will jiggle about accordingly. So it is unclear as to what the practical applications of such a generator are. Perhaps just to stop slow moving objects. Most likely just a concept he was playing around with that won’t make it to release.

The point is to make the gravity field being zero in some points. Then in these points you will no longer "feel" the gravity field and if your velocity is null then you will stay on these points and so you are able to have an orbital "floating" station without needing it to have a velocity (as it's supposed to be built using static cores in the game) on the orbit of a planet. But by doing this you have to put your object very accurately otherwise it will oscillate indefinitely around the point (depending how far you placed the object from the equilibrium point supposing that the gravity field is the only force). So i guess they will likely introduce some friction (or anything that dissipates energy) to stabilize the position.

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