FTL-Engines

[vylqun]

The Backstory of Dual Universe tells us, that we traveled thousands of years with sub lightspeed in giant ark ships to reach our current home.
That was nessecary due to IK Pegasi turning into a supernova and catapulting its remnant towards us (which is btw a little hole in the backstory, with the fastest currently known speed of accelerated neutron stars (~2000 km/s) IK Pegasi would still need approximately 19000 Years to travel towards our solar system)
The arkships traveled with sub lightspeed, but for humanity to colonize more than one solar system they need to invent some kind of ftl- technology.

So, which are the currently scientific slightly reasonable ftl-techs?

The probably easiest way to introduce ftl are wormholes or rather giant space-gates as in most space sims, they would link together by (still highly theoretical)
wormholes and allow instant travel to distant gates. That method is overused and outdated tho, so i'd suggest a different way, which is, within the limits of the current string theory, quite reasonable.

The HTOPN - (haven't thought of proper name) - Engine.
Every star, every planet, every object in the universe which consists of matter has mass, for natural objects that mass and its distribution in its volume is as distinct as a fingerprint for humans,
within the boundaries of our universe you wont find a planet or sun which have an exact twin considering its mass distribution. The mass distribution can be measured by the gravity distribution.
That means, if the gravity of a stellar object can be mapped accurately, then we can identify it.
But why would we need to identify an object in such a complicated way if we can just use its spectral data and positioning? Thats where string theory comes into play.
I will keep this short, every particle, be it boson, quarks or leptons, is a string. Those strings for most particles, are connected with their endpoints to branes, which simplified means our dimension.
Thus they can only interact with our dimension and don't influence other dimensions at all (we wouldn't be able to see or interact with objects of other dimensions).
There are however some exemptions, those are strings which are closed loops, one example for those kind of strings are the gravitons (still theoretical but with high probability to be correct).
They are not connected to any brane and thus can influence other dimensions, that means you can measure the gravitational fingerprint of a sun or (with high enough sensity) a planet in other dimensions than our own!
(which is btw one quite successful attempt of the string theory to explain dark matter, its the gravitational influence of matter from other dimensions)

Thats what the HTOPN Engine uses, the engine opens an extreme amount of small dimensional gates in a very short time, and searches for the gravitational fingerprint of the stellar body which is the target.
In all these dimensions the distance to the target is different, thus the computer searches for the dimension with the shortest traveling distance and safest route.
After an acceptable dimension is found, the ship is covered in a shield, a big dimensional gate is opened, and it travels with sub-lightspeed through that other dimension to the target, where another dimensional gate is opened to return to normal space. The shield acts as connection to our dimension, because the strings of our matter still is and has to be connected to it, that means we cannot see or feel anything from the other dimension, and if the shield fails the ship will cease to exist.

The beauty of this way to travel is, that the distance in our dimension is not related to the distance in a different dimension, that means humanity is not bound to a single galaxy or cluster, it can travel literally everywhere, exploring the whole universe.
 

[Hylios]

I like this idea, however, I feel that it's rather overpowered. Having engines that could open a wormhole and jump instantly to another system is (forgive my redundancy) overpowered. I think that instead of engines, we could build a structure in space that tunnels wormholes to other structures, opening travel possibilities to colonized systems and even deep space stations. The structures could be resource-intensive, but still feasible. As for FTL engines, we could take a play out Star Trek's and NASA's books, and utilize hardware that generates a warp field around the ship, or something that compresses space in front and extends it behind (this gets around the speed of light, as the universe is being manipulated rather than speed).

 

 

Also, this sounds extremely similar to technology used in the anime "Crest of the Stars" and "Banner of the Stars". You wouldn't have happened to watched those, would you?

[vylqun]

I like this idea, however, I feel that it's rather overpowered. Having engines that could open a wormhole and jump instantly to another system is (forgive my redundancy) overpowered.

 

its not instant, you still have to travel within that other dimension, which will take time, additionally there isn't an infinite amount of dimensions at the.. same place (even tho the concept "same place" sounds weird in the context) that means the reacheable stars, while spread over the whole universe are still a bit limited if u dont want to increase the travelingtime through the other dimension by a lot.

Also, dont underestimate the difficulty of mapping the gravitation of a star or planet, thats really hard and you need to be very close to ur target. So getting to know the "fingerprint" of ur target requires having been there at least once to record it. That means either extreme long sublight flights for the pioneers or dropping out of the other dimension at random spots close to scources of high gravitation. This however is quite risky, and nothing guarantees, that the scource of the measured gravitation is really a stellar body in our dimension, it could as well be from a completely different dimension, only interacting as dark matter with our universe.

 

 I think that instead of engines, we could build a structure in space that tunnels wormholes to other structures, opening travel possibilities to colonized systems and even deep space stations.

 

as i said before, gates with wormholes are overused and rather boring.

 

 

 As for FTL engines, we could take a play out Star Trek's and NASA's books, and utilize hardware that generates a warp field around the ship, or something that compresses space in front and extends it behind (this gets around the speed of light, as the universe is being manipulated rather than speed).

 

 

Also, this sounds extremely similar to technology used in the anime "Crest of the Stars" and "Banner of the Stars". You wouldn't have happened to watched those, would you?

 

no, i dont know those animes, but it seems the author of them did a few of his physics homeworks^^

As for warp field and space deforming engines, there is just no proper scientific explanation for such engines, and i feel like dual universe should have a proper and possible explanation for its ftl engines. Warp and space deformation is a nice trick for ftl in novels/shows/etc. which dont try to be physically accurate.

 

The most realistic way to describe warp and other ftl engines that are similar, like hyperdrive etc. would be to dive into another dimension with a much higher velocity of light, which then would allow to travel faster. This however, would require a dimension with the same topology as ours, and thats highyl unlikely to exist. Even if it might exist, it could only be verified locally and might deviate after a few thousand lightyears by a great margin.

 

One way to "fix" this would be an engine which always only travels through the other dimension for a km or something, which would (probably) lead to relatively small deviations from the original target, which could be fixed after everytime the ship jumps back into our dimension. Even if the topology of the other dimension is a lot different from ours, but that would look like a vast amount of very fast teleportations and not like the "common" warp or hyperdrive^^

 

As for Space deformation engines, i'm absolutely no fan of this, it changes the topology of space itself, directly influencing all matter and other engines based on the same principle, the results of interaction with stars, planets or other spaceships could be catastrophic. Additionally, while there is no theory which suggests how bending space itself could be done, i do think it'd require an extreme amount of energy, which is unreasonable for the limited ressources of a spaceship.

[NQ-Nyzaltar]

Technology will evolve as the game evolves

I can't say much about the Lore for now as there is a short story on it in the pipeline coming soon (before end of summer we hope!)

Let's just say that there will be a - temporary - technological regression at the beginning (there will be an explanation for that).

So no FTL drive available right from the start. But on the long term, yes, there will be but with heavy limitation, involving "stargates" (something that players will be able to build). However, to be able able to "warp" without stargates, if allowed, will be very very tricky, and limited in some other ways.

 

Best regards,

Nyzaltar

[vylqun]

ah, 2bad, so i guess the game will revolve around a single solar system then? at least for the first few years?

[Astrophil]

@vylqun The very first releases of the game probably won't see too large of a population so it wouldn't need multiple planetary systems. Most likely several to a dozen planets of different terrains to showcase the general idea.

[Xenoform101]

Personally i like the idea of warp gate travel, it opens a realm of possibilities.

 

 Say you wanted to be an explorer, but what would be the point. In current games, you would just see a destination and you might have your name attached to it but that's about it. Now take it one step further, you brought a portable gate with you. Now that adds some interest but it could be "overpowered". So we stick in some limitation, lets say it has a limited range.

 

Well that's all fine and dandy but would there be any tangible reward from such a thing. I say yes, a toll fee for anyone else using it. But how would you get people to use it, one way would be to have some builder friends build a hub city. But you may need to add extra incentive to visit this hub city. So remember earlier i said the gate was portable, portable things are usually week compared to their full blown counterparts.

 

So how about we upgrade the gate. Easiest thing to do would probably to extend range. Of course the connection must be mutual so if a gate is in range of the upgrade gate  but the upgraded gate isn't in range of the other gate the could be no connection. So effectively a long distance connection between two upgraded gates would be a highway. 

 

Now that the construction concept is there, What would the gate traveler experience be like? Many games usually have it so you get ready to jump, you jump then you arrive. Not much excitement there, especially if you have to make multiple jumps. How about we add some excitement in the jump. Maybe there could be a mini game in the wormhole.

 

Back to the portable gate, lets say since its so low power it's inherently unstable. Because of that, the wormhole shows it by weaving erratically which if your ship touches the outer edge it would take damage. Now if the gate was upgraded it would be a smoother ride and maybe the wormhole would bigger to accommodate larger ships.

 

The one flaw with that would be that it may add more time to travel that what once may be accustomed, and multiple jumps might be annoying. But what if you had to plot your course before hand, to which there would be no need to stop at each gate but the wormholes behavior would change dependent on the section you are in. So if you started in an upgraded gate section but at one point ended up in a portable gate section, the wormhole would start off smooth then end up erratic. But the advantage would be since there was no need to slow down and speed up for each gate, the time would be significantly reduced than if you had to start and stop at each gate.

 

Well that's an idea i had on the matter. Probably a little more complicated and longer than it needed to be, but shows that there is potential in the warp gate method. 

[CharlesAugustus]

Gravitational fold Drive (Or Gravity Drive)

 

"This drive folds space it self in order to make a journey much shorter, How it works? Well if i doubt you'd understand all the quantum equations but let me simplify it for you.

 

Say you have a sheet of paper say... 10 miles long why not, If you were to walk from one end to the other it would take a great deal of time, So if you fold the paper multiple times it would take much less time to travel from one end to the other and this is essentially how the Gravitational Fold Drive works, it uses a great deal of energy to fold space it self to make a journey much shorter, a journey that takes a thousand years in sub light would most likely take a couple of days via the Gravity drive although the drive does not work within a gravity well thus meaning when you jump you will have to do it at the edge of a Solar system where the sun's gravity is not as strong as it is in the inner parts of the solar system." - Anonymous Scientist

[Anaximander]

Let them have a quantum field gate system that relays people from system to system and be down with it. Make them explode on collapse as well, would make for great drama time, or make them at least explode on a limited capacity, blowing ships nearby to bits.