Orbital Platforms

[Hylios]

I think this question is probably best to put to the NQ group, but we all have a vague idea of how things will work. In the early days of alpha, orbit and space will be closed to us (I think), so I might be jumping the gun here. But I just HAVE to know!

 

Will orbital platforms be a viable machine to use when we get access to space? And I'm talking in general, from a small trade post orbiting some backwater planet to a massive shipyard orbiting an empire's capital planet to a Death Star. Will there be a maximum size for our creations?

 

And now a question for the more learned men and women here. Is there such a thing as a cutoff point at which something like thrust or power generation becomes less and less effective? For example, I try to build a Death Star. But will I run into power issues, regardless of how many generators I build?

[vylqun]

 

And now a question for the more learned men and women here. Is there such a thing as a cutoff point at which something like thrust or power generation becomes less and less effective? For example, I try to build a Death Star. But will I run into power issues, regardless of how many generators I build?

 

depends on how realistic DU will be, the power generating process and power output itself is proportional to the mass of the object, no matter how much mass that object has. Newton said F = ma (well, dp/dt actually) thus you just take the Mass of your Object, the Mass of the expelled reaction results from ur fuel and its speed and you pretty much get the acceleration of your vessel.

 

Where it becomes a bit more complicated if the mass of the fuel is included in DU's calculation, because the sum of the masses m_vessel and m_fuel can escalate damn quickly for very large structures.

 

If DU's spaceships dont use repulsion for acceleration but some kind of EM field drive or whatever they can come up with, then it would probably only limited by the strength of the powerscource which is not nessecarily limited by its weigth, thus removing the whole problem.

[Cybrex]

depends on how realistic DU will be, the power generating process and power output itself is proportional to the mass of the object, no matter how much mass that object has. Newton said F = ma (well, dp/dt actually) thus you just take the Mass of your Object, the Mass of the expelled reaction results from ur fuel and its speed and you pretty much get the acceleration of your vessel.

 

Where it becomes a bit more complicated if the mass of the fuel is included in DU's calculation, because the sum of the masses m_vessel and m_fuel can escalate damn quickly for very large structures.

 

If DU's spaceships dont use repulsion for acceleration but some kind of EM field drive or whatever they can come up with, then it would probably only limited by the strength of the powerscource which is not nessecarily limited by its weigth, thus removing the whole problem.

 

In other words, and as has been discussed in other threads, we are all waiting on NQs response to how "physics" in DU will work (IE: Propulsion etc.) 

 

While I was diving through the economy bits of DU from what we know so far, it was mentioned a few times that space stations will be an ideal place to conduct trade and what not. As far as shipyards, I have nothing to reference for that. 

[Hylios]

I think for now we could use our own intuition for shipyards.

 

Since we know that orbital stations for the purpose of commerce are available, it isn't much of a stretch to believe that orbital shipyards will also be at our disposal. And we'll definitely need those to build truly massive capital ships.

[NQ-Nyzaltar]

Hi everyone! 

 

No, space won't be closed to the testers during Alpha phase.

On the contrary: this is something we want to test right from the beginning.

However, alpha testers will be probably limited to one solar system because... no possibility to build a warpgate yet (and it might not be the official starting solar system, in order to avoid giving unfair advantage of landscape knowledge for those who can test in Alpha or Beta, compared to those who will start only at the official release ).

Maximum size for an orbital station hasn't been defined yet. We are considering two possibilities to have virtually no limit (expect maybe the natural limit of available resources on planets). Moving an orbital station won't be impossible, but most likely very difficult. We expect implementation of physic laws to be a natural game balancer: the bigger mass a construct has, the more difficult to move it. The fuel will most likely be included in the total mass of each construct needing some in order to move.

 

Best Regards,

Nyzaltar.

[Cybrex]

Hi everyone! 

 

No, space won't be closed to the testers during Alpha phase.

On the contrary: this is something we want to test right from the beginning.

However, alpha testers will be probably limited to one solar system because... no possibility to build a warpgate yet (and it might not be the official starting solar system, in order to avoid giving unfair advantage of landscape knowledge for those who can test in Alpha or Beta, compared to those who will start only at the official release ).

Maximum size for an orbital station hasn't been defined yet. We are considering two possibilities to have virtually no limit (expect maybe the natural limit of available resources on planets). Moving an orbital station won't be impossible, but most likely very difficult. We expect implementation of physic laws to be a natural game balancer: the bigger mass a construct has, the more difficult to move it. The fuel will most likely be included in the total mass of each construct needing some in order to move.

 

Best Regards,

Nyzaltar.

 

So what your saying is, I can have my Deathstar.

[Semigod]

So what your saying is, I can have my Deathstar.

[Astrophil]

So what your saying is, I can have my Deathstar.

 

Thank God.

[KlatuSatori]

Sounds like all you need is a second Death Star with nothing but fuel in it to move the thing. I could live with that

[Cybrex]

Sounds like all you need is a second Death Star with nothing but fuel in it to move the thing. I could live with that

 

It's the simple things in life that make you happy.

[VoidArchon]

When it comes to orbital plattforms and spacestations i, as a physics student, am always curious about the realism of gravitational and centripetal forces. How realistic will them stay in orbit? Are the able to fall out of the sky if they are too slow to maintain heigth? Are they even able to attract each other significantly as they grow large enough (objects of 8km length or especially Cybrex' DS made of steel arent *this* light after all)? What about centrifugal forces (they DO exist, if you know where to look) on rotating spacestations or asteroids (if you can walk on them)? For stations, solution simply is a system of artificial-gravity-generator-things or magnetic boots, but i quiet wonder.

 

Dont get me wrong, i cant wait to get my hands on this diamond of a game, more complex physics are always a thing to neglect if its impossible to implement them.