Engine/Propulsion

[targon]

Sorry, but magnetic field extincts with distance in fact quite fast. You see, our Sun has really big magnetic field, and Jupiter has _even_ more, but Jupiter orbit seems to be very stable and unaffected by any forces other than gravity.

[targon]

Yep, but electromagnetic field is't thing to trash once and for all. Imagine "space railgun" drive...
Let's make two "rails" of conductive plasma (ionizing high atmosphere or simply propelling ions by some means, e.g. laser pressure) and place our ship at rail start. Then, attach this rails to some really big source of energy and Bang! But we need to stabilize plasma "rails" somehow as they will surely tend to short-circuit or disperse.

[Kuciwalker]

If we're going to have interstellar drive, I agree that we should just wave it away with "hyperdrive" or something else.

Plus, hyperdrive lanes add another layer of strategy to the game.

[Jeremy Buloch]

I like the idea of an Electromagnetic field.

We could use the Magnetic drive on a hover craft, right?

I have no feedback on the hyperdrive, cause at the moment I have no Idea what your talking about. But thats usual when I'm sleep deprived.
-J.B.- and/or someone else.

[Kuciwalker]

Hyperdrive = cheap yet effective way of putting faster-than-light travel in a book/game/movie without actually thinking of how it should work.

[Blake]

How about we say it works through the principle of quantum improbability, and if anyone stops to think about how it works, it stops working?

[Leland]

There are plenty of possibilities for realistic faster than light travel...

1. Burn unobtainium in the furnace, and your space ship breaks the speed-of-light limit. Can also be retrofitted to steam ships and trains.

2. Astronomers figure out that nearby stars are not actually far away, it is merely an optical illusion. In fact, alpha centauri is just behind Mars.

3. 21st century biologists have captured Santa's reindeer and genetically engineered them to pull space ships.

4. Magic!

[Blake]

That unobtainium sure is great stuff
(we should make it a resource, for comic value)

[Jeremy Buloch]

good ones.
If not a bit un~realistic. They should be in the end like in SMAC where there are like blake said comic books.

oh and thanks for the hyperdrive explaination.
-J.B-

[Rasbelin]

Magic, the most reliable fuel ever invented.

But unobtainium could be a nice little Easter egg, IMO.

[Kuciwalker]

Yea, it should allow construction of some uber-unit.

[Jmaster]

Here's the official definition of hyperdrive (in the Star Wars sense) from starwars.com:

Travel between star systems would be impossible were it not for the development of the revolutionary hyperdrive propulsion system. The term hyperdrive refers to the engine and interrelated systems that propel a starship through the alternate dimension of hyperspace. In hyperspace, there is no limit to how fast a starship can travel, and thus interstellar distances can be traversed in mere minutes.

Not very helpful; it explained away how it worked. Which I think will have to be done at some level, because physics as we know it says it's impossible. All that achieving the speed of light requires infinite energy stuff. Of course in a different dimension things might be different, making it easily explained away.

[Leland]

I still maintain that the best explanation is no explanation... we know it's magic anyway, but for sake of the atmosphere it's better not to mention it in the game so as not to ruin the mood . Therefore, the less the inner workings of hyperdrives or other magical technology are explained, the better. All the player needs to know it how the stuff works (e.g. "hyperdrive gets you from point A to point B in time T").

[Kuciwalker]

We should have the hyperspace mass shadow stuff, though. Interdictors would be awesome.

[Jeremy Buloch]

There are theories that conflict with the known laws of Physics such as gravity, I think. Anyways my meaning is:
Things can be found possible if once impossible. Such as flight or space travel. That is now possible. So who is to say its impossible to have hyperdrives? There may very well be a way to do that. Yet our civilization is not advanced enough to be able to accomplish going through hyperspace. We wont ever know unless there is a scientific breakthrough. We could use hyperspace travel in the game but I think it is un~nessecary because their has been talk about going through a wormhole rather than going through hyperspace. So therefore we should talk about wormholes, should we not?

This thread was intended on making ideas of the engines of the units not the colony ships.
- Just to make the point across.

-J.B.-