Faster than Light Travel

[Enigma]

If we're going to get around, we need to be able to get around fast. I'd like us to be using one form of Faster than Light travel so we're consistent when we're gaming.

Options are:

"Wormholes" - A network of wormholes link systems together. The number of wormholes vary per system - some only have one, while others may have as many as seven or eight. Ships may need to pass through several systems before reaching their destination. May need use of a special generator to "open" the wormhole. The passage through a wormhole takes only hours to get to a system several parsecs away.

"Jump Gates" - Similar to wormholes, Jump Gates are artificial constructs that allow ships to travel from one system to another in a matter of hours without requiring special engines. To work, there must be a gate at both ends, which may mean a decades-long journey through normal space to set up a gate in a nearby system, however once established, ships enter the gate and exit in the linked system without having any special ftl engines.

"Jump Drive" - a hyperspace engine that allows a ship to jump out of normal space, appearing some time later one or more parsecs distance. Benefit is ships can move in any direction, however once they jump, cannot change their destination.

"Hyperspace gate" - An artificial construct opens a hole into hyperspace. Once inside hyperspace, the ship can come out of any other hyperspace gate, usually within a matter of hours. Requires no special engine but the ship can only enter and exit hyperspace through a gate.

"Interspace drive" - ships use the interspace drive to create a bubble of hyperspace around them, which then allows them to travel at many times the speed of light but aside from a slight distortion, keeps them mostly within normal space.

Something else - let's hear your ideas!

[Potatrobot]

I feel myself leaning towards the jump drives.

[G]

I like the idea of jump gates - but they wouldn't work unless most of our respective races/people/whatever had already made contact and built them... so maybe not. Then again, if most civilisations have developed FTL travel, they would most likely have made contact with other planets... eh, now I'm going in circles...

Otherwise I'd go with wormholes - it regulates FTL travel so people can't just go anywhere, whenever they want... I don't know, maybe it doesn't matter, but seems good if we have some restrictions.

[Stiltzkin]

i'm all for Jump gates

[Stiltzkin]

I like the idea of jump gates - but they wouldn't work unless most of our respective races/people/whatever had already made contact and built them... so maybe not. Then again, if most civilisations have developed FTL travel, they would most likely have made contact with other planets... eh, now I'm going in circles...

Otherwise I'd go with wormholes - it regulates FTL travel so people can't just go anywhere, whenever they want... I don't know, maybe it doesn't matter, but seems good if we have some restrictions.

i disagree i think your going on Mass Effect info
i think we could build jump gates by ourselves
first we build the gate then we go through it and build a gate on the other side
the whole process would be a gamble but the risk would be worth the reward since corporations would own the gates and charge passage through them.

[G]

To work, there must be a gate at both ends, which may mean a decades-long journey through normal space to set up a gate in a nearby system, however once established, ships enter the gate and exit in the linked system without having any special ftl engines.

Doesn't this suggest you can't just build one gate and go through it?

[Enigma]

Going through an untethered gate, you don't know where you'd wind up - but yeah, you could take a gamble and push a gate ship through a gate and hope wherever it winds up will have something useful at the other end. If yes, you push parts through the gate to your gate ship so they can expand the gate; if not, you abandon the gate ship and try again in a different direction.

Or we could combine - Jump Gates AND Jump Drives. Use the Jump Gates as a sort of highway system to join clusters - your ship goes into the gate, you come out the other gate several parsecs away - it's faster and you hardly use any of your own fuel for the trip.

Then to move about the cluster, you use your ship's jump drive to hop from one system to the next. The ship's jump drive is slower and you don't go as far. Freighters would be capable of small jumps of 1-2 parsecs, passenger ships could do a little better, 1-3 parsecs. Military ships would have to balance fuel vs weapons and support systems.


Or maybe what happens is when each race gets out far enough, they find a gate already there in their system, left behind who knows how long ago, in a stable orbit around another planet farther out in their system, say Jupiter. For whatever reason, each race's homeworld has only one gate - when they arrive at the next system, there's a second paired gate - and so forth. Eventually you wind up at a nexus that has several gates.

Possibly the gate builders did it like the first suggestion - they tossed a probe through a gate. At the other end, it found some raw materials and used nanites to build an anchor for the gate it went through. If there is no intelligent life in the system, it builds a second gate and a probe to send through that one - a slowly expanding network.

Of course, we might find there are some gates that don't work - either they're still being built and not ready for travelers, or the anchor at the other end has been destroyed.

Still, that's only an idea. So far it looks like Jump Gates is how we want to go.

[Stiltzkin]

I was thinking of creating a New Frontiers Dead Space-esque RP where one of the problems associated with Jump gates is that there can sometimes be interferences mid jump something like solar winds or cosmic storms can redirect a jump

I was thinking that we could create jump gates that have a negative side to them to present conflicts in RP's

[Enigma]

Space weather can affect satellites in orbit - I don't see why it couldn't affect a jump gate. But ships in transit? I dunno - as soon as the ship crosses the threshold, it's in hyperspace so I can't see how anything local would affect it. Possibly as a ship was about to cross the threshold.

[Potatrobot]

How about something that exists in hyperspace and starts gnawing at ships in transit?